Cute.

I live on this planet:

http://losangeles.urbdezine.co...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.co...

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/n...

http://articles.latimes.com/20...

http://articles.latimes.com/20...

This is my planet. Glad you can make a cute statement and run away without any effort to back it up.

If TWC doesn't perform to my satisfaction, I go to ATT. If ATT botches it, I can jump to a number of cellular or satellite solutions. And if it's REALLY bad, I can make sure next time I move I'm in a better area with better coverage.

If you want YOUR local government to take over more stuff, bully for you. Don't even THINK about making it manditory. This is an effing HUGE country with countless different needs and functions. My town has "again and again to cost-cutting in the interest of short-term profits, the neglect of upkeep, and the failure to maintain sufficient overcapacity in order to deal with surges and failures" while private services and businesses who wish to survive need to keep up with client needs -- or at least be better then their competition.

The cause doesn't matter. Because it cannot be fixed. If it could, it would have been already.

The rule of thumb is to keep as much out of government control as possible. It should fix roads, put out fires and protect people from crime. Anything beyond that and you get exactly this result.

The government is a huge arse hammer. The majority of problems we have historically ask them to solve are *NOT* nails.

If you want different results, don't ask the government to solve problems.

I disagree with the semantics. It doesn't MATTER the cause. I'm arguing the RESULT. The RESULT is that local government botches infrastructure.

"Regardless, I think you would find it much easier to complain to a local city alderman and getting them to take your phone call rather than trying to get some member of congress to help you out because the assets are owned by the federal government."

I currently find it easier to call up TWC and complain. And if they don't respond, I call up ATT and order DSL again. And if they dont respond, I move over a cellular solution for a while. All are less than $50/mo. Even the various cellular options out there are decent in my area. I live in an area where I have a few options.

It took me 5 weeks, numerous requests via the city's web interface and numerous phone calls before I FINALLY got my missing greens trashcan replaced. A process they CLAIM takes 2-5 days. My tax dollars at work. I logged the time I spent doing this. Took over 7 hours of my time. I've never been on the phone with twc more than 20 mins to get something resolved or scheduled. Or ATT (before I jumped ship to cable). Or any other service I subscribe.

Of course they do. The solution isn't to have the government take control.

Back in the day, ISPs would have usenet servers within their network and would update THAT rather than have users pull that kind of data across the peering connection. Let netflix or whoever is offering huge bandwidth service put hardware and pay for it within an ISPs network so high volume streams ("Walking Dead" for example) don't cross the peer.

"And please don't try to argue "government management BAD" in a municipal utility"

And why would you want to remove a valid argument from the discussion? Unless you have nothing to defend it.

"as a hole they are far better than their private counterparts".

I disagree.

DWP in LA is an example. Every year they kick back a ton of surplus cash to the city of LA that goes straight to the general fund. They keep demanding rate hikes due to increase costs. Yet they have money to kick back to the city?

http://www.citywatchla.com/arc...

"And there are pretty easy solutions to that sort of thing too. "

Come to California and implement these "easy solutions".

If there is an enormous amount of evidence of the public sector universally botching infrastructure, you are basically just wrong when you say they are "far far far" more accountable. It's simply not true.

Elected officials just need to finish their term and move on before a 'disaster' hits. Tony V, our ex mayor was in the hot-seat when a few "chickens" came home to roost on his watch. He lost his shot at moving on to Governor.

No I mean like the 90 years it'll currently take to repair the sidewalks of Los Angeles. Or the potholes in the roads and highways causing residents to sue city and state to repair car damages. Or the bursting of 100 year old water pipes that haven't been maintained.

Yes ... "far far far" more accountability at the local government level.

"This AC was modded as troll, but I think ve is just assuming that politicians would try to take advantage of the infrastructure... in my opinion improbable, as it would be a much more explicit level of corruption than the regulatory capture we have nowadays."

I'm less worried about direct corruption and much more worried about neglect. Privately owned, there is an incentive to fix damage and maintain infrastructure. Publicly owned, the money that would otherwise be used here would be redirected to someone's pet project.

Maybe they could all play "the hamster dance" song as they go down the street? Or maybe loop something from "what the fox says".

"Da ding ding dinga ding" -- "oh, here comes another Tesla!"

Or fraudulently claim certain documents had been authenticated.

It wasn't 10 years ago -- therefor it wasn't correct. What you are describing happened in 2013. They "rolled" most of the PDDs together last year. They were all under the PDD spectrum before then.

It also wouldn't be correct now. Aspergers is on the "Autism Spectrum", but is STILL separate from Autism. To call Aspergers "Autism" is to provide a misdiagnosis.

Support for various disorders were based on DX. Still is, as far as I know. And the treatment/therapy for Autism is often quite different for other PDDs on the spectrum such as Aspergers.

My son was dx'd with autism about 10 years ago by Kaiser. I had him re-evaluated at my expense because his symptoms and the criteria made no sense to me. He was later dx'd with Aspergers.

I asked the Kaiser doc about it and my response was "Well, there's not a lot of financial help or school support available for Aspergers -- there is for Autism". Wonderful.

Horseless carriage should be an OPTION. Horse-drawn buggy should be an OPTION.

As long as there is an economic reason to have physical media, It will continue to be produced and you will continue to have that option.

Don't be surprised if one day DVDs or BR or whatever media is no longer produced because it's no longer profitable. Right now, *I* like owning a number of DVD/BR. I like the box. I like how they look in my shelf. I like the DVD extras. I like how I can take them to a friends house to watch without having any complicated issues like logging in to my own XYZ account (netflix, amazon, hulu, whatever). I like that I can sell them when I no longer want them and that ownership transfers. I am willing to PAY for those things in the form of a $20-$100+ dvd or special box deal. As time moves forward, I would guess that fewer and fewer of us will be willing to pay for that. They'd rather pay $3 or $4 bux a pop and rent it on google play or amazon or itunes. And that might make the best sense for them.

Re-read what I posted.

"I'm all for advances in science improving the QUALITY of life and allowing us to live as long as we naturally can -- but to live forever? "

Where do I say we aren't living past our "natural lifespan". You seem to read "average" in to my sentence though I never said "average".