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Space

Saturn's Moon Enceladus Has Underground Ocean 51

astroengine (1577233) writes "Gravity measurements made with the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft indicate the small moon Enceladus has an ocean sandwiched between its rocky core and icy shell, a finding that raises the prospects of a niche for life beyond Earth. The Cassini data shows the body of water, which is in the moon's southern hemisphere, must be as large or larger than Lake Superior and sitting on top of the moon's rocky core at a depth of about 31 miles. 'The ocean may extend halfway or more toward the equator in every direction,' said planetary scientist David Stevenson, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena."

Comment Re:What society really needs to do (Score 2) 518

It also doesn't take into consideration the differences between the various autos on the road.

Case in point, I failed the driving test twice because in car I was taking the test in (my mother's Lumina) it was physically impossible to do a three-point turn in the manner it was taught on the narrow road they tested you on. Mom was livid after the 2nd one so I drove the car back to the road & bet her $25 she couldn't do it either. Not only did she fail, she did a worse job of it than I did. I passed the 3rd time, same car. Had to do a reverse three-point turn, we had figured out that the car had a much tighter turning radius when you started the turn in reverse instead of drive. This wasn't an issue in any of the vehicles I had driven up to this point.

~20 years & around 400,000 miles later, I've never been in any kind of auto accident & haven't even had a ticket in over a decade.

Comment Re:Walmart employees, rejoice! (Score 1) 455

Unfortunately, I think you have this backwards.

http://newmediajournal.us/indx...

But at the same time I'm sure Wal-Mart has to have more than 50 full-time employees nation wide. So they have to offer insurance. The part I'm not sure about is if they only have to offer insurance to the full-time employees or not. If they don't have to offer part-time employees insurance they will just push them off to the state ACA exchanges which is fine since that is what they are for & said employees will still have medical coverage, even on their poverty wages.

I still will only be shopping there as a last resort however.

Comment Re:Customers may benefit... maybe (Score 1) 455

Increasing the minimum wage will do a few things:

1) Drive the economics of automation and productivity increases which will create more unemployment of unskilled workers, not less. Although this might be good for the economy broadly but its not good for the group minimum wage increase advocates claim to seek to help.

2) It will raise costs which will be reflected in consumer prices, effectively raising the cost of living. Lowering the quality of life the slightly more successful enjoy. In otherwords its an attack on the middle class.

Nice try, except there is no evidence for either of those things happening when reviewing past minimum wage increases. Try using facts & real math instead of right-wing talking points.

http://www.cepr.net/documents/...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

"The studies find minimum-wage increases even provide an economic boost, albeit a small one, as strapped workers immediately spend their raises. A 2011 paper by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that a $1 minimum-wage increase lifts household income by about $250 and increases spending by about $700 a quarter in the following year. The spending increase is driven by a small number of households that primarily buy vehicles. "

http://www.americanprogress.or...

"There is no evidence to support the claim that a higher minimum wage will lead to less employment. Businesses can easily absorb a higher minimum wage—with a small price increase or a small reduction in already very high profits, for example. The argument that a higher minimum wage will be a job killer simply doesn’t pass the sniff test of basic economic arithmetic, and is contradicted by reams of serious economic research."

Comment Re:Customers may benefit... maybe (Score 1, Interesting) 455

That is some really specious logic there. The odds are those people aren't getting $10 an hour.

"Walmart jobs are poverty-level jobs.
Walmart’s average sale Associate makes $8.81 per hour, according to IBISWorld, an independent market research group. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based upon Walmart’s full-time status of 34 hours per week. This is significantly below the 2010 Federal Poverty Level of $22,050 for a family of four."

http://makingchangeatwalmart.o...

Also, any company can get a tax break for hiring disabled folks. The Publix down the street from me has at least two people working there with Downs & I'd bet dollars to donuts they are getting paid a living wage.

Comment Re:Walmart employees, rejoice! (Score 1) 455

So? Are they getting enough hours to make a living wage? Wanna make a bet of what percentage of those cashiers are on some form of assistance?

"Walmart workers make, on average, $8.81 per hour, which, according to MIT’s “Living Wage Calculator,” does not qualify as a living wage for a single person in much of the country, and is not a living wage for a single parent with one child anywhere, including Bentonville, Arkansas, the home of Walmart."

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2...

"Walmart jobs are poverty-level jobs.
Walmart’s average sale Associate makes $8.81 per hour, according to IBISWorld, an independent market research group. This translates to annual pay of $15,576, based upon Walmart’s full-time status of 34 hours per week. This is significantly below the 2010 Federal Poverty Level of $22,050 for a family of four."

http://makingchangeatwalmart.o...

Your San Antonio example, if true, is a huge exception to the rule. Imagine what the national average for Wal-Mart would be without it.

Comment Re:No (Score 1) 824

Recall chic-fil-a who actually saw record revenues from backlash during that incident.

For two months. Then the zombies were led by the nose to the next crisis & forgot about old Dan. Now Mr. Cathy is saying he wishes he kept his bigotry to himself.

http://www.al.com/living/index...

As usual, dollars eventually take precedent over bigotry.

Books

UK Bans Sending Books To Prisoners 220

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Alan Travis and Mark Tran report in The Guardian that new rules introduced by the justice secretary in the UK ban anyone sending in books to prisoners It's part of a new earned-incentives and privileges scheme, which allows better-behaved prisoners to get better access to funds to buy their own books. But members of Britain's literary establishment have combined to condemn Justice Secretary Chris Grayling's ban on sending books to prisoners. 'While we understand that prisons must be able to apply incentives to reward good behavior by prisoners, we do not believe that education and reading should be part of that policy,' says a letter signed by more than 80 leading authors. 'Books represent a lifeline behind bars, a way of nourishing the mind and filling the many hours that prisoners spend locked in their cells. In an environment with no internet access and only limited library facilities, books become all the more important.' Prime Minister David Cameron's official spokesman says the prime minister backs the ban on receiving books and entirely supports Grayling, whose department imposed the ban to preserve a rigid system of rewards and punishments for prisoners and said there was no need for prisoners to be sent books as prisoners could borrow from prison libraries and keep some reading material in their cells. However a former prisoner told the Guardian that although libraries existed, access could be severely restricted, particularly in closed prisons. 'I've been in places where prisoners only get 20 minutes a week to visit the library and change books.'"

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