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Convictions for corruption are probably the worst metric to use to measure if a state is corrupt of not. It assumes that the corruption somehow stops at the court system. I assure you, it does not. Judges in Texas are famously corrupt.

https://www.statesman.com/news...

http://lawflog.com/?p=1957

https://www.texasobserver.org/...

Read this:
https://www.statesman.com/news...

Poor planning transcends energy sources.

And this:
https://thehill.com/opinion/en...
Then go on about how renewable energy makes more economic sense than nuclear power.

That's an article about not reducing carbon emissions as much as expected, not about the choices not making economic sense. They also didn't build storage, because it wasn't economically workable at the time, either. Now it is.

There's a name for doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

You mean your constantly promoting nuclear power and then being slapped down with the same arguments, or do you mean my constantly trying to appeal to your ability to reason when it appears to be vestigial at best?

Read this:
https://www.statesman.com/news...

And this:
https://thehill.com/opinion/en...

Then go on about how renewable energy makes more economic sense than nuclear power. Let's assume that nuclear power is not profitable now. What happens as energy prices continue to rise from government mandates for renewable energy like these? At some point those lines cross and nuclear power becomes profitable again.

Also, it took decades of investment, private and public, in wind and solar energy to bring the price down like it did. This investment included the ability to build prototypes for testing and cost estimation. You think that maybe we could do the same with nuclear power? Build some prototypes of new models so that we can test the technology and economics? As it is now the problem isn't the money, there's lots of private investors willing to put money in nuclear energy. The problem is the Democrats not allowing even the construction of prototypes. Just recently we saw some prototypes getting built because of Trump, Perry, and other Republicans that are taking energy independence seriously. What we get from Democrats is a very unscientific look at the problem. They just throw other people's money at the problem and hope it buys them enough votes for the next election.

You are very correct in that the Democrat distaste for nuclear power predates the GND. That goes all the way back to Carter with his sweaters and solar panels, at least that far back. 40+ years later and we still haven't replaced nuclear power with wind and solar power. I'm guessing in another 40 years it still won't happen.

There's a name for doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.

Cody Wilson [...] was a pedophile, and he's just been arrested for assaulting an underage girl he met online.

Cody Wilson — accused of having sex with a young prostitute who registered on SugarDaddySomething.com — is just as much a "pedophile", as Julian Assange — accused of deliberately ripping a condom in an otherwise consensual encounter — is a rapist.

In addition to the actual accusations being far from from what's normally associated with the terms used ("assault", "rape"), both men have another thing in common: their infamous crimes have surfaced shortly after they greatly inconvenienced the US government.

Had you really been a Liberal, you wouldn't have parroted these accusations... But you aren't... Maybe, it is the tenure track — rather than a gun — that "makes jack-offs into bigger jack-offs", uhm?

Since at least 2013, Apple DOES at least Assemble some of their Products in the USA, and are actively taking steps to increase those numbers:

https://www.statesman.com/busi...

https://www.apple.com/newsroom...

https://www.businessinsider.co...

https://www.apple.com/newsroom...

But stuff like this never happens, right?

https://www.statesman.com/news...

http://www.philly.com/philly/n...

https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/01...

https://www.statesman.com/news............. 3:20 p.m. update: A 75-year-old woman was injured after picking up an exploding package outside her Southeast Austin home on Monday in the second blast reported in the city and the third similar incident in two weeks, Austin police said.

Yep!

Well, here's one from Canada. Here's another one from New York. Here's another one from a month ago, though in their defense, there were some criminal acts involved (B&E).

I can't find a source that says that, amusingly enough. What I did find seems to point at an exemption made for "American-owned manufacturers who exclusively make electric vehicles". To me, this sounds tailored to actually pass. Anything broader and the TADA would jump in guns blazing saying how they're destroying America. They're already opposing the bill with such a ludicrously small scope, imagine if the American-owned restriction wasn't there or the electric restriction wasn't there? Texas happens to be both ultra-patriotic and an oil baron's paradise, what did you expect?

The only issue I can see with it as portrayed in the article is the difference between what is in the bill - "American-owned manufacturers who exclusively make electric vehicles" - and what perhaps should have been in the bill - "American-owned manufacturers who make exclusively electric vehicles".

A subtle difference, but the difference between a bill that could be argued is an exception solely for Tesla vs. one that could cover any manufacturer that have electric-only vehicles (possibly in addition to gasoline-powered or hybrid technologies). The bill, as described by the article (and that is important, as it's the journalist's reporting of the bill, not the full text of the bill itself) would apparently cease to apply to a company the moment they make something other than an electric-only vehicle. Potentially, it could even be considered to exclude Tesla from complying, as they not only make the vehicles, they make the chargers and spare parts too (letter of the law vs. spirit of the law)!

Malarkey - I've actually seen the episode, and not only do they not put the car through anything more rigorous than other cars tested, Jeremy Clarkson (you know, the guy who would rather have his testicles eaten by a million angry bees than compliment an electric car) actually praised both the car and the company at the end of the show.

Not to mention, a wheel really did lock up at speed and almost kill the Stig, which Tesla readily admits did happen.

I'm specifically talking about the bit where they push the car around. It's been revealed that the whole thing was faked and the car did not inaccurately report remaining charge nor actually fail to do the whole run, they just filmed it like that anyway. I've not watched the whole thing (not a UK resident, not a car fan, and most certainly not a Top Gear viewer), but what I have seen of it points at a fair amount of "malarkey", as you say. I'm not saying the Tesla was perfect, remember? Just that Top Gear did some not-so-great things to prove a point.

So, he did but didn't overspeak the features of the vehicle then renege? Not really 100% what you're trying to say here.

I remember a lot of people thinking that the mileage figure was being overrated because you couldn't do that at -30C in the snow or that the batteries could never, ever catch fire or other such things. Exaggerations, basically, which I'd blame equally on Tesla's boasting and on critics' misrepresentations.

In reference to the Texas fiasco, no - it would be undeniably good if he was trying to get the law changed because it's wrong, but that's not the case - he was trying to get a special exception made for his company, and fuck everyone else.

Just like one would expect from a self-serving capitalist.

I can't find a source that says that, amusingly enough. What I did find seems to point at an exemption made for "American-owned manufacturers who exclusively make electric vehicles". To me, this sounds tailored to actually pass. Anything broader and the TADA would jump in guns blazing saying how they're destroying America. They're already opposing the bill with such a ludicrously small scope, imagine if the American-owned restriction wasn't there or the electric restriction wasn't there? Texas happens to be both ultra-patriotic and an oil baron's paradise, what did you expect?

The worst downturn the industry has ever seen is a bit hysterical, seriously? The entire industry is losing billions of dollars over something that is being rejected by consumers at a level never before seen in history and you think I'm being hysterical? Do you pay any attention to the industry whatsoever?

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2013/10/08/northamber_fiscal_13/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9238326/Windows_8_takes_blame_for_brutal_PC_sales_slide
http://www.electronista.com/articles/13/04/10/apple.toshiba.beating.industry.average.still.suffering.downturns/
http://www.statesman.com/news/business/slump-deepens-for-global-pc-sales/nXH6c/

Things are so bad that some OEM's have stared risking inclusion of third party start menus in a desperate attempt to get consumers to start buying PC's again. Your right that the enterprise will keep using Windows 7 and skip over Windows 8 just like Vista. However unless Microsoft fixes things with Windows 9 (Windows Blue includes a transition to yearly updates to the OS) they will also skip other versions. By the time the enterprise is ready to transition off of Windows 7 it is entirely feasible that other companies (Apple, Ubuntu, Google etc) will finally be ready for the enterprise.

The Start Menu really is that big of a deal.

Dude, this isn't Hollywood. Even at the incredible speed at which global warming is occuring, we're still talking about something that's happening at a speed unlikely to significantly change the environment you're living in within your lifetime. When I say significant, I mean "I lived in a lush forest when I was born, and now it's an apocalyptic desert where no rain falls."

What about "When I was born everyone ate beef for every meal but as I got older the cost of meat made it a once a week thing"? No true patriot is going to care about water wars and death in Africa. You're better off to let supply and demand (no subsidies!) ruin America's constant burger consumption. Then they'll finally cry foul. Look at Texas, they aren't just losing cattle. Trees, money, water, wildlife ... not quite "apocalyptic" desert yet ...

California (and New York) are hemorrhaging population and business. Often (but not only) heading to Texas according to numerous articles and analysis over the past year as well as the last census.

Texas appears to be the largest recipient of the migrations but so are Arizona and Florida. Coincidentally Texas was also named the 2012 Top State for business. Every few weeks I see more and more business headlines of companies (namely tech) moving to or starting a branch in Texas such as Apple, Facebook, PayPal, Catepillar and so on

There had been, however, some controversy over the years of TX Gov Perry's use of the Texas Enterprise Fund to woo companies to relocate. While the deal-landing results appear to be evident, some worry about the taxpayer cost, total incentive packages, and net gain of these deals. The fund seems to be perfectly suited to situations like this, where California tax laws cause some turmoil thereby increasing the opportunity to woo away industry. Recently Texas AG Greg Abbott has also been advertising to New Yorkers to move to Texas on account of gun control issues.

I wonder how long Texas can remain "Texas" if it becomes stuffed with people who are accustomed to living like Californians and New Yorkers.

A lot of people's expectations for the consequences of global warming is the sudden deaths of hundreds of thousands, not wide-ranging low-grade economic impacts that risk hundreds of millions in property damage and puts a strain on global food supply.

We're trained to notice disaster, not statistical drift. There will never be the "event" from global warming, which means denial will continue as the costs keep ramping up.

A second dust bowl would be an "event" and it's a possibility if we enter into a many year drought. Hell, Texas alone lost half a billion trees in the current drought and it's at $8 billion and counting. If that drought rolls into next year and they have a dry winter followed by another drought ... well, the topsoil those half billion trees were holding down will be dry and loose. Bad condition worsens and you could be looking at an "event" as meat prices rise in the US.

You might not remember the dirty thirties but my midwestern grandparents talk about it like it was death for everything.

Are you serious? How many times does this point need to be made? It wasn't randomly dumped. Wikileaks collaborated with major media outlets to assist in removing sensitive information. Just because people spout the same bull over and over and ... ... doesn't make it true.

"Make money" is relative. All universities, including the ones like UF that claim to make money, certify that their big-time sports programs are "substantially related" to their educational mission, and the IRS and state tax boards choose to believe it. As a result, the university's revenue from tickets, TV broadcast rights, advertising, and merchandise are tax-exempt. Donations from boosters are tax exempt (and a tax writeoff for the donor). Construction of stadiums and other sports facilities is funded with tax-exempt bonds.

Next time you turn on the TV and see a bowl game or March Madness, realize that as far as tax policy is concerned, you are watching a charity event among nonprofit institutions. If that makes sense to you (something you might ponder in between the action while watching a beer commercial or two), then yes, perhaps UF is making money.

If you haven't heard, smuggling items into prisons is pretty fucking big business. And they get downright creative about it.

The statesman article is about convicts in prison, not about suspects in jail - big difference.

Also, so what if you have have stuff in jail? Designating harmless things as contrabrand and then declaring a problem does not wash. A deadly weapon, yes, but then who is going to jaywalk with a revolver up his ass?

The theoretical implications of the Canadian approach seem worse than the US approach, however I think in the practical world they work out much better.

Right up until you piss off the $cientologists, or the Mormons, or the Muslims, by saying something about their "prophet" that they interpret as derogatory (which you may well have intended as same) and they start to sue and harass you in court for "hate speech."

Meanwhile, the idea of being strip-searched before being put into prison seems to be an unfortunate side effect of the way we run prisons. If you haven't heard, smuggling items into prisons is pretty fucking big business. And they get downright creative about it. So if you're running a prison, then yes, you turn out to have a vested security interest in strip-searching anyone who comes in, whether they're there doing 10-to-20 or they're in for a short stint on failure to pay traffic tickets.

It sucks, and it's humiliating for those who are strip searched due to minor crimes or worse yet, court system fuck-ups (which is part of what this case had going for it to make a sympathetic plaintiff) but the alternative is the crime and drug gangs just having a few guys whose job it is to get arrested for running enough stoplights to smuggle stuff in to the leaders on a 30-day pass and pass messages back and forth from the outside too.

The only reason apple is expanding is austin & TX had the highest bid, 21 mil state, 8.6 mil city. See http://www.statesman.com/business/apple-plans-3-600-new-jobs-for-austin-2228637.html for details. Note the high number is always the headline, 3600, but the actual number may be as low as 650. Personally, I think it should be completely forbidden for any govt entity to waive taxes/give incentives to sway a company to locate. It just turns it into a bidding war, and the people who lose the most are the locals.

What's weird is that your business model sounds exactly like Zipcar, which a quick Google indicates can operate legally in Texas. One possible difference is that they rent pretty-standard compact cars, which are certainly legal on Texas roads.

So will the hundreds in the local construction industry, those in the power industry, transport industry, and the local government who collect property tax.

Emphasis mine.

I would just like to point out that from Statesman.com

Travis County and the Manor Independent School District — which both agreed to give Samsung property tax rebates of 80 percent for 20 years under the incentives agreement

There are pros and cons, but lets stop kidding ourselves that companies pay their 'fair' share of taxes.

He just hadn't learned how to make money off selling toll road contracts. Kay bitch Hutchison did the same thing. http://www.statesman.com/news/local/perrys-toll-road-sins-mostly-in-woulda-coulda-193585.html

In Texas, get it correct. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/20/0420judgeelect.html

Dell told its 905 workers there that the factory will be closed by January in a cost-cutting move that will send more of the company's manufacturing overseas.... Analysts said they expect Dell will transfer much of the work now done in North Carolina to lower-cost contract manufacturers in Asia, who already make PCs for Dell's rivals.

No place is perfect... And the way Texas picks judges has some real problems. The big one being a giant list of people you have never heard of on election day. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/04/20/0420judgeelect.html

Sorry to whomever he was replying to but, I'm going to dig the hole a tad deeper...currently (going on about 10 years now) the US govenment has issued multiple grants for a Bandwidth study with "purpose" of extending reach into rural areas and improving overall speed (links to the posted FCC stuff). One of the largest "non-profit" organizations taking advantage of this grant provides data for around 20 states and is so closely tied to the telecom industry a circle jerk isn't possible.
My town paper http://www.statesman.com/business/survey-texas-companies-with-broadband-internet-outperform-those-1686241.html was nice enough to give them some coverage. See if you can spot the errors.

Amazon is already leaving Texas. Or, at least, they are closing their distribution center there. See this article (or just google it). They are presently building new facilities in Tennessee near Charleston (about 10 miles away from me at the moment) and Chattanooga. There is already talk in the Tennessee state legislature about passing a new law expressly to renege on the sales tax exemption granted as a condition to building the distribution centers here. Just goes to show that all state representatives are clueless -- it's not limited to California.

Lawyers only make a lot of money out of college if they're VERY high in class ranking. To make money as a lawyer, and there is good money to be made, you need very specific and extensive experience in niche law segments. Like responding to FOIA requests can net a lawyer $350/hour apparently from a City Agency. In the corporate acquisitions and merges department, you can see $1000/hour for top experienced lawyers in that field.

However, in any field the top 0.02% are going to make bank due to demand for "the best." The story is different for the lower 95%. A lot of lawyers have trouble finding consistent work and so they take jobs as state prosecutors just to get a steady income.

I'm have a BS in Computer Science--however I'm more or less near the top of my field with very specific/high-demand experience--and make well into the six-figure salary range and that's not considering equity compensation which is some times my salary. People should do what they're into and what they love. If you love Law, be a lawyer. If you love computation or systems work, be a computer scientist or an engineer. If you're passionate about what you do, you'll do it better than those that are not passionate, and in the long run that will get you further.

Well, it might not any more. As I said in another post, I did this a decade ago. The laws may have changed since then. But back then, intrastate shipments and being too close to the distribution center in terms of ownership or management could bust Nexus protections in a hurry.

In this case, Amazon ran this warehouse through a subsidiary. This is not a case of a separate company doing distribution, it's a separate division of the same company. That's not arm's-length, that's married with kids.

I suggest looking up the difference between "division" and "subsidiary". Subsidiary is by definition a separate company, so yes, it is a case of a separate company. Having tangled with Amazon's lawyers (not a very pleasant experience), I know for sure those guys do not leave anything to chance - so I am sure they crossed the T's and dotted the I's when it came to this sort of thing.

Meanwhile Texas already screwed its people out of thousands of jobs and millions in taxes that the distribution center WAS paying.

The Distrbution Center has an unknown number of employees, but Amazon claiming that they are avoiding hiring "up to 1,000" new employees when they canceled plans to open multiple DCs. So I doubt this one DC had "thousands of jobs". Still sucks to be Texas on this one, but they'll probably make more in this sales tax revenue suit than the jobs will ever make them in income tax.

Most DCs don't employ thousands of people - by the time you reach the point where that many people are necessary you'll have put in significant automation systems because there won't be enough room for all of them. Amazon's an efficient company, and they know distribution. If that DC had 250 employees I'd be surprised.

PS: Just looked it up. http://www.statesman.com/business/119-to-lose-jobs-when-amazon-closes-texas-1248784.html 119 jobs lost.

Well, they CLAIMED to be creating up to a thousand new jobs in planned expansions, though you are probably right, the real number would have been smaller (thus "up to" claim). Still, thats 119 REAL jobs slashed, still sucks for 119 families that have to either loose jobs or move out of state.

Really, Texas should get off their ass and just tax every internet purchase, like NY did. It'll save a lot of headaches to everyone involved instead of trying to trying to do weaselly and shady back-billing that even their own Governor disapproves of (as per the article you linked).

Link "Last year the Texas comptroller’s office sent Amazon a demand for $269 million in uncollected sales taxes, plus penalties and interest, from 2005 through 2009." Amazon opened the distribution center in 2006.

Well, it might not any more. As I said in another post, I did this a decade ago. The laws may have changed since then. But back then, intrastate shipments and being too close to the distribution center in terms of ownership or management could bust Nexus protections in a hurry.

In this case, Amazon ran this warehouse through a subsidiary. This is not a case of a separate company doing distribution, it's a separate division of the same company. That's not arm's-length, that's married with kids.

Meanwhile Texas already screwed its people out of thousands of jobs and millions in taxes that the distribution center WAS paying.

The Distrbution Center has an unknown number of employees, but Amazon claiming that they are avoiding hiring "up to 1,000" new employees when they canceled plans to open multiple DCs. So I doubt this one DC had "thousands of jobs". Still sucks to be Texas on this one, but they'll probably make more in this sales tax revenue suit than the jobs will ever make them in income tax.

Most DCs don't employ thousands of people - by the time you reach the point where that many people are necessary you'll have put in significant automation systems because there won't be enough room for all of them. Amazon's an efficient company, and they know distribution. If that DC had 250 employees I'd be surprised.

PS: Just looked it up. http://www.statesman.com/business/119-to-lose-jobs-when-amazon-closes-texas-1248784.html 119 jobs lost.

The dispute apparently is about unpaid taxes on retail sales in the state, and Amazon claimed $34 billion in sales last year, so it's very possible that between 2005 and 2009 the company did $2 billion in sales in the state.

It sounds like both sides aren't playing nice in this. In my state of North Carolina, Amazon has been very accommodating about paying up retail taxes from the same period (they have had a dispute with our state about maintaining customer privacy in the audit however). Amazon's dispute with Texas is that they want to see the audit that produced the final back-tax figure, which Texas has not done or has refused to produce.

I'm sure that if anyone were falsely accused of being a leaker, they would no doubt have swift access to just recourse. This is the West, after all.

No doubt they would, just as soon as the investigation is done. There must be evidence at hearings. This is the West, after all.

If someone ends up in a such a situation and reports the contrary, their testimony is likely tainted because they are a dirty rotten leaker.

Although one would hope not, it's very possible.... very possible.

Ultimately, we are all safer somehow.

I quite agree. Preventing the outing of informants against terrorist groups when they fund and train terrorists who attempt attacks in our cities is a good thing.

Perhaps if you could give us a list of all that "violence coming from the left" in the US that is somehow being cleverly concealed by all the media of the world (must be some kind of a leftist conspiracy involving all those pinko-commie corporate CEOs!) it would help your points to attain some modicum of credibility. Unless your post was meant to be some very subtle satire, that is.

• It was not the fear of conservative violence that caused Ann Coulter's speech to be cancelled this week.
• It was a liberal who bit the finger off a man who disagreed with him on healthcare.
• It was Obama-loving Amy Bishop who took a gun to work and murdered co-workers.
• Joseph Stack flew his plane into the IRS building after writing an anti-conservative manifesto.
• It was liberals who destroyed AM radio towers outside of Seattle.
• It's liberals who burn down Hummer dealerships.
• It was progressive SEIU union thugs who beat a black conservative man who spoke his mind.
• It's doubtful that a conservative fired shots into a GOP campaign headquarters.
• In fact, Democrats have no monopoly on having their offices vandalized.
• Don't forget it was Obama's friend Bill Ayers who used terrorism as a tool for political change. SDS is still radical, with arrests in 2007 and the storming of the CATO Institute in July 2008.
• It was a liberal who was sentenced to two years for bringing bombs and riot shields to the Republican National Convention in 2008.
• It was a liberal who threatened to kill a government informant who infiltrated her Austin-based group that planned to bomb the RNC.
• It was liberals who assaulted police in Berkeley.
• It was liberals who intimidated and threw rocks through the windows of researchers.
• The two Black Panthers who stood outside polls intimidating people with nightsticks were probably not right-wingers.
• Every time the G20 gets together, it's not conservatives who destroy property and cause chaos.

I could literally go on and on, but let's try to have some perspective here. Violence is a product of the fringe, on either side, and it's sickening to try to use it for political advantage. Those who commit violence in the name of politics deserve political change no more than they deserve leniency in sentencing. Violence furthers no cause. The only call to action that violence has ever moti

There is a huge entrenched interest in keeping the state store monopoly in place...

Similar to Texas and its corrupt liquor laws used to protect entrenched commercial interests against competition:

"...political groups representing wholesale liquor distributors reported donating $1.38 million to the campaigns of more than 150 state officials, including most legislators and Gov. Rick Perry."

Voluntary often turns into compulsory eventually. Why would they possibly need anyone's DNA? And if some woman is attacked on campus are they then going to turn samples over to law enforcement or other agency to test for a possible match?

In Texas, parents recently found out that since 2002, blood drawn from their infants for routine screening, was being kept and sometimes sold. There was an "opt-out" program, which of course most parents didn't know about. Who wants your kid's DNA floating around?

Yep, there are certainly idiots on both sides.

http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS248104+14-May-2009+PRN20090514
http://cofcc.org/2009/09/actual-political-violence/
http://voices.kansascity.com/node/2670
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/08/24/0824kibby.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-10-05-gop-office-attack_x.htm
blah, blah, blah...

Car owners honking mad: Cops charge man with remotely disabling cars

"Omar Ramos-Lopez, 20, is charged with breach of computer security, a state jail felony for which he faces up to two years behind bars."

Too bad they can't charge him once for each car whose computer-security system he disabled. If he "faced up to 202 years behind bars" he would be much more willing to plea-bargain it down to 23 months.

OK, seriously, I say his punishment (after a stint in jail) should be that for the next 5 years there should be a 50/50 chance of his car not starting on a given day. OK, that won't happen. But hopefully the judge can be a bit creative with this guy.

They were enticed by the cops' inaction to get into the car. And I was wrong, he did not drive the car-he just tried to jimmy open the trunk. But his neighbor drove it a block-again, after the cops were unresponsive-and he was charged with a felony.

Bait cars are such blatant entrapment it's not even funny. Not to mention, leaving a motor vehicle unattended with a key in it is a felony in and of itself in Texas.

Grow up, go to state college

You mean like the ones in Texas whose tuition increased by leaps and bounds? (Compare to the yearly % change in the cost of health care graphs at the bottom of this page. Sure is beating inflation around here.) Newsflash for you buddy, just like how people going to school now can't get the same 3% rates you could have gotten when you were in school, state schools aren't the cheap deals they were when you graduated from them.

Now, quit gumming on your cane, put your teeth back in and get back inside, your friends are waiting for you to start their bridge game.

so in the future, pranksters could repeat the "caution! zombies ahead!" traffic sign hack, and expand the prank by actually delivering on what the traffic sign is warning about. awesome

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/austin/entries/2009/01/28/sign_hacker_broadcasts_zombie.html

sigourney weaver's voice repeatedly warning "caution, rogue robots" after the robots escape from the psych ward in the movie wall-e doesn't seem so far off in the future anymore

      I don't know enough about the facts to really care but the comments on the article

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/2009/09/18/0918comments.html

    are pretty fascinating. They're a fairly good reflection of the current mentality that "things I don't like = communism/fascism/scary thing".

Did anyone else see the enlarge photo tag under Avecedo's picture and think "Ewwwww!"?

Yes, and until that image of nerds/geeks is changed, we will continue to lag behind.

It's not "cool" to be smart, and so each generation grows up caring more about popularity than tackling the hard subjects and learning something worthwhile.

Mmmm... I don't think the perception of "coolness" has anything to do with it. I think we're simply getting what we pay for. If the incentives of our schools are primarily based on producing high-quality athletes, then we will continue to get great athletes. If the incentives for our schools were to produce high quality mathematicians, engineers, and scientists, then we would get great mathematicians, engineers, and scientists.

What kind of compensation does a high school's football coach receive compared to the pay of it's academic teachers?
How do scholarships compare for Athletic Merit vs. Academic Merit?

Education Board Leader Set to Challenge Evolution:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/region/legislature/stories/03/08/0308mcleroy.html

This is the guy that heads the Board of Education in the State of Texas. The second largest state in the United States by population (23,904,380 people).

Boards of Education are trying to teach how a magic man in the sky created everything. Reap what you sow.

And while we are on that subject, meet Don McLeroy, chairman of the Texas Board of Education:

McLeroy said that it wasn't until he met his future wife, Nan, that he decided to rethink his faith. She said she would date him only if he were a Christian.

At the time, McLeroy was a 29-year-old dental student in Houston. His response was to first write up a list of reasons that he could not accept Christ. Some things he read in the Bible didn't make sense with what he was learning in dental school, he said. And he wondered why God would allow innocent people to die.

One by one, he said, his questions were answered by pastors and in Bible studies. The conversion took four months. Over the next year, he began taking seminars on creationism and biblical principles. He is now a young earth creationist, meaning that he believes God created Earth between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago.

The tenet in Christianity that says people were created in the image of God became one of the principles that McLeroy held most dear, he said.

"When I became a Christian, it was whole-hearted," he said. "I was totally convinced the biblical principles were right, and I was totally convinced that it could be accurate scientifically."

If you live in Texas, this guy is edumakatin' your kids. Look at the bright side, if they graduate they can fill those lucrative intelligent design research positions that are just bound to open up, ;-)

Oh yes, absolutely. I'm especially fond of the Robert Frost reference - he's a favorite of mine.

And although I don't understand it - I do have a theory on why those types do well.

Stupid people excel at taking because greed is a very base desire. Three year olds understand it perfectly. Mine! Mine mine mine! And business responds well to those to take. Because business is about taking. Taking opportunities, taking your competitor's marketspace, taking in money...taking.

These people are takers, and business is about taking.

And back to your point - that's why these people have driven the economy into the ground. It's the financial equivalent of overfishing.

They've depleted the free money in the economy by overharvesting it. Now there's not enough money in the pool to "multiply" and sustain the economy at its current level. Hence the crash. Housing prices falling, Dow Jones tanking, gas dropping from $4/gal back down to $1.60. It's just the ecosystem righting itself.

Also why I think the bailouts are such a bad idea. The system needs the feedback to correct itself. Some of the predators need to die off so the smaller lifeforms can flourish again. Too many sharks in the ecosystem.

On a gut level most people understand that. That's why when you see stories about how factories lay off thousands and then give the execs a raise rub people the wrong way. Deep down, even the execs know this is bad for the system. But they're stupid takers, and consequences are just something they're not good at thinking about.

Good thing they are thinking about bringing back Neaderthal man, too....
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/nation/11/20/1120mammoth.html

Basically the same article but with additional content about Neaderthal DNA, too.

Layne

My wife told me there was a 109 year old woman who is the daughter of a former slave who was able to vote for Obama.
I think this is the story (Austin-American Statesman).