Who said anything about drinking from a cup? Not every convenience store has a fountain, and even if they do the performance is inconsistent. Vending machines are definitely not fountains. There's no "cup" a lot of times.

There were many times in my Coke-drinking days when I'd partially empty a 20 oz. I just hated wasting the stuff; but I knew I didn't want to drink all of it. It always went flat before I wanted any more.

BTW, the Mexican cokes are still a bit too big. 12 oz. (355 ml) or half-liter. I find 12 oz., poured over ice and shared with somebody is best; although I can tolerate 12 oz. The half-liter is a disturbing trend. The Mexicans certainly don't need it, since they just surpassed the US in obesity.

BTW, I knew the original coke bottle was smaller and found this article about 6.5 oz. bottles.. Sigh... apparently this was available in the UK not that long ago? Maybe they'll bring it back to the US and finally reverse the trend. The original size was just about right. Yes, I'd pay more per oz., but I'd pay the same per *serving*.

Can the Coke executives get that through their heads? Some of us are desiring a *serving*, not a "most ounces for the buck". Wondering what to do with the excess soda, or being suckered into finishing more than you need... is not a pleasant experience. Having a right-sized glass bottle with real sugar in it, that's what some of us want.

Firms often fail to supply products or services that are plainly in demand. Sometimes it's a regulatory perversion that interferes with capitalism. Other times the companies are just dicks. For example, CocaCola with real sugar. For years it was very hard to get because of government interference with the sugar market. Now due to NAFTA we can get Mexican Coke with real sugar. If you want a real American drink, you have to get it from Mexico? How fucked up is that? This would be an example of regulatory perversion.

Not to harp on the soda companies, but they also provide an example of companies being dicks. PepsiCo is a big offender. They buy up restaurants, and you can only get Pepsi there. Coke does this too; but not as aggressively. Both companies bully around small convenience stores. I once met an operator in Virginia who found a way to stock Coke and Pepsi. She actually told me that she was getting away with hiding the competing soda from a distributor when they came around. Possibly she trading wholesale lots with a friendly operator across town. This was a long time ago; but I bet it hasn't changed. These companies are dicks.

They also super-sized their beverages to the exclusion of those of us who wanted smaller portions. I really noticed this in my 20s, when suddenly 20 oz. was the only bottle size you could get a lot of places.

I was able to make the long-run decision to reduce soda consumption dramatically, all but eliminating it. I now enjoy the occasional Mexican coke and that's about it. Many others are not so disciplined, and we all know about proposed government fixes for this but really, you can't fix the fact that the companies are just dicks.

I can't help but be reminded of the Rolly. Does this mean the next stock market crash and recession is next year? Frivolity like this just seems "toppy".

I was kind of assuming that people knew all the cited examples were skewed in favor of women. I specifically put in models as an example to counter the argument that these are not highly paid positions. So since we're ruining the humor by explaining this, we might as well go all the way and cite Forbes for some model examples.

Yeah, but how many male kindergarten teachers are in those districts, and how many boys in home ec?

Now excuse me, I'm a busy man. I'm off on a photo-shoot as the top payed model in the world.

At least they weren't gzipped.

And the farmer cares about his pigs so he doesn't butcher them until they get nice and fat.

Honey, don't log on. That copy of To Serve Man just arrived. It's a cookbook!

States Rights has always been nothing more than a tool used by people who want something. Usually what they want is to take something from other people. They would just as easily use religion, economics, erroneous statistics, philosophy, or any other intellectual tool they could find.

IMHO, ultimately states don't have rights any more than corporations do. PEOPLE have rights. The PEOPLE should have the right to freely associate and provide broadband. If they want to do that through their city government, fine. There's no need to appeal to "states rights" which has quite a checkered past.

Even the District of Columbia DMV was pretty good, and DC is not known for efficiency. When I got rid of my car, it didn't take very long to hand the plate to the guy, who marked it invalid. That was that. Comcast? I got charged after disconnecting, and the dispute is unresolved after two months.

In other words, "disconnecting" from the DC DMV was easier than disconnecting from Comcast.

The drug war is bad enough, but when the DEA waits until just before harvest to destroy fields they know about... really gripes my cookies. They let it consume all that water, *then* they destroy it. And of course they'll destroy small backyard grows that don't even push people into the next water usage tier. When Joe Sixplant's grow is pushed over, where does he buy weed? From big growers illegally diverting.

Someone who shall remain nameless once told me I looked so much better without glasses, I should get the surgery.

I place LASIK in the same category as nose-jobs, breast augmentation, etc. Unless you are truly freakish (e.g., Golf-ball shaped nose or something) I have a hard time justifying it. If you're normative in appearance, IMHO any ethical plastic surgeon should refer you to a psychiatrist but they generally don't because MONEY.

Anyway, totally not going to get a laser in my eye. Those ads for dry eye medicine you see? It's because of one of the most common complications. No thanks.

Glasses. Hundreds of years, reasonable outcomes. LASIK? Maybe it'll be proven as risk-free as glasses some day, but probably not until I'm long dead and buried. Vanity isn't worth the risk to me; but I understand others think differently.

Your analogy is unacceptable. You should have written it in Esperanto. Esperanto is the new standard for analogies from corporate. Also, you should have simultaneously posted it to your FaceBook account which you are required to have if you wish to perform analogy services on this network. Furthermore, you did not submit your prose to the grammar nazi trolls, or allocate time for analogy review in the scheduling program. Please rectify these discrepancies and I will get back to you during my appointed window for analogy review, Tuesdays from 2 to 4:20PM.

New poll: Death Star trench or Lower Wacker Drive?

LOL, hate to feed the troll but I can't help but be reminded of this All in the Family scene. Would it make you feel any better if they were killed by private associations?

Ask someone from Seattle

Ask someone from the entire central US. Yellowstone's "next to" is pretty large when you consider the projected ash fall from a major eruption. Aside from that, the knock-on effect on food supply and weather would have global consequences, so I guess we're all pretty "stupid".