You know who you remind me of? The character Jeff from the TV show "Chuck".

I AM married to my best friend. The other day she told me that "You are the best thing that ever happened to me." We've been married well over a decade with a bright, polite fourth grader as a son. We live together, laugh together, shop together, talk together. I have two paid off cars and a home that is on its way to being paid off. I have a garden and have eaten asian pears, grapes and blueberries from plants that my wife and I planted. I graduated from a good university and have a good job. My wife and son shout exuberantly "Daddy's home!" when I come home from work. It is hard, my job isn't always easy, but I couldn't imagine changing places with anyone else. Although my wife is a European, we chose to live here. I live in America.

If you are content with your life, (such as it is) go for it. If you want to troll bars and hit up and then string along desperate women who are eager for any sort of relationship, I guess you can do that too. If you want to live in a shabby studio apartment for the rest of your life, go for it. But you should know that when women talk about "not finding any good men" or "all the good men are not available" you do realize they are talking about you, don't you?

You know, Stalin wasn't a great guy either, but we put FDR's face on the dime anyway. You know, common enemy and we sent "Uncle Joe" boots, ammo, trucks and planes, and he "purged" people. Nice friends we had then, huh? Or should we have plugged our ears and told Stalin to shove off because he purged his army? What would that have gotten us?

Most of our allies are freedom respecting representative democracies and some are not. Sometimes you have to ally yourself with unsavory people to protect American lives. Because President Obama's primary job is to protect innocent American lives. Please let me know with your military/geopolitical cunning a realistic plan how the US could have affected a bloodless arrest where al-Awliki peacefully surrendered to US or Yemeni law enforcement. On this planet, in 2011. The guy declared war on the US, so the US reciprocated.

It is not my preference to have the current Yemeni president to be the leader of Yemen. But it is not my place as a citizen of the US to tell them how to run their government. UNLESS they start to advocate killing Americans and subjecting them to Sharia. In this case the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I don't like it, but it is better to have that then an al-Qaeda controlled country, again.

The president of Yemen is a US ally. The country itself just re-formed after being split and then reunited in a civil war. It's not like say Canada where the US embassy can make a request to extradite a criminal in say Calgary and the Prime Minister or Justice Minister calls the chief of police in Calgary to just go arrest the guy. Hence the statement US forces "occupy" because the president of Yemen isn't in control of the whole country.

Whether this applies to just soldiers or sailors I don't know, but the guy was calling for the destruction of the US Constitution and the implementation of Sharia law. I guess it would have been nice to pull him in and extradite and put him on trial. But that would have probably required a fourth war to occupy Yemen. Besides, with his internet videos he incriminated himself many, many times.

Somehow I don't think Washington, Madison, or Jefferson (or Lincoln or FDR) are spinning in their graves over this. I know Oliver Wendell Holmes wouldn't.

You mean, kind of like New York (City) located in New York (County) located in New York (State)?

I was going to get snarky but then I saw your name and thought, oh it's ok. Although I didn't grow up in Utah, and don't live there now, I did go to school and got married in Utah County so I'm a little protective. (Plus I have to teach some teenagers early tomorrow morning, so I should be behaving anyway. : )

Look, you need to be careful when you use statistics from sources that don't spell out exactly how the figure is generated. A quick google http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_one_gallon_of_crude_oil_weigh search of how much oil weighs per gallon comes up with about 7 pounds per gallon for light sweet crude. Now, today's oil price for West Texas Intermediate is $85 per barrel http://www.oil-price.net/. There are 42 gallons per barrel so the cost per pound is

42 gallons * 7 pounds per gallon = 294 pounds for a barrel

$85 / 294 pounds = .29 cents per pound

So according to your statement above, food requires 10 pounds of oil per pound of food, SO the average pound of food should cost at least $2.90 because that is how much it would take to cover just the cost of oil. It ignores cost of land, labor, equipment, seed, or processing and profit to farmer and retailer. Sorry, that doesn't sound right. Staples (corn, rice, wheat, potatoes) certainly don't cost that much per pound. Legumes don't. Most fresh fruit doesn't. Milk doesn't. Cheese will, but some cheeses on sale won't. Vegetable oil doesn't. Olive oil might. Most meat will cost at least that much. Maybe the figure you quoted was just referring to meat or processed foods.

In any case, before you use figures, just make sure that number makes sense. (I am reminded of the time in college when as a grader in a physics class, the students were asked to find how high a pressurized leak on a water tank would shoot into the air. Two student's answers had the water at escape velocity speeds, sending them into orbit the earth.)

I've always wondered about this. I garden at home, and in the fall I gather the bags of leaves that neighbors set out to put in my compost pile. Why they would just throw away perfectly good biodegradable material and then turn around and buy bags of gardening soil is beyond me. The symbol of Lebanon is the Cedar tree. Do we associate forests with Lebanon or just a dried-out desert? They lost their soil's fertility and can't get it back.

I think that just about the only "bio" fuel that would work without ruining soil would be algae as we are already putting in too much nitrogen into rivers from farm run off.

I lived in Argentina for two years in the early 90's. From what I understand cattle in South America (at least at that time) were grass fed and not aged after being slaughtered like beef in the USA. Although the taste was "weird" the first or two that I tried it, I soon grew to love grass-fed beef. Now I kind of laugh when I hear "corn-fed beef" as if that were a good thing.

No one would ever confuse me with a hippie, and I understand that it may be cheaper to do so, but I think the corn fed/feed lots/antibiotics cattle market is a bad idea. I know that I am partially guilty because I buy the beef, but feeding antibiotics to cows justs seems like a waste of a wonderdrug. The bacteria are gaining resistance to them, and soon we may find ourselves without a way to treat infections. Still, I like my steak and beef brisket, as vegetables are what food eats.

Yeah, I have to agree with you. The retail prices for new books in general are too high for me. I would love to buy more from Barnes and Nobles because I do like the store, but I just can't bring myself to pay the prices. It seems like my wife is always asking me to go to the used book chain Half Price Books (we have been to two different Half Price Books stores already the past seven days), but she almost never wants to go to B&N because of the prices. My miserliness usually wins out over my enthusiasm, and I find that I can wait for something for a couple of years, and then it will appear at Half Price Books or some other used book place. If I can't wait (which is rare), then I'll go to Amazon. It just doesn't make sense to me to pay $20-30 for something that I know will be available to me for $2-7 in two or three years.

I know that is probably cutting into B&N's bottom line, and probably publishing in general, but I have other ways to part with my scarce resources.

Now that I think about it, I did buy a book from B&N about four weeks ago. It was originally marked at $37, and I paid $5 on clearance. So yeah, I'm a cheapskate.

No. That would be the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Utah State University is located in Logan.

Oh, that was FUNNY! If I wore a hat, I would remove it in respect.

As a Mormon I believe that:

1) Jesus Christ (then known as Jehovah) under the direction of his father created the earth.
2) Jesus Christ (then known as Jehovah) spoke to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel, Isaiah and other prophets in the Old Testament and gave those men His authority to act and speak in His name.
3) Jesus Christ was born to a virgin named Mary in Bethlehem around 1 AD.
4) Jesus lived a perfect life and taught his disciples through both word and deed to live a life of love and charity.
5) Jesus was baptized by immersion by someone with the authority to do so as a symbol of his mission, and that we would also do so. He gave His apostles this same authority.
6) Jesus took upon Himself the cumulative guilt of all people in this world in the garden of Gethsemane. He was then killed on a cross, but arose to live again the third day.
7) We believe that through His sacrifice our sins and guilt can be taken away. All I need to do is follow Him.
8) We believe that Christ continues to speak to prophets today and that someday He will return to earth.

That is a very basic summation of what Mormons believe about Christ. But while doctrine is interesting, the true proof of a Christian is conduct - how well the person lives the precepts that are taught.

I'm an expert on Mormonism. I've been one all my life.

If I may, it really depends on whom you ask. You will probably get a whole range of opinions. I would probably phrase the opinion, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's." I graduated from BYU, and we were taught taught evolution in Biology. Any modern study of biology without evolution would be incomplete at best and shoddy and fraudulent at worst.

As a Mormon when we study the different accounts of the creation, we come away with three fundamental main points:

1) Jesus Christ was the creator
2) The creation was planned, and was effected by "organizing" pre-existing materials, not "ex-nihlo"
3) Man was created in the image of God

There are some things that could be interpreted as contradictions between religious belief and scientific fact. I do think about them, but I don't let myself get carried away. My current understanding of both the mind of God and science as it truly is is unfortunately flawed.

Regardless I don't "throw out the baby with the bathwater" just because I don't understand some facet of science or religion.

but I know it my heart it should be "Colbert."

Vanuatu? Amazing. Do you know of anybody who believes in "John From"?