Whoops somehow missed your post before adding my own. But, this exactly. They can't have it both ways.

But the teachers unions constantly insist merit pay is impossible because you can't evaluate performance (apparently the one job in the universe whee this is true). How will they know which teachers are "masters"?

Which one of these is emptier and has less activity than the other?

So, since pretty much every movie, song, and piece of software is "publicly available" if you have the right torrent tracker, it would be an outrage for Apple to pull, say, my new "Havatar" app that let's you play an full copy of the Avatar movie for free right?

bunch of FUD about things people supposedly can't do if they don't have the label/approval of "marriage" applied to their relationship
All of this is of course patently untrue, since California already grants these rights (among others) to partners in a Domestic Partnership.
Don't take my word for it though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_partnership_in_California

Wow, where do you go to buy your Mac hardware without paying the cost of the bundled OS? Oh wait, you mean Apple uses the same "evil" tactic you accuse Microsoft of using on hardware that runs Windows (by the manufacturer's choice I might add since MS doesn't mac PC hardware).