Not true. The taxes on gasoline and other fossil fuels far exceed the tax breaks for oil exploration.

Not if you start to examine the externalities of the fossil fuel industry.

Like the wars in the Middle East and the environmental cleanups. The money BP put into the Gulf repair wasn't but a small fraction of the costs. The rest have to be picked up by government. You and me.

The "coal subsidies" only affect the profit of a few politically connected democrats

Man, you're behind the times. I'm not talking about those subsidies. I'm talking about the externalities, like the health care costs for the people who get sick from coal, or the environmental costs of coal or the way coal destroys communities.

I'm not Republican.

You weren't the only one to start calling yourself an "independent" after GWB.

Possibly because marxism and its derivatives were responsible for the murders of over 100 million innocent people in the 20th century.

So, what the Kochs are saying is that if we have Net Neutrality 100 million people will die?

Well, that's reasonable. We should probably forget all about that Net Neutrality thing.

Next Koch campaign: "Net Neutrality is like Ebola!"

Not only does it disregard the Nordic socialist countries...

That's why you're not hearing talk radio mention "European-style Socialism" as much any more. They go right to talking about North Korea whenever they want to call someone a socialist. So, if you're talking about single-payer health care, it's like, "How's that working in North Korea". They can't mention Cuba, because they've got good health care, so it's always North Korea. Net Neutrality? North Korea. Minimum wage? "Why don't you just move to North Korea".

Have you Americans *still* not gotten over this whole Marxist/Communist/Socialist = EVIL thing yet?

Actually, we're getting there. During the past two elections, studies done about people's reaction to the word "Socialism" have shifted drastically. Among those under 30, there is actually a majority who see as a positive term.

Give it time.

I call it the "ABBA Effect". People have heard for years that Sweden is socialist, and then people saw ABBA on TV and thought, "Hey, they've got pop stars and hot chicks in short skirts over there! Maybe Socialism's not so bad after all." When you see people on "socialized" medicine who are happy and healthy with nice teeth and shapely asses, there is something subtle that shifts. It starts in the pants and slowly works its way towards the brain.

I think most people would agree net neutrality is a great idea in theory. You could say socialism is also good in theory. I don't mean to compare the two,

Of course you mean to "compare the two". You're doing the same Cold War red-scare bullshit that the Koch Brothers' mouthpiece, "American Commitment" is trying to do. By putting two terms side-by-side you're trying to equate them in the mind of people who are as incapable of analysis as you are.

And what's to stop the government from "leveling the playing field," giving additional network resources to failing energy companies, state education systems in favor of Common Core, public companies who need to better compete against private ones etc. ?

You don't know a single thing about Net Neutrality, do you? You don't have any idea what it means or what it's for. You saw "Koch Brothers" in the title of the post and you came here to fly your Republican flag, is all. "Common Core"... When you start name-checking Common Core you know you're deep in talk radio land.

Yet you're probably ok when George Soros and Michael Bloomberg do the same thing...

Is it all some stupid game to you of racking up points? Tit for tat? Are you still capable of any moral clarity?

Do you feel it instructive to name a list of rich guys just because there's an article reacting to something David Koch said and you've been told that these are the other side's rich guys? Is everything a matter of moral equivalence to you?

No wonder the US is in trouble. People have watched so much cable TV and listened to so much talk radio that they have lost the ability to evaluate anything clearly, and can only see it through a partisan lens. You felt you had to stick up for the Koch Brothers because your talk radio favorites have told you they're "one of us" and you've got two names you can lay down whenever someone says, "Koch Brothers". As if it meant something.

Do you even know what this discussion is about or are you just in react mode?

Not strictly on topic but I think it was your link to a video by an anesthesiologist that had me questioning what I assumed "center of mass" to be.

My sister hired some ex-military guy for personalized gun training and was taught ("get a 9mm" and) a "one in the head, two in the chest" thing. But from what that doc said, and that slide that showed the major artery systems of the human body, it looked like you want to shoot below the rib cage.

(And of course the other takeaway was that handguns suck as far as lethality.)

Unfortunately I think getting hired and doing well on "performance" reviews is mostly about how "normal" or un extra-normal one can appear. It seems to be mostly about social maturity now.

As if the non-technical managers who thought to hire the most brilliant and/or skilled people they could, even if they were a bit quirky, have all died off, and now they only consider "doing well" to be skilled at holding ones own in the office politics game.

(Because you'd never be a good manager if you can't play that game. And we should all aspire to be managers, because that's the more advanced level position. I'll get another "your hire has been a disappointment" sized raise next year, because I show no interest in that. And that means I'm not "engaged"/I'm a slacker. If I'm not jockeying for position via shrewd planning and clever brown-nosing, then I'm not really trying hard enough at work, in a PHB's eyes.)

there is analysis

There's always analysis. The problem is, who's doing the analysis, what is their agenda, and who's tasked to act on said analysis.

I don't doubt that nuclear energy could be an amazing boon and used to a much greater extent, safely and profitably. If we could trust the energy industry and government regulators to do the right thing.

My analysis shows that's not the case, however.

I guess I saved you a Google search

If you can lend me $50, you can save me from going to work tomorrow.

Fossil fuels don't work in the US without huge subsidies.

What's your point?

So all that "slippery slope" shit from 10 years ago doesn't seem so stupid now, does it?

The biggest lesson learned is that when Congress passes a law, to kill a program like Total Information Awareness, all NSA will do is change code-names and reassign the workers to a different team.

When NSA says "we have not done X in program Y", it means they have done X in program Z. When it says it has not conducted illegal activity under Authority Z, it has done it anyway, under some other contrived interpretation of a different authority.

To quote Robin Koerner on every new NSA disclosure: "Of course they did."

Now then, who thinks we still live in a functional Republic?

I'm not fat, I've just got giant gut fauna.

I think there was a band at Lollapalooza this year called, "Gut Fauna". They're a Finnish folk-metal band, so there are umlaut's over the "u"s.