I find the almost universal regard that child molestors have "very high" recidivism rates to be unsupported by the data available. Any recidivism is unacceptable, but why is the rate blown so far out of proportion? The general criminal recidivism rate is ~67% over three years. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/reentry/recidivism.htm) The three year rate for child molestors is tiny, and even the 25 year rate is only 52%, (http://www.csom.org/pubs/recidsexof.html) or still less than the three-year rate of the general criminal population.

Now, all these figures are imperfect for a variety of reasons (the second link above goes into some detail), but they most definitely do not support the common wisdom.

But the war in Iraq is not being lost because the soldiers don't speak Arabic.

Well, there are lots of other factors, but that one certainly isn't helping. I would definitely argue that without the ability to communicate with Iraqis across the board the counter-insurgency is doomed to fail. (You'd also need about three times as many soldiers and a generally different strategy.)

The lesson from Iraq is that we should never have invaded the country on trumped-up false pretenses.

I think that can actually go without saying; even the war supporters don't actually argue that we SHOULD as policy go to war on trumped-up false charges. Regardless, I would also classify that as ONE lesson, not THE lesson. There's plenty more than can and should be learned from this debacle.

On the subject, I think this article is great:

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

In contrast, I felt Clinton's answer was not as on-message for her campaign.

Does she actually have one yet?

My sweeping generalizations are for the most part just meant to rebut the sweeping generalizations and gloss that Broadsheet provides.

I think that's just generally a bad idea. (Yes, a generalization, itself.) Sweeping generalizations don't cancel each other out, they just stack, making each round even less meaningful than the previous. It can work if you're absolutely clear that you're being sarcastic and don't strictly speaking mean what you're typing, but that frequently doesn't come across over the internet: people just assume that yes, Swift really does intend to eat the children.

So, I really am not sure of the point of their post.

Maybe you should focus on that instead of criticizing a point you didn't get.

I like the fact that people complain about CFL's being too bright - and too dim. The really good CFL's, admittedly, get expensive enough to financially erase the energy and replacement savings, unfortionately (perhaps they've come down in price since I last investigated some 5-7 years ago; I haven't needed to replace mine yet).

LED's may very well be the future (certainly there's a lot to recommend), but that future has not really arrived yet.

Oh, and let me join the chorus saying that you (Tracy Clark-Flory), at best, mischaracterized the evidence involved.

I guess in this situation we could say: ガガ ガガ ガガ , the troll artist formerly known as Brightstar, hell, maybe Ben Dover, Brightstar, Parson Jim, and ガガ ガガ ガガ are all the same! It would give me hope to think that it's all the pathetic work of one contrarian and not more.

No, the stylistic differences are far too strong. Parson was almost exclusively brief and brightstar never gave much attention to writing properly. I could maybe see ガガ ガガ ガガ as the old Ben Dover, but if I had to guess I'd hazard that he used to post as Tyler Durden.

So Pyrian, let's see 3 pages late, you tell Clark-Flory she's full of it.

Pardon me for not spending every hour of every day reading and replying to Broadsheet posts and letters.

But you think I am the troll.

Is that the best you can do? That's your strawman attempt at equivalency? That I didn't get here and post for a few hours?

That's what I said on page 1.

But it's interesting that pointing out the evidence gap wasn't the first thing you said. Oh, no, you didn't have that sort of patience; instead you had to write a whole post about the fact that a woman was quoted in another lame attempt at equivalancy, and then came back to post again when you found that there actually WAS evidence - and you were clearly surprised by that finding.

Sometimes even trolls stumble on something worth criticizing, but you're going to invent lame and stupid criticisms either way, and that's what makes you a troll. There's no rule of trolldom that means you can't be right...sometimes.

Kucinich is against funding the war, period. I'm guessing he refused to vote either with the president or for continued funding of the war.

I think it was the Man Show where they said women dislike prostitution for economic reasons: the hookers are selling at a flat fee while the good girls are holding out for half the gross. ;)

You can't seriously make the argument that Bush was a better candidate than Kerry if the only charge you can level against Kerry is that he agreed with Bush on some things.

Diebacks cannot be very pleasant, but Europeans settled the Americas after 50 million locals died off from disease (The American Dieback). ... Climate change is always occurring, stop whining about it.

If we can't complain about massive knowingly human-induced "die-offs", what can we possibly complain about? We might as well embrace genocide and nuclear war while we're at it.

(Or were you being ironic?)