Because they are paid by hour, duh. ;)

The only thing I can think of is The Elder Scrolls' currency, hehe.

If you like chocolate, eat it without sugar or milk. You need to taste the cocoa. Eat it raw or go home.

If you like vanilla, eat the bean straight; using it to *flavor* something else is stupid.

I like coffee. I like it with cream and sugar. I like the flavor of coffee. Yes, it does have a flavor; I don't like drinking cream and sugar alone. In fact, I like the coffee to be brewed very strongly so that when I add the cream and sugar to adjust the flavor, I still get a strong coffee flavor.

I can stand it black, but I don't like it. I taste it black, sometimes, to taste what different coffee preparations/beans/roasts taste like... but I prefer my coffee with cream and sugar.

I do have it. It's not that great. My first searches yielded nothing... it seems you kinda have to use specifically crafted English that makes sense to Facebook... or, at least, choose from the list of search suggestions. That said, it's handy to be able to string multiple search filters together (like, My friends that went to with who like pizza)

Isn't this the argument made for drugs? Let's make drugs illegal so that easy access is removed, then there won't be as many kids using drugs? That didn't seem to work out terribly well. Why would it with guns?

Also... do you have any real world examples of your hypothetical situation happening? I have real world examples of people stopping crimes with their legally carried guns.

Where do we stop, then? A knife is more dangerous than a baseball bat. A bat is more dangerous than a stick. A stick is more dangerous than fists. Fists are more dangerous than feet.

So ... are guns the magical "okay, we cut it off at guns!" place? What about swords? Switchblades? Oh wait, those are illegal in some states, too. And, I might add, clearly I would be far more dangerous carrying my switchblade than I would my hunting knife ....

It is these sorts of arguments that, IMO, make me want to own a gun (which I do). Why? Because you're convincing me that, if push comes to shove, the guy who doesn't care about the law that may try to kill me to take whatever they want is probably not going to care that the gun increases his ability for violence. I'd like to meet him where he is, if I have to.

And that's not even the 2nd amendment (which isn't really about self-defense-from-criminals). :)

And before I get painted as a crazy, gun-toting, gun-LOVING, tea-party conservative lunatic... I'm more libertarian and I own a single gun, and it's a rifle. I prefer my large dog; he's a very good deterrent. Also, I don't like violence and would absolutely hate to have to shoot my gun at someone. Not having been in the military, I cannot imagine what it would be like to have killed someone.

What, exactly, was prevented? Do we actually know that our preventative efforts ... did anything? (I'm asking, I'm not exactly making a point; I don't know the answer.)

Pretty much. I've heard/read it elsewhere, too. And I agree, personally, with him, from personal experience. And yes, it DOES taste good when you sear it, it's called caramelization ... :D

I guess most people use "welfare" to mean something along the lines of "statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need." I think medi-X would definitely be part of that. Is it wrong? Bad? Should we get rid of it? I actually don't think so. But I still consider it "welfare." :)

I'm not saying that all welfare is bad or that we shouldn't have it. But just because it's a good or even necessary component doesn't mean we just remove it from the category, does it?

Yes, it's "earned" in that there are taxes levied for it. I'm not sure that completely pays for it, though. If it was a one-to-one thing (money goes into account, money flows out of account; no account transfers and no deficit spending is possible), that would be different. From what I understand, that isn't how it works. I could be convinced I am wrong, there, of course ... but if that sort of clean accounting was the way it worked then it seems social security and medicaid/medicare/medi-whatever wouldn't be in such financial troubles :)

I'm not sure Samsung would be so naive either, though, would it? Samsung is heavily invested in Android at this point, from what I can tell. They would like to have a significant boom to their android devices. Seems like it'd be pretty hard to figure out how much money is going to end up being paid through licensing vs. legal fees.

I am not being naive in that I realize the ongoing-license-fees vs. legal fees is a very real problem; however, I'm not sure Samsung's leadership is quite so naive to say "oh, uh, well, we don't really care about this at all other than money, so let's just go with the cheapest route." I don't KNOW what they were thinking, but it seems silly to just assume that was THE factor that they considered. I mean, what about Android growth? If they hope to grow their Android division, those licensing fees are going to continue to grow indefinitely. Not sure the legal fees will. (plus, don't they already pay their lawyers regardless? I don't actually know how that part works. Besides, if they have a good defense and truly believe these patents wouldn't hold water, then can't they win and force MS to pay the legal fees?)

To me, it seems much simpler and saner to assume MS has some point. How much of a point? I dunno. But it seems hard to believe that these large corporations, who constantly have lawsuits going on, are just rolling over because suddenly, they don't have enough lawyers even though they know they could win against MS. Seems silly.

I have really no idea what the title is. But the guy in question (not Einstein) seems to be pretty ... decently educated and intelligent, shall we say. :)

I am not the one claiming the statistically impossible (or, in my case, statistically certain) part.

So... pick a concept of reality. Out of the infinite possibilities, what are the chances you picked the right one?

Can't this sort of epistemology game go on more or less forever on any given topic?

You mean I get it in my food anyways? So why add it to water, again?

Perhaps I should ask it this way; would you like it if the government simply required you to eat your vegetables daily "for your health?" Why not do that instead of putting it into the water?

I'm not advocating one of those "precious bodily fluids" conspiracies at all. I just think it's ridiculous. We'd be very upset if the government required us to take fluoride capsules or something, but we're okay with them just putting in the water (which most people in the city are more or less required to use, you can't just dig a well in your apartment's common area... yes, you could buy bottled water, but that's economically and environmentally pretty stupid, isn't it?)

Yes, wanting "pure" water is pretty nuts. I mean, seriously, what could possibly go wrong with adding "stuff" to water? It's not like we've been wrong about stuff we add turning out to be harmful before. And, clearly, we've done long-term/human lifetime tests to make sure adding it to our water is entirely safe with no side effects. Right?

If we haven't, then it's not nuts to prefer NOT to add it. And it's definitely not nuts to prefer to have the government leave the water alone. If the government wants us to have fluoride, then try mandating that we all take fluoride daily - I'm sure that would go over well :) That's basically what they're doing, only a bit more subtly.