That's the "risk" (among others). But at least you'd test it on a group of people where you can actually see more than just whether the crap kills them.

Then again, it could have the unwanted side effect to unveil prematurely that the crap doesn't do jack but line the pockets of its maker...

The problem is that this doesn't offer them a "way out", that whole shit ensures they stay down in the gutter. 'cause, well, you don't think they get paid according to the risk to their health, do you? They get paid just enough for them to get by and keep them dependent. It's drug pushers we're talking about. Legal drug pushers, but why does anyone think they're in any way morally better than the average drug cartel. Paying the bums more than absolutely necessary not only costs more than it has to, but it also potentially threatens your "test bed", because if someone managed to climb out of the gutter on your money, you'd lose one guinea pig to test on.

The Dream was that you can make a mistake but start over and claw your way back to the top. Forget it. The ugly reality is that once you're in the gutter, you stay in the gutter. You make a legal mistake and you'll be labeled for life. You make an economic mistake and you permanent credit history will ensure you'll never ever get a loan again. And once you're in the gutter, that's where you'll stay for the rest of your natural life.

I don't have my people tested for drugs. For more than one reason. First and foremost, I fear they could find something. Actually, I'm pretty sure they'd find something with one or two of the guys.

Then, why the fuck should I care what they do in their spare time? I'm neither their mommy nor their nanny. I care about them coming to work sober and being able to do their job. That they do. So where's my interest in anything beyond that?

That's swell. Abusing religious laws to fight religious bullshit.

Would it make me the devil if I can't help but giggle?

That's what I love about sane countries. Your religion means fuck if it conflicts with laws, first you have to obey the real laws, then the ones of your imaginary friend.

If your imaginary friend conflicts with the law, he can take a hike.

By typing "how the fuck can I get rid of the damn ads" into google.

In other words, I went looking for it. Nobody ever bothered to shove their crap in my face to convince me it's a good idea. They had plenty of others who did that convinced me without even trying.

If there's a market for a product, there's no need to slap someone in his face with it.

When people learned that working won't get them a house that you want to live in and that one income just ain't enough to get by on, let alone when you have kids and a dog.

That far already? Not just considering them a "lower class" but already a "lower being"?

Just so I can confirm my prejudice: Democrat or Republican?

What decision for fuck's sake? "Allow them to stick needles in me or starve?"

That is no decision. That's like me offering you the decision to dance for my amusement or end up with a bullet in your head, and then me claiming that dancing like an idiot was your own free will.

Oh yeah, like they have a choice. A decision entails that there is a viable alternative. And I kinda doubt they go "hmm... become a human guinea pig or pursue my career in advertising...".

We're still talking abusing the plight of a person. I don't know about you, but in my books that's kinda immoral. According to our law books, that's even illegal under certain conditions.

Nonsense.

Look at Baen's model... the first few chapters of all of their books are available for free, all on-line, all trivially easy for you to browse and sample, at no risk, wherever and whenever it's convenient to you. For that matter, they offer full novels from their top authors for free. So you can read the first book of a 15-novel series at no cost, hooking you for the other 14.

How can book stores, with their limited shelf space and immobility, compete with that?

Of course, that's Baen, not Amazon. Because Baen is a publisher, they have the freedom to do things like offer the first ~50 pages free, while Amazon has to obey the publishers' rules. But in a world where browsing bookshelves is gone, Baen's approach, or something like it, will be necessary to generate sales, so it will be done.

Just because you're accustomed to one way of finding good reading material doesn't mean it's the only one, or even the best one.

There is plenty of fundraising coming about on both sides with this. The point though is as much as the GOP loves to distort reality on a regular basis and has no qualms about lying to the public, this is an exceptionally blatant case of the latter. There is a long list of republicans who have been shouting for impeachment in DC for some time (some almost as long as you!) and now the orders passed down to them from above are to lie about ever demanding it, and to make that lie everywhere they possibly can.

This isn't like denying that they have made dozens of attempts in the house to repeal the Health Insurance Industry Bailout Act of 2010 - at least with that they can cowardly hide behind the fact that some of their repeal attempts were partial rather than full - this is just an outright party-wide lie. It just happens to work for them because they have legions of donors who are dumb enough to either believe it or not mind it.

Of course, they aren't really trying to push through impeachment under the guise of improving "credibility"...

You're rolling the dice regardless. It matters not whether your plan is a phone, a bat, a gun, or something else entirely. Guns are not 100% effective; even if you regularly practice with your gun it can still jam or misfire. You just have to decide which level of risk is acceptable to you. I personally find a bat to be an acceptable trade off as the likelihood of it accidentally killing an innocent person in my home is quite nearly zero. You might apply a different calculus to the matter.

There have been bands of criminals working together in the past as well. Even in the city closest to my home they are even more exceedingly rare than armed individuals breaking into homes - and the town where I live hasn't even had an unarmed robbery in a very very long time.

Sorry, but I have to side with the planet. Dead trees, energy waste and pollution all point to ebooks being preferable to the printed variety. The authors earn less and many would only be able to indulge their hobby part time, whilst working at another career, is just a normal part of social change. I'll have to admit to not having read a book for quite a long time, much preferring the interactivity of the internet and even computer games. Something like slashdot makes for a better read than a passive book and it contains as much non-fiction as any typical paperback ;D.