The technically inclined continue to miss the point. 99.99% of computer purchasers don't want to shop the back of the big fat parts magazines and then install new gizmos and widgets to keep their computer at the cutting edge of the specs, boasting in blogs about how they got X amount of speed for ten bucks cheaper than some other guy. The most important part of the computer is the part you operate with--the operating system. People who like Macs actually tend to like the operating system, and they don't care about all this stuff everybody's yammering on about.

My G3 iMac from 2000 can't be expanded--guess what--that doesn't matter if I don't need or want to expand it.

It's all what you do with it, anyway. The old-style shutterbugs who bored everybody about technical data about lens flare etc. usually took boring photographs. If I make a great video in five hours with an iMac and you make a crap video in four hours with a machine that cost $500 less who comes out ahead.... and maybe my video will be better because I spent my time reading a book or two and thinking about things rather than replacing all the parts in my computer (or slaughtering aliens or pretending to be Captain Flash or other semi-retarded activities certifiably better done on a PC.)

It strikes me that most of the whining here has come from those representing individual bad luck with a product, or geeks who ignore what most people actually do with their computers. Apple has always been good value for me. I'm typing this on a 400Mhz G3 iMac with a 20meg hard-drive and I'm running system 10.4 with no problem, and it does 100% of what I need to do with a computer (surf the web, use Office). A relative has a comparable Gateway from the same era--can you imagine it running Vista? No way. So she plods along with "Windows 98" having a miserable experience, picking up viruses, etc. etc. (I'm rather glad I didn't save a few bucks back in 2000 with a Gateway.) It's true in her humongous ugly beige case she could replace all the components, and ditch her elephantine monitor--except she's not a tech person and would have to pay people to do all that. What Apple does well is make products for people.

I thought it was obvious that the 17... "gaffe" was intentional -- Bush had the look of a standup comedian who had been rehearsing in the mirror, But why?

Snarky, but true, description of the supreme sophist. Brooks is an unctious handwringer to power. Bye bye.

"Upon hearing that an "Asian male" had shot students at Virginia Tech, I wondered if I had ever heard a breaking news story where the racial identification of a white male had been maybe the second word of the report. No, don't think so."

Right. It was weeks before we knew the race of the members of the Duke lacrosse team.....

There's nothing racist about reporting the two words used by the victims who survived the shooting to describe their attacker. "Asian" "male." The real mystery is why bloggers aren't attacking the perverse cult of English majors, or "creative" writing. Why are these people even allowed on campus? Eh?