Most people focus on Eisenhower's reference to the 'Military-Industrial Complex' and for some reason omit, or are not aware of this additional warning that was part of the same farewell speech:

Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

I use a Virgin Mobile Android smartphone. So I pay $35 a month for quasi-unlimited data and a few hundred minutes of voice. But I can switch from one Virgin Mobile phone to another by just going to the drugstore, buying it, and switching to the new phone on my account. How is my SMS tied to a SIM?

It's disturbing that you put Musk and Einstein in the same paragraph. Einstein was one of the most successful breakthrough scientists in history. Musk is a wheeler-dealer.

Now, if Jobs had just collected a $10,000 per unit subsidy from the government (or scaled equivalent per Apple unit sold) he'd be even MORE like Musk.

Walled gardens, and Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind.

It's okay to cherry-pick a few lemon models of conventional cars, to compare to the Tesla. That makes the Tesla look more reliable.

Why would one need any other reason to hate now that it's owned by Facebook?

You like democracy? You should thank the Greeks.

Certainly not the Europeans in general, though. They descended into the dark ages some time after the end of Greek civilization. If the Arabs hadn't preserved the knowledge and culture of the Greeks, we'd likely not know of it.

You're very cosmopolitan.

How do we subscribe to your newsletter?

Death due to medical rationing is always a possibility, though. I suppose you can fly to the US or one of those clinics in the Bahamas if you have enough money.

Europe is not the USA

It certainly isn't. There are pretty close to zero Trabants on the road in the USA.

Already requires that you can see, which is part of the driving licensing test.

My wife watched an elderly gentleman at the License Branch bump into a chair as he went up to the counter to renew his license. He said 'excuse me' to the chair. The person at the counter gave him his license renewal.

The weird thing is, you're so nestled into your worldview that you thought you didn't need a visible sarcasm tag.

Tort law can easily resolve this, without need for protectionist measures backed by unions and various other cartels.

Maybe your Apple iDevice blocked the anchor tag. It seems suspiciously like writing an executable, which we know is forbidden on iOS. (don't look for a forth interpreter without jailbreaking)

Okay. He didn't do his Apple Branding right. Big boo boo.

30% off the top is pretty substantial. Why you insist on comparing it to 'every retail industry' is kinda weird. Why not compare it directly to other software operations? Like, how the percentage compares to the percentage a publisher that sells on their own web page gives up for infrastructure/billing costs?

You seem like, or at least are a self-appointed, expert on the matter of selling software. So why are you making flawed comparisons?