True indeed, but also consider that in many of those parts of the world, the drivers are also stuck with having to grease the palms of some local poobah just to avoid having the wrath of the local constabulary come down on them.

Okay, it ain't that much different from how Portland works, but at least in PDX's case, the money is (well, mostly) passed along above-board, and it goes to the local government's coffers instead of some local sleazebag's pocket (well, mostly).

To be honest, the knee-jerk bumper-sticker mentality in your post didn't help your argument, which is what GP was pointing at without saying it directly. Maybe if you had constructed your post in a way that didn't mimic some frothing post from the comments section of Daily Kos?

I'll explain:
It's one thing to make assertions, preferably with evidence and/or at least some reason as to why you think a given ideology is to blame for said assertions.

It is another thing entirely to make blind assertions with no proof, and then compound the error by using slang terms lifted directly from the more turgid corners of political extremism; it simply does not help your case at all.

...you kidding? I'd kill to get rid of the IRS marriage penalty!

Depends on the state. Places like Nevada make it quick and easy, on the other hand Arkansas has onerous alimony laws** coupled with a long and tortuous process (I got to see it second-hand; my siblings and are from AR. It's one hell of an ugly process).

** for example, the lesser-paid spouse has full lifetime rights to a percentage of the higher-paid spouse's salary, retirement/pension, etc. unless the spouse receiving said money gets married again, or the higher-paid spouse's income drops (which necessitates another drawn-out court hearing, etc.)

If I were to lay money down on something, I'd say that in a couple of years, look for divorce laws to be targeted hotly in states where marriage is more strongly considered to be a lifetime commitment.

There is of course the flip side as well: federal and state tax penalties for being married, divorce laws (and the attendant alimony laws and etc as applicable by state, etc)...

I don't think it's going to be as rosy as proponents think it will be.

That's a big stretch for that clause... but then, the US government should have zero business with marriage in the first place.

Not to speak an opinion on the subject, but I do have a question:

Where in the hell in the US Constitution is there a "right" to "dignity"?

If that's the basis Kennedy used, then he obviously has no idea what is actually contained in the very document he claims to uphold.

Did it ever occur to you that many of us have just adapted to the environment that you (the royal you) created?

Let me put it this way: If I remained at the employer I worked at 10 years ago, my salary ($50k/yr at the time) would still most likely be less than 1/2 of what I'm making today, and that's counting the 'OMG we're hurting so bad financially but look - we're still being so generous!' 1-3% annual raises. Nice folks to work with, but yanno? fuck that.

BTW, it's not just money - I left my last non-contract job because the dizzy idiot that I reported to was very friendly and somewhat politically astute, but she had zero sense of mentorship, and decided that I was "too valuable to move into a management slot", in spite of the fact that I was bored out of my fucking mind in the role I did have, but apparently I knew too much to be so easily replaceable. A month later and I was gone.

TL;DR? I'm not there to look out for her career (or yours)... I'm too busy looking out for mine.

If you don't want mercenaries for employees, then pull your heads out of your backsides and stop treating us like chattel.

Depends on which Trimester we're talking about...

Give it time - apparently ISIS has a bit of a beachhead there.

I agree partially with the point, but there is a bit of a difference between a huge publicly-traded corporation that had to jump through a zillion hoops to form up and gain a presence, and the fly-by-night one-man scam 'store' that some dude set up online.

Yeah, Enron, Worldcom... they disappeared, but only after a long drawn-out process. It was kind of a big news thing when each one of them were slowly drawn and quartered into oblivion - and there were a shit-ton of assets to garnish/seize along the way. Amazingly enough, the board of directors were all rather easily found and many were dragged into court.

At the other end of the scale, we have "Bob's l33t g4m3r p4rtz store!!!11!". It can cash out its bank account and evaporate into nothing within an hour, at least after enough credit card transactions clear/post to make the scam worthwhile (but long before the chargebacks and cops come flying in). Assets? Yeah - that consists of a domain name, a PO Box for the checks (maybe), and approximately 150MB of crappy cloned website full of copied pictures/text, sitting on a $10/mo hosted webserver? Oh, and good luck finding the dude who ran the scam - he's likely on another continent anyway.

I mean c'mon... perspective, man!

I believe GP was talking about home users, and it seems pretty obvious that he was.

After all, if you don't already have that privacy/security shit squared away in your enterprise, then, well...

Depends - sometimes the nature of the OS ecosystem doesn't have room for such BS. If you install/update your freebie applications through apt-get, YUM, the OSX .dmg 'Drop-it-in-the-Applications-Directory' format, or Apple's App Store***, you don't get any wizards or 'options' at all, and for some very obvious reasons. No package (at least so far) delivered that way will screw around with your browser settings or plugins, or add stupid search bars (unless what you're downloading *is* a search bar), etc.

*** Apple's App Store I think explicitly forbids such crap, but not 100% certain of that. Also note that any downloaded OSX application that contains a .pkg file or similar thing (Java does this) will send you to wizard hell, just like an .msi and/or .exe will.

Agreed... though funny enough, it probably still won't show me that window. But then, this is probably why:

# yum update jre jdk

In all seriousness though, I am curious as to whether or not they'll screw around with the more automated/*nix-like updates, or if it's just the typical 'doze and OSX users who will have to keep an eye out.

Actually, that depends on the RV in question. I specifically retrofitted a used 35' RV trailer for hunting in Utah (October at 10,000' ASL tends to be a bit snowy). It cost me roughly $1500 to do it on my own. I did it by carefully removing the wall paneling, replaced the thin fiberglass insulation with dense foam-based sheets, then covered that with new fiberglass insulation packed in as tightly as possible. Also packed more fiberglass insulation wherever I found any dead-air space (behind cabinets, etc) and double-layer sheets of dense foam insulation up in the undercarriage. Next came pre-cut sheets of foam insulation that fit into the windowsills and air vent shafts at night. A pair of 80-lb propane tanks and a pair of Group 4D truck batteries (recharged by generator) completed the ensemble.

Was perfectly warm in spite of sub-freezing temperatures and the same tiny propane furnace that the thing came with.

Also, newer RV trailers are actually built pretty damned well, with many models built specifically for cold weather.