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Perhaps for an Amber alert and then your rear camera is on and feeding back views and license plate numbers to law enforcement? Will it be tied to a black box chip - the real purpose being to require that manufactures install the hardware that government can use to track and record all vehicle activity ? Will it be required to have the wireless connectivity to other cars as is being tested on 9000 vehicles in Ann Arbor http://www.annarbor.com/busine...

A few have done reverse FOIA:
http://www.annarbor.com/vielmetti/foia-friday-reverse-foia/
eg confidential commercial information vs defective parts
employment records
individual's privacy

And I didn't see any tanks, unless you were watching something I wasn't. What the hell good would they be? You gonna shoot a guy with a tank cannon?

Well, maybe 'tanks' is a bit strong of a word for some, but just because they didn't have cannons doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of armor on hand.

... http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/whirlydoodle-project/

... something like
http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/whirlydoodle-project/
?

This may (MAY!!) be the correct link. Gees, I've never seen such a botched URL. Does the submitter not know how to copy a URL from the address bar and paste it in the submission? And why did it get past the "editor"?

http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/whirlydoodle-project/#.UGXXtuewdvw

In my town, council was using email before, during and after meetings to script votes. It cost one of the ringleaders his seat. http://www.annarbor.com/news/leigh-greden-apologizes-to-ann-arbor-city-council-colleagues-for-his-role-in-e-mail-scandal/ Use the ballot box to teach the buggers a lesson.

$2700 and change per student seems a little high for a tech budget...

A referenced earlier article has more details:

"The 2012 bond plan would be phased-in over the course of 10 years in three separate series, spending $27.27 million in 2012, $10.57 million in 2015 and $8.01 million in 2018."

So that's an average of something like $270 per student per year, which doesn't sound particularly high to me.

But then honestly I have no basis for comparison here--how much does a typical school district (or other comparable organization) budget for this kind of thing?

And as the summary says, this isn't all about instructional technology. Decent network infrastructure probably helps teachers and staff get their jobs done, for example.

I grew up with musicians

Which is funny. You must have known some pretty shitty musicians. I know several who are not big label, but they're making a medium income living doing local concerts and getting a couple albums out with smaller labels and even on iTunes. Some have had to switch bands a few times, due to break-ups or people moving away.

Thanks to MafiAA Accounting - something that they deal with even on the lower level labels - musicians generally MAKE MORE MONEY these days by touring and doing concerts than they ever do off of their albums. Ask Great Big Sea about how they make money for instance: "“We’ve always been focused more on the live show than anything else,” he said. “Certainly, with the record industry the way it is, the live show has become so important to a band’s career. It used to be part of it, now it’s practically all of it. It’s the only way you can make money, pay the bills. ".

Live performances ARE how musicians make the money these days, and you are full of shit saying otherwise.

"Pizza companies don't make their own cars"

They don't?

For a U.S. citizen it's jail time. This is what the Hutaree militia will get for conspiring to commit rebellion against the government. Remain content that the information your ISP provides you is accurate and chosen to fit your interest profile.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/crime/hutaree-militia-trial-may-be-delayed-until-2012/

Groupon seems to me like one of those ideas we'll look back in retrospect and think, "Why was it worth that much? It was so obvious!"

The idea of landing a big number of first-time customers sounds great until the customers start coming in. From the experiences of business owners I know, Grouponers were, simply put, cheap (not condemning cheap people here, as the times demand it for many.) If the groupon is "get $50 for $25," you better damn be sure most customers will spend the $50 and not a penny more. And if it's a restaurant, they'll tip on the $25.
I expect that those customers will not be back; they will move on to the next goupon.They're not looking for a new place to eat; they're looking for a deal.
And for consumers, the deals are already being watered down by the typical (one month free at the gym, or free karate classes for a week) that you see everywhere.

As for the businesses themselves,I wonder how many more of these kind of situations we'll see - a restaurant using a Groupon-like company hoping to land quick cash in desperation.

Also, from my conversations with people who own businesses, Groupon's sales approach is very aggressive. They put dollar signs in the business owner's eyes. But eventually, they'll get found out. Right now, people don't want to miss out on this since all the cool kids are doing it.

Of course there are businesses who've had great results with Groupon. I just think it's lunacy to think they're worth $15B.

I wonder though if anyone has thought of building land based data centers in the far northern climates to take advantage of the -40 degree arctic cold fronts.

Yes they have.

You may be willing to sacrifice basic human rights like freedom of association for social causes, but I am not. Desegregation should have happened, EOE should have happened, but in the public sector, not the private. Would this have slowed the process? Yes, but on the other side we'd all be more free, minorities included. As it is we now pick these petty fights based on the destruction of the freedom of association, since all the 'men only' clubs and organizations have been taken on, now men sue 'women only' clubs and organizations to get revenge. I remember just recently how a whole inquiry was launched because of 'black only' school field trip, and how segregation laws actually became a problem for areas in California with large ethnic Chinese populations.

Funny how the tables turn. At the core of all this is the fundamental problem: there is no such thing, rationally, as positive racism (or racial positivism). It's still just racism, except with the goal of preferential treatment of minorities instead of detrimental treatment, but it's still special treatment because of race, period. My wife, who is both African- and Native American, agrees, and actually stood against affirmative action in high school and still opposes it and similar efforts to this day. She doesn't want "positive" discrimination because of her skin color any more than she wants negative discrimination, not least of which because "positive" discrimination is implicitly insulting and paternalistic (because you're black, you couldn't have met our standards unless and until we lowered them for you).

The fundamental problem with socialism is that you can't force somebody to truly be a better person. If you say 'donate to charity or go to prison' the person who is forced circumstancially to do this is not improved. You're violating somebody's rights in the name of what you think is a good cause, in the end poisoning the good with the evil of impinging on people's freedoms.

http://www.annarbor.com/entertainment/lost-former-writer/
Javier Grillo-Marxuach - he left at the end of the second season because of "creative differences". Which now sounds like he actually wanted these story ideas to go somewhere.

There's been a trend towards parking meters and parking stations that take credit cards.