I live in Brazil.

I wasn't talking about civilized countries. I was referring to the United States.

metric paper sizes are the correct ones and everything else is stupid.

What's a "metric"?

When you have a cold should it be the law that you stay home from work?

No, when you have a cold it should be the law that I stay home from work.

The problem is that Amazon and most other distributors don't represent the transaction properly. It says "BUY NOW" and "GIVE GIFT INSTANTLY".

News flash: The content on those DVDs, CDs, BluRays, and other formats that you have? You are LICENSING that content.

That's cute, grandpa.

You have to remember, the democrats and liberals have to demonize and misrepresent libertarians because they thrive on a two party (acting as one) system and the republicans and conservatives have to demonize and misrepresent libertarians because they thrive on a two party (acting as one) system.

It's cute how the idiots of the internet have come to confuse "Libertarian" with "Republican" the last few years.

Economically speaking, people *always* behave rationally.

I just want to take this opportunity to point out that Economics is the softest of all the sciences. Compared to Economics, psi research is practically classical physics. Sociology and Psychology have long eclipsed Economics in terms of rigor and honest application of the scientific method.

One of the most valuable things I've learned in my professional life in academia, at an institution with numerous Econ prize winners, is just how shoddy the methods, how dishonest the practitioners, how low the standards. Even their math is abominable.

When my institution closed its school of education, I remember how unjust I felt it was that they allowed the School of Economics to keep its doors opened. The world would be better off if every economist was sent to work in a Chinese electronics factory for ten years and their offices turned into cozy lounges for the biology students.

Considering the renewed attacks on gaming videos using takedown notices, I'm not sure it matters which one "shares better".

If it doesn't create a revenue stream in a direct way, Sony and Microsoft don't care if you have any particular feature.

Remember, these are corporations. They would throw a baby off a bridge for a dollar.

How dare the government force me to buy seat belts for my car!

I'm planning to upload my consciousness to a Kitchenaid Blender with Intelli-Speed Controls.

I've driven a Porsche Carrera GT extensively in Need For Speed Rivals, Most Wanted and Hot Pursuit. I can say unequivocally that it is a safe car to drive.

And I'm at least as qualified to drive the Carrera GT at high speeds as Paul Walker, who had similar experience with driving high performance cars at high speed.

I'm really tired of the media and politicians dismissing our lack of investment in science and space exploration by belittling Chinese efforts. "Durp durp, we already done been to the Moon, you stupid backwards Chiners durp durp!".

It's a first step that they'll likely quickly capitalize on and while our media and government like to convince us that the Chinese are goofy little 50-years-later-runners-up, they're an economic and political powerhouse that will, if they decide to invest further in it, leapfrog our accomplishments by light years. And sooner rather than later.

If we don't get serious about doing it ourselves -- or even better, co-operating with scientists on an international scale for the betterment of everyone -- we're going to look like the back water yokels.

Well the question is really why is it such a recent phenomena in the US? Its a very difficult question to answer. Bowling for Columbine tried to answer it (or at least pretended to try to answer it), and didn't really have a good answer.

I don't think anyone can make a case that school shootings are a direct consequence of a lack of firearms. That can't possibly be true as evidenced by the fact that Europe doesn't have these things happen daily. It has to be something cultural. We do have a weird fetishization with firearms in this country. I don't know where that came from. Perhaps it was a necessary consequence of decades of moving west across the plains and living off the land.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but it simply cannot be the case that school shootings are directly related to the number of privately-owned guns.