It's true, I do. Guilty as charged. Soooooo sorry about that.

You must be soooo much fun at parties.

It simply means their choosing those with whom they wish to do business. I recommend going with Visa, or Discover, etc. You may call their rationale and their standard flawed, but it means little more than they have the right to not do businesses with certain people and organizations.

Train engineers who've witnessed this up close would disagree with you.

I'll grant you the production facilities and fuel, but the redundancy in the US road system is really impressive I think. While they wouldn't hold up long, there are states where you could drive all the way across and never touch a Federal Highway or Interstate. Granted Manhattan is probably screwed, but we should just build a wall around it and make it a prison, anyway.

If the standard you proposed in the second half of your post was at the heart of the Wikileaks release, I might agree with you; however, a large portion of the the content that was released was so broad and indiscriminate that it can only be described as an act of malice. There has been some info released in this and previous collections of documents that could be described as advancing open government, but releasing personal cables between mid-level diplomats as they wrestle with their personal frustrations in dealing with their counterparts does nothing to insure that "Every dime ... be accounted for " or that "all bills before congress should be made publicly available"

There are certainly a lot of real frustrations in that paragraph, some of which I do share and I certainly don't think I'm their only customer. But I also don't believe I have a right to the product they produce. As far as limit, I'm merely saying that my choice and the use of that decision has a very limited immediate and measurable effect, as opposed as the effect of the decision of just over one-half of the populace has on the rest of the country.

By the way, yes, government as a role in keeping each of us and our businesses from polluting our neighbors' air and water.

I'm liable to have my Libertarian party membership revoked in saying this, but you do have small point. I've come to recognize that the neighborhood effect (Friedman's use of the term, not the electoral usage) is sufficient reason for government to have a hand in keeping water and the air clean, but the pollution and its effects and the impact of the regulation have to measurable and focused. It is proper for government to keep companies (or individuals for that matter) from polluting our ground water and air, so long as the regulation is clear, predictable and implemented by the governmental body as reasonably close to the polluter as possible. To say that your vote is as valuable as your dollar is simply not true. If I live in an state with a population that is just happy with polluting farmers and ranchers polluting the groundwater, my vote is hardly significant compared to the dollars required to move to a state with cleaner water.

True, but you're likely not get a different result, as your voted mitigated by millions of others. Whereas, if I chose not to buy a medicine from a pharmaceutical company, the effect is immediate and isolated. My decisions is forced on no one be me and my immediate family as opposed to the 49.99% of the population that didn't agree with me.

Yes, then we'll know how to think about the issue and be able to formulate our generalizations better.

I'm reminded of cattle that come in contact with electric fences and cook themselves (or parts) 'cause they're the haven't the sense to respond to basic pain/discomfort stimuli.

Perhaps if his point were, "Twitter isn't Fun" or "People won't use Twitter 'cause they don't tweet enough or have enough followers," perhaps. I dont' need to have cancer to study cancer.

I'm thinking "Senseless violence between to opposing forces, both of whom have equally valid points but should lay down their tools of oppression and begin to dialog."

CFL's have less tungsten too and have really curvy glass, but non of those three things are the primary reason why I buy light bulbs.

You're overlooking the simple fact that dim is better because you're helping the environment. Dim CFL's are green and green is, by definition, good. So, therefore, you should feel good about living in low-light conditions. In addition, you're also helping to combat light pollution. Again, pollution is bad and anything that is not bad is good.