I was wondering when Salon would cover the Josh Wolf story.

More interesting is the issue of Federal involvement in this case. The federal argument for having his case in their jurisdiction was very flimsy - namely that the SFPD got some federal money - and seemed mainly in order to avoid California's shield law.

But on the tape, someone yells, "I'm a fed, motherfucker." Feds were involved BEFORE any the cop car was minorly damaged. Federal agents were at a minor San Francisco protest - why? How does this tie into a possible federal effort to identify civil dissidents?

It was never about the tape; it was about being compelled to testify without a lawyer in front of a grand jury. He most likely *did* know people on the tape, and would probably have been asked to identify them. What he said as part of the deal was that he did not know a) who had possibly tried to light the cop car on fire or b) who had hit the cop on the head.

The reason this is important is because these people are dissidents who do NOT want to be identified (they are wearing masks, after all) and the federal government is going around trying to identify as many dissidents as possible, often using grand juries to do so.

See, now *there's* a real story. But you letter writers would rather just insult the guy for having a blog, wouldn't you?

It is refreshing to see how many readers of Salon (most, presumably, liberals) are *not* for banning guns.

Well, the grumpy old men in the Broadsheet letters section are always warning other men to get a pre-nup. Looks like the women might want it, too.

The rest of the pamphlet is pretty wacko, but the excerpt in this article is right on. The media did jump on this story, and Salon has printed a couple anti-gun screeds immediately afterward. Have you no self-perspective?

"our troops are among the most disciplined and restrained that the world has ever seen"

Being better than France in Algeria, or the US or France in Vietnam is not terribly heartwarming.

I very much doubt that "our troops are among the most disciplined and restrained that the world has ever seen" - for starters, I would imagine the UK and Canada are better - but if they are, then that's saying a lot about soldiers in general.

What elevates this from a snide lefty remark about righties to something quite brilliant is in fact the gun control remark.

"One thing to remember is that a common tactic of Muslim insurgents around the world is to try to provoke an over-response by the conventional forces."

No, that's a tactic of insurgents or guerrillas of any kind.

"When people they don't like get tortured or beheaded or blown up, there's dancing in the streets."

True anywhere. There was cheering and nasty sentiment in the US when Saddam Hussein was killed, and when other enemies as decided by US government propaganda and the media were killed. Nasty digs about the 'religion of "peace"' are unnecessary and beside the point.

Israel continues to build settlements in the West Bank, literally builds a wall through and in the Palestinian territories, and officially discriminates against non-Jews. A democracy, yes, but also an occupying (and colonizing) power.

You could have incorporated as a limited liability corporation and saved some of the money used for, quote, "steak dinners, bicycle-mounted global position systems, super-premium ice creams, wicking fabrics and personal trainers" unquote. This would have provided for a nice non-alcoholic cushion and plan b.

These cells are frozen, literally frozen. Is it a human being? Does it have rights?

No. End of discussion.

As do I. See for example, this article by Patrick's brother Alxeander:

http://www.counterpunch.org/biglie.html

Perhaps he revealed this before, but I didn't see it. This is a delicious tidbit.

You have to try the Eddie Izzard approach - confidence in your cross-dressing. I bet it hasn't hurt his ability to get laid.

Anyone who disagrees with him must be an anti-Semite. Europe's parliamentary democracy and good rail systems are probably also a result of anti-Semitism?

The truth is that circumcision was rare in the West until, in America, there was a campaign for it as a way to prevent masturbation. The backlash now may be a bit over-emotional, but it just means getting back to the tradition of leaving the human body well enough alone. We don't do routine tonsillectomies these days, either.

Amenorrhea is can sometimes be a sign of anemia or some other general condition of poor health. You could try using a search engine to find out more about it.

"Solidarity for Sale" by Robert Fitch. Subtitle: "How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise"

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781891620720-2

Whatever.

What happened to this article:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/12/11/paris_hilton/

Six months later you're still blathering on about Paris Hilton. Just shut the fuck up already.

The only problem is that Trojan condoms suck.

The ad's pretty good, though.

And I say that as a vegetarian.

They are determinedly single-issue. They're happy to be sexist, jingoistic, miltaristic, and anything else to promote veganism. Their health claims are dubious at best.

Throughout the demo, it's 9:42 am.

Granted, it is pretty cool. Basically it looks like Apple got everything right, for the many, many things the tool does and existing tools do poorly.

Another fairly useless study, using only college students. Note that a significant number of men had

a) three sexual partners or fewer *in their entire lives*

and

b) no one-night stands