I refuse to read TFA. After all, the first thing I learned about gravity was that if I don't know anything about it, it can't effect me! Thank you, professor Coyote.

Seriously, do some research into the project I mentioned, and stop accusing me of bigotry when all I'm advocating is a long term solution. A solution to help prevent future tragedies for the people you accuse me of being prejudiced against. Stop looking for reasons to hate me, and actually pay attention to what I'm saying.

The Army Corps of Engineers themselves say they don't know how much longer they can keep the MS River on its current course. That's the unsustainable situation; New Orleans won't be a port for long. The rest of your arguments are just arguments for the sake of arguing, and they're completely irrelevant to my original post. Anyways, any further replies that include random bashing will just mark you as a troll, so I'm out of this conversation.

It seems I was misunderstood. I was trying to point out that all this stuff is wasteful if no long term solution is being looked at. It's like throwing money at treating the symptoms of lung cancer without putting any money or effort into trying to find a cure, as well as paying for cigarettes for the patients. Taxpayer money is going to help people move back into an area that cannot be sustained. Read up on the Old River Control Structure; it won't last, and New Orleans isn't going to last once it fails.

I didn't research the information you posted, because it wasn't relevant to the post I made. None of that information says anything about how much money has been poured into that area, just that the money there is severely mismanaged. A serious problem itself.

Maintaining a dyke may not be expensive, but maintaining and constantly adjusting three dams on the largest river in North America is. I'm just pointing out that everything about this situation is short-sighted.

I'm completely lost on what relevance your psychopath reference has.

We're already spending significant sums of taxpayer money to not only keep those anti-flood measures kept up, but also to continue preventing the Mississippi River from going through its natural course changes (Wikipedia).

I realize that there's a huge economic consideration in the whole mess of the river changing course, but shouldn't we be spending effort and money on finding a long term solution, rather than fighting a losing battle against a force of nature we can only hold back for so long and giving money to people who already received plenty of tax money and charity?

Ok, then I'll agree 69.9999%

Aren't gun store owners required to have background checks done on customers? I don't know if they're responsible for reporting anything that would effect said background checks, but it's something to consider.

There are always exceptions. Also, some people enjoy seeing other points of view, whether it's to broaden their horizons, just to find places to argue or whatever other reason.

Advertising isn't simply manipulation. Advertising also serves the purpose of distributing information about products, services or ideas that people otherwise wouldn't ever know about. Isn't that one of the big issues people always bring up here? Distribution of information? Sure, it's slanted, but what human-generated information isn't? It's all presented based on our perceptions and intended purposes. At least when the info comes from advertising, we know it's slanted so we know to look into it further.

There are always exceptions to the rule; they don't disprove the general usefulness of paying people to promote products, services or ideas. Even various Linux distros use some forms of marketing, such as selling branded items like hats, shirts, etc. Traditional advertising isn't the only way to market something.

Anyhow, just because some people choose to purposely avoid heavily advertised products, it doesn't mean the advertising is worthless. Those companies that can afford to burn their messages into your head obviously get those billions they spend on advertising from somewhere, and they wouldn't have gotten where they are without it.

I'm not trying to start an argument. Just pointing out that there are different ways of looking at things, there is a valid and important purpose to advertising and marketing, and people in marketing aren't necessarily stupid just because most don't understand "technical stuff".

Marketing is essential to get technical products out to the masses. If the folks who create technical products can't convince anyone to buy or use them, then the creation is a moot point.

Intelligence is needed to market products. It's a different way of thinking, but it's still thinking. Marketing folk may very nearly never understand the technical side of the products they're promoting, but the engineers, programmers and scientists very nearly never understand how humans in general react to various stimuli, how to separate populations into demographics, how to choose which demographics certain products will appeal to, how to increase the appeal of a product within those demographics, how to get across a meaningful message in the time it takes for someone to glance at a billboard, etc. Purposeful social interaction takes quite a bit of thought; persuasion of the masses takes a deep understanding of the human psyche.

Without people capable of successful marketing, scientific advancement would slow to a crawl. Without sales, there's no money. Without money, there's nothing to pay all techie people to invent or improve anything. Even governments need to be sold on paying for R&D. And don't try to convince me that politicians in charge of budgets think logically :-P

In other words, just because you don't understand something, it doesn't make it dumb. Science is only one facet of this "bright new world". Without all the rest of the people doing the things you don't understand, you'd be living in a cave with a spear, but unable to convince anyone to go out, put themselves in danger and use the spear to get some food.

There have been so many references to Coke on this page that I'm thirsty. Do discussions about violence in games count towards effective advertising, too?

FOIA allows for the charging of fees to process requests.

From http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/87466.pdf
"Will I be charged for making a FOIA request?
The Department of State is entitled to charge a fee to recover the costs of document search, duplication and, in commercial cases, review. Under certain conditions, documents may be furnished without charge or at a reduced charge."

This isn't simply about her stealing music. It's about her giving stolen music away to thousands of others. If you want to use a physical comparison, she didn't steal two CD's, she stole thousands and gave them away. Or she stole two and willingly allowed thousands of people to make copies. Outrage at something you don't bother to learn the basic facts of is impotent. The fact that you were modded "insightful" shows you aren't alone.

Agreed.