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Others have already responded to your idiocy, I'll just add this: cops are in the poor neighborhoods so they can deal with the problems there instead of waiting for them to go to the rich neighborhoods.

Yachts aren't "brought" to the US, and don't pay duties. Apparently, you're too stupid to notice that these boats don't fly American flags.

You're the one batting a perfect zero here.

Are you illiterate or do you just not follow links?

We know you are a fucking idiot if you think that the very rich are going to buy EVERYTHING overseas and smuggle it into this country just so they don't have to pay a 10% sales tax. "Hey Bill Gates! Where did you buy that billion dollar home?"

And again, you are the idiot if you think that +50% of the police and +50% of the hospitals and +50% of everything else is in the wealthy neighborhoods. I noticed you completely ignored everything else and actually think that we would believe that the ALL the police hang out in the rich neighborhoods until they get a call. If that were true, there would be more police in these neighborhoods than civilians. But HEY! You keep believing that if it makes your world a little darker.

Except that rich people don't spend much money inside the country. Where do you think they get those megayachts from?

You mean those mega yachts that the owner has to pay a duty on like everything else people buy overseas and bring to the US? Um... I guess they would pay a duty on them. They will also get taxed wherever they are docked.

And what do you think keeps the poor people from simply killing these rich people and taking all their stuff? It's called military and police. The rich benefit more than everyone else.

Actually, it's called Blackwater Security Firm.
Everyone benefits from the military equally. It's not like the Reds are coming over here and robbing the poor and middle class while the military is protecting the rich neighborhoods. Seriously man, think about what you are saying here. I'm not rich and I get 100%, absolute protection from foreign armies in my home. The EXACT same protection Michael Dell gets.

As for the police, like I said, the top 5% pays over half the taxes. Are over half the police in the rich neighborhoods? Here's a hint; NO! For that matter, most of the uber-rich are protected by private security companies. And yet, they still pay for police. Go ahead ask a cop or even listen to a police scanner. How many calls come from the good part of town? Is it over 50? Are over half the fire departments in the rich neighborhoods? Nope. Let's look at the school system? Well, rich neighborhoods do tend to have better schools, but much of that comes from the locals sending their kids to private schools, but still having to pay the taxes for the local public schools. This means there are fewer kids in the school for each person paying taxes. So, yeah. Just like everything else, the rich pay for the public services, and then pay for the services they use privately.

Any other examples you need me to explain? So far you are batting a perfect zero.

US forces do use pack mules in Afghanistan. Not sure about horses. I guess this could fill some part of that role, without the stubbornness. Though I'd imagine the robot is harder to keep alive over long distances.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-donkeys7-2009jul07,0,3448109.story

"It's a very primitive way to carry very modern weapons," said Sgt. Joe Neal, one of the instructors. "But it works."

Roger Boisjoly recently passed away. He was one of the engineers who tried to stop the ill fated launch of Challenger on an abnormally cold morning in Florida. He knew there was a high risk of the O rings leaking if they were cold, NASA management refused to listen to him, an O ring did failt, it ended in catastrophe. The Shuttle program was crippled from that day on.

From the article:

"It was the end of the dream," said John Pike, executive director of GlobalSecurity.org and a longtime analyst of U.S. aerospace. "Before the Challenger, you could think about the idea of going boldly where no one had gone before. The accident ended it."

Boisjoly was not the only engineer who attempted to stop the launch and suffered for blowing the whistle. Allan J. McDonald was Thiokol's program manager for the solid rocket booster and became the most important critic of the accident afterward. When he was pressed by NASA the night before the liftoff to sign a written recommendation approving the launch, he refused, and later argued late into the night for a launch cancellation. When McDonald later disclosed the secret debate to accident investigators, he was isolated and his career destroyed.

The tragedy was particularly hard on Boisjoly, who would sometimes chop wood in the Utah winter to work out his anger. In a 2003 interview with The Times, he recalled that NASA tried to blackball him from the industry, leaving him to spend 17 years as a forensic engineer and a lecturer on engineering ethics.

When the space shuttle Columbia burned up on reentry in 2003, killing its crew of seven, the accident was blamed on the same kinds of management failures that occurred with the Challenger. By that time, Boisjoly believed that NASA was beyond reform, some of its officials should be indicted on manslaughter charges and the agency abolished.

NASA's mismanagement "is not going to stop until somebody gets sent to hard rock hotel," Boisjoly said. "I don't care how many commissions you have. These guys have a way of numbing their brains. They have destroyed $5 billion worth of hardware and 14 lives because of their nonsense."

more than once. their business model is to steal other's creative work, make many millions then settled out of court for millions of dollars.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/238331/zynga_sued_for_alleged_patent_infringement.html
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/12/zynga-and-vostu-settle-lawsuit-over-social-games.html
http://gamepolitics.com/2011/02/23/zynga-settles-digital-chocolate-mafia-wars-lawsuit
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/20/zynga-is-hit-with-countersuit-over-game-designs/
among others...

"FBI Zeroes In on Potential Terrorists: Operation Tripwire standardizes field offices' handling of clues to locate 'sleeper cells.'"
http://articles.latimes.com/2003/dec/13/nation/na-tripwire13

"Operation Tripwire: Montgomery County Police Department - Potential Indicators of Terrorist Activities" (37 page manual)
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/pol/districts/ISB/sid/ViceIntelligence/operationtripwirewebready.pdf

"To identify potential terrorist sleeper cells, Operation Tripwire commissions all JTTFs to ask specific questions of specific industries (e.g., suspicious behavior of airline passengers) then looks for patterns from the collected data. We're collecting and analyzing data on radicalism in prisons. We're coordinating new initiatives for railroads and cruise ships."

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2004/july/njttf070204

They did it involuntarily.

Not quite. They did it voluntarily, and in a very explicit way. Bill Gates himself has said the following:

"Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though," Gates told an audience at the University of Washington. "And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

Even the founder of Microsoft stated that the unauthorized (and free) distribution of Microsoft products is benefitial for a company such as his own. The totalitarian copyright enforcement crap only comes in as useful if a product already attained a reasonable market share, and therefore there is a copyright to enforce. Until there isn't a copyright to enforce, they simply turn a blind eye for convenience and due to business sense.

Dec. 16, 2009: President Obama signs a presidential memorandum ordering Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and Defense secretary Robert Gates to acquire the state prison in Thompson, Illinois as the $350 million replacement for Guantanamo.

May 19, 2010: The House Armed Services Committee, controlled by members of the president's own Democratic party, absolutely prohibits any opening of a Guantanamo detention replacement facility within these United States. To underline its ban, the powerful committee erupts in an unusual display of bipartisanship: The prohibition vote is unanimous.

Have you forgotten all the fear-mongering that surrounded the proposal of imprisoning these people in the US? It was like a bad flashback to the Bush administration. When you could automatically win any argument by fear-mongering about terrorism. (A theory soundly proven by Bush's re-election in 2004).

Do I hold Obama blameless? No. He should have fought longer & harder to keep his promise. But just writing this gave me a flashback to the whole Bush administration, it was like a fresh nightmare every day, idiots wielding fear like a club against reason, every damn day. You're welcome to your opinion, but IMHO it's a lot less bad now.

Hi

If not a Monty Python skit, then maybe closer to
this fantastically dark and over the top peek into the relm of the implausible:

The American Way(1986) (aka Riders on the Storm)
http://articles.latimes.com/1988/may/13
      May 13, 1988|MICHAEL WILMINGTON

      "Riders of the Storm" (selected theaters) is a surprise: a little ragged blast of a science-fiction film that packs more energy and ideas in its shots than many pictures twice its size. It won't be to everyone's taste; some will
      find it either crude, misogynistic or tasteless. There are lots of script problems and stereotypes; some of this movie is quite bad.

  But the best of it has an almost raving, full-throttle comic intensity, like a "Saturday Night Live" sketch suddenly taken over by genuine maniacs.

[snip]

      It's one of those overheated, hyper-intense films--crazy, tasteless, but daring--that almost seems to be blowing apart at the seams: political satire-fantasy with an edge. In the movie, Dennis Hopper and a Strangelove-ian planeload of counter-culture Vietnam veterans run the ultimate outlaw TV station from a bomber in the sky. Their name is S & M TV, their logo is a goony cartoon eagle with a bomb in its talons, and their programming philosophy seems derived from MTV, Wolfman Jack, New York's Ugly George and Abbie Hoffman. They bombard the airwaves with rock 'n' roll videos and terrorize evangelical broadcasts and news programs with unannounced incursions of sex and violence

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL10C98154240E4B11
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qebqNtHe5Ng
www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6HnWLo4rt8

Yeah he does his job and he has 4 years more experience doing it than these guys do. No sexual scandals. No kick-backs to friends he has in big business.

Sure, no kickbacks to heavy donors or special favors to his constituency, not President Obama!

It is still a thought-crime, however. He bought no weapons, built no bombs, created no toxins. He did nothing but possess knowledge and harbor some crazy fantasies. If he had started to enact those fantasies, I would totally agree that he would have to be arrested. Until that point, however, he had committed no physical crime.

It's interesting that you can get over two years of prison time just for *thinking* about doing something bad, but if you are in the right position, you can murder 24 civilians and get away with it.

TSA agents are NOT law enforcement agents. Common mistake. So common there's a bill in congress right now to try to correct that:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/strip-act-targets-tsa.html

Sure, they're federal employees, but so are the Smithsonian janitors...

TSA members are not law enforcement officers. They are still rent-a-cops, like the guys at the mall: they may have additional security privileges but still have to call in actual LEOs if there's an incident they believe warrants someone being arrested. This is a common misconception; it's apparently bad enough that a House bill has been proposed so they won't be able to have cop-like uniforms: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/12/strip-act-targets-tsa.html

Because airports have lots of real cops that are easily accessible, they can still make your life (or at least your day) pretty miserable with ease, but on their own they're just expensive thugs.

That may be true, but the judges reasoned as if it were on the books.

Los Angeles Times:
"Assange says the sex was consensual. His lawyers also contend that, even if the allegations were true, the behavior would not necessarily constitute crimes under British law. Swedish laws on sexual assault are more sweeping than those here.

But British prosecutors, acting on behalf of their Swedish counterparts, said the allegations were sufficiently serious because they involved some physical force. One of the women accuses Assange of using his body weight to keep her pinned beneath him while he had sex with her."

Trains

Bus Stops and Weigh Stations

Can't say I've heard anything about post offices or unemployment or social security buildings.

how's this?

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/20/nation/la-na-terror-checkpoints-20111220

"TSA screenings aren't just for airports anymore
Roving security teams increasingly visit train stations, subways and other mass transit sites to deter terrorism. Critics say it's largely political theater."

They refer to themselves as "officers", not "agents". The STRIP Act seeks to smack those petty tyrants down a few pegs. Tell your Congresscritter to support it.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/11/local/me-goldengate11

Really, seriously, your stupid is showing!!!

By all means, post an example - just one would be more than sufficient since I stated an absolute - of a corporation lobbying on the behalf of the public good AND that is detrimental to their profits.

Oddly enough, just last week I read an article in the LA Times about 12 companies in California wanting to become the state's first Benefit Corporations, which are designed to allow corporations to be guided by enviromental concerns rather than fudicial. Some people and companies apparently do want to put other responsibilities at least on the same level as making money and it was encouraging to read that this is happening in numerous states.

Seriously. Apple has 76B sitting in the bank, Microsoft has 55B. Time Warner has a market cap of 37B, hell even the media giant that is Disney/Pixar has a market cap of only 70B. A lot of the music companies are a fair bit smaller.

The distribution channels (Apple, Google, etc) are bending over backwards on deals with companies that they could acquire in a hostile takeover tomorrow if they wanted to. It's crazy.

You can hate on "government motors" all ya want - They did a great job on this one, and unlike the haters, I'm getting that bailout money back in the form of something pretty darn cool.

Also it should be noted that GM is once again the world's largest seller of automobiles. So it would appear the bailout had its intended effect -- instead of a gaping hole where GM used to be, we now have a successful domestic auto company.

Your new cancer and lack of presumed innocence are a small price to pay, in order to defeat statistically non-existant terrorists.

Police Commissioner Kelly said the scanner would only be used in reasonably suspicious circumstances and could cut down on the number of stop-and-frisks on the street.

But the New York Civil Liberties Union is raising a red flag.
"It's worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you're doing nothing wrong," the NYCLU's Donna Lieberman said.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/01/17/nypd-testing-gun-scanning-technology/

After years of rebuffing health concerns over airport scanners, the Transportation Security Administration plans to conduct new tests on the potential radiation exposure from the machines at more than 100 airports nationwide.

But the TSA does not plan to retest the machines or passengers. Instead, the agency plans to test its airport security officers to see if they are being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation while working with the scanners.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-20120116,0,7082529.story

"Society will pay a huge price in cancer because of this," John Sedat, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco, told CNET. Sedat has raised concerns about the health risks of X-ray scanners, and the European Commission in November prohibited their use in European airports.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57358146-281/dhs-x-ray-scanners-could-be-cancer-risk-to-border-crossers/

In recent news:

Human head found in bag along trail near Hollywood sign

Two women were hiking with nine dogs when two of the dogs found a plastic bag in the brush containing the head. The victim is believed to be an Armenian American man in his 40s.

Last reply; this is getting painful. The overly simplistic viewpoint was for your benefit. The whole point was that your "sugar" weight gain was temporary...so who cares? I'd have been more interested if you'd debunked my own weight loss. Take a look at the twinkie diet; it's obviously not for peope to follow, but it further proves the point: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/06/health/la-he-fitness-twinkie-diet-20101206 Regarding sodium, is subway a neutral enough nutrition source for you? I can pick out other sandwiches which have literally double the sodium content for the same size serving of bread, but I don't need to. Tell me again that bacon is higher sodium than bread (I can only assume you meant for similar serving sizes...even if you up the mass of bacon by 50%, the bread still comes out higher). Hint - you can't always taste the sodium in food. http://www.subway.com/nutrition/NutritionList.aspx?id=breadtop&Countrycode=USA Also bear in mind that people tend to include other things when they eat bread; it's not a direct swap out. There are many confounding factors.

"if they are tested for safety properly" Right. With emphasis on "properly". Any GMO research done by the industry itself can obviously not be trusted, unless you are extremely naive and gullible. Let's see what independent researchers say about it: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/13/opinion/la-oe-guriansherman-seeds-20110213 Oh, wait. I find it pathetic that this "Anti-Science" garbage is thrown around any time someone is skeptic of something presented under the guise of "science". Perhaps that's part of the strategy though. Use some critical thinking, people, if you are capable of it.

Actually, it is the other direction, they raised the limit for nuclear workers, up to 150 mSv, probably per emergency. They raised the limit for children as well but then lowered it back again. They went from 1 mSv per year (as in TFA) to 20 mSv per year back down to 1. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/29/world/la-fg-japan-radiation-children-20110529

Speaking of karma...a friend of mine caught the guys in this story: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/31/local/me-ocbriefs31.s2. He was our maintenance guy, fixing a problem at night in our building on the other end of the same parking lot. He went over because he heard the screams (through several thick concrete walls) and wound up calling the cops. He also...uh...convinced the other suspect to stick around and wait for the cops to arrest him. The one guy that got shocked wound up dying in the hospital the next day.

http://www.wifr.com/news/headlines/Homeless_Deaths_in_the_Stateline_136027648.html
http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/Dozens-Gather-To-Remember-Homeless-Deaths-136039473.html
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/dyingwithoutdignity/dyingwithoutdignity.pdf
This one has a positive tone, at least something is being done:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/27/local/me-skidrow-deaths27

Obviously, the absolute numbers are not huge, but most or all of these deaths could have been prevented through better shelter and soup kitchen offers rather then the bare minimum that is currently on offer. Initiatives such as letting homeless people help and give a hand in the soup kitchens could help them feel some self-worth again, which leads to motivation to at least try and do something about their current station in life.

I work a full 37 hour work week including the occasional paid overtime. I don't consider any of those hours to be "working for the government", I have no idea how that silly simplification has taken root with you guys.

You know what? I don't mind that 70-year old fat asshole getting a new heart. I sure don't mind children getting the urgent medical care they need, either. Nor do I mind anyone, no matter their station in life, viewpoints, personal wealth, race, creed or color, getting the medical help they need. Who are you to put different amounts of worth on different people's heads?

Please note that your current insurance-based privatized health care system is massively more expensive than the public health care systems of the countries you usually compare yourselves to. They're getting better health care for less:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/etc/graphs.html

I pay my taxes gladly. With them, I buy civilization.

Piracy is good, yes. Have you been drinking Rupert Murdoch's Famous Internet Censorship flavored Kool Aid? Piracy is good. Even Bill Gates said that piracy is good - what greater authority on the subject can there be?

http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/2803
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/09/business/fi-micropiracy9

WTF is with this globalization, one world government view that pirates are a cancer, eating at the world's economy? There are probably tens of thousands of people in China who could never have been able to buy Windows, who are working in the tech world today, because pirated copies of Windows were available. Ditto with India, and God knows how many other countries. EVEN THE UNITED STATES!!! (How many American parents were unable to purchase, or see the wisdom in purchasing, Windows 95 in 1995?)

Of course, we're back to the definition and purpose of copyright law. Copyright law was never intended to ensure that an author would make a profit. It was only intended to ensure that IF THERE WERE A PROFIT to be made, then the author should get some of that profit.

Piracy is good, if for no other reason than underprivileged people acquiring educational tools. Games and music? I just don't give a rat's ass about the music syndicates, movie syndicates, and games. They can all go belly-up if they lack the imagination to find new business models.

Piracy is good. I got my first Windows NT via torrent. I got my first Linux via torrent. I got my first MacOS via torrent. I'm among the wealthiest 1% of the world's population, and I couldn't afford everything that I've ever played with on the computer. What about that other 99%?

I support piracy, whole heartedly. My counterparts in backwoods African and Asian and South American countries NEED piracy, if they are ever to join the 20th century. You know, the century that we retired a decade ago?

Hey, one of the women I work with went home on vacation a few weeks ago. She has already overstayed her stay. I asked her husband how I could email her. I learned that her hometown only got electricity about 25 years ago, and there IS NO INTERNET!!! Cell phones don't work. If I were to communicate with her, it would be via POTS, at some exorbitant cost.

Now, pull your head outta your butt, and support Pirate Bay, and the Pirate Parties. They provide a crucial service to huge segments of the world's population.

Oh - I'll note here, that I've not personally pirated anything in a long time. Today, I don't need WinNT, anything that Adobe makes, or even Sun/Oracle. With OSS, it's free anyway. I still get most of my stuff via torrent though!

All of your numbers are based on per capita rates, which doesn't show the effects of income disparity. The argument here is that in the western world, poor Americans are relatively worse off than poor Europeans, at least according to the Brookings Institution that is correct. Statistically, poor Americans have less of a chance of moving into higher income brackets than much of the Western world. Fifty thousand Americans die every year of lack of access to health care, a figure that is unheard of in the rest of the Western world.

Regardless of how deep you keep sinking your head into the sand, the reality is that Americans are for the first time faced with less options than the generation before. You're welcome to pretend that it isn't happening, but abandoning enlightenment principles for the purpose of ignoring the welfare of your fellow citizens is hardly what I consider patriotic.

There are icons you can't remove on the iphone.

Also true of any Android phone that's not a Nexus and not rooted.

That's a flat out lie.

From this LA Times article: "The Droid X comes loaded with several nonstandard applications for Google's Android, most of which cannot be removed." I must have misinterpreted something; what was it?

lol sorry bro, I just didnt have time then to type a more intelligent response. Yeah, you dont want much natural fluoride either. In fact, I found this article about natural fluoride reaching water supplies and they had to correct it: http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/23/nation/na-fluoride23 Lots of things occur natually that you dont want to take in to your body either dude. And usually the natural amount is very little compared to what is added artificially. The other thing you have to realize, is there are different types. Siliciofluorides never occur naturally, and this is what is added at the plant. The original link I sent you actually answers your exact question: http://www.fluoridedebate.com/question03.html

Finally, if you research where the water plant gets its fluoride to add, youll find it comes from Aluminum companies as toxic waste. This is a by product of their process, and it is sold straight to the water companies. If youre wondering if this waste contains other thigns than fluoride, youre right. Research all the other things that are in this toxic waste including radioactive elements.

Just because something is written in 2000 doesnt make it invalid. Do you own research. My only goal is to warn people about this poison added to our water that degrades IQs and negatively affects health in many ways.

My Botany is a little old, but don't plants use CO2, and generate O2 as a by-product?

Also, if Solar, and Wind energy's were used, wouldn't the day to day carbon burning be impacted? Southern California Edison Electric thinks so.

And the US asked for it back

It's already happened. Look at the planes that hit the WTC towers back in 2001. It wasn't the supposed terrorists that they released to the public (specially since 1/3 of them were/are still alive. On a more recent note: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211

No, there are plenty on the right wing that educate themselves as well. For example Kerry Emanuel and Katherine Hayhoe. But they don't have much power in the arena of right wing politics.

You know, when you start bringing up money in a scientific controversy like global warming it usually leads me to think your opinion on the science is more influenced by your economic ideology than any real science.

No, there are plenty on the right wing that educate themselves as well. For example Kerry Emanuel and Katherine Hayhoe. But they don't have much power in the arena of right wing politics.

You know, when you start bringing up money in a scientific controversy like global warming it usually leads me to think your opinion on the science is more influenced by your economic ideology than any real science.

For reference, we flew several Global Hawk doing disaster relief missions over the reactor. We also flew over Haiti and California wildfires. However, it doesn't shoot missiles, so OSD will gut the program and let it die an expensive death over the next 2 years.

Flamebait, I know. But if they payload is you (and I'll generously give you 300 lbs for yourself and your laptop) and the vessel weighs 15 times that much. A total waste.

Earlier today, we had a story on how the Massachusetts Lt. Governor crashed his Crown Vic doing 108mph and walked away with no injuries. Say what you will about the Lt Governor, it is not really a waste when crash survival rates increase dramatically.

Fuel efficiency isn't the only design criteria for modern cars.

Of course, if safety is what you want, your argument could be used to recommend putting mandatory speed governors on every car. If the fastest speed limit in the nation is 75mph, why do we have cars that can go 108mph?

If the weekend racers want to go 100mph on the track, let them buy a special license plate with the key to unlock their speed governor. If they are caught speeding on a public street (or if anyone else has tampered with the speed governor), then give them mandatory jail time.

Flamebait, I know. But if they payload is you (and I'll generously give you 300 lbs for yourself and your laptop) and the vessel weighs 15 times that much. A total waste.

Earlier today, we had a story on how the Massachusetts Lt. Governor crashed his Crown Vic doing 108mph and walked away with no injuries. Say what you will about the Lt Governor, it is not really a waste when crash survival rates increase dramatically.

Fuel efficiency isn't the only design criteria for modern cars.

Still the story makes an assertion that simply isn't supported by anything but the authors opinion:

Thus if Americans today were driving cars of the same size and power that were typical in 1980, the country’s fleet of autos would have jumped from an average of about 23 miles per gallon (mpg) to roughly 37 mpg, well above the current average of around 27 mpg.

Vehicles of that vintage couldn't achieve anything near 37mpg once the tougher pollution controls were put in place. A great deal of the weight gain over the years was due to the increase in horse power needed to overcome the pollution control regulations imposed on vehicles while maintaining similar performance.

Again, fuel economy is not the only design criteria. You can't look at an overall improvement in safety, accident survive-ability, comfort, mileage, pollution abatement, vehicle longevity, and dismiss all such improvements as "a total waste" just because all of these improvements didn't fall into one's preferred area of political rabble-rousing.

As one system watches, another gets clearance to kill.
Its a lovely public private partnership with shareholders getting a nice segment of all that new defence spending.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-drones-civilians-20111230,0,6127185.story
If you see something, kill something.

3D is all the makers had to get you to upgrade your set. Once you're on 1080P/Blu-Ray it's pretty much good enough for any kind of viewing you want to do.

I'm looking forward to the new super thin OLED sets: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/lgs-55-inch-oled-tv-at-ces-to-have-almost-no-bezel.html

A 1080p display only has 2 Mpixels, which might possibly be enough for fast moving images, but it's certainly not perfect for slow scenes in movies, or for still images such as the ones that you can take yourself with a simple point and shoot.

I think we'll see TVs with thousands of lines of pixels. An 80" 3000p or 4000p TV would be perfect for a lot of things.

3D is all the makers had to get you to upgrade your set. Once you're on 1080P/Blu-Ray it's pretty much good enough for any kind of viewing you want to do.

I'm looking forward to the new super thin OLED sets: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2012/01/lgs-55-inch-oled-tv-at-ces-to-have-almost-no-bezel.html

BusinessWeek: "The deal's advocates faced a barrage of questions. In addition to Mary Ma, Lenovo's chief financial officer, the lineup included people from consultant McKinsey and investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS ). The directors' chief concern: Were Lenovo's execs really capable of running a complex global business? The breakthrough came after three days. The directors concluded that if Lenovo could recruit IBM's top execs to help manage the company, this merger could succeed. "The board felt there were positive solutions," says Liu."
LA Times: "Also at stake in the deal are about $18 million in investment banking fees for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co., based on Bloomberg estimates. Merrill has advised IBM, and Goldman worked for Lenovo."

The 3GS is nearly 3 years old and falls behind every Android phone produced in the last year in terms of OS updatability (meaning you will never get iOS5 on it) versus almost every new android phone getting 4.0

Funny, iOS 5 installed just fine on my nearly 3-year old 3GS, and new 3GS being sold today come with iOS5 pre-installed.

And several Android phones released in the last year will NOT get the 4.x ICS upgrade, including the LG Optimus V (released Feb 1, 2011) and Motorola Atrix (Feb 22, 2011). Per LG's update plans from a few days ago, only 11 of their phones are officially slated to get ICS. I didn't bother checking the other vendors, but it's obvious not "every" Android phone in the last year can be upgraded to the latest firmware, while a nearly 3-year old iPhone can (and I'll bet very few 2-year old Android devices, never mind 3-year old ones, will get 4.x ICS).

Apple will continue to lose overall market share. It's of course inevitable when they control every aspect of it and are the only manufacturer that runs iOS, while anyone can make dozens of models of cheap Android devices. Limiting themselves to a new model and OS features every year is also a problem, despite the irony that Apple gets flamed by haters for releasing new models "too quickly" who ignore the dozens of new Android phones are released each year.

However, you can't just write them off as an "also-ran that doesn't know it yet". Comscore reports that by end of November, Apple increased its market share by 1.4% to 28.7%. Android increased by 3.1%, RIM was down by the same amount, and Microsoft lost 0.5%.

Another way to look at it ("rigging the stats" if you want) is that Android improved on existing market share by 7%, Apple improved by 5%, RIM declined by 15.7%, and Microsoft declined by 8.8%. If there's an also-ran in this bunch it's not Apple.

They plan to add their own float at the unofficial end of the Rose Bowl parade. They have the grudging accommodation of the police and parade officials for this protest event.

Even as a foreigner, you'll have a concrete claim

A couple of schools next to my house have sent invoices for millions of dollars in "decontamination" fees (which usually consists of washing the radioactive contamination down the drain to the water treatment plant with high power hoses . . . with minimal results). Guess how much they have received so far? I think the schools would get paid before I would, and personally, I do not feel comfortable trying to compete for money that could help reduce the exposure to the kids in my neighborhood. Irregardless, the money is just not there and probably will not be fore decades, if that.

I see estimates [newsonjapan.com] of those damages around 60 billion

Even YOUR link says 250 Billion. Plus, that is back in June. Everything about this disaster gets bigger as time goes by and more reality slowly seeps out. Besides, I think a professor at the most prestigous university in Japan carries more weight than "some private think tank." Finally the 20km radius buy-up is complete BS. The contamination is way higher in many areas outside of that arbitrary circle around the plant. There are non-contiguous hot spots all over Kanto. But, by all means, keep up your claims of this all being "nuclear hysteria" on the victims' part. I am sure the industry is depending on your ilk to keep costs down by blaming the victims. After all my family and I have been through, go ahead and continue your hard work to minimize the situation to fuck us over some more. I am sure your Duke Energy investment is certainly worth it . . .

rather big asset to just toss

Funny, but I would expect most Japanese citizens at this point no longer look at those as big assets but as big ticking bombs. Fukushima Dai-ichi will inevitably cost astronomically more than its book value was at the time of the accident. But here we are talking all about Japan, while your precouis US nuke industry is facing significant hardship. How are you going to convince Japan to stay with nukes, when your own country's nuclear industry is floundering?

that doesn't quite justify taking in 3x your requirements

No need to exaggerate when reality does just fine... In the past 30 years, caloric intake has increased by aprox 200 calories (source source)

Doesn't sound like a lot.. but if you consume 200 calories more than you need, you'll gain 2lbs in a month.

200 calories easily adds up to obesity.

didn't mean, "IMO people are eating more". meant, IMO that's the cause. People are definitely eating more than they used to.

I don't think antitrust regulators are doing much with anybody right now. Google just didn't want to lose eyeballs to Bing.

Really?