Please note - I do not believe that Mary was raped by God or any such thing. But that bumper sticker pisses me off. I hope I did not offend any one. If I did, my sincere apologies.

I will defend Rush on one point. His job is essentially to piss people off, it's what he does for a living. It should make him irrelevant like Ann Coulter has pretty much done to herself, but he's good enough at being just plausible enough that he hasn't gone irrelevant yet.

Please note - I do not believe that Mary was raped by God or any such thing. But that bumper sticker pisses me off. I hope I did not offend any one. If I did, my sincere apologies.

I was not offended, yet I was going to be all pedantic (no! surely not!) and point out that she said yes, which makes it not rape. Instead it makes it the incredibly-difficult-to-explain-to-family scenario of "No, SERIOUSLY. It's *God's* baby! I'm not making this up!"

His job is essentially to piss people off, it's what he does for a living.

Get a new damn job. I suggest Walmart stockboy. Or hermit.

Where's javachik? She's the cable company magic bill reducer, right?

Micheal Rosenwald writes: I'm looking to speak with people who have cut their bills by calling up their cable provider or phone company or newspaper or whatever and threatening to cancel. Interested to hear strategies that worked and how much bills can be reduced simply by asking. I'm at rosenwaldm@washpost .com

That celebrity nativity has GWB as one of the 3 wise men...just, no.

One of the jokes that shows up every year is about how they had to cancel the Congressional Christmas pagent. Couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.

Lalala, ignoring the maddening...

My take? Now, I'm not an artist, so maybe I just missed the message. But, all I could think was "Why are those 2 dead guys laying in the manger and I'm so glad Mary took off with her baby and didn't stick around for that scene."

That sounds about right.

In my family, the nativity scene is a moving thing -- at this point, no one's near the manger except for the donkey, and Jesus isn't there. Everyone moves toward their spots, with M&J getting there Christmas Eve, the baby showing up that night, and the Wise Men still travelling through the12 days.

Er, right. Because being pro-choice obviously means you favor only one possible choice. Which would make it...not so much of a choice.

I find the "Choose Life" bumper stickers interesting for that reason. It implies they are pro-choice when I don't think that's what it means. I think of myself as being anti-abortion and pro-choice. I think there would be very rare conditions under which I would not advocate against an abortion on a personal level, but I don't think it's a state decision. The thing is I don't think you have a human being at conception and until there is neural development. Once you hit that point, then it becomes murky for me. At viability, I'm totally against it except for medical reasons for the mother.

One thing that has always bothered me is the idea of making abortion illegal but making exceptions for rape and incest. If you believe that abortion is murder, how can you make those exceptions?

In other news, I now remember why I hate to order shoes from anyone but Zappos -- the boots I bought don't fit, and now I'm on the hook for shipping both ways. Booo!

If you believe that abortion is murder, how can you make those exceptions?

All murders are equal, but some are more equal than others?