Read some history. Too much government power is very bad.

Government regulation of farming is one of the great success stories. It helped a bunch of farmers not die a hundred plus years ago and is a great example (used in the econ courses I took) of how early government intervention can stop a boom-bust cycle that would have been horrible for all involved.

Now, it turns out it's not 100+ years ago currently, so some of the policies need to be amended, repealed or replaced. But if you do some research, they were really beneficial for quite some time.

Note well, the US decided to get government involved in agriculture long before the USSR even existed. Turns out, if you just don't micromanage, it works out quite well.

Red meat offers very little and is harmful to the human body in many ways.

Wait, red meat is harmful? How? Why?

I mean, hot dogs, sausage and premade hamburgers are bad for you. But if you get your red meat at a butcher and not McDonalds, it should be pretty healthy./p

Creationism is a fringe thing in the United States. Judging by what makes national news is pretty dumb. A lot of national news is based on taking someone in a minor position and exaggerating how important they are. Stupid shit like that Kansas school board deciding to push creationism lead to all of them getting voted out of office in the next election. All of them.

Gun laws are important. I'm not sure why that belongs in the same sphere as creationism

p>But yeah, Europe has its share of creationismists too. Deputy Education Ministers, protests by parents, a possible "Genesis-land", hell, even a Geman Ministry of Education decision allowing intelligent design to be taught in public schools.

Are you claiming to have the ability to backtrack who the connected person is? Or that during the few moments someone is on your site, they're the only person connecting through TOR, and therefore can be tracked around your site. Because I was under the impression that her goal was to prevent aggregation of data over time, not prevent a single site from knowing the cvisited pahes 3, 6, and then 12 during her visit.

You seem to have completely missed the point. I'm not saying that the Pope leads all of Europe. I'm saying he's a European. And equating his views with all Europe is impractical.

Hell, he's even the leader for life of a European country, with membership in international organizations.

The US is approximately the same size as Europe. So I'm saying when you hear about "in US X happens" or "a US leader says something stupid", it may be about as important as what Europe thinks if the Pope does something. Or far less so.

I'm just trying to say, when you hear 100 people protesting that the lord hates fags in the US, that's as meaningful as if you heard 100 people were protesting somewhere in Europe.

P.S. they may have auctioned off an old hat, or a copy of it (maybe each Pope gets a new one?) they definitely replaced it.

I replied to GP, but he (and you) are wrong. Least common denominator is a totally valid term. It's even a pretty good analogy; better than either "greatest common divisor" or "least common multiplier" given its how to work with disparate quantities.

No, the lowest common denominator is only 1 when adding integers. It refers to converting both denominators to the least common multiple, so the fractions can be added to (or subtracted from) one another.

As if our weekly fun news didn't have enough material for its "US SPECIAL" corner..

What is it with the US and Porn?

The US is (approximately) the size of all Europe. Just all of our crazies get labelled "US citizens"

You (assuming you're a European) have a whole powerful interest group devoted to giving a guy a big hat and having him yell at people in AIDS torn regions that they'll burn forever if they put condoms on. Whose predecessor was.... unsavory.. in his youth. And whose predecessor before that, who was just honored, covered up the largest child molestation ring in history. What's up with Europeans??

I assume you either didn't notice my earlier reply, or got distracted before you could e-mail me.

I'd love to hear more about this problem is, and how an automated solution could fix it. The issues of getting people to buy into a new network seem challenging, but not insurmountable.

But a lot of that depends on what the problem actually is.

My email is slashdot[SlashDotUID]@hotmail.com I'm looking forward to hearing from you.

Nowhere does it explain how concrete may have caused the downfall of the Roman empire.

The article is very bad. It says that concrete lead to the downfall of the Republic, and then, immediately cut to the downfall of the Empire.

The theory is concrete made it easier to have a single entity (e.g. Julius Caesar) create municipal works, leading to that one person able to exert enough control/have high enough stature to become emperor. Beforehand, he would have had to rely on other people for help, and therefore would have had to share political power with them.

Yup

The Romans invented a lot of things, including lawyers, magistrates, and the bribery of both

You assume that is impossible for a set of rights to exist which can ever be in opposition to one another.

But, that's clearly false. For instance, you have a right to freedom of speech. But I also have a right not to enter into a contract under false circumstances.

I read it in "The Smartest Guy in the Room". Don't recall the guys name. Don't have the book anymore.

Sure, the company got hosed.

Meanwhile, the partner who spearheaded the push got sufficient bonuses (from AA) to compensate him for the lack of any future career. He was on their executive board by the end of it pulling in a fat, fat bonus every year based exclusively on his Enron relationship.

If I can make N million dollars from a single bad act, maybe we need to have a better punishment than "never allowed to work again.

beer is roughly $1000/ton (based on a 150lb keg costing about $75). You're looking at maybe a 5% rise in cost.

Except you're looking at the weight ratios wrong. Producing 1 ton of beer produces less than 1 ton of spent grain (beer is mostly water). So the ratio would be probably be closer to.... I don't know 1:5. Which would only be a 1% rise in cost.