Yet one person gets murdered here and everyone seems to be yelling "terrorist" and going weak at the knees in fear and stupidity.

In part. A tiny minority group has an agenda and uses anything and everything to pursue it. The vast majority of people are too cowardly or too stupid to confront that minority with any sort of logic or reason. Instead, the mere fact that they may be painted as pro-terrorism, pro-murder, anti-nationalistic, or simply non-compassionate leaves them to be walked all over, often go as far as parroting the party line instead of making a stand on principle or character or integrity. So, congratulations Britain; you're just like America.

Well, I tend to think of quantum mechanics as proving the universe functions on call-by-need, with faster than light being the lack of support for mutation. Entangling then is really just call-by-need evaluating out a circumstance backwards far enough to note that when two waves/particles/whatever were at the same place, they had to have certain exclusionary properties (for the article, one photon was polarized vertically and the other horizontally) which cause the interpretation of entanglement.

Of course, all of the above says nothing of the how or why of it. And no doubt, I'm likely far off in really understanding on quantum mechanics. But, it at least helps me better understand it.

They could probably make a very secure system, but people would complain too much because all their applications would have to come vetted from MS and it would be like running IOS on your desktop.

Um...yeah...perhaps you've never heard of 'iOS jailbreaking"? Seriously, even with MS vetted drivers (a mandatory part of 64-bit Windows), almost entirely non-Admin user programs (because of how Windows is designed, there are a handful of MS programs that run at higher privilege to provide the Win32/64 environemnt), things like stack smashing protection, data execution prevention, randomized application offsets, and even sandboxing (admittedly, only rarely done), Pown2Own still clearly shows that IE and Windows 8 are vulnerable. Slapping on Secure Boot wouldn't do a damn thing. And the idea that MS can successfully vet software just falls flat on its face when it fails to adequate protects is own software--unless you think that's some sort of conspiracy.

No, in all seriousness, writing secure software is incredibly hard. My personal problem with MS has more to do with their marketing of Windows as "secure" and "robust" for ages--it was a big selling point as far back as NT 4.0 (probably sooner). And in retrospect, we can see that that was either ignorant/arrogant optimism or just marketer bullshit. I'd contribute it to both, and I don't see the situation changing.with MS or any other non-conservative organization. Really, OpenBSD is about the closest you'll ever get to a secure/robust system, but even there that really translates into a box with very limited software options--anything more and you've stepped out of vetted secure/robust.

PS - And yea, I'd say just about every *nix is guilty of overclaiming robustness and security. The big differences is the degree and just how much it's the organization itself and its many members/fans. I really don't see the same sort of out-of-the-horses-mouth BS that you see in MS PR (or just about any company PR, really). But, to know that's the nature of the beast sort of proves the point on why your claims seem absurd.

A much better analogy would be sheet music and performances. It makes little sense to pretend that sheet music and performances are identical and simply handing performances to the sheet music author seems pretty preposterous.

The fact that there's a mechanical licensing system for music has a lot to do with preventing the sort of absurdity that Nintendo seems to be pulling, the idea that they can monopolize all photos, videos, whatever of any game they ever made--outside a very limited scope. Of course with music, the absurdity was realized very early on. It took something like Youtube and micro-based payments before the situation came down to the level of game performances; before then, there wasn't enough hard currency for Nintendo, or anyone really, to flex their muscle on the subject.

PS - Ask "Which path do you think the Tolkein Estate would take?" is sort of like asking "What would a pyromaniac do with kindling?". It's the great shortsightedness of many authors, like Twain, to not understand that in trying to further copyright past their own life, all they have done is given "Estates" an excuse to be nothing more than useless, money-grubbing parasites. It entirely misses the point of copyright, to reward authors--not their children, grandchildren, et al. That a *live* author should shower his children, grandchildren, et al with that reward is his/her own prerogative. To codify it into law is absurd. And yea, I can see the sticky situation of an author dying young or a very old person seeing very little financial worth to writing. But, that's more a core truth of the inequities of life. Granting copyright past death doesn't really fix anything.

Only 68 papers [rankexploits.com] out of 12,000 asserted greater than 50% of the cause to humans, while 78 explicitly rejected it.

That reminds me of the joke about the man who finds a genie. The genie says he can grant three wishes, but for each one granted the man's worst enemy will receive twice as much of it. The man makes two wishes of great fortune. For his final wish, he wishes to be cast half-dead.

The point, then, is that if nature alone in greenhouse gas emissions is slowly (read, on the scale of thousands of years) shifting us into another ice age, man suddenly pumping anywhere close to the same amount (making humans on the order of 50% responsible for current greenhouse gas emissions) may radically (read, on the scale of hundreds of years or perhaps even decades) shift us towards global warming. So, the question isn't the strawman of 50% man-made greenhouse gases but (a) if there are significant man-made greenhouse gases and (b) how much, if any, shift those gases will have on the climate. Well, the studies show on the order of what nature puts out and our knowledge of nature's own greenhouse gas emissions and their forcing effects (read, they're what keep us from being in a perpetual ice age) tells us that there's something to worry about with the only real debate as of now the exact scale and speed of warming.

But, yea, keep tilting at the irrelevant points that you make up.

Or perhaps evidence about the stupidity of man? Who, after all, spent all the time and money developing war games computers just to either (a) "win" at Global Thermonuclear War or (b) never actually fight (yet still spend billions of dollars to achieve nothing)?

PS - Yea, I know you're just joking. But, to me the point is more sad than funny.

Nearly 4% in 6 months isn't bad especially when you consider the lower demand for PCs in general.

Last year's PC sales were on the order of 348 million, down about 4.5 million from the year before. That means, that if all PCs in the last 6 months were sold with Windows 8, you'd expect about 174 million in sales--obviously that figure is off because there's likely a burst in sales at different times in the year, not every manufacturer instantly switches to selling Windows 8, those that do switch often offer multiple model lines of which some won't include Windows 8 for corporate/other purposes, and then there's all the Mac OS X/Linux machines... In any case, hand waving "lower demand for PCs in general" is a good deal of heavy BS.

Also, some portion of the XP and 7 users will never upgrade so the potential growth for a new OS is even lower.

That's a point that hits it on the head. Windows 8 isn't compelling enough to buy a new machine--like say, a tablet--and directly retail upgrades have never been the main way in which one version of Windows (since at least Windows 95) have supplanted the previous version. Instead, it has been pretty consistently the ever greater PC sales coupled with a lower install base to begin with. Ie, people with Windows 95 bought new machines with Windows 98, but more importantly a lot of people without computers bought machines with Windows 98 and perhaps doubled the number of computer owners.

So, yea, ever since Windows XP or so, the market has become rather saturated and the only way one tends to see a shift in numbers is either (a) a whole new "type" of computer (smart phones, for example) which increase the pool and can shift percentages massively or (b) the slow, yet methodical, death of machines and their new replacements having the latest version of Windows (usually). Given how Metro was trying to push for (a) (ignoring how it'd likely be an incarnation of (b)), I'd say the figures are pretty dismal.

It's already the fourth most popular OS.

Which isn't saying much. Windows has heavy vendor lock-in on programs people need/want/expect to use. Couple that with a lot of OEMs preloading Windows 8 on millions of machines, and you'd expect it to become a "popular" OS if nothing else because people can still run said programs, no matter how much they otherwise hate the OS. Hell, Windows 98 might score higher than Windows 8 if there was the option of it instead of Windows 8 over the last 10 years--especially because of the Vista days :)

Nah, I'd say my main issue is just how much "genetic modification" is no silver bullet. As this article goes on about, using Roundup Ready resistant crops just encourages more herbicide usage. And just like there being super microbes resistant to antibiotics from overuse, there's now super weeds resistant to Roundup Ready. I mean, obviously some of that's just inevitable--that's the magic of evolution. But, it makes clear the point that if GMO crops are to be a part of the mix in an area, they should be offsetable in a reasonable period of time with non-GMO crops.

The problem, of course, is that farmers will reasonably just do whatever is economical. And even with mandates to plant some many acres of non-GMO crop for some many acres of GMO crop, it's clearly a vested interest of regulators and farmers to push for unsafe limits and to ignore as long as possible the adverse effects until it's too late. It'd be clearly different if, oh, we were try to actually wipe out certain weeds or insects with a herbicide/insecticide program. But that's generally not a viable issue--and it'd possibly be ecologically disastrous. So, there clearly needs to be a lot more planning and oversight than what is really being done. And that doesn't even get into the issue of cross-pollination of GMO crops with similar species plants. :/

From my point of view (and it is only that!) I don't see what is so wrong with banning it from public wifi spots.

How about, "It's none of the government's business what I do when it comes to my wifi spot, public or private, unless *I* am doing something illegal; and just making anything I do illegal doesn't count."

Two things occur to me:

Firstly, it means less issues with people who don't know better browsing for it in Starbucks for example.

So, we need to protect children and adults from a lack of their own common sense? How about, if you browse porn in Starbucks and it disturbs other customers, you get kicked out? Because there's a lot more than porn that'll disturb other customers--loud music, racist websites, you name it. Second, you don't need wifi to watch a porno--they have these magical things called "DVDs" which have been known to play video (oh, but who pays for porn?). Finally, there's already laws for corrupting the youth which are either generally applicable or not based on the intent of the people involved; if the issue is children being left unsupervised using the internet, regardless of whether it's at home or in Starbucks, that's an issue of child neglect and should be dealt with at that level, not by turning every public wifi owner into a nanny.

Secondly, if you want it, go home and download or if you are really stuck, just buy a personal hotspot thingy from your provider.

Great. So because there's alternatives, we should allow for absurd or capricious laws. I guess if the Prime Minster wants to ban hopscotch on the sidewalk, he can, because there's always parks. And if he wants to ban crossing the street on foot (but skateboards are okay) on even numbered roads, that's okay too. Sure, he and Parliament might have the power, but that doesn't make it any more correct or tolerable.

Lastly (ok that makes 3) it probably reduces your susceptibility to lawsuits (Oh my little johnny say a nipple and is now traumatised, show me the money) as the providers have made a reasonable effort to keep it clean.

It's the internet; there's really no end to where any person could make a "reasonable effort" to stop the flood of information. Beyond that, what's a "reasonable effort"? Paying some 3rd party corporation with a filtering list to take the responsibility--in name only--by making some vague appeal to authority? How is it that if little johnny sees a nipple, the public wifi hotspot has to make a "reasonable effort" to have prevent it, yet somehow little johnny's parents aren't on the hook? And if little johnny's parents took the "reasonable effort", then wouldn't that inherently clear the public wifi hotspot owner?

If anything, a general disclaimer that "the internet is provided uncensored and you're on your own" would seem to put public wifi hotspots off the hook more than a, "well, we tried to keep the porn out, so please don't sue us if we failed" which they most certainly will.

Impossible to do. if a company had say, 20 people working 40 hours a week they had to pay a living wage to, and you cut their time in half while doubling the workforce to 40 to cover all those hours, they would be doubling their payroll expense.

Okay, I'm with you so far. And since in most businesses, payroll is on the order of say 15% or less of expenses (obviously it varies, but the general point remains), total costs would go up 15% making labor costs closer to say 26% or less of expenses.

While that might be possible financially for some businesses, other businesses work on very thin profit margins and the (possible) slight increase in customers from more people having free time (limited to a very few number of industries) would not be enough to cover the cost.

Um, regardless of circumstance, most businesses *should* work on very thin profit margins. Profit, after all, is what is left after accounting for all expenses. In a hypothetical free market, it'd always be zero (with the presumption that the owner's salary, business reinvestment, etc are part of expenses). In short, if expenses rises, then prices will rise to match. It will motivate more automation, yet somehow that automation will not translate into mass unemployment. I can say that confidently because all of the above already happened over fifty years ago, including all the doomsayers.

Most businesses would end up having to close, which would lead to just as many people out of work.

That depends on the monetary policy. If there's too much fear of inflation, yes, government may not print enough money to compensate for all the new "wealth" and businesses will lack the liquidity to continue functioning. But, it isn't a simple given that economic strangulation (or rampant inflation) will happen.

And as someone who currently works only 3 days a week because it is so hard to find real, good full time jobs right now, working only 3 days a week gets boring as hell. I would rather work 5 days than 3. By the 3rd day off I am bored out of my mind.

I feel sad for you, really. But, I also understand where you're coming from. If you have no direction or focus in life, you can use work to fill that void. But, work is a really horrible substitute for having some sort of substance to one's existence. By the same token, the things one buys from work (barring those one needs to live) have the same issue. But once you have a focus, even if it's something you force upon yourself no matter how little innate interest you have in it, you'll find quickly that you could spend a life time doing that activity without being bored--short of sort patches where you may be frustrated with it. The difference between "that activity" and "work" is that you have a lot more control over "that activity"--if and when to switch to something else, what to do, when and how to do it, etc. As you can clearly see, you don't have those luxuries with work and work can be taken away from you in an instance. Beyond that, unless your work is actually producing something substantial--and I mean by your work, not by your inherent collaboration--, it's really unlikely to produce that something of substance; meanwhile, if you choose your activity well, you can produce all matter of substance in your life.

Entertaining. You complain about the OP's rant, then proceed to go on your own tirade.

Of course. I didn't complain that the OP was ranting. I pointed out specific points where he/she failed to really address the issues at hand.

If I decide that a solid religious education is important for my children, there is no reason why the money I pay in taxes should go towards the public school system in my school district. That money should be going to the private school where I send my kids, but I would be prepared to split that with the public school system for services that are shared between the public and private schools. (Example: the private school where I send my kids uses the same textbooks as the public school system, and uses a nurse that is employed by the public school system.)

Um, why? Do I get to not fund the military if I don't like it or not fund medicare because old people can just fend for themselves? No. Why would it be any different with public schooling? Now, that you have the power to do such is possibly true--again the whole point of school boards and what not. But then you'd have to convince a lot of people that it's a good idea to let you and lots of other people--all the non-parents come to mind--to cash out of the system and raise the tax rates for everyone still in the public system. Yea, good luck with that.

You don't get to complain me educating my kids in a private (religious) environment, unless you somehow think the 1st Amendment is magically invalid.

Sure I do. That's precisely what that good old 1st Amendment is all about. I have an inherent right to complain, just as you do. The government can't censor either one of us. Beyond that, me complaining doesn't censor you in any way except to prove the folly of your words and then to let people *chose* to ignore you.

Good parents already do this, regardless of where the kids are going to school. This has nothing to do with what the OP said. Why bring it up?

Oh, because the OP was complaining about *the* current school system and *a* government monopoly. From that, I really don't think the OP was a good, involved parent. Hence, I brought up what a good parent should do. Bad parents lob vague complaints instead, presuming that little Timmy should get A's and C's are a sign of the school system being bad. Quite the contrary, it could well be a sign the school system is bad if Timmy is getting A's and good if he's getting C's.

I know what the budget is for the private school I send my kids to. The teachers are compensated fairly well. (The PTO generally advocates for teacher raises, as a matter of fact.)

What they DON'T spend money on are facilities boondoggles.

So, what "facilities boondoggles" do you speak of? Because that's such a vague complaint, it's really impossible to even know what you're talking about. Since you make it clear that teachers compensated fairly well isn't per se an issue, I'd really like to hear exactly what and where the waste is.

Additionally, the difference between the private school teachers and the public school teachers is quality. My kids have yet to have a bad teacher at their private school. Based on what I have seen, I am expecting them to have zero bad teachers through the day they graduate. In comparison, I was a product of one of the best public school systems in the country, and I can name three bad teachers I had that should have been fired years before I got there.

I will grant you that it is difficult to compute performance for teachers, but there needs to be a way, even if imperfect, before we can even start to have a discussion about teacher salaries. The complaint about the employment disaster that are the teacher's unions is completely valid.

Right. So, what does your private school do? What aspect of it could not be matched up with the current local public school system? If your complaint is the teacher's union, why not just let them go on strike (and even fire them) and higher new, non-union teachers if negotiations fail? Clearly, if you're involved enough, you could potentially push hiring some of the private school teachers.

Actually, my guess is there is a correlation between parents who can afford to send their kids to these top-rated schools and the interest (and importance) they place on their children's education that results in those schools staying top-rated, rather than students intrinsically wanting to succeed. (That quality seems to be rare on its own; we only need to look at the poorest-performing school districts to observe that.)

The only success a student will ever have is that which the student themself exerts. Note, I never said anything about "intrinsically wanting" in any of it. It's a learned skill to desire to learn and exert oneself. Yes, I do think there's a correleation between parents who *do* send their kids to these top-rated schools (note, not simply afford, since plenty of people who can afford it don't send their kids to such schools). At the same time, there's also plenty of parents who teach their children to exert themselves to learn, even in the poorest-performing school districts. The general issue, then, isn't what good parents do. Nor do I think it's as simple as what the parents can afford--as much as poor school districts also tend to be the poorest-performing. I think it has more to do with expectations. If you live in a poor urban area or a poor town, you may well believe your child is destined to live in the same area and hence no amount of education will help. But, if you're the child of an affluent businessman, that businessman may well see the potentially limitless horizons possible for their children.

Hence, the issue really is parental apathy or even antipathy to learning. The only solution is parental involvement and engagement on what is really possible. It also means having to acknowledge that the sort of transformation that needs to occur will take decades, at least, and the results may never express themselves on the actual area they're born in, except by scholastic records. But, then, who speaks about those sorts of success stories when we can harp about other people's problems and do little to address the ones in one's own district. Oh, I know, let's all hire Robin Williams look-alikes who will inspire children to learn so the parents don't have to get involved. Or maybe it's about the waste of money or not enough God in the classroom.

Or, you know, maybe it's something more fundamental and requires change at a one-on-one, personal level with a lot more parents becoming involved? Nah, just migrate to private schools (and complain as much as you can so you can take as much money with you as you can) where the parents are likely already involved and let the public system get worse. That'll really fix things. Oh, right, why bother fixing it? It must have always been broken. That explains you, right? Or are you one of those heroic cases that beat the system?

The current school system in the US is a bloated government monopoly, indifferent to competing models of schooling. You pay for it through taxes whether you send your kids to public school, private school, or if you homeschool them (or even if you don't have kids at all). There are alternatives to public school in the US, but the government doesn't care. They get their money, even if you shell out for private school or quit your job to homeschool.

Perhaps you should, oh, read something about School districts before going on your little rant? The simple fact is, by far, schools are run at the local level by voter appointed school boards who are in significant control over just how well your local school system functions, be it how much they tax, who they tax, and just how efficiently they use that money in educating students. If your local school system is a bloated mess, odds are good it's in large part your own fault.

At the minimum, parents should receive vouchers equivalent in value to what the local public school system pays per pupil, vouchers that could be redeemed at private schools, or used for homeschooling expenses. This would put real pressure on crappy public schools to reform themselves or face starvation, unlike the misguided "No Child Left Behind Act".

Or, you know, parents could become more involved in *important* aspects of schooling? Instead of focusing on whether or not God is in the classroom, why not push for more of all religions being taught? If little Timmy comes home and gets an A, why not quiz Timmy and see if he really deserved it? And if he gets a C+, why not do the same? Or do you really thing the problem is that Timmy's teacher needs to fear for their job daily or cutting their salary would magically fix things? Would you fearing for your job daily or cutting your salary make you a better worker?

No, I'd say a large part of the problem is that (a) parents abstractly demand a lot of teachers but are generally unqualified to even know if the teachers are doing a good job or not, (b) this stems not from the fact that parents *can't* know these things but many simply refuse to put the effort into it because schooling is treated as a secondary or tertiary thing in their child's life--after all, if it takes so much effort to know those things, then obviously you aren't using them in your own daily life, so it can't be that important, so why relearn it temporarily for your kid's sake--, and (c) parents aren't politically involved enough in ways that matter. Sure, it's easy to get upset that your school is rated badly one year. It's much harder to commit to finding and voting for good people to sit on the school board--especially if that means parents are the ones. It's much harder to actually figure out what's important and what's not when it comes to learning.

But money, oh yea, it's easy enough to (a) demand money and buy into the top rated schools--damn the obvious point that top rated schools are, optimistically, top rated because the students want to succeed (a fact quite missing from little Timmy or you)--or (b) to pay off your own home schooling--which at least will get you involved in schooling but then you're doing even more work than just being well civic minded while still probably providing a disservice to your children when you're not quite enough of an expert in many areas to do a good job of covering plenty of subjects (although presuming you put in the effort, your child will likely eventually learn to be motivated enough and learn on their own which sort of solves that issue).

Of course point (b) sort of hints at another important point. Teach your kids to be motivated to learn, period. That, really, solves most of your problems. You might still want to complain about how much of a "waste" your local school system is, money wise, but then pretending that schools facing starvation will magically solve the pressing issue of parent apathy is just outright delusional and speaks more of a general greed on your part.

Or, maybe it's the "principal" of the thing? Yea, that's the ticket...

Because rather consistently while the US debt has grown, the GDP has grown at a faster rate.

Actually that isn't the case at all. The budget deficit is increasing faster than the GDP is growing.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fc/U.S._Total_Deficits_vs._National_Debt_Increases_2001-2010.png

The fact that it's currently not true has to do with (a) tax cuts, (b) off-the-books, now-on-the-books wars, and (c) the current economic crisis--the sort that seems to happen at least once a decade. It's precisely those chain of events that is why the debt looks so bad now.

Golly, it's almost as if you got so far in my post and just stopped reading.

This means that the debt keeps getting bigger and bigger, even adjusting for inflation.

And let me quote you a different, more usable graph. Us National Debt - Dollars Relative to GDP. You'll note that over the last decade, the relative percentage of debt to GDP was relatively stable until 2008, the start of the financial crisis. And it really spiked the next year when the off-the-books wars were added to the on-the-books reports by Obama (meaning the graph is spiritually wrong). Btw, you'll notice that coupled with your graph, my point stands. Debt kept getting bigger and bigger even adjusting for inflation, but apparently GDP was growing even faster (by value, not by percentage) which evened out. Of course if you included the wars earlier in the graph, there would have been a more steady rise the whole time and your point would be more valid...but then perhaps we'd have ended the wars earlier and the whole discussion would be a bit more moot.

When a company becomes heavily in debt, shows only the possibility of increasing debt, and its assets can't be liquidated to make up for that debt, the debtors begin to lose trust that this company will ever repay its assets and will stop lending.

The US government is doing exactly that. Sooner or later one of two things is going to happen. Either they print so much money that the dollar gets to a point where no foreign governments will accept it for trade (it has already done that in many places) that it eventually becomes worthless to the US citizens as well, so there would be no point in buying government bonds because you wouldn't gain anything by doing so, which results in the government having no more money to borrow, and government employees (soldiers, teachers, contractors, etc) no longer get paid, so the government basically just shuts down. Or, if they stop printing money, they'll default on their loans, and nobody buys bonds anyways.

Yea, I more or less went through those potential scenarios further into my post. I also pointed out Greece as an example.

Greece is what happens when governments go bankrupt. Now imagine that on a much larger scale.

Bigger riots? Or have you not noticed that Greece, no matter how discontent the population is, is still chugging along? Yeah, there's been a lack of growth in recent years--a predictable result when you cut a lot of jobs and the general growth effect from a big spender. But it's far from an economic collapse. An economic recession, yes. To imagine it on a larger scale, seriously, would just mean a bigger recession--but quite likely at the same percentage rate as Greece shows.

Taxing the shit out of the wealthy won't solve the problem either, for a multitude of reasons. Poor people don't hire other people. Making the rich poor is a bad idea for that reason.

"Poor" people hire other people all the time; be it small businesses or the multitude of service-based jobs which function predominantly on the backs of poor customers. Um...and again, looking back at my previous post, taxing the *higher income*--which don't equate to "rich"--at a progressive rate means stronger diminishing returns on that income. That doesn't mean making the "rich poor". It means slower growth for the "rich" becoming richer. Of course, to a person who expects a certain amount of growth year-over-year and to see inflation pass one's income growth for the year... Of course on the latter point, I point to Greece as well. That is, inflation still happens even if there's a lack of economic growth. So, whether you tax higher income earners more directly or they still effectively have losses through diminishing returns, it's pretty much the same outcome for those earners. The difference, of course is, (a) that government debt can be paid off with their taxes and (b) those income earners can switch to other countries on whom to invest during an economic crisis--which only makes the situation worse as well.

Also, if you even hint at doing so, they can and WILL leave. Look at France. A few years back they made tax increases designed to bring in an extra $120 billion in revenue, and the result was a net reduction of $50 billion in revenue below what they already had. Why? Because people just left, many of them bringing their businesses along with them, even people who lived in France over generations proudly spanning from time immemorial. Trying to fix that problem by preventing people from leaving is just asking for a civil war.

Well, first, [[:Citation Needed:]], as I'd like to actually see something resembling evidence of your claims on the dollar figures. Second,
from France’s 75% Income Tax on the Rich Overturned as Unconstitutional, "Only around 15,000 to 25,000 people in France are estimated to earn enough to qualify for the 75% tax bracket — and many of them had already found legal accounting ruses to bring their reported income under $1.28 million." which would undermine the whole idea that even if the tax law had been constitutional it'd have much effect on revenue either way or be the spark of any sort of "civil war"--although I guess there might be tons of people delusional enough to support high income earners with their life.

Ceasing assets will result in what is happening in Cyprus right now.

Ah, you mean how the Bank of Cyprus chose to "honor" its 100,000 Euro deposit protection by siphoning off money for over 100,000 Euro accounts to prevent bankruptcy--which presumably would have the same effect in restructuring? If the point is that with financial difficulty there is pain and those with higher assets suffer more financially..well, that's just stats and percentages for you. But, I guess, if by the stats a rich man becomes even slightly poorer--although still not remotely poor--through no fault his own, it's a grave injustice; let's just ignore that everyone intrinsically become poorer through inflation, inflation is part of the spark that drives investment, and *actual* poor suffer real *physical* effects from becoming even poorer. But, then, I guess a poor man who doesn't become richer has it coming, or something.

Go look at all of the nasty things that Johnny Depp had to say about America prior to permanently moving to France back in 2003 or so, how evil America is, and how France was this beautiful paradise. After realizing that they were basically taxing away basically everything he had, he RAN back to America as fast as he could.

If that's true, I'd say Johnny Depp needs to a higher a better accountant. Again, see above about "legal accounting ruses", which are applicable virtually everywhere. Beyond that, if all Johnny Depp focused on was money...well, there you have it.

Taxing your way out of a budget deficit is like trying to dig your way out of a hole.

To quote from Wikipedia (which includes a citation elsewhere), "Historically, the US public debt as a share of GDP increased during wars and recessions, and subsequently declined. For example, debt held by the public as a share of GDP peaked just after World War II (113% of GDP in 1945), but then fell over the following 30 years. In recent decades, however, large budget deficits and the resulting increases in debt have led to concern about the long-term sustainability of the federal government's fiscal policies" -- National debt of the United States. Put simply, yea, there's reason to be concerned about the federal government's *current* fiscal policies. That certainly is a reason to evaluate and genuinely consider change. That change may well include tax increases and almost certainly spending cuts as well. No doubt, there will be a painful period of adjustment as this happens--that sounds much tamer than actually living through it. But, that's far from equivalent to "economic collapse" unless one equates "economic collapse" with "sustained, unlimited economic growth". The latter of which is absurd.

I'd only register to vote if there was actually a significant movement to balance the budget ...

Well, balancing the budget is just, to put it bluntly, a really bad idea. There's a reason companies will frequently borrow to expand themselves. It is often the case that to do so produces better returns than the interest/dividends rates one has to pay on those loans/dividends/whatever. By the same token, government action into funding research (which leads to people/companies expanding the economy) and social programs (which provide a base framework of funding to keep the economic engine running even in bad times) can well pay for themselves. How do I know this to be true? Because rather consistently while the US debt has grown, the GDP has grown at a faster rate. The fact that it's currently not true has to do with (a) tax cuts, (b) off-the-books, now-on-the-books wars, and (c) the current economic crisis--the sort that seems to happen at least once a decade. It's precisely those chain of events that is why the debt looks so bad now. But just like the Great Depression then WW2, there's ample time for economic prosperity in the future to allow for short-term tax increases to reduce the debt for a while and then go back to the slight deficit (relative to GDP) of old.

.... and prevent what I see as an otherwise inevitable catastrophic economic collapse.

Yea, well, economic collapse is always a possible. Even in the best of circumstances, it's been know to happen--all it would take is if another country (say China) over a few years underselling enough critical value goods, for example. But the sort of budgetary situation we're in is unlikely to lead to economic collapse. Look no further than Greece, which I'll get to below.

I don't think that will ever happen though. Once you add social entitlements, no matter how unsustainable or unaffordable, they're basically impossible to get rid of.

Yea, uh, no. Greece pushed though austerity measures which drastically cut back social entitlements--in the form of government jobs--even though they were extremely unpopular. Then they pushed even more austerity measures through. Why? Because once your credit rating goes to junk bond status, you have really only the choices to either (a) bankrupt yourself--in a country, that takes the form of either just writing off the debt and refusing to pay or through hyperinflation by printing money (obviously Greece couldn't really choose the second option as they didn't "own" the Euro)--or (b) take whatever extreme measures your creditors demand--often austerity measures--to guarantee payment. Either way, economic collapse seems rather unlikely because (a) most businesses can still keep operating no matter how defunct the US government becomes and they're the driving force of the economy and (b) as much as that sort of failure of the US government would still have a lot of ripple effects through the economy, it's hard to believe that it would be any worse than the Great Depression which, as horrible as it was, is a survivable circumstance. Of course, another Great Depression is unlikely precisely because of all those social programs.

The best you can do is hedge your assets (gold is a horrible idea BTW) and grab your ankles.

As for the former, your best bet is a very diverse portfolio. For the latter, well, the vast majority of people don't have to worry because the "grab your ankles" part generally applies to taxes on income--ie, it's the top 10% who are most likely to feel the pain if it comes to it*.

*And as bad as one might want to feel for them, I'd much rather be making $1 million/year where the top $750,000 are taxed at 90% and the bottom at $250,000 at 25% (leaving you with net $262,500/year) than to be making $50,000/year (leaving you with net $37,500/year); with the former, after only 10 years of work you could retire with $2.625 million and have 60 years** worth of $37,500/year to live off. So, it's a little bit hard to cry for such people.

**It's actually 70 years, but I'm presuming the person lived off the $37,500/year during the ten years they worked. And yea, due to inflation, they'd want to actually work longer to account for the near halving in value over 35 years (presuming ~2% annual inflation), but the general point still stands.

The funny thing is, your comment just gave me a very clear idea. Microsoft really should have, instead of wasting all the time and energy into making Windows 8 and following the tablet crowd, tried to better integrate MCE as a core part of Windows and pushed developers for more 10 foot UIs--which Metro might have been good for coupled with kinetics for gesturing (emphasis on the might, since AFAIK, the issue is really MS's implementation, anyways). But, I'd guess that idea was put off because it might compete with the current/next XBox and it'd cut into the MCE specialty sales. Of course, if Windows 8/RT had really taken off, it'd inherently be competing with Windows Phone--just as Android and iOS span the gambit of portable handheld phone/entertainment devices; then again, considering MS's lack of success in the smartphone space, I don't think they'd see that as a failure to have to retire the Windows Phone line.

And as for competition with the XBox, as you pointed out, the PC is just a different beast. The advantages of single-spec, locked down architecture for a game console are the exact opposite advantages of a multi-spec, very open architecture of a PC. So, I'd say it's more a waste than anything. That's especially true given how people are much more willing to plop a lot of money down for a PC/all-in-one-media-center than a tablet, especially once you factor in things like the cost of a good size TV or the trend for ever cheaper tablets.