Not stating an opinion on race issues isn't the same as combating racism. It's clearly the case that race is still a serious issue in the US, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. That won't go away by deciding not to discuss it.

This is just painfully wrong. I'm a leftist. I oppose Obama. I've never once been called racist for that. Not even a little bit. I've been asked if I think it's meaningful or significant that a black person was elected in the US (which I do). I've been challenged on specific opinions I hold about his administration. I've never been called racist for opposing him. And almost everyone I know voted for him.

The reason that so many right-wing opponents of Obama are called racist is because there's been an incredible surge in racist organization in the time since he was nominated and elected, and there's a tremendous amount of overlap between that and the right-wing opponents. I don't think it's entirely fair that a lot of run-of-the-mill conservatives are guilty by association in this, but to be fair the vast majority of the reaction to this has been the sort of defensiveness that you've presented here rather than any kind of meaningful denunciation of racism or even simple attempt to understand why race is an issue for anyone other than old white men. Let me make that as clear as I can: people of color also experience racism, and their experience of it is different from yours. It behooves you to understand that. Even if you are not, yourself, racist.

Guilt by association really isn't fair. But it's also not fair to provide tacit political cover for bigots and claim ignorance when it's used to advance bigotry. Hate-related crimes are and have been on the rise, and white supremacist organizations are stronger than they've been for decades. This isn't an accident.

Don't want to be mistaken for a racist? Spend as much time challenging the racists in your midst as you spend attacking people who aren't as stupid as you think.

I haven't looked at the others, but target.com seems fine at first glance on Safari 6.

It doesn't ignore it on Windows either. And I'd recommend testing your sites in Windows FF as well, they're not always quite the same.

I haven't encountered SVG issues in IE10, can you explain more about what was broken?

I would hazard a guess that anyone who consciously cares about user interface is a nerd.

let there %= -2;

You don't know me, and you don't know what I take part in. You're making a lot of assumptions, both about me and about the person you hit with the "that's not the way the world works".

Yeah, someone's dead. Actually, a lot of people get dead because of the way our politics works. It's an enormous challenge to even put a leash on this, much less halt it. And one of the things that destroys efforts to do so is a hostile environment that makes people feel shitty about expressing their ideas. Yeah, maybe getting feelings hurt isn't the end of the world. But it's also not productive. If you actually want people to take action, what are you contributing to that by going internet tough guy? Does it take any more effort to not be a dick to people on the internet just because you can?

Creating a positive environment for discussion can help lead to action. For fuck's sake, creating a positive environment for discussion is a worthy end in itself. Think about it.

You're a piece of work.

Guess what doesn't help aspiration lead to action. Attacking people for expressing their aspirations.

That's why we have words like "should". That's what it means! To be but is not.

This kind of tautological realpolitik reasoning is used to bludgeon people away from aspiration, and the effect is to provide manipulative moral support for known harmful policy. The way something is, in itself, is not a defense of the way something is. It's just a statement of fact. It's not insightful. We all know that insofar as people in positions of authority and trust treat other human beings like dirt, by definition that is the way reality plays out. I share the above poster's aspiration to negate that reality. Don't you?

What do you think you're contributing, by belittling aspiration? It's not as if the aspiration is particularly radical or far-flung. It's basically embedded in the philosophical underpinnings of my (and presumably your) society. Do you enjoy the smug satisfaction of waving in others' faces that you're ahead of the curve in accepting and embracing a hostile, corrupt, soul-crushing reality?

You shouldn't, and don't need to, write Python.

I don't even understand why you describe JavaScript as "easy to use". Easy to start using, perhaps. It's probably the same reason PHP is so widely used. Of course wide use means lots of terrible code, most programmers aren't particularly excellent at programming.

JavaScript is highly misunderstood by many programmers, and widely used by people we should properly call non-programmers. Not because of its "ease of use" but because of its wide availability and its position as the front-end web language. Additionally because of widely available, widely used libraries like jQuery that make it simple to do a few things that are simple for non-programmers to reason with. That's not a failing of the language, it's a failing of happenstance.

I've seen some incredible code written in JavaScript. I dare say I've even written some good JS myself. I'm not an idiot, and I quite like the language. There are things I might like to change, but they're few compared to the parts of the language I like. I like it so much, in fact, that I've chosen NodeJS for the biggest project I've ever worked on. It's the best tool for the job, in this case.

But you know... people love to hate JS. I don't want to convince you not to, I really don't care. I don't particularly like being called an idiot as a matter of guilt by association, just as I'm sure you wouldn't like it if I said:

It's possible to write insightful comments on the Internet. Nobody does though, it's just too easy to write crap that works well enough for now. It seems to be the great failing of any "easy to publish" network. Create something simple enough that even an idiot can post their facile opinions on it, and only an idiot will want to.

And I am not saying that, except as a tongue-in-cheek reminder that we all live in a glass house and we might be wise not to throw stones.

You shouldn't, and don't need to, write JavaScript that way either.

First of all, Luddism isn't relevant. Luddites sabotaged industrial equipment out of a pretty clear and direct sense of economic self-interest*, not a sense of skepticism toward technology per se—in other words, anti-globalization protectionism is far more akin to Luddism than skepticism about technological development.

Second of all, everyone should be proud to be labeled "Luddite" in the colloquial sense you're using it. It's a badge of critical thinking. New technological developments are not by definition good, and contrary to modern thinking on the subject technology certainly isn't universally neutral. Some technology is demonstrably, fundamentally harmful. In other words, technology is just like every other product of human activity, and just like every other thing in nature. It's wise to approach new developments, in any of those domains, with skepticism.

* You might argue that this expression of self-interest was short-sighted, but that's a different dispute, one I'd be glad to take on if you're interested.

I'm pretty sure you end up informing against the other prisoner out of paranoid self-interest, even though the obvious intelligent choice is to operate on the assumption that everyone benefits more when you don't.

In terms of the political system working as it should, and the public being listened to, it should be noted that the legalizations in Washington and Colorado were a result of ballot initiatives—direct democracy. To the extent that the initiative process is less compromised than other legislative processes, the result is by definition determined by the public.