What do you mean "That's where this goes"? Between suspicionless "DUI" police checkpoints and customs setting up random checkpoints in non-border locations the police state is already a reality. The sad thing is, the majority of Americans either support such intrusions or are too apathetic to care.

You mean the solar plant built by Abengoa, a Spanish company? How many American engineers work for them?

Solar-thermal technology doesn't really scale like that, you need a large heat mass to make it efficient.

Yes, there is a difference and Card has crossed the line to the cross-burning side of that difference. When you advocate jail time for homosexuals or overthrowing the government if they pass laws that enable gay marriage it is certainly beyond "having an opinion"

You mean advocating jail time for the "crime" of being gay or advocating the overthrow of the government if they pass gay marriage laws is NOT being a total dick? How could he possibly get MORE dickish without growing a foreskin on his head?

You realize there were cities before there were cars, right? And in those cities, there was a LARGE manure problem? According to this page it was 3,000,000 pounds PER DAY in New York City. FTA:

"even when it had been removed from the streets the manure piled up faster than it could be disposed ofearly in the century farmers were happy to pay good money for the manure, by the end of the 1800s stable owners had to pay to have it carted off. As a result of this glutvacant lots in cities across America became piled high with manure; in New York these sometimes rose to forty and even sixty feet"

Yeah, sounds like a real utopia!

I agree that national defense is valid expense for the Federal Government, but the US seems to take it too far. Why can every other country in the world manage to spend less on their defense than the US? The US spends many times more than other countries, sometimes an order of magnitude more. The military-industrial complex has grown much too large and has become a large drain on our resources.

Yes, the figure for war spending I quoted is over several decades, but we have already spent at least 1.5 trillion on the wars, all of it deficit spending. I am unable to find a corraborating source for your 2.6 trillion figure, the only other article I found referenced the Senate Budget Committee (republican members) http://www.budget.senate.gov/republican but I could find no reference to this material on their site. I would be more inclined to believe the CBO than a partisan committee, and the CBO says its projections have not changed very much in the years since the passage of the legislation (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43104). Notice the net budgetary impact graph at the bottom of the page, It is projecting the effect of the legislation is a reduction of the deficit in contrast to the war spending which only added to the deficit. Not only are we paying for the wars now, we will be paying for them far into the future. At least when we pay for health care each year we get something back for our money, any benefits from the wars will be long gone by the time we pay for them.

National defense is a necessary part of a nation-state, but how did attacking a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and didn't pose an immediate threat (false claims of WMD notwithstanding) promote the security of the US? A major impetus behind the 9/11 attacks was the previous foray into Iraq and our backing of the House of Saud, our current foray into Iraq will no doubt have similar consequences in the future. You're welcome kids!

Nobody is saying the US should give up its defense, but maybe it should just defend itself rather than providing defense for foreign countries. Also, calling pre-emptive attacks "defense" is massively stretching the meaning of the word.

If the ACA costs 2.6 trillion then it is still less than the estimated cost for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A recent Harvard study estimated the cost of the two wars at between 4 and 6 trillion dollars: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-03-28/world/38097452_1_iraq-price-tag-first-gulf-war-veterans. One could certainly make the case that the ACA provides more benefit to the American people than the wars have.

That link does little to refute what the parent posted. The article refutes Elizabeth Warren's claim that GE paid "nothing – zero – in taxes", not the parents assertion that they paid no corporate income taxes. The article does have a quote from a GE spokesman that says they paid a small amount of corporate income tax, but there is no data to back that up. FTFA: 'GE chief spokesman Gary Sheffer told Pro Publica: “We expect to have a small U.S. income tax liability for 2010.” How much? The company wouldn’t say.' When pressed on how much they paid in taxes to the US they refused to break down the numbers, only giving worldwide tax numbers. I don't necessarily believe that GE dodges all tax liability in the US but I don't think they are paying their fair share. The article says they paid 7% total worldwide taxes in 2010, that's a lower rate than I pay in sales taxes alone. Their total tax for property, income, excise taxes and a bundle of other things is at a lower rate than pretty much any single tax that I pay. This problem is certainly not confined to GE, most corporations pay a much lower rate than their nominal corporate tax rate. The article says "Again, the company has clearly been aggressive in reducing its tax burden through various tax credits and deductions created by the federal government" but what it doesn't mention is that those various tax credits are a result of lobbying by these corporations (and in some cases, the lobbyists wrote the bill). It's just another example of how the powerful are able to game the system while the less powerful end up footing the bill for the system. The powerful receive benefits from this system that is incommensurate to the amount they pay.

It's nearly a 13% margin. That's not stellar, but it's not peanuts either.

The fashion industry has IP protection and there are regularly lawsuits regarding fake merchandise. For example, here is a story about Coach being awarded $8 million for trademark infrigement and unfair competition. I think your point is valid but your example isn't.

OK, I'll go ahead and correct myself before the "fact nazis" can. [shakes tiny fist at those who require facts] I misread the summary as saying they would be spending the 50B next year instead of over the next 8 years. Currently, 1/2 of the Russian space budget goes to the ISS, hopefully this additional money will allow them to expand some exploratory programs that have been cut.

Funny how broke-ass Russia can afford to spend 50B next year on their space program but the much richer USA pleads poverty and will spend less than 1/3 of that. No wonder Russia/USSR has consistently had a better space program than the Americans.

If the Texas legislature has its way you WON'T be able to do what you are describing. There is a currently proposed bill to make hobby flying with a camera a crime. For authoritarians, letting the police do it == good, letting the public do it == bad.

Except that Virgin Galactic has NEVER launched anything into orbit, and they don't currently have any plans to launch any people into orbit. The Spaceship One/Spaceship Two craft are SUBorbital. There is a world of difference between "Going up 100 miles" and "Going fast enough to stay in orbit". Virgin Galactic has announced plans to create an orbital launch vehicle but they currently have no hardware and it isn't going to be "fairly cheap", they are saying 10 million dollars per 100 kg payload, so once they actually build something count on it being about 20 million for a 50 kg payload.

If space electronics have to be so hardened why is NASA sending satellites running on Android phones to space?