If you add the number of forced "stays" at mental health hospitals in other countries, the numbers are substantially equalized. This is, of course, damning on its own, as the US has defaulted to using prisons and jails to incarcerate the mentally ill. This is not ideal from a humane or a fiscal point of view.

Another counter argument is that crime rates have dramatically and universally fallen across the US during the same time period that rates of incarceration have risen.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Pretty much every organization, and certainly every union out there from the Piano Tuners 421 to the police, are going to endorse somebody. Having lived in Chicago--well-known as a union town--for several years in the 00's, and around the country, I don't recall anything like the level of organization you are claiming. I've certainly never received a mailer from a police union, nor do I think I've ever seen an ad run by the union.

True, but this has some potentially dangerous side effects.

1) You have to disable kernel extension signing (potential security risk).
2) If you lose PRAM, or if other hardware changes occur, your system might be in an unbootable state until you remove the TRIM kext.
3) On my MacPro 1,1 that is running Yosemite with a non-original graphics card, I can't risk the TRIM. If, for any reason, my system were to go non-bootable, I wouldn't be able to restore, as my current graphics cards is non-Mac EFI compatible. I don't get output until the desktop loads. There are only a tiny number of people in this situation, but it effects me!

End result, I run trim on my MBP and no trim on my MP.

Ditto. This is an awful change.

Not really trivial as of Yosemite. You have to disable kernel extension signing. Luckily, there appears to be a command line tool for force enabling TRIM in 10.11.

Let's see...the two articles are Ars Technica (US-owned, UK edition) and The Guardian (UK-owned, US edition). I think that's a fair span of opinions!

Exactly, and well said, AC.

It's shocking to me how people can buy--hook, line, and sinker--any rotten story that politicians tell, particularly if the story is "blame someone else!"

Did you even read the _summary_?

Thanks for the reply, that makes total sense to me, and I think we're in agreement. The issue is definitely not the vulnerability of individual systems or an increasing "hackability" of software, rather, as you say, the greater accessibility that makes things more risky.

Yes, aggressive lobbying form 'Merican companies like Bayer AG (oddly headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany) and the largest chemical producer in the world, BASF (again, oddly headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany).

It's really nice that the political class of the EU can rely on the old "blame the US" trick to convince Europeans to ignore their own indebtedness to European corporate interests. Always shocking to me to see propaganda work so well and so easily.

I would quip that you should RTFA, but the relevant part is even quoted in the summary!

Dupont -- American
Bayer AG -- German
BASF -- German

Yes, American corporations pressured American politicians to pressure EU politicians. EU corporations were also pressuring EU politicians directly. EU politicians wussed out. This story is sensationalist because, of course, the EU politicians want to blame the US for their lack of spine and total subservience to corporations. Pot, meet kettle.

I disagree strongly with this. Let's think about the case of industrial or governmental espionage. 50 years ago, saboteurs had to physically remove documents (or whatever they wanted) from the target. There were quite genius inventions--small (for the time) cameras, hidden canisters of films, briefcases with hidden compartments, etc., but ultimately there was a very physical component. Today it's possible to remotely infiltrate an organization and exfiltrate more "documents" than could previously have been removed in a lifetime, all with perfect fidelity.

A slightly more immediate example might be identity theft or credit card theft (as in your Target example). 30 years ago, did any company of any size have to worry about losing 50 million credit card numbers (or any similarly sized data set, for that matter!) in a data breach? 20 years ago? This is a new concern.

I've actually had good experiences with Google Apps (paid) technical support. I've only interacted with them perhaps two times over three years, but they were fast and good both times. Our local DMV is actually not terrible either (ever since they implemented appointments). God help you if you need to call them on the phone, though.

True story about my last visit from the permitting office (we were doing a series of renovations on our office building, so I visited quite a few times). I dropped by the the permits office to just sign my name to a sheet of paper. I arrived around 12:50am on a Wednesday.

The front desk person was sitting there reading a newspaper. I walk up through the cordoned off waiting area (I was the only person in line), and say "Hello, ...". The reception lady points to a sign that says "Out to lunch" and doesn't even look up from her paper. Ok, fine, I go and sit down for 10 minutes, expecting lunch to end at 1pm. At 1pm the lady removed the "Out to lunch" sign and walked away from the desk. She's mysteriously gone for another 10 minutes. Ok...

So, I'm still standing waiting in line and still the only person there when she comes back. She looks around the room and says "Next." I walk up, say hello, and tell her about what I'm picking up. She reaches down into her files and has my form right there. She explains that I need to sign the form. I pick up one of the bank-style chained down pens and start to sign my name on the only signature line on the form. She immediately says "SIR. The front desk is for interacting with customers only. We need to keep the area clear for other customers. Please go and sign this form and return to the permits office when you are done." Again, I am the ONLY other person in the room. I had to leave the office, go bum a pen off someone, and come back.

I literally could have been in and out in about 30 seconds if that person cared one iota about her job or other people. That was an annoying experience, but not really that out of line with my other local government interactions. To be fair, I did meet a few very helpful inspectors, but sheesh... I met my fair share of similar personality types when I worked for the federal government in DC. Governments, more so than corporations, seem to offer people like that tenured positions.

Maybe. The next 20-30 years, over which the debt is scheduled to be repaid (with interest of course), will be the proof in the pudding. You are far more confident than I am.

Best internet in the country? Better than some of the surrounding areas--for now--for sure. Beyond that...? AT&T "Gigapower" is supposed to be the same speed as Google. Having neither, I can't say for sure.

I didn't claim that Davidson was stuck with the entire debt. I said "A small municipality like Davidson, NC (population 10,000) being saddled with even a portion of 100 million debt, is a big deal." I don't know how those portions were...apportioned...but the point remains. 100 million for small tax bases is a big deal.

Cities have certain mandates that nobody else can fulfill. Roads. Public schools. Other transportation and municipal service mandates.

That's certainly a valid question. Who would you rather go to for customer support--Amazon or the DMV? The permitting office (you ever been there? it made me want to stab my eyes out) or Apple? From the article about the Davidson fiber it seems they swung the pendulum from awful customer support to good. I don't think there are any guarantees here.

Yes.

Bond ratings don't necessarily tell you anything about the performance of an entity. They tell you about the ability of the parent entity (corporation, municipality, whatever) to make interest payments.

Here's a different take, opinion site (I tried to stink to links from news sites, rather than opinion sites in my original post.):

http://freestatefoundation.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-gift-that-keeps-on-taking-municipal.html

Not quiet. From the link I cited (which I viewed, overall, as positive): "The towns borrowed $92.5 million to create the company and, while MI-Connection is now in the black operationally, it doesn’t yet generate enough revenue to also cover the towns’ payment on the debt." The chairman of the company estimated that within 3–5 years, MI-Connection would be able to stop receiving further subsidies.

That's a lot of debt. We're not talking millions of potential customers in this area either, the cities are relatively small.

But here's the biggest problem for Davidson and Mooresville. AT&T fiber is coming to the Triad and Google is coming to Charlotte. AT&T and Google cost the cities nothing (or very little), and in fact they probably make money from permitting and taxes. What will happen to these municipal networks when there's competition? Will municipal fiber be competitive with Google or AT&T?

After having read about a lot of these municipal setups, 100 million debt is not uncommon. This is expected to be paid back over decades. I guess we'll see how often they become--or remain--truly profitable over that time period.

That's exactly the point. Governments (and corporations, to be fair! any suitably behemoth organization) are terrible at planning for this kind of project and event. It's really hard to predict the future (no shit, huh). A small municipality like Davidson, NC (population 10,000) being saddled with even a portion of 100 million debt, is a big deal. It doesn't take more than a few bad assumptions to seriously and very negatively affect the entire population of the area. Maybe they will be lucky and succeed, maybe not. It's a risk, and in my view, frequently one that is not worth taking when corporate fiber is in the process of exploding across the country.