I thought that was supposed to happen when gasoline got over $4.00 a gallon, or Obama got elected, or something...

Just flew to HNL on Delta - no problem at all. Airplane mode and no laptops were the only instructions for takeoff and landing.

Touche'! If I could buy you the beverage of your choice, I would!

I'm guessing you have never sat waiting in a surgeon's examination room. My last visit I had to wait almost 90 minutes with only my thoughts. Mainly, when the hell was he going to come in the door?

Yes, my son and I used to watch that series, what was it, "Spenser"? There was one line he delivered so badly in an ep that it became what is now called a meme in our family, trotted out often in response to various queries; "The day is short; your client's money is long; the question shall be answered." in that clipped monotone that he used, followed by bared teeth.

I do appreciate what Brooks is trying to do. There are a couple of DS9 eps that seem to have his mark on them, one that comes to mind is "Far Beyond the Stars" (I think that's the title) which is one of my favorites, and later on, in the 7th season, he makes his point about racism in America in one of the Vic Fontaine eps, but it feels kinda forced and out of character for the Sisko character. In any case, I just don't feel him as an actor, but I didn't get a "great actor" feel from anyone on that series.

Damn, I meant Terry Ferrell as Jadzia Dax - sorry.

DS9 is, in my opinion, the absolute worst of the entire ST franchise. I have just finished a 3+ year on/off challenge to watch the entire franchise (every series and movie except for the cartoons) - TNG was tiring, Voyager was brutal; oh, man - but DS9 - I gave up 3 times. Bad acting, crappy plots, characters it was impossible to care about - until Vic Fontaine! The bright spots for me were the Vic Fontaine eps; just too little, too late. In my opinion, Avery Brooks and Nana Visitor are total hacks and I kept hoping they'd be killed off early in the series like Denise Crosby (Tasha Dar), another hack actor in TNG. As you haven't seen all the eps, I won't post spoilers, but I will say that every scene with Nicole de Boer (Dax) in it did get my attention.

I feel your comment is somewhat misleading; I am certainly willing to be wrong, it would seem (based on some research and about a half-hour of reading) that the Ram Truck 1500 series (Ram Truck being owned by Fiat, BTW) is assembled in the US, at the Warren Truck Assembly plant, from parts manufactured at the Saltillo Stamping Plant in Mexico and the Warren Stamping plant in the US (I didn't bother trying to find out the percentages). The only Ram truck assembled at the US plant is the 1500 series. Some of the 1500 series and all the other Ram trucks sold in the US (2500, 3500, 4500, 5500) are manufactured and built in Saltillo, Mexico. There is also a plant in Windsor, OT that builds Ram Trucks for Canada.

While it would be nice to think that we as Americans hadn't given away the store, I am of the belief that we have, and it's not coming back.

I can't agree that it's a cultural issue; rather, in my opinion, it's an SES issue. Poor families are poor, no matter their race or culture. While there are outliers in any distribution, there is a strong correlation between SES and a child's educational success. I'm not going to try to speculate on reasons for this in this short comment, but you can Google "SES and Education" and find quite a lot of data regarding this subject. Ancedotally, I have witnessed this very phenomenon in my 30 years involved in educational settings.

This correlation is really no news to anyone involved in education (including school boards and elected politicians). It's always been a curiosity to me why no one wants to really do anything about it; it's almost as if it's in someone's best interest to maintain the status quo...

I have known several police officers in my lifetime - almost to a person, they had the attitude that the world was made up of two kinds of folks - them and the "perps" - and we're all the perps. To paraphrase Bryant in "Blade Runner", "You now the score, pal; if you're not cop, you're 'little people'".

An interesting aside from an ex-LEO in the town I live in; according to him, they figure it's about 7 years from rookie to bad cap. Not sure if that is true all over, but it seems reasonable; they're average HS grad/CJ AAs to start out with, and they see the worst of humanity on daily basis - pretty easy to lump everyone together after a while, I bet.

There's a great MST3K ep riffing an Air force propaganda film called the "The Starfighters" featuring the F104s. Well worth the watch if only for the "refueling" riffs (and the "Tech Support" segments between the film).

Agreed. Dropped TWC almost 4 years ago, only have Internet (which might come with some television channels but never cared to look). Still too damn much money, but no other serious option. Netflix and Amazon with a Roku for films are good options (as long as it's a Roku 3 - Amazon and Roku seem to have broken the delivery on the Roku 1 and 2 but of course, that is just my experience and opinion - Netflix is great with a Chromecast, I sure hope Amazon and Acorn get added to Chromecast so I can toss these Rokus to Goodwill) and I pay $5 a month for Acorn.TV - a good selection of British television shows shown without commercials. I won't give Hulu a dime as they charge a subscription fee then *still* toss in commercials - but I guess a lot of folks will put up with that - Hulu apologists always remind me of the "little bit pregnant" line; in any case, not a lot to see in American television shows in any case, IMO.

Agreed, but I was referring to cab monopolies and making certain that cabs are "safe", and there are "background checks" to keep unqualified drivers off the road. Do you really think it's any different in England? Perhaps you do, but I don't. In my opinion, and what I've seen in my lifetime, money always wins and nothing will change that. I've had some pretty sketchy "black cab" rides in London and had more than a few drivers try to "bugger the Yank". Same thing in NYC. It's the same game all over the world, in my opinion.

As per the surreptitious Puppeteer breeding programs, they'll attack too soon and we will be victorious! Kinda makes you wonder what the Puppeteers have been doing to us, besides breeding for luck...

I suspect that you have never gotten a hack license, worked as a cabbie or take cabs very often. I drove a cab for a short time while in college, leaving after one of the drivers I worked with was killed for pocket change. In the world of cab monopolies, money seems to go a long way. But that's how it's done in America. Money always talks and smooths the path; to believe otherwise (or even, in my opinion, believe what the money folks tell you) is a bit naive. But that's just my experience, yours might be different.