The actual goal is to make as many districts that are roughly 55-60% "theirs", just enough to ensure consistent wins, and then pack the remaining voters that are "not theirs" into as few districts as possible that contain 90% or above "not theirs" districts.

Along with that you also want the 'enemy' incumbents to live in one of your safe districts so they have no chance of getting re-elected. At the same time, the enemy's safe district has to run a new politician that will not be as influential as their predecessor.

If you want to actually try out the redistricting process, there is an online game to help out.

I recall hearing a couple years back that we could run fiber optics to every home in the nation for $1,500 per home. Vermont has 250,000 households. The federal funding alone for this project is $1,640 per home. Why are private companies getting all of the funding and where is my share of this federal money?

Of course if they do let civilian groups in, every special interest in the world is going to be banging on the door pushing their own agenda. There will be groups pushing agendas on abortion, gay marriage, religion, gun sales, child support, and so on...

its a $5000 a night suite... I'm rather surprised there's not video cameras pointed at the door.

What sort of people stay at a $5000 per night suite? Do they want a video record of everyone entering and leaving the room?

Except in this case it would be more like he had a habit of smoking someplace that repeatedly set off the smoke detectors and refused to change his habits. So he was prosecuted and charged for the cost of checking all the smoke detectors and installing a new sprinkler system that wasn't there before.

According to the article, the restitution was to

repay The City for its efforts in trying to regain control over the FiberWAN network and later test it for vulnerabilities

They should routinely test for vulnerabilities anyway; and to regain control of the network all they had to do was use the password which he eventually handed over. Child's was in charge of the network. If they didn't like the way he set it up, reconfiguring the systems is a responsibility they should be taking on themselves.

X-rays don't bounce, they penetrate or are absorbed, so would need a two-part system (and a lead apron for the user).

Hold on. If x-rays either penetrate or are absorbed why does the user need a lead apron? Why can't they just stand behind the machine and be safe?

If this passes we will see lots of innocent people prosecuted due to buggy audit trails that are never tested. Seriously, when is the last time anyone tested their audit code to make sure it works properly? If it doesn't crash the app no one worries about it. I've seen all manner of bogus data in audit trails.

Now ISPs will need audit trails on DHCP leases, connections through proxy servers, NAT translations, email senders and receivers, clock synchronizations...

The FCC is an independent government agency which is not part of the executive branch and is largely independent of presidential control.

- keep it simple. Plain text. Uses less bandwidth.

I would argue basic markup is critical. If you want a good discussion people need the ability to link to supporting documents. It also helps a lot to put things in lists, emphasize certain words or sentences, and set quotes apart from the reply. Simple markup makes all of that possible.

And let's not forget support for Unicode!

I do see your point in limiting the forum to text. However, there have been many occasions where I would have found it handy to post an SVG diagram, chart, animation, sound, or other multimedia. I think those things should require the user to click a button to make them available.

Directly from the abstract:

We propose a new Cassini state model for Titan in which we assume the presence of a liquid water ocean beneath an ice shell

Agreed. Looking at the paper they noticed the moon's axial tilt doesn't match current theories. So they assumed the moon had a water ocean, calculated what the characteristics of that water ocean would need to be to explain the discrepancy and said, "see, it's possible".

I'm more then happy to enter my CC details every time I need to renew your service.

If you have to enter your credit card details to renew the service you can be tracked. If you have to identify yourself to associate with the account you paid for you can be tracked. I would rather a site follow a cookie that gets deleted as soon as I close my browser than to follow a cookie that ties back to my real name and address.

Taxes add to the price

You blindly make this statement without backing it up. That general rule is true in most industries but when it comes to oil the price is mostly profit to oil companies. When there is a huge discrepancy between the cost to produce and the sale price, a small tax will have no effect on the sale price. It will simply cut into oil company profits.

Who pays corporate income tax in the end? You do, by paying more for that corporation's products.

The price is set by supply and demand. When demand far exceeds supply, as it does with oil, taxes don't figure into the price, they just cut into the oil company's very substantial profits.

I don't know where you come up with the $26 billion figure. What I have found is Exxon claiming they pay substantial taxes and proving it by pointing to sales taxes and payroll taxes.

Not only is it an incredibly invasive invasion of privacy, it's also way more expensive and complex than any taxing method should be.

I think what they really want to do, aside from logging everywhere you go, is to tax you for each road you drive on. If you drive on the new four-lane freeway in a busy urban center during rush-hour you will be charged a different toll than if you drive on a rural gravel road at midnight. You would also pay different tolls based on your vehicle, driving record, disabilities, etc.

I have no doubt there is a company pushing this agenda. Their agenda is to sell government-certified GPS tracking devices. I'm very disappointed the articles never mention what company that is.