Humans do better when they can cooperate in small groups.

Unfortunately, men have been disproportionately killed in the disturbances - there's only so much shuffling that can be done.

(And what's with all the hating on feminists? Feminists might write or say annoying things - the other team has such crimes as honour killings, suttee and genital mutilation at their feet...)

...because they allow you to patent things that any competent practitioner would consider obvious, despite their own rules.

...because they don't require a working prototype of your idea and thus anyone can patent anything they can conceive of.

It will never change because it's overall advantageous to large companies.

perhaps not that exact technology, but having a "database" (probably distributed) of wireless clients and then doling out the bandwidth to them is the only way to run the new world.

At some point, the cost of putting "anything" onto the net - your lights, your fridge, etc - becomes very small, a few pennies, so why not? And most of these items won't need very much bandwidth and won't have very much range... but it still won't work without some sort of coordination to make sure that these tens of billions of little smart things don't step on each other.

(Note: this assumes that our technological culture doesn't collapse before that, which isn't looking like a great assumption these days, but if so we'll be discussing how to prepare rats for better eating...)

This is so in keeping with the "dog ate my homework" strategy of our Modern Politicians: we won't fix the problem now, instead we'll fix it at some further date.

In this case it's "We won't give you good health care now but perhaps in the future."

But here's how it will really go. They'll pass some watered-down bill that won't even start operating till 2012 (as we have been warned already by the Democrats themselves). A year later, 2013, it'll be clear that the insurance companies have not voluntarily cut their massive profits - but then we'll spend a year arguing about whether or not to actually pull the trigger - and even if we do get a public option, in 2014, it's very likely that by then it will have been castrated into meaninglessness - but even if it works, tens of thousands of Americans will have died for nothing since 2009!

I'm a "liberal", "progressive" guy, but I'm already sick of Obama's self-satisfied smirk. What has he done to deserve all this?

The only thing that makes it tolerable is that it has to be even more irritating to the vile Republicans.

Hah, I laughed at the trailer. Hakodate made it on the map for me with this one. Everyone loves giant squid.

I have to confess however that like the previous writer, I don't really like to eat squid. On the other hand, I don't like to eat, well, consume humans and I like to see movies with humans acting in them....

It was under the "Satire" section, but it's surprisingly convincing. It never falls over the edge into "parody" but keeps it knife-edge subtle... not even "funny" but "makes-you-think".

Good show!

I read every one of these but haven't commented....

I'd say "explicit", not "sexy". I barely made it to the end of the ad...

I more or less agree with the posters who say (more or less) that what is done with bodies is much less important than what happened in their lives.

But the reason this is an important article is it shows very clearly the stark contrast between what the military-industrial complex claims to believe, and what it really does.

The observant reader will note that this is what's in common with the previous top-notch series run here about malfeasance at Walter Reed - it shows very clearly that the powers-that-be really have little care for those actual soldiers that they're constantly telling us we need to support.

Stories like this evolve slowly - but they actually push real things to happen. Once people start to realize that they're being lied to up and down the line, they will push back. And what better way to do so than to force them to realize that the bodies of their sacrificed children are being desecrated?

This is why I subscribe to Salon.

...and apparently they really do work. If he loves you he should take one of these - I'm sure he'd have fun if so.

With all due respect, the issue is that the axiom "war is good" is simply not even allowed to be debated in public.

Please do consider that we had the largest demonstrations ever in the history of the planet against the Iraq war. But what did you see about this on the news? Practically nothing at all - and what you do see focuses in on the tiny, tiny number of antisocial personalities that any such gathering attracts, rather than the fact that these marches were in fact astonishingly well-behaved and astonishingly factual in their complaints.

Consider how much more coverage the smaller anti-war rallies in the 60s got. But look what happened; there were actually some changes made; we got out of a war! They're not going to let that happen again.

We generally alternate between a pro-choice and a pro-life President. But when have we had an anti-war President?

The political parties love reproductive rights issues. Note that we had eight years of a very right wing government - and what happened to our reproductive rights? Very little - because if the Repubs actually gave their constituents what they wanted, they might actually have to deliver something substantial next time.

On the other hand, both political parties are making huge money out of the wars. They have no interest in killing the goose that laid the golden eggs; they really don't care if their constituents like it or not because, surprise, if you're left-wing you have no choice but to vote Democratic, whether or not they're bloodthirsty warmongers.