You chose... wisely.

This assumes that what you want out of a legislative body is quantity. That's pretty much the opposite, since nearly every law Congress passes restricts freedom (or at least transfers it from one group of people to another) and thus, getting something done is usually bad.

some purple flowers I never learned the name of the whole time I grew up there

Probably chicory (which is more of a lavender color) or creeping charlie. I guess you could steep the roots and see if it tastes like camp coffee. :-P

One time event? I don't think artificial turf is exempt from the laws of physics. It's going to need repair, cleaning, and eventual replacement.

I guess the only reason you haven't been modded to -1 by the PC set is because you didn't include a TL;DR version.

Egads... with 15% sales tax the streets must be paved with gold.

Anyway, the method you teach is something I actually learned in grade school (I guess fourth grade) from my vice principal, of all people. He was sitting in the class and suggested it along with the "standard" method of "x + %x" that the teacher was using. The handful of kids who had trouble grokking it (or were just annoyed by the extra step) got it right there.

What he actually left out was the next phrase in the sentence, "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights", which is not quite the same as saying "in the eyes of the law" as these are also known as "natural rights" while "in the eyes of the law" would suggest the presence of a government.

OK, not-adult stem cells. I stand corrected.

I realize we're dealing with Slashdot nerds who are unaccustomed to having their sperm meet up with eggs, but a sperm will never develop into a human on its own and neither will an egg. Once you have a zygote, if no problems are encountered it will become an independent human being. Not after it pops out in nine months, of course-- so that gives you food for thought, as to why the point where the infant passes into our world and is no longer physically tethered to its mother is the only one accepted as life. Indeed, the true birth of the soul comes later, so are we protecting a life form in the present or its potential for the future?

I used to follow that strategy when I was younger. I stuck with my current position over 10 years, because I found myself in a great team and a great business line inside a large corporation. That corporation has made several poor choices regarding both capital and personnel that expose it to various kinds of risk-- including the compensation of THIS particular human resource. I'm part of a critical two-man team, so if one of us leaves the other is sure to follow-- there are issues such as 24-hour on-call that would make hanging around intolerable when it's questionable that the vacated position would ever be filled at all. Besides my industry experience and skills, I have entrepreneurial options so walking out would be scary, but exciting. I'm trying to impress this on my superiors in a low-key, professional manner but the foot dragging continues, so the nuclear option becomes more likely every day.

OK, you don't know what my level of driving skill is. I know how to operate a stick, although I'd be pretty rusty by now. I think the last vehicle I operated with a stick had it on the column.

Second, IF MY CAR DOESN'T HAVE A STICK I DON'T NEED TO BE ABLE TO DRIVE WITH A STICK. Example: the ham licensing. Morse code skills are no longer vital, so you don't need to demonstrate morse code proficiency for the novice license. If I never touch a manual transmission, why should I learn to use one? I mean, you're demanding people obtain a car with a stick so they can pass a driving test on it when they may never use one. Maybe I should make you learn in the 1971 Ford pickup that had it on the column-- just in case you had to drive one.

It's really not that hard to avoid using a stick. Maybe you're some sort of automotive purist who believes we need to have manual transmissions to "really drive". People in the past protested when we got power steering, independent suspension, and OBD too.

Be sure to use lots of regexes.

Knowing the task well enough to automate it, and knowing how to automate tasks at all, is a skill that not everyone has. It's like the anecdote about Charles Steinmetz, who charged Ford $1 for a chalk mark on the proper access panel of a faulty generator and $9,999 for knowing where to put it.

As a dirty libertarian capitalist, I agree with this. Management's job is to set objectives and make sure they're accomplished, within budget. If one of their employees can meet these objectives in 20 hours a week by being a genius with the computing speed of Data and the communication skills of Ronald Reagan, so be it. If they can meet them by being cunning, and working a few extra hours to automate tasks so that they can meet the objectives in 20 hours a week, so be it. Only a moronic manager (but I repeat myself) would fire that guy because he wouldn't take on more work-- because you'll be lucky if the next guy can get the same work done in 40 hours.

It's an interesting question of ethics whether or not you should comprehensively document the scripts so that they can be maintained. After all, once you've automated much of your job penny-pinching and shortsighted managers could decide you're no longer needed. We're assuming they're wrong, and you really ARE needed and not just looking for a Wally job (see Dilbert). I'm pretty sure putting a dead-man's switch in the scripts (unless it's actually a safety feature, to ensure that someone's checking the logs in case there is a potentially data-destroying fault) is unethical, but what about all the time put into documenting any code and daily operations?