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Not to mention that McCarthy's son more likely has Landau-Kleffner syndrome.

You hear the one about the unemployed man about to jail time for complaining to his senator? classic.

If its in the Huffington Post it must be about a republican senator... Oh look! It is. Well, its only natural, democrat lawmakers never do anything wrong; http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1865781,00.html

Earth has many flaws but it doesn't have earthquakes every moment. The same is true for the human mind. Donald Knuth does very well with algorithms but I would think he might have problem with distributed systems.

In a distributed system, including human society, knowledge has to travel from mind to mind. And with communication the whole system evolves. If you believe in a creator, you'd assume there is a single consciousness that always knows everything instantly. You might not assume this all the time, but this thinking would impede you from understanding how things really are. In the worse case, refusing to believe that a self evolving system could produce a wonderful result that a single mind can appreciate might even prevent you from understanding it at all.

I think you will benefit from reading this article:

The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580394-2,00.html

Time: "internet wins"

Except that's not entirely true. Biking, as well as jogging, greatly increases the exposure of a person's lungs to pollution. It's why you can have somebody that appears to be in perfect health drop dead anyways. Here's a citation, it's more specific to jogging, but it applies just as much to any aerobic exercise undertaken near traffic.Pollution: Dangerous to Joggers

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1906000,00.html

I was told by one of my old girlfriends who works for Schlumberger (she has her own sources) that this isn't a permanent fix. They are doing a top fill because it is faster than waiting for the relief well to do a bottom fill. This top fill is likely a temporary measure, and they are still going to have to drill a relief well to intercept the main well which is going to take time.

We can only pray that once they cap this, it sticks till they can get the relief well fully drilled.

Sources? Like what? Every major news agency?
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1990767,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

At this rate, he probably wouldn't even pass high-school math -- oh, wait!

You folks also understand that this well is in international waters, right?

It is? I dont think so.

The US can drill there or any other country.

That is not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone.

The US has attempted to claim 200 mile nautical boundaries before, but that is pretty much a joke today.

Actually, Ecuador was the first to claim 200 miles. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909806,00.html

Cite?

Time says otherwise:

the U.S. is the only industrialized nation that taxes its overseas citizens, subjecting them to taxation in both their country of citizenship and country of residence.

Why do you think the GOP is tearing itself apart? Free enterprise is an entirely different religion than Jesusitude. Seriously, read Ayn Rand.

Someone hasn't been paying attention. Have you not heard of Prosperity Theology? (aka God Wants You To Be Rich.) I know you've heard of its proponents, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Joel Olsteen, and pretty much every televangelist out there. This is a group of people that believe that when God wants you to be rich while simultaneously saying "[I]t is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." (Now they say that "eye of a needle" wasn't actually referring to a needle's eye, but rather some gate, through which camels could pass relatively easily. Why? Jesus was a free market capitalist and anti-communist.

To paraphrase Matt Groening in a Life in Hell strip many years go: Jesus loved the poor so much, that he eliminated the free school lunch program. On the bright side, the poor kids can now lead a prayer in school for anything they want, EVEN FOOD.

By the way, yes the AP wrote the article found by the Slashdot geek. But AP usually obtain their material elsewhere. A quick search turned up the likely source: The Case Against College Education which was written by Ramesh Ponnuru of the National Review. The notion was promoted in the blogosphere (echo chamber?) by Stephen Spruiell in this post at the National Review blog

Neither of those guys seem to have even an undergraduate degree in economics, but in their defense, neither appear to have claimed that "a growing number of economists" support this idea -- unless one of them wrote the AP piece. In any case, I wasn't able to turn up any economist who said anything like this, nor any other article on the topic at all. It seems to have been invented from whole cloth at the National Review, and propagated without questioning. Their motivation appears to be to invent a quasi intellectual cudgel to use against certain initiatives of the Obama administration in the area of higher education funding.

Certainly it's possible that somewhere in the vast literature of economics somebody somewhere might have explored this notion, but there doesn't seem to be any apparent evidence for this "growing number" of economists who support this idea.

That aside, some of the arguments offered in the TIME piece are worthy of pondering, but they ignore many of the societal benefits of higher education, or assume those have no value.

In any case, concerning your cowardly anonymous chicken shit rock throwing, like Jon Stewart said famously, fuck off.

It's rather complicated it looks like, DUP may have lost seats & UCUNF didn't get any more seats? I am in the USA, so know very little on the politics in Northern Ireland.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1987776,00.html

what you don't understand is that some drugs are far worse themselves to the destruction of freedom (addiction is bars in the mind) than any war on drugs and its effects on society.

No. They aren't. The destruction of freedom wrought by the War on (Some) Drugs is far, far worse than the effects of any drug.

free and unfettered access to the most addictive/ inebriating drugs leads to a growing population of people whose lives have become zombified

No, it doesn't. Look at all the cocaine and opiate addicts and users who have made their mark on the arts and sciences: Freud, Halsted (the "father of modern surgery"), Belushi, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jules Verne, Popes Leo XIII and Pius X, President McKinley, Robin Williams, Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Percy Shelly, Cole Porter, Richard Pryor...I could go on and on.

Which is not to say that cocaine and opiate use are healthy choices or that I'm endorsing them; only that drug prohibition magnifies the negative effects of drug use, creates a violent black market, is corrosive to liberty, and anyone who favors it is either ignorant, stupid, or wicked.

So, look: you're simply ignorant and wrong about drugs and their effects. And yet you're willing to point guns at people and lock them in cages to control their behavior. You should be ashamed.

Siiiigghhh.. fish farming.. you know, as opposed to getting in your boat and going out to fish in the ocean then being surprised when one day there's no fish?

Oh that's what you mean? Like farmed fish don't need to be fed and don't know massive amounts of antibiotics. Except they do. Farmed fish requires vast amounts of wild caught fish to feed. Daniel Pauly "a professor of fisheries science at the University of British Columbia, has calculated that it takes 2 to 5 lbs. of anchovies, sardines, menhaden and the other oily fish that comprise fish meal to produce 1 lb. of farmed salmon". Because they are packed into small areas they also need those antibiotics, which end up in the ocean leading to antibiotic resistance. Fish farms also create dead zones.

1. Seven Reasons to Avoid Farm Raised Salmon.
2. Fish Farms: Underwater Factories
3. Farmed or wild fish: Which is healthier?

Still think fish farming is the answer?

Falcon

Give me a break... some school districts count Fried French fries as a serving of vegetables....

Not in Texas, I don’t think:

Friday, Dec. 17, 2004
The Cafeteria Crusader
By Cathy Booth-Thomas/Austin

When schools opened in Texas this fall, some favorites were missing from the cafeteria menus: sodas and candy bars had been banned for grade schoolers; chips and cookies were mini-size. And that perennial favorite, the French fry, was given just one more year before it too will be banned.

Cute; but no, actually, that is not true. Under the legislation that they passed in Texas, sharing (or selling) junk food is not allowed, but you can pack your kid some sugary snacks if you want.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1009706,00.html

And while kids can still bring whatever they want for lunch from home--"If you want to send deep-fat-fried Twinkies every day, that's your business," says Combs--no sharing is allowed.

So there’s no need to fret... a hypoglycemic child can bring some candy in case their blood sugar level gets low during the day. They just can’t share it with their classmates, and the 3rd grader who got busted for the Jolly Rancher had received it from a classmate:

According to the Texas Department of Agriculture’s website, “The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy (TPSNP) explicitly states that it does not restrict what foods or beverages parents may provide for their own children's consumption.”

Brazos Elementary Principal Jeanne Young, said the problem, in this instance, was that the candy was provided by another student – not the girl’s parents.

It’s a stupid and ridiculous reaction, but it wasn’t quite as stupid and ridiculous as just letting diabetic children die.

I don't want to read this kind of stuff on Slashdot. I come here for tech news that has some bearing on the world. This story is specifically about American politics and should have no place on this site.

Elena Kagan at fifty would be the youngest judge on the Court.

Justice Stevens is ninety.

Appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court cast a very long shadow.

"If confirmed, Kagan will be the fourth woman justice in the history of the Supreme court, the eighth Jewish justice to sit on the court, and the first nominee since 1972 with no prior experience as a judge." Court Nominee Elena Kagan

The U.S. Supreme Court is the court of the Constitution:

It has become fashionable for Supreme Court nominees and sometimes the Justices themselves to deflect controversy and play down their own importance by suggesting judicial decision-making involves nothing more than the simple application of clear, undisputed rules. Perhaps with Obama's selection of a woman, we won't be subjected to the baseball metaphor that Chief Justice John Roberts has used, but however the idea is couched, it's pure bunk. There is no rulebook for constitutional interpretation. In trying to give meaning to inherently elastic constitutional concepts like "equal protection of the laws" and due process, and in interpreting federal statutes that are often less than precise, Supreme Court Justices inevitably make subjective value judgments that are colored by their individual views about right and wrong, fair and unfair, wise and unwise.

In voting against confirming John Roberts, then Senator Obama explained that he was opposing the conservative Roberts because of how he would decide the slim "5%" of cases in which the law really is ambiguous and a Justice's values will inevitably shape his or her views. Our law-professor President got the concept right but the percentage wrong. Cases rarely reach the Supreme Court level when the right answer is clear. Most of the time, the Supreme Court hears cases only after lower federal courts have reached conflicting answers on vexing legal questions.

In short, there is a reason that Justice Harry Blackmun, a man whose grandfathers had fought for the Union in the Civil War and who idolized Abraham Lincoln, opposed the states' rights movement and was a passionate liberal voice on issues of race. There is a reason that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a pioneer of the fight for women's legal equality, takes an expansive view of the equal-protection clause. There is a reason that Roberts, who came of age as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution, has a voting record that matches the old Reagan agenda. And there is a reason that Clarence Thomas, who grew up resenting the racial preferences that took him up the educational ladder to Yale Law School, reads the Constitution as imposing absolute colorblindness on government actors.

Conscientious judges understand that the law is much more than a reflection of their own personal preferences. But in the hard cases, the political cases, the cases tinged with moral judgment, where constitutional language and history provide no single irrefutable answer, a judge's formative experience matters -- family, geography, mentors and heroes -- they cleave liberal from conservative and ineluctably insinuate themselves into the law.

Four Enduring Myths About Supreme Court Nominees: 3. Supreme Court Justices Are Umpires

I don't want to read this kind of stuff on Slashdot. I come here for tech news that has some bearing on the world. This story is specifically about American politics and should have no place on this site.

Elena Kagan at fifty would be the youngest judge on the Court.

Justice Stevens is ninety.

Appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court cast a very long shadow.

"If confirmed, Kagan will be the fourth woman justice in the history of the Supreme court, the eighth Jewish justice to sit on the court, and the first nominee since 1972 with no prior experience as a judge." Court Nominee Elena Kagan

The U.S. Supreme Court is the court of the Constitution:

It has become fashionable for Supreme Court nominees and sometimes the Justices themselves to deflect controversy and play down their own importance by suggesting judicial decision-making involves nothing more than the simple application of clear, undisputed rules. Perhaps with Obama's selection of a woman, we won't be subjected to the baseball metaphor that Chief Justice John Roberts has used, but however the idea is couched, it's pure bunk. There is no rulebook for constitutional interpretation. In trying to give meaning to inherently elastic constitutional concepts like "equal protection of the laws" and due process, and in interpreting federal statutes that are often less than precise, Supreme Court Justices inevitably make subjective value judgments that are colored by their individual views about right and wrong, fair and unfair, wise and unwise.

In voting against confirming John Roberts, then Senator Obama explained that he was opposing the conservative Roberts because of how he would decide the slim "5%" of cases in which the law really is ambiguous and a Justice's values will inevitably shape his or her views. Our law-professor President got the concept right but the percentage wrong. Cases rarely reach the Supreme Court level when the right answer is clear. Most of the time, the Supreme Court hears cases only after lower federal courts have reached conflicting answers on vexing legal questions.

In short, there is a reason that Justice Harry Blackmun, a man whose grandfathers had fought for the Union in the Civil War and who idolized Abraham Lincoln, opposed the states' rights movement and was a passionate liberal voice on issues of race. There is a reason that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a pioneer of the fight for women's legal equality, takes an expansive view of the equal-protection clause. There is a reason that Roberts, who came of age as a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution, has a voting record that matches the old Reagan agenda. And there is a reason that Clarence Thomas, who grew up resenting the racial preferences that took him up the educational ladder to Yale Law School, reads the Constitution as imposing absolute colorblindness on government actors.

Conscientious judges understand that the law is much more than a reflection of their own personal preferences. But in the hard cases, the political cases, the cases tinged with moral judgment, where constitutional language and history provide no single irrefutable answer, a judge's formative experience matters -- family, geography, mentors and heroes -- they cleave liberal from conservative and ineluctably insinuate themselves into the law.

Four Enduring Myths About Supreme Court Nominees: 3. Supreme Court Justices Are Umpires

It's striking how ineffective al-Queda has been over the last decade. Bin Laden called for attacks on oil facilities back in 2004 - nothing happened. Bin Laden is still out there, issuing audio tapes, but few seem to be listening.

It's very hard to operate covertly against a hostile or unsupportive population. During WWII, the French resistance was able to operate successfully and was able to support British and American commandos. But no OSS spy dropped into Germany ever even made radio contact with HQ. Islamic terrorists in the US are in that position. If they try to recruit, somebody will probably turn them in, or they will be infiltrated. If they try to operate alone, they don't seem to accomplish much.

Loser terrorist operations recruit loser operatives. The "shoe bomber" (the only US terrorism incident tied to al-Queda in the US in the last year) did very little damage, was caught, and provided intel about the opposition. The bozo who tried to bomb Times Square last week may have been connected to the Taliban, and may have had "training", but he totally botched the job. He got caught, too.

Unity is their only hope for stopping the opposition, even on bills that the individuals disagree with the party on.

You have to wonder about the people who blame Obama for the lack of bipartisanship these days. Sheesh! When will Republicans stop being the party of no and instead of seeking to stop the opposition, instead start beginning to work for what they want?

When they commented that they have a bigger voice than Roger because the last time they checked they where above Oprah on the Time top 100 list.

I was like "NO WAY!" so I went, did some fact checking, and then voted to put them up to #1!!

Click the link here http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972075_1976159,00.html
To vote for them!

I was impressed until I read the rest of the list, particularly this love letter to Glenn Beck........ written by none other than Sarah Palin herself.

Really, Time? Sure, he's pretty influential, and a demagogue to be certain. But casting him as an intellectual and a history buff? Have they ever even watched his program?

Jon Stewart had a great point last week: The Daily Show is as absurd and farcical as it's been since Day 1. However, the "real news" media are slowly inching their way toward the realm of absurdist comedy and entertainment.

You are of course aware that here in England we burned orders of magnitudes more Catholics at the stake, than the inquisition ever had people done away

Doubtful. In the Albigensian Crusade alone, which was arguably the start of the Inquisition, the Catholic Church killed over 1 million heretics. ("Kill them all, God will recognize his own!")

It should be noted that both Catholics and Protestants were burned at the stake in Britain:

"During the reign of Queen Mary in England ( 1553- 1558), some two hundred and seventy seven people were burnt at the stake for heresy against the Catholic church and conspiracy against the Queen, including Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, and Nicholas Ridley. Between 1555- 57 seventeen Protestants were burnt at the stake outside of the Star Inn in the town of Lewes in Sussex. The traditional bonfire celebrations held annually in the town on 5 November commemorate the burnings as well as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605."

How many of us have been berated for doodling while listening to a lecture in class? It's something that's oft criticized, and yet recent evidence has shown that doodling helps us pay attention by managing boredom. This counter-intuitive result makes it clear that what's really going on isn't always obvious.

I'm not going so far as to say that dickering on a netbook is a good idea when flying a commercial aircraft, but I will say that we should do some kind of study of the real effects of such "distractions" on real-world metrics like accident history, etc. We may well find that "distractions" result in better-qualified pilots remaining on the job rather than moving on elsewhere, and a subsequently reduced accident rate, even if individual pilot performance is somewhat reduced.

While phrases like "900,000 pound aircraft at 400 MPH" sound dramatic, the truth is that the aircraft are almost universally on auto-pilot, are flying somewhere above 30,000 feet, and are being monitored by RADAR at all times, so that any close calls cause planes to be diverted. And a "close call" is anything under 3 MILES of horizontal separation, and 1000 feet of vertical separation, so we aren't talking about a situation where you would even SEE the other aircraft without knowing exactly what direction to look for it.

Statistically speaking, it's safer to fly on a commercial airliner than it is to VISIT a family member in a hospital!

Yeah, forgiving sin.

When a priest fucks children, he can be forgiven with some some Hail Maries.

When a 9 year girl gets raped, pregnant and has to terminate her pregnancy because they'll both die if they don't, the Catholic Church explodes in rage and excommunicates her, her family and all the doctors.

They're a bunch of hypocritical bastards and for all I care can rot in jail.

I think the bigger question is how 1,000's of other foreign products go in without any problems. Why was the iPad singled out? If I take my new HTC phone fresh from Taiwan and unlicensed in Israel, they are not going to seize it.

Time offers an explanation:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1983236,00.html

"It is worth noting," Etengoff wrote, "that Apple's Israeli distributor, iDigital, is run by Chemi Peres, the hyper-entrepreneurial son of Israeli President Shimon Peres.

"Clearly, iDigital wants its lucrative cut of every iPad brought into the country — which it will undoubtedly receive when a modified European version of the iPad is approved for import over the next two or three months.

You just repeat what you've said before. Let me ask this : do you seriously believe universities have a pro free-market bias ? It seems to me baffling anyone seriously believes that actually.

Allow me to point to this idiotic racist outrage to prove just how far leftist bias in universities go :

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1968042,00.html

What is this, "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" Wasn't it in Mass. where they

136/206~0.6602, less than 2/3. The measure did not pass.

I haven't kept up on Mass. politics, but hopefully the AG they're going to ask isn't Martha Coakley, who thought a glorified Lite-Brite was a bomb.

He is, unless he gave up his doomed nazionality.

I disagree here is that paragraph

If I have a beef with the iPad, it's that while it's a lovely device for consuming content, it doesn't do much to facilitate its creation. The computer is the greatest all-purpose creativity tool since the pen. It put a music studio, a movie studio, a darkroom and a publishing house on everybody's desk. The iPad shifts the emphasis from creating content to merely absorbing and manipulating it. It mutes you, turns you back into a passive consumer of other people's masterpieces. In that sense, it's a step backward. Not much of a fairy-tale ending. Except for the people who are selling content.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1976932-2,00.html#ixzz0lePJ0cD3

I don't own any Apple products. I am not a fanboy. I use Ubuntu.

The author gets it wrong. The iPad is not a home computer replacement. It is a consumption device so that you can consume other people's content comfortably away from home ( or at home on a couch ). If you want to do the things you do on a computer, you go to your computer and I am sure Apple is hoping people will buy both.

If I ever buy anything like iPad that is how I will do it. If I have one it will be for reading the web on a plane ride, not a place where I will likely be doing photoshop or composing music.

I think Grossman gets it right in the last paragraph of his Time article.

Which, in studied cases, can be offset by the reduction of nitrogen in grazed/mowed areas

>But this is all very fuzzy; importantly, it's just as fuzzy as "everything will be fine." Read this again: the hypothesis that legalizing drugs will result in a Utopian Paradise or even in a complete null operation (i.e. no change) is JUST AS CRAZY as assuming the whole world will slowly fall apart

Actually, you are completely wrong. Portugal decriminalized all drug possession in 2001, and since then:

"The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well."

So, there is not no change when you decriminalize, there is actually a decrease in use. Still no utopia, but a better outcome than the current system by far.

While they may be less bad than traditional smoked tobacco, they still aren't good for your lungs.

Some Doctors have the opposite opinion:
"propylene glycol vapor is odorless, tasteless, nontoxic, non-irritating, cheap, highly bactericidal"

Plus, the nicotine delivered by electronic cigarettes is minuscule:
"They are as effective at nicotine delivery as puffing on an unlit cigarette,"

So, If the propylene glycol helps prevent one from getting the flu, and it's really just the hand-to-mouth and fake smoke and not the nicotine that is satisfying the ecig user... what's the problem?

Rehabilitate the users, imprison the dealers.

For facts showing that it works: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html
One of the few things we can be proud of :)

That being said, I think "designer drugs" aren't too far off in our future (2-3 decades at the most). Think about it...pharmaceutical companies already develop a huge number of different substances...so why not synthesized drugs made for a specific experience?

Well, if they enable us to travel in time, I'd take it!

Ever heard of Portugal?

What I find interesting in the portugese case is that probably its not the legalisation of the drugs that makes the difference, its the way that the establishment treats drug users that causes drug use to drop. Being offered treatment for your dependency is not going to glamorise that dependency at all, whereas keeping your habit out of sight because the man is going to come down on you like a ton o bricks is much more likely to be cool.

"Hey man, I'm doing something that is not allowed! What you doin?"

The whole utopia of legalized drugs that people imagine, doesn't exist

Ever heard of Portugal? I assure you it exists and it has yet to fall into a nightmare of addiction and ruined lives yet. Just reduced addiction, reduced crime, and reduced drug related health problems.

I'unno, I guess Trudeau's just like urging their fans to spam the gubmint. 8I

Some people are just unadventurous or don't know where to find interesting foods. I've had everything you've mentioned there locally here in California (except the haggis, which I had in Scotland).

I'm actually not fond of root beer either... i guess its taste does resemble the pink mouthwash that some dentists use.

If you think the fish ice cream is weird, you should try a meat cocktail (as in the alcoholic type served at a bar)...

Why isn't the U.S. leading in this area?

    Where do you think they got it? Toshiba got in trouble in the late 80s http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,965549,00.html for selling US 5-axis machines to the USSR to make submarine propellors. The helmet machining could be done at any one of a dozen machine shops within 25 miles of where I am currently sitting (in Sunnyvale, CA). 5-axis CNC machines were first developed and used about 100 yards from here in the late 50's/Early 60s.

That's an awfully broad statement. There's evidence, though it's mostly based on circumstance. I don't think I need to be linking articles about the China Cyber Attack stuff, or North Korea, as that's all fresh.

But I'm happy to offer other links from the recent and not so recent past that are relevant.

Somewhat recent -

Russian Cyber Attacks on Georgia
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1670

PowerGrid Vulnerability of the US
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1891562,00.html

In a Galaxy Far Far Away... 1998, a brief description of L0pht testifying before congress.Excerpt included.
http://hsgac.senate.gov/l0pht.htm

""We have become so dependent on communications links and electronic microprocessors that a determined adversary or terrorist could shut down federal operations or damage the economy simply by hacking into our computers. The two General Accounting office reports which will be released at our hearing--one on the State Department and one on the Federal Aviation Administration- -raise serious concerns about the risks to the public because of information security weaknesses.""

Maybe the world is wrong. Here in Portugal drug usage has been decriminalized, and you can actually get free help as long as you stick very firmly with the rehabilitation program; you move to a "center" (just a house, really) in the country and you get counseling and help from psychologists. On the other hand, you have to work there to pay for your stay.

By not treating them like criminals drug usage has been dropping constantly, in spite of the Church's FUD.

I agree. "In all things, moderation."

I heard an interesting podcast from Time magazine about Auto-Tune.

I beg to differ. Color-sighted people are physically incapable of doing something that colorblind people can do.

Humans use their minds to recognize traps. There aren't a lot of us who know how to avoid the 'genetics' hook, but it is possible...

I think even the most coldhearted persons must admit that your genetic makeup is something you cannot influence

I may be the most coldhearted person you'll never meet (the man who used to train mercenaries said I missed my true calling), and I do a damn good job of influencing my genes.

DNA Is Not Destiny (Discover Magazine)
Why Your DNA Isn't Your Destiny(Time Magazine)

Why do some people with the "bad gene" develop a given disease, while other people do not? Epigenetics FTW! :)

Eat right, productively deal with your stress, balance your nervous system, indulge in creativity, etc, and you won't have to worry about your genes.

Perhaps widespread vaccination increases autism rates because the diseases vaccination prevents cause fever in children, and fever in children fights autism symptoms. Or perhaps the children more prone to autism were also more prone to dying from childhood infections, and now, due to vaccination programs, more of them are surviving long enough to be diagnosed with autism.

The US stopped using thimerosal in vaccines in 1999. If it was causing autism, we should have seen a drop in the autism rates to Amish levels by now, 10 years later. Instead, the rates are still going up! Perhaps the increase in autism cases diagnosed since the beginning of the use of thimerosal have more to do with newer diagnostic procedures than with vaccinations.

Watch out for that term. You used it correctly but if you say "Tar-baby" on TV they'll call you a racist. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1221764,00.html

The marrow transplant is older news. The issue is with the survivability of the procedure. These transplants kill about a third of the patients. It's not an attractive option. On top of that, finding a compatible donor is even more unlikely. It's just not a viable solution with current technology.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1858843,00.html