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Wonderful post, and I truly second every word of it! Keep those men and women in mind today.

They certainly don't love him. In fact, he's even despised. But any person a bare-bones knowledge of international affairs would recoil at the thought of comparing him to the biggest megalomaniac the world has ever known. Frankly, I don't think you comprehend the depth of the comparison you claim that the majority of the world has. It's before both of our times, but the depravity Hitler has shown has went unmatched in written history. It's debatable whether Bush is even the worst U.S. President of all-time. Put differently, it's like comparing Bradshaw Mountain to Mount Everest. There is little, if any, similarity. Much less a full-fledged comparison.

Nah, my guys only come from Hong Kong, Australia, Great Britain, France, Spain, Cuba, Mexico, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Pakistan, India, and Italy. Quite a wide array of folks, indeed, and that's just all the people I can think about off the top of my head. And I don't know these people just on the guise of a message board: I've talked to them, went out to dinner with them, had them in school-related activities with me, had classes with them. In short, I know them. I know that they know their homelands WELL. Some of these people got American citizenship as recently as 2 years ago. Some still don't. I actually asked a few of my friends, just in anticipation that you'd bring this up. Honest. Across the board, without exception, they spoke exactly against what you've claimed. Some were incredibly flabbergasted, and some were even wondering "who on Earth would suggest that". Here's the shortest, sweetest response verbatim from my good tuba-playing friend from Pakistan: "No! My, my, no. Many people in Pakistan see Bush as incredibly aggressive, and some even see him as a tyrant. But suggesting that he's like Hitler is crazy. If for no other reason that Bush hasn't committed mass genocide." No, it's certainly not accurate. It's just a flat out mistruth and an extremely poor comparison. I haven't seen Bush command the mass slaughter of 6 million of any ethnic group lately. I haven't seen him inter innocent citizens in concentration camps (no, Guantanamo doesn't count, it's a military prison for terrorists). I haven't seen him sign any non-aggression pacts to stop him from blitzkrieging through the Middle East, then reneging on them as soon as he signed them. I haven't seen him stand atop balconies and address rabid mobs of people, spewing hate speech with raucous applause afterward. And most in the world recognize this. Come on, Lance. It's an undeniably preposterous proposition that one could use Bush and Hitler in the same breath. Of course, some people are going to believe it, either from being undeniably ignorant to the affairs of the world or being brainwashed to hate the United States. But to say that the rest of the world as a whole believes that Bush is comparable to Hitler is a "certifiably insane" statement, my friend. Your analysis greatly undercut their intelligence, at the very least, for suggesting this. Either this, or the multitude of international people I've been blessed to come across have been "living under a rock". Though I doubt it.

I agree with you that they'll be pleased to escape Baton Rouge with a win. But they don't get a single style point for it, in my book. Texas Tech went out and absolutely slugged a 1-loss Oklahoma State team, putting up 56 on them. After beating the #1 team in the nation before that. On the contrary, Alabama's had 3 of these "close calls" already, and by that I mean winning by less than 7 points. Granted, they did put up a whale of a game against then-#1 Georgia, but they didn't exactly keep their feet on the Bulldogs' throats in the 2nd half. The 20-6 win over Tulane's not exactly impressive, either. But it's been a great season, indeed, one that's allowing us to have this spirited discussion right now. One of the wonderful things about college football. :)

I am talking about Baton Rouge, yessir. Death Valley, indeed. But they also call Clemson "Death Valley", and it's been far from certain death in the last 15 years. But I digress. If you're an undefeated, hyped-up #1 team playing a 2-loss team ranked 13th in the nation, at 3:30 in the afternoon, you should do better than needing an INT in OT to seal the deal. An INT that was very arguably PI. That's just my opinion, anyway. Their kicking game's going to cost them, though. They'll need a FG at some crucial time against Florida in the SEC Title Game. And they won't get it. Mark my words.

They don't even need this much...

You have a stronger feeling than I. ;) But wouldn't it be typical UVA to lose to Clemson and then upset VT when we have absolutely nothing to lose? Well, it's not typical for us to upset VT. But you know what I mean. UVA does well in games that have little on the line for us.

Alabama was lucky to get out of The Swamp with a victory. Lucky, lucky, lucky. Florida's been flat out annihilating teams lately. VERY good teams. So I agree to disagree. It's feasible that Texas-OU could be #1-#2 in the computer polls, especially if OU beats TTU and UT wins out. However, you have a 2007 UGA situation setting up: how do you let a team play for the national title when it didn't even play in its own conference title game? Ratings aside (and they'd get very good ones indeed), it's highly unlikely.

I didn't even have to read the message. Thank goodness I heard about this last night and had a day to brace myself. And if UVA somehow manages to knock off the Hokies, and better yet, spoil their ACC championship dreams, this post will be the first I quote...

If they knock off Alabama in the SEC title game, they certainly will. In fact, they're the only 1-loss team that controls their own destiny...

No, it's not accurate. Not accurate in the least. From someone who goes and has went to schools with LARGE foreign contingencies, trust me.

9 when UVA plays Clemson in two weeks. Book it. And get your laughs in now, because the ACC will be LOADED next season. You heard it here first.

I like this "fight fire with fire" argument. Nothing like sticking to your guns of "bipartisanism" by bashing the opposing side. Not only that, veiling it in the cloak of "well, Republicans did it to us, so we're going to do it to the Republicans twice as hard." I haven't had that train of thought since I stopped building box forts. And BTail's right. Explain this "radical right", as you haven't done so yet.

Switch 1 and 2, and we've got a deal. ;)

Very, very poor comparison, IMO. For all the obvious reasons. The rest of your argument isn't terrible, though.

One's fairly simple to police, one's incredibly difficult. Life-threatening cases shouldn't be that difficult to set up. You get 2 professional opinions from certified OB/GYNs, and a woman would be set. Of course, that's considerably simpler than it would be in statutory form, but that's a start. Rape's the tricky one, especially given the *blazing* speed of the American judicial process. One thing that comes to my mind is allowing the abortion only if the female has first filed a warrant for rape and if the Commonwealth (in the form of Commonwealth's Attorneys) initiates proceedings. Initiating the proceeding isn't terribly hard, it's service and pre-trial discovery which is the beast of burden. However, there must be severe sanctions in place to prevent against any women coming into the courthouse and filing a warrant for rape when no rape occurred; this may very well lead to the result you mentioned above, wherein the floodgates would open with false rape allegations. When I say severe sanctions, I'm talking about a Class 5 felony for a false rape accusation, which results in 5-10 years in the State Penitentiary. I'd be tempted to make the sanctions much worse (and believe me, I REALLY want to, as in a Class 3 felony, or worse), but you want to have a little bit of prosecutorial leeway here. For example, you don't want to have a 16-year-old girl from the wrong side of the tracks getting pregnant, her parents all but abandoning her, seeing a false rape allegation as her only way out, and having to serve 10 years in the penitentiary for it. A prosecutor/judge could knock it down to a Class 6 felony or a Class 1 misdemeanor, which would result in a much more lenient punishment. I haven't had time to truly flesh out these details, and this is pretty much the best I could come up with in 15 minutes. Not only that, I'm getting ill. But this would be a start, IMO. Would it be feasible? That's entirely up to debate.

Tried to make a play on both. Wasn't entirely successful. :)

Har har, of course. But not even they could play that poorly for two halves. And don't get me started on officiating...

Buzzsaw, you lay out the conservative cause very clearly here. It's common-sensical, really, and you get it.

Too bad, indeed. Had they just played in the 2nd half as they did the first, it'd be a different story. Just like every other Groh year: only if... But I'll stop there.

That's not exactly where I was going with that, but I do recognize and appreciate the merit in your arguments. I disagree, though, that rape claims would go through the roof, and that the jails would overflow with innocent men. It's just not the way the legal process works. To substantiate a claim of rape, you have to have evidence that proves beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt that the sexual activity engaged in was not consensual. Due to the nature of pregnancy, the fact that a woman truly doesn't know for sure until some time after the fact, it would be impossibly difficult to go back and gather evidence after the fact to substantiate a claim of rape. This is counter-intuitive to a pattern seen in most pregnancy-by-rape convictions, where the woman will go get herself tested within the 72-hour window, then take an abortive measure when she is pregnant. See what I mean here? All a good defense counsel would have to do is say: "well, why didn't you act in that 72-hour window after you claim you were raped, or even before you learned about your pregnancy, instead of waiting until you found out you were pregnant?" As an aside, for all the rape cases that come to trial, there is a 98% conviction rate, by far the highest for any felony. However, for the prosecutor to bring a case to trial, the evidence has to be in place. Gathering this evidence through discovery, depositions and interrogaties, is what adds to the ammunition for the prosecutors, and a lack of evidence means that the case doesn't get to trial. Put differently, it's not as impossible as it might seem at first glance to weed through false rape allegations, challenging though it still is. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Where I was going with this is that many people proclaim pregnancy-by-rape to be this massive category of abortions, when in reality it's quite small. Miniscule, even. I'd even go so far as to say that many people unfairly use this small subsection to justify using abortions in every circumstance, and I'm vehemently against that. It's not that I disagree in utilizing abortion in cases of rape/incest/severe health impacts toward the mother. But using this as a justification for the other 90+% is disgustingly dishonest.

Undefeated from the SEC > 1-loss team from the SEC. Undefeated from the Big XII > 1-loss team from the SEC. Undefeated from the Big XII > undefeated from the SEC. That, and #2 Texas Tech pasted #9 OK State, while #1 Alabama needed OT to beat #13 LSU. So: 1. Texas Tech 2. Alabama 3. Florida 4. Texas

I knew this legal education would be of use one day! :D

You need to get out more. ;)

Just putting it out there: rapes account for just 2% of abortion cases, statistically. Some of this may be because women don't report it, and while I don't understand how a woman reacts in that situation as it's impossible for me to be in it, I'm certainly sympathetic to the situation those women are forced into, and my heart aches for them. Regardless, though, even if the number is as high as 10%, it accounts for a tiny minority of abortions. This often goes well-overlooked.