One of the big pitfalls for roundabouts that I saw in Montana when they tried to implement them was not taking into account snow removal (at big deal in Bozeman, MT) and emergency vehicles. They placed large concrete islands in the middle of the intersection, and there was not enough room for the larger vehicles to navigate around it. The snow plows couldn't even see the island after a big storm and would run right over it.

They are not the end-all solution, but in certain circumstances, I can see where they would be beneficial.

The biggest threat that Netflix is going to face is the cost of bandwidth to the end users. Someone has to carry the cost of transmitting all of this video data across the Internet, and Netflix is rapidly becoming the biggest hog of them all. ISP's are no longer able to carry this cost and so will be looking to push it back to Netflix or onto their end users with higher prices. There is also the danger of the ISP's becoming their own content distribution centers and shutting out Netflix entirely.

It should be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Agreed, tax increases should be considered, however we have also lost a lot of jobs, and the consumer debt in America is very high. What this means is that there are fewer people who can actually afford to pay taxes. There comes a point where you can no longer increasing taxes because the damage caused to the economy due to lack of available capital actually results in less revenue for the government. We are dangerously close to that condition.

When you find yourself unable to increase revenue, you must cut back on your spending to balance your budget. I wonder if people would be more willing to pay more taxes if they felt they could trust government to use it wisely. Given the government's track record, I would rather have government cut back than to give them yet another loan to waste on their excesses.

Here is a chart of the spending by department.

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?get_gallerynr=172

In my post, I may have overstated the size a bit. So I guess we have one additional option -- instead of eliminating two programs, we can eliminate one and then all other government spending. :-)

Here is an article placing the current US deficit at $1.5 trillion:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNaqecavD9ek

Another interesting site is ShadowStats which shows a more accurate representation of government figures that they have been manipulating over the past three decades.

http://www.shadowstats.com/

The sad thing is that all of these budget cuts don't even come close to addressing the problem. Nearly all of the government spending comes down to four programs: 1) national defense, 2) welfare, 3) Social Security, and 4) Medicare. If you eliminated every other department in the government, I think you would come to about half of any one of these programs. Our deficit (the amount of money we spend more than we bring in every year) is over $1.5 trillion.

The four programs are all basically the same size. For the sake of convenience, let us call is $750 billion each. In order to eliminate our deficit (we'll work on the actual debt later), we have two options:

1) Cut all four programs in half.
2) Eliminate two programs -- take your pick.

That is what it has come down to, plain and simple. But no one has the courage to do what it will take to steer the ship aright.

Thanks!

I was not attempting to open a debate on abortion, but rather to question how much the perceived improvements in life expectancy world-wide could possibly be affected by the practice.

As for sex education, condoms do absolutely nothing to combat sexually transmitted diseases, so while they may help reduce the number of pregnancies, they also fuel the rise of HIV and AIDS around the world. Abstinence and marital fidelity are the only effective methods that can stop this deadly trend. In fact, in light of the scientific and historical evidence, it is gross negligence bordering on manslaughter to promote "sex education" as a cure when millions suffer from the effects of this "civilised" education.

Your example of the unfertilized ovaries is completely off-base and has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand -- or even the debate about abortion. It is the ultimate straw man argument that ignores the real issues of a truly intellectual debate.

I would be curious to know if/how he took into account two items that could seriously skew the data. When you observe the initial dataset in the 1800s, all childhood deaths were reported including stillborn babies and so forth. With abortion, many of the poorer or unhealthy children are more likely to not enter the world. How much of an impact does this have on these figures? How much lower would the American lifespan be if we included the 1.5 million abortions we have every year?

Also, he calculates the figures in terms of dollars, but define a dollar. In 1910, a dollar was worth far more than it is today. I am assuming that he takes into account inflation, but I would be curious to see how.

All that said, that was a fascinating video. I would love to be able to play with the graph and move it back and forth at my own speed to track the various movements of each country through history and so forth. It be fantastic if they put together an interactive website to do just that.

I believe this verse is often taken out of context to say something it clearly was not intended to say. Look at the next couple verses as well:

He said to them, "But now let the one who has a moneybag take it, and likewise a knapsack. And let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors.' For what is written about me has its fulfillment." And they said, "Look, Lord, here are two swords." And he said to them, "It is enough."
(Luk 22:36-38 ESV)

A couple points here: first notice the reason appears to be so that Jesus could be numbered among the transgressors. It was not for self defense, because what more do we need for defense when we have the almighty Creator of the universe on our side? Further, note that they said they only had two swords for the twelve men (and any other additional people who might have been with them). Clearly this is not enough to defend the whole party.

Given the fact that nowhere else in the New Testament are we commanded or even encouraged to look to our self-defense, I find the Biblical argument for violent reprisal very weak. However, the opposite, a lifestyle of peace and passive resistance, is very strong.

Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord." To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
(Rom 12:17-21 ESV)

It may not be popular. In fact, it may seem on the surface to be foolhardy. But God's ways are not our ways, and if we love Him and truly wish to be like Him, we need to take Him at His word and follow the lifestyle He has set forth.

If you like Web Developer, you really should check out FireBug. It is truly an amazing tool available only for Firefox that allows you to debug JavaScript code, inspect elements, make changes on the fly -- basically Web Developer on steroids. The only limitation at this point is that it does not appear to work with the new Firefox yet. Hopefully it will be compatible before the new version comes out of beta.

This tool if for no other reason will ensure that Firefox is always on my machine even if I use Chrome for day-to-day browsing.

The early Christian church did not fight back against the oppressions of Rome. They were killed by the thousands in gladiator stadiums, torn apart by animals, and crucified for their faith. But they did not resist with arms. They did not fight back with armies or even political campaigns. They fought back with love, forgiveness, and peace. And in less than four hundred years, they defeated one of the strongest empires the world has ever seen.

The Christian church in China did not resist with politics or violence or terrorism while Mao tried to eradicate all Christianity from China. He killed thousands of Chinese Christians in an attempt to wipe them out, but when the restrictions were lifted, the church of 2 million Christians had peacefully grown to 80 million, and the heart of China is now being changed.

The Dutch and Norwegians peacefully resisted Nazi Germany and as a result, far fewer of their Jews were turned over and killed by the Nazi soldiers than those of neighboring countries who fought back.

History is replete with examples of the power of peaceful resistance. It is not an easy path, but there is victory at the end. Either way, people will die, but with pacifism, those who desire peace will not have blood on their hands, and their victory will be a true victory for goodness and justice and mercy. Violent revolutions only end with more violence and a government that is just as oppressive if not more so than the one they replaced because they had to become the enemy to defeat the enemy. Pacifism does not change what it is and so remains pure.

Violence begets violence, and with each death comes more desire for revenge and retribution. I think in the end we would find that far fewer people die as a result of pacifism -- even against the most evil of regimes -- than would have died if a war had been waged.

That final quote is clearly implying that this evidence is proof that we need government intervention. We should strenuously oppose this, and we need to be aware of the subtle messages to try to persuade us to change our minds. Don't give into the manipulation!

In fact, this entire episode is strong and conclusive evidence that we do not need government regulations in this area. The private sector exposed the problem and the companies made the appropriate changes. This is how it should be done. If we don't like a product or service, then we should take our business elsewhere. Facebook is not a right. It is not an entitlement. It is a website, people, and you are free to go and use a different website if you choose. Perhaps if more people did, Facebook would clean up their act. We need to regulate the Internet not the government. I would rather keep the government as far from the Internet as possible for my own peace of mind. They have enough power to be corrupted without giving them more.

How can putting a corrupt and greedy government in charge of regulating the Internet possibly be a good thing?

(I know this is a duplicate post.... I did not mean or intend to post this anonymously)

I second your endorsement of ESET NOD32. I used AVG for years, but finally the annoying pop-ups got to me. NOD32 is quiet, unobtrusive, and has a negligible impact on performance while seeming to be quite good at pointing out and blocking potential viruses. It is by far the best anti-virus program I have used yet. I have never had the need to turn it off for performance reasons even while gaming or doing digital recording. Great software.

Sure. Give them millions of dollars of grant money to do more research while we pass legislation to make manufacturing even more difficult in America so we can export the rest of our jobs to China where they can ignore all environmental laws. Of course, at present rate, the world-wide economy will soon be completely shot, so after we kill off a couple billion people from the resulting unrest, diseases, and famines, our human contribution will be greatly reduced... to negligible effect.

So no. Not really.

I don't really mind patches. They are usually quiet and seamless, working in the background and not interfering with my work.

The real killers are the updates that require a reboot, and these seem to be on the rise of late. Even worse, these are typically for software that I do not use (IE, Windows Media Player, etc.), but I am required to interrupt my work to reboot my machine so that I can be "secure".