If the IRS grabbed 100 percent of income over $1 million, the take would be just $616 billion. That’s only a third of this year’s deficit.

This year's deficit is about $750 billion. I think you're emboldened quote is a little out of date.

we have been throwing trillions of dollars at it since FDR and we are no better off now then we were then. in fact some would say we are worse off

Who would say we're worse off today than in the 1930s?

a) they prefer the significantly less free market system of Scandinavia to our current economic system

You might want to check on that again. There are Scandinavian countries with more economic liberty than the US and higher levels of economic mobility despite having secure public welfare systems that actually work, unlike in the US.

I always enjoy posts like this. Please tell me one thing. If the Democrat party advocates national health care, pro-choice, pro-union, racial equality and justice, gay marriage, college tuition support, market regulation, and all their other policies (not that they all get implemented), what do they have to add to that list to get on the left side of the political divide?

Easy. Just be as liberal as Teddy Roosevelt when it comes to corporate power.

Most of Europe demonstrates that you can achieve a stable free market by having the government in the loop.

And those markets actually benefit a wider portion of the population. Economic mobility is far greater in many parts of Europe than in the US.

There s debate as to whether a Free Market can ever truly exist at all.

Whether or not they can exist (probably not), there has never been one in the history of the world.

Markets don't appear in nature, and certainly not "free markets". To the extent that markets exist, they exist become of governance, not despite it.

All of these engine releases of late seem to have very reasonable terms. From the Unreal Engine 4 FAQ

I think the reason for this is they all want to become the defacto-standard, they are all very keen to create a developer community around their toolset. Personally I like the UE4 / PhysX sales model since you don't pay until you make money from it. I'm interested in playing with these engines as a hobby but have no interest in writing a commercial game, If I was serious about developing and selling games, the license fees for any of the popular engines would be a very minor concern, it's a great example of a capitalist "win-win".

Selling model content to use in these engines is where the money is for individual devs/artists, kind of like the people who sold shovels during the gold rush. IIRC UE4 has some sort of public marketplace where you can release/sell models you have created.

I'm sure I'm just walking into this one, but... what's Uranus named after?

My high school English teacher recommended we watch "I, Claudius" to learn about Roman history. It was on PBS, and shockingly to me at the time, contained a significant amount of bare breasts. The real irony was that my high school English teacher was a fairly conservative Catholic Nun!

Cosmo? I've seen images in Cosmo that I consider pornographic, although it does contain mostly glamour shots to break down women's self image so that they'll buy more stuff they don't need... and that, my friends, is truly obscene!

I suspect most teenage girls (and boys) have looked at porn sites out of curiosity, since access is so easy. However, I'm pretty sure the majority of views are by men. No doubt there are a significant number of girls that use them in much the same manner as the boys do.

I would suggest that Hawaii's strategic place in the Pacific has lead to a considerable influx of military money, military personnel and associated increase in the economy related to it

Just remember, all that "military money, military personnel and associated increase in the economy" also comes with a decrease in quality of life.

Just take a look at Fayettevlle, North Carolina. It's got all the wonderful benefits of having Fort Bragg, and yet it's one of the least desirable places to live in the entire United States. Drugs, prostitution, crime and it's entirely because of its proximity to Ft Bragg.

Having a bunch of "military money" and twenty-somethings who are away from home for the first time and have a steady paycheck for the first time could turn even paradise into a shithole.

This isn't an errant bill or anything. The person called long distance that much in two months.

Wow does that bring back memories. For those who weren't around in the dialup days, certain malware would change the default dialup number for your modem to a 900 number (where you're charged per minute, like phone sex services use), which would then redial to AOL or whatever number you were trying to connect to. So you wouldn't notice anything was amiss because you'd still connect to AOL like usual, but you'd be racking up phone charges at $3/min.

After the government cracked down on phone companies which provided the 900 numbers used this way, the problem mostly disappeared for U.S. numbers. The malware switched to making the modem dial the equivalent of a 900 number in a foreign country.

It sounds like he got hit by this type of malware.

This also brings up something I've always wondered about. The power companies I've worked with seem to bend over backwards to get you onto the plan which most benefits you. When the electricity consumption at my business changed dramatically, Edison sent a guy over to talk with us to figure out what caused the change, and how to adjust our equipment and power plan to minimize our cost. Why does the power company do this, while the phone company seems content to leave you on a plan where you're paying more for worse service? I type Woodland Hills, CA DSL into Google, and it says that 6 Mbps AT&T U-verse/DSL is available there for just $34.95/mo.

For $51/month that landline better have unlimited long-distance. How can my cell phone have unlimited long distance (even when calling landline phones!) plus data plus texts for $40 and this poor SOB was getting drilled for $51 for inferior service?

I think it might be time to take out the big anti-trust club and beat all of the major telecoms and broadband providers about the head and neck until they are broken into little pieces and have shown they know how to behave. It appears to be the only thing they respond to.

I'm pretty sure Noah invented the weather forecast. And the litter box.