Fred, regardless of whether Polanski is a Bad Guy (and obviously he is, at least a little bit) I sometimes wonder whether it is the attitudes of parents that is costing the kids their childhood freedoms.

I suspect you are mistaken in thinking kids are at greater risk from paedophiles than previously. In the UK the rates haven't changed much either way in 50 years. What has changed is that in the developed countries, as we grow ever more spoilt, and often encouraged by disproportionate media frenzies, we have taken up absurd attitudes to risk.

Oh, and I'm glad Michael Moore - anyone - did a Python and "mentioned the war," even if it could have been done more elegantly. When it comes to tearing the tripe out of this administration's hypocrisies, no-one comes close to Noam Chomsky. Pussy-footing round the issue on account of morale in the trenches makes no sense to me. How immoral/illegal would a war have to be before we could stop prentending otherwise for the sake of morale in the field? I suspect that for one or two here, there is no limit.

But like Buffy Sainte Marie said in that classic anti-war song Moratorium: "Fuck the war, and bring our brothers home." I've no doubt that a few marines would say amen to that, and hope that it was before they've had to kill any more Iraqis, Brits, etc.