I can't decide if you're a troll or simply woefully incompetent. Although I suppose both could be true.

Honestly, I don't really think that merely teachers ignoring the computers is going to be much of a problem. A lot of teachers don't care about new teaching methods, and many aren't keen on learning new skills to use new tools.
But as long as the computers aren't just tossed in the trash and the children receive them, they'll still help. How better to encourage children's curiosity than to give them a computer to play with and no adults telling them how they should or shouldn't use it?

I still maintain, however, that the main screwup of the OLPC project is their refusal to sell the computers worldwide. They could then use that profit to finance the original plan, probably a lot faster/better than is being done now.

I assume action would follow detection. Profile identification is only good for initial suspicion, after that a manned patrol boat would have to be sent. Hail suspect vessel, identify, provoke into attacking and riddle full of holes as deemed necessary.
Note that I'm not debating the morality of the issue, I'm just saying what I think is the most likely scenario. Drastic actions are easier to provoke and justify on the seas.

AWESOME POOL!

Then it busily removed invention and innovation, and what's left is the ignorant "AMERICA FUCK YEAH" mentality that somehow suggests the US should try its best at solving the energy crisis without external influence, because heavens forbid humanity should collaborate at solving, y'know, the most important problem it's ever had.

Megaupload was/is the most famous sharing site, and all this buzz around it after the arrest/shutdown only made it more widely known. If Dotcom can bend the laws enough to restart it without getting thrown in jail again, he'll be making thrice as much money from Megaupload as he was before.

It amuses me that you think all that would be any different with anyone else in place of Obama. US politics is manipulated by the corporations. If you want change you need to worry about the puppeteers, not about the puppets.

I was thinking flywheels too. They can't easily be adapted to automotive use, but if you can dedicate a whole room to a flywheel system size and weight are no longer a concern. However, they'd have to be more underground than the average basement, so if a flywheel breaks apart the resulting destruction doesn't bring the whole building down. Tons of potential kinetic energy stored in such a small area makes for a spectacular show if released all at once.

I believe you mean "those need a Windows OS to be installed and maintained". No virtual Windows machine I've ever seen hasn't had the gentle attention of an activator. Or been installed from a preactivated all-versions torrent.

Daniel Rutter of Dan's Data has interesting things to say about this sensor on his blog. Short version: it might just not be as stupid as I thought.

This is hilarious. That ban explicitly only includes digital SLR cameras, which would allow anyone to bring in a MILC (with the same high-quality, high-res sensors) simply because it doesn't have a mirror. Or, hell, a film SLR, with the results to be later digitalized on a high-res photographic scanner, essentially with the same output as a DSLR.

If you own several thousand houses, you're unlikely to be bothered by the fee to the guy who has to check them once in every 12 years. Make it two or three guys and you remove the cousin problem.

You cannot shift into reverse at 70 - the transmission won't allow it. If you try, all you'll get will be a lot of grinding noises. I think old Saabs might be an exception, but I'm not sure if they'd let you disengage the clutch once rear was shifted into.
Besides, engaging reverse is always made harder than engaging a normal gear. Some cars require you to lift a ring on the shifter, others to push down on the same. Others (BMWs for sure, dunno about others) require you to push the shifter to the side with considerably more force. Regardless of method, you don't just shift into reverse by mistake.

Congratulations, you just lost all your credibility.

If you were a native stickshift driver you'd know that after a while shifting and operating the clutch become automatic acts that don't interfere with the rest of the driving experience. The act of braking, for instance, automatically involves two pedals instead of just one; the brain does not actively think about this unless you want it to. This becomes so automatic that a manual driver starting on an auto will often stomp on empty air with the left foot when stopping; you don't do things like that unless they're so deeply ingrained in your habits that you don't even think about them.
Besides, an auto transmission requires to use the brake very often, which I personally found a bit weird - but that surely comes from being used to a manual. My point is, you are always required to automatize certain gestures when driving.
Now I'll admit that learning on a manual is harder; the clutch is the main nightmare for people who attend the first driving school lessons. On the other hand, it also offers somewhat of an entry barrier: if you're scared of the clutch you're going to have a hard time coping with the other mental stimuli of driving, and it's a good sign that the world is safer with you off the road.

As for the whole argument about stick drivers being better drivers: in order to drive a manual transmission, one by definition has to have more control of the car. All other things being equal, a driver with more control is a better driver, even if just at a subconscious level, than one with less control, simply because they know better how to handle the vehicle.

And on a wholly personal level, I love manual shifting. You can tell me anything you want about the comfort of autos, or the ease of use of paddle shifters, but operating a stick shift feels a bit like operating a rifle bolt. There is a lot of satisfaction in using the right gears at the right time, I feel.

On the other hand, your country is the only one with its own entry in TVTropes' Everything Trying To Kill You page. :P

Since I discovered DealExtreme (and the like), a whole lot of them.
The Pi people could reach some sort of agreement with DX or some other HK-based (and not China-based - Chinese postal services are awful) site of that kind to distribute worldwide.