I like your idea about the Interstate Highway rights-of-way. In northern Virginia, the Dulles Toll Road and the Dulles Greenway (the privately built and operated extension) includes land for rapid transit, which is currently under construction (Washington Metro Silver Line)
The captain sails his ship as he damn pleases, and if that means running it aground or sinking it, so be it.
Hold on there a minute. The Captain of the Costa Concordia found out the hard way that it wasn't his ship. If the calamity is bad enough, there will be an investigation and repercussions. Of course, it makes sense to be near the lifeboats anytime you doubt the Captain.
Wow.. its clear to me that you've never actually gone through the legal immigration process. It is much worse than you paint it out to be. At best, you'll get treating with disrespect, dismisive attitude, rudeness, made to wait entire days in line, etc.. I speak from experience as a US citizen who had to get a visa for his wife.
My wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law went through the legal immigration process and none of them felt that they were ill-treated. Yes, the wait is long, but every bureaucracy involves waiting. You got a bad draw I guess.
Back in my day, we bootlegged our music on a 56k modem, and we were damn happy to have it!
Luxury. We used to tape record songs from the radio using hand me down portal tape recorders. If the DJ spoke to early or someone made a noise, the song was ruined!
Factorials were someone's attempt to make math LOOK exciting.