Either you don't buy much in the way of electronics, or you live in a place with lots of options. I do buy a fair bit and live in a place where the best computer store is Best Buy. Sure, I could wait days and days for something to show up (and still pay for even that likely) or with Prime I can order as late as Thursday and have it no later than Saturday.

Given the alternative for someone in my position is to wait up to a week for something to show up, or buy it locally at highly inflated prices and just take whatever the local stores feel like carrying it's a pretty simple thing.

Newegg wants to charge 23 bucks to ship anything over night. Prime will do it for 3.99 and you only have to do that a handful of times for Prime to pay for itself.

Of course, YMMV.

The giant difference is the amount of influence you have against your city or State government is far far greater than you do against anyone in Fed.gov. Depending on the size of the city you're in your Mayor may care what you personally think and say. The President of the US cares not one little bit what you personally think and your Senator's likely care little more. You're a number among millions and they are going to be far more influenced by someone down on K Street than you.

That's the point in the end. Your direct power over someone in the Fed.gov is very limited simply as a function of numbers. Your direct power over your State rep is far greater and in the end if your State sucks in your mind, you can relatively easily move to one that matches your view points. Don't like the conservatism of the Mid-west for instance, move to California or vice versa. The Founders reasonably foresaw this and they may have no idea what a computer was but that doesn't make the Federal system they crafted antiquated and we are poorer for having moved from it. They might wonder why there were so many "free slaves walking around" (or not, as many of them were abolitionists or proto-abolutionists) but they definitely would wonder why in the world we had let Fed.gov become the out of control leviathan it is and how in the world it has been allowed to reach into the life of every last man, woman and child.

Sorry, no. That logic would only apply if the budget were insane and passed by the House specifically to fail. In any case, if the Senate thought the budget was crazy they should have taken it up and voted it down. Instead they simply said "meh" to their Constitutional duties and ignored the budget for years and years.

Their bloody job is to take it up, vote it up or down and/or amend and return it. Not to bloody ignore it so they can avoid going on the record.

Odd, I was able to search and find a delete your google plus link easily. I do agree that it is slightly annoying they don't have a check box to not create the G+ profile but it isn't like they automatically fill it out and push everything into it. You have to manually go to G+ and finish the process if you want it, delete it if you don't.

The poster's stalker premise is also pretty silly. If I'm being stalked am I really going to be dumb enough to create accounts with my actual name on them? The whole thing still strikes me as a tempest in a teapot.

Agree with everything... Though, who actually checks system requirements these days unless you know your machine is so marginal that it isn't even funny. I'll grant maybe I'm not the average, maybe I'm blinded by my own experiences and resources, but unless you're wanting to play Crysis at won't most people's normal machines handle the vast vast majority of games without even blinking?

Am I wrong here?

I'm not totally sure that's the case though. I'm sure many would see the necessary powers to do that as a gross intrusion. One may not like it but the freedom to succeed includes the freedom to fail. The freedom to spend your money as you see fit includes the freedom to possibly be defrauded out of it. That sucks, but the alternative is that government monitor and approve directly or otherwise every single transaction or at least the conditions under which those transactions take place. I have a hard time imagining a libertarian granting government the power to do that, no?

Agreed. It is an excellent example of the true nature of government. It grows and gobbles up power unless something comes along to stop it. Once SCOTUS ruled that the ICC was pretty much the blank check you mentioned there was nothing left to limit Congress from doing whatever the hell it wanted as long as it could some how or another tie it to either commerce or the market in general.

Because clearly the solution to this problem, like all problems, is ever more government intrusion. Big Brother must be allowed to protect us morons from ourselves. Someone has to do it, no?

I'd take issue with them nominating themselves as the one true source, but that's neither here nor there. The real question is whether people will be willing to pay exorbant prices for relatively ancient hardware on the grounds that it very slightly increases the amount of "freedom" they have. Given that 99.95% of people will have no idea what this is about and further wouldn't care if they did (as we're talking about an increase that is difficult if not impossible to measure and arguably doesn't exist) I wouldn't hold your breath on this becoming anything more than an isolated instance.

In short, unless one can prove that even a tiny percentage of computer BIOSes and the like are phoning home or contacting the NSA with daily activity reports exactly no one, on the grand scale, will care. It reminds me of all the efforts to create a "free" CPUs or graphics cards in the past. Sure, you could do it and have them as long as you're okay with 10 or 15 year old technology that is incapable of doing anything that is currently useful. But it's Free! :D

Sorry, you live in that world. The fact that violence hasn't entered your life as yet does not change the nature of the world or alter reality in the slightest. Some people see the world for what it is and reasonably take precautions. Others deny the nature of the world and hide behind "specially trained armed response police". I would never want to deny people their right to self delusion but I draw the line at when they wish to push their delusions on others.

Just because the wolf hasn't come to pound on your door yet doesn't mean he doesn't exist. Count your blessings and be thankful for that, but do not think that simply because it hasn't happened yet that it cannot happen to you.

The entire thing is an overly complicated way to say something which is fairly simple: 6 - 5 = ??. The number of ways to present that are numerous but the simplest would likely have been: You have 6 Apples, you eat 5. How many are left?

Assuming you just don't want to go with: 6 - 5 = ??. Odd that we could teach it the simple equation way for the last.. oh.. forever?

Not only that but they'd likely say something along the lines of: "This will cut your Internet bill in half and double your speeds" to which the people in the area would reply "Right, do that then."

Prices are high because government causes un-natural monopolies and shields their pet companies from competition via exclusive contracts for areas. End this practice and watch prices fall and quality rise.

Given the history of such proponents and of such laws there is exactly zero reason to believe that if this law isn't fought and defeated that these same people won't be back next year wanting to ban lead, also known as 'affordable', ammo entirely.

The history of gun control is one of dishonesty, misdirection and incrementalism. It is also unlikely, though possible, that this is really about serious concerns about the relatively tiny amounts of lead and more likely just a way to try and ban ammo in a politically acceptable manner.

They want bans, they should provide incontrovertible evidence that this is not only a serious problem with direct and provable harm but that the only reasonable solution is this ban. Otherwise, it should be voted down immediately.

I've been there 10 times in the last year and a half and am married to a Chinese woman. Want to try that again? :)

The US has problems to be sure but if you think this is an accurate statement then you clearly have no idea at all what you're talking about and likely have never been to either place.

If you have then you're wearing such heavily colored glasses that you cannot see the reality of the situation.