FictionPimp opined:

AmiMoJo marveled:

Remember, as Mitt Romney said, "Corporations are people, my friend."

As for me, I mailed PayPal's legal department my opt-out letter yesterday - and included a demand that they acknowledge its receipt in writing.

I took chemistry AND physics in high school. That's because I entered my senior year with more than enough credits to graduate - except that the state of Ohio required me to have a half-semester in an Ohio-mandated civics course (I moved here from Florida after my junior year). No exceptions, thank you very much.

I could have decided to take only half-semester courses (or, for that matter, only THAT half-semester course) and graduate mid-year, but that didn't appeal to me, for various reasons. Instead, I decided to take both full-semester science courses, along with various other subjects that interested me, because wtf.

Ohio offers achievement tests in assorted subjects. I took both the chem and the physics tests. I came in first in my school by a fairly hefty margin, and tied with my lab partner for third in physics.

Forty years later, I retain very little of what I was taught in chemistry, and even less of that physics class - but I continue to be interested in science in general, and my physics lab partner went on to be the best man at my wedding, and is now my oldest friend (as in "the one who's been my friend for the longest period"). I was never interested in becoming a scientist, but I've been a professional writer (defined as "one who gets paid for it") since 1994, and one of the things I enjoy most about that career is the opportunity to research myriads of fields, and to continuously add to my knowledge base.

As it turns out, I'm also an excellent - and quite experienced - public speaker, songwriter, and HTML hand-coder. I've run twice for public office - alas, unsucessfully - and I'm nearly two-thirds of the way through writing a novel that other authors have praised:

• http://authonomy.com/books/47882/american-sulla-a-time-of-trial/read-book/

So, fuck David Bernstein. High school chemistry isn't going to hurt his Precious Little Boy.

Randle_Revar protested:

I see that Merriam-Webster agrees with you: "4: an indefinite small number : few <a couple of days ago>

Shame on them.

MyLongNickName complained:

That's not "a couple problems". It's THREE problems.

That's the problem with /. Apparently even nerds can't do math ...

artor3 inquired:

Since the "simple" definition of profanity is irreverance, then, yes: vulgar and profane.

Cursing is yet another form of malediction, the specific meaning of which is "to place a curse on [a person, place, or thing]."

i.e. - "Damn you," or "To Hell with you," or "May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits," etc.

Technically speaking, the poster is incorrect in referring to Linus Torvalds's comments as "profanity". They are, instead, vulgarity (common or coarse language), rather than profanity (language which demeans the sacred).

Hey ... I'm a writer. I can't help myself.

wvmarle opined:

Nonsense. That's the exact same argument the U.S. drug warriors employ against decriminalizing possesion of scheduled substances, and it is demonstrably wrong (i.e.: Holland's experience with decriminalizing the possession of heroin).

Insofar as voting is concerned, one of the principle objections to purely-electronic voting is the lack of a paper trail that can be audited to determine whether votes were properly recorded. Here in Ohio, we've used touch-screen voting for a while now. As an election official (currently a Presiding Judge - not as impressive as it sounds, but the person who is responsible for opening and closing voting machines, and preserving the trail of custody between the polling place and the country election commission headquarters, where they are officially tallied), I can tell you that we have pretty stringent measures in place to make sure that, in primary elections, the number of partisan ballots recorded in our logbooks as cast for any given party matches the machine totals EXACTLY. This Spring, my crew spent more than an hour tracking down ONE erroneously-recorded vote, correcting the logbook, and fully notating the changes - and I'm the one who signed the report.

The thing is, at that same election, I had a Republican voter object to being asked publicly to state which ballot he wished to vote (there were four partisan and one non-partisan "issues-only" ballots from which to choose). The law states that we pollworkers have to ask, and we are required by law to challenge voters who claim a party affiliation we have cause to suspect they don't actually hold.

That's nonsensical, of course. Any voter should be free to vote any ballot he/she chooses. But the point is that that requirement was put into law by Republican lawmakers, ostensibly to prevent voter fraud. The bar code mechanism (in an entirely different state, I hasten to add) was emplaced for the same reason - to provide an audit trail in order to reduce the chances of voter fraud.

The fact is that there is always going to be tension between the tradition of anonymous voting and the need to prevent fraud - whether it's vote-buying, or hijacking ballots, electronically or otherwise. That anonymity is a tradition that goes back to the Athenian democracy doesn't in any way make it sacrosanct. It's just a tradition. Yes, I understand the argument that a public vote subjects the voter to pressure and retaliation. There are laws to prevent those abuses, too - laws with big, sharp teeth. A balance has to be struck between anonymity and verifiability, and how to weight that balance is neither as simple nor straightforward as you would like to believe.

To quote the Bard of Baltimore: "For every complex human problem, there is one simple, easy-to-understand solution: and it is always wrong."

wvmarle posited:

In the USA, it is a violation of Federal election law to offer any consideration in money or goods in exchange for a vote. If they catch you buying votes, you go to prison.

In fact, this law has been repeatedly used to stop merchants from offering incentives such as free beers, coupons, or even bumper stickers to citizens merely for showing the (incredibly easy to obtain) "I Voted" sticker that is handed out in every polling place I've ever visited. Note that it's forbidden, even though the giver does not request ANY information on HOW the voter cast his/her ballot.

Methinks you know not whereof you speak.

<full disclosure>I am and have been a local elections official for the past 7 election cycles.</full disclosure>