I believe that Hedges has it all wrong. He is conflating different issues and believes and putting them all under the rubric of atheism.

1)I've read Hitchens' and Dawkins' books and they don't worship science at all. They worship the scientific method. They adore continual refinement of knowledge and the thirst for understanding the world as it is. I'm curious where Hedges gets the notion that they have some utopian belief wherein science saves us (disclaimer: I haven't read the Harris book). I also don't see where he gets the notion that these authors believe in human advancement and an inevitable ascension toward improvement. If anything, they are warning about descent from our potential.

2)Atheism has NOTHING to do with the right wing neocons. I wholly disagree with Hitchens' political views. There's no doubt he's in love with himself. However, The God Delusion does not use atheism as a platform to support his nonsensical ideas about our military intervention in the middle east. I see the two movements as completely unrelated.

3)I'm pretty confident that Hedges' issues have more to do with the personalities and methods of Hitchens and Harris than they do with their support of atheism as a worthwhile and defensible belief system. Notice he doesn't attack Dawkins once? How come no one brings up Carl Sagan? Sagan shared their view about the logical approach of postulating that a universe with a god and a universe without a god would probably look different and ours does not require a god to exist.

If anyone is interested in learning more about humanistic atheism, without all the divisive politics, I would recommend The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God by Carl Sagan. It is apolitical and charmingly warm while completely well reasoned and unsentimental.

I'm curious what Mr. Shapiro is basing his assessment on when he says that the Nevada Supreme Court was wise to deny Kucinich's petition for inclusion in the debates. I really don't have anything to add beyond what Glenn Greenwald has already said about the issue: judicial results should be evaluated on their application of the law (in this case, contract law) and not the result we would desire. I am certainly not saying the the Nevada Supreme Court got it wrong. I haven't read the opinion or the complaint. I just caution commentary that is, in the end, encouraging judicial activism (i.e. evaluating based on a desired result in place of the application of legal analysis).

First of of all, I'd like to give an unequivocal endorsement for the thrust (no pun intended) of this article: the woman's libido drug is fertile ground for feminist (meaning anyone who believes in equality in all realms for women) analysis . As a guy who works in the pharma industry *cringe*, I would suggest a bit of caution in the comparison to Viagra and its chemical cousins. Contrary to popular belief, Viagra does not directly affect a man's sex drive. It only affects the ability to achieve and maintain an erection. It does nothing for desire beyond the psychological effect of confidence in one's own ability to perform, the lack of which can fuel erectile dysfunction. This begs the question, is it biological reality or cultural stereotyping that the pharma-fix is about performance for men and desire for women? I do believe, however, that this drug can be a net good in the end, even if frigidity (what a horrible word) is often a red herring for other relationship woes.

First of all, I'm not a PC fan boy. In fact, I'm in the market for a new machine and am considering a Mac for the first time since the early 80's when I owned an Apple][C (technically not a mac but it's still an apple). I am also willing to concede that Macs are better machines. Most importantly, you can get more done with less machine because of Mac's efficiency compared with DOS and Windows.

That having been said, I still don't buy the cheaper argument.

1) The computers compared are not on par with each other. For example, 512k versus 2 gigs of memory is not comparable (though I concede that processor speed was on par).

2) While Macs definitely maintain their value more than PCs (here the foreign car versus American car paradigm might be more accurate), the computer resale market is just not that attractive to the average consumer; the same group that is least likely to pay the premium for the Mac.

3) Your article doesn't take into account compatability issues. If we were all studio engineers, we'd all own Macs. But, most of us don't deal in complex audio visual stuff. The kind of home movie editing and garage recording that the average consumer does is PC acceptable. While Mac's may have better software, it's more expensive and the difference is becoming less dramatic between platforms as these applications become mainstream. Now, if you are a gamer or use some other less than mainstream computer application, you might not be able to run it on a Mac.

I'm not saying Macs aren't worth the price. I'll even go so far as to say Macs are significantly better machines, all things being equal. The thing is, all things are never equal. And, the factors that you cited that create value in the Mac platform aren't what appeal to the average consumer. To the budget conscious purchaser, PCs are still the better deal. Though, that may not last long.