cp702

Not really -- things actually have changed, in fairly significant ways, even in recent years. And people who do vote tend to get their concerns addressed all the time (you know why Medicare and Social Security are untouchable? It's because seniors vote more than any other group). When people who care about something are politically active in large numbers, it tends to go their way. It's when people don't care (in part because of false yet popular like "politicians never bother to follow up on their promises" or "Congress just does what rich donors and the 'lobbyist' class tell it to do, and members don't care what their constituents think," and yes, both of those are false) that politicians don't do things how their constituents want them to be done.

Since dwarfism is apparently a protected condition under the ADA, it's actually illegal to refuse employment to him because of his height if he is capable of performing his duties safely.

You've got the causality pretty much backwards there. First off, the claim that politicians never keep promises is wrong - seriously, people have done studies (particularly for presidential promises), and politicians do work to implement the vast majority of their promises (the thing is that "work towards" is the best anyone can do, because it's not possible to come in and just say "Here's how things work now;" also, the (much rarer) broken promises get more press). Likewise, members of Congress by and large do care what their constituents think, and are generally in it to serve the public (it's certainly not because it's a particularly easy job, or because of the pay). The thing is, when the public doesn't care about something, the system that tells politicians what to do breaks down. The people who do vote and participate (e.g. by contacting their representative's office to argue for something that helps them) end up with disproportionate influence, and so Congress gets a skewed view of the world. When no one seems to care about something, members just do what they think is best; when something is important to their constituents, they're far more likely to go with what their constituents want. If their constituents want something that they think is not good, then they might follow their personal convictions, and at the end of their term the people decide whether or not it was the right thing to do. That's why the most important effect of the disclosures of US government secrets is that it's gotten people to generally care about it -- when people care, Congress listens. When people don't care, Congress listens to the people who do care about the issue, who aren't necessarily the ones they should be listening to.

Bat-yachts are never unnecessary.

Topic moved to Suggestions and Requests.

Pushing to change how the United States government does its business is never betraying the nation. It is living up to the principles of a representative democracy, in which the people of the United States (within certain limits that operate solely to prevent the government from doing certain things, never to force it to do something) ultimately decide how the United States government operates. Not the very small percentage who have devoted their careers to focusing on a single thing; they do not get to do whatever they think is best. It's not ultimately up to them; it's up to the general public. No one claims that a random person off the street knows anything about national security, but that doesn't mean he doesn't get a say in what the government should be doing. That's the only way it can be in a democracy.

Oh, it's definitely benefited people. Where would our poor military-industrial complex be without it?

To be fair, that's partly because their color scale goes is only yellow on the high end (if the colors went from green to red, you'd see a lot less red). It's also partly because a lot of low-scoring countries have a large land area (exhibit A: Russia).

Most of the 200,000 Iraqis weren't soldiers.

The last one. Exclusively the last one - hence, "corruption perception index". Safety on the streets of the country is irrelevant (even if it were relevant, I'd consider 12th out 177 to be "one of the best in the world").

The uncolored countries seem to be disputed areas and/or non-sovereign areas.

I'm not particularly surprised to see Singapore ranked highly - from what I've heard, while its government isn't the sort I would ever want to even *think* about living under, it's efficient and fair.

That...wasn't really in question. Like, even a little bit.

Please read the actual law before claiming things like "it lets EMTs deny treatment to gay people" as though it were the "Don't Give Medical Treatment To Gays Act of 2014". The actual text is along the lines of "any law that conflicts with freedom of religious expression is void unless it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest" (i.e. as far as I can tell, the same test used on laws restricting speech). Note that there is already a federal law saying almost the exact same thing; the reason Michigan passed one is that the federal law can't affect how state laws are construed.

With the WTC, people would have agreed that if it went down there would be many deaths (and the idea it'd be attacked was also not new, because it was bombed in 1993). Here, I'm not challenging the possibility of an attack, I'm saying that your idea of the consequences is absurd. The difference is that estimating the consequences of losing generating stations is much, much easier than estimating probabilities. Saying "a few days of blackout would have an unparalleled impact on installations and economy" -- it would have an impact, but key uses would have backup generators. I haven't gotten into the likelihood (or not) of destroying transformers (for starters, each reactor seems to generally have an independent transformer set, so there are 58 you'd have to disrupt instead of 15). Also, you seem to be saying "People wouldn't have believed this could happen, and it did, so this should also be taken seriously". It doesn't work like that. Before you can credibly claim Europe is "on the edge of catastrophe", you have to make a decent argument yourself; you don't get the benefit of the doubt, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

For starters, I'm pretty sure French hospitals and the like have heard of backup generators (hospitals presumably have a battery and diesel generator, to prevent even momentary power loss). You're also probably overestimating the time it takes to get plants online; in addition to the spares on hand, transformers are to some degree interchangeable (it's always better to have a custom-designed one on a plant, and it would take time to source a suitable alternative, but it could be done if needed). Also, from what I can tell, continental Europe is on a single combined grid (like the US and Canada) -- stations in Germany or Spain could pick up the slack if French stations lose power. Then it's a matter of prioritizing (there's likely not enough excess capacity to handle 15 nuclear stations), but the idea that this would be total catastrophe is honestly ridiculous.

Try Windows 8 first; if you already have the extra copy of 7 Pro, it's not like you save money by putting it on right away. If you don't like 8 after a few weeks (to allow time to adjust), go back to 7.

College *themed*, or campus police?

It's specified in the script. The main point of starting _specific_ callouts is for developers testing plugins; if you just want a callout, StartCallout should start a random one,

MODERATOR NOTICE This thread isn't about Trayvon Martin. Please stick to Ferguson.

Firefox - Chrome's UI is really bad when you have lots of tabs (it doesn't let you scroll them), and it sucks memory.

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No. Why the hell would you have to be licensed to own a bullhorn?

Yes, Michael Brown is not alive to dispute Wilson's version of events. That's true in every successful murder trial; if the victim does show up to challenge the defendant's version, that defendant is not getting convicted of murder. There are, in fact, ways to deal with that problem and obtain a murder conviction.