Without a college degree your pay. Is capped at $40k a year which isn't enough in most areas to buy a house let alone have a family. Now that doesn't apply to everyone and some push beyond it but trade jobs for all but really good welders are basically capped at 50% more than poverty level for single people, and for under the poverty level for married with families.

So trade jobs equals poverty. Do you want your kids in poverty? What we need is not to boost minimum wage but to boost median wage. This country needs the 20million people earning 40k a year to earn 50k a year. That would boost the economy more than all the we combined did and would cost significantly less.

Money, lots and lots of money, billions of dollars of money.

The Central Valley of California is sitting on rich topsoil over 100 feet deep. Before the modern water projects, it mostly grew winter wheat, because there's enough moisture in winter (the rainy season in California) for that in most years. The Central Valley is technically a Mediterranean climate, not a desert (though the southern part of the Valley is technically semi-desert). But the water projects made it profitable and possible to grow crops year-round rather than just in the winter, mining that 100 feet of topsoil for food. Telling people they can't mine a resource like that doesn't go down well with Americans, who tend to be an ornery sort.

An example is almonds. Almonds now use close to 10% of water used in California. One almond takes approximately 1.1 gallons of water to create it.

So: Why, in the midst of drought, are California farmers planting *more* almonds? The answer, paradoxically, is because water has become more expensive. The water projects are not delivering water to California farmers, so California farmers have a choice between a) not growing crops (and thereby losing their farm, since no crops means they can't pay the mortgages they took out on their farm equipment and/or farmland to expand in earlier more optimistic times), or b) drilling wells. Drilling wells that in some cases are a thousand feet or more deep. The water from these wells is ridiculously expensive for two reasons: 1) the simple cost of drilling, and 2) the large amount of electricity needed to haul that water (at 8 pounds per gallon) up that 1,000+ feet of pipe to the surface.

In fact, the water from these wells is so expensive that if the farmers used it to grow a low-water-use crop like wheat they'd lose money. Most low-water-use crops like wheat or corn have a relatively low price on the commodities market, a price that will not pay for the cost of the well and the electricity to pump water out of the well. So, paradoxically, expensive water has caused farmers to instead grow almonds -- one of the only crops that sell for a higher price than the cost of the water needed to grow them, yet also one of the most water-thirsty crops on the planet.

And now you know the side of the story you don't get from the Libertarian free market think tanks and their notion that expensive water would cause water usage by farmers to decline. What matters to farmers is *not* the absolute cost of the water. What matters to the farmers is the *marginal* cost of the water -- the difference between what it costs to obtain the water, and what income they get from using the water. When water was cheap but in limited supply, farmers grew crops that were water-thrifty because the price of those commodities was enough to pay for the water. Now that water is expensive but they can pump as much as they wish from the ground (until the aquifer runs dry, anyhow!), the California farmer's slogan becomes "drill, baybee, drill!" and the almond trees go in.

True but the ISP are trying to deny equal opputunrity by charging three times for the same data. By creating fast lanes they are saying those with money are better no matter what. Which isn't true. The next google, Facebook or twitter will never be born with fast lanes.

Which is why kids long ago frequently committed suicide and hide the truth from their parents. That is why sucicde rates have dropped off dramatically. The other point is we stop to listen now as opposed to saying suck it up or die. Like they did before

I tried for a day to get Linux installed on my Mac. I thought Boot Camp would be perfect; it repartitioned the drive nicely, but I couldn't get Linux to load. I couldn't delete the Windows partition, couldn't remake it as a Linux partition. Eventually gave up. Is there a way to do this?

But the Cheshire cat and SchrÃdinger's cat is one and the same.

What is the difference between a dead cat and one that is invisible to your detection methods

No! You're only allowed to worry about one or the other!

Really? If only there was some one out at sea on a boat who could corroborate that. . .

http://www.internationalpolicy...

Anything that becomes molten will mix into the fuel and dilute it,

Not really. Anything that becomes molten, will pretty much vaporize, because Uranium melts at like 2000 F. If the Uranium is molten, everything else will boil away.

However: It's bollocks because the hole in which the uranium is burning, has fissures and crevases, and the Uranium would unevenly flow into small, tight spaces, spreading out and; ultimately diluting and cooling.

Experiments done at Argonne labs back a few years ago also suggested that the Uranium will form a cooler coating, as an outer shell. The core may remain molten, but the shell is cool enough to harden, and contain the molten core. The core may burn through the shell, but much of the mass will be left behind, as the molten part runs down into the burned-out cavity below, and the process repeats.

In any case, either of these scenarios would generate significant ongoing outgassing, and none of that has been observed at Fukushima; so it's likely the fuel melted and diffused and cooled. Just like Chernobyl.

I agree - and this technology will give more parents the peace of mind to hand over the keys to their kids. I only see good coming from this.

No. There's plenty of space to learn - and now there's recourse for abusing the freedom they've been given. The car doesn't shut off, the parents are required to remove driving privileges... if my kids want to drive my car, there are rules. I already told my son (months away from getting his license) that I will never buy him a car - I will by myself a car and let him use it as long as he's obeying the rules. He didn't complain... I don't owe him a car. It's a privilege. If he doesn't want to be monitored, he can pay for his own car and his own insurance... it's just that simple.

The context of my statement was presidential elections. Ideally, the president should matter very little. Unfortunately, after 240 years, the U.S. Constitution is essentially turned on it's head. In times of peace, the majority of governing is supposed to happen locally. If that still happened, we'd have much greater control over our local politics.

Torrents should make the isps happy. A torrent duatrubtes bandwidth. Increasing the amount of data transmitted which helps their peering.

Why isps hate symatrical peeering agreements is beyond me.