Nothing about any word is inherent. "You" started out plural, was adopted for the formal singular, and long ago displaced "thou" as the informal singular. Now there are even new plural forms, such as "y'all".

English already has a neuter third-person singular pronoun, but for some reason it's considered rude to call a person "it", except in certain constructions.

Does one care if one's audience considers one a pedant?

This is effectively true, but it gives the impression that the problem is inherent to the protocol. The main obstacle to secure name-based virtual hosting is that Microsoft won't implement Server Name Indication for Windows XP.

Schmidt blacklisted CNET for publishing information about him found through Google searches. He wants to keep his own privacy while profiting from diminishing yours.

Fetal and maternal circulation are independent and separated by the chorion. The ectoderm also gives rise to the epidermis, and nobody thinks that's special. Neurulation begins around day 19 with the formation of the neural plate. It takes months for this to develop into a distinctively human nervous system.

Answer: they don't, because iTunes just overwrites the XML file. Apple devices sync back, and so do Palm devices when Apple isn't getting in the way.

There are at least three different ways they could address that without blocking anyone, were that actually their primary concern.

Even if Palm were actually using Apple's trademarks, which they aren't--USB vendor IDs are managed by the USB-IF, not the USPTO--Sega v. Accolade established that trademarks can't be used to block compatibility.

The double cheeseburger is one of those dollar menu things, and orders aren't limited to one item.

Your salad may cost less than theirs, but their double cheeseburger costs less than your salad.

In both the US and the EU, a market in which the dominant firm has around a 40% share is considered highly concentrated. (The definition used in the US is a Herfindahl-Hirschman index above 1800, which is unavoidable if a single firm controls 42.5% of the market.)

Apple offers no "proper" method for bidirectional sync.

The Pre identifies as an Apple device only when the user selects the iTunes compatibility mode.

That bar is set very low.

SSH host keys are often generated automatically when the init script notices there aren't any.

Human embryonic stem cells were isolated in 1998. The NIH published final guidelines for hESC research in August 2000. Bush blocked their implementation in 2001, delaying funding until 2002.

Adult stem cells have been studied for longer than embryonic stem cells. Clinical therapies aren't "better" than the basic research needed to produce them. Also, if not for hESC research, we would not understand adult stem cells as well as we do.

To complete the analogy, the concern is that using embryos for research might lead to the destruction of more embryos.

It doesn't. Embryos left over from IVF are destroyed anyway. The new guidelines allow using cell lines derived from leftover embryos. The Dickey-Wicker Amendment still prohibits federal funding for creating any new hESC line.

They should be equally concerned with IVF. Some are. Many aren't.

Many, not all. These techniques have advantages and disadvantages.

Obama called the Bush hESC rules specifically a "false choice". He never said he was going to ignore ethics.

Most laymen who are aware of them seem to think they make perfect substitutes for embryonic stem cells. The ignorance probably balances out.

Not at all. I argue that people act to protect what they have, and Chinese people are no exception.

I wrote, "the hundreds of millions of rural poor or the conquered peoples who never wanted anything to do with Beijing". The second "the" marks a separate phrase.

Your own source notes that the fruits of this expansion have been distributed unequally and that government policies have exacerbated the situation.

I would rather discuss China as China, but I would be remiss not to point out that the US government's poverty line is more than 20 times higher than the World Bank's. In fact, it's just under the World Bank's definition of high income. (Incidentally, the official US poverty rate has fluctuated between 11 and 16% since 1965. The Wikipedia article cites an offline source for the alternative figures but doesn't explain the small discrepancy.)

The latest World Bank numbers retroactively raise the poverty line, giving China a poverty rate of 84% in 1981 and 16% in 2005. Whatever numbers one uses, most of the reduction was in the early 1980s, and most of it seems attributable to reversing the failed policies that produced such shocking poverty. This was vital, but singling out China diminishes the accomplishments of other countries that avoided China's mistakes.

The World Bank itself acknowledges that any poverty threshold is arbitrary. (It's too bad this message gets lost whenever it publishes another round of estimates.) The effects of poverty are numerous and continuous, and calculations of purchasing power parity are not nearly as precise as the numbers imply. In other words, poverty is relative.