A corrupt capitalism still produces things, albeit at less than full capacity or optimum efficiency, whereas a corrupt socialism simply wastes resources to little or no effect because nobody gives a shit individually about the fate of the collective property.

Which does you no good if you cannot get it out of the ground. Chavez misappropriated the funds earmarked for repair, replacement and maintenance of oil field equipment and operations and diverted them instead to social programs. The result was a bit like eating your seed corn. Now the oil fields are only producing a fraction of the oil that they should be and no foreign firm wants to touch Venezuela with a ten foot pole because of the recent nationalizations by the Venezuelan government which is still packed with the disciples of Chavez and socialism. If I were a foreign investor and the Venezuelan state oil company wanted either goods or services I would demand payment in full up front in either dollars or gold. Nationalizing property owned by foreigners is a good way to scare off all international investment as Venezuelans are now discovering to their collective misery.

Other counties, like Canada, did it for years without major issues. No, don't include decimal points, it doesn't need to be THAT exact, just round. Half a kilometer is only 0.31 miles.

55 MPH
89 KPH

This doesn't fly for me. There is no human equivalent of an inch or mile or gallon or acre anymore than a kilometer or centimeter or liter or gram. The foot is about the only human thing about the imperial system, and that is not enough to matter all that much.

I was taught both systems in school and use both. Interestingly, I prefer cm/mm over inches and feet over meters; have no preference with gallons/qts vs. liters; prefer ml over fluid ounces, prefer grams over ounces but pounds over kg. How is THAT for confused. This is the result of the mess we have right now :)

>"It's not a waste of money if the Feds simply say that any new signs paid for with Federal highway funds must have SI units as their primary measure"

I don't even think they need to be marked PRIMARILY in metric units, but why not at least include them secondarily?

The costs of adding a few additional digits and letters to new signs has to be negligible in the overall cost.

Sounds like you might be using a prepaid-type (or month-to-month type) plan with no roaming allowed and no phone subsidies. That is essentially contract-free, so it is not the topic of the article and my followup.

>" Normally, consumers could vote with their wallets by taking their business elsewhere"

Hate to tell you this, but I think they all do that. Sprint has, Verizon has... not how T-Mobile does it. They all have one or more mysterious "fee" lines on the bill. It is a sham and why you can't believe any advertising from any cell company about the price of the plans. It is bad enough that in MY locality, wireless is taxed at something like 22%, then add "carrier surcharges", E911 fees, administrative fees, "Federal Univ Serv Assess Non-ID" fees, "State Gross Receipts Surcharge", "State Special Revenue Surcharge", "Regulatory Charge", and even f*ing sales tax (how can the state charge sales tax on a SERVICE???)

Then don't forget to add that data add-on charge and insurance protection in case you drop that $600 phone.

Before all the above, my plan for two phones is $107.99. And after- it is $159.48. 48% higher than the shiny number being advertised.

The difference with Bitcoins is that the entire transaction chain is by definition permanent public record. The bank might record the serial numbers of bills issued to you at the ATM, but the chain is pretty much broken as soon as you spend them because intermediaries rarely take steps to record serial numbers and link them with those who spend them. At best they might know what you bought and how much it cost, but not necessarily which bills you used to pay for the purchase. Unless you use your Bitcoins in a way that doesn't expose your identity, either by buying them in person at one of these ATMs or spending them in a way that links your wallet to your real identity, they can actually be less anonymous than cash and even one slip up exposes all of your previous transactions using that wallet.

I would say that the difference between those crimes and the one being discussed here was in the intent. There can be no doubt that the intent of the man who killed the British soldier in London was to intimidate the society at large into changing the foreign policy of the British government with regard to lands that the killer and others consider to be Muslim. Indeed, he made a statement on camera to that effect immediately after the killing so that there can be no doubt that the killing and the statement of intent were linked and intended to achieve a political goal. Contrast this with a killing done not for the purpose of political change but rather for revenge or due to prejudice or a grudge against a specific group or persons. It is the explicitly stated threat to society at large and the political goal that makes this terrorism and not simply a murder for hire or a crime of passion.

The killer very clearly expounded the reasons for the killing, including references to British foreign policies in "muslim lands" and "an eye for an eye", while holding the bloody knife and cleaver in his red hands. The obvious intent of this statement, which was made to the camera immediately after the killing so that it would be recorded and seen by the entire world, was to intimidate and effect political change through fear of more violence if those changes desired by the terrorist and his confederates were not made. If that's not the very definition of terrorism, I don't know what is.

The VCs are free to be as stupid as they want to be with their own money, but with titles like "Head of Regulatory Strategy" you know that they will be going after government money too which means that us taxpayers may still be footing the bill for this bullshit. That's what really chaps my hide.

As far as the gun control lefties are concerned, every gun in private ownership is a "wrong people" gun. Like you said, they're idiots.

You forgot board with rusty nail

Yes, but liberals believe that it is or at least they see no problem in eliminating all of your rights to try because in their minds it was worthwhile if even one life was saved (which it probably wasn't).

Well, they failed to account for those crafty Mormons finding a way to tax them, so I'm not so sure.

Well, you've got to hand it to the Mormons; they're clever in their business dealings. Frankly I'm surprised that the NSA guys didn't see this one coming.

>"There are other countries less backwards than the USA you know, pin's on credit cards exist."

Yes, I know, but I thought it was pretty clear I was talking about the USA.