It is amazing to see how much improvement you see in life expectancy around the world in mid 1900's. I believe that is due to wider availability of vaccines. Just goes to show how big of a difference vaccines have made around the world.

I love your idea - we should just follow the previous examples! We already have a nationwide network of hospitals for military - VA! All we have to do is to widen and let any citizen access them. Just like we did with highways and the Internet. A great suggestion!

NYC is a big place with many boroughs where density is lower and people don't walk as much. If you look at the obesity in Manhattan, it is much less.

In fact, there is a study on relationship between BMI and urban environment factors (like public transportation and density). They concluded that urban environment does reduce obesity. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17465178

At least he shows evidence for his arguments, which is far more than what you are doing. Fair enough. The size is still in flux. So show me another natural outpour that causes oil slick that can be seen from space. Can't be that hard based on your "information", no?

At least he shows evidence for his arguments, which is far more than what you are doing. Fair enough. The size is still in flux. So show me another natural outpour that causes oil slick that can be seen from space.

Can't be that hard based on your "information", no?

Oh REALLY?

Care to show me the oil slick the size of Florida from these "natural cracks". If it is so natural, you would think you can show it in Google or any other satellite map pictures.

Geesh, you really need to do better than just spouting back Faux News talking points.

First, Freddie and Fannie was not part of the government. There was an implicit understanding that government would back Freddie and Fannie, but they were run by CEO's and boards. Not senators or bureaucrats.

Second, if it was just another housing bubble, it would not have crashed the entire system. US has gone through many housing bubbles since the Great Depression, some just as harsh or even worse than what we just went through. But they didn't cause the whole financial system to crash. But it did this time, why? Because Wall Street created these CDO's and other derivatives that leveraged and concentrated these risks to ungodly levels. And it was all done outside any regulation. If there were ANY KIND of regulation (or if Glass-Steagal was never repealed), this whole thing could have been easily avoided.

It is fine to wish for smaller government, but it is idiotic to blame the government for something that Wall Street created outside regulatory purview.

After the last big screw up (aka Great Depression), the government stepped in an created a whole slew of legislations and regulations (including creating SEC) that has kept things in check and economy humming for many many decades. It is when Reagan started spouting "government is the problem" and other BS and started gutting all the safeguards - including repealing of Glass-Steagall Act - that bubble started growing to epic proportions and the economy crashed.

Spouting "why people continue to believe they need government to save them is beyond me" may make you libertarian-chic, anyone who has any cursory knowledge of what cause the Great Recession can point out that lack of regulation (especially of the derivatives market) was THE reason why things got so bad.

Mod this reply up! The main reason why the big banks are doing well now is because of two things:

1. Government took over risky stuff off their balance sheet so they were not in such dire straits any more.

2. Government pumped ENORMOUS amount of liquidity into the system so that borrowing is free. It is easy to make money when you borrow for nothing and lend it out for 5%.

All these have long term costs for the government and we will all start feeling it real soon while the bankers will be giving themselves billions on how "well" they made it out.

Fermion, you are referring to I-90 bridge which is about 5 miles south of the 520 bridge. I can tell you that even with the two bridges, the rush hour commute is quite bad. And I-90 is about to lose some of the space to a commuter rail line. Living with just a single bridge between Seattle and the Eastside communities would be harrowing.

This is a VERY popular and widely used bridge. About 115,000 vehicles carrying 155,000 people use the 520 bridge daily. Even counting both ways, MS employees only constitute less than 10% of the daily travel on this bridge. Expecting MS to foot the bill on this bridge is quite unfair.

There is a "power and wealth" angle to this story, but your angle ain't it.

At both end of this bridge is two of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Puget Sound; Montlake and Median. Montlake and its west coastline neighborhoods of the Lake Washington is the "old Seattle money" and Medina and its east coast line neighborhoods are where the "new tech money" billionaires live (including Gates).

They have been waging a major battle against the 520 redesign for over a decade. They do not want anything other than an exact replica of the current bridge (4 narrow lanes). They have thrown numerous roadblocks against the redesign and fought the city hall for many many years with lawsuits and environmental challenges. Now that all of those battle have been fought and lost, the same neighborhood association is now backing this new proposal since they know this would reboot the process and will tie up the contruction of the bridge for at least another decade.

Opposing this bridge is EXACTLY what is wrong with those with power and wealth. They will not be inconvenienced one bit even if there is greater good for the vast majority of the citizens. They like the things as they are, and they will fight any change that encroach on their turf. If you want to "rise up and slay" aristocracy, then you should throw your full support for this bridge to be rebuilt.

Seriously, do you even live in Seattle? Do you know what 520 bridge is like? Do you even know all the politics around this bridge redesign? No? Then, STFU!!! This bridge goes through VERY wealthy neighborhoods on both sides of the bridge. These neighborhoods have been dead set against ANY expansion of the bridge and they have been backing any and all candidates with proposals that would delay the contructions of the new bridge. These redesigns have been decades in making, while the bridge is hanging by the thread on every major windstorm. The sucker needs to get replaces ASAP. It does not matter if it is 6 lanes or 8 lanes. It needs to move forward for the good of all people living in the Puget Sound area.

Last time I checked, there were something like 1500 or so complaints about sudden acceleartion filed. They recalled 8 million cars, but if you include every model with the complaint, you are probably looking at 4X or 5X of that number. Even if you stick with 8 million, 1500 out if 8 million is 0.019%. Good luck trying to reproduce a problem that has a reproducible rate of 0.019%.