Funny, my company is actually being forced to provide MUCH better coverage than we've ever had before. Yes, our premium is going up by 10%, but pretty much across the board, when the employees hear all the extra benefits we are getting that were mandated by the new laws, most of them are OK with the slight increase.

So, you happen to have any history of cancer in your family? Other congenital diseases? You take part in any risky activities or behaviors? Do you maintain an optimal BMI and eat only nutritious foods, while getting the proper amounts and types of exercise?

I shouldn't have to support your bad genetic heritage or poor life choices. If you can't afford any and all future medical costs out of your own pocket, well then, you can just go off and die in a gutter. Or do you prefer the current system, where instead of paying a little extra in your insurance bill to assist in getting all of "those" folks pre-treatment, or preventative care and counseling, instead you pay a huge amount in property taxes each year to treat them as emergencies in your local county hospital? You DO realize that you pay for it either way, right? Even if you don't own property, your rent is based, in part, on the property taxes your landlord has to pay. The prices you pay for groceries, gas, clothes, are in part determined by the property taxes each of the shops has to pay, etc. Multiple studies have show 15-1 or better returns on investment by having preventative care available. Even the much quoted recent Oregon study, if you look at the data and include ALL patients showed significant benefits from preventative care for folks that otherwise would have to rely on only emergency care.

The result of your attitude is either 1) Insurance should be banned totally and everyone should have to pay out of pocket, or 2) Insurance companies, backed by the force of law, should be able to force each and every one who wants pooled protection to live a monitored and restricted life according to the companies actuaries that result in the highest profit to the insurance company.

How about we recognize that we don't want people dying in the gutter around us, that we would prefer to protect children and others who are reliant on guardians from their guardian's poor choices, and that if we are going to end up paying for it anyway, we'd rather pay a lesser amount for better outcomes rather than more for expensive, morally superior, less desirable outcomes.

Second reply...

It much about creating an asymmetric power setup. If the other guy has more power (is more intimidating) than you, you lose. If you have more power (are more intimidating than them) you probably win. If it is equal on both sides, even if you are better equipped mentally and through training, if shots are actually exchanged, even if you take them down, you still lost.

My goal would to always try to be in the position where I can win (through the other person backing down/running away), with the minimal chance of the other person deciding to take the chance and start attacking me. Since the bad guys will always be able to get the biggest scariest thing they can afford, the bigger, scarier, more lethal looking or reputation arms I can bring with me, the more likely I am to not actually have to use it, but still be successful in saving myself and those I can about.

For the "scary and reputation" part.

What you suggest is actually the state of the art right now. I guarantee that a .44 will make someone back down a lot faster than a taser. And if all you have is a taser, and they show up with a .44, you are pretty much out of luck. Having the ability to threaten with a .44, but knowing I had the option to dial it back, without the other guy knowing, would be something I, personally, would think a benefit.

I keep and carry a firearm for exactly the same reason I maintain my CPR certification and first aid training.

No matter what laws you pass, or how heavily you invest in medical (or protective) personnel, people you care about are at risk of having their heart stop (or having someone intent on hurting them) when those resources are minutes, or more, away. When that situation occurs and I am present, I don't want to live the rest of my life knowing I stood there and watched the person I love die because I chose, or was legally prevented, from preparing myself to deal with the situation. Whether preparation means getting training in first aid and life saving procedures, or carrying the best (easiest, most lethal, safest, etc.) weapon I can afford, in the hopes that whatever preparation I have done will be enough to keep the loved one alive (beat the bad guy), I know that in either situation I may be outclassed, but the better prepared and equipped I am the more likely it will be that I can resolve the situation in my best interest.

Personally, I have never had to use either my firearms or first aid training in a real world situation, and I hope never to need to, most who have either never do. But (Cool Story Bro) last week, my partner used her CPR training to save her boss's life. She did CPR for the ten minutes it took to get an ambulance there, and actually had a heartbeat back and her boss breathing by the time they did arrive. It helps that she is a registered nurse, but doing it on her boss rather than a patient was a novel experience. I have family that has used a concealed pistol to make a knife wielding robber at a convenience store back down and run away (no shots fired). I hope that in either of those situations, I would have been able to perform as well, with equally positive outcomes.

So to answer your question, I think a law abiding, well trained, person should be allowed to carry whatever they can that aids in protecting themselves or others around them. That means the weapon must be targetable and discriminate, and generally the scarier looking or reputation the better. A laser gun ala a Star Trek Phaser, would actually be almost ideal, with minimal collateral damage and multiple power settings, including non-lethal. A rocket gun would, generally, not be, since it is always going to create significant collateral damage and can only be used at a range where running away and evasion would be a more sensible option. The bad guys can and will get whatever they think will overpower anyone they are typically going to meet, legal or not. My .44 looks and sounds very intimidating to someone only carrying a .38 special, even though either one will kill a person just as dead. And either one will definitely send someone with only a knife running.

I hope that helps you understand. BTW, EVERYONE I personally know who carries a firearm (at least 9 that I know of) would give exactly the same reasoning for why they do so. For some reason though, you never hear that in the sound bites on TV or the radio. All I see get on TV are folks that *I* call gun nuts defending the 2nd Amendment on hunting or anti-government grounds, that, quite frankly, embarrasses me.

This problem is exactly what has kept me out of EvE. The game looks really cool and exactly the type of game play I tend to enjoy, but starting out I'm so far behind that it definitely feels like the only way to get to the top levels would have been to start several years ago.

Is that the theme music for one of the new zones in the next expansion?

To be fair, my Audi MMI has a 40GB SSD...

I'm POSITIVE they think of the payoffs to the congress critters as "fines" already.

I used to say that congressmen get more expensive every year, but I'm starting to think this bunch are running bargain basement sales in an effort to capture more of the customers.

Well then... we need to fix that right away!

How 'bout they launch at each other to test it. Save the rest of the world a whole lot of bother.

OMG, you're absolutely correct! We don't have any experience at all in keeping mirrors in very precise, stationary configurations in space!

As for handling molten steel in a micro-g environment, the best I can say for your level of comprehension is Magnets, How Do They Work?

As for the printing process, we've pretty much solved that problem here on earth, and micro-g just makes it even easier.

There are large challenges, no doubt, to making it all work and getting into production, but the key is that there are no un-developed technologies necessary. Everything we need we already know how to do.

We already have more than enough Monkeys in both of those places...

Solar Smelters to smelt and distill the various metals, then a good 3-D printer, and I think we have a working business model.

And have you PRICED Evian lately?

Now if we could just find printer ink on an asteroid...

They tried that in the 50's. Google Automat. It seems that most people like having a real person serve them food. We also haven't yet come up with a robot that can effectively deal with the variation in ingredient qualities to effectively optimize taste (needs just a pinch more salt, etc.).

McD's has effectively homogenized their input ingredients to the point that every burger from every restaurant tastes exactly the same, but compare what they make to a Five Guys, or a homemade burger, and you see the huge difference. If you go behind the scenes at most of the major chain fast food, you'll see that the "human" component to the food manufacturing process has been greatly removed. The only place you actually have a human do anything is in direct customer service and those "pull handle", "slop ONE spoonful of x", " set top half of bun on top" type tasks that realistically it is cheaper to pay a high school kid to do than keep up the maintenance and cleaning on a robot.