Huh? First of all - define 'wealth' - then define what it means to: "hoard wealth"... and if you can pull that off then explain to me why taxing ONLY somebody's 'wealth' would eliminate the incentive to hoard it. I don't think you've thought this through.

Cap somebody's worth at $500 million? Judging from your user ID - and barring any other weirdness - I'd guess you are likely at least in the general neighborhood of my age and, presuming you are serious, find it a bit shocking that you would express such sentiments as a naive 12-year-old. I realize this is just /. and all... where anybody can just spout off about anything... but do you have the slightest clue of the magnitude of actually implementing anything like what you just said? I'd normally just ignore such a comment - but these days I am increasingly concerned that you - and many others like you - truly believe such things and would actually like to see them implemented. Please tell me you're joking.

Seriously?... Forbes throws up a headline like that and if you RTFA it's all about a freaking municipal water tower... only a single throw-away line about the tower providing water to a nearby drilling operation. That's quite a stretch... What a troll!

Why is it any of my business what corporation X pays their executives - save that I am a stock-holder of that company.

Well, I agree that the 1st amendment is not at issue here... but could somebody please explain to me specifically which article or amendment to the constitution grants the U.S. Federal government authority to ban voice telephone calls on a private flight? Yes, I imagine people squawking on their mobile phones the whole flight would be annoying... and not a desirable thing. But I don't see a "Congress shall have the authority to regulate transportation of persons and their in-transit communication methods" clause in the constitution. Is the concept of enumerated powers finally so utterly and completely lost?

Srsly?... Global bug bounty? IMDB

I remember thinking the very same thing while reading this guy's first opinion piece on the subject. I mean.. seriously. I'm all about people being able to freely express their opinions, but history didn't begin the day you were born, dude. It's strikes me as follows:

"ZOMFG! I totally just found this thing called... the 5th amendment, or something... and it... like... doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me because it says... like... bad people don't have to tell anybody that they did something bad, you know? And it's... like... a law and stuff. So I think we ought to change it."

If this kind of tripe passes for intelligent debate these days we're in trouble.

Prat, eh? I presume you're a Brit...
I shall forgive your apparent ignorance of American politics - or perhaps I should have mentioned that I'm a conservative in the context of American politics.
There are differences - some subtle, some significant - between the meaning of liberal and conservative in American vs. British politics.

I define 'big government' by the scope and breadth of its power over its governed. A government so powerful it can record virtually ALL of its citizen's electronic communications - and even decode supposedly private communications - is decidedly 'BIG'. If you disagree with this, fine... but you and I have nothing to discuss. It's not a meaningless phrase, however...

Liberal political ideology leads directly to government having these kinds of unchecked powers - that are sometimes secret and shrouded in mystery... Powers that will eventually be abused - no matter how good the intentions were at the start. Political leaders are not angels - they are humans who, like everybody else, are fallible, imperfect, greedy and power-hungry to one extent or another. Conservatism seeks to limit the scope and power of a centralized government - and guard against too few people gathering too much power unto themselves.

They weren't spying on the entire American population's communications the last time conservatives held any significant political power either.

Um.. huh? You just contradicted yourself. Do you not realize that 'liberal' and 'conservative' - in the political sense, in the U.S. - are words used to describe one's political philosophy on how much power government should have?

You fail at reading comprehension. Nowhere in my comment did I say that.

George W Bush was not remotely conservative. Dumbass.

...is why I'm a conservative.

This is the harvest we reap by sowing the seeds of big government my liberal friends.

Not if the NSA has what is effectively a key-logger installed on your machine.

Not disputing your area * depth calculation... or even factoring in ice vs. water density. No doubt there is a LOT of water there... I just figure there's more to calculating its liquid water yield (if it melted) than this simple calculation.... air included in the volume of ice (snow) and what-not.

The order-of-magnitude difference comes into how I'm interpreting the values for ice caps, glaciers, etc. in the website I referenced... It lists roughly 24 million cubic kilometers TOTAL... for all ice caps and glaciers everywhere. Your calculation was just for Greenland and Antarctica - and was on par with what the USGS website lists for the entire globe.

Meh... who knows. The USGS figures could be old. Forgive me for being skeptical. I'm just old enough remember when 'scientists' were warning of another impending ice age that would destroy civilization as we know it.