I'm not sure he's opposed to free trade. He's mostly said that the existing deals were bad. He wants to re-negotiate trades that he considers bad. That doesn't make him anti-free trade.

Now Sanders was clearly anti-free trade.

Because PR.

'Gateway' drug is kind of a pun, at least.

Well, then Wikipedia is wrong. France has a socialist president and government. Greece just elected a socialist prime minister. There's plenty more in Europe.

The brand of socialism advocated by Sanders is NOT North Korea or Cuba. It's the Scandinavian model that is democratic.

The problem is that the term "socialism" is overloaded and means different things to different people. In America, due to cold war history, it has taken on a very pejorative meaning.

Wow, Godwin already?

There's been plenty of free and democratic countries in Europe who willingly voted in a socialist government, willingly accepted to be taxed to pool their resources and together achieve greater things (free education, better infrastructures and healthcare, etc). And when they were unhappy with the amount of tax they were paying or how it was utilized, they voted for a different government. Nobody stopped them. Nothing oppressive. No coercion.

Funny then how the most educated countries in the world tend to elect socialist or social-democrat governments.

So don't worry, socialism has no chance in America.

Well, that's all socialist Bernie Sanders is using as his model. It's doesn't take an authoritative government, just people who are willing to pool their resources for the common good. France also had a socialist president and socialist governments in the 80s, and nobody lost any freedom.

Bernie Sanders, for one.

"Radical lefties"? They're claiming Sweden as their model. Sounds very dangerous!

Yeah, Sweden is such a dictatorship...

Serious question: is there a docking station for these phones?

Maybe the bad guys will do that to cover their tracks and in doing so help protect the privacy of the average Joe as well? That would be ironic, at least as far as Alanis is concerned.

Yeah, there would be a crackdown.

I've taken a few MOOCs and even completed a few. My big problem is that pretty much as soon as I completed the course I forgot everything I'd learned. I have a couple of explanations as to why that is:

- MOOCs don't usually have a project component where you'd get direct feedback from a TA (that's obviously due to the number of people registered). This is changing as peer-assessments are being used more and more as a way to handle project grading.

- the course in question wasn't directly related to what I'm doing in my day job. During university, a course you're taking is at least often useful as a prerequisite for the next one.

- I'm getting old and stupid. Maybe just smart enough to complete the course but not enough to retain it? I wonder how much more I'd have retained, say, 10 years ago.