Oh, around 1 they start moving around and can actually do things. Before that they're just spuds. They sleep a lot, or they're fine sitting under one of those musical mobile things. Once they're about 1, though, they can move around, but there's nothing for them to really...do. They're too old to just sit and they're too young to play with (you can play along side of them, but they don't really understand 'play with' yet).

And there's little difference between the TV and the iPad, that was mostly a joke. There is one important difference, though. There are no commercials on Netflix, so my child has never seen an advertisement.

My kid's a year and a half old and can already use an iPad to watch Sesame Street and Curious George. He also still finds time to run around in circles, bang on things and play with his toy cars. It doesn't have to be one thing or the other...it can be both.

And if it were only one or the other, I'd still rather have the kid know how to use technology than blocks, anyway.

I thought that, until I had a kid.

The problem is once they're about a year old, there's nothing to do with them. They can't talk, they aren't old enough to understand the concept of playing with someone else...all they can really do is run around and bang into stuff.

However, I vowed to never be that guy who lets a TV raise his kid. So instead, my kid gets Sesame Street via Netflix on an iPad. Kid's 18 months old and already knows how to use a tablet.

"Kids these days can't even swipe a tablet, all wired-up as they are with these direct brain interfaces! It's terrible I tell you, terrible!"

But they can't anymore. It used to be that way, but now that all the lego toys are tie-ins with Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings or something, almost all the pieces are specially molded "bricks" that really only make sense in the context of whatever the kit is. You can't really use such pieces for anything more than what they were designed for.

To be honest, I'm really disappointed with the modern lego sets. When I was a kid, I had the city sets, and for the most part they were buildings that you made from brick-shaped bricks with only a few uniquely molded parts for that set. Today there's barely any blocks. They're all cross-licensed tie-ins with movies or cartoons, and so in order to get the assembled set to look like something from The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars, 75% of the blocks are special molds.

There's almost no point in it being a lego toy, because you're just assembling a crude model of an x-wing, and the only thing you can make with the set is...an x-wing. Why not just...play with a model x-wing?

Exposing children to new technology is a terrible idea.

An Egyptian legend relates that when the god Thoth revealed his invention of writing to King Thamos, the good King denounced it as the enemy of civilization. "Children and young people," protested the monarch, "who had hitherto been forced to apply themselves diligently to learn and retain whatever was taught them would cease to apply themselves and would neglect to exercise their memories."

I never said a word about banning abortion.

Or spies on and tracks its own people, without specific warrants.

This is why the entire "we need guns to defend our freedoms!" thing the 2nd amendment crowd shouts is a lie. If these people actually cared about fighting tyranny with their guns, we'd already have a gallows set up on Capitol Hill with a whole bunch of congressmen swinging from it.

The problem with #1 is that it conflicts with free speech, and particularly the kind of speech most in need of protection: political speech. Who gets to determine who is and is not a "candidate" and therefore has access to the place from which they will state their platform?

I don't like the massive influence of money on politics any more than you do, but I don't think curtailing political speech will solve the problem.

As an aside, the way I think the influence of money on politics could be curtailed is by way more speech, drowning them out. Use every free (as in beer) platform available, twitter, facebook, youtube, etc etc etc to blast a message contrary to the two-party system and you might have a chance.

But guns have nothing to do with preventing a powerful government from issuing general warrants, spying on and tracking every American, and sticking their fingers up your grandma's ass if she wants to get on a plane. If guns prevented tyrannical government, we wouldn't have the government we have now.

Except that's bullshit, because if people really cared about using their guns to defend our freedoms, there would already be a gallows set up on Capitol Hill with half of congress swinging from it. What do you think the founding fathers would have done about getting groped by the TSA, or the general warrants the NSA is issuing?

The NRA crowd wants guns to play pretend soldier and get boners from the smell of gun oil. But when it comes to actually defending freedom, they're worthless.

No, I never said I thought abortion should be illegal. I think it should be legal, because you have a right to choose what you do with your body. For instance, if the only way for you to live was for me to give you my blood for a transfusion, neither you nor the state has a right to force me to give you my blood if I don't want to. I can say "no," for any reason or no reason at all. However, that would make me a terrible person. I would give you my blood. Similarly, I believe terminating a pregnancy makes one little better than a murderer, but no woman should be forced to carry a baby she doesn't want to.

So I'm pro-life and pro-choice. I just want people to choose life.

Not true. Catholics do not legislate their morality (abortion is a special topic as that involved murder), and economically, we're redistributionists. There are a lot of liberal Catholics. Please do not get us confused with the fundies. We're nothing like them.

I think "pro-life" is the better term, as I'm not politically against abortion. I think abortion should be legal because yes, you have a right to your own body, even if that kills someone else. For instance, if you have a disease that can only be cured by a bone marrow transplant from me (the only one of 7 billion people you're a match for) neither you nor the state has the right to force me to give you my bone marrow. And let's say I choose not to. For any reason or no reason at all. But, my choice for what I choose to do with my meat kills you.

Now, I would absolutely give you my bone marrow, because I am not a dick. Similarly, if a woman chooses not to use her body to give life to a child/infant/fetus whatever word you want to use, she has that right. But I also have the right to think she's little better than a murderer for doing so.