It is? Why?

Look at data. Most people living in urban areas in the US have a choice of two "last mile" data providers: the phone company and the cable company. The fact that they use two different technologies is completely irrelevant in this day and age. You can get phone service from the cable company and internet service from the phone company. Now the phone company is laying fiber in many places which offers as much performance as cable, and they're certainly not restricting this to areas where the cable company doesn't have service!

You don't need people running cable to your house in case you might want it. You need people running cable to your house on demand, when you order the service. This clearly works, since it has been done. If you refute the idea, ensure that your refutation is compatible with the reality of the telephone/cable duopoly found in virtually every US city.

A whole week? You poor thing. Ever been falsely convicted of a felony? How long do you think it takes to get over that?

Extenuating circumstances? Seriously? "Her daddy said it was ok" does not qualify as extenuating circumstances!

I'll certainly admit that Nokia sells a hell of a lot of phones, and that the smartphone market is pretty small compared to the entire thing. However the fact remains that three orders of magnitude simply isn't true. Furthermore, "well behind the 8 ball" is completely nonsensical. They're doing extremely well in the smartphone market. Yes, they're not selling nearly as many units as Nokia, but considering that their phone costs $600 this should not be a surprise. Obviously at that price they are not even trying to compete at that level.

More phones every 3 days than iPhones in existence? Really?

Let's actually inject some numbers into the discussion, shall we?

As of October 21, 2008, there were 13 million iPhones sold. Let's be as charitable as possible toward your position and assume that not a single iPhone has been sold since then.

You state more Nokia phones sold in 3 days than 13 million. That works out to at least 1.58 billion Nokia phones sold per year.

According to Wikipedia, Nokia's sales in 2007 were about 440 million. So they would have had to increase by over a factor of 3 in 2008 for your numbers to be correct.

Furthermore, Wikipedia claims that this 440 million was 40% of global phone sales in 2007, meaning that global phone sales in 2007 were around 1.1 billion. So for your claim to be correct, Nokia would have had to sell about 50% more phones just from Nokia in 2008 than everybody in the entire industry combined sold in 2007.

Is that really the case?

Now, let's take that 1.1 billion figure, assume it's gone up a bit, and call it 1.5 billion phones sold per year at present. Three orders of magnitude give you 15 million smartphones sold per year in the entire world. That barely accounts for the iPhone, let alone Blackberry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm....

So again, three orders of magnitude? Don't think so.

Several orders of magnitude? Several means at least 3, so you're saying that simple phones outsell smartphones by at least a thousand to one. Are you sure?

My dictionary says, "giving the impression that something harmful or evil is happening or will happen". This act indicates evil in our society.

Which is why it would be a bad thing for it to be carried out widely. I don't want that opinion to be widespread. If people do it a lot, it means it is widespread. Therefore people doing it a lot is a bad thing.

Why are you supposed to feel sorry for anyone? It's an indication of the destruction of our country, not a "who's the biggest asshole" contest.

But I think it is sinister. It's also a right to go around insulting black people, but if it were to be carried out widely it would be a very bad thing.

Snort! I consider myself to be a moderate, which is to say that I am equally hateful and disdainful of both sides. (And furthermore consider the fact that I can say "both sides" to be shameful.) From my point of view they are both equally guilty.

So this behavior is fine, because it's simply responding to (and thereby perpetuating) disastrous behavior which preceded it. Can't say I'll ever agree with that attitude.

I agree, but nevertheless it is the "analog hole".

Of course there's a difference, but it doesn't mean it's right.

Healthy political discourse requires respect for your opponents. The English term of "the loyal opposition" comes to mind. We may not agree with each other but we should at least be able to converse civilly and respect our disagreements.

The problem is that this respect, what remains of it, is being systematically destroyed. The whole country is being divided into "us" and "them", with "them" considered to be idiots, shysters, or traitors.

So while it may be perfectly legal to publicly destroy works of artists who disagree with you, and it may well be perfectly morally acceptable, it's also a provocative symptom of the destruction of political discourse in this country.

Not everything is black and white. These people had every right to do what they did, but it's still very bad.

In other words, when his principles could actually matter, he caved, but now that he's secure and it makes no real difference, he can do whatever he feels like.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and conveniences, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." As such I think it is far more telling to see what he did when the race was still in question.

Why does it have to stay in the air long enough? Do you just mean for the day or so it would take to disperse, or do you mean much longer than that?

Except it doesn't. While the specifics vary, the general principle remains that people are attracted to characteristics which indicate health, success, and otherwise "good genes". Roughly nobody is attracted to measles scars or polio disabilities or extreme poverty. Sure there are exceptions, but the fact is that the vast majority of humanity is attracted to characteristics which either indicate good health or would have indicated it before the rise of civilization, whether it's nicely shaped boobs or an scandalously exposed lock of hair.

Contracts don't just spring spontaneously out of the freshly-plowed Earth. If the contract obliges them to do something, then it's because they agreed to said contract with said obligations in place, and it is still therefore their fault.

What you say is correct, but all it tells you is that we are built to find power, wealth, and conformity attractive. These all have real survival advantages and indicate fitter genes just as much as a symmetrical face does.