Average car price is a dumb metric. Cars are, on average, a lot nicer than they used to be, and people are proportionally paying more for fancier stuff. Would you rather have a 1989 $15k [new price] car in mint condition or a 2009 car you bought for $15k [even ignoring all inflation]? The amount of maintenance needed on 90% of models has dropped precipitously. Furthermore, the minimum wage has more than doubled in that period.

I certainly agree that banks causing huge problems; growth in the financial sector past a certain point of maturity is deleterious for the rest of the economy.

The world isn't such a big place anymore given how decisions of a random engineer (say, me) in Illinois can affect workers in Cambodia. I think it's not too far-fetched to think of humanity as my 'immediate community.' We certainly have many very shameful interactions with 'people far away' but to think that leaving them alone is going to be best for them rather insults their ability to participate in a global market.

Furthermore, common sources of fuel are much more rare/valuable at those altitudes, further increasing solar cookers' utility.

And here I thought you were just trying to set someone up for the cunning linguist gag.

On topic, English is one of the two official languages of Egypt and spoken pretty well by much of the populace.

+1, Awesome.

Katamari. Lots of Katamari.

Why oh why did I comment in this thread before giving you mod-points?

Somewhere your math went horribly, horribly wrong.

$3B / $200k = 15k officers. You're telling me that you found statistics saying that 15,000 officers can only handle 20 rape cases a year and nothing else?

I don't have a whole lot of confidence in our law enforcement industry, but I do have more than that.

Well, it's not free, but it is cheap. AirMouse is an iPhone/iPT app that does the mouse thing over wifi. It's not perfect, but it works.

This is very true. Street fighter would be impossible. But you actually gain a lot by being able to make any of the screen a button. So I see this more as a trade-off than a direct disadvantage. Certainly you could never comfortably play civ on the PSP, and pinball is much more intuitive with the right half/left half buttons than I ever found it with control pad controls.

The iPhone is turning into one of the foremost portable gaming platforms. Even the nice Nokia phones can't claim that. They've put Civilization on it now, FPSs, RTSs. The screen size:total size ratio is probably the highest yet of a gaming device. What's not to like?

I'm not saying this accounts for all the sales, but this is Japan we're talking about.

No, HMOs don't actually do anything. They are just the insurance companies, approving or disapproving your claims.

As another data point, I'm in the same situation & got my invite a couple of hours ago.

Because in Congress, lewdness always exists.

For the most part, phone companies want customers who think that. People are lazy and easily swayed, and the telcoms figure they can get more profit off the ones who end up keeping it (like, I may add, the story writer decided) than the restocking costs them. They don't offer the 30-day deal because they have to.

Except you forget: ice on sidewalks means someone is going to slip and fall. And then sue them. Which apparently they don't have enough of these days.