I am incredibly sympathetic to increased traffic in a residential area, in most cases the drivers should be weary of that.

But then I see Takoma Park as the location. I know this guy's pain. I'm surprised he's not experiencing worse. The "Maryland driver near DC" is why we can't have nice things.

The UAW strikes didn't cause the outflow of employment from Detroit. It was a consequence of NAFTA cheapening the import cost of goods made in Mexico.

Since it's really off topic, I'd prefer not debating the merits and problems of NAFTA here. Yes, union negotiating and poor management did contribute. But the union strikes weren't the single cause of that employment offshoring.

Yes, indeed, inflation will probably increase.

If you notice, inflation for the last several years has been about 1%. Which is below the usual target rate of 2% in most world markets. This isn't a bad thing, because inflation allows central banks more flexibility in setting interest rates without going negative.

...and there's no way to plan multi-year projects when dealing with voluntary contributions.

Quite simply:
You can't budget based on individual charity. The rates set a reasonable expectation of incoming receipts for not just the next year, but future years.

Saying, "Check the box" doesn't provide anything that anyone can build a budget on.

Just to be clear on this one, the channel was a partnership with Fox, and has been since inception. The change here is with the magazine.

Your friends show two distant points on the patching spectrum we have to make all the time.

Neither is right, nor wholly wrong. The first friend doesn't worry so much about stability, and for himself that's fine. He knows the choices he's making and he's really into that. Good for him. The second friend is more conservative and more in line with what the mainstream hopes for and expects. I'd like to know what they consider "serious security" updates, because it could be anywhere from reasonable security to complete insecurity. This is why most environments have tiers of patching and testing. We know we need to get security updates out as much as possible. Some people get more value out of being on the bleeding edge than having a stable install, others can't/won't have their work interrupted for any cost. This is also why this argument is silly to have between two people on which way is "better."

As for what I do? My home system gets updates as soon as I see they're available. I occasionally play with nightlies or betas, on a VM, to see if there are major interface tweaks, a new feature I want, or whatever else I'm interested in. I'd never suggest that for most of my friends or relatives.

Incidentally, that's pretty much how it goes at work. Most of the people I work with in IT, and a few select users are in the first group. Most people get security updates quickly, and well vetted other updates when they're more thoroughly tested.

And this post will be something to remind her that her dad, down the stretch, thought of her future and how to do something for her. I think that's as good a gift as anything.

All I can come up with is, "Just do your best."

^^This

The fact that a good chunk of the population has been repeatedly fed that scientists are every bit as corrupt as the politicians (and ironically enough, the big money backers) that they'd compromise their standards for cash has done more damage than and lack of personability or "warmness."

I'm not sure what you're going for on point 4, but the first three are at least interesting. If you could explain that, it'd be appreciated.

I'd expect that there would be a bunch of newly developed "hidden benefits," especially for those at the top of the larger corporations. An example would be the free housing and transportation that the executives and board would receive. That would need to be dealt with in some fashion too, but I like the start.

My comment is just a blow-hard edition of modding you up, but I don't have points.

Yes you can. That's what '||' is for.

That's no pool...

If they really wanted to shut it down effectively, they'd expire the PATRIOT act. It's a dog and pony vote because it's not actually making the activity illegal.

We know why it's in foods. It's cheap. It's really cheap. To make sure that choice is clear, labels would need a requirement that any amount is listed... and not allowing the "less that .5 gram" exception that exists today.

Of course, there's a part of me that knows that people won't think about any consequences anyway. I weigh freedom which allows increased public health costs (medicaid, medicare, Social Security Disability, whatever else) of allowing this choice, vs an outright ban that might make that serving of Oreo's cost an extra 10 cents a bag (no citation, it's just a guess). I honestly don't think there's a correct answer in this case.

I don't think it's a major violation of our rights to ban a substance that was designed to be redundant if it's markedly more harmful than the existing alternatives.

Mostly very fair points... But like the anonymous coward said above, Chelsea Manning's capture, detainment, and sentencing happened because of her actions after leaking the documents.

Could Wikileaks have handled things a little differently when releasing information? Sure.

Could Wikileaks have stopped Chelsea from talking with Lamo? Probably not.