Ah, the famous bullshit comeback used to avoid facing certain facts.

The fact is that the Federal criminal code base has become so large that the human mind cannot remember it, and because of poorly documented agency rules, or merely weird agency interpretations of laws, it is not actually possible to even list all the laws one would have to memorize. Worse, the element of intent is often not even pertinent, and over time, more and more crimes devoid of the intent element are made.

But of course, ignorance of the law is no excuse. How convenient, make an unknowable criminal code base, and punish people for not knowing it. Then convince idiots like yourself that the system is fair and justly applied so that your knee jerk reaction is to immediately dismiss all criticism, and smugly feel secure and safe in the system.

Here ya go, complete with helpers and voyeurs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Or pick your own:
http://www.youtube.com/results...

Three Felonies A Day, by Harvey Silverglate, Constitutional Lawyer:
http://www.harveysilverglate.c...

It is impossible to even count the number of Federal crimes:
http://online.wsj.com/news/art...

Actually, I often use cash to buy stuff precisely because I do care about my anonymity. Considering how apathetic the public is to the 4th Amendment, and considering how absolutely rabid the government is about finding out information, cash is the only thing left to preserve some level of dignity.

I won't call it a probability, merely a possibility, but sometime in the future, it could well happen that eating lunch at McDonalds too many times per week could adversely affect health insurance rates. Or maybe you buy some booze at a liquor store and become a target for being pulled over on the off chance you also drank the booze and drove. Or maybe you bought a particular book 5 years ago that becomes illegal and subject to retroactive prosecution.

I'm not saying I expect these things to happen, just that they are possibilities. Of course in the 90s, if you asked me if I expected the Feds to spy on all Americans, I would thought that a foil hat concept, but look at where we are today. Anyway, using cash is a method to protect against future government abuse and when you look at how the US Federal Government operates in such fundamentally un-American ways, there's certainly no harm in taking steps to protect yourself from it. Minimizing your purchase history is a good place to start. That takes cash.

Not just your smartphone -- your car, microwave, stove, radio, computer, and a host of other devices. Clocks are simply everywhere. Except for some specialized jobs or hobbies, a watch of any kind is just unnecessary -- I haven't owned a watch in many years, and my wrists are more comfortable for it.

It's just alphabetical order. Doesn't really matter -- "both" (ha!) parties suck beyond the ability of science to measure.

Yes, common carriers do have competition. I don't know how old you are, but I remember when the choice in long distance providers came. Then sometime in the early 90s, more companies sprang up where you would enter a numeric code first, and then they would bill even less for long distance. Back in the 80s and 90s, a long distance call for an hour could easily cost you $6 on top of your monthly fees for basic service and long distance service. So going from 10c a minute to 4c a minute by entering a code or switching providers was a big deal.

Today, who even thinks of long distance? Back before competition, making a call from the county into town a mere ten miles would cost a dime a minute. How much do you pay for a long distance call now? Do you even think about long distance or instead do you think about the flat monthly rate for unlimited calling? I suspect it is the latter. So instead of paying $30 for basic service, another charge for a long distance plan, and then 10c a minute on top of that, you pay a $20 to $30 flat rate and never even think about how long you talk and how far away the endpoint of your call is.

That's what happens when there is competition.

This is all rooted in the notion that the internet is not like a phone, a decision made in the early 2000s. Of course, the internet actually is a phone, among other things. If the FCC had decided to treat the net like a phone, we would have massive competition, lower prices, and better service. What we have instead, is non-regulated monopoly cable providers.

This planet money episode gives a neat little history, and a comparison with how much better it is in Britain with respect to internet service:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

here's the link to that quote:

http://www.whatcar.com/car-new...

Except that average 2% reduction figure you site comes out of the Government's and Corn Farmer's corn holes.

In Britain, where E10 is still up and coming, some car mag site did some testing:

We then put them through rigorous emissions tests using the E0 and E10 petrol to gain a clear picture of the effects of ethanol. E10 proved less efficient than E0 in all our tests. The average fall was -8.4%, equating to more than two extra tanks of petrol every year. Assuming both fuels were priced the same, it would represent an extra cost of £170.

***

In our tests, the 89bhp Dacia Sandero struggled most, returning an 11.5% drop in mpg. That's an extra cost of around £202 every 12,000 miles. The 99bhp Hyundai i30 was nearly as bad, managing 9.8% fewer miles on E10 than E0, an extra £16 a month.

The 134bhp Toyota Prius+ with its bigger hybrid engine fared better, using 6.4% more E10 than E0, while the 181bhp Mini Paceman was least affected by the ethanol; its fuel consumption increased by 5.9%.

E10 test conclusions
This would seem to suggest that more powerful cars cope better with a higher ethanol content, leaving small-engine models -- often bought by drivers on tighter budgets -- worst affected. It could explain why our results differ from the US Environmental Protection Agency's estimate; many US cars still use big V6 and V8 engines.

I lived in Maine for a while in the 80s. During the winter I'd pour in a bottle of "dry gas" ... at least I think that is what it was called. If I recall, an 8 oz bottle treated 10 gallons (or maybe it was more than that). Even on the low end, that would be 1:160 mix (if it was good for a 15 gal fillup, that would 1:240). To get to 10%, even at the low end, I'd have had to pour in a gallon of the stuff per 9 gals of gas.

Add to that, the internet doesn't forget. This mayor has just arrested any potential upward mobility he may have had on the political ladder.

Also, as of this moment, @NotPeoriaMayor is up to 688 followers.

Well, the Federal reserve disagrees with you. Many banks still use MICR readers to sort and route checks, so not having that on your checks could very well slow down processing of those checks.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/...

The extra cost for MICR toner is so negligible anyway, why wouldn't you make your checks as compatible as possible? The only real issue, as I mentioned, is that you can't get MICR toner carts for all printers, so you have to pick a printer with the availability of MICR replacement carts in mind (unless you want to fill your own carts).

The Democrat label means nothing. If Nixon was running in an election today, they'd have to put him on the ticket with the greens or something. Even Obamacare is basically Nixon's health care plan with the liberal parts eliminated. These Democrat and Republican labels have become so meaningless, they should just change their names to Blue Team and Red Team. It's much more accurate to say that GOP ideology, as put in practice by DNC candidates, is the poison in the system.

You aren't giving Texans a good name with the "tropes fed to you by your Democratic overlords" bit. Real liberals recognize that the DNC is nothing but the New GOP, and you falling into the party-labeling thing, suggests you haven't made that connection and still think of the Old GOP (i.e., parody of itself) as a conservative party or something or other. If you are representative of Texans, it demonstrates a kind of political illiteracy.