Yes, there are downsides to a generator as well, storing of fuel etc. But, I would say in an emergency situation, most of your argument goes away though, as most people would realize that some major catastrophe (hurricane, earthquake, etc.) has taken the power out, and it could be a while until it's back up, and start conserving their power to only necessary things to help live, like refrigerator and minimal cooking appliances or lights. A typical residential generator usage, would likely involve a very undersized generator that would not run the whole house, but would run just the necessities, maybe even requiring things to be unplugged for a bit while you plugged in something else that you needed. Possibly having more than one generator, so that you can start and stop ones that don't need to be used all the time to conserve fuel.

Only an idiot (or someone filthy rich) would try to run his entire house on a generator (or a backup battery for that matter) without immediately scaling back power usage to absolute bare necessities.

But a generator will likely run indefinately (provided you have enough fuel), vs a battery that will only power things for a limited time in a longer period blackout. Once your out, your out. Vs being able to keep a generator running and filling up gas every so often.

I think PG&E just likes putting that on your bill to make you feel like you should save more. Mine says the same thing.

However in my case it may be somewhat valid, as I run a home office with multiple PCs and such that goes with that, am home most of the day, as well as my wife and kids (who are homeschooled). So we use power almost all day long. And we are billed into the 3rd teir pricing as well. We dont have AC but all of our appliances are elec. vs. gas which doesnt help either.

Yes, and often times, when you zoom in to see the content, what you are not seeing are the ADS that surround the content on top, sides and bottom. So zooming in, actually zooms the adds out of, and off your mobile screen and enlarges the content area to fill the screen. If they did this automatically for mobile sites, maybe more people would like them, but the ADS on most sites are to important to most site owners, that they would rather show the Ads and no content, rather than the content with no ads.

Yes, this is a stupid move, since when I google for information, regardless of whether I'm using a phone or my desktop/laptop, what I'm really wanting is relevant information about my search. If I'm looking for information to a question I have, I want the best information to answer that question. It shouldn't matter what the hell the site designers did to make it mobile friendly or not. If I'm looking for specific information, I don't care if the best information is located on a webpage that looks like it's been created in 1995 and belongs in geocities, I want the information that best answers my question. Don't omit the best results just because they think that by some irrelevant criteria, that Google decided, that the info I need is not worthy of showing me, and instead they are going to show me info from a less than relevant source that has 'mobile friendly' site architecture.

And like a lot of you, I can't stand most 'mobile friendly' sites. Most suck, and most are stripped down versions of their normal site that don't allow the same access to the site information/functionality. The last 3 phones I've owned (over 6 to 7 years) all are plenty capable of showing regular websites scaled down to the screen, that allow me to zoom and pan and scroll how I want it. Most of this preferential for me than giving me a mobile friendly site that doesn't have the same navigation, or content organization, or features.

Ads are mostly annoying on mobile sites as well, since they don't use a column off the side to display them (where they are easily ignored). Instead, they put full width adds in the column of content, or even worse, they make the adds popup and cover the whole frickin' screen everytime you open a new page on the site, and you have to close the add popup constantly.

When changing the ECU on cars (like when Tuners flash a new tune) it is not the same as changing the entire underlying operating system. In most cases, the parts being changed are the parameters (or mapping points) that the underlying program uses to determine Fuel/Timing (and Boost if applicable) under certain RPM-Load points. The calculation of these and engine operation coding is rarely if ever touched.

It's almost analogous to changing config files for a program. You're not effecting how the program operates, just the parameter data that the underlying program uses.

It say's "Thou shalt not Murder". Murder and killing are two different terms with different meanings. You can kill in self defense and that is not murder. Murder is doing it willfully and on purpose.

And this is the real crux of the overall problem and immorality of taxes. It's not enough to tax your income, nor is enough to tax your spending, but everytime money changes hands (and in many cases does not change hands), it is re-taxed, again and again.

You work and get paid, your salary is taxed. You put some in the bank, and some in investments, and live on the rest. Everything you buy with the money that was already taxed, is taxed again when you spend it (and again as income for whomever you made a purchase from). Then your money sitting in the bank earns measly interest, which is taxed. And your investment earnings is also taxed. Then when pull money out of your investments, it is taxed again, and once more on what ever you purchase with that money. To add insult to injury, you purchase a home, and pay tax, then each year you have to pay tax on the property that you purchased, just to keep it, over and over till you die or your can't pay (in which they confiscate your house and property). Oh yeah, when you die, everything you owned is taxed before being given to your heirs, and then they pay more taxes on it when spend that money (or sell your house or property).

While taxes of *some* form may be required for civilization to exist, I'm of the mind set, that the only way to reduce this drastically is to greatly reduce the overall size of government in general. It will never be enough for government, as the more it grows, the more it wants to take, and the more it takes, the more it will grow. Less money needed then.

At many places, you can adjust how much is taken out. I used to work with people who would get big returns every year, so they went into HR, and raised the number of dependents on their withholding calculation. This made the software assume you had more kids/dependents and thus took less out of each check, and they would play with the numbers to try to attempt to get it as close as possible by the end of the year, so they reduced they yearly refund but kept more on each paycheck instead.

You see, only Jeff Bezos has special permission to be delivering mail and packages via a small helicopter. I guess Amazon got beat to the punch this time.

"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds..."

Yes this. I only fly when I have to for work, which is a couple times a year maybe. I always opt-out of the scanners (figuring if they're going to do something pervasive, they should be embarrassed and uncomfortable about it as well). It also makes a point, as it always seems like your "putting them out" when they have to do a manual pat down (I wish more people would opt for this reason). Funny how they don't see themselves as the 'PERVS' in this situation, as they are giving you the option of seeing and photographing you naked, or getting sexually assaulted. Just because you pick the one least convenient for them, doesn't make you the 'perv', as most people would rather not get either if given the choice.

But it never fails, that when you inform them that your not going through the naked scanner like the other lemmings, that they subtly make you pay for it.
-First, they always try to talk you out of the 'opt-out' by regurgitating TSA info on the safety of the scanners.
-Then when you don't change your mind, they make a very loud and public announcement for "OPT-OUT, WE HAVE AN OPT-OUT!!!" while they point to you. As an attempt to publicly shame you in front of everyone.
-Then they tell you to go stand aside so they can continue to scan people while you are 'waiting' for another agent to let you through the by-pass door, meanwhile, your stuff has gone through the X-Ray and you can't see it anymore (violation of airport rules to loose sight of your luggage/carry-ons btw).
-You sit there for several minutes (or more) hoping that the dozen or two-dozen people that go past you don't take your cell phone, laptop, bag, or your wallet while your stuff is sitting down at the end of the XRay machine out of your sight.
-Finally someone will come get you and let you through and pickup your stuff and take you over to the exam counter where the real 'fun' (and rights violations) begin.

All the while, you aren't allowed to touch your belongings until after they clear you, so you have no idea if someone has taken anything from your bins of stuff until several minutes have passed (and at which point, getting your stuff back would be near impossible).

They have high resolution scans of every inch of their persons, including their private parts, but they "can't identify" the victims? Hmm, ok.

Unfortunately because these jobs are government (ie: public sector) jobs, their paychecks are paid from re-distributing everyone else's money out them. In other words, everyone (even those people who don't fly) have to pay more in taxes so we can have all these extra government jobs. To top it off, they are unionized (so they get better pay and better working package than most private sector jobs doing similar tasks) and they get a better retirement than most private jobs (just like most government jobs now days).

I would rather donate that extra money to charity for helping the truly poor and be able to fly without getting groped.

I'll give you credit though, at least you admitted (in not so many words) that it's largely just one big government works program for people who are, for the most part, unemployable for anything more productive... (a similar view to what I think a large majority of our local/state/federal government jobs really are).