Hi Bob. Welcome to the list.

That's only because you (and google, and the media) weren't listening

because most geeks have only fond memories of the compassionate members of the football team.

On the other hand, they did like to throw quarters at my head. Maybe it was their way of helping me add to my college fund...

So does that mean you are out camping in the cold, being disobedient? Because if not then you aren't really doing anything to lessen your state of fuckedness. You know that you are not alone, and that the standard process hasn't been working for you. So if you truly believe that things are going to get that much worse so quickly, you better be out there finding other people to align with your cause. Because if it comes to the point you will need to stockpile food and guns, rugged individualism isn't going to get you very far.

one child was left behind.

As an American living in Europe, I can tell you now, it won't be easy without getting a job lined up first. You might want to consider U.N. job postings. If your relatives have an internet connection communnication is easy, if they don't you can use skype to call them on your dime for pretty decent rates. It's not easy, but it can be done.

This. The music industry has been wildly successful in protecting their ancient business model. By maintaining an absurdly high barrier to entry (currently done by oppressive licensing fees) they have been able to either bankrupt, jail, or buy out potential competitors to their empire of middlemen. The entire IP legal situation is turning into something where only companies with existing IP portfolios (wether patent or copyright) will be able to even consider creating new products or markets.

Of course, when it finally gets to the point that Patent holders square off against Copyright holders, things might get interesting. Maybe not interesting in a good way, but certainly interesting in a get out the popcorn way.

But since Leviticus is from the Old Testament, the command to not practice homosexuality would have been washed away no?

I always ask the store to open those for me, and then leave the packaging there. I hate that crap.

True, but it's already been bricked.

Thanks for getting insulting there bubba. Now why don't you explain to me just how you would like to support the original posters assertion that wages have more than doubled in the last 20 years?

That says absolutely nothing about stagnant income or buying power for the lower and middle class. And statistics, damn statistics or not, the person I was responding to claimed wages have doubled in the last 20 years. But if you want to take statistics out of it, just look at the actualy number of single income households that are still able to maintain a middle class lifestyle, and then take a look at the number of people working more than one job.

And using health insurance as an argument that total wages have increased is sort of screwed. Insurance might be more expensive now, but those costs have been rising well beyond the rate of inflation, and on an international scale we still spend more dollars for less service than anywhere else. Your article actually reinforces one of the main points of the article I linked to, that the really rich have increased their wealth while the merely rich have actually lost. The article also points out that downward mobility is actually easier and quicker than upward mobility.

Whatever the case may be, my point was that the claim that wages have doubled is pretty hard to prove. I would even go further and claim tat it was only the access to easy credit that actually maintained the general publics buying power and kept the system afloat as long as it did. Unfortunately, in order to prove that I would need to rely on statistics, something greed apologists would appear to find abhorrent.

No. It hasn't.

Even the highest fifth (top 20%) has averaged less than what had previously been average GPA growth rate over the prior 40 years of a little over 3%. And the bottom half of the top 20% did poorly, because the top 1% did so well that it raised the average for the top 20%. That means that over the past 30 years only people roughly within the top 10% were able to realize any growth in real income.

Robert Reich puts it this way:

The wages of the typical American hardly increased in the three decades leading up to the Crash of 2008, considering inflation. In the 2002, they actually dropped. According to the Census Bureau, in 2007 a male worker earning the median male wage (that is, smack in the middle, with as many men earning more than he did as earning less) took home just over $45,000. Considering inflation, this was less than the typical male worker earned thirty years before. * * * But the American economy was much larger in 2007 than it was 30 years before. If those gains had been divided equally among Americans, the typical American would be more than 60 percent better off than he actually was by 2007. [6]

You can read some more here: http://acivilamericandebate.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/the-30-year-growth-of-income-inequality/

WinCe had to have been the most appropriate acronym for any product, ever.

And now only those with a large passive income (or friends with buttloads of cash) can afford to invest their time in campaigning. All hope that one may be represented by anyone interested in anything other than making the rich richer and preserving the status quo has long been obliterated.

Of course, I can imagine RP taking us to the next level, where indentured servants are no longer allowed the vote. Considering the current state of consumer debt in the states, that should make elections a right simple matter...