Sometimes differently-abled learners cope best in classrooms with a less demanding curriculum adapted to their needs...

They've tried; but all the enlistment paperwork just disappears when he walks out. Weirdest thing.

Nope, you've proven you're a typical moronic American who thinks there's a difference between the "blue team" and the "red team".

Birds heap shame upon their ancestors merely by existing. (Except maybe shrikes; their willingness to keep up a proud tradition of bloodthirsty carnivorous murder despite now being about the size of a sparrow is pretty honorable).

Those pesky disgruntled employees and contractors tend to be on a slightly shorter leash(or less abused, if HQ decides that it's easier to make them less disgruntled than it is to watch them all the time) if their activity relates to something the company cares about.

Obviously, comcast isn't directly in favor of random insulting name changes(no real payoff for them, which puts them even below "billing errors"); but their customer service is as glorious as it is because any aspect of customer interaction that isn't billing or upselling is treated like a cost center and abused accordingly.

This is exactly it, in my opinion. Democrat voters are idiots who will back anything their Dear Leader Obama does, even when it was something they were bitching about during Bush's reign.

And Republican voters are just as stupid. They're now bitching about things that they were perfectly OK with when Bush was doing them, but now that Obama is doing them, they're up in arms.

This is because the crowd you hang out with is not representative of mainstream America. These polls are important because they show what the majority of Americans think about things, and those people are who vote for our leaders. Your little peer group does not have sole power to choose our governmental leaders.

What this shows can be argued different ways. Are young people these days generally more conservative than older people? (seems unlikely) Or is it because they're aligned with the Democratic Party, and since that party is currently in power in the Executive Branch, and their Dear Leader is all in favor of NSA spying, they too are in favor of it? Personally I think it's the latter. Americans are really stupid politically, and simply choose a "team" and then mindlessly back anything that team does. If Obama came out in favor of tax breaks for the rich and against abortion, Democrat voters would adopt those positions immediately, while if the Republican Party suddenly came out in favor of gay marriage and abortion rights and extremely progressive taxation (i.e. rich people would be taxed much more heavily), Republican voters would immediately adopt those positions too.

I wonder how much of this is a lack of decent alternatives which are well-marketed, versus simple cultlike behavior.

Think about it: if you want a PC-like computer, what are your choices? There's Apple which is well-marketed and attractive and shiny (but has downsides which aren't as obvious unless you're really familiar with the industry), there's Microsoft-driven PCs where you have to use shitty Windows and deal with all its annoyances, and there's Linux where there's pretty much no one actually pre-installing it and marketing it to consumers (plus there's a ton of different graphical environments, and the two most publicized ones are radical departures from Windows/Mac and have a lot of usability issues, and the one which is a great fit for Windows converts is simply ignored by the Linux community for some reason).

Maybe if there were another company making PCs with an attractive, stable OS which was very usable and could market it decently, we'd be seeing more people abandoning Apple.

This analysis of course is for PCs, not mobile devices. But over there the situation isn't much better; there's Android which has huge marketshare but still you have to deal with a complete lack of support after you buy the device, and then there's Windows Phone which is tainted by everyone's memory of Windows and MS problems. But still, Apple has lost a lot of marketshare in the phone market (though some of that is simply due to the market expanding, and Apple not aiming at the lower end).

our healthcare system sucks because we tolerate these parasites on our system that have to "profit" for some reason. there's no competition. so they just siphon profit and buy off our legislators and regulators to keep the money train flowing

they are natural monopolies

they are monopolies alone, no government needed to make them

you don't spend billions to build a hospital across the street from another. there's no free market. we're not talking about nail salons

you don't go shopping for an oncologist based on cost. you don't shop around for hospitals while you are having a heart attack. there's no capitalism here

so we need government control, rather than make believing a magic free market fairy fixes things

i'm not a socialist or a statist. specifically on the topic of natural monopolies *alone*, universal payer is the least worst option

citation: all of our social and economic peers: uk, canada, japan, germany, australia, etc: they spend far less on healthcare, and have higher quality healthcare. and it's all government controlled

our bullshit system persists because our government is corrupted. we need to fix the corruption, then kick out the parasites

Can you give a reference to the source for this?

(I'm not disputing your assessment; just want to throw it all up in Excel sheet to see how much we could save per year if we diverted all military spending on Iraq+Afghanistan on social programs like that.)

the lawyer seeks out the victim

if you ever are the victim of a newsworthy accident/ crime, you will get cold called by a number of lawyers, who want to represent you pro bono

because such cases gild their CV, get their name out there. free advertising

some lawyers, they seek out interesting strange and noteworthy cases only. out of ego, fame, crank cause, adrenaline, hero complex, whatever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...

etc.

Mainly for the freedom to not live in a giant anthill?

The first time I've read the series, I waded through God Emperor, and got completely bogged down on Heretics. After that, I had re-read the first three books several times, but each time I tried to go further I'd immediately remember why I stopped last time ...

Fast forward ten years, and I tried re-reading the whole thing again - and found that I actually enjoyed it. I still like the earlier books more, and the later ones are definitely harder and a slower read, but they no longer bore me.

Perhaps it just takes a certain amount of life experiences to appreciate them?

This is exactly why the ending will involve the Others taking over all Westeros, and putting up the reanimated zombie Joffrey on the throne.

JRRM does not write books to make people happy.

you mean you're a hopeless idealist who think things have to be perfect?

i'm glad you agree we need to get rid of corruption

but i'm mystified how you think the country's obvious success has nothing to do with democracy, however imperfectly implemented