One finally note, which given how far this has fallen off the front page may never be seen, but for what it is worth: yet another flaw in this comment 'system' is there is no way, (at least no obvious way), to delete your account.

This is reasonably off-topic, and may well get deleted, but I'm going to say it anyway.

In quite short order, I have found Ms. "Teresa Nielsen Hayden/Moderator"'s attitude very tiresome.

1) Lacking any decent information on how to emphasize portions of one's text, it is not unreasonable that one might choose UPPERCASE.

Yes, yes, large blocks of it are hard to read, and considered shouting in many circles, but I doubt anyone who isn't a typographical legend in their own mind objects.

2) On that topic, spare us the litany of your credentials. This is the internet, there is always somebody who is doing it better and has been doing it longer than you.

3) The "disemvowelling" is cutesy and juvenile. If a post is worthless, just remove it.

4) It's 2007 -- how about some better tools!?
You've already pooh-poohed threading, and having automatic links back to what you might be referring to, so let's just go with the most basic aspect:

(You may use HTML tags for style) -- What's an HTML tag? Which tags? With which options? To what result? Not so much as a link to a page to tell you.

Well, assuming you already know enough to guess at a few HTML tags, you can click on the "Preview" button and try it out -- and WAIT WAIT WAIT -- while it reloads the whole page. Suckitude. Plenty of sites have a see-it-as-you-type-it preview pane.

And finally, if you want a conversation you're going to want people to come back. Otherwise all you have is drive-by serial blathering. Who is going to remember, for each comment page, which comment# they stopped reading at? Am I going to know that last time I was on this page there were 217 comments, so I can pick up again at 218? No. Am I going to reread the whole page to try to figure out where I left off. Not likely. This is the kind of mindless record keeping that computers were invented for. Look into it.

Sign me almost looking forward to my banz0ring.

I don't know if there's a good way to catch this kind of fraud, except by having someone standing at the door, checking receipts.

Individually tagged/numbered items (barcode or RFID) and video of the registers. Then when item #12345 is scanned for checkout on lane 6 at 12:34 you know it. Then when item #23456 shows up missing you know it is the one on the video at 4:56 on lane 2 and not the other one.

What is with all of you "If you're entering private property, you're agreeing to play by the rules of the store." people?

While some membership-based stores make you sign such an agreement, there is NO SUCH contract you sign when you enter a Circuit City. If they want to tell you, a paying customer, to never return, THAT is within their rights if you refuse to "play by their rules". But barring actual reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred that's about it.

Last I checked, being the "loss prevention" flunky at the bigbox doesn't grant any supralegal rights.

BTW, one thing you do NOT want to do is so much as touch them lest you be accused of assault (and thus provide them with suspicion of a crime).

Here's an approach I've been wanting to try:
"No, I will not show you. If I, a paying customer, am treated like a criminal any longer, I will, however, turn around and walk back to the service desk and show it to return my entire purchase."

Another fun one might be to go at a really busy time (say Black Friday) buy the cheapest possible item, say a pack of gum or whatever,
put the receipt in your pocket, but walk out with a fanny pack just stuffed with random receipts and crap, then go through each one, "no this doesn't seem to be it". When the line backs up behind you, one wonders how many people will decide they don't want to show their receipts either.