A manager not knowing who you are or what you are doing is a problem, I agree. But even if a software engineering manager read every line of code written by every one of his employees, I don't think it would be generally possible to rank them.

e.g. Joe was assigned to design and implement Foo last quarter, and did it on time and with good quality. Dave was assigned to design and implement Bar last quarter, and did it on time with good quality. What information would you use to determine whether to rank Joe higher or lower than Dave?

If you want to apply for a job at the NSA, just pick up the phone. Any phone.

I'm not a bankruptcy lawyer, so I don't know whether creditors would consider a country to be in default if it paid interest on its loans, but reneged on promises to its citizens for things like Medicare and Social Security.

What I do know, is that if the American government kept paying Chairman Mao his usury, while cutting off Grandma's health care, then that government would be finished. Putting rich commies ahead of poor seniors is about the surest form of political suicide I can imagine.

"No, a proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof, and when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." - Jean Chretien

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX6XMIldkRU

I do not have "actual proof" that a man walked on the moon. I read stuff, watch the news, and decide on what seems to have happened. Could the moon landing have been faked, and thousands of NASA employees and contractors kept quiet about it all these years? Sure, it's possible, but it just seems like it would have been much easier to actually land a man on the moon that to fake it.

Syria used chemical weapons on its own people. Obama asserts that this is a violation of international law. (Syria didn't sign the Chemical Weapons Convention, I'm not a legal scholar so I can't say whether they still have to comply.) Obama asserts that this violation must not go unanswered or else the whole system of international laws has no meaning.

Obama decides that the appropriate punishment for this violation is a military attack by the USA on Syria. Per the United Nations the only legal basis for such a military attack is to defend against imminent attack on your own country or else to get a security council resolution authorizing the use of force. Neither applies here, so the use of military force would be a violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter.

So, Obama believes that the only way the rule of law can be preserved is to break the law?

Side question: Absent a declaration of war, would any USA military forces captured while engaging in combat in Syria be treated as unlawful enemy combatants?

The first stage of grief is shock and denial. Sometimes that can take a while (years) to get through. Eventually you reach acceptance and recovery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Every religion is a tool invented by people. Tools can be used for good or for evil. Look at the historical record and you wll find examples of that with every belief system invented by man.

No religion should be taught in school. In my opinion, no religion should be taught to any child. When they turn 18 and have an understanding of reason and logic, then they can choose to learn about religion and choose to just "believe" something if they want. Indoctrination of children into a belief system when they are unable to make an informed choice is wrong.

And like the hyptothetical Steambox that will run any game that Valve approves for download via Valve's Steam game service.

A variation of this would be that when cars traveling at dangerous speeds are detected coming from perpendicular directions, turn the lights green for both of them. ;)

The "good excuse" to invade Iraq that you refer to is that Iraq: 1. has lots of Oil, 2. was militarily weak, and 3. was politically isolated. To paraphrase Dick Cheney: "This invasion will pay for itself and my buddies at Halliburton will make a killing on oil deals."

Including the part where Bush let Bin Ladin escape from Tora Bora?

Actually, the point was to deny it to Al Qaeda. The Taliban refused to stop protecting Al Qaeda, so then the Taliban became targets. If the Taliban had agreed to the U.S. ultimatum to surrender Al Qaeda then the US would not have invaded. Of course the whole notion of denying safe havens to terrorists by occupying entire countries becomes a game of Whack-a-Mole where each "whack" costs the USA about a trillion dollars, and the USA runs out of cash before the world runs out of terrorrists popping up in new obscure countries.

The red car is in the leftmost of 2 left turning lanes. The car in the rightmost of the 2 left turning lanes remains stationary, which would be evidence that the left turn light was red.

Regardless of the signal state, as you note it is clearly a poor driving decision by the red car driver to accelerate from a stopped state and initiate a left turn into traffic that is flowing at high speed. If I were stopped in my car and I got a green light but oncoming traffic chose to ignore the signals and continue then I would choose to remain stopped. The rule for making a turn is that you should not turn your wheels until you are certain that you will be able to safely complete the turn and clear the intersection. That's because if you turn your wheels and stop and wait for traffic to clear, a car behind you can rear end you and push you into traffic, getting you killed. Happened to a coworker, RIP.

You are correct. The definition of "assault rifle" is a weapon that is capable of firing multiple bullets with a single trigger pull. The BushMaster does not meet that definition. My apologies for the mistake.

Here's how Adam gets into the safe: "Hey Mom, I'm going to the range to do some shooting, can I get a gun from the safe?" Mom: "Sure, and make sure to wear a jacket, it's chilly outside today."

His mother (who was a target shooter) introduced him to target shooting as a hobby. His mother did not believe that he was capable of violence so saw no reason to keep guns away from her son.

The mother did do something: She purchased the assault rifle use to commit the massacre and kept it in her home where her sone could get it.

Could she have done something different? Sure. The mother could have kept her assault rifle and hanguns locked up at the gun range in secure storage that only she could have access to. Instead, she kept the guns at home where her son could access them, apparently without her permission since she was apparently shot in her bed that morning of the massacre.