You're suffering from this syndrome:

http://xkcd.com/793/

I refer you to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queueing_theory

Nevermind the fact that they dropped leaflets daily all over war zones to try to incite the populace to riot, leave, etc.

If you had 40 leaflets dropped on you in a month telling you to surrender, do you think the 41st one telling you to leave your home would convince you to do just that?

And 90% of stores in America are owned by Americans. 90% of lawyers and doctors in America are American. Americans own a disproportionate amount of property to non-Americans in America, and exploit non-Americans.

So how exactly is ridding North America of Americans not legitimate and beneficial?

Brilliant logic, Watson.

If my work is paying for a Verizon BlackBerry, then I can't very well change providers or swap sim cards. =(

In what practical way is it superior to an iPhone, which doesn't even need a satchel? And, as a counter-point, I have a friend who recently bought an iPad, shortly followed by an iPhone. She doesn't even use the iPad at all anymore. The only advantage the iPad has, IMO, is battery life. Screw making the iPhone thinner; if you made it a hair heavier but the same old thickness with 3x battery life, competition would evaporate.

You can already do that -- and have been able to since the Motorola Droid launched last November. It's awesome, actually. If you're in the car dock, you just say "map gas stations" and it shows gas stations near where you are. "Navigate to nearest gas station" does exactly that. The droid + car dock is the coolest gadget ever; I had it streaming high-quality internet radio, navigating me to my destination, finding stuff I wanted nearby, and delivering my e-mail -- all at the same time.

Oh, and it worked great as a phone, too. Sadly, my work will only pay for BlackBerries.

"Isn't the McKinnon case more like charging him to buy the lock that had been missing when he walked in?"

No, it's more like making him pay for new locks because he wrote a lockpicking book. The flaws existed, and he exposed them, but it's not his fault that people might use them to perpetrate crimes. If someone tells me how to crack a safe, I'd generally blame the safe's maker for designing that fault... not the person who realized the problem. Eh?

What? I don't know if you've ever USED a computer before, but for many people, they are integral tools for communicating and learning in LIFE -- screw school! Even if something's not required for a curriculum, I'd rather have all the materials at hand to be excellent in all of my endeavors, required or not! There's no vanity involved. Jeesh.

That has less to do with the application and more to do with connection methods. For the period in question, leaving IRC on would tie up your phone line. Now, most people have always-on connections, so leaving something running in the background isn't a problem at all. In fact, I've run IRC 24/7 for years, and most IRCers I know of do the same. It even has a term: "idling" a chan.

"To go with a nice car analogy. If a mechanic is working on a PoS[. . .]"

Wow. That's not a sentence, bucko! You're the CHAIR of a language arts department? Even if that PERIOD were a comma, it would still be improper grammar. This sort of thing hurts my soul.