Alderaan? You mean that accident with fracking? Totally nothing to do with the Empire! We warned them if they kept on doing what they were doing they'd end up like the Klingons and their moon Praxis, but did they listen? Nope! "Pure fiction!" they said!

I just picked up one of these and I must say I've been incredibly happy with it. The construction is top notch (Germans know a thing or two about how to build stuff), the key action is amazing, and it looks incredible. Pricey? Yes. But so is a finely-crafted automobile. Both will probably outlast you.

The headline is pretty misleading, and the illogical nature of it is revealed in the opening sentences of the "article." How in the world can you say solar "beats coal and wind" when it is responsible for roughly 1% of overall generation? Sure, it *added* more capacity by percentage this year than other power generation types, but so what? If I generated zero watts last year via hamster wheel generation and added one watt this year, my percentage increase is...well...infinity! Haha! I beat everything on the planet! But my actual generation is laughable.

I'm not trying to talk down solar, or wind, or anything. I'm just sick of the sensational headlines full of hyperbole picking relatively useless metrics to claim something like this is really amazing when, in fact, it's quite pedestrian.

Now there's more games than gamers!

Seriously, yes, I know -- or at least suspect -- there are more than a thousand Linux gamers on Steam out there, but really...when you've got barely 1% of the gaming market, it's a little silly to say 2015 could be the "Year of Linux Gaming." At some point you have to disconnect yourself from wishful thinking and hyperbole and just say "yeah, it's getting better, but it still has a very long way to go."

You can't? Try instead to imagine what would happen to a Clinton staffer who told her she can't do something, especially when Hillary has very concrete and politically-motivated reasons for violating policy (i.e. hiding potential corruption, illegal dealings, etc. from FOIA requests and Congressional inquiry). Hillary doesn't exactly have a reputation for dealing kindly with people like that, you know.

I did check the law. There's nothing preventing her from using a private email or private server...so long as everything is recorded, archived, and available for government inspection if needed. The problem here is there is no way to guarantee this. Clinton can say she's turned over everything "relevant" to government business, but she can't prove she didn't withhold unflattering or potentially illegal emails. Further, the government cannot prove what is or isn't relevant because it hasn't had control of the server/email since inception. This kind of stuff is precisely why the law was amended (admittedly after Clinton's tenure as SecState) to prevent Federal employees from using personal stuff for official business.

But to say she didn't break the law is being disingenuous. If she's unable or unwilling to turn over everything, she's not complying with the law.

She doesn't regret using personal email. She regrets getting CAUGHT using personal email.

One is taken to wondering how power prices can drop 40% when there are tons of new infrastructure being bought and labor being paid to install it. Wind power isn't *THAT* much cheaper to run. I have a funny feeling there are significant tax breaks being given to the companies installing the stuff and tax increases being levied on citizens to make this 40% drop happen...which, if true, means it's not really 40% cheaper, it's just those savings are being offset by higher costs elsewhere.

People used to say the same thing about the "luminiferous aether," you know.

Personally, I think "dark matter" and "dark energy" don't really exist. Instead, I think there's something wrong with our understanding of the fundamental forces of the universe. Perhaps gravity doesn't behave with the inverse-square law across vast distances like we think. Perhaps there's a subtle force out there we've yet to discover that only acts over extreme distances. After all, quantum mechanics is only observable at extremely small scales, and a century ago nobody even suspected it existed. What's to say there's not something else that acts in an observable fashion only at galactic scales?

This is pure drivel and has been debunked on numerous occasions. Armstrong was the first out because there was not enough room in the LM cabin for Aldrin to get out first when both were wearing suits. Further, the mission was practiced for months on Earth and every action was scripted and planned down to the minute. To suggest that Mission Control would alter this plan while the astronauts were on the way to the moon -- thus invalidating months of training and safety protocols -- is ludicrous. Armstrong got out first because he had to, and everybody -- including Aldrin -- knew this before they were even strapped into the CM.

As an American, I can say I'm glad the government *doesn't* stop this kind of activity. A functioning society requires its citizens to be at least marginally responsible for their own conduct. If they're stupid enough to be taken in by this crap, they deserve what they get. We neither need nor want a "nanny state" looking over our shoulder all the time, telling us what we can and cannot buy.

So long as it's run by a single clone and his AI robot assistant, I got no problem with this.

(and if you don't know what I'm talking about, go here.)

Actually, you're both right and wrong. You do have the right to drive without a license, as fast as you want, not wearing a seatbelt or helmet, drunk as a skunk...if you do it on private land. Doing the same on a public road is prohibited because you implicitly enter a contract with the State to obey certain rules in order to make use of shared public infrastructure.

The GP's statement remains true and correct. The Constitution does not grant rights to citizens. Indeed, it goes out of its way to do the exact opposite: it limits what the government can do. As a governing charter, it is unique in that respect.

Nothing in your statement invalidates the OP's original claim, mainly that if you consume fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight. During your anecdotal hospital stay, you consumed fewer calories than you burned and suffered the symptoms you described. You probably lost weight, too. Hence, what the OP said is both true and correct.

Your claims of "up to $12,000 per month" appear to take the absolute worst case scenario. Wikipedia notes roughly 90% of Xyrem consumers get this via insurance, with co-pays under $50 and a significant number get it for under $25. Admittedly, insurance companies are getting stiffed, but one suspects they're negotiating lower than worst-case pricing with the supplier in the first place.

Being an Orphan drug, development costs are amortized over a very few patients, making costs high. It's like saying a B-2 bomber costs billions of dollars to build when, in fact, a huge cost of "building" the plane is the amortized R&D costs. The actual labor and materials is much less. That's why the fewer planes are built, the more expensive each one becomes.

There is no good solution to this problem. If you fix prices such that R&D costs can't be recouped, you remove incentive for pharma to R&D the drug in the first place. If you allow them to recoup the costs, the end user must pay them. There is no other way. Pharma R&D dollars don't just fall from the sky.