The left made a serious mistake creating gun control laws that nibble at the edges of the 2nd Amendment rather than do the heavy lifting going head-on to revoke or change it. It opened the door for the Right to attack other portions of the Constitution from the side as well.

Don't ski, for me reaching my watch has only been a matter of turning back the outer jacket cuff and maybe the mitten. When you're fishing the gloves are off a lot of the time anyway.

Are you really stupid enough to think that the bozos in Nevada would have had a chance against a Hellfire missile? You really think that the reason the gov't didn't send in an attack drone is because the loonies were armed with popguns? Damn, the ACs are getting dumber all the time.

Starting in the late '60s to early '70s US companies started hiring MBAs straight out of college into management positions regardless of experience in their field of business. The tradition of moving up within a company/industry, gradually acquiring experience and competency, culminating in a CEO position, rather suddenly went out the window. Henry Ford made Edsel work on the assembly line for a year before he let him into management. Today most of the people running the Big Three automakers have never done an actual day's work in their lives, having gone straight from college into management, and those who have experience actually making something have to hide that fact from their peers. I would say the same thing about most of the rest of the US business community, for example the last person in the executive suites at Target who had actually worked on the sales floor at some point just retired a couple of years ago. No one who runs the world's second-largest retailer has actually worked in one of their stores.

If your next set of computers don't have parallel ports get an older HP PrintJet printer server and drop it on your network. Finally gave mine away with the HP LJ III in 2010 when my wife decided it took up too much room.

Friend of my folks once told me, "Do you know why a '56 Chevy is so expensive? Because they were such pieces of crap that people would just abandon them by the side of the road after they broke down the 100th time. The replacement parts in the few that survive are ten times the quality of the originals."

Kind of sad that the cars my generation learned to drive on hardly survive at all. For that matter, the whole concept of a Pinto, Vega or Gremlin being a "classic car" just seems absurd.

Had an LJ III printer for most of a decade, after one of the executives at my work decided that he wanted a BubbleJet because it took less space (joke was on him). The company had bought a couple of them when they first went into production. When I didn't need to print new resumes every year or two any more my wife finally made me get rid of it in 2010 because it took too much space. Put it on the curb with a sign that said "Works" and it was gone in under an hour. Would not be at all surprised to hear that it's still still pumping out tax returns and kids' homework today.

We bought our Sony stereo in 1992, when we first bought our house. Almost all the writing is worn off the remote control but we know what buttons are which by now. It has the last functioning cassette tape player in the house.

My oldest piece of tech gear though is the microscope my folks bought me second hand in 1974. They got it from a retiring college professor and it was at least 20 or so years old then. Can't remember the brand unfortunately, but I can see the label on its wooden box in my head, Lux-something.

A former customer has a Win98 desktop machine that runs their security system. Thing hasn't been turned off since a power outage in 2005 (UPS hiccuped), and hadn't been restarted in the previous five years. There's no way to get the data off the machine except to take the 250 mb hard drive out and stick it in some other ancient machine that has an IDE controller.

Screw that, I grew up in Traverse City. I know what the weather is like, the last year that we lived there the first week in February the temperature never got above 10 below, and six months later the first week in August never got below 97 (even at night). Now that I know what decent weather and good food is like the only time you get me back there is for weddings and funerals.

Nowhere that the temperature regularly exceeds 100 degrees could possibly be considered a "great place to live" IMNSHO. (Which is also a strike against Detroit.) And anywhere that you can stand on the roof of a three story building and see 20 miles in every direction is just plain depressing to contemplate. Give me mountains, give me rain, give me trees, give me frost in winter and warmth in summer. When people actually go stay at a hotel because their air conditioning is broken that should be a sign that the place is inherently unlivable.

OTOH, there are people who for some reason think that Des Moines, Iowa is a wonderful place to live.

As they always have? Sorry, but "always" includes a period much longer than the past 20 years. Detroit was the economic powerhouse of the United States for decades until its business leaders caught the 'MBA Disease' and managed their companies into the ground.

I still remember when I was a kid and Indira Gandhi spent a gazillion dollars on upgrading the Indian university system with an emphasis on computers. Pretty much everyone that wasn't laughing were outraged that she was "wasting" that money instead of feeding the poor. I wonder where India would be now if she were still alive.

People will go where the work is, whether they like it or not.

And if it's Detroit there will be a lot of "not". I take it the executives of these companies will be living somewhere the weather is livable and the food is decent.

Water sports and winter activities are what come to mind, where you don't have pockets or pockets may be buried under other layers of clothing. And maybe visits to the naturist resort . . .