. . . create a GIS-style database, continuously updated, that determines the sales tax rates of every address in the country. License it, along with an API . . .

You're not the first to have thought of this, naturally.

When I was a kid in America, lo those many decades ago and long before the 'new education' craze, "cooperate" and similar words did indeed bear such diacritical marks (or more rarely, were hyphenated).

I can confirm that you'll often see the diaeresis used to break a diphthong in older books in English, but I'm not quite old enough to have been taught to use them. Wikipedia indicates that the New Yorker Magazine still uses this style.

Unless the programmers were committing fraud by asking people for investment money with no intention to return it, how are they breaking the law?

I understand Madoff would provide quarterly statements showing a more-or-less constant rate of return, listing fictitious trades that would justify the rate of return, using knowledge of actual prices in the past quarter to get the numbers to come out just right (which is easy enough in hindsight). I'm all for presuming these guys innocent, but I think your outrage is misplaced. It's hard to imagine a spec for this software that wouldn't be at least a bit suspicious, so you can hardly blame them for looking into the programmers.

. . . no self-declared "nerds" would ever make such an elementary mistake as to call a town of 7000 people a "city".

To be fair, any self-respecting geography nerd knows that "Vermont city" is an oxymoron, and would have seen right through the headline. Burlington has a population of about 40,000, and that's as big as they come.

How long is it before this drug treatment is avaliable? 2025?

It's available now. Doctors in the U.S. are allowed to prescribe medication for off-label uses if it's approved for any use, so you might be able to get a prescription metformin for anti-cancer use this afternoon if you make a few calls. There may be a more general problem, but this is not a good illustration of it.

How does a Federal special prosecutor give immunity against State charges?

It doesn't, which is exactly why Maryland was able to indict her despite the federal grant of immunity.

This and a bunch of posts above it that basically say the same thing are a big part of the problems we are having today. WE are Americans and, yes, WE fought and died for the right to be free.

"WE the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The people who wrote that are as dead as the people who fought and died to make it happen. Nonetheless, they are us and WE are them. When you disconnect from that you lose sight of how important it is to maintain the freedoms afforded to us. The OP hasn't lost sight of that. Neither have I. WE are Americans. WE died for you and continue to do so whenever the situation merits.

The rest of the OP's post, which you may or may not have read, was concerned with the chipping away of our freedoms. That's what he/she meant by "one more nail in the coffin". You're rights won't be taken in a chunk. They'll be stripped away layer by layer. That way you won't notice.

And yes, sending packets and net access is one of those freedoms. To think that the only freedoms our consititution allows are for things that existed when it was written is a bit short sighted to say the least. Give the government this right and it will be abused. The Feds already have control over all their networks and systems and they have the ability to pull those plugs any time they feel threatened. No bill or law needed. A bill like this would give them power to unplug you, your company, your group, your town, your state, your country. WE fought and died so that our government could never have that type of control over our lives. If the Feds feel threatened, they don't need a bill, walk over to the router and unplug the fiber, but don't tread on my packets.

Why are you assuming that this has anything to do with the battery being defective? How do we know that this was not caused by either the backlight exploding directly from pressure or from the backlight exploding and causing damage to the lithium battery which then exploded?

Of course, when you think about it, when was the last time that the appearance of a Messiah actually fixed anything?

I'd say about 2000 years ago, but that just wound up pissing off a bunch of Romans.

The U.S. . . . hasn't had to fight a war on its own turf since the Spanish-American war.

Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the U.S. by Spain at the end of the Spanish-American war, and as far as I know, none of that war was on land that was U.S. territory at the time. So it would be more accurate to say that the U.S. hasn't had to fight a war on its own turf since before the Spanish-American war, which supports your point. However, it might be possible to quibble about Pancho Villa in New Mexico and Texas, and the Japanese in Guam, the Aleutians, and of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor.

We here down south would probably be just fine.

Hollywood says you'll have a few months at best. But at least you'll have some time to work on your bucket list (assuming northern hemisphere locations aren't involved).