Let's not allow the facts get in the way of a good Slashdot headline shall we!?

The new law does not mandate the teaching of Evolution as scientific fact, nor does it ban the teaching of Creationism (as some might suppose). What it does do is mandate that Evolution must be taught in order for a school to be eligible for government funding. How Evolution is taught in practice is still open to quite a bit of interpretation, and you can be sure that a school who does not agree with Evolution will style it in such a way that it will be presented as anything but fact.

Reminiscent of Jabba the Hutt's barge from ROTJ. "Bring me Solo and the Wookiee. They will all suffer for this outrage", LOL

You're taking a very black and white view on what is an incredibly complex issue. The truth is a lot of people, Christians included, did things that they deeply regretted later. Post-war came a period of incredible soul-searching and repentance for both Catholics and Protestants.

Regarding the Protestants, I think it's a bit of stretch to invoke Martin Luther. While his views most certainly influenced Germany as a whole - both good and bad, to say that the Lutheran, and by extension Protestant, Church as a whole still held those particular views is inaccurate and misleading.

Regardless! providing the quote is genuine, Einstein's observation stands and I'm inclined to take him at his word.

Thankyou for the post. I never knew this about Einstein and I'm glad I do now.

I agree. I've been using gnome3 since the beginning and have few complaints at this point. I just hope the Gnome team can push through the negativity and vitriol being directed their way and continue to imporove the product ( which they appear to be doing).

If there is no evil, to what do you attribute the wide-spread atrocities as happened during the Rwandan geonicides: tens of 1000s of innocent people horribly butchered. Probably some of the offenders were the 'retards' that you speak of: psycopaths etc, however they couldn't have all been that way. As became clear from many of the accounts afterwards, many were regular people, leading otherwise ordinary lives, caught up in the hysteria, irrational hate & fear and bloodlust directed against another group of people who, in many cases, were their own neighbours.

"The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?", Jeremiah 17:9

Bill's major point seems to be that the next generation of scientists will be somehow rendered incompetent unless their worldview is based on an acceptance of the theory of Evolution as indisputable fact. He doesn't phrase it that way, but that's the impression I'm left with by this and other, similar, points of view. It would seem to me that many, if not most, fields of science could be performed perfectly well without needing to be grounded in that way. He says towards the end: 'we need engineers who can build stuff - solve problems' - as if to say: a child who is taught Creationism couldn't possibly learn maths, physics, chemistry to the degree required to become an engineer...huh!?

(Moving away from Bill Nye) As far as what's appropriate for children to be taught; schools should be required to teach a science curriculum that covers a set of topics that is common across the board. Beyond that, I don't think it's anybody's business to tell a parent what is right for their kids to be taught. If parents choose to send their kids to a school that teaches Creationism *in addition* to the core curriculum, then so be it.

That's kinda ironic given Zuckerberg was born into a Jewish family...

qBittorrent - open source, regular updates, Win/Mac/Linux

The campaign is not about same sex-marriage, something clearly stated in the article:

"Some news reports said the 'Legalize Love' campaign would push for worldwide legalization of same-sex marriage, but a Google spokesman called that inaccurate. The campaign's focus is on human rights and employment discrimination, he said."

Regarding the rights of LGBT people in these countries, there are so many other human rights violations in the world today which I consider to be more pressing & urgent (sex slavery, child labour, child soldiers etc). It'd be great to see Google campaigning against some of those aswell. (Or is this only about supporting issues which directly affect their own employees?)

My belief is that boys (probably girls too) need positive male role models in their life in order to develop as leaders. For me the most valuable input into my life, as far as leadership training goes, was spending time with my Dad. Being with my Dad taught me how to be a 'real' man: to have confidence in myself, to let go of my insecurities, know when to be back down from a fight and when to step up, when to put other's needs before my own. Schools and other organisations play a very important role too and can certainly compliment and enhance this, but they alone are no substitute. The real failing in our society are fathers who are either absent, or fail to teach there kids (perhaps because they weren't taught themselves)

Let's say you resell a DSLAM port from {insert Australian incumbent monopoly telco here} and their backhaul happens to be congested at certain times. You can tell the customer that their copper performs as per spec until you're blue in the face. They'll be more interested in the fact that any broadband speed test they try consistently shows sub-par speeds.

I work for a broadband provider and I know that, in Australia at least, providing any accurate predictor on what bandwidth a customer will get *before* they're hooked up is nigh on impossible. There are so many different factors that can affect actual bandwidth (let alone the perceived speed as experienced by the end-user) it'd be crazy to try and write into the contract of service (other than to say 'you'll get greater than 0 kbps most of the time'). DSL technology limitations combined with ageing copper network, 3rd party last-mile providers, and general user ignorance/misconceptions can make it very hard for an ISP to control/fix/maintain.

At worst, they're spreading a 'nice story' that will warm people's hearts, give them a sense of hope & purpose in their lives where previously there was none. At best, they're spreading the truth! Greed, lust for power, failure to recognise mankind as equals, made in the image of God - these things cause human misery, and all are completely contrary to the Christian gospel. Many terrible things have been done in the name of Christianity, but to conflate the origin of those acts with the message of the Bible is mischevious or ignorant.