At our house, electricity usage goes UP in the winter -- We heat with a geothermal heat pump with resistance heat as the back-up for very cold days.

I had a heat pump once...was a bit of a shock to find my electric bills in the winter were about the same as in the summer, having moved from a condo with gas heat where the combined bills were lower in the winter than in the summer. I'll never have electric heat (whether heat pump or otherwise) again if I can avoid it. The difference in cost between it and gas heat is ridiculous.

Seriously, the unrest is brewing in our towns. The powder keg is filled to the brim, all it takes is a spark, and any kind will do, to blow it up. You're getting close to a critical mass of people who are severely unhappy with how things are going, the only thing missing is a focal point for this anger. As soon as a justification is found to vent that anger, you have a riot.

Seriously? Critical Mass? Seriously?

I kinda doubt it...this is pretty isolated. Seems mostly to just be a problem in the few highly packed urban centers in the US. You don't see this type of behavior, or even sympathy to it in most of the US.

And for the most part, I think the 24/7 news channels blow it up to much more than it actually is. They often choose camera angles to try to make it look like more people than it is.

The majority if folks in the US rarely if ever have a personal encounter with the police in their cities. The majority of US citizens while concerned that these isolated events are coming to our attention, they also don't see it as much a problem in their local areas or states.

Well, I'm in full favor of protecting 1st amendment rights.

However, there are limited limits. The old "you can't yell fire in a crowded movie house" comes to mind.

I should think the same rules apply to social media? I mean, that tweet that went out saying "there's going to be a PURGE at 3pm..etc" could the powers that be not have that taken down, blocked, etc?

I"m guessing no mechanism now..but shouldn't be hard to figure how to put filters on there, no?

I don't say this type thing lightly either, it is a slippery slope...in that righteous expressions that may be controversial, political and all could be in jeopardy, but I think it is something to be discussed.

You have plenty of rights to free speech, but incitement to riot isn't one of them.

At the very least...track down the folks that tweeted to riot, and throw the book at them. Maybe just use existing law to get those doing this would be better than a censorship method like I first proposed...it might not STOP a riot as well, but after awhile people *might* actually start getting wise that it isn't smart to incite a riot on social media of any form.

Compare the policies of the Democrat party with those of the Conservative Party in the UK. The Tories are left of the Democrats, that makes the Democrats a right-wing party and the Republicans further out than Genghis Khan.

And that comparison has exactly what to do with US politics?

We're talking left vs right here in America...not the rest of the world which leans far enough left to be socialist in so many ways.

I consider Obama to be very left in his views, and if he'd not gone checked by congress, would take us down the European path.

I figure if you want to live European style, move to Europe. The US broke off from Europe many moons ago because we did not want to be European. The majority of us still don't.

"To the Japanese, machines of war--from the heavy machine guns to the tank--are only incidentals in warfare. We Americans realize that the infantry must perform the tasks of actually taking over the ground and holding it, but we use every available machine of war to prevent unnecessary losses. In contrast, the Japanese do not conceive of substituting the shock action of war machines for the shock action of infantry, and they merely strengthen the shock action of troops by the assistance of the machines. The Japanese Army is an army of men, supported by machines of war; ours is an army using machines of war. This is a fine distinction and perhaps not readily understood, but every statement of Japanese military policy bears this out.

A Japanese who has not tasted defeat will attack with a dash and a magnificent disregard for himself. When he has been set back on his heels, just once, he loses that zip and comes back without confidence and impelled by a morbid feeling toward death that might be worded as "Come on, let's get it over with."

He has found himself up against things he can't understand: For example, the way we use artillery (the Chinese never used it against him like that, and he doesn't know what to do about it); the fact that we prefer to sit back and stop him with well aimed rifle and machine-gun fire, and not fight it out with the bayonet; the fact that when we meet him with a bayonet we don't break and run; and, above all, the fact that his basic idea--that skill, bravery, and cold steel alone will win the war--is wrong."

-- "Japanese Warfare as Seen by U.S. Observers" from Intelligence Bulletin, May 1943

Even if Iran had ICBMs and nukes on a scale of the US or Russia they would not attack anyone with them. That is the whole concept of M.A.D. If Iran nuked Israel the nukes from the US, UK, France and the distributed nukes of Israel would completely destroy Iran within days.

MAD only works when dealing with rational actors. The Russians were rational enough. Iran? Not so much.

What I want to know is this: how did he afford an Apple Watch on a record-store clerk's pay?

Most of the idiot Apple 'Geniuses' I've encountered have near full-sleeve tattoos going to damn near their palm.

I haven't ever seen this at the Apple Store here and this is New Orleans, where anything goes...??!?!

...I have not voted R or D since 2004, except when Elizabeth Warren ran for Senate.

So, as of this point, neither of the parties is currently Left enough for you?

;)

Seriously?

Were there no American companies at all they could consider FIRST?!?!?!

Not sure about that, all the Apple Stores I've been in there was no shortage of full sleeved tattooed clerks.

Wow..where do you live?

I mean, hell, I live in New Orleans...where pretty much ANYTHING goes, and I rarely see people with that much tattoo work done on them.

Most people that could afford an iWatch are gonna have 'real' jobs...and you generally can't be all painted up from head to toe, with piercings galore and work in an office, etc.

So, even in a town where wild and different is the norm...folks with enough tattoos to make it in a circus show are very much in the minority. And like I said, generally...those folks are not the market for an expensive toy like the iWatch.

I've never seen any of the Apple Store employees here with any noticeable ink on them.

Yes let's completely ignore that a $10,000 smart device should have taken that into account during development.

Honestly, I'd not have thought about it either....such a fringe thing that it likely wouldn't have been thought up.

I don't know that many people that have so much of their skin painted up that it would cause interference. I'd guess most professional folks, like the IT folks at Apple aren't all painted up from head to toe with tattoos.

Sure, lots of folks these days may have one or two, but usually they're somewhere what is hidden while wearing at least business casual clothing which would generally mean not running down your arms onto and past your wrists....?

Since when are leftists openly xenophobic and nativist? America for Americans? WTF? Have we always been at war with Eurasia?

Americans have this crazy idea that their government exists to benefit their own people. It has zippo to do with free markets. In fact, it screws with free markets to allow a race to the bottom. Americans are disadvantaged. We're not looking for a country that has a standard of living that a Pakistani bricklayer would consider decent. We'd move to other countries if that was the case.

It seems more than reasonable to me...I mean, why not?

I thought the Obama administration promised to be the most "transparent" one to take office?!?!

I can't see it being any more transparent than by basing their studies on data that everyone can see and independently confirm or debate...no?

What am I missing here?