How much of those donations to churches go on to charitable causes? Sure, plenty of it goes to keep the building operational and pay the priests, but many churches also do charity of some form.

You mean arable? Arid land is desert (which Antarctica already is).

So changes to growing seasons, rainfall and flood patterns have zero risk of killing people or causing starvation, and humanity can deal with such changes with little more than a shrug, but replacing a coal plant means certain doom?

Whether or not you agree with him, parent is not a troll.

Damn, and here I thought I was 60 feet tall :/

I assume by "never ever" you mean "except for when there is an active shooter". But sure, pretend it's black and white.

You realize this is between the artist and Pandora, Pandora already has your data. They aren't asking anything else from you.

It's true. I went to an engineering school that had quite a few homeschooled kids. You could tell which ones were homeschooled - while there is of course observation bias, I can say every kid that said he was homeschooled stood out as such. In case I need to emphasize, they stood out as socially awkward in a school with nothing but geeks. Sure, you could get along with them just fine, but they had their rough edges that they were never made aware of.

I certainly understand that homeschooling may be the best option depending on the schools available, but I assure you that "learning to socialize" is not a myth.

The point is the two ways to deal with bullying are to end the relationship with the bully, or change the relationship - often by gaining enough acceptance from your peers that the bully stops seeing you as a safe target, maybe eventually he sees you as a human. Your examples are where you won't be getting help from peers, and you really do have to either take things into your own hands, or you have to leave.

In a school bullying situation, if you make yourself a target there won't just be one bully, so the best solution often is to figure out why you get targeted and do something about it. There are plenty of situations where everyone stonewalls the victim and he will never get a chance, but some kids just don't understand how to not be obnoxious, awkward or that special brand of annoying that is too subtle to politely do anything about. If you tell these kids that the entire problem is the bully, their lack of social skills can hurt them more than any direct abuse they are recieving.

Well someone has to lead the way if things are to get better, are you trying to suggest we wait for China? China and India are trying to catch up to the US, so if we can set an example as a sustainable society, there may still be a chance at limiting global warming. Given America's absurd CO2 production per capita, I think it is safe to say we need to make the first move.

Unless of course you're in Illinois and the union bosses and the state congress work out increased pensions without actually finding money to pay for it. They aren't withholding pay to give you later, the money just doesn't exist. Of course, the pensions for the state representatives are always fully funded, and the union bosses plan to retire before the numbers catch up to them.

That would be better for everyone (taxpayers and state union workers), too bad those in power will never give up their favorite political bargaining chip.

Not necessarily. It is possible that arbitration costs less than a court case, even if the results for the consumer come out the same. Also, having every case go through the same arbitration firm is sure to give more consistent results than coutrooms scattered around the country.

Realistically, corporations will seek out arbitration firms that are favorable to them, but if arbitration were to reduce the cost of lawsuits by enough, an "honest" corporation might even prefer a consumer-friendly arbitration firm over a coutroom.

Now, I'll admit this is pure speculation, but if anyone is familiar with the economics of arbitration I would be curious if there really is substantial benefit to arbitration regardless of how favorable the decisions are.

Or just your right to offensively use the patent should be revoked; if a company just wants to use a patent defensively there is no need to push them to sue people proactively.

Exactly. The problem is when H1B workers are hired in much the way scabs are hired during a strike. I only wish for the best for the H1B workers themselves, but I don't trust corporations to use the program in good faith (especially with the leaked videos explaining how to game the system to show a lack of qualified workers). We certainly need to keep the program, but there's a chronic need for more oversight to minimize abuse.

Step 1: Buy an urban ISP.
Step 2: Buy a bulldozer.