The thing is, as many a Slashdotter has pointed out, you can't accomplish the same thing virtually. If you let people download material from a library then there are only two realistic options. One is that you provide the material with huge amounts of DRM and interfere with readers' own systems in dubious ways. The other is that you create a blatant avenue for copyright infringement and inherently give it special legal blessing that is intended to protect the public resource of a library for entirely different reasons. It is highly unlikely that libraries would support the former, and there is no way the latter was going to fly legally.

Cigarettes are undeniably bad. So are trans-fats, alcohol overconsumption, and too much stress.

The existence of stressors is not necessarily bad. How you deal with stress is more important.

What country sized example of long term communist rule which doesn't turn into fascism or dictatorships are you referring to? I didn't see any. Note that I do not lump socialism in with communism.

I agree that small scale communism has it's merits (kibbutzim being a good example where it works very well), but county size communism has failed every time, transforming itself over time into what should more properly be called fascism (rule by a small cadre) in many cases the boiling itself down to rule by tyrants. Thus IMO in the country sized communist systems, you're trying to draw a line where is no real difference.

No-one was condemned to an insane asylum in the US or condemned to prison with all their belongings confiscated by the government for merely daring to oppose the ruling party, so no, it's not like the Patriot act.

No-one was sent to Guantanamo for peaceful opposition of the ruling party in the US either, so no, it's not like Guantanamo either.

So, that makes the sniveling coward voluntarily wrong, yet again.

Junior? I was born before JFK was assassinated & was an adult in Berlin days after the wall fell, bucko.

So, the men & women I met from a number of different countries who described in detail their experiences of Communist rule that I briefly relayed were all liars.

Source: Russians, Ex-eastern Germans, Cubans, Chinese, Romanians, Nicaraguans, Vietnamese. Poles, Lithuanians, Hungarians.

No, we should all believe a sniveling coward without the courage to post in his own name that claims that all the personal experiences and documented abuses of Communism are a "boogieman" [sic] because he left one (probably former) Communist ruled country before he was an adult. Your lies are transparently seen for what they are, coward: Voluntary ignorance.

Communists in power don't force people to drink vodka & eat borscht you sniveling coward, they confiscate all your belongings, outaw dissent & condemn people to hard prison or insane asylums without fair trials.

1 / expected value of loot to be found.

"So where are you fom, Utah Johnny Montana?"
"Idaho."

I recently read a hypothesis that the purported relic bones of St. Mark in the San Marco cathedral (Venice), which were smuggled out of Alexandria, are actually the bones of Alexander.

I don't suppose they'd be eager to allow a DNA test.

I would agree with you, except that a free and competitive market can only work this way if it's also an informed market.

If you can lawfully sell someone a ticket for a flight, which they purchase with reasonable expectations in terms of promptness, comfort or whatever else, and you can then fail to meet the customer's reasonable expectations when they bought their ticket without their having any recourse, then you aren't really in a competitive market at all. The customer has no way to know when, or how, to vote with their wallet.

You can certainly make a reasonable argument that this is more about transparency and advertising standards than it is about needing heavyweight industry regulation, but either way the current market dynamics evidently are not sufficient to protect the customer alone.

Of course there is. It's not 100% obviously, but the idea that you can in general provide inferior products or services and yet charge the same as or more than your competition makes no sense on any level.

I don't have a fancy name for it. For essentials like shoes and food I'm lucky enough to have plenty in the bank these days to buy what I need, so I have the luxury of choosing quality without sacrificing timeliness. But for something that costs a significant amount by whatever my financial standards are today, I'd rather wait and buy something good.

Why? I for one will happily pay a higher price, even a much higher one, for good quality and service. I don't think this costs as much as it seems, because for example a good pair of shoes will last much longer than a bad pair that you'll have to replace much sooner. In any case, I prioritise value for money over cost, so for any non-essentials I'll usually prefer to save up for something nicer than buy cheap consumer tat that I won't really enjoy or find useful.

Note: China is already constructing additional carriers. However compared to something like the USN Gerry Ford they are sorta lame.