Everyone in the region also seems to hate everyone else in the region though. And Iran's economy is in shambles much like most of the rest of the economies in the regions are in shambles (excluding oil tycoons that is).

Don't get me wrong, I think Iran is behaving extremely stupidly. You're right that hate is holding them back probably, just let's acknowledge that the US wouldn't exactly be pouring money into them if they'd hold hands at UN conferences.

They also appear to be misusing the Streisand effect.

I realize you and all your linux-using friends might know him as a heartless bastard, but if you think "history" will remember the greedy things he did to computing, I think you're being naive.

I'm wondering if most people today even remember that he started MS. "Bill Gates? He's that rich guy who runs a charity. Can't quite remember how he got his money. Did he invent computers?"

I actually think you have those numbers closer to reversed. The financial supporters of terrorism seem to pretty much be limited to those loyal middle eastern friends of ours, Saud royal family.

And a Russian thing. And a Mexican thing.

I'd argue that nearly the entire defense industry is completely unnecessary to national defense. Fighting terrorism is not national defense. Keeping Iraq intact is not national defense. Supporting Israel is not national defense. Keeping friendly powers in OPEC to keep them from raising oil prices is not national defense. Being aggressive to Iran is not national defense.

Telling ourselves all of these things are important to somehow keep bad guys from boating over here and invading is a wonderful way of avoiding admitting that we're utterly incompetent at doing much more than making enemies to fight later. Also keeps the money flowing. I'd be okay with it mostly if we could 1. Admit that it's not "national defense" it's just being dicks and 2. If it wouldn't impinge on our freedoms.

The paper was not rejected because of one reviewer. It's standard to have THREE reviewers, this is one guy out of three. Additionally, it's the editor's call whether to accept or reject it. Typically that's based on the reviewers recommendation. However, the editor could and should have ignored that one reviewer and accepted it anyway. Actually, the AE should have deleted the review and said to the authors "Sorry, the third reviewer never turned in his review, sending it out for a different reviewer." The AE could have accepted it even if all three reviewers had insightful criticisms of the paper and said it was horrible.

In other words, the rejection for publication could have nothing to do with that one review, it was not rejected due to that review, it was rejected by the editor who showed poor judgement in accepting the sexist review.

Please cite an example. Be specific to peer review for academia. "Some woman said something sexist to me in college" is not comparing apples to apples.

That was a four line run-on sentence with two parenthetical sets and four commas.

Maybe you should have had a woman read it before you hit post.

That's not proving the specific hypothesis being tested in the paper. Anyone who was convinced that discrimination was not still an issue will probably find ways of explaining away this incident, just like they have with all the other things that indicate there is still a problem.

I don't recall him saying anything about GTA I. He only started talking about them when they went 3D and got popular, which is GTA III.

Honestly, how ARE they going to introduce him in a positive or even neutral manner?

I'm picturing him talking with a text box appearing beneath his picture: "Jack Thompson, Lawyer (former), publicity hound (failed), censor (failed), moral crusader (shunned by other moral crusaders), and expert on making (inaccurate) statements about videogames"?

BBC: "Mr. Thompson, you... have opinions on the grand theft auto series, don't you? You can accurately say that much at least, right? Can you tell us what they are without it somehow backfiring on you, pathetically and hilariously?"

He didn't say he read the books, so he only went at most half hipster.

For full hipster credit, he would had to 1. say he read the books before the show came out, 2. say that they were ruined by the TV show and 3. found a way to say the books were much better than the TV show he's supposedly never seen WITHOUT saying "because it's popular."

OH SWEET JESUS NO!

Seriously? That's the worst case scenario you could come up with? Racists giving black people money in exchange for baked goods?

What?!? States where "small government" is a popular idea! That can't be right! Conservatives NEVER would regulate what responsible adults can put into their own bodies! You must be thinking of California, New York, Oregon, Washington, and the Third Reich.