Naw, it's going to have to be at least 2 years before we can start appointing commissioners to the FCC to overturn this decision..

I'm thinking it was a combination of both..

Not that I disagree with the possible timing of when they might try again, that much you got right, but I disagree on how this works..

Comcast is grooming their next pick for who they want nominated for FCC commissioner by supporting political parties and candidates who are supportive of their cause. Republicans appointees would be no different than democratic ones. The question is did you grease the skids with the party who's appointing the next set of commissioners or not and can you get the commission populated with the people who will vote your way.

Republicans may seem a bit more distracted by other things, but I can assure you that both parties pay attention to their donors and work to achieve the results these donors want in an effort to secure support in the future. It's how politics work in a big, all expansive, in your face government and we should all be scared of the power this represents. Gone are the days when FCC commissioners actually where technically competent in the field of communications, we now get commissioners who are there to vote a specific way. And yes, I have examples of this kind of incompetent decision making by the commissioners...

It's not like it's hard to figure out who the FCC commissioners are. There are 5 total, 3 democrats and 2 republicans. Currently the chair is held by Thomas Wheeler, appointed by Obama who's term runs until 2018 who is a past industry lobbyist for the cable industry.

Unless there is some serious palm greasing between now and then, I doubt that the commissioners will be changing their stance on this and given their very public refusal to approve the merger I doubt that Comcast has enough money to grease enough hands to change enough commission votes as we barrel into a presidential election cycle. It would be too much of a scandal to be worth the political risk.

No, this deal will have to wait for the commissioners to start turning over after the current administration leaves office, which will mean a whole new set of palms to grease and/or politicians to support in the next election cycle so you can get commissioners appointed who are more favorable to your deal.

Well, we shall see if the FCC commissioners who leave office after the next administration takes office heads towards one of these players or not. I'm not so sure the next administration will be for this merger or not. Obviously the democratic ruled commission doesn't like this idea, but which party will be in the Whitehouse and what their position on this merger would be is an open question.

Suffice it to say, this deal is dead for at least two and likely more years.

That's not what they are saying... IF you have the phone in Airplane mode, you will have no problem. HOWEVER, if you don't and your phone tries to connect to the rouge AP then it crashes and reboots. At that point you are sunk because when your phone boots and it wasn't previously in Airplane mode, it will connect to the rouge AP and crash before you can get the phone into Airplane mode to stop the cycle.

So if your WiFi is actually turned off, nothing will happen. The problem is that once you get into this cycle, you cannot turn off the WiFi before the phone crashes and boots again. The only way to recover is to get out of range of the rouge AP so you can stop the crash, boot, crash cycle.

EV's require the total replacement of the vehicle. CNG does not.

THAT is the primary advantage of CNG, it works with EXISTING vehicles and can be retrofitted for a few thousand dollars. So, instead of junking the whole fleet of internal combustion powered cars and trucks, we can encourage the conversion to the cleaner and cheaper CNG and get many of the benefits you are after.

Of course, CNG vehicles also give you other advantages over EV's as well. Refueling times are similar to liquid fuels which lowers the range anxiety issues. They have similar driving distances to EV's. Many can refuel at home if you want too. They are familiar technology to existing mechanics, don't require that many new unique parts or service techniques so they are easier (and cheaper) to maintain. Don't suffer in temperature extremes like EVs and the battery technologies they depend on. And last, but not least, won't put added stress on our aging electric grid which is suffering from supply and distribution problems driven by environmental concerns.

IMHO, CNG is on par with EV's when it comes to CO2 emissions, but they are more convenient, less complex and cheaper to maintain. It would be MUCH easier and cheaper to adopt CNG as a motor fuel for the majority of people, so I think it's a better choice.

"It's the seriousness of the charge that really counts here, not how valid the story is."

That's how we got the Rolling Stone made up allegations of rape and the Duke Lacrosse made up rape story. Oh and let's not forget the "Romney didn't pay his taxes for the last 10 years!" fabrication that got reported as fact, even though the source of the allegation has since admitted to just "making it up" to score political points for his team.

Journalism and ethics are a thing of the past. Or, more to the point, holding journalists to high ethical standards and discrediting those who don't really care to do the job the right way has long ago vanished from the commercial press. Today it's about profit and selling ads, which drags literally everybody though the tabloid mud.

Industry watchers say AT LEAST 10 years of stable prices and likely more for the very reasons you point out, the price is too cheap to warrant drilling new wells because the return would be marginal. Yet we have proven reserves that should last many decades, most of which remains undeveloped for the reason you state. However, as the prices slowly rise, I expect that drilling these marginal areas would slowly become profitable and thus they would be developed and sustain supply with slow and steady price increases. We won't see the end of this in my kids lives given current usage and known reserves.

Oil, however, has a boom and bust cycle due to geopolitical happenings and is thus much less stable. US natural gas should not suffer from that kind of thing so don't apply that kind of thinking to domestic gas supplies. It's a different political landscape.

When the government tries to make someone do something even though they have a religious objection.

Fascists believe that the government is entitled to (and should) govern personal behavior, including deciding what a valid religious objection can be. This idea that the government can force people to vaccinate their children over their religious objections is clearly a fascist idea.

Where I understand your argument, I draw the line a bit further to the right on this in order to error on the side of freedom.

My line is "immediate danger" and not potential future danger. Unless you are causing immediate harm to your children the government should be hands off. So if your kids are being beaten, neglected or something they can step in to protect the welfare of the child. Not vaccinating is NOT causing immediate harm to children, so if somebody wants to claim a religious exception, it has to be allowed.

Now if someone wants to claim to have a religious exception that allows them to sexually abuse their kids the government can (and should) step in to stop it because it is immediate harm.

So, for your shooting into a crowd is posing an immediate danger and should be stopped. But choosing not to vaccinate does not, so the government doesn't get to force it. Of course the government CAN put restrictions on where your kids can go if they are not vaccinated. Say no public school, college or other government services, that's valid, but they simply cannot force the parent to vaccinate their children.

Well if Cali wants to invite a wide segment of their population to leave, then I guess. It's a bad idea on that front then, cause Cali has one foot in the grave financially already. Inviting your tax base to leave is a really bad idea at this point.

Not that this is a new idea, seems a LOT of companies are abandoning Cali for business reasons.

I never said NG was endless, only that it's price will be very stable for the foreseeable future (likely though the end of my kid's natural lives). That's a LONG time, longer than the usable life of most cars. So buying a CNG powered car is not that risky.

BTW... Fracking is actually a GOOD thing overall... We've been doing it for decades in various areas without much of an issue. It increases production with very low cost and low risk.

Having homeschooled one college honor student from birth though high school I'd like to weigh in...

Homeschooling does NOT require any special training or education in education. If you can read and do simple math, all you need is a determination. The hard part is teaching kids to read and despite how daunting that may sound to a new parent, it's really simple. Learn your letters, learn their sounds, then start making words. It just takes repetition and if you keep at it with the kids, reading comes easy once they are old enough. Teaching kids to write is not hard, nor is math. These days there are curriculums that you can buy that will have everything you need which are turn key, just follow the schedule they give you. Some come as video with teachers doing the teaching while your kid watches. It can be as easy or as involved as you want it to be as a parent.

Neither my wife or I have any formal training in education (I'm an electrical engineer, she has 2 years of college) and we are 2 years from being totally done with our two kids. Both kids will get a better education than the public schools would have provided and our oldest (who was our problem student in the school) is an honor student at a local college working on a STEM degree. If we can do this, almost anybody can, trust me.

That's not to say homeschooling is easy all the time, I'm saying that it doesn't take special education or training to be effective. But it does take dedication by the parents to make it work. It can be hard work to push kids to do their school work. It's a daily grind that wears you down and it takes year after year. When you are in the mist of it, it can be frustrating not to see the daily progress for all the effort put in. However, your kids will get a better education than the public school could ever hope to provide. The teacher to student ratio is better, you know your kids better than any other adult and they will benefit from all of these things, while learning to teach themselves, a skill that will benefit them for a lifetime.

For my wife and I the benefits of homeschooling where worth more than she could ever add to our standard of living so she stayed home with the kids. Your mileage may vary of course, but the benefits to children of having a parent at home with them FAR outweigh the benefits of that second income to us. Our kids will be much better off for it.