I've placed the Add a Message field here for general suggestions or questions about the PM boards, but not to act as a posting place for other topics or new topics. If there isn't an appropriate board for a topic you want to discuss, suggest it to me here.

In addition, I'm looking over the PM and LM boards, and noticing a lot of clutter. For example, boards whose topics would seem to place them in one area are instead in another (I don't see, for example, why a post made right when someone learned that the kidnapped Elizabeth Smart had been found was used to create a Potpourri board, when there was already an In the News board). Another example is redundant boards, as the Kitchen Bar, In the News and Potpourri boards seem largely indistinguishable in terms of the topics being discussed on those boards. Although I have to work today, I plan to look over the boards when I get the chance, and do some consoldiating and cleaning house. I'm also wondering if I should delete some old boards altogther that have not been posted on for some time, perhaps to save Phil some of that server space that I hear has been dwindling. I'm also wondering if I should restrict posting to passwords, as was done a couple of years ago, to combat trolls and rule violaters. What do you guys think? Any suggestions? Let me know how you feel.

CHANGES I’VE MADE:
First, I really see no reason to have a Kitchen Sink for the “issue” boards. A sink makes sense for boards for TV shows, because those boards, like the shows themselves, have an episodic structure, and therefore, discussions of more generalized topics pertaining to the show would seem to require a Sink. But for the Musings boards, all of the individual topics are miscellaneous. None of them would seem to belong in a “main” grouping, while others in a “miscellaneous” grouping. I also saw no difference between the Kitchen Bar, Potpourri, Last Time on Political Musings..., and In the News topics. I mean, isn’t every single topic discussed here spurred by something going on in current events? Thus, I put all the individual subtopics from those categories onto the main LM page.

Deleted Material
I’ve removed some profanity from some recent posts.

Renamed Boards
Naturally, topics that themselves deserve subtopics will keep them, such as the old “Hollywood & Crime” board, which I’ve retitled “Celebrities & Crime,” since the Kobe Bryant case, which is one of the boards therein, has nothing to do with Hollywood, and one emphasizing celebrities is not only more inclusive, but makes the topic clearer to surfers.

I’ve removed all the subtitles on secondary and tertiary boards. Hence, the second and third boards in the Lawyers subtopic, for example (which used to be called “Sharks-uh, I mean Lawyers”) are now simply “Board 2” and “Board 3”.

The board “I Pledge Allegiance to Queen Fragg” has been retitled “The Pledge of Allegiance and the Supreme Court”, in order to make it more clear to surfers what the topic is about.

The board “Dumb Laws” has been renamed “Dumb Laws and Legal Rulings”.

The “Suicide by Lawsuit” board was retitled “The IBM-SCO Group Lawsuit.”

Because the board originally titled “Unconstitutional” began as a discussion of the Constitutionality of partial-birth abortion, but then evolved into a discussion of Constitutional freedoms in general, and guns used as an example in particular, I renamed it “Constitutional Freedoms (Partial-Birth Abortion, Guns, etc.)”

The Frivolous Lawsuits board was not about such lawsuits in general, but about the lawsuit against McDonald’s brought by the lawyer of some obese teenagers, so I renamed it “The McDonald’s Obesity Lawsuit.” Also, a section of that discussion near the end turned to a discussion of the notion of Michael Savage suing people for boycotting his show, so I gave those posts their own board and put it in the same Specific Lawsuits & Legal Cases subtopic. Board 2 of the McDonald’s topic, however, did indeed contain discussion of various different frivolous lawsuits, so I renamed that one “Frivolous Lawsuits”, and made it its own board under Specific Lawsuits & Legal Cases.

Moved and Regrouped Boards and Posts
The board in the former "Hollywood & Crime" subtopic that was titled “The Matrix Made Me Do It, which was about a possible defense used by the DC snipers, was redundant, since there already was a pre-existing DC Sniper board (and barely had anything to do with Hollywood, largely because the thread evolved to one about silly defense arguments in general), so I moved all the posts on that board to the first DC Sniper board.

Since the “Same-Sex Divorce?” topic was more about a bizarre legal ruling rather than one of the usual ongoing discussions related to gay-rights topics, and since there was only one post on that board, I moved that post to “Dumb Laws and Legal Rulings.”

Two different boards on suicide have been combined into one.

Because the Libertocracy.com board was mainly about legalized marijuana and prostitution, and since there were separate boards for legalized prostitution and medical marijuana, I created a subtopic called, “Legalized Marijuana and Prostitution”, and placed all three of those boards there.

I created a subtopic for “Specific Lawsuits & Legal Cases,” and in that subtopic, I put the boards for The IBM-SCO suit, the McDonald’s Lawsuit, the Jesus Castillo Obscenity Case, the striking down of Sodomy Laws, the Clara Harris case, Michael Savage’s suit over boycotts, the Wal-Mart lawsuit board, and the board for Frivolous Lawsuits.

Looks good. I can't tell you how puzzling it was sometimes trying to figure out where a topic was in the sub-topic field.

No -- no passwords or registration, please. The ratio of trolls/violators to regular posters is very low on this board compared to some others (and it is nice to get some new blood once in a while without having to go through the hassle of registering).

Thanks, Mike. I was hoping that it would have the effect of making that easier.

Influx, for now, I will not be instituting an registration policy with PM or LM, but should future abusers pop up, that may change.

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

MODERATOR'S NOTE: I have merged the Same-sex Marriage boards that used to be here on Legal Musings into the Gay Rights boards on Political Musings to avoid redundancy of debate topics.

I have also taken the Profiling board and moved it from here to the 9/11 and Related Topics boards on PM.

SOME MODERATOR CLEANUP: I have taken the Pledge of Allegiance board here and merged it with the board of the same topic in Political Musings. The version here was only 16 posts long, and fits nicely in a gap between the fourth-to-last and the fifth-to-last posts on that PM board (during which there was no discussion), so there is no “zig-zagging” of the thread.

When I looked at the Celebrities & Crime board, I realized those are specific cases, so I put that sub-topic under Specific Lawsuits & Legal Cases, and put it at the very top of that list, so that anyone looking for say, the Michael Jackson board and Charlie Sheen/Denise Richards Divorce board, which I then placed there because they’re celebrities, could easily find them. I renamed the board Celebrity Legal cases, since some of those boards discuss civil lawsuits, and not criminal cases.

Looking over the Frivolous Lawsuits & Legal Cases board, I see that it is mostly the lawsuit to ban Oreos for being unhealthy, and a discussion of Spike Lee’s attempts to keep the Spike network from using that name, so I moved the former to a new board called Kraft Foods Sued for Oreos being Unhealthy on the Specific Lawsuits board, and placed the latter into its own board on the Celebrity Legal Cases board. The only remaining posts on that board were on a gunman’s mother suing for workman’s comp, a question about whether McDonald’s makes you fat, and an exchange about John Edwards’ lawsuits. The McDonald’s posts were moved to the pre-existing board for that discussion, and the Edwards posts were moved to the pre-existing board for that topic on PM, leaving only the workman’s comp matter.

Not sure if this was already posted or not but Johnny Cochran died today from an inoperable brain tumor, according to his family.

Sparrow? Please see the post I made on the Separation of Church and State board in PM for discussion of the board you created here for the "Under God" matter.

Adam, just so you know, I moved the Paul McCartney Divorce board to Celebrity Legal Cases, which is a subtopic under Specific Lawsuits & Legal Cases.

MODERATOR NOTE: Due to the current spam attacks, I've disabled Anonymous posting in PM and LM. One of my suggestions when I first took over as moderator was that if you wanted to post anonymously that was fine, but to try being creative in coming up with a username other than the generic "Anonymous" so that others could tell who you were from post to post. Now you'll pretty much have to.

(The following discussion was moved from the Lisa Montgomery/Bobbie Jo Stinnett board, after I removed the phrase "trailer trash" from a post made on that board.)

I've removed the offending phrase from your Oct 14 post, and deleted the subsequent posts from both of us on the matter. I took the link from your last post, and incorporated it into your Oct 23 post. I'll delete this one as well in a day or so.

Luigi, I think that there was no offense intended, and what you did was unnecessary.

The term "trailer trash" does *not* imply that all people who live in trailers are trash, any more than "idle rich" implies that all rich people are idle. "Trailer trash" has a well known colloquial meaning, which brought out exactly what Adam was trying to convey.

Thanks for defending me, Scott. What you said was 100% right-on.
Also, the post in question was on this page for over two years before all the hub-bub started.
I never even heard of the term "trailer trash" until I was in my thirties. A woman from Florida I was very fond of first brought the term to light.

Scott, people who happen to live in trailers, or have lived in trailers, or have friends who do, might be offended at the use of the term.

Luigi, may I suggest that you look at the joke you posted this morning, and consider whether women would be offended?

Glass houses and all...

An interesting assertion, given that it was a woman who gave me the joke.

In addition:

1. The joke isn't made at the expense of women. It's made about the inability of men to understand them, or more generally, the inability of both genders to understand each other.

2. The joke does not contain a epithet against women, or any other group.

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quote:

I've removed the offending phrase from your Oct 14 post, and deleted the subsequent posts from both of us on the matter. I took the link from your last post, and incorporated it into your Oct 23 post.

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The alternative would've been to delete the latter post entirely, including the valid material. I opted for the former. To each his own.

Okay, I just reorganized the Celebrity Legal Cases boards by simplifying their titles with just the name of the celebrity or celebrities involved, and by then alphabetizing them. I ask that any future boards you add be titled simply with the name of the celebrity, and I'll put it in alphabetical order when I get to it. Thanks.