Because if it is, it's pretty well hidden. Cops can't have crowds see them getting cowed by loudmouths? And just why is that? Last time I checked, cops were only entitled to arrest people who had broken laws, not so that they can save face in front of the public.

The idea that police get special rules because their job is tough is absurd. If anything, police must be more responsible and restrained than average people. The most basic tenet of their job, after all, is to PROTECT and SERVE the people, not intimidate them, bully them, or "put them in their place" even if they are obnoxious loudmouths.

Apparently the author of this article expects endless measures of calm, patience, professionalism, courtesy, and deference from the average citizen, aka Gates. But he does not seem to think that cops should be bothered enough to even arrest people for legitimate reasons. If a cop gets pissed off for whatever reason and abuses his power, it is somehow the fault of the person who pissed him off. Right.

I'm not faulting Crowley nor excusing Gates. I have as little idea what really happened there as everyone else who spouts expertise about it. But the part of our culture that tends to worship and fear people in authority is disgusting. Anyone who has read about the many abuses of power perpetrated against innocent people by members of law enforcement should be disgusted by this author's attitude towards police authority.

I consider myself as liberal and progressive as anyone, but I'm not particularly thrilled about this healthcare bill. My dad was a career Marine officer and I have long been regaled by my parents about the wildly varying quality of care they received from military caregivers. Even at institutions as famous as Johns Hopkins, the ward nurses are apparently awful. My mom almost had my older brother removed from her custody (he was then a newborn) because she had to leave her recovery room momentarily to find a bathroom where she could have a sitz bath. My dad, who was passing kidney stones, got locked in a closet and forgotten because it was employee lunch break and no patients could be in actual operating rooms during that break. After her hysterectomy, my mom was informed by a nurse that she would start having her period again in 4 to 6 weeks. As a preschooler, I also had the experience of being locked in a closet by the on-base preschool after they learned my dad had recently recovered from hepatitis.

The stories go on. My mom eventually refused to go to military hospitals - I was born in a civilian hospital instead, which I hear was a far superior experience.

I must clarify and say that Max Baucus is, by national standards, a DINO. This is not to say that I dislike him representing our state: It's either someone like him, or someone like Conrad Burns, the recently ousted senator who many of you may remember as the biggest beneficiary of Jack Abramoff. The closest we get to "liberals" in this state are a lot more like libertarian.

Montana Democrats are essentially Republicans who wear blue and occasionally stand up against the grossest environmental crimes of out-of-state corporations. They couldn't get elected otherwise. Jon Tester, our newest senator, is better than Baucus, but still hardly liberal by even the most generous of definitions.

This is why our modern party system is a joke. When people like Arlen Specter and Joe Lieberman can call themselves Democrats and not get laughed at, when Lindsey Graham qualifies as a "moderate," it's hard to take our Senate majority really seriously.

maybe 3 people I know who are good enough at writing succinctly and cleverly that they can create meaning in the space of 140 characters. For everyone else, twitter is just another reason to keep actively butchering the English language with pointless and confusing updates about nothing.

In case you haven't guessed, I've not touched twitter and I refuse to. Even that cute bird logo won't tempt me. And I say this as an early adopter of facebook, iPods, and various other "groundbreaking" new technologies.

Is that it's online media outlets like AskMen.com that have made Megan Fox into such a hot summer commodity anyway. Now they are apparently bored of their own creation and would like to move onto someone new, at least for one day.

It's probably wrong of me to judge someone based solely on their looks, but in my opinion Megan Fox only ever had the appeal of your average porn star. She's neither an exotic beauty like Cote de Pablo nor classically good-looking like Eva Green... and more importantly, she's not a quarter as talented as either of those actresses.

So frankly, AskMen and all those others can shove it. It's vapid, tasteless entities like them that created Megan Fox. They're big boys, they shouldn't whine about their poor taste after the fact.

I'm 22, male, and of Scandinavian descent with the accompanying blond hair and pale, ruddy complexion. I wear 45 spf sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, and at least a short-sleeved t-shirt religiously, and I still get relatively tan every summer from running, biking, and hiking nearly every day.

But I have to agree with Anne in NYC... in my opinion, people who are obviously tan from something other than some kind of outdoor job look cheap and trashy, whether male or female, and the trashiness of that look only gets more pronounced as the individual ages. Healthy, well-cared-for skin looks better than a bake job on anyone of either sex or any age. And that's before you even get into the actual health issues at hand.

If the sonogram images didn't look like fetal death masks.

Creeeeepy.