I recognize that someone in Mr. LaHood's position needs to strongly advocate for safety, but his position borders on authoritarian. I listened to an interview with him on Fresh Air (I think) where he basically shouted down anyone who offered a counterpoint to his position and portrayed them all as idiots. The best part was when the final caller claimed to actually be driving while calling and it set him off to the point I thought he was going to ask if they could trace the call.

Just get us self-driving cars already so that this and a number of related problems go away.

I'm sure "US scientists" would have absolutely no problem sharing. Your scorn is better directed at the military and bureaucrats.

As I am now located in proximity to an airport with a US Airways "service focus" and have had the "pleasure" of flying with them several times, I have to ask - how would you be able to tell the difference? Every time I've been in a US Airways terminal, there's always a significant number of non-weather-related delays and cancellations (compared to the other airlines' monitors). My wife and I have independently had three separate incidents this year where we were 4th and inches from having to stay overnight at an airport due to cancellations/late planes/overbooked crew/etc. In two of those cases, I had flights where we took off at the 2'55" mark, just shy of the three hour requirement to return to gate and let everyone off. The cynic in me suspects that US Airways is actually using that three hour window to plan its flights.

It's an abhorrent mess, and when I see the US Airways CEO defending against his last place customer service ranking, I have to wonder just how much denial one management team can stand.

So, I didn't want to cram up the submission block, so here's what I really wanted to say.

A lot of you already sound jaded beyond the point of wanting Syfy to continue existing. Fair enough. It could be someone else doing things properly. I mean, right now the Science Channel seems to have more going for it than Syfy. BBC America is *increasing* its science fiction lineup where it already had more content than Syfy did. I don't know how the figures are working for Discovery, but BBCA has to see something if it's able to keep this stuff going. It's not like BBCA gets to use the UK TV franchise fee.

I'm not proposing an ad-free network like HBO. The market is niche but it's still not tiny. I mean, a MILLION people watched SGU last night, and that's with a whole bunch of Atlantis fans up-in-arms over it. Let's say that 1M is the audience. At $3 a month, that's $36M a year alone for SGU. Plus, as I mentioned in the summary, their ad revenue will go up because the spots become more valuable. Let's figure four TV tiers - nationwide network OTA (IE - free), local OTA (free), cable (paid), premium (paid AND personally invested). On a premium niche network, these are people that are specifically interested in a narrow segment of content that the network is carrying and not just putting that channel on because Son of Sharktopus is on. You know more about these people and can spend more money marketing to them because they have the money to spend not only on cable but on a premium channel.

And while I personally don't have a strong taste for the cheesy monster movies that they've shown lately, I was amused by the terrible disaster flicks. Not everyone's sci-fi tastes are the same, but they're close enough that I think if they weren't tainted with wrestling and other assorted crap, we'd have a really good network on our hands.

Let's not forget that SG1 started on Showtime, and Game of Thrones is doing *quite* well on HBO. The market is there. Maybe Syfy can't do it, but someone can, and I hope they do.

Facts don't matter to trolls! Just sunlight and bridges.

In my experience (as the AC mentions), carpeting in the US is rarely glued down. They mostly use the tacking strips along the baseboards. Oftentimes there's a foam-like padding layer that goes under the carpet and if glue were being used, it'd only be gluing the padding and not the carpet. You'll note that your Wikipedia citation says "or", not "and". So it may be common practice elsewhere, but not in the US.

Also I don't know anyone that wears shoes indoors. I myself have a sizeable weather mat inside the front door and a bench with an interior compartment for storing shoes. If I'm having guests I don't usually make them take their shoes off, but I never wear my own around the house.

If and when the US has another natural disaster, I hope we can come somewhere close to what they are doing.

I think history has borne out that it depends where that disaster happens. If it's on the east coast, the west coast, or Texas, then great. If it's anywhere else, then not so much.

...because I know some harry-nosed wombats who would prefer it if we weren't.

-S

...and see how long it takes for this law gets amended.

If I say "Ghosts aren't real", I get moderated informative. If I post "That particular Ghost you call god isn't real", I get moderated troll.

Marry Me.

-S

Current guess is they're snooping on user agent strings in packets to determine if PC clients are being used to browse the web.

Because the censorship covered by the First Amendment deals only with the Government.

Exactly. In the US, Republicans and Democrats alike have embraced outsourcing of government services to private companies as a means of saving money.

But what we've lost as a result is accountability, regulation and Redress. No one seems to have considered the consequences of splitting up the Public Square into a million little private squares, each setting its own rules and standards. Or, perhaps, they have considered the consequences and then gone and done it anyway.

-S

personally I love the absurdity of their story lines. It just wouldn't be Doctor Who without it.

I agree with you its the absurdity that makes Doctor Who.

The problem I have with the rebooted Doctor Who is that the plots make absolutely no sense - even within the framework of the show. Its like the writers continually write themselves into corners that they aren't clever enough to write themselves out of. So... they just keep letting "impossible things happen."

My favorite counter-example: the movie Time Bandits. That film was totally absurd, just like Doctor Who, but it all made sense. You never got the feeling the writer was messing with you.

-S

... is here. (Pretty Sure.)

"Here's a quarter, kid. Buy yourself a decent server."
-Sean