Yes, that's not a bad idea. I'd also like to see prosecutors not be allowed to make deals with defendants. My understanding is only the Governor of a state or the President can grant a pardon, so how can a lowly prosecutor make a deal with a defendant who has been charged by a grand jury? Grand juries should present charges and prosecutors should make cases.

Or maybe we should adopt the French system and just have courts whose job it is to arrive at the truth. The whole adversarial system of justice in the US is prone to abuse and usually produces results most people would consider to be unjust.

Obamacare introduces all kinds of new governmental rights.

The government now has the right to tax doctors who do not use digital media. My daughter, who just turned 9, has a doctor who uses a paper filing system. They have computers for other things, but he likes having paper files. He's told us he probably will be retiring soon. Punishing him for using paper is just one of the reasons.

The government now has the right to tax individuals for not purchasing a product. I can hardly wait until the Democrats get a solid majority again to see what new and interesting products they will want us plebes to purchase. Subsidized for the poor, sick and crazy, of course. We might be bankrupt by then but why should that stop them.

The government now has the right to force insurance companies to cover whatever the government wants them to cover. I think the insurance companies are hoping to get a Military-Industrial type relationship with the government where most of the spending is cooked into the budget and the only way to trim it is by sequester type of actions. Lots of mergers and name changes in the near future.

That's just three off the top of my head.

I just think it is funny that Europeans, and the rest of the world, spend so much time boo-hooing over US health care and the US in general.

I was responding to the idiot who said my insurance company is my doctor and pointing out how stupid a statement that is to make.

You make it sound like my doctor can't treat me. That there is some procedure he would recommend but can't because of the evil insurance company. Is this some argument in favor of the not-ACA? Because the not-ACA doesn't eliminate insurance companies. They are really happy about the not-ACA because now they can get rid of all their low-cost, low-margin plans and replace them with Gold, Silver and Bronze plans that have lots of things that most people will never use. Things like psychiatric care and birth control and gender reassignment surgery are now required to be covered.

And that's just the medical costs that America will pay. We are already seeing companies adopt 28 hour a week work minimums for part-timers, not to mention cutting back on full-time staff. Genius stuff this not-ACA, named after another genius. It's been almost a year since he was re-elected. Still waiting for that laser focus on the economy he promised during the election. Still waiting on the Buffet rule he really liked the sound of. Or does he just like the sound of his own voice.

4 is a lie. They didn't even have a finalized copy of the bill online until after they had passed it. It's a bad law. Mainly because we have a bunch of crap politicians who wouldn't recognize a good law if it bit them in the butt.

But go ahead and live the fantasy, but the ACA is nothing more than a fraudulent name placed on a poor piece of legislation.

Its the mandatory coverage levels that will sway most Americans to abandon this. Retirees don't need birth control. Most people don't need psychiatric care. Most people won't be seeking gender reassignment surgery. But now everyone has to pay for it and it isn't cheap.

Central planning sucks, no matter who is at the top.

I just talked to my doctor and he confirmed that he is in fact 'my doctor'. I asked him if maybe he was confused and that it was actually BCBS, but no, it turns out, they never went to med school and aren't licensed in my state.

There was nothing stopping any state from establishing a socialized single-payer healthcare system, except perhaps voter disapproval. Case in point Romneycare. Romneycare affected one state and hasn't exactly turned that state into a model of health care efficiency. If it had, more states would have followed suit, but they didn't.

Alas, we now have, let's call it what it really is, the Subsidized Care Act and the 28hr A Week Underemployment Act and the 49 Employee Small Business Act and the Waived For Obama's Buddies Act and the Insurance and IRA Growth Act and the Stick it to the Youth Yet Again Act.

your sorta insightful, sorta ironic comment disproves your argument. Comment sections do foster some debate and do influence some science. But not every site does it right and not every comment is going to be a winner.

I think Slashdot does a pretty good job. Things tend to balance out and there is usually some new sources of data for both sides. It is funny to see an Apple got caught doing something stupid story get modded pro-Cupertino after it is first posted and then slowly turn to wtf-Apple as the day goes on. Sometimes the pro-Apple crowd sleeps in and then you get the comments like 'Why does everyone hate Apple today?'.

I would like to see a way to actually debate someone. Too often there is the confusion of 'who said what' and people confusing support for criticism and vice-versa. Maybe a 'take it outside' function or something.

Maybe. But like I said, American cities are generally cleaner than cities in less affluent parts of the world. Maybe we should be sending them hefty bags or something.

Yes, that's pretty much what I was saying. Thank you for contributing.

Maybe you should look again. Iceland is #1. How do they live with themselves? The shame, the shame.

Anywhile, that's energy use which should probably be adjusted for GDP. The US would come out looking pretty good in that case. Kenya, probably not so good. Still, it's nice to know that we don't consume as much energy as the average Canadian.

And what does that prove, except my point that this is not a problem you can blame on North America. Not that you would really blame North America, cause Canadians never litter and Mexico isn't even in the First World.

Maybe you need to get out more. Like travel. Actually go to places. First go to any of the top 10 cities in the USA. Then go to any comparably sized city in Asia. Take some pictures. Maybe, if you're really serious, take some air samples. Or just sample it your self.

I guess if a country/region has the numbers, then it is okay to be nasty polluters. By your logic, Mexico City doesn't have an air pollution problem.

But I'd settle for nothing less then the Nobel Peace Prize.

First, I don't have to provide a model, because I'm not making the claim that there is going to be catastrophic global warming. All I have to do is point to the models that the team keeps putting out and then reference reality and show that they are not happening. We can start with Michael Mann's hockey stick. Where is it? His model predicted consecutive warming year over year. Hasn't happened. That's one down, how many more to go?

The latest models have all lowered sensitivity and yet they are still running hot. Are they gonna give that peace prize back if it turns out they were wrong?

Anywhile, there is already a 'model' called orbital dynamics that plays a key role. There are also models for solar dynamics which, despite what you may have read, have not been disproven. We will get a big test of some of solar dynamics soon, as we are about to enter a protracted period of low solar activity.

And yet the people who have been to the Pacific gyre say it is mostly Asian trash. I've been to Asia and it doesn't surprise me at all. American cities are much cleaner than most Asian cities, Singapore being a notable exception.

The average American is becoming more and more of just an average person. How much more does an average American consume than a middle-class person in Europe, Japan, China or other emerging economies? In Kenyans, of course, since that appears to be the common measurement.

The caveat is you have to believe in Michael Mann's Hockey Stick. Which is going to start happening when exactly?

The Earth is heating. Has been before peeps started burning things. Now more peeps then ever are burning things and yet no hockey stick. Maybe there is no hockey stick? No hockey stick, no trillions saved. At least you can admit that the hockey stick is about as sketchy as models come. Most are running hotter than reality, some are going to start falling out of the error bars if it doesn't start really warming up.

Gnash your teeth and hope for warming, I guess. Other wise you may have to start rethinking this whole AGW thing.