Sic the healthcare.gov guys on it. I'm sure it'll be right as rain in no time.

You wonder why we have so much dysfunction going on today?

Pervasive culture of butthurt = CHECK
Any perceived insult is by default true = CHECK
Special protected classes that can do no wrong = CHECK
Litigious society causing zero tolerance including honest mistakes = CHECK
Rampant immaturity = CHECK
General abdication of personal responsibility = CHECK

Let's pose a hypothetical, here. Let's say you (Linda, a woman) work for a company A. A has Big Boss, Linda, Tom, Fred and David as employees. The four of you report to Big Boss.

Situation A: Tom says something mean to Fred. Fred tells Tom to go fuck himself. Big Boss hears about it and calls them both into his office. Big Boss tells Tom to square his shit away or he's fired. Big Boss admonishes Fred to come see him about this in the future rather than responding in kind. Tom and Fred go on about their work and are a bit more careful about their interactions. This is a regular thing for Tom as he's brilliant but a loose cannon verbally. Big Boss talks to Tom and admonishes him that if he can't keep his asshole comments to himself, he will end up fired with prejudice.

Situation B: Linda says something mean to Fred. Fred tells Linda she can go fuck herself. Other employees hear the latter half of the exchange. Linda goes to Big Boss and complains about Fred using foul language around her. Big Boss calls them both into the office. Linda tells her story and Big Boss asks her to return to her desk. Big Boss then lectures Fred about the sensitivities of women in the workforce and how the small company cannot afford to defend against a "workplace harassment" lawsuit. Fred complains that Linda started the whole thing. Big Boss says it won't matter because a jury will default rule in favor of the woman because of articles like the above. Fred points out that justice is supposed to be blind. Big Boss points out that in cases of harassment, lay-wisdom holds that when women harass men, the men need to grow a pair, but when men harass women, it is only right and proper to expect better decorum out of the men. Big Boss never says anything to Linda because it could be construed as the abuse of power in a workplace environment.

Now, you may laugh at this but these are actual shit storms I've seen happen. The problem is that while most women aren't self-entitled whiners and most men are not adolescent assholes, we can't catch a break because the lawyers and bean-counters won't let a manager fire the shit out of someone just for being a prick/cunt. As George Takei said, we've reduced ourselves to the lowest common denominator of butthurt.

You do realize that making patronizing statements with "standard denialist" in your litany is actually counterproductive to any sort of rational debate, don't you? Either facts stand on their own in the face of dissent or they don't. And the "facts" of today might not be the "facts" of tomorrow, assuming we are continually collecting data (defined as the result of scientific measures/experiments).

As for "masses of anecdotes resulting in data," I would point you to all the "we can light our tap water on fire because fracking" people, some of whom have neighbors with recorded family history of flammable tap water going back into the 19th century.

Lucid, cogent and very much what I wanted to say, here. Thanks.

...how do you expect to get a much more complex system correct? Mind you, I'm aware that the problem is not necessarily the system itself, but the transparency of the system. People probably won't like to hear it but I'd suggest that the only way to eliminate fraud is to have votes linked to your ID so that every vote can be verified as A) not having voted multiple times, B) not voting if you don't exist in at least two separate systems e.g. social security and driver's license, and C) not voting outside of your registered district's area unless it's a national ballot initiative. Further, no more provisional ballots: if you cannot be bothered to register well enough ahead of an election to participate via the normal means, you do not get to vote.

I don't remember this sort of incisive analysis going on with regards to healthcare or tax law.

Considering how badly infested stationary ocean objects can become with various types of sea life, and how much maintenance it takes to keep a small sailboat from corroding and suffering general mechanical failures due to both of the above, I wonder at the amount of maintenance required to keep one of these in operation.

You're saying requiring all cars (which the original article states) to have this is justified by the fraction of a percent that are low-visibility vehicles?

Buggy/beta was not the point. Listening to customer complaints and responding was. On that point, MSFT has it in SPADES over Faceborg.

I'm struggling to figure out what teaching it had to do with my understanding of science? Creationism isn't science. I consider myself a Christian but I do not ever conflate matters of historical faith with how fast carbon decays or how electrons move or how likely the next jet I'm on is to fall out of the sky.

Knowledge of the bible has precluded rational scientific theory in exactly none of the self-professed religious people (e.g. Christians, Jews, Catholics, etc.) I've ever known.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

...my responses are limited; you must ask the right questions.

Blade icing? Cold-weather battery/fuel issues?

...is what happened in 2010 to cause the even larger spike upward, and why did it reverse itself.

I'm glad someone is pushing this topic (finally) and this is the perfect example. It's one thing to protect artists but the never-ending copyright extensions doing nothing of the sort. They ensure the media companies can generate recurring profits but, by and large, provide limit benefit to those actually responsible for the work. Oh wait...corporations are people now too.

It's funny how you snark about the "corporations are people" thing when it comes to this cause. I'm guessing you don't feel the same way about similar application of consequences/requirements when it's going in reverse (e.g. corporate tax rates)?