I'm curious - what is the alternative to the clover leaf? Seems like the most efficient design when done right.

I don't mean are they trying to use less water like everyone else. I mean - have they mandated ZERO growth for their cities? NO new housing, NO new businesses, NO new developments, NO new malls? If not, why not? If this is a water crisis then at the minimum you need to cut all NEW drains on the water supply to zero.

If they have not done this, and will not ever do it (as seems likely) then the problem will never be made any better. Any conservation gains will be eaten up by new demands, add infinitem.

There are real options - they just aren't getting funded.

What do you do if something you have is getting too hot 'cause it's sitting in the sun? Put it in the shade, of course.

Orbiting shades to block a few percent of the Sun's rays will compensate for any amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Bang. Done.

Expensive? Sure. Can it be done today? yes.

There ARE other answers. That's only one.

I used to live and still work in Mass.

Now the rest of you know why we were trying to get rid of this guy.

What an a-hole.

WMD? Seriously?

OK. Ok. First a disclaimer - I have not even looked at the Beta. Now, onto my observation - at a company I worked at we took the existing UI for a massive product and wrote a new UI from the ground up. Sent to evaluate it my overall comment was - it is NOT ready. However, so much time and effort was put into it that it was moved out to production anyway, over my protests. ALL the customers stuck with it did not like it, bug reports ballooned out of all control, and we spent the next year and a half fixing problems while our credibility was hit REAL hard.

On the other hand, the change was needed in the end, it did provide a lot more flexibility, allowed for new features that could not be done in the old one, and it looked snazzier.

However, the lesson to take here is that if it not ready, do NOT push it out anyway. We had a basically captive audience due to the nature of our software. We should have taken that extra 6 months to a year to iron things out. Slashdot does not have a captive audience. Please keep that in mind. Do NOT release it until it is at least as good as the current system - no matter how long that takes (or how much it hurts to keep spending on it).

I may not have a 4 digit id, but I have a 5 digit one. Please listen to the voices of experience here.

Actually, a few did. Germany was pounding the RAF into the ground (figuratively and literally) to achieve air supremacy before invading across the Channel. Long range bombing attacks on Berlin were ordered, inflicting little damage, but enraging Hitler. Who ordered the massive bombing campaign of London (against the council of his generals). Leaving the RAF alone to recover.

A brilliant case of knowing your enemy and manipulating him into doing what you want.

Incorrect my good man - you certainly CAN choose not to pay taxes. While you may not like the eventual outcome, you DO have that choice. You can still choose not to get health insurance. You may not like the alternatives very much in the end, but you still have that choice.

And there is now a floor at least for coverage. There are NO preexisting conditions anymore. There are NO charges for routine yearly preventative care physicals. There is a minimum level of coverage now - and as you can see by the thousands of policies terminated, a lot of companies were not meeting that standard (are you really covered if the policy is 'affordable' but doesn't really cover you?).

It may not be perfect, but I think its at least a small step in the right direction.

"I think that word means what you don't think it means"

From the best estimate I've seen, about 1/10th of a Library of Congress

In your third point you talked about the government discouraging Service - with the example of the recruiter. This is definitely intentional, and really necessary. Service should be given for its own sake, not as a price to pay to get something else (like political office for example), or there is no sacrifice in it. People needed to Serve because they wanted to - needed to give something back for their own moral stance. Only that mindset proved you deserved to vote. That's what I think the rationale is.

Interesting observation - I was disillusioned by Mr McCain as well. But I won't go into why. The idea may still be sound - as in using McCain as an example may not invalidate it - for the simple reason that when McCain was Serving, service was not voluntary and discouraged.

We don't have that state today either, even though we have all volunteer services - there are things like the GI Bill, ROTC, etc. that give solid incentives to Serve. I think only if there were none at all besides the voting franchise itself would the idea possibly be workable.

12 miles off-shore a tsunami is barely a ripple on the waters surface. It only becomes a wave when it hits the shore.

| A Saudi woman goes to the USA, is raped there. Goes
| back to Saudi Arabia and is thrown in jail for having been
| raped (had sex outside marriage).

      That's ridiculous. She'd be stoned! or is it set on fire? I can never remember.

Yes, of course he read Das Kapital for his 9th grade term paper. In the original Klingon, of course.