I mean when someone breaks in to your house, you should go to jail right? After all, your home security sucks. I don't care if you think it is good, it sucks. Virtually nobody bothers with good home security.

So you should go to jail if someone breaks in... ...or maybe you should reexamine this "blame the victim" attitude so many geeks have with regards to hacking.

This was a transformer that failed. ALL power plants that make AC power use those. Nuclear, coal, hydro, wind, doesn't matter, they all use transformers. So even if nuclear went away, transformers would be all over the place. They are how we change AC voltages from one to another.

From TFS:

...detect brain activity with EEG and translate it into what someone truly thinks about, say, a new product, advertising, or packaging.

Excellent. We'll be heading back into using sex to sell, then. I look
forward to the return of everything from short skirts on pretty airline
attendants, euro-style bare-top commercials, and of course booth
babes. And they'll probably FINALLY add a cheerleader channel to
the NFL stuff. :)

Bring it on.

Yesterday, I saw the most amazing "Joe Average" used to sell something.
Hardly worth my time, much less going to catch my interest.
But if there was a hot babe... I would have paid attention.
Totally.

Really? Are you that simpleminded?

All I can tell you is stay away from ice cream stands, and prep for the apocalypse.

Serious question here. I mean if things are truly as bad as you claim they are, where police just arrest and beat people regularly for no reason, then why don't you move somewhere that is not the norm? I mean I can understand staying if you wish to work to make things better, but you imply in your post that you do not, that you wish to not fight back. Fair enough. However the fact that you can freely and without worry post this on a public forum means you live in a place free enough not to restrict you from leaving. So why stay?

Were I in such a situation where I feared the police to that point, and believed I could not affect change (or didn't wish to try), I'd get out ASAP. I'd work on getting a job and moving as soon as circumstances allowed.

So why do you choose to stay, if it is that bad?

When you are polite and friendly this not only makes things smoother with people who are nice, but it really annoys the jerks who are looking for an excuse to cause you trouble because they don't have one.

A minor story about that: I was coming back from Canada from visiting my parents. I made the mistake of declaring on the customs form that I had meat, which I did, a pack of beef jerky fully sealed, manufactured in the US. So instead of going right through the automated line, I had to go see an agent. This dude had a huge chip on his shoulder. It was pretty clear to me he'd like nothing better than for someone to get annoyed and belligerent with him so he could make their life suck. No such luck here, I smiled, was polite answered the questions and after a bit, was on my way to the next segment.

He'd marked to have my bags searched (at airports in general, and the border especially they can search your bags for any or no reason). So I had to head to the search area. Well I was nice and polite to the agent there who clearly thought this was moronic and gave my bag the most half-assed quick search ever before saying "Thanks you are good to go."

I got to go through with a minimal inconvenience (10 minutes max) and got the satisfaction of him getting to be frustrated with being able to do nothing. I'm not saying it always work, of course, but it works more often than not. Makes your life easier and you get the added satisfaction of making jerks sad.

You have completely mis-analyzed the cause here. Socialism isn't what killed those people. Psychotic lust for power, pathological levels of racism, and a massive dose of sociopathy is what killed them (and injured many others.) Same thing for atheism. Stalin was pro-atheist; but atheism was in no way the cause for any of his evil deeds. All atheism is, is a lack of belief in a god or gods. There is no collection of tenets, no canon, no holy book of advice. Those people who like to say "oh, but atheism caused all these deaths" are making the same mistake you are.

Too convoluted to understand? Try this:

When the ice cream vendor strangles the children who show up at his stand, you don't point the finger at Ben and Jerry's.

When people do crazy and evil things, you need to look at factors that actually dictate the behaviors you are seeing. Socialism doesn't dictate killing anyone. That's your first clue -- and it's a big one. It should be sufficient.

One is you might notice said officer has been fired and arrested however the second is you might notice the parent never said it never happens, just that it doesn't often happen. When someone says something is rare, and you find one counter example, you haven't done anything to disprove their assertion.

500% underrated.

Where have you been the past 6 years?

Paying close attention and actually understanding what is going on.

A law is gone, or "rid of", when it's *gone*. Not when its enforcement is variable, low, presently ignored, or deferred.

Be precise. When your argument or implication is faulty, informed responses will disrupt your points even if the idea behind them had some merit.

Obama's been very effective at using his presidential powers in a legitimate manner. And he's not been shy about it -- unlike most presidents, his actions are published right where you can get at them. This is worth a read.

Lots of hand waving on both sides. The facts are... other.

No. That doesn't get rid of them. It just puts them on hold. Next administration can just start enforcing them again.

Getting RID of them is something else entirely.

Touche. With a scalpel.

However, I will never be stuck in that situation. :)

Police should be required to get a warrant to get any information that I can not get without a warrant.

The federal and state governments have more constraints than you do.

The president can't get rid of existing laws. That's congress, and (because they usurped the power to do so), the courts. Learn how the system works. Then you might have some chance of making relevant commentary and/or writing accurate sarcasm.