the Durango area (and northeast to the Vallecito Reservoir) had solid coverage in the 144 MHz (2 meter) band. There was a solar-powered repeater operated by a local club on top of a mountain, broadcasting at 100 watts.
Yes, it's bad form -- but I didn't look this up before I hit submit.
In addition to the above, there's a decent coverage map for Colorado Connection [colcon.org] here [colcon.org], but some of the repeaters (especially Durango) are missing from the map.
It's been a long time since I was there, but at the time, the Durango area (and northeast to the Vallecito Reservoir) had solid coverage in the 144 MHz (2 meter) band. There was a solar-powered repeater operated by a local club on top of a mountain, broadcasting at 100 watts.
I had an interesting discussion with one of the club members about the perils of maintenance -- the road to the site was only open in the summer. The repeater went down for some reason (lightning strike?) before the road opened one spring, and they had to hire a helicopter to fly someone to the site to repair it.
I'd still recommend a SPOT or similar system though; you never know where trouble might strike.
I'll second this. SPOT transmitter/locators are really inexpensive, and will provide a much more precise location if you need help. You can also use it to send a simple "I'm OK" status message periodically, and later use it to plot your locations from which you sent the message.
Media Matters [mediamatters.org] is a media watchdog that is certainly politically motivated but frequently includes actual facts in their analysis. So it's a valid reference, and we can hope that readers will be intelligent enough to make up their own minds.
Media Matters is wrong. All you need to refute them is the recent list of sites that are being sued:
The NAACP can't even get their accusations straight.
John Lewis claimed he heard someone yelling a racial epithet. Despite a substantial financial reward being offered and someone following immediately behind him with a recording device, no one has publicly offered a recording that substantiates it.
Emanuel Cleaver initially accused someone of spitting on him. But after apparently reviewing several videos of the incident, he admitted that he was simply "sprayed" by an over-enthusiastic protester. He subsequently retracted his accusation.
The slur hurled at Barney Frank did happen. But left unreported by almost every media outlet was that the perpetrator was immediately admonished by the other protesters, and he quickly left.
How long ago was the video taken? Any idea? It was taken in 1986. So, what does a 24 year old video tell us about the NAACP of today?
spun, I suggest that you check your facts before getting off into one of your rants. It might prevent you from making a bigger fool of yourself than usual.
The video was taken on March 27, 2010, after Sherrod was appointed to the USDA (interestingly, after she and her husband received a substantial settlement from the USDA for a complaint about racism). However, the incident that she described took place back in the 1980's.
She was explaining how she overcame her racial biases and helped the farmer after the white lawyer she sent him to screwed up. The farmer's wife even went on air to defend the lady.
Yes, she did. And the rush to judgment was unfair to her.
Now she knows how it feels to be unfairly accused of racism and suffer the consequences for something that was taken out of context.
There's an entire Wikipedia page about controversies that have arisen over the misunderstanding of the word "niggardly". It would have been nice if all of those people unfairly accused would have been offered an apology.
On the other hand, the video wasn't supposed to be about Sherrod: it was about the NAACP's reaction to her story before she got to the point of redemption. But now that she has played the victim card, that's been lost in the noise.
So what do we say about the idiots that saw the faked Shirley Sharrod video up on breitbart.com and rushed to denounce her and the NAACP as racist, when in fact the original video shows the exact opposite?
You are falling for the diversion.
The video wasn't faked, and it wasn't an attack on Sherrod. It was intended to show the NAACP audience's reaction as she is telling the story. They are nodding their heads and offering other signs of agreement as she tells what she did -- long before she explains that she realized it was wrong.
Now, that it's out there, the NAACP and everyone else is scrambling to make Sherrod into a victim, so that you don't notice that the NAACP is guilty of exactly what they are accusing others: tacitly supporting racist behavior.
Honestly, assertions are my favorite. It makes arguments so easy to win.
Especially when you provide citations that avoid the period that the grandparent specifically identified. Did you hope no one would notice?
No, unemployment rates stayed low and and GDP did not drop.
Your unemployment rate graph starts at 1950, several years after the war ended. So, it doesn't show the increase in unemployment rate immediately afterward.
It was indeed still low immediately after WW2, especially by today's standards. But, it did increase -- it doubled from 1945 to 1946. However, the GP was wrong to imply that it rose to Depression-era levels.
Your GDP graph also starts at the end of WW2, so it doesn't encompass GDP before the beginning of the Depression and show how long it took to achieve (and sustain) the same level -- in adjusted dollars. The closest I could find (in Excel data, not a graph):
This doesn't show 1928, so I can't confirm or refute the GP's assertion that GDP didn't reach the same level until the early 50's. I suspect that's unlikely, because the GDP in 1929 was 977 million (in 2005 dollars) and it achieved that level again by 1936 (after dipping to 716 million in 1933).
However, it does directly refuse your contention that GDP didn't drop: from 1945 to 1946, GDP dropped from 2.0 trillion to 1.7 trillion (in 2005 dollars). It didn't recover to to 2.0 trillion (in 2005 dollars) until 1950.
So, when one accounts for the GP's hyperbole and your selection bias, it turns out that both of you were wrong. And, I'll pose your question:
So the real question is, are you purposefully ignorant or just being a troll?
That reminds me of when a friend of mine had just cleaned his 1911.45 and it was lying on the table. I asked him if I could see it and he said "sure, it's unloaded." I said "yes, it is loaded and there's one in the chamber, too."
I recently walked into a friend's house, and found a handgun lying on the kitchen counter. His two kids were running about, including one that has a propensity to drop or knock things over.
I froze and had exactly the same thought as you. I stood there debating what to do -- would it be rude for me to pick it up and make sure it was safed? I finally circled a bit to the left and saw the end of the barrel, which had been blocked from my view by another object.
There was a big red band around the end of the barrel. It was a toy! From more than a few feet away, it otherwise looked realistic.
That said, it makes lake water (most of the drinking water in Texas is sanitized lake water) taste less horrible. Especially in July/August when the lakewater inverts and tastes bad enough that the local water companies put out statements and buy ads to tell the public that it's safe to drink.
Get a reverse osmosis filter. It completely removes the taste.
If you don't want to invest in that, at least get a Brita pitcher with the carbon filters. It works almost as well.
On the plus side, they should be able to absolutely cash in on the heavily subsidized "US puppet warlords in dusty hellholes with dubious cell coverage who need to chat with their CIA handlers" market...
Iridium satellites were about to be de-orbited, because no one stepped up to buy it even at the fire-sale price. Suddenly, a previously unknown company came out of nowhere to buy Iridium, and it already had a long-term contract with the US government that effectively guaranteed their long-term operating expenses.
When Globalstar protested because the contract was held, the GAO put a hold on the contract. The Pentagon had the hold removed, citing national security. The GAO investigation apparently ended after the 100-day limit with no action.
Theres a beam antenna that spins around constantly like every second transmitting continuously, and a vertical omnidirectional antenna that transmits an itty bitty beep every time the rotating one swings by magnetic north (or was it geographic north?).
A slight correction: the original VOR transmitter used mechanical rotation of a directional antenna. Current installations use an antenna array and rotates the signal electronically. The rotation occurs 30 times per second.
I'll add another anecdote, and we all know that the plural of anecdote is "data".
After taking penicillin-based antibiotics all my life without any problem, I was prescribed Ampicillin.
I developed myalgia in my extremities, and it got so bad I couldn't type. I reported it to the doctor's office, but they didn't make the connection.
After a few nights, I couldn't sleep and I looked up the drug disclosure document on the manufacturer's website. I had to look up the meaning of some of the terms, but when I looked up myalgia, I realized I had found what I was looking for.
The doctor's office called me the next morning before I could call them. I explained that I had found the matching side-effect, and was assured that it was rare. But, I was only one pill away from completing the regimen, and we agreed to finish it.
Once I stopped taking it, the symptoms disappeared. And when I subsequently took a dose (a few weeks later) of amoxicillin with which I previously had no problem, I developed the same symptoms -- albeit much less severe.
After connecting those two events myself and explaining that to my doctor, I've been "officially" declared allergic to penicillin, and all of my medical charts are marked accordingly. I was lucky that I didn't have a severe reaction during the second round. But, it was my own curiosity that identified the allergy.
In the view of a few modern right-wing authors, McCarthy's place in history should be reevaluated.
[....]
These authors frequently cite new evidence, in the form of Venona decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee, asserting that these have vindicated McCarthy, showing that many of his identifications of Communists were correct.
[....]
These viewpoints are considered revisionist by many scholars. Challenging such efforts aimed at the "rehabilitation" of McCarthy, historian John Earl Haynes argues that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus," thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping. After reviewing evidence from Venona and other sources, Haynes concluded that, of 159 people identified on lists used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence was substantial that nine had aided Soviet espionage efforts. He expressed an opinion that a majority of those on the lists could have legitimately been considered security risks, but that a substantial minority could not.
McCarthy was pursuing his agenda for partisan purposes, and Haynes was right for calling him on it. Personally, I think that McCarthy was an example of the old cliche that "a stopped clock is still right twice a day". I don't believe he was doing it because he believed it was right -- he was doing it because it put him on the front page of the newspapers and on the small screens that were appearing in everyone's living rooms.
But, it doesn't help for you to attack someone for pointing out that McCarthy was (albeit inadvertently) a lot closer to the mark than you want to admit.
Instead, it would have been appropriate to question the scope of the original poster's claim that the US government was compromised, or his contention that McCarthy's vigilante tactics were justified.
Errr, refresh my memory, when did small town Texas become a left-wing haven?
This is a small town on the edge of greater metropolitan Houston.
I have friends that live in the area, but a bit closer to the center of Houston. The school districts out there are being overwhelmed by people that move out to the edge of suburbia (where they can afford a big house and a big lot).
They have to expand rapidly, and hire administrators and teachers with "big-city" experience and attitudes.
In this particular case, he kept saying it was a "home grown group". He tried to broaden it a bit by saying it could be "Al Queda or right-wing", but I think it's pretty clear that he meant "home-grown" == "right-wing".
However, the best one of all wasn't the news media: it was the mayor of New York:
Now imagine having that on your CV and people telling you "Nah, that's not enough experience for us, sorry."
Kagan has been Solicitor General for less than two years.
That's her entire legal experience in a courtroom. She has never been so much as a justice of the peace. Other than the handful of Supreme Court cases in which she has represented the federal government, she has never prosecuted or defended a case in a courtroom.
I don't care about her political views or her academic career or anything else -- it's irrelevant. But, her lack of experience is appalling.
There are many federal appellate judges or even federal district court judges with years of experience on both sides of the bench. I can't believe that the President couldn't find at least a few acceptable candidates from that group.
+1 on the inverter. It opens so many possibilities!
+3 on the inverter.
I've recommended that all my friends to get an inexpensive one from Fry's or Radio Shack and toss it in the trunk. You never know when you will need it.
Lately, the primary use for mine has been to plug in a cell-phone or iPod charger on a long trip, before the battery dies. I have a car adapter/charger for my phone, but an inverter is a "universal" adapter for anyone else that has their AC charge cord.
I've also seen a couple of cars that have inverters already installed, and provide a 110-volt outlet for low-amperage purposes.
Yes, try something closer to 50,000 tax rates once you factor in county/municipal/local sales taxes
And it gets even worse: many states have "tax holidays" that only last for one or two weekends.
In my state, there are "back to school" sales tax holidays a 3-day weekend in August. Typical school supplies are exempted, but some clothes are also exempted, as long as the purchase price doesn't exceed a certain threshold.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been a few years since my TS clearance went away, but ISTR that publication of a secret document immediately renders it declassified.
Unless they have changed the rules recently, this is incorrect.
Classified information is not automatically declassified by public disclosure, accidental or otherwise.
What kind of mortgage do these people have where they are still paying it off after ~60 years?
I replied below, but it's worth restating: they reportedly used a home equity loan to finance a small business startup, which subsequently failed.
means they probably refinanced a few years ago to "liberate the equity" or "put the equity to work".
An article I read yesterday said that they took out a home equity loan to finance a small business startup -- which subsequently failed.
I don't know any of the details about the failed business, but even in the best of economic climates, the odds are against you.
the Durango area (and northeast to the Vallecito Reservoir) had solid coverage in the 144 MHz (2 meter) band. There was a solar-powered repeater operated by a local club on top of a mountain, broadcasting at 100 watts.
Yes, it's bad form -- but I didn't look this up before I hit submit.
I believe this is the repeater that I remembered: DURANGO, Eagle Pass - K0EP
In addition to the above, there's a decent coverage map for Colorado Connection [colcon.org] here [colcon.org], but some of the repeaters (especially Durango) are missing from the map.
It's been a long time since I was there, but at the time, the Durango area (and northeast to the Vallecito Reservoir) had solid coverage in the 144 MHz (2 meter) band. There was a solar-powered repeater operated by a local club on top of a mountain, broadcasting at 100 watts.
I had an interesting discussion with one of the club members about the perils of maintenance -- the road to the site was only open in the summer. The repeater went down for some reason (lightning strike?) before the road opened one spring, and they had to hire a helicopter to fly someone to the site to repair it.
I'd still recommend a SPOT or similar system though; you never know where trouble might strike.
I'll second this. SPOT transmitter/locators are really inexpensive, and will provide a much more precise location if you need help. You can also use it to send a simple "I'm OK" status message periodically, and later use it to plot your locations from which you sent the message.
Media Matters [mediamatters.org] is a media watchdog that is certainly politically motivated but frequently includes actual facts in their analysis. So it's a valid reference, and we can hope that readers will be intelligent enough to make up their own minds.
Media Matters is wrong. All you need to refute them is the recent list of sites that are being sued:
Conservative website among 3 sued over R-J copyrights
The article identifies Free Republic as one of the recently targeted websites.
To be fair, Media Matter's article pre-dates the suit against Free Republic.
The NAACP never said the entire Tea Party was racist. They said that the Tea Party has never denounced the racists in their midst.
The NAACP then went on to cite several incidents that have not been corroborated, or were not reported completely. From the press release:
Civil rights icon John Lewis was spit on, while Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was called the "N" word and openly gay Congressman Barney Frank was called an ugly anti-gay slur.
The NAACP can't even get their accusations straight.
How long ago was the video taken? Any idea? It was taken in 1986. So, what does a 24 year old video tell us about the NAACP of today?
spun, I suggest that you check your facts before getting off into one of your rants. It might prevent you from making a bigger fool of yourself than usual.
The video was taken on March 27, 2010, after Sherrod was appointed to the USDA (interestingly, after she and her husband received a substantial settlement from the USDA for a complaint about racism). However, the incident that she described took place back in the 1980's.
She was explaining how she overcame her racial biases and helped the farmer after the white lawyer she sent him to screwed up. The farmer's wife even went on air to defend the lady.
Yes, she did. And the rush to judgment was unfair to her.
Now she knows how it feels to be unfairly accused of racism and suffer the consequences for something that was taken out of context.
There's an entire Wikipedia page about controversies that have arisen over the misunderstanding of the word "niggardly". It would have been nice if all of those people unfairly accused would have been offered an apology.
On the other hand, the video wasn't supposed to be about Sherrod: it was about the NAACP's reaction to her story before she got to the point of redemption. But now that she has played the victim card, that's been lost in the noise.
So what do we say about the idiots that saw the faked Shirley Sharrod video up on breitbart.com and rushed to denounce her and the NAACP as racist, when in fact the original video shows the exact opposite?
You are falling for the diversion.
The video wasn't faked, and it wasn't an attack on Sherrod. It was intended to show the NAACP audience's reaction as she is telling the story. They are nodding their heads and offering other signs of agreement as she tells what she did -- long before she explains that she realized it was wrong.
Now, that it's out there, the NAACP and everyone else is scrambling to make Sherrod into a victim, so that you don't notice that the NAACP is guilty of exactly what they are accusing others: tacitly supporting racist behavior.
Honestly, assertions are my favorite. It makes arguments so easy to win.
Especially when you provide citations that avoid the period that the grandparent specifically identified. Did you hope no one would notice?
No, unemployment rates stayed low and and GDP did not drop.
Your unemployment rate graph starts at 1950, several years after the war ended. So, it doesn't show the increase in unemployment rate immediately afterward.
Try this one instead:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Unemployment_1890-2009.gif
It was indeed still low immediately after WW2, especially by today's standards. But, it did increase -- it doubled from 1945 to 1946. However, the GP was wrong to imply that it rose to Depression-era levels.
Your GDP graph also starts at the end of WW2, so it doesn't encompass GDP before the beginning of the Depression and show how long it took to achieve (and sustain) the same level -- in adjusted dollars. The closest I could find (in Excel data, not a graph):
http://www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls
This doesn't show 1928, so I can't confirm or refute the GP's assertion that GDP didn't reach the same level until the early 50's. I suspect that's unlikely, because the GDP in 1929 was 977 million (in 2005 dollars) and it achieved that level again by 1936 (after dipping to 716 million in 1933).
However, it does directly refuse your contention that GDP didn't drop: from 1945 to 1946, GDP dropped from 2.0 trillion to 1.7 trillion (in 2005 dollars). It didn't recover to to 2.0 trillion (in 2005 dollars) until 1950.
So, when one accounts for the GP's hyperbole and your selection bias, it turns out that both of you were wrong. And, I'll pose your question:
So the real question is, are you purposefully ignorant or just being a troll?
That reminds me of when a friend of mine had just cleaned his 1911 .45 and it was lying on the table. I asked him if I could see it and he said "sure, it's unloaded." I said "yes, it is loaded and there's one in the chamber, too."
I recently walked into a friend's house, and found a handgun lying on the kitchen counter. His two kids were running about, including one that has a propensity to drop or knock things over.
I froze and had exactly the same thought as you. I stood there debating what to do -- would it be rude for me to pick it up and make sure it was safed? I finally circled a bit to the left and saw the end of the barrel, which had been blocked from my view by another object.
There was a big red band around the end of the barrel. It was a toy! From more than a few feet away, it otherwise looked realistic.
That said, it makes lake water (most of the drinking water in Texas is sanitized lake water) taste less horrible. Especially in July/August when the lakewater inverts and tastes bad enough that the local water companies put out statements and buy ads to tell the public that it's safe to drink.
Get a reverse osmosis filter. It completely removes the taste.
If you don't want to invest in that, at least get a Brita pitcher with the carbon filters. It works almost as well.
Adobe Goes to Flash 10.1
"These go to eleven."
Aren't Skype to Skype calls free?
For now. But Skype has announced that will only last through the end of 2010, at least for mobile devices.
On the plus side, they should be able to absolutely cash in on the heavily subsidized "US puppet warlords in dusty hellholes with dubious cell coverage who need to chat with their CIA handlers" market...
Iridium satellites were about to be de-orbited, because no one stepped up to buy it even at the fire-sale price. Suddenly, a previously unknown company came out of nowhere to buy Iridium, and it already had a long-term contract with the US government that effectively guaranteed their long-term operating expenses.
When Globalstar protested because the contract was held, the GAO put a hold on the contract. The Pentagon had the hold removed, citing national security. The GAO investigation apparently ended after the 100-day limit with no action.
http://www.spaceandtech.com/digest/sd2001-01/sd2001-01-009.shtml
Theres a beam antenna that spins around constantly like every second transmitting continuously, and a vertical omnidirectional antenna that transmits an itty bitty beep every time the rotating one swings by magnetic north (or was it geographic north?).
A slight correction: the original VOR transmitter used mechanical rotation of a directional antenna. Current installations use an antenna array and rotates the signal electronically. The rotation occurs 30 times per second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range#Operation
The transition from mechanical to electronic rotation was a bit more complicated -- see the Discussion page on Wikipedia for the details.
After taking penicillin-based antibiotics all my life without any problem, I was prescribed Ampicillin.
I developed myalgia in my extremities, and it got so bad I couldn't type. I reported it to the doctor's office, but they didn't make the connection.
After a few nights, I couldn't sleep and I looked up the drug disclosure document on the manufacturer's website. I had to look up the meaning of some of the terms, but when I looked up myalgia, I realized I had found what I was looking for.
The doctor's office called me the next morning before I could call them. I explained that I had found the matching side-effect, and was assured that it was rare. But, I was only one pill away from completing the regimen, and we agreed to finish it.
Once I stopped taking it, the symptoms disappeared. And when I subsequently took a dose (a few weeks later) of amoxicillin with which I previously had no problem, I developed the same symptoms -- albeit much less severe.
After connecting those two events myself and explaining that to my doctor, I've been "officially" declared allergic to penicillin, and all of my medical charts are marked accordingly. I was lucky that I didn't have a severe reaction during the second round. But, it was my own curiosity that identified the allergy.
They take all our tax money and return nothing.
For every federal tax dollar that Texas paid to the US in 2005, Texas received 94 cents. Texas ranks #35 among the 50 states and DC:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html [Scroll to page 43]
They dumb down the rest of the nation
Various measures of academic ranking are subjective, but this one puts Texas at #25, almost right smack on the national average:
http://www.morganquitno.com/edrank.htm
and they are also probably largely responsible for most of the failed mortgages.
In 2007, the mortgage foreclosure rate in Texas was 1.21%, compared with 1.33% in the West South Central region and 1.69% nationally:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2007-12-06-delinquency-chart_N.htm
I have to admit: you may have set the record for the most ignorance shown in a single post on Slashdot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy#Ongoing_debate
In the view of a few modern right-wing authors, McCarthy's place in history should be reevaluated.
[....]
These authors frequently cite new evidence, in the form of Venona decrypted Soviet messages, Soviet espionage data now opened to the West, and newly released transcripts of closed hearings before McCarthy's subcommittee, asserting that these have vindicated McCarthy, showing that many of his identifications of Communists were correct.
[....]
These viewpoints are considered revisionist by many scholars. Challenging such efforts aimed at the "rehabilitation" of McCarthy, historian John Earl Haynes argues that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus," thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping. After reviewing evidence from Venona and other sources, Haynes concluded that, of 159 people identified on lists used or referenced by McCarthy, evidence was substantial that nine had aided Soviet espionage efforts. He expressed an opinion that a majority of those on the lists could have legitimately been considered security risks, but that a substantial minority could not.
McCarthy was pursuing his agenda for partisan purposes, and Haynes was right for calling him on it. Personally, I think that McCarthy was an example of the old cliche that "a stopped clock is still right twice a day". I don't believe he was doing it because he believed it was right -- he was doing it because it put him on the front page of the newspapers and on the small screens that were appearing in everyone's living rooms.
But, it doesn't help for you to attack someone for pointing out that McCarthy was (albeit inadvertently) a lot closer to the mark than you want to admit.
Instead, it would have been appropriate to question the scope of the original poster's claim that the US government was compromised, or his contention that McCarthy's vigilante tactics were justified.
Errr, refresh my memory, when did small town Texas become a left-wing haven?
This is a small town on the edge of greater metropolitan Houston.
I have friends that live in the area, but a bit closer to the center of Houston. The school districts out there are being overwhelmed by people that move out to the edge of suburbia (where they can afford a big house and a big lot).
They have to expand rapidly, and hire administrators and teachers with "big-city" experience and attitudes.
If you didn't make it up, you should be able to dig up a source or at least some credible evidence for the truth of your statement.
Several occurred, although most of them were "commentary", which is opinion thinly disguised as news. Here's one example:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/05/02/msnbc_terrorism_analyst_blames_right-wing_group_for_failed_nyc_car_bomb.html
In this particular case, he kept saying it was a "home grown group". He tried to broaden it a bit by saying it could be "Al Queda or right-wing", but I think it's pretty clear that he meant "home-grown" == "right-wing".
However, the best one of all wasn't the news media: it was the mayor of New York:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdbUwlM4bK4
Now imagine having that on your CV and people telling you "Nah, that's not enough experience for us, sorry."
Kagan has been Solicitor General for less than two years.
That's her entire legal experience in a courtroom. She has never been so much as a justice of the peace. Other than the handful of Supreme Court cases in which she has represented the federal government, she has never prosecuted or defended a case in a courtroom.
I don't care about her political views or her academic career or anything else -- it's irrelevant. But, her lack of experience is appalling.
There are many federal appellate judges or even federal district court judges with years of experience on both sides of the bench. I can't believe that the President couldn't find at least a few acceptable candidates from that group.
+1 on the inverter. It opens so many possibilities!
+3 on the inverter.
I've recommended that all my friends to get an inexpensive one from Fry's or Radio Shack and toss it in the trunk. You never know when you will need it.
Lately, the primary use for mine has been to plug in a cell-phone or iPod charger on a long trip, before the battery dies. I have a car adapter/charger for my phone, but an inverter is a "universal" adapter for anyone else that has their AC charge cord.
I've also seen a couple of cars that have inverters already installed, and provide a 110-volt outlet for low-amperage purposes.
Yes, try something closer to 50,000 tax rates once you factor in county/municipal/local sales taxes
And it gets even worse: many states have "tax holidays" that only last for one or two weekends.
In my state, there are "back to school" sales tax holidays a 3-day weekend in August. Typical school supplies are exempted, but some clothes are also exempted, as long as the purchase price doesn't exceed a certain threshold.
2010 State Sales Tax Holidays
Note that at least one of those is "discretionary": the state has to decide each year whether to do so.