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They used to be natural monopolies, but in places like VA, you now have options. I can choose my power company.
https://www.scc.virginia.gov/p...

You can't cause an accident by stopping in the middle of a turn at an intersection.

Of course you can. And get cited for it, too.

People coming to an abrupt stop should be an expected action.

Not for no reason, its not. You, and several other posters here really need to get over yourselves, as every last one of you would end up in an accident if a vehicle suddenly breaks in front of you for no reason whatsoever.

But surely you aren't claiming that we should all be able to erratically stop for no reason whenever we want on any public road

Yes I am claiming this 100% and the law will claim it too.

You should reconsider your position.

Virginia - as a number of other states decertified the touch screen voting machines last year.Virginia scraps touch-screen voting machines as election for governor looms.

The primary system used here is a Optical scan paper ballot system.Voting Equipment & Electronic Pollbooks Certified for Use in Virginia. It is still theoretically possible to hack the system, as the only truly secure computer is one that is never turned on, however the paper records are available, and can be recounted,

Recounts happen even with well run automated vote counting and even with well run voting processes Virginia 2017 Election results including recounts.

If you want to be part of the solution, register, and vote.

Virginia - as a number of other states decertified the touch screen voting machines last year.Virginia scraps touch-screen voting machines as election for governor looms.

The primary system used here is a Optical scan paper ballot system.Voting Equipment & Electronic Pollbooks Certified for Use in Virginia. It is still theoretically possible to hack the system, as the only truly secure computer is one that is never turned on, however the paper records are available, and can be recounted,

Recounts happen even with well run automated vote counting and even with well run voting processes Virginia 2017 Election results including recounts.

If you want to be part of the solution, register, and vote.

Go here:

http://www.elections.virginia....

That's a list of stuff that Virginia will sell to you. You know - state of Virginia, Governor Terry McAullife who's standing up to that evil Trump and not giving him a damned thing!!!!!

Yeah, but he'll sell it to you.

One of the items in the list:

"Vote History List (VHL) – a list of those persons who voted in a primary, special or general election in a specified jurisdiction, legislative, election district or statewide over a four year time period."

That's what they're talking about.

You know what's funny? Since people like me are pointing out their hypocrisy they changed the page. Here's what it said last week:

"Vote History List (VHL) – full name, gender, date of birth, registration date, date last registration form received, registration status, locality, precinct, voting districts, voter identification number, election date, election type, and whether the voter voted in-person or absentee. Grouped by election, chronologically."

They took away some of the specifics since it makes them (properly) look like hypocrites.

60C (140F) for 8 hours is massive overkill.

Virginia.gov says:

Bed bugs exposed to 113F will die if they receive constant exposure to that temperature for 90 minutes or more. However, they will die within 20 minutes if exposed to 118F. Interestingly, bed bug eggs must be exposed to 118F for 90 minutes to reach 100% mortality.

For non-Americans, 118F is slightly less than 48C.

Come to VA. We've got over 200 specialty plates...here's a link to some of them.
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/v...

So when a robot and a person meet on the street who has to give way?

An electric personal delivery device operated on a sidewalk or shared-use path or across a roadway on a crosswalk shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian.

If a robot wanders on to your property by mistake, can you claim salvage rights, for an out of control robot?

No. It's handled like any other piece of someone else's property.

People that work in ERs, or once worked there, are the most likely to ask for "Do Not Resuscitate" or DNR orders when they are hospitalized.

When my wife Sue was diagnosed with fatal brain tumor the day before Thanksgiving 2005, she completed a health-care proxy (living will) stating that no extraordinary measures should be used and a DNR. When her brain stem was damaged six weeks later, she fell into a coma and I had the fun task of re-asserting her DNR. She died a week later on Jan 13, 2006. Sue was a teacher so, instead of donating her organs, she donated her body to science. She was only 61 (I was then 42) and in excellent health (other than the brain tumor) and most donors are much older and in poorer health, so the Virginia Anatomical Program was very happy to have her (so to speak).

I have also completed a living will and healthcare proxy form and registered them with the U.S. Living Will Registry specifying no extraordinary measures and registered with the Virginia State Anatomical Program to have my body donated to science.

Uh, yes there are. I mean, I don't think there are any "no masks whatsoever, under no conditions at all, we mean it" laws, but there are laws that prohibit masks.

http://law.lis.virginia.gov/va...

6. To accept, hold and enjoy gifts, donations and bequests on behalf of the Department from the United States government and agencies and instrumentalities thereof, and any other source, subject to the approval of the Governor. To these ends, the Director shall have the power to comply with such conditions and execute such agreements as may be necessary, convenient or desirable, consistent with applicable standards and goals of the Board;

In other words, you want a Bahamas beach house to let our corp provide overprices phones/commissary/medical care to inmates? It is legal!

This is from Virginia code 53.1: http://law.lis.virginia.gov/va...

So what's your solution, government issued photo IDs? Sounds good, but IMO the system for obtaining such a photo ID should be:
* fast -- no standing or sitting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles (or Registry of Motor Vehicles, here in Massachusetts) for an hour or two.
* inexpensive -- in Massachusetts, it's $25 for an ID. At the minimum wage of $7.25 that's nearly 3 and a half hours of work. I don't know what the cost of an ID is in other states. Does a plastic card really cost $25 to produce? Even with the effort to process the application, that seems like there's some padding on the price.
* convenient -- if the DMV or RMV office is only open 9-5 weekdays, someone who works one or two jobs may be working all 40 of those hours. Ideally, there should be some time outside "normal business hours" when the DMV/RMV office is open to accommodate those workers, or someplace else (town or city hall, the police office) that is open longer hours (or on weekends) where people can apply for their ID. Alternately, if the DMV/RMV offered the ability to obtain the ID right at the polling location, using the same staff members who would process the applications at the office, that would work too.

Is it really that hard to think?

Give IDs out for free.

Just like those backwards RAAAACISTS!!! in Virginia do.

Jeez.

In Virginia at least, if you have a child more than 10 months after you begin receiving benefits, that child is not eligible for additional benefits. Having a kid does not increase how much you get under TANF. Please stop spreading bullshit about welfare recipients. We can't solve the problems involved if people ignore the reality of the situation by demonizing recipients as goldbricking baby factories.

Have you actually looked?

Building codes for DC metro area:
Virginia building code
DC building code
MD codes (incl building)

Law for DC metro area:
Virginia law
DC Code / law
MD Laws and statutes

Fighting ignorance and BS on slashdot could easily be a full-time job; theres no shortage of people who will talk out of their rear about things they have no information on.

For commercial customers billing already works this way.
Example Dominion Rate Schedules

If a customer is a power generator only, they get payed for power, but get charged for the meter and the facilities that connect the meter to the utilities system.
DOM Schedule 19

For a small business customer DOM schedule GS-2
The bill consists of
Distribution Service Charges
    Meter Fee (Flat fee for having a connection)
    Distribution (kwh and demand fee to cover costs of the distribution system)
Electricity Supply (ES) Service Charges
    Energy Charge (kWh based to cover the cost of generating power)
    Energy Demand Charge (Peak kWhr based to cover cost of having generating capacity available to meet the customers demand)

I suspect that most residential customers would be annoyed to see the residential bills look like commercial and industrial bills, but if solar / wind gets large enough that the utility needs to arrange for storage, or supply that can cover supply availability risks associated with solar and wind there will need to be some way to compensate them for the service.

None of this should apply if you simply unplug, and use your own storage, same as now if you want to run your house on your own generator.

If you don't like the changes, electric utilities in the US are mostly regulated utilities. Feel free to testify at the regulators rate setting meetings. Information for Virginia can be found here Virginia State Corporation Commission Division of Energy Regulation. Most other states have something similar.

Instead of helping them use an inherently destructive method of farming, help them use inherently creative methods.

So tell us of the inherently cretive methods.

What you have been saying so far is that our methods are wrong. So why on earth would anyone want to use our methods? And why would we be required to change our methods to some inherently creative method? Besides, If it is inherent, it already exists, therefore our help is not needed.

When we fertilize with shit, and not with chemicals, we build topsoil.

Yeah, manure is the cure for all fertilization problems, except when it isn't. I've grown up around organic gardening - parents and grandparents and myself. Its not bad, but on a large scale you must be very, very careful. I use leaf composting mostly myself.

As noted, on a large scale it can be devastating.

http://www.cbf.org/document.do...

part of what reads:

The Chesapeake Bay is choking on nutrient pollution from a myriad of sources – from urban runoff, industry, automobiles, and human sewage, but the largest source is agriculture and, increasingly, from the manure pro- duced by livestock, which now outnumber the watershed’s human population by 11 to 1. Most of that manure is spread on the surface of nearby cropland, and studies show that within two years as much as half of its nutrient pollution washes out of the soil and into rivers and streams or seeps into groundwater. Both of these pathways lead to pollution in local waterways and, ultimately, in the Bay.

When we fertilize with chemicals, we destroy it. We kill all the biological material and wash away the organics and are left with an inert growing medium.

Now here is your chance to refute the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's assertions about manure's contribution.

It can actually contain micronutrients needed by plants and yet not provide it to them because the microorganisms which make the nutrients bioavailable (package them in a form the plants can use, that is) are absent from the soil entirely.

Only it really isn't that simple. Large scale manure use can direclty kill other food sources.

Fish kills

http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Po...

http://www.dailyiowegian.com/s...

http://www.extension.org/media...

And of course, the Chesapeake Bay fishery industries.

There are a lot more, but the point is that while manure is indeed a source of carbon and nitrogen, it takes a whole lot of work to keep it safe, and a lot of that work seems like our methods. I live in an area with a lot of farms, and most have manure tanks and use manure. But you don't just take old Bossie out to the field and let her drop her patties there. And you really should not use carnivore manure

Here is organic gardener Mike McGraff's advice on using manure. for general interest, and carnivore manure note.

http://www.gardensalive.com/pr...

He is an excellent source of environmentally responsible plant growing knowledge.

My Grandmother used to make manure tea. The chickens she kept produced a lot of manure, but chickenshit is very powerful mojo. So whne she cleaned out the coop, it went into a rain barrel, and was filled with water. Makes manure tea. Once a summer (maybe more but I doubt it, and was a little kid at the time, she'd take na old saucepan and dip it in the tea, and pour some on the plants. She could coax some awesome stuff from the ground. But it all has to be processed first. Trying to use

Car taxes? The fuck dystopian country do you live in?

I know counties in Virginia do it
http://www.pwcgov.org/governme...
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/d...

Apparently the state started doing it recently
https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/v...

Maine has done it as long as I remember, and your town gets the money.
http://www.maine.gov/revenue/p...

I felt these were nice places to live...

... it would be better if people learned how hard it is to shoot well on distances over 100 meters.

The corollary to this is "don't shoot beyond your abilities." If you know you're inexperienced or a poor shot while under the influence of 'buck fever', don't try the long shots in the first place. These days there are plenty of does* that will basically walk right up to you for a clean, humane kill.

*Where I live, they've basically declared open season on deer - 6 a year, three of which must be anterless, the whole 1.5 month firearms season is either-sex, plus all the bonus deer tags you can buy.

1) I guarantee if you say "Virginia State shooting" to any of the many millions of people around here, every single one will immediately assume you mean "a shooting at Virginia State University" and not "a shooting in the Commonwealth of Virginia" or "a shooting in the State of Virginia". And it would hold true for countless millions of people NOT around here, too.

2) I never suggested using "bare Virginia". I said to use "Virginia DMV" which is quite precise, domestic or international.

3) And "Commonwealth of Virginia" is certainly not "little known", it is on all kinds of documents and signs and materials. But I suppose everything is relative. Even so, my statements were and still are correct. http://www.virginia.gov/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Virginia is similar, we have over 200 different plates. It takes like 500 people to prepay for a specific design and some approval process and bam, one more new plate on the list.

https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/v...

VA also makes getting a personalized plate numbers/letters very simple. I think I read somewhere that in 6 plates in VA are personalized.

To people outside of Arizona, we've got 35 (!) choices for our plate outside of the default, each costing $25 extra, and $25 extra-extra if you want it personalized.

Amateurs. Here in Virginia we have over 200 choices, not including the ability to have your own custom business logo on the plate if you have a large enough fleet. You can't tell me some of those don't get you a little special consideration when you get pulled over.

To people outside of Arizona, we've got 35 (!) choices for our plate outside of the default, each costing $25 extra, and $25 extra-extra if you want it personalized.

Amateurs. Here in Virginia we have over 200 choices, not including the ability to have your own custom business logo on the plate if you have a large enough fleet. You can't tell me some of those don't get you a little special consideration when you get pulled over.

A citation from the police is bad. A citation from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is good.

If you're referring to this you have an odd definition of "all companies" and should realize that this only applies to mass layoffs. Many layoffs are far smaller.

In Virginia, it is very illegal for a hunter to sell his kill except under very specific circumstances. There do not seem to be any exceptions for large game animals that are in demand as human food (although squirrels are good eatin').

I would welcome the advance notice. I'd like to have a chance to get my affairs in order and do a few things before I'm unable.

Do those things now; you never know when your time is up.

My wife was perfectly healthy until the day before Thanksgiving 2005 when, with only the complaint of a persistent headache, she was diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor known as a Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM). She died in my arms just seven weeks later; we had been together for 20 years.

While she was 61, I was 42 at that time. We both had Wills and our finances pretty well in order anyway, but now I have a more detailed Will, beneficiaries and/or transfer on death notices on my investments, copies of important paperwork in a firesafe at home, and a Living Will registered at U.S. Living Will Registry that includes a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) - many hospitals can provide and submit the paperwork and having them do so will also cover the $5/year fee. I have also signed up with the Virginia State Anatomical Program to donate my body to science, like my wife asked me to do for her.

We were lucky and I'm grateful for all our years and those last seven weeks together, including our last Thanksgiving, wedding anniversary, Christmas and New Year. (though, the Winter season suck for me now.) Many people aren't so lucky and the end comes very suddenly.

Remember Sue...

http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/Files/Forms/VoterForms/VoterRegistrationApplication.pdf

I seriously don't know what else we can do to help you people.

From the Virginia voter registration form, any ONE of the following documents is required to register to vote:

(1) current and valid photo ID
(2) current utility bill
(3) bank statement
(4) government check
(5) paycheck
(6) other government document

So your utility bill would have been fine.

The document also states that the Voter ID card itself is adequate identification on election day. So you and everybody else complaining about this is full of shit.

VA - Filed registration 45 days ago, didn't take effect, told yesterday by three election offices to vote where I was previously registered, two hours of driving, turned away, told to file provisional ballot where I live, provisional ballot where I live must be defended.

Apparently these guys made their money and did their job: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/virginia-voter-fraud-case-expands-to-focus-on-gop-firm/2012/11/02/76285252-24eb-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_story.html

I've read about this happening to other people but can't believe it happened to me. Understand what voter ID laws are. They are voter fraud laws - they create voter fraud. Can't believe it happened to me.

In Northern VA myself. Voted thrice in Minnesota and many times in Virginia. Have to say that Virginia requirements are ridiculous for voting and are almost designed to stop people who don't have their shit together from voting. In 2000 on the U of MN campus I was walking around campus on election day and outside they had a big thing setup for me to vote. I had my student ID and driver's license and that was all they needed to register me, take my vote and give me a voter registration ID! They asked if I had a utility bill and I told them I was living in a dorm room on campus. No further questions needed, just had to fill out a form.

I arrive in September of 2004 in Virginia ... totally different story. After producing my birth certificate and about five other forms of documentation at a Virginia DMV, I get my VA license. A month later I check out what I have to do to vote. Guess what? You have to register 22 days before the election SO I was basically shit outta luck. Good thing I was able to absentee ballot for Minnesota (having recently moved).

Seriously, I check five or six times each election year that my stuff isn't messed up on the VA voter website because if that stuff isn't accurate down to a T you aren't voting. One of my friends moved across town, showed up to his old precinct with his last residence on his voter ID card and his new residence on his driver's license. Aaaaaaand they wouldn't let him vote. The real kick in the pants was they told him that if he hadn't shown them his driver's license and he could have recited his old address, they would have let him through.

So my experience today? Showed up at 5:45 am today. Waited until 7:15 am in line to vote. Voted on paper (line was much shorter than the electronic line) and was out. I only saw one advertisement on my way to vote: a portly fellow came in through the doors and removed his jacket to reveal a Romney/Ryan shirt upon the vast real estate of his chest. As he walked by he looked large and in charge. It should be noted he was only the former.

Can someone tell me why voter registration can't happen at the polls?

Happened to me as well. I moved a few months ago, went to the DMV to renew my license with the new address and register to vote.

Never got my new drivers license. Never got a registration card. I checked today, I was never officially registered. I'll be checking my debit card records to see if they took the money for it - if not, I will be contacting a lawyer.

I will also be filing a complaint at http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/Complaints.html. Might not do much good, but I'll do it anyways.

(Not that my vote would've mattered much - I was going to vote Libertarian)

I'm seeing a lot of posts stating something like, "any idiot should know not to dump on your land" etc. However, in many states, under law, you have to post signage or build a fence to notify others of your property boundary. You may be able to prosecute without these things, but it will make your life easier if you clearly mark your property boundary. This usually corresponds to hunting regulation, but in this case I imagine it applies to dumping.

I'm not aware of any States require a fence (although it is a good idea), some require a paint mark, or some signage. I'm not a lawyer, look up the law in your own area.

How about the virginian government then?
http://www.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&form=fac_select&access=0&fac_num=157&year=2011

Check PETA's killsheet for 2011:

According to this document it appears that teacher/professor emails are indeed considered searchable public record.

This is a mental health issue. He wasn't arrested, he was detained because he is crazy. In America, you can get someone locked up as insane. He doesn't need a trial. It is a serious problem.

This has long been a problem in the western world. In Europe, if someone seemed crazy, in the 1800s it was a popular way to get rid of him if he was the only person in line ahead of you for inheritance (see for example, Prince Ludwig of Bavaria). In America, we had asylums with power to keep anyone who was deemed to be crazy. The administrators had a lot of power in these places, and eventually it was shown that doctors were incompetent at distinguishing sane people from insane people. A lot of hospitals got closed at that point.

In case anyone cares, here is the law that will allow him to be locked up, in case any lawyer wants to comment:
a mental health professional can decide to issue a temporary detention order if "it appears ... that the person (i) has a mental illness and that there exists a substantial likelihood that, as a result of mental illness, the person will, in the near future, (a) cause serious physical harm to himself or others as evidenced by recent behavior causing, attempting, or threatening harm and other relevant information, if any, or (b) suffer serious harm due to his lack of capacity to protect himself from harm or to provide for his basic human needs, (ii) is in need of hospitalization or treatment, and (iii) is unwilling to volunteer or incapable of volunteering for hospitalization or treatment."

He threatened harm, the law lets him be locked up.

The deer population explosion is so out of hand in Virginia they should issue machine guns for deer hunting.

Take a look at the deer hunting bag limits in Virginia. When I was a kid, the big question was "will it be one buck or two for the [two week] season?" The idea of shooting a doe was out of the question. Now it's more like "how many antlerless deer MUST I shoot before I can shoot a buck?" From the URL:

The bag limit for deer shall be two a day, six a license year. Of the six deer limit, no more than three may be antlered deer and at least three must be antlerless deer.

The season in Hanover is 100% antlered or antlerless, November 17 through January 5. In some localities you can 'Earn A Buck' by whacking does. In addition, you can get crop damage and other sorts of Bonus Deer Permits that permit you to exceed the season bag limit.

If my math is correct, there are 181 hunting days between all of the special seasons statewide. If I were infinitely wealthy and took advantage of every single day of legal hunting and bonus deer tags, I could take 2 deer a day for a total of 362 deer a season!

That is legal for deer hunting in all 50 states...

But not in Hanover County, Virginia. We must use shotguns (slugs ok) or muzzle-loaders. Strangely, Hanover is a mostly-rural county; surrounding heavily-populated counties like Henrico and the City of Richmond do not have similar restrictions. [I see that Chesterfield County has joined in on the rifle ban; too bad!]

If you're profoundly bored, Virginia hunting rules can be found here and a synopsis of local regulations can be found here.

That is legal for deer hunting in all 50 states...

But not in Hanover County, Virginia. We must use shotguns (slugs ok) or muzzle-loaders. Strangely, Hanover is a mostly-rural county; surrounding heavily-populated counties like Henrico and the City of Richmond do not have similar restrictions. [I see that Chesterfield County has joined in on the rifle ban; too bad!]

If you're profoundly bored, Virginia hunting rules can be found here and a synopsis of local regulations can be found here.

Two of the victims parents sued the school for not notifying the student body earlier to warn them that the domestic violence case they had contained earlier that morning would erupt into the worst school shooting in US history, and won.

No, that's a over-simplification of what happened. There were several issues.

The campus police department didn't have the authority, nor the mechanism to directly issue an emergency alert to the student body telling them "to stay inside and lock their doors because a shooter was on the loose", so even when they knew what was happening, which took a very long while in itself, they still couldn't notify the entire school without going first through an outdated manual and a barrage of school officials that acted as the gatekeepers to that system.

5. To accept, hold and enjoy gifts, donations and bequests on behalf of the Department from the United States government and agencies and instrumentalities thereof, and any other source, subject to the approval of the Governor. To these ends, the Director shall have the power to comply with such conditions and execute such agreements as may be necessary, convenient or desirable, consistent with applicable standards and goals of the Board;

I have to give a view (somewhat) from the other side as well. I have seen posts recommending separating the 'bad' criminals from the ones who can be rehabilitated. How do you propose to do that? Based on the crime? Their behavior while imprisoned? I spent ten years inside and there are people who are so good at gaming and manipulating ANY system it would make your jaw drop. I personally am not good at manipulating people and don't want to be, but in order to survive there were many times I had to bend and break the rules. For me, it was making my own soldering gun and tools and collecting contraband parts to repair other inmates electronics. (Most people don't want to fuck with the guy who can fix their TV for them cheaply when it breaks). For others it might be stealing supplies or running a gambling pool. Finding the right way to classify and group prisoners is an exceedingly difficult prospect, and to be quite frank, most of the staff and administration at these facilities (at least in my exp

Not sure where you live, but here in Virginia online election results are posted throughout election night and kept up for anyone to see:
http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Election_Information/Election_Results/Index.html

In 2010, one Virginia PETA facility took in 1553 cats and had 1507 euthanized (46 were dealt with in other ways, such as adoption, reclamation, being shipped to other facilities, etc.)
http://www.virginia.gov/vdacs_ar/cgi-bin/Vdacs_search.cgi?link_select=facility&form=fac_select&fac_num=157&year=2010
[Alternatively, search for 'virginia department of agriculture and consumer services online animal reporting' and it shows up quite high. Disclaimer: This is the source data from an anti-PETA site, so Virginia might have a particularly high count or something.]

In its current form most states "sexual offenders list" is dang near useless.

I thought that too, but I took a few minutes to sift through the registry in my zipcode in Virginia. And, I'll readily acknowledge that one state out of 50 hardly disproves "most", so feel free to do a sample from your state.

About 80% of the offenders were listed as violent, charges ranged from aggravated sexual battery to "penetration with a foreign object" to rape, and about half of the violent crimes were against children. The non-violent charges all seemed to be indecent liberties or child porn. So, unless my zipcode is very unusual, the VA state police only seem to be registering serious offenders.

An honest question: you said, "...where drivers pulled out (when I had priority) ...". By choice of words I deduce that you're not in the US. We also have a similar concept, called right-of-way, but the strange thing (at least in my state see page 26), is that the laws are written so that no one ever HAS the right-of-way, but that they must give up or yield right-of-way in certain situations. This makes it nearly impossible to argue that the other driver did something stupid that you couldn't foresee. The argument is that you must do everything in your power to prevent the accident, regardless of who was supposed to yield the right-of-way. It's very frustrating.

Are your rules the same, or do you have clear possession of right-of-way?

Yes, I did. I also put a tax on 'junk' food at the same time. I don't know about your state, but my state already charges tax on grocery items and meals served in restaurants. In fact, some localities (City of Richmond, I'm talking about you) have a special meals tax (and other taxes) to tax travelers and visitors (see the Admissions [7%], Lodging [8%], and Meals [6%] tax coupon here).

If you read the Va state tax link, it mentions that the federal gov't already has a definition of 'Food for home consumption by humans' that is close to mine:
"Food Stamp Act of 1977, 7 U.S.C. 2012" (I think that definition is here, but I'm not sure. See section 'g').

It's always interesting to compare Canada to US when it comes to government. In my opinion, while US constitution is a fair bit more extensive in covering various rights (compare e.g. free speech treatment), it's made ineffective by the fact that its broad provisions are routinely twisted to support abuses of the same rights that they're meant to protect. In contrast, Canadian judiciary seems to do much better at protecting the rights that citizens have under the Charter and other related documents, with very little wiggle room permitted.

For a good example of that, Americans should read about how the Canadian public healthcare system was formed within the federalist framework of the country (with provinces starting it, and feds only stepping in later to help unify the system), and contrast it to the recent US healthcare reform.

You are horribly naive if you think that's all there is to it. Zip code is _not_ sufficient to determine one's tax jurisdiction(s), and you must take into account the many classification(s) of the item (likely by barcode) to determine the correct tax rate. In Virginia, for example, there are different rates for eligible food items, medicine, and extra fees for prepaid wireless services. There are also tax holidays that forego sales tax on certain items at certain times (school supplies in August, Hurricane preparedness items in May, etc).

Determining the _correct_ tax rate is extremely convoluted, rules-based, and dynamic. That's what there are companies that do it.

You are horribly naive if you think that's all there is to it. Zip code is _not_ sufficient to determine one's tax jurisdiction(s), and you must take into account the many classification(s) of the item (likely by barcode) to determine the correct tax rate. In Virginia, for example, there are different rates for eligible food items, medicine, and extra fees for prepaid wireless services. There are also tax holidays that forego sales tax on certain items at certain times (school supplies in August, Hurricane preparedness items in May, etc).

Determining the _correct_ tax rate is extremely convoluted, rules-based, and dynamic. That's what there are companies that do it.

You are horribly naive if you think that's all there is to it. Zip code is _not_ sufficient to determine one's tax jurisdiction(s), and you must take into account the many classification(s) of the item (likely by barcode) to determine the correct tax rate. In Virginia, for example, there are different rates for eligible food items, medicine, and extra fees for prepaid wireless services. There are also tax holidays that forego sales tax on certain items at certain times (school supplies in August, Hurricane preparedness items in May, etc).

Determining the _correct_ tax rate is extremely convoluted, rules-based, and dynamic. That's what there are companies that do it.