Ahem... "When we think of Apple, we picture not only computers and music players and phones but also an identity, a value system and a set of beliefs, something very like a friend." Um, not quite. That's what consumer-tech writers think of when they think of Apple. When I think of Apple, I think of overpriced consumer objects with proprietary software and a mean streak cleverly hidden by focus-grouped marketing. That, and "style." Who wants to bet that Pogue and all the poguettes of the world will be embarrassed twenty years from now when they look back at the vapid designs that they drool over today?

And, btw, there is no way that Kerry was a PC. PC = stolid and bloated but also powerful, functional, and geeky in a corporate way. Kerry is too slim to be a PC, and completely ungeeky. So what is he? Well... he's Kerry. Do we all have to be consumer objects from some corporation's ads? As for Huckabee, it's bad enough that he's Huckabee. Just leave it at that, please.

Has anyone suggested that maybe, perhaps, possibly, the voters listen to the candidates' positions and base their decisions on them?

Back-of-the-envelope calculation: a 60-watt "grow system," which apparently needs to be plugged in and running continuously, will use 525 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. I wonder if there could be some low-cost solar-powered alternative? Hmmm... like, maybe, growing plants in SUNLIGHT?

More quick calculations: running this contraption for a year will produce maybe 75 pounds of basil (megapesto, anyone?) and 700 pounds of carbon dioxide. I'm assuming the truth of manufacturer's claim of $300 worth of basil every six months (and assuming $8/lb for basil), and using the US average of 1.35 lbs per kilowatthour of electricity generated. If your local utility uses coal, you're looking at 1,050 lbs of CO2.

Why continue to carry the story about the story here?

Because Fox News online (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,317201,00.html) continues to carry the story, the entire story, still headlined "Little Outrage Over Student Beating at Princeton University" and still with the intentionally provocational lead sentence "Conservative students and faculty at Princeton University are questioning the absence of campus and community outrage — following the beating of a student leading a morality movement at the school." All they have done is append a weasly disclaimer, which they have labeled "Update" (not "We Screwed Up" or "This Entire Story Is a Lie").

...that the so-called "journalist" is still laughing at drunk-shirtless-hat-guy. That was so last 7:19!

Thanks for the laffs...

I remember hearing about this "harsh interrogation technique" from the time, several decades ago, when I was in grade school. But it was always called "the water torture." It has always been called "the water torture." Why do we suddenly let the CIA, White House, etc. get away with calling it "waterboarding"? My kid used to go waterboarding when we lived in Miami for a few months. Waterboarding is fun! The water torture is not. And if you call it "water torture," the question "Do you believe water torture is torture?" has a very clear and undeniable answer.

Republican candidates are supposed to lie and cheat. Their supporters would be disappointed if they didn't.

I've been doing "my part" to save gas for years -- basically, ever since I learned to drive. (Following Dano's notion, I just calculated that my wife and I have averaged 6 gallons/week for the past two years. Yes, I do record my mileage!) I bike or walk to work, avoid unnecessary trips, get 40 mpg when I do drive, etc.

My question is: what have I accomplished (other than save myself a bundle of money over the years)? Have I really "saved" any gas, in any meaningful sense?

Or, as I suspect, does all my scrimping on gas (not to mention electricity and natural gas at home) just lower the overall demand for petroleum, and so lower the price of gas, and so make it possible for people who don't think or don't care about such things to buy their hummers and squander the oil that I've tried to save?

Getting past the petroleum age and solving the global warming problem (along with other severe ecological problems) is going to take strategic thinking on a grand scale. Individual conservation is good for individuals, and potentially good for society (to the extent that we can dream of the day when conservationists will set the pace for everyone else). But it is going to take more than easing up on the gas pedal on an individual basis to solve, really solve the twin problems of using up the world's petroleum supplies and destroying the earth's human-friendly ecology in the process.

Typo: for "took between 2 to 3 percent as long as non-distracted drivers" read "took 2 to 3 percent more time than non-distracted drivers."

Plus: if reducing oil and gas consumption is a good thing, then why is driving slower a bad thing? So you get to the airport later. Just leave earlier -- problem solved.

When I was a grad student -- oh, about 25 years ago -- I spent a couple of years doing research in a little town in Mexico where the electricity and water went off pretty regularly. When the water was out, I had to hike down to a spring about a quarter of a mile away (I was lucky, lived near the spring) and haul any water I wanted to use up to my rented room, bucket by bucket. When you have to carry all the water you use by hand, believe me, you learn to conserve it pretty fast! I could easily make a three-gallon bucket last a day or more. Q: if the 4 million people in Atlanta did the same, could they find a sustainable local source for 12 million gallons of water a day? My guess is, yes...