Wow, I wish I had mod points to give you.

1. They are spending billions on new infrastructure. AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner Cable spent about $51 billion last year in capex.
2. They aren't focused on lowering consumer costs, but the improved service is definitely there (albeit clearly uneven, depending on location). As an example, Comcast's base broadband service was 10Mbps two years ago. By the end of this year, it will be 50Mbps. Prices have risen about 5-10% over that time, so you're looking at a 75%+ decline in $/Mbps.

If you think that the $ AT&T is getting from USF is at all meaningful to them, or comes even close to the benefit they'd get from being able to raise their other rates to capture the 15%+ USF tax (i.e. instead of consumer paying $100, USF getting 15, and AT&T getting 85, AT&T could get 95, and consumer's bill would drop), you really haven't thought much about this.

As for your complaint that USF subsidizes the wrong things, I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the program is designed to ensure that every household in the US, even if poor, rural, or both, has phone service.

AT&T gets minimal benefit from the USF. The vast majority goes to medium and small rural telcos. AT&T would be ecstatic if USF were cancelled tomorrow.

Do you have any data to support this assertion? The data we do have clearly shows that highway fatalities have dropped DRAMATICALLY since seatbelt installation, and later use, became mandatory. In 1967 (the last year before all new cars were required to have seatbelts, the US had 5.26 traffic fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles travelled. Fifteen years later (by which time virtually all cars on the road had seatbelts, given the lifespan of a car), that rate was 2.58, or down more than 50%. Even if there was some level of increased reckless driving (which, again, you've provided no evidence for), the NET impact was dramatically positive.

The gov't is saying anything about their value. The buyers in the auction are.

Only if you consider 1819 to be "recent."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If the gov't had seized 30,000 Magic cards, or 300 lbs of rusty scrap metal, they would have done the same thing. The USMS isn't making ANY comment about the value of bitcoins, merely that it appears others will pay money for them.

It's not a boogey man at all. It's a real risk, regardless of your political persuasion. The convention could end up deciding to repeal the 2nd Amendment, and prohibit private ownership of firearms. It could decide to ban abortion. It could decide to dramatically rein in the EPA, or dramatically expand its powers. The entire basis of our legal system would be on the table.

Actually, you need 2/3 of both the House and the Senate, plus 3/4 of the state legislatures. Amending the Constitution ain't easy (intentionally so).

The Supreme Court has ruled that you can't be compelled to provide a password, if the fact that you have the password is, in and of itself, incriminating. So, if there's a hard drive that the police have reason to believe contains child porn (just as an example), and you haven't acknowledged that the drive is yours, then the police can't compel you to provide the password, since to do so would be to admit that the drive is yours (or at least provide strong evidence that it is). If there's no question that the drive is yours, however (particularly if you've admitted that it's yours), then providing the password doesn't in and of itself incriminate you.

It's not Nook that's interesting, it's the College Bookstore business. Very stable, solid margins.

In other words, it'd be perfect for the McNuggets production line.

Wait, so you're claiming that reference constitutes a loophole? Any trial judge, reading this opinion, is going to very clearly understand how narrow that exception actually is. The state would need to show that, given that the Court has specifically cited the multiple ways that the remote wipe could be blocked, _none_ of those could be used. So, I suppose, if you had a phone without a removable battery, that couldn't be switched off (but could still somehow be searched), and the police had good reason not to be in possession of a Faraday bag, and had a reasonable belief that the phone was going to be remote wiped before they could get a Faraday bag, then they could search the phone. In practice, it's hard to see a scenario where the phone _could_ be searched, but _couldn't_ be switched off or disconnected from the network. I've never heard of a phone that locks up the ability to turn it off, but not the ability to search the phone.

Yes, I have read it, and you can't say "they are only allowed to search, even before this ruling, if it is an imminent threat to the officers" and say that you also understand exigent circumstances. If the police kick down the door of a random apartment, and find the owner sitting there surrounded by drugs, the proceeds of that search (i.e. the drugs) couldn't be used to support a narcotics charge against the occupant, it'd be a 4th Amendment violation. If the police hear screams coming from within an apartment, though, and kick down the door to find the owner sitting there surrounded by drugs, and with another person tied to a chair, the drugs certainly CAN be used in evidence against the owner.

Similarly, if the police have good reason to believe that, say, an arrestee's phone contains the location of a ticking bomb, or an abducted child, they can search the phone, and use evidence found against the arrestee. Then, it becomes the judge's call as to whether the circumstances justified the search.