Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have passed laws making texting while driving illegal and seven states and the district have banned driving while talking on a handheld cell phone.

This is an example of states setting their own laws to respond to an issue that directly affects the lives of their citizens. The possibility of the federal government stepping in and usurping this power is analogous to America's situation as far as the legal drinking age goes - MADD used its lobbying power to get Congress to essentially coerce the states into following its will. Keep in mind, barring a constitutional amendment, congress lacks the power to directly affect the drinking age - hence their questionable approach (albeit one that has been upheld by the courts) of saying, "well look, states, we're not telling you you HAVE to set the drinking age at 21, but if you don't, something might happen to your federal highway funding. We're just saying, it could happen." I realize that it would be somewhat impractical for the federal government to stay limited by an extremely strict interpretation of the Constitution, but there is absolutely no reason for the national government to waste its valuable time meddling here (don't we have a health care crisis or recession or whatever that they should be dealing with?). Cell phone use, like the drinking age, is one of those areas which should not be controlled nationally - if we take away all the powers of the states to set their own laws, then what's the point of even having a federal system to begin with?

My high school did actually have a mandatory Intro to Computers class, with a required typing speed in order to pass... 15 WPM. A typing speed that for all intents and purposes is the same as teaching calligraphy in place of handwriting. In any job where typing is a requirement, 15 WPM is completely useless. And many people in my class couldn't do it. They spent what felt like months trying to figure it out and cursing the teacher for giving such an unnecessarily stringent requirement.

How long until someone comes by and paints over the camera lenses disabling the tailored ads?

"As a service to our customers, the Digital Rights Management technology in our TV will disable the machine if it detects that our advertising technology has become inoperative."

...It'll only come with one authorized set of 3D glasses. Just like they do with console controllers, you'll have to buy more and the only authorized ones will come from Sony (you won't be able to use any ol' 3D glasses - remember these use super special "shutter" technology). And they won't be cheap either.

The US Supreme Court has touched on an issue similar to hate speech as recently as 1992. In the case R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul, the following law was struck down:

Whoever places on public or private property, a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

The questionable part of the law being the last portion. The rationale for this decision is that it's fine to outlaw certain behavior, but not solely in the instances where it's brought about by motivations that we disapprove of. It's different from say, hate crimes, because hate crime laws penalize behaviors that were illegal to begin with. In the US this decision would certainly be applicable to hate speech legislation, if ALL speech including hate speech weren't already protected in all cases except where it can be shown to cause an imminent lawless action or certain cases dealing with state secrets. I am not aware of any relevant cases where, as you suggest, a "hate speech charge will crop up" due to some politician having his feathers ruffled. In theory this would be blatantly unconstitutional, but I can't dispute your facts as you didn't provide any specific instances.

In any case, knowledge unverified by scientific experimentation is not knowledge at all.

I'm for science as much as anyone on this site, but don't you think that's a bit of an exaggeration? You can't learn ANYTHING except through the scientific method?

So-called intuition and common sense are usually nothing more than widely held but unquestioned assumptions.

We DID actually evolve intuition for a reason. It's obviously not right all the time, but there's a reason why we're told to "go with our gut." Intuition is the means by which we pick up all those hundreds of subconscious signals that would otherwise slip by. It's kind of important.

Oh and one more thing while I'm on this tangent: the scientific method uses intuition as part of its process. All scientific experimentation begins with a hypothesis, and without intuition, scientists would be totally unable to come up with a hypothesis to test. Try it: using ONLY deduction, try to think of a hypothesis to test for an experiment. Sorry for the off-topic post, I juar felt like this needed addressing.

... a Republican is a Democrat is a Politician ... they're all the same

Well that's not an overhasty generalization at all, is it? I know "Boooooo all politicians are the same it's all corrupt" flies over well with the mods, but come on. One of the major problems with American politics is that the parties aren't the same at all, more specifically that they can't agree on anything. That's why we have large majorities being fillibustered on every single piece of legislation (I admit this does seem to be a constant no matter which party is in power). In a two-party systm that's elected in the way ours is (first past the post with single-membered districts that are chosen by partisan bodies), the two parties will inevitably drift farther apart until they are at their ideological extremes. If all politicians were the same we certainly wouldn't be having the extreme partisan bitterness that we're seeing in the last month or so.

Natural selection in terms of the evolution of life forms is quite analogous to cultural phenomena taking shape over time. In both cases traits that are more beneficial to an environment are more likely to flourish. It's called memetics, and is often compared to genetics/natural selection in writings by experts on the subject. If you can't (or are unwilling to) see the similarities you're being obtuse.

How long until we get DRM-esque provisions that state that the sensor must be working for the TV to work? Soon they'll be stipulating that you're not buying the TV... you're simply licensed to use it at the discretion of the cable company.

Perhaps they "understand" up to 200 words, but do they understand them in the same way a 2-year-old human learns language? It is possible they have just been conditioned to associate certain words with behaviors - if a human says "sit" and the dog sits because it knows that will get it a treat, that isn't the same as the dog understanding the concept of "sit." (See Operant Conditioning.) This is an ongoing debate among those who study animal intelligence.

For my money, the most interesting animal intelligence case study was Alex the African Grey Parrot, whose species is believed by many to be the smartest non-human animal. His scientist keeper did a number of studies to demonstrate that Alex at least had some understanding of the concepts he was learning. Fascinating stuff.

Speaking as an actor, I can also tell you that videogame voiceover jobs pay for crap. I read a report on how the voice actors for GTA IV, one of the most expensive games ever produced, were essentially paid a stipend to cover their transportation costs. This sort of thing abounds, and it is the reason why it is difficult to find good (and funny) voice acting in the industry. The work is very often non-union, the actors are treated like crap, and the hours are absurd. Is it any wonder that characters in many videogames sound like a game developer dragged along his or her high school drama student kid brother to play the hero?

Besides, it would take a Supreme Court Nerd to remind you that she's up for the position of Associate Justice, not Chief Justice as grandparent says. That position was filled by Bush's appointee John Roberts. The Chief Justice serves as the chief administrator and spokesperson for the Judicial branch, presides over the impeachment of presidents, gets automatic seniority over his or her colleagues, and has a few additional administrative responsibilities. Associate Justices just vote on cases and write opinions.

It's a little more complicated than that. Yes, people are allowed in the US to have any belief they so choose, and follow any religious practice that doesn't break a law that wasn't specifically targeted at religion (you can't break a law in the name of religion, but by the same token the law has to treat all faiths neutrally to be considered constitutional by a court). That's the domain of the First Amendment, and I don't think anyone is opposed to that principle. But that isn't the issue here. It's the Scientology having tax-exempt status that people are opposed to. In the US, organizations that are tax-exempt such as religions have to follow a very specific set of guidelines. For example, a tax-exempt church is not permitted to endorse a political candidate. I don't know the details off the top of my head, but people that are opposed to Scientology allege that they've broken some of these requirements, and the only reason that they maintain their status is that their Lawyers are very adept at knowing the limits of bending the law. People are frustrated because there hasn't been a governmental investigation into Scientology's practices despite all the independent evidence and and allegations that they are up to shenanigans.

Except that MMO is not an 'addiction' . . . it is a 'habit.'

You are aware that saying videogames can be addicting is not the same as saying videogames are inherently bad, right? No one's going all Jack Thompson here. There's no need to get defensive of your pastime. Anything that gives you pleasure can be addicting. Heroin, Marijuana, sex, food, emotions, videogames, you name it. A habit is an addiction if you can't break it.

His friend will go through no withdrawal if his account expired tomorrow.

Ever hear of the Tetris effect? People who play video games for a long period of time and then stop find themselves involuntarily thinking about or mentally picturing the game, to their detriment. Yeah it's not delirium tremens, but it sounds like withdrawal to me.