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Better and cheaper isn't necessarily a direct route to success.

Structural monopolies often have extensive mechanisms in place to deter competition. For example, look at the Nest Thermostat. It sure is better, and it's not even cheaper, yet the comfortable incumbent (Honeywell) is trying to sue it out of existence. I hope Next succeeds, but it seems likely that their legal costs will be substantial.

It's even worse in the medical field, where comfortable relationships between device manufacturers and medical personnel (oh, no, that conference wasn't a bribe, it was a valuable educational opportunity) are an incredible barrier to competition. This is balanced to some extent by the enormous egos of many medical professionals (surgeons, anyone?) that has led to disruptive medical device innovation, but on the whole, the field has a lot of structural resistance to change, and it takes a lot of sunshine to eliminate such practices.

As opposed to mutilating the end of an infant boy's penis, then giving him a "ritual blowjob"?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2005/08/cut_it_off.html

Don't forget the bonus herpes infection that some boys receive as a result of this disgusting practice. I know your link mentions it, but I want to state it here for those who can't be bothered to read your citation.

When will Americans join the rest of the civilized world and stop paying people to hack up their little boys? Boys, like girls, aren't born with extra parts.

Talmud was written at a time when non-Jews were pagans whose rituals would be disgusting by modern standards...

As opposed to mutilating the end of an infant boy's penis, then giving him a "ritual blowjob"?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2005/08/cut_it_off.html

Game of Thrones is kind of a loss leader-- it gets people to buy a subscription

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2010/12/turn_yourself_in_julian_assange.html

I think outsourcing it is a terrible idea. He should just purchase a bunch of monkeys and have them work on it in-house. Lemurs, tamarins, and marmosets are only $1500-2500

More precisely:
I've found that marketing rarely has ever been able to prove that the money they spend actually generates returns that exceed the oney spent.

Ironically the except IS superbowl ads.

" Earlier research by some of the same scholars also found that films advertised during the Super Bowl see as much as a 40 percent boost at the box office."
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/02/i_paid_4_million_for_this_.html

Of course, their are other factors as well. If I buy an ad, that mean it's harder for my competitor t buy an ad, pop culture benefits, etc:
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/03/news/companies/super_bowl_ads/index.htm

But is does seem superbowl ads are worth it in many cases.

Just like all those billions wasted on the F-22, another fighter that is obsoleted by real-world events.

In the meantime, the real action is with cheaper remote-guided probes and missiles and cheaper vehicles such as the choppers that ferried the Seal team that killed bin laden.

The F35 is a total waste of money, and will never have a real mission.

The box-cutter thing is likely a myth. Also, it's "Trade", not "Trace".
"No one on United Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center, reported anything about weapons or tactics. One flight attendant on American Flight 11, which also crashed into the World Trade Center, said she was disabled by a chemical spray, while another flight attendant said a passenger was stabbed or shot. On the Pentagon plane, American Flight 77, Barbara Olson reported hijackers carrying knives and box cutters but did not describe how they took the cockpit. And on United Flight 93, passengers reported knives but also a hijacker threatening to explode a bomb. The box cutter-knives story isn't demonstrably false, but it serves to divert attention from the other weapons and to mask the fact that we don't have any idea how the hijackings happened. "
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2003/09/what_you_think_you_know_about_sept_11_.html

And there is reason to be skeptical about the Barbara Olson story, since the only source is her husband, Ted Olson, who at the time was U.S. Solicitor General to a notoriously mendacious and criminal White House.

Sorry, but the Bush White House are pikers compared to the most evil, criminal, despicable White House ever, the Obama White House.

The box-cutter thing is likely a myth. Also, it's "Trade", not "Trace".
"No one on United Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center, reported anything about weapons or tactics. One flight attendant on American Flight 11, which also crashed into the World Trade Center, said she was disabled by a chemical spray, while another flight attendant said a passenger was stabbed or shot. On the Pentagon plane, American Flight 77, Barbara Olson reported hijackers carrying knives and box cutters but did not describe how they took the cockpit. And on United Flight 93, passengers reported knives but also a hijacker threatening to explode a bomb. The box cutter-knives story isn't demonstrably false, but it serves to divert attention from the other weapons and to mask the fact that we don't have any idea how the hijackings happened. "
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2003/09/what_you_think_you_know_about_sept_11_.html

And there is reason to be skeptical about the Barbara Olson story, since the only source is her husband, Ted Olson, who at the time was U.S. Solicitor General to a notoriously mendacious and criminal White House.

The U.S. has joined Iran, North Korea etc. on my list of "Places that are too dangerous to visit right now."

This makes me believe that you've never been to any of those places, and that you spend too much time listening to lunatics on-line/in print/on television.

Sure, we've passed some wacky laws recently, but for 99.999999999999999% of people here, life hasn't changed a ton since the 90's (except maybe a bit less financial stupidity). That opinion might not be popular if you live in Detroit or any other large, industry based city, but it's true.

The closest center for urban decay to my geographical location is Chicago. Even its worst neighborhoods are startlingly safe compared to what the media would have you believe. SURE, don't walk around flashing money, but that rule applies in every urban center, regardless of crime rate.

This tells me that crime rates are dropping across the nation. There are more out there, a quick search turned up two other sites to support my claims.

It has been my experience that the people that bitch the loudest about how terrible it is here are the people who have never really traveled outside of their county, let alone state, or (God forbid) country.

Or, I could be all wet on this one, but I doubt it.

The recently enacted JOBS Act:

1) "Once again, the Puppets on Capitol Hill are about to slam the Muppets on Main Street. The country still hasn’t recovered from the Wall Street-induced financial cataclysm of 2008, yet Congress is preparing to enact the Orwellian ”JOBS Act”—a bill that should in fact be called the “Return Fraud to Wall Street in One Easy Step Act.” The bill will undo some of the most important reforms placed on Wall Street in a generation."
Slate link

2) "In fact, one could say this law is not just a sweeping piece of deregulation that will have an increase in securities fraud as an accidental, ancillary consequence. No, this law actually appears to have been specifically written to encourage fraud in the stock markets."
Rolling Stone (Taibbi) link

3) “Simply, the JOBS Act will make funding more accessible for startups by allowing non-accredited investors to participate in the funding rounds, and this alone, I believe will be the main factor driving the increase in new companies being founded. And with new companies comes the need to hire staff. Without a doubt, this will help the current unemployment rate,” said Tanya Prive, founder of Rock The Post, a social networking platform for entrepreneurs to fund and swap resources."
Forbes link

4) "It is self-defeating for us to say this because as criminologists and anti-fraud specialists we would have job security for life if this bill was adopted. It is literally composed of the wish list in regard to fraud-friendly provisions that those intent on cheating have been dreaming about and salivating to achieve for decades. This bill will kill millions of jobs because financial frauds are weapons of mass financial destruction. It will start an international fraud-friendly deregulation race to the bottom and will become the basis for further criminogenic U.S. Congressional actions."
Huffington Post Link

5) "Amy Borrus, a spokeswoman for the Council of Institutional Investors, an investor watchdog group, said small companies — the focus of the new bill’s relaxed regulations — are particularly prone to fraud and accounting scandals. Senators did add some investor protections, but not enough, she said."
New York Times link

So... we might be looking at a jump (bubble?) in the stock market. I don't quite know what to make of it yet, but the initial reviews seem to be pointing to such a thing. Investigate and plan accordingly (and try not to lose your shirts).

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/03/why_george_zimmerman_trayvon_martin_s_killer_hasn_t_been_prosecuted_.single.html
Why Trayvon Martin’s Killer Remains Free
Florida’s self-defense laws have left Florida safe for no one—except those who shoot first.
By Emily Bazelon
March 19, 2012
(Since Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law was passed in 2005, there have been many cases of people killing unarmed opponents and not being charged. The worst, according to Bazelon, is that the courts gave "true immunity," which means the judge can dismiss the prosecution before the trial begins, and the question of whether the killer was really defending himself doesn't even go to the jury.)

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/article1128317.ece
Five years since Florida enacted "stand-your-ground" law, justifiable homicides are up
By Ben Montgomery and Colleen Jenkins
October 17, 2010

These are "justifiable" homicides because that's the category the stand-your-ground put them in. Under the old law, most of them would have been murders, if they had happened at all.

You may think that if two people get into a fight and one of them "defends" himself by pulling a gun and killing the other guy, who is unarmed, that's a good outcome. I disagree. These are routine assaults, where nobody would have gotten killed without the gun.

How do you know they were getting unjustly convicted? The juries had more of the facts and obviously disagreed with you.

Even the killer of Yoshihiro Hattori was acquitted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshihiro_Hattori These laws protect irresponsible shooters, like Rodney Peairs. Somebody rings your bell on Halloween, and you shoot him? These laws protect people who do that.

But it's harmful to marriages, sinful to all and not what God wants for you. This isn't about civil liberties - if you must, go watch, I'm not looking to stop you, but I do want you to know that Jesus loves you and has better things in mind for you.

I don't know about all of those faith-based assertions, but there is actual, factual evidence that sexual assault rates decrease when porn is freely available. But don't take my word for it.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2006/10/how_the_web_prevents_rape.html

Engineers are overrepresented among terrorists. Perhaps you can convince one that he'll get 70 especially attractive virgins if he repairs your sarcasm meter and then achieves martyrdom.

The conclusion appears to be there would be no need for airport security if you can get geeks, nerds and other engineers laid regularly. Maybe we should make it a law for all females between the ages of 17 and 35 to have a Slashdot uid.....

Engineers are overrepresented among terrorists. Perhaps you can convince one that he'll get 70 especially attractive virgins if he repairs your sarcasm meter and then achieves martyrdom.

Dishonesty has become a real problem in science. Some recent cases (Judy Mikovits, Luk Van Parijs, and Dipak K. Das (aka the red-wine researcher)) reveal some serious misconduct from high profile researchers. Certainly, part of this is due to the increased pressure on scientific researchers. The other part of this is generational. Cheating and misconduct are certainly more prevalent .in younger generations (or perhaps its always been this way and they are just not quite as clever).

See this.

...the main benefit that the Internet brings to society.

On the whole, I agree with you. Even /. is a benefit - how would I have ever learned about goatse otherwise?

But there are costs, many, many costs, such as on-line bullying, the erosion of our private and public lives, laws like the DMCA and SOPA either becoming the law of the land (or threatening to). There are even more insidious threats, but those are too terrible to speak of...

So yes, I agree there are many benefits to the way the Internet has grown from the ARPANET, but there are costs too. Whether we as a society can pay those costs is still to be determined.

Paul Krugman's take on it is worth a read:

Why, then, the outrage of my correspondents? Why does the image of an Indonesian sewing sneakers for 60 cents an hour evoke so much more feeling than the image of another Indonesian earning the equivalent of 30 cents an hour trying to feed his family on a tiny plot of land--or of a Filipino scavenging on a garbage heap?

The main answer, I think, is a sort of fastidiousness. Unlike the starving subsistence farmer, the women and children in the sneaker factory are working at slave wages for our benefit--and this makes us feel unclean. And so there are self-righteous demands for international labor standards: We should not, the opponents of globalization insist, be willing to buy those sneakers and shirts unless the people who make them receive decent wages and work under decent conditions.

This sounds only fair--but is it? Let's think through the consequences.

First of all, even if we could assure the workers in Third World export industries of higher wages and better working conditions, this would do nothing for the peasants, day laborers, scavengers, and so on who make up the bulk of these countries' populations. At best, forcing developing countries to adhere to our labor standards would create a privileged labor aristocracy, leaving the poor majority no better off.

And it might not even do that. The advantages of established First World industries are still formidable. The only reason developing countries have been able to compete with those industries is their ability to offer employers cheap labor. Deny them that ability, and you might well deny them the prospect of continuing industrial growth, even reverse the growth that has been achieved. And since export-oriented growth, for all its injustice, has been a huge boon for the workers in those nations, anything that curtails that growth is very much against their interests. A policy of good jobs in principle, but no jobs in practice, might assuage our consciences, but it is no favor to its alleged beneficiaries.

"There shouldn't be more units of money in existence now than there was 100 years ago. " There are lots of reasons why money supply should increase. For instance here is one of Krugman's examples from an article a while back (long before he was associated so strongly with the left) Babysitting The Economy

Lying to start a war is treason.

In a democracy, government secrecy is treason. Citizens cannot help run the government if they don't have any way to understand what the government is doing.

There is now an extensive public relations campaign in the U.S. to start a war with Iran, using money from U.S. taxpayers. These are some of the players:

1) Those who control the U.S. government want constant war. War creates numerous opportunities for easy profits that can be hidden from taxpayers.

The U.S. government has a long history of using violence. See the Timeline of United States military operations. See also the Military history of the United States. The Bush and Cheney families had, or have, investments in weapons companies. Those in control hid their involvement.

2) Jews want U.S. taxpayers to pay for Israeli security. A better, cheaper, less self-destructive method would be for Jews to be less arrogant and more caring toward their neighbors. The problems between the Jews and the Arabs have existed for more than 3,300 years. The Jews say that they are the "chosen people" of God. The Jews say that Arabs are descended from an illegitimate child of their tribal founder, Abraham, and a slave girl that he owned. Those ancient problems with relationships will not be solved by guys in Washington who often don't even have a good relationship with their wives.

It would be foolish to think that statement is anti-Jew. A war with Iran will likely mean further troubles for Israel because it is likely to escalate the violence in the area. I'm not the only person who thinks that. See the 60 Minutes episode, The Spymaster: Meir Dagan on Iran's threat. Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes interviewer, does her disgusting "Oh wow, oh wow!" routine, but there is useful information. (The 60 Minutes program needs better editing.)

Quote: "You have said publicly that bombing Iran now is the stupidest idea you've ever heard. That's a direct quote." -- Lesley Stahl, quoting ex-chief of Mossad Meir Dagan. Mossad is an Israeli government agency that rivals the U.S. government for secret violence, as Jeremiah Cornelius said in the parent comment.

There are only 5,874,300 Jews in Israel. There are approximately 5,275,000 Jews in the United States. In some ways, the U.S. is as much of a Jewish country as Israel. It is amazing how much power that small group of 1.7% of has over U.S. government policy. The population of the U.S. is 313 million.

To many people, the idea of 6 million Jews encouraging violence against 1.6 billion Muslims is self-destructive.

It is a mistake to think that all Israeli Jews agree with Israeli or even Jewish policies. For example: Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews 'harass' 8-year-old girl over dress. Quote: "... 50 people involved in the abuse of an 8-year-old." Also see Israel braced for protests against treatment of women after girl, 8, is spat on by Jewish extremists.

3) The nuclear power industry w

She also thought it was ok for Rich, famous people to divorce, but not the poor.

Horrible, Horrible human being.

Secrecy is treason in a democracy. The people cannot help control the government if they have no trustworthy knowledge. Whoever controlled the U.S. government lied to start a war with Iraq. Now the evidence is that they are lying to start a war with Iran.

Another war will make us poor. There are fewer Jewish people in Israel than in the United States. Somehow they have enough political power to get the U.S. taxpayer to pay for the security of Israel.

The Bush and Cheney families had investments in weapons companies. Those in control hid their involvement.

Now all you guys claiming prior art, please, send it to the USPO so they can at least ignore it publically instead of what they usually do, ignore by default. Even better, contact the people in this article from Slate "Stamping out patent trolls" and they, Article One Partners,will take it from there. It is one thing for us to think the King has no clothes, or whisper it behind "closed doors" to friends, it is another to shout it out in public or to proper authorities so either action is taken, or you discover the public doesn't really care.

In the UK, but here ya go... eat a british keyboard.

Teachers union official says teachers who have consensual sex with pupils should not face prosecution
http://www.pctattletale.com/blog/133/teachers-union-official-supports-sex-offenders/

Here's some state schools that had abused children for decades...

In Seattle, state school for the deaf had decades of abuse:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Decades-of-sex-abuse-plague-deaf-school-1053009.php#page-2

Canadian state school, 40 years of reported abuse:
http://www.survivingthepast.ca/gillsterinc/schools/4-1_History.htm

New York state school, another 40 years of abuse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School#More_scandals_and_abuses

Recent scandal in LA, confirmed 175 kids abused for years, more expected
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/09/l-a-s-school-sex-abuse-scandal-widens.html

Check google for teacher abuse and you'll find about hundreds of active cases being reported in the news. According to the best statistics we have, about 10% of children are sexually abused at schools.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/02/is_sexual_abuse_in_schools_very_common_.html

natural gas from fraking alone satisfies all energy needs for the next 150 years.

I doubt it. The average American consumes about 250 kWh per day. Natural gas accounts for something like 20% of that. Also, energy need is not constant, it will grow over the next 150 years because the population will grow. You can't just take total potential supply and divide it by the existing consumption, when demand is constantly rising.

Where does this 150 year figure come from anyway? The last time someone claimed 100 years, it turned out to be bogus:

By the same logic, you can claim to be a multibillionaire, including all your "probable, possible, and speculative resources."

Assuming that the United States continues to use about 24 tcf per annum, then, only an 11-year supply of natural gas is certain. The other 89 years' worth has not yet been shown to exist or to be recoverable.

Even that comparably modest estimate of 11 years’ supply may be optimistic. Those 273 tcf are located in reserves that are undrilled, but are adjacent to drilled tracts where gas has been produced. Due to large lateral differences in the geology of shale plays, production can vary considerably from adjacent wells.

Thanks for the correction. It was a tongue-in-cheek attempt to get a Funny mod. Note that I also misspelt "mispel".

Like you, I'm amused by the phenomenon of false corrections.

Another interesting one is "between you and I," which drives anyone who knows what objective case is crazy. That one is due to people internalizing the wrong lesson from schoolmarms correcting kids who say "Me and Jimbob went to the store".

This is what the proposed Virginia law really says.

A sonogram is also highly different from an ultrasound.

The longest-living person ever, a French woman named Jeanne Calment, died at age 122 in August 1997; no one since 2000 has come within five years of matching her longevity.

So although it seems MOST people can only live until 114, there are some exceptions. Too bad Jeanne Calment died in 1997 because it would be interesting to see her DNA and how it compares or differs from all of the other people that live that long.

I'm with the article it must be genetics, and I think that GE(yes genetic engineering), will push that number even higher...

Frankly I cannot believe that many people live past 100 years old, let alone 114.

This has been noticed before. Here is another article on it.

Or worse. 15 years olds can be charged with a felony and forced to register as sex offenders for sexting naked pictures of themselves.

That's not to say I agree or disagree with reddit here (I have no idea what these subreddits actually consisted of), just agreeing that the reality is not always as black and white as the phrase "child pornography" evokes.

"Well-regulated nuclear power"? "Government-invented green energy"? "Other giant public boondoggles"? How about coal -> gasoline (Fischer-Tropsch...)? Nah, too simple. And it doesn't involve the Government. And it would work. And it doesn't include any of our other sacred cows. And it was used by Nazis and the Apartheid regime, or some bullshit like that. That's a lot of accumulated ebil. Better come up with some sort of green energy invented by paraplegic Black Muslim Lesbians with Down Syndrome. Or let the Religion of Peace enrich itself even further. What could possibly go wrong? At least they are nice to homosexuals. Oh wait...


EBIL!!!11

You might want to give something like this a read. You're not doing the third-world any favors by only buying products made in the first-world. If anything, refusing to do business with them is tantamount to abandoning them to be in perpetual poverty.

The world we live in isn't ideal, and it's not the responsibility of Apple or any other company to fix that by raising the standard of living in the third-world to first-world levels before doing business with them. So, excluding charity (which is nowhere near abundant enough to affect most of the third-world to the extent we'd all like), how else are they supposed to raise their standard of living? They can certainly do it slowly via a trickle down by interacting with the local communities who interact with other communities who eventually interact with the developed nations, but that's slow and will leave them in poverty for centuries. To raise the standard of living more rapidly, they need to interact directly with the people that have the money, which means they need to have something the people with the money want.

Selling raw, natural resources is one option. It worked for some of the oil-rich countries, though selling natural resources tends to put the money in the hands of only a few, and it's definitely not an option everywhere. It's also ripe for exploitation (e.g. diamonds, oil, etc.). Selling off a product is another option, but most of these communities lack the resources, infrastructure, and know-how to produce something the rich foreigners would actually be interested in. Selling services is a final option, but because the people in these communities are unskilled, the only service most of them can offer is cheap labor.

Having a foreign company willing to pour money (even if it's less than what the company would be spending in the first-world) into a community creates wealth that wouldn't otherwise exist and brings about much-needed improvements. Foxconn, despite the bad press it gets in the West, has thousands of people applying to it, vying for the spots that open up. Illegal immigrants come into the U.S. every year to take jobs for below minimum wage, oftentimes with the goal of sending money back home to improve conditions at home. In both of these cases, the people clearly believe that they stand a better chance of improving their lot in life by interacting with the developed world than by staying where they are.

Keep in mind as well that the high standard of living in the developed world comes with a high cost of living. The minimum wage in a developed nation allows its workers to survive despite the costs of living there. Those costs don't exist everywhere, however, so paying a wage that was designed to account for all of those costs to people that don't deal with those costs makes little sense. Even within a developed nation you'll see employers account for cost of living expenses by paying more to employees working in major metropolitan areas than in small towns.

I'm not suggesting conditions are great and that everything is dandy. It's not. And even if I don't believe the wages should be brought up to what you'd see in the West, I do believe that most or all of the working conditions should be raised to those levels. I'm also willing to go along with the idea that this may be a mild form of exploitation, since these people are oftentimes stuck between choosing poverty or to work at these places, which isn't a real choice. Even so, I'd still say that it's the best option available, given the world we live in. Leaving them alone is a worse option and doesn't help them at all. Giving them oodles of money for nothing isn't a feasible option. Being willing to buy up the one service they can offer is the only reasonable option.

Evil Dead II Blu-ray Reviewed: I miss the murkiness

Both the original 35mm print and the first VHS and DVD releases maintained a dark, low-contrast look. Take Ash’s epic flight from evil through the preposterously large interior of the cabin in the woods. In early, gloomier releases, the top of the cabin interiors fades away to darkness, completing the cinematic illusion. In the Blu-ray release, the contrast has been increased, and the space where the set ends and the high school gymnasium they were filming in begins is clearly visible.

I haven't much noticed this in more recent releases, but back in the "early days of blu-ray", the studios would try so hard to erase the film grain that all of the actors and actresses would take on an inauthetic waxy quality-- no skin pores.

Since in America we have trial by jury

Actually, you don't. Some 95% of criminal cases in America end with a plea bargain. This is one of the reasons that prosecutors throw a million charges at someone - so they can offer to drop most of those charges if only you'll save them the trouble of a trial. If you want to defend yourself, they throw not only the book, but the whole #$%@# library at you.

Many, many innocent people have gone to jail because of these tactics.

Some quick notes.

• - You are replying to the wrong guy.
• - That guy could change his contract, but that won't fix the problem: adapting to leap seconds is unnecessarily expensive.
• - The guys that you are planning to email already know there's an issue, and are voting on whether to eliminate leap seconds: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/new_scientist/2011/12/leap_seconds_and_the_problem_with_the_global_time_standard.html

I'm pretty sure a voting machine's worth of votes is worth more than an ATM filled with money.

I'm not so sure.
There were widespread reports of white vans hauling people from polling place to polling place to vote multiple times
for the price of a beer in dozens of Chicago

Even when you get the votes somewhat honestly, by campaigning for them, a vote only costs around
7 bucks according to Slate .

In the contested 2008 House races, the average winner spent $1.3 million and received about 185,000 votes, for a total cost of about $7 per vote. Losers spent an average of $493,000 for 91,000 votes, at a unit cost of $5.42. Neither of those gives an accurate picture of the true cost of a vote, however, since so many people fill in their ballots along party lines, regardless of campaign spending.

I have no idea of the actual amount of money in an ATM or the actual amount of ballots a ballot box holds. But votes can probably be bought easier than easier than breaking into an ATM. As far as I know, you get a wrist slap and a tisk-tisk for selling your vote. Slightly more for buying votes, but only if done on a grand scale.

If you've never heard of a Honey Trap Operation, you would make a really shitty spy. It's one of the basic tactics of any good intelligence agency.

The coordinated effort of a group of companies/individuals to deny access to voting information in an effort to deny the vote.

Around here we don't call that election tampering, we call that Fox News.

The article doesn't even mention the delicious cupcake they got in their stocking.

Israels airport security has not been breached since the 70's
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/01/whats_so_great_about_israeli_security.html

"The agents, ask a series of questions, looking for nerves or inconsistent statements. While the vast majority of travelers pass the question and answer session and have a pretty easy time going through security"

Israel's border security methods are not compatible with the 5th and 14th amendments. Back-rooming a guy just because he looks or sounds too Palestinian would never fly in the US. Annoyed with TSA now? Imagine how fun it would be to let them shake you down for just about any reason they can think of. No thanks. Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

Israels airport security has not been breached since the 70's
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/01/whats_so_great_about_israeli_security.html

"All passengers waiting to check in speak to a polyglot agent. The agents, most of whom are female, ask a series of questions, looking for nerves or inconsistent statements. While the vast majority of travelers pass the question and answer session and have a pretty easy time going through security"

This method requires competence on the part of the interrogator though, so in effect that leaves out TSA employees.

That's not good enough! We need legislation allowing the use of armed UAVs against these homegrown terrorists.

Why? "We" have already used drones to kill U.S. citizens more than once. The government is already operating well outside the law.

By investing in something (that's not a fraud) you're doing charity aswell. Nothing has increased our living standards as much as increase in productivity that only investment in better production can bring. Basic Adam Smith. Maybe investing in developing countries is marginally more "charitable". Basic charity, while it can provide temporary relief with high marginal benefit, usually does not have this effect (externalities are not simple but ahem).

Another thing you can do is just not use the money, which will increase the purchasing power of other people equally. There was an article on slate about this.

Put a dollar in the bank and you'll bid down the interest rate by just enough so someone somewhere can afford an extra dollar's worth of vacation or home improvement. Put a dollar in your mattress and (by effectively reducing the money supply) you'll drive down prices by just enough so someone somewhere can have an extra dollar's worth of coffee with his dinner. Scrooge, no doubt a canny investor, lent his money at interest. His less conventional namesake Scrooge McDuck filled a vault with dollar bills to roll around in. No matter. Ebenezer Scrooge lowered interest rates. Scrooge McDuck lowered prices. Each Scrooge enriched his neighbors as much as any Lord Mayor who invited the town in for a Christmas meal.

Investing or saving works, probably much better than charity, but of course it isn't as high social status as charity and you won't get the warm feeling of helping someone. But if you want to go with charity, give money the recipients weren't expecting (advice I got from one economist). Helping the poorest of the poor might be better than helping the poorest of Western country. Helping children and people who are in bad position of no fault of their own is probably better too. But other commenters have better opinions on different charities so I'll leave it at that.

That is not how poverty is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. Poverty is defined in terms of income, not in terms of nutrition, housing, or health. See: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/08poverty.shtml. And the research suggests that many of the people defined by the U.S. government as living in poverty are actually reasonably well-off in material terms: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/09/how_rich_are_poor_people.html. Poverty is relative. That's not to say that poor people aren't struggling in the U.S. or that we shouldn't help them. But the reality is that what we consider poverty in the United States is a life of luxury compared to what you'll see in many places in the Third World. When's the last time you saw a child in the United States with a belly distended from malnutrition? Have you ever seen that? If you go to Africa, you will. I've seen it. That's real poverty. In fact, one of the biggest problems with nutrition among the poor in the United States is obesity.

Actually it's far better to give the soup kitchen cash. They buy food at wholesale prices, you're wasting money buying it retail. See this article.

Not to mention that Jews are mandated to educate their kids - gotta read from the Torah, etc. So clerical tasks, etc. were going to the educated. And the ones that were OK with handling money.

Lots of good points like this in "Why Jews Don't Farm" - http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2003/06/why_jews_dont_farm.html

Here's an interesting article assessing some common "misuses" to decide which words it's worth being pedantic about and insisting on the original meaning and which meanings we should give up on. The author bases the assessment on the frequency of the two meanings and on his view of the word's utility and uniqueness in expressing a concept (i.e. what you were referring to regarding "impartial").

Bitch bitch bitch. What do you propose as an alternative to what TAS does? Please outline a plan to keep dangerous people/articles off of planes with near certain precision without invasive searches.

Why would I try to do the impossible (while spending billions of dollars claiming that I can)?

There are many thousands of airport and airline employees and many thousands (millions?) of tons of airport and airline support goods that are largely uninspected as they flow into airport secure areas (try to find a gun hiding in a 5 ton jet engine the size of a bus or a folding knife hiding in a tin of Altoids at the bottom of a box). Airports have many miles of largely isolated fences. Contraband smuggled past security in some tiny rural airport in Nebraska can end up in any airport in the USA.

Even if someone could guarantee that every passenger walking into a large airport is adequately screened, tens of millions of million people pass through that airport annually, many from other cities in the USA and throughout the world. Any one of those people can be a security risk.

But if you're going to really press me into recommending an alternative, then I'd have to point to Israel, who has faced terrorist threats much longer than we have. Their system is not cheap to implement or easy to scale up since it hinges on a highly trained workforce (and no one will get rich from hardware sales), but it seems to work well. Those selected for secondary screening may find it much less pleasant than TSA's most invasive screening, and it may even go beyond the bounds of constitutionality)

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2011/01/whats_so_great_about_israeli_security.html