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King Sejong is a celebrated Korean ruler who can literally say he invented the alphabet. He was also one of two rulers in the country's history awarded the titles "the Great." Sejong the Great was the fourth king of the Joseon Dynasty, and ruled from 1418 – 1450.

He created 28 letters for a Korean alphabet. As time went on, revisions were made. Currently, 24 characters are used and are still under ongoing studies.

Government officials and aristocrats opposed the spread of "Hunminjeongeum," but they were outnumbered. The publication was completed in 1443 and approved in 1446. It spread among lower-class citizens, who were finally able to read and write.

After the publication of "Hunminjeongeum," longer documents followed. The next volume was called "Hunminjeongeum Haerye."

"A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days," the "Hunminjeongeum Haerye" says.

And if this Korean historical drama is accurate (I personally have no idea if it is), I believe this is the same king who commissioned an architectural structure to serve as an almanac of the stars so that Korean farmers who couldn't read would know when to plant and harvest their crops.

I saw something earlier today about a "GOP train wreck". Is this connected to that story, or does it just refer to the Republicans more generally?

Since I don't know if the intent was to be funny or not the "GOP train wreck" is a reference to an actual collision between a train and a garbage truck.

Since there was an actual death it is a bit inappropriate to make jokes about it.
Of course that makes it so much more fun and I totally encourage it.

Considering how forceful and near-universal condemnation from women and women's groups in and out of tech has been to the memo, it is extremely difficult to believe that this Ask Slashdot was submitted in good faith. Particularly in light of the extreme ease of finding high-profile responses. Here is a (small) sample from a simple google search:

https://www.vox.com/the-big-id...
https://www.vox.com/first-pers...
http://fortune.com/2017/08/09/...
http://www.businessinsider.com...
https://patch.com/california/m...

If you really are that out of the loop, that should inform you pretty well. If you're begging the question, then the quantity of vile reactions in these comments have likely confirmed that it was worth it. I hope it is the former.

That is the exact opposite of healthy advice in Germany where the police aren't actually out to get you on minor details to raise money or to put you away in prison to appease the prison industry complex.

I don't know the ratio of good/bad US police, but here are some examples of good US police:

Big-hearted cop hailed for buying homeless man a new pair of boots - TODAY.com

Caught on Camera/ CHP Officer Had This Stranded Pleasanton Motorist's Back - Pleasanton, CA Patch

Homeless Man in Florida Discovers Forgotten Bank Account Collecting Pension With Cop's Help

Ohio cop praised for restraint, refusing to shoot suspect

Ohio cop takes homeless family to Walmart, books them in hotel - TODAY.com

Police officer beats teen in dance off, does the "Nae Nae" - CBS News (with video)

Police Officer Caught in Random Act of Kindness, Internet Falls in Love - Temecula, CA Patch

Police Officer Has 'Tea Party' With Toddler Whose Life He Saved - ABC News

Police officer helps woman who couldn't afford a birthday cake for her son - TODAY.com

Police officer shares meal with homeless man/ 'Nobody wants to eat alone' - TODAY.com

Police Sergeant Buys Clothes for Third Grade Bicyclist Struck by Car - San Leandro, CA Patch

Strangers Join Police Officers to Buy 95-Year-old New Air Conditioner - Good News Network

Sweet photo of police officer comforting lost boy goes viral - TODAY.com

Video Captures Police Officer Buying New Shoes For Barefoot Man | HuffPost

That is the exact opposite of healthy advice in Germany where the police aren't actually out to get you on minor details to raise money or to put you away in prison to appease the prison industry complex.

I don't know the ratio of good/bad US police, but here are some examples of good US police:

Big-hearted cop hailed for buying homeless man a new pair of boots - TODAY.com

Caught on Camera/ CHP Officer Had This Stranded Pleasanton Motorist's Back - Pleasanton, CA Patch

Homeless Man in Florida Discovers Forgotten Bank Account Collecting Pension With Cop's Help

Ohio cop praised for restraint, refusing to shoot suspect

Ohio cop takes homeless family to Walmart, books them in hotel - TODAY.com

Police officer beats teen in dance off, does the "Nae Nae" - CBS News (with video)

Police Officer Caught in Random Act of Kindness, Internet Falls in Love - Temecula, CA Patch

Police Officer Has 'Tea Party' With Toddler Whose Life He Saved - ABC News

Police officer helps woman who couldn't afford a birthday cake for her son - TODAY.com

Police officer shares meal with homeless man/ 'Nobody wants to eat alone' - TODAY.com

Police Sergeant Buys Clothes for Third Grade Bicyclist Struck by Car - San Leandro, CA Patch

Strangers Join Police Officers to Buy 95-Year-old New Air Conditioner - Good News Network

Sweet photo of police officer comforting lost boy goes viral - TODAY.com

Video Captures Police Officer Buying New Shoes For Barefoot Man | HuffPost

That is the exact opposite of healthy advice in Germany where the police aren't actually out to get you on minor details to raise money or to put you away in prison to appease the prison industry complex.

I don't know the ratio of good/bad US police, but here are some examples of good US police:

Big-hearted cop hailed for buying homeless man a new pair of boots - TODAY.com

Caught on Camera/ CHP Officer Had This Stranded Pleasanton Motorist's Back - Pleasanton, CA Patch

Homeless Man in Florida Discovers Forgotten Bank Account Collecting Pension With Cop's Help

Ohio cop praised for restraint, refusing to shoot suspect

Ohio cop takes homeless family to Walmart, books them in hotel - TODAY.com

Police officer beats teen in dance off, does the "Nae Nae" - CBS News (with video)

Police Officer Caught in Random Act of Kindness, Internet Falls in Love - Temecula, CA Patch

Police Officer Has 'Tea Party' With Toddler Whose Life He Saved - ABC News

Police officer helps woman who couldn't afford a birthday cake for her son - TODAY.com

Police officer shares meal with homeless man/ 'Nobody wants to eat alone' - TODAY.com

Police Sergeant Buys Clothes for Third Grade Bicyclist Struck by Car - San Leandro, CA Patch

Strangers Join Police Officers to Buy 95-Year-old New Air Conditioner - Good News Network

Sweet photo of police officer comforting lost boy goes viral - TODAY.com

Video Captures Police Officer Buying New Shoes For Barefoot Man | HuffPost

OK, how about ... Maryland? Considered the worst example of gerrymandering in the country, and it's been done by and for a purely Democrat, monolithic state legislature that has maintained its power through truly absurd district boundary definitions. Of course, you know this, and are pretending you don't for lazy rhetorical reasons. But that's a great example, and it is 100% on the Democrats, and has been for years and years. It reached its current level of crazy specifically to split a district that was long represented by a very moderate Republican (Connie Morella) so that Chris Van Hollen could occupy that seat. I know, it's still OK with you, because it's Democrats doing it.

Here, enjoy a taste of how the Democrats designed the 3rd District, some of which only occupies the shoulders of certain roads, so that voting blocks could be glued together for maximum D control:

https://patch.com/maryland/ann...

Maybe this Uber driver was listening to one of those podcasts when this happened.

Is that like neglecting how many of these "hate crimes" are reported false and the person lied?? You ever hear about any of those? Yeah, me neither................
 

This is just a way to declare Trump's win illegitimate.

Here are some other ways:

http://www.rollingstone.com/po...

http://patch.com/michigan/detr...

If you would like more ways Trump's win can be declared illegitimate, I'm here to serve.

It happens in nice areas, too. This is one of the richer areas on the Penninsula, , here is an earlier one. I've had my own home invaded as well, but the invader was unarmed, so I asked him to leave.

The problem is the particular business model they use: impose a specific cap based upon the plan, and then charge large overage rates if you go over.

If it were just a matter of paying a base charge and then paying per GB (or similar) used, then it might make sense. Those overage rates, however, make the model problematic at best. Especially when they fail to notify customers that they're getting close to their quota.

Exactly.

Whatever happened to the simple principle of labelling things?

We have to list ingredients, unless they are only used to "process" the item. So, we could literally dip the item in Agent Orange, as long as we then washed the item afterward. Never mind that things have membranes that are porous -- we washed it off!

We preserve nuts with sulfuryl fluoride, a product used to fumigate houses. A product that have caused serious and permanent damage when people went back into the house too soon. But none of that product remains on the nuts? Who says? Who tests? Why no mention on that bag of almonds?

We have to list ingredients, except with bottled water, where we helpfully list the calories and grams of carbohydrates. Why don't we list the amount of dissolved solids, and/or calcium, etc.?

We worry about mercury in our drinking water, but not in our flu shots, even when the amount present is 25,000 times higher than what we would allow in drinking water. Why?

Companies introduce new pharma or pesticides/herbacides, and the EPA trusts the company's tests. Until enough people die, etc. to prompt a sufficient hue and cry that the EPA feels bad enough to take the company rep out for a good tongue lashing at an all-you-can-eat lobster fest.

Oh my god, not a whole 25 of them!!!?1?! That's terrible!They will need hundreds more in order to reach parity with normal taxi services. It's safe to assume that California has just as many drivers for actual taxi services with a record as Uber does, even per capita, and maybe more. You are already not safe in a taxi in California, don't imagine that you are. (Not that it's safe to be a taxi driver, either...)

The real story here is that our country is a pressure cooker of inequity, just like most of the rest of the world, and when you apply energy to a system you add motion. But government doesn't want to fix society, so long as they can look busy. They don't want to work themselves out of a job.

Local government can regulate where aircraft and land and take off through bylaws. For example one must have a permit to build a helicopter pad in most cities. In Seattle one needs a permit.

As for operation in the air, since the helicopter has no permit to land, it would not be in the process of landing therefore must abide by the FAA regulation minimum altitude rules.

Learn.

Exactly! It's the opposite of secession... it's an experiment in what would happen if people actually showed up and used the check and balance mechanisms that exist. You can see how the NHLA operates as a watchdog organization at nhliberty.org Our bill-review process lets legislators and citizens see what is in the bills (and sometimes finds things the authors hadn't intended to write ;) And a lot of us get into state-level politics... some positions only take one day per year, e.g. state party delegate: http://patch.com/new-hampshire...

http://patch.com/virginia/mana...
This article is three years old and nothing has changed.

A quote from an article in 2014
"Not a single business has ever opened in City Center in the six years it has been standing, making it a failure in the eyes of many Manassas Park residents."

45K sqft of retail space and I think only bank branch and a Subway restaurant eventually did move in. The odd part is I think the apartments and condos in the development are doing pretty good.

"Can't crash a train into anything"...hahaha, you've never heard of the Chicago CTA

sleeping operator makes CTA train crash into and up escalator: http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Pothead tries to push train ahead out of the way: http://www.chicago-l.org/misha...
CTA "ghost train" with no operator goes for a ride and crashes, multiple fail-safes not working: http://patch.com/illinois/oakp...

Has the government - beyond just the white house - been inclined to revoke any tax exempt statuses in memory?

Ummm, a little dose of reality.

It happens ALL THE TIME!

Try this one: St. Augustine Students Join Google's Made With Code Initiative and Light Up Holiday Trees With Code: Although Googleâ(TM)s Made with Code is a movement launched in June 2014 to inspire millions of girls to learn to code, and to help them see coding as a means to pursue their dream careers, âoewe decided to open it up to all our students, both boys and girls so that they could be a part of such an historic event, and have it be the kickoff to our Hour of Code week,â commented Debra Knox, Technology Teacher at St. Augustine.

Cool, Jim! You might like this related proposal by me also for a basic income funded by a wealth tax of 6% on declared assets, with only declared assets being insured and defended by the government, explaining why millionaires should support the idea:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/basi...

BTW, if we had a basic income, it's not clear to me there would still be any justification for copyright or patents. Suddenly anyone wanting to create could do so on their own or in collaboration with other like-minded creative people. So, given the costs of copyright and patents to society of chilling effects and other negative effects, it could be better to eliminate them entirely.

Real innovations are rarely rewarded in society. After all, for example, you invented Spasim, the first 3D networked computer game, which eventually spawned an entire industry all the way to Minecraft and Space Engineers. As the original developer of an idea, did you get royalties from the entire industry for decades? I doubt it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

For another example, it took Ralph Baer fifteen years to even get someone to pay attention to the concept of computer games hooked to TVs:
http://games.slashdot.org/stor...

Meanwhile, someone like Bill Gates got financially obese based on starting as a millionaire at birth, dumpster diving to read other's code, and then licensing someone else's work to IBM -- work which apparently was improperly taken from the inventor (with IBM going through Gates to avoid liability).

Refs:
http://philip.greenspun.com/bg...
"William Henry Gates III made his best decision on October 28, 1955, the night he was born. He chose J.W. Maxwell as his great-grandfather. Maxwell founded Seattle's National City Bank in 1906. His son, James Willard Maxwell was also a banker and established a million-dollar trust fund for William (Bill) Henry Gates III. In some of the later lessons, you will be encouraged to take entrepreneurial risks. You may find it comforting to remember that at any time you can fall back on a trust fund worth many millions of 1998 dollars. "

http://patch.com/california/lo...
""I would boost Bill into dumpsters and we'd get these coffee-stained texts (of computer code)" from behind the offices, grinned Allen."

http://www.businessweek.com/st...
"They Made America is certain to elicit cries of protest. That's because it attacks the reputations of some of the key players of the early PC era -- Gates, IBM, and Tim Paterson, the Seattle programmer who wrote an operating system, QDOS, based partly on CP/M that became Microsoft's DOS. Evans asserts that Paterson copied parts of CP/M and that IBM tricked Kildall. Because Gates rather than the more innovative Kildall prevailed, according to the book, the world's PC users endured "more than a decade of crashes with incalculable economic cost in lost data and lost opportunities.""

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2...
"Last week, a Judge dismissed a defamation law suit brought by Tim Paterson, who sold a computer operating system to Microsoft in 1980, against journalist and author Sir Harold Evans and his publisher Little Brown. The software became the basis of Microsoft's MS-DOS monopoly, and the basis of its dominance of the PC industry. ... In a chapter devoted to Kildall in Evans' They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators, Evans related how Pater

You also won't find any law prohibiting a child from nibbling his Pop-Tart into the shape of a gun, but a 6-yo was suspended from school for having a "weapon" - or anything which a mentally-disturbed teacher might think LOOKED like a gun. Yes, it happened.

ThisIsTrue.com is a weekly compilation of bizarre but true news stories; search for the "zero tolerance" ones.

But here are a few selections from a Google search for "parents arrested for leaving children alone".

http://stratford.patch.com/gro...

https://answers.yahoo.com/ques...

https://secure02.kidshealth.or...

http://www.lawandparents.co.uk...

Stanford tuition, room, and board is actually free for students with families making less than $100k a year. http://paloalto.patch.com/grou...

You mean like Magdalena Glinkowski, who went hiking up into the Mt. Tamalpais when the weather forecast was 90% chance of rain?

http://napavalley.patch.com/gr...

I can't find a detailed budget for Minneapolis, but fare costs for other cities are always over 85% (for cities I've looked at to date) and can be higher than 100% in some cases. BTW, fares account for only 15% of the Minneapolis light rail revenue (source).

The difference is explained in that article: fares only account for 15% of the total cost for Minneapolis light rail, not 15% of the total revenue. Most cities only talk about fares collected vs operating expenses; they don't include capital expenditures and debt service, which together can be larger than operating expenses.

I'm not sure what the fare collection costs are (machines, enforcement, etc) but its hard to see them being more than 10% of the fare revenue, especially when you consider that a lot of the collection costs are upfront (buying, installing machines, etc) and basically one-time costs.

I can't find a detailed budget for Minneapolis, but fare costs for other cities are always over 85% (for cities I've looked at to date) and can be higher than 100% in some cases. BTW, fares account for only 15% of the Minneapolis light rail revenue (source).

There are a lot of hidden costs, such as personnel to collect the coins/tokens/strips, empty and reload the machines, personnel to do maintenance, and such. Personnel are very expensive to maintain - did you include the pensions?

I don't know what the expenses are either, but I'm sure it's over 85%.

Factor in the invisible savings (decreased traffic, higher local economy through increased usage, decreased pollution, less need for other infrastructure such as parking) and it looks like a clear win.

Here's an article from 2 years ago by someone in the same county: http://cerritos.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/is-trick-or-treating-down-halloween-trends-decline-in3eafc90da4

"Over the past few years Iâ(TM)ve noticed a similar trend in the decline of trick-or-treaters going around the neighborhood. At first I thought maybe this was just me, and maybe everyone else had different experiences, but after talking to many residents from Cerritos, Artesia, and other surrounding cities most had similar experiences on Halloween."

call me when your injured and they want one of these to drive you to the hospital. then tell me how you think of these "autonomous" cars. i'm alive because someone put me in their car as kid and drove me to the hospital as a kid doing 80 the entire drive. believe me these things are going to kill people and the makers are going to be all "it's a flawless system"

Of course, a parent rushing a child to the hospital is not in the best frame of mind for driving, and is more likely to get into an accident, like this:

http://millburn.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/local-girl-hit-by-a-car

So maybe the 2 minutes saved by driving 15 miles to the hospital at 80mph instead of 65 mph isn't worth the risk to others on the road. And definitely the 6 minutes saved by driving 80mph instead of 45mph isn't worth the risk to other drivers from driving nearly twice the speed limit on that 45 mph road. There's a reason why emergency vehicles have those bright flashing lights and sirens - and even emergency vehicles get into accidents while rushing to and emergency.

In most cases, you're going to be better off calling an Advanced Life Support ambulance so the paramedics can evaluate and stabilize you on the way to the hospital, but if you choose to drive there yourself, you're likely going to be safer in a self-driving car that's not going to take unwise risks.

The restaurant served alcohol to "visibly intoxicated persons" on at least three occasions, the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control said Friday in a statement. On two of those occasions, two female Tiffany's patrons were killed in separate drunk driving crashes and in the third, an intoxicated male motorcyclist was injured in a crash.

Bruno D'Uva Sr. and Bruno D'Uva Jr., both of whom own 30 percent of Tiffany's license, and Lisa Barna, who owns 40 percent, must sell their interests in the license by July 24, 2015 and pay a fine of $200,000.

After Over-Serving Patrons, Tiffany's Owners to Give Up Liquor License

Another way to lose your liquor license is by failing to card or to question the underage drinker.

The geek of course is obsessed with tech.

The bar owner is looking for a bartender who can gently push sales of the top-shelf liquor. He needs to be sociable --- he needs to be a touch theatrical.

The robot bartender as a running gag is at least as old as kinescopes of The Jackie Gleason Show of 1952. I wouldn't be in the least surprised if he made his first appearance in the silent films of 1915.

If it can happen in Maine, I think it can surely happen in California

It can happen anywhere and it can happen for all the wrong reasons, especially in California because what people don't realize is that business will grow and prosper where it's welcome. Last year California lost 5.2% of its businesses and while the experts can't agree on a clear "why," I think that California has become more anti-business, anti-growth over the past few decades. I was born and raised in So. Cal and lived out there through the end of the 80s but even then it was still growing. Sure the recent recession has hit everybody but the decline in California is inevitable; Overpriced housing such as in Orange County means that even middle class wage earners have a very hard time of living there, which also helps to drive up the costs of labor. You can blame speculation on most of that but without mass transit and massive urban sprawl it creates huge amounts of gridlock. Add to it the anti-business legislation that's been passed and you have a perfect storm brewing over over-inflated housing prices, employees who can't get to work because of long commutes and an anti-business attitude and ranking highest in the nation on taxation in most categories, that makes California downright a sucky place to make a living and conduct business. As they say "it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there."

""After a 70-year absence, it appears that a new rigid frame airship will soon be taking to the skies over California..."

No, not a 70 year absence: a ten month absence. Zeppelin "Eureka" was flying over California from 2008 to 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airship_Ventures

--couldn't make enough money flying sightseeing cruises to pay its way, alas
http://mountainview.patch.com/groups/business-news/p/airship-ventures-says-goodbye

your linky thing is broken. Here's where you were trying to link to

I have no idea where they get ideas like that. Oh maybe situations like this? http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/conceal-and-carry-stabbing-salt-lake-city-smiths/NDNrL1gxeE2rsRhrWCM9dQ.cspx or http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2012-08-28/story/customer-kills-gunman-during-jacksonville-robbery-attempt or http://archive.lewrockwell.com/spl4/heroic-armed-citizen.html or http://mountainview.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/armed-attempted-robbery-thwarted-by-brave-victim-wtih-bb-gun#photo-4081472

There were Credit Card Skimmers installed in the checkout lines in 21 Bay Area Lucky Stores, followed by rampant buying sprees on the card of the people stupid enough to use the self-checkout lines, which are not very well policed. I definitely won't use the things.

http://millbrae.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/credit-card-skimming-reported-in-21-bay-area-lucky-stores

This iris scan device is expensive, ineffective and excessive.

But there are money for the contractors, bribe for the school administrators. Everyone is happy, right?

This just sounds like theft of public resources. Almost as bad as having a vice squad wrongly bust an autistic high school student for drugs (the school administrators were in on that one too) [1]. Or that case about the school admins who used software to take pictures of their students in their rooms with school laptops [2].

In all these cases, it's these un-impeachable un-elected school administrators who work with seedy police or corporations and are never punished. Instead, the public pays for unnecessary services, or they pay for unneeded lawsuits.

What will it take to get these folks fired and put in jail for reckless negligence and/or corruption?

[1] http://temecula.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/autistic-tvusd-student-wrongly-accused-in-massive-dru6a5c988a16
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/11/lower-merion-school-distr_n_758882.html

We could all grow our own food, but we don't, and if we did it'd completely fuck up the entire economy.

And in some cases, people get threatened with jail time for growing vegetables in what Americans used to call a "victory garden".

I postulate that they would have come about in another manner then. The closest we have to a proper experimental control is industries that lack any IP protection, the fashion industry springs to mind, yet every year designers come up with new designs -and make a fortune out of them.
They simply found OTHER ways to make money out of invention and fund the process. Removing the patent protection does't mean removing the financial incentive from those that want (or need) it, it simply means the methodology by which that incentive is satisfied gets changed.

The fashion industry has IP protection and there are regularly lawsuits regarding fake merchandise. For example, here is a story about Coach being awarded $8 million for trademark infrigement and unfair competition. I think your point is valid but your example isn't.

...er, I mean nuclear industry shills, not coal industry. By the way, where are all the coal industry shills? If Slashdot is overwhelmed by nuclear apologists, it's kind of weird that the coal industry hasn't noticed and sent some of their own.

Local television and radio stations in my city (Pittsburgh) have coal and natural gas shill commercials at least once every commercial break. Range Resource and Consol Energy are the biggest offenders on telling us how fracking and coal power do not fuck up our environment. When documents say otherwise, they dissapear.

Good luck making a law "abridging the freedom of speech."

This attack on 1st Amendment civil rights isn't something I would expect to be coming out of Berkeley. OTOH, the Berkeley government has attacked 2nd Amendment civil rights, so kudos for consistency.

If you're a large black man, or driving a Nissan Titan, or pretty much any pick up dark in color, it's recommended you stay home http://redondobeach.patch.com/articles/torrance-shooting-unbridled-police-lawlessness-says-attorney

The problem with taxing a company's gross income is that it just causes the company to raise prices so that, after taxes, it makes a profit. It would be more rational to tax the profits, the difference between earnings and expenses. This is the money that mostly/normally gets distributed as dividends to stockholders. One could now argue that the company would just raise prices so that the amount of dividends paid would still be the same as before such a tax was put in place. The implication is that perhaps companies shouldn't be taxed at all in order to keep prices down --only their stockholders should be taxed, per individual income taxes. And if that last thing isn't being done fairly enough, well, then, perhaps that is the thing to fix!

The group of psychopaths also known as the Roswell City Council pushed Andrew Wordes (also known as the Roswell Chicken Man) to take his life in March 2012.

An armed guard is a good idea, but it may be cost prohibitive. The guards themselves would also be another potential point of failure.

Most shootings happen at close distances, so it would fallow that non-lethal weaponry such as tazers (with projectiles) could be effective in many scenarios. The issuance of non-lethal weaponry to staff with a breif, possibly one-time training session would have a real shot at lowering classroom shooting fatalities.

It may still seem to be cost prohibitive, but how would it compare to the proposed $200M gun buyback program? Another issue could be that like with guns, the weapon could be used against the employee. However, trading potential deaths for potential injuries sounds like a win to me.

Here in NJ we are not allowed to pump our own gas. That's right, we get Full Service whether we like it or not (it is very convenient on cold or bad weather days).

Who is going to be responsible if they start putting this E15 into cars older than 2001? The attendant? The gas station owner?? The distribution company??? If we get E15 it is going to happen, the only question is how frequently and will our astronomical insurance rates cover it?

The geek kicks off on stories like these.

But a small word of caution: LWSD has a very good reputation

Lake Washington School District named to AP District Honor Roll

Among the more than 900 U.S. and international middle school students invited to the ceremony on the Johns Hopkins University campus, all earned exceptionally high scores that place them well within the top one-half of one percent academically of all same-grade students.
Past participants in the CTY Talent Search include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, and performer Lady Gaga.

Whiz Kid: Sammamish Middle-Schooler Kartik Iyer Honored for SAT Scores

I'm sorry but this is distorting the statistics and neglecting problems with the vehicle fleet that cause fatalities at ALL intersections, whether or not there are stop lights present.

According to the FHWA red light running accounted for less than 10% of deaths at intersections in 2008. And this number is roughly 2% of the total traffic deaths in the US.

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/intersection/redlight/

The primary way to make stop lights safer is to increase the yellow time and have a period where all the lights are red. But this ISN'T done with most red light camera installations because it reduces revenues to the point where the red light camera revenues don't pay for the operation of the cameras.

In NJ there have been several cases where red light cameras have been found to be operating at traffic signals with yellow light periods shorter than the basic requirements. There was recently a state-wide shutdown of red light cameras because of this problem.

http://brick.patch.com/articles/red-light-cams-shut-down-over-yellow-light-length-concerns

Then of course there is the history of municipalities intentionally shortening yellow light periods for profit:

http://blog.motorists.org/6-cities-that-were-caught-shortening-yellow-light-times-for-profit/

FTFA

>âoeSHARK used the drone to successfully videotape illegal animal abuse committed at the pigeon shoot for nearly the entire day,â

No they didn't.

Pigeon shooting is legal.

http://bensalem.patch.com/articles/da-dismisses-pigeon-shoot-citations

âoeThe shooting of pigeons in Pennsylvania is unquestionably legal,â the release stated. Efforts by Seeton and others to persuade the Pennsylvania General Assembly to ban pigeon shooting failed as recently as December 2011.

The DAâ(TM)s office agreed however that efforts must be made to ensure that animals wounded but not killed by shotgun are humanely killed. Gun clubs must conduct a complete search of their property and adjacent areas for the purpose of retrieving wounded birds at the end of the pigeon shoot.

And good luck getting pigeon shooting banned in PA, or any other kind of shooting and hunting. The first day of deer season is a state holiday, for instance.

--
BMO

Chuck Schumer is one of the biggest pro-government control-freak assholes in congress. He has no qualms bending logic, twisting and lying to spin whatever propoganda he needs to in order to advance his agenda. He has never met a law he didn't like, and works to restrict freedom with his every move.

This is only latest in a decades long series of moves by him.

See:
Chuck Schumer vs. Free Speech

Schumer Among Biggest Supporters of Anti-Piracy Laws (He was a co-sponsor of SOPA and PIPA)

Schumer's racket: Lobbyists and hedge funds

Schumer proposes new federal regulations on grill brushes

And since the above links are all pretty recent, here's some Schumer history:

On the eve of the first anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing in April, 1996, Congress passed the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The Democrats were very disappointed, however, because the bill passed without proposed expansions of wiretapping authority. In May 1996, Reps. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 3409 "to combat domestic terrorism."

The bill, titled the "Effective Anti-Terrorism Tools for Law Enforcement Act of 1996," would expand the powers granted to the FBI to engage in multi- point (roving) wiretaps and emergency wiretaps without court orders, and to access an individual's hotel and vehicle and storage facility rental records. It also relaxed the requirements for obtaining pen register and trap and trace orders in foreign intelligence investigations.

Most of your reply isn't really relevant because I've agreed with you that the US has serious problems and that some of them are getting worse. In that context, pointing to specific problems doesn't really do much. But it may be instructive to look at your examples:

Tarek Mehanna is an appalling example and not the only such case. Ward Churchill was guilty of severe plagiarism. It is true that people paid more attention to him and the plagiarism accusations because of his politically controversial statements, but that's a much weaker claim (and no one seriously disagrees with the plagiarism issue in his case). The issues related to recording the police are also a serious one and one that is really despicable. It varies a lot from state to state, and some states are actually improving (see for example, the ongoing legislation in Connecticut that will allow people to sue cops who try to interfere with recording http://stratford.patch.com/articles/bill-protects-citizens-recording-police-a8140340). In Pakistan, that wouldn't even be an issue because the police or military would just beat up the person recording and take the recording. Pihkal is a potential example of where someone was targeted for their speech, although actual violations of research and security policies were found in the lab. Your statement about the DMCA is just factually wrong- the DMCA prohibits circumvention of copy-protection mechanisms, it doesn't prohibit discussion of how to do so. The PROTECT_Act has some pretty stupid provisions, and trying to make virtual porn illegal is a violation of free speech by many notions. In Pakistan essentially all pornography is essentially illegal and they regularly block pornographic websites http://tribune.com.pk/story/293434/pta-approved-over-1000-porn-sites-blocked-in-pakistan/. Free speech zones are a really wretched idea and do implicitly violate actual free speech protections, although weak forms that only restrict time, place and manner without any content aspect are probably ok (and in fact courts in the last few years have struck down many attempts to restrict anything beyond that- see for example what happened with Texas Tech in 2004).

In the US one is subject to such searches if one is going on a plane

This amounts to millions of people subjected to searches, in a systematic and humiliating way.

You cut off part of my sentence which ended with "and one doesn't go through the backscatter screening", and that's quite relevant here. About 2 million people are subject monthly to pat-downs http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2011/may/17/janet-napolitano/homeland-security-chief-stresses-very-very-very-fe/. That estimate includes people who are getting pat-downs after they've already triggered some sort of warning, not just randomized pat-downs or op-out pat-downs. Again, the Pakistan situation is very different- the police and military can stop anyone on the streets and search them with no justification. I don't know if that results in more total searches in the US, but if it does, it is only because the US is a much larger country. As a percentage matter, the result would be pretty clear.

Any violation of this sort in Pakistan is actually orders of magnitude worse than the US

[citation needed]

Sure. http://www.hrw.org/asia/pakistan, http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2010/sca/154485.htm,