And it is against the law for them to spy on Americans on US soil. Didn't slow them down.

I have the exact same thing in my kitchen and was super easy to pop out the current keystones and rewire them for the new Robertson silent switching ballasts I bought on Amazon for about $20, no ground required. Was a lot easier than trying to remove and install new 8 foot fixtures.

If it is really only good to 100 m, then it seems like a significant problem. My pole drop to first jack is 40 m. In even a decently compact residential street that would only get you 6 lots out from the node not including their pole drop.

How do you think cable works?

Seems like it would be easier to allow traffic discrimination, but that automatically loses that company's exclusive franchise agreement, and the jurisdiction must then allow other companies to use the right of way to run last mile connections at the same rate charged to the incumbent franchise.

You are referring to the 9th amendment in the Bill of Rights I believe. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people". There is no right in the Constitution to individuals being provided every free service available for the functioning of government entities funded by taxpayer dollars. This really isn't a Constitutional question. Arresting the guy was unnecessary, there are almost certainly local and state laws in GA that cover taking low value goods and services you are not explicitly entitled to, and it probably warrants a ticket. But he doesn't have a Constitutional right, or protection from taking free power from the school district without explicit authorization.

In the USA my understanding was PCI requirements were going to make all companies switch to non-imprintable cards? All of my cards issued in the past year are completely flat.

It is based on whether the seller has nexus in the buyer's location. If it has nexus it is the seller's responsibility to collect sales tax and remit it, if it doesn't then it is the buyer's responsibility to remit use tax to their taxing jurisdictions. The problem Amazon is having is jurisdictions trying to expand the concept of nexus.

One thing states have been doing is saying if someone in for example North Dakota posts a link to a product on their blog, that constitutes nexus in North Dakota for Amazon even if they have no other operations there. I don't agree with that one.

The other problem they are having is Amazon does not own their distribution centers. They set up a separate company to own and operate these locations that their parent contracts with. They want to use this corporate structure to avoid nexus in places like Texas and other states. This I think is a sketchy dodge, but on the other hand it is a slippery slope to say it is nexus when in fact they are separate companies.

If I followed the thread right, parent posts didn't reference flat tax. We currently have a progressive taxation scheme with so many loopholes and deductions that in actuality it is regressive. So if the choice is to not change the status quo, or to make our current tax law less regressive, I'll pick the latter.

But if the option were to tear up the entire system and institute a flat tax with almost no deductions (except maybe one standard deduction per person) and then provide direct subsidies to the poor, then I agree that is most preferable and arguably the most efficient.

There are a couple companies in the US that attempt to do this (determine the correct tax by sales location and nexus then distribute your payment to them from your company's ERP system). They're expensive and still make mistakes though. It requires active participation from the companies contracting them. It isn't a problem you can just hand off to them with a wad of cash and walk away from.

It just doesn't work this way. First tax jurisdictions aren't divided by zipcode as you allude to. You remit taxes to the state, county, city, and special taxing jurisdiction. As I recall there are 40,000 different "jurisdictions" in the US that can collect tax, but hundreds of thousands of different combinations of those overlapping jurisdictions. Some states will distribute the funds for you as long as you submit a report of what amounts should go where, other states the individual jurisdictions collect their own tax. In addition each of these jurisdictions have hundreds or thousands of tax laws or private letter decisions on how their code should be interpreted.

Now if you are saying our tax code should be set up the way you suggest, then I agree. But right now it is not set up in any manner where you can do that.

That depends completely on the state. My wife has told me how many do this vs. remit to the jurisdiction and I don't remember the ratio right now. For example in Louisiana you remit it to the parish tax collector, and in many cases you can't make the check out to "x parish tax collector" but to the tax collector's name personally.

I know it's crazy. My wife is a sales tax accountant (dealing a lot with Canada right now) and when she talks about things like this it just makes me mad. She's no fan of one of the provinces in Canada, and Denver Colorado, because they have especially strange tax rules. I looked it up and in the US I believe there are 40,000 different taxing entities and each one can have hundreds or thousands of rules in law and special considerations in private letter rulings.

Not only different tax rates for different products, but different tax rates for the same product depending on how it is prepared or packaged. For example a coke out of a fountain intended for onsite consumption can be taxed differently than a coke in a can meant to be carried out, or coke in a 12 pack meant to be taken home.

Bin Laden was a lot smarter than you give him credit for. That is what he said to encite hatred in American people's hearts and allow our politicians to manipulate us. He really wanted America to get our nose out of middle eastern politics. He planned to do this by bleeding us slowly of wealth and influence by causing enough low level mayhem that we remained fearful to overspend on wars and security and reactionary to where we violated our own claimed values. It says a masterfully successful operation.