Our technologically advanced society will not fall into ruin if nobody ever becomes a 5-time Jeopardy Champion ever gain...

On the other hand, guru-level engineers are considerably more important.
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For traffic lights that are really long, and I'm familiar with, I will often turn my engine off since I know I'm going to be going nowhere for >1min. The timer on the crosswalk sign gives me plenty of warning so I can start the engine and be ready to go.

Of course, this is hardly any different from just looking at the traffic light for the opposing direction - most of the time you can see it change to yellow, then red, and you know a few beats later your way will turn green. Drive the same route for more than a few days (e.g. your typical commute) and nearly anyone will know how the lights behave throughout the day and be able to predict them.
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Even if the hard drive isn't yours, or it hasn't been established that it's yours, if they know you have the password for whatever reason they can compel you to give it up. Failure to do so would at least be obstruction, or perhaps as bad as aiding and abetting.

Provided they also have probable cause to think there's evidence on that device of course.
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Plus, you'd scoop up a lot more oceanic plant and animal life trying to extract that plastic material.

Actually, the critters might be a better fuel source than the plastics...
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In a perfect world, there would be no primaries at all because there would be no rigidly defined political parties as such... but I suppose it really is too much to ask that a candidate be considered on the weight of his individual ideas and actions rather than a postfix next to his name on a ballot.

But the next best thing would be to have each party solely responsible for nominating their own candidates, without outside influence. At least in that respect we could get someone who best represents their party, rather than the WORST representative.

Campaign financing is a whole other ball of wax...
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Not really, no. There is almost always more than two candidates for any particular office. The only exceptions I've personally encountered were lesser thought about elected officials like judges and public works.

But I think the parent's comment about "fewer choices" still applies: You are choosing the least bad instead of the best, so the real choice is diminished. Giant douche, or turd sandwich?
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It's a primary election, not a general election. Nobody is being elected into power here. The primary election is only to choose who the candidate will be that will run for office for that particular party.

If you want your political party to win, and you have open primaries, to group together to force the opponent party to select the LEAST desirable candidate, thus increasing your own candidate's chance of winning.

That's not democracy, that's gaming the system - and we all lose in the race to the bottom.
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Why not? You benefit from that partial ownership, you should share in the responsibility proportionally.

Having thousands of owners screaming at you, as well as being financially culpable, would be good cause for the people in charge to actually be careful about what they do.
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Hahahaha... oh wow.

Yeah, assuming that everyone is willing any able to do their own cooking and yardwork (Ha!) who's going to do property maintenance for non-residential properties? Going to take turns at the office to see who's turn it is to trim the hedges that week?
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I think you're reading a bit too deeply into the words and missing the overall point... there are jobs that need to be done regardless of their cost.

Fine, bagging groceries is a poor example. What about janitorial work? Someone needs to do the basic maintenance of a public or commercial building.
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Setting aside the stupidity of $100/hr minimum wage... (I mean, why not $1,000,000/hr right?)

The jobs that people do for under $15/hr still need to be done. Not every job produces wealth. Nobody gets rich by having clean floors, or mowed lawns, or bagged groceries. However, these are examples of tasks that arguable have to be done by someone, and the cost of not having them done can, at least in some cases, be argued to be greater than $15/hr.

The same applies to jobs that "do not produce that much wealth" - they still need to be done. Either you pay someone $15/hr to flip burgers, or you stop selling burgers and go out of business. Don't want to go out of business? Pay the $15/hr and increase your prices by the ten cents or whatever it averages out to be. What a goddamn stupid argument you're making.

I'd rather pay an extra buck for a trip to the local fast food place than have my tax dollars end up subsidizing the employees through food stamps and housing because they're barely paid enough to afford the same food they cook all day.
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We already tried slavery, feudalism, indentured servitude, company towns/stores, debt bondage, wage slavery... these are the labor systems that arise when you don't enforce paying laborers enough to keep them independent of their employer... aka "a living wage."

Maybe the problem is you don't understand what "living wage" really means.
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This statement makes no sense in light of the fact that the Volt's drivetrain includes a four cylinder gasoline engine.

I'm not convinced it's simpler in the transmission either. You still have three clutches, a planetery and a differential.

And yes, the engine can and will provide mechanical power directly to wheels

if conditions are right.
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That's not how rockets work... it's about momentum transfer, not velocity.

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It's not unintended, that's the point.
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