So the papers for two jurisdictions who have astronomically fucked themselves with their rampant fiscal incompetence want to steal more money from the private sector.

*Shocker*

I've always thought a remake of Rise of the Triad would be fantastic.

I know there are lots of left-leaning people here on slashdot, and understand the moral calling they feel. But it pains me every time I see an issue like net neutrality come up and people are demanding that the politicians intervene and regulate. We beg the politicians to enslave us and to take power they shouldn't (and don't) legally have. In the end, everything we give them is abused. It's expansive government regulation that helps cartels like the RIAA to remain in operation. Instead of fostering economic development, unleashing creativity and all the other arguments tossed around in favor of the IP regime, it seems to be doing exactly the opposite. And in the realm of IP legislation, it seems like all that is happening worldwide is either (a) ground is being lost; or (b) valiant efforts are barely keeping nasty legislation at bay. Unfortunately, until we stop clamoring for the government to further intervene in the markets, things are probably going to get a lot worse before they get better. Those of you who support net neutrality legislation... watch out. If we do end up getting such a law, it will probably be the "evil" telcos that end up writing the rules and having the last laugh, all on our tax dime.

Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.

They just need to send management to the pub... let them occupy their time with darts and vomit while the engineers work on fixing their operating system.

Unlike Congress, which absolutely and completely does not care how many people call them and tell them to stop stealing from us, Time Warner is a business whose lifeblood comes to it through voluntary exchange. If enough of their customers call up and threaten to terminate their accounts if Time Warner changes the pricing model in their area, they will get the message.

Why would you worry about doing software development when filesystem journals and superblocks are likely to be written far more frequently (generally without ever relocating, which file blocks could do from time to time). This is why write-leveling algorithms exist. If drives (and/or filesystems) didn't perform write-leveling, they would be largely impractical for R/W for this reason.

The dog is to make sure no one sneaks in drugs and gets the router high.

while I agree with you on a sales tax being regressive, the current tax system is still unfair. Those with a lot of money already, perhaps from inheritance (Paris Hilton, anyone?) only pay taxes on their interest, and can mostly get out of that tax too.

The current talk about repealing the inheritance tax is ludicrous. It's the only tax the Paris Hiltons of the world pay at all. Look at it like this: while Daddy worked his ass off, paid his taxes on his earnings, and received the benefits of those taxes (the military protected his investements at home and abroad), if they repeal the estate tax, once he's dead, poor little rich girl never has to work again. Now she gets all the benefits of that military and police protection, the roads, the schools, etc, but doesn't have to pay for any of it! Do we really want to create a landed gentry whose offspring never have to work again?