Comments about "hanging" the Vice President are in poor taste.

link is broken to your date rape story.
i thought the comment about hanging the veep hilarious.

Re: Troops want out

Are these the same troops who call anyone opposed to the war cowards, faggots and un-American traitors?

In the near future, after the fall of Baghdad, Preznit Bush, our nation's top military commanders, the troops and the national news media will all blame those handful of Hot Topic punks and aging hippie protestors for "losing" the Iraq War. It's as predictable as night following day.

Oh the irony of living in a right-wing country like the US, where people are constantly screeching about personal responsibility but are pathologically incapable of taking any.

Link also broken on "Americans don't eat vegetables".

There's no winning or losing this war. There will be no complete withdrawl of US forces for perhaps a decade or more. I'm convinced that Iraq was on the track to being a political and military quagmire no matter who's in the White House or even if we didn't topple Saddam.

These Japanese structures are not the first such modern micro-houses. Check out this site.

Link to date rape story is working fine now. That is righteous. And it sounds like the guy would have gotten lucky if he wasn't a creepy rapist. Cripes, what a loser.

What I don't understand is how could the sex be any good if someone is too passed out to enjoy it?

Dude, are you asking for a visit from the Secret Service?

Also, with everything that Dick has done & said the last 6 years, nothing is in poor taste.

Uh, raindrop @ 8? Rape is not about sexual pleasure. At least not for the victim. I thought everyone knew that by now.

That date-rape-blocking story is inspirational. There should be a parade for those women.

Original Andrew, where did you pick up the idea that troops think that people opposed to the war are cowards, faggots, or traitors? Most of our troops are a good deal more sophisticated than that, more sophisticated than virtually all of the civilian drum-beaters stateside (and a few war critics I could mention); and no one has a keener appreciation for what's been happening in Iraq than the men and women who are there.

RE: tiny houses. These houses are not 350 square feet; they're on 350 square foot LOTS. While that's a tiny, tiny lot, the houses they're talking about are three levels plus a deck, which is more than a thousand square feet, which is bigger than quite a few Seattle bungalows in older neighborhoods (including mine if you don't count the garage), and bigger than many or most Seattle apartments.

Mt Rainier link don't work.

In comparison, the Rocio Romero houses run from 625 to 1450 square feet.

"According to the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted by the Department of Justice, 66 percent of sexual assaults in 2005 were committed by friends, acquaintances or other people intimately known to the victims. No tally is kept specifically of date rapes."

WOAH! I had no idea how scary that statistic was.

I've seen quite a few studio condos in Seattle that are smaller than 400 sq ft.

I've also seen a handful of tiny houses, once built as cabins, now sold as condos, that are around 450 sq ft. These are free standing mini-houses, not part of a condo/apartment building.

It isn't just in Japan. It is here too. 20 years ago, there was hardly any townhouses in Seattle. As land costs have gone through the roof, more and more of these townhouses are being built in Seattle. Three or four on a lot that used to have only a single home.

It is part of the density you guys are always promoting. And a natural consequence of rapidly escalating land costs.

Oh, and the Veep comment cracked me up. Good one.

(It's a JOKE, secret service. Really. Kidding.)

ChillyMama - I'm pretty sure raindrop meant how is the sex enjoyable for the rapist when the woman is passed out. But point taken about rapists not raping for sex, but for power.

As to the US Attorneys, an interesting development that McKay was shitcanned because he was pressing the Justice Department to get going on LINX, Rep. Reichert's pet project to get emergency agencies to communicate together. So basically he was punished for trying to get the administration to accomplish something meaningful and helpful, rather than all the other post-9/11 bullshit.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003626951_mckay20m.html

It's a shame that the would-be rapist can't be forced to register as a sex offender. I wonder had the police dug deeper they would have found earlier victims.

Six months in jail is way to light a sentence.

These women are heroes.

Fnarf @ 12,

I made the mistake of watching Northwest Cable News last night. They were covering the anti-war protests in Portland and interviewed two local pro-war soldiers for a counterpoint. Ugh.

I've also read excerpts of "Generation Kill" that were published in Rolling Stone and I frequently (masochistically) read the human interest stories about the troops published in the papers; they're usually right-wing assholes.

There was one recently that really stuck with me. I think it was in the PI and it was about a soldier from So Cal who described himself as a "liberal humanist" and was KIA. Last fall he wrote an essay about sacrifice that is now a hot post for the likes of Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Hell) you know, people who would happily sacrifice you and your family for their own greedy, self-aggrandizing goals. He actually believed all of Christopher Hitchens' idiotic, propagandist ramblings and now he's not only dead, but he's gone from "liberal humanist" to neocon/neonazi poster boy; what a gullible fool.

I've got to stop reading these stories. I always feel sick afterwards.

elswinger said it for me. six months? lame. does obvious intent count for nothing?

Original Andrew, saying they're "usually right-wing assholes" is dubious and inflammatory. I imagine they're pretty much a microcosm of our country - perhaps soldiers tend to be slightly more right-wing, I don't know, but I think you find all types. Check out these guys . Not all Iraq vets think protesters are "cowards and fagoots," far from it.

those women are heros, and that man deserved more than six months. we need far more people like those two women, and far less like that man.

i'm glad to hear rapes are down by half, and i hope that trend continues.

I (mostly) agree with Original Andrew. For every Pat Tillman, there are ten soldiers like the one I saw on BBC World News right after the invasion. A group of Iraqi women were protesting for peace. An American soldier stuck his head out of a tank and snarled, "Where were you on September 11th?"

re: troops wanting out
Military people are often mis-represented by the press. It is part of government propaganda to publish images of soldiers who believe in what they are doing, but this is not the majority (I am a military wife BTW). Unfortunately, it is also a fact that when you are trying to recruit a large amount of people for very low pay/benefits to do jobs no one in their right mind would want to...you attract some crazies and/or dumb fucks. The military has its share of assholes, but these generally tend to be in with the high-turnover group that serves four years and splits, only to loud-mouth about how their service forever after.
The truth is that with the exception of a few poster-boys, the majority of career military people recognize President Bush as one of the worst leaders our forces have ever had...our benefits are being cut, our health care is worse than a county clinic, our annual pay "raises" haven't even met inflation (congress voted to give us a bigger one but Bush vetoed it) and don't think we are falling for the bullshit about defending freedom in Iraq.
What they don't tell you about the "defense" budget is that it doesn't go to *people* in the military...it goes to companies and $30,000 sets of screwdrivers bought with no-bid contracts. You can imagine how much comfort it is to those of us stateside to know that while our loved ones often can't get flack vests they are working with such fine and fancy handtools.
We're used to being lied to, having our lives jerked around, orders changed at the last minute and pretty much know the government's word is only as good as...ummm, really I can't think of anything less binding. That's just how it is, you learn to deal.
But if you want to know how this military wife feels about Bush? There's no one I'd rather see rotting in the Hague.

right on #26.

Sara @ 26,

Then why do members of the service vote overwhelmingly Republican?

Seems like there was a chart floating around based on Senate votes last year that showed Democrats are far more likely to take better care of the troops (ex healthcare, benefits, pay, etc) while the Republicans screw them, and yet here we are.

Sara deserves a special OP-ED.

Original Andrew: we may have seen the last of that trend.

Stop talking about all this crap and EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

I'm fortunate in that being on the younger end of a large family, I grew up helping getting dinner going before my mom got home from work. I started cutting my teeth early.

The linked article encourages people to make smiley faces out of fruit on their kids's breakfast. What a depressing reflection on inept parental food preparation habits. The fallback they proffer: "If you're ordering pizza, add some veggie toppings". Sad, sad, sad.

Cook at home as much as you can. It's going to be fresher and healthier than just about anywhere you'd eat out at. Restaurants love to sneak in a lot of dairy, fat, starch and cheese to fill you up.

Prep food in advance. While you're making your veggie-laden glory ramen, blanch a bunch of veggies at the same time and have 'em at the ready in the fridge for quick adds to upcoming meals. And, yes, lots of salads will allow you to live an extra hundred years.

I get organic produce delivered once every other week, which is just about right for me and the lady I veg up. It also puts the challenge out there in front of you to tackle new veggie frontiers. Piece in your dairy, protein, and starches from the store, and voila, you're a prince.

Keep a ziploc in your freezer with trimmings of veggies and every couple of weeks you can make a veg stock and use your aging veggies to make a soup to use it up. These are all quick and practical things, palzo.

Also, own a copy of The Joy of Cooking. It'll walk a novice cook through all the hoops, as well as getting down to the finer points of more challenging fare. You'd use it a million times tackling all imaginable fares.

Original Andrew, one thing the antiwar movement doesn't like to talk about is that they helped drive the servicemen and women out of the Democratic Party in the 60s and 70s, and while the GOP didn't rush to embrace them then, they did when Reagan was President. That's not the whole story, but it's an essential pillar in the near-myth that the left is anti-military and by extension anti-serviceman.

As Mike in Mo. points out, that may be coming to an end, but that depends on how smart the Dems are about embracing them and the working class in general (not just unions).

The Dems need to send a bill to the President that only benefits the troops. Not just kevlar vests and armor for the Hummers, but higher wages in general and combat pay, better health care for when they come home, raising death benefits, and lifting servicemen and their families out of poverty (a lot of military families qualify for food stamps and welfare because the pay is so low.)

@1 - exactly. You don't hang traitors who commit felonies during wartime.

You shoot them with a firing squad.

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