Well the question is really why is it such a recent phenomena in the US? Its a very difficult question to answer. Bowling for Columbine tried to answer it (or at least pretended to try to answer it), and didn't really have a good answer.

I don't think anyone can make a case that school shootings are a direct consequence of a lack of firearms. That can't possibly be true as evidenced by the fact that Europe doesn't have these things happen daily. It has to be something cultural. We do have a weird fetishization with firearms in this country. I don't know where that came from. Perhaps it was a necessary consequence of decades of moving west across the plains and living off the land.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but it simply cannot be the case that school shootings are directly related to the number of privately-owned guns.

Now that's the right attitude to have. You know it's a bunch of people buying an investment (not a currency), hoping it will appreciate so that they can cash out once it hits a high enough price point.

Bitcoin/Litecoin is an (irrational) investment, not a currency.

In the United States getting stuff in the mail unsolicited is considered a gift and is not required to be returned...for the exact reason you specified; I can mail everyone on my block an Ubuntu cd and then claim they owe me $10 for accepting it.

I don't know if a shipping error counts as being unsolicited, but I don't think the company would have any recourse. IANAL.

That doesn't require a monarch. Just divorce the duty of head of state from the President. We could have a "First Citizen" or something like that. They can do all the stupid diplomatic and cultural stuff that the President doesn't really have time to do.

Yeah, I mentioned that at work once. That in foreign countries your return is pretty much done for you, and you just sign off on it. If it isn't correct you provide proof and then send that amendment back in. I got an incredulous stare and an "Oh, that'd be great for the government. They could say whatever they wanted and people would just pay up."

*sigh*

A good many people have no idea that the IRS already has all your W-2s and could fill out a simple 1040-EZ on your behalf. Sure, when you're itemizing it would get a bit more complicated, but for the vast majority of folks who don't itemize, there is no reason that the IRS can't have everything filled out for you, and all you need to do is sign and return.

Err... that's "underestimate the amount of risk".

We will not have a robot driving the car (or a computer) for a very long time.

People's cognitive biases are such that they overestimate the amount of risk involved in driving when they are in control (hence everyone saying they're above average in driving ability). Even then, there will be laws against such things. If, due to a software bug, 1 person died per day in a car accident, the cars would be classified as death traps in the media and in government. Of course, the fact that 32,367 people died in vehicle deaths in 2011 wouldn't matter. People will be able to handle 30,000 people per year dying due to driver error. They won't be able to handle 300 people dying per year due to software error.

Do you know it was because of the ACA or did UPS use the ACA as a scapegoat to do something they've wanted to do for awhile?

Competitive businesses can't just cut benefits like that without some backlash and losing some employees due to it. Now they've got a convenient excuse. "Yeah, your wife can't be on the plan anymore...I know, I know it's not our fault, it's that damn Obamacare."

No one is seriously talking about changing it because we're risk averse.

The whole health insurance debate isn't really all that complicated. Hell even the ACA isn't all that complicated. The idea is that there are lots of people who are priced out of the market so we can require insurers to give the same price to everyone (this is called Community Rating). Lots of people need coverage for existing conditions. We'll require insurers to cover those (this is called Guaranteed Issue). But...if everyone waits until they're very ill to buy insurance, premiums will skyrocket out of control. For that, we'll require everyone to purchase insurance (this is called the Individual Mandate) to increase the risk pool or pay an extra tax.

Now this is, IMHO, the wrong way to do it, but it's not that hard to explain. Sure there are some other things on the edges, but that's pretty much it.

I'd be happy to de-couple employment and insurance (and the ACA is a half-hearted attempt at doing it), but if you tell people that they can't keep their current employer-subsidized insurance, they'll freak out even more than they did when they heard about the individual mandate...even though it doesn't apply to the vast majority of Americans.

You're eligible for Medicaid and you're complaining? Medicaid is pretty damn cheap seeing as it's for poor people. The only problem is that you may have trouble finding doctors who will be willing to see you.

But yes, you're probably a reasonably healthy white male in his 20s or 30s. You're getting the shaft on this one so that sickly folks with tons of pre-existing conditions can pay $420-$700/mo instead of simply being denied coverage. Really, it sucks to be you, but that was the intent of the law. Do I think it's a good thing? On the balance, I'll give it a very tepid yes. So fuck me, I guess.

I'm lucky in that my wife works for the state and is in a union, so our coverage is really good and cheap. In fact it's probably too good compared to what most people get. If you were to take this idea to car insurance, I'd be in the same boat. I've never had so much as a speeding ticket. My premiums would skyrocket if car insurance was guaranteed issue and required community rating, and then all the other people who have a half dozen DUIs would have their premiums decrease by just as much.

In short, your plan is more expensive so other folks' plans are less expensive (or simply available). That's socialization of risk, and you're on the short end. Why do you have to buy maternity coverage? So women's plans are less expensive. The way I see it, I'd be happy to have my premiums tripled if it meant that someone with a blood factor disorder could get affordable insurance. If you don't see it that way, that's ok. Best of luck in your new business, BTW.

That was the fallback position to a fallback position. If they'd have done it right like the left wanted it, we'd all be on Medicare right now.

But that's socialism, so we can't have that. We need another kludgy hack to our current healthcare system which itself is a hack in the tax code to make it such that employers would want to pay for their employees' health care.

Yeah, it doesn't work that way here. There is no mechanism to force a non-scheduled election of Senators and Representatives. Right now there is no authority for certain departments that run off of a budget (we have plenty that don't -- Medicare and Social Security, for instance) to spend any money. This can theoretically continue indefinitely. Also in our system, the lower house must originate spending bills, but the upper house has equal rights to amend those bills.

The more interesting crisis is the debt ceiling vote coming up. It used to be that every time Congress would need to issue debt, they'd do it "manually" by voting to do so. When that became too cumbersome, they put in place a limit to how much debt the Treasury could issue. From time to time when tax revenue is less than spending, they have to vote to raise that limit or else we are in default.

It's an odd situation. Congress says $X must be spent on Y, but less than $X comes in via revenue, but they also say that no debt can be issued to make up the shortfall. It's contradictory instructions, and I believe we're alone in the civilized world in this regard.

The horse's mouth says it has dropped since 2009:

2009: 4,430,000
2010: 4,443,000 (the site notes that this includes temporary workers hired for the census)
2011: 4,403,000

So we can conclude that there were less federal government employees in 2011 than there were in 2009 when President Obama took office. Not much less, mind you, but certainly less.

The reason why college sports are such a circus is due to the fact that they are the de facto minor leagues for pro sports (at least as football and to a lesser extent, basketball is concerned). The NFL has a rule that any player eligible for the draft must be 3 years removed from high school. This means that if you are an exceptional football player, you can do one of the following:

1) Don't play for three years.
2) Join a semi-pro league for three years (the Arena League apparently pays $400/game).
3) Go to the CFL (I don't even know if that's possible as I don't know the rules for imports in the CFL).
4) Get a free college education.

I know what I'd do.

The NBA is a bit different because of the D-League and in baseball and hockey, the majority of prospects are not found in college. Figure out a way so that football and basketball have a large minor league system and colleges won't care as much about sports.

I hear you. The only way I can watch Columbus Blue Jackets hockey legally would be to buy cable and get Fox Sports Ohio. There is a way to watch out-of-market NHL games on various devices, but no way to watch in-market games short of routing it all through a VPN or breaking down and getting cable.

I guess the difference with you is that you don't live in the Pittsburgh metro area. It's still a problem for sports/teams that are not usually nationally broadcast. Be happy that your Steelers are good enough that they tend to be on "game of the week" type matchups. I follow San Francisco, and before they were good as of late, I'll bet I didn't watch a game for 2 or 3 years because they simply weren't on TV.