The fact that you dont get my point about street lights is kinda the point. Something that on the surface impedes my freedom " a red light" actually provides more freedom. Without street lights I would have to stop at every intersection to check.for oncoming traffic. I am in Canada which has a single payer health insurance system. (A system that most Canadians would kill to defend and I am truly sry you guys disnt get for yourselves). I understand that you would view it has a liberty reducing socialism like a red light. But I view it as liberty increasing. Firstly health insurance is very affordable because risk is spread as wide a possible. This increaes my financial freedom. Second, preventitive measures and harm reduction programs abound. This increses my freedom from infection from others. We have no destitution created because of someones lack of acces to affordable health. This increases my freedom from fear because of less crime. We spend less then you for health care and get way better outcomes. So I am free from getting screwed by a for profit insurance company. Free from getting sub-standard care because I dont earn enough. But I do hear you that you dont want government to fund laws you dont like. Welcome to democracy, if enough other people like those laws they get funded. This doesnt mean government is broken, it just means democracy works. Deal with it.

It might be fun for you to take a vacation to a country with no building codes, no food inspectors, no labeling laws, no noise bylaws, no courts to enforce contracts, and all the other "freedom surprresing" rules. Then you should read Hobbs, Mills, and Locke so that you understand exactly why it is that we are more free with street lights then without. One could easily argue that a red street light is a gross violation of your liberty by the gubberment. But do your really want to live in a city without street lights? If you want to discuss the nuances of spefic laws and how balance between personal liberty and common good, there are many people who would love to have that talk. And they would respect your views. But if all you say is that all government and taxes are bad, you will quite rightly be dismissed as an idiot not worthy of listening to. This is the proplem with the tea party. All the valid viewpoints of the right are lost in the noise of all the nonesense.

They exist. Corporate culture starts at the top. Thats why CEO get the big bucks right? I have worked in well run government departments and bad, ditto for private sector organisations. What made the difference was the culture. In "groups" that put group reputation ahead of short term personal gain, the better the output. If your leaders or managers appear more interested in their personal gain and appear to care little for the quality of the output, then the whole place sucks and so does there work. All their work, you can feel it in the lobby on the helpline, or when you talk to a salesmen. The reverse is also true, when there is genuine ethical leadership the whole organization rocks and you can feel it everywhere. With that in mind you can understand why the repugs create self-fufilling reality. How well do you think government employees perform.when.their political masters are constantly saying how much suck amd that "you are the problem". Not to mention when they themselves are caught witheir hand in the cookie jar. So, it starts with the electorate. Choose ethical, dedicated, self-sacrificing leaders and you will have good government. Hmmm...actually this whole "individual always above the group", and anything collectove being.villified,.means your.probably doomed to have bad leadership public and private. Accept in that one instituion that makes a science of encoraging hive thinking and group above individual, the USA military.

And if you want to live in a sane less politically polarized, less gun toting, less religious fanatic, less devil take the hind most place with beaches and skiing then you move to Vancouver, B.C.

Recruiting for cyber-warfare

Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) clearly lacks an understanding of monetary policy if he thinks that the trillion dollar coin idea is anything other then a joke. Can he also propose a bill blocking the president from writing an executive order requiring all citizens report for immediate gender re-assignment surgery.

Not necessarily. The resistance could be passive, not require energy, and not impact survival in the absence of methicillin.

http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/criminal-solicitation/

The term everyone is looking for is Criminal Solicitation:
http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/criminal-solicitation/

I am not saying that posting this link was Criminal Solicitation, but I am sure some lawyer could argue it was.

Which makes me wonder why they don't charge all those people who encourage suicide. Suicide is illegal in most states isn't it? So if someone posts "Go ahead bump yourself off", then I think someone could successfully argue that they encouraged an illegal act.

In this case the analogy I would use is that he stood in the middle of a riot and handed out maps to hardware stores with crowbars.

Funny that you should characterize climate change as a plot against the oil companies. If you check the position papers of the petroleum industry associations you will find that not only do they understand climate change, they also admit their carbon from their products are part of the cause.
http://www.api.org/environment-health-and-safety/climate-change.aspx

In addition to the petroleum industry itself, the worlds largest insurance companies, who's entire business is based on determine fact and risk, have long acknowledged climate change and its mankind's role in accelerating it.
http://www.munichre.com/corporate-responsibility/en/management/environment/climate-protection/default.aspx

So if the petroleum industry and insurance (banking) industries are part of the same conspiracy with scientists...perhaps it is not a conspiracy?

Perhaps the only conspiracy are pundits making a money by exploiting a niche? You can launch a site expressing some counter factual, our counter cultural position and you will be guaranteed a small but loyal audience by people who get a sense of self-worth by being "outside" or "bucking the trend" or a "rebel" or whatever.

Where is the bright shiny future where robots do all the work and people get to spend their time in arts, education and leisure?

I agree with everything you said, however....I work with a variety of non-profits and I always set them up with Google Apps. For the most part this works out but in every case there have been some staff that insist that they get MS Office. Some times I am able to show them how to do what they are attempting with Google Docs, but there have also been many times where the apps are just not feature rich enough. (mostly the spreadsheet).

So if by charging Google can accelerate improvements to the apps, then it will be a good deal.

The only handicap? How about being able to easily switch between Dropbox accounts? Say by right-clicking the tray icon and choosing a different account. The current method of switching accounts is unreasonably cumbersome.

Ditto in Canada (naturally seeing how our laws are based on the UK common law tradition)

It never ceases to amaze me how most people have no idea how the money supply works. So maybe a simple explanation is in order.

Think of the money supply as shares in the company called "the economy". If the economy grows but the number of shares stays the same, then each share is worth more. This is called "deflation". It is deflation because the value of a unit of money has increased so you need less of it then before to buy goods and services (eg. prices fall).

So the goal of the Fed is to increase the money supply in step with the growth in the economy. Since this requires making predictions about how much the economy will grow they occasionally get it wrong. For example, if they predicted that the economy will grow by 10% they will increase the money supply by 10% so that prices stay the same. If they do this and the economy does not grow at all, then they have accidentally diluted the value of each unit of money and this is reflected as prices going up. (eg Inflation)

Most western central banks (the fed, the bank of Canada,etc,etc,) don't plan to keep prices the same. They actually target and plan for a 2% inflation rates. The want to increase the money supply slightly ahead of the growth of the economy. The do this for one reason, to introduce flexibility in the labour market.

Prices of bread and cars can go up and down in response to supply and demand. Wages are a little tougher to deal with. People don't like wages going down (even if you prove that purchasing power stays the same). So a 2% inflation rates automatically lowers wages by 2% a year. If times are good wages go up, if not they stay the same (which is to say, go down by 2%).