Disagree. Supreme Court said it's effectively a tax. We're "mandated" to pay tax for lots of things that we either consume individually and/or help the public good.

Well a lot of people can't switch (it's linked to their employment and the only affordable option) or they actually can't get it at all (though that's changing for the better). I guess you don't have any pre-existing conditions.

It is a matter of public good vs individualism here and the balance between the two is shifting a little for health care. There are lots of other things the government does for the public good that affect you as well. Would you rather pay for your own security force vs have the government require you to pay for their police? I'm sure you can think of other examples. The deal is that they have decided the public good issue relating to health care is important enough at this time that things need to change. I think they're probably correct, and that in the long run pretty much everyone will benefit.

George W: "if this were a dictatorship it'd be a hell of a lot easier, as long as I'm the dictator"

I don't begrudge him saying that as I understand the spirit it in which was said. Same for Kerry's quote you have there. I'm pretty sure both realize that the way it is now is the best way.

McCain: "If I were dictator, which I always aspire to be, I would write it a little bit differently."

My insurance has a max out-of-pocket and they do keep track of it. I see it on stuff they mail and I see it when I log in to their awful site. I don't get it.

The technology is supported by mainstream programming languages like Python, C++, and Java, and should allow developers to more simply code for a particular compute resource with no need for special APIs.

So how do you do this in Java, Python? Did nobody ask? I did a search for "java huma uniform memory access" and this page came up first with nothing from java.com or oracle in sight.

Ok more searching says to use OpenCL and lots of stackoverflow questions... but they're not new... and OpenCL is not Java. What do you do for this new easier to program hardware? Is their definition of "supported" currently a bit optimistic? Supported by Java..... because Java lets you do lots of things not actually in Java and still work with a Java program, so pretty much anything is "supported" in Java. Is that the jist? I guess we need the tools to evolve before things really take hold.

Be careful not to step on the other thousands of tiny antennas!
Muhuhuhhahah
http://marswillsendnomore.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/calvin-hobbes-dinosaur-003.jpg?w=615

Is that for real, he April Fooled his resignation?

Lifetime appointed???

My buddy ran the Boston Kilomarathon. He's dead.

Just one point. I use Google Picasa web albums without having Google+. I know they are kind of becoming integrated now since I've seen one web album that is on Google+ but mine aren't.

Tea is a diuretic too. I wonder how it compares though... do you still get more hydrated with tea than with beer? Is tea a positive hydrator? (people above said beer is a negative hydrator).

There's a pork chop in every beer :)

Early beers didn't actually have much alcohol content from what I've read. The wine was more like what beer is now for alcohol percentage and beer less.

Head for the islands.. of bush, bush beer.

But maybe not Mead, which uses honey, not grains, so agriculture wasn't a big help. Yeah it's not beer but kind of related.

"It can be regarded as the ancestor of all fermented drinks," Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat has speculated, "antedating the cultivation of the soil."
"The earliest archaeological evidence for the production of mead dates to around 2000 BC."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead

The theory is that mead was brewed before the beginnings of agriculture and may have spurred it on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead