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Instead, the Euros should do like we do here in the U.S. and hand out AR-15's and Glocks to anybody who wants one. That'll keep them safe.

We don't do that. That is part of the problem from the viewpoint of the gun rights supporters.

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. the supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."

Noah Webster

Kinda explains why "progressives"/statists want to confiscate guns.

They want to RULE.

No surprise, given how they're so won't to tell you what they "know" is good for you. How often have your read "progressives" who can't understand why "people vote against their own interests"? It's obvious that "progressives" fell like they know better and are entitled to rule.

Because "progressives" feel like they're better than everyone else because "they care".

This behaviour seems to rapidly expanding

Yes, I have noticed sites I have gone to for years will now not deliver content unless all of their scumbagginess is allowed through...

Bill Hicks quotes on advertising are apropos here.

It is only in modern times, and particularly in western culture, that we have developed a sense and need for privacy

You are SO wrong.

Aristotle listed respect for privacy as a virtue - "He is his own best friend, and takes delight in privacy whereas the man of no virtue or ability is his own worst enemy and is afraid of solitude” http://thinkexist.com/quotation/he_is_his_own_best_friend-and_takes_delight_in/170955.html

Aristotle was decidedly not a modern westerner.

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/he_who_knows_not_and_knows_not_he_knows_not-he_is/149147.html

You should really try coming up with something original..

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/new-zealanders-who-emigrate-to-australia-raise/411291.html

Who knows, maybe these parents are prime material for emigration to Australia. ;-)

It's not just me saying it, Honest Abe too: http://thinkexist.com/quotation/give_me_six_hours_to_chop_down_a_tree_and_i_will/221234.html

Believe it or not, it's the truth. Having not purchased a large selection of axes recently I can't speak to how sharp they are on average, but the last one I bought was very sharp indeed. I sharpened it up further before using it. A blunt axe is an accident waiting to happen.

A mace is a decent weapon against armour. But there are entire fighting styles based around slashing attacks on armoured enemies, so I mean does this really bear further argument.

Charge $5000 for a bullet

The whole problem is economic: gun owners/makers shift the cost of fatalities/injuries to the general public. If they paid into an insurance fund that paid millions to victims, there'd be a lot less complaining.

What's worse than being killed?

Public speaking.

Pick a card, any card

Media is trying to be objective, for the most part.

No, media is trying to get ratings.

The political nuts, who favor one side or the other

They're all nuts. The Ds are nuts for thinking that Obama isn't yet another authoritarian crony capitalist (or for voting for him anyway). The Rs are nuts for thinking that more authoritarian crony capitalism is the solution to the problem caused by authoritarian crony capitalism. And the moderates are nuts for seriously considering not one, but two authoritarian crony capitalists.

The only sane reaction is the George Carlin reaction.

George Carlin on voting: rge Carlin quotes “I don't vote. Two reasons. First of all it's meaningless; this country was bought and sold a long time ago. The shit they shovel around every 4 years *pfff* doesn't mean a fucking thing. Secondly, I believe if you vote, you have no right to complain. People like to twist that around –they say, 'If you don't vote, you have no right to complain', but where's the logic in that? If you vote and you elect dishonest, incompetent people into office who screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You caused the problem; you voted them in; you have no right to complain. I, on the other hand, who did not vote, who in fact did not even leave the house on election day, am in no way responsible for what these people have done and have every right to complain about the mess you created that I had nothing to do with.” George Carlin quotes http://thinkexist.com/quotation/i-don-t-vote-two-reasons-first-of-all-it-s/761194.html

Will people really make an effort to find the legit versions of the shows they want to watch when they're available for free? My guess is no, since BT traffic is not slowing.

Because most (all?) of the media there HAS BEEN STRIPPED of all nonessential content to minimize bandwith and time spent 'assimilating' it: movie-only DVDrips, ad-free TV show rips from online streaming sites, mp3 audio album archives usually distributed without files containing the graphical content like the CD tray inlay cards and any included booklets...Sometimes there are complete digital releases of retail media in their entirety!

Let's face it...the Internet has killed off the (long-term) financial value of 'interlectual property' so why not look on the Internet in the manner that made it perhaps the GREATEST tool/weapon ever created by mankind....

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.”

--George Bernard Shaw

CAPTCHA: denote (quite apt for this post, eh?)

Or, as a famous European once remarked, the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter. And anyone who doubts this should just listen to American talk radio for, oh, about five minutes.

That said, I've lived in a country with 310,000,000 people and I've lived in a country with 69,000 people. Both were republics, but only the second one, while still far from perfect, was an environment where political decision makers couldn't insulate themselves from the people on whose behalf they supposedly made choices. Overall it made me a big fan of eliminating as much political power as possible, but also in decentralizing whatever was deemed truly necessary.

I'm 53, I remember girls that sounded like this all my life. And I can jokingly say "For an example of vocal fry head on down to the casino and find an old lady by a slot machine". So, my personal life experience tells me there's nothing new here.

Concerning the comments about people not using proper English: What is important is that words are used properly, that their meanings preserved so that communication can be meaningful. Confucius covered this long ago,

And, yeah, I was hoping for Futurama Fry too :)

The leech does not care about your suffering, it is a leech.

The pirates of the Potomac are beholden to wall street and corporate pirates,
and just like in Rome the mob is pandered to for appeasement.

We are the new Rome, we are going down the same road.

Lenin's plan is in full effect.

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the-way-to-crush-the-bourgeoisie-is-to-grind-them/350096.html

“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

  Vladimir Lenin quotes (Russian Founder of the Russian Communist Party, leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, 1870-1924)

Check out the 10 points of the communist manifesto, we are well on our way...

"Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied." — Otto von Bismarck

Robert Heinlein would agree.

What is justice? What is right or is corrected. Eliminate many of the laws on the books. For instance victimless crime laws. The War on Drugs? A big waste of tyme, money, and resources. Laws against prostitution? Where are the victims? Laws against fornication? Against sodomy? Against oral sex? Where are the victims? Getting rid of these laws will dramatically reduce the need for a justice system. Laws and law enforcement should be working on the harm personal acts afflict on the unwilling. Should there be a Law? is an excellent flowchart depicting the flow of reason that should occur in deciding what laws there will be.

I'd rather have power wielded by a democratic government - which I can influence - than corporations (which I can't).

I will handle this in two different ways. The first one being who gives corporations their power? Government does. If corporations have too much power it's because government gave them that power. Thirty years after Thomas Jefferson drafted the "Declaration of Independence" he wrote this warning:
“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
However there was a reason the first corporate charters were granted, yes they are granted by government. The first businesses to be granted a charter was the British East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Both were shipping companies, as hinted by their names, but shipping was a risky business. If either cargo, crew, or passengers were lost the ship's owners were liable. If pirates captured the ship killing people, or just stole the cargo, the owners had to pay for their loss. The same with sinkings such as caused by hurricanes. So if I as a small investor wanted to and had the money to invest in a ship, if that ship was lost I would be financially liable. Not only would I lose the money I invested but I could lose my home and everything I owned. So the British and Dutch crowns decided to grant some businesses a corporate charter giving investors limited liability. With these charters I could invest money in a ship and if the ship was lost all I'd lose was the money I invested. This allows society and many people to benefit, international trade is a common or public good.

I could go on but you should now have a clear idea why corporations exist. Now onto the second way. So you trust government more than businesses? Has any business, or group of businesses, killed as many people as governments have? The greatest number of deaths all at once I know of was Union Carbide's Bhopal Disaster in India. The estimate with the highest number of deaths from it is 15,000, with an estimate of less than 600,000 injured.

Now how many people have governments killed or violated the rights of? NAZI Germany, over 600,000. Stalin's Russia, 20,000,000. Mao's China, 50,000,000. The US isn't guilt free either. The US, and state governments, have killed people and violated many more people's rights. Those in US prisons for non-violent drug offenses, and the US has the world's largest prison population? Their rights are violated on a daily basis. Throughout it's history the US massacred American Indian tribes. Up through the 1970s the US government's Indian Health Service had doctors sterilize Native American Women, forcefully and

You pay (currently) about 13% less at the pump for E85 [e85prices.com] but you get 35% less mileage:

When subsidies are added E85 is more expensive.

you've made a fools bargain.

What was made was Corporatism which is what Benito Mussolini said Fascism should appropriately be called.

E85 has never been cost effective at the pump IN SPITE of the massive subsidies and tax breaks.

By the same token oil would be more expensive if it wasn't subsidized. Oil subsidized? Yes, oil is subsidized in the US.

Falcon

I believe the constitution mentions the citizens of the US should have freedom and general welfare

Freedom yes, but requiring people to buy health insurance denies freedom. And "general welfare" does not mean what you think it does. The USA's Founding Fathers set out exactly what the federal government can do, the Constitution of the USA says exactly that. And nowhere in it will anybody find socialized medicine in it. Hell neither health nor medicine can be found in it anywhere, and as Thomas Jefferson said "a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

Capitalism isn't freedom.

But free markets and free trade is freedom. Franken wants to limit both, he supports fining people for not buying insurance and he supports censoring the net.

think many people think Capitalism has something to do with freedom, when, in fact, in capitalism wealth (and therefore power) is concentrated into ever fewer hands.

No it's you who are mistaken. That is not capitalism, what you describe is corporatism and the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of. Or as El Duce, Mussolini, said Fascism is corporatism.

Falcon

I believe the constitution mentions the citizens of the US should have freedom and general welfare

Freedom yes, but requiring people to buy health insurance denies freedom. And "general welfare" does not mean what you think it does. The USA's Founding Fathers set out exactly what the federal government can do, the Constitution of the USA says exactly that. And nowhere in it will anybody find socialized medicine in it. Hell neither health nor medicine can be found in it anywhere, and as Thomas Jefferson said "a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

Capitalism isn't freedom.

But free markets and free trade is freedom. Franken wants to limit both, he supports fining people for not buying insurance and he supports censoring the net.

think many people think Capitalism has something to do with freedom, when, in fact, in capitalism wealth (and therefore power) is concentrated into ever fewer hands.

No it's you who are mistaken. That is not capitalism, what you describe is corporatism and the corporate aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of. Or as El Duce, Mussolini, said Fascism is corporatism.

Falcon

BTW, there is absolutely no need to lay this kind of thing off to enemy action. Not when 8+ years of ineffective oversight coupled with corporate "long term" planning that fails to look beyond next quarter's profit and loss statement are more than adequate to account for these incidents.

"When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross."
-Sinclair Lewis

Mark Twain was wrong! (http://thinkexist.com/quotation/buy_land-they-re_not_making_it/173450.html)

It's amazing how programmed the top brass at Microsoft are to including this word "innovation" in every speech. I've hardly heard a pronouncement over the last ten years, particularly from Ballmer, and before him Bill Gates, that doesn't feature this word prominently.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it...""

a Capitalist system is an unstable social construct that tends to slide into Corporativism.

Only if the rules for granting corporate charters are not observed. Corporate charters, which grant limited liability, were only granted when it served the common or public good. That is why the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1600 were granted their corporate charters. They were both shipping companies and it was understood that international trade was positive, however shipping was a risky business. Ships, their cargo, crews, passengers, and the ships themselves were frequently lost due to bad weather or pirates. Without limited liability people did not want to risk everything they owned, including their homes, by investing in shipping. Those charters can be revoked though.

Thomas Jefferson warned about the Corporate Aristocracy, saying "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." Corporations no longer have to challenge our government, instead they buy the politicians who make the laws and the bureaucrats who enforce them. With a smaller, limited, government they wouldn't be able to do so.

I postulate that, given the way Politics (the rule setters), Power and Money interact, it is impossible to have a situation where the Players do not influence the Rules and furthermore, the bigger the player the more influence they have in setting the Rules.

That's true because of the size of government and it's regulations grows. Corporations use regulations, and often take part in writing those regulations, to limit their competition. For instance lawn care businesses like TruGreen lobby local governments to regulate lawn care businesses going so far as to require licenses. Hell, some places even regulate yard sales.

Falcon

You'd be funnier too if you had any sense of history.

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/once_is_happenstance-twice_is_coincidence-three/220863.html

A system of governance based on "what is good for me personally", applied over the population, is simple democracy.

Good thing we're not a democracy, then, isn't it? What you describe sounds more like mob rule than any sort of civilized society.

Friend, my logic is not flawed. Both ones race and ones religion are federally protected in all democratic societies an the planet (at least on paper). People are not born fat (as black people are born black). And are no forms of worship that I know of that demand (or even encourage) obesity. There is no Constitutional protection for being fat. It's easy to point at the fat guy and laugh, sure. But it's also easy to point at the stumbling drunk or the teenager with raging BO. People are mean to other people sometimes. That is not a discrimination; that is life.

Maya Anjelou once gave a great statement on this concept. She said (among other things) "The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself."

Amen. Such a contrast, eh?

As someone else's sig says around here, never forget.

"War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."

~William Tecumseh Sherman

More quotes...

Thank you. This explains the conspicuous lack of long, resource-draining wars throughout the past 100% of history

"War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over."
~William Tecumseh Sherman

More quotes...

the MTA is a "public benefit corporation" and not, therefore, a direct agency of the US gov't, per se.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

Benito Mussolini Quotes

And this is why I would *NEVER* give the MTA or any other similar organization free will to ...

You are getting off-topic. The reason I posted this example was to preemptively counter inevitable lamentations, how "unfettered capitalism" (of AT&T) is bad, and how "public policy needs to protect private business from its own excesses" (quote from Barney Frank — "my" congressman).

This uncontested absurdity of yesterday is already an acceptable slogan of today. Accepted "by degrees, by precedent, by implication, by erosion, by default, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other — until the day when they are suddenly declared to be the country's official ideology," — to continue Ayn's Rand's quotation.

So, here was the example of the government agency being the worst offender — by far... And yet, people want to keep trying — be it health-care (woa-woa, flamebait!), car-making, or cellular service provision, why do the idiots think, that getting the government take over an industry is going to improve anything?

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
from:
http://thinkexist.com/quotation/fascism_should_more_appropriately_be_called/163211.html

As if allowing him time to think about it would make any difference. He routinely spews stuff like the following, even though he's had plenty of time to think about it:

"We [Microsoft] don't have a monopoly. We have market share. There's a difference."
"I've never thrown a chair in my life."
"We can believe that we know where the world should go. But unless we're in touch with our customers, our model of the world can diverge from reality. There's no substitute for innovation, of course, but innovation is no substitute for being in touch, either."
"If you look at the dollars, everything about our prices are quite different than classic enterprise software."
"We have no plan in place. We don't expect that to happen."

(All lifted from: http://thinkexist.com/quotes/steve_ballmer/ )

Why would I need to I don't need to follow copyright laws from the states. "Copyright is a form of intellectual property which gives the creator of an original work exclusive rights for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its "publication, distribution and adaptation"; after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright applies to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete. Some jurisdictions also recognize "moral rights" of the creator of a work, such as the right to be credited for the work." publication # (n.) An act done in public. # (n.) That which is published or made known; especially, any book, pamphlet, etc., offered for sale or to public notice; as, a daily or monthly publication. # (n.) The act of publishing or making known; notification to the people at large, either by words, writing, or printing; proclamation; divulgation; promulgation; as, the publication of the law at Mount Sinai; the publication of the gospel; the publication of statutes or edicts. # (n.) The act of offering a book, pamphlet, engraving, etc., to the public by sale or by gratuitous distribution. Distribution # [noun] (statistics) an arrangement of values of a variable showing their observed or theoretical frequency of occurrence Synonyms: statistical # [noun] the spatial property of being scattered about over an area or volume Synonyms: dispersion # [noun] the act of distributing or spreading or apportioning # [noun] the commercial activity of transporting and selling goods from a producer to a consumer Adaptation # (n.) The act or process of adapting, or fitting; or the state of being adapted or fitted; fitness. # (n.) The result of adapting; an adapted form. So where in the copyright does it say you cant download and view unless it is vaguely stated in distributed. copied from wiki, http://thinkexist.com/dictionary/meaning/adaptation/ and http://www.elook.org/dictionary/distribution.html

Retired? Really? Not a week ago. He may have given the CEO reins over to our favorite chair tosser, but he's still Chairman of Microsoft. No doubt his stock option package is quite good.

That's good for Microsoft, too. Three nines of companies don't long survive the loss of their founders. As Damon Runyon said, "The race may not always be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet".

The fall may have even begun before he retired as CEO. When SCO's backstop with Baystar dried up, Microsoft lost all of its credibility in the smoke filled rooms where the real money makes deals. Who knows how much this cost RBC and the other partners? Gates will spend the rest of his life trying to make amends, but those who suffered will never forget. You can't swing a billion dollars without somebody dies, and the dead stay dead no matter how many soup kitchens you volunteer in afterward.

Eventually, pigeons come home to roost. The devil will have his due.

YOU LUCKY BASTARD!

I love that Stephen Wright quote.

Don't worry, Alan knows the value of programming. One can see the motives behind his obtaining an MBA as an example of learning more about the business environment (and do you know what the topic for his MBA thesis was?)

Sure, I won't dispute that. Actually I would to a degree but I can ignore that just for the point of argument.

The problem is that the wisdom of the crowd is not any better in many situation. Actually, you can take 50 very intelligent people and put them with 50 unintelligent people and in no time, the collective IQ of the group will/can drop drastically.

There there is the obviousness of repeating inaccuracies. This can be seen with Hitler's big lie concept and Joseph Goebbels propaganda vies.

I know people who actually think Palin said you could see Russia from her house in Alaska. In case you don't know, that was a (Tina Fey) spoof of Palin's accurate comment about "seeing Russia from Alaskan land" when she was putting forth qualifiers to foreign policy experience.

Sure, I won't dispute that. Actually I would to a degree but I can ignore that just for the point of argument.

The problem is that the wisdom of the crowd is not any better in many situation. Actually, you can take 50 very intelligent people and put them with 50 unintelligent people and in no time, the collective IQ of the group will/can drop drastically.

There there is the obviousness of repeating inaccuracies. This can be seen with Hitler's big lie concept and Joseph Goebbels propaganda vies.

I know people who actually think Palin said you could see Russia from her house in Alaska. In case you don't know, that was a (Tina Fey) spoof of Palin's accurate comment about "seeing Russia from Alaskan land" when she was putting forth qualifiers to foreign policy experience.

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." - Winston Chirchill. After the world suffering eight years of GWB, the quote somehow seemed appropriate.

So when do Americans do the right thing? Tried bush...trying obama...who do they try next? When is it the right thing?

I voted for Obama, but he's not even close to MLK.

I think that the GP meant that MLK's famous dream has been fulfilled, not that Obama is somehow as great as Dr King.

My own opinion chimes with that of one of our most famous leaders: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." - Winston Chirchill. After the world suffering eight years of GWB, the quote somehow seemed appropriate.

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/i-ll-show-you-politics-in-america-here-it-is/347399.html

It was Robert Heinlein as a quote from Lazarus Long, http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/an_elephant_is_a_mouse_built_to_government/262486.html

That poor schmuck born in the ghetto? That was ME. That was MY FAMILY. We were dirt poor - not figuratively, but literally. Try living out of a 1967 Country Squire station wagon with a brother, sister, and mother for 2 months. Shopping at Goodwill because it was what you could afford. Delivering papers at 10 years old so you can have milk for the week. Getting the opportunity to attend Catholic high school because of good grades - good grades alone - because my grandparents drilled into me that the value of a man is only what he makes of himself, that you have to do what you must to get ahead. There are no free meals. And working 3-4 hours a day after school to earn the money to pay for it.

That ghetto kid is the one who now is comfortable in his life, who works productively. Who has patents to his name, and benefits mightily from working with "evil multinational corporations". I never had anything given to me other than my bastard birth (yes, out of wedlock) and the slap on my ass when I entered this life.

The similarities between us are, I surmise, quite limited. Our stations in life came from different ends. And I look at what I have done - and those around me who also came from similar stations as mine - and see that the tyranny of "compassion" and the "War on Poverty" do much more harm - irreparable harm - to the poorest among us than having no such War to begin.

Few things for you to consider: the DOD budget is $480 billion - see page 4 of that PDF. That's a fact. You can argue all you want, but you're wrong. We spend the same on education as we do on Defense - you've been brainwashed by all those "if only the DOD had to hold bake sales and the schools didn't!" bumperstickers. Defense is a Constitutional mandate, direct. Education? For the first 204 years of our country the Department of Education didn't even exist. How you can equate the two shows your disdain for the Constitution and formation of this country.

Yes, those Hamptons folks. The vast majority of whom did not get their money from inheritance but from work and reward. The class envy you try to espouse in your pot-shots at their wealth is quite revealing. How much should any one man make? Can you place a number on it? Do you realize that by simply placing that number you have, in effect, stated your own degree of socialism and fascism?

You judge a man by what he has and whether you see it as "fair", and expect to be able to regulate his payment according to your beliefs. In your eyes, he is not free to negotiate for compensation that he desires, nor to gather the fruits of his labor. You - via actions of the State as espoused by Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama - wish to force that man to accept only what you deem is fair, which means you then make him subservient, and take from him the fundamental Rights upon which this country was founded.

Economics IS the fundamental access for Liberty. Without it, other rights are worthless. Desires to place restraint on the free market (which we do not have; it is heavily burdened with regulation by the State) is a fascist/socialist desire. You are impinging the fundamental Rights of man with such actions. Ultimately it is the Machiavellian "ends justify the means" claim that fascists like you hold up to explain and assuage your feelings regarding your actions.

Sir Winston Churchill summed it up best with the following quotes:

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

"Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it." -- (Don't remember who said it).

That was George Santayana.

It's called propaganda, folks. "Tell a lie long and enough and loud enough and sooner or later people will believe you." -- P.T. Barnum, I think.

Actually, that was Joseph Goebbels.

No, I think he's talking about watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

You mean "Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do (at least over an unsecured medium)"? ;)