Ideally, in a democracy with transparent workings, we'd have access to every bit of information we need to make a decently rational decision. Personally, I'm fine with the Sunday-morning chumfight... sensationalism and character assassination date back to Grover Cleveland (and centuries beyond, no doubt). As long as reporters (or bloggers, or video archivers) are transmitting all the data, let the big boys flog their stories about $400 haircuts, fake Southern accents, and mumbled Beach Boys parodies. We live in the age of RSS and aggregators... if you want the real stuff, turn your damn filter on. Why get freaked out by yellow journalism? It's always been here. I don't really consider syndicated columnists and cable TV hosts to have standards to which they must be held, other than disclosure of interests. Let them talk, let them entertain, let them go fuck themselves.

Besides, most of us indulge in armchair psychoanalysis/thinktankery on a regular basis. Keillor and Blumenthal make a lot of hay out of limning the inner workings of W's skull. Greenwald has his aristocratic Beltway media types. Lord knows Salon commenters can take a stray Paglia or Havrilesky quote and map out their complete home life. It's a common human impulse to assign anecdotes to personality traits.

Would that we were all perfect abriters of political candidates' credentials. But as far as presidential candidates go, we don't seem to be hurting for a detailed history (e.g. Giuliani & Romney's stances re: abortion). In the meantime (and I say this with as little defeatism as possible): enjoy the circus! Fault the media for engaging in kingmaking, but not for getting moony over minutiae.

Sorry, kids. Making copyrighted files available to share is wrong and can be enforced at any time. You got a problem with it, become a lobbyist or invest in new-platform content distribution. Downloading "Shawty Snappin'" is symbolically meaningless. Now you're working as many jobs as Ian Mackaye!

I mean "illegal". Big difference, in this case.

It took them long enough, but it is happening. Emusic and iTunes and Napster and Rhapsody and Walmart downloads and Drag City opening its catalog... it's finally statring to happen, to the point where you'd generally have to dig some obscure stuff (in other words, the songs and artists the RIAA doesn't search for in tracking offenders) if you can't find it somewhere for pay.

The big issues will be DRM and pricing (the late great allofmp3 made you pay pennies per megabite rather than a flat 99 cents per song, an alluring business model if there ever was one.

The cat of online muisic sales has been out of the bag for a few years now, but people still download because it's free/more convenient. Prosecuting an infinitesimal number of filesharers may look fruitless, but it's better than nothing. Perhaps a study will indicate whether the threat of lawsuits is any kind of deterrent. My gut says no, but hey, RIAA: smoke 'em if you've got 'em.

Yeah, they call him "Big Shot Rob," but he's not as vital to the Spurs' grind-it-out game as Bowen. So Horry throws the hip, he puts a little scare into Nash, and on top of that, he just might get a couple Suns suspended for a game due to ridiculously rigid league policy!

By the way, King, didja catch Raja "Clothesline" Bell talking about Horry's "hockey foul"? Priceless.

Fucking despise that term. I first saw it used in a Pitchf**k year-end list; it was referenced to defuse it, but the phrase lingered. What's wrong with dads? Who wouldn't want to hear what a father has to say? I love my dad. He's a man of tremendous courage and conviction.

I mean, I get what the term implies: complacency, a cheery squint at Americana. What's the better brand? Hormone rock? The last half-decade of herky-jerks and scripted temper tantrums? The kind of people who say "dad rock" confuse their albums with vintage scarfs and hair dye.

Welcome to the internet! We hope you have a fabulous time getting to know your World Wide Web! Feel free not to apologize namelessly for faceless people any more! Never worry about harmless vitriol again - it comes standard!

What FMHilton said. The man had some deeply skewed priorities, but apparently, on at least one occasion, he was a man of principle. Great testimony... what's it going to take for Bush to cut ties with Gonzales? Is the AG gonna have to receive a massage?

Fred Phelps thinks "I'm winning!"

The fault isn't with the enforcement of the rule - as much handwringing was expended before the announcement, only an official like Stu Jackson could've stepped to the podium - but with something else you addressed. There is no excuse for not building some flexibility into the ruling months ago. After the Pistons/Pacers debacle, I can't fault Stern for getting nervous about players wandering freely, seeking whom they may devour, but it was either remarkably shortsighted or merciless of him not to predict this scenario and draft a rule accordingly. So the Suns are playing with one hand behind their back for a game. It's still a tied series. Suck it up, move Marion like a chess piece, and hope the league gets it right by next season, if not the next series.

And if that's not good enough, tell Barbosa to start walking under jump shooters.

That was fucking classic. I can't stop laughing... kinda wish I read that after work.

I have nothing much to add. "Freebirthing" is a hideous prescription when applied to all (or even most) women. Don't fight evolutionary biology, people. I don't know if freebirthing can be attributed to a misplaced devotion to all things vaguely "natural," or to our amusing American tendency to greet every problem with a positive attitude and crossed fingers.