I thought that's what's been holding up the health care bill. Too much kissing up to the Republicans, giving in to their every whim - and then finding that they vote against the bill anyway.

I say, start denouncing them, 24x7. Get Alan Grayson's writer working full time; bring comedy writer Al Franken out of retirement, if Senator Al Franken can spare him. Even if he can't.

Seriously: be funny about it, but pull no punches. Jon Stewart does it every night. So does Stephen Colbert. Americans may not be impressed by "shrill", but they love funny, particularly with an edge. And more people prefer the "librul" slant to humor these days than the wingnut take.

Frankly, I think the time to talk sweet with and about the Republicans went out with "Newt" Gingrich.

... as Svensker observes. The "enemy" is always doing the same thing that "we" are, only when the "enemy" does it, it's eeeee-ville. And "we" don't admit to ourselves that "we're" even doing it.

This strategy - or pathology - was glaringly obvious during the Clinton administration, with the bizarre antics and rhetoric of "Chairman Newt" and his (un)merry crew. The late, great Molly Ivins remarked upon it frequently.

Mr. Brooks is just doing what the wingers always do. It's as if he's come face to face with a mirror, is horrified by what he sees, and doesn't seem to recognize it as himself.

I switched to a Mac last spring, after "upgrading" to a PC running Vista - which, after 1 week, I took back. If I had to learn an entirely new user interface and buy all new software, I wanted to at least have something that was GOOD.

(I'm eliminating my long anti-Vista rant here, but you can probably fill in the blanks.)

The Safari browser was cool and had a lot of neat features, but it was basically useless when I used it to test out web pages. No URL bar that I could find (when you hover over a link), plus it was extremely reluctant to reload a new page, preferring to re-display the last one it saw. Even when I uploaded completed pages to the server, it took me a couple of refreshes - or more - before Safari would let me see the new stuff.

Firefox, which I used preferentially on my XP PC instead of IE, eliminated all these problems. I've pretty much stopped using Safari at all.

Whenever I hear the words "business model", I know there's very little chance of getting any changes.

You may think, Little Brother, that you and other intelligent letter writers and readers are the backbone of the Salon readership.

But it's clear, from the new business model that, in fact, you're not part of the audience Salon wants to keep. And neither am I. Provide as much feedback as you wish; organize joint actions - the fact is that you, I and several others are not the customers who are worth keeping.

And so Salon management won't modify a line of html, if it means we might stay.

I agree with you about the ads that follow you down the page - I complained about this to the webmaster in the trial period before they phased in the new design. If I recall correctly, the response was that "other people have complained about this, too."

Ditto for the ad that you have to watch when you first visit salon.com. The little x to make it go away has, in my experience, never worked. I do a page reload as soon as salon.com comes up; that gets rid of it quicker.

Don't get me started on the cluttered, repetitive front page.

Am I tired of it all? Definitely. I've set my subscription to not renew, and have just a matter of weeks left.

I'm guessing it's the "digby effect." Had a male taken down the alleged shooter, he would have been the next Sully Sullivan, his picture everywhere and people singing his praises for his phenomenal shooting, coolness under fire, courage, ability to deal with pain, honor in helping another victim even though wounded - he'd have received the Presidential Medal of Honor before the weekend was up, and be hitting all the talk shows for the next few weeks. His book would initiate another round of lauding, as would the subsequent movie. Potentially, he'd never have to work a real job for the rest of his life.

But a woman? Taking down a crazed gunman? Rescuing another person after having been shot herself? Well, sure. Of course she did. What else would you expect?