That explains the No Smoking sign the probe found.

Then, on the day after Thanksgiving in 2013, methane readings shot up in Gale Crater and stayed high while Curiosity made three more measurements over the next 60 days.

Right after Thanksgiving? I suspect they did it Gilligan's Island-style and the probe really landed on Earth, in middle America.

You are making a strawman argument. Never did I suggest doing any such thing.

You can attempt to draw all the offensive comparisons you want while ignoring the fact it isn't a terribly challenging problem to solve when your wall isn't right through the middle of a major city and isn't easily climbable and isn't the only line of defense. Look at what happened when they put in a complex fencing system in the San Diego zone in the mid 90s: suddenly crossing attempts dropped by over 90%. Nobody got through there, so they all went into the mountains to go around the system.

Simply extend the San Diego system across the rest of the border and have heavy patrols. Anyone damaging the system is imprisoned for a period, then deported to their country of origin. Those who manage to make it through the system are quickly rounded up by the regular patrols and immediately deported to their country of origin. Most will stop trying. The few that remain will be far more easily managed.

Pardon me, but that's bullshit.

Let's just take the forces we already have today. We have 1.4 Million in active duty military personnel and 850,000 reserves. Obviously we can't take every single one, so let's take half: 1.1 Million people. Now stick them on a 3-man rotation minus 1/3 for duty rotations and leave and spread them out across the 1,954 mile border with Mexico. That puts 125 people plus their equipment per mile of border, plus all their R&D budget going into technologies to increase protection. Those personnel aren't just idle all day; they're building fences, digging trenches, laying sensor grids, and basically doing all the stuff that completely shut down the San Diego zone for crossings and they're doing it 24/7/365 at 125 per mile or one person every 14 yards.

I think that's all way overboard for what we'd need to actually secure (~99% reduction in successful unauthorized crossings) that border, but in any event, don't try to say it's impossible to do. Say we lack the political will. Say we choose not to do it. Say we just aren't interested enough in the problem to do what's necessary to solve it. But don't say it's impossible; that's absurd. I'm not even getting terribly creative here; just sticking boots on the ground and a whole lot more boots than we'd ever actually need at that.

I'm not sure if you're replying to the wrong message or if you've just completely misread what I posted, but I never said people didn't benefit from having an educational system, regardless of whether they have kids. I merely stated that if we're to block kids from public schooling because of the perfectly legal, if likely quite poor parenting choices of their parents, those kids should have the opportunity to be educated just as any other child. And if the goal is to separate the unvaccinated-by-parental-choice kids from the rest, then it makes perfect sense to ensure that tax monies continue to fund their education for exactly the same reasoning you've suggested.

However, if the intent is merely to punish the children of anti-vaccination parents, then by all means let's kick them out of school and ensure their parents have as limited abilities to educate their children as possible so we can perpetuate cycles of ignorance and poverty.

No, but they could sue them collectively under a joint and several liability argument, saying "we were damaged by $X... feel free to figure out which of you pays which percentage of that amongst yourselves," based on a theory that by linking to each other in the articles, they were acting in concert. That wouldn't require proving which individual new source is responsible for which damage.

I think it was one of the Gawker media sites that posted a full (and amusingly terrible) powerpoint presentation from the leaked stuff, full of marketing and distribution plans.

Unfortunately, parent is incorrect regarding the SCOTUS case law. Not the AC's fault, though - Eugene Volokh's quoted in the article and makes the same mistake. The case law refers specifically to publishing (actually re-playing) an illegally intercepted phone conversation on a matter of great public interest (specifically public teachers union negotiations with the school board). It explicitly says that its holding doesn't apply to trade secrets, private matters, or gossip... and what's the issue here? Trade secrets, private matters, and gossip.

Boies may be a douchebag, but he's a douchebag who actively practices law and apparently reads the cases in full, unlike the good Professor Volokh, who has never actually practiced.

Regardless, those documents will be floating around torrent sites, even if they do nothing. The horse has left the barn.

But this isn't about trying to actually keep the information under wraps - this is about trying to get some financial recompense. Like, someone let the horse out, and your neighbor suddenly has a sale on fresh horse meat... You're not getting your horse back, but maybe you should get a portion of their unlawfully gained profits.

In particular, the material includes both material under copyright, as well as trade secrets. Copyright law doesn't include a safe harbor for "but I'm a newspaper" or a generic "first amendment!" defense - while papers could publish short excerpts of the leaked info under fair use (17 USC 107), for news or commentary purposes, they could not, say, publish the entire script to the new Bond movie, relying on a defense of "well, we didn't steal it, and the first amendment says we can publish anything we want because we're the media."

Going further, many states' trade secret laws actually include explicit provisions about publishing trade secrets that were obtained unlawfully, even if you weren't the person who originally stole them. And while terrible law professor Eugene Volokh thinks that the Bartnicki case has a first amendment exemption, he's clearly never actually read it - SCOTUS specifically said that it doesn't apply to trade secrets, but for matters of public interest. Now, that may apply to things like Sony's CEO's salary, but it likely doesn't apply to things like advertising campaign plans or product release strategies.

So, if the media publishes the unlawfully obtained trade secrets or publishes the material under copyright in a way that exceeds the bounds of fair use, then they may be financially liable for Sony's damages. That doesn't put the horse back in the barn, since it's gone, man, but it does at least help pay for the new horse (and maybe a better lock).

Christianity started out violent but eventually mellowed out for the most part. Islam is just several ticks behind the times.

Depends on where you live.

Depends on where you live.

Just post them all on "Hot or not"

I don't think a parent wants The Internet rating their 11-year-old daughter's anterior end (especially if the score is extremely high or low.)

Scotty: "Files? How quaint".