FYI, the dailyTech article (despite the rest of the article being a mess of mis information, see the comments below it ) you linked to pretty much debunks your FUD attempt. Monsanto has not gone after any organic farmers, the organic farmers went after Monsanto and were dismissed because they had no claim, other than organic purchasers may over react someday; to something we haven't actually documented...

>(which are just new seeds) you're not allowed to plant

I am not sure this ruling covers the doing of this by someone who hadn't agreed to a license from Monsanto. This sounds like it was a farmer that signed a agreement with Monsanto, then likely broke that agreement by planting seeds that he should have known violated his agreement with monsanto.

Monsanto does require a "Technology Stewardship Agreement" to "buy" their seeds. I am guessing the agreement is more of a your licensing the seed. So while you could re-sell the seed they sold you to another licensed grower, the resulting output is being controlled by the stewardship agreement.

Your statement is only true for insurers who are going to push their clients to medicare when they reach 65, and thus they will pay equally to health insurance, but the government picks up more of the tab for the healthy. The numbers quoted from the above source show non smokers live 15% longer and cost 22% more in helathcare costs. What isn't is how much smoking/obesity cut down on productivity and thus taxes paid...

first google result for smokers:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-04-08-fda-tobacco-costs_N.htm

Roundup is a herbicide, not a pesticide, I have not heard of any link of herbicide use (especially roundup a very non toxic one, at least relative to other herbicides) to any bee colony issues. Concerns with pesticide use in farming, yes but not herbicides. I don't think any GMO crop is being considered as a negative, only as a positive to reducing pesticide use (I haven't even seen any study based concerns with bug resistant plants, but if they become bigger, that seams likely to become one.)

So many wrongs. First Pesticides kill bugs, not plants. No need for GMO for pesticide, all plants are resistant to pesticides. Second Roundup doesn't kill everything, only growing plants, and many were naturally immune even from day one. Third as others have pointed out this is the only case of GMO use to increase tolerance, but not to increase toxic chemical use. This increased roundups use replacing more toxic chemicals, Roundup is considered noncarcinogenic and relatively low in toxicity by the EPA. If you think a farmer is going to pay more for corn, so they can buy more roundup, you must think they are pretty stupid. I haven't worked in farming since roundup ready corn came out, but with soybeans, we went from spraying after harvest in fall; to reduce the weed count in spring, then spray again right after planting in spring; before bean growing started but after some weeds had emerged. then we would hand spray real thick on cockaburs mid season. With tolerant plants they could instead just spray when everything was growing the best, when roundup is most effective, thus spraying a lighter dose less often. But that does raise the more legitimate concern, now they can spray closer to harvest leaving more potential for exposure to workers harvesting, and exposure to the food it's self which could be directly sprayed, not desireable without tolerant crops.

Not sure how you got that from my post, I was supporting the addition of laws for cellphone use, etc. Just that cops should be spending the time tracking down real crimes like rape/murder, not busting a person who uses a device at a appropriate time in a car, without endangering anyone.
The libertarian view that we don't have any laws laying down what your expected to do in society, then get sued into bankruptcy for missing something you never thought of, is complete BS. But also enforcing laws because we can, not because of a real danger is a waste of resources, and teaches the wrong message of "follow the rules no matter what" not to be considerate of others first, and yeah know the rules that exist to show who has the right-of-way.

> i am also a firm believer that GPS should not be able to be accessible while driving. meaning if the device is in motion, you should not be able to fiddle with the device, cell phone or standalone, set it before you leave the driveway/parking lot and be done with it.

I have been the passenger in a car that did exactly that (hertz rental car), what a pain, got stuck in a traffic jam causes by a accident, and wanted to know options, everytime traffic moved it kicked me out, as if it would be impossible for anyone but the driver to be in a vehicle.

> we should not outlaw "darwin awards"

I much prefer having these as unenforced laws, I thought when they made seatbelt laws that you couldn't be pulled over for that was ideal. It is very nice when things go wrong in a accident... to be allowed to investigate. IE without these laws if person A makes a mistake and a accident occurs, that if person B could have still avoided the accident had they not been on the phone, and if the accident would have been a $1000 accident had they been wearing the seatbelt, but it is now a 10,000 PI accident, that the officer should be able to check the phone, and seatbelt useage, and decrease the liability to person A. Without it being illegal, there is no cause for the officer to investigate these. As far as issuing seatbelt/phone use/ GPS use tickets without other cause, that I consider overreaching and not helpfull.

I would agree, except for the "yourself" part of that post, if I believed in abstinence only, I would have left out the unprotected in "unprotected sex." Had they said "ourselves" it would have been a insightful post. Yourself makes it a baseless attack, more flamebait than insight.

> keeping teens from having sex is far more important than keeping them safe from firearms.

I am assuming your trying to be sarcastic, but it is likely a true statement. IE thousands more teens will die from un-protected sex, than firearms.
IN USA there are a estimated 6312 cancer deaths per year due to HPV. and close to 10,000 deaths per year due to aids. The total deaths by gun deaths is droppin from 11,000 (less than 3000 were teens.) No numbers to say what % are infected as teens, but I think it is safe to say a teen having unprotected sex is more likely to die because of the sex, than from a gun in the USA. (of course driving make both of these causes tiny in comparison.)

> t the company is running out of money". Did Steve Jobs ever tell that to anyone?

Actually, pretty close. When he had Wozniack redesign a board for Atari, Instead of paying the $5k he owed Woz, he only gave him $350 claiming he didn't get paid the correct amount. I am sure he wasn't the only one Jobs didn't pay claiming no money. But your probably correct, he probably never fired anyone for that reason, he just lied and used that as a excuse to not pay them. (very office space like, don't fix firing a guy that keeps working, just stop paying them and wait to see how much work they will do for free.)

>Yeah, everybody lies to young people, then we can't figure out why they are so disillusioned.
Nah, just the people who tell them what they want to hear.
>get something up front or get it in writing
Good luck with that. Only after you have proven yourself, is someone going to listen to a request like that. But it is a good idea, don't get yourself in 100k of school debt without written guarantee (or TLDR don't take on 100k+ of debt, you cant discharge.)

In the US, I recall reading several of studies where the obese, smokers, unhealthy lifestyles saved medicare money, mostly because the typical treatments for the diseases, etc; Are lower cost, than the late in life cancer treatments, assisted living... that healthier people would live to need. Granted medicare wouldn't see all the younger costs that NHS system will.

I don't have much love for the NRA. And in this case the NRA spokesperson is going beyond the vast majority of the members beliefs that more background checks are acceptable. But I really don't think the malevolence you prescribe to them is there, at all. They are first and foremost a political mouthpiece, where the other-side will not budge one bit, and a middle ground is going to be reached, so politically they have no motivation to give. If they give, the other-side will not give, and the end result will not be as favorable to there members.
Also the best sales technique for guns has been increased regulations, and increased talk of regulations, the assault weapons ban is given credit for more than doubling the amount of assault weapons in this country, not the decrease of sales.