True, but is it actually 'retirement' that is causing people to die? First, many people retire because they are having health problems, so I don't think you can count them in the 'dead because retired' category. Second, retirement can be a big life change, and big life changes are stressful, and too much stress is not good for health.

Almost all 'retirement planning' focuses entirely on financial matters. There is very little done to prepare people for what their daily life will be. Couple that with the 'all old people are worthless drooling idiots who are a drain on society' ageism (such as that demonstrated by the author of this article), and you have a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Maybe if we spent a little more effort encouraging newly retired people to remain productive members of society, instead of the 'at 5PM on Sept 30th you became useless' mentality we have now that 18 month life expectancy would change for the better.

Bruce Cockburn (Jimmy covered it).

Why does retirement have to equal boredom or not having people depend on you? There are loads of service organizations, charities, and other non-profits who are quite happy to have retirees volunteer. My parents have been retired about 10 years (now in their upper 70s) and get a lot of enjoyment out of volunteering.

An oversimplification. The US, UK, and allies variously broke many cipher systems throughout WWII. Still the US benefitted from this.

What if the Germans were using, say, Windows, Android phones, SSL, Gmail, Yahoo, and Skype, instead of Enigma machines?

I presume you wouldn't say it was "wrong" of the United States to crack the German and Japanese codes in WWII...

...so when US adversaries (and lets just caveat this by saying people YOU, personally, agree are legitimate US adversaries) don't use their own "codes", but instead share the same systems, networks, services, devices, cloud providers, operating systems, encryption schemes, and so on, that Americans and much of the rest of the world uses, would you suggest that they should be off limits?

This isn't so much a law enforcement question as a question of how to do SIGINT in the modern digital world, but given the above, and given that intelligence requires secrecy in order to be effective, how would you suggest the United States go after legitimate targets? Or should we not be able to, because that power "might" be able to be abused -- as can any/all government powers, by definition?

This simplistic view that the only purpose of the government in a free and democratic society must be to somehow subjugate, spy on, and violate the rights of its citizens is insane, while actual totalitarian and non-free states, to say nothing of myriad terrorist and other groups, press their advantage. And why wouldn't they? The US and its ever-imperfect system of law is not the great villain in the world.

Take a step back and get some perspective. And this is not a rhetorical question: if someone can tell me their solution for how we should be able to target technologies that are fundamentally shared with innocent Americans and foreigners everywhere while still keeping such sources, methods, capabilities, and techniques secret, I'm all ears. And if you believe the second a technology is shared it should become magically off-limits because power might be abused, you are insane -- or, more to the point, you believe you have some moral high ground which, ironically, would actually result in severe disadvantages for the system of free society you would claim to support.

Um, yeah. Most companies running COBOL are doing it on NEW IBM mainframes, which they have paid millions of dollars for. These companies (banks, insurers, finance, reservation systems, retailers, etc) absolutely know the value of IT, and pay for it. What they don't 'value and fund' is someone who tells them they are doing it wrong, and they should replace perfectly functional systems with all new shiny.

Well, actually it's the Supreme Judicial Court, or SJC.

Somehow a quite conservatively formulated claim (subjunctive mode, "some models, 75% chance, 5-7 years, during some month of the summer") magically morphed into the strong claim "Al Gore said in 5 years time the Arctic will be completely ice free". How much did you pay for that perceptional filter? And can you get a refund?

Yes, I am American. Here is the New York DOT information.

If you are at a normal intersection (not a roundabout), and you cross the intersection, have you 'changed lanes'? Any sane person would say no.

Even the markings in the roundabout show you are wrong. There is not just 'left lane' and 'right lane', there are 'crossing lanes'. Yes, when you are in the inner ring and need to exit you make a lane change, into the crossing lane, not the outer ring. The major difference being a portion of the crossing lane is shared with the outer ring, but not going in the same direction, something completely unique to roundabouts.

No, they are not the same at all, and your insistance that they are says to me you don't know how to use a roundabout.

The only thing you have right is that curved or straight does not matter.

On a freeway, your major direction of travel is ALWAYS parallel with the travel lanes, even when getting ready to exit. In a roundabout, it is not. You do not 'change lanes' in a roundabout, even temporarily. You cross lanes.

Do actually know how to use a roundabout? There are NO 'lane changes' involved. You should not 'change lanes' in a roundabout, ever. There are lane CROSSINGS in a roundabout, essentially a right turn from the left lane while the right lane continues straight. Not something sane people have a lot of experience doing.

And just how to you propose to 'predict' where the other cars are going? That is the whole problem. If you are 'turning left' you are SUPPOSED to be in the left lane the whole time, but many people don't do that. They are driving in the right lane, and stay in the right (outer) lane until they exit, no matter how far they go around. If you are turning right, you are SUPPOSED to start in the right lane and stay there, but many people use the inner ring as just another opportunity to pass, especially if the first exit is more than 1/4 way around.

Where do you drive that is acceptable to do that (drive in the left lane and cross the right lane to exit)? I sure hope Googles cars are smarter than that.

If you are in the left lane on a freeway, and your exit is coming up on the right, you are supposed to merge into the right lane, then onto the slowdown lane and onto the ramp. You sure as hell aren't supposed to shoot directly across the right lane at a 45 degree angle and out the exit, bypassing the slowdown lane altogether, which is what you do in a roundabout.

They are just a counter balance to the excessive hype that comes from Google and its fanboys.