Their netflix rates are going up as of January, possibly in small part, because Comcast is charging Netflix in order to not get blocked. So, blame Comcast and the lack of net neutrality for higher prices both now and in the future. It is as simple as that.

And throw in the fact that it isn't that Comcast's costs are really going up, it is just that they are double dipping to squeeze more from their customers.

Sort of. We need the Fed to continue to buy government debt and then to eventually forgive that debt. And we can't run deficits higher than the servicing of the existing debt otherwise the debt burden will continue to go up and we do end up in a situation where we have runaway inflation.

So we don't need to default, per se, but as our own creditor we need to "fix" the balance sheets. If we do it over a number of years then it might be manageable.

You can't practice law without buying into a corrupt system, which doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. We all have to make a living some how.

  But I think people have a right to be critical of the profession as a whole. Lawyers are a weight upon society without being very productive themselves, at least in terms of necessities of life.

In an ideal society we would not have lawyers.

Given that the large majority of lawmakers and judges are lawyers themselves, complaining about "the system" and complaining about "lawyers" is pretty much the same thing.

You had me until "Congo". I think the list of anyone who has seen Congo is just pretty much you and I, my friend. And that list is one person too long.

But were they calling their apps "Java Apps"?

Obviously you are not a Java developer. Sun forked Java years ago. Java is not a universal platform in any sense of the phrase. There are SE and ME versions as well as various major versions which are partly or completely incompatible with one another depending on how you compile your stuff or what libraries you use.

Having Google create an android OS with its own requirements is not forking the Java platform. Because it isn't the Java platform. The problem is that Sun called both their platform and language "Java" as if it were the same thing.

Using Java Syntax and then compiling it into different byte code than the JVM can run should be completely fine.

This is completely different than the MS/Java issue back in the 90s. Where Microsoft was saying it was a java compatible platform but it wasn't working the same as the real JVM. That is bad because you expect your application to run the same, but then you try to run it under Linux or MacOS and it doesn't work. No one would be under any illusion that an android app would work on another platform.

Pretty much 0

As George Bush and Hillary Clinton both so eloquently pointed out "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." and "Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. " respectively.

As Orwell put it: "If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help that of the other."

The logic is inescapable. When people take sides and start shooting at each other then they are going to start noticing who you line up with. There is no free press in war.

I can see why DoD would want to keep the solid rocket companies in business, because those same companies also build and replace ICBMs. But surely DoD can figure out a way to pay to keep those companies in business without forcing NASA to go with solid rocket boosters.

Solid rockets are a good choice when you need to keep a rocket in storage for a while (like an ICBM hopefully), but for an active launch program it is a little less clear why you would go with solid fuel since they make lots more pollutants when you burn them.

I'm shocked. Shocked! You say that spending within a government agency is driven by... AGHAST... politics?

If you want to take some of the politics out, then with their scientists, R&D and launch facilities the NASA centers would be very competitive as FFRDCs. Look at NASA's JPL which is overseen by Caltech and see how successful they have been with the robotic missions: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf05306/#Topic5

Why aren't all the NASA centers run like that? Focus on the missions.

I don't think that is safe to say at all. I don't think you can do harm to something unless it is alive or is used by living things.

Yes, it is unfortunate that people seem to conflate voluntarily helping people and trying to better society through charitable acts with socialism.

To your other point, yes all governments compel using force it is just a matter of degree and for what purposes. The Constitutional Democratic ideal is simply to minimize that coercion and maximize personal freedom. Where the socialist ideal says that freedom is a false promise rarely realized and all must be compelled to the maximum extent to better society.

One side believes that defensive war is the only reason to compel society to mobilize, where the other would mobilize for an endless war against inequality.

I think the sexual revolution has solved some problems. Making life easier on those that didn't follow the social norms. But the societal changes over the last century have also created new problems that once again put us at odds with our own biology.

I think the "someday" part is what is screwed up now. Modern Society says to wait until you are economically independent and stable in order to start a family, which basically means 80% or 90% of the population would have to wait until their 30s to get married and have kids and thus under the traditional model that is when they would start having sex. Maybe under current conditions society would just tell most people that they shouldn't get married or have children at all.

But our bodies are built to start having sex when we are teenagers. It is also a biological fact that we should be having children as teenagers and in our 20s.

Having children in our late 30s and early 40s just doesn't make as much sense biologically. And socially you are running into the biological wall of old age when parents are as old as grandparents used to be and grandparents are too old to help raise the children. Instead we are being forced to rely more and more on complex economic and social arrangements to help care for our children. Arrangements which may or may not be economically sustainable or socially desirable. We are living through a patchwork of social experiments, some of which seemed based on the desire of an elite to further their own societal dominance.

So, the tension we have now is a direct result of the social engineering that has gone on to promote getting married later in life versus the traditional family structure (admittedly also socially engineered) which only satisfies the sexual urges of young adults if they are allowed to get married at a younger age.

Sure getting married young and having children causes its own social problems if those marriages fall apart. But so does having children outside of marriage and never getting married.

I don't think there is an easy answer that will get everyone a life long spouse early in life and put everyone on the path to create strong families. But neither should their be an easy scapegoat either in modern or traditional values.