Neither France nor the US is anywhere near the extreme. Even within the EU, Greece and Italy are more dysfunctional than France. On the other side, half the countries in the world have fewer employment protections than America.

Yes, it is good. Unless you are among the 11% unemployed, or one of the many millions with short term contracts because no one wants to take the risk of offering you a real job. But once you get the permanent position, you can kick back, because the penalty for firing you is prohibitive, resulting in poor productivity growth, and a stagnant economy. But, no problem, just borrow more euros from the hard working Germans across the Rhine.

Not all French people dream about a secure job with little work. I know several that are hardworking entrepreneurs, bursting with ideas. Unfortunately for France, they emigrated to America, and are my co-workers and neighbors here in San Jose, California.

California wine is better too.

That works better in America, where our sabots are made of hardened depleted uranium titanium alloy. In France, they are made out of soft leather.

I once worked for a company that had an office in France. To get rid of an employee, you had to give them an extra year of pay, and even then, they could sue you for more, and probably win. If you own a company, and create jobs, the French consider you to be a criminal. There is a reason they have 11% unemployment.

... except he is "going away for life" precisely because of the accusations of "murder for hire", for which he was neither charged nor convicted. That is blatantly unconstitutional, and I hope this sentence is thrown out on appeal. A life sentence for providing an online marketplace is absurd.

Would you prefer that those thousands of transactions occur on street corners? Or on school playgrounds? By moving these transactions to the privacy and safety of the web, he was providing a useful public service.

The difference is that he stood up to the man, and challenged the system. It is the same reason that in Russia or China, dissidents are punished more harshly than murderers. They are a threat to the system.

Rape involves non-consenting victims. In fact, it is the lack of consent that makes it rape.

That is BS. If there was evidence that he had done that, he would have been charged, and the evidence presented at his trial.

Perhaps. Another reason is that it is not news worthy, or not even true. I notice that neither you, nor the original AC, provide any external links, or any other information to substantiate your assertions. Why should anyone believe you?

I have no grief. I think QE was the right thing to do, and it has worked far better than the austerity imposed in Europe. Also, I have a mortgage at 3.5% instead of 8%, which is putting an extra $1500 in my pocket every month for the next 30 years. No complaints from me.

Thousands of cars already have laser based obstacle detection that works in real time at highway speed. They work just fine with non-pink objects. They may have used pink in this instance just to make their image analysis easier. The color of the obstacles has no significance whatsoever to the basics of jumping and landing, and it is silly to fixate on that.

Most likely because they already had some pink Styrofoam lying around.

Who cares? Obstacle detection with lasers is already a solved problem, and that was NOT the point of this research. The point is the algorithms and mechanism of jumping.

This all started with President Eisenhower. He mispronounced the word during several speeches, broadcast on radio and TV. Since back in the 1950s, most people were not familiar with the word, they picked up his mispronunciation.

It is not who you are, but who you spend time with, that determines this. If you are Caucasian, but grow up attending a school with lots of Asians, then you will have no problem telling them apart. I lived in Shanghai for several years, and when I first arrived, I had a hard time remembering faces. By the time I left, the neural nets in my brain's face recognition module had been reconfigured. Today, I live in San Jose (more Asians than whites) and I have no problem remembering faces.

Why not? Many of these people will go on to be very successful CEOs, lawyers, politicians, and investment bankers.