... what is their definition of a terrorist?

My guess? Anyone who "communicated with someone that is 'reasonably believed' to be a terrorist." Add your six degrees of separation, and presto, that's everyone.

Because the more you know about functions in your company besides IT (such as finance, investor relations, and -- yes -- marketing), the more valuable you are as an employee.

Right, because every place I've ever worked in IT, they've been totally transparent and forthcoming about finance, marketing, and investor relations to make the people in the trenches more valuable. Oh wait, no, that never happened....

Of course it can. "I believe I have a 90% chance of succeeding in this crime, i.e., of not being convicted for it. If I succeed, I receive benefit (money, the elimination of an annoying person, whatever) which I value at A, a positive number. I have a 10% change of failing, i.e. being convicted, and receiving sentence B, which I value at a negative number. My expected outcome is .9A + .1 B. In this case that sum is greater than 0. Logically, I should commit the crime."

I suggest doing a search on "certainty vs. severity of punishment". If you poke through the literature, it appears to be well established that criminals are far more sensitive to the perception of the *certainty* of punishment (which is what you are arguing would change a rational risk assessment) than they are to the *severity* of punishment (which is what I kan read is arguing would *not* change a rational risk assessment).

In other words, these two arguments are not contradictory. To the extent that criminals are rational actors, they will make risk assessments based primarily along the lines you cite, i.e., the chances of getting caught; with the severity of the consequences playing a much more minor role. So given an equal chance of being caught/punished...i kan read is correct...if one is rationally deterred from committing a crime punishable by the death penalty today, it is highly unlikely that the same person would be undeterred if the punishment for that crime was reduced to 10 years in prison.

Wouldn't you expect St. Patrick's day to *reduce* the overall number of livers available.

That's the magic of alcohol, my son. It can destroy one liver through chronic abuse as it makes another available via inhibition of good judgement. All hail the powers of demon rum!!

mp3 at less than 512kbps

The maximum bitrate for mp3 is 320 kbps.

Where does this meme I keep reading about how Atkins' diet killed him come from? He died at 72 from surgical compilcations after a head trauma sustained by slipping on icy pavement.

Yep, it's long been known that extremely high protein diets are bad for humans. I actually RTFA, and in the mouse study, it was a 50% protein diet. Mice are herbivores, that much protein is effectively toxic for them.

So the mouse study doesn't show that low protein diet extends lifespan as much as a ultra-high protein diet reduces lifespan, which is not really news.

The second study was an observational study of humans, which joins a long list of such studies where you'll find something to support pretty much any nutritional hypothesis you can imagine.

It depends on a lot of factors. First of all, for e. coli, most strains are harmless and so 1 or 10,000 of those cells won't really affect you. However, the greater the number you ingest, the greater the chances that you'll get one of the pathogenic strains. For someone with a normal immune system, I'd expect the chance of just one cell causing an infection is exceedingly small, but for someone with compromised immunity it would obviously be much higher.

But as I mentioned upthread, when water is contaminated, it is rarely just one cell.

Yes, but, the OP didn't say that one shouldn't use the method...those were *your* words and *your* assumption. The analogy simply points out that '99% removal' may not be adequate in this particular case.

OP does have a quite valid point...I worked in water testing lab years ago so I have some experience with this. The EPA standard for coliform in drinking water is zero, that is to say one e. coli bacteria in a water sample (usually 100 ml) means the water is contaminated. (And generally when water is contaminated, there will be far more than just one bacteria per 100 ml.)

So while, yes, removing 99% of the bacterial load is better than not, as a general rule a 99% effective "decontamination" process still leaves you with contaminated water

Sorry to say, but you are mistaken on several counts. The scheduling of drugs only came about with the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, passed by Congress (i.e., lobbyists were surely involved) and signed into law by Nixon. Marijuana was Schedule I from day one and has remained so, even though Part F of the umbrella legislation (the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970) known as the Shafer Commission, tasked to study the problem of marijuana abuse, recommended decriminalization (which Nixon famously ignored).