What you are missing is that ratings are assigned relative to the competition that existed when the rating was assigned. Go over to gamespot and check out the graphics of a game that got the top rating for graphics 8 years ago. Are those graphics still 10/10? Not even close. Go over to Amazon.com and search SD Cards by "Average Customer Review." Many of the top-ranked cards are little 8 and 16 GB cards that were rated up years ago.

There are various "dreams" of course, but the Gold Rush mentality has always been strong in US culture. Our current top marginal tax rates certainly support that assertion - average people pay dearly in real money to protect their fantasy future-self.

Any marketplace of infinitely scalable production is a lottery!

Before music recordings, if you wanted to hear music, somebody had to play it. A more popular musician could make somewhat more than an average musician - maybe substantially more - but the top handful couldn't entertain the entire planet singlehandedly. Now they can. The economy of agrarian farmers - where a 20% more productive farmer makes 20% more money - is over. Now it's winner-takes-all.

I liked your post right up to the last sentence when you said the real problem is our tendency to not check everything. That is simply not possible. Life rolls forward on a vast number of assumptions every moment, and most of them are correct, or good enough to get by on. (False assumptions that don't matter and cannot be observed - like this Amelia Bedelia thing - can linger indefinitely).

There's nothing stopping Jewish or Christian candidates standing for other seats, which is exactly the same as Congress. The only difference is that there will be at least one Jewish or Christian member (among all the other reserved seats) in any Iranian Parliamentary session due to the reserved seat, unlike Congress which does not reserve any seat for minorities.

So its far from tokenism.

Since thats exactly what a large number of Palestinians did when the Gaza-Israeli border crossings were open (find work in Israel and go shopping in Israel), I see no reason why the tunnels into Israel are not also for the same purpose - food is freely available across the border in Israel, its getting it back across the border which is the issue.

The Gaza-Egypt border is managed by Egypt under an agreement initiated in 1979 and then amended by Israel in 2005 - the opening and closing of the borders is, under those agreements, managed by Israel even if they are policed by Egyptian officers.

So even though its a Gaza-Egypt border, its still controlled by Israel.

Its only since the uprising in Egypt that Egypt has unilaterally closed the Gaza-Egyptian border, and for this they should be in the international spotlight, but even then the Egyptian closing of the border and prior blockade is not comparable to the Israeli blockade which extends to Gaza ports and international trade into Gaza which does not cross Israeli territory.

If security fixes take up significant amount of additional space, then something's being done wrong. Very very wrong.

Ice is 100% water, but isn't at all liquid.

Which part do you find suspect? Tesla wants to make a major launch of a $35K all-electric car, which will require a huge number of batteries, above and beyond the current supply. The word "allegation" sounds as if you think the new Telsa model won't use batteries? Or that there's already enough production to support the new Tesla model, presumably going straight into a huge hole in the ground? Or what?

Ahh, look, he insults me three times in his first sentence and then expects me to treat his comment with anything approaching giving a damn.

And to top it off, he insults me in the final sentence as well.

Meh.

Come back when you can have a civilised, adult discussion on the topic.

I'm not side lining anything, however strongly you wish to push it its got fuck all to do with the question asked.

Right, do you have anything other than your own feelings that actually indicates that he did something illegal, either in criminal or civil law?

Because I'm still with "no" on that.

Ahh right, because there was no blockade or violence prior to the Palestinian people electing Hamas as its government. Oh, wait a moment, there has been violence and blockades in Gaza for 50+ years...

Hamas is just the current excuse for the Israeli pressure, not the underlying reason. But its an excuse everyone buys and that's enough.

Before the current rash of violence on both sides, Israel was more than happy to deal with the PLO, whom it handed over "power" in Gaza to in 1994 despite the PLO being responsible for as much anti-Israeli violence as Hamas ever has.

And since the current rash of violence on both sides, Israel is still more than happy to deal with Fatah, which is the continuation of the PLO, and has been merrily firing rockets into Israel alongside Hamas and other groups for the past decade, but we never hear about that...

So what's so bad about Hamas? Oh, its in power and thus can be used as a whipping boy to justify the continued pressure on Gaza and the West Bank.

Not at all, except no country on this planet gives completely equal rights to all fellow citizens - hows that gay marriage thing coming in the US?

So in the context of the point raised by disposable60, Iran has both Christians and Jews in office, and your post is nothing more than an attempt to sideline that fact.