I have achieved quite a bit in my short life, and I am a product not only of the public school system, but of public schools in the southern part of the USA. From arguably the dumbest area in the country, and from public school.

Yet I'm doing quite well for myself, and during a stint at a very large Fortune 100 company, people were shocked when they found out I didn't have a degree, and that I, in fact, barely graduated high school (damn near dropped out because of how terrible it was).

One's success or failure has little to do with their schooling, and more to do with their own drive and ambition.

Those who WANT to succeed will, regardless of what is put in front of them.

This needs to be modded up.

Any creator of this universe (if any) is necessarily not from this universe, and therefore not subject to its laws (time, causality, a host of other scientifically examinable laws of nature). Science is limited to observable and repeatable phenomena within this universe. Therefore, science can never prove or disprove any outside creator.

America has the best government money can buy.

Obama was voted in to open up our government. He stated bills would exclude pork riders, bills with company backing would include a list of the companies making money off the bill, bills would sit on his desk for 5 days. His long list to open the government up was just election lies.

He is pushing this health care bill through with mandates, people are forced to buy insurance and a public option hardly anybody can qualify for. There are countries that have universal health care that works, our method isn't even close to a working model. All the talk that a bad bill is a good first step, so just shut up and go along with the crowd pisses me off. And if you say anything against it, you are a tea-bagger nut job. At least SNL can start to comment on the lack of progress in this presidents term.

There is a reason every insurance company and drug company wants the bill to pass, no price controls and all citizens must buy health care.

SSDD, follow the money, and most are on the take.

Funny, I'm more upset about the mandatory piece, when I'm not even in the age bracket that will be affected. I have insurance from work. The people just out of school not living at home getting hit with a 200-500 insurance bill. Or the middle class people who just lost their jobs and cant afford to pay the mortgage, and now has to pay insurance on top of it for a family. Good kick to people while they are down. They wont be accepted for the public option, and cant afford insurance, so will be fined with a tax, and have their unemployment garnished..

Of course, what do I know. Just my jaded rambling based on my personal life experience.

You stopped reading a bit too soon. Allow me to repost for you.

I'll refrain from reiterating another point of my original post.

This article is little more than FUD aimed at Windows. This just in, FIRE HOT! I run without AV, and I haven't had a virus in years. The few things that ALMOST happened, were caused by exploits within Flash or Shockwave. Vista stopped those cold. Yes, VISTA. How do I know I am virus free? Because I know how to scan my system without installing AV. I know how my system should perform, and I know how to see what's running. I periodically check the health of my system by checking what's currently being accessed compared to what's running. I haven't found something out of place in years. Since about 2003 to be exact. Since that time I've had at least 2 machines that I haven't run any sort of protection on. There has yet to be a difference between the machines WITH AV, and the machines WIHTOUT AV. Lesson Learned? Stupid users are stupid. And even the best AV won't protect from that. When I worked retail (shudder), the following was a fairly regular occurrence: Me: So, it looks like your computer is severely infected. Without even running a scan I see about 30 different infections of viruses/spyware. Them: Oh my, well how did I get them? I have (insert Popular Anti-Virus program here)! Me: Well, I do see (insert random P2P app, shady internet history, random items in download directory, etc. here). That could be it. Also it looks like your (insert popular anti-virus here) has been turned off. Them: Oh well yea everytime I (insert high risk activity here) it popped up and annoyed me so I turned it off. Again, stupid users are stupid.

I'm going to go eat 5 pounds of bacon!

I would not accept that kind of rule. What I do outside my work hours is my own business, and nobody else's. As long as I am not slandering or libeling my company or the workers there, it is nobody's business what I do on my own time. (And if I were, that would be legally actionable anyway.)

This is how I would present it to management: If they want to tell me what to do when I am "off work", then they can pay me for that time too. If they want to do that, fine. If they don't, too bad.

If they are telling me what to do, then I am at work. Period. I would not let them have it both ways.

Totally shouldn't have been modded troll. And I agree, it's not something that can be measured and accounted for. A simple look at my parents shows that clearly. My family line is full of drug addicts and people suffering from various forms of psychosis.

I myself am bi-polar, in addition to have a tenuous grip on reality. The grip remains tenuous mostly because I take no medication and, in fact, refuse to because of how it affects my ability to think. I simply separate what is real, from everything else I perceive. I use the word "simply" because it is a matter of will, nothing more.

I have contributed a great deal to society thus far, and to the common good. At 25 I've lived a fuller life than most have by the time they're 50. 95% of the people that I went to school with (consider that group covers an age span of ~10 years) have become drains on society as a whole, or are trapped in destitute lives, and their most pressing concern is whether or not so and so is actually gay, or if so and so's man is sleeping around, or that so and so got their belly button pierced. These people have on average been married twice, have 2-5 children (that they can't provide for), and about half of them still live with their parents (some of them are going on 30 years old).

I was the person considered the least likely to amount to anything given my origins, my parents, and my situation growing up (bottom barrell poor). I have not only beat the odds, I have demolished many people's ideals on parenting. The people who raised "Perfect Little Angels" suddenly find themselves grand-parents with 2 generations of the family living with them 10 years after the first generation should have moved on.

And the question of intelligence is ENTIRELY subjective anyway. There is NO objective way to measure intelligence.