I can't believe this was modded down as a troll. This is one of the clearest explanations of why taxes must exist I've seen posted here.

In what way is rapeseed "one of nature's most toxic oils?" Are you referring to varieties of rapeseed that are not bred to have low levels or erucic acid and glucosinolates?

Have you heard of DVRs? How about HBO Go? There are legal ways to do what you need to do here.

Now, if only you could get HBO without having to pay for a full cable subscription...

Please don't misrepresent liberal ideals as "anything goes." That's a distortion that only serves to demonize people who want to improve the world by changing things vs. preserve the status quo by conserving it. I don't think there is strong evidence to support your assertion that there is more evil these days than at some time in the past. Of course, we'd need to agree on a definition of "evil" first, which would take a while.

I'd be curious as to whether they asked any question to gauge the respondents' knowledge of what is in the bible. They may respond differently if they'd actually read it.

I am glad to see someone making this distinction somewhat more clear. To add to that, I'd like to point out that what follows from this is that not all Truths are based in Fact. In other words, what one believes as True may in fact not be a Fact. Where this grates against most analytical thinkers is the underlying desire for consistency between Truth and Fact. This is a value shared among fans of Science and Rationality, and individuals who hold this value experience cognitive dissonance when faced with a Truth that is based in Fiction. Personally I strive to align my beliefs to factual Truths. I acknowledge that my senses and intellectual capacity are limited by the Fact of my humanity, and limit my conclusions accordingly.

Many people with jobs do not have health insurance, even if their employer offers it. Reasons for this include the proportionately high cost of the employee contribution (it's the same regardless of your hourly rate) and the fact that many minimum-wage jobs only offer benefits for employees who work more than 30 or 35 hours a week, but don't offer that many hours per worker.

I can back this up -- I have been using Comodo for over a year after switching from AVG, and have had great success. I've switched my family over as well, and the virus complaints have gone way down. On top of that, I've started recommending Comodo for clients of mine, and they have been thrilled with the result. The smaller memory footprint alone makes it an easy sell over AVG. Aside from one nasty upgrade bug last October, it's been a huge improvement. Let me put it this way -- it made me stop thinking about anti-virus software. Isn't that the whole point?

I accidentally clicked the anonymous coward link on that. I am actually serious about this idea, though.

Exactly. And the best part is, Linux doesn't _have_ to grow at all. 'Linux' is not a company, it doesn't have shareholders or investors -- it's just a tool, code written for a purpose. Economists (or at least market analysts and the business writers who need to fill pages every day) still have not figured out that their old models don't apply to FOSS products.

And that's the problem -- people think a product or service has to make tons of $$ to be successful. Something like Ubuntu subverts our capitalist assumptions, because it actually gets cheaper the better it gets, and the more people who use it. Supply and demand work differently.