Economists routinely use highly complicated mathematical models on stuff like this

Just curious to know, does these complicated mathematical models consider factors such as collusion, corruption etc?

What does one call a white person who lives in Africa but moves to America. They are literally an "African American".

I hope you are joking about this being a "scam". This is a tactic used by many many legitimate companies that offer "free" trials. Even Blizzard does it with World of Warcraft free trials... you must cancel your subscription before the trial period ends or you get billed. Do you call Blizzard a scam company and want their CEO in jail? Just because you didn't cancel the subscription that you signed up for doesn't mean they scammed you, it means you were too ignorant or lazy to cancel it.

It is the rule not the exception that when you sign up for a "free trial" that you will be billed for the real product unless you opt out before the trial period ends. This is nothing new in any product trial situation. Maybe you should read the contracts and keep up with the norms of how the world works and you wouldn't get "scammed". Sure this may be ethically suspect but that doesn't move it to the realm of scams and definitely doesn't make it illegal. I don't even think it is ethically suspect because no one should honestly just expect free anything to come with no strings. Since one should be expecting and looking for strings in a free trial situation it doesn't really count as trickery when you ignore the terms of the trial you signed up for.

Every element of this "scam" is common among almost all free trial TV ads, past and present, get over it.

*awaits the flaming and troll mods for being right but not aligning with the communities(unwarranted) rage*

When you tax "CO2 Consumption", what do you do with the revenues received by government as a result of the tax?

Managed code does (well, can) have one totally awesome feature: provable type safety.

That's ridiculous. There's absolutely nothing about "managed code", aka bytecode, that makes it type safe. Type safety is a function of the language... it just so happens that two of the most common "managed code" languages, C# and Java, are both strongly, statically typed.

OTOH, Haskell is probably the most strongly typed language out there, and it compiles down to machine code binaries.

I'm going to call BS on the AMD power numbers. I have a Phenom II X4 system and the whole computer doesn't even draw that amount of power.

global warming is very real, though AGW is a bit of b.........

I'm not so sure that's true. You would probably never see a human that is completely resistant to fire, but after a few generations I think you would certainly see humans with a greater ability to recuperate from burns. Over time you would absolutely see humans with skin and physiology more resistance to heat damage.

It wouldn't happen quickly, but I think you would eventually see selection for some qualities that improve the organism's ability to survive fire.

I'll sell my stock in hand-sanitizing gel manufacturers on Monday.

I share your anachronistic devotion to truth and accuracy and reality. But those things are out of fashion. They've been replaced with hate and greed and envy and the self absorbtion that is called "awareness".

To care about the truth is to fail to fit into modern society. Your "common ground" is very uncommon these days.

being able to fairly safely eat a sandwich with your hands?

      You have your own blend of bacteria, and shouldn't have trouble with a sandwich even if you haven't washed your hands. After all, those Peyer's patches should count for something in identifying and producing antibodies for your home blend of bacteria.

      The trouble is when a) someone prepares your sandwich without washing their hands, thus inoculating you with strange bacteria and b) when you touch other people, things other people have touched, or bodily fluids from other people. I say people but some rare (nowadays) diseases can be acquired from animals. Of course you can get sick by eating food that hasn't been prepared properly and has acquired pathogens from the environment, too - then no amount of hand washing on your or the cook's part will help you with say the Potato-Mayonnaise-S. aureus salad, good old undercooked-eggs-and Salmonella typhi salad, or the famous Not-Quite-Canned-Preserves-with-Botulinum toxin...

      Most courses that teach hygiene, in and outside of medical school, recommend washing your hands approximately the duration of the "Happy Birthday" (c) song - about 30 seconds with regular soap for "everyday hand washing". For minor surgery, about 3 minutes per hand including the wrists, scrubbing the hands and under the nails, and for major surgery 15 minutes per hand and forearm up to the elbow, with a scrubbing brush. Do remember to wash between your fingers. But remember, you will rarely make yourself sick (unless you have some auto-immune problem). It's other people/things that make you sick.