The old Slashdot's still around. It's called SoylentNews now.

Actually, Galileo backed down at the end. He learned an important lesson. Never underestimate how frightened religious people are of their gods, prophets, clergy, etc. They would never say anything irreverent about any of their religious icons or deities. They are frightened that they will be held accountable for allowing anyone else in the world for disrespecting what they fear. Even today, there are people who would burn you at the stake or stone you to death for saying that Jesus was not the Messiah, or that Muhammad was not a prophet, etc.
They will react with real hostility to the notion that "Your sacred cow makes great hamburger".

Well my comment was sort of tongue-in-cheek. I just realized the actual event was in Scotland. Well, they could apply for statehood too I suppose.
Yes, amendments can be amended. But the 1st has been holding up nicely since 1791. We reserve the right to say offensive things because speech that isn't offensive to anyone doesn't need protection.

Lately, we seem to be having trouble keeping our 4th amendment. Some of us were hoping the world would notice and point it out, in the same way that you'd point out that your friend had a nasty bit of spinach in his teeth.

If England is ever going to be accepted as a state they'll have to learn to respect the first amendment rights of citizens. Oh, and while we're at it, they should be citizens not subjects. Drop the monarch.

"I still think it's silly to get all the anarchists on a platform that can be sunk by a torpedo"

More likely wrecked by a typhoon, at which time, I'm sure all these Randian Galt Atlases will cry for public assistance to save their sorry asses.

It will empower us. And by "us" we mean we in the 1% who will use it to further entrench our power over you, the little people.

If the problem was not being able to disable "tap-to-click", I had a similar problem. Eventually I stumbled onto a solution. I stopped messing with the synaptics driver and added 'moused_flags="-m 11=4"' to my rc.conf and let the touchpad be recognized as a PS/2. Voila, no more "tap-to-click".

"Really? They think people will be too interested playing Fruit Loop, or whatever it's called, to bother attempting to escape from an flaming aircraft?"
Yes really. In 1980 in Las Vegas, Nevada, people were to interested in playing the slot machine in front of them to bother escaping from the MGM fire. Quite a few of them died.

If the plane goes down in water your seat cushion will function as a suppository.

I like to think it's more "tongue-in-cheek sarcasm" than a troll. The google charts you point to indicate that Chinese workers income is rising. But it's still a fraction of what workers in the U.S. make at current exchange rates. Sarcasm-off, I'd actually like to see both democracy in China AND living standards for working people everywhere rising. My post was to poke fun at those who see the rising call for democracy as a threat to capitalism-as we-know-it.

My portfolio started taking a beating when these democracy agitators started causing trouble in Hong Kong. If Beijing doesn't do something to stamp this out, it could eventually lead to democratic rule in China. Labor activist will start demanding western style salaries and living standards and voting and such. Something really needs to be done about this so as to avoid labor costs getting out of control.

Check out the influence Sagan had on Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Being cognizant of the consequences of his recklessness and having sympathy for him aren't mutually exclusive. We can do both.

There's nothing wrong with Mars the way it is now. We should leave it alone.

Let's put this on private aircraft too. What could possibly go wrong?