Aceflyer

Meh, the survivors will just go on their next 'mission' that much more quickly to make up for the money they lost. And there will just be more people becoming pirates to replace the ones who drowned...

Not quite as much, the WWII-era forcible relocation and internment of over 60,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent to "War Relocation Camps" is like a whole order of magnitude more severe and wrong than this relatively minor and isolated incident. The former involved broad, extensive government action against a large group of people based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership;" the latter involved short-lived action against a few folks by some private airline officials. But I think we all already knew this.

Within 100 miles of the Atlantic here. Well within.

Hate to say this, but freedom of speech isn't absolute. Remember the old 'fire in a crowded theater' case? My take on this is as follows: 1) The family didn't do anything wrong by talking about the 'safest' seat on the plane. 2) The airline didn't do anything wrong by investigating what was reported as a possible security threat. 3) The FBI didn't do anything wrong by investigating what was reported as a possible security threat. 4) The airline did err in not immediately allowing the family to fly on their planes after the family was cleared by the FBI.

Garfield and - sometimes - Peanuts.

No on 2. All staffers (in HS and elsewhere) are humans and humans will have grudges. However, whether they allow these grudges to impact what they do as staff is something else. From what I know of Rare, he would not let a personal grudge impact his job as a smod.

Arnk doesn't have the shiniest personality out there; in fact, he enjoys his 'bad guy' reputation. Like him or not, he deserves respect for what he has done and will do for HS.

Merry Christmas!

Yeah, there's all this excitement over something that really isn't all that exciting. All modern Presidents have done this; President Bush is hardly the first to do so, and he won't be the last to do so.

The shoe-thrower is probably quite lucky he didn't manage to actually hit the President with either shoe.

Not all of the quotes above were from Leviticus.

Agreed with most of the above except for: This assumes that the existence of liberty is predicated upon the unending continuance of an epic war between those who would defend liberty and those who would seek to infringe upon others' liberty. This is a rather pessimistic view of things. Even if the assumption were true (and it could be true or false depending on how Jefferson's statement is interpreted), it should be possible to refresh the tree of liberty with the sweat of patriots and tyrants, and not necessarily their blood. While seemingly a nice idea in theory at first glance, in practice it's a horrible idea because then basically everyone would find reasons not to pay their taxes. In fact it's also a bad idea in theory: if one were to assume that people were completely honest and virtuous about what they disbelieve or abhor, then with this idea you would be rewarding ignorant bigots and punishing enlightened patriots.

Which is precisely why it's rather exasperating to watch people keep trying - successfully too - to use religious arguments against same-sex marriages. Whatever happened to separation of church and state?

Excellent stuff.

Ah, my bad. Yes, FMBI is right.

No one is seriously suggesting that he is interested in dating women who are old enough to be his mother. I mentioned that more for laughs than anything.

Stibby, 5 + 3 = 8.

I plan to work from home for a half-day or so on Xmas.

Kids are certainly starting younger and younger these days. Witness 9-year-old pickup artist Alec Greven, of Castle Rock, CO, at a New York bar working his magic on two young women: http://www.nypost.com/seven/12022008/photos/new0c.jpg The New York Post's Jennifer Fermino, and MSNBC, have the scoop.

I'll also be working.

Wow. Just... wow.

Er, sorry- who's going to sue who again?

What Sam said.

How do you know the culprits were Mexicans?