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They already HAS paid Verizon for better service...and Verizon STILL isn't providing it...

There's a commercial telemarketing system AI which makes cold calls and holds conversations. It's only slightly lamer than human telemarketers working from scripts.

From what I've read, Watterson simply values his privacy and his family's privacy, and he has virtually no interest in publicity for its own sake. Apparently, any former celebrity who doesn't so desperately long for attention that they appear on Dancing With the Stars or jump at every chance for an interview or public appearance is so incomprehensible to most people that the only way to make sense of it is to label them a "recluse".

I agree with you 100%, with two small exceptions.

First, it does appear that Watterson is a bit more removed from society than even your average author.

Second, I think there's a kernel of reason in the idea that someone of renown -- someone who has made a lot of money and become a familiar name in the process -- is expected to give a little bit back to their "fans" in return for benefiting them so much financially. In no way to do mean that Watterson should be on Celebrity Jeopardy (he'd probably never beat Sean Connery anyway), but it might be nice if he did small things like book signings at local bookstores. I have that nice set of hardcover Calvin and Hobbes books, and I would absolutely love to have an opportunity to get it signed by Watterson. Sadly, autographs is one of the things that Watterson appears to refuse to do.

As someone who would probably be called a "recluse" by more than a couple of people, I can truly understand to desire to be removed from the limelight, but still, it's sad for those who adore his work that they don't have the opportunity to try and express that just a tiny bit.

Exactly. Note that there is a scientific study that indicates this appears to be the case with trolls in Internet commenting systems. So it's not exactly a big leap of faith to expect that PvP adherents, displaying similar aggressive behaviour for the "fun" of being aggressive and controlling, have similar tendencies. The big question, as the AC above indicates, is whether trolling, PvP, and violent video games act as an outlet for those urges and help control them or whether they feed and exacerbate them.

A decade ago, I had fun playing Quake III Arena death matches with other members of the development team, and I'm anti-sadistic, not at all Machiavellian, and pretty average when it comes to psychopathic behaviour. It was pretty easy to discern between the game and real life and treat it as an entertaining sport. So I think that even with the more realistic graphics in contemporary games, it's quite possible for normal people to make that distinction. The real question is whether psychopaths would prefer not to make that distinction, pretend the game is real, and in doing so aggravate their condition?

Mass and serial killers often have a history of serious animal abuse, which later escalates into even more serious human-oriented behaviour. So while enjoying bullying through virtualized violence in video games likely isn't a sufficient condition for the escalation of psychopathic behaviour to physical violence, it may prove to be a useful warning sign or even a catalyst in conjunction with other factors. Another significant factor for instance maybe whether the community of enthusiasts tends to and reinforces a distancing, demeaning, psychopathic attitude towards other players and "newbs", or maintains a more sportive approach. The recent Isla Vista shooting by the former PUA and PUAhate adherent Elliot Rodger seems to indicate this is a good candidate for a co-factor.

"Of all drug-related arrests, 82% are for possession, and more than half of those are for marijuana. Basically, the war on drugs winds up being focused on marijuana possession, despite the fact that it is less addictive than other illegal drugs and is not pharmacologically linked with violence or overdose the way alcohol is." http://healthland.time.com/201... Most of the busts are small-time end-users.

Yes the email seems to exist :)
http://time.com/137530/nsa-to-...
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
"He goes on to cite a list provided in the training that ranks presidential executive orders alongside federal statutes in the hierarchy of orders governing NSA behaviour.
“I'm not entirely certain, but this does not seem correct, as it seems to imply Executive Orders have the same precedence as law"
With an unnamed individual sending back "“correct that EO's cannot override a statute” but that they have the “force and effect of law”."
Would seem to show a legal question in one email was 'found' and is now been presented with spin to the wider media.

Just don't show them the pirate movie "cutthroat island" ( http://business.time.com/2012/... .) After all, cruel and unusual punishment is unconstitutional!

lol, as entertaining as these conspiracy theories are, I can't help but blow my karma correcting uniformed nonsense.

The vast majority of ISPs in this country do not offer any (or very little) TV service at all.

The majority of the money you pay for your cable television goes to the the content providers and re-transmit fees. Local stations re-transmit fees are huge. The ISPs make the most money off services. Like voip, cloud storage, antivirus, DVRs, equipment rentals, etc...

Despite this, every ISP that I've worked with over the past 5 years or so has bandwidth cap projects going now. It's coming to everyone, everywhere. regardless of if your ISP provides TV or not.

Want to know why? http://time.com/98987/netflix-...

That's why.

and no, this doesn't have anything to do with Net Neutrality. It was coming either way. They're locked in a race to the bottom with prices. Customers always go with the cheapest provider, so they can't afford infrastructure improvements without cutting themselves out of the market. Most customers are like your parents. They just want to get onto facebook. People that do streaming suck up tons of bandwidth yet pay the same. It's basically an all-you-can-eat buffet and we're the fat guys. The sizzlers trying to narrow the front door so we can't get in.

You should learn how to read. There was never a "no selling of used games policy"

People in glass houses shouldn't call the kettle black. When Microsoft first spelled out how the One would work, they made it pretty clear (well, as clear as Microsoft legalese can be) that gamers couldn't sell their games to just anyone. Rather, gamers would only be able to sell their games to participating retailers, and even then, only if the game's publisher had opted-in to allowing resales for copies of that game (and then the publisher could optionally tack a fee onto the transaction too, thus decreasing how much money you get to take home).

Similarly, you couldn't sell it to friends or online folks. The only option would be to give it away to them, and, once again, you could only do so if the publisher had opted-in to allowing game trades between individuals. Oh, and an additional restriction was that each game could only ever be given away one time, and even then, only to people who had been on your friends list for at least 30 days. They also outright prohibited renting of games or loaning of physical copies of games to friends.

Given all of those ridiculous terms and conditions, I can see how you might have been confused and failed to realize that the One had those policies in place when it was first announced. Even so, since you read the actual articles, I'd have hoped for better.

As for the always-on requirement, sure, you can play the pedant by pointing out it only needed to phone home once a day rather than constantly, but that's pointless, since it does nothing to address why the requirement was such a source of contention. The reason it was annoying was because it immediately eliminated a number of valid and legitimate use cases in which gamers wouldn't have a regular connection to the Internet. In the armed forces? Too bad. Internet down for a few days? Too bad. Just moved? Too bad. Traveling? Too bad. Out at sea? Too bad. Vacationing in your summer cabin? Too bad. Don't want to connect devices that have no practical need to be online? Too bad. Don't think a company has any business tracking what you're doing with offline, disc-based, single-player games? Too bad.

And the OP was being kind, since he skipped over all of the indie developer controversies that were around early on after the One's announcement, such as requiring that they work with a major publisher. I also noticed that you didn't address his issues with the always-on camera and that they've since flip-flopped on that requirement as well.

The fact that Microsoft managed to make Sony look good, despite the fact that Sony was in the doghouse with virtually every gamer after all of the PSN stuff a few years back, just goes to show you how badly they messed up with the One's launch.

Disclaimer: I own all three consoles of the last gen, and none of the current gen consoles.

The media certainly did go for skinny types. A few years back we were browsing through a collection of Hollywood pinups and hunks through the years and the stars were severely underweight aroud the late 70s. Look for example at these three 70s "hotties":

http://content.time.com/time/p...

Today they wouldn't qualify for the job.

The channels you want would have to be much, much more highly priced than you think in an a la carte system.

Higher than what the content providers get from the cable providers, but still less than what you pay for the cable package. Which seems like a pretty decent deal.

Content providers like the WWE are already rolling out their own internet offerings. Other content providers are known to be considering the same.

What is surprising is that the WWE’s new channel isn’t coming to cable. The company has announced that it’s developing a new round-the-clock streaming network that will be available on smartphones, tablets and Internet-ready devices like Roku boxes and video game consoles. The new channel will offer all of the league’s pay-per-view specials live, along with original programming, archival footage of classic matches and pre- and postgame shows for Raw and Smackdown. In total there will be 1,500 hours of video on demand at launch. The channel will cost $9.99 per month and debuts on Feb. 24.

And yes, its rolling out for prices that their fans would jump for. $9.99 is well within OP's budget of $20.

That's why I am a fan of this idea:
http://business.time.com/2013/...

Please don't turn this into some giant ad hom against Warren, stick with the idea.

With only 52% of our (US) GDP our besty friend green revolution China is now burning almost as much coal as the rest of the planet combined. Since the graph ends with 2012 the lines may have crossed by now.

Of course Chinas GDP has actually been growing much faster than you claim. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d79ffff8-cfb7-11e3-9b2b-00144feabdc0.html#axzz312W8T5tk "the research placed China’s GDP at 87 per cent of the US in 2011. " - and don't even get to the fact that a lot of the US GDP is generated by moving imaginary moneys to and from, or selling stuff made in China.

With only 52% of our (US) GDP our besty friend green revolution China is now burning almost as much coal as the rest of the planet combined. Since the graph ends with 2012 the lines may have crossed by now.

Well, supposedly the Emperor and Darth Vader were based on Ming the Merciless. Now they have the real Ming the Merciless.

Of course, what happens when they do the new Flash Gordon movie?

Well there's a study somewhere that Times covered horribly which discovered that BPS can leech 20 times as much as BPA, with similar endocrine activity.

Synthetic organic compounds and natural organic compounds are both either benign, helpful, or neutral. It depends what the compound is; lots of things from Nature are more toxic than chemically-adjusted synthetic counterparts made more stable and less toxic.

Fortunately, that's the one thing you won't have to worry about when you move there!

I've concluded for decades now that any shortage of med school students or graduates (and thus the number of doctors) is an artificial shortage, totally created by the medical profession itself. Wouldn't want to endanger those nice fat incomes, hmmmm?

http://healthland.time.com/201...

Walmart has an admission rate of 2.6% for low wage employees.
http://time.com/43750/walmart-...

We should hire some masters of analytics to explain to us that admission rates probably don't lead to the conclusions that you think they do.

He is the one who proposed the current chairman for approval or rejection by the senate, following pressure from his party.

FTFY.

Also, chairman != dictator.

Also, some say that Obama did this to regain some political capital with powerful people he rubbed the wrong way earlier. Be that as it may, I'm not claiming he's free from blame. It gets somewhat harder to do the right thing when everything around you is rotten, but that's no excuse, merely a mitigating factor.

What you haven't seen the trend in this ridiculous studies that point out what's already common knowledge? Every week there's a new study that just fosters a "Duh!" comment from me about the results and this is no different. Yesterday however the news leaked "new knowledge" of a study that casual smoking pot changes brain chemistry, altering those areas dealing with motivation and emotion. Duh! I guess the researchers never watched the movie "Ted?"

That's exactly what I'm saying. Despotic governments are not places where no elections happen; they are places where all the numbers in elections are up near 100% for whatever the current guys carrying guns want it to be.

If your "election" looks more like the numbers you'd see out of North Korea, it carries about as much weight as a videotaped "confession" from a guy with visible bruising.

"We absolutely, positively need petroleum right now in order to exist." - yes, but we need to act now to mitigate the climate change. As the population grows, more fossil fuels get used, rivers get more polluted due to over fertilisation e.g. http://news.nationalgeographic...

"The solution in the short term is to use the best methods to obtain petroleum based products, fracking, to keep costs down" - that may be also causing problems http://time.com/60045/ohio-geo...

We have to start now, there is no choice really.

Why do they need real time transcription screens?

Because of court reporters like this: http://time.com/48136/court-re...

Here it is:

Monsanto using MPAA and RIAA tactics (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Tue Apr 08, '14 06:24 PM (#46700087)

Monsanto and Cargil do some really shitty things with their IP when it comes to their seeds - like suing farmers for having Monsanto's crops growing in their fields when they weren't purchased and suing seed washers for alleged violations of IP.

That wasn't a case of cross-pollination at all, that was a case of a farmer (who normally used Monsanto seed and had a contract with them) buying soybeans intended for consumption, planting them and spraying them with roundup to kill any non-roundup ready stock, then using that seed stock year after year for planting. The supreme court ruled (9-0) that he was intentionally violating the patent that Monsanto holds on that variety of Soy. Bowman's defense was "patent exhaustion", basically the right to sell something that you had previously bought. The courts found that this was not the case and ruled that Bowman was creating new copies of a patented invention and so patent exhaustion did not apply. From the Supreme Court decision:

the purchaser of that article could make and sell endless copies, the patent would effectively protect the invention for just a single sale. Bowman himself disputes none of this analysis as a general matter: He forthrightly acknowledges the “well settled” principle “that the exhaustion doctrine does not extend to the right to ‘make’ a new product.” Brief for Petitioner 37 (citing Aro, 365 U. S., at 346).
Unfortunately for Bowman, that principle decides this case against him. Under the patent exhaustion doctrine, Bowman could resell the patented soybeans he purchased from the grain elevator; so too he could consume the beans himself or feed them to his animals. Monsanto, although the patent holder, would have no business interfering in those uses of Roundup Ready beans. But the exhaustion doctrine does not enable Bowman to make additional patented soybeans without Monsanto’s permission (either express or implied). And that is precisely what Bowman did. He took the soybeans he purchased home; planted them in his fields at the time he thought best; applied glyphosate to kill weeds (as well as any soy plants lacking the Roundup Ready trait); and finally harvested more (many more) beans than he started with. That is how “to ‘make’ a new product,” to use Bowman’s words, when the original product is a seed.

So not only did you not provide what was asked (an example of accidental cross-pollination where Monsanto sued a farmer who did not take specific steps to exploit the accident) but the example you did provide the farmer is clearly in the wrong. If the SC rules unanimously against your case, there is not a ton of ambiguity on the merits.

Here it is:

Monsanto using MPAA and RIAA tactics (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Tue Apr 08, '14 06:24 PM (#46700087)

Monsanto and Cargil do some really shitty things with their IP when it comes to their seeds - like suing farmers for having Monsanto's crops growing in their fields when they weren't purchased and suing seed washers for alleged violations of IP.

Monsanto and Cargil do some really shitty things with their IP when it comes to their seeds - like suing farmers for having Monsanto's crops growing in their fields when they weren't purchased and suing seed washers for alleged violations of IP.

While the number of apps downloaded is coming from 3rd parties we are still left with Google's financial reports indicating $900M paid to developers compared to Apple's claim of $5,000M paid to developers.

Plus its not just Forbes indicating a huge disparity.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
http://techland.time.com/2013/...
http://venturebeat.com/2013/07...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ay...

This is not a rant on bioengineering per se. Humans deliberately producing Things with desirable traits is as old as rain. But when I see folks attempting to leverage marginally successful processes into solutions to Big Problems by reducing the margins... I have to take a step backwards to glimpse more of the picture.

If you are going to involve 'new' plants (or animals) in the production of energy, pause to think.

1. Energy required by humans is a monster growing exponentially. This monster EATS. This is inevitable. If you only have 1.3 children, someone else will have 4.3, if you conserve, they won't. Enforcement leads to conflict, escalation and war, the biggest energy waster of them all. So Big Problems must be eliminated, not achieved by legislation and (imagined) compliance.

2. The most cherished notions of sustainability and conservation involve taking a snapshot -- preserving Gaia as it exists today. In other words we are not obsessed with creating new forms of life because we are bored with the old ones. Though fluorescing pigs are really cool. Every little push for biofuels, even given 4x improvement in process efficiency, directly feeds the monster and his appetite is increasing too quickly.

(Such as the ongoing advance of the great Human Palm Oil Desert across Asia. This phenomenon permits Europeans to obtain diesel fuel and maintain their small tracts of land in pristine state, while the devastation wrought by Palm Oil monoculture remains comfortably distant.)

There is NO such thing as a sustainable biological source of energy on the scales we do and will consume it. Period. Advocates of biofuels imagine happy farmers that would be glad to drop what they are doing and make fuel inefficiently. And unused tracts of land, such as Brooklyn, in which these massive bio-chemical endeavors would reside. This is fantasy. There are only large scale Unintended Consequences down this path. And every corner of the Earth is now claimed and defended by people who would rather keep it as it is -- biologically.

3. There is only ONE source of energy that could scale quickly to power the grid, leaving hydrocarbons for fuel and chemical precursors (plastic, fertilizer) until their clean replacements arise. And eventually through separation of hydrogen from water and nitrogen from air, those too.

It's nuclear, and more specifically liquid fuel reactors.

4. Instead of BADLY transforming our biosphere with yet more engineered plant monocultures -- and if you thought food was intrusive wait 'till you run the numbers on energy -- energy production needs to become limitless, small, efficient, self contained, safe and clean.

Wouldn't you rather plant roses?
___
Obligatory bump to the Thorium Alliance and my own letters on energy,
To The Honorable James M. Inhofe, United States Senate
To whom it may concern, Halliburton Corporate

Without introducing any value? According to whose opinion, yours? We are very fortunate (in the US at least) that we are not yet entirely enslaved to one person's opinion as to what is valuable. Obviously, the exchanges see value in it or they wouldn't be supporting it.

I'm sure the exchanges see value in it when the banks are paying to put servers at the exchange: http://content.time.com/time/b... (5 years old but it was the first hit on Google).

Well, people with autism sometimes have extreme talents. It's hard for a "normal" person to actually have or attain these talents, so maybe it's a happy side effect of an evolutionary trait that otherwise would be a complete negative. That we get geniuses out of it.

Just a thought. Good examples of what I'm talking about that I found are here and here.

It may be a byproduct of evolution, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's purely for the sake of bettering reproductive capabilities.

Hmm, well since you specifically spoke out against polygamist and called them all immoral (and other poor stereotypes), I'd say that you are the liar in context of this thread.

Again with this morality thing? What can you possible establish as moral in your analogy? You've already accepted (by silence) that 198 murdered children by a serial killer is fine as long as it promotes the gay and possibly IRS agendas. How can you possibly establish any moral ground after that? Morality, if anything in America, should be the ability to live as you want to live. Gay marriage is from this ilk. You suggest that polygamists be denied these rights based upon how an already corrupt tax-collection agency is going to react to the issue. Boo hoo.

Let's start with your example. For what one member of that FLDS church did against the law the community property worth $34.5 million was stripped from the church. That means all of the members, even the victims, were fined for the actions of a few; and the government, much like in the case of the War on Drugs, does not give back confiscated property. If your nephew gets caught smoking a joint on your property and the wrong judge hears the case -- so much for your property.

Moving on to the most famous case fitting the scope you asked. Short Creek, Arizona was the largest mass arrest of polygamists in modern times. The Short Creek raid took place on July 26, 1953. Over 100 reporters were invited to the raid. Arizona Governor John Howard Pyle initially called the raid "a momentous police action against insurrection" and described the Mormon fundamentalists as participating in "the foulest conspiracy you could possibly imagine" that was designed to produce "white slaves. He accused the compund of rape and bigamy and other issues, like most raids of this type do to sway public opinion. The reporters had a different take.

In the words of a reporter from the Arizona Republic (1953-07-28):

By what stretch of the imagination could the actions of the Short Creek children be classified as insurrection? Were those teenagers playing volleyball in a school yard inspiring a rebellion? Insurrection? Well, if so, an insurrection with diapers and volleyballs

In Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought a reporter suggested that the raid's "only American parallel is the federal actions against Native Americans in the nineteenth century.

Time Magazine covered the event and was amazed that the government even cared what a small unincorporated community with no economic standing could plausibly be acting in insurrection to the state.

Much like the Short Creek incident, your example displayed how the government used the actions of a small minority to destroy the lifestyles of hundreds of families, including confiscating their property and denying them parental rights by association. The article, Polygamous crackdown echoes 1953 Short Creek arrests shows how the setup is used to destroy marriage rights from communities, denying them fundamental liberties.

Maybe we should decide on how to fulfill fundamental liberties instead of whether the IRS has a problem with tax forms. But, of course, you've already stated that your form of morality allows anything that keeps your jack-booted thug masters in power.

Just because I have a tattoo of a swastika on my forehead doesn't mean I'm a Nazi....

Correct. Teens Accused of Cutting Swastika into Classmate’s Head

"You might assume that suicide rates would be elevated in lower-income neighborhoods and counties, and the study’s authors do point to findings that higher income generally lowers suicide risk. For example, an individual with family income less than $10,000 (in 1990 dollars) is 50% more likely to commit suicide than an individual with income above $60,000." http://business.time.com/2012/...

He said " I just don’t want anybody to know except me and my wife." And this is the president who openly admitted while in office to checking out a lot of women and imagining them naked.

The only logical conclusion is that the "highly personal" letters he sends to foreign leaders really dirty shocking details about kinky things he and Rosalynn get up to in bed.

Look in their eyes. They're clearly thinking of that time they had a threeway with Yeltsin.

Because they almost certainly don't? Objective polling before the election put only 41% of Crimeans in favour of becoming part of Russia. Russia invaded, installed a puppet Crimean government (kicking the democratically elected one out) took over the airwaves, spread propaganda everywhere, refused to allow impartial international observers in and then called an election which they "won" with 97% support - the jump from 41% to 97% isn't within any sane margin of error.

It's less than 41% actually. In 2011 it was 33% and in 2013 it was 23%

http://www.ibtimes.com/gallup-...

Also the leader of the puppet government - a Russian gangster nick named Goblin - was from a party which got 4% of the vote in the last elections. And it's not even clear that the votes in Parliament making him PM and organising the referendum were quorate. Also Parliament was surrounded by gunmen who only let in MPs who would vote the right way

http://time.com/19097/putin-cr...

So far, the most revealing aspect of his time in power has been the way he came to possess it. Before dawn on Feb. 27, at least two dozen heavily armed men stormed the Crimean parliament building and the nearby headquarters of the regional government, bringing with them a cache of assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades. A few hours later, Aksyonov walked into the parliament and, after a brief round of talks with the gunmen, began to gather a quorum of the chamber's lawmakers.

It is not clear whether the parliament was seized that day on his orders. On the one hand, the masked gunmen identified themselves as members of Crimea's "self-defense forces," all of which are, according to Aksyonov, directly under his control. On the other, he claims the seizure of the buildings was done "spontaneously" by a mysterious group of fighters. "We only knew that these were Russian nationalist forces," he tells TIME in an interview Sunday. "These were people who share our Russian ideology. So if they wanted to kill someone, they would have killed the nightwatchmen who were inside."

Instead, they let the guards go, sealed the doors and only allowed the lawmakers whom Aksyonov invited to enter the building. Various media accounts have disputed whether he was able to gather a quorum of 50 of his peers before the session convened that day, and some Crimean legislators who were registered as present have said they did not come near the building. In any case, those who did arrive could hardly have voted their conscience while pro-Russian gunmen stood in the wings with rocket launchers. Both of the votes held that day were unanimous. The first appointed Aksyonov, a rookie statesman with less than four years experience as a local parliamentarian, as the new Prime Minister of Crimea. The second vote called for a referendum on the peninsula's secession from Ukraine.

Oh and the referendum offered people a choice between independence (and joining Russia later) or joining Russia immediately - "yes, now" or "yes, later". There was no way to vote for the status quo of staying inside the Ukraine.

https://www.kyivpost.com/conte...

The ballot for March 16 Crimean referendum gives two choices, to join Russia or become independent.

Voters in Ukraine's Russian-occupied Crimea who vote in the March 16 referendum have two choices - join Russia immediately or declare independence and then join Russia.

So the choices are "yes, now" or "yes, later."

The referendum took place only two weeks later dur

you seem to underestimate the gravity of situation.

Russia was perhaps "loser" in the 1990s, but for over a decade Putin has done what he could to grow european dependence on russian natural resources and capital.

And Putin mastered the art of "dividing the EU". It is only a couple of years that EU finally decided to try to speak with one voice. Still, Putin knew what he was doing buying people where needed.

I heard a diplomat who spent some years in Moscow said, that Clinton's major failure was not making Russia democratic state. At that time Yeltzin was "a modelling clay". Even later, Putin at the very start of his presidency has even asked if Russia could join NATO. Clinton's error no.2.

The last women who finally were allowed to vote in Switzerland (a direct democracy - so the men always voted to not give women the right to vote) was in 1990.

Also, gotta love: http://content.time.com/time/w...

And many in Swiss parliament are importers, which is why you can buy Swiss made chocolate half the price in Germany (importer cartels): http://www.englishforum.ch/swi...

Switzerland also has one of the most expensive medical systems (at least behind America - the one you are really sad if your country can't do better).

etc etc

It's not all chocolate and roses.

You can't use Liechtenstein as an example, it's not really a country but a town of rich bankers.

It's well-established by now that one of the most significant factors in destroying the lives of the unskilled and semi-skilled workers across the country has been the influx of similar immigrants from around the world. Legal versus illegal, its immaterial. The invisible hand doesn't give a damn whether they hold a green card or not and giving legal status to the illegals won't suddenly drive wages up because their mere presence in the economy provides at least implicit price competition.

Here's how you enact a sensible immigration policy. You crack down on the employers of illegals such that no one will hire them. You then offer a contingent amnesty to the illegals that allows them to come forward and face no charges if they leave the country of their own volition, and you even let them keep all of the money and property they've earned if they self-deport. Then, you only allow immigrants with provable skills to immigrate as singles or with their immediate family if they're married with children. None of this "let's bring the whole extended family" over. Grandma, the aunts and uncles and cousins have no business piggybacking on that green card. That's just a recipe for waking up one day and finding a large ethnic enclave in an American city (oh wait, that's precisely what's happened in many areas because of this, silly me).

Obligatory: http://content.time.com/time/c...
Not that your suggestions are terribly unreasonable but you are kind of taking an axe (or chainsaw) to the USA's "Nation of immigrants" founding epic.

Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lives; 39% said it was the single most meaningful experience.

Critically, however, the participants themselves were not the only ones who saw the benefit from the insights they gained: their friends, family member and colleagues also reported that the psilocybin experience had made the participants calmer, happier and kinder.

You can read more about it here: http://healthland.time.com/201...

Inflation is theft of value.

If you want to go literal, maybe. Other way of looking at it is decreasing of percepted value. While high inflation is bad, some inflation is necessary for the economy to work. The internet is riddled with articles about this, but check eg. http://business.time.com/2011/...

Deflation is creation of wealth

Well, its not. Is the increase of perception of value caused (usually) by scarcity or hoarding of resources/currency. Eg. diamonds, while having no intrinsic value by themselves, are expensive because the diamond market works based on scarcity (google "diamond market fake scarcity" for a ton of articles about it, and other markets that work as that).
Now imagine your day-to-day life based on scarcity - you are going to buy bread, and it costs X in absolute value, but tomorrow will be 10% more expensive. Now imagine you were borrowing from your bread provider - you pick the bread today, but will pay next week. Next week the real bread value will be much higher, and what you borrowed with absolute value X may have doubled in absolute value. No wealth there - in fact, you'll probably be paying twice as much in absolute value, plus the profit the bread provider expects to allow you to borrow.

It's always amazing how blind people are to the US being anything but perfect.

1) The US dollar is, by far, not the most secure currency in the world.
http://content.time.com/time/b... (a bit dated but the reasoning is sound and is backed up by the next two links)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

2) The US is bankrupt with debt as a ridiculous amount and the situation is only getting worse as our politicians continue to spend what we just plain don't have to spend. There has been discussion of a US dollar default which, were it to happen, would completely devastate the value of the US dollar. That discussion will restart today which will most likely result in bitcoin (and other currencies) going up in relative value against the US dollar which will also drive it up in value against other currencies.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
http://www.reuters.com/article...

I'm not saying bitcoin is safe. It's not - it's very risk compared to government backed currencies. But don't make the mistake of thinking the US dollar is as safe as you seem to think it is either. Default seems inevitable at some point in time as the US just keeps spending and spending and spending with no end in sight.

I don't think he was joking. You may think so at your peril.

The last time cuts of this nature were proposed the idea was to entirely stand down the US Marine Corps. (Still beating that drum today).
Because we were never going to have to invade any country again.
Then Saddam over ran Kuwait, and was looking hungrily at Saudi Arabia.
Guess who arrived first ?

I don't think he was joking. You may think so at your peril.

The last time cuts of this nature were proposed the idea was to entirely stand down the US Marine Corps. (Still beating that drum today).
Because we were never going to have to invade any country again.
Then Saddam over ran Kuwait, and was looking hungrily at Saudi Arabia.
Guess who arrived first ?

Aside from this: http://swampland.time.com/2014...

The US is not OPEC and doesn't touch the combined output of OPEC; it true that we are currently producing more than ever now that policies (during Obama) have begun to kick in (FYI, not an Obama fan; but he deserves credit.)

The world pays for their Oil in US Dollars... that is what makes people want US Dollars. After gold was dropped, OIL largely took over because it's something of REAL value (as opposed to gold) and to get it, you needed US Dollars. So the US Dollar became much more valuable than it was when it was backed by piles of useless gold at Fort Knox. If the world didn't need US Dollars to buy oil there would be a surplus of US Dollars on the world market. A really huge surplus and since the money is not backed by anything real other than it's relative worth... that would be really BAD.

Let's shed some more light on the subject here with some more data.

Market research on computer games by studios:

http://www.theesa.com/facts/pd...
- "Women 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (31%) than boys age 17 or younger (19%)"
- Women make up 45% of the gaming population

Compare with this Time Business article about women in competitive jobs:

http://business.time.com/2010/...
- "...anecdotally at least, it appears the industries and positions with the most competitive work environments tend to pay the most."
- "Females were more likely to pass on the job once they found out part of their pay would be based on their performance versus a co-worker."

Women come to gaming later in life than men. Studies have shown that fast action gaming develops the areas of the brain associated with rapid decision making, so taking into account the predisposition for young boys to play games with big guns in, neurological development means men will be inherently better at the kind of games that come under the e-sports umbrella. Case closed.

Related:
http://healthland.time.com/201...

Lustig in his "Sugar, the Bitter Truth" youtube video claims the whole fat-is-evil thing started out based on a flawed study (one that failed to separate variables, and shaped an anti-fat public policy.

Food without fat tastes like cardboard, so Lustig says producers responded by cranking up the sugar. I'm sure the subsidising of corn and sugar didn't help. And certainly they are cheaper. But now they could argue their food was healthier "low fat" instead of having the bad mojo of it being made of cheaper lower quality ingredients.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Wasn't there someone who left a big mac on the kitchen table and planned to take a photo a day as some kind of art project? And the damn thing did not go bad for months? Or was it a hoax or urban legend?

How bad that pizza must be if even microbes don't like its taste!

That bad?

It's been done multiple times, fourteen years in one case. They certainly go bad, they just don't change in appearance much.