To be clear, by "genital mutilation" he means "male circumcision", which is incomparably less bad than female circumcision, which is what the term is generally reserved for.

Male circumcision = cutting off the foreskin, which is not a procedure I'm a fan of, but is still performed on the majority of Americans boys, and is fairly harmless, in addition to potentially reducing risk of AIDS. Female circumcision = cutting off the clitoris, and has been condemned as a human rights violation by the UN.

It may not be a strictly false statement on his part, but it's obviously a shady, misleading way of saying it. Now if Bill Gates had funded the lopping off of kid's penises, it would be an apt description, and analogous to female circumcision.

Sorry Citizens United, you're a bad law. In addition

The law that "Citizens United" is is the First Amendment. It may be a bad interpretation, but I'm personally a fan of the law itself.

Why does Perl include Content-type, yet Bash, Lua, Python, Ruby, and C++ don't? Perl is not at all restricted to web development.

Also: use strict

When we gave women access to contraception, and the ability to get an education and a decent job rather than simply being housewives and mothers, family size dropped to the replacement rate or below. In the US. In Canada. In Europe. And the same trend is very clear in developing countries. Women want to have a reasonable number of children. Population growth happens when women are disempowered.

Contrary to the Malthusian view that population will grow to the limit of however many kids can be fed, in fact parents choose to have enough kids to give them a high chance that several will survive to support them as they grow old.

(Bill Gates/Gates Foundation) (Also relevant: Bill Gates' TED Talk)

Evidence shows tackling high death rates leads to smaller families and the stabilisation of national populations, according to its report, ‘The World at 7 Billion’.

...“In the poorest countries, where parents are often petrified that their children will die and leave them to fend for themselves, it’s understandable that they would choose to have larger families," [Brendan Cox] added.

...Save the Children points to the example of Botswana where three decades ago women had an average of six children. The average is now three, following long-term investment in healthcare which has helped to nearly halve child mortality.

(Trust.org reporting on Save The Children's report)

Healthier and wealthier babies make for smaller families.

(The Solution To Global Population Growth is Saving Children) (Contains two talks by Hans Rosling using stats to show this. Look at the first video starting at 6:30 if you're impatient)

Well-designed programs can bring down growth rates even in the poorest countries. Provided with information and voluntary access to birth-control methods, women have chosen to have fewer children in societies as diverse as Bangladesh, Iran, Mexico, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

...A trial by Harvard researchers in Lusaka, Zambia, found that only when women had greater autonomy to decide whether to use contraceptives did they have significantly fewer children....

(New York Times reporting on a UN report)

if the vaccination is effective

Your argument rests on the dichotomy of things being either 0% effective or 100% effective. Some people might question that premise.

Yes, there is something inherent in an unacciated child that makes them dangerous to vaccinated children: whooping cough, measles, mumps, etc., because vaccines, while pretty effective at stopping these diseases, do not make every recipient 100% disease-proof.

My point is, you were asking the difference between MLB regulating something and the GOVERNMENT regulating something. Now suddenly you're insisting there's a big difference because one is the government and one isn't.

So I think you've answered your original question, yet you seem to think I'm promoting the position that there isn't a difference. My point was clearly that there IS a difference.

They can't get on a bus or a train, they have no choice but to drive.

I used to live out in the country and had to drive to get most anywhere.

Then I moved.

That's a choice I made. It might not be the right choice for everyone. There are trade-offs, and maybe they're making the best choice for themselves, but pretending it's not a choice is just wrong.

Really... How would regulating this be any different than banning steroids in professional sports?

Seriously? What do you think is the difference between an apartment complex banning pets and the COUNTRY banning pets? Do you think there is none?

Imagine the protests that would ensue if Internet services arbitrarily blocked video only to Internet Explorer or Firefox browsers!

Is that meant to be ironic? This was standard practice until a few years ago and I still come across it from time to time.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green: Hardcover, Bargain Price from Amazon: $6.56; New Paperback: $2.99; Kindle: $7.99

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Lavithan: Amazon Paperback: $8.99; Kindle: $10.99

I borrowed a Kindle from work a few weeks ago and while I really like it, some hardcopy books are cheaper NEW from AMAZON than the Kindle ebooks. It may not be the norm, but it definitely exists, and sadly it exists with books I'd like to read.

It seems charging on peak is encouraging people to turn up the AC or turn down the heat a bit

Or not to run their washing machine, dryer, dish washer, etc. when demand is already pushing capacity.

You charge more when demand is higher because to meat demand, you bring in marginal production capacity (e.g. firing up less efficient power plants that produce energy at a higher cost).

In the case of network traffic, we can't just turn on another bunch of fiber when people are using a lot, so the speed each user gets drops. When we're not at capacity, using more doesn't have a significant cost, but when we're at capacity, using more means everyone else gets less. Eventually you have to build more lines or convince people to stop using as much during peak times. Raising prices for peak times does the latter, and is reasonable because the marginal cost of usage is higher.

It all comes down to supply and demand. Understanding just two lines on a graph can make the whole world make so much more sense.

Why ONLY if the Publisher agrees? They don't have that ability with physical goods - so screw them again.

Because the publishers is the supplier--EVERY term is dictated by the publishers, because the publisher has to CHOOSE to supply the books. Amazon's supposed to tell publishers the terms and then just pray they still have books to sell? Amazon is no that powerful yet.

I disagree with you. I would not call our current society a dictatorship.

Hey, good job on the troll.