Rates are more or less unregulated. An individual under LA DWP pays less than an individual under SCE. SDGE has the highest rates in the nation. If I lived across the street in the next city, my rates would be much less(SCE rates rather than SDGE rates).

This isn't going to stop local cable monopolies, either. I have access to one gas utility, one electric utility, and one water utility. Where is my competition? The only place I actually have choices is internet/tv: cable or fiber or DSL(where I have dozens of options from DSL resellers).

My private school had 15 people per class, and 200 people at the most in the school. My public Jr High had 25+ people per class and over a thousand students, 3000+ students at the high school level. When you go to class with the same kids for 6 years, your social experience is much less. The private jr high and high schools that I would have attended would have been small as well. Apparently you had a tough time in public school, I didn't, but, more to the point, you found out about the real world in high school. You go to college to live that naive and you're in a worse spot than if you did it in high school. Learning how to protect yourself(both mentally and physically) is important.

For what it's worth, my marriage was the same situation as yours(and my now ex-wife was just like yours). Not seeing eye to eye on simple things like this caused too many fights. I want my child to have up to date vaccines and be in public school, and I need my wife to have a decent job because of her lifestyle demands, etc.

After a long debate, we made the choice to move into a good school district and send our kid to school. This was a long fight, as she had family in rural Oregon who homeschool all of their kids, and based on the stories of the kids(dumb as bricks, pregnant by 16, etc), I did not want to send my kid down the same road. She also had separation anxiety(it was bad enough that she did not spend a day apart from him until he was 10[sleepovers] or travel without him until he was 13).

I went to private school for elementary and public school for the rest, and I was very satisfied with my experience, and I've made friends I otherwise would not have made. My time in private school prepared me academically and I was able to do extremely well in public school(entered a year ahead in some subjects), which was beneficial because doing well in public school in California gets you a great deal in state aid to state schools as well as guaranteed enrollment in state schools.

I don't think there is a replacement for the social education school brings(and public school was much more educational in that regard than private school), but I don't think that that is the only reason why. I also think that school provides the opportunities to advance just as much as if you were a real teacher homeschooling your kids.

This isn't the first time that IBM has done mass layoffs and it won't be the last. This is to be expected, to be surprised by it is to not learn from IBM's own history(Sure you can keep your job, but we need you to move to Southeast Asia and we're going to pay you Southeast Asian wages. Oh, you don't want that? Here's your severance package.).

FIOS is rolled out to plenty of whole cities in LA and OC. Lakewood, for instance, is a giant sprawling 50s era suburb... FIOS top to bottom.

AT&T only brings fiber to the door in new construction for the most part, though. UVerse sucks anyways.

Blackberry is all but dead in the corporate space. This leaves a hole that iPhone and Android are filling. Microsoft recognizes that Windows Phone isn't going to fill that gap, so they're finally moving their branding into those environments because of that. I'll assume that advanced features are/will be available that make it worthwhile to deploy the application in a corporate environment over the stock applications. The attachment integration with web based services already gives it a leg up on iPhone's Mail application. Not that I'm expecting it based on what's announced, I'd be very happy if there was a way to give it network folder integration within the network where Exchange is located.

I find the built in iPhone app lacking.. I'm willing to try any app that has Exchange support to see if it's better.

Verizon FIOS

I have 75/75 for $60 in metro LA. I don't find that unreasonable.

That's part of it. The other part of it is just plain population density. Most of Southern California has access to more or less inexpensive high speed fiber service through FIOS or UVerse. Head out into the desert and you're lucky if you're on ADSL, though. But that's part of the problem with having one of the least dense countries in the world. You'll note that Canada is near the end of that list and they suffer worse than we do with Shaw and Rogers.

Why is it illegal?

I think you're overthinking it. Look at what the FBI does. They find some dumb disillusioned guy down on his luck, maybe an ex-con or something but nothing serious, and try to ram bomb making components down his throat until he acquiesces and follows the plan they give him to fill a truck full of fertilizer to blow up city hall. The guy makes the purchase and parks the fake bomb, and when he gets out of the truck he's arrested and sent to prison... not because he would have blown up a building, but because he was so stupid that he didn't know not to trust the guys trying to set him up by badgering the hell out of him until he gives in. Counter-terrorism task force adds a notch to their belt, the President has a talking point about another averted attack, and the poor schmuck who was effectively harmless already because of his stupidity gets to die in prison

KJA and Brian Herbert were bad, but let's not pretend that Frank Herbert didn't start going off the rails himself starting with God Emperor of Dune

It is a reboot, actually, since they completely wiped all of the post-ep6 canon (Expanded Universe) and are starting from scratch. Different kind of reboot as the originating universe is the same, but that's no different than what's happening in the XMen movie franchise.