Jailing the executives would probably be the only effective strategy. Any fines just get passed along to customers - and the companies likely have ways to deduct the amount of the fines on their tax returns.

(No doubt, however, if executives realistically faced jail time for the illegal behavior of the companies they manage, they would demand even higher pay - and probably "hazardous duty" pay for any time spent in jail.)

Since the tickets issued are "civil infractions", not criminal, the owner of the camera is generally considered sufficient legal proxy.

They will still have the numbers to show that they "generated" X additional revenue for the city/county/state when presenting their budget requests.

Wouldn't they want to show something for the investment?

According to friends of mine in Detroit, you are correct. The existing bridge is owned by Manuel Moroun and he is the one interfering. They said his latest tactic is up bidding for the land needed on the US side. Presumably he intends to rent out space to the US Customs Service like he does with the land associated with the current bridge.

Canada, on the other hand, is financing the new bridge in exchange for a larger share of the toll revenue. Canada wants the new bridge. The city of Windsor especially wants the new bridge. The traffic backups caused by the current bridge are a huge problem for Windsor. Manuel Moroun wants to build a parallel span to the current bridge, but for the additional span to be of use, the roads to the bridge would have to be widened, which Canada is refusing to do on their side.

I would not be surprised if Comcast was making big money from late frees, etc.. Other companies certainly do. One company I dealt with, my payment arrived earlier than expected so was treated as a payment for the previous billing cycle and caused a late payment fee even though I had already paid that cycle on time (as shown in my statement). Then another late fee was generated for the new billing cycle even though my balance was 0. While I was able to get the fees removed, it still wasted my time and effort. I've even been charged a late fee for having a negative balance (the result of buying something near the end of a cycle then returning it after making the payment). Again I had to waste time to get the fee removed. Only to have it imposed again the next cycle because the company had a policy of not issuing refunds for overpayments. Fortunately, there something I needed to buy so I could eliminate the negative balance.

The Debian team is very conservative about what they are willing to call "stable". They are also very conservative about what they let in to "testing".

In my experience, Debian "testing" is very solid. I know several sys admins who choose Debian testing over anything not Debian. Sometimes they deploy Debian stable, but usually go with "testing" because it's enough closer to other distros to run most current versions of specific applications while still having fewer problems.

Personally, I think they could call what is currently "testing", "near stable".

Probably a very big plus. But I still can't afford one.

Also, this reminds me: How is road tax collected? (aka, "Road Vehicle Fuel Tax" that you pay "at the pump" when refueling a non-electric vehicle)

How well would those designs scale? Even on the largest ships, the reactors are small compared to commercial power production..

(While they're are some technical advances to using more small reactors, the construction costs would be higher. Also, while I like the idea of putting small power plants nearer the loads they serve, there will be a lot resistance to building new fission plants closer to urban areas than they already are.)

My girlfriend (and mom of my daughter) and I both experienced the "push back" from society as we grew up. We were both lucky enough to get scholarships to attend private schools for gifted children. We've done our best to provide at least as well for our daughter.

We got our daughter into a private school (also on a scholarship). The school was very good at keeping her academically challenged. It also provided other opportunities for her, including "drama club" and non-varsity volleyball.

In preschool, the teachers actually appreciated her ability to read, letting her "entertain" the other kids. There was no more "friction" between her and the boys then there was between the boys. She (and 2 other girls there) would happily play with either girls or boys and was accepted by both girls and boys. She was (and still is) a "Lego maniac" (along with other building toys like K'Nex). She also played with a few dolls she choose herself (Pocahontas was one of them, but she never wanted a Barbie).

When she was 10, she stated that "gender appropriate" never made sense to her. And that while she wants to become a mom, "I'm gonna to be an engineer, kinda like Kaylee." (the engineer of Serenity on the TV show Fire Fly). She will soon have her bachelor degrees in physics and aero engineering, then plans on grad school.

Knowing what we went through, we have been watching our daughter (and her boyfriend) as well as talking with her teachers, aunts, uncles and cousins. As best we can determine, she's getting along better than we did. Certainly she knows what she wants and is making darned good progress.

What's hard about a sliding tax scale?

We already group items into taxable and nontaxable. Essential items will continue to be nontaxable. Basic quality of life and basic luxury items would be on sliding scales with luxury items being taxed more progressively.

I can see where it would be complicated to determine the fair tax of certain "big ticket" items, including houses, medical devices, cars and many home appliances. For that, then I suppose the buyer would have to file a consumption tax return with payment within 30 days of the purchase. (Items too expensive to be "necessary" could be charged the "quality of life" rate at sale; items obviously in the "luxury" category could be charged the luxury rate at sale.)

The US tried to balance between the "tyranny of the few" and the "tyranny of the mob". For a while, that worked. Now, with the increasing income inequality, the balance of power is shifting toward the tyranny of the few.

Unless you are one of those few, can you really rely on the benevolence of those few? And for how long?

Even if you are one of those few, unless you are at the top, how long before you are excluded from the few?

If you're at the top, then I can see why you might like this.

I know a woman who is a private security guard to a very wealthy person. She is paid far more than the security found in the lobbies of large corporations and 5 star hotels (I know a few of those guards, too). She is happy with her job, lives very comfortably and is very loyal to her employer. And is a former military sniper with the highest rating.

I think you are conflating different things. Higher intelligence does not necessarily mean higher risk of Aspergers or other social disorders. Your son could easily have been of average intelligence and still had the other problems you've described. Do you think he would have had it easier by being less smart?

While our society tends to mistreat the very smart, even more it mistreats those with social disorders.

My daughter is also gifted and scored an IQ in the 140s. Also has insatiable curiosity. Certainly she could (and still can) ask far more questions than us and her teachers could ever answer. But, she never has had issues keeping her curiosity under her own control. She quickly learned how to do her own research. But not at the expensive of purely social activities. She certainly pushed our patience and made plenty of mistakes, but never did anything bad. She's a happy teen who is doing very, very well in university (studying electronics engineering and physics). She's been with her current boyfriend (who is equally gifted) for over 2 years. And she's truly beautiful (scouts from fashion agencies regularly try to recruit her for modeling; she politely declines).

Yes, in some respects my daughter is lucky. I don't think that her intelligence was a risk factor in inheriting any social disorders. And she's certainly using it in good ways.

I don't. I think this will ultimately lead to a situation like the one in the short story "Examination Day", except that the overly smart kids won't be years past the zygote stage when they are "euthanized for the public good".

(In the story, parents drop off their son at an examination centre. Later, the centre calls them to inform them that their sin's intelligence exceeded the legal limit, then asking if they wanted their son's remains embalmed, cremated or donated to science.)