Sorry guys, most of us hate this shit too.

UK DOES have an embassy in Iran:
British Embassy
198, Ferdowsi Avenue
Tehran 11316-91144

http://ukiniran.fco.gov.uk/en/

As does Iran in the UK:
Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran
16 Princes Gate
London SW7 1PT

http://www.iran-embassy.org.uk/page/?m=vp&i=162

Not all drugs are viable in the market. Under your proposal, those R&D costs are lost, and cannot be recovered by drugs that do well and are more profitable.

That said, the amount of the tax passed on the consumer isn't always equal. It depends on the elasticity of the good. The less elastic entity (producer/consumer) is the one that will absorb the additional cost more. In the case of wireless internet, the consumers demand is relatively ineleastic, and they will bear a majority (but not all of) the increased cost (tax). The exact amount depends on the demand/supply curves, as well as the tax rate.

For a more reputable ranking, see http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2009

Freedom house is one of the main sources for such statistics in political science research.

I'll defend my right to lolcats to the death!

That greatly depends on the state you're in. Some tax food if sold in a restaurant, but not from a grocer. Some tax rent, others don't. For a poor person that works a lot with little time to cook, they'll pay a much larger (percentage wise) tax amount on food than a moderately better off person with time to cook/shop at a grocery store.

I've used my Linux desktops/laptops here for years without a hitch. It's actually a bit easier. If you login to the dorm network on windows, you're forced to install all windows updates (not a bad thing, of course), then install their anti-virus and let it scan (ALL) drives. Most people with multiple hard drives just disconnect them on the first boot (or perform a clean install on a spare disk), get their OS checked, then swap config around. On Macs, I believe they have a similar procedure (or so I'm told). For me on Linux, I boot up, try to go to google, get redirected. Login with university credentials, and am told to reboot. In reality, a simple 'sudo /etc/init.d/networking/restart' and I'm good to go (1 minute from start to finish, compared to several hours).

For VPN/etc., we're surprisingly agnostic. Only 'real' issue I've had is the online course websites used by a lot of faculty (elearning, similar to moodle/desire2learn/etc.) It's a javascript-whore, and would timeout often under native firefox. Worked fine under Wine, so I used that and reported it to the help desk. They responded that it wasn't a 'supported browser', so I continued using wine when at home. It was eventually cleared up after a month or so, 'unofficially'.

FYI, us Texans aren't proud of it either.

East Texas is the backwoods part of Texas. I was born/raised in Southeast Texas (think 15 minutes from coast and 15 from Louisiana). The 'true' East Texans were always joked about.

TL;DR East Texas is to Texas what backwoods Kentucky is to the rest of the US.

Perhaps I'm the only one, but I've had Wells Fargo for ~4 years, and it's been great.

The only bad experience I had was my checkbook was stolen while I was overseas (the checkbook was at the home I share with several guys, there was a party, strangers show up, college life etc.). I didn't check my balance much while overseas, and the dollar was weak, so didn't think much of it when my balance was low. When I got back to the states I noticed that there was a check written to one of my roommates for $75, which I didn't write. I confronted him about it, he denied it. Long story short, someone had stolen my checkbook and *HIS* debit card. They were then writing checks from my account to his name, depositing it into his account (with the debit card as ID), then withdrawing the money from an ATM (he was moronic and wrote down his PIN by the debit card).

After reporting to Wells Fargo, I was given some affidavits to sign, saying I didn't authorize the checks, under penalty of perjury, etc. I had a new checking account and the $900 that was stolen (plus $70 in overdrafts they had caused) refunded to me in about 3 days, with only about 45 minutes of work on my end.

Handled very professionally, I'd say.

South Africa did:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

Good for them! Thank the FSM there's some sanity left in at least one state.