I agree, there was no reason whatever to spend the money to haul it to a LA Museum. There is plenty of space at Edwards to park it.

Instead the beauracrats at the LA Museum decided it would look good on their bloted resumes to have a Shuttle. The people are too stupid to tell the city "You will cut my tree down over my cold dead body" and thus prevent this travesty.

I would rather them cut the Shuttle up and recycle it than spend one cent of my taxes to display this.

Actually, adding lead to gasoline improved certain engine functions, mainly by lubricating valve seats and allowing higher compression ratios, which improved effeciency. I have torn apart many gasoline engines and never found any "clogged" by lead. The sludge that forms on the inside of improperly maintained engines is not lead, but is other componenet of lubricating oil that remain when oil vaporizes.

Lead had other problems and would have greatly reduced the efficiency of catalyic converters used in more recent vehicles, so it was replaced with less effective compounds. Many of these replacements were first deemed safe by the EPA, like MTBE, but are now causing quite a problem with groundwater. So, one can't always belive the claims of scientists working for the government. They know where their paychecks come from.

But that is my point. "mass" transit is reallly only used by the poor, who studies show, only use it long enough to buy their first car. The only other users of mass transit outside of NYC and maybe Chigago are commuters who typically ride highly subsidized trains which are even more expensive per passenger mile than buses. And, of course the OWS types who wallow in smug.

Ask yourself why more people don't use "mass" transit. The obvious answer is that they are not considered desireble modes of transportation by most of the population. Now, if you like them, fine. Please use whatever mode works for you. Just don't try any tell the rest of us what we should do.

For @thesandtiger, I can tell from your reply to my post that you *are* one of the OWS type who everyone wants to stand upwind from. Your idea of "improving things for others" is just another way of saying that you want all of the rest of us to live as you demand. Well, guess what - I and most Americans could care less what you OWS types think. You can live in your pest holes and ride buses to your meetings. Just let the rest of us live in our own way as our Constitution says "life, liberty and the pursuit of happieness".

BTW, one way to distinguish a self rightuous liberal is their way of bragging that "they care", when they only really care about imposing their way on others.

So you want us to subsidize your urban lifestyle. You are the sponge, the taker, the thief.

Mass transit is very inefficient on a cost per passenger mile basis. In southern California, the bus rider costs the taxpayer almost 8x more per mile than a automobile. This is true in nearly every urban region in the US, except NYC. If you don't believe me, look at the FHWA/DOT and TTI data,

So, people who ride mass transit are actually taking a subsidy from the rest of us, while claiming that the rest of society is selfish. How OWS of you. I am happy to let you live in your filty city. Just leave the rest of society alone.

By your very flawed logic, I'd say the many/most OWS folks are guilty of hating on a small minority (they call them the 1%). Why should we not add hate crime enhancements to their vagrancy and desctruction of public property charges? Since their motivation is hate of people with money, they are clearly guilty, right?

To use the words "hate crimes" is simply being uber-PC. It is popular amoung the liberal elites that if one disagrees with their ideas, they person who disagrees is filled with "hate". More often than not, I find that the hate, if any exists is found in the attitude of the so-called elites toward their "inferiors".

I don't believe there are any justifications for "hate crimes" charges. I encourage anyone serving on a jury to "nullify" those laws.

Look, everyone is a minority of some type. Claiming that a crime targets a minority group is silly in most every case where an individual is the victim. Suppose a black person breaks into my house and steals things from me because he knows that people in my neighborhood are white and rich and thus have things he can sell for a lot of money. Why is this not a hate crime? Surely this makes my neighbors afraid. He clearly is causing that fear, therefore add 20 years to his prison sentence.

This college student did something that hardly qualifies as a crime. All I can say is that the jury are a bunch of fools that were poorly instructed by the judge.

The article you linked to about the influenza vacine has a large section titled "Evidence of benefits of vaccination and evidence of no benefit".
I think that an informed decisiion needs to be made on the risk benefit of taking the vacine for each person and for each vacine. For example, I don't take the flu vacine because I am heathly and would likely experience little benefit. The article you cited also says that

"Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission."

This supports my belief that the benefits to me and society as a whole are limited. Of course, there are other views on this topic.

Finally, to the nanny state bozo who advocates jailing parents for failing to vacinate their children, please take you and your entire family to central Arizona and dig a pit to live in far from others. Be sure to fill in the pit after you enter it so that you may be protected from the rest of us.

Unfortunately, the report you cite is inaccurate. It neglects the ad-valorum taxes on motor fuels being allocated as user fees. This was decided by referendum as recently as prop 42. The scumbags in our Democratic controlled legislature refuse to allocate those (sales) taxes to highway construction and maintenance.

In fact, if sales taxes collected on motor fuel purchases were properly allocated the result would be a $25+ billion subsidy to the general fund (nationally) .

FYI, your whining about someone using BHO's name makes you look like a liberal douche whose love for the One is beyond bounds and no one will listen to you either.

Your argument is circular. First you say "Crime doesn't increase with density". Then you give reasons why crime is based on economoc issues. Then you say "What does create crime is desperate people. When you spread out the poor, for whatever reason, the desperation decreases, as does the crime rate". The latter is in direct conflict with your first statement.

I happen to agree with everything you said, except your first point.

Density drives crime. Man, while a social animal, does not prefer to live too close to ones neighbors. My experience tells me that high density is like reducing the income of that family by a significant percentage.

Thus, one can live at fairly high densities in > $1M townhouses and see little crime, while a lot of crime occurs when you are living in the slums in apartments of similar densities. While the difference might be hard to measure because of the low absolute rates of crime, take the > $1M townhouse dwellers and put them in detached homes in a suburb. Crime rate falls even further. This can be proved to some degree by looking at the 10 safest cities in the US. All follow the low density pattern.

An interesting experiment would be to take some low-mid income families and put them in detached housing in a place they could afford. I bet the crime rates would drop there, also.

Bottom line, density is bad. Most people would prefer to live in less dense communities.

Unfortunately the utopian socialists can't stand anything that does not agree with their value systems and make stuff up to have thier prefered lifestyle look good. I say, stay in your hell holes and leave the rest of us alone.

Looks like a hell hole to me. You might want to live stacked on top of and beside your neighbors - I do not.

People like you (uptopian socialists) think living in boxes cheek by jowl is fun and that everyone should love it too. I'm glad you are happy there and hopefully you will never want to leave your fine abode.

We have a name for places like your pictures show - "The Projects"

This is about goals. It appears to me that the advocates of GPLv3 were willing to reduce the proliferation of software using this license to achieve some new level of "purity". Sadly, they were either unaware or uncaring about the concerns of some people who might want to improve that software and this is now resulting in developers abandoning formerly useful software like Samba.

From my perspective as a developer, GPLv3 practically eliminates my desire and ability to use software under this license. It is too bad, because this encourages the creation of closed software where the user does not get any rights.

Nice going, FSF, you are succeeding in your efforts at "purity", while slowing killing the implementation of the very ideas you espouse.

That's why I like the cop's maxim "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six". That applies to me as well and if the cops come into my home or property, they are as likely to get shot as any other "perp". TH GP's GF included.

Cops that kill someone should be, in all cases, tried for capital murder. If they are innocent, they have nothing to worry about, right?

When I serve on a jury, I presume that everyone, including the cop and the prosecutor, as well as the defendant are lying. Starting from that point, I determine who might be lying less and make a judgment about what really happened accordingly.

I believe that most, but not all cops start out wanting to do the right thing, but become, in most cases, as bad as the criminals they attempt to control. It is unclear to me how to fix this problem, but I know never to trust a cop. They are not there to help you, except as that aligns with their desire to help themselves stay alive.

Cops are paid to do a job, just like most of the rest of us. I don't see any need to claim they are doing something noble. Their salary and pension more than make up for any risk they assume. Cops should remember, but often don't, that they are supposed to serve *all* of the people and put themselves second, always.