Since I'm on /., you can reasonably assume I'm male. And therefore... yuck.

Happy people just plain _human_ better.

I disagree. People who are perpetually happy, who never suffer, fail to build character or develop empathy.

Am I the only one who thought of employer-sponsored twice-a-day blowjobs?

...

Oh, I am. Dammit, this looks bad.

That wasn't really a question of economics more so outright cheating/lying by the bond rating agencies.

I think even to the casual observer there was clearly a price bubble. The ratio of median house prices to personal income was insanely high. Anyone in his right mind knew those prices were well, well above what was sustainable, and yet they kept getting higher.

Yes, the mis-securitization of mortgage debt was a serious problem. But every borrower had enough information to easily know if they could afford the insane mortgages the banks were offering.

The honest answer is, we can only guess.

An answer that's snarky but perhaps accurate is that (a) he said whatever would get him elected, and/or (b) lacks the ability to resist those around him.

Don't get too upset. Considering how much Congress works against the People's interests, the status quo is looking a lot safer than reform at the moment.

I hereby declare you as having no idea what you're talking about.

When I worked at at DoD lab, the clearances weren't the problem, the soul-crushingly inept, capricious IT systems were. I'm easily twice as productive now that I've come back to the private sector.

If you think an intelligent agent is causing changes to DNA, that is absolutely at odds with thinking the changes are random mutations.

I think you're accidentally misattributing positions to different groups of people. In particular, I think randomness and divinely guided are fairly orthogonal beliefs in this case.

Whether or not a person can spot a pattern in DNA mutations has little to do with whether or not one believes an omnipotent, omniscient, invisible God is directing the mutations.

If the God believed in by Christians was some dumb, naturally powered autonomon, then you might reckon that human beings would understand it/Him about as well as we understanding the workings of physics, and therefore we'd have about equal success with understanding why/how Earthly evolution took the path that it did.

But Christians believe that we're far less intelligent than their God, and that we basically can't comprehend His mind. And so it's pretty consistent with their theology that we wouldn't understand what/how He was up to.

Biologists nearly unanimously agree that evolution is caused by random mutations and natural selection, but there are many millions of people that believe an intelligent agent designed all DNA.

I don't believe the two concepts are mutually exclusive, for a few reasons. First, "Random" is a subjective term, in the sense that a particular person considers something "random" if he can't spot a pattern. Secondly, most Christians I know consider it perfectly consistent with their worldview to believe that evolution is a mechanism by which God achieves His goals.

Never underestimate the power of a person to disagree if agreeing means that they will need to alter their worldview.

Then presumably that's true for persons on every side of an issue, no?

19,000 terrorists, holy shit we're all DOOMED!!!!

That doesn't sound right - there must be more than just 19,000 members of the NSA, CIA, FBI, Congress, and President.

Imagine that -- two people moderated to 5 whilst eschewing decidedly non-progressive/liberal ideas on /.

Yeah, I was expecting that sentence to end, "... walked into a bar."

And how so?

As I understand it, and I could be wrong, the courts' stance seems to be that once a person says something to the cops, he cannot plead the 5th regarding anything else on the topic. I.e., once they have a toe in the door, you're no longer protected by the Bill of Rights.

It's that all-or-nothing doctrine that strikes me as absurd. I think a much more reasonable interpretation would be that the accused can stop talking whenever the hell he wants, and the court and police need to just go screw themselves.

I have absolutely no patience for watering down the Bill of Rights.

However, once you make an affirmative statement you waive the right to not be compelled.

IANAL, but this legal theory strikes me as bullshit. Not bullshit as in, "contrary to what the SCOTUS ruled at some point", but bullshit as in, contrary to a reasonable reading of the Constitution by a citizen of normal intelligence.

After the walls were up for a while, some jackass land developers and greedy politicians would start building houses on top. And then we'd all of a sudden have the problem of exposed property again.

Consider similar cases from history:
- Houses on flood plains.
- Houses right near beaches, especially eroding ones.
- Israeli settlements in the West Bank.