Everyone understands that in 2009, burning coal is essential to keep our power on.

The point is that the way the coal is mined and burned is incredibly destructive to the local and global environment, at the same time that it's hugely profitable to the energy companies.

Now, despite what a lot of people here claim, the left has nothing against profits either. But we have a lot against theft. By raping the environment and passing those huge costs onto the rest of us, the energy companies are stealing from us. That's not capitalism, that's theft.

Take some of those monster profits and use them to mine responsibly and scrub the results of the results of the burning. Invest some of those monster profits into greener technologies.

"You've perpetuated the big lie that 50 million Americans don't have access to health insurance (when in reality, most of the uninsured simply choose not to buy)."

"Just making things up" is not a substitute for actual facts.

Nearly all the people who don't have health insurance simply cannot afford it. The economics are very clear - if you are making minimum wage, then health insurance would consume almost half your income.

So I suppose you have a choice... "you can eat and have a roof over your head, or you can have health insurance".

FYI: "Belt and suspenders" is generally used as a positive term in engineering circles, to refer to "good" overengineering (uncorrelated redundancy, like both faxing and emailing a contract with a deadline) - often used in the phrase "I'm a belt-and-suspenders sort of guy".

This is not the common connotation to the phrase and I agree that it's being used here in the sense of "redundant".

"The public option has emerged as the hottest point of conflict yet between Obama and the progressives who worked hard to elect him last year."

What points do we have that don't conflict?!

I keep hearing variations on this.

But I've see no signs of great shrewdness or intelligence since he was elected - from the Wall St bailout to Gitmo to Afghanistan and now healthcare, all I see is bumbling and a business-as-usual, "right-wing" approach.

Can you give an example of his shrewdness since he's been President?

He made a great impression during the election, but that was the end of it as far as I am concerned.

The American government seem to *love* that socialized military!

Over half the US budget goes to the socialized military - which is entirely extracted from huge taxes, extracted by force from the population.

Year after year, decade after decade, Democrat or Republic, after endless failures like Vietnam, 9/11, Iraq.... the socialized military continues to grow, unchecked, trillions vanishing.

Witness pallet trucks of hundred dollar bills sent to Iraq to vanish forever, no one ever charged. Witness the complete failure on 9/11 - who lost their job over the chain of failures due to utter incompetence?

Or what about socialized Wall Street? In a capitalist economy, when a financial firm became worth less than zero, it would have to drop out of the game. Surely, that's what capitalism does, right?

But in socialized Wall Street, our tax money, money taken from us with the threat of force, is given to these billionaires so they can get back into the game. They play with our money - they collect the profits if they win, we pay the losses if we lose.

The trillions that have been given to socialized Wall Street in the last year would pay for a decade of quality medical treatment for uninsured Americans.

The point is that the right loves socialism - as long as the money is being taken from the average guy and given to the ultra-rich. The moment some of this money actually finds its way back to us, the cry goes up: "Socialism!"

It's not the act of writing the software per se - it's that it allows you to do illegal things, like front-running.

Much like guns, where owning them is legal but discharging them at others is not in many cases.

Extending the analogy, there's the legal concept of an "infernal device" - something like a bomb or similar device which is so hazardous to life that simply making one of these things is a crime.

This software might even fit into that category...

...(his own words) so this has to be good news for both remaining Obama supporters.

Perhaps the bailout was better than nothing-at-all - but was nothing-at-all ever even a possibility? I don't think so.

The fact is that huge risk-taking went on on the taxpayer's dime, for which all the perpetrators were richly rewarded; that a large number of literal felonies were committed ("due diligence" isn't just a good idea, it's the law); that huge sums of money were extracted right from the Treasury into the pockets of the ultra-rich; and worst, that the risk-taking behaviour continues to happen.

People weren't forced to mark to market. There are still huge piles of junk securities underlying many firms. Even by the rosiest estimates, most of the foreclosures and layoffs have yet to happen. Retail stores are teetering - there are still far too many of them - if Christmas 2009 isn't a roaring success, this Spring's retail bloodbath will be like a walk in the park compared to February 2010. Commercial real estate is collapsing...

All of you have bought into the story that the recession is over. It's as if you never read a history book.

Remember that we have to "move forward" - which means that criminals, if they're powerful, should not be inconvenienced by things like "police", "investigations" or even "trials".

Where's my change?!