Quote from the Leahy press release: "As I prepare a managersâ(TM) amendment to be considered during the floor debate, I will therefore propose that the positive and negative effects of this provision be studied before implemented, so that we can focus on the other important provisions in this bill, which are essential to protecting American intellectual property online, and the American jobs that are tied to intellectual property. I regret that law enforcement will not have this remedy available to it when websites operating overseas are stealing American property" Does anyone have any doubts which way will they decide? This is nothing more than a diversionary maneuver.

Science moves forward by heaps and mounds!

Anyone remembers the Cambridge Crude? I wonder if they'll have a working solution (heh) in 2013.

Argh. ...But this doesn't preclude using them for that.
That's more like what I wanted to say.

Neither reason nor the brain evolved "to let people reach beyond mere perception and reflex in the search for truth" quoting TFA.

What a disappointment. It's little more than a fluff piece promoting Rift.

Getting bogged down by the needs of children is easy. Nearly inevitable. Getting the benefits of having kids... far less so. That might go a long way towards explaining the results.
Remember that this is the average - there are people who are happier since they spawned offspring (me). And yet I don't know if it would show in the questionnaire. Many aspects of our life suffered because we don't have the time and/or energy to pursue a lot of things that used to give us joy. To the extent we were accustomed to at least. OTOH, there are moments when I very intensely feel that it is well worth it. Does a drawing of a big red heart that hangs on the fridge increase my marital satisfaction? My financial status? My mental well-being?
I don't think one can rate happiness using a questionnaire. Not if the subjects consistently tell you that you got something wrong.
Or perhaps one can, for a certain definition of happiness.

How about: work to bring about a change?
On a sunny Sunday in the 1980s I was sitting on a park bench pretending to read a sf novel. Actually I was counting people coming into the election office. After an hour I went home and I assume someone else took over. I called a friend and mentioned a number in the conversation. The data was relayed further, and together with other bits of information collected from other inconspicuous looking young people it gave the underground opposition proof it needed to verify that the turnout was way lower than the government claimed. And to spread the word around the country and the world.
I was just a little pebble in the way of an avalanche. I didn't overthrow the regime.
But together, we did.
We wouldn't have had a chance to do it had we left the country, although many of those who emigrated contributed to the work in other ways.

Are you seriously suggesting that everyone who doesn't like the way his country is ran should just leave?
Just sever the ties that link them to the homeland - to the relatives, the job, the environment they grew up in - the culture, language, the graves of ancestors - leave behind the old friends and old enemies, take their family and memories and become... who?
A fugitive? Unwelcome guest? Jobless, homeless, at the mercy of international organizations, with unclear prospects and still a family to care for.
Of course there are those who managed to build a new life after leaving their country. After a time, most emigrees adapt. But at what cost? How many nights sleepless from worry, how many insults thrown at them and their children, how many degrading job interviews where your exotic medical diploma is worth less than a local plumber's certificate?
And that's after one manages to flee the country, not a simple task in itself.
You have no idea what you are talking about.

I live in one of the EU countries. I'm 41 and I owned 7 cars. I drive since legal age, although initially not out of any real necessity, just because I could and I love to drive. Two of my cars were brand new when I purchased them. One was a mistake.
I'm curious about the methodology of the study that gave rise to this factoid. If there was any.

Homophobic much? Yeah, I'm joking too.

Could you provide examples? I'm not saying it's impossible to enact a law that's unconstitutional - if the parlamentary majority and the president are for it, the Constitutional Tribunal will have to overthrow it and it can take time - but you make it sound like it was the norm, not an exception. While 214 cases in 25 years may seem like a lot, bear in mind that most of them concerns rather mundane subjects.

Color me interested. Where in our constitution do I find the tools to amend it as I please?
Granted, there is a number of anachronisms from the bad old times that restrict free speech for no good reason (and I believe the American constitution has it right when it comes to good reasons to restrict the free speech), but any changes to the constitution require quite a wide consensus behind them.
The open government legislation is of course a step in a right direction as it establishes an important general principle and a legal base to build on, but concerning its particulars, I'd rather wait and see than to pass judgment one way or the other before anything has been written into law.

OMFG someone has been plunging my house into the abyss while I slept! Every night through my ENTIRE LIFE!!1!

I work for a games magazine that also happens to have a website and a forum on it. People (our readers, mostly) post nasty comments there all the time. Would it be OK for us to delay or suspend the subscription of our magazine to folks who are a bit too rude towards us in the forums?
By the standards some of the commenters here seem to espouse, it would.