Shouldn't this man be in jail? Seriously. Am I missing something?

Georgetown is right about reading Proust.

Henry James, too.

I know all new re-designs take some getting used to, but some just never take--and this looks like one of them. As someone who reads most major articles on the site and visits several times a day, I'd like to be able to see at a glance what is new. Getting linked to an older article on a similar topic is an annoyance. As many have pointed out, making the site look more like a newspaper seems like a step backwards.

Don't need no stinkin' testosterone to gather--strictly women's work in your standard hunter-gatherer society. Kinda picky, but since it's supposed to be your best paragraph...

Gates could have avoided getting arrested by being more cooperative and less of a jerk. Crowley could have prevented the arrest by being more professional and less of a jerk. Even points. But Crowley trumps Gates in the blame game by (very probably) violating three separate laws, to zero laws violated by Gates.

1. Making a false statement in an official report. Crowley's report refers to two black men with backbacks. We now know with near certainty that he just made this up. In the 911 tape we hear the caller talking about one possibly hispanic man and one of unknown race, and suitcases on the porch. She says she provided no further information to Crowley in person at the scene, and it seems pretty implausible that she would change her story completely on the spot and then lie about it. This blatant falsehood of course calls into question all of the other statements in Crowley's report.

2. Failing to provide identification on request. Policemen in MA are required by law to identify themselves. Crowley says he provided his name verbally (which may or may not be the case, his credibility being questionable--see above), but if he had shown an ID as required, surely Gates would not have followed him out of the house continuing to demand his identity.

3. False arrest. The text of the relevant statute is apparently a bit vague, but subsequent court decisions have made it clear that Gates' actions did meet the legal definition of disorderly conduct. Crowley, or his superiors, were certainly aware of this, at least after the fact, as evidenced by use of the odd word "tumultuous" in the police report, mimicking language of a relevant court decision defining disorderly conduct. And of course the charge was quickly dropped.

So it's one jerk behaving within the law vs. another jerk, who happens to be a law officer, breaking a whole mess of laws. So, leaving aside blame for the moment, who's in the wrong?

Just to straighten a few things out: Bluefin tuna, wild stocks of which have been decimated, are a different species from Southern Bluefin Tuna, which are in pretty good shape population-wise and are the fish being developed for full-cycle (from the egg) farming by Clean Seas in Australia. There is already a well-developed Southern Bluefin "ranching" industry in Port Lincoln that raises young tuna caught in the wild up to market size. These ranched fish are much better quality than farmed salmon, and are inferior to wild-caught Southern Bluefin only in that they are harvested at a smaller size. The Japanese, as you might guess, are meanwhile developing their own full-cycle farming program for Pacific Bluefin Tuna (endangered). Both farming programs are some years away from commercialization, so for the time being the "ranching" scenario is a better bet for keeping the market sustainably supplied.

The "does torture work" issue is interesting in its own right, but irrelevant to the more important legal questions before us. If torture is illegal, and if it occurred, then its possible efficacy is in no way exculpatory--no more than a bank robber would be excused if he used the proceeds of the crime for a worthwhile cause. If we are deciding whether or not to investigate and possibly prosecute--to engage in due process and the pursuit of justice, in other words--one wonders if continuing to engage the right on the efficacy issue only muddies the waters.

Cary: Some advice I heard from an old jazz musician: "when you screw something up, don't apologize. All you have to say is 'I was just trying something'." Advice to live by, I think, although it does seem to work better among musicians than business folks. So maybe you were wise to sort of work it both ways. But I hope your editors realize your column is closer to jazz than anything else.

Fuel cell technology seems permanently 10 years in the future. But that's no reason to delay development of a hydrogen delivery infrastructure. Combustion engines run cleanly on hydrogen with relatively little modification, can run dual fuel (switching between hydrogen and gasoline), and can be rolled out to market as soon as development and production of fuel tanks can be geared up. BMW and a few other makers have had prototypes on the road for years. Why is combustion hydrogen not even in the equation? Am I missing something?

Lose the computer. If Neal Stephenson can write a 2500 page trilogy longhand, you can write down what you had for breakfast. You might have a look at Lynda Barry's book ("What It Is") if you want a whole practical program for thinking and writing and not getting blocked.

Dominatrix? Puhleez... more like a garden-variety American mean girl.

Get a grip, Gary.

Capgras Syndrome strikes again! Richard Powers' latest novel, The Echo Maker, treated the neurological disorder in some depth a couple of years ago. Interesting that the protagonist in both novels is a man, while the actual syndrome is prevalent in women.