It is ignoring people like this that are going us to force to leave the planet before we are ready. The Valley is one of the last protected places in Texas, and people flock to the area for beaches and birdwatching.

I assume the main justification for putting it in brownsville is because it is on mainland US and close to the equator. The earth rotates just a bit slower there than Cape Canaveral. If this is the justification, one might propose Douglas Arizona as a better choice. It is near a major interstate, can easily get supplies from California and texas and alabama and is near a major city. Brownsville is near a major city, Monterrey. Is only loses a few percentage points of speed from brownsville. It is also 1000 m higher.

Brownsville has one other advantage that is launch over water, but honestly, there is nothing for miles for 1000 miles east of Douglas. Honestly, what we should do is assemble in the gulf coast and launch from Navassa Island which rotates at 95% of equator velocity.

In the end Texas has a pretty diverse economy. Clear lake is going to suffer with the loss of NASA, but that is not going to be a great loss.

Honestly, the TLD system has been broken for a long time. There should probably never have been TLDs without country codes, for one thing. And enforcement on TLDs that were supposed to be reserved for specific purposes was always lousy -- I remember seeing clearly commercial sites with .net TLDs popping up in the mid-90's.

Microsoft should be perfectly happy with their ownership of .crash, .virus, and .bsod.

CIPS really stands for Child Internet Porn Society. They're clearly a bunch of pedophiles, because otherwise, why would they be trying in any way to limit efforts to PROTECT THE CHIIILDREN?!?

I think when I find a pocket watch on the ground, it is less complex for me to believe that it was intelligently designed than to believe that it came about through a mathematical (not necessarily random) process

Well, maybe, but a watchmaker implies a mother and a father. Watchmakers don't just spring into existence. So proposing that some watchmaker was required then begs the question, "Who made the watchmaker?"

This is yet another example of how religion does nothing to answer any of the big questions. It's just mental masturbation that ultimately serves to enrich and empower the con artists running the churches, an intellectual shell game.
 

This. When I started an MS program in biostatistics, with a BS in math and an MS in computer science, I figured I already knew at least half of what I'd need to know. I was wrong -- the biostatistics coursework was the toughest I'd ever had.

That being said, a math BS is fine preparation for a statistics or biostatistics MS or PhD, and most graduate biostatistics programs, at least, come with excellent financial support packages; the TA and RA stipends tend to be quite generous, as such things go. And the job prospects once you get the degree are good too.

extremely gross porn

I remember voting against a filter some time ago. One of the reasons was that "extremely gross porn" is not something consensual. A picture of a naked women having a baby, is it "gross porn"? Many would actively deem it so. Which is why this whole thing sounds to much like a first step towards self-censorship in the name of cultural relativism. Who will define what is porn and what is relevant?

Mind you, this different approach is valid between Europeans and North-Americans, let alone when talking about... others. Why not also consider additional content as "extremely gross"? Once it is done for "porn", whatever that means, the door is opened for everything else.

My position is not that porn should be in wikipedia. But images that are relevant to an article should be maintained if there is an agreement that they add value to it. Porn is but a red herring used to get the foot in the door.

I second this. This is not like google where innocuous searches will lead to objectionable material because of the market driven nature of searches. Firms and google wants porn on search results as it will lead to click throughs and profits. Therefore the filter is necessary for googles survival.

OTOH, Wikipedia has no such problem. Articles are not competing Against each other for clicks. Furthermore one thing that is superior to other ebncyclopedia is that controversial content can be hosted without consumer and retailer pushback. I hate to say , but this is one of those parent problems. Monitor your kids, install a filter, join a good sexual health program early so kids do not have to learn about sex on the street.

I think the gp was making a joke, using the same wording that creationists do.

An all-powerful god could have designed a universe where evolution and random selection would end up with an exact predicted result. Bible claims god made man "in his image" so maybe god really wanted a being that (in 3D space) had bilateral symmetry with 4 limbs and an head, perhaps because god has some defined volume that makes this shape when it intersects a 3D space (?). A bit of design of the universe and forces could make bilateral symmetry have much greater survival rates. An all-powerful god could have designed the universe with elaborate tweaks so that evolution led to a very precise design.

Creationists are pretty funny, because they are basically claiming god is not all-powerful.