I know that God is not popular on Slashdot, but even from a rational humanist perspective these charities are very effective. The administrative costs are usually born by regular tithing so any funds given to the charity can be spent 100% on the core mission of the charity. Especially, in the area of disaster relief, these charities also have strong connections with the local congregations who can quickly put resources to use where it is most needed. This in contrast to groups like the Red Cross usually have to spend time "getting in" to places.

I know there will be some objections voiced that the money will be used to evangelize victims rather then aid them. I cannot speak for other sectors of the religious sphere, but charities associated with Mainline Protestant Christian churches operate in perpetual fear of this accusation and copiously avoid any activity that might be mistaken for proselytizing.

I will end by plugging the charity of my own Episcopal Church: Episcopal Relief and Development.

How else would you do it? It's really hard to wipe the running OS. This is what boot CDs are for.

I would be one of those Ubuntu hits. But I'm running the last LTS and very ready to upgrade at this point. So much so that I had serious thoughts about using 11.10. Then I saw Unity. Now I'm thinking that Mint 12 might be my upgrade path. It's not how may you have it is all about where they will (or won't) go next.

Thank you for giving President Obama credit for the most dramatic overhaul in the nation's history. When Obamacare becomes as popular as Medicare and Social Security, it will be nice to know people will remember who was responsible for it.

A number of years ago you participated in an Ask Slashdot discussion. To spite some excellent questions from your fans, your answer were short and trite. Why did you treat your fans like this and will you do so again?

UC Davis Med Center in Sacramento, CA: typical wait time 9-14 hours. During one exceptionally hot week in July of '07 when I worked there at least one person waited 26 hours to have a dislocated shoulder looked at. It's not better here, it's much, much worse.

http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/rates.cgi?LETTER=Y&LIST=COUNTY

Look at the link above for Yolo County California, and in particular the Davis, CA entry. Now lets consider 3 addresses:

617 2nd Street, Davis, CA 95616

1 Shield Avenue, Davis, CA 95616

1204 Landra Avenue, Davis, CA 95616

If you are Amazon.com what sales tax do you charge to send to each of these addresses? Well, the first is the address of one of Amazon.com's competitors, The Avid Reader. It charges 7.75% sending 7.25% to the state and 0.50% to the city of Davis. The Avid reader need only know about the tax laws in the location it has a store. The second location is in the city limits, but is the address for the residents halls at UC Davis. As you will note in the link, the University of California is exempt from local sales tax. The same book bought at the campus bookstore, or shipped to the residents halls should be charged 7.25% tax. The campus book store knows this but does an online retailer? Then there is the final address. It is in the same Zip Code as the city of Davis, and in fact uses the Davis post office, but it also should be charged 7.25% because it is actually just outside the city limits in unincorporated Yolo County.

This is a City listing at one point in time. On October 1 tax rate will change in some places and there are literally 1000s of different sales tax zones. A brick and mortar store need only know about one but an online retailer would have to keep up with all of them, in every state!. As you can see in the example above, you cannot go by city or Zip Code. Each address needs to be tagged with its correct zone.

As anyone can see, to compare a 7-11 to a major on-line retailer is just absurd.

Yes, take 3 hydrogen atoms and bond them to a carbon atom. Better yet take 8 and bond them to a string of 3 carbon atoms. There are extensive networks to transport both these substances.

I bet your one of those who answered "D) Slavery" when asked what caused the American Revolution.

Military. By at least 50%. In particular defence contracts for anything not currently held worn or used directly by a PFC on the front lines. Boat, plains, bombs, sci-fi toys and brass.

Social Security. I'm 34. You may expect me to work until 69 to collect full benefits. If my excellent retirement planning provides my spouse and I enough to qualify for the AMT there is no need for the government to send me a check. you may also scale back my checks as I approach that level.

TSA. Enough Said

10 year spending freeze on salary costs for all regulatory bodies. Reduce manager to subordinate ratios dramatically.

I've seen a lot of academic resistance to the Kahn Academy. I want to take a brief moment to respond to a large portion of it. I'm sure that those making such studied arguments are familiar with the second chapter of "To Kill A Mocking Bird." The critiques coming from this corner of academia sound just like Miss Caroline denouncing Scout because she has learned to read in an "unapproved" way.

Have you been to a high school physics class recently? This is exactly how high school student are taught physics. At least here it is done without an additional 20 minutes of "classroom management" getting in th way.

This is the third time I read a link to this article and there are far too many college prof's who think that there is some magical great education going on in k-12. If your objection to the Khan academy is that is is substandard learning, please know that it is far better then what actually happens in a lot of real classrooms.

At NewEgg.com using lazy evaluation.

Let's rephrase the question then: Can we expect to observe Betelgeuse going supernove in our lifetimes?