I received the Global War on Terrorism Medal for showing up to work in the morning. While I was in, I worked in a cubicle and did engineering work. I suppose the work I did contributed to the Navy fulfilling its mission, but to me it was basically a medal for being in the service at the right time. I can prove that with my DD214 just as well as with the medal.

What about Discovery and National Geographic. They used to be science based Channels. Now they split their time fairly evenly between ghost hunting, psychic phenomenon, and dog whispering. At least there is still shark week, until it becomes "possessed shark week with with live shark exorcism."

It is also sad that they have a monopoly over most of their customer base. They will slowly find ways to eliminate the alternatives that are available on-line to paid cable TV. They will throttle connections, impose more severe data caps etc. and then invent some BS reason for it all so that they aren't hit with an anti-trust law suit.

All of the carbon it claims is attached to nuclear is also attached to building the infrastructure that is necessary for solar, geothermal and hydro and the article you linked to states as much. The article you linked to goes on to say "[Nuclear] even does better than solar power and small-scale hydro projects." This is largely because carbon producing plants are predominantly providing the energy source for the manufacturing and construction operations (it doesn't have to be that way through). Man you should read your sources. Also from your link "A 2003 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study recommended vast expansion of nuclear power to make a dent in the climate-change problem...One University of Wisconsin life-cycle emissions study in 2003 found even lower carbon emissions for nuclear than for most renewables."

It impacts more than just the big businesses profit. Many fast food restaurants are franchised. The details change but many times the store owner just kicks back a fixed percentage of revenue to the corporate office. When minimum wage increases that fixed percentage doesn't decrease. The profit margin in these businesses is typically not large say 10% or less of revenue and labor may come in at 20% of revenue (some of the big players like mcdonalds may have different numbers but these are representative of the numbers for smaller places in my community). The last change in minimum wage was almost a 40% increase (5.15 to 7.25) well if all else stays the same, in that scenario labor cost just went to 28% and profit went close to 0 or worse. The only options are to raise prices (which is a business killer in fast food) or to cut staff and hope the service doesn't degrade.

Why limit the solutions to geothermal, hydro and solar? Nuclear power could provide all of the carbon free energy that is needed with current technology.

It is possible that a state board of education had some twits on it that resulted in sub-par information being taught. You didn't grow up in Texas or Missouri did you? I hear that kind of thing happens there.

The budget was balanced and had a surplus in 1999 and 2000 (I think in 2001 too but I can't find the information). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_United_States_federal_budget and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_federal_budget

Sounds like you've completely misunderstood my post. Pinching pennies typically applies to a situation where there is no disposable income and someone is struggling financially. In that case spending money on a minecraft sever doesn't seem like the best idea. Also no one is suggesting forced child labor. Working as a teen is legal in the US.

The non-transfers I was talking about are not checks, just electronic transfers between accounts at different banks (but I guess they may be treated that way and pass through the ACH, I am not a banker so Ill trust you if you say it is the same). I really thought when I wired funds they were gone. The last time I closed on a mortgage my bank asked my like 10 times if I was sure the account was correct and if I really wanted to wire 22K to them because it couldn't be reversed.

I basically get shut out from online purchases if I don't have the VPN turned on using an American based server. Even with that my paypal account gets Fed up every time I use it. I agree that the US cc is very important but far from the only thing that maters (sure to be vendor specific).

Yes, we won't buy your product if we don't think we are getting a good deal. That is how markets are supposed to work. However, there are some advantages that the US has. Primarily a large population with disposable incomes. This allows the group, using market forces, to put severe pricing pressure on many items. There are 4 states in the US that are each about the size of AU or bigger (CA, TX, NY, FL) population wise (and pretty close GDP wise too).

There is more than one possible outcome from your suggested course of action. One of which might be not selling it to you period. However, I think you could get the desired results without begging your governments to take care of the bully for you. Stop buying the products. If everyone in Australia stopped buying Adobe software for 6 months or a year, I bet they would lower the price.

Or, those companies just don't do business in your country after you pass this law.

This "guilty" concept keeps being raised in regards to this issue. What are they guilty of? Maybe they are "guilty" of being dicks but that is hardly criminal. Is there some law in Australia that requires companies to sell products for the same price there as in the country of origin?