It's nice to see that a good old Anonymous Coward racist rant can still be modded up to +5.

+14. People just don't understand this. In the pro-business, pro-conservative, pro-1% states (i.e., just about all of them except a few in the Northeast and maybe the West coast), you can fire anyone at the drop of a hat and the only prohibition is that you can't be stupid enough to preface it with "Because you're black/a woman/a couple of other protected classes". The boss can say you're fired b/c I hate you, and that's that.

You are far removed from the point of tenure for someone who works at a university. The idea is that the *administration* can't drop-kick you for ridiculous reasons. If you're doing good (i.e., publishable) but controversial research, tenure keeps some jackass state legislator from leaning on the university president to fire you. When many faculty have not seen raises in years, tenure is one of the few remaining perks of the job.

The thing they have in common is that both are making an irrevocable decision to end the life of another. Premeditated killing is not defensible, and the fact that the state (an emotionless constructed entity) does it makes it worse, not better.

Imagine what could happen if they reverse the polarity of the deflector shield!

"No sir. This guy had some wonderful opportunities given to him and like most successful people, delude themselves into thinking it was 100% their hard work."

This part should be modded up to about 11.

Someone mod this up to about +8!

Also, your children will develop gum disease and die. Your dog will start experimenting with drugs. The permeability of all of your cellular membranes will spontaneously increase by a factor of 1000 and you will become a puddle of goo on the floor. Your refrigerator will become sentient and will plot against you.

Every molecule in your body will explode outward at the speed of light. Or maybe that's what happens when you cross the streams; definitely either crossing the streams or using that light bulb. One or the other.

Somebody mod this up! GP has no idea what the point of higher education is. The faculty aren't just "employees". While administrators job-hop from school to school, the faculty are the long-term caretakers of the institution. They largely determine whether the degree granted means anything or if the place is a clown college. It's sad that the idea of being able to safely point out shortcomings (= tenure) in an enterprise as large as a university is seen as such a crazy perk by those who work at the whim of others.

Mod this up to +11

Heard a long time ago that God owned a Plymouth because "He drove them out in His Fury"

Where did he say lower price point? He said their suckers (i.e., students) have more debt.

Perhaps you should do a little research on salaries before declaring that they are outrageous. Keep in mind that, first, there's about a ten year period of grad school and postdoc positions before you land the tenure track job, and then it's six years of busting your hump before you get tenure. After all that, a 9-month salary of $50K is by no means abnormal. There might be some outrage there, but we probably disagree on the direction of it. Remember that for every big-name Harvard or Caltech superstar making $200K, there are 40 other academics working at least as hard as anyone in the "real world" for a small fraction of that salary (and no, they don't all have grad students to teach for them, and no, they don't just work 3 hours per week).

6000 m/s = 13400 mph. That makes the energy a factor of 11 too large.

Yes - the profits would go to the buyer or seller (I don't see the exchange's profits changing, but maybe they would), but they are the only ones *providing* something. The HFT is just a middleman. I'm OK with him not making anything since he's not bringing anything to the party.