IBM recently bought SoftLayer, and is now offering a cloud with a bunch of additional enterprise services at https://console.ng.bluemix.net... .

Required disclaimer: While I am an IBM employee, my opinions are my own and do not represent the IBM corporation. In fact, being a publicly traded corporation, I don't think IBM can have opinions other than "it is good to fulfill one's fiduciary duties".

No, but the 14th amendment did free slaves, and it was passed mostly by Republicans.

Good point. It is probably easier for people who are culturally Indian to manage workers in India from the US.

If you offshore a position, it is in India (for example) and you don't need an H1-B visa.

I got my M.Ed. there. The main advantage of WGU is that it isn't class based but competency based. You do assignments (and tests) to prove your knowledge. They don't really provide much in the way of materials, but if you already know it and just need the diploma you can advance very quickly. It is ~$3000 for an all-you-can-study semester.

You win.

I don't know specifically about the 401(k), but frankly I don't care either. I don't put money in it - all the retail investments that are available will depreciate when as the baby boomers attempt to retire and realize the demographics don't support it.

Note: My opinion, obviously not IBM's.

This is pretty much IBM's policy. We're allowed to post about IBM, provided what we post is:

1. Non confidential (I can't tell you about the time machine we're building in the basement in Austin)
2. Not damaging (I am not allowed to be defamatory, for example - although I will say all of HP's employees who are black with yellow polka dots are habitual liars)
3. Clearly stated to be the opinion of a specific IBM employee, rather than the IBM corporation

It would be silly not to let IBM employees, for example, post about mainframes. A lot of the world's mainframe expertise is at IBM.

Disclaimer: I am an IBM employee, but these are my own opinions. They do not reflect the opinions of the IBM corporation in any way, shape, or form. Considering that IBM is not a natural person, I'm not sure if it even has opinions, beyond "money coming in good, money going out bad".

Probably he wants the federal government to buy that land :-(

It seems like a default position for state and municipal politicians to primarily look at how the federal government can help them. If anybody should pay people to come to Detroit, shouldn't it be Detroit or Michigan?

The visa issue has to be federal, of course.

Minecraft Pocket Edition has real time multiplayer, as long as there is a wireless LAN where you are.

I get paid to use them for the company's benefit, but I could use them to get a different job or do projects on the side. Also, I often learn things that aren't related to my job, and then I just happen to find a use for them.

So I don't mind spending my own time to improve my skills, as long as they aren't skills that are specific to the products of one specific employer.

Woe, in this case, is a non-binding resolution to stop trading with the US. Countries that benefit from trade with the US will mostly either defy that decision, or claim to obey it while doing it under the table.

The UN is not a government and it does not have an enforcement mechanism (UN troops are national troops loaned to the UN). It is a debating society.

The issue isn't the senior officers. It is the rank and file whose loyalty is required to overthrow the constitution.

Considering that the basic prerequisite for overthrowing the Republic is to gain the personal loyalty of the military (and preferably the veterans, especially in places like the US where they are armed), I'd say either "never" or "when he feels like committing suicide". The US military oath is to obey the constitution first. A president who declared himself supreme leader would suffer from a case of high velocity lead poisoning very quickly.