From GP:

Switzerland though, the only country in Europe where they are legal to own

Is wrong, because the Czech Republic has relatively lax gun laws, and is part of Europe.

It's hard to get a permit to carry a gun for protection, generally very hard.

And that is the difference. Gun ownership is quite possible in most of Europe and Canada. However, you guys cannot carry them around and shoot criminals you threaten you like I can in the USA (it is not that simple: I would face intense scrutiny by police and prosecutors if I fired in self defense, to ensure that my self-defense claim is valid).

Our Second Amendment is not just about firearm ownership, it is about bearing arms, that is, actually carrying them as we go about our daily business. Whether one agrees that it is a good idea to enshrine in the U.S. Constitution or not is a different matter: our Supreme Court has backed up our right to own and carry handguns for self defense. source.

If you want to shoot firearms for sport in most of the Western World, that is relatively easy. Even in "gun-free" nations you can likely either own a firearm under restriction, or go to a firing range and use one of theirs for target practice without much hassle as long as you aren't a criminal. That covers 99% of the cases where a firearm is discharged by a civilian in the West. Despite being American and supporting the right to self-defense, I have been to gun ranges enough times and read the news often enough to know that while firearms are used in self-defense, most of the time we shoot them for sport.

The saying "one bad apple..." is a bit of an overstatement

Finish the quote:

One bad apple spoils the bunch

Suppose we have a "good cop" who refuses to cross the blue line and stop a fellow officer from abusing a suspect in custody, for example, beating a person in handcuffs laying on the floor who offers no resistance. Clearly the officer abusing authority by beating a prone suspect is a bad cop. However, the good cop is now bad too, for failing to stand up for basic human rights. The bad apple spoiled at least one other.

That is the problem we, in the USA (and elsewhere but I live in the USA) have: our government and its agents have little to no accountability when they do wrong. Yes, some bad cops get convicted of felonies and go to jail. Others get fired and have their names dragged through the mud. Meanwhile, alleged "good cops" watch the bad cops do bad things, complicit in their crimes.

It's illegal to take money for flights in private planes.

I think you are confusing license/certification types with aircraft types. Taking money or other payment for providing the service of flying requires a commercial pilot or airline transport pilot license. There are multiple types of licenses from sport pilot, recreational pilot, private pilot, to airline transport pilot and a couple obscure ones in-between.

It is possible to accept payment for transporting a passenger in a Cessna single-prop aircraft. However, the licensing and certification requirements (commercial pilot) would be excessive for the type of person who would own and fly such an airplane. That is why it is rarely ever done in practice.

source source.

We were shooting in Tunisia, and the script had a scene in which I fight a swordsman, an expert swordsman, it was meant to be the ultimate duel between sword and whip. And I was suffering from dysentery, really, found it inconvenient to be out of my trailer for more than 10 minutes at a time. We'd done a brief rehearsal of the scene the night before we were meant to shoot it, and both Steve and I realized it would take 2 or 3 days to shoot this. And it was the last thing we were meant to shoot in Tunisia before we left to shoot in England. And the scene before this in the film included a whip fight against 5 bad guys that were trying to kidnap Marian, so I thought it was a bit redundant. I was puzzling how to get out of this 3 days of shooting, so when I got to set I proposed to Steven that we just shoot the son a bitch and Steve said "I was thinking that as well." So he drew his sword, the poor guy was a wonderful British stuntman who had practiced his sword skills for months in order to do this job, and was quite surprised by the idea that we would dispatch him in 5 minutes. But he flourished his sword, I pulled out my gun and shot him, and then we went back to England.

Source

DMCA most certainly does prohibit writing code of certain functionality.

DMCA prohibits circumventing copy protection, which is an end-around the fair use law. Since a browser plugin runs in the browser, the endpoint that must decrypt and display any encrypted content such as ads, how is the DMCA relevant even if web sites start delivering encrypted content?

(BTW, fellow Americans, I just wanna remind you that this is another election year. Last one, almost nobody took seriously. If you also don't take this election seriously too, then that's another 2 years with no chance of repealing DMCA, instead of a terribly slim chance.)

Please tell me which candidates that have an actual chance at being elected to office want to repeal the DMCA? Which Presidential candidate who actually won at least one electoral vote last election would have signed such a repeal bill had Congress passed it? Considering that the past few decades have given us nothing but a more restrictive IP regime and no serious debate on the topic occurring where it actually matters (Congress), I believe there is approximately a 0% chance of any meaningful copyright reform for the foreseeable future.

Congress is the board of directors, and they need to be taken out of the day to day decision system.

This is by design. The Constitution even limits the military budget process to no more than two years, with no similar limit on any other cabinet department. Back in 1789 when the Constitution was drafted, military coups were more common than they are today. Even outside of coups, military leaders were far more influential in governments. Our founders wanted to prevent that and put the military firmly under the control of civilians, to mitigate the risk of a powerful military controlling or even taking over the government.

After WW2, with the Cold War in full swing, the military became a favorite vehicle for delivering pork, as well. That, to me, is the real problem here. Our military is no longer about defense (sorry, "invading Iraq" which is 7,000 miles away is not "defending our country"). It is designed to evoke patriotism and support in the people so the wealthy can funnel lucrative contracts to favored military-industrial complex contractors. Essentially, stealing from the poor (taxpayers) to give to the rich (CEOs of companies like Boeing). Yes, those companies provide some value. However, they do so with gross inefficiency and well beyond the level required to defend U.S. soil. That is the problem that needs solving.

You realize that this is actually a valid technique that has been used for many years, right?

Valid technique, yes. Science does back up the fact that this is a valid technique. However...

It does work if done properly because the female body does give signs when fertile.

...its efficacy is terrible. Yes, the female body does give signs when fertile, or more accurately, when preparing to ovulate. The problem is that said signs are like pissing in the ocean compared to the hundreds of other signs the body gives off on a regular basis. This makes it nearly impossible to use this technique. Even more so if the woman has any health problems. Thyroid slightly out of whack? Oh well, enjoy the next nine months. Sick? Too bad.

The problem is that it should be done with a lot of coaching from someone who knows what they are doing, which tends to be a failure of most apps.

The problem is that this technique works in theory, but fails miserably in practice even with "coaching," whatever that means. I am not inviting a coach into my bedroom to tell me when it is safe to fuck my wife and not get her pregnant.

Word of advice, if you care to listen. You need something else other than "Trump Bad, we oppose" and this.

1994 and the Contract with America Republicans beg to differ. They basically ran on a platform of "Bill Clinton sucks, vote for us" and it mostly worked. They formed a large enough voting bloc in the House to control not only the legislation that their own party could pass, but the entire House. It made a lot of career politicians really nervous until they figured out how to marginalize and control them.

I bet you wouldn't get Metallica songs either

"My life sucks, I'm so emooooooo-ah!"

Wait, were you talking about before or after that bus crashed?

Per the U.S. Constitution 10th Amendment, any power not granted to the federal government is reserved to the states and the people.

Article I, Section 8 explicitly authorizes Congress to regulate interstate commerce:

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

Since these are online games and the location of the servers and clients do not matter, it is reasonable to assume that buying loot boxes falls under interstate commerce. Courts in the U.S. have consistently agreed with this view in the past.

Turkey is the best, most flavorful, most nutritious meat available, if it's done correctly.

Bison is a bit more nutritious than turkey, both in the good stuff it contains more of and the bad stuff it contains less of (this source is a bit more neutral in their comparison). If you like beef, bison tastes really good, and is much healthier than beef as well.

What is reality is that all statistics say that one of the best ways to increase your risk of getting killed is to carry a gun.

I wonder what the statistics look like when you break this down farther. There are subgroups. For example, some people own firearms who have little to no training. Not just in the mechanics of how to use them, but tactical training. Others have varying levels of training. I would expect the first group to meet a bloody end more often than the second group. Furthermore, how often does someone wield a firearm defensively and end up dead, vs. the experienced user who wisely chooses to leave his concealed firearm holstered because brandishing his firearm would be a tactical failure?

The statistic you mention is true, but it is a very broad brush. The real world is far more nuanced. I would be very curious to see it broken out in more detail, but I have so far not seen anything.

20 countries, ha ha, try keeping track of 50 states and 8 territories like in the US

That is not even the worst part. Sales tax in the USA can be owed to states, counties, municipalities, and other vaguely-defined-but-real government entities. This means that even in the same state, or same county, sales tax may vary. You could walk across the street and pay different sales tax on the exact same item because that street is a boundary between tax jurisdictions.

There are companies that do nothing except keep track of the constantly-changing tax rates all over the country and make that data available to merchants. This includes not just rates by location, but by item - luxury goods may be taxed at a higher rate, staple food items taxed lower. In some locations, tax rates go up the more you spend, a progressive sales tax. There may be "tax holidays" certain days of the year where no tax is charged - but that may be only at one level of government, for example, you may pay state sales tax but no local taxes.

Taxes suck.

M$, lol.

I thought this was going to be about the constant disruptions I receive on my mobile device, because Direct Marketers' Association members refuse to respect the Do Not Call List and Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991.