You said that criminals are getting more murdeous when the numbers don't support your assertion. Policing is of course dangerous, but from what I see in the newspapers (and police deaths, accidents, and injuries almost always get reported in the media) I'd say the most dangerous part of your job was writing speeding tickets on the side of the interstate. We had so many police fatalities in Illinois that state law now says you have to move to the left if there's a police car parked on the shoulder with its lights on.

Police officer isn't even in the top ten list of dangerous jobs.

As to assaults, I have no numbers but I'd wager a civilian has a much larger chance of being assaulted by a criminal than a cop does. You'd have to be crazy to assault a man armed with a gun and a taser.

He was trying to make a point that criminals are getting deadlier, when there were only 10 more deaths in 2010 than 2000. The last few police deaths I've heard around here are accidental deaths caused by negligent drivers; from what I read, writing a speeding ticket on an interstate is pretty damned dangerous.

I'm not saying there job isn't dangerous, it certainly is, but it's not in the top ten most dangerous.

So you think collusion and price fixing should be legal?? You, sir, are talking utter nonsense.

The answer to why police have become more militaristic is because criminals have become more murderous against cops.

Sorry, officer, but you're full of shit. 160 police officers died in 2010, a 37% increase from 2009. Ten years earlier 150 died. That's out of 794,300 cops. And remember, those are all deaths including squad car wrecks.

To put that in better prospective, 774 construction workers died in the US in 2010.

Being a cop is a hell of a lot safer than being a construction worker.

Here's a little hint, Officer Moore: you might want to google before making a fool of yourself.

Huh?? Where do you see the slightest indication of that? If you're referring to Obama saying Travon Martin could have been him thirty years ago that was a perfectly apt statement that we whites should think deeply about.

Secondly, even if your absurd statement were true, the administration doesn't write the laws, Congress does.

Yes, I wish she would show up in more stories about biology. Surely there are more biologists here, though.

It's been thirty years since I lived there, but strangely I saw little racism among its residents but a whole lot in the cops. I got pulled over once for having a black passenger. If you there is more than one race in the car they automatically suspect drugs.

From the article it looks like the proper charge would have been child endangerment; firing a gun in the direction of a child is pretty damned serious if you ask me. She should have put the slug either in the ceiling or his leg.

But the bottom line is that which is easier depends on which you know better

Actually, I've been using Windows twice as long as Linux, and knowing the interface makes Linux superior, since Microsoft changes everything around with every new version. If you'd cut your teeth on Windows 98 you'd be lost in Windows 7, but if you'd never used anything but 2002 Mandrake you would still be comfortable with kubuntu.

I never did like Gnome. ...and which is better depends on what you're doing with it.

Well, that is true. If you're an image professional you'll need Windows or Apple because there's no professional equivalent to Photoshop for Linux or BSD. But unless you absolutely need that $700 image editor, the price is a waste. And gamers still need Windows.

Maybe I have an advantage having worked with many different systems

Same here, started on a TS1000 that I learned assembly on, then a TRS-80, Apple IIe, DOS, JCL (I have no idea what hardware it was running on), then Windows, then Linux. From about 1995 unto; 2005 I did a lot of mostly database programming in NOMAD on the mainframe and dBase, Clipper, and FoxPro, with some javascript for my personal web pages around the turn of the century.

And over 5 years I had 2 failed desktop drives, one failed server drive (in a RAID array), 1 failed desktop power supply, and 1 failed server power supply. No OS or MS Office problems. Fully automated updates. After the install, only ever went to a desktop for the hardware failures I listed. I wouldn't want to try this with Linux.

No OS problems? No hangs or bluescreens with W95 or W98? That's unusual. As to hardware failures, I never had problems swapping hardware in either OS (except XP thought it was pirated after a few hardware changes and I had to call MS to fix the problem).

I discovered around 2004 that Linux was far more hardware-fault tolerant than XP. I had a dual-boot system with XP and Mandriva, and the Windows side got really flaky. Turned out the power supply had gotten flaky, Mandriva chugged along happily until it failed completely when the Windows side wouldn't even boot. Both were fine after I replaced the power supply.

BTW before you say the desktop is easier to use in Linux you may want to say which Linux and which GUI (plus add-ons) you're talking about.

Like I said, I never did like Gnome. Been happy with KDE (except 4, when I tried Gnome). That's the desktop I'd suggest to a Windows user.

A really good OS wouldn't even have a Control Panel.

Well, I don't agree with that but I will agree that text config files are really handy. Too bad neither Linux nor Windows use them any more, I miss them.

Why is it when I post with Chrome it takes out all my line feeds, guess I should use IE.

I wouldn't blame Chrome, I'd blame slashdot. I'm not having that problem with FireFox here but I'm having other problems with it.

Do you have it set to "plain old text?" If you have it set to HTML it will remove your line feeds, you'll need <br> and <p> unless it's plain old text.

You never did explain why if Windows 7 and 8 are less bloated and easier to use than Ubuntu and Mint my ten year old kubuntu tower has half the memory and half the processor speed as my Windows 7 notebook yet runs rings around it.

Informative, where are the mods? Thank you for the info.

Windows 7 and 8 are less bloated and easier to use than Ubuntu and Mint.

Then tell me why my ten year old kubuntu tower has half the memory and half the processor speed as my Windows 7 notebook yet runs rings around it?

As to "easier to use", are you on crack? Windows is decidedly user-hostile and takes fifteen clicks to do anything that takes three in KDE.

Windows 7 isn't that bad an OS or I would have installed Linux, but KDE runs circles around it in every way.

I especially hate Windows on patch Tuesday, it's completely unusable for fifteen to twenty minutes. With Linux it's one click and you go on working.

The fact that you don't know this is because rather than actually ever using Linux, you listen to the bullshit from the shills. Please educate yourself.