"Gamma ray bursts would wipe out any live more complex than microbes".... ...that is, unless life evolved to use radiation as an energy source.

In other words, a couple of astrophysicists speculate to a degree that's only slightly and unquantifiably less than sheer "wild ass guessing", news at 11.

...mainly because the US African American community has major cultural issues with broken families and an habitual acceptance of criminality that not enough of them are trying to fix internally. HOWEVER:

"...Some law-enforcement experts say the NYCLU is going beyond civics lessons and doling out criminal-defense advice...."

Then "some law-enforcement experts" need to pull their head out of their collective asses and understand that everyone - including cops - knowing who has what rights is a GOOD THING, for everyone. Remember the whole "presumed innocent" thing? Stop and frisk is already pushing pretty far into 'unreasonable search' territory; to imply then that the cops are somehow entitled to even push it further if they can bully/trick people into accepting it is frankly bullshit.

Police that act like it's a bad thing to tell kids what their rights are (and how to defend them reasonably and respectfully) during stop & frisk smell suspiciously like thugs with badges, and not police officers doing a difficult, dangerous, and high-stress task as constructively as possible.

...that this is news?

I'm not an astronomer, but I was pretty sure that the idea that the US passes through periodic 'clouds' of debris was as old as astronomy - how is this substantially different than the Leonid (passing through the debris left by comet Swift-Tuttle)or Perseid meteor shower (passing through the debris left by comet Tempel-Tuttle)?

Personally, I've wondered if some of these could coincide with truly massive volcanic eruptions or meteorite impacts historically, the ones hefty enough to land earth rocks on the moon or Mars. Such an eruption would, it seems to me, leave a 'cloud' of very small debris with its own orbit that would logically impact earth's orbit at the point they were created.

"What it points to" is that we know slightly more than "fuck all" about the climate, so the cowboys who think we should get started on megaengineering projects because we think that they'll stave off or reverse global warming...should be thrown right into straitjackets.

If Disney wants to throw $$ at a meaningful, beneficial event and in return they get to plaster their product placement all over it in ways that don't actually detract from the facts/lesson being delivered - who cares? Hell, I hope it starts a bidding war in which the tutorial characters are eventually covered in ads like an Indy race-driver suit.* The sad consequence would be, of course, the fund swimming in cash. Tragedy!

*I personally believe that someday someone will actually cost-benefit out media advertising and realize it's a 75-year long scam. But that's a post for another day.

The ends DO justify the means, every goddamn day.

I think the "world police" argument is self-defeating.

First, nobody - even the most ardent interventionist - has ever asserted that the US should send its military to (some godforsaken shithole (GSFH)) because "we're the World Police!".
Suggesting such is prima facie untrue. The only people that even use the term are ironically usually the political left who, if they had their druthers, WOULD enable just such a thing likely under UN auspices. So it's not even the "world police" thing that bothers them, it's that we're pursuing our own interests, because they're presumably too stupid to recognize that every other state on the planet is doing the same thing to the best of their ability. So their real argument isn't that we're acting like "world police" so much as a basic argument against our own success....and that devolves, folks, to simple self-loathing.

US involvement in GFSHs is based on US interests, full stop. Setting aside the public pap of WMDs, it's clear that we went to war in Iraq to protect OIL, because after air, and water, and food, oil's pretty much the most fucking important substance on the planet.

Now, we can argue priorities, cost/benefit, direct self-interests vs enlightened longterm self interest, etc all day long. I might even agree with you on some points, despite our likely opposite political dogma.

But the crux of geopolitics is that EITHER:
- you pursue naked Realpolitik, and act ONLY in your self-interest, or
- you pursue a humanitarian policy of trying to "do good" where you can.

What the naive don't seem to understand is that you don't get to "not play". It's not a choice. If millions are being slaughtered in Rwanda, action OR INACTION is making a statement about US interests, values, and cost/benefit calculations, upon which then other states will plan their expectations about our behavior.

And FWIW, the second policy pole listed above? It's far, far more blood and treasure, intervention, and judgemental side-picking, 'warmongering scumbaggery' than the former.

Basically: grow the fuck up. The world's more complicated than you apparently understand.

As a sense of scale:

The US public spent $7.4 billion on HALLOWEEN in 2013, including $350 million for PET COSTUMES. (http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/wait-americans-spend-how-much-on-halloween/381631/)

Next Friday, on "Black Friday" US consumers will spend ~$40 billion on stuff that they & others don't need, but (mostly) want.

If they put their flag in space, doesn't that mean they own it?

Since Harvard students apparently need it put simply:
"Is it actually your money?"
"No?"
"Then shut the fuck up."

First, it's astonishingly pedantic to lecture someone on being "obtuse", and then go into the 'there is no such thing as race' bullshit. We all know what we are talking about, and if you don't, then you're the one being obtuse.

Secondly, isn't it fairly racist to imply that mono ethnic cities aren't "interesting, creative and vigorous"? That's pretty superficial.

Finally, you may have a delightful postmodern hipster view of ports, but most of them across history have been dangerous places that decent people avoided, for good reason.

I think you're generally right about the subject, you've however completely confused "libertarians" with "liberals".

This is Slashdot, so new we are rewarded with a litany of "look how stupid congress is" stories.

The fact is, the conversation is clearly brainstorming, more of a signal that lateral thinking was welcome, as the secret service clearly hasn't thought if anything effective.

So your logic is that if we can't stop all murders, why bother to try to stop some of them? If you cannot prevent poverty everywhere, there's no point in helping some people out of poverty, even if that subset is arbitrary?

I understand that such a point is usually made from political tendentiousness, but I've never really understood the position logically. Need is infinite, resources aren't; even the most altruistic person in the world prioritizes their targets.

Maybe it's just polite foreplay?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...

Conscious decision, actually.

I felt writing "hos" was just confusing, I submit that 'ho's' (with the needless apostrophe inserted) is just idiomatic and perhaps the tiniest bit metaphorical.