Since I've already been a pedantic wanker in this thread, I might as well dance...

Henry Shrapnel died a lieutenant-general, and was posthumously promoted to major-general. Convention is to use that final rank, however even if you are trying to be contemporaneous, he invented the eponymous shell while a lieutenant, so colonel is still wrong.

Richard Gatling was a medical doctor before becoming an engineer/inventor. He ran his engineering company during the US Civil War, and AFAIK he never served.

Likewise, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a French physician. Hence Docteur Guillotin, Monsieur Docteur, even Monsieur Medicins, but never Monsieur Guillotin. (Wikipoo says that Guillotin didn't actually invent the guillotine and opposed the death penalty, his family ended up changing their family name due to the shame. Also that a guy called Guillotin was guillotined.)

And finally, Willem Blunt was never knighted, the most he ever got was an OM. "Blunt Instrument" was also a nickname, not his actual surname. So, Willem "Blunt Instrument" Blunt OM. And he died after drunkenly falling off a horse, not being bashed in an alley.

Sir Terence Pratchett, OTOH, has an OBE and is fully entitled.

The AED can't restart the heart from true "flat line" (asystole). You have to force the heart into some kind of activity using manual CPR, and ideally a suitable drug, to give the AED something to bite on.

However, tachycardia can appear pulseless even though the heart is still beating (dysrhythmically), and the AED alone can shock-stop that dysrythmia and allow the heart to restore its own timing. That's where the advice to use the AED "even if their heart has stopped" comes from; their heart hasn't actually stopped.

Hmmm,

I'm guessing here, but that article might be about the Taiwanese jetliner crash. You know, coz of the headline, which is also in the URL.

Just a guess.

Flash photography in the cockpit at night at low altitude during touch-and-go's. Part of a pattern of such behaviour by the pilot.

Actually, blaming the pilot is the only thing that might help prevent a repeat. It really is just a "seriously guys, don't do that, it's retarded" situation.

Flash photography in the cockpit at night at low altitude during touch-and-go's.

This was not a smart pilot.

At night.

With a flash.

(FTFA)

Only in the sense that flying an airworthy plane into the ground is aviation, of a sorts.

Hell, I'd be surprised if Texas legislators don't respond by going to five parents.

"At least the..."

Many companies challenge the warrants, subpoenas and NSLs. (At the sort of the companies with Warrant Canaries.) If a TLA starts to issue frivolous ones, eventually a judge (yes, even an American judge) will see it as an abuse of process. That ruling then sets the precedent for the rest to be challenged.

NSL-DOSing may actually be a good thing for EFF/ACLU and the companies that object to these secret orders, since the agencies issuing them will inevitably make a mistake.

Then you do something else that isn't specifically excluded by the letter of the gag warrant.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the press, thank you for attending this press conference which is being streamed live. We, CompanyName, would like to announce that we are not removing our so-called Warrant Canary notice. We do not expect that our company will remove this notice, which claims [text of notice], at any point in the foreseeable future. Further, we reiterate that we have not received a [specific name of warrant/NSL/etc] under [specific law] from [agency/agencies listed on the warrant], and do not expect to announce receiving such a [warrant/NSL] for the foreseeable future. We will not be answering questions on this matter for the foreseeable future, except to reiterate these points. Thank you."

And when that gets listed, you do the next thing and the next and the next. The whole point of Warrant Canaries is that even if you can be compelled to lie, you cannot be compelled to lie well.

The enemy without is not the only enemy.

Constitutions are designed to get in governments' way. That is their sole purpose. If they didn't get in the way, they wouldn't be "Constitutions", they'd be guidelines. Voluntary codes. Best Practice advisories. It's the getting in the way that makes them Constitutions.

If a Constitution gets in a government's way excessively, then there are usually mechanisms within those Constitutions to change them. The US Constitution has such a mechanism. If the First and Fourth Amendments (and Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, and eventually the Second) so harm the government's abilities to fight teh terrists that it endangers the Republic, then they should make the appropriate changes to the Constitution.

Changing a Constitution is usually difficult.

That is also by design.

The only purpose of a Democrat President, and the reason to vote Democrat, is to prevent Republican Presidents from appointing Supreme Court Justices. The biggest anti-democracy cases and other anti-Constitutional rulings have typically been split 5/4. The five are the appointees of previous Republican Presidents, the four are two appointees each of Clinton and Obama. Even when "we" won 5/4, it's the four Democrat appointees and a single odd-duck Republican appointee versus the other four Republican appointees.

You need at least one more term to guarantee four Democrat appointees (RBG will retire/die soon), and at least another two terms to swing the majority away from Republican appointees. Then, and only then, can you hope to undo some of the damage that's been done by that Republican-appointed majority.

OTOH, if the Republicans get another President and control the next appointment (RBG's replacement), the court will be 6/3 and under their control for at least 20 years. By then... who knows how much damage they'll have done.

No. The Native Americans/American Indians may own the land of North America, under first-come-first-served, but that doesn't mean they own the political entity called the US nor the subsequent claims of the US. Since the US hasn't sworn fealty to Native Americans, none of their own claims of external territory belong the Native Americans, even if the US is falsely or illegally or unnaturally (or whatever standard you are using) squatting on NA soil while making those claims.

If a squatter illegally occupies in a property owned by you, you don't get to keep their stuff even when you get them kicked out. (Unless you get a judgement for damages, and the judge rules the property be held as surety. But that requires a sovereignty that you are both subject to.)

Speaking of slashdot committing suicide, is anyone else having the polls threads displayed only on the left-half of their monitor? (Also happens with direct links to any comment.) It's been happening for a couple of months.

It's not any of the beta bullshit (or at least "?nobeta=1" doesn't stop it) and it only affects polls (and direct links to cid's), not the home page or any other articles.