It depends...social security, about 1937, medicare, more like 65, public schools, that depends on what you want to call different systems, but in North America it started in 1647
https://www.raceforward.org/research/reports/historical-timeline-public-education-us
The road bit is a PERFECT example of how, even if you don't directly use a service, you benefit from others using it....just like EVERY OTHER SERVICE MENTIONED.
Because we don't deny medical services to those without money, it's a question of do you pay less beforehand or more later, because either way you pay.
Because uneducated children cost society FAR more than educating them does, standing on your myopic moral high ground demanding 'personal parental responsibility' is a self defeating stance demanding people 'give' more than some have to give with no option for the children of the poor. (That said, I can get behind the 'public schools being free only for the poor' plan I think Jefferson had, as long as those schools are on par with private one's)
I explained clearly why even those average numbers are misleading.
Again, is that purchasing power per dollar, per person, or what?
OK, 'middle class' is not the average American. How about give the average American salary instead of cherry picking a rapidly shrinking sub-group that makes your point?
We all pay through the nose...it's just about when and how. You pay for the indigent by paying higher insurance and medical bills...it would be FAR cheaper to simply pay for their medical care in the first place (as in single payer health care). That saves the 10-25% that insurance companies take as profit on day one, and saves on overall medical care cost per person by properly taking care of people instead of waiting until there's an expensive emergency to pay for. (and makes a much healthier, so happier society as a whole)
The fact is that they are happy with their system. It does not make them all 'perfectly equal', there are rich and poor in Norway...or do you not believe that? People DO get ahead in Norway, probably more so than the average person in America who has seen their financial/social status in life, purchasing power, benefits, opportunities, and security go backwards over the last 40 years, unlike Norway.
No, I think the entire 'identical to everyone else' thing is something in YOUR head, not theirs, and not reality.
Don't have disposable income?!? In Norway, not the US?!?! You've GOT to be kidding. Let's ask someone who lives there...@BicycleRepairMan , is there only one social class in Norway, all equal, all making the same amount of money, all poor and destitute with no disposable income?
Well, the American system certainly disagrees with you. Those that put the most effort into their jobs usually make FAR less than those that put little effort into taking advantage of the opportunities available to them, but not to others. Those that make more in our society almost NEVER do it with manual labor, the hardest work to do. They also rarely do 2 or 3 full time jobs, as many poor must do. It's simply not true that working harder gets you advancement in the US, opportunity and connections get you advancement.
I do agree, giving medals for average/expected performance is ridiculous, but that rarely happens in business.

This video was taken near the Central Oregon Cascades. Full story: http://www.bendbulletin.com/localstate/3095112-151/lost-lake-shrinking-down-a-hole?referrer=carousel1

sorry, with shrinking honeybee populations and shortages of honey I can't upvote this and condone wanton waste of good honey.

On a phone, the new layout looks quite nice right until you get to the bottom, and then the related and suggested vids are quite messy.

Old style (neater list) - http://imgur.com/PkJe43M
New style (messier list) - http://imgur.com/4EBq4cS

You could neaten it up either by making the thumbnails smaller, or by only displaying three instead of five videos in each list. Actually the thumbnails seem quite large even on the desktop version.

As there is no way to mouseover on a phone, could the comment timestamps be made unconditional there (or everywhere)?

What makes me switch back and forth between v6 beta and old style is missing list of voters. I would've said number of views too, but I see that's been added (thanks!).

One usability thing - the way the comment box shrinks just before you want to hit submit means you have to chase the submit button around the page. This doesn't help. Moving the controls above the textbox would fix this, although I'm sure you can think of other ways.

I'd like to see Beggar's Canyon back in the "watch" menu, although I'm also open to only having it and deadpool and no thumbs appear only on the front page. It has been used a bit less lately, but as it was initially one of my favourite starting points I feel the need to stick up for it

Definitely rummaging around the bottom of the barrel. On the other hand, I understand that's how we got 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and I thought that turned out great.

I've never heard of Ant Man before, but I take it that his super power is that he can shrink himself down to the size of an ant and, I dunno, probably communicate with insects. That could be interesting, although it's definitely more of a 'useful sidekick' sort of character than a lone hero.

After spending a few weeks in Malaysia, I came to significantly appreciate the bent metal pipe in the few sit down toilets I got to use which points directly at el bunghole, with a tap to the side of the toilet. Turn that bad boy on and let soothing water wash away the burning chilli and curry from your screaming portal to the realm of Nurgle the poo, followed by a brief pat dry with just 2 squares of paper (not a lot of double ply over there, with a double or triple ply you could easily get the job done with 1).

You don't even need a proper bidet, I reckon a small metal pipe, some hose, couple of pipe clamps and you too could be riding the soothing rush of water cleansing your nether regions.

ps. The "portion cutting mechanism" really needs that *shrink shrink shrink* noise from a slasher movie, that motherfucker is going to town...

TBH, self centered is not a requirement.

Not being busy means management will pick on you, so you stay busy, even if there isn't really anything worth being busy with. Basically that simple.

The right thing to do is simply say : "hey, I'm really just forcing it here, so I'm gonna resign". Followed by the department management not replacing the employee, and allowing their funding to shrink. Not a realistic expectation.

-scheherazade

No, it means that it's too late to have no climate change as a result of human produced greenhouse gasses (thanks to the impressively effective interference and intentional confusion caused by politically motivated climate change deniers who have delayed meaningful action thus far), but it's never too late to stop adding to the problem and making it worse.

The 'right wing' stance so far has been "It's not real, no...I mean, It's being faked by scientists, no...I mean, it's not a problem, no...I mean, it's not man made, no...I mean, it's too expensive to do anything, no...I mean, it's being faked by scientists, no....I mean, it isn't real, no...I mean, it's too late to do anything." I quit giving them an ear at "It's not real", because I can read and do math, and can understand science.

EDIT:And please-oh-please. Give me the URL of the UN speech you quoted as saying "Quit thinking about Climate Change, and act to empower us even further than we already are! What wealth still exists is shrinking, so we need to scramble harder for your last dollars!" I'm thinking you made that up.

@ChaosEngine @newtboy
Well, if Climate Change is now "irreversible," does that mean that the Climate Change believers will stop trying to use the government to try to reverse it? (I say it's one less thing to worry about! Alas, there will always be contrarians to this malarkey, as the U.N. pouts "Quit thinking about Climate Change, and act to empower us even further than we already are! What wealth still exists is shrinking, so we need to scramble harder for your last dollars!" You boys should donate if you care so much.)

Have they thought that it could be an 'increase' in sea ice because the Antarctic ice sheets are flowing into the sea so much faster? It makes perfect sense to me, and also would explain why the Arctic is shrinking while the Antarctic ice sheet is 'growing'.
I want to see a study of the total AMMOUNT of ice, not the SIZE of ice. A square mile of ice paper thin is less ice than a cubic hectometer (100x100x100meters). Without measuring thickness, "size" means nothing.

Economically, it'd be really counter-productive for them to leave.

They currently receive more in revenue that they pay in taxes and receive more generous social programs than England. Like mentioned, they'll get full control over their oil reserves just as output begins to decline. Also their banking sector (relative to their economy/tax take) is huge and will have to shrink as investors will see it as a risk and divest otherwise.

They'll most likely retain the pound as the currency by default (at least in the short term), but lose control over interest rates. If the economy sours they will have the same problem that indebted Mediterranean countries had, in that all the pressure will fall on wages and job cuts rather than being eased by lower rates or currency depreciation. If they join the euro, they will of course have same issue.

Speaking of which, an interesting point is that with a large liberal wing of the UK leaving, this will strengthen conservative arguments to leave the EU.

What really bothers me most about all this hoohaw, are the number of statements about "Men do this..." and "Feminists are that..."

It's a pretty safe bet that anything generalized that far is almost as much wrong as right (or vice versa). Making general statements about billions of people is really not helping...and shrinking the number to just millions doesn't make it any more right.

It really makes no sense to try and claim the moral high ground by committing the very same kind of stereotyping that you're bitching about the other side doing. Stop. Just stop.

I remember meditating as a teenager. I found my consciousness shrinking into a tiny sphere. My head was a vast empty space, miles in diameter. Did it make me a better person? Who knows.

Degeneracy is really, really cool. It's all about squashing things into as tight a region of space as you can. It's an observable justification of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the Pauli exclusion principle (the one that says you can accurately measure the position or the velocity of an object but not both and the one that says that two neutrons -in this case- can't both occupy the same very small region of space).

To be a neutron star, the remnant core after an unstable giant blows its outer layers away has to be more massive than 1.44 solar masses, but anything bigger than about 2.5 solar masses probably becomes a black hole. On the less massive end you get white dwarfs which are prevented from shrinking any more by electron degeneracy pressure - electrons won't let the star get any denser. But if you throw more mass on it, even electron degeneracy pressure can't resist the gravitational force and you get a neutron star, supported by neutron degeneracy - the neutrons won't let the star get any denser now. And then finally more and more mass and it becomes a black hole, which is where even the neutron degeneracy pressure can't sustain the gravitational force.

I mean, that's fucking cool - there is so much gravitational force that the electrons have to team up with the protons to become neutrons, because neutrons can get slightly closer together. And then if the neutrons aren't happy, you've got a singularity which is a fancy way of saying we don't know what the hell just happened but stay away from it if you like being in the part of the physical universe that kinda makes sense to us.

There's also speculation of a quark degeneracy state beyond neutron degeneracy.

@Trancecoach....
I would like to respectfully tell you that you would be hard pressed to find even a single 'liberal', 'progressive', or 'lefty' that wants MORE government. I think you know that's a straw man argument (I know you know what those are). What the left wants is BETTER governing by the government we already have. That does not require it to grow, in fact most would say it should shrink (just not in the places you would like or expect). For instance, I bet most left leaning people would say we could cut the military budget by at least 1/2 (if we stop being the worlds police against their will). Then we could afford ALL the 'socialist' projects they have and still have a surplus.

As to how more laws would protect us against abuse...if those laws address abuse and require 1)independent investigation of possible abuse and 2)severe punishment for abuse and 3) removal of any immunity when the law has been broken it would do TONS.

Writing complaints about officers that break the law and/or display terribly improper behavior works. I know that enrages you, but it really does. True enough, as it stands it might be a full time job for some people, but once enough people do it and end enough officers careers, the other officers will likely either quit or start acting appropriately. They would be left with little choice.