Chad - first, I apologize if I've somehow missed any intended sarcasm in the above statement. However, if you intended this statement as anything less than full-throated sarcasm, please provide a single scrap of evidence to back it up. Japan is a nation that hasn't apologized for the Rape of Nanking (except for a couched "non-apology" in 2005), that didn't apologize for the Bataan Death March until 2009, , and in fact, has offered only the most mealy-mouthed "(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan>apologies" to date. All this despite the Japanese penchant for trying to hold the morally superior position of being "the only country upon whom nuclear weapons were used," bald of context.

Until then, I will presume that you meant your post as a form of irony too subtle for the likes of me to catch.

Re-read NYT v. Sullivan. "Actual malice" is a term of legal art. It doesn't merely mean "the present intent to do another harm," but also includes reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of the statement. In this case, the fact that CNN fact-checked SNL doesn't matter a whole lot, since in this case, they are charged with at least not giving a fig about the truth of the matter. Far more important, I would guess, is the fact that the quotes parrotted by CNN's reporters as true were easily determined to be form a single Wikipedia source, which itself was unsourced. Therefore, their use and repetition of such quotes would be reckless disregard for the truth of those quotes. FWIW.

With respect, Stage Right, while I agree that Shepard Fairey is a rank hypocrite, and I understand the general argument IP producers have regarding copyright law, I have a hard time reconciling it in this case. This is two entities fighting over which of them has the right to a third person's visage. While it's clear that Fairey has "stolen" the IP of the AP, it is solely through the vagaries of copyright law that the AP has the IP rights to Obama's upturned face to begin with.

And I really think your analogy to the awful people taking pictures in a Broadway play is, at best, not the best example to use, given that I see the AP in just as much the position of the videotapers in the audience, and Obama as the rightfully indignant performer. IMO, part of the silence in this case is the fact that the AP is trying to argue, as it were, that Fairey is, to use Vizzini's words, trying to kidnap what the AP has rightfully stolen.

There's a good reason most of the folks I know in the Bay Area call it "Whole Paycheck" (not that they don't shop there as much as possible).

Please. Springsteen never had American pride to speak of. "Born in the USA" was a middle finger to the Reagan Administration in particular and the Red States in general, especially over Viet Nam. When the "mouthbreathers" adopted it, and chose to selectively ignore the irony laced into it, Springsteen must have lost it. Whence his choice to drop it form his repertoire, at least in venues where its irony will be ignored.

Actually, Maher's comment was a moment of transcendent myopia. To paraphrase, Maher decried calling the 9/11 attackers "cowards," because, to quote him, "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly.” You might understand how, while technically accurate the last part might be, it might have put one or two people out.

This has been a problem for me with a lot of John Hughes movies (graduating from high school in 1985, I figure I was square in the demographic target sudience), namely, for all the gentle portrayals of geeks and nerds in his movies (and again, in this, I was square in the target audience), how Hughes left them in the lurch, romantically. The absolute worst of all of JH's movies in this respect, IMO, was The Breakfast Club, where the Jock (Emilio Estevez) is matched up with the Outcast (Ally Sheedy), the Bad Boy (Judd Nelson) is matched up with the Cheerleader (Molly Ringwald), and the Nerd (Michael Anthony Hall) is matched up...with the paperwork. Very nearly ruined the entire movie for me.

I have to disagree. Maher's ambitions are nowhere near so grandiose. IMO, Maher is about one thing - himself. Three things have shaped Maher from an average, run-of-the-mill jerk comic into a vitriolic, partisan, self-appointed sage: ____1. Weed - Maher is publicly in favor of its legalization, but those dolts in the Midwest just won't allow it. Therefore, they must be stupid, not to recognize the true value of his petty vice.____2. The Playboy Mansion - Maher wnats what he wants, when he wants it, and in large part Hugh Hefner gets it for him. Those moralistic prudes in the rest of the country are trying to keep Maher form what he wants when he wants it, so they must clearly be stupid. The fact that Maher continues to refer to himself as "libertarian" is solely due to his penchant for licentiousness.____3. The 9/11 "Cowards" speech - Maher is, according to himself, the smartest person in the room wherever he goes. So for him not only to get grief for his obnoxious comment, especially made a tthe time it did, clearly cannot be due to HIS failing

Two points:

The first is a minor nit to pick with the comparison of U.S. costs (in general, not HC costs) to Canadian costs - you forgot to take into account that CAN$ are still less valuable than US$; e.g. the Canadian Subway bill of $23.41 CAN is actually equal to $20.14 US, a difference of US$1.26, not $4.53. Still more expensive in Quebec, just not quite AS more expensive.

The second is a more fundamental worry over the U.S. adoption of "Canadian-style" HC: It is a poorly-kept secret that US healthcare subsidizes these systems, in more than just in innovation. For instance, Canada and UK advertise lower medicine costs, but most pharma companies will acknowledge that they subsidize the "lower" costs in those markets by marking up their costs in the US, both a much larger and less-controlled market. We are, in effect, the world's safety valve. Were we to "go socialized," that safety valve would be shut off, and the pharmas that cut UK and Canada a break will stop doing so.

Yes, favorable. While some repeated the (overwhelmingly true) "lurid details" of his life, one need only look at the fact that the City of L.A. is laying out at least $3.5 million of sorely needed money to foot the bill for literally thousands of mourners, the generally favorable coverage among the media of "the tragedy," and the sympathetic portrayals among the more noted of his mourners (e.g. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton waxing rhapsodic about MJ's contribution, not merely to pop music, but to race relations as a whole) to conclude that the tenor of the coverage has been, by and large, positive.

Contrast that to Sarah Palin's announcement, which has been covered by the MSM as if it was a resignation one step ahead of an FBI indictment. So far as I can tell, beyond certain contributors to this very website, even most Republicans are saying "What could she possibly be thinking?" and commenting upon the folly of her act, and what it must show about her.