Affirmative action was established by Executive Order 10925, which focusses on data collection. Executive Order 11246 supplanted this order (note that this order has been amended somewhat, but the link on EEOC's website seems to be dead, and I don't have the interest to find the most recent version---it is not necessary to counter your point, and if you really care, you can probably find it yourself). Again, note the emphasis on collecting data regarding existing discrimination, and the lack of any order to conduct "positive discrimination."

The original intent of affirmative action was not to set quotas (and, in fact, quota systems have consistently been struck down, as have strict point-based systems). The original intent was to level the playing field by explicitly disallowing employers and educators from removing people from the candidate pool on the basis of race (and later sex), and to encourage those employers and educators to recruit people from minority, historically disadvantaged groups into the candidate pool (for instance, sending college recruiters to high schools that are majority black in addition to all of the places that they would normally go). Please read the original executive order and tell me where you see quotas mentioned.

Yeah, but that is a long term risk. Just getting out of bed, he could step on a LEGO or small animal, trip, smack his head into his dresser on the way down, and bleed out onto the floor. Clearly, it is much safer to simply remain in bed. The health problems could take years (or at least days) to develop. :P

Ad hominem, no true Scotsman, a false analogy, an appeal to authority, some God of the gaps, and straw man arguments---and that's just what I can see off the top of my head. Nice. That is some mighty fine trolling.

I'm not entirely sure what your point is supposed to be. If your definition of safe is "completely devoid of any possibility of risk," then I wonder how you justify getting out of bed every morning. A more reasonable argument is that safety is always a relative measure. Injuries attributable to common vaccines are uncommon, permanent damage is incredibly rare, and death occurs at a frequency that can best be described as vanishingly small. On the other hand, many of the diseases that we vaccinate against often cause permanent damage or death, and weakening the herd immunity puts not only the individual at risk, but society at large. So, yes, there are some potential (though very small) risks to vaccination, but that does not mean that they are unsafe.

People who work hard to become expert in one field tend to believe that they are more qualified than others to speak to other fields, as well. There are numerous examples of physicians supporting creationism as science, engineers claiming expertise on mental illness, and (yes) English majors pontificating on mathematics. These people tend to speak up, despite their complete lack of relevant experience or knowledge, and over the objections and corrections of people who are actually experts in the relevant fields. In essence, as jedidiah said, "No one respects anyone else's education, skill, or experience." Thank you for so masterfully making the point by singling out a particular expertise that you dislike.

Man, that second sentence is awkward. I should have edited.

Suppose that there exists a configuration of N pulleys. To this configuration, we add an additional pulley. The two pulleys that are nearest to this new pulley are separated from the new pulley by a segment of conveyor that runs between two additional pulleys that are (potentially) quite distant. This configuration provides a counter example to the induction suggested above.

The paper that they cite is not in English (Abellanas, "Conectando puntos: poligonizaciones y otros problemas relacionados"), so I am not sure that I even really understand what the statement of the problem is. That being said, I don't think that the induction works out the way you want it too. Consider, for example, a situation in which you add a new pulley to an existing configuration and the two nearest neighbors are separated from the pully added by induction by a stretch of conveyor belt that runs between two pulleys that are very far away from the three-pulley configuration under consideration. I don't think that you can actually do the induction on the number of pulleys, as the configuration of the pulleys in addition to the number of pulleys.

Yeah, but "plus" and "sharp" (or should that be "hashtag"?) are almost the same word. I mean, anyone could make that mistake!

Maybe they meant C#? The [+] and [#] keys might be very close together on the custom keyboard layout your applicant used to type their resume...

Except that the argument wasn't really "potentially vulnerable to attack" is not the same as "compromised" (though it is certainly easy to see how one could come to that conclusion by ignoring the context---and maybe I am misinterpreting the parent, as well), the argument was that all (but only) SSL sessions using the newer versions of OpenSSL were/are vulnerable (i.e. compromised), and that by virtue of not every server in the world automatically being updated to these newer versions, the statement "every SSL session is compromised" was hyperbole.

One should also note that while the dictionary definition of "compromised" is essentially identical to "vulnerable," there are nuances of meaning in the way in which the two words are used. I would suspect that most people would regard something being "compromised" as more severe than something being "vulnerable." In fact, your example of science fiction seems to make my argument for me. You aren't really disagreeing with the parent, only nitpicking semantics (unless you really do believe that "every SSL session has been compromised," in which case there is a bigger problem with SSL than Heartbleed). If you are going to argue the point (viz: "compromised" and "vulnerable" are synonyms without distinction), why don't you explain what it means to "decimate" something, and how too many people seem to use the word incorrectly.

The CDC recommended vaccination schedule is easy to find, and contains a "Common Core" of vaccinations (your list, plus a couple more---this is not much, much longer than your list). Of those on the list, the only one that is not obviously part of building herd immunity is the Tetanus vaccine, though given how nasty Tetanus can be to an individual and how effective the vaccine is, it seems like an obvious choice to me.

I actually do something like this all the time in my classes: I will project a grid (either Cartesian or polar!) on the board (either white or black!), and draw graphs onto that grid. I like that much better than using a document projector, since I hate being tied to the lectern---I would much rather have the ability to wander around a bit more.

Chalk vs markers. The new (old?) vi vs emacs.