That is, they could use statistics to show that believing in Jesus Christ over Mohammed or Buddha or Gandalf does not produce a detectable intrinsic benefit to a believer. A very long-term study could be conducted to show the same for entire nations. The end result will be much worse than any disproof of the existence of God: religions will be exposed as harmless superstitions at best, or deliberate scams at worst.

I see two problems with this assertion:

1. It assumes that the study would demonstrate that there is no difference. Define "intrinsic benefit" by specific standards, and certain faiths will probably do better than others. For example, if I followed Jewish dietary restrictions, I'd probably live longer.

2. Most "believers" expect that they will be persecuted for their faith. They go into it knowing full well that they may be worse-off this side of heaven. How would the study change this?

Good luck on starting your religion!

What phone should I move to now?

I bought a PALM centro because it was easy to sync with Evolution on my Ubuntu Desktop. Palm began to lose market share rapidly. Then palm abandoned local sync with the Pre. Then palm got bought by HP, and has apparently disappeared.

So instead, I bought a Blackberry Bold, because it was almost as easy to sync with my Ubuntu desktop. Then Blackberry began to lose market share...

So tell me, slashdot, what phone can I move to now that will allow me to sync easily and locally with evolution on my Ubuntu desktop. (Local ethics rules and security concerns prevent me from using cloud services like google calendar)

How do you feel about apps which help innocent people to avoid being questioned about their activities by a man with a gun?

On the other hand (and drifting way off topic) does the federal government in the United States have the constitutional authority to implement the provisions of UNCRC?

I live in a small town (about 13,000 people)...

13,000 would make your "small town" the 8th or 9th largest city in South Dakota.

There will be no market for this product. Nobody wants to listen to reason, and it does not sell advertising.

We want to hear that grandma will be put out of her home by the evil "OTHER" candidate.

We want to hear that the highways are riddled with drunks and unsafe cars.

We don't want to hear that grandma's income is actually quite safe, or that highway fatalities today kill fewer people than suicide.

A few hours ago, there was a /. post about url redirect issues with facebook, twitter, etc. Many people posted links to nice firefox plugins which would filter some of that. At this point, thousands of people are probably pointing all sorts of interesting script-tweaking plugins at facebook to see what happens.

Maybe thats what happened?

And ear marks to pay for adding turtle crossings to roads in Badlands, South Dakota.

My sister nearly hit a turtle in SD the other day, while driving on a highway near our home. It was the size of a car tire. We put up those turtle crossing signs to warn motorists of the danger, not to protect the turtles!

So, acquitted or an over-turned verdict and you can get off the list... but simply being arrested and the charges later being dropped? Is there a process for expungement in that situation?

Generally, yes. In South Dakota, for example, we already have automatic DNA sampling imposed upon anyone *arrested* for a felony. It is part of the booking procedure. If the felony charges are dropped, dismissed, or you are acquitted at trial, you can send a copy of the dismissal order to the state lab and the sample must then be destroyed. This has been the rule for about two years now. (The tricky part is, for cases where the charges get dismissed early-on, you sometimes have to go ask the judge to sign a separate order documenting the dismissal, just so you have something you CAN send to the state lab.)

While we should probably be happy to see more than one viable candidate for the search engine market, none seem to address privacy very well. Both Bing/Yahoo and Google are quite happy to tell you that they'll track user activity and use it to make a profit. Are there any viable alternatives left with more favorable privacy policies?

Excellent, thanks for clearing that up!