The camera goes 'click'
You're in DB, like Rick
But we've got the trick
To make your chin slick
Burma Shave

I'm not sure where, in this thread, I have asserted any positive allegiance on your end. It's possible that I've done that elsewhere, I suppose, but I'm afraid I don't recall where.

I think the austerity is happening, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. Note the smaller portions at restaurants.

This is slashdot. Nobody is ever required to do anything at all here.

I'm just kind of chuckling here at "I am simply pointing to the sign that says 'bridge out'" followed by "crowd who believe they have no alternative".

At a sufficiently high level of abstraction, you're akin to Sri Mick Jagger, belting out "I can't get no satisfaction". Shall we read your double negative literally, and deem you satisfied, or take the spirit of the lyric, and deem you still seeking the satisfaction? This many decades on, did the seeking, itself, become a destination, affording some meta-satisfaction?
Trying to serve it humorously, sir, but I find you a crapflooder, albeit less tedious than ram_degistrars.

These arguments are not "reasonable". I can't find an "reason" based arguments to venture beyond heterosexuality. Political arguments are not infrequently based upon stoking envy along sexual, racial, historical, and material lines.
Politicians demagogue, and low-information voters vacuum it up.

I don't dispute that this is an issue, but if we think in terms of seller/marketplace/buyer, I want to know what we're doing to ensure adequate numbers of sellers. That is, WTF competition?

Closed source is not inherently safer. Raymond's proposition is theoretically sound, however in actual practice, the NSA has "many eyes"...

Turn on your Heartbleed,
Let it shine, wherever you go
Let it make a happy glow
For the NSA to see...

As long as you aren't a victim of Tax Identity Fraud. My taxes are rather complex, my wife and I have used TurboTax for years to deal with them, until this year. When we went to file, we go the error "Spouse's Tax Identification Number has already been used". Yes, some idiot had used her SSN to already file before the first week of February.

So we had to file by paper, notify three other agencies, put a hold on her credit, and call the local cops to get a tax refund this year. NEVER tell me that identity theft is a victimless crime.

I just mail the IRS the lifeless bodies of my children...

The best part of Star Trek for me was when Motorola came out with the StarTac, and I realized that in three generations, science fiction could become science fact.

BTW, since I need to give up my keyboard in the next generation anyway, can anybody recommend a hard plastic flip cover for a Samsung S5?

Subjectively, I never "pimped" McCain & Romney in any sense.
In both cases, I voted against them in the primary.
You can throw out the non-falsifiable proposition that "I didn't do enough to oppose either one", if you want to.
And you can toss out your "Oh, just randomize it all" suggestion, if you like.
*yawn*

The lateral directions of Left & Right are a ruse. What matters is the individual vs. the collective. Seen from that angle, our "two party system" is a grand fiction.

I guess the fact that I have repeatedly argued against changing the names on the doorplates macht nichts. Thanks, man.