He probably wants to spend more time with his family.

Linking is slightly different in that it may direct people to copyrighted material. In this case, Hotfile provides an empty box that people may fill with copyrighted material. To me, this is similar to a storage facility. People could store stolen goods at the facility, but it is difficult to say that this is the storage facilities fault.

This is a very interesting question. I think there is a big gap between Sarah Palin and a historian of American history. However is is not clear how one generally declares a source to be authoritative. Is a graduate student enough? Untenured professor? Tenured professor? Tenured for X number of years? Obviously, there are cases where all of the recognized experts and neophytes agree. However, when it comes to issues of interpretation, there will likely be disagreement. For the time being, we just have to play it by ear.

Of course, the declaration of authoritative sources could be an area of research. I'll leave that to others.

I agree with your sentiment. I am completely against revising Wikipedia articles for improper purposes (political or otherwise), but this practice isn't new. Reporting on certain instances makes Slashdot appear biased and reporting on all instances would be extremely tedious. An article about defacing Wikipedia pages generally would fall under "news for nerds," but this article suggests its own political agenda.

I agree that he acted like a prick. However, I think it is much harder to claim that he denied service, which is what he was convicted of. At the time he created the passwords, he was clearly acting within the scope of his job so that wasn't a crime. When he was fired, he refused to turn over those passwords to his former superiors. Why is this different than refusing to work once he was fired? Technically speaking, he didn't do anything. At one point, he did give his former superiors bogus passwords. However, lying is a different offense, if it is criminal at all.

Basically, this law carves out a particular scientific theory and demands that there be no discrimination. Obviously, the purpose of this is bill is to advance a religious agenda, but that isn't the biggest problem. Scientific research shouldn't be legislated. Otherwise, you give wacky theories a podium that they don't deserve. For example, let's assume that a mathematician was trying to prove that pi is equal to 3. I'm not a mathematician, but I suspect that this type of research is ridiculous and its advocates should be admonished. But that is the point, I am not a mathematician, which is why I don't tell them how to do their jobs.

In the case of evolution, people should kick its tires and determine where the evidence supports it and where the evidence doesn't it. We will learn more about evolution and identify areas where more research is needed. That is a good thing. In the case of intelligent design, however, the only "research" that I am aware of consists of alleging flaws in the theory of evolution and assuming that intelligent design is the only alternative. If there really is a flaw in evolution, prove it. If intelligent design is the only alternative, prove that too. That being said, if there is a way to apply the scientific method to researching intelligent design, then people should be allowed to do it. If the scientific method is not used, then people should be treated accordingly. But that is true of all research, and we don't need legislation to enforce it.

What does "self-sustaining" mean? Obviously, there is the cost of hosting the site and maintaining the domain registration, but that isn't a lot of money. Is $20/month on the conservative side really that hard to get? Recouping the cost of purchasing the website is a different issue, but that money has already been spent.

She went to him first. Then he posted the bounty. Then she went to the police.

Since he pleaded guilty, it would take a very good lawyer indeed

I'm not disputing that he is douche, but the posting right after he left the police station is just plain stupid. I assume the original posting came up during the interview, so it should have taken less than half of a second to realize that updating the death threat was a bad idea.

Why not do both?

I see you aren't carrying a bomb, and you might want to get this mass checked out by a doctor. This would probably make the scanning more popular, although it might cause people without insurance to act suspicious when flying to get a free scan.

More accurately, only the outlaws will wear underwear.

From the article, it seems that he might have said a little more than the one sentence quoted above. Not that he is an American citizen, but calling the President names should qualify as protected speech, albeit juvenile protected speech. However, if he also made threats against the President, then that is an entirely different matter.

Actually, the USPTO rejected this patent in the first place because it wasn't patentable material. Bilski, the applicant, appealed this decision all the way to the Supreme Court. Undoubtedly, the USPTO will continue to approve bogus patents, but this is not an example of that phenomenon.

I was with you up until "debtor's prison." First, there may be some constitutional issues with debtor's prison. In addition, debtor's prisons are primarily for the benefit of lenders, and I don't see why people that lend to gamblers should be treated better than people than lend to figurine collectors. In addition, there is probably something that everybody buys that some other person things is a bad idea, so there really isn't a good way to objectively assess what is and is not "vice consumption."

Sometimes you have to accept that you can't stop stupid people from acting stupid, its what they do.