tsotha

That's sort of irrelevant, though, if drug companies in other countries are supporting their research through high prices in the American market.

In general I agree, but in the case of a medical problem it's probably relevant. She's trying to point out not all subpopulations have been studied extensively.

I honestly can't figure out what the guy is thinking. He seems to feel the US has been a negative influence, in general, so it's time to pull back. Which is fine... except that wouldn't explain military adventures in Libya and Syria.

He doesn't want to meddle, but at the same time he wants things to turn out a certain way. So he's willing to bomb people we don't like and train their enemies, but he doesn't want to actually be committed to anything that might reflect badly on him if it went pear-shaped. You can't make alliances when your potential allies are (justifiably) worried you'll bug out at the first sign of adversity.

I really hope he can get SpaceX back on track this year. If they have another failure we'll see an endless stream of stories about how Musk should have known better than to split his efforts over two companies, and how rockets that don't cost a billion dollars can't possibly be safe.

Tesla... well, we'll see when the Model 3 comes out. That will be the dividing line between the producer of overpriced toys for rich people (and Norwegians) and a maker of mass market cars.

Is there a "da da da da da da" sound when you focus on something?

The article makes the thing seem like 100% upside. While that would be great, I'm wondering things like "How long does it last," and "What's the complication rate for the procedure," and "Does it work equally well at all distances?"

Yep. In my state to officially change your name all you have to do is start using the new name, though you'll end up putting both down on the "AKA" section of official documents.

I agree with this. Facebook is a service with a business model. I'm all for people who have legitimate concerns trying to convince the company to adjust policy, but I don't like the way pressure groups try to strong-arm companies.

In this case, though, I will make one exception: As my extended family got FB accounts they started posting family pictures that included me, and identified me by name. If you go back through enough posts you could get a pretty good idea what my habits are just by analyzing what other people have posted.

That's what I think the end game will be. Either this or some later standard will catch on worldwide for consumer electronics, and at that point it'll be a lot cheaper to standardize the higher-wattage.

That's the way he's always been. Remember the "bitter clingers" remarks?

Oh? What about Libya?

>The best possible tax scheme for poor people would be a simple flat tax that is impossible for rich people to avoid.

You're looking at the wrong end of the telescope. It's really not that difficult to look at a tax table and cross-reference your income, so a flat tax is a very minor improvement.

Where every tax system gets tripped up is in determining what qualifies as income. People who manage to avoid taxes aren't somehow lowering their rates; they're getting inflows of money excluded from the "income" accounting box.

It's not an easy problem to deal with, either - states have been trying for centuries. Most of the write-offs individuals and corporations take are perfectly reasonable for some situations and very much abused in others. As you try to prevent abuse you end up with a tax code that's so complicated there are more ambiguous "gray areas" for people to take advantage.

100% agree, and this has been very frustrating for me over the last decade or so. Elected reps (in the US, at least) are barely going through the motions of obscuring the quid pro quo any more, and it seems like nobody really cares.

That's still not the right usage. You could say university executives peddled influence, but you can't say the Koch brothers or their money peddled influence because they're the buyers.

>Great attempt at a moral hazard. It's a business contract. Default on the contract, face the consequences. There is no "right" or "wrong" about it.

You can't default on student loans, right? So we're all good.

Public prisons have the same problem. Where I live the prison guards donate enough to politicians new prisons are always built in lieu of sentencing reform.

We have those in California. New houses are generally built in "Mello Roos" districts, in which bonds are issued to cover things like new schools, streets, and sewers. Homeowners in those districts pay extra property taxes, which in theory go toward retiring the bonds.

Getting the police involved based on someone's emotional state seems like a mistake. How could you possibly measure such a thing with any objectivity?

I don't think the "suburban party" is denying any such thing. In cities like San Francisco people who paid a million plus for their townhouse don't want new highrises blocking their view or their light. People who live in suburbs don't care one way or the other.

She was... intimidated? Seriously? You think it's reasonable to curtail free speech in other people to prevent intimidation?

I don't know how this squares with Google's research on self-driving cars, say, or IBM's efforts in solid state physics.

The problem is there are some religious leaders telling everyone westerners are trying to sterilize them under the pretext of administering a vaccine.

It will be many years before polio is gone from Pakistan and Afghanistan. If ever.

>In short, your example is incredibly ridiculous and has no theological basis.

That's really beside the point, isn't it? If they believe something, however wrong it is in your eyes, it's still what they believe. Of course there's no reason to accommodate people whose beliefs actively affect someone else, but people have a right to refuse associations for any reason.

"she feared... she felt..."

What actually happened to her?

Not just adding and commenting - the users also moderate. IMO reddit users, particularly people who post topics and/or moderate, have every reason to feel some ownership.

Not that they own it technically. But like you say, reddit dies if they leave.

>Or, better still, don't unsubscribe, and instead challenge the intolerance and prejudice.

Good lord, no. 99% of the "intolerance and prejudice" is from out-and-out trolls. They're posting because they want to see a bunch of angry denunciations. Don't give them what they want.

#3 and #4, yeah. A lot of people (myself included) felt she was the wrong person for the job. Not everyone is receptive to the constant speech policing that invariably results when you put an SJW in charge.

Here's a good example of cash equivalents: Families in Appalachia who convert their entire TANF deposit to soda pop and use that as cash.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/367903/white-ghetto-ke...

"It works like this: Once a month, the debit-card accounts of those receiving what we still call food stamps are credited with a few hundred dollars — about $500 for a family of four, on average — which are immediately converted into a unit of exchange, in this case cases of soda. On the day when accounts are credited, local establishments accepting EBT cards — and all across the Big White Ghetto, “We Accept Food Stamps” is the new E pluribus unum – are swamped with locals using their public benefits to buy cases and cases — reports put the number at 30 to 40 cases for some buyers — of soda. Those cases of soda then either go on to another retailer, who buys them at 50 cents on the dollar, in effect laundering those $500 in monthly benefits into $250 in cash — a considerably worse rate than your typical organized-crime money launderer offers — or else they go into the local black-market economy..."

This. If you stay out of subreddits specifically devoted to that kind of stuff (plus a handful of others), you're not going to see it. I'm amazed at the extent to which people are willing to attack posts they have to go out of their way to see.

Reddit is going to lose far more people trying to police out non-PC stuff than they will ever gain from it. And when people move on they do so quickly and in large numbers.

Still... no logical connection there. Are you cutting and pasting this from somewhere else?

It's in no way a straw man. That doens't even make sense in this context.