Let's take a look at a real story. Let's look at 9/11.

The various branches of the government had all the information they needed to catch the terrorists; they knew that terrorists intended to fly planes into buildings in lower Manhattan; a separate branch of the government knew that these individual terrorists were taking flying lessons; they knew well enough to prohibit senior government officials from taking commercial planes starting in August. These are matters of public record, not conspiracy theories. The government knew all this stuff but were too poorly coordinated to put the information together.

After that, we've known for years that terrorists might try something at an airport or on a plane - yet we still had, and still have, a brain-dead security system.

AND if our defense systems worked as they are specified to do then the planes would have been knocked out of the air before they hit anything.

The point is that the system failed, utterly and completely. No one did their job; torture wouldn't have helped one thing; and yet you continue to talk about torture and make up complex what-ifs when you ignore what really happened.

The reason people like torture is that they're angry: they want to hurt the bad men. There's no other rationality behind it.

"Until you've listened to all hip-hop, underground and mainstream, or at least 75% of it, from its beginning to today, please don't feel you can speak to the contribution,"

So wait, we have to listen to tens or even hundreds of thousands of tracks to discuss hip-hop? I think not.

I've been following hip-hop for over two decades and while there's still some good material, it was pretty damned disappointing to me at least after a good beginning.

I haven't heard "all hip-hop, underground and mainstream", but I've certainly heard a thousand tracks and more; there are some very fine artists there, Saul Williams and Aesop Rock being personal faves, but the overwhelming majority are cookie-cutter, "turn on the drum machine and talk about oneself in glowing terms" sort of music, and most importantly, not put together by people who have any particularly feeling for music.

I'd rather listen to an average reggae band over 98% of hip-hop because I like to listen to music. You don't have to be an instrumentalist to produce great music, but it really helps.

As for this Lil Wayne: I listened to three tracks of his and wasn't able to pay attention. Bland and dull, crass, the usual boredom.

I should add that I was also unable to finish the article I'm commenting on.

"Emulate a real person ? Huh ? Do you believe that or are you talking about a marketing line ? This no more emulates a real person than ....a vibrator does."

Clearly you didn't actually look at the video in question. The doll is shaped like a busty female and does things like shimmying "her" hips, kissing, hugging (and handing out business cards).

Dolls, almost by definition, emulate humans: if a crying, wetting baby doll isn't an emulation of a human baby, what is it? And this is an advanced doll.

This is only about 2 on the creepiness scale... but wait a few years... (shudders)

I'm pretty sensitive to noise and I live in NYC. I once lived next to an illegal salsa club, oh, boy.

However, before that I lived in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, not so far from a main road and a hospital. Late at night, you could hear ambulances but interestingly, instead of leaving their sirens on, the driver would just tap the button once in the middle of the block (to warn people going through the next intersection that they were coming).

It never woke me up (I was often up late anyway) and I was always positively impressed by the deftness with which the drivers balanced their need to get critically ill patients to immediate medical attention with the needs of the rest of the community.

Mr. Obama has not distinguished himself in the last few weeks. His sudden swing to supporting the FISA bill (spits), his threats towards Iran (spits harder) are really bad signs.

That said, voting for Mr. McCain sends a clear message: "I approve of the war in Iraq; I approve of the last eight years of government; and I want more."

Do note that Mr. Obama, even though he's also a hawk (WHEN will we get a President who'll say, "War is always our last alternative"?), has consistently opposed the Iraq war; whereas Ms. Clinton has consistently supported it up until a very few months ago, and even now is tentative in her criticisms.

So it seems clear to me that the people here who are claiming that they switched from supporting Mrs. Clinton to supporting Mr. McCain are single-issue voters who wish to continue the Iraq war (if of course they aren't Republicans lying through their teeth. We absolutely know that they are doing this on the 'net, we have to assume that at least some of these "Democrats" aren't anything like that).

I'm open to some other possibility (a close second for me is that such people have no particular interest in issues at all and are simply unhappy because their candidate was defeated).

Please explain yourselves. I have to say that I think many or most of you are Republican trolls, who, when called upon to justify their comments in terms of actual issues or actual politics, will fade into the woodwork (because they won't be able to fake "being on the left" well enough if they have to present actual reasoning), but if you aren't a Republican troll and really believe what you say, please explain why.