Private Electrical firms have always dominated the market from it's inception. Municipal power was a progressive reform reaction to the growing electrical monopolies and never dominated the market by any stretch of the imagination. Don't drink the right wing kool aid.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/powering/past/…

There are lots of public utilities that exist for just that reason. Some local politicians (or the people who elect them - since democracy still works on small levels in this country sometimes) realize giving private companies a natural monopoly is a bad idea, and will either gouge their base or be a regulatory…

Nah, that's just neo-liberal corporate welfare. You're not going to find any actual socialists who support this - it requires a capitalist paradigm we don't support in the first place.

Socialism is a very broad term and often misused. This is Market Socialism, it's not removing competition; it's removing profit as a function of price. These gas stations are more than free to innovate and lower their prices, or use alternate strategies to sell higher price gasoline and recoup profits otherwise.

This…

The word means nothing in this country anymore. It's whatever the "right" doesn't like.

Doubtful. It's probably just being operated at 0 profit after expenses. Tax payers just put up the initial capital and then it becomes self sustaining. It's really common, just look into Municipality Owned Utilities.

Obviously. We've done such a great job as stewards of nature thus far. . .

I really wish Daniel Quin's book "Ishmael" was required highschool reading.
We may not have the wisdom of gods, but we sure as fuck have the hubris.

""Clearly modern Ag has been responsible for that, and that wouldn't be the case if our agricultural practices were "bad for the environment". ""

Whelp. Obviously you're not someone to be taken seriously.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultu…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environme…
http://water.epa.gov/polwaste/nps/o…
ht…

This is not true. GMO's required less pesticide for ~10 years, until pests adapted. Natural Selection didn't stop happening in the past few decades. Now it requires more. There's been a 7% net increase in pesticide use per bushel and the number continues to climb. There are some interesting BT varieties being…

Um, you have a serious reading disability?

Where did I ever say Industrial Agriculture didn't produce high yield? You do realize there are concerns with agriculture other than short term yield? Ford Automotive could get a high short term yield of profit by liquidating all of its assembly lines. Of course, the…

Yes, exactly.

The whole "GMO" conversation is incredibly polarized and un/misinformed. They're either THE BEST THING EVER or UNMITIGATED EVIL. There's no nuance or consideration of already existing institutional problems.

Practically, the best position seems to be to oppose the GMO industry and support GMO science.

As an Agricultural Economist (well, ok, I'm finishing up my Undergrad in Agri Econ), I agree that 90% of the resistance to GMO's is somewhere between uniformed to reactionary batshit crazy. That said, I am still "against GMO's".

Not because GMO's are inherently wrong, or "unnatural" (but please, don't compare gene…

It's cool. Good in a lot of ways. Serious lack of content though (even for casual players). It's the trade off to focusing all their efforts on dynamic, world changing one-shot content.

I stopped playing 7 months after release, just logged in a couple weeks ago (over a year after leaving) and there's almost nothing…

PV solar panels do require some really nasty chemicals. It's amazing how people just accept Greenwashing.

As far as Wind Turbines go: There are always drawbacks, but they're overall the least damaging power generation option (aside from Geothermal, which is more region restricted). Newer models are being developed…

The first one looks like she has a Nike swoosh carved into her face instead of a nose. The rest are pretty cool though.

Or just ignore people expressing their opinions on art if they don't sync up with yours.

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/donald…

The Original Libertarians.
Essentially: We're like Right Libertarians, except re reject all forms of hierarchy (capitalism, sexism, racism, etc. . .) rather than just the really obvious government kind. So, really, we're complete opposites.

They believe society works best…

Look more into Anarchism (Left Libertarianism) before writing it off.

They don't just hand wave the necessary roles of "governance". Where most people say "Nations are too big for direct democracy", most Anarchists respond with, "well, we better get to splitting them up into manageable sizes".

Typically they believe…

Very, very well said.

Well, "Libertarianism" is "rooted" in the anti-statist, anti-capitalist left. It was appropriated in the united states in the 1950's. Until then, like in most of the world currently, "Libertarian" was/is synonymous with Anarchist - which is again being appropriated in the USA. Historically, Libertarians and Anarchists…