I agree with thephydes. So does zombie Feynman

The main problem with your argument is that we are already paying for the treatment of the hobo and the gangbanger, and we always have been. We don't let people die on the curb outside the hospital. The costs are factored into the medical bills and insurance of those who can pay. And for most diseases it is far cheaper to do preventative treatment or early treatment. So universal healthcare saves everyone money.

citation? (and anecdotal quotes from a few right-wing nut-cases saying they will close their practices don't count, because in most cases they won't close their practices (just like none of them moved to Canada when Obama got elected), and even if one does it is just one person, not statistically significant.)

How do you think they got rich in the first place? Yes, I know a few people got rich by some combination of hard work, smarts, and luck, but in general those people aren't going to go into politics (they've got better things to do). Some people get rich by inheritance, and they often go into politics, but are generally entitled out-of-touch shits with no idea how to govern or do anything else worthwhile. And then there are all the people who got rich by some form of swindling or corruption, and they love to go into politics (if not already there).

Except when the seed is the product, as in soybeans, corn, wheat, etc.

The plants may require nothing but mother nature, but in this case the farmer did a lot of work to propagate them, actively sowing, harvesting, saving them, and resowing them for 8 generations.

This is a great book, but I don't think a movie can do it justice. Lots of books make great movies, but this book is great precisely because of its subtlety, emotions, and the mind tweaks. I see how you can get a lot of great action sequences out of the story line but they were never even close to the meat of the book, and I am sure the real meat will be lost in the action sequences of the movie. So it will have some cool scenes but will otherwise be just another sci fi movie.

Depends on what you mean by successful. Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock were both successful for quite a while until they said something so stupid that it ended their career. But I don't think they suddenly got stupid in 2012, more likely they were stupid all along and just got away with it.

The distinction between a democracy and a republic is largely pointless. The US is a constitutional republic, and "constitutional" is the important word - it means the rights guaranteed by the constitution overrule the will of the majority. You can have either a constitutional democracy or a constitutional republic.

Perhaps this is is pedantic, but genetics != DNA. DNA is the physical mechanism. Gregor Mendel was studying genetics before Darwin published On the Origin of Species, and many fascinating genetic discoveries have been made just by observing inheritance patterns without any understanding of the underlying DNA. The discovery of DNA really didn't revise evolutionary theory as far as I can tell - DNA sequencing can tell us many interesting things about the evolution of a particular species, and shows we are nearly identical to apes, but none of this changes evolutionary theory.

This isn't to says the theory hasn't been revised - punctuated equilibrium comes to mind as one example.

Yes, but you can also write legible code in most languages, the exception being Perl.

(I love Perl for quick one-off scripts to do text manipulation but I would hate to have to use it for any big project that has to be maintained)

There may be a set amount of gold on earth, but it is an unknown amount, and the amount of mined gold is constantly increasing. Also the population will (hopefully) not be constantly increasing - if we don't get that under control soon we are seriously screwed - it will either decrease slowly and voluntarily or dramatically and tragically.

I don't think they did it on their own :)
The wrong word in that sentence is "migrated"

I don't agree with your comment on salary, but H1B visas should be converted to green cards after 1 year with minimal paperwork and cost and a streamlined approval process. The indentured servitude aspect of H1B is bad for us all, and we should try to bring in and keep as much talent as possible.

Slow as heck and can't actually climb anything (as far as I can tell from the video) which is the only real reason to have legs instead of wheels.

The real goal is advertising, and I am sure advertisers will pay extra for targeted advertising that is only 95% accurate. Heck, they'd probably pay for 55%.