speedwagon

The Wikipedia article actually lists fertility rates farther down, and white Americans clock in at 2.0 - significantly higher than the Europeans.

While the Times article certainly has an alarmist tone, American fertility rates are an anomaly in the industrialized world.

I agree that this is incredibly useful, and the only way to learn proper reasoning and argumentation is to practice it.

That being said, I studied history and learned those exact same things. I have nothing against philosophy, but there are other disciplines that will teach you to reason equally well. Some will also teach you other things (languages, research skills, etc.) that philosophy doesn't teach.

If someone is specifically interested in the questions philosophy grapples with, that's a good reason to study it. But there are other (and I'm personal inclined to say better) ways to learn argumentation.

History won't get you laid, though.

This is good to know - I also commute by bike, hence my concern about build quality.

Incidentally, I'm overwhelmed by the response rate to my question. I posted it two hours ago, expecting to be ignored as a newcomer, and went off to do some reading. I can't thank everyone enough for the feedback, although I'm still on the fence.

That's correct - the first thing I would do with the Thinkpad is install Ubuntu, so it's more of a hardware question for me.