Yup, it will be a voting block of organizations destroying all the competing ones.

Bullshit. What killed him is a lack of liberty.

The idea that none of the 7+ billion people on the planet would be offering the $10 treatment that would have saved Raj's life is simply laughable. The only reason this theoretical person doesnt get the theoretical $10 treatment today is the very real problem with the concept of intellectual property imposed upon the theory-verse.

In the real world, the government created another monopoly. People really die because of it.

Would you ever try to pull the same horse-shit argument if it was about Food and Starvation? The government grants a monopoly to a single company for all food production, and they want $10,000 dollars per sandwich.... would you really say "its the need for food that killed, not some greedy, heartless food corporation" ??

Of course not. You would say that its the government that was responsible for the killing. Why do you pretend that medicine is different?

So what you are saying is a pure democracy would reduce the power of small but passionate groups while giving a voice in government to small but passionate groups such as third parties?

Do you even listen to yourself?

So your story is that it never happens except when the liberals complain about all the "evil rich" that move away from high taxation. Then your story is that it happens all the time, right?

I think Penn Jilette said it best.

"When you vote for the lesser of two evils you get ever-increasing evil."

..and this is why corporations should get to act as a "person" with regards to many laws. Thats over $100 billion in paid taxes right there for just those 12 corporations, equivalent to about ~$900 per household.

Of course they get to donate to political campaigns.. so do unions, for pretty much the same reason. Remember that this country was started specifically because of taxation without representation.

Why is it that you dont understand this? You do know what a refund is, right? Its when you already paid more in taxes than you ultimately end up owing at the final tally.

In other words, Facebook has actually handed the government nearly half a billion dollars in direct tax payments to the government this year, and thats not counting payroll taxes and so forth.

Its normally not an issue but when you get a program from a 3rd party such as a mirror or from a torrent, which you would know is exactly this case with this benchmark if you bothered to try to download it, then its nice to have evidence that the program was packaged up using the keys of the developer even if there is some small chance that someone other than the developer might have gotten the keys.

Makes your argument seem a bit silly now, doesnt it?

Then you should probably start here.

As long as the project is funded by Californians, I say go for it. They don't seem to mind dismal-looking cost/benefit analyses

This, and few seems to fucking know it, and its starting to piss me off that so few do.

The raw facts:

Government spending in 2011 was $6.251 trillion dollars (source: OECD.ORG
Total number of households in 2011 was 114.761 million (source: CENSUS.GOV

Government spending per household was $54469.72 in 2011, more than the median household income (source: basic math)

People seem to get caught up in the Federal numbers as if thats all that was spent, all that was borrowed, and all that is owed. Its not the case. People also jump to erroneous conclusions such as if the Federal government was greatly downsized that many government services would be cut, when in actuality the State and Local governments are funding and providing most of the cost of most of the services they cite as potentially lost or harmed (education, police, fire, justice, etc..)

The solution to the problem isn't cutting taxes on the middle class, raising taxes in the rich, or the ridiculous idea of spending even more.. no, the solution really is to stop spending so god damned much.

Did what?

The accusation is rape, but not all accusations of rape are because of actual incidents of rape.

Of course. Contrary to stupid peoples opinions, the burden imposed upon society actually matters.

Gee thanks. Now please explain what that has to do with what i said? It has nothing to do with it.. you are just pretending that it does.

Its like saying "well you still have the freedom to make your own car" after they take away your freedom to buy one and another persons freedom to sell one. Its a bullshit argument and you know it. It doesnt even pass simple scrutiny.

Liberty includes the freedom to voluntarily trade labor between consenting people. You don't get to redefine it.

By "screwing up" do you mean that they told this reporter that even though the display range said 32 miles, they told him it would go the 61 miles planned?

This is not the kind of thing that is a "screw up" -- this is the kind of thing that someone would claim to have happened while lying his ass off.

Do you even listen to yourself?

Its not really restricted to 'electric cars' tho.

I remember one guy insisting that if a small gas powered generator can "power his entire house" when the lines go down, then somehow it should also adequately power his vehicle.

This isn't the case. Your house almost certainly requires less power than your car because the moving parts you might have inside of it don't weigh nearly as much as the car. The watts you use for things like light generation are just a rounding error compared to the watts needed to provide proper performance of a road-ready multi-thousand kilogram vehicle.