My physics class in high school taught me that the rolling coefficient of friction is higher than sliding, thus stopping you faster. 23 years of winter driving in Maine has taught me that ABS (or pumping the pedal if you don't have ABS) will stop you in a shorter distance.

Wrong -
American liberalism: You can do whatever you want so long as it's the popular thing.
American libertarianism: You can do whatever you want.

And if you're right about what everyone else's liberalism is, maybe I'm a liberal. I haven't seen evidence of that though.

I have a flip-phone at this point and it's held up reasonably (Samsung Convoy 2), but it costs more to replace it with another rugged flip-phone than to "buy" a new smart phone now. Give me a rugged smart phone with reasonable reception and I'll consider it, but right now the only choice (sharing minutes with family on Verizon) is that Casio that can't pick a signal no matter where you are.

"Can't yet move?" There are an awful lot of people out there living in areas without high speed internet by choice who still like to watch a movie now and then. Not everybody wants an urban or suburban lifestyle.

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie version of Ender's Game, but agree wholeheartedly with the reviewer's take on what succeeded and what failed. In fact, I probably enjoyed it so much because I expected much less. The glaring failures were all necessary to make a successful movie, but they still managed to indicate the most important philosophical points. Yes, Graff was harder than in the book (and Anderson's softness was used to make up for this), Bean was introduced too early and wasn't adversarial at first like he should have been, and what were they thinking with the romantic overtones with Petra... But we know why Ender did what he did and how it affected him, and that didn't change from the book.

My one sadness about this movie is that it didn't inspire my son to read the book (he started it last year, read the first paragraph of Graff's pre-chapter conversation, and decided he didn't want to read it). But at least my copy is now on loan to one of his friends who was inspired to read it.

Maybe it's just the area I live in, but I know absolutely nobody who owns anything larger than an F150 (or equivalent) who doesn't use it for things that a smaller truck wouldn't work for*. Unless you count the SUVs being used as family haulers. Even then - kids are more involved these days in travel sports with lots of equipment requirements. Being limited to a sub-compact doesn't work with more than one kid anymore. Granted, most could get by with a wagon or minivan, but the SUV isn't as ridiculous as people make them out to be.

* side note - I actually know several people who don't want a larger truck so they're hauling 8000+ pound trailers with trucks rated for 7000 or less. I'd rather have them driving the 350 even though the 150 (certain models without the trailer fully loaded) would do.

Ever tried to plow a yard with your Ranger? Haul a 5th wheel? Run a construction company? You might not need a 350, I don't need a 350 (though I'd like something bigger than what I've got to handle a bigger trailer and get me plowed without relying on a hired plow guy), but many people certainly do.

Devil's Advocate time here. I've long since stopped caring about the abortion debate, but how does that make it different from the abortion debate? The whole abortion debate is over whether abortion DOES put "people in their care at risk". Is the fetus a person, in other words.

To some, sports is religion.

Have you met any rednecks? They may not make much money, but they will blow all their credit on something like this. And their kids credit, neighbor's credit, and the cash from that liquor store they knocked over.

Funny - I really enjoy the beginning of the Silmarillion, but as many times as I've read about half way through the book I just cannot finish it. It holds my attention very well to a point (and it's been many years, so I couldn't even tell you what that point is anymore), but then gets rather long-winded. I want to read the rest because I keep hearing about all of these great stories that I haven't gotten to yet, but I just haven't been able to get there. Maybe next time I start at the mid-point.

I also dislike a lot of "modern metal", but I don't really care about understanding the words. Which is very fortunate since I very much enjoy folk metal and don't understand more than a few words of Finnish or Swedish (words I happened to pick up from listening to folk metal). What I don't like about a lot of the modern bands is the fact that they focus more on the aggression than the music. Yeah - having a good angry rhythm is great, but if the "melody" consists of one or two notes played fast with no variation, it gets awfully boring. On the other hand, if you've got a guitarist throwing more notes than should be humanly possible out there, but has no ear for melody it's just as bad.

I'll second your list of Tyr, Subway to Sally, and Skycad, and I'll also add in Finntroll and Korpiklaani as a couple bands I consider "required listening" for folk metal.

Mr. Smith was hanging out on Acacia Avenue closer to 30 years ago. I knew his neighbor Charlotte. She lived across the way at #22, but that was in 1982.

Considering that the link you provided has plenty of responses saying the same thing, I'm pretty sure you know what he meant. Just in case, here it is in plain english. The article you linked to showed what Android devices looked like before the iPhone and iPad came out. History tells us that the iPhone came out before the first Android phone. Therefore there was no Android device that looked different prior to the first iPhone like the article claimed. In fact, the picture showed a series of Windows-based devices in the "before iPhone" pictures. It is therefore a bad article and shouldn't be used as a reference whether you're wrong or right.

Personally, I abandoned the whole smart-phone thing as a bad addiction, but I won't buy an iOS-based device for my house. My computer is too valuable to install iTunes on. That and they're over-priced.

As a Red Sox fan who doesn't live or die by how the team is doing, I probably watch more Sox-Yankees match-ups than the rest of the baseball season combined. I don't think those games are too slow-paced. Yeah - they take forever, but it's the Sox and the Yankees! I can watch that game for 6 hours with a good group of guys and be very happy about it!

Of course, it's still better to watch how the Patriots or the Bruins are doing on any given game day.