It is really hard to imagine how that is related to the Hobby Lobby case which was about GOVERNMENT requirements being levied on a company and not drug tests as a condition of employment. I think the law is pretty clear, companies can do drug testing and refuse to employ those who fail said tests.

For some reason, Americans have developed a stereotype of "white" and "black" that is related far more to social class than anything else. When you say "white," we imagine someone from the middle class. When you say "black," we imagine someone from lower socioeconomic status. How many blacks are in the middle class, I'm not sure, but as for whites in lower classes, we have them coming out our ears. While we may have millions of blacks who live in ghettos, we have 10 times as many whites living in trailor parks.

Because of our confusion between ethnicity and social class, we end up with things like Dave Chappelle's "Racial Draft": http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/blogs/2013/06/chappelles-show-june5-racial-draft
While amusing, it highlights the real problem, and this false stereotype is widespread throughout American culture.

I recall an interview with Bill Cosby, talking about educational advancement among black children. Peers discourage each other from studying because it's "acting white." When in fact it is "acting middle class," because this same kind of discouragement occurs among lower class whites as well. As long as education is not valued within any group, that group will have difficulty being equally represented in white collar industries.

What we have to work out to explain the disparity between population demographics and white collar job demographics is the proportions of the underrepresented groups who discourage education. People like Jesse Jackson want to make this all out to be the result of prejudice on the basis of genetics or skin color. Honestly, I think we're long past that. There are still plenty of racist bastards out there, but in general, we do not have pink people acting intentionally or unconsciously to undermine the advancement of brown people when it comes to getting college degrees.

It's not PC to talk about genetic differences, but genetics is interesting. Geneticists have identified differences between different ethnic groups, and they have correlated them with some minor differences in physical and cognitive adaptations. Things like muscle tone, susceptibility to certain diseases, social ability, and other things have been correlated to a limited degree with variation in human DNA. But the average differences between genetic groups are miniscule compared to their overlap (statistically, we have very small mu / sigma for basically any meaningful measurable characteristic).

Thus I can only conclude that correcting any disparities must come from within. Regulating businesses won't do any good, because unqualified minorities will end up getting unfairly hired and promoted. We have to start with the children and get them to develop an interest in science and math. If Jesse Jackson wants to fix this problem, he need to learn science and math and start teaching it. I assure you, even at his age, he has that capability, if he just cared enough to do it. Unfortunately for him, if he were to corrupt himself with this knowledge, he would find himself taking a wholly different approach than the "we're victims" schtick he's played most of his life. Personally, I prefer the "the universe is awesome" philosophy held by Neil deGrasse Tyson. He's one of my biggest heroes, having nothing to do with his skin tone.

One last though: I'm sure someone will find something racist in what I have said. Either that or I'm being too anti-racist and appear like I'm overcompensating. There are also aspects of these social issues I know nothing about. I'm just writing a comment on Slashdot that is about as well-informed as any other comment. One thing people should think about in general is whether or not they have hidden prejudices. It's not their fault, having been brought up in a culture that takes certain thing for granted. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, we should be willing to admit that we probably do have subconscious prejudices. That's okay, as long as we consciously behave in a way that is fair to other human beings, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, autism, or any other thing they didn't choose to be born with (and plenty of things they have chosen, because it's people's right to choose).

And if they try to charge your credit card again, report it as fraudulent.

About a week ago i also upgraded the CPU in my laptop (Pentium something to core i5). Hooray computers!

My bitfenix phenom case just arrived an hour ago from new egg/lasership.

4790k on a gigabyte z97 matx, 16GB, gtx590 and 1.5TB ssd

Excellent advice. I would only add one thing. PRINT said E-mail and any replies you receive from it and put them in a safe place where you can find them when the lawsuit comes up. You might actually get your customer to sign and date your hard copy if you wanted to really make the point.

Aren't they obliged to cancel your account if you ask, though? I mean, say you say "i want to close my account", they asked if you're sure, aware of the great deals etc. Say no, again, politely, then firmly "close my account now". What would happen if they continued trying to get you to stay and you stay silent? You aren't obliged to go through their script; you've told them your side of things. Can't you just stop paying them and if there's any come back tell them the date/time of the call, who you spoke to and ask what the problem is? Perhaps there needs to be a mandatory website/service where you just click/say "i'm out of here" and there's no come back on their part?

The tax on cigarettes already makes up the majority of the retail price. Meanwhile, since smokers tend to die before needing long term medical care, they are actually less expensive than non-smokers. Especially when you consider that they also spend less time eligible for social security.

Of course, those taxes are spent on just about anything but medical care for smokers but you can't blame the smokers for that.

It will harm the economy. Less tax revenue for starters. Later on, higher medical costs and more social security costs. Smokers tend to die before collecting a lot of social security and before they get expensive ongoing medical care.

I haven't a clue what Apple actually stocks in the store, but I'll bet they keep the maxed out version of just about everything for the rare "I don't care what it costs the company is paying for it and we need it NOW!" crowd. A company the size of Apple can afford the inventory, especially given that their "top of the line" system doesn't change on a regular basis, and there are not that many versions of anything out there to sell. Apart from the consumer devices which they sell like hot cakes (iPod, iPhone, iPad etc) they have what, Two other product lines, a laptop and a desktop? That's two big boxes, maybe three with a monitor, so they got space.

Personally, I'd be surprised if they hadn't carried what you where looking for in stock. I'd be willing to bet that if you walked in asking for less than the top of the line configuration, you'd be sent to the website to order it. But when you have to have it *now* you can bet they are going to take advantage of that and be ready to sell you the highest priced system they can, which means the store only carries the top end configurations for buyers like you, plus a pile of consumer products to service the iPod/iPad crowd.

Israel's policy has always been "Don't fuck with us or we will destroy you." I wonder what part of this Hamas et al don't understand.

It's not absolutely safe (is anything), but it meets the criterion of being a little safer than password/key alone.