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I should point out that Stephen King has already anticipated this objection.

Canada is huge, but our politics are a lot more nationalistic than the US. The concept of 'state' rights is not so important here, which I suppose is why Quebec wants to secede.

I'm not advocating disarming anyone but the criminal population that uses weapons as a method to silence critics and bend others to their will. I also agree that people should be more willing to fight back, and better prepared, to protect themselves against assault. I've never been one to back down from bullies, and won't be teaching my kids that they're better off not punching someone in the mouth when they're being bullied. That said, teaching everyone how to fight may not be the best answer either, as most of the people I know that know how to fight, myself included, are less willing to walk away when we probably should; I know that's anecdotal, but it's all I've got for this point.

Regarding guns as deterrents for robberies and assaults, statistics don't show that to be the case. Excluding DC because it's a crime infested shithole, with more economic disparity and poverty than the majority of the states, the amount of legally owned guns doesn't seem to have any significant bearing on crime statistics. Montana, West Virginia and Alaska all have rates of aggravated assault higher than most of the country. Alaska is the rape capital of the US, fourth in assaults, and consistently one of the best armed states in the union.

If we compare states, Texas and California for example, with similar median incomes (50/53K), populations (25M/37M), and education (average for both), but significantly different gun laws (TX, CA) and you'll see that the gun laws don't make a huge difference in crime. In fact, as of 2008, Texas was significantly more criminal than California is, Texas #10 on most criminal overall, and California #27. Other years put them within one or two of each other, in varying orders, but comparable.

What I also found shocking, was that Texas is one of the lesser armed states in the union.

What it comes down to, is for self defence, there doesn't seem to be that much of an impact.

Do law abiding people need to have the right to keep and bear arms? Unquestionably, and well they should. But it shouldn't be thought of as a deterrent for common crime. Guns should be kept to keep the government in line.

No pictures, but its true. There are some people who have waived their hands:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/05/28/cutting-desire.html

you are joking right? I havent seen anyone say this is a good movie, or that it is representitive of how we feel. even the president apologized for the movie (he shouldnt have) Im not even religious, but this movie is a joke, bad production quality and just a horrible horrible movie that never should have been made. I havent seen muslims condemn anything, in fact I have seen more embassies get attacked in the past few days...Where are these muslims that are speaking out???

His name is Terry Jones and he's calling himself a Christian.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/316612/terry-jones-and-assault-us-missions-daniel-pipes
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/13/anti-islam-minister-terry-jones-says-he-feels-no-responsibility-for-u-s-ambassador-s-death.html

I'm not talking about politicians like the President apologizing. Of course the US government is going to do that. I'm talking about putting ordinary Christians on TV to set the record straight so that the Muslim community can understand the views in that film are not mainstream views and not only that but that the film itself is hate speech. It might be free speech but it's as much hate speech as holocaust denial and racist video games.

So, I suppose this means giving people jail time for minor civil infractions (while letting major crimes, such as international larceny and funding terrorism, go unpunished) is the new normal?

Looks like Vickerman's real crime was not being wealthy enough to buy his way out of trouble...



This world, she is fucked...

You must edit Wikipedia a lot, because you clearly missed and/or chose to ignore the facts regarding that accident. Mitt Romney was NOT AT Fault. For those too lazy to read the linked articles, "A car heading north at about 60 mph missed a curve, barreled over a hill and veered into Romney's southbound lane. The car slammed into the front of the Citroen..."

"Stupid Fucking Moron" is too good for you.

A two second Google search shows that his car was struck head on by drunk driver .

And that's from the Daily Beast, a site that spares no opportunity to get in a dig at anything Not Obama.

With a popularity poll. A significant portion of that 54% of Americans, when read the Bill of Rights, believe you are describing an antithetical, Socialist manifesto.

How can you judge if the TSA is "doing a good job", if you are among the 44% of Americans who are unable to define the Bill of Rights?

I for one DO believe the TSA does a good job. That job is one of eroding fundamental protections of basic rights while enriching cronies.

Snap a photo of someone with a smartphone, analyze an image against a database of social media or Flickr pics and, voila, you have a name. From there, it's easy to get someone's age, hometown, interests, news coverage, you name it.

Finally a solution for stalking pretty girls in bars ;-)

FTFY.

Wait... anyone else have a sudden feeling of deja vu ?

This is a PR move by the FBI. It makes them APPEAR to be an actor for justice - it matters of little consequence, except those personally involved.

Another oxymoron for America? How about "Justice Department"?

4 Years - and not ONE criminal indictment perused against the "investment" and reserve Banksters. Surely, the FBI could better spend their time and resources to ensure that the entire country is safe from another criminal fraud, costing tens of Billions, no?

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-can-t-obama-bring-wall-street-to-justice.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/20/wall-street-role-financial-crisis

http://www.propublica.org/article/why-no-financial-crisis-prosecutions-official-says-its-just-too-hard

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/nov/10/should-some-bankers-be-prosecuted/?pagination=false

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=30979

BTW: The Fed knew about LIBOR fixing specific to Barclays and beyond... in 2008.
http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/07/14/barclays-employee-to-ny-fed-2008-we-know-that-were-not-posting-um-an-honest-libor/

So what's our precious FBI doing about examining THAT evidence?

I realize you're being sarcastic, but that situation seems very different to me. As you noted, the people from Northern Africa are on an entirely different continent than the Europeans, and while the US may have some military operations in Iraq, that's pretty far from Tunisia, Morocco, etc. Why Muslims from that part of the world are all migrating in droves to Europe (and also the US, just not in such large numbers), I'm really not sure, other than the obvious answer, which is economics. What's puzzling is that, as a culture, north African and middle eastern Muslims are extremely intolerant and not very amenable to blending into the local population; they migrate to Western countries, and then get angry when, for instance, their kids become "too westernized" and murder them. As a group, they're entirely different from, for example, Hindu Indians, who have also migrated in large numbers to western nations, yet are excellent at learning the local language, getting along with the locals, adopting many of their ways while also maintaining parts of their previous culture, yet not trying to force their ways on anyone else.

Indeed, the grandparent is ignoring the unwanted fact that drowning coastal urbanity will exacerbate their tendency to migrate to places they haven't messed up yet.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/13/farewell-yahoo-ceo-scott-thompson-ousted-for-a-resume-lie.html

Quite surprising to see Roberts cross the aisle on this decision.

Indeed a surprise, there's speculation that Roberts pulled the old switcheroo on Scalia at some point after the initial vote to protect the Supreme Court's legitimacy and 'prove' that it is not a political body after some of Scalia's recent stunts.

The U.S. made a mistake with Iran with that stupid "Axis of Evil" speech. I'm still not sure why that speech isn't recognized as one of the biggest diplomatic blunders in recent history. First of all, lumping Iran and North Korea in with Iraq (who Bush planned to invade) served no good purpose. It was basically an open threat to Iran and North Korea that we were going to invade them next. And, not surprisingly, both responded by ramping up their nuclear weapons programs to a feverish pace (since nukes are basically the only way to ensure that the U.S. can't invade).

Iran was actually getting pretty moderate before that speech, even sending open condolences and holding vigils after 9-11, with fairly moderate leadership. After the speech we get Ahmadinejad and and full-on nuke program. Smart move, George.

Agreed. But instead of being shunned for being the author of one of the most damaging speeches in American foreign policy history he gets a blog, a contributors spot on CNN, and gets to publish seven books.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/davidfrum.html

The syrup to produce a can of coke (in Ireland, using sugar) is 1/200th of a penny, including labor. Corn syrup is used in place of sugar because it's easier to work with and because nutritionally/tastewise it's the same thing as sugar. The expenses in soda are all advertising and bottling. Stopping corn subsidies won't do a thing.

Self-serve refills came about because it's cheaper for people to fill their own sodas and take what they want, than for some minimum-wage earner to take 5 seconds to do it themselves.

Rhode Island... so doesn't that mean he borrowed mafia money? They're going to chop him up into little pieces and introduce him to Jimmy Hoffa. Now how you doin? All set?

she arrived in New York in 1934 and was "startled" by the number of fat kids she saw - "really fat ones, not only in clinics, but on the streets and subways, and in schools." What makes Bruch's story relevant to the obesity problem today is that this was New York in the worst year of the Great Depression, an era of bread lines and soup kitchens, when 6 in 10 Americans were living in poverty. The conventional wisdom these days - promoted by government, obesity researchers, physicians, and probably your personal trainer as well - is that we get fat because we have too much to eat and not enough reasons to be physically active. But then why were the PC- and Big Mac - deprived Depression-era kids fat? How can we blame the obesity epidemic on gluttony and sloth if we easily find epidemics of obesity throughout the past century in populations that barely had food to survive and had to work hard to earn it?

From my personal experience, I recently lost a lot of weight. The biggest shift I made to burn off fat was to drastically reduce how much grain I consumed weekly. I exercised about the same amount during the time, but the weight loss tracked pretty closely to my change in diet.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-the-campaign-to-stop-america-s-obesity-crisis-keeps-failing.html

According to this its a change of diet (as in the promoted healthy diet is anything but) in the 1970's and way too many sugars.

That doesn't prove Fox News is MORE biased, only that they are. How do you quantify which is more biased? Obviously your opinion carries more weight for you, and mine for me.

I'll see your John Prescott Ellis, Heidi Noonan, and Tony Snow, with Al Sharpton, and Kieth Olberman and Chris Matthews and raise you Dave Weigel of Journolist fame, Susan Roegen, and George Stephanopoulos.

To me the issue isn't whether bias exists. It does. To me the issue is whether the United States is a better place if both political points of view and parties are held accountable by the corporate media. My answer is yes, it is. But I don't drink any particular Party's cool-aid, YMMV.

We're talking about seeing your face in a crowd in a public setting.

In the age of ubiquitous CCTV cameras and facial recognition software, massive government databases for domestic spying, laws criminalizing protesting under flimsy pretenses, and increasing police state laws and tactics, one year after the death of Bin Laddin and more than 10 years since the last terrorist attack. Don't ignore the forest for the trees. And besides, you are now on the record of wanting to know who people were, merely for showing their face in a public setting.

Whereas before, you could have 20 cops for every single protester (like in Toronto where a squad car was conveniently left parked unattended for hours as a target for vandals). 20 cops could look at your face....and unless you did something to stand out, you would be gone from their short term memory in about....3 seconds.

If you want to hide your face in public then we have a problem. And if you want to be unreasonable about that, then two can play at that game.

Too bad. If someone wearing a mask commits a crime, we already have laws to prosecute said crime. If someone is peaceably wearing a mask for the sake of anonymity or as a political statement, it's none of your damn business what's under the mask.

Bandits cover their faces. Robbers cover their faces. You can either take my word for that or you can find out the hard way.

So tell us about your annual Halloween rampage, you gung-ho condo commando, you.

For about 5 years, I have had a goal to become fit. I'm still in my 20's, and didn't want to hit 30 with my beer gut intact. At first I tried the Hacker's Diet, which boils down to calorie counting and exercise. While I did lose weight from calorie restriction, I was always hungry and not really fit. And the weight came back pretty quick. I then found out about Crossfit, and did that on and off for a couple years, really enjoying the Olympic lifting part of it (despite never being athletic before), but I didn't get much out of it until a year ago, due in part to my lack of commitment to it. In the past year, I burned off 60 lbs of fat, and added 10 lbs of lean muscle mass. While Crossfit has been a huge help, it didn't kick in to high gear until I stopped eating so much grain, be it cereal, bread, pizza dough, etc. It was surprising how much of my diet was based on starches, which are just sugars without the fiber you find in fruit. At the same time, I stopped caring about calorie counting, and just focused on eating better, and eating whenever I was hungry. I still eat grain, and drink my fair share of beer (I'm a homebrewer, so I don't think I can ever give it up), but significantly dropping how much grain I eat per week has been HUGE to burning off fat. Thishttp://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/why-the-campaign-to-stop-america-s-obesity-crisis-keeps-failing.html article appeared in Newsweek, focusing on the obesity epidemic, and processed grain diets. It's interesting reading. I know personal experience is anecdotal, but after a year of some exercise, I weigh in at 155, and got my first muscle up this past Tuesday.

This is just part of the campaign to tar Google with any brush they can. Read this.

Rand Paul has proposed legislation to ban abortions and end birthright citizenship. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blogs/the-gaggle/2011/01/28/rand-paul-wants-to-ban-abortions-and-end-birthright-citizenship.html

I'm fine with a senator having either of those positions. I don't really aggree with either one, but they both come from a rational place (just IMO wrong ones). We're in serious need of immigration reform, we need to as a country reach some sort of compromise on when "personhood" begins. I'm cool with politicians starting off with the ideologically pure positions on issues like these - that's where each side should start, so that we compromise to something practical.

Rand Paul has proposed legislation to ban abortions and end birthright citizenship. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blogs/the-gaggle/2011/01/28/rand-paul-wants-to-ban-abortions-and-end-birthright-citizenship.html

The 737s are still being built. And it's fuselage is heavily based on the 727. Here's a recent article about it, and the problems. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/03/19/is-boeing-s-737-an-airplane-prone-to-problems.html
Of course, that's not the same as deliberately crashing a 727 into the ground, but I'm sure Boeing would be interested in the effects.

Fannie and Freddie purchased mortgages, but this had nothing to do with the financial collapse because these agencies were backstopped by the US Treasury which was capable of withstanding the losses.

It is the purchase of mortgages by private banks who then went insolvent and thus froze up the lending system that led to the financial collapse.

In addition the quality of loans purchased by Freddie and Fannie were considerably better than those bought by private banks with much higher FICO credit scores.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/01/17/wall-street-not-fannie-and-freddie-led-mortgage-meltdown.html

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0805090460/thedaibea-20/

The Bloomberg op-ed article is really just exists to counterbalance all the articles that point to English majors and humanities grads as least likely to get a job after graduation.

The Daily Beast, for instance, positions English majors as #7 in The 13 Most Useless Majors list.

The main point of the Bloomberg op-ed is basic common sense: that software engineers need to stay current with the language du jour (Javascript can be considered one of these "trendy" new languages, considering the low number of job opportunities for FORTRAN programmers), and starting at around 35, engineers should be looking to get into senior-level management positions (which apparently they are letting just about everyone apply for, Humanities majors included).

Oh yeah? Arizona just declared pregnancy starts first day of gestation, which is two weeks prior to actual conception.

Personally, I think anyone who uses religion as an active part of their political platform, and freely talks about how it affects their decisions, should be disqualified and removed if they're in office. Religion has no place anywhere near politics. The first sentence of the first amendment says:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion [...]

Seriously. wtf.

All the people he called in about for "acting suspicious" were black kids. One was seven to nine years old by his own estimate.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/trayvon-shooters-911-calls-potholes-piles-trash-black-men
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/23/did-trayvon-shooter-abuse-911.html

His tendency to report blacks has been widely reported. Both Mother Jones and the Daily Beast listened to every 911 call still on record, and most of the ones about people are young black males:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/trayvon-shooters-911-calls-potholes-piles-trash-black-men
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/23/did-trayvon-shooter-abuse-911.html

All the ones that report one or two guys for basically walking around ("being suspicious" in Zimmermanese) are black kids. One is about a seven-year-old.

*cough*

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/04/14/obamas-irish-roots-village-of-his-ancestors-preps-for-presidents-visit.html

Firstly, your use of "scientist" is a strawman. I didn't say scientist - I said "warmist". And despite what they believe, every warmist is not a scientist. Secondly, I didn't say they were claiming cyclones are proof of global warming. That was you putting words in my mouth, after I'd already corrected you once. I said they were claiming cyclones were caused by (not proof of) global warming

Scientists aren't saying every cyclone is proof of global warming.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/25/hurricane-irene-can-be-tied-to-global-warming-says-bill-mckibben.html
"Irene’s got a middle name, and it’s Global Warming...Record floods from Pakistan to Queensland to the Mississippi basin; record drought from the steppes of Russia to the plains of Texas...This is what climate change looks like in its early stages."

They aren't saying that your energy consumption is "sinful"

http://savingspecies.org/offset-carbon/how-to-be-carbon-neutral/
"The USA puts more carbon into the atmosphere than any other country. That is 5 tons for each of us - you, me, and everyone else. Dr. Pimm has sinned more than most because he travels to tropical forests a lot. If you live outside the USA, you likely sin less. (You can work out the amount of your “carbon sin” with our carbon calculator.)"

There's lunatics and nut-jobs on the fringe on both sides. The fact that every time a cold front comes through, a nut-job on the denier fringe says "so much for global warming" is no less ridiculous than each time there's a seasonal shift a a nut-job on the warmist fringe says "See! Climate change". You and the GP are doing nothing for the debate by trying to paint the extremists as representative of the whole - the same can be applied to your side too.

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/21019

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/41147

http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/End-of-Great-Recession.pdf

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/08/14/gm-proves-obama-saved-detroit-but-voters-hate-bailouts.html

Fuck where did those come from?

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

WHAT?

ABOUT THIS?

No, seriously. The people that claim that unions only protect lazy teachers have no idea what the current system of education in the USA looks like, except through what the major news organizations feed them. If your job required not just you to perform, but also to raise 30-40 humans because their parents won't, pay for your supplies out of pocket, and require 10-12 hour days 6 days a week, would you be willing to go with 'the next big movement'?

The problem is that teachers are jaded. Everything 'good' that comes along is usually just a rehash of what has been done to them in the past, or an excuse to privatize education

Oh, and Michelle Rhea was, in my opinion, just a shill for privatization, so her buddies could get their hands on that sweet, sweet Department of Education money. But, that's just my opinion

I'd be more worried about data breaches and server seizures due to their crazy politicians, crazy justice system! and willingness to bend over for all manner of privacy invading measures to satisfy foreign interests. It will be a hot day in Iceland before we move any servers to Sweden. Go Iceland!

You have to be careful trusting the Local for news. We have them in Switzerland too, same company, and all they do is poorly translate then over-sensationalize stories. Can't speak for the other sources, though.

I'd be more worried about data breaches and server seizures due to their crazy politicians, crazy justice system! and willingness to bend over for all manner of privacy invading measures to satisfy foreign interests. It will be a hot day in Iceland before we move any servers to Sweden. Go Iceland!

Do you have a cite for that study? It sounds interesting. I could only find a passing reference to the study here. I also learned that Googling Monkey Juice Economics is not particularly safe for work...

What pet store would have a rent-a-dog program?

It's at least been tried:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/nyregion/30dogs.html

Though apparently they ran into problems (not due to liability, though):
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/07/28/a-dog-for-a-day.html

See, you think politics are like a game of Risk. I would guess that's because either you're young, or have little personal life experience. We are talking about very real, very personal issues: children, families, etc. Things that are more real, in many ways, than your belief in national mono-cultures.

The fly in your ointment is that the family is a fundamental unit of socio-politics, but you're trying to turn the isolated individual, free to enter into contracts, into the unit of socio-politics. The problem is that fiction works only for atomized adults who are also free to move anywhere they like. Reality is messier. The ties that keep people to a place, get them to change places, and tie people together are not and never have been as clean as you imply.

I actually do think we will have gay marriage within about 15 years in the US. Even among Republicans, it has the support of most people under the age of 30. It used to be a wedge issue among the Democratic base: it has now become a wedge issue among the Republican base. (Eg, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/06/26/gay-marriage-the-new-democratic-wedge-issue.html) Just like you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who admits to supporting segregation now, in 30 years you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who defends denying these kind of rights to same-sex couples.

The polygamy question is a red herring. Polygamy is not based on orientation - it's a cultural practice. So is polyamory. Any of us might be polygamous if we had a culture that supported it. We would be unlikely to change our orientation based on cultural norms (and attempts to do so have spectacularly failed.)

Clearly you've bought into the misdirection. At first blush, it looks like they want to prevent the illegal download of copyrighted material (their water.) On closer examination they could care less about the "water" they want your "pipes." With control of your pipes, it doesn't matter where your water comes from or what you use the water for, they control the flow and can turn off your water without so much as a second thought... and with that, kiss anything resembling global free speech and democracy goodbye (that kind of water will never see "their" piped ever again.)

Our society has ALWAYS put up with minor inconvenience (idiots talking loudly in public, and yellow journalism) because we thought the price was small compared to the benefit that freedom brings. This however won't fly in the face of "Profit". There is no margin for "putting up with" if your intent is to squeeze every last femto-liter of profit out of the world at large. At best you and I are imminent trespassers on the property of some future super-Murdoch. As for your metaphor, look at what is happening to water on the planet today.

Perhaps its time for people to try something different. During times of strife, "The People" boycotted despotic providers. In the south, the black civil rights leaders convinced a city to walk instead of riding the bus in the back. In India, million started wearing only home woven fabric. We can break the financial backs of those who would buy and sell us. We would simply have to put our conscience ahead of our comfort.

I'm sure Zimbabwe would print USD if it could, but I doubt that it can.

  "...according to diplomats here, a German company, Giesecke and Devrient GmbH, prints about half of the government's currency and also supplies all of its banknote paper." - http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/07/01/where-the-money-isn-t.html

pilot error as in hiding a bug in airbus autopilot or it reading faulty gauges.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/27/air-france-flight-447-crash-report-airbus-autopilot-to-blame.html

What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 tells the story as it stands after investigations. It's a rather chilling read. But it makes one thing clear: it was about human error. The plane was even fully operational when it crashed, as an anti-icing system had managed to bring air speed sensors back to operation before it.

Two years after the Airbus 330 plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, Air France 447's flight-data recorders finally turned up. The revelations from the pilot transcript paint a surprising picture of chaos in the cockpit, and confusion between the pilots that led to the crash.

pilot error as in hiding a bug in airbus autopilot or it reading faulty gauges.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/27/air-france-flight-447-crash-report-airbus-autopilot-to-blame.html

The autopilot is not bugged. The autopilot wasn't even active for over four minutes before the crash. The headline is completely misleading, as the autopilot shut down as soon as conflicting airspeed readings came in. The system recognizes that it is unsafe to have a computer flying when the computer is getting faulty data. Thankfully Airbus flight computers are pretty good about error-checking, as they detected the airspeed discrepancy and acted on it - by turning control over to the crew and telling them why.

The accident appears to have been triggered by a number of events:

- Faulty pitot tubes providing faulty airspeed indications.
- Weather radar that saw a little storm ahead, but not the big, fuck-off storm behind it until the pilots decided to fly through the small storm.
- An avalanche of data coming into the cockpit during critical moments. During an emergency, it can be difficult to avoid focusing on a few bits of data, while others slip by.

The storm was recreated in an Airbus simulator for multiple flight crews. Using data the flight computer sent back to the maintenance crews during the flight, they were able to trigger the same errors (Pitot tube failure and airspeed mismatches).

Every crew survived.

pilot error as in hiding a bug in airbus autopilot or it reading faulty gauges.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/27/air-france-flight-447-crash-report-airbus-autopilot-to-blame.html

...on adding actually useful features like built-in HD tele-presence (integrated with skype and/or google talk).

3D is a fad that, to me, adds very little value to the tv watching experience. Many noted movie critics have already called for the death of 3D. For instance:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/04/30/why-i-hate-3-d-and-you-should-too.html

Six months now.

With these statistics, it's just damn clear that the average Android user isn't using their phones for anything but "dumb phone with nice screen+keyboard" activities.

I'm not sure how you get that conclusion based on this. This metric appears to be saying nothing about how much devices are being used to do specific stuff, but we just don't know.

The metric here is, "Mobile/Tablet Top Operating System Share Trend", which is a pretty nebulous title. Share of what? Market share? How was it determined -- sales? Web access traffic at specific websites? IP traffic through certain ISPs? Which ones?

If they're talking about traffic VOLUME, how can you possibly compare internet access by Android when all those iPads are being lumped in here with the mobile phones? Surely iPad internet use-- streaming, for example, absolutely crushes internet use on smartphones.

I find it disappointing that NetMarketShare doesn't explain what it is they are measuring. If we knew what they were REALLY measuring, these numbers would provide some insight. But without knowing what these numbers are actually based on, it's just an excuse for everybody to just repeat what they always say anyway about iOS / Android / whatever.

Six months now.

With these statistics, it's just damn clear that the average Android user isn't using their phones for anything but "dumb phone with nice screen+keyboard" activities.

I am not sure which boycotts of BoA you have in mind, because I don't recall a major boycott, and my searches on CNN, BBC and Reuters don't turn up any relevant news. I'll say that if there was such a boycott, it was pretty much a failure.

For what it's worth, there was a call for a boycott, and they did rescind their debit-card fee. Whether you can credit the call for the boycott for that is another matter.