free rain? (varies by jurisdiction if you actually own the rain that falls on your land).

depends on how transparent the breakdown is... I do recall some airfares that were pretty close to 50/50 fare/taxes+fees, and I certainly have long distance phone bills that clearly show pennies worth of calls and dollars worth of "fees" that are carefully described as "not taxes".

So, while everything isn't "taxes", they are larger than you think, but the "profit" part is generally pretty small. For example, the current "profit margin" for American Airlines is negative That can't be good...

These are not the trollsocks you want...

If you can build oil pipelines hundreds of miles long, why don't "they" build water pipelines to the desert of southern California? Maybe it is because oil is (statistically speaking) infinitely more valuable than oil)?

OTOH -- maybe driving away from a desert is more cost effective than living there...

That doesn't sound nearly as intimidating as Release the Kraken! (or even Release the hounds...)

Just sayin...

CRTC = Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission


Radio? No
Television? No
Telecommunications? Maybe

In as far as Netflix is using "telecommunications" infrastructure... I guess that gets the camel's nose into the tent?

But the same could be said of any web site - why doesn't the CRTC ask YouTube, or even Slashdot for subscriber data? What's the difference? They are all web sites pushing on-demand content to users - not broadcasting. Besides, even if they were "broadcasting", one could argue they would only have an interest in making sure the content was not inappropriate, not who the potential recipients were.

If you are a fan of net neutrality then you should be just as wary of governments gumming up things as carriers playing favorites.

These are not the only choices.

Salaries in the academic world are crazy, and still getting worse - for example, rather than heralding how budget conscious the UC system is, paying chancellors "only" $319K, instead, they "fixed the problem" with a 20% across the board pay raise.

Just in time, I am sure, without making over $380K, I am sure all those administrators would just go work somewhere else and you wouldn't be able to find anyone qualified for such paltry salaries.

They were battery operated, and looked cool! No seams for battery doors or holes for pesky charger ports!

Obviously they are not hipster enough for Apple products, ironic beards not withstanding.

Android products are too "free", and therefore would encourage infidel proclivities.

They kill all their own intellectuals who could create a new phone, so... they must use WINDOWS!!!!

Yes, in Europe, the price stated, is the price you pay, but, at least while shopping via the Internet, it is common to point out that the VAT is included. For example, go to booking.com, select a European city, pick a random hotel and it will give the price - AND - the notation "Included 20% VAT" (London) or "Included 25% VAT" (Copenhagen), "Included: 6% VAT, Not included: € 2 city tax per person per night." (Bruges).

While it is nice to have an all-inclusive price, it is important to be transparent on the amount of taxes being paid. In Europe, just as in the US, taxes vary wildly state-by-state.

I live in California, but stayed in hotels in several other states in the last couple of weeks... 14% occupancy tax does seem high, but this is San Francisco, they love taxes up there...

Dallas = Room + 2% DTPID Fee + 7.1% City Tax + 6.1% State Tax
NYC = Room + Sales Tax 8.875% + Occupancy Tax 5.875% + Room Tax $2.00 + Room Unit Tax $1.55
Boston = Room + State Tax 5.7% + City Tax 6% + CCF Tax 2.75%
Philadelphia = Room + Lodging Tax 8.5% + Sales Tax 8%


In Europe they are much more civilized about it -- they just toss in some huge VAT tax (like 20%) and may or may not mention that it is "included" (how thoughtful of them.) In some places there are still more taxes - in Dublin Ireland, my hotel bill had the room fee, with VAT included, but also added "other local taxes and fees" amounting to 9.25% of that...

In general, the observation that taxing visitors is popular is accurate, and accelerating, it seems.

This situation is what belch and fart smartphone apps are for.

€6,000,000/8,300 = €723 Euro per machine. Subtract 300, up-front (OS/Office) = €85 per year savings, after the licenses.

Let's say the average city employee makes €40,000/year (I have no idea what they make, but assuming one employee per workstation, those workers are about 1/4 of the cities annual budget of €1,266,000,000)

So, the half a day's wage saved (€85) per year isn't a big deal either way - either they are happy with the open source systems and they make out, or they go back to proprietary software and spend a couple of days wages, if needed.

And why does it need to be all or nothing? People should use what makes them most productive... within the support capabilities of the IT staff. Out of 8300 workstations I wouldn't be surprised if a large share of them could get by with basically running a web browser, but for those who need Windows or MacOS to get their work done, so be it.

They were looking for "academic achievement", not necessarily intelligence, per se.