But still, interpreted literally the new statement is far more factually correct and unbiased than what it replaced. Whoever shot down the plane, they were "soldiers" or fighters of some variety and almost certainly can be described as Ukrainian, given that everyone seems to agree that the fighters are actually eastern Ukrainians and at most Russia is supplying weapons to them.

By that logic, "Saudi Arabian soldiers" were responsible for flying airliners into the World Trade Center.

Yes, I was trying to echo the wording of the "Why I Vote Democrat" post as closely as possible (which is also incorrect of course). A more accurate statement would be "surging mass shooting rates".

Why I vote Republican

I vote Republican because I believe it’s okay if our federal government borrows $85 Billion every single month...as long as it's spent by the Department of Defense.

I vote Republican because I claim to care about the children but don't want any money spent on education or healthcare.

I vote Republican because I believe it is okay if conservative activist judges rewrite the Constitution to suit some fringe kooks, who would otherwise never get their agenda past the voters.

I vote Republican because I believe that corporate America should be allowed to make profits for themselves, by outsourcing American jobs, busting unions, destroying the environment and lobbying corrupt politicians.

I vote Republican because I’m concerned about millions of babies being aborted, but don't care what happens after they're born.

I vote Republican because I don't know the difference between weather and climate.

I vote Republican because The Right To Bear Arms is not as important as preventing people from being murdered.

I vote Republican because I believe lazy, uneducated rednecks should have just as big a say in running our country as entrepreneurs who risk everything and work 70 hours per week.

I vote Republican because I see absolutely no correlation between corporate welfare and the rise of income inequality.

I vote Republican because I see absolutely no correlation between lenient gun laws and surging crime rates.

I vote Republican because I believe you don’t need an ID buy a gun, but do to vote.

I vote Republican because I think AIDS is prevented by keeping children ignorant about safe sex.

I vote Republican because I think “freedom” is far more important than fairness.

I vote Republican because I think an “equal opportunity” means anyone can apply for a job but only white males will get one.

I vote Republican because I would rather hide in a boardroom while others fight for my freedom.

I vote Republican because I’m not smart enough to own a gun but think I should be allowed to anyway.

And lastly, I vote Republican because I’m convinced that government is the source of all our problems... and prove it every time we're in office.

Various explanations for why we don't see aliens have been proposed—perhaps interstellar travel is impossible

Not only is interstellar travel possible, we've already done it (at least, we've sent 2 space probes outside our solar system which will eventually reach other stars). Interstellar travel within the lifespan of a single human being might be impossible, but enough other solutions exist (robotic probes, generational ships, suspended animation, long-lived alien species) that this limitation is not an adequate explanation for why alien ships have not reached Earth.

I do think that Linnaeus is a bit of an exception there, tough. Who else gets regularly linked in a template? It's not like there's an infobox for people with a field "personal_savior" or "favorite_roman_emperor" ;)

I'm officially changing my name to Citation Needed so I will be next years most influential person in history (assuming they keep the same methodology).

Not a bad list, honestly. Still not sure why Linnaeus is *that* high, but most of the rest is quite reasonable, methinks.

I would have to agree. I think that Linnaeus has gamed the system a bit. Every (or at least most) Wikipedia articles about a plant or animal species would have a link to back to Linnaeus or his nomenclature system. While he was certainly a notable scientist, he was in no way as influential as most of the others on the list. Perhaps I should change my name to "Citation Needed" so I would be the most influential person in history (according to this methodology).

Nobody seems to be asking WHY.

Why would the Secret Service, in particular, want to tell sarcasm apart from other speech? Think about who they are.

They want to be able to distinguish sarcastic political speech, from sincere political speech. Of course both are protected speech.

Now, they might have a benign purpose, but from the description in TFA it doesn't seem so. After all, the administration would look pretty foolish if they tried to harass or jail someone for being sarcastic.

The reason the Secret Service wants sarcasm detection is because of the bad PR they get every time they harass someone for being sarcastic. The problem is not sarcastic political speech vs sincere political speech; it's sarcastic threats vs sincere threats.

Just because more people are seeking diagnosis and treatment when a treatment becomes available, doesn't mean either the diagnosis is wrong or the treatment is ineffective. According to the data, Erectile Dysfunction was an extremely rare condition prior to the release of Viagra, but extremely common afterward. That doesn't mean E.D. rates suddenly increased, or doctors misdiagnosed it to sell more drugs; it just means few men were willing to tell their doctors about it when they thought there was no effective treatment (or so I've heard, I wouldn't know personally).

You are correct; no CPU but loads of ICs. In fact, the name of the emulator is Discrete Integrated Circuit Emulator (DICE).

Given the toll on our highways shown to arise from distracted drivers...

What toll? Shown by whom? Despite the increased use of so-called distractions (google glass, cellphones, gps, etc); motor vehicle fatalities have done nothing but drop for decades. The 32,367 traffic fatalities in 2011 in the US were the lowest in 62 years.

And in the '78-'84 era he's referring to the major companies who made computers do not have a good survival rate. Wang, Compaq, Osborn, Commodore, Tandy

The Commodore 64 was the best selling personal computer of all time and you can still buy a new model today, so suck it Mac.

I might agree with you for virtually every other subject, but math is about the only thing that can be measured accurately using standardized testing. 3 X 3 = 9, whether you memorized the times tables or counted it out on your fingers. No matter what method you were taught, you should get the same answer. There are no cultural biases to deal with and even difficulty with understanding English shouldn't affect the outcome.

To be fair, the US prisons on that list were elaborate clean facilities, unlike most of the rest.

Yes, the US prisons are clean and in good repair compared to the ones in poor third-world countries. But guess what? US schools and hospitals are also clean and in good repair compared to the ones in poor third-world countries. This isn't a review of hotels on TripAdvisor. The prisons are being judged for how humanly they treat the inmates, not whether or not they have bed bugs.

If you believe that a bed bug infestation should somehow be acceptable by paying customers and is somehow a industry standard then you've spent too much time working on a dirty hotel and not enough time visiting hotels which aren't squalors.

That is a common misconception. Other insects like cockroaches, are more common in dirty environments because they are attracted to bits of food and other waste that are a food source to them. Bed bugs on the other hand are attracted to human beings, because that is their food source. Whether a room is clean or dirty doesn't matter to the bed bugs, and normal cleaning methods (vacuuming, etc) doesn't get of them.

451... Nice... Ray Bradbury would be proud :)

Actually, not so much. While most people assume 'Fahrenheit 451' is about censorship, Bradbury claimed it was really about TV replacing books. He even fought (unsuccessfully) to keep Michael Moore from using the title 'Fahrenheit 9/11' for his film.