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http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octopi
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/octopi

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/octopode

It's interesting to note that only Wiktionary has octopode where as M-W.com doesn't (at least not in their freely available dictionary).

I was working with what I was given- a very poor combination of mismatched issues and arguments. Your provided "definition" is just as useless, since a dictionary definition has no relation to the US, which is comprised of a single people and a very minor collection of territories.

And the relevance to congress and Twain is what? The makeup of the US is nothing like Austro-Hungaria, its sentiments and history are very different from Twain's time. Eve NRA nuts, corrupt as they are, are anywhere near crazed enough to storm congress, despite a few teabaggers voicing the notion.

If you have an argument- voice it. Don't just vaguely imply you know better and go hide behind long texts you think nobody will bother to read.

I'm guessing you meant Anthro 1, because 101 signifies an upper division course. It's like a quantum leap being interpreted as the largest possible advance when it actually means the smallest possible.

A quantum leap isn't the "largest possible advance" it's a sudden advance with no intermediate steps leading up to it. Dictionaries can be useful reading some times.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anyways

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser

  1 : a device that utilizes the natural oscillations of atoms or molecules between energy levels for generating a beam of coherent electromagnetic radiation usually in the ultraviolet, visible, or infrared regions of the spectrum
2 : something resembling a laser beam in accuracy, speed, or intensity

Nope, they became right when it got formalized as a word in the dictionary:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laser

As for the rest of your comment: you should try getting laid more often. Not only would you learn more about the various types of intelligence that do in fact exist, but you'd also learn more about what it takes to participate in society without resorting to flinging insults and anger at anyone who dares to disagree with you or correct you where you're wrong.

Would indicate that you attribute your lack of sex to be due to you not knowing what it takes to participate in society without resorting to flinging insults. I can tell you. It isn't because you throw insults. You will need to look elsewhere for the reason you can't get sex. And when you do, you will NOT find that it teaches you how smart the other people are.

Finally, no one has argued that there are not different fields that smart people choose to focus on. The argument is about whether some people are smart, and some are dumb like you. Or, if your inane hypothesis is true and everyone has exactly the same level of intelligence, just in different areas. So, far, by your own standards, you are not "socially intelligent". You have proven that your language skills are horrible, and your logic skill are abysmal. So, your standing up as a shinning example of stupid people existing.

Huh... I hadn't even realized that there was such a word as footled (my spell checker certainly doesn't know that word). I wish I had some "informative" mod points for you.

However I think the word was well-chosen, suggesting it was a trivial effort to jailbreak the phone in the store.

You are wrong. Effect is a verb and GP used it correctly. If you don't believe me, perhaps you will believe this stick man. If you don't believe the stick man, try the dictionary.

LOL. I noticed none of you answered my questions. None of you can while holding to your description of socialism, and you know it.

I also can show you current dictionaries which agree with me, and all you provided were assertions. Merriam-Webster has been an acknowledged authority for many decades. They aren't politically correct, but they are accurate.

Go read Marx and Engels for yourselves and get the truth of what socialism is for yourselves.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

I make no mistake in describing socialism.

An air of sophistication is a good thing in most people's minds. Maybe you needed to go to college to learn a different word? Perhaps you meant superiority?

for example:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superiority%20complex

vs

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sophistication

An air of sophistication is a good thing in most people's minds. Maybe you needed to go to college to learn a different word? Perhaps you meant superiority?

for example:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/superiority%20complex

vs

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sophistication

Can you name these heretics and from what exactly were they ejected?

A consensus is not something you are "ejected" from -- it's something you chose to leave.

There can be.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/spelling-reform.htm I think it's funny to think that what we think (3x think in a sentence...woohoo!) looks "right" is actually pretty arbitrary. If Noah Webster had won a few more battles, we would be slipping "wimmen" the "tung" until they "ake" with pleasure. (veered from orthography into adult literature...woohoo!)

Main Entry: 1remote
Pronunciation: \ri-mt\
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): remoter; remotest
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin remotus, from past participle of removre to remove

http://east.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/remotest

(emphasis mine)

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/earn
read definition 1a

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/up
read definition 1a

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/earn
read definition 1a

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/up
read definition 1a

I assume you were joking, but just in case:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/niggardly

Oh, and let's also ignore the Fort Hood shootings

Violence against military personnel is not terrorism, it is an act of war. If you're afraid of being shot at, don't join the military, wimp (yes, I am a veteran). Had those shootings been against civilians they would have been. U.S. Department of Defense Definition of Terrorism:

The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.

United States Law Code - the law that governs the entire country - contains a definition of terrorism embedded in its requirement that Annual Country reports on Terrorism be submitted by the Secretary of State to Congress every year. (From U.S. Code Title 22, Ch.38, Para. 2656f(d)

(d) Definitions
As used in this section--
(1) the term "international terrorism" means terrorism involving citizens or the territory of more than 1 country;
(2) the term "terrorism" means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;
(3) the term "terrorist group" means any group, or which has significant subgroups which practice, international terrorism;
(4) the terms "territory" and "territory of the country" mean the land, waters, and airspace of the country; and
(5) the terms "terrorist sanctuary" and "sanctuary" mean an area in the territory of the country--
(A) that is used by a terrorist or terrorist organization--
(i) to carry out terrorist activities, including training, fundraising, financing, and recruitment; or
(ii) as a transit point; and
(B) the government of which expressly consents to, or with knowledge, allows, tolerates, or disregards such use of its territory and is not subject to a determination under--
(i) section 2405(j)(1)(A) of the Appendix to title 50;
(ii) section 2371 (a) of this title; or
(iii) section 2780 (d) of this title.

The Fort Hood shootings were a single nutcase, not unlike the Columbine shootings, or your garden variety USPS shootings. Webster's says "The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion". The Ft Hood shooter wasn't trying to coerce anyone into doing anything.

Wikipedia says "At present, the International community has been unable to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism.[2][3] Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal, and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants (civilians)."

Princeton University says "the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear"

So yes, we can discount the Ft Hood shootings. Oh, and by the way, drug use and copyright infringement aren't terrorism either, despite the fat that drug use and copyright infringement scare the hell out of some people.

I was going to disagree with you and say "average" means "mean", but I did a little checking first and it appears you are correct, at least according to wikipedia and the dictionary.

Etymology: from earlier average proportionally distributed charge for damage at sea, modification of Middle French avarie damage to ship or cargo, from Old Italian avaria, from Arabic awrya damaged merchandise
Date: 1732
1 a : a single value (as a mean, mode, or median) that summarizes or represents the general significance of a set of unequal values b : mean 1b
2 a : an estimation of or approximation to an arithmetic mean b : a level (as of intelligence) typical of a group, class, or series
3 : a ratio expressing the average performance especially of an athletic team or an athlete computed according to the number of opportunities for successful performance

-- on average or on the average : taking the typical example of the group under consideration

synonyms average, mean, median, norm mean something that represents a middle point. average is the quotient obtained by dividing the sum total of a set of figures by the number of figures . mean may be the simple average or it may represent value midway between two extremes . median applies to the value that represents the point at which there are as many instances above as there are below . norm means the average of performance of a significantly large group, class, or grade .

I can show you a picture of my backyard in January and contrast it with a picture of my backyard in July. And whoa! All the snow is GONE!

What DATES were these picture taken on? And where those years particularly cold or warm?
Month of the year. Just a trick employed by some to exaggerate the melting of glaciers.

Those photos are NOT of your backyard but of the HIGHEST MOTHERFUCKIN' MOUNTAIN RANGE ON THE MOTHERFUCKIN' PLANET!
And, as you may have noticed from postcards, marketing shots and such - high mountains always have snow on their peaks. Because it is really cold up there. All the time.
Only that white stuff on Mount Everest is not (just) snow - those are motherfuckin' HUGE CHUNKS OF ICE called glaciers.
And if a word like "perennial" confuses you - it means "present at all seasons of the year". In other words - that shit is ALWAYS THERE.

So you see...
Conditions on top of the HIGHEST MOTHERFUCKIN' MOUNTAIN ON THE MOTHERFUCKIN' PLANET are a bit different from the conditions in YOUR MOTHERFUCKING BACK YARD!

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/socialism
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/socialism
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
http://www.collinslanguage.com/results.aspx?context=3&reversed=False&action=define&homonym=-1&text=socialism
http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?refid=1861709575
http://www.yourdictionary.com/socialism
http://www.wordsmyth.net/?ent=socialism

All say that government owns the means of production. Aka government run.

Means nothing. If a resource is available in the US thats not or not timely available here, the system will pay for the patient to get care in the US. If someone wants to pay for a US service, then they are free to do that as well.

it means something if you die waiting. It means something if your town has lottery to determine who gets a family doctor. It means something if your life threatening illness is somehow classified as optional.

All of which are very real scenarios in canada.

And I've never stated that the US system was a good system. Well, it was 70 years ago or so. right now, the US lacks almost any market forces to get prices low.

I have a right to grow my own food if I like. I dont have to buy food if I dont want to. I can also pick up free food at the food bank if I wanted.

I can make clothes or get free clothes from charities. Water is free since it falls from the sky. Electricity is a commodity, not a right, but I can go off grid and make my own from wind or solar.

Which is my point. You don't have a right to those things. You don't have a right to other people's services.

You realize that eye surgery was perfected in communist Russia (almost no Russians wear glasses) and the biggest Lasik company is Canadian?

And that changes what? We get lots of things from outside the US.. the prices don't go down in other areas of healthcare.

Crap, copy and paste seems to have failed.
organic

Someone should sue your dictionary manufacturer.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/goodwill

Many human lifestyle choices may be "suicidal". Smoking tobacco causes heart attack, strokes, and many cancers. This is slow suicide, but it's still suicide.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suicide

The usage that pertains to this discussion is:

"the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally especially by a person of years of discretion and of sound mind"

Smoking, watching too much TV, drinking and texting (while driving), having an unhealthy diet, and being an Alaskan Fisherman might all be choices that may considerably increase your chances of meeting an early demise.

However, calling these things suicide, when they lack the actual intent to kill one's self, but calling any of those things suicide is just dumbing down the meaning of the word.

Even deliberate acts that lead to one being killed are not suicide, unless it was with the intent of ending one's life. For example, driving with your headlights off at midnight while high on drugs on a dare is not suicide, even if such a stupid act kills them.

Suicide requires:
1) An act or an instance.
2) A voluntary intent to kill one's self.

As for the original article, unless the antidepressants also gave them sentience so that they would realize, "Holy Bejeesus! I'm a freaking shrimp! Why didn't anyone tell me!?", then I doubt they have intent.

No, school leavers is the correct term. In the UK "graduate" usually refers to someone who has graduated from a university.

IC, so it's not about having more precise outlook regarding current societies (about being part of given society, political level, etc.; for example), it's following to the letter a definition made in the times long past...

Either way, even if you really like to exclude some groups of people from de facto contributing to their surroundings...well, they just do it.

Asking that GM food be proven safe is inane. It is exactly equivalent to asking for a formal proof that every computer program existing now and forever be proven (hint, this is an impossible and absurd task)

Asking that all GM food existing now and in the future be proven safe is inane, but asking that a single strain of, say, CM corn is safe is doable, just as a single existing computer program can be proven (and is, if you're talking about flight control software for fighter jets). You are hacking away at straw men with your rediculous analogy. Do you work for Monsanto by chance? Or ore you just trolling?

As for the "poison" (btw, please don't shout -- don't people know their netiquette anymore ?) remember that water is poisonous.

Now THAT (and I'll shout if I want, fuck you very much) is inane. Yes, you can die from drinking too much water, but that's not the definition of poison. "a substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism".

What is poisonous to insects might not be to humans and vice-versa.

True but completely beside the point. What's poisonous to one mammal is usually (no, not always) poisonous to other mammals.

The GM way is less random

Unlike mutation and selection, genetic engineering is NOT in any way random, although the results may be unexpected.

is wrong: a large part of our own DNA comes from bits from viruses, themselves having jumped between species and bringing genetic material with them

The only way your DNA can come from a virus is if one of your parents' (or previous anscestors) gonads were infected with that virus when their offspring was conceived. It is highly unlikely that anything like GM food could happen in nature. Horisontal transfer almost never happens in any organism higher than a bacteria.

The thing is, WE DON'T KNOW. It was only recently that it was discovered that hydrogenated oils caused heart disease, for example. Had they done studies on other animals they would have known.

"Compulsory" means you have no option to do otherwise. If you have an option to do otherwise, regardless of your understanding, then it can not by definition be compulsory.

Here for your use is the Merriam Webster definition:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compulsory

It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper,

They're going to be spending money on maintenance and operations of the aircraft carrier anyways. Do you think it'd be more productive to spend it on bombs, jet fuel, pay for 8,000 sailors to fight forever wars on blowback ("terrorism")?

Au contraire, I think it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper to send the Enterprise to the gulf with a skeleton crew.

We are talking about a metaphorical mountain, which is an image we conjure up to give a sense of scale to the overwhelming amount of data there is, we are definitely not talking about a literal landmass that projects conspicuously above its surroundings and is higher than a hill.

Perhaps you are under-estimating how much evidence there really is. If you were to print it off, you probably COULD climb it AND have a picnic on it.

Perhaps you should read the definition of literal (adhering to fact or to the ordinary construction or primary meaning of a term or expression; free from exaggeration or embellishment; characterized by a concern mainly with facts).

when you say "If you were to print it...", you are proving that you know for a fact that there is no literal mountain of evidence. If there was a literal mountain of evidence, you would have said "When they printed it..." and you could tell me where this literal mountain is actually located. If the mountain cannot be seen or touched or measured in the physical world we call "meatspace", it is not a literal mountain.

It's not plagiarizing if you have permission, which having purchased the paper, you have.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarizing

plus parent is wrong: (from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shall)

1 archaic a : will have to : must b : will be able to : can
2 a —used to express a command or exhortation b —used in laws, regulations, or directives to express what is mandatory
3 a —used to express what is inevitable or seems likely to happen in the future b —used to express simple futurity
4 —used to express determination

Ho ! look at the first line ! But don't take revenge too harshly: you shall not kill !

Maybe I'm missing it but this analogy seems to weak to support your argument.

The point wasn't that the analogy was identical (unless one's home is in a high-pressure oil formation under miles of rock in the Gulf of Mexico), but that rather than thinking of the well as just a first-order infinitely thick layer of solid rock, it was better to think of the well as being a hole in the roof of the oil formation. (I suppose one could also use the analogy of a hole in a bucket, if one prefers to think of the direction of fluid flow and not the orientation relative to gravity.) Thus the leak isn't a thing to be covered up (in the physical as opposed to PR sense :-/ ), but something more fragile that needs to be patched.

Which then leads to your next question, about "brittle" rocks. The relevant geology of this part of the Gulf and this canyon in particular is salt domes and shales. Salt domes are formed as salt is extruded through breaks in "brittle" rock (e.g. the Merriam-Webster definition of diapir). The notion of what constitutes "brittle" is different at a geologic scale than at a human one, but the fairly standard reference to these structures is "brittle." Just do a search for the terms "brittle" and "caprock" - that should get you started. You might also read about blowouts in similar structures, such as the famous Spindletop.

The wikipedia article on the spill states BP rejected conventional explosive use and that no one has ever considered a nuclear option, because of treaty issues and environmental impact.

As you observed, the notion there's some meaningful concern about "environmental impact" is ludicrous.

The reason BP would reject explosive use (if it could even work) is it would destroy the well and seal this part of the field permanently - leaving all of that money forever trapped under the ocean, instead of in the bank accounts of BP where it rightfully belongs.

(I'd say a somewhat broader "national security"-political-monetary rationale is why the Obama administration and BP are clearly partners and not adversaries - their mutual goal is to preserve access to the oil.)

I think BP's actions have been quite easily predicted if one understands 1) they have no concern for anything other than money (BP's a corporation, that's what corporations do), and 2) oil is money. Thus the goal is to mitigate the expense of any environmental effects, not the effects themselves, and to preserve access to the money, i.e. the oil.

My head just asploded.

recreate

We weren't meant for recreation, we were meant to have fun! Uh, and I doubt these artificial lungs are self-aware. But the artificial lens in my left eye sees a lot better than the real one it replaced did, even if it's not self-aware. I don't think the real lens was self-aware, either.

True, it's not a bionic cat, but it isn't a prosthesisic cat, either -- protheses are removable. It's a cyborg cat. However, Wikipedia disagrees with Mirriam-Webster about what a cyborg is. Wikipedia:

A cyborg or a cybernetic organism has living tissue over metal endoskeleton (i.e. an organism that has both artificial and natural systems).

I would point out that the endoskeleton doesn't have to be metal; I know cyborgs with artificial joints that aren't metal, although the earlier artificial joints were. The dictionary simply says "cybernetic organism". It defines "cybernetics" as "the science of communication and control theory that is concerned especially with the comparative study of automatic control systems (as the nervous system and brain and mechanical-electrical communication systems)". The cat fits this definition, as its legs are controlled by its brain, just as my eye implant's focus is controlled by my eye's muscle, which is an autonomous system controlled by the brain. I don't know if my artificial lens sits on metal or plastic struts; probably plastic. Metal is rapidly going out of fashion; when I was a kid, damned near everything was made of either wood or metal. Now little is any more.

Resistance is futile. Even your cat will be assimilated.

Pro-tip: the examples in dictionary definitions aren't meant to be taken as exact use-case criteria.

Since you are semantically challenged and unable to learn what expose means -- something a 5th-grader already knows well -- I will proceed to list the missing definitions from the above source.

2. to lay open to something specified: to expose oneself to the influence of bad companions.
3. to uncover or bare to the air, cold, etc.: to expose one's head to the rain.
4. to present to view; exhibit; display: The storekeeper exposed his wares.
5. to make known, disclose, or reveal (intentions, secrets, etc.).
6. to reveal or unmask (a crime, fraud, impostor, etc.): to expose a swindler.
7. to hold up to public reprehension or ridicule (fault, folly, a foolish act or person, etc.).
8. to desert in an unsheltered or open place; abandon, as a child.
9. to subject, as to the action of something: to expose a photographic plate to light.
10. expose oneself, to exhibit one's body, esp. one's genitals, publicly in an immodest or exhibitionistic manner.

More references for Your Laziness. A poor Wiktionary link. A better Merriam-Webster link.

Now. I expose you as a simpleton, brain exposed for lack of wits; exposed to ridicule; a man that exposes himself in front of small children.

'Sometimes these sites look better than the legitimate sites,' Huntsberry said. 'That's the irony.'

Irony is one of those slippery words that seems to have be given meaning by Humpty Dumpty. Merriam Webster provides the following:

1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning --called also Socratic irony

2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance

3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play --called also dramatic irony, tragic irony

I'd rather just go to Humpty Dumpty in 'Alice Through The Looking Glass':

Humpty appears in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1872), where he discusses semantics and pragmatics with Alice.

"I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't--till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master that's all."
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again.
"They've a temper, some of them--particularly verbs, they're the proudest--adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs--however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That's what I say!"

Hypocrite: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings.

Apple wants to share your location with the world, yet Steve Jobs doesn't even put license plates on his car for undisclosed (privacy?) reasons.

I have known this for most of my life. The name reflects the idea.

Indeed. In more ways than one.

While I will concede that the legal system sometimes comes up with bizarre counter-intuitive redefinitions of common terms, the standard definition of annex in this context would mean "appendix". So, when you say that the common understanding of the singular term means the 1949 GC, well, you probably need to be even more precise because it would seem that an appendix to the 1949 GC would be considered part of the same. So, now it's "the 1949 Geneva Convention, as stated in 1949, not including any subsequent additions"?

I understand what you were trying to state in your original post; however, I would counter that when a topic becomes ambiguous, eg. "the singular term generally refers" and then requires even further armchair lawyering to establish definitions, then dropping a pedantic debunking hammer on others becomes disingenuous at best.

According to Merriam-Webster:

prescription
4 a : a written direction for a therapeutic or corrective agent; specifically : one for the preparation and use of a medicine b : a prescribed medicine c : something (as a recommendation) resembling a doctor's prescription [prescriptions for economic recovery]

IOW, it means recommendation in the context of a medical prescription. Looks like you're both smug and wrong.

The verb google has already been added the new Merriam-Webster dictionary.

Merriam-Webster also says that a correct pronunciation of the word Nuclear is "nyü-, ÷-ky-lr". Go to the site and you can even listen to it being mispronounced. Just saying that I wouldn't take Merriam-Webster to be a reliable source on the english language.

If the word gains traction over time (instead of joining the graveyard of Internet Fad Words), it will gradually begin sounding more mature and ordinary. Then writers and editors will change their attitude towards it.

But right now, the problem is not its construction or metaphorical appropriateness, but its newness, its faddishness, and most of all, the "feel" of it in English, which I can best describe as "twee."

The human experiment thus far tends to suggest that a balance of competing ideals is the most workable solution. We must learn to recognize that going too far in ANY direction causes more problems than it solves.

Maybe you should join the tautology club as political philosophy is not your game. You have just exalted as your political philosophy the world exactly as it is, pretty much has been, and damn-well may always be. Like a TV pundint, you embrace what is to avoid your woeful knowledge of what ought. I once asked a fellow student why she voted for somebody. Her response, "He was going to win anyway." I'm a polite person - in person - and left it at that. She did not invite a political debate and I did not give one. These days, I don't ask people I am not friends with or willing to debate/discuss the issue.

That person would be better off not voting just as you would be better off not posting. Let's look at another quote from you:

Newsflash: Collective action, in the form of taxation and government services, OF ANY KIND, is a form of "Socialism". Here's a useful set of definitions. See especially definition number one.

This next quote is from your link. I added some bold and CAPS.

Main Entry: socialism
Pronunciation: \s-sh-li-zm\
Function: noun
Date: 1837

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership AND administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is NO private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned AND controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done

Defintion 3 can apply to almost anything so it can be disregarded as non-descriptive (it is a "stage" not a philosophy in that context). Definitions 1 & 2 do not mean "Collective action, in the form of taxation and government services, OF ANY KIND". You just made up fucking bullshit and linked to a dictionary. Now, you fuck up because the definition you reference clearly states "goods" and "means of production". What you are thinking of (taxation + police/military/courts = a little socialism), is services (specifically "dispute resolution" which is where the link takes you).

I will grant that the definition of socialism - as practiced today - can mean services. After all, education and healthcare are a fucking huge portion of our mixed economy (in addition to the already-mentioned dispute resolution services). That aside, there is a clear, idealogical distinction between a government of laissez-faire capitalism and socialism (by almost any definition). To pretend like everything is a little-bit-of-this and a little-bit-of-that you are not engaging in thought but pointless regurgitation. I don't know if you need an education or to have your ass kicked. Maybe you are a non-cognitivist or something. That would imply you need an ass whooping!

The verb google has already been added the new Merriam-Webster dictionary.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/google

your slow adoption of words make you sounds like a angry old man.

Words change and are created all the time, just because google was not a word when you were a kid and it sounds weird to you does not mean that to most 20 somethings it is not as much a part of the language and as professional to use as any other word.

So when you grow a garden, you only grow exactly how much food you need to eat an no more, because producing extra profit is evil right?

Nobody said that.

You seem to not understand what capitalism and free markets are.

Too easy, I'll pass.

You're leaving out the part that says anyone, regardless of class, race, sex, or anything can, if they choose, pursue as much profit as they wish. You don't even have to work if you don't want to. You can choose to sit on a corner and beg like a lot of people do. Capitalism and free markets are essential to freedom.

This is where my BS meter went into the red. This would be true ONLY in a condition of true equality, which condition cannot exist in the real world. In the real world, a noticeable percentage of people lie, cheat, steal, commit violence against each other, discriminate unfairly against people who look, sound, or act different from themselves, and generally are complete bastards whenever they think they can get away with it.

This is why idealistic ideology falls apart in the face of actual events, whether it's capitalism, communism, libertarianism, or benign authoritarianism. All of these theoretical ideals offer important insights, and should be pursued, but should be recognized as measurements, not goals. The human experiment thus far tends to suggest that a balance of competing ideals is the most workable solution. We must learn to recognize that going too far in ANY direction causes more problems than it solves.

Luckily, most of humanity realizes this, and acts accordingly, with local variations and frequent missteps. You know this, yourself, as you proceed to demonstrate:

When government takes my work away from me in the form of taxes and uses it for schools, police, or fire departments, I don't really mind. It beats going out and actually helping build a road myself. Instead of working on a sewer system, I can do other work that I freely choose to do and trade that work in the form of money for a sewer system. Everyone benefits, including me, and I get something in exchange for my work.

Aha! So, what you are saying, I think, is that in some cases the collective good outweighs personal freedom and absolute capitalism. An interesting twist of phrasing, working "freely choose" in there. But an essential recognition of truth at some level.

Under socialism, when government takes my money and gives it to another person without giving me anything in return, that is no different than forcing me to work for that person for free, getting nothing in return. That is the very definition of slavery.

Oh dear, now you contradict yourself. If your house does not catch fire, was your tax money wasted on the fire department? Please step away from the loaded words for a moment. Notice that, sans the "S" word, you just described the same situation as your previous statement, only this time instead of "freely choose" we have "Socialism" (shudder).

Newsflash: Collective action, in the form of taxation and government services, OF ANY KIND, is a form of "Socialism". Here's a useful set of definitions. See especially definition number one.

So, your defense system, court system, fire service, police service, border guards, etc. etc. are all part of the socialist side of the balance scales, along with the usual "evil socialism" suspects of public financial assistance and health care. It's amusing, in a "makes me want to vomit" sort of way, to hear otherwise generally intelligent people decry one sort of socialism while practically worshiping another sort.

Unfortunately, there are lots of people out there who believe slavery is superior to freedom.

More unfortunately, there are far too many people out there who believe in a fantasy world where you get to, or

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/option

Some papers actually claimed it was "ice" clogging up the device for goodness sake.

Ice
2 : a substance resembling ice; especially : the solid state of a substance usually found as a gas or liquid