...this opinion is a bit over the top and misinformed. Yes, the city provided many incentives but to say the stadium was built with taxpayer funds is a bit of a stretch. There are certain components (a parking garage I think) that were built on the city's dime. There were also tax exemptions provided to bonds that the Yankees issued but that isn't exactly money out of the city's coffers...without the new stadium there would have been no bonds in the first place. I don't mean to minimize the city's involvement but these actions are not more egregious than those taken by cities and states all over the country to curry favor with all sorts of businesses including sports teams.

As for Brodsky, he's built his own house of glass so I'm amazed that he's the one throwing stones here. He deep-sixed NYC's congestion pricing plan (one that would have reduced traffic and emissions in NYC) because he's received gifts and contributions from the NYC parking companies that would have been hurt by the plan. He's as dirty as any of them. It's amazing that we have politicians policing the actions of other politicians when they're all equally corrupt. These people have no shame.

Sotomayor seems to be an intriguing pick and appears to be well qualified. The GOP is once again taking the wrong approach. It seems they'd rather be mean spirited and attach the selection based on race rather than on qualifications. If they chose to make the CT firefighters case the focal point of their criticism they would gain a lot more traction while alienating fewer people. We'll see what the current Supreme Court has to say but I think that a strong majority of Americans could be convinced that she got that case wrong. A well reasoned attack on that front could bring Sotomayor's judgment into question rather than her race. This would be more appropriate and effective.

In any case, I miss the days when spirited debate about nominees was typically followed by near unanimous confirmation votes. It seems that the past few (and likely future) confirmation votes go down party lines further proving that our country is in the hands of partisan fools.

Without knowing anything about the code underlying iTunes, I have a hard time believing that Rubenstein is using any inside knowledge about iTunes to make this happen. iTunes has been updated/patched many times since he left Apple. What we're seeing here is more a case of chutzpah than insider information. Once Palm decided to go this route it was probably up to the engineers to find a way to implement it rather relying on some code Rubenstein downloaded to his thumb drive on the way out the door from Apple. If this is the case, it's likely that anything Apple does to "block" the Pre will be answered by another workaround from Palm. That said, I agree that Apple should try to block the Pre and it should do so immediately. The PR hit for Apple would be much milder if the Pre "never" works with iTunes than if the Pre "sometimes" works with iTunes.

Our economy is largely service oriented and we export relatively little. We are dependent on our own population to drive demand. As long as the economy is shedding jobs (no matter how "few") we will continue to see weakening demand for our products and the downturn will continue to feed on itself. I will not feel an confidence in a turnaround until we see positive job growth. Until that point we are merely witnessing fluctuations in the rate of decline and should not be encouraged.

I'm a left a little deflated from the Bruno stunt on MTV and the other promotional clips I've seen for the movie. I found Bruno to be the most entertaining and provocative (in a thoughtful way) character on Da Ali G Show. In addition to being incredibly funny, Bruno humor was about far more than making heterosexuals uncomfortable. In fact his take downs of the fashion and celebrity industries offered much needed critiques of people who would say just about anything to get on TV. (Particularly memorable was a backstage interview at a fashion show where the fashion insider agreed that the show was both "heavy" and "light" just moments apart in order to concur with Bruno's line of "questioning" and another talking head who reversed his opinion of Paris Hilton in a second take in order to align his "views" with those of the shows "sponsor.") I hope that the movie includes a little more of this and a little less of the nudity humor that's being promoted. I wish Sasha Baron Cohen didn't need to target the least common denominator.

@Agile Cyborg, thank you for your comment. Much more thoughtful than most of what we get in the posts and comments on broadsheet.

You state: "More importantly, I'm willing to make my own health decisions in consultation with my doctor, and choose what's right for me from the available options."

I agree with your approach but the issue here might be that your information (and your doctor's) will be heavily influenced by the information, data, attractive representatives, marketing muscle, promotional materials, flashy commercials and other propaganda utilized by the pharmaceutical industry. To assume that we can sit down and have informed conversations with our doctors absent the influence of the pharmaceutical company in question is naive.

What bothers me most is that this drug barely works even by Pfizer's trials. It reduces pain on a subjective 1-10 scale by 2. I guess 20% is a lot but the placebo reduces pain by 1 point. The world spends $2 billion annually on a drug that may have dangerous known and unknown side effects, increases an already unsustainable percentage of GDP to pay for healthcare costs, and enriches a pharmaceutical company for what is, at most, 1 point on the 1-10 scale.