" Up yours..."

No, thanks.

" I'm no troll - point out one trolling post..."

Not a difficult task, since most qualify, but for the sake of brevity I'll point you to the first two words of the one I'm currently quoting. Troll. Beyond that, most of your other posts (and the rest of that one) also abundantly qualify.

" ...point out one post lacking substance..."

You ask for that in a post lacking subtance.

" ...in fact, point out one post where I'm wrong (I guess you're FOR honor killings and the invasion of Iraq)..."

Thank you for providing me with ammunition in the immediately following parenthetical. Once again, I don't have to bother referring to a single other post of yours to demonstrate.

" ...and I'll still be here, but you can leave because you obvioulsy are scared of free exchange..."

Free exchange is only of value when it involves real information; your style of trolling does not advance a discussion, and is indeed designed to stifle such whereever possible. As usual, this is clearly shown in your immediately stated suggestion that I leave; it is also visible in your refusal to engage Farhad Manjoo in a private discussion (since, as a troll, one of your primary goals is public ridicule). Garbage in, garbage out...

(Hmm, my letter keeps getting cleared somehow when I use italics.)

"...the majority of American voters that chose this President not once, but twice."

Once, at best. Gore got more voters' votes than Bush. I don't think it's unreasonable to consider the will of the people - by which Bush Jr. would never have been president in the first place.

And that being said, Bush's victories can be largely attributed to massives campaigns of outright falsehoods. (Not that that's unique to him...)

I hate yelling. But this sort of thing might just justify it. Tell him to get over it or get lost. Loudly.

" Don't men resent being manipulated in this way?"

Well, no. No, we don't. In fact, we rather enjoy it.

You can wish that men weren't men, but the simple fact is that we are.

>" Thanks for speaking on behalf of a whopping 49 percent percent of the population and reducing us all to the same cookie-cutter neandertha[sic] stereotype!"

I'm afraid the over-generalization is from your own imagination, and not from my letter.

>" I am a man, I am also totally uninterested in being escorted around Saks by a playboy bunny, and I do find the assumption that all men would be lining up for said opportunity pretty damn insulting."

Who said anything about "all"? There were eight. If you find this behavior insulting, you have a problem. Not them; it's not like they're somehow pushing bunnies down your throat.

>" So shut up with the "but we're men!" routine, if you want to go chasing silicone don't blame biology, because I'd rather stay home with my girlfriend."

Thanks to her jugs, yes.

>" Funny how the men seem more heated up about this whole issue than the women."

>" Why is that?"

Because we're the ones whose tastes you're attacking; we're the ones whose pleasures you'd like to lock away.

>"The people you're making stuff up about have some rights, too."

>"I can understand how this fact might be puzzling at Salon."

>"And by the way, "name withheld", being verbally violent doesn't make you right. It just makes you verbally violent."

Thank you for your utterly blatant, over-the-top hypocrisy. Now we know not to take anything you say seriously. Which is good, because otherwise Salon could sue you for slander. According to you, anyway.

>" Obviously the judge in this case did."

The judge granted her a restraining order against David Letterman. That is not the behavior of someone who has any understanding of what her problem is - which would be to send her to a psychiatrist (scientologists be damned).

It looks like Juan Cole's site is down altogether, though bits surive in google, et al. I wonder if by linking to it, Salon sent him over his bandwidth limit?

Let me stress that this is just my experience, I have no way of knowing if it's a general rule. What I've seen is that accomplished men who would never think of compromising in their professional goals, are still usually willing to compromise with their mates. In contrast, I've found that accomplished women more often extend their demanding career demeanor into their private lives.