"We the People are always stuck subsidizing the left's 'losers'."   As opposed to subsidizing the right's "winners" -- the oil companies that keep us hooked on fossil fuels and continue to benefit from billions of dollars in exploration tax breaks and lucrative oil leases while they're making record profits?   As...more

But at least we can spell...

If I'm pusillanimous to fork over $5 (even Aussie dollars) for just looking because someone asks -- or tries to tell -- me to, then I deserve my fate. A fool and his money are indeed soon parted.

Uh, how are they going to collect it?

To dcaz: Thank you also for your second answer, as I was wondering how you came to the $300 million threshold. IMHO also it is highly unlikely that lotteries with the internal controls of Powerball and Mega Millions are rigged; my point was that for me as an individual player it makes little difference in theory if the...more

Thanks for your informed answer, dcaz. Would you also say (the other point in my original post) that it doesn't matter whether the lottery is rigged or not (or for that matter, whether I select random numbers or favorite numbers), assuming I bet only $1 at those odds?

1/176,000,000 x 176,000,000 = 1, was my simple calculation, implying that I am "justified" in wagering one dollar. I have seen the comparison made that you make, but I am not interested in an assured win, just in a rational bet.

I've been wondering about this. If you are a bona fide mathematician, please tell me where I'm wrong. (If you're not, I'll write you off as another wisecracking troll.) If my chances of winning the Powerball jackpot are one in 176 million, it is not illogical for me to spend $1 on a Powerball ticket every time the jack...more

Why don't the historic movie houses just continue to show the many films of the pre-digital era that are  vastly superior to the ever-louder, ever more eye-straining, ever more soulless commercial junk being churned out by the majors nowadays? Recalling Max Orphuls: "Today we call film an industry.  And it could have b...more