Define "cool". Come up with 5 concrete examples of this. Also, why are you amazed that someone would have a different sense of humor than you? Do you require girlfriends to find the same things funny that you do, or do you allow them to think for themselves?

McCain on the Tonight Show, responding to a joke by Leno with literally "Noun, verb, POW". In a situation that completely did not merit a mention of it, he brought it up. Why? Who the hell knows. I don't know if thought it was an appropriate response or if he's just conditioned now to answer every question that way.

You said ALL swimming took place in open water. You were wrong. If you were talking only about the triathalon (which you weren't), I wouldn't have taken the time to tell you where the swimming races were actually held. Thanks for playing.

So what? She liked you. Are you so bitter that you no longer know what it's like to be liked by a woman? And you clearly have no sense of humor and no sense of fun. I wouldn't want to be around someone who is as stale as saltines. And who said you need to be a good singer? I bet no one here is that good, but they goof off and have fun with it BECAUSE THEY ARE FUN PEOPLE! You clearly aren't. Enjoy being bitter and alone.

Pathological and in need of an extended stay at your state's finest mental facility. Either that or jail. What he's doing is technically impersonating a police officer and you can be arrested for that. Either way, the guy sounds like he's a few tacos short of a combo plate.

It's pathological. He absolutely must reference his former POW status all the time, either because we'll forget......or he'll forget. My dad works with a lot of veterans, and as I mentioned, my uncle was in 'Nam and what I've heard from them and what they've heard from talking with people, is that it's cheapening to the experience and insulting to others who suffered the same fate and didn't return home. He's using it as a political tool, and that's so disgusting. It's as bad as Guiliani referencing 9/11 every damn day. I used to have respect for him; I don't any more.

Actually, I am curious, or else I wouldn't have asked. Do you have a problem with me asking a question? If you do, kindly be quiet and keep it to yourself.

That was the age requirement at the time, though. It has changed over the years. It went from 14 to 15 to now 16. When the US women's gymnastics team won gold in Atlanta, you could be 14 and compete. Dominique Moceanu, who was on the team, took advantage of that. So the age factor has not been static since Day 1. However, you have to be 16 in the calendar year of the Olympics in order to compete. That means you don't have be 16 at the time you compete, just turning 16 sometime during the year. All but 2 of those "women" don't fit that requirement just on looks alone. And there is a way to prove age without relying on documents that could quite easily be forged. Take an x-ray of their skulls. Someone who is 16 ( or turning 16) should have all permanent teeth, no milk teeth. If you see any in the x-rays, they are clearly underage and the team should be sanctioned. It'll take no time, and is completely painless.

Open question to all Republicans: Who would you like to see McCain pick as his running mate? Bare in mind, this person should balance out his strengths and weaknesses AND pull in Independents/Dems who would have voted for Hillary had she been nominated. This is just basic curiosity asking, nothing more.

I don't think ALL the Chinese gymnasts were underage. I think a couple actually looked 16. The rest, I think I saw gaps where their baby teeth fell out. But no matter, the IOC won't actually do anything about it, because pissing off the Chinese is not in their best interest. I think it sucks that they had to cheat to win, because our girls could have beaten them on a level playing field. That said, I feel more pity for them than anger, that they felt they needed to resort to such tactics. Oh well.

No they didn't. All swimming races at the Sydney games took place in a pool. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Intern..._Aquatic_Centre I watched these Olympics, I think I'd know the difference between swimming in the ocean and swimming in a natatorium.

Why would they do Olympic swimming in open water aside from the open water race? I think London has the ability to build a facility that houses an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Grow up. A sense of humor is a very attractive quality in people, she clearly thinks you have one (even though we know different). There's nothing wrong with making someone laugh to make yourself look even that more interesting to them.

SHE LIKED YOU. SHE THOUGHT IT WAS CUTE. THIS IS A GOOD THING. REPEAT THAT AD NAUSEUM. Only in your world would a woman thinking something you did was cute be a bad thing.

You know, believe it or not some people like going to weddings. Why do you assume he was forced to go? Because he's a guy? Enter the 21st Century, please.

Good luck! You're going to do just fine, I'm sure of it. My sister's equally as nervous; she starts her junior year of college in the morning. It's her first year in a full four-year university, so she's worried about getting lost, classes that are too big, stuff like that. I told her to relax. Just remember, you're smarter than the little bastards, so don't take any crap from them.

They're called "moving stairs" for a reason. Static stairs you manipulate yourself. Ones that are automated do the work for you. Rather than whining about people (rightfully) allowing the stairs to move them, why not ask people who are not going to walk up the stairs, to move over so that you can do so. I've found people don't have a problem doing that if you just say excuse me. And if you're laden with shopping bags, perhaps physically walking up a huge escalator, no matter your fitness level, might be a trifle hard. See? Problem solved.

Going back to a point I brought up earlier, off the subject of abortion/sex ed/health care, Joe Biden had made a slightly snarky comment about John McCain not knowing what it's like to sit down at his kitchen table after the kids are to bed, and worrying about bills and such, because he doesn't know what kitchen table to sit down at. A play on the fact he doesn't know how many houses he owns. Well, naturally McCain had to respond with a reference to his POW status during Vietnam, proving my point that it is his fallback response for anything that gets said in his direction. He said something to the affect of once he was some place that had no kitchen table or chairs. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_.../pow-watch.html I wish someone in his campaign would tap him on the shoulder and tell him that enough is enough. I remember when Joe Biden went after Rudy Guiliani for the whole "verb, noun, 9/11" fiasco a few years back.

Primarily. Also in my opinion, basic ignorance. They think that by supplying teenagers with either contraception (in the form of condoms at the nurse's station) or education about contraception, they will cause the rates of teen sex and pregnancy and by default infection with STDs/STIs to increase tenfold. What they fail to understand is that teenagers will be sexually active, either through oral sex, vaginal sex or the always popular anal sex. I know a couple girls who think they can still be considered "pure" for God if they don't let a penis enter their vagina, but everything else is okay. We call them, the "Anything but...." girls. If you give them education and information about how to do this adult act with a modicum of responsibility, then perhaps the rates of teen pregnancy and infection would go down. If you don't, they rely on backwater urban legends like jumping up and down after sex, or sneezing hard or the truly funny, "you can't get pregnant your first time." But you have the Religious Right crowing about how this decimates the family, promotes unhealthy values.....etc. The only thing it promotes is safe and educated sexual practices, which should be what ALL people have, regardless of age and orientation. If you know your kid is going to ride their bike, you want them to be protected. You give them a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, and you make sure the bike works and the brakes are in working order. Well, if you know your teenager is going to have sex regardless of what you or God have to say about it, give them a condom, get them on the Pill, make sure they understand what they're doing and why they're doing it. Education is key in any society to prevent the ignorant from taking over. Education is what uplifts society, not drags it down.

The kicker is, they don't want universal health care that would allow those women denied abortions the ability to receive health and neo-natal care, that would allow them to deliver a healthy child to term, to then give up for adoption. And if those women don't want to give the kids up, they don't want to provide social programs for those mothers, either through day care, Head Start, anything else like that. "If you're pre-born, you're great. If you're pre-school, you're fucked."

Do you have some problem with people who treat their pets as though they were human members of the family? I don't see why you would or why you should. Nothing in Medbh's post deserved any kind of mocking or derision.

I think he meant the father of the child, if it is not her husband. Although your interpretation might very well be correct too. Hell, he might think women still need their father's/husband's signature to open a checking account.

Moving off the topic of abortion, I wonder when John McCain will get raked over the coals for flogging his military service as much as he does. John Kerry got the shit kicked out of him for constantly mentioning he was in Vietnam. I mean constantly. It seemed at times, it was all he could talk about. And now McCain is going down the same road. How many times must he mention he was a POW? My uncle, who served in Vietnam (not with McCain), thinks it's disrespectful to keep beating people over the head with it. He's voting for him, but he still thinks he needs to cool it, and I've been reading rumblings in the press to the same effect. I'm curious what some of you have to say about this.

I think it's funny that Pb says he'll only "allow" abortion (as though he's allowed to make that determination) if the woman is 1 month pregnant or less. Most women don't find out they're pregnant until they're past the one month mark. So you're basically saying, unless you can find out in a very narrow time frame, you're fucked. What if the woman is raped? Would you force that woman to remain pregnant? What if she's on birth control, or some form of birth control is used and it fails? Would you force that woman to remain pregnant? What if she's 14 and gets knocked up by her 18 year old boyfriend? Would you force that girl to remain pregnant? I agree that it shouldn't be used as a birth control device and I do think too many women abuse the right to get one, by having them multiple times. But for the vast majority of women, that is not their lives. They don't get pregnant repeatedly just to have repeated abortions. Why should those women be punished by those who abuse the privilege? You're punishing the whole for the actions of the part. Then again, that's not an unfamiliar thing for some of you here.