Libertarianism is basically the Marxism of the Right. If Marxism is the delusion that one can run society purely on altruism and collectivism, then libertarianism is the mirror-image delusion that one can run it purely on selfishness and individualism. Society in fact requires both individualism and collectivism, both selfishness and altruism, to function. Like Marxism, libertarianism offers the fraudulent intellectual security of a complete a priori account of the political good without the effort of empirical investigation. Like Marxism, it aspires, overtly or covertly, to reduce social life to economics. And like Marxism, it has its historical myths and a genius for making its followers feel like an elect unbound by the moral rules of their society.

And to ensure the "-1 Flamebait"...

Government is the Great Satan. All Evil comes from Government, and all Good from the Market, according to the Ayatollah Rand.

Nobody in their right mind uses Playboy for masturbation.

Pornography has evolved. I hope your jokes will, too, someday.

$500 million might be the penalty for not building out BART properly in the first place. Waiting for a metropolis to mature before investing in public transit is a stupid and costly mistake. Which is what the Bay Area is facing right now...the new Bay Bridge is a good example. Why not extend to San Jose and Santa Rosa? What is wasted by sitting in daily, unavoidable traffic jams? What is lost by people unable to take a job across the Bay due to traffic?

Pretty absurd that you would take funding away from public transit projects and give it to a specious space program. At best, sounds like some kind of trickle-down economics. How much space exploration needs to be done for the Bay to get a decent subway system?

California can save $500 million just by reforming its penal code. Or defeating the price-fixing by energy suppliers. Speaking of collusion, even the most cowardly of health care reforms could easily save amount. There's a good place to use your imagination.

Also, pretty silly that you describe people who use public transit as lazy. I thought lazy people stayed at home.

Is that anything like Mormon's Magic Underwear?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_garment

Bravo to you. Let it be known the moderation system sometimes misses the gold.

i agree. why would the government cut itself off from a huge revenue source. isnt pot in the top 5 of cash crops?

as to the first part about cops under pressure, i really dont agree. cops have a lot of leeway in enforcing law. the police were just at my apartment an hour ago for me to view a photo line up of some crack heads who robbed my buildings super. in plain view were two one hitters, a 2 foot glass bong and a pipe. we all just looked at them, then each other and smiled. i went on with the line up and they thanked me and left.

as long as you are not a pain in the ass and acting a fool, they will leave you alone. if your a dick or lying about shit, they will fuck you silly. this isnt an isolated incident, when i lived in chicago, the cops could care less about a couple of grams of weed or a pipe.

the best way to NOT get arrested is to remember cops are someones brother, sister, father or mother. dont act all indignant or self righteous and they will cut you some slack. if your an ax wielding psycho killer YMMV.

They've been doing this just fine for years...why would they outsource the job to you?

"It is either illegal or it isn't"

You clearly do not understand law. It is only illegal if somebody is willing to enforce the law, which is far from a certainty. Otherwise, it's pretty much on a case by case basis, depending on the level of wealth and prestige involved.

You could look at the so-called war on terror for plenty of examples. Or environmental law. Or consumer law. And basically the entire tax code. Not to get too ridiculous, but international law is running joke.

Suddenly Bernie Madoff was breaking the law? Nah, suddenly somebody had the nerve to enforce the law...that would more accurate.

President Merkin Muffley: But this is absolute madness, Ambassador! Why should you *build* such a thing?
Ambassador de Sadesky: There were those of us who fought against it, but in the end we could not keep up with the expense involved in the arms race, the space race, and the peace race. At the same time our people grumbled for more nylons and washing machines. Our doomsday scheme cost us just a small fraction of what we had been spending on defense in a single year. The deciding factor was when we learned that your country was working along similar lines, and we were afraid of a doomsday gap.
President Merkin Muffley: This is preposterous. I've never approved of anything like that.
Ambassador de Sadesky: Our source was the New York Times.

while i do not know if slashdot posts are monitored, NOVA (PBS) had an interesting documentary called -> 'The Spy Factory'.
for the truly lazy -> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/program.html
here is a short synopsis -> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/about.html
the most telling part is:
"NOVA follows the trail of just one typical e-mail sent from Asia to the U.S. Streaming as pulses of light into a fiber-optic cable, it travels across the Pacific Ocean, coming ashore in California, and finally reaching an AT&T facility in San Francisco, where the cable is split and the data sent to a secret NSA monitoring room on the floor below. This enables the NSA to intercept not only most Asian e-mail messages but also the entire U.S. internal Internet traffic."

Try grinding up on the hipster, that usually works.