I was pointed to this piece after the fact. Excellent work. The author and I have a number of differences on other issues but on this issue we seem to be pretty much eye to eye.

I don't doubt that.

You seem to have missed the intent of the statement. People who live in areas with a lot of police activity are more likely to be arrested by said police. I don't know if I support that theory but it had nothing to do with (paraphrasing) "the importance of catching rich kid pot smokers" and rather with police presence…

In fairness, the concept of "equal" is also unfalsifiable, so it's possible for someone to argue that an institution that says it is fair is actually not.

This is a really delicate subject and I have a feeling I'm not going to escape this one unscathed. It is possible the judge is really this racist (and self-destructive). Before declaring her the most evil person in the world though I would like to hold onto the possibility that she didn't mean what she said. I am…

Yes! I was actually going to post it. It's a little strange, because it's not the Joan I'm used to. At a young age she was still almost vulnerable.

At 79 years old I think Joan Rivers is entitled to slum it as she sees fit.

It's been a long time since she did a lot of stand up but she was good at the top of her game. Definitely not some people's style of comedy but I usually find her endearing in her casual dismissal of so-called "celebs." Here was one of her acts…

Thanks for that clarification. Because of the hidden identities involved and a confusing timeline I got him confused with the retrievers of the video. I was wondering what he might have done to get such a high degree of attention. Then I saw this on Huffington Post:

I have to play devil's advocate here. This article doesn't list any ways in which the appointee is qualified for the position except she is "much higher rank" than the previous appointee, and female. She may in fact be highly qualified but you wouldn't know it from reading this; the right and the left (at least as…

I usually enjoy your posts but I have to disagree with you on this issue. The only nuance in this case is that the hackers found a document that was damaging to (at least some of) the people they stole it from. The crime itself, illegal access and theft of files, applies regardless of what they found in the files…

Here's a question:

What if he had hacked the computer and it turned out he didn't find this video (because the person was innocent or for some other reason). The crime isn't made illegal based on what you actually find. The crime is in illegal access and taking files—any files. It could have been Hello Kitty fan art…

I say yes it was a crime too, and here is why: it is illegal to hack into someone else's private files regardless of what you find there. What if he had broken into the computer and hadn't found these videos? What if all he found was a stash of ILoveJustinBeiber.doc Word files and a Lisa Frank desktop? It would still…

Right. They don't sound at all like people who would break the law in order to punish people they have a beef with. Just like the cocaine dealer on my corner is a hero because he sometimes buys lunch for kids.

You guys are too much. The National Security Agency spying on us via PRISM? Crisis. Anonymous hacker stealing the same information and distributing via similar illegal means? Robin Hood.

I think it has to do with the way that in recent years the word "nerd" has taken on a context of eliteness. The word is the social opposite of "hipster" in that if a person said they are standing up against "hipster prejudice" they wouldn't be taken seriously. No one wants to be called a hipster. Nerd used to be sort…

Margaret Cho is an honorary gay male comedian. I think she succeeds at being a gay man better than most actual gay men do.

I agree that Lindy's tone is often incendiary. She burns bridges before they are even in the construction stage. The thing that really irks me is she often seeds ultimatums into her posts that are tied directly to the reader's identity. She frequently implies that disagreeing with her carries special risks for groups…

McDonald's has had this "crisis" for the past 40 years, maybe longer. Millineals certainly do a lot of talking about not eating there but so did everyone who came before them, just like every young adult generation since 1965 believes it will be the one to wipe out racism.

Lindy West, you and I have some considerable ideological differences but I am sorry that this happened to you.

Good for her.