P4: Gritty Reboot

Aww... thanks?

I was thinking of writing an article on that actually, Dean. Oversaturation can't be good for these kinds of sales.

Blasphemy!

The only time I've ever heard "Happy Christmas" is on Harry Potter, so maybe?

Then I assume Christians shouldn't celebrate Easter since the word originates with a pagan deity? Seems silly to invalidate one's participation in certain events just because of etymology.

SLO is a gorgeous place to live. My father graduated from CP Pomona and loved the education there, so definite recommend on that system from me

What is your point? Generally speaking, and apart from specialized situations and natural monopolies, free markets tend to bring costs down. Comparing the US to the UK in healthcare is unhelpful because both are heavily regulated by government, with differing degrees of government waste and completely unique methods of subsidizing and providing healthcare to their citizens. That free markets have better prices is usually not the argument proponents of socialized care would take issue with, but rather they would argue that the increased costs of regulation are worth it to ensure that everyone is covered.

Yeah, I agree Dean that our system is worse than yours--which is why I say socialized would almost certainly be better than what we have now. To say that ours is more expensive in order to disprove government involvement=higher costs doesn't fly, because we have extremely heavy government involvement as it is. It's just not well implemented at all.

Ah, forgot to mention I picked that up as well Dean, for my wife for Christmas. Also bought a truckload of toys for the kids and some good stuff for the wife and other family members.

Grand total cost to you--someone else was forced to pay for it. We don't need much government for these things; time and again it's shown that heavy government interference in these markets only causes higher cost, whether subsidized or not. I fail to see how forcing some to pay for others' healthcare is sharing in any sense of the word. I am not sure what you mean by this. I am not saying that a free market health care system would cost less for every single person in America, but that it would cost drastically less overall: costs are costs whether paid for by others' tax money or out of your own pocket or by charities. That being said, of course socialized care would be better than what we have now: we couldn't possibly get any worse.

I am a libertarian and personally love helping the needy and poor and destitute; I just don't think it's our government's place to forcibly take money from certain demographics in order to support other demographics. It's disingenuous to depict our position as "opposed to helping the ill n suffering"; we simply have a different approach to how that might look. While it's true that our current system is broken and needs a total fresh start, I'm not convinced that further centralization and nationalization of health services would work for America, regardless whether or not it works in other countries (and the NHS is certainly not perfect either). Though it might be better than what we have, which is a blend of government regulation and artificially sky-high care costs, plus a regulated third-party payment system that contributes to the insane cost of care, I'm of the opinion that each country needs to independently evaluate what's best for its makeup and size--and that may not be socialism for us. Bottom line, this is not an issue of America's current free market system vs. a socialized solution. We do not have free market health care in the US but instead have the downsides of both capitalistic approaches and socialized approaches combined into one nightmarish mess.

They're a religious organization and have the right to discriminate based on religion. I know they've gotten themselves in some controversy over the same-sex marriage issue, but it's impossible to deny that they've done tons of good the world over. If you don't support them that's your right of course, but Battra's point remains that private organizations are a great way to support charity apart from government involvement.

Alright, agreed!

Uh... persecuted for speech? Pretty sure that goes against everything this country was founded upon.

Social conservatives care a great deal about the person's personal beliefs and religion, whereas other political alignments may not care so much. It's totally silly because "small-government" Republicans voted overwhelmingly for Bush in 2000 and 2004, when he pretty clearly was not for small government at all, simply because he played the Christian card. Vote for the policies and the man, not the religion I'd say.

That may be true, so long as it's true deregulation and not just another law saying a certain thing is OK to do. Can a candidate disagree with a personal belief and still uphold others' rights to hold those beliefs? I like to think an ideal champion of human rights would campaign his/her heart out to defend the people's liberty to live their own lives, regardless of his/her own personal opinion on those choices.

I don't know, I haven't watched it in years, but the old man Bruce Wayne element really made it something unique. Also Beyond had tons of cool gadgets but a bit more high-tech than classic Batman, which was a different approach than Spiderman's (though he was smart at jury-rigging in his own right).

A very good thing. I think "the balls" is good whereas simply "balls" is bad.

Batman Beyond was the balls.

The problem with this whole debate is that it centers around the personal beliefs of whoever's in power: if Obama is a social liberal who wants to see all LGBT people living happily together as they please, then he'll work towards those goals, whereas if a social conservative were in office he'd work to preserve "the sanctity of marriage" or whatever. I want to know what business the government thinks it has in prohibiting consensual acts between adults or social relationships (such as marriage) at all. Butt out and let people make their own decisions, even if you don't personally agree with them. At its heart, it's an issue of whether government has the right to regulate and control our own choices, rather than a religious or social issue as it's often painted.

LOL leave it to us Americans to viciously defend our cookie nomenclature.

We just describe them: chocolate chip cookie, peanut butter cookie, Oreo cookie, gingerbread men (which we say too), sugar cookie, sandwich cookie, etc. Edit: thought of a few more--snickerdoodles, ginger snaps, biscotti...

If anyone's on the fence about Minecraft Pocket, bear in mind it's just constructing right now and features no mobs or crafting. However, it's usually $7 and will eventually look a lot more like the PC version, so better to lock in now at 10 cents I'd say. http://mojang.com/2011/12/05/the-plan-for-minecraft-pocket-edition/