It implies you value appearances over merit. Great intellectuals never cared how they appeared (Einstein, anyone?) but mediocre minds often do. It's an easy way to tell if a person is anti-intellectual.

Here in China, it's the opposite. People use whitening creams to avoid looking tan (tan means you're a rural person, at least American intellectuals also agree that's a bad thing). If someone comes walking past looking whiter than I do, it's a good chance that she's not really into deep thinking. You certainly don't want that sort of person in charge of anything important, because they'll emphasize how it looks over how it works.

No such thing. Champagne is an appellation. Champagne comes from Champagne, France. If it ain't from France, it ain't champagne. Call it sparkling wine. Just like how bourbon must come from Kentucky, otherwise it is, by definition, not bourbon. Impress your friends next time and win a bar bet the next time they call Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey a bourbon.

I've tried those. They're great as long as you're in the West, I suppose. But my third-tier city in China barely has anything. Unusable, and I say this as someone who desperately wants to ditch Google Maps.

"The gun control agenda is based on the view that ordinary citizens cannot be trusted to use the physical power of arms responsibly. But a people that cannot be trusted with guns cannot be trusted with the much more dangerous powers of self-government. The gun control agenda is thus an implicit denial of the human capacity for self-government and is tyrannical in principle."
-- Alan Keyes

"That rifle on the wall of the laborer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."
-- George Orwell

"Every Communist must grasp the truth, 'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun'"
-- Mao Tse-Tung

"Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party."
-- Mao Tse-Tung

"The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles."
-- Lt. Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC(RET)

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
-- C.S. Lewis

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
-- The Dalai Lama

You made a mistake by not helping this guy. You needed to communicate with him. You needed to ask him a deep, existential question that would cause him to question and reassess his actions, attitudes, and core beliefs in light of the impact he is having on the world and of the impact the world can have on him. You needed to ask him a question that would help him onto the path of nonviolent enlightenment.

Sometimes you can even ask such a question without using any words at all. A question like - "You don't really want me to shoot you in the face with this .38, do you?"
-- Massad Ayoob

I'm sorry, sir, but there is a vast, yawning gulf between Dr. Pepper, nectar of the gods, and that cheap ripoff Mr. Pibb. It's the difference between French Champagne and Zima.

Wow, a Norwegian Republican Wapanese...never thought I'd see one of those.

It's being nipped in the bud. Otherwise, this happens:

"It is at first denied that any radical new plan exists; it is then conceded that it exists but ministers swear blind that it is not even on the political agenda; it is then noted that it might well be on the agenda but is not a serious proposition; it is later conceded that it is a serious proposition but that it will never be implemented; after that it is acknowledged that it will be implemented but in such a diluted form that it will make no difference to the lives of ordinary people; at some point it is finally recognised that it has made such a difference, but it was always known that it would and voters were told so from the outset."
-- Times editorial, published on August 28, 2002

The nature of a bank you see is to make their credit seem as good as cash. Spend it here, spend it there, spend it everywhere.

For example, you go to your bank and deposit $100. (It is legally a loan to the bank.)
The bank takes your $100 and notes in your account $100 of credit....

Did you see what just happened? The money supply increased. There is now $100 of cash which the bank can loan out and $100 worth of credit in your account to spend. The bank just created money out of thin air. Interestingly, not US dollars. This is just bank credit which represents dollars. By using credit to pay for things you are using a completely private money created by your bank.

This is why banks are heavily regulated compared to for example paypal, they manipulate the money supply. It's why they are orders of magnitude more dangerous than paypal no matter how much you may dislike them.

So. There are some regulations, banks have to retain a certain amount of money as reserve in case people ask for their money back. Around 10% in the US. In fact they could only loan out $90. Not what happens in reality mind you. They loan first and find reserves later in reality. You may note that this means they don't have your money in their vaults, they loaned it out. It also means that they can only ever pay back 10% of their depositors, in the event of a bank run 90% are going to lose out. It's why there are bank runs the first place, you have to be at the head of the queue to get any money back.

Now, the more people depend on credit rather than cash, the lower the reserve ratio can be pushed, and the higher the leverage can be pushed. In Europe, the reserve ratios are discretionary and in reality between 30 (3%) and 50:1 (2%). If nobody ever used cash, in theory the reserve could be 0 and the reserve ratio could be infinite... i.e. banks could create as much money as they wanted, they could leverage up as far as the eye can see.

This is the real reason for the constant push for credit cards, debit cards... Always trying to get rid of cash. Cash limits their ability to create money.

You would like to own a money tree? All a banker needs is a book of accounts and a pen. All this talk of counterfeiting is complete rubbish, banks already create far more credit money than there is cash. In fact orders of magnitude more. The UK: 30 times more. EU 50 times more. Only a tiny percentage of our money is cash by now.

Bartering is taxable income. "Bartering occurs when you exchange goods or services without exchanging money. An example of bartering is a plumber doing repair work for a dentist in exchange for dental services. You must include in gross income in the year of receipt the fair market value of goods and services received in exchange for goods or services you provide. Barter exchanges are required to file Form 1099-B for all transactions unless they meet certain exceptions. Refer to Barter Exchanges in Publication 525, Taxable and Nontaxable Income , and the instructions for Form 1099-B for additional information on this subject."

Your friend is a thief, stealing money from the government that provides you so many services that you use constantly.

The fact that back doors exist are not secrets. What's secret is the back door itself. Hell, part of the damn plot of the damn movie was the kid trying to figure out what the back door was!

It just goes to show you, only download from the original source, and be one of those people who actually checks software checksums.