Be a government informer

Betray your family and friends

Fabulous prizes to be won

Are you new to politics? Blaming the previous guys is a time honored tradition around the world. I've seen politicians blame the previous party that was in government during their third succesive term!! You expect Democrats to stop doing it during the first term??? That would be breaking with centuries of tradition.

I guess it matters if the heating wand up your ass vibrates too. Might be a niche market for men but i'm sure a lot of women would be climbing over each other to get at those.

You can write faster than you can think???? What sort of brain retarding drugs are you taking?

Isn't that the point he was making? It's open to abuse by unscrupulous operators who _will_ try to screw you? Those type of operators aren't exactly rare. The more complicated and (more to the point) secretive they make everything the more it is open to abuse to the point where they will charge you $350 dollars for something that can be done in 5 minutes with a hammer and anvil.

Some things run by the government need to be staffed for peak, not average loads. If everybody only hired staff according to cost effectiveness (ie average load) then there wouldn't be enough staff to deal with emergencies. If that means that a lot of the time the staff have nothing to do then so be it. Some things are more important than money.

I remember having test gear that had both a touch screen and a keyboard - guess which method people tended to use.

Correct - the keyboard. Reaching up to touch the screen ended up giving you a sore shoulder.

Unless the screen is where you would otherwise have placed your keyboard and mouse then they won't get used. Great idea for specialised devices where that is the case but for general use in computing? The display would have to be set flat into the desk and even then wouldn't one have to reach further forward than one does with a keyboard/mouse causing the old achy breaky shoulder syndrome?

Computers are supposed to make life easier, this would just make it easier to file a worker's comp claim. Hmmm, maybe they are a good idea after all - bring forth hither the touchscreens!!!

Control is controlled by it's need to control - William S Burroughs

Ever heard of Murphy's Law?

oops, typo: that should say "can't stack the election"

I used to think that when i was young and idealistic too but as I grew older and saw the consequences I changed my mind. When voting is compulsory crazy fanatics like the religious right in the US can stack the election. If everybody has to vote their impact is minimised and the true will of the population is gathered. It may seem that taking away the choice to not vote is undemocratic from an idealistic standpoint but true democracy is the will of the people and not the apparent will distorted by the influence of fanatics.

We can't avoid idiots voting but we can minimise the effect of fanatics idiots and the only way to do that is compulsory voting. The reality is that you don't have a functioning democracy when voting is optional; what you have is a government acting in the interests of minority groups that can be herded into the voting booths instead of a government acting in the interests of the majority.

Isn't that just democracy?

Non-mandatory voting = stupid fanatics herded into polling booths by their stupid shepherds and stacking the election to elect stupid fanatics to enact stupid fanatical policies.

I think I'll take plain old democracy with just stupid people instead of stupid fanatics

And it had nothing to do with the Republican Party being a bunch of greedy megalomanics and everybody was sick of them turning their country into a Fascist state?

You think the US has better overall healthcare than the rest of the western world?

My guess is that you are on drugs that will never be covered by NHS. I hope you brought enough for everybody.

Here here! I second bs on that claim. I live in Australia which has both private healthcare and public. If you are using only the public health insurance the only limitation is that you have to use public hospitals when hospitalisation is required. There is NO stipulation as to which GP you use, you just go to the doctor, sign a form and they get paid by the public health scheme - even if you do have private insurance. Everybody gets healthcare, not just people with money. Isn't that the way a compassionate society should behave?