"War-weary Americans and their distracted political leaders are less interested in responsibilities overseas, creating a vacuum of international leadership. But for better and for worse, neither China nor anyone else appears ready and able to fill America’s superpower shoes."

New Wave artists aging gracefully. An 80′s world gone by…

Even quacks must have free speech

Study: Casual Sex Might Be Making Teenagers Sad

9 Reasons 'Hookup Culture' Hurts Boys Too

Women are 'hard-wired' to regret casual flings - but men only regret NOT having them, study reveals

70% now think it is wrong for married people to stray

Michele Bachmann: ‘If God Wanted Everyone To Have Insurance, Why Did He Invent Miracles?’

 

 There's a new movie about a black girl who stopped slavery in England or something. I knew nothing about it or her.

And somebody in Mississippi is learning new things, too:

  "It is clear that slavery continues to have lasting impacts on our society. We are not living in a post-racial America. Disproportionate levels of poverty in the African American community are just one manifestation of slavery’s lasting legacy. In order to confront today’s societal ills, we must engage in a conversation with the past — one that can be truly painful, but at the same time, necessary."

 

A new Rock band likes driver training soundtrack vocals.

While USA Today has seen fit to do a new piece on Stanislaw Burzynski - learn that name. 

Crush him for fun.

The Pope wraps it up with a searing new message on The Scarlet Letter and related matters.

Nothing new about that, unfortunately,...

 

"He was screwing two women. One of them is his present wife, and the other one, I assume, he was doing the girl in question."

"They arranged to meet up with her at a Walmart in north Stockton on Saturday under the pretense of making the marriage work, according to Lt. Mike Jones, of the San Joaquin Sheriff’s Department.

She willingly got in the car."

UPDATE:

“She said she was able to text her boyfriend,,…”

You'll have to pardon me if, I think, she should've been fired:

"Sobbing GP banned over affair with husband of dead patient and told to reflect on her 'entirely selfish' behaviour"

"I wonder if you and Sandy thought about how cruel it was to John to lead him to think that all of you were a happy (if strangely occasional) family during the years you were illicitly getting together. So now John is collateral damage. Here's a rule for cheating: Have sex with your lover, and leave the kids out of it. Instead, Sandy allowed you to be a surrogate father for her son, all the while surely thinking your emotional tie to him would draw you closer to her. You apparently were unable to imagine the likely scenario that your wife would stumble on your secret, and so promised John you would always care for him. Poor John that two such deluded people are his mother and 'father.'

Now you say your wife is the villain,..."

"It’s because of me that a lovely little family has been destroyed. It’s my fault. Why did she have to die?”

A jury convicted a doctor of murder early Saturday in the death of his wife six years ago, bringing an end to a trial that became the nation's latest true-crime cable TV obsession with its tales of jailhouse snitches, forced plastic surgery, philandering and betrayal.

The case shocked the Mormon community of Pleasant Grove, 35 miles south of Salt Lake City, and captured national attention because the defendant was a wealthy doctor and a lawyer, a father of eight in a picture-perfect family and former bishop in his local congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The daughters went to work uncovering what they call their father's secret life. They abandoned him while dogging authorities to open a murder investigation. It wasn't until MacNeill's release in July 2012 from a federal prison in Texas on charges of fraud that Utah prosecutors moved to file charges of murder and obstruction of justice.

Doug Phillips of Vision Forum and Vision Forum Ministries resigned last week over an extramarital affair. That always seems to happen to Anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-all of you, GOP God worshippers.

In short, people know that infidelity is wrong, but some still do it. And when they do, they usually feel pretty bad about it. But through various forms of cognitive gymnastics, cheaters are able to discount their past indiscretions to feel better about themselves. Since the negative consequences, at least in terms of how they feel about themselves, are diminished, maybe they don’t learn from their mistakes and might be susceptible to cheating again in the future?

I warned you Rebecca Brooks and her sleazy husband are NewAgers, and now they're charged in England's phone hacking scandal.

-TMR, July 25, 2012

Which also contains this gem:

I'm wrong about Romney and the Mormons? We'll see. I keep telling you cultism's a great clue to everything - because it touches everything - and, alas, it ultimately destroys everything it touches.

But don't get distracted by the Mormon/Ted Cruz thing, here's Rebekah Brooks', so-NewAge-we-never-saw-it-coming, oldie but goodie, dropped just today:

  "The fact is you are my very best friend, I tell you everything, I confide in you, I seek your advice, I love you, care about you, worry about you, we laugh and cry together.

In fact without our relationship in my life I am not sure I will cope."

Alas, she was (naturally) married to someone else at the time, and (naturally) it came out in court while (naturally) she's now "married" to someone else.

Best. Halloween. Ever,...