I'm at the South Pole right now (yes, really), and I have been here for 4.5 months of winter and have another 4.5 months to go before the next flight in - and you have no concept of how unfunny that was. Of the 47 people here, two will not shut up about the F'ing Stagate that's buried here. Grrrrrr.

Actually it isn't math, it's logic.

Right, and people voting for a candidate in 1994 who could not win (Nader) put George W. Bush into the White House. That worked out really well, didn't it? As another poster saId, you need to take a bigger picture before you vote for a hopeless third-party candidate.

Actually, Bush got the nomination more because he was a pliable nobody rather than because he was "in with the neocons". He had to select Cheney as his running mate to get neocon support. A bigger factor was that he was able to pander to the religious right, which the Rs had been courting since 1994. Unfortunately they have now taken over the party.

The neocons ARE pretty much out of the party. Todays Republican party is composed of ultra-right Reaganites and party-of-god lunatics. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Frum and their ilk are long gone as leaders of the party.

For the normal seasonal flu you are right, but the H1N1 strain selects younger and healthier hosts. This is a demographic similar to the pandemic 1918 flu strain that killed millions of young adults while leaving older people relatively uneffected. The principle at-risk group with H1N1 is exactly the one you just told not to get an immunization. Bad advice.

If you don't know anything about epidemiology, or even the characteristics of the particular strain of flu under discussion, you should probably keep your medical advice to yourself.

Whatever. It still doesn't mean "more than famous" no matter how defensive you get.

I can't believe you get upset that someone calls you, a perpetual-motion crackpot, a crackpot.

No, "infamous" means being famous for doing bad things.

I've used Opera since 1995 and I agree that it is the best browser. Except for that one huge irritating bug they had for years in 9.x where it would freeze up several times per day for some users, it has been a delight to use. But there is NO help from Opera or their nazi-like bulletin board (no negative comments or questions allowed)! Their main fanbois can call anyone the most vile names but when you post even a mild response (such as, "I think you're getting too big for your britches to tell me to shut up - I have a real problem here") your post is deleted as being "abusive".

The freezing bug was thankfully fixed with 10 beta and I am now back to using the best browser out there, in my opinion. But the company Opera and their BB really stink.

NOx (NO, NO2) are not nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide is N20 and is not poisonous. Incorrect statements like this are the thing that makes stupid experimenting kids go out and try to breath their Mom's car's exhaust. And go ahead - make a joke about that, but it isn't really funny.

Maybe YOUR wisdom teeth extractions were simple, but not all are. Although I was not knocked out either, mine had to be taken out in pieces in two different sessions. Not simple at all. I can easily see how some people would prefer to be unconscious, and it does happen.

It is simply not done often in tooth extraction because it is much more dangerous than locals and you have to have an anesthesiologist in attendance during the surgery.

You've never taken ANY mood altering drugs including coffee and you fell into a paranoid dilution [sic] when you had nitrous oxide at a dentist office. For some reason I am not surprised. I also assume you don't exercise because of the mood-altering endorphins produced.

Normal human behavior falls along a continuum where some pleasant things are allowed in life. The taste and social enhancements of fine scotches, wines and coffees are some of those things that can enhance life's experiences, and yes, make you a better person. Really, just eating food makes you feel better. True, placing oneself at one end of the bell curve where these things are used excessively is negative and pathological behavior, placing oneself at the complete other end of the continuum seems just as pathological to me.

Everything you said was correct (and blindingly clear in the summary) up until your last sentence - which was pathetically stupid.

Let's see - you fixed the biggest hole in your gas tank so you're just going to leave the other holes because they can't be a problem because you can now put gas in the tank faster than it leaks out? Let's don't even talk about the Chinese and Indians who keep punching more and bigger holes in it.

This is only seems counter-intuitive because of the wording of the title. If instead of Obstacles Speed Evacuation the title had been "Shaped Exits Speed Evacuations" it would not have seemed odd at all. There is a difference between counter-intuitive and "not thought of before". The title of the article is unfortunate because it will mean acceptance by fire-safety professionals and and architects will be slower than it could have been.

This isn't behavior modification - it's fluid dynamics. These techniques will work just as well in a panic situation as they will in an orderly evacuation because they do NOT rely on human behavior to speed egress. In fact that's the point of the study.