This. (Thank you, Bill Watterson.)

Agreed on the reaction time trade-off for region size. What do you think about the National Guard for the rare cases? Each state has one, and the Governor can call "emergency" to bring them in.

(Full disclosure: I don't know much about what Guard duty and training these days beyond supplementing troops abroad, laying sandbags, and what I just read on Wikipedia.)

What do you think they will do to you after you've messed with their computer system? I am fairly certain that they can get you under CFAA, minimum, let alone find a way to put you under the anti-terror laws.

You may be harder skinned than I am, but malware-bombing "the man" just to make a point while they are as likely as not to have you in custody at the time is way too far on the cost:outcome ratio than I would be comfortable trying. Maybe if you can convince strangers on the internet to try it, you come out ahead... wait.

I am completely with you on the "every police department" question. I am solidly against police militarization in general (and in any sort of local setting), but I think that there occasional situations that require a regional team to have some kind of SWAT capability. (How large a region is up for debate.)

With respect to BitZ, I am not saying this is typical, but his/her hypothetical has happened with a tank.

This was rather interesting and well-articulated. Can you tell me what year that was? Your "a processor generation or two ago"

I think painting broad strokes over all DMV offices is overgeneralizing. (The thing we all have in common is that no one is excited about going to the DMV.)

I lived in one state where I "didn't bring the right paperwork" despite calling specifically about the paperwork to ask whether the documentation I had was sufficient. I was told over the phone that it would be, but when I got there and waited in the giant line, they told me that it wasn't.

Fast forward to a different state: I showed up, got squared away, and left in under 30 minutes.

I know absolutely nothing about the science behind this claim, but I can remember being in late elementary and telling my parents that I'd give up summer break if I could have every Wednesday off. As I recall, it's roughly the same number of days in class.

Mod parent up.

Perhaps the same way as he expects all ten of you to be as well-versed in hyperbole as he is!

Having a law against "lying**" when "truth" means "statements the government makes" is markedly different from when "truth" means objectively factual statements.

** I presume you are riffing here on the "slander" part of the RT snippet.

Or buy one

Disclaimer: I have no idea how good that aluminum case (is|will be).

Not ride, necessarily. Video game.

This is going to be a chase-camera dodge-and-kill-orcs level.

After I went to see the first Hobbit movie with a friend who played LotR video games and who told me that the run-through-the-goblin-tunnels level was going to be hard, I realized how this works.

Just want to point out that their address is a mile down the street from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

And the government reaction to the protests? a series of laws condemning individual or group involvement in any activities that could be construed as remotely negative by the ruling party and eventually leading to the sniping of protesters by a special police team called "Berkut."

... or does it strike anyone else as unlikely that Tom Wheeler would do that?