Thank you precious years of whiskey & Guiness. I can write this trip off my bucket list and they'll have a hard time disproving it.

While Louisiana is lauded as a corrupt government every judge will face a conflict of interest at some point in their career, fortunately for most cases, interpretation of the law is pretty straight forward, above all it's not up to judge's whims or personal preference as much as this yahoo article implies. If they do appeal the case, which is certainly their right, they will have to have more justifiable grounds to do so, and while going through an appeals process essentially grants their pause anyway...

Unless they followed his track record on rulings and gathered peer opinions on how he rolls this kind of "news" isn't really news. Now, if he has a history of loose reasoning or this is particularly out of character it's worth noting.

Now real news and conflicts of interest do exist, but this looks like a 1-liner to get hits more than any serious follow-up investigation. The general public is certainly welcome to say it's good/bad to drill, but when you leave a precedence binding paper trail, personal interests are usually left out.

I would be annoyed too. While others may consider it impolite to refuse, I think it's particularly rude to be unprepared and expect a stranger to hand over their laptop. You shouldn't have to pay for their short-sighted inconvenience.
I propose putting a horribly disturbing image on your desktop background. It doesn't necessarily have to be disgusting to you, just something you wouldn't want a boss to see. I strongly doubt anyone will want to use your computer after seeing it, and will probably avoid asking you, or decline once offered.
Put the personal back into PC.

It's pounds, not USD (assuming that was the $ you meant) so it's a little more drastic than that.
Also, I doubt they'd allow an ounce to be used, this should be able to be done with a drop or two, similar to paintings only needing the tiniest sliver off the side. It could be the lab guys ask for an ounce and test the remainder of their empty glass, I know I would...
What I'm interested in is who would want to open a bottle that hasn't been opened in so long just to test it? I find it difficult to believe this test wouldn't require near immediate consumption after opening to not change the flavor. I don't drink the cheap stuff, but 20,000 for a bottle is a little hard to swallow ;)

Contrary to what I expected to be the best environment, the computer lab in college was where I did my best work. Many nights I was at home, with my computer and had to drive for 45 minutes to go to the lab just to be free of entertaining distractions. Since entering the rat race while remote work is available I still prefer to come in late night and sit in a relatively empty office coding without distractions. I haven't tried much else, coding outside doesn't work too well for me and lobbies/public areas are too noisy. As far as mindset goes, I need a looming deadline and plenty of smoke-breaks to step away and rethink my work. There is something about being around productive people that pushes me to do more work as well. A group of students hacking away or a solid team lets me work longer and find motivation to keep going.

It's a good point. There's a difficulty with most groups to understand/relate to the nerd culture. I'm not surprised that a politician went with a slick greasy lawyer over someone who could accurately represent us but was out of touch with the administration.

Surely I'm not the only one who doesn't want children.

Damn, all those people were olympians too?