Given the general sentiment toward cable providers and their malevolent indifference to improve service, I can reasonably see loading a jury with folks predisposed to angst with their own service.

It's too bad this plaintiff will have a difficult time outlasting the cable giant's efforts at playing lawsuit.

Almost certainly. Which begs the question, "How much difference is there, really, between the choices available on election day?"

In retrospect, that security theatre works its magic at airports should in no way surprise us since we've been indulging in political theatre for some time now.

I listened to campaign ads from parts of the country considered liberal, and from regions considered conservative this election season. Assuming the candidates were attempting to address issues important to voters, the topics ran the gamut from job creation to how malevolent the opposition candidate was.

Not once did a political ad obviously endorse curtailing the government's sweeping surveillance powers.

Candidates from elections are prone to endorse whatever view the polls say their constituents are interested in. I'd say this is a poor harbinger of curtailing the powers of the surveillance state.

nice.

Oliver is insightful 'round a number of topics dear to /dotters, least of all net neutrality, but twists Fagin on Scottish Independence, private prisons, the death penalty, and even Dr Oz & nutritional supplements.

He's not Carlin, but he's closer than most contemporaries.

Political science, such as it is, is the artful implementation of your belief set into legislation that becomes law of the land.

That there are citizens in your nation representing you who shun science, logic and evidence, well, that is a political problem. And it's all mixed up with getting science elected when we visit the voting booth.

I mean to say the idiots haven't won yet, even though at present they seem to have the lead.

The people familiar with the matter cautioned the venture is in its formative stages, and Mr. Musk's participation isn't certain.

Maybe, but dropping his rather formidable name into a venture produces instant positive reception.

Some group would make public the government's abuse of surveillance

and the public outcry would break the decibel record set at a college football game.

Dream big, right?

For a corporation with $78 Billion in revenue, $62 million is like you paying the paperboy his Christmas bonus.

Indeed.

It is said the average human life of 76 produces 1.5 years on the toilet. I'd like to believe I've done some good thinking and improving during that goodly bit of quiet time.

If we can do nothing else productive with our cumulative years on /., we ought to be able to convince folks to type in their own url. Crikey!

It's precisely because thinking folks don't watch much cable television that this tripe is what's left to scavenge ratings from.

I'm sure this is a prerecorded event, but if it were live, I'd be rooting for the snake to win in the style of Grizzly Man.

It comes down to motivation, really.

An exclusively female crew?

Are they sliced sandwich pickles or whole dill?

Precisely.

We think we know what to expect when humans go to live on another rock, but big picture, we have no fucking clue the traits that will be selected for off planet. No diversity, no survival.... it's a statistical certainty on the bizzaro order of winning the lotto.

Right you are.

Following the same line of reasoning, isn't it most likely human life will propagate the universe as eggs and sperm with robotic delivery? Even keeping a single human teacher alive for many interstellar travels would be such a waste of resources, and in many cases impossible.

It will be an interesting moral conundrum when it becomes possible, because then our immortal offspring may not remember us. It's plausibly how we came to be on earth.

Diversity, including that of the genders, is one of the tricks life itself uses to flourish on our biosphere.

It follows, rather fundamentally, that men and women would be but two considerations for a diverse interplanetary expedition.

Lucky, since under this story line's premise, he's still going to be using the hell out of his remaining appendage.