Senior Executive Vice President of Legislative Affairs thinks that some other company is not playing fair.

Apparently there is no free lunch, unless you're Ma Bell and have the resources to influence fucking Congress.

I am a golfer, and one constant amongst us is that we'd sooner cheat and use the old foot-wedge from the rough than risk dinging up our new shiny $500 stick. We also pee in the rough. And smoke cigars. I don't see the need to bring in statisticians and physicists for this conundrum.

I question the morality of cops for hire. Doesn't a private company paying the police anything, for any reason, other than general taxation, imply corruption?

I know that there are university cops at private colleges with their own cars and shit, but this just seems weird.

Seconded. I have my wife's parents using Linux Mint and they took to it very quickly. The interface is very familiar with the Menu and Task Bar defaulted to the bottom just like it would be in Windows XP. They only really use their computers for online banking and facebook and it's worked beautifully. They also loved it when I welcomed them to the dark side of computing!

Bullshit.

Actively sabotaging child education because you cannot let go of your goat-herding traditions of fear in the desert is WRONG.

I've always liked the comparison to musicians. As a guitarist myself, throughout my life I've "inspired" others to want to play, and so I'd set them up with everything they need to get started on the right foot. They always quit somewhere between "damn, my fingers hurt!" and "why can't I play like you, yet?"

It puzzled me until I realized that such people aren't actually interested in playing the guitar, so much as they want to prove to themselves that what they thought was easy actually is easy. In short, their childood schooling, and probably their religious beliefs, have led them to the erroneous conclusion that they can be great at anything they put their hands on.

On topic, to "hack" is to recognize one's own ignorance. Schools aren't prepared for the PTA fallout of letting kids ponder what it means to be stupid.

Dear Slashdot,

I found Slashdot roughly 4 years ago by clicking through a hyperlink on another website. I have been an almost-daily reader ever since. A paywall would have turned me away then. A paywall will turn me away now.

Good point.

I was once stopped in 2005 by a police officer on the NY side of the bridge for taking pictures on the bridge (one of my passengers was taking pictures).

Presumably, the police think that taking pictures == terrorism.

If you ask me, police enactment of political retribution against an entire city == terrorism.

You didn't really specify what the job was that you consider to be worth more pay than they were offering...

At any rate, plumbers can actually make decent money because their skills are pretty damn useful. Plus, they have a work ethic that most desk jockeys cannot even comprehend. Perhaps you're in the wrong profession?

... or you could just count the number of tickets sold.

What if we made it like jury duty? Citizens get conscripted to Congress for a specified amount of time, during which they get paid current congressional salary, and when that time is up, they go on about their lives, and we get a fresh batch.

That's definitely overly simplistic, but it sure beats douche bags like Rod Blagojevich actually attempting to SELL A SENATORIAL SEAT.

I disagree. Scribbling "Private" on the front of a postcard doesn't make your message any more secure.

Ok. Then suffice to say that it's a tax on the poor (minimum wage workers employed by massive retail corporations which do not extend health care benefits to all employees) and the self-employed. Essentially, this is enriching the coffers of scummy insurance providers at the expense of folks who struggle to even pay their rent. The public option proposal was a bait and switch.

Good point.