"Yawning, semi-annoyed real estate agents unlock doors to deplorable, dirty apartments and casually inform potential renters desperate for housing of the thousands of dollars in fees, security's, deposits, and rent that make the once affordable apartment, completely unaffordable. There is not even the slightest attempt to convey anything resembling friendliness-- or hell, salesmanship! Fees on top of fees pile up quicker than you can blink, and if you don't want to pay for it, that's fine with the real estate agent because there a hundred people lined up behind you who are just as desperate. This scenario has played out countless times throughout New York. And we're not talking about fancy cars or expensive clothing-- things that people can make do without-- we're talking about shelter. Along with food and clothing, the most basic of human needs."

Wanna know why this is? NYC is even more unfriendly to the apartment building investor than Zimbabwe or California. Since city planners made it all but illegal to build housing in NYC and rent it for current market, investors have responded by...building elsewhere. The result is that New York renters have to fight over a static supply of shabby old apartments.

New Yorkers, take back your city. Shoot your zoning agents and "public interest" lawyers.

Here on the dark side, we knew this all along. You liberals wasted eight years trying to prove that George Bush was some sort of uniquely monstrous creation, bred in Karl Rove's laboratories to harass your pet jihadists. The truth is that just as in the time of a certain highly popular Democrat, we're fighting an all-out war that was brought to us by an implacable enemy. And just like last time, it's a war that for the sake of civilization we have no choice but to win, by whatever means may be necessary. Now that another Democrat occupies that big chair and knows what Bush knew, he is arriving at the same conclusions. Though I was not an Obama voter, I wish him well.

By rejecting all methods of electrical generation, even those which are purportedly 'green' and 'sustainable'. Meanwhile, China has the advantage that not many Chinese own cars yet, so a well-done electric product doesn't have to tempt owners away from the tried and true. Come up with an electric car that outperforms the bicycle, and you have a hundred million domestic beta test sales.

"I grew up in a small town. When I was eight or nine, my cub scout troop went on an "activity"; we went to watch one of the old-timer farmers slaughter a pig. I couldn't do it. Despite the shame of wimping out in front of my friends, I couldn't bear to go and watch. They let me stay in the car, but I still heard the scream."

That would be one of those mom-n-pop farms you liberals are always gassing away about. On a modern factory farm, the pig dies instantly.

Meanwhile, back in the pure, heavenly natural world: I take it you have never actually seen a lion bring down a wildebeeste, have you?

"Could you please explain why you think it is OK for you to do something a lion does?"

We DON'T think it's okay to rip the haunches out of our prey as its brain registers slow death by torture. What we as humans owe animals, including our prey, is humane treatment. Our technology enables us to make moral choices that are not available to lions.

The better our technology gets, the more moral we are able to become. As other posters have pointed out, we will eventually be able to grow meat in vats. The vegans will refuse such meat because it's not "natural", while the rest of us chow down on guilt-free veal.

"I would rather a million children suffered and died than one cow eaten."

"Why is it that a bear is just being a bear when it makes a choice to eat berries or a salmon, but the human who makes the same choice is making a "moral" choice?"

What you're not getting is that veganism is both an act of faith (as in "I'm avoiding sex! See how mor-r-r-ral I am!") and a political pose deriving from self-loathing. It's the same mentality that asserts that all peoples have a right to whatever cultural attributes they want and have the right to settle wherever they wish, EXCEPT for those of European extraction.

"I can't think of a catchy name. "Wings Plus"? The airline for 'real' people."

Seriously, I'm okay with "can't lower the armrest" as a criterion for requiring passengers to buy an extra seat. And yes, if you want to travel eight months pregnant and have to occupy a second seat, you should be paying for it.

The real villain of this piece, however, is the steadily shrinking airline seat. They are getting to be small even for those who are not nutritionally enhanced. The airlines would love to make seats so small that every American has to book seats in pairs.

"Not being a New Yorker I assume I am not likely to have the chance to vote for Spitzer, but if I could I would not. This guy went after everyone else with his holier-than-thou attitude,"

But judging from the other responses in here, that's exactly the attitude New Yorkers seem to like.

"While switching much of existing electrical grid and transportation over to solar power will not be cheap and take a decade or so, the power source itself is free and unlimited. Nearly half the country has more than 250 days of sunshine a year"

Sorry, but the flat-earth lobby has already foreclosed that option for you. Search on "Feinstein" and "Sunrise Powerlink" for the story on why we won't be getting any solar energy from the Mohave Desert, a flat, unpopulated, treeless wasteland that gets over 360 days per year of the hardest and cleanest sunshine in the world. If we can't generate solar energy there, we can't generate it anywhere else.