"Sure they are. I assure you that the priest who is fully supported by his congregation is taxed on his "earnings"."

Do you read stuff before you post?

What does "often do not earn any money" mean to you?

Also, there's a difference between joint filings for a family and "not earn(ing) any money". Besides, who said housewife? What about the unmarried woman with 5 kids and not working getting state and federal aid? What about the infirm? Transferring of government benefits (paid by actual 'tax payers") from one federal, state or pocket to the other could HARDLY be called "paying taxes". I'm not calling anyone out who happens to be in a situation that requires aid, but it is disingenuous to really try to call them "taxpayers".

"Some do and some do not. People who stay home to raise children often do not earn any money. "

Then they aren't taxpayers, are they?

Or it could be used as a robot guide for "what not to do." Basically, your robot would be sure to tell you that are not a faggot and should neither kill yourself nor catch AIDS and then die in a fire.

And it's insane when you compare fusion research funding to military spending in general, or what we spent on the Iraq war specifically. If we'd spent a fraction of those amounts on energy research...my God. It's not for sure that throwing money at energy research will solve all our problems, but come on, our society runs on energy, and the cheap energy we got from long-chain hydrocarbons is never coming back.

When I think about threats to the future of stable society, lack of cheap energy is #1. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would have all kinds of interesting ideas as to why the government isn't pumping more money into solving this problem.

Damn, now I want to buy a rocket capable of putting several tons into orbit via PayPal.

What, I can't find that on Amazon? No free two-day shipping available via Prime?

No, there's still plenty of horse shit being tossed around. Probably more.

It might be metaphorical horse shit, but it's still there.

I've never understood it. For some reason, everyone needs to go to college for a master's degree and have a career path that includes a corner office at some point.

Apparently, all the people that keep pushing this philosophy never need electricians, plumbers, municipal waste pickup, roads, and restaurants.

It's okay for people to have high school degrees and work in the service industry. It's okay for people to have associates degrees or vocational certificates and keep the world running. I don't know why anyone would possibly think that it isn't.

I have a pretty good opinion of the Oracle eBS suite, mainly because it puts money in my pocket

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

" The reason is that those committing crimes aren't considering the risk or consequence of their actions"

This is silly. Your basic premise is that "threat of jail isn't considered by those committing crimes" means that it doesn't prevent ANYONE from committing crimes. By your own reasoning, you've expunged the entire population of those who aren't committing crimes without questioning if their "crime free" state was at all influenced by the threat of jail. *BOGGLES*.

Example: A monster (they exist -- and the scary part is they look just like us) kidnapped my daughter and did horrific things to her. Trust me, the ONLY thing keeping me from committing murder is that one day I won't be available to walk my daughter down the isle* as I'll be behind bars. This is an extreme example, but how many people WOULD steal (or worse) if the KNEW there wouldn't be anyone coming for them?

*My daughter was recovered and the monster is getting ready to go to trial.

Or better yet, they go to PBS and do a reboot of 3-2-1 Contact! But who would play be the bloodhound gang?

You make it sound like the only purpose of the project was to take these photos.

My cynical expectation is that you will now reply belittling the rest of the project as well, simply because to do so supports your silly notion and therefore you're not "wrong."

"And what benefit does jail time give the public? "

That the threat of jail prevents many crimes. Point is that the "benefit" is not zero.

GENERALLY, (at least in the US) jail isn't automatic on a first time offense -- or even second or third. The courts bend over backwards trying to give the defendant a chance to change. And if jail wasn't a decent enough threat, why do so many criminals flee from the cops?

I knew one very talented programmer in the 90's who was taking every short-term consulting job he could find. There was a shortage of talent and he had built a great reputation for reliability, so he often took on several jobs at once and was good enough to get them done properly and on time. He commanded crazy-high rates and sunk everything he made into the markets.

Then one day in late 1999 he said "You know what? I have enough." He cashed out everything and retired at 39. He readily admits there was no foresight in it, he just got lucky and cashed out at the top.

Yeah, because I was being completely and totally serious.

Lighten up, jackass.

What's wrong with using the term "microcode?" America does lead the world in microcode. Intel and AMD are American companies.