Got an example?

No the IRS was not abusing political opponents either. Rather it was the usual incompetent government we've all come to know and love.

Frogs actually jump out at some point. :)

While you have a good point, I think it also needs to be considered, that the world is watching this one, and while the charge is pretty light compared to the resources expended, it would be a huge embarrassment for the British if he just walked away because they weren't watching.

Yes, you can mark your luggage as delicate, and it does result in different treatment, but not to the better. :)

The "World"? Not much, but I suspect they've got some interesting back end systems to handle all that traffic. Too bad they're not sharing.

Wouldn't the company just find another excuse to f'over the employees?

Honestly, I don't think there's anything on the books to prevent a company from opening a store that directly competes with an indie that used to sell their product. So why should the car dealerships be any different? If the car company thinks they can do a better job that way, and I agree, I spend my money with them, if not I spent it with the dealership. That's capitalism, which is what really bothers me about this, is that it reveals the hypocrisy of the Republican claims to be against regulations that stifle business.

No, but you CAN blame them for taking advantage of the legal system as it stands. If the 1% manages to pass a bill tomorrow that makes it legal to shoot anybody who has less the $10K in assets that doesn't make it right, and it doesn't make the people who follow the law moral.

Courts of law are not the only judge of what's bullsh*t. Since it's pretty clear the current court system is flawed, allowing massive abuse of the patent system, I think it's fair to ask Microsoft to justify itself to the large audience, and explain what value it's adding. This way we can make a determination whether or not it's acting like a parasite.

This is a good point. To build on it, the results reported from the propertiary code has had coverity at least run against it, and usually the problems that it reports fixed. This does not appear to have been done in the case of the Open Source software, which was just scanned, but never given a chance to fix. In that circumstance I would have expected a much much higher result for the Open Source software, because Coverity often reports on very pedantic issues, which are often not important to overall software quality. Further these issues would not show up in anything other than Coverity, making the initial scan the first time these issues were brought to life.

I've heard the pinky toe comment before. Not sure how your teacher was using it, but the idea is that the human race will evolve out of having it, mainly due to wearing shoes all the time.

There is no room for failure. Without failure, and the ability to take risks, you'll get a lot of me too ish. Silicon Valley thrived when it was cheap to fail, now that it nolonger is you need to look to other places. I'd expect something more radical outta Detroit (where the buildings are almost free) or Kansas City, with the Google Fiber, than the Valley.

Sorry, this is a common myth, but Hitler was NOT elected. Instead he used a combination of backroom deals, politics, and outright thuggery to seize power. http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitlerdemo.htm