If we are going with "hypothetical" then sure there's nothing I can say... You can invent anything you want in Science Fiction, never mind if it's possible or practical, it's fiction.

The VAST majority of the home schooled kids I know ended up with a better education than they would have received from public schools. Not to mention that it didn't cost the public school system a dime.

Yes, there are those who homeschool to avoid having to get the kids up for the buss to public school, they don't care. However, given the huge hassle that keeping kids out of the public schools with truancy laws and daytime curfews, this is NOT the norm. It is actually quite the exception to the rule. Because it is simply easier to kick the kids out to the bus stop in the morning than it is to keep up appearances well enough to keep the truancy officers at bay and the parent's butt out of court. So if you are not committed to homeschooling, generally the kids end up in public schools and if you ARE committed, the kids will get a much better education almost without exception.

What we have NOW after the AHA (aka Obamacare) is WORSE than what we had before it. Sure, a few million people how have health insurance, but most of the uninsured remain so and the rest of us are generally paying HIGHER prices for LESS service (or services we just don't need).

It would have been cheaper to just go on the pre-AHA health insurance market and buy policies for the "newly insured." Not to mention that we'd have a lot more people working more than the 30 hour "you got to supply health coverage" limit.... But hey, if you think this is better, please move..

T Boon Pickens bet that Natural Gas would be MORE expensive, not less. He lost his shirt, well at least a couple of them out of the huge closet he owns, on Natural Gas.

If electric cars where more simple, then I contend that they'd be what Ford initially built. The old model T would have had a bank of batteries and an electric motor. But he didn't. Gasoline engines where SIMPLER than electric, if you cared about being something people would want to buy that is.

If you think battery manufacturing is easy, or if building the semiconductors that run that EV of yours can be built in someone's garage, you are obviously mistaken. But I can build an internal combustion engine with some machine tools. In fact, one could build a working automobile in the garage easily enough. You simply couldn't build a LiIon battery or a working semiconductor for a speed controller, much less a microcontroller to make everything work without acres of "shop space" and billions worth of tools.

So which one is simpler?

The facts about Fracking... It's not any more dangerous than the drilling, really. It's drilling that's the biggest problem, yet we consider that safe enough to do. Why all the hubbub over Fracking?

What most people don't understand is that the drilling fluid is really the environmental concern, not the fracking fluids. Drilling mud carries a lot of junk around and cycles down the hole and back up bringing stuff with it. And there is a LOT Of drilling fluid in an 8" pipe that's 8 thousand feet long. Drilling fluid is designed to float the cuttings from the drill head to the surface, so it's both dense and designed to flow easily.

Fracking fluid goes down the well, and most of it doesn't ever come back. It is viscous, and contains fine grit, usually sand. If you took out the alcohol and mixed in sand from hand sanitizer and made it a little thinner, you'd have something pretty close. Fracking fluid is no more dangerous than jello and where I'd not eat the stuff, most of it won't harm you if you did.

And... I'd like to point out that there is ZERO documented proof that fracking is in anyway dangerous, despite what you might be told or find on the internet. And don't start into the "it causes earthquakes" bit. It's the deep injection of waste drilling fluid in old and abandoned wells that seems to be the issue, well that and simply fossil fuel production which has caused small earthquakes for the last hundred years.... But don't let the facts stop your unfair treatment of Fracking..

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.