He could have just strapped a bunch of weather balloons filled with helium to a lawn chair, like a normal idiot, but no-o-o-o-o....

Only if he managed to avoid breeding first.

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Yep, I think this is perfectly prudent.
Ideally, if you choose to smoke, you should be allowed to do so - but only after signing a waiver to any and all health care (publicly or privately funded) for smoking-related illnesses.
It's not a freedom issue - it's an "I'm tired of paying for the consequences of your horrible life decisions" issue.

Though getting my money back has been, uh, diffcult. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You do know, of course, that the "But Hillary would have been worse" defense won't work. Right?

Yep. He couldn't put his family through the wringer of a campaign.
Which is a damn shame, since I think he could have beaten the piss out of any GOP contender. Now we won't ever get to find out, since I'm sure by this point he is planning on just retiring.

Wrong. Very very wrong.
Third parties wither on the vine in this country for a reason. The system is effectively set up to handle only two candidates for president. We don't even handle ties in the Electoral College very well.
If you want more than two parties to have any chance at all, you'd have to move to a parliamentary system, complete with a prime minister. Good luck.

Intelligent, independent free-form radio never died. If anything, it just became easier to distribute.

We do the Santa thing. But at some point, she'll realize it's all fake. That there is no omnipotent bearded guy watching all the time, yet the presents keep coming.

I think that might be exactly what we want.

Uh, from what exactly? The boogeyman under the bed?

This is exactly why we're raising our daughter without God, or other myths. We really don't need her to be crippled by fear of the unknown, let alone the imaginary. (We'll educate her on what others believe, but we refuse to hobble her.)

To be fair, Cooper only opposed gay marriage because, as he pointed out, it's his job as AG to represent the state of North Carolina. He was on record as opposing the ban.

It's not clear to me if the same dynamic is in place here, however.

There's no nice way to put this: You are totally fucking stupid.

You have no idea how much dedicated scientists get paid (damn little, especially when you consider the education required to become one). Or how much actual work is involved (a huge amount, one that only someone truly dedicated to their field could ever possibly tolerate).

I know this because I came extremely close to heading back to grad school for a Ph.D., and I would have taken an 85% pay cut for the privilege (for a minimum of four years). And those I know who did take the plunge, got the three letters, endured the low-paying post-doc fellowship, and managed to latch onto an associate professorship.. got very tired very quickly. Tired of hustling for whatever precious grant money they could, and not doing the work they were trained to do, and left academia altogether.

So, Sparky, I would strongly recommend turning off Fox News, leaving your trailer, and enjoying some fresh air.

If I had mod points to share, you'd get 'em.

You had me until you typed "I expect better from Fox".