The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) tried to start one of these markets to be predictive of terrorist events. The public got wind, Senators grandstanded, and the project was killed. Looks like it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

Someone expresses their opinion with ferver. Why is your reaction, and the reaction of many liberals, that of a shrinking violet. What happened to people with convictions. Stand up to the political bullies. Make your opinion known in return. Wil's stepson witnessed something that afternoon. Wil would like to think he witnessed his level headed step-dad courteously avoiding conflict. I would suggest he experienced something more base and primal. He witnessed an opinion sticking. Sticking by will of force and overt conviction. An idea, and the subjugation of an idea. One man walked away with a feeling that he is right, the other just wanted to wish the whole thing away. Oh the bad men on T.V. who have lead my poor parents astray. Where are you the whole time they are falling prey to rightist propoganda? Avoiding conflict? Why aren't they already very clear on your position regarding capital punishment? Probably because you are not clear yourself. Stand up for what you believe. Don't just believe. That's not enough! Wil... walk like you got a pair.

The boyfriend should not have an expectation of safety for his money, anywhere other than an insured bank (unless of course it is the 80's and the bank is a savings and loan). So the boyfriend is responsible for his loss...but...

The host feels responsible. Maybe he even suspects foul play with the help. Perhaps he has prior experience. In any event he offers to compensate. He is not obligated to make the offer, but he does. Don't offer if you don't expect someone to accept. The boyfriend is not obligated by courtesy to refuse the offer. If he was, the whole contract of generous offers and acceptance would be undermined. What is the trust in an offer if refusal is the expectation.

Dad offers to reimburse the host. He feels embarassed. That's his problem, not the host's or the boyfriend's. Again, offer on the table...offer accepted. Fine.

Ahhh, but there is the rub. The father's friend accepted the money, even though the father was in no way obligated to pay him. The father's friend is guilty of the same thing the father is accusing the boyfriend of.

Dad expects reimbursment. Nobody is offering anymore. Dad is responsible for his own money decisions.

But how to resolve this to everyone's satisfaction? Everyone needs to sit down, daughter, mother, father, boyfriend and discuss the events as they perceive them. The resolution should come in the form of a handshake and an understanding and not money. The father can afford to take a loss on this one. The boyfriend, as a thank you to all parties for their concern, can offer something other than money. A gift of some sort. Perhaps photography.

I think you responded with a well thought out and on the mark assesment of the situation. I'm sure that you consider these reader responses. Just remember that we are all monday morning quarterbacks. Don't shape your style to conform to the reader's desires...we would like to hear from you. From You. Not the echo of our own voice that wants to proffer advice.

I see improvement in your advice. Keep up the good work.

Reader response to articles is a great new feature. You can inprove it by making the responses threaded (like slashdot), that way the flow of response is not only reader to article, but reader to author, and reader to reader. Find a way to limit the threads so they don't go off in all directions. Right now the reader response is interesting, but with 100 responses to sort through it gets cumbersome.

You could also consider allowing readers to start their own blog under the Salon.com masthead. Blog content with high readership can be ported over to the salon site.

Consider adding more media types to articles. Instead of relying on an illustration and some copy, adding video and photo galleries and audio samples etc... could help a story.

Vote for the article we want: Users submit article concepts. These are narrowed down to one through polling/voting. Salon hires the appropriate writer to pursue the concept.

Thanks for even asking. Most news sources don't even have any way of responding at all and no interaction with it's readership.