So PHB has the obviously best laptop in the room!

There are two possible translations, based on the context.

1. Are the allegations based on a) verifiable facts or on b) unconfirmed or debunked rumors?

If answer=a, then translation="I'm so mad we got caught!"

If answer=b, then translation="This is a political attack."

It wasn't gneiss.

While iridology is bunk , it would be interesting to see what disease markers could be found with eye exams. We already know about a few. Ankylosing spondylitis is often associated with eye inflammation and abnormalities in the retina can be associated with diabetes, hypertension, cardiac disease, and stroke, as well as a lot of systemic diseases.

Eye exams are generally non-invasive and the scans could be set up almost anywhere.

I'm surprised that it has that high a value at all, given that their legal and accounting expenses must be tremendous (even if they were somehow to win every lawsuit against them) and their liability insurance provider is doubtless going to fight them over every single claim.

The real question is whether Holmes was as good at deceiving herself as she was at deceiving others. If she was, her net worth may indeed be limited to personal property (which certainly she'll get to keep since it's very difficult to confiscate personal property from the wealthy), but if she was aware of just how much of it was all smoke and mirrors, then I'm sure she found ways to hide as much as she could.

What she really needs to do is declare that she's found religion, write a book, and then become a talk show guest.

It's fascinating to see how many posters here automatically assume that it must be the PHBs who pressured the engineers into this. Very few assume that the engineers saw an opportunity for a bonus or for the PHB to owe them one, and added the cheat function voluntarily. I've not seen any posts so far that suggest an engineer thought of the cheat and suggested it to a PHB.

A reminder that we tend to think of our peers as being much more ethical than "them" and look for reasons to think of them as victims of force or circumstances, and assume that "they" are only motivated by sheer callous greed. Whoever the "them" is.

They did commit what they'll reluctantly admit were mass killings of Armenians (what the rest of the world correctly recognizes as genocide) in the aftermath of World War I.

During the Ottoman era, they did occupy Greece and were, like virtually every occupying force, remarkably brutal. This got a lot of attention in the West because they were oppressing Europeans and Christians (instead of Asians and Muslims).

But here's a story about them. During the Irish genocide by famine (when a country exports food during a famine and the occupying foreign land owners raise rents during a period of starvation, that's genocide, whether the original cause was natural or not), the then Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Majid Khan, offered to send food and 10,000 pounds sterling. England refused to allow this.

Why? Why would it refuse the kind of aid that would have saved several thousand lives?

Queen Victoria gave only two thousand pounds and a gift greater than that would make her look ungenerous.

The Sultan insisted on giving something and finally they bargained him down to one thousand pounds. He also send three ships worth of food, but kept it quiet.

Technically, the government is secular (women working in government offices are even forbidden to wear head scarves, for example), but Erdogan has been doing everything possible to uproot that. As in many countries, the cities tend to back full separation of church/temple/mosque and state, while the rural areas tend to want religion integrated into government.

As you say, for a long time the military was a strong force for secular liberalism and the standard-bearer for Ataturk's secularist reforms and even led several coups to restore secular and democratic rule. Erdogan, though, made sure early on in his administration to gut their capacity to affect policy, let alone lead a coup.

I don't think that Turkey's capacity to be a mix of Muslim culture and secular government is entirely gone, but it's certainly diminishing. If it had a stronger and more diverse economy, Tunisia might be in a position to do so, but poverty (which often breeds Islamism, just like it does Christianism) and terrorism have virtually ruled out that possibility.

I can't imagine it being feasible for major elections, but it would be great if there were a voting option to say, "None of these candidates." If the majority of voters select that option, the candidates are replaced with a new batch.