For one thing, you're forgetting that relatively few people (in the US and many other places) pay full price upfront for phones. They buy an iPhone for $99 / $199 / $299 / $399 / etc and then have a subsidized contract over two years. Sure, you could buy it outright, but with most of the US carriers you're not going to get a reduced monthly, so what's the point?
It doesn't matter how they're cut, they just don't grow back.
Actually spinal cord nerves can regrow with appropriate treatment.
It probably depends a lot on the specific area you live in. Cox was fine (no major complaints other than a billing dispute when I moved), but I do like that TWC doesn't even have a soft cap on usage.
I know you're making a joke, but I just thought I should add--I've lived in Comcast, Cox, and Timewarner cable areas. I'm commenting solely on Internet service, but Timewarner has far and away been the best. They're rolling out their ridiculously named "Maxx" service in my area in the next month or two. 25/5 will be upgraded 100/10 or 200/20 (I'm not entirely clear which it is). It's no Google fiber, but it will do until Google rolls out next year... I'm overjoyed the merger is not going through.
Careful what you wish for, the flip side of war being declared is that all the war-time powers of the president, FEMA etc. are invoked. If you don't want that to happen, you have to somehow define it as non-war military action and then it wouldn't be in violation of the Constitution, you can't have it both ways. And the amendment says only Congress can declare war, but the President is commander-in-chief of the military and there's really nowhere that explicitly states he can't commit acts of war without approval by Congress. It seems implied, but technicalities might matter.
By the way, if you're arguing the person at the top is violating the law then that naturally flows down the chain of command and as we learned in the post-WWII trials, following orders is no excuse. So if the President should go on trial for violating the constitution, the soldier shooting should go on trial for manslaughter. Possibly even murder, because you clearly meant to kill and that you happened to kill a few that weren't the target is like an assassin's collateral. I doubt that goes under manslaughter, really.
The whole military system is so turned on its head now that it has become a distinction without a difference. But it didn't start out that way. The the Framers were very leary of standing armies, and so restricted military appropriations to two years, assuming that major military appropriations would happen only in times of declared war. In the meantime, states could keep militias that could be called up in times of war. That's not how it has worked out, though. We now have a huge standing army, and while we technically follow the rule that military appropriations have a two-year life, we renew them like clockwork every two years. So in effect, we have become exactly what the Framers hated (and had just overthrown).
Ron Paul for example suggested that we could not and recommended we use letters of marque instead. (which while still allowed are considered antique and haven't be actually used in a long time) In the US
I'm in favor of this, mainly because "privateer" is a cool word, and it would be all swagger and swashbuckling to have them. Also, it would probably be an excellent way to stop African piracy. And paying bounties for capturing/killing terrorists would probably be cheaper than our current war effort.
Here in the old world (.fi) we have different bins for stuff like glass and metal.
Here in LA, homeless people go through our trash, extract the actually valuable recyclables, then take them to the recycling centers and make cash.
Even if you assume greater profits from increased monopoly abuse by a combined Comcast/TWC,
Comcast Profit Margin (Quarterly):10.86% for Dec. 31, 2014.
Apple Profit Margin (Quarterly):24.16% for Dec. 31, 2014
Google Profit Margin (Quarterly):26.28% for Dec. 31, 2014
Stupid people tend to have a lot more kids than smart people. Citation: Idiocracy
Also smart people now tend to only meet other smart people on Match.com, etc. In 1960 25% of men with university degrees married women with degrees; in 2005, 48% did. As a result, the Gini rose from 0.34 in 1960 to 0.43 in 2005.
Assortative mating means we diverge into really smart and really dumb people.
It took from 1973 to 1978 for human work on in-vitro fertilization to work well. And still today, most embryos developed for IVF do not "take".
Because the corporations who started off using these call centers got exemptions to be able to spoof it,
Corporations who run telemarketing call centers didn't have to get an exemption to spoof calling number id services, they simply used the existing mechanisms available to all users of bulk phone services.
Corporations who have their own PBXs have always had a need to be able to specify the calling number ID of their outgoing calls. Those who have multiple outgoing lines often want to have a unified, common outgoing caller id sent that points to their main incoming number.
As for Facebook being able to help out, that's only for people who have told Facebook their phone number. If you're stupid enough to do that, you deserve to have all your data sent to anyone you call. The solution is simple: don't call people you don't want to know who is calling.
And here's another tidbit: you think you suppress your caller id when you call a business, but if you call their toll-free number they get it anyway. They're paying for the call, they get the data.
Two features of the law of euthanasia sit very uneasily with each other. One is that euthanasia is murder;
Cite the law that makes putting an old ailing pet to sleep "murder". The law says nothing of the kind.
the other is that only a light punishment (if any) should be imposed in cases of euthanasia.
Exactly what punishment is there in the law is there for euthanizing a pet? And then explain why there are so many public and private pet shelters who do this kind of thing on a regular basis. You do realize that many, if not most, shelters kill (not murder) the pets they cannot place because they just don't have room or resources to do otherwise. Where is the law pounding on their doors for committing murder, if the law is as you pretend?
This is slashdot, and FTFY is a common technique, to illustrate a point.
I know what FTFY is, and it isn't used to change the context of a comment and then use the comment to accuse someone of committing murder. You changed the context from the chimps that are in court to someone else's dogs, and then claimed I was murdering them. You changed my statement about "the chimps in question" to "the dogs I murdered", which is so far outside the pale of FTFY that it an insult that you pretend that's what you did. That is a deliberate misquote. You tried putting words in my mouth and I called you on it.
You're euphemizing murder by calling it euthanasia,
The misquote you produced was originally about the CHIMPS, not dogs. That comment had nothing to do with euthanasia, it was talking about releasing them alive and well. I did not mention euthanasia, so don't tell me I'm euphemizing anything.
and I'm calling you out on it,
No, you are misquoting me so you can make some ridiculous claim about murder. I don't expect an apology for your claim that I am murdering dogs because you are too much of a looney with an agenda to ever admit that you never saw me say that I was doing anything to dogs, much less murdering them. You think your deliberate misquote was appropriate, so you aren't worth discussing this with further.
And the only supreme court case to challenge the handler claiming the dog hit repeatedly on the same person when no drugs were found the court promptly through out the challenge with no question of the dog/handler combination.
The conservative side of the court likes to let law enforcement do whatever they want. Scalia in particular bends over backwards to rule in favor of jack booted thuggery at every opportunity.
Antonin Scalia basically single-handedly saved the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment. And as MorphOSX noted below, he (along with Roberts) voted with the majority on this one. Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito dissented.
It's not as easy as you think to divide the justices up into "liberal" and "conservative," and those two "groups" certainly do not always vote as a block. You may not agree with Scalia's judicial philosophy of constructionism, but he is usually very disciplined and consistent in applying it.
All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin
