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Comment Re:Hate crime laws are bad law (Score 1) 664

The issue is you beat someone half to death without one of the few good reasons we have listed. Why you specifically did it does not matter, it was wrong and equally so no matter weather it was because you hate gays or the guys dog defecated in your yard. It is an in excuseable crime. I don't think as a society we should go down the path deciding when its more or less ok to hurt someone. Its ok because you had not other legitimate choice or its not ok. Its unforgivable and you should be kept away from society forever if it was premeditated, and if it was a crime of passion well made some reform and you can rejoin the rest of us at some point.

Did you hear what you just said? In one breath you say a crime is a crime and motivation shouldn't enter into the discussion, and in the next, you say premeditation implies this and crime of passion implies that.

Motivation differentiates levels of crime all the time. Manslaughter vs. murder, for example. Beating the hell of someone because he took your wallet and beating the hell out of someone to show all those uppity fill-in-the-blanks they should stay in their place are two vastly different crimes, and should be treated as such.

Comment Re:Maybe the will outsource it (Score 1) 371

You were doing all right till you implied liberals defend fundamentalist Muslim outrage. I thought we were the Godless Atheist Commies -- suddenly we're supposed to defend not only religious stupidity, but extremist religious stupidity?

Note to conservatives: just because you hate two different groups doesn't put them on a team together.

Comment Re:To play Devil's advocate here... (Score 1) 433

Yes, they can block (commandeer, actually) phones. Also planes. Also trains. This last one was the first such common carrier to be given emergency control by the president -- Lincoln, in 1862.

Everyone here seems to think these things are simply taken over on a daily basis because the Big Bad Ol' Gubbmint is a dictatorship crushing us all. Funny how we can all sit here talking about these things unhindered, then...

Comment Re:Ummmm. (Score 0, Redundant) 419

Guess what else. Having passengers in the car and conversing with them is the exact equivalent of talking hands-free. Are we going to ban talking with one's passengers next?

Before the inevitable response comes of "but the people in the car with you see what's happening and stop talking when you need to pay attention to driving": Apparently, your passengers are way more attentive (and considerate) than mine.

Comment Re:spamgourmet (Score 1) 309

Yahoo! Mail actually does this one better. You choose a username portion different from your real one, and specify an additional tag. E.g.: real address is joeblow@yahoo.com; disposable addresses might look like thingie-sometag@yahoo.com and thingie-someothertag@yahoo.com. This way, stripping the second part results in an invalid address, and there's no way to get back to your real one.

Comment Re:Health insurance is a tax now (Score 1) 2424

Cutting taxes on the rich doesn't help the economy, and raising taxes on the rich doesn't hurt it

In fact, keeping it high helps the economy. If taxes on the rich are low, then the higher-ups of companies have no reason not to raid the accounts for a fat salary + bonus. If the taxes are high, then taking a huge income makes no sense, and so the money gets left in the company, which helps it grow and prosper and maybe even, dare I say it, hire more workers.

Government

House Passes Massive Medical Insurance Bill, 219-212 2424

The votes are in: yesterday evening, after a last-minute compromise over abortion payments, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill effecting major changes in American medical finance. From the BBC's coverage: "The president is expected to sign the House-passed Senate bill as early as Tuesday, after which it will be officially enacted into law. However, it will contain some very unpopular measures that Democratic senators have agreed to amend. The Senate will be able to make the required changes in a separate bill using a procedure known as reconciliation, which allows budget provisions to be approved with 51 votes - rather than the 60 needed to overcome blocking tactics." No Republican voted in favor of the bill; 34 Democrats voted against. As law, the system set forth would extend insurance coverage to an estimated 32 million Americans, impose new taxes on high-income earners as well as provide some tax breaks and subsidies for others, and considerably toughen the regulatory regime under which insurance companies operate. The anticipated insurance regime phases in (starting with children, and expanding to adults in 2014) a requirement that insurance providers accept those with preexisting conditions, and creates a system of fines, expected to be administered by the IRS, for those who fail or refuse to obtain health insurance.

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