The Congress calls taxes "penalties" all the time.

Of course there are and should be limits on Federal powers. As I said, and as has been pointed out elsewhere in these threads, Congress has been requiring various people to carry health insurance for centuries, with penalties for failing to do so.

Or do you think the Federal government should have no powers anymore? Of course you don't. See how silly that sounds when you read me writing it? I felt the same way about your hyperbolic statement.

If you don't see the disastrous effects of Bush v Gore, at the absolutely very least the part where it's declared nonprecedential, or the diastrous effects of unlimited corporate spending on politics on the basis that corporations are people with rights, then maybe you don't see how silly that sounded. In that case I don't think we share enough worldview to have a meaningful conversation.

1. Presumably, if post singularity species want to be found, they will, and if they don't, they won't.

2. We can't talk scientifically about such entities, as if they exist, they can pretty much manipulate the scientists into concluding whatever they want. Science studys the natural order - a species whose technology is equivalent to magic will be functionally just as 'supernatural' as though they were genuinely so.

3. If a post singularity alien society doesn't want us to detect them, they may well also not want us to detect other pre-singularity aliens, so in that case, that window for easy detection becomes 0 years wide. Given post singularitans who don't want to openly reveal themselves, the possibiltiy they want to censor pre-singularity civilizations is proportionately higher than that they want to let the little fish communicate unhindered and hide just themselves, and both alternatives are higher than the chance they want to facilitate pre-singularity civilizations meeting even while they hide.

VS and XCode support statically typed languages. How to provide anything like those services to dynamically typed languages has been complex. There are some IDEs out there for dynamic but the development is definitely much stronger on the static side.

OK, I take your word for it.

I apologize for contradicting you. But you hit a nerve: Republicans routinely prevent people from voting who are most likely Democrats (or just not reliable Republican voters), while accusing "Democratic activists" of stuffing the ballot boxes. I get defensive about it, even though I'm not a Democrat. I just care about justice. Sorry for taking it too far.

You just agreed with me. The only reason Obama wouldn't promote it as a tax (if indeed you can find a citation quoting him actually saying "this is not a tax") is because saying "tax" to Republicans makes them say "no"; any other fact is totally irrelevant to them. Just because the president uses public rhetoric that gives Republicans cover to pass their own healthcare policy doesn't mean that rhetoric has any legally binding force. And when Republicans vote for a tax without calling it one, then do everything they can to stop it because it's not a tax, doesn't mean the Supreme Court has to pay any attention to the lies and craziness of those Republicans.

The Supreme Court has to decide whether the Congress has the power to collect money from all Americans if they don't purchase something mandated. The government has been doing this, specifically with health insurance, since the 1700s. That doesn't mean this Court will decide that way (they did after all decide both Bush v Gore and Citizens United without regard to law or disastrous effects on the country), but that is the basis for deciding.

Reaching for a justification to not buy a Mac.

As I mentioned in my original post, I own Macs - 3 of them to be precise.

Lack of right-click-drag when running Windows programs that aren't available in Mac form is probably not in the top 100 on anyone's priority list.

Probably not, but that's because anyone who uses it will simply assume it will work.

Where's your evidence of this Democratic bussing that you're complimenting as a fact?

The catalytic converter's computer values for the sulphur content in the gasoline are wrong. So when especially sulphurous gas is burned, the converter pumps sulphur dioxide into the cabin. It stinks like an antisocial gastric event. It's also somewhat toxic. Toyota pretended to diagnose the car for over 2 years until the lemon law no longer could force them to replace the car. Even though it turned out that Toyota had issued a notice to its dealers describing exactly the problem, the 2 dealers my wife used claimed they couldn't figure it out. Until the obligation period expired, when suddenly they figured it out.

That car should have been recalled. When I discovered their scam (too late) I should have driven it through the dealership front windows, "overcome by a toxic cloud from the dashboard", and let the lawyers sort it out.

No, I meant that the people withdrawing the money and the people making the machine both wanted the withdrawing people to get the correct amount of money. To avoid the extreme hassle of the backlash by either side if either too much or too little money came out. The right amount is in their mutual interest.

As Stalin said, democracy is controlled by who counts the votes. With voting machines, both the operators and the suppliers of the machine collude to count the votes the "right" way.

Except that Gore never said that. He took credit for his 1980s Senate leadership when he legislated and funded Internet development, without which it would not have become anything like the priceless public resource that has done so much since the 1990s.

Try again with an example that isn't just another lie Republicans have told so often that it "seems" like the truth.