The point is that Apple is suing HTC because they are using a map to pinpoint a location. I bet that in the last month, there have been a thousand courses taught in colleges and high schools that tell students how to pinpoint locations on maps. Why isn't Apple suing those community college profs instead of HTC?

Do I really need to answer that?

Who came up with mapping technology first? Was it perhaps Google Maps?

Well even if they are scummy, and I'm not saying they are, it is better to be scummy and use solar power than to be scummy and use carbon based power. I'm always ready to hear some good news....

Yes, I think it is great to let private business in some public areas. (But not national parks, for instance.) I don't want it mandated. Private business works well when it expands based on market forces, not by government mandate.

I'm not sure I understand. You want the government to mandate that private businesses start up concessions? I think I need a little icon so I can tell when a message is meant to be ironic and when I should take it literally.

Granted, one can always find individual cases that demand outrage, but overall, the reporting on Congress is more alarmist than accurate. Put 600 people in a room and ask them to make a decision. Any 600 people, any decision. If you'd like, you can just put the people designing C++ or HTML in a room and ask them to come up with a spec. Now give reporters full access to everything they say and do. If, in one week's time, reporters can't make everyone on that random committee look like an idiot, then they aren't trying.

The point is that Congress is not supposed to look pretty. It never has been pretty. It never has been noble. It has always, regardless of who is in power, been preoccupied with petty squabbles and produced absurd compromises. It is, as many have pointed out, the worst system imaginable -- except for all the rest.

The right is now having fun shooting ducks in a barrel by making fun of Congress, just as the left has had fun maligning Congress when the right was in power. All this is very entertaining, but it is shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how government works. All this attention from the press just makes congressman grand stand, and promotes the silliest and most disruptive sound bites without promoting anything useful. The problem is not so much Congress, but the way Congress and the press interact.