Idiots who shop at Whole Foods would rather a child go blind due to vitamin deficiency rather than allow an evil GMO food to be used. Their suggestion of "they should eat more vegetables" ignores the simple fact that they need the special rice because they don't have access to the fucking vegetables.

Tons of food have been destroyed in Africa because of this ignorance. It's better that people starve rather than risk ingesting a GMO food. What. The. Fuck?

Can we just bomb Snooki, please?

Supposedly there is a video of the rebels admitting they used chemical weapons. I don't know how reliable it is, though.

If it's true, who do you bomb?

Personally, I want us to stay out of this mess. No matter who wins, we lose.

There isn't enough time in a day to use all the tools available to me. I pick the tools that will be the most useful to my requirements.

That's my objection to the SyFy channel series "Defiance". It's a soap opera. The plots each week could have been pulled right out of "All My Children", with a rare exception.

Ah, that would explain why they Hungarian stamps in my passport were always on some random page.

Nope. They can ask, but they have no legal authority without a warrant. People ARE challenging their inspection stops and refusing to cooperate.

Every month they send me junk mail announcing how awesome FIOS is, and I should sign up for it. Every few months I check it out only to learn FIOS is not available in my area. This has been going on for years.

The average teacher salary in the Los Angeles Unified School District is $63,000, plus excellent benefits and job security that makes it near impossible to get fired. And they don't work the entire year.

Updating software on a bunch of servers is a pain in the ass, even with something like puppet. Dealing with the fallout of a breach because you didn't update your software in a timely manner is an even bigger pain in the ass and has the potential side effect of unemployment.

What pushed them over the edge, and what is almost always the cause of civil war, is hunger. Food was getting scarce. Egypt has always had to import food to get enough calories to feed the populace. The money to pay for this was primarily from tourism. The Morsi policies and the Muslim Brotherhood had effectively destroyed the tourist industry.

People will put up with a lot of shit. But if they see their babies crying because of hunger, they get angry.

It starts before a child is even in school, they prepare them for the tests to get in the best preschool, and it continues every day of their lives so that eventually their child will be accepted to the only university that matters, Tokyo University. At any point along the way failure is possible, but because of constant family pressure, it is not an option. There are only so many slots available each year, so it's guaranteed that the majority who apply to the university will be rejected. Those people are failures. They were told every moment of their lives that they MUST make it into Tokyo University or they are a failure. So where else do you go when you have failed yourself and your family?

This is a summary of an article I read over 10 years ago about this problem. It is not something new.

You can argue all you want that it's not a viable business model to not disable cell phones, but large parts of Europe already have a cell phone "kill switch" and it has virtually eliminated cell phone thefts.

Yep. The new system is pretty damn good. The app is great. Here's a basic step through.

1. Press "taxi" icon
2. Press "Send cab"
3. Press "Now" (or enter a time)
4. It asks "at your currently location?" (uses your phones gps)
5. Press "Yes"
6. I think it asks for destination, but I don't remember the details.
7. Responds with "Cab in route. Approximate arrival time is 4 minutes 33 seconds"
8. A few minutes later your phone buzzes and a message shows, "Your cab has arrived".

It doesn't get any simpler than that. The taxi drivers love it (for the reasons you stated). The riders love it because it's faster and easier than the old phone system. The dispatchers hate it because they can no longer skim the drivers' fares. In NYC, I'm sure the cab companies skim from the dispatchers. The thing is, the cab companies probably see increased profits, except it will all be "on the books". The entire taxi infrastructure of NYC is rotten to the core (pun intended). A side note. The cab companies in NYC have hired lobbyists to get Washington, DC to implement a NYC medallion system. The tax drivers are fighting that tooth and nail.

My roommate could have gotten in on the ground floor of the company that makes this system, but he turned it down (he's still kicking himself over that).

It was attempted. A system that automates the routing of taxicabs via voice calls and cell phone apps is available and works extremely well. The companies that control the taxi business in NYC made sure it couldn't get a foothold. One of the reasons it is disliked by the entrenched powers is it eliminates the dispatcher. Now you'd think that is a good thing since it reduces overhead while increasing efficiency. Except it also eliminates the bribes the taxi drivers need to pay to the dispatchers if they ever want to get work.

As much as I dislike Bloomberg, I hope he is successful in destroying the current taxi business status quo.