Seriously, you might want to look into facts yourself before you start accusing others of not knowing what they're doing. Let's look at a standard hunting rifle, maybe something like a Remington 30-06 Sprignfield. Bolt-action, 4 round magazine, with a range of 300-400 yards. If you can engage someone from a hidden position at that range, you have the advantage. If you engage someone out in the open, in movement, at about 100 feet range, the guy with the AR-15 is going to own your ass, unless you get the kill with the first shot. Which is hard, very hard. So advantage AR-15.
Same thing for pump-action shotgun. Unless you engage the enemy at close range and out in the open, the AR-15 guy is going to own you. Which means that the AR-15 is far more flexible at providing killing options than either the 30-06 Springfield or a regular pump-action shotgun. And that's the only thing it does. It is barely ok for hunting large game or birds, and you're not going to waste that ammo on hunting vermin. So yeah, the semi-automatic long-barrel, medium-caliber rifle is good at exactly one thing: killing people at intermediate range. And that's really it. Explain to me again how that should be just widely available to everyone who asks?

What the fuck is wrong with you people? You really, really can't see the issue with not providing the president of the United States of America - YOUR president - with more security than Joe Schmoe down the street? Has ideology really clouded your mind so much that you can't the basic reality of who wants to kill the president, and who wants to kill Joe Schmoe?

No, seriously - what the fuck is wrong with you people? I wouldn't be so flabbergasted at this comment - and seriously worried - if this wouldn't be now a common response to the question of gun control. It's being repeatedly modded up on slashdot, crops up on many, many other fairly representative sites, and is being put out by political figures and newscaster as if it's the most normal thing in the world.

You know what I'm actually worried about? That all you people claiming to want to defend the country against tyranny are actually just looking for an excuse to shoot people you disagree with.

Fuck that shit. I'd rather be in Switzerland, a place with an ACTUAL militia and real gun laws. And a real gun culture to boot, not this penis-replacement that seems so pervasive in the US.

Why do you need new content? I have a couple of years of old shows to catch up to, a few centuries of music I haven't explored, and graphical art of about three thousand years that I haven't sampled. Granted, not all of that will be relevant, but the classics are classics because they are still relevant today. In other words: the problem of new content isn't scarcity of resources to invest in its creation, but the existence of old content.

Well - it has more detail. A map's quality is measured by its accuracy, and how much information it conveys. I can't speak to the accuracy of either map, but the Google map is definitely a lot easier to understand - or at least, I can make a lot of implicit assumptions about the lay of the land from the map. Without memorizing what colors correspond to what, the Openmap is a lot harder to understand.

Again, a lot rests on the accuracy of the map (both objectively and what I can implicitly deduce). But purely from an organizational perspective, Google Maps is much better. And either one is better than bing, which is just empty.

Welcome to stage 3 of AGW denial: It's taking place, it's us, but we don't know how bad it is. You're about in the middle of where the US is, and ahead of a few stragglers like Watts who still vacillate between stage 1 and stage 2. Questions 1 through 3 have been answered at nauseam, so I'll leave you to google that for about 30 seconds. As for question 4, here's a more recent study on it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/21/curbing-climate-change-world-economic-forum_n_2521275.html. There are a number of different studies on this, including some done by the US and the UK government, all of which come to different numbers as for cost. All of them pretty much agree though that it is cheaper to mitigate CO2 emissions than to just continue with our current approach.

Actually, it started with a good chunk of scientists in the 70s and 80s saying that "hey, it seems temperatures are trending upwards. Can we cross-check that and see where this might lead?"

Ok, so the UN is comprised of bodies that might have some ulterior motives. Instead of asking you to prove your point that they have ulterior motives (you know, innocent until proven guilty, etc), I'll give you the much easier job of just giving me one example of an entity that is not only completely disaffected from any conclusion drawn, but also 100% incapable of being biased. Not that I'm holding my breath, btw. We haven't seen any aliens yet, and even they might have some ulterior motives.

And it's a legitimate question to ask what bodies you're hiding in your backyard that might be uncovered as a result of a police action in your backyard. Oh, it isn't? Yeah, didn't think so.

Now you're getting hilarious. I'd like you to demonstrate a single action that was taken by anyone anywhere at any time that had no personal, political or economical bias, and didn't even have the chance to appear as such. What I'm getting up: you're setting up an impossible scenario, and then acting surprised that no one can complete it. That's dishonest arguing 101.

You mean, like the climate scientists doing the actual studies? No? You mean, like random people on the Internet like you? Oh, I see where this is going. Since skeptic has been so utterly tainted by people like Watts and Monckton, you're tried to frame yourself as a "neutral" party just asking some questions. Here's what I know: every one of your questions has already been answered, if you'd just bother to read the scientific articles. Since you aren't, I can only assume that you're trying to throw out random words to derail the discussion.

That's pretty standard behavior when a specific set of events has been documented at nauseam. If someone says that gravity is weaker in NYC than in San Francisco, there's a good amount of skepticism that has to be overcome. Same with anyone who argues that Global Warming isn't taking place. They better have some real good data collection and a real good explanation at hand.

The point of multi-cultures is not to eliminate the problem of a single organism wiping out your crop, it is to minimize the risk of that happening. Yes, you're still exposed, but less so.

I'm not so sure about that. There's a whole branch of economics that deals with substitutions.

Much less - conventional breeding is not nearly as expensive as genetic engineering, can be done by far more people, and operates on much longer time scales. Again, the risk exposure there is significantly less, with only a minimal decrease in efficiency.

The problem that you're talking about is a problem of mono-culture. Any time you have a mono culture, you are at risk of having everything wiped out by a single nasty organism. In other words, it is pretty much a guaranteed event. See potato famine and the banana. In other words, genetic engineering is a very expensive solution to a problem we created through mono-cultures. A much cheaper solution is to take a small hit in efficiency, and grow multiple cultures.

That's why a lot of people - including me - are eying genetic engineering suspiciously. Most of the problems it is trying to solve are of our own making. Now, using genetic engineering to abolish Type I diabetes, hypothyroidism and heart defects... fucking awesome.

And this is why we don't deserve nice things. When everything is justified by "but the other party is doing the same thing!", nothing will ever improve. Instead, it will just be eternal bickering. Which has its own appeal (stalemate can be good in certain circumstances...), but is mostly just leading to a lot of shouting and idiotic decisions when the stalemate is lifted.

Conversely, coming to the US after having grown-up in France, I found that it's really easy to get to know Americans, but real friendship is very hard to come by, and very hard to identify. As an example, it took a while to understand that "come by any time you want!" means "double- and triple-check before you make any decisions involving us, because we'll probably flake on you."

While I find your points interesting and mostly agree with them, you have one thing backwards. In France, the people have educated the state that they are entitled to certain benefits. When those rights are infringed, there is violence. Pretty much since the storming of the Bastille, the French - and particularly the Parisians - have been very quick to protest and to riot. For some lesser known examples, look up the Parisian Communes and the term 68ards: while in the US specifically, the anti-establishment movement was built on peace and love, in Paris it was built on riots and street violence.

The result is that the French government is probably one of the western governments that is most afraid of its population. And also a perfect example of just how easy it is for a population to get awesome toys, even without going through the proper democratic process.

Maybe we should rename them.... Umbrella Dept? I know, I know, cheap shot.

1) Err, no. You're thinking of a constitutional monarchy. Very different.
2) That's why I disdain conservatives. They can't argue, and just yell. "No, YOU'RE WRONG!". Yeah, whatever. Piss the country down the drain, I don't care. I've got mine, and I'll make sure conservatives don't get it.

They're not a democracy, they're a constitutional monarchy. I.e., great Britain.