"free, competitive marketplace"

If I need to fly Boston to Newark, what are my options?

Hint - the only direct flight is Continental, which is the same if I fly out of Providence.

Having luggage you can manage on your own has nothing to do with nothing.

Most of my domestic flights are business. Invariably, the tickets are purchased 10 to 3 days in advance. This means, invariably, I am in the worst location on the airplane, while having paid the most.

I am the last to board, by virtue of the seating group assigned to my section on the plane, and it can be hit or miss whether I can actually carry on my carry on as the bins are full of crap from vacationeers who paid 1/6th what I did for the flight because they booked 6 months in advance.

This model is insane.

Its got to be the IT equivalent of sports arenas (heretofore the most infamous boondoggle as a jobs creator/economic engine) - lets have a 100k sq ft thing consume far more power than 10-20 100k sq ft office parks, and we got TWO HUNDRED jobs to show for it. Fantastic.

Never heard of player. Download player, states that it's hundreds of days old on first run. Checks for updates. Doesn't find any. Attempt to play the slowest broadband (100Kbps stream,) which my connection should be able to handle fine, WMP and other players do, at least. Connection drops 2 seconds into playing and never recovers after spending a minute trying to rebuffer.

Uninstalled.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is your Friend. It is enforced by the FTC. Your employer has to get your consent to obtain the information. So refuse the consent. If they fire you, you might be able sue them for breach of contract, assuming they didn't tell you of the requirement prior to employment, or the requirement is unreasonable. You'll need a lawyer. Here are some useful sites: http://www.ftc.gov/os/statutes/fcra.htm http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs16-bck.htm http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/money/fair-cred it/fair-crd.htm