Had this on DSL 15 years ago. It was great. I had a choice of at least half a dozen ISPs. Never happen today with the politicians in the pockets of Big Tubes. (Yes I just made that up).

The fee you are going to get is the "Universal Internet Access Fund" whereby you and everyone that has broadband internet access today will subsidize access for poor people and people in the sticks. Is that good or bad? Discuss...

They have proved themselves untrustworthy. If they have the technical capability to do it, they WILL abuse it.

This capability predates Android and was used against feature phones quite a number of years ago. The countermeasure then, as it is now, leave your phone elsewhere or pull the battery if you really need to be sure you aren't being monitored.

The difference is that in NJ and OR the customer is not allowed to directly use the pump, they have to wait for someone to come over and start pumping the gas for them. That is what I thought we were discussing here. In most other states they just have to be in sight of the pumps. BTW: I have used member only refueling stations that were completely unattended.

And here I thought it was a jobs program. Or are the people in NJ and OR really more prone to setting themselves on fire than they are everywhere else?

I think what parent is referring to is the analysis that said breaking some modern encryption methods by brute force would literally take more energy than the sun will put out in it's lifetime. This is assuming some extremely small amount of energy to change the state of a bit represented by a single electron or some such thing. What the parent seems to be ignoring are things like quantum computing and whatever may be the next big thing that shortcuts brute force.

In this context the only reason they would have to comply is to avoid more stringent regulation by the government.

so you're saying it is in RNCD (Roman Numeral Coded Decimal)?

The how come he had to cast magic missile?

Don't know about custody, but this could lead to the donor being held financially responsible for the child should the other parents need to use public benefits. Stranger things have happened, such as men who are not biological parents and haven't been a part of the child's upbringing being held financially responsible. Or sperm donors being held responsible in spite of a written contract absolving them of such responsibility.

If a scientist literally said "GMO crops are safe." I would not trust that scientist. That is too broad a question. If a scientist said "These specific crops are safe" or "Crops with these types of gene modifications are safe" then I would be more inclined to believe it. And then the next question is "safe for what?" Human consumption is one thing, the environment is another, the health of the agriculture industry is another, the health and diversity of food crops in general is another.

You sound like you think that either party would consider that a reason not to do something.

On that point I think most of us agree.

You realize that many, if not most, of these plea bargains are between public defenders and the DA's office. You realize that neither group is raking in huge cash based on case volume. It isn't about making money, it is about a case load that they could not possibly handle if they had to take every one to court. Besides, the court system couldn't deal with the volume either.