Dunno why you got a -1. I think with a political topic this week we'll see a lot of those.

Since I like you bunches (and, okay, I'm totally scared of the people on the other thread) I'm going to tell you a secret.

i'm a liberal.

SHHHHH!

I agree with you 110% (can you do that? eh, hell why not!) about the Democratic party. I'm very disappointed in them. All this "champions of the people" crap and then they get into office and what do they do? Spend all their time investigating the latest Republican sex scandal. Yeah, congressmen who get into office pledging moral superiority deserve to be taken down a notch, but I VOTED YOUR SORRY ASS INTO OFFICE TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAR! For fuck's sake! And that veto stuff is such crap. I'd be throwing all kinds of things on his desk to have him veto. It doesn't matter if it passes at this point, I'd just like to see the lazy bastards do something other than sit around with their thumbs up their butts.

Unfortunately the terms "conservative" and "liberal" and the parties "Republican" and "Democrat" cover such VAST numbers of people that these one-term fits all doesn't really work. I have a friend who is a fiscally conservative Republican who is FURIOUS over the Bush Administration's loss of the surplus and isn't sure what to call herself anymore. She doesn't want to be lumped in the same group as Ann Coulter and I don't want to be lumped together with Michael Moore. But neither of us are about to find better titles or parties than what we've got.

Anybody want to start a party where we fight to legalize marajuana, taxes go to health care and free education, and we all still can eat red meat and wield a respectable peace-keeping force?

Anywho, enough politics...

LW#2: Unless he often comes home late, reeking of perfume and has lipstick on the collar, I cannot see what sane reason a person has for snooping into their loved one's personal property. Unlike email that might be left open on a shared computer (unlikely, but possible), texts on a phone usually require button pressing to reveal. There is no way she can possibly think she can confront him with "I just happened to fall on your phone in such a way that Suzy-soon-to-die's slightly romantic texts popped up! And I happen to be one of those people who can read an entire text message, even if it doesn't all appear on the screen! OMG! Explain your intentions please!" What a maroon.

LW#3: It's well known that women are routinely underpaid even when performing the exact same job. This is probably why companies started the whole "you talk about what you make to the others and we'll fire your ass" rule. I can't possibly see how the company would benefit from such a rule unless it was to keep any race or gender inequality hidden from sight. But, as you well point out, because of this rule, the company can totally fire her ass without breaking a law. If she then files a lawsuit, they can be more specific about the reasons she got paid less, having had months and months to think up some good ones.

LW#4: Totally totally agree. What is up with this girl? "Oh, I'm trying to be generous and assuage my guilt at being a privileged person with SO many clothes! But my good heartedness is totally belittled by her grabbing the Gucci!" What is this, the post-modern penitence of the upper-class? Back in the good old middle ages you simply paid the church to wipe your sins away (or donate something big and splashy with your name on it), now you must give to charity, but not a little but A LOT and only to acceptable, well-known ones so that everyone will know what a good person you are. Give what you can, whenever you can, to WHOMEVER you can.