How much of readability is the fault of the language vs the developer? Cut-n-paste coding is the bane of any language.

As a perl programmer, I sometimes ask, what can python or ruby do that perl can't?

MVC web framework like Rails or Django? Catalyst, Mojolicious, etc. PSGI has taken a lot of pain out of deployment of apps.

Good, modern object system? Moose.

GUI stuff? There's Wx and Qt interfaces.

OK, embedding C looks much easier in python, but I've never needed that.

If all the CPAN stuff would just work with other languages, I'd be more willing to switch. Javascript seems to be where all the web stuff is heading anyway.

In the 80s when I was in high school, before anyone outside of a few universities had heard of the internet, I could go into a place called a "gun store" and buy any one of a number of 9mm handguns (including early Glocks), and even 30 round magazines. There were places called "newsstands" that sold magazines (the non-bullet holding ones) that described these items in great detail. Good times.

Lots of cops like to brag that they never had to shoot anyone in their years on the police force. The point being guns can server as a deterrent to violence. So unless you want to have police absolutely everywhere (which is where we are heading anyway as a society), maybe the deterrent factor is a valid, rational consideration?

Lots of times, just letting a potential assailant or intruder see that you have a gun makes them leave, no killing needed. When you need a gun, you *really* need one.

Across the street from my house, a lady pulled out of her driveway in her little Audi, passed out behind the wheel, and after driving about 150 yards, slammed into a little birch tree about 5 inches in diameter. The tree was mostly unhurt; the engine compartment was wrapped around the trunk like a pair of pliers around a wire. Tree 1, car 0. The idiot driver broke an ankle

That was during the 18th and 19th century (you know, the Indians, slavery, annexation of Hawaii, etc.) so it's understandable why you missed it.

As far as world domination goes, the US has far surpassed the Germans, and even the British -- that's why there are hundreds of military bases all over the world, and why there's one set of rules for countries in the imperial fold (e.g. Israel's nukes) and those outside (e.g. Iran's legal nuclear program).

True, the U.S. empire is "softer" than the German one -- it doesn't need mass extermination camps, it merely needs to imprison over 2 million of its own citizens, and apply surveillance over the rest, in order to keep the lid on things. That plus mass narcotization of its population via consumerism, entertainment and actual pharmaceuticals has proven a more effective form of centralization of power than the crude 20th century models.

What was the app? Couldn't you sue?

This seems wrong at many levels. "Capitalism was meant" suggests capitalism was designed or created with a purpose, rather than being the evolution of one mode of exploitation (serfdom) into another (slavery). Furthermore, historians of the late medieval period show that peasants where self-sufficient in food and had more leisure time than early factory workers, who were forced off the land (e.g. Enclosure Acts) and hence food self-sufficiency to work 12-14 hour days. It was the labor movement that fought for shorter work days; and even if we nominally have an 8 hour day today, modern capitalists always find a way to squeeze more out of you (e.g. work from home).

Yes, that would be socialism, not the dreary factory-centric model in which the corporation is replaced by the state, but where free associations of people produce to fulfill needs and wants without the rusted-out fetters of money to dictate everything.

I'd suggest you look at some of the early advocates of capitalism, particularly in the Scottish enlightenment, who were quite explicit that forcing peasants into starvation was the most efficient way to boost labor discipline. Here's a link to get you started

Jon Stewart? Left wing? Hardly. He's a court jester who's careful to suck up to the powerful.

That decentralized, individualistic society was only possible because of the economic foundation of a plantation economy and slavery. It was not feasible to treat minorities (i.e. slaves) better. It took the civil war, the greatly increased power of the central government, and the rise of corporations and robber barons to complete the jump to full-blown industrial capitalism.

What's tragic is how many people here equate liberty with money. "The Road to Serfdom" is going to end up as a how-to manual.

So, if scientists reach conclusions that coincide with any kind of environmental or regulatory agenda, they are automatically tools? You rant against "do-gooders" who seek to control the behavior of others, but you have nothing to say about the actions of the coal, oil and gas industries. Do you think they are naive businessmen who never thought of lobbying or buying legislators (or whole governments for that matter)? Do you really think the political impact of environmental lobbyists somehow outweighs that of the incredibly profitable fossil fuel industries?

I bet you don't believe Phillip Morris was able to use money to influence the science around smoking and lung cancer, either. In my book, that makes an ideologue who has little of value to say.

So you really, truly believe that Greens and Socialists have more money and influence on the American political process than oil, coal, and gas interests, and the chamber of commerce types?

How dare the Iranian gov't of the 1950s try and nationalize the oil under their land that rightfully belonged to British Petroleum! Those evil people weren't respecting the rule of law, the same way Chinese people refused to respect the British right to sell them opium!

Furthermore, we all know the great democracies of the USA and Britain never stole any land or resources from any other people (remember how the Cherokee left Georgia because they new the African slave volunteers needed a new home?), which of course grants them the right to intervene in other, inferior democracies.

Thank god we have people like you to clarify our rights.

There's a good video of a talk by public school teacher on this subject which is worth watching.