Yes, undoubtedly. I would wield the ax. Even x10, or x100. Well, maybe not for your life. 8^)

Let's put another twist on your question. You have kids? BANG!, I just shot one in the back. Maybe, with a few years of research and a couple thousand dead rats, monkeys and pigs, we will have an experimental treatment that might allow your son or daughter to walk again. Truthfully, would you say no to save the lives of those laboratory animals?

What makes you think that all companies in the US treat their workers with dignity and respect?

Is this so much worse than the current situation, where many just charge and pay 15% or higher interest to those wonderful financial institutions responsible for our current economic crisis?

Not in my state. School budgets, county and local services come out of property taxes. State Sales Tax and State Income Tax goes to big feeding troth in Trenton.

I already pay that amount. If it comes out as a sales tax then I'm better off because a) I don't have to deal with filing returns and the associated costs, and b) my savings and investments aren't taxed.

Once again, I live in NJ. We already have corrupt people in every crevice of power. Taking power away from the corrupt banks would be an improvement.

In practical applications, I've never encountered a stretch of asphalt highway that's gone more than 10 years without repaving that didn't obviously need repaving. It seems that most asphalt highways are on a 5-year resurfacing cycle.

Conversely, I know of several stretches of concrete highway that is still in good shape after 30-40 years without general resurfacing. I'm talking about the areas I'm familiar with: NY, NJ & PA.

Is this atypical?

Even up north, concrete roadbeds -- if properly constructed and maintained -- are much stronger and last much longer than asphalt. Where problems occur is when the roadway needs to be opened and closed to service underground utilities and such. If the patches are not properly sealed and the seals (and expansion joints) maintained, freezing water can tear them up as quickly as asphalt.

Another advantages to concrete is they use no petroleum products in the manufacturing process other than as necessary to move and mix the ingredients, (asphalt requires petroleum products as an ingredient plus must be heated to around 300F during manufacturing and laid and finished above 174F), and concrete's lighter color converts less sunlight into heat and so contributes less to global warming.

I believe the state already has a large, captive workforce: Convict Labor. While Michigan's prisons can't supply all the labor needed to maintain the roads, it can lower the cost of maintenance by supplementing its Public Works or Dept of Transportation workers with low-cost convict labor.

And it's a win-win situation. In most prisons, inmates want to work. In 2000, Michigan was paying convict labor $7.00/hour. Inmates get to spend time outside the confines of the prison, engage in productive physical activity, and learn job skills and work discipline that can translate into real jobs when they are released. The state offsets the cost of imprisonment by saving on the cost of road maintenance and recapturing some of the convict's wages to offset the cost of imprisonment. It's also reported that prisoners participating in similar prison labor programs are much better behaved than the average. (Information sources: http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=4476),

A lot of young adults go to prison on drug charges or related crimes having never held a job of any significance. They usually come out of prison withno job skills, no car to get to a job, no place to live, no money to get a car or a place to live, and a criminal record that makes it virtually impossible to get a job that can provide a living wage. Faced with this situation it's inevitable that most will go back to selling drugs or theft as a matter of survival.

But if an inmate can work on public works projects such as maintaining roads, and earn wages during their imprisonment -- even if below minimum wage levels -- they have a chance to have enough money saved upon release to buy a cheap used car, legally register and insure it, and get an apartment, without resorting to criminal enterprise. And they also have skills, experience and a work discipline they can capitalize on to find work in an marketplace that can be more forgiving of a criminal record than most others.

First of all, I assume you mean liable and not libel.

Second, what are the liability risks? Sexual Harassment comes to mind, but this would be primarily focused at the individual who accessed the adult content, unless the company elected to not take action to stop the harassment once reported. Negligence or "fostering an environment" are the most likely risks.

Third, how do you mitigate these risks? The primary method is to enact a company policy prohibiting employees from accessing (or possessing, distributing, or creating) adult materials in the workplace or using company resources, and then require each employee to sign a letter of acceptance of this policy as a condition of employment.

What else is required beyond the policy to mitigate liability? Enforcement. Not filtering, but appropriate and consistent disciplinary response to each infraction. Failing this opens a company up to liability for failing to protect its employees from sexual harassment.

Filtering is an added factor that demonstrates a company's commitment to enforcing its sexual harassment policies. But, as we well know, filtering is not difficult to bypass. Just because an employee can find a way to circumvent the filtering does not mean the policy forbidding this activity is no longer in effect. It is the policy itself, and consistent disciplinary action for offenders, that mitigates the risk of liability.

I call bullshit on you. There is no Verizon plan available to the general public at or around $65/month, with or without taxes, that provides unlimited voice and data plus 1000 texts. Post a link and I bet Verizon will see several hundred thousand new subscribers this month.

And do what? You'll go to Verizon and have exactly the same problems. Or you'll go to Sprint and have mostly the same problems with less signal coverage. Or you'll go to T-Mobile and get mostly the same problems and shit-poor coverage.

Unless the FCC or FTC gets involved and puts an end to this BS practice of bait-and-switch pricing it will only get worse. Just look at airline ticket pricing. You can buy a ticket for $25 one way but it will cost you another $80 in fees, surcharges and taxes before you can get to your destination with your clothing.

Survival of the most fit. What's wrong with giving the best advantages to the kids who can make the most of it? Is there some nobility to having a world full of mediocre achievers?

Putting "dumb"kids in class with "smart" kids limits the heights to which the smart kids can grow. Putting emotionally or psychologically deficient kids in class with normal kids is disruptive to the normal kids. Do you think the smart/normal kids want the dumb/deficient kids in their class? Of course not.

But guess what? The dumb/deficient kids don't want to be there either. These dumb/deficient kids would much prefer to be in classes with others that are more like them, so they can feel "normal" by comparison with their peers, and receive the appropriate teaching methodologies at a comfortable rate that allows them to feel a sense of accomplishment they otherwise could never achieve when mixed in with kids far above their intelligence.

It's not Slashdot OR Firefox. PEBKAC Configure your script blocking to ALLOW FSDN.COM and the problem should disappear.

I think you'd have a hard time (no pun intended) finding a man or a woman (present company excluded) who agrees that sex is more pleasurable with a condom than without.

I also don't need to be married in order to have confidence enough with my partner to engage in unprotected sex. At the same time being married doesn't automatically eliminate the the risk of catching sexually communicated diseases from a partner. Marriage is neither a guarantee of health or fidelity.

Outrageous bigotry notwithstanding, suggesting the P/P should be chemically castrated simply because he prefers boffing au natural is stupidity unto itself. There are many worse fetishes to be concerned with other than whether two consenting adults decide to do the deed without an intervening layer of latex.

Believe it or not, your mummy and daddy even did it at least once without a condom.

I think you're incredibly naive.

While there's plenty of examples of retailers overcharging on shipping, when you understand the overall pricing model you'll realize that the most popular retailers seldom net more than 15% and often as little as 8%, except for specialty/collector/restricted products. And this isn't considering their overhead and business expenses.

For example, I resell computers and the spread between my distributor cost and HP's own website is 8 - 12% before considering my overhead. If I advertise my prices above HP's, nobody's going to buy from me. But if I meet my distributor's minimum order and pay immediately I get free shipping. So, to attract customers I advertise just above my cost (to not get charged with dumping or gray-marketing) and make up my overhead and profit by charging S&H. It's the only way I can stay in business.

Anyway, if you think there's some extra 7% of profit margin hiding in today's Internet-powered, dog-eat-dog marketplace, you are about to be very disappointed. The environment is way too competitive for that. Shit, half the time I buy my components from NewEgg because its cheaper than the big distributors. Just look out for those free shipping deals.

Don't you folks also have a law that requires you to buy a TV license for any device that can show TV shows, (including laptops and mobile phones)? Anyway, a simple solution is to buy (or rent) music that includes the license fees for public performance, or use royalty-free music such as available from RoyaltyFreeMusic.com. Even the commercial services from Muzak and 3M are a better bargain than most PRO license arrangements.

Would cops bother you nearly as much if we fixed our laws to legalize what are currently consensual crimes (drugs, prostitution, etc.) and eliminate purely discretionary laws and arrest/contact quotas (which lead to cops only arresting public drunks if they annoy them, are someone they don't like, or would help fill that night's quota)?

Why is this insightful? What makes you think that I consent to allowing prostitution or legal drug distribution in my neighborhood? And why are these called victimless crimes? Anyone unfortunate enough to live or work in an area where there's dealing or prostitution can testify on the destructive, anti-social aspects of these activities. And worse, the family and friends of those who get sucked in to prostitution and/or drug use can more than comment on how their loved ones are victimized by these vices.

I'm not going to go further off-topic but to ask how you would feel if it was your daughter, sister, girlfriend or wife spreading her legs every night for a dozen sleazy men every night to wind-up with enough money from her pimp to pay for her food, apartment and heroin?