I live in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, home to more than a few owls. After dinner each night a good friend would go outside with his cigar and wine and hoot to the owl in the tree, the owl would obligingly hoot back. One day his wife mentioned it to their neighbor, who said, that's funny, my husband does the same thing. With horror they realized their husbands had been hooting at each other each night for several years. I can't imagine "hooting for owls" to anything more than grown men making fools of themselves.

Men and women who attend the Naval Academy are "midshipmen"; not cadets. Doesn't bother me one bit; others get pissy about it. (on a side note, the first female midshipmen voted to always be referred to as midship"men")

Your comments remind me of a famous argument between my father and I. During the Clinton administration wewere arguing about gays in the military (he was probably against - I was probably for - but who knows?)

After about an hour I said: Dad, neither of us are gay. Neither of us is in the military. We don't know what we're talking about, so let's drop it.

My husband, who is practiced at ignoring such discussions, looked up from his paper and said: Since when did that stop either of you?

I believe that military matters should be handled by the military. They understand the consequences, for civilians it is academic.

And on a personal note, had I been subjected to BO's hectoring at the 2013 commissioning, I would have been furious. It is a very big day for the midshipmen and their families. I am grateful Gates gave the address when I was there in 2011.

I live in a small town north of LA. Back in the day there were nine-plus kids running around. I once gave the guy in the ice cream truck $20 at the beginning of the summer to avoid our block. Dude cost me a fortune the previous summer.

@Mr Brown: the inclusion of women on subs is NOT because there's a need for more smart people on subs (that is a sought after and competitive service selection), instead it was decided that it was wrong to deny women the opportunity. The purpose of the military is NOT to provide opportunity.

Someone quoted Gen Casey's comment after Ft Hood, that our diversity being made to suffer would be a greater tragedy than the murders. REALLY? Tell that to the widows and orphans. I write about that comment, and my thoughts on diversity, here : http://politichicks.tv/column/diversity-a-worthy-goal-or-a-result-of-all-thats-worthy/

Bottom line, it's easier to chase diversity as a virtue than it is to be an institution that is so wonderful that it is appealing to a broad sector of society.

My oldest is USNA class of 2011. I didn't attend many events as we are 3000 miles away. But I heard "diversity" touted at every event. And I rolled my eyes and got a little more worried about my son every time.

I am on Chrome right now and did not have a problem. The screen appeared as usual. Also worked okay on Explorer.

At midnight? Raise your hand if you, like me, believe there's a whole lot more to this story. And that we'll never know the details.

Am I correct that the FBI went to question him at midnight?

Anyone but me realize that when a kid isn't in school, the school doesn't get paid? This policy is misguided at a lot of levels but I believe revenue is part of it. I've had friends pull their kids out of school for vacations and been approached by the school after for money to reimburse the school. When my SIL took her four to my son's graduation, and the kids missed a week of school - she was given a minor amount of school work for each kid to do on the trip (nothing relevant to them being in DC and at the Naval Academy) which allowed the school to still get paid.

My husband and I went to wine tasting classes back in those heady days before kids when we had time and money. The teacher constantly reminded us that it was "wine tasting", not "wine drinking", but the first five minutes of every class was spent comparing hangover cures.

We were surrounded mostly by young lawyers, accountants and several waiting for bar results. Wine loosens the tongue; by the end of the evening we would have outrageously detailed guesses by some as they tried to guess the vineyard and tried to one up each other with ridiculous adjectives (I follow the PJ O'Rourke rule: when stumped, just describe the guy across from you: too pale and a tad flabby)

In a favorite moment, my husband said the following: Santa Ynez valley, 1983, grown on the south side of the hill, picked by a guy named Juan.

And the nose? He described it as "wet poodle in a phone booth".

Church raffle. I bought my tickets, threw them in the bin. I joined the crowd, turned to the person next to me and said, "I am going to win this thing". They drew a ticket, called my name and I won $1,000. I KNEW I was going to win. The only other times I felt so certain was in labor with my first and my last. With my first, after 27 hours of labor they wanted to do an emergency C Section. I knew everything was okay. I talked the doctor out of the operation, two hours later I gave birth and everything was fine. (That son later described being born, but that's a story for another day.) After 15 hours of labor with my 4th, doctor was again worried and said he wanted to do an emergency C Section. I agreed immediately. The umbilical cord was really short AND the kid was holding onto it with both hands (and he was huge, which was why I was able to blame it all on my husband). Don't know what would have happened without the C Section, but I was glad to not find out.

TV count? I am not a huge fan of 30 Rock, but my husband is. I don't like Tina Fey, to add insult to injury my husband says she reminds him of me. I do, however, appreciate Alec Baldwin. There is a scene where in minutes he impersonates Tracy Jordan, Tracy's mother, Tracy's father, Tracy's stepfather and an Hispanic neighbor (or maid - I'm not sure). It is the funniest couple of minutes I've ever seen on TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTj47rcuM-4

Breitbart is smiling.

Thanks MT. There is something I say so often I'm going to embroider it on a throw pillow:

"all hope lies with homeschooling"

It's my hope to vote for a home-schooled president someday.

Mark Steyn. P.J. O'Rourke. And they can bring their wives and kids.

This is what I consider the "yeah, but" argument. And I am tired of it being used to undermine the pro-life argument.

We have a speed limit on my street. When I was driving my son to the hospital and seconds counted, I broke it.

So are there exceptions, namely rape (incest not so much)? Of course.

But I can't count the people in my life who have had abortions and speak of them openly. And with no sense of shame. And they know I'm Catholic. And in no case was rape a factor.

You want to give a morning-after pill to a rape victim? I have no problem with that. What to make it available over the counter to underage girls? I have HUGE problem with that.

The slippery slope is, indeed, slippery.

While pro life, I used to think reasonable people could disagree on this issue. No more.