Granted, most of the ones that pop up on blogs are pretty lame but there are some good ones out there.

Some of the ones produced for the Guardian newspaper are pretty good.

For example:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/26/government-spending-department-2010-11

I also like the one's that Randall Munroe produces at xkcd.

http://xkcd.com/980/

The thing that the good infographics have in common is that the graphic part of them is integral to how they present the information - they are not just showing bits text with associated clip art.

There are also animals where the survival chances of offspring is enhanced by the sacrifice of their parents.

Maybe the financial benefits of playing the NFL, which can be passed to offspring, outweigh the potential downside of having a shorter life.

>For very low values of nice.

Some English wine, especially sparkling, has been doing very well is recent years, including beating the French at their own game:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9279939/Former-hairdresser-wins-top-wine-award.html

I predict:

People who don't believe in AGW/man made climate change will think that this study is just part of the conspiracy

Most people who do believe in AGW/man made climate change will continue to suggest remedies that just will not happen due to economics/human nature

The small amount of actually useful discussion of how we can adapt to a changing climate (no matter what it's cause) will be drowned out in the accusations and counter accusations

>Well I think that video streaming sites would be VERY interested in this data. Probably interested enough to at the very least partially fund the research.

Since both of the authors of the paper are employed by Akamai, one of the biggest video distribution networks, I think it is likely that they entirely funded the research.

>If you are so sick of American retards then have your governments drop out of NATO

errr, given that the parent poster said "Most americans are fucking retards so I'm stuck with the healthcare for the rich only system we have here", I'm guess they are an American...

Never miss out on an opportunity to have a go at your allies though. The allies who stuck with you through the cold war, providing the front line against the soviets along with convenient places to locate early warning radar, airbases and even nuclear missiles.

The reason that European countries can afford universal healthcare is simple - we have higher taxes than the USA to pay for it.

Some analysis of your first point here:

http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/how-flawed-is-life-expectancy/

tl;dr - people at the USA still have lower life expectancy when measured from later ages

With regard to your second point, this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-born_population_in_2005

gives the USA and Germany almost identical percentages of foreign-born residents. (12.81% and 12.31%) France and UK are not far behind. No breakdown of where they came from but most immigrants to Europe are from poorer countries.

>In particular, what would you say Israel could have done differently?

Routing the wall they built so it didn't involve taking farmland from Palestinians, knocking down palestinian homes or separating palestinians from their water sources.

Not building settlements on palestinian land

Not knocking down the homes of palestinian militants, where other people live too, as a form of collective punishment

I don't have a problem with Israel defending itself - the militants who are firing rockets at civilians deserve everything they get. However, Israel is not blameless - there are plenty of things they could have done differently which would reduce the support base of the militants rather than encouraging it.

>Why does this balance of power between large and small states (which I can understand), require ALL votes in a state to go to a single candidate though? Wouldn't allocating a state's electoral votes proportionate to the actual percentages allow third parties a chance at gaining some representation that seems essentially impossible now?

I think your second question answers your first. The folks in power have no interest in helping third parties take some of that power away from them.

>Around 44% of the votes for president in Minnesota DO NOT COUNT

They do count - just not in the final stage of the process. You live in Minnesota, so you get to help decide who Minnesota wants for president.

The USA is a federation of states (as the name makes clear) - directly electing national politicians would be against the whole way the country was set up.

If you take your argument all the way, you would have to say that in an election based on the popular vote, anyone who didn't vote for the winning candidate would not count.

Would you also remove all scores made by losing sports teams from the record books on the basis that they didn't count as their team didn't win the game?

>In one place he talked about an alien living in a far away galaxy seeing events on earth. If he was moving towards earth, he would see our 'future'.

What was the reasoning behind that?

>That is precisely what they do not do.

So what are they doing? They make a hypothesis, experimentally test it and then make conclusions. Sounds like the scientific method to me.

> You know what bugs me? The science cheerleaders who don't know the first thing about science -- though they think they do -- repeating total nonsense like it's gospel.

You know what bugs me? People who make assertions with nothing to back them up. You are asserting that they are 'precisely' not doing science and yet you don't provide any reasoning or evidence to support that assertion.

How do you define the difference between 'science' and 'not science'?

What specific features must an investigation have in order to be classified as science?

Surely following the scientific method is the very definition of doing science. You can criticise the specifics of their approach but it's still science.

> when did you see someone break something important just for the sake of it?

There are regular news stories about vandalism, ranging from things like memorials that are important symbolically through to things like railway where vandalism could result in a very dangerous situation.

Haven't you ever seen coverage of riots? Usually any big riot is a mix of looting where the motive is theft and just pure mindless destruction of property (e.g. cars being rolled over or torched)

On an electronic level, there are plenty of DOS and DDOS attacks that are motivated by mischief rather than any other motive.

For a lot of people (maybe all of us to some extent) destroying things can be enjoyable.

>Having said that, wtf does the "MMGW" acronymn stand for?

Man Made Global Warming