Maybe you don't understand what "multiple counts" means? He didn't commit identify theft and extortion one time; he committed them many, many times, and each person he committed them against is a victim and deserves separate justice.

Your entire argument against privacy advocates and consnet laws is one word: they're "misguided."

That's it? That's all you've got? A single naked assertion?

First rule of debate: understand the other side's position at least as well as they do, and understand what it might take to convince them to change their mind.

Hint: Calling them "misguided" ain't cutting it.

You should go read some John Rawls. Clue up a little on what equal opportunity *really* means.

Hilarious.

http://ago.mo.gov/VehicleStops...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.or...

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep...

There's more, there's so much more! There's so much more it kind of drives me insane! I could list hundreds of links! Educational opportunities, health outcomes, workplace advancement, legal mistreatment, housing discrimination, homeland security - name an institution where you think black women are outclassing white men, name one, and I will throw it back in your face so freaking fast.

The idea that we need to regulate me paying one person to transport me from one spot to another is, frankly, ridiculous.

Voluntary certifications? Fraternal industrial associations? Basic safety inspections ? Fine.

What reason is there for regulating commerce in this manner besides cartelization of the transport industry?

Why is it a crime for me to charge someone $40 to take them to the airport in my car?

Uhh, what?

In 1980, Namibia had a higher GDP per capita than Brazil. How'd you all increase your IQs so much in a single generation?

Your country has been saved my embracing open-market capitalist reforms in the late 1990s and an oil boom, and has nothing to do with how smart you are or the color of your collective skin.

You already pick up that tab. People without insurance go to emergency rooms and medical clinics. They get treated and don't pay. Medicare and VA reimburse the hospitals for most of this "uncompensated coverage" (or "uncompensated care"); and most states have a fund that pays out to hospitals which provide a certain percentage of uncompensated coverage.

And of course if those payments are insufficient, doctors and hospitals just raise their rates, which is then passed onto insurance companies, which raise their premiums, which you pay.

I love it. "We organized better than you, we should get to pick our country's economic policy!" It's like yelling "Shotgun!" and demanding to drive the car off a cliff.

Comedy 101: If you're going for offensive, you have to be funny.

Seriously, that was Limbaugh-esque in its complete laziness.

No, they don't have any control over anything. It's only limited by your ability and desire to *pay* for that privilege.

Quit making up things that are not true. It lessens the real arguments, which are entirely economic in nature.

I love how you blithely limit the MPAA-members' financial clout to just their movie revnenue.

We're talking about Sony, Disney, GE, NBC Universal, Viacom, NewsCorp, and Time Warner here. They've got a lot more money than just the movie business, if they are so inclined to throw it around.

Aww, things I wrote 5 years ago now classify as "ancient"?

You cold, Internet.

I'm glad you brought the legal ramifications of this to Google's attention! Here they were just blithely going around instituting policies without any sort of labor attorneys providing counsel, so it's a good thing you showed up to set them straight (no pun intended.)

Seriously, though, as a straight guy, I would never complain about this. I'm not even sure you could win a discrimination lawsuit, since your net income is the same. But the tax is unfair, and I don't want to be the guy with "loves to take advantage of his privileged status" on his resume.

Since Google's entire business model revolves around advertising (and thus, customer targeting), while Microsoft, Apple (and Linux, in a fashion)'s business model revolves around selling OSes, I think it would be pretty easy for MS or Apple to simply say, "We will never collect any data about our OS users' application usage, browsing habits, or other personal information."

Google simply can't afford to say that. So no, not exactly the same thing at all.