Maybe the Onion should change their slogan,

"The Onion, the most honest name in journalism"

"we didn't wait for Hitler's troops to march into Washington D.C."

Well, actually we kind of did. It was Germany's ally that did the marching-in and we usually refer to it as Pearl Harbor. We did not have a massive military before WWII and we did not have a massive, unbelievably huge, gosh were so impressed down here, military budget that dwarfs our major enemies combined . Ironically, France was considered the best military in the world at the time and the US was far, far down that list both in size and spending.

+1 on the Lenovo. My work MacBook Pro recently croaked and, skipping the hilariously ludicrous IT support (Corp. not Apple), I ended up replacing it with a w530. It was cheaper than an equivalent MacBook and easier to update (ultrabay, express card, etc.). I've been very happy with it. Just having actual mouse buttons made it more than worth it. The only drawback I can see is that the screen is not as high res and I don't believe quite as bright as the current MacBooks. But overall, I'd take one of these over the current MacBooks any day.

The story didn't have a lot of detail. It said the sub rose to periscope depth. My guess (with of course no experience it handling big ships) was that if they could only see the periscope, they may not have been able to determine quickly the speed or direction of the sub. Turning could make a collision better or worse. Slowing down or stopping could avoid and at a minimim will lessen the damage of any collision. Someone mentioned earlier that some naval vessels can stop in 1.5 times their length. If this ship could stop anywhere near that quickly, It seems to me to be the safest quick decision. Order all back, then try to determine the subs direction, try to communicate with the sub, take next steps to avoid a collision, if possible.

Interesting, my definition of a national health care would be exactly this. A society being responsible for the unexpected and unpredictable health events of its members is a responsible society. One very effective method of doing this is universal health care. Judging by numbers such as longevity, child mortality, etc., compared to cost per individual, universal health care in most other countries is a more efficient (both more effective and cheaper) method than what the U.S. currently has (mostly job based health insurance). IMO, a responsible society would choose the cheaper more effective alternative (and would be irresponsible not to).

People are lazy and shorten names, 'American' actually makes sense as a shortened (English) term that is still unique enough to differentiate the country.

United States of America => American
United States of Mexico => Mexican
Canada => Canadian
etc.

Of coures there are many more examples in North American alone. Most can easily be shortened to one word and still be unique, just like 'American'. Off hand, I don't believe there actually is a conflict in this method between using 'American' for the USA and a similar term for any other country in the Americas. Although, you are on your own for 'Dominican'.

I would actually re-phrase it as the problem is the voters are human. By that I mean, people are easily swayed by massive and often fraudulent advertising.

If you want to run for any office, the first thing you are going to be asked is how much money do you have. The best way to fix the problem that comes to my mind is to get money out of politics: Do not allow campaign contributions, do not allow massive advertising campaigns. Big money (large corps and the less than 1%) would have a much harder time working the US government as oligarchs without the massive amounts of money legally paid for elections. Without getting money out of politics, any gain will be a short term one. A huge grass roots campaign (OWA multiplied by x) may win short term gains. But as long as money is king in our politics, there will be lobbyist working 24/7 to push any gains back, while the rest of us are trying to live our lives.

Of course, the impossible question is how to get money out of a political system controlled by money. Most if not all of the big money interests that control US politics will obviously fight tooth and nail against any such change.

+1 to this. When I was just out of college, I interviewed at a company once where everyone was very friendly, including the VP I would be working for, up until I took the test he wrote. I got everything correct on the test and the VP became seriously angry. I was very confused. In retrospect, instead of continuing a polite interest for the rest of the interview, I wish I had just gotten up and left at that point. But definitely glad they didn't offer me the job, I may have taken it and that guy would have been awful to have as a boss.

Okay, I'll bite, off the top of my head without a whole lot of though:

* Don't allow any campaign contributions from corporations, business, entities, etc.

* Only actual human beings can contribute and drastically limit the contributions from any one person ($100 or less?), including the person running for office.

* Drastically limit the max amount of campaign funds allowed to a candidate.

* Possibly don't allow any money contributions at all, but allow a relatively small amount of public funding given to candidates with enough supporting signatures.

* Require media to have a certain amount of time per candidate via small number of commercials and debates.

Have more of an actual democracy instead of an effective plutocracy were money is used to buy votes (e.g. advertising) and has very explicitly become the main driver of our elections.

The theoretic free market also relies on a balance between buyers and sellers (lenders and debtors in this case). With the current government regulation, the balance between me and -insert large national bank here- is extremely one sided. I.e., it is not balanced and I'm definitely not on the winning side. To imagine that without any government regulation, it would be more balanced and not more unfair is (IMO, WTW) naive and historically ignorant.

In fact, you could argue that unions are playing and losing the
bribery game. This is a game that is won by the guy with the biggest
bankroll. And that's not unions. And that's very likely not anyone
that's reading slashdot either (or frankly any human in thu US +/-
0.01% of the population).

I find after reading this I can only repeat my (current) favorite
sarcasm:

"it's not even wrong"

sigh.

okay, I can't help myself. I'm not particularly knowledgeable about
religions, I just don't care that much. But, even I know religions
have changed dramatically over 1800 years. Even the Roman Catholic
one (you are Roman Catholic aren't you?, or perhaps Greek Orthodox?).
Pick one, any one, just like human societies, religions change over
time. Read a book for god's sake (more than the same one over and
over again helps).

Hmm sorry, that was a bit ranty, but the brittle "this has always been
the way we've taught this" goes with "we've always been at war with
King Henry the VIII". As far as evolution standing the test of time,
evidence for evolution goes back millions (okay you got me, billions?)
of years. Although, I'm sure that as we learn more, the theory will
be changed to better fit the new facts.

But that's kind of the point.

I think the GOP just gets a worse rap than the Democrats. But it's not because their individual goals are different than the Dems. It's just that when it comes to screwing the vast majority of the American people (~99% of us), the GOP is so much better at it than the Dems ;).

You just have to change the rules.

Two men enter and the one that comes out alive, loses.

Getting people to accept more oppression gives politicians more power