You're correct that in most (all?) of the US the local municipality gets a portion of any driving citations.

That's why many of them (at least here in SC) will often issue a "Careless Operation" ticket when they pull you over as a "favor". A speeding ticket here is often less than $100 but levies "points" against your license (ie, they make your insurance rate go up). Careless Operation runs around $250 but has no points associated, so your insurance generally isn't affected. The drivers thinks they're getting off lucky as the extra $150 in fines is much lower than the difference in insurance premiums would be and the police get a portion of a larger fine.

There is actually one small town nearby here that is documented to have over 2/3 of its annual budget come from traffic citations. The "town" is little more than an intersection with a population of under 100 people, but they have a police force of exactly 1 officer who just writes tickets all day long. The speed limit conveniently drops from 55 mph to 35 mph for about 1/4 mile while driving through there. Locals know better than to speed through that area, but they mostly catch people just passing through. I've always joked with friends that its a ticketable offense to drive through there with out-of-state plates.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. As the living standards an education levels of each group goes up eventually places run out of cheap backwaters to outsource to. Eventually the whole world gets more skilled and more prosperous.

Oh I think there are definitely symptoms of homeopathy...

If you can't read about it on the internet, it didn't happen.

Also, in the Internet Age you're more likely to hear about it when someone does something crooked or foolish. I question the Ask-Slashdotter's assumption that things are getting worse.

(He actually asked the right question: why do things appear to be getting worse. But then elaborates on the assumption that the sky is actually falling.)

So let's treat it as a reciprocal. The efficacy of homeopathy is 1/amount used, so as the amount used goes to zero, the efficacy goes to infinity, and... beyond!
(Well, okay, for 'beyond' you'd have to use a negative amount, but that's what happens when you get someone else to use yours, I guess?)

If this magma reaches the surface it could result in lava flows.

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One thing to consider is total cost of ownership, and over the lifetime of an LED, you would have bought somewhere between 30 and 100 incandescent bulbs.
Another thing to consider is that the one LED will use about 1/8 the power of those incandescents, so unless your power is free, you're now looking at 240-1000x the total operating cost for incandescents compared to LED's.
My next-door neighbor has very little money, so back in 2009 she bought a big SUV because it was $1200, compared to $3000 for a subcompact... and then couldn't afford the gas to get to work. People are really lousy at looking at anything other than the initial purchase price.

A third thing to consider is that as fewer people buy incandescents, the cost of maintaining tungsten-drawing machinery and other lightbulb-specific manufacturing equipment is going to rise. Vacuum tubes are hard to make well, and while we have a century of experience in doing so, silicon is dirt cheap and getting cheaper.

If they think Homeopathy doesn't work, they're just not using enough.

Or, wait, sorry, they're using too much.

The less homeopathy you use, the stronger it is.

The logical conclusion is that if you use none at all, you'll see the greatest improvement, especially financially.

I'm surprised the feds haven't banned it. IIRC th constitution prevents the states from creating money other than gold or silver coin; surely they won't allow individuals more leeway.

All I can figure is that it's considered more like a credit card than money. Or else the hammer just hasn't come down yet.

Except for the part that involves producing and burning rocket fuel in Earth's ecosphere to lift mining equipment and return fuel. (I mean, you're joking, right?)

Of course Minecraft is violent. Do you have any idea how many innocent instructions get executed to make it run?

Trust me. A government can keep the lower class down. They can tax us into oblivion, and take away most of our freedoms and we'll take it in stride. Take away the porn though, and the peasants will burn this bitch down.

Patents also helped here though - sometimes designing around them spurs innovation.

The Wright Brothers had a "warping wing" method for turning the plane that they had patented. To get around that patent aileron's were invented - and were a far superior technology.