If the non-transgendered gay community would pass a rights bill at the expense of the Transgendered than in my view that community has lost its primary moral claim and become no different than any other special interest group.

CSMarker missed the point in such a painfully complete fashion as to make one yearn for razor blades and rubbing alcohol as a less painful alternative...

He/She writes:

1) ALL HANDSETS are locked in the US and there is no way you're going to get them to interoperate on other networks.

Wrong on both points. All handsets are not locked, and handsets do work in multiple networks (albeit not all handsets will work on all networks-but most handsets will work on more than one network).

2) YOU MADE THE CHOICE to buy this phone knowing full well that it's exclusively on AT&T's network...

The point of the lawsuit is the claim that the limitation to AT&T's network violates an existing California law.

3) GETTING IT UNLOCKED voids your warranty and you knew that already as well.

Apple is making the claim that they have the right to limit warranty coverage to locked phones. I claim that this is an unreasonable and unlawful claim to make. Toyota can't limit the warranty on a car to those who use certain gasoline.

4) TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO SUE APPLE MAKES YOU LOOK LIKE A COMPLETE IDIOT! IF YOU DIDN'T REALLY WANT THE PHONE, DON'T BUY IT!.. OR LIVE WITH THE FACT THAT IT'S ON AT&T's NETWORK!

Apple is engaged in a practice which appears to be illegal. Trying to change that behavior through our fine legal system is reasonable behavior.

"It's ironic that this doll's creator purports to educate a person in what moves will produce an orgasm. Everyone's path to climax is different, and the only way to sexual success is communication -- the very thing this machine does not do."

Kyle didn't design the doll as an educational tool on orgasm, but as an example, call it a sketch, of an alternate user interface.

The machine does communicate-it communicates very well (albeit non-verbally :-) If you are doing the 'right' thing than feedback is nearly instant. Which offers an interesting lesson-providing negative feedback (ie. 'no, not there') is important. Moaning Lisa only tells you when you are doing something nice.

(for what it is worth-I speak with a tiny bit of authority on Lisa. I was the unnamed audience member :-)

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/10/moanin-and-maki.html

OTOH, unless something is actually uncomfortable, we don't tend to provide negative feedback to our partners. Maybe you are different, but my experience has communication limited to variations on 'that feels bad' and 'that feels good...really good.' I seldom if ever hear or say 'That isn't doing anything special for me.'

This is a scary quote for the article:

"In a very real sense, the next batch of Supreme Court Justice nominations could hinge on how far home prices fall in, for example, Southern California."

In light of this quote it is hard not to see Leonard's writing as advocating economic collapse as a simple tool towards political change.

It doesn't make it less scary to me that I most likely agree with his political choices.

Some might say, and in fact all professional journalists and columnists do say, that using 'some might say' is a sign of weak writing and worse.

"Then again, some might say that any CEO who rakes in $130 million the same year that his company announces plans to lay off 12,000 workers is a criminal, pure and simple,"

Columnists who write "Some might say" in order to avoid standing behind their own personal libel are less than honorable.

Andrew says "Anybody who has been following my coverage of Countrywide and Mozilo knows that I was not using "some would say" to hide anything. Puh-leez."

Okay, then you were flat out libeling Mozilo with your claim.

puh-leze? How classy.

This seems an important point of her comments: ", I would venture to say there hasn't been a single constituent in my district that has ever asked me for more broadband ..."

Assuming this is true, no one has asked her for more broadband, and they have complained to her about net delivered porn.

My pro-porn credentials are pretty solid, for example this link includes a picture of me diddling a mannequin at the Kink.com porn palace :-) http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/10/moanin-and-maki.html

I also helped set up one of the first community wireless networks to bring broadband to Sonoma County. I'm a netizen, a pornophile, a screaming freaky liberal (albeit one who thinks that free-ish markets are good things), but speaking really seriously, are Marcy Karptur's constituents best served by government investments in broadband?

(as a side note, I got the 'France' joke, and thought it was pretty damn funny-it wasn't that subtle, and the 'what did you think, france was in the third world' rejoinder didn't sound 'ironic,' just sort of defensive and tired. But mining right wing tropes for humor is problematic...I still hate references to the 'internets.' It is generally okay to make fun of the French because I learned that particular intolerance from Monty Python during high school, and the bigotry we learn as humor is always acceptable.)

Thank you for focusing on the torture issue. (and f*** me with a fork that 'torture' could be an 'issue.')

But is Rudy really 'the' target? Is he worse than the other republicans? Is he worse than all of the democrats? (I hope so, I assume so)