I grew up in what you call a "Civilized" state up until my mid 20s (New York)...I finally realized how terrible it was to live there, so I moved to one of those "Southern" States and I can tell you it is not the southern states that is holding up your "progress". It is the entire Federalized system of taking from one group and giving it to another. Entitlements have gotten completely out of hand and we as a nation cannot afford most of them. If the US were to disband, I would bet that the Southern states would actually fair better than the ones you like so much.

This is new because of the many things this agency is doing here are just a few:
Order 1.8 billion rounds of ammunition in the last 10 months (that's right that's billion with a 'B')
Recently raided a small firearms dealer - no charges where filed, but all firearms, computers, storage devices, and files (personal and business) where confiscated.
Recently raided a private firearms collector - again, no charges, and again everything confiscated

So what you are saying is since I am not a licensed welder but a programmer, I cannot own/use welding equipment. That I have no use for it. It may surprise you but I do, and I use it often on many of my own projects, I even use it to help out friends and neighbors. Not once have I cause an injury to other people and I have actually fixed many dangerous vehicles/property preventing injury and damage. FYI I don't own an oxy tank for welding - I use that for cutting. I do have Argon/CO2 tanks for welding, and yes, they have been in my truck. I also own firearms - legally in my state, I have a legal Carry Permit as well. I have use my gun in the past to scare off a group of 4 men trying to break into my home one night 4 years ago. If I did not have that gun, I am sure those 4 men would have got in to my house and I would not have been able to protect my wife and child. The police did not arrive for over 15 minutes.

You see, My family and I were almost one of those victims. 3am, noise at doors wakes me. I grab my legal semi auto rifle and go to see what is happening - I look out the door and there are 3 armed men (and the guns they had were almost certainly not legally obtained) at the front door (didn't know there was another going around to the back - that is probably why they hadn't entered yet - he wasn't there yet). I put a round through the front door - someone yelled "run" and the 3 men ran...that is when I saw the forth running up my driveway from around back. Who knows what would have happened if I did not have my firearm - I am sure it would have ended very tragically for me and my family. FYI, it took police over 5 minutes to get there - that is an awfully long time for someone to have wait potentially fighting off armed men. And fyi, I live in an affluent neighborhood in a very nice suburb - this can happen to anyone. Don't try to take my guns away - I may need them to defend my family

I have been in a position where I had a number of poorly trained "code-monkies" doing a bunch of brain dead type of simple coding...unfortunately what typically happens is I spend all of my time explaining what needs to happen, writing lengthy, dummed down documents to explain simple processes, reviewing/correcting code, rewritting large sections of poorly developed code... basically if I did it myself, it would have been much quicker and I would have more time to do what really needs to be done. All in all, I have had bad experiences in situations like this

I have in the past worked for Kadak and my parents have retired from there. We have had many discussions over the years about how shortsighted the executive decisions have been...Kodak should not have been seen (by the execs) as a "photography company", but a coating, chemical and research company. They are experts in chemical coating and would do well in many new area including photocell sheet manufacturing and new methods for lithium ion battery production (nanocarbon sheets). They could have made themselves relevent for another 100 years if they could just see outside the box.

Get him a library card

>>everyone involved is hoping that IT initiatives will result in cost-savings in other areas of government operations The federal government is incapabale of doing anything that will result in a cost-savings.

I have been working in the IT/Telecom/Wireless areana for 15 years now, and everytime one of those Sprint 4G adds come on, my blood really begins to boil - my wife doesn't understand why this gets me angry (she is not technical at all). I wish that people/companies/marketing would get the fact that there are standards and "bending the truth" does actually do harm. Language means something, standards mean something.

Computer Thief Barred From Using Handlebars

There was a company in the United states that tried rear mounted turbine engines for power mayber 10 years ago - the company was called Rosin motors (or something like that) - they developed increadible power and gas mileage for the time - their only problem was rear impact testing. If a sufficient enough rear impact happened, then all those "spinning blades" in the turbine became hurling blades - because of this, they never produced a streetable car. They tried many techniques to fix this, but any time they had a concept that would contain the turbines, it was too heavy and the gas mileage was degraded to much. I wounder how Jaguar has gotten around this

based on what Adams said: "The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion" I have to be suspicious of everything I develop now that I am older that 35

I am so tired of this "too big to fail" argument. Capitalism works folks...as long as the socio-economic goons in politics stay out of the way. There is no company to big to fail. If some Car manufacturer or large banks or even Google where allowed to fail, it may sting for a while, but there would be many other entities out there ready and willing to pick up the pieces and march forward (and not cost the taxpayer any money). Allowing such a failure might also wake some large corporate entities up and make them rethink their practices.

I understand the martyr reference, but this is pure self preservation...My team works in a large corporate environment, and while groups all around us are being cut (and we end up taking on the extra work), we still have jobs, and the fact that our team is the one management continues to come to, shows at least some amount of faith in us. We have a fantastic team and we are all willing to go the extra mile to stay in tact. Most of the technical people on the team are hourly contractors, so the extra cash helps.