The fact that you are considering saving up to afford a pool is a statement of you being rich. Considering that an average in ground pool should cost about $25,000 to $50,000.

That's about the average annual salary for a person in the US...$50,000. That's more than the cost of a new luxury car...more than the cost of TWO new average cars... All for something that is a recreational activity and entirely unnecessary . On top of that, a recreational activity you can only enjoy for a few months of the year, in NJ if you're building an outdoor pool... and if it's an indoor pool, then the cost will be more than $50,000. If you are spending an amount of money equal to the average US salary on a recreational activity, then yes...you are indeed rich.

Most people, when they want to swim, will do so by going to a public municipal pool if you're poor, The Y if you're of average income, or if you're of above-average income, but still middle-class, you might have a private pool that is shared by your HOA or apartment complex. Anyone who owns a private in-ground pool, I would consider to be rich.

Now, there are many levels of rich...you are in the lower levels of rich, but you are indeed rich. The bands of rich are very large. Making about $150,000 per year puts you in to the lower-upper class. If you make $150,000 per year, you are in the top 5% of households. Make more than $250,000 per year? then you're in the top 1%. Given that you make $200k per year, you are probably in the top 2.5%. more than $250k per year puts you in the middle-upper class, and more than $1 million per year puts you in the upper-upper class.

Your comment touches on a video I once watched by a couple of gentlemen about Pascal's wager. Some of his arguments against Pascal's wager touch on what you brought up...there are such a huge number of different religions, almost all of them say "You must follow us. You must follow only us. If you do, you will get an infinitely happy and eternal afterlife. If you don't then you will go to hell (or whatever we call the bad place you go when you die) for all eternity."

He also includes all past religions that were (greek/roman/native american gods, etc.) and potential future religions. The possibilities are literally infinite.

They can't all be right. Good video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpJ7yUPwdU

The iTunes Music Store hasn't sold a song with DRM since April of 2009. Anyone who ever bought any song, that was DRM'd off the iTunes store is able to download a free DRM-free replacement anytime by logging in to their iTunes account...so long as that music is still currently for sale on the iTunes store. Heck, that replacement copy will even be upgraded to 256kbps quality too! If the music is still not for sale on the iTunes store, then anyone can use the good-old-fashioned burn and re-rip method to remove the DRM.

Couldn't you have hired somebody at the lower rate you were looking for 6 months ago and trained them to be proficient by now?

You say you don't have the time to train them... but for the last 6 months, you've been short staffed, having to do the work that this new hire is supposed to be doing, and searching for and interviewing candidates? With all the time you've invested over the last 6 months in looking for the "perfect candidate" and the extra money you are paying to actually bring them on board, you likely could've just hired someone who is mostly qualified (at the lower rate) and then spend the time you would've spent reading resumes and interviewing candidates to actually train this person...then you have them at a lower rate, and they can help with some aspects of their job while they are being trained.

Incorrect.

The rate of actually acquiring an infection from an infected source by insertive anal (gay) intercourse is 6.5 in 10,000 exposures. The rate for Insertive vaginal (straight) intercourse is 5 in 10,000 exposures. The difference there...1.5 cases in 10,000 is pretty inconsequential.

It is different for the receptive partners. Receptive anal (gay) intercourse is 50 infections per 10,000 exposures. The rate for receptive vaginal (straight) intercourse is 10 per 10,000 exposures. Receptive gay sex is 5 times as likely to transmit the disease as receptive vaginal sex...but when it's 10 per 10,000 vs 50 per 10,000, it's still within the same order of magnitude.

(Source, the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/policies/law/risk.html)

The collaboration features will work on any device that has reasonable HTML 5 support as it is entirely browser based...including Mac, iDevices, Windows (IE, Chrome, Firefox), and a fair number of non-apple tablets...including the Surface. No license or account is needed for the collaborators.

undoing mod. It was funny, not overrated.

Er... I guess in his specific case, the Australian voters...But yeah, the bureaucrat is responsible to the voters.

I'd rather have a government bureaucrat, who (in theory) answers to the american voters, make the decision rather than an insurance company CEO, who answers to his shareholders and whose only job is to squeeze out the most profit.

Yes. You are correct. In a few places, that wouldn't be possible. But that is on the states that chose to reject those proposals, not on the Feds. The ACA provides for 100% of the cost of the medicaid expansion for 3 years, and then 90% of the cost of it forever.

It wouldn't surprise me if the increase in money flowing to the states because of the additional medicaid dollars actually completely offset the 10% of the cost to the states through additional state tax revenue.

I agree. My interpretation of the Supreme Court's decision on the ACA pretty much comes to the conclusion that congress could indeed do that.

However, you still have representative government. If a politician were to vote for a such a plan, then I bet they would get voted out pretty quick.

I never made the argument that it was right or that's how government should operate...I was just arguing that it was, in fact, constitutional as the sole power to levy taxes lies with The Congress since that's what the original comment was about.

If you have no income, then...congratulations, you will qualify for medicare and get healthcare for free...you won't pay a tax. Simply enroll and enjoy.

Like I said before... it's an argument of semantics... getting a tax break for buying insurance is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as having a tax penalty for not buying insurance. Either way, you are paying more in taxes for not buying health insurance...Just like you are paying more in taxes for not buying a mortgage...or paying more in taxes for not putting money in to your 401k...etc...etc...

To put it in terms a programmer can understand:

$tax=$tax+1000; if (hasInsurance($citizen)) { $tax=$tax-1000; }

is the same thing as

if (!hasInsurance($citizen)) {$tax=$tax+1000;}

Either way, if hasInsurance($citizen) is false, then the tax goes up by 1000.

You're not forced to do anything. It is a tax for not buying health insurance. Your choice is to either buy health insurance or pay more tax.

Not very dissimilar to the tax credit for mortgage insurance. One could argue that the government is forcing people to have a mortgage. Not true. They are encouraging people to take out mortgages by giving people with mortgages a tax break. The choice is to either buy a mortgage or pay more tax.

It really is an argument of semantics, but if you boil that all away, you are paying more tax for not buying something.

I have a Nest thermostat, and you can use about 90% of the feature set without the internet or connecting it to their servers. The basic idea is that the thermostat doesn't need to be programmed. It learns the schedule it should keep based on you adjusting it. You turn on the heat when you wake up. You turn it down before you go to work. Then you turn it back on when you get home from work. Finally, back down before you go to bed. It will learn when you wake up, when you go to work, when you get home from work, and when you go to bed...adjusting it's own programming based on what it sees.

The biggest thing the internet provides is the ability to control it via a smartphone/website. There are no service fees for this functionality. They have also publicly stated that they are committed to supporting the thermostats for the very long haul. The first gen of thermostats they released has a 5 year warranty, so they are supporting the internet functionality/software updates for at least that long.