Errr... One example is "plenty"? You have to admit that if there are two entities - one with more power than the other - that haranguing the one with less power is clearly not as acceptable as haranguing the one with more power. Both suck, but if there is an imbalance, one should expect the powerful entity getting it in the neck. Beating the less-powerful from on high is clearly not cool.

Of course people can choose a lifestyle, but as homosexuality (or, indeed, bisexuality) is not a lifestyle, your point is rather moot.

"[W]hite western women" are not "the most privileged creatures on this planet", as things like wage disparity, sexual abuse, access to healthcare (including abortion), and attitudes like yours point out. It's astounding that you can write that and expect to be taken seriously, when the chip on your shoulder is casting a shadow over your entire post.

Get a grip.

Or simply send round the "Welcome to the Global Climate Conspiracy!" email that you seem to think everyone gets, and instantly name your prize.

If the conspiracy exists, it takes just one scientist to blow it open and receive riches beyond their wildest dreams, guaranteeing their research for the rest of their life.

Have you noticed you can't argue with the science, so you are now arguing against the scientists? You sound desperate, childish, and really pathetic.

So you've not even read the IPCC's fifth report, then. Brilliant.

All it takes is one scientist to demonstrate this alleged "groupthink" and they've instantly won a Nobel prize or two, and guaranteed funding for whatever they want to work on for the rest of their life. I know it's convenient to assume there is some plot when science points to your closely-held beliefs being nonsense, but that is verging on the pathetic.

We know how much CO2 human industry is releasing. We know how much CO2 is being released naturally. We know how much CO2 is being absorbed. We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. The sums are really not that difficult. The complicated part is knowing how the world is dealing with the increased temperatures, which also well understood.

Future generations will look back upon attitudes like yours with confusion and shame.

You didn't have any logic or facts either, just your opinion. He chose to highlight the fact that your opinion is not based on the scientific findings of the decades of research on climate change by simply pointing to your name, which is incredibly apt. Don't confuse brevity with laziness :)

If that were the case, I can see how it would promote the introduction of invasive species. That is, if you have a fishing lodge on Lake Somechamacallit, and you have to pay for a license to fish native species, why not then just import a breeding pair of invasive species, let nature run its course for a few years, and then fish all you like?

However, what's particularly weird, when I hear about software-based automotive recalls like the Toyota accelerator stack overflow bug, is that automotive companies don't seem to have to be certified to anything near the machine safeguarding standards we use to certify factory-floor automation. Nowadays a piece of equipment on the plant floor is pretty much provably safe to operate assuming you don't start disassembling it with a screwdriver. I don't see any such methodology being applied to vehicle control systems.

It sounds more like it was directly attributable to his existing medical condition which could have been triggered any number of ways, such as sleep deprivation, poor diet, or drinking too much...

So you see no difference between someone who is simply driving from point A to point B regardless of whether someone comes with them asking if someone wants a ride and taking them along asking only for petrol money, and someone who waits to be asked to drive from point A to point B, and will do the same many times a day, in order to make money as their job?

The pound of flesh is hardly that - it costs a few hundred Euros to get a license, and guarantees that everyone who drives a taxi is up to it. Ride sharing is clearly something completely different.

Your argument sounds absolutely pathetic, and you sound incredibly whiny complaining about it all the time. It's actually quite funny reading about you wanting everything to suck so people have lots of choice of things that suck...

So people should be able to practice medicine or law without a license, then, as that's denying people choice? You are really stretching your point here...

The laws governing the taxi service in Berlin (which the city seems very happy with - I've taken a bunch and they're great, just as in other parts of Germany) has nothing to do with profit, but of providing a service of a set quality for the public. Weird, I know.

You really don't like to think that something's less awesome in the US than somewhere else... How sad. That attitude ensures that anything less awesome in the US will stay less awesome for generations to come. I hope you're happy!

The basic & public transport tests are much harder than in the US. The personal license test includes basic medical training, for instance.

The public transport license tests go above and beyond a private license test, as they need to be as good as you can possibly get, as they drive many more people around than just themselves, and those people need guarantees of the ability of the driver.

There's nothing to be smug about, just sad that the US's taxi drivers (and private drivers) have no guarantee of ability, leading to the insane amount of deaths on US roads. That's just tragic for everyone, regardless of where you live. You sound a bit defensive...

Except in the EU, specifically in Berlin, Taxis are actually brilliant, and letting Uber into the market would degrade service for the public. This isn't just cronyism, but actually defending a public service which is worth defending on merit alone.