"During the flight that will be conducted along the mutually agreed route, Russian specialists* on board of the aircraft will ensure strict compliance with the agreed flight schedule and monitor the use of the equipment stipulated by the treaty."

*every time I read this, 'specialists' rhymes with schmostages.

My education didn't fail me, I just don't live in a fantasy utopia.

I didn't say life was about MONEY, did I? Not at all.

I said life is about work:
- working to earn a living to have a home, food, clothing
- working to raise your kids
- working to keep your marriage together

If you assume you are somehow entitled to any of those things, without putting in a great deal of effort, you're a naive utopian who hasn't the faintest concept of the bloody, dirty, gritty underpinnings of the blithely thoughtless life you apparently drift through.

Life is rich and wonderful, moreso when you understand how much it took to earn the peaceful, safe, stable world most of us enjoy.

BoAS has been crying that the world is in *imminent* danger of destruction since at least the 1970s. At a certain point, even they have to question their own credibility insisting that the sky will be falling 'any moment now'.

Look at their logo for the doomsday clock, for pete's sake: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... it implies there is no conceivable reading in which we're not in immediate, constant danger.

This is PRECISELY the sort of crap that has led to much of the public disregarding "science" as a thing that can speak to many issues in our daily life - the BoAS may be staffed by nominal scientists, but they're otherwise pretty much typical, naive, left-wing academics trying desperately to parlay their "sciency" credentials into credibility in foreign policy and geopolitics.

Would you read a periodical on Particle Physics written by Michelle Bachman, Henry Kissinger, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi? Maybe for the laughs, I admit.
Then why would anyone give any more credence to a political pamphlet published by scientists?

Since the majority of college attendees AND college graduates are women, does that mean they're looking particularly for men?

Somehow, I doubt it.

I've heard this before, and it's kind of a load of bollocks. "Oh noes! The 'system' is indoctrinating people to be workers in their patriarchy!"

First, I'm not sure what's wrong with that. Contrary to millenialist fantasies, life is about work (even communists are too pragmatic to believe otherwise). You work the bulk of your adult life in an office, or a shop, or a factory, as a surrogate for roaming the woods fighting bears for food. It's simple. If you don't work, someone else has to gather food for you. Even "the rich" who don't apparently work, somewhere back in their history (or their family's) is someone who worked their ASS off to ensure their descendants could take it easier. So I honestly don't see the problem with a higher-educational system focused on providing absolutely needed work-focused skills, especially when our primary/secondary education seems to be more focused on self-esteem than fundamental knowledge.

We could, of course, always go BACK to the system where college was a luxury enjoyed by the wealthy and/or extremely talented. In that case, sure college could just be about teaching kids how to be better humans. (When you're spending tax dollars to make sure that nearly every Mary and John go to college, the public has a right to insist that there be measurable value/skills delivered for their funding.) The public tax rolls are not there to ensure that poor people get a better life, sorry. That's really one of the basic reasons why you should be working hard NOT TO BE POOR.

Shh honey, grownups are talking now.

Yes, if I were in college I'd certainly only lug one book around -- my notebook computer. I'd keep all the schoolbooks on the computer.

As to elderly eyesight, when I was a kid, all the geezers wore glasses, but few young people. Now all the youngsters have glasses and few geezers do. Why? The young are ruining their eyesight with computers, tablets, and phones much like I ruined mine with books.

But when I was a kid, cataract surgery was still rare. The patent on the CrystaLens should expire around 2023, so most oldsters won't need any glasses, since it not only cures cataracts but nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. It won't be long before I have to get the other eye done.

We now have a "right to work" billionaire as governor of Illinois. He's calling for "right to work" zones, fortunately the legislature isn't going to let him.

If I weren't retired and lived in a "right to work" state, I would demand that the state's government supply me with employment. After all, if it's my RIGHT to work...

"Right to work" is a flat out bald faced lie, and any working person who supports it is a moron.

The difference is that a middle class or poor person who votes Republican is voting against their own interests.

Actually, TV would use far less power than YouTube. With streaming, you're transmitting as well as receiving, and transmitting is what eats your battery (besides the screen, which each would use equally). It takes very little power to receive, a lot to transmit.

I doubt anyone would buy one just to watch TV, it would just make the tablet more useful.

If you ever believed that any country was the "good guys" on some sort of objectivist good/evil framework and didn't realize that EVERY country is solely focused on its own interests and security, then you're staggeringly naive in the first place.