It's interesting that the comment about the younger being more rational. I was looking at this stuff while my kids were working on worksheets today and I had some of them come up to ask questions and while I was looking things up they were reading someone's post and were asking what was going on and when they read some more they were quite disturbed by the anti-Americanism on the thread, they too were upset that people from/living in other countries were so hostile about Americans. While I know I live in a VERY conservative state, I thought it was interesting that these kids held the opinions that they did. We have talked about the war in Iraq and I play devil's advocate with whatever they say in order to get them to talk and it's amazing to me what they come up with and their support for what's going on after asking questions and me telling them to go do the research and come back with an opinion. So, that's a long way around saying that maybe it's not age that makes the difference.

And I think that the really funny sarcasm (in my opinion)by Richard is not being taken in the correct context. And Ann, I seem to recall that your language is not always pristine in conversations.