It's trivial to counter, in a way. You just make a team sport of it. It only takes a few friends egging each other on, and it turns from a sad waste of time to a proper community thing to do.

Why would gerrymandering tend to have benefited Republicans nationally? I would think it would be equal-opportunity corruption, giving an advantage to majorities or (perhaps) to urban or rural areas. Is there a reference?

Your grays are pretty powerful.

My mother spent several months at a kind of special wayward girl's home (she was 27) in a distant city until I was born, arranged by her own mother to get her out of the way. Meanwhile her intellectual sister was getting a PhD in the next town and somehow had forgotten, 30 years later, why her sister was there at all.

You can find this absurd claim easily on the net — just search "abortion black" and you will come to some crazy websites. It is guaranteed that at least some people will fall for this, creating Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt about abortion.

The difference, for me, is that when I see the shock images I think only of medical procedures, unpleasant as they may be.

Perhaps you mean those little raincoats?

That's pretty powerful.

The coat hanger is a pretty good response to the shock images that the other side uses.

You know, you guys are just goading each other on to produce more detailed reporting and it's working.

I particularly appreciate that the fetus is exempt from the death penalty, at least while it's still a fetus.

My grandmother studied medicine in 1905. She observed that when a doctor diagnosed a woman with syphilis or gonorrhea, he would inform only the husband. The theory was that the woman had gotten it from her husband, who had gotten it from a prostitute. To explain the meaning of the illness directly to the wife was to…

Keep your theology

The expression "that's no way to treat a lady" has power. It particularly has power when used to defend someone that normally doesn't get that kind of respect, such as a prostitute. You can't smile when you say it, though. I think I've seen it done this way in a movie.

I don't agree. Kids can handle it.

I have a similar feeling about gregarious humans...

It's worth looking at laws and their success in Switzerland. I don't know the whole story, but it's a lot more restrictive than in the States.

Appears to be a form of moral blackmail on the rest of society. I guess they're playing the long game.

I love the cornflower blue dress. The sun on the daisies.

Look, I know these dogs are happy. We all do. (Because we've got our own built-in critical smile receptors to respond with warmth to these smilers, starting with our own round-headed babies.)