Frighteningly close to the truth. An example of Big Pharma and a corrupt lawmaker shows that the medical industry will try to regulate - charge for- anything that might work. For the sake of the children, of course.

How about pr0n and right hand motor control?

"We" aren't moving that way at all. You might be, but I'm not. I don't live on FacePalm or anything like that. I use a phone to talk to my kids on the other side of the country, but that maintains human relationships. I teach and compete in judo. Choking someone works a lot better in person. "We" all make our choices. Afraid of talking to people? Hide in the basement. Or simply live in the real world.

There is a sugar/cancer tie in though. The insulin spike from sugar consumption promotes tumor growth. Not that the sugar itself is carcinogenic, but the subsequent insulin flooding exacerbates the cancer. I've known people with advanced cancer whose doctors told them this, they wen't completely off carbs and tumor growth slowed significantly.

I wish business and government would not collude to deny me the right to choose what I want to buy, e.g., sugar subsidies, tobacco subsidies, ObamaCare subsidies, etc.

The science is very clear on this and has been for a long time.

The problem is that "nutritionists" pay no attention to the actual science. "We don't need no steekin science! We KNOW that dietary fat and cholesterol are bad for you!"

The real science has been known for many years, all the way down to the eicosanoid hormone level. Endocrinologists know this stuff. General practice M.D.s don't. They just parrot the Statin salesmen.

Even endocrinologists, unfortunately, are not immune to cant and insurance industry pressure.

Too many of them just run insurance driven diabetes shops and ignore actual science in adherence to "conventional practice", i.e., not what works, but what is defensible in court.

I meant to say "Nothing at all wrong with formal education..."

I also don't have a typing/editing degree.

I have no degrees of any kind. No community college, not even high school. I started by teaching myself programming 30+ years ago. Found that even with the dumb ass mistakes I was making, I provided as much, and often more value to my employers as the CIS grads we hired.

When I started, I had some real life experience with accounting, working with people, making payroll for my own construction business. Stuff not generally part of any programming degree. As the years went by, I looked for training where I could find it like online courses.

I make 150k+ a year as a consultant. Nothing at all with formal education (if it's real and useful) but after 30 years in the industry, watching people come and go, by FAR the most important thing is aptitude and nerdiness. And by nerdiness, I mean exactly what you're talking about. Actually being interested in goofy shit like algorithm optimization, ferreting out OS API secrets, etc., just for their own sake, apart from the business need of the moment.

Marxism IS a religion. It's just doesn't have a spiritual component.

Priests(Marxist theoreticians), crusades, Inquisitions, enforced fervor, punishment for non-belief, holy books written by the founders(Marx & Engels), revered founders expressing revealed truth, etc.

Did I mention the part where many, many millions have been killed in trying to produce the true believer?

Sounds like a religion to me.

Singapore and Malaysia to name two. You can have about any religion quite publicly as long as you don't try to convert Muslims.

Not an ideal situation perhaps, but you openly practice non-Muslim religions in those countries.

No kidding. When I had a '46 Dodge panel van, I once replaced a broken piston by pulling the oil pan and rotating the crankshaft enough to pull the piston out and replace it. Part of that was simply clearances but it's an example. I once replaced the slant 6 engine in a '72 van by myself in a parking space over a weekend.

I couldn't replace the spark plugs in my Expedition. I probably could given enough time and some specialized tools, but damn, what an ordeal it promised to be. On the other hand, I've done a boatload of residential wiring from knob and tube to modern. Almost all household electrical should be easy for anyone to do with a little reading. Most modern plumbing is also a lot easier than the old stuff.

My kind of UFO

It's a Bad Idea to have cops/building inspectors/government functionary decide who to screw whenever they feel like it. Far better to just have fewer stupid laws. I know, there are always boundary situations, but fewer stupid laws is the best route to take.

What we have now is a situation where so many things are illegal no one can keep up. Then TPTB can simply prosecute the desired subgroup and leave their supporters/funders alone. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I'm not against allowing adults to shoot, snort, sniff, smoke, drink or otherwise wallow in whatever they can want BUT...

Coming from a state where moonshine has been a long time pasttime, I can tell you that if push comes to shove, you'd rather deal with the DEA than the BATF.

Not just flaming here, but remember Waco? That whole thing was initiated over alleged tax issues. That's really what the permits are in the end. Tax issues. Don't forget that the BATF is the enforcement arm of Treasury. They don't fuck around.