To me the resolution to the apparent paradox is more information not less, in this case more oversight and transparency in government agencies. J. Edgar got away with the total BS he did because he himself was not being monitored. If we openly know and discuss how policing is done in our country, at least we have a chance to talk about if we like it or not.

The real issue with immigrants has little to do with culture, immigrants by their very nature have self-selected to be more ambitious. If good enough is good enough then you stay in your home country, immigrating to another country is a great deal of work. I wouldn't look at the culture but rather of the qualities of the individuals themselves. Of course people come to the U.S. for all kinds of reasons, so the nature of how they came matters. Where culture does matter is in expectations. When you look for something, once you find it you tend to stop looking. At the end of the day your culture doesn’t accept good enough, then you won’t either. Of course high expectations and cultural pressure has a personal cost also and can lead to unethical behavior.

Well, to be clear I don't deny addiction can be real (as I mentioned in my post), but on the face of it this program seems more like a feel good "get tough" kind of solution than a real one based in science. Indeed the one size fits all kind of approach doesn’t sound like treating underlying issues to me.

Really, the parents can's just take away the kid's computer and money for accounts? I don't think I would trust this place with my kids. While I am sure some kids have a real problem, unlike most drugs computer games have no physically addictive properties. This sounds like overkill to me, whipping up parents fears against reason. I have two kids, two full time plus working parents and we have enought control to at least cut the kids off when we need to. I can't see how this kind of nonsense is needed.

There are many different systems throughout the world, but there is one thing every country with good schools has in common. Teaching is a highly respected job. Not always the highest paid, but always desirable. This should be a big DUH moment if you think about it, a teacher skills and talents really matter, and the more desirable a job the more candidates you have to select from. If you care about schools, attracting the best teachers is the first step always.

After reading some of the suggestions for charter schools, I wondered why normal schools couldn't simply be given more autonomy.

It is very good to get Gates point of view of the situation, but remember the Military has a specific mission that doesn't always match the goal of the society. Take for example Vietnam War, the military rightly asks themselves how they could have better fought the war and win it, also how the military could have avoided most of the political fallout from the cost of running the war. However what the military never, and can never, ask themselves is are we fighting the right war. Even people who still believe in the domino theory, like Henry Kissinger, think that Vietnam could have been a cheaper delaying action and neighboring countries where we had more stable governments could have been the better place to make a stand. Likewise in Iraq and Afghanistan today, there is no reason to believe a democratic government reflecting the will of the people would be a staunch U.S. ally. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have democracy, but to me it puts sharp limits on how large a price the U.S. should pay to achieve the goal. It will be inherently frustrating for the Military, after all real people are dying (big HINT, think very carefully before starting a war!), none the less that doesn’t mean you throw more lives away without real measurable benefits. Interestingly, Gates has much worse words for Congress than the President, though most of the headlines I see are about the Gates comments about the President. I bet the lack of support in foreign policy from Congress figures into the President’s decisions about the war.

It should, since no one has ever said that gun control will "fix" crime.

First, there is infinite work in cyberspace. There is no limit to the number of ways things can be done better, and since these types of improvements take very few resources there is no reason for employment not to pick up.

If you think about it, you realize that when a robot replaces a job, it *should* be making every other job the robot can't do more valuable. The issue is people need to be able to stand up for themselves and get more money for what they do as the economy becomes automated. Many of these so called bad jobs pay low because of inertia and tradition, not because the pay really reflects their true value to the economy.

Probably more qualified than most scientist. Being used to public speaking puts him ahead of the game if anything. This kind of thing tends to be more broad than deep. In the occasions where it does go into deep and narrow specifics, those are mostly gotchas, they normally do have answers but unless you know that specific one it is hard to come up with an answer without time to think about it.

...Welcome the new King of Kong!

I don't disagree, I think I was kind of saying something similar. However if you pay attention you will notice how often people change their tune about so called free speech when they like or dislike the person in question or what was said. For example very few of the people defending the duck commander actually disagree with his comment, and very many of the same people called loudly for Bashir to be fired.

FYI, this is common to everyone, not just one group. Still some people do rise about it somehow.

Anonymous nobodies can say dumb thing all day long with lesser consequences because they have less to lose. If you are making your money in the public eye, you also suffer from its displeasure. There is no way around it. Also, everyone is a hypocrite when it comes to this stuff, people turn from supposed supporters of free speech, as if that should protect your job, to demanding resignations for saying the wrong thing all the time.

...you have 10 seconds to comply

Capitalism is how money works when society sets up a certain set of legal rules. Say, for example, the government arresting you or fining you because you failed to follow some kind of copy write law, or sold a medical drug the government thinks another company owns. Indeed the idea of property itself requires a certain social norm and agreement. Genghis Khan is how money works when it is left alone.

FYI, if Capitalism worked perfectly, there would never be economic bubbles or monopolies.