I thought he'd only use it inside a walled garden.

The attachment to guns is not rational. Whenever someone starts that nonsense about how you can kill someone with a knife, a rock, etc., so we'll have to get rid of those if we get rid of guns, I would say this: Imagine you're at a crowded basketball game. Some nut runs onto the court carrying a) an automatic rifle b) a rock or knife. What will your reaction be in each case? Do you even bother to get out of your seat if you're 15 feet away in case b? How many people will be killed by the rock or knife before the person is subdued? If 2 people rush the rock-holder, he's pretty much going to be stopped.

I'd be (mildly) interested to know where dipshits like this come from. I don't understand the whole conspiracy theory mindset - if it were something that happened in the era before cameras, maybe they could construct a reasonable alternative explanation, but it (the second one into the WTC) happened live on the morning news! How many people in NYC actually saw the second one (not via TV) as it happened? I wouldn't be surprised to hear it was a million, since the first one happening kind of called people's attention to the area. I guess this kind of clown just needs to feel like he's somehow one of the only ones who has been able to find "the truth" and is therefore smart.Sad.

Do a little research of your own and come back with some numbers on how many tenured full professors make $200k a year. Tenure is nice (I've got it), but don't kid yourself that it comes with a giant salary. That's one of the justifications for it - you're not paying people a fortune, so you have to add something like tenure to sweeten the deal.

The "college industrial complex"? Really? Because it's such an easy life (that you know absolutely nothing about), right? Tell you what - go knock out a PhD and a few years as a postdoc or temp faculty while you hunt for a tenure-track job and then bust your hump teaching, researching, and doing service for 6 more years. At that point, you too can coast into making 7 figures and only teaching 45 seconds per semester with the rest done by graduate students. Oh wait - that's bullshit.

I assumed he picked Palin b/c the Dems picked Obama. He saw the other side (during the primaries) as choosing between a woman and a black guy. McCain knew he wasn't going to get votes from anyone who would base it on color by having a black guy as number 2, since number 1 on the other ticket was a black guy. That's why he picked VP LadyParts. He figured she would bring in some Hillary supporters who just wanted a woman in the office. That was apparently the only woman in politics he knew. If Hillary had won the Dem primary, he would have had to find a black guy he knew who was not smart enough to avoid the ticket (meaning no Powell).

I thought it was funny in the movie that they had two huge pieces practically grazing the Earth. For a real asteroid that could still be undetected (few km in diameter), that would be fine. For one "the size of Texas" and so solid that it could break drill bits left and right, the tidal forces when it came that close would probably mean high tide in Denver.

In the cities. If you're going to be where the hunting & skinning is happening, it may not look like a Wal-Mart parking lot on Black Friday.

Can you drill for and refine your own petroleum? Car won't do much without it. What happens when you cut yourself while skinning something? Go to Wal-Mart's pharmacy for antibiotics? The survivalist nuts will have about a week longer than the rest of us. Or the asteroid will take them and their bunker out instantly.

"We'll" know for sure? Are you planning to analyze the data, or even read the paper? Do you have the background to understand it? I'm betting that's a double "no". Here's a clue: just because YOU don't understand something, that doesn't mean no one else understands it. The lack of mathematical certainty does not equal "Well, they aren't 100% sure about it, so my half-assed guess is just as valid as their 'theory' or report of results"

The reason it makes sense to charge rich people larger fines is the exact same thing that makes your idea about community service a good one: your plan is to cost someone x amount of *time*. It's direct in the community service case, and indirect in the monetary fine case. If you fine me $200 and I make $20 per hour, you're effectively taking 10 hours of my work from me. If I make $12,000 dollars per hour, it's one minute. Your idea would fail if speeding only meant one minute picking up cans on the side of the road; if it's 10 hours, you'll get people's attention.