Comment: Vigilante Wars (Score 1) 122
Do they play Vigilante Wars?
Comment: Re:This should be NASA's focus (Score 1) 108
NASA should be spending most - if not all - of its budget preparing to avert a comet/asteroid from hitting earth.
No! We should be concentrating on moving our entire solar system away from the galactic core at just under the speed of light. After we clear out all asteroids and comets. Signed, Hindmost
Comment: Re:I hold my phone to my left ear (Score 1, Redundant) 288
I've done this experiment! When you whisper into the deaf ear asking for cigarettes, you don't get nearly as many as when you whisper into the hearing ear. The paper will be coming out in JAMA next month.
Comment: Re:Oh man... (Score 1) 716
Imagine telling a 30 year old that they are going to have to spend three years doing something before they get a reward. How would they react to it?
For some of us, at age 22 we decided that it would be ok to spend 5 years of our lives doing something before we could get a reward: a PhD. 5 years was more that 20% of our current life, but we did it anyway.
As far as I'm concerned, paying kids for grades delivers the message... "If you work hard, you will be rewarded." School is the equivalent of work for kids.
Won't it teach them that doing well in school will get you rewards? If you want to teach them that hard work is rewarded, why not reward work, either chores or studying. Otherwise, won't your 120 IQ kid who gets straight-As without studying look at his 80 IQ C student brother who studies 40 hours/week learn that hard work is never rewarded, only intelligence?
Comment: Re:Why a law in the first place? (Score 1) 204
If you can get to the game before they've played it, then your kids will just mope and complain. If they've played it, even just seen that startup screen for the game, they'll probably kill you before you even get out the door.
Comment: Re:If Bush wants it... (Score 1) 420
I think the hangup there is, someone has to be convicted of a crime before they can be pardoned. And a conviction requires an investigation.
You do not have to be convicted of a crime to be pardoned. You do not even have to be accused of a crime to be pardoned. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#United_States (I'm assuming that wikipedia is correct, but strong evidence is that Nixon was never charged with anything, but was pardoned by Ford.)