I hear Rob's watching his blood pressure, so he can't fully unleash the power of his wit. So until the meds kick in, it is strictly licking balls, eating shorts, cocksucking, et cetera. Please be nice to Rob, because you know what a short temper he has -- who knows what minor slight might finally punch his clock?

"Can we all please get off Boise State's jock? Sure, they won an entertaining game with some backyard trickeration, against a less-than-top-tier Oklahoma. They also play in a lesser league and on that horrendous blue field. That turf alone is reason to eliminate them."

OU was 'top tier' ... until they lost to BSU, who, by the way, stifled OU's vaunted running for most of the game without any trickery. As for OU's passing game, well, I am sure that that redshirt freshman cornerback (no. 22) will continue to develop over the next couple years.

p.s. -- BSU doesn't care what you Smurf Turf haters think.

I agree pretty much 100% with WeikuBoy's suggestions (especially 1-5).

My own two cents regarding the article: I didn't get the impression that I guess a lot of other readers got. Many of the responses to "The Readers Strike Back" seem to basically say writers and Salon deserve critism and they should grow a backbone and not censor readers' posts. I don't think that Kamiya was saying that reader fact-checking and critique are bad. I think he was saying that *certain* posts, which tend to come from *a few* readers bring down the level of discussion with ad hominem attacks, mean spirited attacks and the like.

Certainly his point about how women writers receive more personal attacks can't be seriously denied. I mean, Havrilesky gets hate mail nearly every week stating that she is a bad mother because she watches television and writes articles (i.e., she works). Kaufman writes articles five days a week and undoubtedly spends as much time watching and reading about sports as Havrilesky does watching television and I have NEVER read a letter accusing him of being a bad father. Very unpleasant.

I have disagreed with just about everything RT has written, sometimes because I generally disagreed with her position, other times because I specifically believed her interpretation of something (e.g., an article or study) was off-target. So, I didn't read that piece on CR until now.

While I am sure that it was unpleasant having people make fun of you and maybe even scary to get threatening emails, I did not find the tone of her article to be especially venomous. I also don't think it was unfair of her to cite to your name and blog because, honestly, if she hadn't, I would not have believed that an advocate of CR had written about amenorrhea due to weight loss as being something positive. I would have believed that she had made such a quote out of whole cloth, basically creating a straw man position to critique.

She did not use profanity and she did not defame anyone, unlike some of the internet trolls who frequent Salon.

I believe that she could have, probably should have, interviewed you or some other CR advocate. On the other hand, I doubt that would have changed her mind about CR as her main argument was that she finds both CR diet restrictions and the thought of living to be 150 unpleasant, not that CR fails to extend life.

Then again, it did not happen to me, so maybe I don't know enough about her article and what happened to you in the days and, possibly weeks, after her article was published.

To be fair, Android, compared to every other decade in Russian history, the 1990s were pretty dang democratic.

Neither Julius Caesar nor Luca Brasi, but none other than England's own Baron Charles Edward Pollock in his famous comedy show, um, opinion Byrne v. Boadle way back in 1863!

I remember when Salon focused on the important issues: sex, movies, paris & britney and reality television. Nowadays its all campaign finance reform, the war in iraq and trials of former high ranking members of the bush administration.

Oh, Salon, how did you lose your way?

I can only assume that this is the fault of Joan Walsh.

Havisham ... I don't get it. Please explain how Havrilesky is similar to Dicken's character Havisham. Seriously, I really don't understand the point you are trying to make.

Also, other than as another excuse to slam Havrilesky, please explain why you think that she has just now discovered the S/M quality to reality television when she has been writing about it pretty much since she started the ILTW column.

Cheers

Everything you write is so utterly devoid of humor or joy, I can't really tell if its really all an act. Maybe blank parody?

When I asked you how Harvilesky is like Haversham, I meant how is she really like Haversham, not based on something so obvious a joke. Was Charlie Chaplin like Hitler because of his role in The Great Dictator?

The vulture fund's actions sound a lot like the tort of interference with business relations. That tort's elements generally are: (1) existence of a valid contractual relationship between the plaintiff (i.e., Zambia) and a third party (Romania) or valid business expectancy of plaintiff; (2) defendant's (Donagel International) knowledge of the relationship or expectancy; (3) intentional interference by defendant inducing breach or termination of the relationship or expectancy and (4) damages.

This cause of action is valid in many jurisdictions in the United States (you may remember the multi-billion dollar case between Pennzoil and Texaco over Getty Oil).

Does anyone know whether Zambia tried to assert this as a counterclaim, whether the relevant jurisdiction (the UK, I suppose) only accepts this as a cause of action when there is a valid existing contract or whether the jurisdiction simply does not accept interference with business relations as a valid cause of action?