"I would suggest that fundamentalists are those that represent the core ideals behind the religion, the most significant probably being belief in the absolute authenticity of their scriptures, and ongoing endeavoring to practice its values."

I think the goal of living out your religious convictions ts acceptable, What concerns me is the tendency of fundies of all religious persuasions to use the legal system of their country to enforce their views about how to live. The Cristian fundamentalists in the USA and elsewhere are always trying to enact laws against gay marriage, abortion etc. The Jewish fundies try to enact laws in Israel prohibiting activities that they call "work" on the Sabbath, try to get certain dress codes for women etc. We all know about the excesses of the Taliban (the Islamic fundies). Hinduism also has problems with fundies. The common theme here is "FUNDIES are bad for the world!" If they would leave the rest of the world live in peace, we would be better off.

"The whole thing is solved by a simple set of campaign finance rules. Publicly-funded campaigns. "

I fully agree with your solution but big money is fighting this. Arizona has a law that says that a politician can get his campaign publicly funded if he voluntary agrees to limits on his outside fund raising. It also stipulates that if his opponent spends a ton of money, his public funding will increase to match the spending by his opponent. Big money doesn't like this and are suing (maybe the case his over, I don't know) because they say the law dilutes their ability to influence elections. If anybody out there knows anything more about this, I would appreciate it.

So much for publicly financed campaigns if this tactic prevails. If it does, the only recourse is a constitutional amendment that says that

1. Corporations are not people,
2. publicly financed campaigns are OK.
3. Political contributions can not be anonymous.

Senator Bernie Sanders (Independent) has introduced into congress an amendment stating item 1. It is going to need a lot of public support because big money is fighting this as well. The proposed amendment really is just a start on fixing a broken system. Please contact your congress critters telling them to support this proposed amendment.

Spell checkers do not fix all of the problems. My brother, who is a poor speller, asked me to proof read his resume. He had run a spell checker and "fixed" all of the spelling errors. It was lucky for him that he did because there were some glaring errors. Instead of "I attended XXX community college" he accepted the spell checkers suggestion of "I attended XXX community collage". Until spell checkers start looking at the context of the misspelled word, they will not give good suggestions. Too often, spell checkers are used as a crutch that will often fail when needed.

The saying goes that "If you work hard you will get ahead in the world". That statement was mostly untrue foe a long time. Yes, there were notable exceptions to that (Ben Franklin, Andrew Carnegie etc.) but for most people, this just was not true. Actually, luck played a big part in those successes.

Recently, the ruling class (the 1%) has forgot the last part of that saying, they want it to be "Work hard and maybe you will be lucky to hold on to your job". They got to their exulted positions just like the nobility of history did, they were lucky to be born to a rich and powerful family. Hard work seldom is the key to their success, they inherited it. All I am calling for is to put the full saying back into effect. If those at the top don't work hard and try to rest on the accomplishments of their elders, they should slip into poverty If a poor person does work hard, he should be able to take their place at the top of the heap..

You have no control of what others post. Maybe the stuff that others post about you is unflattering but doesn't rise to the level of libel (where you could sue the cretin). If deep data mining is allowed, this unflattering data might be found and put into your credit history. You might not even be aware it is out there. Had an engagement or marriage that didn't work out? Maybe your ex or dumped spouse to be is mad enough to put true but unflattering stuff online.

Here is the problem as I see it. Lets say that you are credit worthy and would qualify for a loan if only your financial history was considered. Now if the credit agencies could use the data about your friends the following is plausible.

1 Lets say you list Joe blow as one of your friends.
2. Joe Blow has a very poor credit rating. In fact he has a bankruptcy on his record.
3. Joe Blow is looking for friends to loan him money (there is a chance he might not pay it back).
3 Your loan application is refused because they think that you might give money to Joe Blow and he will not repay you.

Do we really want to have our financial history dependent on people we call friends? Also the concept of a friend has been changing. Someone you list as a "friend" on FB might not be a good friend that you know on the outside world (face to face). In some respects, FB has cheapened the term "friend". We actually need a different term for someone that you occasionally meet online.

If what I have heard is correct, the drug smugglers often kill the low level after their work is done. ( Low level as in diggers This gives the term a whole new meaning. ) They do this because the workers know the location of the tunnel and "dead men tell no tales". The architect probably didn't have to be killed if he just designed the tunnel and didn't know where it was. At any rate, if they plan to kill the workers later for security reasons, they can promise very high salaries knowing that they won't have to pay up. Another tactic I heard they use is slave labor. Again, wages are not a consideration.

Get your facts straight...

Apple and Microsoft got the idea of the GUI from the PARC at Xerox. You make it sound as if Apple invented the idea. They didn't invent it, Xerox did but Xerox never patented the idea. Apple just was the first to put it on the mass market.

"Experienced users want it the way they got used to."

Exactly! Instead of ramming a new GUI down our throats why don't the designers do something radical. When upgrading to a newer version offer the option to continue using the older ("classic") version of a GUI. Newbies will be happy because of all the new eye candy and experienced users can continue using a computer in the way they are used to. Later on, if the new way of doing things isn't just the latest fad and really is better the older users will surely migrate to a new GUI. It's the test of time.

With their (MS) history of every other version flavor of Windows having problems, I'll wait for the successor to Win 8. Consider the history...

Win 95 - Win 98
Win NT - Win 2000
Win Me - Win XP
Win Vista - Win 7

Granted, the second one of each pair had problems but not nearly as much problems as the first. Is there a pattern here?

In all the pursuit of lower labor costs, management forget one thing. You get what you pay for. While paying high salaries does not ensure quality, paying low salaries almost always results in low quality. In the long term, low quality will cost more .

There's another problem with that attitude. Lets say that you are only doing boring things but some computer, misinterprets your communications because you are using code words for terrorist communications. All of a sudden, you are wrongly put on a watch list and you have no way of knowing it. Whenever you go to the airport, you are subject to extreme security checks and you wonder why. The real problem is that you might not even know that you are on some watch list because of the secrecy allowed by some provisions of the Patriot Act.

This may be true but with the decline in TV viewership, there will be less viewers that can be delivered to the advertisers. To reverse the trend, the networks will have to pay more attention to their viewers. Either that or they could have 100% commercials but no viewers. Of course, the advertisers will jump ship well before that happens.

I'm not surprised at the decline. For years, critics have said that TV programming is a vast wasteland! Now the TV viewers are starting to agree with them and are tuning out. This decline will continue unless TV executives (I'm talking about cable and over the air) "wake up and smell the coffee", they have to produce quality programming that people will want to see at a cost that they are willing to pay. It's the free market finally beginning to show itself.

You say "over the air" is free? Not true! The time devoted to advertisements has become ridiculous. How about doing something radical, REDUCE the advertisement time!

"Not much can be done evolutionwise to become net-resistant,"

Actually there is! Fish can get smaller to swim through the gaps in the net.