The question is not whether it's worse than standing next to a bunch of bananas. The question is whether it's worse than an alternative source of energy. Assuming the demand for power stays constant (and it's certainly not going down), shutting down a nuclear power plant requires additional power to be generated elsewhere.

Clearly, a nuclear power plant is less safe than an open field. But is it worse than a coal plant, or a natural gas plant, or the equivalent solar or windmill farm? And by what metrics are we measuring 'safety'? How do you compare the (fairly unlikely) danger of a radiation leak at a nuclear plant to the effects of toxic rain, deforestation, and other byproducts of coal?

I'm want to believe you, Mr Random Person on the Internet, because what you say strengthens my own position, but in the interest of lording my superiority over those other myth-believing heathens, can you direct me to some documentation that supports this claim?

Exactly. Right now, it'd be really hard to send 'humanity' out to colonize the galaxy. However, if we simply want to preserve 'life' (or 'life as we know it'), it should be technologically feasible to load up a bunch of probes with really simple micro-organisms and send them out to seed nearby solar systems. Perhaps not today, but in the near future.

A "highway" doesn't necessarily imply a limited access interstate-style multi-lane road. The article lists the road as "US Highway 18" which is probably a 2 or 4 lane road with no bicycle restrictions.

That actually sounds pretty nifty. I haven't been inside my semi-local B&N in quite a while, but I might check it out next time I'm in the area.

No, but you're missing the point. If you're quoting Shakespeare, you would do the following

"To be or not to be..." --Hamlet, Hamlet by William Shakespeare

and not

"To be or not to be..." --Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

The first identifies it as a line said by a fictional character, and includes the actual author. The second places the fictional character of Hamlet in a non-fictional context.

For the people that obviously didn't read the article, here's some additional context:

---
Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where "no expectation of privacy exists" (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.
---

As much as the OP would like you to think so, these states don't have a law saying it's illegal to video the police. In fact, reading that last sentence would probably lead a reasonable person to conclude that in 11 or those 12 states, recording the police in public would be legal.

Bullshit.

Offer it in 1080p DRM free for $10 and people will pirate it because it's not $5. Offer it for $5 and people will complain that it's not $1. Offer it for $1 and you might as well just upload it to bittorrent sites yourself because you're not going to be able to recoup the cost of servers and bandwidth.

People who pirate movies want free stuff. As long as a free version is available, that's what they're going to take.

If a reputable scientist came out with a strongly researched paper saying that "hey, maybe this global warming thing won't be quite so bad", you know what I'd say?

"Stonking great!"

Contrary to what a lot of the anti-AGW crowd thinks, people in the AGW crowd aren't actually pleased by climate change. We don't want climate-inspired regulations because we have some weird regulation fetish. We want changes because we're actually worried that bad things are going to happen in our lifetimes if we don't change our behavior. We're not going to be sad if the bad things don't happen.

Who buys movies anymore? That's what Netflix is for.

Personally, I bought a blu-ray player because the picture and sound quality are both noticeably better than DVD. It's not like I have dozens of hours invested in producing homemade films that I'm worried I might not be able to play at a later date.

I don't know about other states, but in MA, you count any sales tax paid as a credit against the use tax. So if you purchase something in New York and pay sales tax, you don't have to pay use tax on it when you bring it home. If you purchase something online from Dell and pay sales tax, you don't have to pay use tax when you use it at home. If you purchase something from Amazon (which doesn't charge sales tax), you are obligated to pay use tax on it.

No, this isn't democracy. This is a bunch of people deciding something and going ahead with it whether or not anyone else agrees with them. It's no more a democratic than a lynch mob. Sorry, I'm not going to support a system that forces people into hiding just because a bunch of bullies don't agree with what they said.

That said, I don't see what's wrong with it and how you can make general scalping illegal and yet still permit Joe Schmo to sell a couple of spare gig tickets if some of his mates can't make it on the day?

It's generally legal to resell tickets at close to face value (IANAL, YMMV). So as long as Joe doesn't significantly mark up his tickets that he sells to his mates, he's OK. The legallity gets called into question when he attempts to sell $40 tickets for $150 because everyone wants to see the Red Sox and the game is sold out.

Not entirely. The amount you draw out of SS is proportional to the income you had while you were contributing, so their $1 income (for SS purposes) will result in smaller SS checks when they retire. How small, I couldn't tell you.