Don't equate kamikazes with today's suicide bombers. Kamikazes had military targets and were done in the middle of a declared war. Suicide bombers, with rare exceptions, have civilian targets which are at peace. BIG difference.

Once you chase off a sheriff with weapons, your claim to use of excessive police force goes out the window, in my book. Further, the drone technology may have limitations that prevent it from being able to determine whether the suspects were truly unarmed. If you have 3 guys walking around a field, a drone can probably tell that they don't have long guns on them, but I highly doubt that the scan (thermal mode or visual) can detect sidearms. If I were a sheriff, I certainly wouldn't bet my life on that technology.

No, the Prius uses nickel-metal hydride batteries, not lithium ion.

Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/435/

XKCD covered the WHO alarm quite nicely..

Why is it that researchers always say that more research is needed? Is that like a barber always thinking you could use a haircut?

Sure, but the link farms don't want to pay for SSL certificates for their subdomains such as https://viagra.spamsite.com/ , https://buy-viagra.spamsite.com/ , etc. I think I'm going to like this change.

The Democrats could, in theory, nominate a different candidate. In practice, it is very difficult to wrest the nomination away from an incumbent. At this stage of the presidential race, it would take a miracle for sufficient support to coalesce behind another candidate. The organization would take several months to build, by which time it would be too late. IMHO, the only candidate who would have even the remotest chance of pulling this off would be Hilary Clinton, who of course is SecState, so that's not going to happen.

If a copy is found, it may be possible to determine when the copy was done and by whom. E.g., "Suzy's record was added on the 3rd and Bobby's was added on the 4th. This copy has Suzy's record but not Bobby's, so the copy must have been taken on the 3rd. Who did the backups on the 3rd?" By saying the tapes were stolen, it's much less suspicious if a copy is found.

Well, the Titanic sunk bow-first, so I think you meant "stern is already high in the air." For a car analogy, how about, "the wheels are coming off"? Or, to coin a phrase, "the auditors found the nitrous bottle and demanded it be taken out".

Replying to self, but opt-out is *not* possible for *federal* public sector workers hired after Jan 1, 1984. See http://www.ssa.gov/history/1983amend.html:

Makes comprehensive changes in Social Security coverage, financing, and benefit structure. Following are major provisions of the legislation which incorporate the recommendations of the National Commission on Social Security Reform: Covers under Social Security the following groups: (1) Federal employees hired on or after January 1, 1984; ...snip...

Correction, opt-out of Social Security is possible for public sector workers. From http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p963.pdf, page 5-13 :

3) Employees With No Social Security Coverage The final category of workers includes those who are not subject to any voluntary or mandatory social security coverage at all. This can only occur where the workers are covered by a qualifying public retirement system. Employers of these workers will not withhold social security taxes or show any 'social security wages' on Form W-2.

I must have been thinking of Medicare, since Medicare switched to "no opt-out" in the 1980s. From page 5-16:

Prior to April 1, 1986, the only way for state and local government employees to be covered for Medicare was by voluntary Section 218 Agreements between the states and the Federal government. This changed with the enactment of the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) of 1985, which mandated that almost all state and local employees hired or rehired after March 31, 1986 must be covered for Medicare, and pay Medicare taxes regardless of their membership in a retirement system.

I still think opt-out is impossible for private sector workers at least for now. There are, however, a few specific types of income which are exempt; gory details in a table starting on page 30 of http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p15.pdf.

There is more than one link in TFS.

Workers in some local governments like the one in Texas could once opt out of SS but can no longer do so. IIRC, this change was made in the 1980s. No private business could ever opt out.