So lets say that's your unavoidable future. Do you want air conditioning in the desert, or no? Let's say you'll spend the next 5 years cleaning toilets - do you prefer they be the kind where you can flush the toilet paper, or the kind where you make the used toilet paper the maid's problem?

Incremental improvements remain better than no improvements. Do you know much about working and living conditions during the American industrial revolution? Living in 7-story walk-ups, heavy industry with child labor and no thought to safety at all, company stores, etc? And still people flocked to those jobs because it was better than rural America for most. It gets better, one increment at a time.

Fuck you very much sir troll; fuck you very much.

It's worth noting that the more we depend on income taxes on high earners, the more federal revenue will suffer in bad economic times (the very times when the left would argue we need to spend most). Changes to the sum total of income of the bottom 95% in bad times are pretty small: maybe unemployment goes from 5% to 8%, so how much does that affect the total tax base? But top-tier incomes are really unstable, they go down fast in a downturn and up fast in an upturn, so federal revenue takes it on the chin from that group during times like 2008-2011.

That's probably the dominant factor in changes federal revenue as a percentage of GOP these days, now that 1% of tax payers pay about 1/3 of all income taxes, and that noise drowns out any signal we might get from changes in top marginal rate.

Garbage bag filled streets, the smell of garbage, stupid bridge tolls just to get to Manhattan from the airport and rude people. Visiting NYC once was enough for me for a long time. Attention New Yorkers and New York bureaucrats, you are destroying your local economy with your idiotic short sightedness. Nobody wants to visit your city if you are going to make it a horrible experience.

Provide money and guidance to the local school systems then let them buy the approved technology they need rather than what is dictated to them

I've got a different take on the matter. As far as I know, the federal government exerts control over public education by taking money away from the states via taxation, and then only returning it if the states will teach in the manner seen fit by the Dept. of Education.

I.e., they use the ability of the federal government to tax anything and everything to circumvent the limitations on the powers of the federal government.

So in contrast to your solution, I'd suggest the federal government just taxes the states' citizens less, and let the states figure it out if they want to. Problem solved.

Actually, anything with practically opaque internals is a potential security hole, including processors, compiled software, network equipment. Also anything involving telecommunications.

If China is picking on only Apple, I'd wager it's to drum up business for some company that's owned by a state or an official.

China is right: the iPhone is a gaping security hole.

I also have little doubt that their "solution" will also be a gaping security hole, except that it will be designed so only China's intelligence services can exploit it.

Yet don't you dare encrypt anything in an amateur radio band!

I have been posted before there is simply no way the NSA could have use for even the most conservative estimates for there storage capacity in that Utah data center unless they are or were planning to keep the content.

That I'm running a risk with the first of > 800 Model Points, but in my database, I never exceed 80 modelpoints for a given job ID.

But I still don't understand why the subquery is necessary (in some cases).

That could be. Being long past draft age, I don't pay those aspects much attention. But the last time I heard of someone actually registering was when the draft was still active.

At present, Bing's map function is ***MUCH*** faster than Google's, tho it uses older and often-foggier sat imagery. Google search has become so largely-useless that anyone who can produce better results (and return to respecting "exact search" including punctuation) has an opportunity here.

I think we actually had fewer crap results back when they weren't trying to eliminate spam results at all. Now the crap is evidently custom-tailored to take advantage of Google.

Yellow pages was not only paid advertisements, but far too expensive for any but the most well-heeled of pranksters. That 2x2 ad in a major market cost around $1200/month, last I asked. A one-line bolded listing was $200/mo.

Of course there were free yellow-pages clone directories, but you get what you pay for in print, too. Mainly, it was a waste of air to get the listing, because apparently no one troubles to consult these third party directories in the first place.

"Selective Service had to know where to get young men should the draft ever get reinstated. And yes, female US citizens are not subject to this at all."

I don't know a single young man who has ever registered, let alone reported their current whereabouts. Presumably it's not strongly enforced (if at all) so long as there are plenty of volunteers.

As to part two of the quote, I'll believe the goal is equality (rather than just power) when the feminazis start agitating for gender equality in the draft (when and if it's ever reinstated).