Except the volunteer fire department is still a socialist enterprise, regardless whether a firm allows their employees to participate (there are indeed benefits to the employers in this arrangement) or not. Anyone (or any firm) who participates need not be coerced for it to be socialism. There is even a branch of socialism called Liberterian Socialism, which is based on free association. For purposes here a volunteer fire department and its volunteers are sufficiently socialist, even if they otherwise work for wages in a capitalist firm.

You're confusing socialism with something else. from Wikipedia:

You're taking that analogy too far. There are a couple of things that you're getting wrong.

1. Benefits conferred by vaccination are not inherited, therefore your immune system is not made less sophisticated because of vaccination.
2. Adaptive immunity factors (i.e. receptors) are more or less randomly generated and "trained" by the body. Vaccines do not change that. (see Somatic Hypermutation.)

Vaccination gives your body a head-up on diseases. It gives your body an opportunity to develop adaptive immunity toward the disease in question. It does NOT affect how the immune system fundamentally works.

Adaptive Immune System is a fascinating part of biology. You should really spend some time understanding it.

While it is true that there is no evidence for horizontal transfer of the genes inserted into GM plants for selection, the fact remains that antibiotic resistant genes do have something to do with GMO. I was responding to the assertion that antibiotic resistant genes and GMO are completely exclusive topics.

Though I have to concede that the second part of my reply, while theoretically possible, however seems to be false in practice. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21722080

The genetic modifications often involve inserting fungal or bacterial antibiotic synthesis genes into to the plants. That is, the GMOs produce antibiotics, which can lead to more antibiotic resistant bacteria.

I think it is somewhat dishonest to brush off both atheists and fundamentalists, equally, claiming that you find both their arguments puerile. The atheists and fundamentalists are arguing in response to each other. Just because the atheists have to respond to repeated assertions about the validity of the genesis story, does not mean that they somehow are responsible for it, or that it makes them equally bad as the fundamentalists. If anything, you can be rest assured that the fundamentalists will, for all time, use more or less the same type of arguments. It's sad that anyone who responds will inevitably look like an idiot, but that's simply the way things are.

Well, that's only true if you ignore the period in between when the religious groups decided to hunt down and torture anyone who disagreed with their tenets. Even in the pre-WWII America, to be a successful scientist, you had to at least pay lip service to religion. I'm not sure citing an ancient Greek philosopher would've helped them much.

Yep. Until that process balances out, we'll have massive unemployment. Let's starve them straight. Yay!

While I agree that for-profit schools are not necessarily bad, the point you're making is moot. Much of the massive marketing in recruiting students. even by land grant institutions, is due to competition in the market, mostly from the emerging for-profit sector. Today, schools compete for students as much as students compete for schools, a trend sharply different from earlier parts of the 20th century. The whole college selection process is almost a farce.

I agree that this behavior will bring the downfall of society. The number crunching does not always account for the value of liberal arts majors or other non-STEM majors and when colleges market education, it will be to increase your income, make you more attractive, raise your popularity and not to make you a well rounded human being. It's ironic that marketing targets emotions, but the exploration of the emotions like arts, theater and literature are all but worthless to the capitalist educators.

In Michigan there is (almost) no funding for the state parks system from the legislature, and they have to rely exclusively on the admission fees. While it's holding together for now, it sorta like a Dinghy in a hurricane, ready to fall apart at the first sign of trouble. Yeah, long live the state parks indeed.

The 3.0.4 Update was released today (Oct 18).

http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/hp-touchpad-gets-webos-3-0-4-update-now-able-to-answer-calls-fr/

Check the Software Manger for OTA update.

Amen. Why would anyone really care for the opinions of the BSD people regarding RMS? Don't they have their own Ryandian hell to deal with.

What about people who have their emails automatically filed through filters (like Sieve on the IMAP server) and search them when they need to? Their productivity must the through the roof.

Don't forget Kindle touch wifi for $99, about $30 less than nook touch wifi.

You linked to Rain Man, I think you meant Repo Men.