So according to Hutchison's logic, all perjury charges are techicalities unless one is lying under oath about having sex, since one can't forget having sex.

What an interesting view of perjury, and the justice system.

Since Libby, Rove, et al only screwed Plame figuratively and not literally, they are off the hook, in Hutchison's self-serving logic.

Hmmm.

I will miss The Fix. If Salon were a person, I always thought s/he would be a bit like how I see myself: politically & socially aware, witty, and deep, but not above some shallow schadenfreude.

Yes, it was available elsewhere, but I liked the digested format. It was a daily guilty pleasure that prevented me from going to hard stuff like TMZ, which is where I've been the past couple of weeks. I hope you bring it back some day.

-longtime premium subscriber

You wrote: [internet] is key. We all have phones and iPods, but the portable Internet is a fairy tale every tech company has been laboring to realize for a long while. So far, we've got nothing very great. The best portable Internet app is e-mail on a BlackBerry, and it feels stunted compared with what you get on a full machine...Well, don't underestimate the importance of searching Google while you're riding a bus. "

I have a Treo 700P (browser is Blazer), and I google on the bus all the time, in addition to checking email. (You're supposed to use a stylus on the touchscreen, but I and others often use my finger.) I'm sure it could be better, and I can't watch youtube (although I can watch videos), but I do have web access wherever I have reception. The Treo also has an MP3 player, to which I transfer tunes from my computer using hotsync. All this is not a big deal.

As you said, it is the style quotient--things may be a little more elegant on the iphone. I think is also the hype quotient.

Farhad:

You keep writing as if the iPhone invented websurfing on the phone. Get a Treo--my 700P has web access, and an app called "On Demand," which is even more efficient than the web when you're on the go: it lets you look up addresses and get maps, directions, weather, news, or sports updates within seconds. Or get one of the dozens of other cheaper phones that have web access.

Where are these "recent polls?" I had no luck finding them on google. Another poster mentioned that the polls included people who didn't also point out Alaska and Hawaii, but again, no link.

After watching Miss South Carolina's answer, such poll results seem plausible. However, that does not mean we should take the teen interviewer's claim as fact without verifying. "Recent polls" is suspiciously vague. I hope Snopes.com gets on the case.

Salon is my favorite online mag--but who decided to make this the lead article? This guy stopped being able to compete in marathons because of a bum knee--and it never occurred to him that he might have ruined his knee by pushing his body too hard training for that 4-hour-goal. Another poster pointed out the (subtle? not so subtle) racism and sexism of the Oprah flab quote. I doubt McClelland even realizes how revealing his own words are. A (shudder) middle-aged woman hauling her flab? Not a thin young male Yalie? Shudder! And in the District of Columbia, no less! (Which happens to be black urban area. Hmm.)

I think long-term sports-related injuries are just as much of a scourge as obesity, and just as unnecessary in many cases. The anti-obesity obsession in this country is just our nation's latent Puritanism rearing its head. I think Penguin's attitude is far healthier than McClelland. Penguin may not be fast, but he's still in the game. McClelland is not.

I've never done the marathon; I've done the 5-boro Bike Tour. The organizers were quick to remind us that it was not a race. So some marathoners have that attitude. More power to them.

Dan Balz's piece was plagiarized from Robert George at Ragged Thots.

Balz: "Barack Obama leads a charmed life. He finally had his Sister Souljah moment and didn't even have to show up. Jesse Jackson did it for him solo."

George (http://raggedthots.blogspot.com)

"Obama's "Sister Souljah" Moment...

...is delivered by Jesse Jackson -- on himself!

And Barack Obama didn't even have to get himself invited to a Jackson event to set this up.

Obama truly does lead a charmed life."

When I saw the headline and teaser line, I thought this would be a clever parody, and was looking forward to an enjoyable few minutes reading the first of a series of apocryphal and hilarious rants from a putative cranky conservative. Unfortunately, it was earnest and whiny, but not over the top like, say, David Horowitz. What a disappointment.

I'll just have to reread the poetry of Glenn Beck.

Does Chris Matthews lose sleep worrying about Irish Catholics being stigmatized by what is effectively affirmative action for Irish Catholic firefighters? (Tradition, family connections, chief firefighter jobs reserved...)

Did George W. Bush lose a lick of sleep because he got admitted to Yale as a legacy student?

No one loses sleep over white affirmative action, but when it comes to black affirmative action, people are suddenly very concerned about the negative psychological and sociological consequences...