More Americans would choose to share a vacation rental home with talk show host Kelly Ripa (26%) than would with the Obamas (19%), the Jolie-Pitt family (16%), Oprah Winfrey (16%), Jon Stewart (13%) or Stephen Colbert (10%), according to a new survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of Home Away.

Yes. Kelly Ripa, #1. We can only hope that this represents some half-formed expression of sexual desire by a disproportionate sampling of straight American males, rather than a true awe for the perky one's societal contributions. Furthermore:

When dining on vacation, Americans are most likely to choose Rachel Ray (32%) to be their celebrity chef, followed closely by Paula Deen (27%). Fewer would like to have Wolfgang Puck (15%), Gordon Ramsay (13%), Masaharu Morimoto (6%) or Tom Colicchio (6%) cook for them.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Jokes are useless.
[Ipsos via Adfreak. Pic via]

For now, I take my cues from two guys I know (yes, they're guys, but I think their experience is relevant). In the 1980s, they founded a magazine and were the toast of the town. Since then, one has gone on to a succession of high-profile editing jobs and the other, dismissed from his one big-deal magazine job, has created a brand for himself. One, let's call him G., is on paper the more successful, in that he collects corporate paychecks and gets a lot of press. The other, K., whom I adore, has had what my late father would call a spotty career and others would call an entrepreneurial one: He has started and sold an Internet venture, written two novels and countless magazine columns, edited books, originated a popular radio show and traveled the world. He also gets a lot of press.

Ha, kind of funny that she won't just go ahead and use their real names, when they are so clearly Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen. Respectively.

Which one do I more admire: the highly-paid miner in someone else's gold mine, or the guy who makes his own rules? Dear reader, I think you know me well enough to know the answer.

It's K., of course...and this is useful information for me to have.

So Sara Nelson would rather be the guy who's jumped around to a series of high-profile elite media jobs while remaining always, primarily a writer, rather than the guy who is now primarily a restaurateur who dabbles in anti-Bush pamphleteering. Shit, so would we! Unfortunately these days you have to be satisfied if you can reinvent yourself as a "gainfully employed person in any field," so being picky does not tend to pay off.

We hope that Graydon Carter's hair in no way influenced this decision.
[More]

The problem is, the iPhone is only available through AT&T, in my opinion one of the most unscrupulous telecoms around. AT&T's tactics combine Microsoft-style anti-competitive maneuvers and anti-privacy efforts á la RIAA for a chilling effect. I avoid giving AT&T any of my money; it's a personal boycott. I'd like to call for a more wide- ranging one, but that brings up an interesting question: Does a hyped gadget you really want trump any moral misgivings you might have about where it's coming from?

First, let me break down why I think AT&T isn't worthy of your hard-earned money. Back in the 1980s, the original telecom giant was broken up for being a monopoly only to cobble itself back together again years later to nearly the same form as before. (Of course, it now has competition in some businesses, but in many regions of the US it still reigns frighteningly supreme.)

Last year, it was discovered that AT&T has been secretly spying on Americans for the government. Maybe it still is. Then, just recently, it announced that it planned to spy on Internet surfers yet again, looking for pirated media files, presumably to the delight of the RIAA and MPAA. If you don't want to get spied on and want to switch ISPs, guess what? Depending on where you live, you might not have any other options. And if AT&T snoops on all data passing through its network, most US Internet users will be affected, not just AT&T customers. It runs a significant amount of the backbone infrastructure of the Internet, leaving little traffic outside its grasp.

So what we have is a company that doesn't have privacy at the top of its priority list, not to mention the anti-trust laws of this country. It's setting terrible precedents left and right, and its vast power that comes from its huge size makes it all the more unlikely to change for the better. We, as contentious, tech-savvy individuals, should go out of our way to deprive this company of money, power and influence.

However, there are thousands, maybe millions, of people out there just dying to get their hands on an iPhone, and AT&T has a lock on the device for five years.

So, Apple and iPhone fans, what's more important to you? Having the hottest device, or knowing that you are standing up to a company, that in my opinion, has no regard for the privacy and consumer choice of Americans? Is it up to us, the customers, to stand up to these practices, or should we just keep shopping and hope the regulators do their jobs?

I, for one, will be continuing my AT&T boycott for the foreseeable future. –Adam Frucci