I've asked this question before, many times, and have yet to receive a reasonable answer from the climate change crowd, so I'll try again:

So what if the climate is changing? It has never been static, it never will be static. Weather patterns have changed continuously throughout Earth's history, when humans were not even present. Hell, previous changes could have been caused by all the methane released in dinosaur farts for all we know. Some areas of the world that are barren may become lush, others may become inhabitable, coast lines may change. Outside of the political implications of which nation is on top or not, so what? That's life, and humans will adapt.

There's a saying I've heard that goes something like:

software that is 50% complete and ships provides 50% more functionality to users than software that strives for 100% completeness but never gets shipped

Getting software in the hands of users, even if it doesn't provide all the functionality they want up front, can give you a first mover advantage. Then, as you learn what your users like or request (which is almost guaranteed to change from your original idea as they start using it), you do iterative releases with new capabilities. By the time a competitor gets a really polished, complete system out the door, you'll already have a growing user base.

You young guys take note: When you hate someone for having what you do not, you bring curses upon your own head.

Funny, but at least in the US, this is today's way of life. Class/wealth envy is the most powerful tool being used by today's political elite to stay in power.

I'm not sure this is a totally correct assessment. Large companies tend to have defined desktop standards that they force all users to adhere to, even when they cause problems (i.e. full disk PGP encryption on a developers desktop work station because they might test with sensitive data). The standards apply to developers, call center and executive admins equally, so they don't really work well for any one group. This is the norm as a way to keep internal support costs down.

But, because of this standardization, the internal development staff only needs to target one defined platform, they aren't really worried about cross-platform support. So they'll use what ever tool they are familiar with or that will get them to the end product fastest, because internal development is also usually an expense (not a revenue generator) and those systems tend to be rushed to not waste money.

Here's a question I've always wondered about, what happens if someone refuses to take the oath? Say for example you are brought into court under subpoena, and when you take the stand and they say Do you swear to tell the truth.. you answer with Nope, I don't. Could you be charged later with perjury or lying then?

Can't see that there is any way to force a person to take the oath, but knowing our system, I'm sure the judge would just say You're under oath anyway or hold you in contempt.

Or how about A Boy and his Dog

While I also play WoW under Wine and agree it works reasonably well, I have to ask a simple question.

One reason WoW works reasonably under Wine is that it will use OpenGL and is not tied to DirectX. Many of the WoW developers are actually using Macs so the application could not be dependent on DirectX. And yet, there is no native Linux client produced for it, only native for Mac OS X and Windows.

As popular as the game is, and knowing it can run on a *nix variant, Blizzard still won't produce a native Linux client. So why do you suppose that is?

What you appear to be describing is not so much what I think of as simplification but more reduction. It is possible to simplify the laws but still cover all the same points, just make the laws clearer and in more readily understandable language.

But that aside, a bigger change we could make (at least in the US) is tort-reform to a loser-pays system. Lawsuit-lottery exists in the US simply because the lawyers know they can keep dragging it out because if their client loses, they aren't stuck with the law bills for the other side.

In the US system the lawyers always get paid, regardless of outcome. In a loser-pays model, a lawyer weighs the actual merits of a case before taking it because if his/her client loses, he/she runs the risk of not getting paid.

Of course every time tort-reform is introduced it gets defeated by the lobbying might of the trial lawyers (which many members of Congress are) and the late-night TV class action lawsuit-mill lawyers ("Were you denied Vanilla ice-cream with your birthday meal at Joe's Pizza Parlor? Well call us, we can help").

And this excuse continues to come up over and over as well. Since nothing is physically lost, no one is harmed

Ok, so let us say that that is an acceptable argument. If you truly believe that argument, why don't you print your own money? After all, all you are doing is making your own copy, no one else is losing anything. The technology today makes it very easy to do.

Now of course people will jump all over this saying "but counterfeiting is a criminal offense, this is just a civil offense blah blah blah" but the fact is there is no difference based on your argument, so you should be protesting the fact that copying money is a criminal offense whereas copying the work of others without their permission isn't.

So when do you start printing your own money?

White House != Congress

This is proposed by Congress (Legislative branch), not the White House (Executive branch). Where are all the emails written/received from Congress critters? The only ones I've heard of in recent years are those associated with Republicans being slimes with interns, or like Sarah Palin's hacked account.

<devilsadvocate>

H1B visas mean the people getting hired are living in the same country, and probably the same city as the US worker you mentioned, these jobs are not outsourced overseas. How is it then, that these people can survive on $20k yet a local worker needs $50k? Is it a matter of expectation or actual need?

</devilsadvocate>

Note I'm not saying that it is correct to undercut citizen's but how do you we make the case that $50k is necessary as a living wage when the employers can point to the H1B visa folks and say "See, they are doing just fine at less than half that amount"? How do you win that argument?

Really? Would the ACLU even exist if the US military did not exist? Would United States exist as an independent nation without the US military? You have the ability to be part of the American Civil Liberties Union because there is a strong military protecting the United States where such an organization can exist.

Do not confuse the military with the politicians. Last time I looked, the US military was not patrolling the streets of this nation taking away your rights, the people that we vote into office are the ones doing that. And I don't recall the military being called in to back up executive orders, that is the FBI and Justice department.

Citing Health care In Canada

emphasis mine. Canadian citizens are not allowed, by law, to spend their own money to receive medical treatment if they desire to, unless of course they go across the border into the United States. Which makes sense, because

The doctors themselves are leaving to work in the US.