Not unlikely.

I wandered into a PhD program in Management Information Systems about a decade back. People with shelves of O'Reilly books, but a real hatred of actually coding anything. A shame.

Something like half of which are successful.

Can't a man wear a pink hat? I have this outrageous flamingo Hawaiian print.

Seriously, wtf is up with people thinking that they should get everything they want all the time?

That's what we call 'entitlement'. It's the confusion of cause and effect when applied to societal systems.

I guess its possible that Salon is not 100% propaganda. I've met Dave Weigel, and he's more of a mercenary than an idealogue. Joan Walsh is a tool, a tool's tool, and a die for casting further tools. By default, I believe the opposite of anything the lady has to say, and the topic of the IRS is just a case in point. I consider her a paid regime liar.

Part of the Post-WWII ecosystem, yes.

That U.S. crotch you're cheerfully kicking might not be able to bail out your "actual civilized" buttocks from the next war.
So, pray for peace. I don't wish you ill, but the "actual uncivilized reality" can be a, well, you know, 'bear'.

Can boken be overdone? Sure. A 1mm think depth of field is overdoing it, but so is shooting at f/16 everywhere. But even a thin DoF and the right can result in some magical results

Just because you know what you're talking about, and we're among friends:

It's bokeh, with an 'h'. And it refers to the character of the blur, not the blur itself. If you've got an image, say f/3.4, a hipster might say "nice bokeh" to you, but he means that you have a good lens, not that you've selected a good aperture. And then he might also suggest you make a "glisse" print. ;)

And, of course, shallow depth of field is a huge fad, and there's an entire generation of kids who won't ever be able to tell where they were in any of their childhood pictures. *That* will seem very "early 21st century" in a couple decades.

When incompetence is pitted against extreme radicalism, I'll take incompetence any day. As bad as Quinn is, he's head and shoulders above Blago or Ryan. However, the Republican would have to be pretty bad, one I would fear would really screw the country up (anyone named "Bush" would do it). In likelihood I'll vote Greenie or Libbie, depending on their candidates.

Not just Kubrick but damned near every other science fiction writer. Hell, Asimov had antique cars that were not only self-driving but sentient, six years from now.

But a few hundred years from now? I don't think ion drives driven by two fusion generators is out of line for that timeline. By then there will be technologies we can't even dream of today.

I did make a huge math error by not actually doing the math and I'm not sure how I'll fix it. Someone pointed out that you could get to Mars' orbit on the other side of the sun in three days at .8G. Damn.

Strangely, I agree with your outburst of honesty here: Socialism is the highest form of trolling. "The Kingdom of God, hold the God" is the über-troll of all time. I knew that, if we stuck with it long enough, we could reach consensus. God bless you, and have a great weekend.