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The nice thing about being old (I'll be 79 in 2 months) is that no one much expects you to do anything. Just managing to breath regularly and occasionally manage an upright posture is considered to be doing well.

Dying. Odds favor it sooner or later. Doubt I'll beat them.

Life after death? I certainly hope not. Why would I want to spend eternity associating with people who think either Donald J Trump or Hillary R. Clinton are qualified to vote, much less run a country? (Recommended reading Captain Stormfields Visit To Heaven by Mark Twain -- http://www.pagebypagebooks.com... )Captain_Stormfields_Visit_to_Heaven/)

Without France the US may not have existed but then you Yanks find it convenient to forget this just because they wouldn't kiss your ass over the unnecessary war in Iraq.

Actually it was people like Thomas Paine, an American, who inspired revolutionaries in both the US and France, especially his "Common Sense" and "Rights of Man". And at least the US didn't have a Maximilien Robespierre and didn't go through The Reign of Terror.

Ooh and btw, like France I was against the US invading Iraq, at least without UN support.

I think the Libertarians would be more successful if they limited their scope to human freedom, as opposed to corporate freedom. I don't vote for them because I don't believe in a free market. Just like the government needs strict limitations on its size and power, I think corporations do too.

I do believe in free markets and the right of each person to benefit from their labor. But corportations don't make the free market, they can be a part of it but they are not the free market. It's said corporations only purpose is to maximize profits for the shareholders however originally the charters for corporations specifically stipulated that they had to serve the common good. However the corporate aristocracy has been pretty successful at buying off governments and public officals, politicans. As Thomas Jefferson said in 1814, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." Another Thomas, Thomas Paine writer of the book "Common Sense" called corporations evil. In "The Wealth of Nations" Adam Smith father of capitalism, says "In ancient times, too, it was usual to attempt to regulate the profits of merchants and other dealers, by regulating the price of provisions and ether goods. The assize of bread is, so far as I know, the only remnant of this ancient usage. Where there is an exclusive corporation, it may, perhaps, be proper to regulate the price of the first necessary of life; but, where there is none, the competition will regulate it much better than any assize."

Fact is is early supporters including the father of freemarket capitalism and libertarians were wary of corporations and believed they needed to be help accountable and regulated lest they become what they have, wielding real political power, and early laws held to this. Unfortuantely, just as any other economic system suffers from it, capitalism also suffers from greed.

Libertarians, just as other freemarketers, also want government to stop subsidizing businesses. Here's what one libertarian writes on the Libertarian Party website:

"But while individual welfare needs to be gradually phased out, two of the three types of corporate welfare need to be eliminated immediately."

The first is the government payout. Writing huge checks to corporations like McDonald's or ADM has got to end now.

The second is tax breaks: Corporations rarely get breaks based on merit or need. The corporations that get the biggest breaks are those that lobby the best. Yes, I know the Libertarian Party wants to get rid of the IRS, but we have to be realistic. That will never happen until we have a majority in power. Therefore, equality must come before elimination.

The third kind of corporate welfare is the kind I have been talking about in this essay. Since taxpayers are being forced to supplement the income of the minimum wage workers, we are picking up a part of the labor expense paid by big corporations like McDonald's and Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, this type of corporate welfare will be a necessity for some time to come.

Then there's stuff like the recent USSC ruling in the Kelo v. City of New London eminent domain case. As with the previous medical marijuana and other rulings that limit or interfer in rights, this ruling has been condemned by libertarians, and should be by freemarketers too.

To say that libertarians care more about corporations that individuals is either a mjor distortion or an out right lie about libertarians.

Are you a Randian? How about an Objectivist? I started to read one of her books, is it "Atlas Shrugged" with the architect? But I didn't finish it, I may later. My sister used to be a Randian, read and loved almost all of her books, but them she found out about Objectivism and that turn her off as she's Christian. As for myself the books I read and loved were Adam Sith's "On Wealth of Nations" and Thomas Paine's or TomPaine.com, "Common Sense" and others in a collection of his. A new one I loved is "Natural Capitalism.

...but you can trade for something of perceived equal value. Of course "caveat emptor" still applies, I suppose.

And for a fun semi-related link, read O Henry's "Conscience in Art" (there are many other sources if you don't like the chapter-by-chapter format).

Of course be way of england! That is well Documented.

Hmm, Jesus vs David Copperfield in Southpark... DeBeers vs Lifegem on Slashdot... Life imitating art or life becoming art?
Anyways, the men in white jackets are coming to take me away now - and they seem to muttering something about an Engineers Thumb and pressure...

...about China's space program and their wish to land on the moon by 2010:

Are they actually doing their own R&D, or just feverishly combing the Internet trying to find out how to make Cavorite?

~Philly