Whatever happened to just being able to identify and acknowledge a writer's or a medium's bias and then just making up your OWN mind about things? When you read Paul Gigot in the WSJ, don't you kind of know you're getting a certain, shall we say, "spin" on things? Same if you're reading, say, Michael Moore's blog? It's not Farhad's problem, it's YOURS.

At any rate, this whole Apple vs. PC thing just never made sense to me, especially the nasty back-and-forth and even that ad campaign, even though I found it amusing. We have both PCs and Macs Chez URL, always have, and probably always will. Each platform has its pluses and minuses.

I will say, though, that Steve Jobs is the only guy on earth who has made me covet technology. Like, drool over it, desire it, have to have it. If it was just all that other stuff, I'd never give it a second thought, other than I look at Mr URL's box of tools down in the basement: we have to have it, we use it for important stuff, but it leaves me pretty cold.

Whereas I want to sleep with my iPhone. =)

Be sure to use an iPhone sleeve when you do.

See? I do care about your well-being. Just not about your curmudgeonly ways. =)

What, his government cough*socialized medicine*cough health plan doesn't cover something like that?

I suggest he drop Greenspan's book on it. That should take care of it.

I don't have time to read all the letters so maybe this has already been sussed out, but what comes to my mind when I try to puzzle out the "WHY" of seeking out this stranger is that the LW wants to BE the other child. Wants to see what "could have been" to have been fathered by her dad but not exposed to all the alcoholism.

Because, otherwise, I can't grasp why the LW is so wrapped up in this thing - to the rather (to me) weird extent of all those machinations described in the letter. There's just something ELSE goin on here besides all that mess. And it's in her/his head, methinks.

Just a thought.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the Clinton Machine will steamroll right over anybody in their way toward the Oval Office, and they're demonstrating that in spades, if I may use that word. Innuendo, character assassination on the flimsiest if not false premises, miscasting words and ideas and actions, the whole nine yards. I'm sick of it.

What pains me most of all is that a fine candidate and real change agent, John Edwards, gets shoved to the side by not only the MSM but everyone else, too.

There's your girl, ladies. You can have her.

I read an article (maybe in the WSJ? I forget) about taking a laptop through airport security, thereby giving security the right to search the entire contents of the laptop. This isn't even an "incident of arrest" scenario, but was considered something that airport security could legally do.

I suppose it would wreak havoc on your travel plans, and likely land you in a cell next to some Icelandic woman who'd overstayed her visa 10 years ago, but why couldn't you plead the Fifth?

Be a test case. Be the next Roe or Brown or whatever.

Anyway, why not the Fifth? I'm asking.

Oh, and Scalia's right. *hurl* But he is, on this one.

It's the 21st century, chall.

What, there are no 00's battles to be fought that aren't worth investing ourselves in? And this is from someone who sat with her highly-invested-in-60s battles mom on a railroad track to block napalm shipments from Olin, marched for reproductive rights not once but twice in D.C., among other things. I'm not going to bore you with my 60s street cred because I feel it's time to address the 00s battles instead.

What on earth is Joan thinking when she - not once, but twice now - asserts that this whole thing is about agreeing or disagreeing with her? When did being an editor of a publication become THE ground-zero of opinion, to be agreed with or not? Isn't it time us boomers just STFU???? And maybe look forward instead of backward? Try to get a grasp on somebody ELSE"S battles for a change?

And aren't editors supposed to sort of lie low and try to suss out what's going on OUT THERE, instead of what's going on inside their own little brains?

All this "me-mE-ME" stuff - from Joan, from Cary Tennis, and, now, from Joe Conason of all people - is just crazy! And the snarky comments from both Cary and Joan about the disagreements with them!

This is what passes for journalism these days (I know Cary's not a "journalist" but still)???? This is the level of "interactive" media???

Good god in heaven, this is nuts. I've always decried the potential of the "Information Superhighway" devolving into nothing better than "Tobacco Road," but have we sunk this low, even here?

salon.com is dead; long live salon.com

The only way to extinguish the behavior of forum trolls is to ignore them - COMPLETELY. ABSOLUTELY. FULL STOP.

Can't you see that a certain someone seems to be lurking 24/7 and responding in double-quick time to any little thing that seems to refer to said certain someone? Why do you feed that insatiable but pathological hunger?

Zip it, kids. And Joan, could you please add an "ignore" function here? That would really keep things more civil.

Thanks in advance for your consideration on these matters.