I think the founders also feared the power (both militarily and politically) of a large standing army. If the US is invaded, armed locals operating as militia can either harry the invaders or supplement the small professional army for local engagements.

Are you that much of a psychopath that you even treat animals so cruelly they can turn on you in an instant? Or just so introverted that you can't handle any interaction with another social creature? And I guess smart people don't drive cars, go swimming, or hell, even make their kids take a bath because so many children are killed by them every year. Why even have kids, since so many die in childbirth every year. Remember, dogs evolved and were bred to live alongside humans. To most people, the companionship of dogs far outweighs the miniscule risk that the dogs will cause any kind of bodily harm. Either you just hate dogs or you have an overly inflated sense of risk, but I am pretty sure I know which one it is.

There is a term for that: a part-time job. If a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, then a cab by any other name smells just as....bad? In any case, once you are trying to derive an income from driving passengers around you are a taxi or a for-hire car, all of which have regulations in place. It's fine if you want to have a side job, a lot of people do. But the simple fact that it isn't your primary source of income or what you spend most of your time doing doesn't mean you get to ignore laws and regulations. And yes, I would be fine with the government classifying Uber as ridesharing if they did something similar to what I described. But currently, Uber perfectly fits the definition of a taxi service.

THe person I replied to said auctions have no price controls. A reserve is a price control. If the reserve is higher than the highest bid, then obviously it is priced above market value but they will not sell below that set price.

If an Uber driver has been taking stimulants to stay up and drive for 48 hours straight crashes into your car, or hits you trying to cross the street, would you take an interest then? Everyone else certainly does when you are injured so severely you can't work and have to draw disability for the rest of your life and we are paying for it. Things like that happened regularly in industries such as taxis and trucking, with overworked drivers causing fatal accidents. That is why regulations were enacted. They still happen, but they are less frequent and the drivers are severely punished when they do so.

If the driver of a vehicle is not going to the vicinity of your destination whether you are his passenger or not, then it is not ridesharing. It is a paid taxi service or a hired car. If Uber wants to call themselves a rideshare company, then require drivers to register a destination before they can see potential fares, allow them to only take fares going to the same vicinity as their registered destination, and do not allow them to pick up more fares for a new destination (they can drop off a fare along their route and pick up a new one along the same route however) until they have reached their original destination, checked in, and registered a new destination. There: now you are ridesharing.

What about price reserves?

The idea is they hope if they keep repeating it people will think it's true. Like the War on Christmas, or the Kardashians being famous.

Nice rant, but what does Congress have to do with laws enacted by state legislatures?

Government has a legitimate interest in monitoring and regulating businesses. And guess what? As soon as you receive money for a service you are operating a business. It is in the public interest that a business is operated and run in a manner that is safe for it's employees, customers, and the greater public and also to ensure that they are not defrauding customers or suppliers/vendors.

Just on the IED front the ingenuity, sheer amount, and the different types of IEDs that have been found should get any pyro/electronics nerd excited. How the different tribal and religious militias interacted with themselves, the government, and the coalition is interesting as well. Hell, my Master's thesis was on the efficiency of using militia in counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'd call that topic pretty nerdy. And don't forget, politics(Especially international politics) affects all of us, from the price of gas to the strength of your economy.

I was thinking more inline with the Reichstag fire. Especially since both events were fabricated by those who sought to gain power (and no, for anyone who is thinking it, 9/11 was not done by the US government). While most of the prequel trilogy is laughable, the one line Natalie Portman says about liberty dying to thunderous applause is probably one of the stronger lines of all 3 movies.

All you need to know about constitutional law is in Episode 3. A henious enough event can be exploited to the point where you can essentially invalidate an entire constitution and, instead of condemnation, you will hear only cheering.

I am actually hoping to be able to get something like the Elio in about 7 years or so when my current commuter car (a 2014 Focus) gets at or near end of life. I would love having an extremely cheap, efficient car like an Elio for my commute (40 miles each way), which would hopefully get my wife to let me have a jeep or motorcycle for the lifestyle/local driving

We use ours at least once, sometimes twice a week..Especially now that we got one with removable, dishwasher-safe plates.