I've heard pundits talking about how Palin could "legitimately" bow out by citing family responsibilities, but if she did, would anybody buy it? Nobody but the faithful wingnuts who swallow their talking points whole. If she leaves the ticket, for any reason, everyone will know it was the campaign's decision, not hers, and McCain, having second-guessed himself, would look weak an indecisive. He might not look any worse than he looks with her on the ticket, but not any better, either.

@Thoughts -- Since Gore won the popular vote in that election, and probably (had the votes been counted properly) the electoral college, that's not a very good example of the negative consequences of the strategy. I find it interesting that virtually everyone talks about Gore's loss in 2000 without acknowledging that it was a loss because of factors that had little or nothing to do with actual votes.

I don't usually react much to news about celebrities (after all, I don't know them personally, though the gossip media encourage me to think I do), but when I read about Paul Newman's death this morning, I got a lump in my throat.

In the sense you probably mean, the answer is no. Down syndrome is usually due to a developmental error in one of the gametes, which results in an extra copy of chromosome 21 being inserted into the nucleus of the cell that then develops into an embryo. Any fertile couple have the potential to produce a Down syndrome child, though it becomes more likely as the mother's age increases. In a small minority of cases, the extra chromosome is due to a condition specific to one or both parents, genetic translocation.

This has been a public service announcement. We now return to our regularly scheduled mockery.

Well gosh, Christopher, weren't you the one who made grand claims about a whole generation's imperviousness to advertising?

There's a circular argument here, I think. No matter what you buy, even if it's nothing, it reflects either a choice or a deliberate decision not to care. So in that sense, any choice, no matter how trivial, defines you. But so what? You can't *not* make choices (and if you didn't, that would be a choice, right?). So where does that get us?

I'm sure there are lots of consumer decisions I make that are irrational and reflect a successful marketing campaign that I'm not aware of. But if I deliberately resisted this, then that would presumably be attributable to some other marketing campaign. For example, if I choose not to buy brand name groceries or clothes and instead to shop at farmer's and crafts markets, that's just another "brand," just another consumer choice, right? Where does it end? It's like any totalizing ideology -- sure, you can look at everything through the lens of marketing. It doesn't get you anywhere interesting.

One of the great fallacies of marketing is to take consumer research and come up with a profile (or several) of the typical consumer(s) of your product, and then to treat that profile as though it were a description of a particular individual, or type of individual. It isn't.

Okay, avast2006 wins the prize.

About six months ago, I heard two four-year-olds arguing about the anatomy of a statue of the bear at the playground. "It has a penis," said the boy. "No, it has a vulva!" said the girl. Actually, it had neither. But I was glad to hear them using the proper (non-euphemistic) terms.

My daughter is two, and mostly what she wants to know about is body parts. The weirdest thing we've run into is that I wear an insulin pump, which is attached to my body with some plastic tubing. My daughter knows she's not supposed to play with mommy's tubing -- but she also seems to think that everyone has tubing, so she will often suggest "that's tubing" when she doesn't know the name of a body part.

As to when to talk to kids about sex and how much detail to go into, it really depends on the child. Some kids don't want more than a simple explanation, and you shouldn't force more detail on them than they want. On the other hand, sometimes key details get left out -- usually having to do with *why* people have sex.

This suggests a good method for getting rid of any Bush appointee you don't like: just start a rumor that they're gay. The possibilities are endless....

I live in the heart of Silicon Valley, where many people have more money than they know what to do with. I have never felt criticized or ostracized because I haven't got the latest baby stuff or a high-tech stroller. (As a side note, I rarely see Bugaboos here -- expensive jogging strollers, yes; Bugaboos, no. The first time I ever saw one was when we spent a week in Manhattan last year.)

Also, what's with all the mentions of "flyover states" and "flyover country"? I never hear this term anywhere except online, used as a stick to beat the supposedly snobbish coastal types. Can we retire the sterotype of sophisticated city dwellers vs. yokels, and also the stereotype of indulgent coastal elites vs. down-to-earth midwesterners?