As security expert Bruce Schneier has said, when you're looking for a needle it a haystack, it doesn't help to add more hay.

Congratulations, Mr. McCain. You're well on your way to exceeding Arch-Traitor Bush as a threat to America.

There is an important (if obvious) lesson in this story: you can't bully someone into being sorry for the fact that he's a jerk. At best, you can just convince him to conceal his bigotry, and probably express it just as venomously but less publicly.

Anecdotal evidence suggests to me that something similar has happened with racism in the U.S. Terms like "racist" and "bigot" have become pejorative, and so racists and bigots do their best to avoid public recognition as such. Simultaneously, they carry on the very behavior that defines the terms.

At every office I've ever worked, there have been numerous individuals who make jokes and disparaging remarks about other ethnic groups in private, but who flatly deny being racists.

I have to side with these individuals who mentioned small, inconspicuous memory storage devices like jump drives and SD cards. I routinely carry information on a mini-SD card that's about 1 square cm. I've walked through metal detectors with this card and no one has noticed. I could hide it in the pages of a book or magazine, slip it into an obscure corner of a carry-on bag, or even stick it under a bandaid on my finger. I sincerely doubt that any border officials would even think to look for this gadget, let alone know what they'd found if they saw it.

Doctors and hospitals take note: By renouncing science, Mr. Stein has renounced medical science as well. The next time he shows up in a doctor's office or hospital emergency room, please show him the door. You can't have it both ways, Ben.

I suddenly have an urge to start building and testing autonomous anti-flying cam devices. I'm envisioning little helicopter-based robots that shoot paintballs.

I would certainly agree that forcing water doesn't help at all.

However, keep in mind that in hot climates and under physical exertion, you may dehydrate faster than you realize. A little preemptive water can be very helpful under such circumstances. Once your body dehydrates to a certain point, you will suddenly feel very tired and very stupid, and recovering may take several hours.

I live in Phoenix, Arizona, where temperatures routinely top 100 degrees F. for at least half the year. Around here, carrying a water bottle is a very useful practice.

While I admire Mr. Lessig's knowledge, intellect, and communications skills, I find his general viewpoint of supporting some form of so-called "intellectual property" to be counterproductive. Mr. Lessig is doomed to fail in his quests, if only because he has allowed his powerful opponents to create, change, and expand the landscape in which he pursues them.

Which is to say, the concept of intellectual property is indefensible from a populist viewpoint. Many years ago, various gangs of wealthy thugs got together and bribed or bullied governments into creating laws that protected their rackets with patents and copyrights. In order to rationalize these wholly superfluous laws, they hypothesized that such monopolies would foster innovation and creativity, and generally create value, all for the public good.

Whether or not this hypothesis was ever true, it is demonstrably false now. The legal mess we call patents has been shown to stifle innovation. The burgeoning monster we call copyright is suffocating public domain culture. Even trademarks, which ought to be a fairly straightforward way of protecting the public from fraud, have morphed into an excuse to extort anyone who dares utter a brand name in vain.

Intellectual property does far more harm than good. Despite Mr. Lessig's understandable sympathy for legal framework, he should be trying to tear out the roots of this monstrous weed, rather than just clipping its twigs into a more attractive pattern.

Those who shout "terror" without proof are no different from terrorists.

What a great idea. How do we donate money to this guy? He needs an entire fleet of robots.

Fascinating article. The bits and pieces I picked up were:

-- Unpredictable filtering that looks like technical problems makes the Great Firewall even more effective.

-- You don't have to filter every line of information, but merely make the effective lines slightly more expensive and annoying than the average person wants.

-- A sufficiently large specter of censorship leads to self censorship.

Take note of these techniques. We'll all be seeing something like them sooner or later.

The Internet as we know it isn't a permanent solution. As government/corporate interference grows, we'll need to replace the Internet with something else.

I'm not so much concerned about how to survive the physical fallout from a suitcase nuke as I am about how to survive the political fallout from a suitcase nuke.

I'd like to see the White House redesigned as a penitentiary, along with all the usual accoutrements and customs. Dubya and Dick need to spend time in orange jumpsuits.

I read this novel (actually, two novels, as I recall) back when they were first published. It was a fairly enjoyable reinterpretation of the Heike Monogatari and surrounding historical events.

When I was a kid, I used to love these things. Call anything "space food," and I automatically liked it. I even managed to choke down hundreds of bottles of Tang.

Unfortunately, my senator is John "Insane" McCain, currently running for Preznit of Amurrica. He doesn't really have time to worry about trivial things like the Constitution... not that he'd understand what that meant if actually confronted with the concept.

Generally speaking, I tend to put more value on differing points of view. If someone has a legitimate opinion different from mine, I learn something directly. And if I force myself to make a valid, reasonable argument against someone's differing opinion, I teach myself something. Either way, if I manage to remain calm and objective about the situation, I stand to gain.

Practically speaking, however, there are far too many worthless trolls whose arguments are no deeper than instant contradiction and perversity.

I agree with the substance of the message that "stealing isn't cool."

So what does this have to do with copyright infringement? According to SCOTUS, nothing. Copyright infringement does not satisfy the legal criteria of theft.

The very fact that the intellectually bankrupt accountants of Hollywood use the overblown term "piracy" to describe copyright infringement helps to illustrate just how desperate they are. Pirates murdered people and seized property. I download 30 minutes of tv that I missed watching last week. If you see even a vague parallel between a pirate and me, ask the orderlies to up your medication and take away your pointy scissors.

Worthy causes all.

But is there any way to donate to them anonymously?

Last time I donated to the ACLU, these unwise individuals apparently spent all the funds I gave them on soliciting me for more money.

I guess I'm not sure why anyone reads dead-tree magazines now anyway.

In general, the "magazine" format has always seemed a very fluffy one to me. No matter what the subject, you receive (a) massive numbers of ads, (b) massive numbers of photos (that while often cute, aren't terribly informative), and (c) beginner-level articles on any topics of interest (assuming there are actually topics of interest in that issue, an increasingly unlikely proposition). Basically, it seems like paper magazines are useful only to burn time in the bathroom or the doctor's office.

But wouldn't you be better off with a real book?

If this article isn't a complete fabrication, then it most likely represents the daydreams of a lonely, delusional person.

Does this woman speak Arabic? The article doesn't say. Presumably this would be a vital skill in such an undertaking.

Is this woman schooled in Islam? Perhaps that might be easier than learning Arabic, but again, the article doesn't say.

Is this woman knowledgeable in Internet forensics? That might be useful, but not necessarily vital.

What sort of security clearance does this woman have? Has she received even the most slapdash (i.e. U.S. government) background check, to determine if she could be peppering the FBI with intentionally misleading or useless information? (As Bruce Schneier might say, in this search for a needle in a haystack, is she adding more hay?)

Anyone can create and track online personalities for the purpose of misleading people. Stalkers and pedophiles are notable examples of this. Why should we take this woman any more seriously?

No doubt the answer to all of these questions would be that we might compromise this woman's effectiveness if too much about her were revealed. That claim could work for either CIA agents or confidence tricksters.

But in the end, this is an extraordinary claim, and like all such claims, requires extraordinary evidence. Or at least some evidence.