Superheroes have often served as metaphors for American power, but they haven't always served as metaphors for America power. Sometimes, a guy in tights beating people up is just a guy in tights beating people up. So yeah, your opening premise is overblown.

@Interior_League: The "retarded" ponytail was "sorority hair" when I was in college (early 1990s). I had female friends who insisted that they could identify members of specific sororities by height and angle of ponytails.

I used to work in a camera store that included a one-hour photo lab. A customer once called 911 on us because double prints weren't free.

QWERTY keyboards are for liberals. Real Americans like Sarah Palin use keyboards where the keys are organized by shape, so that "F" is next to "P," where it belongs!

@Ovr_9k: We got there because I realize, that while this man was clearly wronged by the woman in his life, merely dismissing his invasion of her privacy as a "spousal right" also empowers men who are in the wrong.

@Cairn Awaits MizJenkins: A court order is fine; there's due process that's supposed to prevent frivolous accesses. Breaking in himself is another matter.

@Ovr_9k: It is neither baseless nor sexist to note more women are killed by domestic violence than men.

@Cairn Awaits MizJenkins: Because some (including, apparently, the county prosecutor) would argue that keeping the password secret is a de facto revocation of the husband's authority to read his wife's e-mail. Otherwise, we're one step away from saying married people aren't allowed to have secrets, and (in addition)…

@Cairn Awaits MizJenkins: The legal question is whether he ever had that authority. He says she knew he had the password; she says she didn't give it to him. If the case goes to trial, it may come down to who the judge or jury believes, and whether they believe this law really applies to what happened.

@Burnsley: But Phaedra will never admit the jig is up, and she'll spend her entire life telling her son that he was born 4 months premature.

@miggery sow: The technical term for that behavior is "a cry for help."

@CoreyHaimBurgler: So, basically, you're calling him gay because he likes helping people too much?

The bad news is that the lasers don't make your thinner. The good news is that they keep your pizza from getting cold while you eat it.

Wahlberg handled this better than I would have. I would thought the woman was joking, laughed, and gotten in trouble with the wife for laughing. I'm clueless like that.

@MissBuckyC: Its ranking isn't the measure of success; the amount of money taken in versus the cost of making the movie is. A $100 million movie making $17 million the first weekend is in danger of losing money.

@thaneoflochaber: Then it's probably time for you to try Twitter, or shut up about it. It's not like Twitter can actually kill you, or anything.

Twitter is one of those areas where the Geeks Who Rule The Blogs have an enormous disconnect with reality. They think wanting to know what everybody on the Internet is doing every minute of the day is normal. It's not. Most people have jobs and families and stuff to worry about every minute of the day.

@SuicaLove: Unless it's a very unusual contract, it's the polar opposite of 50/50. When two people co-sign a contract like that, they're creating "joint liablity," just like co-signing a car loan.

...and in tomorrow's Tweet Beat, we'll see a twitpic of the Feds repossessing Teresa Giudice's Santa Claus.

A friend's bipolar wife is always* tweeting stuff about "haters" and "negative people." After a couple of years of that, I've been forced to conclude: If you're constantly announcing the haters aren't bothering you, it means the haters are bothering you.