My wife just replaced her Samsung Galaxy with a google Nexus. Worlds of difference between her old galaxy S3 and the Nexus 5 in terms of performance. Plus there is a lack of "little" things that annoyed her on the Galaxy.

Until it becomes a hassle. Example, I just got a new phone last week and didn't have a chance to update my google authenticator app to the new device. It was a vacation so the computer stayed at home. I ordered tickets online at went to print at the hotel only to realize I couldn't access my gmail account to print. I was still able to goto Will Call to pick up the tickets, but it still meant waiting in line for 15 minutes, something we had hoped to skip by purchasing online.

Sorry, no succession. The South tried that once 150 years ago. I didn't end well for them.

Which usually goes back to local law enforcement, or at least a portion of that, but not in all states. There are cities here in Missouri where the local governments made up most of the revenue from traffic violations. A couple cities were famous for this until the state passed some laws prohibiting them from doing this.

Nebraska, I believe, collects all traffic fines revenue and then doles that money out to the schools instead of police departments. Doesn't matter if it's a local cop or a state trooper who pulls you over and issues you the citation, the money goes to the state to prevent what occurred in Missouri.

They have no legal power? The average person commits what, 23 Felonies a day. They just pick one, make it stick, and get you to play ball. If you still refuse, well I suggest looking up what happened to Qwest's CEO when he refused to play ball.

Last couple years forced me to rethink a few things. I live in the suburbs of a moderate sized city, but have several hundred acres of farmland a couple hundred miles south with a place to stay, well water, septic system, small wind turbine, solar cells, and 100 acres of woods with a wood burning furnace + stove. Have the wind turbine and solar cells because I'm only down there about 1 month a year to look over the farming operations (we rent it out). So we sell most the electricity we generate back to the coop. Then at harvest time, we usually break even when it comes to running the motors for irrigation and driers in the bins.

I have the guns from my grandfather, a double barrel 12ga goose gun, a .22 Stevens single shot rifle, 1903 Springfield, a M1911, and a Walther PP trophy gun from WWII plus I have a AR, 2 9mm pistols for CCW (same model), a Mosin Nagant, a .38 revolver, and a .40S&W pistol. I figured the common thought of "Keep standard calibers and you'll be able to find ammo" was a good one. I used to keep enough ammo around to load magazines once. Basically enough that if I wanted to run to the range and didn't have time to stop off at the store to pick up ammo I could. The most I kept around was about a brick of .22 that would last me a year.

Well when the craziness happened after Sandy Hook the only thing I could find regularly was .40S&W and 30-06 Springfield. I sold one of my AR's during that time for nearly 3x what I paid for it. I kept the money in a savings account and recently bought a second safe for ammo. In the past few months I've probably bought enough ammo to be on a watch list as I've stocked up on 3000 rounds of 5.56, 3000 rounds of 9mm, 1000 rounds of .40, 250 rounds of .45ACP, 880 rounds of 7.62x54r, 300 rounds of .38, and 200 rounds of 30-06. And I intend on keeping this supply as reserve and not to shoot. If .22LR ever comes back into stock (hoarders are the main problem right now), I'll probably stock up of 5,000 - 10,000 rounds of that over time. (buy a brick a week for a couple months).

Five years ago I wouldn't have done that.

This. I live in a suburban metro area, but rent out the old family farms. I go down several times a year to check on the farms and do a little work to maintain the properties. Well once upon a time in the woods I came across a camper someone had set up. Called the Sheriff and response time was 75 minutes. I know, it wasn't an emergency call and he does live down the road about 5 miles, but he was out on patrol that day. If it had been an emergency it still likely would have been 30 - 40 minutes before he or the deputy arrived.

At any rate it appears as though someone had been using the old camper to cook meth.

I have my CCW and usually carry a .38 around the farm with snake shot/JHP alternating in chambers and then JHP/FMJ alternating in the two speed loaders.

Down there as part of the county emergency planning they maintain a militia muster of people they would ask/draft into forming a county militia in case of a serious event. My name is on that list as if there was ever something that bad, it'd evac from the city with my family and head to the farm. We have wells and a septic system. Wouldn't be the life of luxury, but would be a life.

I always want my concealed pistol to work. That's why I went to carrying a double action revolver. Simple mechanically, if the round fails to fire, pull the trigger again and load the next chamber. No safeties to deal with and with practice loading time is just as quick with a speed loader.

My revolver doesn't even have a "safety" other than a long trigger pull. And if it does go bang the first pull I pull it again.

Tail of two health plans. I've been "self-employed" after I sold my last company in 2011. I paid ~$100 a month for health insurance including a pretty good dental package. In three years I used it basically for annual check up (covered) and a trip to urgent care after cutting my hand while doing some home improvement costs. Total bill out of pocket: $60 for the visit, $10 co-pay for the antibiotics they prescribed. That included x-rays, cleaning, and stitching the wound. My deductible was $3500, $11,000 max out of pocket on the old plan.

Well I couldn't keep that health plan. Apparently now for someone in their early 30's that was now "Catastrophic only" or something. So I went to the exchange. The most like I had was the "silver plan". Silver plan premium $280 per month, no dental. The "Bronze Plan", $156 per month with no dental coverage. Well week before the wedding the puppy dog decided my finger was part of the treat ball. So I had to go up to the same Urgent care, cleaned, x-ray'ed, and medical superglued cost: well $90 for the visit and $45 out of pocket for the same antibiotics as they weren't covered under this plan. Further more the plan I had under ACA at $6000 deductible and $17k max out of pocket.

And for months all I heard from ACA supporters was how my old plan was "crap" and this new plan "would cover so much more". Well...I wanted to keep my old plan, but we know how well that went.

I'm now on my wife's plan from her work. Cost, about $200 a month to cover me with dental. But we may only have this plan until the end of the year as her employer (a Fortune 300) is figuring it's cheaper to pay the fine and force all their employees onto the exchange. Which scares me how much that will cost us out of pocket for a family.

This. My wife's car is completely keyless. She has to have the fob to open the doors or turn it on. This past winter she came out of work and couldn't get into her car let alone turn it on because the battery in her fob died. Fortunately it was at work and she had a warm place to go back to and call me to bring her the spare fob. If she had been somewhere without such recourse when it was -15 wind chill she very well could have died.

My Chevy Volt has keyless entry, remote start, and a keyless start option, but it still has a physical key. If the battery in the Fob dies I can still get in it. My old Chevy Impala I kept a spare key in my wallet. It wouldn't start it, but would open the door or trunk in case I locked the keys in the car or I could get to the emergency supplies I kept in the trunk.

That's just it. It's a niche tool for certain industries, specially design and engineering firms, who spend a day doing the CAD specs and can let something print over night to see if the latest revision of a design will work in a prototype. For those industries it's a godsend. I can see some garage inventor wanting one to tinker around with. For those purposes it's exactly the right tool for the job.

But for stuff that I often need around the house, it's easier and quicker to run up to the store for me than to print it myself.

Actually the EMP can travel thousands of miles in the upper atmosphere and do damage. Read up on Starfish Prime and some other of the tests. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...

Treason, no, but Snowden should absolutely be tried for espionage. (I know ironically). But what he's done is no different than John Anthony Walker or James Hall III.

I've said this before, the US Military does obliterating an opposing force quite well. Which serves well when the objective is the liberation of a territory from hostile occupation, where the US can go in, win, and then the local populace can quickly get things back the way it was. It does not do occupation very well nor really has outside of the Wester Hemisphere.

The exception being post World War II with the Marshal Plan. Which planning for that began in 1943 and by 1945 the government had managed to twist the arms of a lot of academics, economists, finance, and high ranking industry officials to spend two years post war to help rebuild western Europe.