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User: Catbeller

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  1. Thanks to Track Everything, can't do anon video on The Courage of Bystanders Who Press "Record" · · Score: 1

    The person may be keeping quiet, but the ID of that phone or camera is embedded in the video file somewhere, and if no one else can access that information, certainly the police can figure it out. If it is a phone, it is designed to identify the owner. For terrorism prevention, we've made it impossible to hide from the cops. Sucks if its the cops who are out to get you.

  2. "I mean, who woulda thought that random mutations would actually make some people more or less likely to reproduce successfully?"

    Few think so, here on Planet America. About as few elsewhere. We are outnumbered, and the enemy is increasing its numbers at a geometric pace. Stupid wins by the simple trick of having a hell of a lot more babies.

  3. Re:still ? on Did Natural Selection Make the Dutch the Tallest People On the Planet? · · Score: 1

    Most people don't even believe in evolution on this planet, so yep, they don't think it applies to them.

  4. Women like to look up - Science! on Did Natural Selection Make the Dutch the Tallest People On the Planet? · · Score: 3, Informative

    Tall men are percieved as more powerful, commanding - look among military commanders and corporate executives for the short guys. No so many. It's a pattern that just exists. Tall guys tend to be strong guys, and they win physical fights even if they have to sit on the opponent. They gain a sense of control and tend to have the advantage in negotiations.

    Women - godz help me here - tend to mate up with the winners. Tall men tend to be winners. Tall men tend to have families with more children, even if they have to marry and reproduce with many women serially. They tend to have that ability because they tend to make more money than shorter men. The advantage isn't noticable in everyday life, but the advantage works over centuries to produce a taller people as the short dudes tend to lose out in the carnival. People get taller.

  5. Re: Saudi Arabia, etc. on Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    FYI, all: marriage is a civil affair, not religious. "By the power vested in me BY THE STATE of _____". Religions are given that privilege by custom. They do not have the original patent, as it were. Ship's captains have the same ability.

  6. Re: Saudi Arabia, etc. on Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    Fox news and newsmax has a lot to answer for.

  7. Re: Saudi Arabia, etc. on Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    Ronnie was an idiot, a liar, and ultimately brain damaged while holding office. And that makes him the ultimate Republican. in their own estimation. Damn.

  8. Re: Saudi Arabia, etc. on Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    You dont like gays. Indiana doesn't like gays. We get it. All the rest is verbal diarrhea.

  9. Re: Saudi Arabia, etc. on Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights · · Score: 2

    Because he lives in the United States, not Saudi Arabia. And it worked in Indiana, when it would not succeed against Saudi Arabia.

  10. Re: Saudi Arabia, etc. on Carly Fiorina Calls Apple's Tim Cook a 'Hypocrite' On Gay Rights · · Score: 1

    The folks in East Texas are offended if you think they're part of the United States.

  11. Why do they need to come back to Earth? on SpaceX's New Combustion Technologies · · Score: 1

    Go to Mars. *Stay there*. Don't return the Presbyterian astronauts back home to Ohio. Keep lobbing supplies at the colonists until they can sustain themselves. Why on earth do we keep trying to re-enact the Apollo fiasco? Colonize, or don't go. Plenty of older folk such as myself who would be glad of a few years of low G before we die while we build up the place for later arrivals. Dying there? The horror! Um, of course you'd die if you stay on Earth anyway. Dying on Mars would be more scenic, and your knees wouldn't hurt when you stand up.

    Of course, Mars won't pay for itself as far as Earth is concerned, the way orbiting terraria and factories would. Less room, less opportunity, and yet another gravity trap on any planet. Mars is a place to colonize. It can't produce wealth for the old country. And colonies don't care about the old world much, so we're building a suburb that will home-rule faster than a town next door to a impoverished city.

    Well, limited vision, but at least we'd have two baskets to put our eggs in.

  12. Re:What, no link to a hoax news site in there? on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    What, no clever comeback to the actual facts, Fox Newser?

  13. Re:What, no link to a hoax news site in there? on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    Damned near every terrorist attack in the US has been end-times or anti-government christian cultists of one sort or another. Or racist cults. Or anti-tax cults. And we don't have anyone assigned to keep track of them. I blame Obama for caving in to the Republicans on this one. Doctor killers, Dominionists, Sovereign Citizens, this-land-is-ours loonies pointing guns at sherriffs from high ground WHILE ON LIVE ON CAMERA, and nothing happens and no one gets arrested, because everyone is afraid of them and their supporters. We don't even report on them.

    But if a guy with a beard does it, on the news forever. Hell, the HS guys claiming someone was GOING TO join ISIS because reasons is national news for days. Every damned day it seems.

    Reposted because downvoted by Fox News enthusiasts. And, I was right again, Cudahy.

  14. I thought they didn't work for Amazon on Amazon Requires Non-Compete Agreements.. For Warehouse Workers · · Score: 1

    Those warehouse workers work for employment contractors, not for Amazon. Our employment law is so destroyed that Amazon, indeed, any corporation, can treat you both as an employee of theirs and an employee of someone else. They aren't even pretending anymore - they do what they like.

  15. Re:it could have been an accident on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    So can unarmed passengers. And unarmed passengers have swarmed hijackers and taken them down. The hijackers' weapons (knives) are useless if dozens of people jump them. The doors didn't save the planes, the people did. And recall, the one plane on 9-11 that didn't kill people on the ground was the one the passengers fought back on. If they'd done it earlier, they may have lived. Dunno. But sitting still doesn't help at all. And armed passengers would shoot holes in the fuselage and other passengers, and in the melee the plane may crash. Use your hands. Can't blow out the pressure with your hands.

    Numbers win against guns, if people know they will die if they don't fight. Best thing to stop a gun-toting idiot menacing a crowd? Crowd jumps him.Works every time. You personally can't, but three dozen of you can. Go for the guns first, grab those lovingly polished killing machines by the barrels and push them up/down and out of line, grab the hands, then his arms, and then pinch his corneas really hard and rip them out. He'll have second thoughts after that. Then kill him at your leisure. Or you can get really a good communal grip and rip his arms off. Or snap his neck. So many ways to make him stop dreaming of killing with his penis enhancing boom stick. Think communist Batman. Batman has the strength of one supremely trained indvidual, but you all have the strength of three dozen fat people who are REALLY scared and TOTALLY pissed.

  16. Re:What, no link to a hoax news site in there? on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 0

    Damned near every terrorist attack in the US has been end-times or anti-government christian cultists of one sort or another. Or racist cults. Or anti-tax cults. And we don't have anyone assigned to keep track of them. I blame Obama for caving in to the Republicans on this one. Doctor killers, Dominionists, Sovereign Citizens, this-land-is-ours loonies pointing guns at sherriffs from high ground WHILE ON LIVE ON CAMERA, and nothing happens and no one gets arrested, because everyone is afraid of them and their supporters. We don't even report on them.

    But if a guy with a beard does it, on the news forever. Hell, the HS guys claiming someone was GOING TO join ISIS because reasons is national news for days. Every damned day it seems.

  17. Astounding that you didn't know about this. on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    Astounding that you didn't know about this. If they had been Muslims, it would have been world news.
    And, I win.
    I correct myself: I am ABSOLUTELY astounded how little coverage this gets. ASTOUNDED. And this is me we're talking about.

    http://www.christianpost.com/n...
    http://www.azcentral.com/story...
    http://boingboing.net/2015/03/...
    http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
    http://www.charismanews.com/us...
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...

  18. Re:fathers on Scientists: It's Time To Resolve the Ethics of Editing Human Genome · · Score: 1

    Noted. This time they are, and we should listen to what they have to say. But I do not wish to wait another quarter century for genetic repair technology. I know people who will die horribly. agony, from their genetic defects. We need the tech right. Now.

  19. Re:fathers on Scientists: It's Time To Resolve the Ethics of Editing Human Genome · · Score: 1

    The White Plague, by Frank Herbert. An SF novel I made a rule never to mention online because it would give people ideas. A lone scientist splices a killer virus with a XX-chromosome seeking component and kills half the distaff half of the human race. And now, it can happen. Say, putting influenze together with HIV and letting fly. The possibilities are infinite, and you are right, someone will try.

  20. Re:Wouldn't normally say this but on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    Ever watch House? There are dozens of ways to physiologically fail into a psychotic or unconscious state that don't have to do with personality. We are meat. We may never know what happened up there. It may make no sense - a fungus or a genetic weakness that just happened at the wrong damned time.
    What we need is three flight deck personnel, not two. We've two because we've cost cut our way into a robot plane with one pilot, at times.

  21. Re:This validates the US policy... on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    Rules will always fail. Procedure can always be hacked. And was, you may notice. If it was a suicidal pilot, he could have tricked the the FA into leaving. Maybe he did. No matter how many attempts to manage humans, there can never be enough rules, and never a lack of ways to beat those rules.

    Best way to have prevented this would be to NOT HAVE a door that locks out the rest of the plane. Let 9-11 go; that trick won't work again.
    Another way? Airlines have cut cockpit crew numbers from 3 (pilot, co-pilot, navigator) to 2 (pilot/copilot) to save money, increase profits and break the unions. That MAY have more than a little to do with the fact that only one member of the flight team is present in the cockpit at times. We've cost cut our way into cheap fares and food-stamp-pilots.... and planes so short staffed that the illness of a single person can kill everyone.

  22. Re:Be careful of the term "terrorist attack" on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A couple of days ago, a Christian musician family in Phoneix (I think) went obviously nuts and engaged in a massive firefight with police in a big box parking lot they were camping in. Their entire repetoir was about Jesus coming and the End Times - and I'm guessing, since they were all armed, they were the US Government-Obama-is-Satan cultists that are extremely pervasive in the Confederacy (the West is just the suburbs of the Confederacy, has been since the end of the civil war). We have a gigantic armed cult of doomsdayer Dominionists dispersed throughout the country, and the FBI taskforce that monitored it was taken down at the insistence of Congressional confederate Republicans. Our loonies wear ties and Glocks and praise Jesus and fear the negro President. Not even a little bit hyperbolic.

  23. Re:Why Pilots? on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    There are no self-drving cars as yet. There are prototypes. And they do fail.

  24. Re:Reminds me of one thing on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 1

    As you noted, we really don't have self-driving cars. Here and there, a self-driving *car*, under escort. SD cars are something Google wants, and now everyone is trying to jump in on the idea, but it really won't work. Most will work, but the failures will be huge. Our capacity for denial will have to ramp up.

  25. Re:Security is hard... on Germanwings Plane Crash Was No Accident · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Zero. The 9-11 attacks worked because no one expected the hijackers were intending to suicide all along. We now know it, and they cannot hijack planes and succeed anymore, as no one will cooperate.The entire plane would swarm them, and rightly so. So they don't hijack. Zero hijackings prevented, not because of protocols, but because it's damned impossible to succeed, even without steel doors. We've overreacted, and now we've lost an actual plane because of the totally safe terrorism doors that even the commander can't open. Sigh.