In any other case you'd be right, but the problem is that for the candidates, money makes too much of a difference. How else can they be expected pay for all those expensive TV adds? If you don't have any serious money (millions) you almost never have a chance (candidates like Dave Brat being the exceptions). So, chances are that the person who wins is someone who has accepted those legal bribes and, after the election, will not do for their constituents as promised. That's why money in politics is so corrosive and must be eliminated before most of us can even begin to trust our elected officials again.

This sounds like an interesting method by which individual problems, such as immigration reform, might be solved, but we must recognize that the root cause of disfunction in DC today is money; that bribery in US politics is now legal and that the politicians see it as the norm. As a result, they -- particularly those in the federal government -- almost never care about what their constituents think: in 94-95% of all cases all they have to do is raise more money than their political opponents so that they can outspend them all in every next election.

When seen in this light, it becomes clear that issues such as immigration reform are not going to be solved unless those who fund our politicians also agree. Those donors are big corporations and very rich people, and in this case they seem to think that immigration reform will likely lead to higher wages and thus less profit, so they will tell the politicians to vote aginst any such reform or else their money will diverted to the next politician in line who will vote against it. The politicians think they have no choice in the matter, but that's also how they got elected in the first place (by doing what their donors told them to do).

So, anyone who thinks that the politicians they vote for should be acting primarily in the interests of their constituents, instead of the rich and powerful, should realize that we first all need to act together to get money our of politics. And it can be done! After that DC will once again start to get things done.

Being small and dim, red dwarf stars exhibit relatively violent flare activity. For example, flares occur regularly on our own star, but the energy this releases is small compared to what is produced in total. However, a flare like that on a star 10.000 times dimmer than ours can momentarily double the energy output. Moreover, flares on red dwarf stars can emit up to 10.000 times as many X-rays as they do on our sun. Oh, and remember that there can be more than one of these flares at a time. So, any life on planets orbiting stars like these has a lot more to contend with than just atmospheric erosion.

As more red dwarf stars are studied in detail, increasing numbers are being classified as flare stars. This may have to do with the type of core that these class-M stars have. Solar flares are caused by magnetic reconnection events that are responsible for the acceleration of charged particles (mostly electrons) that interact with the solar plasma. Our own sun, a G-type, has a radiative core that may result in a more stable and even magnetic field than is produced by the convective cores of M-type stars. If so, then it may turn out that all red dwarf stars are flare stars and, since class-M stars are by far the most numerous, this will have significant consequences for the Drake equation, i.e. the likelihood of finding other intelligent and communicative civilizations in our galaxy.

For a few years I maintained a sizeable collection of Wikipedia articles. I was very meticulous in checking all of the data, trying to use only the best sources and citing them all, per section of each sentence if necessary. However, it was a constant battle to keep others from adding anything from dubious information found in newspaper articles ("Somebody printed it, so it must be true!") to subtle attempts at vandalism (e.g. changing 501 mg to 502 mg for no reason). Many poor articles are eventually raised up to a certain level, but over time the good ones are also erroded to a point where they contain many more errors than expected. Other than relying on armies of experts (who often receive little respect) to constantly police their articles, Wikipedia has no mechanisms to prevent this from happening. It's a fundamental problem for them, but one which they can do little about without changing their most basic policies.

IMO it's not a question of letting kids drive autonomous vehicles, but whether we should let them be transported by them without any adults on board.

It would be simple enough to not allow children to give the vehicles any instructions regarding their destination, but perhaps such vehicles would also have to be made "child proof". They should not be able to influence the vehicle's behavior even if they tried and it would be preferable if an adult could intervene remotely at any time in case the vehicle got into trouble, or was stopped by e.g. a police officer. For instance, it would be good if the car had lots of cameras and microphones, as well as a few screens and speakers with which the vehicle's owner could see and speak to the child (say, via a smartphone), as well as anyone else inside or outside the vehicle, and possibly give the vehicle a new destination.

However, things can get more complicated if an incident occurs, no matter how seemingly innocuous, and the kids manage to get out of the car. Who's responsible for them at that point: the police officers, who might have wanted to search the vehicle? The garage owner, who needed to fix a mechanical problem? Or the parents, shouting at them from the car's speakers? Ultimately the latter, of course, but there will probably be situations that are not so clear.

The supposed solution here in order to guarantee net neutrality -- public ownership of the hardware -- is overkill. Other countries have net neutrality without that, so why can't the United States do the same?

Because almost all of US politics on the federal level is corrupt. Or else, how an earth did Tom Wheeler, a former lobbyist for the cable and telecommunications industry, ever get to become the current chairman of the FCC?? Because our politicians were paid by the industry to let it happen. And the worse thing about it is that the Supreme Court says this is perfectly legal these days (talk about activist judges). So, where previously the communications industry may have been reasonably well regulated, it's not anymore.

There is only one solution to this problem: get big money out of politics. And we can actually do this.

It would be difficult a thing to do in any other country with such a thoroughly corrupt political system, but lucky for us the United States Constitution includes Article Five, which describes an alternative process through which the Constitution can be altered: by holding a national convention at the request of the legislatures of at least two-thirds (34) of the country's 50 States. Any proposed amendments must then be ratified by at least three-quarters (38 States).

Is anybody working towards this yet? Yes. WOLF-PAC was launched in October 2011 for the purpose of passing a 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that will end corporate personhood* and publicly finance all elections**. Since then, many volunteers have approached their State Legislators about this idea and their efforts have often been met with unexpected bi-partisan enthusiasm. So far, 50 State Legislators have authored or co-sponsored resolutions to call for a Constitutional Convention to get money out of politics! Notable successes have been in Texas, Idaho, Kentucky and Illinois.

However, if the State Legislators are also corrupt, why are they helping us? Well, maybe they aren't as corrupt as you think. And even if they are, the important thing is that they seem to be just as fed up with the Federal government as we are -- so much so that they seem quite happy to help out with this effort. After all, it's a pretty simple proposal that speaks to both Democrats and Republicans.

If you think this idea makes sense, you can sign this petition, donate, or even take action by personally contacting your favorite State Legislator and asking for a meeting. It's easier than you might think and as a result we might be able to change this awful situation sooner than you think.

.

*) Over the years this has become the source of a problem that has lead to a series of bad Supreme Court decisions equating money to free speech. The decisions include Buckley v. Valeo in 1976, First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti in 1978, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010 and McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission in 2014, but there are probably more. Yes, legal personhood is important in that it provides a way to safeguard personal assets against the claims of creditors and lawsuits, but the truth is that if legal personhood were to be revoked we could simply pass a law to provide this protection in some way other than personhood.

**) At the State level, more than half of all political campaigns are already publicly financed in some way, so there's nothing strange about doing the same for political campaigns for federal office.

This is typical of our current President. If pressed on the issue, he might say that he would "prefer" the NSA not to collect phone records on all Americans, but that so far the opponents of the system just haven't been vocal enough about it for him to take any action on the subject. "Hey, Mr. President, where's all that _change_ you promised us?" I'm sure he would prefer to to do all those things, except that his donors would not be too happy about that.

To think that I voted for this guy... twice. Not that the alternatives were any better, but sometimes I wonder if this administration really is any better than the previous one. And I seriously doubt the next one will be any better. Why? Because today the donors are the ones who are actually running the country (with the recent McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission ruling only adding insult to injury). The only solution I can think of is to attack this evil at its source by getting money out of politics.

Religion is the original strong belief system upon which all others are based. Stalin may have been an atheist, but his regime and cult of personality was a lot like a religion. The word "totalitarianism" was probably first used to describe his rule, distinguishing the usual forms of despotism from an absolutist system that demands its citizens to completely subject themselves to the state and/or supreme leader, their private lives and personalities included. So when Stalin wanted somebody executed, for example, there were plenty of unthinking people around him who would blindly follow his orders.

And that was likely not a coincidence. At an early age, following his mother's wishes, Stalin actually trained to be a priest in a Orthodox seminary in Georgia (the country). Judging from his harsh criticism of the Russian Orthodox Church and of religion in general, there seems to be little doubt that he became an atheist later on, but there is no evidence that his brutality was motivated by his atheism.

Atheism is not new to me. The first time I questioned religion was when I was seven years old, asking my mother, "If God created the universe, then who created God?" Her answer, "God always was", did not sound at all convincing to me. At age 15, when I was finally allowed to choose for myself whether or not to attend church services, I immediately stopped doing so, having considered it a waste of time for as long as I could remember. A few years later I realized that I did not believe in God at all. That was over 30 years ago.

What the Internet did, however, was to introduce me to the writings of authors such as, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Their books describe in great detail how religion has caused so much more suffering in the world than it has ever managed to prevent, for example how wars may be started by people, but wartime atrocities almost always require religion to be involved. Ultimately, this is all caused by systems that tell us what to think, immunizing us to argument, so they should be recognized for what they really do: brainwashing.

What to do about it? Education, education, education. Mandatory up to age 21, but available to everyone at all ages and for free. Everyone should be scientifically literate. The best thing a society can do is to invest in itself, and religion just happens to be one of the first things we lose when we learn to think for ourselves.

https://xkcd.com/1150/

That may be true, but it's also a much more expensive approach that requires more space (not always available). Plus, all those extra viaducts and tarmac would also need to be maintained, while the State and Federal governments already do a pretty poor job at maintaining the existing infrastructure. Of course, they could always decide to raise taxes in order to pay for it all, but that would be unpatriotic...

As opposed to the seemingly numerous SUV fans here, I'm apparently one of the exceptions who actually believes in this product. I heard about the C-1 in December 2012 and made my initial deposit for one only about a month later.

I love everything about this idea. If successful, it will be the cheapest plug-in electric road vehicle on the market, it will have a range second only to a Tesla and it will have the fastest charging time of all due to its small battery. The latter, along with its speed and acceleration, is made possible by its low weight, and that's largely thanks to the fact that it has only two wheels. Mileage? The C-1 will get 200 miles on a 10 KWh battery, so think about that the next time you fill'er up. In the US that's about $1.25 for a full change, or 0.625 cents a mile. And yes, it'll always be more dangerous to drive than a car, but certainly safer than any motorcycle.

Okay, you can tell from my homepage link that I'm based in the Netherlands, where cars are smaller on average than in the US, where lane splitting is legal (below a certain speed) and where gasoline prices are higher than anywhere else in the world. I also happen to have a motorcycle driver's license. But as much as I hate the fossil fuel industry (global warming, the Iraq war) and wish I could stop buying gasoline, until late 2012 there wasn't an electric vehicle available that I considered worth buying; cars like the Nissan Leaf aren't exactly cheap and don't have enough range, while the Tesla Model S is just too expensive. The Lit C-1 has both of those bases covered. And like a sports car the C-1 may not be very practical (although more so than a motorcycle), but considering what it offers in return I'm willing to put up with that.

You're looking too far into the future. I don't expect that our civilization will last even another 100,000 years, but I'd like to think that we can get it to last more than another few centuries. Not keeping all of our eggs in the same basket has long been considered a good way to avoid premature collapse.

It's not about Earth or our species as much as it is about our cultural and intellectual legacy. With all of our eggs in the same basket, a collapse of our civilization could quite possibly mean losing all of that. But if we would also somehow managed to set up a truly self-sustaining colony on the Moon or Mars before that happened, then much of that information would be safeguarded. Sure, setting up such a colony would be very hard indeed, but on the other hand reacquiring the information that we would lose in a collapse would be much harder, and perhaps impossible.

Oh, and setting up an off-world colony, especially on the Moon (because of its proximity and because we know where to find water there), might be easier (and cheaper) that we think. For example, nations could start by encouraging (e.g. with subsidies) commercial mining operations on the Moon, and then encourage any resultant settlements there to become ever more self-sufficient. As the decades passed, maybe that goal would eventually be achieved. We can't know for sure unless we try. If a plan like that were to work, we'd have relatively little to lose and possibly everything to gain.

This is one of those scenarios in which it would be better to not have all of our eggs in the same basket. For instance, it might be possible to avoid a complete catastrophe if, in advance, we managed to set up a self-sustaining colony on the Moon or on Mars. However, unless we're very careful, that could easily be such an expensive endeavor that attempting to achieve it would only hasten the collapse of our own civilization. Ho-hum.