Put differently: Nobody ever asked Apple to design an OS to make a Mac more like a PC.

It would have been a good idea. Then we would be out from under the thumb of Microsoft's evil Windoze monopoly. And people would have computers that worked. And were much less susceptible to viruses and malware. And were just plain cooler, and more fun to use. In the meanwhile, Apple did capture the educational market. The Federal government, on the other hand, is moving towards a Windows monoculture, leaving us vulnerable to the cyberwar equivalent of Pearl Harbor.

And I don't care if Apple is outsourcing "American jobs". Companies should go where they get best value. If America offered best value, then Apple would source here. By the way, what makes you think any of those other digital device companies make their stuff here, either? And I don't care if Jobs was obsessive compulsive about his products. That's what genius is about.

B---h, moan and whine. The fact is Apple products work better than the competition's, which is why I have bought them since 1985. So what if they are proprietary? Control of hardware and software ensures seamless compatibility. Think about that next time you're trying to integrate a new video card into your PC and the driver crashes your system. And I don't mind paying a premium for it, because I would have ended up paying more buying a rock-botom-priced PC and then adding the features that come standard with a Mac. And I don't care if Steve Jobs treats his employees like dirt. Were that true, people wouldn't be lining up around the block to work for Apple.

Since racial categories are self-descriptive, they are to a large extent meaningless. Call it the Elizabeth Warren Effect. Or the Barack Obama Effect. If Elizabeth Warren can be counted as an Indian, how many other "Native Americans" are in fact indistinguishable from their white neighbors? Is Barack Obama black? If so, why? Because he decided to identify himself as one? Smart move! What about Hispanics? How many generations must they be here before they cease to be a "minority"? And what of other minorities, such as Asians, Indians (from India) and Arabs, all of whom have higher per capita income than whites? In short, the whole notion that one can divide the United States by ethnic or racial group is fallacious and pernicious.

Approximately 70,000 French civilians were killed by Allied aerial bombardment between April and August 1944, principally during the "rail campaign" before the invasion, the bombardment immediately preceding the invasion, and the "tactical carpet bombing" of Caen and St. Lo. This exceeds the number of British civilians killed by German bombardment between 1940-45. Churchill was extremely concerned about the risk to French civilians, but was reassured by the Gaullist government in exile that France was prepared to suffer for its liberation.

That's the myth, anyway. The truth, particularly about the home front, was not nearly so noble.

The failure of D-Day would not have resulted in German victory, but development and use of the atomic bomb against Germany rather than Japan. Germany would have been reduced to irradiated slag, and the Soviet Union would have been free to advance its empire all the way to the shores of the English Channel. The ramifications of a repulse in Normandy would have been felt mainly in the post-War world, not during the War itself.

Besides, it is not legally possible to ban abortion at the Federal level, given that this is not one of the "enumerated powers". Conservatives sometimes seem to want it both ways: a narrow construction and application of the Constitution and its federalist structure when it pleases them, and far-reaching Federal usurpation of states rights when it serves them. Conservatives claim to honor the Constitution, and to revere human life. Let advance the cause of the latter by working within the boundaries of the former.

So many words! All that needs be said is: 1. Socialism doesn't work. 2. Socialism has never worked. 3. Socialism never can work. 4. All efforts to impose socialism increase poverty. 5. All efforts to impose socialism decrease human freedom.