Seeing how his using #2 in your list is exactly what he was doing... the reason for excluding major crime areas in your comparison, is for the very reason that they have the strictest gun laws on the books and don't fit the general populace of the rest of the US. Now if you want to include those data points, then reduce your data points to individual counties instead of entire countries. When you do that, you will find that areas with strict gun laws do, in fact have higher crime rates and those with liberal gun policies have much lower rates.

It really isn't all that hard to comprehend... an armed society is a polite society. Those who wish not to be polite, quickly find themselves removed from that society. While on the opposite hand, criminals will always choose the path of least resistance when conducting a crime.

There is a difference here still. One voluntarily signs a loan that requires full coverage insurance. You could always save your money and buy the vehicle out right, but for the convenience of using someone else's money, the lender requires it. This is much different from the ACA which is a straight up tax on people to redistribute the cost of those who could not afford or would not normally get insurance.

Sorry to inform you, but the Axiom is just a utopian pipe dream from a movie.

Bill Whittle put up a video recently talking about this very problem. The entire US Constitution is approximately 4400 words. The ACA is upwards of 20,000 pages, and still growing.

I guess the US Navy are now considered idiots.

Is it bad that I am still using MS BOB?

On a different note: Does anybody know why Slashdot doesn't render correctly anymore?

Does this mean that the founding fathers of the USA have all gone to hell? They did effectively disobey secular authority... the King of England.

So, when the population of earth doubles again, are we then to redefine personal living space at say 400 sq foot? Maybe we should all just accept our 1 sq meter per person now. Then what?

At some point we are going to have to reduce the population of the planet. Either we do it, or mother nature will do it for us. Until then, I plan to live comfortably in a much larger house than what scientists think I should live in.

Humanity will never accept an egalitarian life style. There will always be have and have not's.

Just because 70% of the population wants something, doesn't mean it is a good idea. We may well end up with a single payer system. Good luck finding a doctor when we do.

There are many things we could have done to bring down the cost of medical care. eg. Force doctors to post their prices. Not force insurance agencies into "must provide" plans. Allow insurance to be purchased across state lines, etc... Hell, just bring back the free market's risk/reward concept to the medical world. Sadly, none of these options will ever see the light of day. But don't let my ranting get in the way of your utopian view of how a single payer system will solve everything.

Meanwhile, I will sit here and wait quietly in the VA hospital for my chance to be seen... I am told it might be next Thursday.

The theory about self-regulation works just fine. It just doesn't stand up so well, when governments step in and bail out the industries and or insurance companies.

You don't think the insurance company might have a problem with this? If the shipping company was insured, the insurance company will eventually step in and demand the shipping company fix the issue or start denying claims. If the shipping company wasn't insured, well... they end up going out of business. Either way, the problem is self correcting over the long term.

Nice try, but the libertarian philosophy doesn't get rid of litigation. If you buy a toy for your kid and the kid dies of poisoning, then you get to take the company to court and put them out of business. Then you can say the market corrected. The whole point of free market philosophy is to bring back the risk to companies such that they do the right thing. When you constantly bail out companies with government tax money, where is the incentive to self correct ones bad business strategy?

The military frequently uses charter flights to get troops into and out of the theater of operations.

I know everybody is blaming the UAV here, but there are two other possibilities to this story. 1) The pilot of the passenger plane is at fault. 2) The air raffic controller is at fault.

I once heard it described as...

When jumping from a 100 foot building, the view is great for the first 99 feet.

I know that you were being trollish, but I actually have to agree. I didn't spend my time in the dorms except to sleep. My study time was spent down at I-Hop, or in the library. I did find it mildly annoying when somebody was yelling down the hallway, but you can get used to it.