Yeah, you're right, you can't really fix stupid.

Which do you think is more likely to occur - injury to your family from incorrect braking by an automated system in strange outlier conditions, or injury to your family from incorrect braking when some texting jackass doesn't notice that traffic has slowed or stopped? Your logic is similar to people who argue against seat belt use because in some possible but very unlikely situations it could cause a problem, while ignoring the fact that the vast majority of the time it helps.

Do you know what a "Dixiecrat" is?

Doesn't sound like it. None of you "Lincoln was a Republican!!!1!1" idiots do. Well, either that, or your cynicism knows no bounds.

Or you can refuse to get into the hash table.

I always found it quite amusing that it's much easier to immigrate to US as a relative (and I don't mean someone really close like a spouse or a child, but e.g. parents?) than it is as a skilled worker. Of all the countries that I've looked into, US is the only one like that. All others (of interest to me) had shorter immigration tracks through work than through family.

Hi, another libertarian-turned-liberal through life experience here. Well, not liberal, in truth, I prefer the term "left libertarian" as well - but hardly anyone in US knows what it is, and many people think it's like hot snow.

And the philosophy you describe is pretty much exactly what I came to espouse, as well. Freedom and minimum intervention as a foundation, but I've come to recognize that the degree of intervention that's necessary for a functioning society in practice is way more than most traditionalist libertarians consider their limit.

Also 100% in agreement on GOP needing to go libertarian if we are to see any true inter-party competition moving the society in the right direction. And I think this will happen sooner rather than later. They can try to cheat the demographic shifts for a while (with gerrymandering, voter ID laws and such), but those still give only a brief respite, and the clock is ticking. They'll have to go libertarian or yield the system to Democrats in its entirety. In fact, barring any tectonic changes in GOP platform, 2004 shall remain the last year this country had a Republican president for a long, long time.

And you can already see signs of the coming fracturing in the party. Sure, GOP "libertarians" are still insanely conservative, but the difference between a guy like Bush or Romney, and Rubio or Paul, is quite impressive. A few more electoral cycles and they will grudgingly accept that their "small government" platform contradicts their messaging on social issues - if only pragmatically, just to get more votes.

Or maybe we'll actually make electoral reform happen first, and then there will be more parties. I can't really call any specific one my own, but of all the small parties out there, the Modern Whigs approach and platform appeals to me most.

You can, if the benefits aren't instant, but rather kick in gradually as you work and pay taxes (possibly the faster, the more taxes you pay - hell, why not even let people dial their own rate above the certain required minimum).

In fact, it would probably make all the social programs solvent again, at least so long as the rest of the world still has people left in it (who have enough money for a ticket, but you could hand out loans for that, too). ~

I think he is referring to all immigrants, not just H1-B.

The only catch is that if you also have a sponsored green card application with the original employer, you have to start from scratch if you switch.

And the queue for green cards is, what, about 5 years currently?

This is very messy code.

It could have been a lot shorter, too, with something like bottle.

If they are making it easy to run "normal" Linux, why not install the appropriate libs and allow Linux apps to run side-by-side with Chrome apps?

I think they need to have a Capcha as well so the delivery person can prove he's a human not an autonomous drone. Make him do a mathc problem to compute the number.

There is VZ and ATT, and then there is Sprint and T-Mo.

I've had all four in my area, and VZ by far has the best coverage. It isn't even close. I curently have T-Mo and the speed is much better, but coverage much worse than ATT and VZ. I'll give up a bit of coverage for better speeds.

As for Fiber vs Cable vs Wireless, Fiber will win on raw speed every time. The issue is the cost for last mile, and always will be. Which is why I recommend that Municipalities start looking at building out their own infrastructure and offering CONTENT/INTERNET providers the opportunity to compete for the last mile customers.

Right now, there is no competition, only franchise agreements that limit competition.

If we know the models aren't even close to being predictive (at all), then why are we using them for policy?

IF you say, "Because that is the best we have", you're part of the problem and a religious nut.

The year or the book? ;)

The book is more a commentary on Socialism than anything.