Slashdot Mirror

Well hold on here. I wasn't talking about someone using a firearm to threaten or to attack. I am talking about people that are just being stupid with firearms (open carrying, what have you).

A bullet doesn't care if it was discharged intentionally or accidentally. If a firearm is being handled in an unsafe manner, someone can be maimed or killed.

And note that open carrying is perfectly legal in many states, so calling the police wouldn't accomplish anything there regardless.

The point I am trying to make is that this app has nothing to do with stopping criminal behavior, but the only meaningful purpose of it is to harass gun owners.

So empowering people to avoid showing up on this list isn't a "meaningful purpose?"

Disclosure: I dont own a gun.
The app seems like its going to anger quite a few people who hold the second amendment dear. I can see instances in which the app is used by police to target dissenters before an organized protest on the guise they plan to start a riot. Or perhaps the map is used by criminals to identify homes without firearms. marking an entire neighborhood is bound to lower property value. However in many cases the recourse for average citizens to do anything about a mentally unstable neighbor that owns a gun or guns is pretty limited. The viet-nam vet who pipes michael savage throughout the porch and parades around the back yard in fatigues with an assault rifle literally was my neighbor for 4 years in suburban ohio. i cringed every time i saw a girl scout or jehovas witness approach the door. The neighborhood association did nothing and the local police, despite the fact the man had been banned from a local public festival and a wal-mart, simply acknowledged him to be an interesting character.

The site asks if I know anyone who does not use a gun lock, and considering as i live in a state that leads the nation in child firearm fatalities im inclined to use the app to report people who dont use them.

Of and there is still this conceptual thing called transit bubble: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/07/edward_snowden_has_spent_a_week_in_a_transit_zone_at_moscow_s_airport_what.html
He could be anywhere in Russia in his own transit bubble.

Interesting concept. Could you declare your own transit bubble?

Interesting article on slate yesterday (Revolution Blues) talking about how even now newly published popular histories (by people who should know better) miss/ignore a lot of stuff.

That is a terribly short-sighted sentiment. Why you should care.

If you don't think the Israeli model would cost more, then you don't understand the Israeli model.

A number of articles have examined the issue:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aFyfihM1e3G4&refer=politics
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay_25_for_71_seconds_of_scrutiny_in_an_airport
http://forward.com/articles/122781/israel-s-airport-security-object-of-envy-is-hard/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/11/20/counterproductive_airport_security_does_tsa_cause_more_deaths_than_it_prevents.html
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/aviation-security-and-the-israeli-model/#more-27215

This book looks at the entire cost-benefit equation:
http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0199795762

All total bollocks of course.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_motion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html

Oh yes, Dr. "Batty" Bhat the Botanist:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_motion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html

No talking or texing. Period.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/05/31/ethan_hawke_julie_delpy_don_t_talk_psa_for_alamo_drafthouse_is_the_best.html

http://drafthouse.com/about

If they taught statistics properly? Drive better - maybe, but doubtful. The danger of bad driving is certainly addressed now. And "stop insisting that the government take their freedoms to protect them from terrorists?" That isn't happening now. Never play the lottery - maybe.

As far as "not arm themselves "for home protection,"" why would you do that? It would put people at risk.

Rethinking Gun Control

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

The government has the fix for everything. Just let them confiscate more of our wealth and give them more power to micro-manage every aspect of our lives. That's the solution to this problem and apparently every other problem.

Let me guess; you live in one of those red states, like the top ten ranked by Romney's infamous 47% who pay no taxes http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/blogs/the_reckoning/2012/10/non-payers-by-state.jpg.CROP.original-original.jpg
and where the federal government "confiscates your wealth" by giving you back more of it, compared to the blue states where the federal government "confiscates our wealth" to give it to you guys so that your ignorant asses won't starve and turn to cannibalism, for which assistance you bite the hand which feeds you as an expression of your Christian morality.
2007 - http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/fedspend_per_taxesbystate-20071009.pdf
2004 - http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelpinto/2987025203/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/06/17/edward_snowden_g8_latest_nsa_leak_comes_as_world_leaders_gather_in_northern.html

This is what Snowden gave to the media. We don't know how many other details like this he has to hand over. The fact that he's now in Russia could mean that he's handing over gigs detailed of information he had stored somewhere. WE JUST DO NOT KNOW.

So stop acting like you know.

They already knew what he knew.

They are only protecting him to make USA look bad, its all PR.

But hey, if USA has access to ALL communications, and all inhouse secret emails and source codes of ALL corporations to all commericial products in dev/beta/selling, then they have the upper hand.

ie. If the NSA has all the source code of a competitor to USA corp, then they give it to the CEO of a F100 corp.

Gee, why are usa corps so successful, its because they get inside info from the NSA.

Even if that info is just pricing and time to market.

ie, if helping Apple gains 50 billion in sales, and hurts Samsung, the NSA will, since it directly benefits pension funds, and the whole USA.

But the number one reason the USA is top dog, is the federal reserve and their unlimited money printing illegal rights, that every one can say, FU, we arent paying our debts back coz its funny money.

How do you know what they knew? Did they know details like from this leak http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/06/17/edward_snowden_g8_latest_nsa_leak_comes_as_world_leaders_gather_in_northern.html

I doubt they knew about that. But even if they did, the more details they are given the more they'll be able to duplicate prism.

Details of *domestic* spying will put no US asset at risk. Except maybe a few server farms and ISP links?

What about details of the G8 spying: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/06/17/edward_snowden_g8_latest_nsa_leak_comes_as_world_leaders_gather_in_northern.html

This should have never have been leaked. There is nothing illegal about this operation. In fact I don't understand how anyone but foreign governments gain from this leak. The people at the G8 are all government officials being spied on and those are the people who are supposed to be spied on so why was it leaked? EXPLAIN.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/06/18/nasa_funding_asteroid_mission_education_and_climate_change.html

Seems like Mars is ok but not asteroids or climate science.

Exactly, we would never be knee-deep in horse crap. That is, if we never had synthetic nitrogen, the population of the planet couldn't be sustained on animal dung for crop needs only, period.

Didn't they do the something like that during prohibition with stolen industrial alcohol?

In 1997 I has at the US consulate in Melbourne organising visas for myself and my then partner. It got complicated and the consulate had to send a telex to the US to deal with the issue. Obviously we used email for organising the rest of the trip.

I don't know about 1997, but today's embassy cables are actually emails that are logged and retained according to strict procedures. (They even use Microsoft Outlook.) I believe the previous system was an encrypted satellite-based system.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/11/whats_a_diplomatic_cable.html

As I've written before: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1847578&cid=34100224

The circle of knowledge, a poem by Paul D. Fernhout

All philosophy is anthropology;
All anthropology is psychology;
All psychology is biology;
All biology is chemistry;
All chemistry is physics;
All physics is math;
All math is philosophy. :-)

See my website for lots about the future of economics. I passed on my change to work on Wall Street at J.P. Morgan Chase doing Smalltalk around 2000. Back then I didn't think it worth the commute there (which my wife had hated earlier), as well as the risk for a Japanese-style subway gassing. Little did I imagine someone attacking the WTC, but I guess otherwise it is possible I might have been at a meeting in the WTC as the group met over there sometimes.

Still, as imaginary as fiat dollars are, if enough people believe in the idea, that gives it a sort of reality. And, like most US Americans, I have to deal with that collective fantasy as a way to ration the fruits of production. But it is hard also to look past how the abstractions related to the fantasy of money often hurt so many people. "The Seven Laws of Money" by Michael Phillips is great down-to-Earth book on money by a creator of MasterCard, and reading it around age 15 was a formative experience in my life -- helping me avoid an early pursuit of fiat dollars and instead working towards ideals I cared about (with what limited success I've had).

But really, almost all financial engineering is pointless zero-sum gambling work, as interesting as it may still be as an abstract game. As it was explained to me by a friendly mathematician at IBM Research over lunch when I was in the speech group there (which was a group constantly being poached by Wall Street), it rally is picking up nickels before a streamroller (Buffet's analogy). You bet other people's money in such a way as you have a high chance at getting a small percentage increase on a big sum, and you (legally) skim some money off the top as a fee (or reward), while cleverly "managing" the risks, including those black swan events that most everyone ignores and you probably will too. If you are lucky, you do this for a bunch of years and then retire. If you are unlucky, you have a bad year (either badly managed risk or a black swan?) and maybe even lose your job as the company folds, but you don't generally have to give back previous years profits -- plus you get to learn "How to Speak Hedgie": :-)
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2007/08/how_to_speak_hedgie.html
"In these days of market volatility, hedge-fund managers and executives at all types of money management firms have been forced to explain why their funds are shutting down, losing money hand over fist, and freezing investors' funds. When they do so, however, they frequently lapse into a strange euphemistic dialect. And so we thought it would be helpful to provide a handy Hedgie-English glossary. ...
Hedge-Fund Phrase: Unprecedented, unique circumstances
Translation: Stuff happens. But we had no clue. ..."

But, and I only realized this much later, by indirectly raising issues about systemic risk in the 1980s around the Princeton University Operations Research group, I pretty much ensured I would not get a PhD, at least there. :-)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/princeton-graduate-school-plans.html

But, like hedge fund managers, do those professors have to give back decades of salary because they were in some sense

Congress and the Supreme Court are a huge part of the Constitution. If they don't work...

Sorry, but did you just wake up from a long nap? Congress has been badly broken for decades, and the SCOTUS is a wretched hive of scum and villainy featuring at least one justice who apparently doesn't believe women are people and one who is a known liar, not to mention Bush v. Gore and Citizens United.

Actually, the parallel to bonobos is inaccurate-despite the genetic similarities, they're not the closest primate model to us in terms of our secual behaviour. There are plenty of reasons to strongly suspect that humans are somewhat monogamous - eg human males and females are around the same size - for various reasons, strongly polygamous species tend to have larger males, smaller females. Of-course humans are not strictly monogamous - few stick with just one partner for their whole lives - but then neither do many other 'monogamous' species.
Lots of articles about our propensity for monogamy vs polygamy
eg http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_evolution/2012/10/are_humans_monogamous_or_polygamous_the_evolution_of_human_mating_strategies_.html
>> Like so many other animals, human beings aren't really that monogamous. Better to say, we're monogamish.

She wrote the idiotic self-contradictory book called Lean In which is the woman business advice book du jour. It is obvious she has connections to get herself trumpeted all over MSM for this farce on pulp. Simply assign this book (and her) the same importance any sane person does to anyone spewing the latest business advice targeted at a female audience. None - because ultimately it will be completely forgotten and irrelevant in six months time.

The government grows because the nation grows. A larger more complex nation requires larger services. For instance, there were no need for ultra engineered paved roads in 1776. Post war federal spending as a percent of GDP has been around 20%. Most of the complexity in the tax code is to provide special privileges to special entities. It is, however, correct, for those certain entities will have income that is hard to define. This is why a flat tax would not work. Most of us we would pay about the same, but the special entities would manage to define income so they would pay less. Look at it this way. If I make money by working with my own two hands, my body, that is taxed at a higher rate than if I sit back and earn interest. Income of the wealthy is different differently than income of the working class.

The current deficit situation is probably caused by special entities not paying as much tax as they once did. For instance, federal debt fell rapidly post war, but increased 30 percentage points with respect to GDP during the reagan bush era. There were two reasons for this. First, as mentioned, borrowing is good and the country was not paying the debt down too fast. Second, Reagan cut taxes to below sustainable levels, something with bush realzied and fixe resulting, along with good, policy, the debt falling about 10 percentage points during the Clinton years.

Perhaps Tesla is starting to learn what PR is about. However Elon Musk's response to the last road test was defensive and rude. Elon Musk may be a genius and a useful slave driver when it concerns production, but in PR he is an idiot who cannot be allowed to speak publicly. Many excellent engineers have the same trait. The later analysis done by others is more cool-headed.

Regardless of all that, the exit clause of "deliberate abuse" of the battery is pretty open-ended. Who determines if the battery was abused? I should actually rephrase: who is the only person|company on the planet that can come to such conclusion? In other words, I do not trust Tesla because for all their company history they attacked the messenger and stuck him with a bill. To compare, a Prius's NiMH battery is unconditionally, short of a crash, warrantied for 10 years. Very few batteries ever went bad, and in each case the batteries were replaced by Toyota under warranty. I have reason to trust Toyota in this aspect because they do what they promise.

It's interesting to note that concerns about longevity of Prius's battery were also voiced on the Internet, just as they are now voiced about EVs. There was only one process that alleviated those concerns, and that was personal experience of millions of car owners. For example, without those owners we would have never learned that the heat in Arizona significantly hurts Leaf's performance. Per Nissan, it would be all peachy.

Seriously? You recommend this much overkill?

Well, of course that's not feasible. But an EV in the garage, plugged into 240V, 100A circuit is a dangerous thing. There were several fires caused by a plugged Volt (and more that were not caused by a Volt that was in the same garage.) There was even fire in a parking lot, with Karma. Batteries are dangerous things; one of my friends charged batteries for radios, and he had to do it in an enclosure that protected everyone from explosion if it were to happen. Boeing got hit with battery fire, as were several notebook manufacturers. Gasoline fire, on the other hand, is rare, unless the car is destroyed in a wreck - then all bets are off. Gasoline will not self-ignite; but a battery can; a plugged charger that is capable of 100A charge current is just one p-n junction away from a spectacular failure; and there are many of those junctions in a charger, and they all were made by the lowest bidder somewhere between Taiwan and Philippines.

checking to see that the car is still charging once a month would be more than sufficient.

I'm not so sure. If the power fails one week after the caretaker checks it, the battery in a Roadster will be a brick by the next visit. As you say, Tesla may have fixed this, I don't know, but that's what killed those Roadsters. Tesla is adamant that their EVs must be always plugged in, hell or high water. (BTW, how do all these EVs react to being submerged? If a car falls into a river, what happens? A gas car just stalls.)

I'm pretty sure it is. You can verify this for yourself by going outside twice a day. It's particularly evident if one of those times is, for example, around noon and the other is around midnight. You can also verify other types of movement by watching for the maximum height the sun achieves each day, and by checking it's position relative to the background stars.

More seriously, recognizing the Sun's movement relative to... the galaxy presumably, and the factors controlling that movement, is important to debunking the OP. Illustrative of this, someone made a very pretty, but physically inaccurate, rendering of the sun flying through the galaxy with the Earth trailing along behind it and uploaded it to YouTube in support of his "vortex gravity" theory: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_motion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html.

Something much weirder was seen over Norway when a Russian launch went wrong.

So you're saying she was a Republican?

Backwards. The party with a vested interest in keeping people dependent on professionals who dole things out to them is the Democrats. That's the backbone of their entire constituency and the framework within which they describe everybody: needing a handout, or needing to be used to pay for handouts. Without playing middlemen to that one-way street, there would be almost not power in that camp. And so they seek to preserve it at every turn.

No, the guy to whom you replied got it right: Republicans are the most dependent on a culture of people dependent on professionals who dole things out to them. Red States are more dependent on the Government Dole than Blue States, because Red State policies create a constituency which needs a handout just to survive. Poverty-stricken, uneducated white people vote Republican more often than middle class educated people (who tend to vote Democrat), so Republicans seek to preserve a constituency trapped in poverty, voting Republican on social issues even as Republicans pull the economic rug out from under their collective feet.

If Ghandi had been able to print guns, maybe the Indians would have been able to eject the British sooner, and with fewer innocent Indian deaths.

Mother Teresa would not have printed anything to help people. She spent most of the money she raised on building convents, not on the poor. Mother Teresa wanted the poor to suffer, because she thought it made her closer to Jesus.

I have a great suggestion for using 3D printers to promote peace: build guns, since the worst violence of the 20th century was from authoritarian governments against their own disarmed populations. Nazi, Commie, Fascist, etc. thugs are a lot more hesitant to go into a town, if they're not sure who in the town might have a gun, or worse, if they suspect everybody in the town has one.

Sanctimonious statements are cheap. Actual discussions are worthwhile. There are plenty of facts linked from the Wikipedia article. Here are some more articles with facts (and opinions, just like yours).

But at least this time it looks like you read the link, rather than responding to something that wasn't even asserted. Please note, however, that your mrc.org link seems to be discussing a practice that you were defending just a couple of posts back. And the National Review link talks about just one case.

Anyway, the attorneys controversy serves as a counterpoint to the original post. It was typical partisan dreck, where everything was perfect and/or excusable under Bush, and the problems under Obama are somehow unique. That kind of campaign-like crap is way too common by all parties. It's exhausting, and is inimical to rational discussion and governance.

For reference: http://www.salon.com/2013/04/20/graham_mccain_hold_boston_suspect_as_enemy_combatant/
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/republican_senators_urge_obama_enemy_bbGRMuGOodHZ8680ejviWJ
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2013/04/tsarnaev_an_enemy_combatant_john_mccain_and_lindsey_graham_s_harmful_campaign.html

I like to re-post here a comment that I share the opinion with:

        60's guy
        Sunday, Apr 21, 2013 12:12 AM CEST

Nicely put. These clowns are an embarrassment to our country -- not the faintest notion of what America, or our Constitution, is about. I have lost all, and I mean all, the considerable respect I once had for John McCain. Lindsey Graham is and always has been a snotnosed little pissant. Kelly Ayotte is a cipher -- a zero, and Peter King is in negative territory -- doesn't even get within shouting distance of zero. But for shorthand, "political sociopaths" does nicely for all four of them.

Mod parent up.

How can the rich be out of touch with reality? I mean I get that on slashdot, the wealthy are the bane to our existence, but you you can't have it both ways here.

If you are arguing that they got rich because they steal and manipulate...how the fuck does somebody who is "out of touch" manipulate?
If you are arguing that they got rich because they understand the market so well that they can exploit it (in either a good way or a bad way)...how the fuck does somebody who is "out of touch" understand anything enough to be able to do that?

I think it is the ones who identify as the 99% that are out of touch. To me, out of touch means having your priorities so backwards that nobody would ever hire you because you aren't worth a shit. I am what the occupy movement identifies as the 99%, but I'll never associate myself with the crowd that just craves this kind of divisiveness to such a level that they create an arbitrary percentile number to point fingers at (see: Emmanuel Goldstein - and the government didn't create this one, rather the tyranny of the mob did.)

The poor today have it better than they have ever had it. Ever. If you don't believe that, YOU are out of touch with reality, not the rich.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/09/how_rich_are_poor_people.html

The only thing that is happening today is a widening gap in income, however in terms of wealth, every category (rich or poor) is getting wealthier. The analogy that there is a pie that everybody gets a slice of is a fallacy. Unless of course this pie were to constantly grow in size, and as it grows your "slice percent" might shrink, but at the same time your "slice size" still increases.

Prior to the industrial revolution, it used to be that being poor meant you could barely afford a pair of shoes and would be lucky if you could have a hot meal every now and again. Middle class meant you owned something akin to what today is a studio apartment. Today in first world countries, poor includes those owning a car, a house, and even a luxury item such as an ipad, in many cases even all three. I mean literally, people at occupy wall street were complaining about their ipads getting stolen...and yet they refer to themselves as the downtrodden and the oppressed.

Mmm hmm. And most gun owners are responsible like that, perhaps such a large majority that gun control is mostly unnecessary. Perhaps. But we don't have laws only for the majority who use dangerous things in a safe way, we also have laws to keep the jackass minority from fucking it up for the rest of us. It's a balance. In my opinion we are currently a little bit out of balance and I think we could get into a better balance with some minor efforts around the edges.

For instance, making it illegal to market deadly firearms to children (this, shockingly, is not already the law); requiring insurance against the mis-use of a gun (which would incentivize people to use locks without having government agents knocking on your door); and offering firearm classes in public schools (like we used to with rifles, except expand that to handguns as well). Also I don't think we need a "ban" on assault rifles but I'd like them to be kept at armories (private gun clubs) instead of in homes where suicidal asshole children of nutters can't grab them for a quick bit of ultraviolence before they kill themselves.

Why Allan Savory’s TED talk about how cattle can reverse global warming is dead wrong

PS: Typing "Allan Savory criticism" into google comes with a long list of articles like that one.

Trusting in someone that could be forced by law to give your encrypted communications (after all they have the right to see all your mails), or modify packaged software to let them in is risky this days. You maybe could trust in the FBI as in a concept, an entity that won't be interested in your trade secrets, but there are people working for them, and people and corporations giving orders to them directly or indirectly that have no problem abusing the power they have.

Open source, widely tested encryption and secure channels are your best options.

They need to overhaul their current submission process before worrying about the rest of this.

Literally definition changes

> Now if only someone could come up with a version where we could control the privacy a bit.

You have complete control over the visual privacy of your face in the presence of any CCD camera: IR emitting glasses

Whereas before you didn't have to do anything.

Somehow, though, there are people here who will claim absolutely nothing has changed.

You have complete control over the visual privacy of your face in the presence of any CCD camera: IR emitting glasses

I want to rig up a bunch of those around my license plate on my car......

:)

Fuck the speed trap cameras...

And yet this is more or less the same thing they said about mobile phones in the early 80's. No more than a few k needed in the world or something similarly stupid.
 

Except that mobile phones filled an obvious need, one that had been long recognized.

Being part of the borg doesn't.

The current implementation of Google Glass is like those ridiculously large cell phones of 1973. People laughed at those too.

Google Glass will not survive in its current form. That is the only certain thing about it. But that doesn't mean it won't survive in some other form. I doubt it will always have a camera, because people won't tolerate being recorded 24/7 by everyone they encounter. People will insist you take them off when entering businesses, stores, and meetings.

It will probably revert to only being a display device, a personal HUD.

> Now if only someone could come up with a version where we could control the privacy a bit.

You have complete control over the visual privacy of your face in the presence of any CCD camera: IR emitting glasses

Even easier. If you don't drink BMC (Bud/Miller/Coors), there's no need to keep it so damn cold to kill the taste.

Part of the vetting process for this means taking down your blog. Fortunately the Wayback Machine is our friend. I haven't read the whole blog yet, but this article about SOPA seems to indicate Mr. Wheeler might not be entirely clueless.

Hat tip to Slate's Emma Roller, who found it.

If you plant a glyphosate resistant crop, you can use small amounts of roundup, instead of the larger amounts of something else to control weeds. That is how the less comes about. Of course you can use more roundup than you need, and some dumb farmers do that.... Or you could combine roundup with the other herbicide you would have used, and I am sure some farmers do that too. But you don't have to. And, to be clear, I am talking about the total tonnage of herbicide use, not total acreage that they are used on. The acreage can and probably does increase.

People and farm animals have been eating GMO's for over a decade now, in large numbers. 0 deaths, 0 illnesses and lots of FUD in articles on /. and elsewhere are all that has come of it. A basic understanding of how glyphosate works, and what was changed to make crops resistant to it tells you very clearly that there is exactly zero harm to humans from this change. Wikipedia is good enough. Go read it. The bt change is also a very simple change. Why it is harmless to all but insects is more complicated, but equally clear. Those two account for most GMO's in use today.

Yes, I think the EU bans GMO's because they are stupid. Read this. People are often stupid, and the GMO ban in the EU is just another example of it. I am not claiming that people in the EU are any more stupid than any others however. See the link.

Hybrids are a problem, but they are not a GMO problem. And GMO's are no worse in this regard than non GMO seeds anyhow. Pick your battles, and don't confuse issues.

T

While I prefer the country myself (and just recently took a job in the country to get out of the city), working in the city and living in the country is irrational by almost any objective criteria. Here are some examples (all times are for the round trip):

• A 45 minute commute makes you 40% more likely to get a divorce.
• A 90 minute commute kills your Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, even when you eventually do get home.
• Every 10 minutes commuting decreases your number of social connections by 10%
• Commuters have more neck & back problems (plus obesity), and for every minute they spend commuting there's "a 0.0257 minute exercise time reduction, a 0.0387 minute food preparation time reduction, and a 0.2205 minute sleep time reduction". BTW, that study controlled for time spent outside of the home by comparing people who worked 10 hours and commuted 2 hours with those who just worked 12 hours.
• It takes a 40% higher salary to justify an extra hour of commuting. (Measured by some economists based on well-being.)

Here is the article I pulled those stats from, it links to more definitive sources. Basically, it's absolutely not worth it to live further away from your job to have a bigger house. That said, raising a family might be better in the country, unless you're subjecting your kids to a long commute as well.

I don't "need" to "prove" anything. I stated an opinion, based upon what I put out there, and based upon what you choose to google for and read, you can choose to believe it, or not.

And yes, pigs make for much better subjects. But you see, pigs can't be tailored or bread as fast as mice. And that is what determines what they use, not what is most suitable.Here's a long but interesting article about this.
      http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_mouse_trap/2011/11/naked_mole_rats_can_they_help_us_cure_cancer_.html

Phil Plait agree with you on that

Cannot speak to the veracity of below link:
https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2013/04/boston_bomber_manhunt_is_the_watertown_door_to_door_search_by_police_for.html

but exigent circumstances seems to be the master key that opens all doors.

Despite knowing that, in this case, it was entirely called for; I belive I can predict with certainty that, sooner or later, it will be used again. Perhaps in less fashionable neighborhoods, perhaps when all LEA are wearing cameras, perhaps when residents of said areas have more to hide than a grow room.

Enabled by tech, population control as public safety will most certainly make this outcome inevitable (IMO).

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2013/04/19/tamerlan_tsarnaev_dead_bombing_suspect_i_don_t_have_a_single_american_friend.html says he is muslim.

Pedestrians always have right of way. Always.

That's a common myth, unsupported by actual laws. But it's true that drivers violate the right-of-way of pedestrians more than the other way around.

"By every yardstick R&D is steady or has grown"

Every yardstick? Ok, let's use the 2014 NASA budget as a yardstick.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/04/11/nasa_budget_increase_for_asteroids_cuts_for_planets_and_education.html

Or the 2013 NSF budget, oops down too (even after the 'fix', still down from 2012).

Ok then, perhaps the NIH budget? Nope, down too.

Oops.

You have very selective 'every yardsticks'.

The rest of your post sounds like nothing more than a Fox News echo as well... Who is 'parroting some nonsense', eh?

Really, once the general public is aware of 'get rich quick scheme' it is going to collapse.

I am not saying Bitcoins is such a scheme, just that some people interpret it as such. Currency speculation is not a good get rich quick scheme. It seems to best with people who have taxes in 30% range, or otherwise need to launder their money.