The word "fact" doesn't appear in either of my posts. Actually, I specifically say in the second one that most of what I say after are my opinions. Also, I've read several articles from different sources that list Trayvon as weighing approx. 140 lbs, and Zimmerman weighing approx. 250. No exactly double, but close enough in my book. I can only go by what is being reported.

While this is obviously just my opinion now, I have a hard time believing that all of a sudden Trayvon just came charging full speed at Zimmerman with the intent to kill him. Instead of simply getting back in his car and driving away, Zimmerman then chose to "stand his ground"? Ridiculous. It would be different if the kid had been armed with ANY kind of weapon. But Zimmerman is twice his size and had a gun. What could Trayvon have possibly done to Zimmerman? Even if Zimmerman had got in his car and even simply locked the door, what could have been done to him? The whole situation stinks of bad decisions and paranoia.

He was told by the dispatcher NOT to follow and to wait for the police. He didn't. That should be the end of the story right there. He chose to go after this kid, with a gun. Regardless of who started the fight that lead to Martin getting shot, it should have never gotten to that point. Only someone looking for trouble goes stalking after some kid at dusk with a gun.

I'd be willing to bet that there is no provision specifically saying "You can't curse on the internet" since they specifically say in the article:

which tells me that they decided this on the spot. And if there actually IS a rule listed that says they can't curse on the internet, that school is fucked and it's better he is going somewhere else anyway. I made an entire website against my school when I was a young'n and all I got was a couple days of suspension before they eventually APOLOGIZED for suspending me and expunged it from my record. They even sent a tutor to my house while I was on suspension so I didn't fall behind. Schools nowadays are WAY too PC. If you try to sanitize kids artificially like this, you will end up with cookie cutter, boring kids entering college who aren't prepared for the real world.

Also, if this DID take place on the schools network, then the network administrator for that school should be fired, since anybody knows you block social networking along with many other things in work and school environments, especially on school-owned computers. It's enterprise network management 101.

...when he found out he was expelled was probably "Fuck" so all the school is doing is encouraging his profanity.

Seriously though, this is happening more and more across the country. I don't understand how the school gets off thinking it is their job or right to police what kids say outside of school or what they do with their accounts or anything on the internet if they are not specifically mentioning the school. At the very most, he should have had the school issued laptop taken away. That's it. Sure if they are attacking a staff member directly they can go from there, but trying to stop anyone from cursing ridiculous at least, and most likely a constitutional violation.

Agreed, but you, like most of the people who replied, skipped over my suggestion for making it easier to vote. Either with a national holiday on election days (both for the presidential and other elections) or by allowing online voting. If American's are lazy, then they should cater to that. I KNOW that more people would vote if they didn't have to work the same day they needed to vote, or if they could vote from their couch. Sad, but very very true.

But the point is this isn't only for flying. They are expanding to railways, bus terminals, subways, and highways. Slowly but surely we will have our rights violated even if we are driving in our own personal vehicles. If you don't take a stand somewhere, then it will really turn out like 1984. Also, it is all security theater. Especially now that you can buy your way out of the checks. For $100, you can have a background check and bypass the checks? Who is to say one of those people can't be blackmailed or paid to do something that would endanger the lives of all the people on board? The simple act of bringing 1 part to a chemical substance needed to make an explosive on board would be all a terrorist would need. All they need to do is kidnap someone's daughter/wife/husband/etc and you have the perfect inside plant on any flight you want. The TSA is officially a joke. Yet at the same time they pose a threat to your privacy.

While I still disagree with you about the electoral college (there are many ways to ensure little to no voter fraud with a direct voting system that I won't get into) I just wanted to say that I love that you quoted George Carlin. One of my favorite people from the last century who really had a keen eye for this stuff. Much respect.

There are plenty in the public who do not support these things. The fact is only a tiny fraction of the population actually votes. And this has more to do with votes not really counting for anything more than who the candidates are or what they support. Until they get rid of the electoral college and you get 1 vote for 1 person, and make it easier for people to vote either by having a national holiday on election day or online voting, our "democratic" system is really just smoke and mirrors with 2 parties that support the same political policies. The only differences they have now are philosophical and religious, with the Republicans being on the more crazy, anti-progress side of things, and the Democrats being in the center not willing to more forward. The "party of backwards", and the "party of stationary", respectively.

Despite everyone's initial glee over Obama, there are few democrats that will defend him breaking his promise to close Gitmo, nor do they support the TSA (though they will support him in the coming election because...honestly...have you seen these republican candidates? Even Ron Paul is pretty crazy and he is the most sane out of all of them, which is saying a lot). I have many, many conversations, with a wide variety of people, and only the most hardcore Republicans support the TSA and GitMo anymore, and even then whenever they fly they bitch about TSA. So it is kind of bullshit anyway, they just regurgitate the same FOX News Republican talking points as the current array of idiots up for the Republican nomination. They don't actually know what they are talking about, and are usually voting against their own personal interests.

In actuality, the outcry over the TSA especially has been huge, it's just that there is nothing for anyone to do about it. The most anyone can do is boycott flying and just stop taking airplanes to travel. But for some this is just not a possibility. They are a 3 letter government agency put in place and kept in place across both political parties since almost the turn of the century. Americans are lazy. Our political process has become one that encourages laziness because for someone to make ANY kind of difference, even to get people talking about a topic, it requires way more effort than just showing up on election day or taking part in a protest. Occupy Wallstreet barely accomplished getting the nation talking about the wealth inequality, and we basically had to sacrifice our right to public assembly and protest to get that to happen, since most of OWS has been broken up or arrested now under orders from state or local government officials (both republican AND democrats).

Saying the "public has spoken" and that they are FOR the things you mentioned is not accurate. It would be better to say "The public has spoken, but nobody is listening, so they've all but given up". There is a huge difference between support, and being voiceless. Unless there are changes in the way our political system works and the way the citizens are able to interact with it, nothing will change and the trends we've seen with Gitmo and TSA are only the beginning.

Easy to fix. It's just like in Mass Effect 2: there would be a "safe zone" for where ships traveling at FTL speeds to come out of FTL safely. The zones would just have to be large enough to accommodate the largest of ships. The station where you would disembark and your family would be would be outside this zone.

Also, if you are a Star Trek person, you will remember the episode of TNG where the ship had to be evacuated at an orbital platform so that it could be "cleaned" as it built up particles along the hull from many light years of travel. So even fictional space ships still had these types of problems!

But the real question is, Will Sales of Ice Boxes to Eskimos Finally Increase due to Climate Change?

Ironically enough, those cameras were made by Polaroid, not Kodak, and became known as "polaroids". Fujifilm also made some I believe.

It wasn't meant to be racist. It was meant to be a realist comment. The fact is, the majority of politicians (especially when you talk about the ones that are behind this bill) are, the majority, old and white. I am white myself, so this isn't some hateful remark against white people in general.

Fact is, America ranks as one of the WORST countries when it comes to diversity in politics. The USA ranks somewhere around 31st in the WORLD for women in politics. It is equally sad to look at the numbers for any other ethnicity in politics when compared to the number of white men (esp old white men over the age of 50) to other country's ratio.

I agree with you in principle, but there comes a time when calling someone "stupid" or a "dimwit" is the only thing left. There can only be so much discourse on the subject before you have to assume that the person you are speaking AT is not taking what you are saying seriously. This has been going on for months, perhaps years, with the entertainment industry and Hollywood. The masses cry out for them to change their business model, for them to provide easier access without over encumbering it with DRM that breaks the product/media, for them to update their dated delivery systems that FEAR technology instead of REVERING it, and for them to stop abusing the trust of their customers with empty promises and payments to more lobbyists to help further their agendas that none of us want to see fulfilled. There have been countless things now that deliver people the content they want, the way they want it, without issue (look at Steam and Netflix). But instead of building on the ideas of these pioneering services, they fear a digitally driven content delivery system that most of us would rather use than sift through thousands of torrents and comments to find the latest HD episode of a TV show that was on last night.

I am not a doctor. But if a doctor told me "if you don't change what you are doing, you will die or severely harm yourself", I would then seek a second opinion. If that second opinion told me the same thing, wouldn't I be a "dimwit" or "stupid" for not at least exploring with all my resources the methods necessary to stop my probable death? What about if an ARMY of doctors and doctors assistants and nurses told me the same thing? Am I a stupid dimwit then?

The same goes for the media industry execs who, instead of coming up with a new business model to support the changing environment, decide to try and control the very thing that is driving these breakthroughs in content delivery. If they refuse to listen to the "experts" and their customers, then aren't they also "stupid dimwits"? Is going and lobbying EVEN HARDER for SOPA/PIPA/ACTA and trying to break the Internet really NOT the work of a stupid dimwit in this case?