I think a slightly better analogy would be if your unlocked room is in the middle of a public store and maybe hidden behind a clothing rack. The entrance is obfuscated but there are no signs saying no entrance.

Last time I had jury duty it was for a bar fight. There was no physical evidence a fight had even occurred. It felt like a massive waste of time and made me feel foolish for taking it seriously. Not sure how often worthless cases make it to trial but it kind of changed my opinion of the whole thing.

a factor you are not considering would be how much turnout increased among black voters. This factor would not be captured in the numbers you presented. I don't know or care what the numbers are- just pointing this out.

My largest single expense is taxes. Income tax (state & federal), sales tax, property tax, capital gains tax, taxes on my cell phone service, taxes for my gasoline, meals tax at restaurants. Then there is the SS, FICA, medicaid stuff. I sure am buying a lot of civilization

A system that compels people to act any other way would be immoral.

I heard everything tastes like chicken

http://everything2.com/user/Igloowhite/writeups/You+love+these+machines.+These+machines+are+dead%253A+a+love+story. First thing I thought of when I heard about this story

That is a lot of energy, but we do have 19 years. Some kind of long slow power source would help make more feasible but maybe 19 years still isn't enough.

Can you give me some more details? The only people I can think of who do not drive on roads are maybe people who live in cities and just use public transit? If roads are paid for with gas taxes, tolls, and property taxes people in cities will pay higher prices for the cost of goods they buy shipped in on roads (to cover the cost of gas taxes and tolls that are incurred shipping the goods into the city) or pay for roads with their local property taxes. I think roads are a pretty clear example of where people who benefit from them can pay for them with use taxes (gas taxes & tolls) & property taxes.

Roads are a really poor example for the point you are trying to make. Roads should be paid for by gas taxes, tolls and maybe property taxes for local town roads. I'm not sure how hiding your money in a swiss accounts gets you out of paying for roads.

but now I can't tell if the wifi router has died unless I open the cat

Not really laziness, it just feels like it is turning into a crappier product so I don't want to use it anymore. Changing the default search engine seems like it would be the lazier route. Sure I have the ability to choose which search provider I use, but I also have the ability to choose which distro I use.

I've used Ubuntu for a few years now and always though it was great. Using a clearly inferior search engine as a default is pretty bogus. I guess I'll just go back to using Debian. Can't say I blame them though they need to make money somewhere.