Or they just learn that not getting reelected is the price of getting into office in the first place because people have a variety of different issues that are "okay, you're out of here" offenses. In which case they just accomplish everything they want to in that one term and say fuck campaigning for reelection.

Say what you will about our election system, but the possibility of getting reelected keeps a lot of politicians from doing crazy stuff their first term. If everybody only had one term, the volume of crazy would rise dramatically because they have no reason to keep the voters mollified short of a recall.

I like the theory of "then vote their sorry asses out" but have come to the conclusion that the reason we still have a lot of these problems is that they really can't be solved without large, damaging changes to the entire system (we're basically trying to legislate to force people to stop being assholes).

"Democracy is the worst form of government...except for all the other ones." :)

I think you lost a "not" in there somewhere.

How likely is it that they'd get the message, though? If they lose the reelection, do they think "this is probably because people are still mad about that officer beating that dude 3 years ago", or "the voters are just morons"?

It sounds like they already *were* warned. Repeatedly.

From the EPA comment at least, I'm guessing you're referring to Republicans proposing this?

They will control both houses starting at the new year. When does the budget get voted on?

Ah crap. Got deer in the headlights for "Non-Defense Discretionary" since it had "Defense" in the title :P

Okay, so my original point is invalid. That doesn't change the fact that we spend as much on our military as the rest of the world combined, and a number of countries in Europe also tax their populations a hell of a lot more heavily so by % they may spend more on welfare stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

48% vs 35% is not "dwarfed." It's not even half-again.

P.S: Admittedly I'm a bit suspicious of that graph. The graphic says 2013, the page title says 2011, and the caption says 2012. WTF.

P.P.S: Oh--I should have known better. It's cold fjord.

Him saying "absolute undeniable proof" does not give you license to say "no possible way that could ever possible be true."

Remember kids, absolutes are never right!

Sure, I'd agree that nurture has a much bigger impact than nature.

We're just throwing a lot of anecdata around here, unfortunately. It seems like people have quite a problem with, when they see an argument they disagree with, they say, "Not only are you wrong, there is no possible way that you could ever be correct"...and in this case, well, yeah...scientifically, it *is* possible that they're true to some extent. We just don't have any proof of it so we should assume there is no correlation.

Your opponent can be wrong without being an utter and total fuckwit.

(no offense, stoatwblr--you're one of the politer people I've talked to on /. lately)

Good luck getting the duck to fly straight at the engine after the grenade-ass-up-shoving.

Pretty sure that it's a fair call to label anything that happens to an airliner on final approach as a near mass-casualty, considering the number of people on board and how takeoff and landing are by far the most vulnerable parts of the flight for an aircraft.

If the drone went into one of the engines and the pilot made a mistake, I would bet on casualties.

And somehow it was all systemd's fault.

Or maybe he just wants his book to sell better. Hmm: http://science.slashdot.org/co...

He claims he was excluded from academic positions or somesuch. So, financial loss.