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And we elect Presidents with degrees in Political Science.

That would be a better qualification for overseeing the TSA?

Actually, would that be a better qualification for leading the nation? Would being ASA certified make you a better racecar driver? More desireable?

That's the best counter-argument I've received so far - the cost factor. Thanks! But we have to factor in the half a billion people that use MS office. As I've outlined over the course of this thread, for that sizeable population, the cost factor will be offset by the fact that you can own one single portable device, instead of two. I think the argument can be settled by analyzing how many people use a "tablet" currently as their one single personal computer. I'm guessing most people have two devices right now - one running windows. In future, when tablets are as powerful as current PCs, the situation will be even more skewed in favour of Windows. Why spend money on a toy tablet running Android?

That's why I believe Google's word processing strategy is critical, among other things. I want Google to make sure MS's monopoly is finally broken. They need to cover all their bases - and half a billion word users need to be given serious consideration.

And wrt to the keyboard. I agree the keyboard is mandatory, but what's to prevent one from being plugged in at whim? (e.g. Asus Transformer)

And here we see why the "Climate Change" nee "Global Warming" movement is so subversive and dangerous. If someone where to say, "I don't belive in Einstein's theory of relativity", he would be told he is wrong, or ignored. If someone were to say, "I don't believe in the theory of continental drift", she would be told she is wrong, or ignored. But to DOUBT or DENY climate change is sacrilege - you are vile, selfish, practically an evil doer fit to be punished. Scientists who see the data differently are in danger of losing their jobs, and funding. It has happened before. What other science acts that way? What other theory demands such fealty?

If you choose promote a theory by using death threats to attempt to silence those who disagree with you then yes, vile evil doers is a perfectly appropriate term Even those denialists who repudiate the more radical arm of their organisation, and are horrified by those who pursue the ideologue and rhetoric to it's logical extreme are still culpable for their statements. How can they not be? If I drink and drive, and consequently kill someone, I'm culpable, even if I'm ignorant of the law. Ignorance is not an excuse. And most denialists, honestly, are not ignorant. They know very well the climate change is happening and that the causes are anthropogenic, but choose, for the sake preserving a conflicted world view, to live with the subsequent cognitive dissonance. I think they are culpable for the consequences of their actions (delaying action on climate change, thus making the effect slightly worse), and should be held to be so.

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007 [senate.gov]

How many scientists are there in the US? Oh, wait, I already know 500 000 which means the number of scientists in the US who think that climate change is not anthropogenic is 0.08%.

So, how many Lego pieces (ABS plastic) are there in a kilo?

About 400

About 400.

Liquids are nearly incompressible so the gallon is a gallon no matter the temperature. In conrast, from room temperature to freezing, air compresses about 10%.

Great, our legal system doesn't have a decent way to remove laws is the big big flaw imho, but let's say they're passing all these laws, it may be hard but it may not stand in court http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_challenge_a_law_once_it's_passed . It comes back to what its always been, if you have $ the laws aren't for you.

#38619674 (your OP) talks about everybody in New Orleans losing their guns during Katrina, the police's response is logical, there was mass spread looting and crimes going on, however... here's the difference: If this happened 100 years ago, there would have been a major court case in regards to the 2nd, and those police probably would have been martyred and fired. Take us to present day and nobody says a thing. The most effective defense unfortunately imho is to challenge while getting your rights violated, however that usually does not end good as innocent until proven guilty is a joke.

link

According to this write-up, all four were in the 1800s, before the modern era where voters choose party candidates, rather than party officials. However, according to this writer, it was pretty obvious during the races that LBJ was not going to get the nomination of the Democrat voters (he barely beat some other guy in the first race, and then Robert Kennedy entered the race which spelled certain doom), so he dropped out early instead of facing the inevitable, so it's not totally without precedent that a President doesn't get renominated by the voters of his party even in the modern era.

If we're lucky, Obama will be #2, except that Obama is such a narcissist that he won't have the good sense and decency to drop out early like LBJ did.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4757181.stm

I can come up with more, but I'm lazy and its Saturday.

As for "The right thing to do". It was, but that was not the reason the US Government at the time (not the people so much as always) had gone to war.

"It is a popular misconception among Americans that the US voluntarily entered WW2, at least against the Germans. In fact, the US didn't. The US entered the general war as a result of the attack on Pearl Harbor. But the US entered against Japan and did not, repeat not, declare war on Germany." http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_the_US_become_involved_in_World_War_2

That was my "quick Google" attempt.

Don't get me wrong, Americans are a good people in my book, but they blow their own trumpet a bit too much. All governments on earth are screwed up to some degree, America is one of the better ones.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding "120" and "millions"
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_die_from_starvation_each_year_in_America

This moralistic spin ("lazy" programmers) is absurd. The tradeoff between development cost and hardware requirements is obviously affected by cheaper yet higher-spec hardware. If you want to run WordPerfect for DOS at insane speeds on modern hardware, go right ahead. That piece of that software cost $495 in 1983 (cite) and was written in assembly language for speed. (I hope the connection there is not lost on anybody).

If they're 0.000000312 kilometers per hour how fast is that "scale speed"? If they were the size of a car, how fast would they be traveling?

If a "Adult bone marrow stem cells" is ~ 25 microns = 25E-6m
http://www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/about154.html?hilit=Stromal

If an average car is 4.12m
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_length_of_a_car

Then 4.12/25E-6=x/(0.000000312km/h)

x=0.0514176km/h

USA alone is not "plenty of countries": http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_nations_have_not_signed_the_Kyoto_Protocol

Have you got evidence that the NBA in fact doesn't reflect society?

Would you ask for proof if I stated the sky was blue? Look out the god damn window, you lazy racist bastard.http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_NBA_players_are_black> (about 82%) And the US is about 13% black. I'll leave it for you to confirm that. So, now that you have evidence you asked for, are you going to answer the original question, or were you never going to answer it and were just being a jackass by lying (by implication) that the reason you were not answering is that you have no reasonable idea about the racial makeup of the NBA vs the USA (which if that is the case, no one will care what you have to say, as you'll be so dumb that nothing you could say would be worthwhile).

However, the state's statute of limitations expired, and the federal prosecutors could find no *federal* laws being broken.

It's also not really clear that any state laws were broken. Texas law gives parents pretty broad leeway. The law allows corporal punishment provided that the child is not exposed to a substantial risk of harm, the force is not deadly, the child is under 18, and to the extent that the parent believes the punishment to be necessary. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_spanking_legal_in_Texas All of these legal phrases are clearly open to pretty wide interpretation, e.g., if the kid ends up with a bruise, is that "substantial" harm?

If people who are upset about this are living in Texas, then what they're really upset about is their own state law, and they need to work on advocating changes in that law.

I'd argue the App Store is worse than Wall Street. The finance industry accounts for 21% of GDP, only a small fraction of which is excess profit siphoned off by greedy WS executives to line their pockets. With the App Store, 30% of all transactions are siphoned off by Apple to line their pockets.

Whatever it is, it's not capitalism.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Where_did_the_saying_Black_Ban_originate

Origin: Australia (Circa 1925)

History: The Australian Labor Movement (Unions) required legal financial membership of the appropriate union. They would issue a membership card printed and signed in black ink.

Usage: Unions would place work bans upon various employers or work sites where the employer used non-union labor/practices. They would also place bans for political reasons. The term "black ban" means Union members not allowed to work for or at an employer or work site. The term is non-racist.

With regard to your sig...whom is still a used word. Just because people don't bother to learn proper grammar/spelling doesn't make a word irrelevant. "Intensive purposes," however, has never been a quote. "Intents and purposes" is what you are looking for. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'

Well, a bee weighs between 90 and 180mg, I'll just assume 100mg on average. That makes for a combined weight of 25M*0.1g = 2.5Mg = 2.5t

When all 25 million bees take of, they reduce the lorry's weight by 2.5 tonnes? Whoa.

But wait! The lorry is closed at the bottom, /me guesses. Air cant escape downward (maybe to the sides or upward?). -- So, no.
No change in weight after all, as the downward pressure from their wings should equal their mass as they hover around

Unique names do help in searching for issues relating to a particular release.

Well apparently Shuttleworth considered Perky Penguin. But they coulda come up with a more unique P adjective, and I think it would be easy enough to search for.

Citations please.

here and here

At my current employer who shall remain nameless for the time being we do an absolute metric shitload of image and video processing in Java for the US government. There's definitely some issues that continually need ironing out but you can usually get Java to do whatever it is you want if you don't mind spending enough time with it. We also have started using some C# but that's only to replace some positively ancient Access applications and then is probably going to promptly get thrown in the toilet.

One of the nice things about Java is that it's relatively powerful AND flexible. Now personally I loathe Java for many reasons but even I can't argue that it's become very effective. We could do more work in Ruby and Python but that would mean performance losses that we cannot accept and market support that we cannot accept either. We could do more work in C/C++, Fortran, or similar for the heavy lifting but if you've already got the bulk of the application written in Java it's not *that* hard to make the Java code fast enough to work for our purposes (fast, but not realtime fast). Plus your knowledge pool with your developers stays specialized and high (bad for their careers, but if they don't care then by all means bleed 'em dry I suppose...not that I agree).

Citations please.

here and here

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Which_countries_have_no_extradition_treaties_with_the_United_States

Yemen barely has a gov't, let alone an extradition treaty with the US.

* morale, sheesh.

In war the moral is to the material (physical) as three is to one. --- Napoleon Bonaparte

Troop Morale
Force multiplication

The agreements could be standardized by convention... Or by legal requirements (like Nolo Press contributes to). That might eliminate 90% of lawyer's workload. People googling on advice can also reduce the need for paid advice, or allow individuals to use what little they really need more effectively (so, less billable hours).

See also Marshall Brain's Manna on breaking down tasks and deskilling them, even lawyering.
http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

If you can just make lawyers twice as productive with some tools, what happens to half the lawyers we have now?

What if with limited AI you can make lawyers 10X more productive? What do 90% of the current lawyers do, considering lawyers getting out of school now are finding now jobs for them?
http://lawschoolscam.blogspot.com/
http://www.lawyerswithdepression.com/

Or do we get a legal arms race of pointless lawsuits to keep lawyers employed? IIRC the USA has something like 2X to 5X more lawyers per capita than much of the rest of the world to begin with...
http://www.averyindex.com/lawyers_per_capita.php
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_country_in_the_world_has_most_lawyers_per_capita

My site has a lot about post-scarcity economic alternatives to a collapsing exchange economy in the face of the decline of the value of moct paid human labor:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/

He meant 'for all intents and purposes'.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_the_saying_'all_intents_and_purposes'_or_'all_intense_purposes'

LB is confusing personal tax liability of capital gains with the double taxation of corporate earnings. Or to put another way - He's mixing two different issues: capital gains taxes and the double taxation of corporate earnings.

Normally I put it differently.

This is price of gas since 1919 till now, lowest number there is 17 cents / gallon.

Silver dime minted between 1946-1964 is worth almost $3 (2.995USD)

Here is price of gas in Washington DC - it's between 3.59 and 3.65USD/gallon.

OK, let's say it's $3.65/gallon and $3 for the dime to round this thing.

So for 1 silver dime you can get .82 gallons of gas. Or one full gallon would cost 1 dime + 18% of another dime :), so maybe 12 cents rounded.

That's cheapest gas since 1919 in terms of silver. Not the same as to say it's cheapest oil in gold, but I should have said what I normally say - cheapest gas ever in real money.

Has anyone gotten both a scientific (physics or chemistry) Nobel Prize, *and* the Nobel Peace Prize for the same discovery?

No.

The Excursion is huge even by SUV standards and they don't even make them anymore. Maybe something more like this? http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Gas_tank_size_2004_ford_explorer

Dear Anonymous, please read -> http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_size_is_the_gas_tank_in_a_Ford_Excursion - before you type nonsense.

Well, statistically, we may be. English was a very poor language with very weak descriptive power until the Renaissance imported huge amounts of Latin and Greek vocabulary. More still comes from French loanwords.

I should stress that only in the past forty or fifty years have reasonably intelligent people been so uneducated in the Classics that they bitch about this kind of thing on a regular basis. As a speaker of English, you'll just have to learn to put up with it.

Botanically tomatoes are fruits - I have never argued this, and it is in fact part of the point that I initially raised - but here are just a few sources that back me up. As you can see, legally and culinarily speaking, there are a whole hell of a lot of people who consider a tomato a vegetable. This is a fact. This is inarguable. All of your "technically"s aren't going to change this. This is the point that I initially made, this is the point that I have continued to make, and this is the point that you have continued to deny in the face of overwhelming evidence. My ego is not particularly connected to what people think of tomatoes. Maybe you, on the other hand, should consider why yours is so connected to putting on blinders and denying simple facts as they are.

Even worse, don't forget that it takes ten pounds of crude oil to deliver a pound of food to a plate, when everything is added together.

Look, you need to be careful when you use statistics from sources that don't spell out exactly how the figure is generated. A quick google http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_one_gallon_of_crude_oil_weigh search of how much oil weighs per gallon comes up with about 7 pounds per gallon for light sweet crude. Now, today's oil price for West Texas Intermediate is $85 per barrel http://www.oil-price.net/. There are 42 gallons per barrel so the cost per pound is

42 gallons * 7 pounds per gallon = 294 pounds for a barrel

$85 / 294 pounds = .29 cents per pound

So according to your statement above, food requires 10 pounds of oil per pound of food, SO the average pound of food should cost at least $2.90 because that is how much it would take to cover just the cost of oil. It ignores cost of land, labor, equipment, seed, or processing and profit to farmer and retailer. Sorry, that doesn't sound right. Staples (corn, rice, wheat, potatoes) certainly don't cost that much per pound. Legumes don't. Most fresh fruit doesn't. Milk doesn't. Cheese will, but some cheeses on sale won't. Vegetable oil doesn't. Olive oil might. Most meat will cost at least that much. Maybe the figure you quoted was just referring to meat or processed foods.

In any case, before you use figures, just make sure that number makes sense. (I am reminded of the time in college when as a grader in a physics class, the students were asked to find how high a pressurized leak on a water tank would shoot into the air. Two student's answers had the water at escape velocity speeds, sending them into orbit the earth.)

Why is it the stupid Obama voters can never consider voting for a different Democrat?

Face it, Obama sucks. He's been a total disaster, even from a Democrat point-of-view. All he's done is continue all the Bush policies, so much that there's little visible difference between him and Bush. At least under Bush, 6-year-olds didn't have to worry about being molested at the airport, but now under Obama's TSA, they do.

If you're a die-hard Democrat, there's a simple solution: vote for someone else. That's what the Primaries are there for. It's happened four times in history: a sitting President did not get the nomination of his party in the Primaries.

Plus, Lyndon B Johnson had the good sense to not run for re-election because he was so unpopular. Obama is such an egotistical bastard, however, that he certainly won't have the decency of standing aside like LBJ.

With LD50 of 115 mg/kg an average slashdotter needs to eat a teacup full of DDT to have 50% chance of dropping dead. A common rat poison, for comparison, has LD50 between 2 and 8 mg/kg.

Assumption fail. Volume is not necessarily a limiting constraint. Hard drives are dense.

According to this http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_gravel_can_a_dump_truck_hold a dump truck can typically hold 13T. I've googled the weight of a 3.5" hard drive and I get values between 400g and over 1kg. So I weighed an old one, and got a bit over 400g. The 400g drives are those with fewer platters, but I'll go with it for simplicity.

13,000kg / 0.4kg gives you 32,500 hard drives. Continuing with your calculations, 3TB*32,500 = 97,500TB = 780,000Tb. (According to 'man units', hard drive manufacturers use SI units.) 780,000Tb/26h = 780,000Tb/93,600s = 8.333Tb/s or 8333Gb/s.

You'll get 23,200 cubic feet of storage out of a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy cargo plane which is about 32 dumptrucks.

23,200*(12^3)/14 * 0.4kg ~= 1,145,416kg The plane can hold a maximum of 81,600 kg. And fuel economy is horrible.

Not that I disagree with your general point.

All of the above are true (or, are at least true for you) but they aren't important to the masses, and that's why other phones outsell the BlackBerry, and their management is too brain-dead to deal with it.

"BlackBerry smartphones will never have cameras because the No. 1 customer of ours is the U.S. government," Mike Lazaridis would say in meetings. "There will never be a BlackBerry with an MP3 player or camera."

And yet he was too fucking dumb and/or stubborn to realize that only 8% of working Americans work for the government, which means 92% of employed Americans DON'T work for the government. (And plenty of teens have disposable income and no jobs at all, so that's like 95% of the country he's ignoring.) Why limit yourself like that? Dumb, dumb, dumb. I agree that there's a market for less-featureful phones but if you think it's a big market you're deluding yourself. What's so hard about making both?

"The strength of a Blackberry is productivity." - depends on what you're used to. I know people who are fantastically productive with an iPhone. (Or any other device. You talk about taking lots of notes on one--if I were going to take lots of notes, I'd get a better device. Like the old joke: a handgun is what you use to defend yourself while you make way to a REAL weapon.) But for every person who can type a bit faster or eke out a little more battery life with a BlackBerry, there are 99 others who are 10x more productive due to apps that are orders of magnitude better than anything available on a BB. BlackBerries are very productive, within a very narrow definition of "productive."

One example: I had a BlackBerry Curve 8330 from work (right after they came out) and a personal iPhone. Having used the iPhone's awesome maps, I checked out the BB's maps one day. To say that the iPhone's maps are an order of magnitude better than the BB's is a gross understatement. They are two, maybe three orders better. For every one thing a BB does better than another device, there are ten things every other device does better than a BB. And unless your absolute top priorities are (for example) battery life, network usage, and a good physical keyboard, you're going to be better served by something else.

Just like an organism must have enough food to survive, a company must be profitable to survive, and there just isn't enough market to keep RIM in business much longer. (Or if there is, they'll be a shadow of their former selves and a fraction of the total market, unless they really drastically change--which they haven't shown much indication of doing.)

Unfortunately we replaced him with a President with higher levels of education

Not necessarily. There's lots of reports that Obama was passed by his professors because he had connections that donated millions of dollars to the university. His classmates say he was a terrible student.

On top of that, both he and Michelle have been effectively disbarred ("on court ordered inactive status") as lawyers:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_was_Michelle_Obama_disbarred

There are estimated to be over 200 million guns in the U.S. Not counting military and police. America is armed to the teeth.

If you're going to the hospital to ask them why you can only breathe through one nostril most of the time, yeah, you better have insurance for that. But for emergencies, in the USA:

[...] if the hospital is a "Participating Hospital", i.e., takes any government program funding from the Department of Health and Human Services, such as Medicare, and Medicaid, they must treat for emergency care or active labor regardless of the patients' ability to pay, citizenship, etc, and they must treat them like they would any other patient. This bill passed in 1986 and was called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) under COBRA. This effectively covers all hospitals, profit or non-profit since the hospitals can not make it without the patients under government health care programs. The exceptions are the Shriners Hospitals for Children, Veterans Affairs Hospitals, and Indian Health Service.

This will vary state to state, too, since states have amended to include additional rerquirements and define what services must be included.

Read more

If Jenkins is to be trusted. Is is shocking to the point of disbelief? Yeah, probably. But then again, people on slashdot are smart (cant believe i just said that) and probably need new info more than most professions, not even talking about jobs.

You are very ignorant of history, and of the purpose of referring to it. All of those old technologies were once new. We tend to come up with new technologies rather readily when pressed, and sometimes when just fucking around.

Please stop calling every single person who is tinkering with code a 'researcher'...

Researcher: One who conducts research.

Did he conduct research? Yes.

Then he is a researcher.

Exactly. Here's some people talking about it on answers.com: link
They list four of them, all of them from the 1800s from what I can tell.

Here's another discussion: link
Some people here claim that various 20th century Presidents came somewhat close to losing their renominations.
In addition, Lyndon Johnson never stuck around long enough to see if he'd win his nomination in 1968. He was so unpopular because of Vietnam, and had a very poor showing in the New Hampshire primaries, so he withdrew from the race.

Hopefully, the voters of today will be like the voters of 1968, and send Obama packing next year. However, I seriously doubt it. Today's Democrat voters seem to mostly be a bunch of morons who'll make any excuse they can for Obama so they don't have to face the fact that they were duped and made a terrible choice. (Don't get me started on how moronic Republican voters are...)

Do you know how many people are employed in authoring, navigating, collecting, and enforcing our complex tax system?

Well, the IRS alone employs over 100,000 people IRS Employees and there are somewhere around 800,000 tax preparers Tax Preparers. So lets say 1,000,000 people are employed "doing taxes". This number is probably really low, considering all of the tax attorneys, consultants, etc. If you factor in tax educators, accountants, investment advisers, etc., you might get 2 or 3 million people employed by "doing taxes". There are around 150,000,000 people working in this country. Workforce So if we instituted a really simple flat tax, we would "unemploy" between 1 and 3% of our workforce. That would send us into an instant recession. So a simple flat tax won't work if instituted immediately. Even if the computer just simplified the code somewhat, it would still reduce employment. That would reduce the income generated by taxes and, as a result, nullify the work of the computer. So, I propose that the tax code be made so complex that it employs 100% of the US workforce. People work all day every day calculating taxes. This is a sure fire way to reduce unemployment!

Nice try, but the only irony is that all of those are indeed aptly named:

French Fries
For also in the 1840s, pomme frites ("fried potatoes") first appeared in Paris. Sadly, we don't know the name of the ingenious chef who first sliced the potato into long slender pieces and fried them. But they were immediately popular, and were sold on the streets of Paris by push-cart vendors.

Frites spread to America where they were called French fried potatoes. You asked how they got their name--pretty obvious, I'd say: they came from France, and they were fried potatoes, so they were called "French fried potatoes." The name was shortened to "french fries" in the 1930s. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2033/whats-the-origin-of-french-fries

Salisbury Steak

In the late 19th century, Dr. James Henry Salisbury came up with chopped beef patties to cure Civil War soldiers sufferering from "camp diarrhea." http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/groundbeefhist.htm

Pizza
Pizza is a type of bread and dish that has existed since time immemorial in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_pizza

And for good measure:
Belgian Waffles
Vermersch started making waffles from a recipe of his wife's when living in Belgium before the outbreak of World War II. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_history_behind_the_belgian_waffle

Even the name Hamburger has its origin in Hamburg, Germany:
Hamburgers
In the late 18th century, the largest ports in Europe were in Germany. Sailors who had visited the ports of Hamburg, Germany and New York, brought this food and term "Hamburg steak" into popular usage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger#18th_and_19th_centuries

The essentials of the story didn't change:

Navy SEALs flew to Pakistan in helicopters to Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad where they shot him dead, and one of his wives in the leg after she came between the SEALs and Bin Laden. The SEALs took Bin Laden's body and the US buried it at sea in accordance with Muslim custom. The rest is relatively minor detail.

Then they don't even keep the body around long enough for anyone else to verify it. They just go dump it in the sea? Seriously?

They didn't just dump his body in the sea, they buried it at sea in accordance with Muslim tradtion (though there are disputes among Muslim scholars about when and how it is permitted). Muslim custom requires quick burial. Besides, DNA tests provide all the certainty needed. (How many other 6'4" Muslims that look exactly like Bin Laden are there in Pakistan living in million dollar compounds with vast quantities of communications with Al Qadea and Bin Laden's wives present? That many?)

Why is it so important for a Muslim to buried their dead in a day?

Muslims strive to bury the deceased as soon as possible after death, avoiding the need for embalming or otherwise disturbing the body of the deceased.

Islamic Scholars Split Over Sea Burial for Bin Laden

... Mr. Brennan said that appealing to other countries would have exceeded the time frame that Islamic custom requires, of burial within 24 hours of death.

I don't think there is any serious reason to doubt a quick burial at sea, especially since the US is trying to account for Muslim sensitivities.

They are all pathological liars in my book.

President Obama announced Bin Laden was killed by American forces:
Obama Announces Death of Osama bin Laden

Al Qaeda has announced he is dead:
Text: Al Qaeda statement confirming bin Laden's death

Iran says he is dead:
Iran's intelligence chief says bin Laden died long before the 'alleged raid'

Family members denounce his death:
My father's death was criminal and I may sue the U.S.

Locals protest his death:
Pakistani tribesmen protest

So tell me, are all of these people with multiple and conflicting interests lying about Bin Laden being dead? Is it just to fool you? If so, why?

Well, if the company clearly writes it down somewhere and doesn't lie, then I see no problem.

That's the issue. Legalese isn't clear to 99.6% of Americans.

It certainly isn't their fault that the customer is either stupid or doesn't have time to read it (or some other reason). It's unfortunate, yes, but it isn't their fault.

Once again, Yes it is. One mark of intelligence is the ability to explain a concept to anyone, regardless of their level of intelligence. Like an onion where outer layers contain inner layers.

It's a little more than unfortunate. If the company is unable to secure their customer's understanding they are unable to secure their consent. In this situation, lack of understanding should mean that the EULA isn't binding. One would imagine that in a world where EULAs are deemed necessary, a company would have a interest in ensuring that their unduly-restrictive terms are legally-binding.

Taking the time to learn a completely different language is quite different than taking the time to read something in your own language.

Legalese isn't English - despite sharing words.

At the root of this is the idea that one party is seeking agreement from another. I believe it's clear that agreement cannot exist without understanding. It's not acceptable for the legal profession to disregard this truism simply to keep the wheels turning.

I'm not clear what the solution might be. Perhaps:
  * Educate the population (*)
  * Make it a requirement that EULAs are kept as simple as possible such that they are able to be 'translated' into everyday English understandable by someone whose agreement the EULA seeks.

(*) Sure that's likely to remove many of them from the poverty-trap and thus there'll be no grateful underclass to perform the country's unpleasant tasks but let's take one problem at a time.

My initial thought was that if there's an argument that the legal-profession's meanderings simply cannot be 'translated' into everyday English and that a legal mind is a necessity for every situation then this service should be made freely available to the 99.6% of Americans who need it. i.e. they are given free legal advice until they answer Yes to the plain english sentence "do you understand what I have just explained to you?"