1. why is malkin a "cow"? i definitely think she is crazy. but she is not a cow. she is a rather fine looking woman, were it not for the crazyjuice yanking her face tendons into strange angles at times.

2. the United Nations Human Rights Council - most notable for issuing essentially a daily press release excoriating Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories, but not one so far condemning genocide in Darfur or Saudi treatment of women or Chinese oppression in Tibet

I wonder why this is. That is rather an egregious list of omissions. Do you have any ideas why this contradiction in UNHRC stances exists?

3. Another thought: am I allowed to discuss that in times past, Arabic gave us words like sugar and algebra - it's true - but these days, well, jihad and fatwa?

I will not be told what to discuss. But perhaps we hear more these days of jihad and fatwa not because they "give" the words to us. But because of our focus and collaborative efforts to raise the level of violence in the world.

4. Morocco? Currently waging a war of occupation much like our own efforts in Iraq, except they've been doing it longer and with less TV coverage; and then again, it's not as if their people can do what we can, which is protest and vote.

A lot that has done to stop the war, eh? i am a protestor...been locked up for it, been raised believing it is important and that it helped end the vietnam war. if only more of us felt compelled to use this freedom...this freedom that all humans have. I think Greece and Paris sure put us to shame when it comes to using protest to make themselves clear to those who own all the weaponry and cash flow.

5. Today is one of the days when I thank my lucky stars for being born in a free country, where I can laugh at this kind of crap

I'm not laughing at Padilla, not laughing at Gitmo, not laughing at many things these days. We too, are governed by "the cruel and corrupt." Don't overromanticize the USA. There's a bit too much of that going on now. We have our strong points. Lately they are cast in shadow, and rightly so.

I wholeheartedly agree that America is a better place to live than what I hear of Saudi Arabia, or Iraq or China. (From what I know, of course.) But to reduce China to "the world's biggest prison"? From what I've read, America has the addiction to incarceration. Do you mean in numbers of people? Or per capita? America has a serious criminal justice problem, we can't make it go away by comparing ourselves to China!

Here's my thinking: I, too, don't want to be told how to speak, nor will I be told what is forbidden to discuss. Yet...that's life sometimes. I was 14 when I got pulled out of line at the airport for joking about having a gun on me. The man yanked my skinny frame over to a sign that said EVEN JOKING ABOUT HAVING WEAPONS SUBJECT TO FINE OF $$$$$$$$ AND XXXXXX TIME IN PRISON.

you just can't say whatever you want to all the time. i promise. i've lived in a few cities as i've grown, but even in the country i've seen people get tagged just for looking at others too long. right there in public. in front of everyone. contrary to all understandings of law. except human nature. you can want to be as free as you want, but that's not practical reality. things won't play out that way.

People get tagged, like I said, because they waltz up into a joint and pretend they can bring their own rules. That they can bring their own system of what to value and what not to. That they can ignore the sensitivities of the place they are now in. The practical reality is that America has waged war on Islam for the last few years. Through media, through politics, through weaponry. All the right code words were dropped, all the right phrases were used to inflict violence and the might that only the USA has. Not even code words. To hell with that. A big part of our social discourse involved hunting down those who practiced Islam or looked as if they might. It may not have been the way all of us have been talking. But it sure is the way many of us do, even today.

Under that shadow, how do those under attack respond? Wherever they can. Put a foot in the door of the aggressor. Put some piss in the gas tank of the chaser. Put a sign up at the door, pass a resolution to stop at least the verbal form of violence against them.

I'm not saying "THEY" are blameless, or that religion ought to inform how we all speak. I don't approve of those type of dictums here, either. Such as the Chocolate Jesus ordeal. And just try going into a church and speaking as freely as you want about, O, all things anti-church. I can think of many places, even here in our Glorious Land o' Freedom, that you will be very curtailed in what you can say.

My main point is that there are reasons for this. And reasons for the resolution passing. Would it have passed if the Iraq War had never been launched? I doubt it. I wonder if we'd even be having that discussion now. Perhaps it is just another piece of shrapnel spinning off of that big bang. So there are reasons for this resolution passing. And we are not at fault for that, but certainly complicit in those reasons. It makes no sense to hop up on a red, white, and blue pedestal and begin shouting all Tom Payne-like. Okay, yes. Nobody should tell us how to talk. That's for the here and now. I agree.

But for the future? We really ought to begin looking at how we help bring about our own problems. It's an approach that can be applied on the person as well as the national, I think. And I think we need a new approach in the world.