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In history, the Spartans were the despotic enemies of democracy who constantly tried to defeat Athens. They could have stopped the Persians at the sea crossing, but delayed because they had a religious festival and finally sent a tiny troop to Thermopylae (too little too late). Those troops did acquit themselves well, but Greece would have been overrun if the Athenians hadn't brought up their army and crushed the Persians.

So yeah, an appropriate name for Microsoft (and for people who know movies but not history).

Well, the 90% figure is based on 90% more facts than homeopathy. Or astrology, for that matter.

This depends on the doctor. My doctor is very good at explaining things and going through the details and side effects of treatments, which greatly improves my mental status. I know some doctors don't do that though, which is a problem. And some people need more help from their provider than others.

Also, many people have mental issues which are not tied with their physical symptoms, and those people are poorly treated both by the US health care system (which treats mental issues as second class) and by the US culture (which treats mental issues as "your fault").

Note that the ACA is a major step forward here; now, all health plans have to cover mental illnesses and rehabilitative services.

Huh. In the US, the conservative party IS the silly party.

The Republican primaries?

I disagree. As far as I can tell, left-leaning people hate terrorism. The difference is that some people believe that "most current terrorists are Muslim" means the same thing as "most current Muslims are terrorists", and some see that those statements are different.

I hate terrorism. I'm not fond of Islam, but then I'm not fond of Christianity either. Both want to control how I live and who I can marry. But I don't blame Islam for terrorism; I blame terrorists for terrorism. Which do you blame?

Note that I blame Christian bigots for the (now being dismantled) anti-gay movement, but I don't blame Christianity or all Christians for it; I blame bigots. And if people thought that they could still get away with KKK-style lynchings in the US, I suspect that we would see more Christian terrorism. Fortunately, the governments which turned a blind eye to that practice in the 1900s have gotten better. I hope that the governments in the middle east will also improve over time.

You sure about that? A few minutes with Google implies that Texas has more gun deaths per capita than New York, which seems to completely contradict your point. Actually, I see more pro-gun states in the top 10 than anti-gun states.

Actually, the strongest indicator (in my completely unscientific glance) is poverty, not gun laws. But hey, you can keep on blaming minorities, cities, and gun-control. And I suspect you will.

Kevin

"Someone else taking care of bandwidth?" Yeah, *I* am. I pay Verizon for bandwidth, about 25mbs up and down.

Netflix already pays for bandwidth (and also CDNs) to send their content to Verizon, Comcast, and other ISPs. The problem is that Verizon and the others want to be double-paid for their internal network, both by me and again by netflix (who will pay for it by charging me more). You may think that that is a good idea, but I don't.

They actually tried fairly effectively with DSL. That worked well enough that all of the telcos have been pushing fiber partially so that they don't have to allow competitors access. Europe has higher-speed DSL, but it's not deployed in the US since it would cause competition.

Hmmm. Either you have no idea what the context of that quote is, meaning that you are a gullible idiot who refuses to fact-check things they hear, or you know the context but are intentionally misrepresenting it, meaning that you are a liar trying to misrepresent facts.

Either way, you have proven that you have nothing worth listening to and that the rest of your comment is probably similarly misleading.

Since I assume that you are just sincere and gullible, when you do realize that that quote doesn't mean what you claim, you should consider that whoever told you it meant something bad (probably Glen Beck and Fox) was lying to you and you should never trust them again. You will, but that falls under the "gullible idiot" part.

Really, not even better overall for the rich and corporations, though many people never seem to think it through. I encourage libertarians to move to Somalia to see the total-libertarian dream in action. No effective government! No regulations! No enforcement of taxes! A dream come true!

Yet somehow anti-tax libertarians are not flocking to this paradise.

So you're saying that this will not work well with most sites?

I like this scheme because it allows me to help fund the websites which I enjoy and visit. A good website with good content is expensive, and if the site maintainer cannot make money, then those sites will go away or become less good. I'm happy to spend a few bucks a month knowing that it goes to the sites I like.

I hate advertising too, but I know enough economics to know that if everyone is a freeloader then the whole system goes to hell.

So you are saying that you should not help fund sites you like because you may accidentally send a fraction of a cent to a site you didn't mean to go to. Occasionally.

If Google ONLY does evil, then I assume that in your universe "good" companies are a rhetorical and theoretical device but cannot possibly exist? The money that Google donates is evil? Giving free-except-for-ads email is evil? Providing services for schools and non-profits is evil? Pushing back against over-broad governmental requests is evil?