Huh. I guess the shift key sticks on Macbooks.

The United States doesn't yet demand my fingerprints because---lucky me---I'm Canadian.

But it does demand fingerprints of most visitors. Someone needs to file a Freedom of Information request to find out how many crimes or attacks this policy has prevented per dollar of implementation cost. Then compare that to the US deficit and use some common sense.

Well, yeah, you can write obfuscated Perl (although what you wrote isn't even Perl... it's just a bunch of syntax errors.)

You can also write obfuscated C. And you can also write maintainable large systems in Perl and C. In fact, I think comparing Perl with JS is unfair; Perl is far easier to use for maintainable, large projects than Javascript is.

It's backwards to penalize people for conserving oil. This is a very short-sighted strategy.

I can't remember the last time I paid cash for gas in Canada. In fact, I think the only time in my life I paid cash for gasoline was in Florida when the pump wouldn't accept my Canadian credit card. I had to go in, give $50, buy my gas, and then go in again to get my change.

Tolkien's work is love-it-or-hate-it and unfortunately I fall squarely on the "hate-it" side. I guess it's good to know that we can enjoy hours of tedium at a higher-than-normal frame rate, though.

Because nearly every nation in the world soundly denounces their actions as "illegal" and "infringing upon internationally-recognized borders.

Ah, yes. The sacred and infallible will of the majority of UN members must be respected.

Take it to the International Criminal Court.

That court doesn't have jurisdiction over Israel since Israel never signed on.

That is a false dichotomy used to perpetuate the status quo.

Easy to say if you live in the US or Canada. Not so easy if you live in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.

it is no reason for the israeli government to continue with provocative policies like building new settlements.

I happen to agree. The Israeli government is astoundingly stupid and is compounding Israel's bad PR and international ill-will. Nevertheless, it's one thing to stop building settlements and quite another to withdraw from the West Bank or to expect peace from the Palestinians.

I am arguing for Israel to be treated by the international community (wrt to annexation of territory) exactly the way other countries such as Russia, China and Turkey are treated.

Or if you like, treat those countries the way Israel is treated. But at least have some fairness and consistency.

If you want your country to be safe and secure, don't make enemies of everybody in the world.

What's the alternative? If Israel evacuated the West Bank today, it would have rockets landing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem tomorrow.

There is no solution to the problem. The best Israel can do is keep a lid on the violence and make sure it only proceeds at a low-level. Eventually, it may find a real peace partner in the Palestinians. But I'm not optimistic. Even the "moderate" Palestinians say very different things in Arabic to their own constituency compared to what they say in English for the international community.

That was then, this is now.

Well, how conveeeenient. We (the USA, Russia, etc.) have grabbed all the territory we need, so now we'll make what we did illegal and grandfather ourselves.

There have certainly been other land grabs since the Geneva conventions (Turkey grabbing northern Cyprus; Russia grabbing Abkhazia and South Ossetia) and yet we don't see the hate-fueled virulent outcry against Turkey and Russia that we see against Israel.

We don't recognize the accumulation of territory by force as being legitimate

Nonsense. If this were the case:

• The USA would have to give back a large chunk of territory to Mexico.
• Russia would have to return territory to Finland.
• Germany would have to be given back territory taken from it.
• Turkey would have to give back Hatay to Syria.

Acquisition of territory by force has happened all through history, is continuing to happen, and will continue to happen for the forseeable future. The supposed illegitimacy of this practice is used as a tool to demonize Israel, but it's completely ignored when anyone else does it.

The $140B estimate is for the entire US, according to TFA. That's about $450/person.

Whats worse 100,000 cases of polio or cultural eradication?

Unquestionably, the polio.