Remember when you would upgrade software because it actually had additional features or bug fixes that were useful? Rapid release cycle schedules have stifled true product innovation, as upgrading is more often mandatory for perceived/enforced compatibility. "We support all our software for 1 year after the next release (which is every X months)" No need for us to innovate, you have to keep paying to use our product as we'll just make it non-functional in 9-12 months! Dont get me started on the paradigm shift AWAY from standards and interoperability...

Full disclosure - I have been a public school teacher of both advanced and remedial Math/Science classes in a major metropolitan area for the past 15 years. While I agree that there are some "bad" teachers that can not be easily fired due to union rules, they are in the extreme minority. The 400 pound gorilla that everyone wants to ignore is parent responsibility. If a student skips class, is disruptive when they are present, refuses to do homework, and thus scores poorly, how does that reflect on the teacher rather than the parent? The difference between an "A" student and a "D" is effort...yes, partially on the part of the teacher, but MUCH more so on the part of the child and their parent(s). A "failing school" says more about a community's decline than it does teacher performance. Those of you that bash the teachers' unions fail to realize that even though they are not perfect, they are the ONLY entity that fights for smaller class sizes (40 in my district), teacher training/development and fair wages.

So, pick a republican backed fundamental program (probably one which subsidizes big businesses) and this intelligent community can all go over and intelligently propose the same thing to YouCut. If they can shape media, so can we.

As of this posting, Firefox 3.6.3 no longer works going to www.apple.com (but the store still does). Safari 5 allows you to see the home page, but none of the links (iPhone, iPad, etc.) show properly. Nice QC Apple!

How is calculating odds for gambling/sports forecasting any different from calculating odds for gambling/the stock market?

That the Texas school board is batshit insane is not even in question (they are). The problem is that because Texas mandates that all of its schools use the same textbooks, publishers wanting to pander to their largest single purchaser CUSTOMIZE THEIR TEXTBOOKS FOR THE TEXAS MARKET. Unfortunately, this is at the behest of unbiased facts, and these textbooks are then used by the rest of the U.S.. I know it's an urban myth that the Texas Constitution allows them to secede from the nation, but can't we start a "T" party to force them out?

Seeing as we have pretty much removed the stick, the carrot may be worth a try. Without trying to sound like a curmudgeon....when I was in school (in the 80s) we would have been suspended or paddled for a large majority of things kids get away with in today's public schools. From my personal experience, a HUGE proportion of "under preforming" students just don't take school seriously. While not always the case, this is often because their parents aren't doing their jobs at home. Teacher to parent: "Brian hasn't turned in ANYthing for 2 weeks. If we don't get him to start taking his education seriously, he's going to fail this class." Parent's response: "I just don't know what to do with him. He's always out with his friends, and I can never get him to do his homework." ...grow a pair and take some responsibility. Public schools are faaaaaar from perfect, but they're caught, in that they can only react to external problems...and with a dwindling set of tools.

Can't call it a disease...some organization will spring up (maybe the National Association for the Advancement of Colorblind People) and say that Red and Green M&M's are misleading and we should only eat the gray ones.....wait aren't they all gray?

Realistically, a large amount of the heavy metals we get from China end up getting sent back there as waste (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/toxics/electronics/where-does-e-waste-end-up). By researching reclamation techniques, we can hopefully reuse some of what we get in the first place.