I agree that I can taste the difference. I've never done a double blind test, though.

In the Philadelphia area, Pepsi has been selling "throwback" versions of their products, which contain real, honest to goodness sugar. I know that Mountain Dew is one of the "throwback" products that has been available.

I eat a bowl of cereal with fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries, whatever is in season) almost every morning and it usually gets me through until lunch no problem. Of course, mornings are also coffee time, so maybe that's what is keeping me filled and energetic :)

Either way, it's clearly not a "free market". I was defending Ron Paul (whom I don't actually like that much) from people claiming that he's being hypocritical here. I can't imagine how one could consider the DNS to be a "free market", so I don't see any hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would be him using his influence to have tax credits applied to a failing local business, or something along those lines. In this story, he's appealing to bureaucracy to fix a dispute in a heavily regulated corner of IP law (which itself is a government interference in the free market).

As I said elsewhere in this thread, I don't disagree with this kind of regulation. But I also don't pretend it is a free market.

That's a technicality. The US government created ICANN, set up the rules for ICANN, and retains ultimate authority over ICANN.

No, that's not important. A de-facto monopoly affects Ron Paul in exactly the same way as a mandated monopoly. Ron Paul cannot realistically expect people to jump to an alternate DNS system just for his web site.

Domain names are not an inherently scarce good. The fact that anyone is arguing over a "dot com" is a direct result of government regulation. I think regulation here is probably helpful, but that does not make it a "free market".

Free markets exist even without government intervention. ICANN does not. If ICANN just... went away... there would be a painful period followed by competing solutions to the problem of letting people find the IP address they are looking for. The ICANN solution might be preferable to that, but let's not pretend it is a "free market".

I actually don't reject farmer subsidies out-of-hand, despite my dislike of subsidy in general. We need farmers. We don't "need" shore towns - that certainly is true. But we don't "need" to move out to suburbs, either. The highway system is more about convenience and comfort than need. Philly is a city built for 2 million with a population of around 1.2 million. The surrounding suburbs are a luxury for people who don't want city living.

Says someone who's livelihood does not depend on the beach. I'd also argue about how we are "affected" by roads. There is good "affected" and there is bad "affected".

35% of the country are more than happy to accept tax money from the rich beach communities for their own infrastructure.

I'm fine with that if you agree to lift the mandate that the beach be open to all. If you make us pay for it, it should be ours. Want to visit the shore? I hope you are willing to pay for the beach. I hate unfunded mandates even more than I hate subsidies. If the Jersey Shore could charge enough to cover beach replenishment, they wouldn't need Federal money. They are allowed to charge a small fee to cover lifeguards and cleanup, and they can make some money selling business licenses, but nothing like the $4 million or so needed every couple of years for beach replenishment. The Feds also drive that cost up, since they won't let the shore towns use the silt from the bays for dune construction. I understand the desire to maintain sand quality, but we are talking about stuff that is going to be buried except during events when the beach is completely washed away.

It's still not a "free market". It's a monopoly with a lot of choices. You buy from the government or no one at all.

Free market? What part of a government monopoly on providing domain names seems free market to you?

But haven't Windows tablets been available since the early 90s? What does the Surface bring to the table if you leave out the Metro part? Why would this be more successful then the preceding Windows 7 tablets?

The tablet app is pretty much useless on our Kindle Fire HD. Maybe it's better on an iPad, but I don't have one to test it out.

Because the people of New Jersey are financing roads they will likely never drive on? New Jersey runs at a net loss to the Federal Government. More money goes to the feds than comes back. You may never set foot on a New Jersey beach, but in all likelihood I will never drive down a federal highway in Alabama. Both roads and beach projects stimulate economic development. Both are infrastructure improvements. People can live in the middle of goddamn nowhere and get Federally subsidized electricity and Federally subsidized telephone and Federally subsidized postal service. But God forbid we pile up $4 million worth of sand every 5 years on the shoreline of a town in the most population-dense state in the nation.

Anyway, beaches are required by Federal law to be accessible to the public, so it seems fair that some money should be granted towards that mandate. Most of those shore towns could afford to pump in the sand if you let them charge you an arm and a leg to visit the beach. And I'm not talking about the $20/season beach tag, either!

It varies, but there are certainly areas where development was only realistic once a highway was put in. Obviously Robert Moses style "highway through an urban neighborhood" is not allowing farmland to become suburbs. Most controversial highways are not, since the reason they are controversial is that they move through population centers.

But it is quite hard to argue that sleeper neighborhoods would have populated farmland 30 miles outside of a city without highway access. The commute would simply take too long. I mean, crap, look at Google maps... every highway exit has a cluster of growth. You can tell it is growth and not pre-existing development because it clusters on the highway, you can still make out the old farm boundaries, and each development has it's own access out to the main road that feeds the highway.

I'm not suggesting that there is a whole lot of corruption involved in siting highways - but it's pretty hard to deny that the people who own the land near the new interchanges end up winning big. Most of the rest of us benefit as well, but not on the same level. This is the same situation we are in with the beaches. They put up big-ass dunes for $4 million a pop in front of these multimillion dollar homes and those owners reap a disproportionate reward. But at the same time, the livelihoods of everyone involved with the tourist industry are also protected. Infrastructure is always going to benefit some more than others.