Never doubt the ability that people have to compartmentalize their thinking. You can actually have a lot of technical skills, and even a lot of science knowledge, yet hold fairly bizarre views that are directly contradicted by the evidence that you know. It's kinda hard to do if you actually have to use the principles that directly contradict your beliefs (i.e., you usually won't find young-earth creationists doing research in evolutionary biology), but most scientific fields are broad enough that you can easily specialize in something that won't threaten your bizarre beliefs.

You obviously didn't get the memo that a woman's sexuality is something to be controlled by men? That she has to go from being under the authority of her father, to being under the authority of her husband, who will each in turn be in charge of her sexuality?

If you want to be shocked, read up on "purity balls", where fathers pledge that they will be "the authority and protector" of their daughter's virginity, and daughters "pledge their purity" to their father. Are they common? No. But the very fact that they can exist in 21st century America is shocking. And the same noxious ideology is also peddled in diluted forms in the culture. Haven't you noticed that, in more conservative art forms (think: country music, conservative "family values" movies, etc.), marriage is always about "asking for her hand" (sub-text: her father has control over her sexuality and her person, and must relinquish it for it to be a "good" wedding)? What about "giving away the bridge" (who, apparently, is not autonomous enough to give herself away)? Patriarchy is alive and well in America.

Facebook is broken and should add a setting that don't let people add you to groups without your consent. I'm a coder and I didn't know that it was possible, so it's a good bet that the average user is even more clueless.

However, in this case, Facebook seems to have acted only as a catalyst. Living a double life is hard, Facebook or no Facebook. If you want to live as an openly gay person in Austin, to the extent that you are singing in a lesbian choir, it's gonna be very, very hard to make sure that no-one hears about it Newton, NC. All it takes is someone posting a video on Youtube and someone else recognizing you, or someone who enjoyed your performance writing about you on their blog and your family googling your name. What makes me think that their secret would have been revealed sooner or later is that, unless their families already suspected something, they wouldn't have reacted the way they did. If someone added me to, say, a radical Communist or fundie Muslim group, I wouldn't get a worried call from my family asking me if I've gone radical. They'd just think that someone messed up or that there must be a good reason. Likewise, being included in a 'queer' themed group shouldn't make your family leave bigoted messages on your voice-mail unless they're already suspecting something. For all we know, you could have a gay friend who sings in that choir whom you're trying to convince of the truth of Christianity. But, no, they immediately assume that you must be gay yourself? The man in the story had already told his mother that he was gay. How long would it have taken for his father to find out?

Bottom line: if your dad is a jerk and a bigot, and you happen to be gay, you're in trouble Facebook or not.

But looking at countries that do use proportional representation, we don't really witness such things happening. There are several reasons for this:

1) Your example still assumes that, as in a first-past-the-post system, there are two main parties organized along a left-right axis, and that the vote would be almost evenly split between these two parties. However, looking at what happens in actual countries, we see that there is much more diversity in terms of political parties and ideology. It's first-past-the-post that gives rise to the two-party system, not the fact that, say, paleo-conservatives and free-marketers necessarily have to form one party, and environmentalists and auto workers have to form another one. Countries in Europe that use proportional representation typically have many parties: classical liberal parties, social-democratic parties, green parties, more radical left-wing parties, conservative parties, religious (usually Christian-Democratic) parties, etc.

2) There are thresholds that ensure that crazy people do not get seats. Even a 5% threshold does the trick quite well.

3) There are informal norms that say that, when truly crazy people do get seats, the other parties should not enter into a coalition with them ("cordon sanitaire"). Any party that violates these norms would be punished by voters at the next election.

4) Countries with proportional representation seem to have less partisan politics. Yes, there are still tensions between political parties. But bipartisanship is much more common. At the local level especially, it's not uncommon for social-democratic (nominally socialist) and classical liberal parties to enter into a coalition.

The rest of the world does just fine with identity cards. I'm still waiting for fascists thugs to knock on my door, or anyone's door for that matter. Even without ID cards, in a modern society, everyone leaves a paper or electronic trail. Unless you're planning on not having a bank account, never getting anything delivered, never attending any school, never going to hospital and not having any kind of insurance, never driving a car, never owning any kind of real estate, never traveling abroad, you can already be found. The widespread opposition to ID cards in the UK, probably a world leader in mass surveillance, and the US, where private companies allow you to know everything about your neighbor, from their political persuasion to any criminal conviction to the value of their home, is unfathomable to the rest of us. Especially considering that people in these countries already have government-issued IDs that serve as de facto ID cards (driver licences, NI/SS cards, etc.).

As for Chinese dissidents, how it usually plays out is that the Chinese let them exit the country, even when the US has already made them leave the embassy. Once these people reach the US embassy, they're already too high-profile to be quietly disappeared and the longer they are allowed to remain in hiding, the greater the risk that they will cause trouble. Better to let them leave for the West and, with the 24-hour media cycle, they'll be out of the spotlight soon. E.g. Chen Guangcheng, who didn't even have to be spirited out of the country. China and the US negotiated and reached an agreement that would make both of them look good. China gets him out of the spotlight, the US get brownie points with pro-democracy activists. Could China have raided the US embassy? Of course. But they're not crazy and realize that they need the US as much as the US needs them and that it'd be nonsense to pick a fight with them. Whether the UK has done so or not in the past won't change that

The idea that a high-profile person such as Assange would be subject to extraordinary rendition while in Sweden is laughable.

Actually, it's because of such simplistic stereotypes about how rape victims are supposed to behave that so many sexual assaults still go unreported. Once you know that most rapes are committed by people the victim knew, you can understand why not all victims immediately go to the police. It's perfectly understandable that, if they had already had consensual intercourse before, the alleged victim would feel bad about what happened afterward if she did not agree to having sex without a condom but did not immediately report it. It's a common reaction and victims often need the help of their family or friends to fully understand what has happened to them and realize that it was rape. The fact that they "didn't seem phased" doesn't mean much, as there are many cases of rape victims dating and having subsequent intercourse with their rapist (clear-cut example: all those who were victims of marital rape).

See for references to published research: http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/pub_victim_responses_sexual_assault.pdf

The story of Einstein exhibiting poor performance when he was young is mainly myth. He did fail a university entrance examination when he was 16 but
a) He was sixteen!
b) He had excellent grades in physics and math
c) He did go to college when he was 17, after completing his HS education with once again top grades in physics and math

Einstein didn't really "end up working odd jobs" either. By modern standards, his career is fairly normal. He did have a problem securing a teaching post at first (which is what he had trained for) but within one year of graduation, he had already published an article in Annalen der Physik and, during his time at the Patent Office, was actually working on his PhD thesis. He was awarded his PhD in 1905, his annus mirabilis, and was soon able to leave his job at the Patent Office. He was a full professor at 32, again fairly standard for an academic.

Absolutely not. They are a government body, which means that the incentive part has been fixed for them already. The basic argument for patents is indeed what you have stated: it is cheaper to copy than to innovate. Therefore, all companies have an incentive to wait for others to innovate, then copy what they have done. Therefore, there will be less innovation than socially optimal and we must have patents to give companies incentives. In others words, we allow inventors to internalize some of the positive externalities that innovations generate.

The main rationale for government-funding of research is exactly the same: innovation generates positive externalities and, by funding research, we also allow for the internalization of these externalities. In theory, there is no need for patents in that situation.

Assume that the taxpayers are paying you to take these pictures because it has been decided that it was important for art to be produced. Wouldn't it make sense to make these photographs available to all, without restrictions?

The problem is that this overlooks one of the major problems with the current drive to patent all that can be patented, even when it was found as part of a government research project. As soon as there is a possibility to directly profit from research findings, it becomes more likely that research will be directed toward what will maximize the likelihood that something patentable will be found. This reduces the difference between what government and what the industry will focus on, which undermines the rationale for having government research in the first place (i.e. to fill in a gap and allow for "pie-in-the-sky" research that, although interesting for theoretical, basic science reasons, has no immediate applications). If the government ends up researching the same things as industry does because they want to be the first to patent it, launch a spin-off and get bought out by the industry, it might be easier to just subsidize the industry.

I have seen it happen at my own institution. Several departments have now all but abandoned basic research and focus on applied endeavors that would be best done by private companies. Mostly recycling well-known solutions with minor, incremental changes rather than trying any "bold" new research that might or might not work but has the potential to fundamentally enhance our understanding of the world.

It's quite a significant departure from the traditional role of government and universities in research and also restricts the diffusion of knowledge. If something has been funded by public money, it belongs to the taxpayer and should be freely available. This is one of the important roles of government, to release things into the commons so that it can be used freely. If, as an offshoot of basic research, interesting information is released and allows companies to improve their products at a low-cost, then the taxpayer benefits from that (especially since, with no patent, all companies have equal access to this innovation and cannot leverage the exclusivity to charge more), probably more than if universities join in the patent thicket and start suing companies on the basis that they "invented" such things as predictive text (University of Texas).

Patents might still be useful in pharma, where the costs of developing a new drug (even when the basic research has already been done by a university) are very high and the marginal of the drug is close to zero. But in most other fields, it's just a nuisance.

As I understand it, she will make recommendations to the EU commission, who will in turn draft a Directive. If adopted, a Directive is binding on all member states, which have a few years to change their national legislation to reflect what the Directive says.

At a time when austerity is the word of the day and cuts are being made all over the place, I wonder whether "superfast broadband" in rural areas is the best way to use limited resources. Presumably, people choose to live in rural areas because they derive benefits from that (clear air, outdoors, less crime, community, etc.). Good for them! But why should city dwellers subsidize their rural lifestyle? If you choose to live in a rural area with low population density, you have to accept that perhaps your internet connexion will not be as fast as if you lived in bustling city.

Perhaps someone should have mentioned to them that Uganda is not in Central Africa? It's considered part of East Africa.

Looking at this map from a recent publication, there seems to have been more cases of monkeypox in the US than in Uganda: http://wellcometrust.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/developing-the-atlas-of-human-infectious-diseases/monkeypox/

But, hey, it's "Africa", right.

You're making it sound as if these politicians have an epiphany and change their opinion for good reasons. What really happens is that they look at polls, realize that the position that they had been arguing for/against doesn't chime that well with the voters (for instance because, after primaries, they now have to appear to the median voter and "moderates"), so they shamelessly switch positions and now argue as vehemently the exact opposite of what they had been saying before.

When you have been on both sides of an issue and back and the guiding principle seems to be which way the wind blows, you're not someone who is good at adapting to new circumstances. You're just a cynical liar.

Indeed, it's not as if it had anything to do with slavery. It was all about states' rights! Of course, the first thing the Confederacy did was make the preservation of slavery a constitutional mandate. Doesn't sound much like a resounding proclamation of states' rights to me.