Tell that to the framers, who feared a large standing army and thus wrote the 2nd amendment. We currently have the most impressive standing army that the world has ever known.

Obviously I was not quoting gross. Microsoft's is over 65%, and headed downward. In 2010 it was around 80%!

I wish you were right, but suspect you are wrong. The 2nd amendment was essentially abandoned after the Whiskey rebellion highlighted the ineffectiveness of the militias, and the British burning DC to the ground finished it off. They never bothered to repeal it.

Well, they've already become AAPL - their margins are almost identical at around 20%. But that is down from the roughly 30% margins they enjoyed over the last 5 years. And the trend is downward. A pessimist might look and see them trending towards Samsung's 12% margins if they insist on ramping up their hardware business.

I agree that it is hard, but we've had over a hundred years of public education to figure this out. I suspect some combination scoring from peers, parents, and administration along with maybe some test scores. We have to do something, and that is why I don't push too hard against the standardized testing - despite the obvious flaws, at least they are trying to affect change. It should be completely routine to lay off the bottom performing teachers in a district each year or so. Tiny districts are exceptions, of course - but most of your cities and suburban schools would stand to benefit.

Then tend to dial back the blatant bigotry and use other hand waving to come to basically the same conclusion. "Men are the problem", "Women are held back by men", "Men hate and harass women", etc.

Third and "Fourth" wave feminism took radfem rhetoric and gave it a sugar coating. And simply say "you just don't understand what feminism is about" and "you're talking about radfems" if anyone points this out. They "loathe" radfems because they needed a sacrificial lamb.

I'd agree with you if we weren't actively lightening our fleet through uniform, nationwide CAFE standards, and if crash statistics didn't show a long-term, continuous reduction in automobile deaths.

Also, when comparing diesel and gasoline you need to account for the energy density advantage of diesel. This is around 12%, depending on the ethanol content of the gasoline. So now it is 37MPG vs 47MPG. Still impressive, but not as crazy and now it passes the sniff test.

They are taking on more and more hardware business. This is a much less profitable venture than they had before, so I don't expect things to be as rosy as you seem to. It is very hard to maintain the profit margins that they are accustomed to. Wall Street has given them a huge boost over the last year, but remember that comes after 10 years of no movement, and they still aren't anywhere near their highs during the dot-com bubble.

Still, the layoffs show that they are serious and PC sales have finally stabilized. While I am not a stockholder, I think you are right to be bullish in the short term.

You are going off with anecdotal bullshit again. "It's not uncommon" does not mean anything. It's hand waving to make it seem common.

FeministFrequency's "in depth" talks are laughably horrible. I agree though, everyone should watch them so that they understand the intellectual honesty behind the "sexism is everywhere" griefers. It is completely biased nonsense that has been pointed out hundreds of times. Of course every time someone explains why she is wrong then she and people like you use that as proof that she is right.

Again, I completely agree. But I refuse to support throwing more money at the problem until they fix the systemic issues. If we are buying iPads while lacking pencils, this is just plain stupid and we need to address the stupidity. We already spend more per pupil than any other country in the world, and more in constant dollars than at any time in our history. More money will not fix anything.

The best thing you could do to help women in this struggle is to shut up. You are exactly the one-sided, brazenly biased overtly obtuse caricature that people have a problem with.

You are of the opinion that nothing bad happens to men and it always happens to women. This does nothing but hurt the conversation because it's demonstrably untrue. I assure you that, as a man, I have been groped at bars, grabbed on the bus, shouted at, "objectified" and all manner of things that would be considered "sexual harassment" in the workplace if it happened to a woman. Just because it doesn't happen to you does not mean it doesn't happen. Some of us guys actually have nice asses.