"Wow, less than 4000 people, go look how many people die on the road every week, or from heart disease, or even farm animal attacks in the last few decades. Then decide where we should focus our efforts."

We can't control those deaths, unless we want to control the general population even more (IE: banning bad foods, alcohol, etc).

If the government put little effort in stopping terrorist attacks, the death toll would likely be considerably higher (because groups would know they could get away with it with little consequence). A good example of this is Somalia.

'Ignorance is claiming Obama isn't an American because he's never shows his birth certificate even though Hawaii has repeatedly indicated they do not give out copies of such. They only give Certificates of Live Birth, similar to what other states do."

You mean to tell me they can't make an exception for the president? It would really put all of the questioning to rest if he showed it. It just seems strange to me that he won't.

"Their next sentence could be about the dangers of muslim theocracies"

Are you honestly trying to tell me that muslim theocracies aren't a threat? Have you seen most countries in the middle east? I'm not saying that it's an immediate threat, but it is something to watch.

"pretending that evolution is a lie that shouldn't be taught as fact"

Evolution isn't a lie. However, there isn't really a way for anyone to prove or disprove the existence of a higher power creating humans.

"pretending that a woman's body is the property of the Federal Government."

I will be fine with a woman's body being her own if the left is fine with my money being my own (2011 will be a wake up call for many people who think that Obama isn't raising any taxes) . I also don't feel that abortion should be covered under any sort of public health care (my money, my choice).

"How many Fox News viewers think Saddam was responsible for 9/11? No, both parties manipulate the truth to their benefit but one party takes it to a whole new and exciting level."

Not many. How many people think that global warming is man-made, even though there is evidence to prove otherwise? How many people believe that bush started the war to make himself rich?

It's pretty obvious that the entire point of the "study" at UofM is to somehow prove that "misinformed" (or people on the right) people are believing lies more than the truth. This line of thinking is pretty typical of elitist leftists that feel they know what is better for the rest of society.

"There are 170,000 prisoners in California."

Ok, so the answer is to just let the criminals go? What a great answer to the deficit problem.

It looks like California's prisoners get medical and dental care. Why don't we cut the cost of those and some other benefits first?

"Leep jail for the really bad crooks - not the idiots that decided to smoke the wrong substance - those guys need education/rehabilitation, not jail."

One has to wonder the cost of "Educating" those prisoners as opposed to keeping them in Jail.

"Traditional musicians make money from performing concerts and giving lessons. Recordings are advertisement, not the main product."

Only very popular artists make money from shows. Most are getting paid $100 for a shitty bar gig. Selling music online at least gives them a chance at making a living at music.

"And there are many pathways to changing the system so that it doesn't screw everyone who isn't financially succesful, but they all involve paying attention to people's bank accounts to figure out who's doing the screwing."

So what's your answer? giving people with small bank accounts more money and creating an upper limit on success?

You act as if making money is evil and is somehow "screwing" the poor.

"President Obama has set the salary cap at 500,000 for any of the companies that the government bailed out (ie. 10x), and that seems like a reasonable starting point to me."

I don't support the government dictating the wages of any employee of a private company (aside from minimum wage). It shouldn't be a "start". It's the result of a private company borrowing money from the tax payers. I hope it's a special situation that is not repeated.

"You can only live in one house, cruise around in one boat and drive one car at a time. At a certain point, bigger and bigger salaries for top CEO's stop increasing the real quality of life of an executive and instead just becomes a way of keeping track of how much better than the next CEO they are - ie. the marginal utility of every extra dollar a CEO earns approaches zero, but it is in our nature to always want more, so the salaries grow way beyond the point at which further increases are meaningless."

I may just want a billion dollars just because. Neither I nor any CEO should have to justify where they are going to spend our money.

"The same amount of money however, makes a much bigger difference to employees at the bottom end of the pay scale, and would overall improve the standard of the average employee much more, and generally make for happier employees."

Maybe so, but that's up to a private company. Not you.

"I am just questioning the huge disparity between the top levels and the bottom levels, which are by and large maid at the expense of the guys on the bottom rung."

As an employee, you are only paid what someone is willing to pay you. The reason the maid is paid so little is because anyone can do that job. It takes little or no experience or education.

Top level employees have a lot of responsibility. They are also educated and many times risk more than the average employee. You can question the disparity, but it's really up to the company how they are going to spend their own money. If you don't like it, start your own company.

"I was hindered by 'traditional' education. Maths was the best example, they gave us a sheet with 100 sums of the same type. I solved the first 5 on paper, the next 5 in my head. And the rest I skipped. Of course performance was measured by the amount of sheets you had finished. "

If your boss gives you 10 things to do..and you only do 5 (because you think they are stupid/worthless), should you still expect him to be satisfied?

"I cheated myself trough a LOT of classes, never been caught."

This doesn't make you more intelligent than anyone.

If you take the SATS and score a 1300, and I get the answer key and get a perfect score, it doesn't mean I am any smarter than you. Any monkey can get the answers/cheat.

"start later, and be performance orientated and not generally goal orientated."

School usually starts between 7am and 9am. This is when most people also start work. It's a nice preparation for the working world.

How is school not performance orientated? You do homework (and are graded on performance) and you take tests (also graded on performance).

Getting rid of goals is just silly.

"homework hurts kids more then helps."

Why does it hurt more than help? When I was in school, the classes that had no homework generally resulted in kids doing nothing after class and scrambling to try and study 3 weeks of material in a couple of days, to pass the tests. When you do this, you don't really retain the information you memorized in a few short days.

I would give myself homework every night and check it in the back of the book. I was almost always prepared for the tests. Most people (especially under 18) do not have the discipline to do this. Homework is almost a sort of discipline training.

"About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offences - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there.
It's also a big part of the reason why California is going bankrupt."

I doubt a "big" part of the reason California is going bankrupt is because of people in jail. The main reason is because of all the super liberal social programs that pissed away all of the tax payers dollars.

"The other difference is in the US, workers are sold the dream that anyone has an equal chance to make it big if they work hard enough at it, and workers are free to complain long and loud about the system , their bosses, how much the government sucks, etc."

You do have an equal chance. Hard work has to do with it, but it also takes a little bit of luck and a good idea (something that's actually worth money).

"In China, they had a revolution that was supposed to make everyone equal"

Does a society really want everyone to be equal? Everyone should have an equal chance, but human nature dictates that some people will put more effort into life than others

"For example, do you think that the average CEO of a company really does such a magnificent job compared to the average employee, that they should be paid 531 times the average hourly worker?"

Why does it matter? Private companies can pay their employees whatever they want to. If they want to pay the CEO $10 million dollars and the regular employees $10/hour, there should be no problems.

"There is definitely a case for CEOs getting paid more than a regular worker, (say, 10x), as they do have a great deal more responsibility and a rarer set of skills compared to the average worker, but that level of difference is a sign of a broken and unfair system, just as it is in China."

I love how you just throw a number out there and think that's it's "fair".

"The only difference between Chinese and Americans is that Americans think they're free. Just because we have nice TVs doesn't mean we have it so much better than the average Chinese."

It has nothing to do with "nice TVs". We are allowed to speak out against the government without getting thrown in jail. There is more than one political party (every US citizen has a chance to vote) and we can run businesses without having to pay off the corrupt government. There is no such thing as a license to have a certain amount of kids in the US.

"The government, often through corporate pressure, should not have to create artificial scarcity just so you, those like you, or those that leech off you can have a viable business model of selling virtual widgets. The same way I have no sympathy for print media, newspapers and their ilk, I have no sympathy for the music industry. Sorry if technology is obsoleting your business model. Do what others before you have done, and innovate or learn a new skill."

This kind of thinking will result in consumers having to pay monthly fees for most software (software as a service FTW). Businesses aren't stupid, they will find ways around piracy.

I also have no sympathy for people when their job gets outsourced to a country that pays a cheaper wage. "Innovate or learn a new skill"

"Like a 20th century horse dealer sending an angry letter to Ford demanding the return of his customers. Like it or not it costs nothing to copy now and that means you can't sell as many copies as you used to, doesn't matter whether you think that's "right" or not. It's a pretty damn simple fact."

This is a bad analogy and I'm really sick of hearing it. When automobiles came out, it was innovation (and real competition). Piracy is nothing more than copying the original. It's not competition nor innovative.

It would be like a horse dealer sending an angry letter to ford because he started a horse dealership and he called it the same exact name as that dealer and made people think he was that dealer.