Straw man. The argument really is that the specifics of Christianity is no more likely to be true than FSM. You just pretended that FSM was a subset of Christianity, but if Jesus isn't the son of god, FSM could still be true but Christianity isn't. FSM isn't a subset of Christianity.

Actually, he'd probably do fine -- US universities generally have great benefits for their employees (good health insurance policies) and tend to be pretty flexible with sick leave for professors. My dad had a brain tumor and took 2 years of sick leave without any discussion of long-term disability, etc. There was another professor who had long-term kidney failure who basically gave a couple of lectures each semester for a decade and wasn't pressured to do more than that.

If you have health insurance, the US system is hard to beat.

The better question would be how would a young blue-collar worker with ALS fare. He would be completely screwed.

My understanding is that at the time of the Constitution being ratified, owning an actual printing press was the only barrier to entry to being a journalist. That's where the phrase "freedom of the press" comes from -- once you have a printing press, you can print. If you think about it, all that's really required to be a journalist is to keep a journal. The barrier of entry is gone to print to the public -- now you can do it from a public library's computer for free. That doesn't change the intention of the Constitution -- clearly they were saying anyone who can print to the public is allowed to print to the public, and their right to do so will not be abridged by Congress.

Just wanted to reply to your sig -- honestly, do you know how many people died in horse-related accidents when they were the primary means of transportation? They weren't particularly safe. I'm sure far fewer people HAVE been injured by nuclear power (even if you only include people who get most of their power from nuclear) than were injured by horses when everyone rode horses.

Windows is not a description of the OS, it's a description of the UI. The point Apple is making is that it's a description of EVERY modern UI, and it's not one that Microsoft invented. Everyone's heard the story of Xerox's windowed UI, followed closely (in no particular order) by Apple, various Unix/Linux UIs and Microsoft. The generic description of any modern UI is "a collection of windows." You COULD come up with another term for what those boxes on the UI are called, but the term for them was windows long before Microsoft came out with Windows.

I'm certainly not going to defend the guy who's pirating books, but I don't think this gives an excuse for DRM. Quite the opposite -- this method will circumvent any DRM they apply. I don't want to pirate books. I just want to buy a book and have permanent ownership of it. I want to back up the file and put it on laptop, or ipad, or phone, or even print a copy out if I feel like it. I'm willing to pay pretty much the cost of a hard-copy book to do it. With or without DRM, the publishers already depend on the customer's goodwill to not steal from them. Why don't they try to maintain that goodwill by letting us buy the product that is already available if we were willing to steal it?

The trip would be at earliest 20 years from now, when even a newborn now would be 20 years old. My dad died when I was 27. It was sad and still makes me sad. I'd love it if he were just somewhere with a few hour delay in communications.

Actually, the lack of biodiversity in tree farms is a real risk -- instead of having hundreds of different species competing naturally for resources, you have one species spread out over acres. One species-specific fungus can wipe out entire farms very quickly. In the wild, if the fungus can find enough of that one tree species to spread it will still only wipe out a small percentage of trees, allowing the other tree species to spread.

If a student in the first class of the day texts the questions and/or answers to a student in a later class, they could read the messages at their leisure.

Well, that sounds kind of scary when you imply he build a "Federal agent detector." But in fact, he likely got pictures of anyone who walked by his desk with a federal ID, a passport, a gas station card, a metro (subway) card, a company ID used to unlock doors, a very recent car key, or carrying a bag from Walmart. That isn't actually useful information. All you can tell is that they are carrying an RFID. If you were looking for Federal agents at Defcon, you'd have a much better hit rate if you just took pictures of guys in suits.