the hyphens comment our the rest of the (original) INSERT command, so that the truncated INSERT and the DROP TABLE commands get executed instead of erroring out due to syntax.

Disagree due to perceived inaccuracy of your terms "generally" and "most of these people". There's been a lot of homeschooling activity in the US during the past decade, and of the many homeschoolers I know not one of the families even goes to church more than 5 or 6 times per year. The concerns I hear have all been related to quality of education. I'm going to guess a few crazy, in-bred homeschoolers get more attention than a quiet, well-adjusted home-school family - they certainly have your attention. Of course this is anecdotal - if you could post some statistics that support your assertions I am open to that.

Similarly, an election does not show the electorate's ability to think rationally, but rather who's political campaign staff is more efficient. I propose some kind of critical thinking requirement in the public education curriculum.

Iran doesn't need a missile or stealth bomber to deliver a warhead - a freighter hold or terrorist cell could also work. I don't say that because i think they'll do it (nor would i say they won't do it) but looking at the most expensive options and rejecting those doesn't do the analysis any good. And asking whether a country will use nukes is of temporary usefulness. This is the culture that fielded the children's martyr brigade against Iraq's well-supplied machine gun nests. After allowing the nuclear genie out of the bottle who can say what the next 40 years will bring?

I just focus better in my tiny, half-walled cell at the office. There are a lot of people parading to my office for help with various issues and it's a fine thing for my boss to see that, too. I get lots of chances to work at home, sometimes without the kids, but there are many distractions. Who wants to tune a query or troubleshoot PL/SQL when there's an XBox sitting 10 feet away?

Laundered money for the Nazis. Probably still some gold Jewish teeth rattling in a few bank vaults over there.

Let's go with "Who stole their land from the native Maoris, Alex."

I was a rater for 1 year some time ago. My impression was the rating was against results from updates they were considering for the production algorithm. Testing at the QA level. I found it boring and soulless, but a wide knowledge of obscure, otherwise-useless facts really facilitated the work. Sometimes a little-known double meaning for a concept would cause disagreements among raters, and once a moderator hated my opinion so much he had my home phone called several times to demand I change my rating.

No, his reposonse is "almost constantly"

It says a lot that the balanced budget argument is often these days reviled variously as crazy, ignorant, and/or evil.

Wait, someone said most US citizens have more debt than cash, so inflation is a good thing because it only hurts lenders and responsible people who've been managing their finances carefully! Nevermind that most people use a generally fixed income to pay for basic needs... Seeing this idea posted to Slashdot, then lauded as reasonable by so many is just unreal.

Yah, we don't have, need, or want long distance service on our land line but every couple years it magically gets added back on (system upgrade? restore? planetary alignment?) and our bill goes up by several bucks. I wanted to get rid of the land line years ago but it's one of those ancillary issues the wife won't budge on.

This. It doesn't mean you're a boring person - there's only so much you want to share with co-workers. Can't get too personal, too political, or too funny... My ideal would be lunch as a team on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I'm wondering whether it would be able to capture phone storage thru USB to allow them to work on passwords/encryption later.

This is exactly true. The US is seen as selfish and insular when it doesn't step right up and sacrifice soldiers. Is there any American, anywhere, that hasn't been upbraided by a Briton about a) being a reckless cowboy always ready to start a war and, practically in the same breath, b) showing up to WWII so "late"? The US will receive hatred and vitriol proportionate to its global influence regardless of the paths taken, and Americans would do well to not get worked up over it while giving due concern.