There is the probably reasonable assumption that this type of activity often comes with drugs, prostitution, etc.

Typically it's much more mundane stuff like tourists taking up parking spaces in the neighbourhood,

What is the logic behind that?

In the case of San Francisco, the hotel tax is used to fund the arts -

http://www.sfgfta.org/about/hi...

Tourists don't vote, so you can fund the arts without annoying taxpayers who might not otherwise want to.

I don't think FB will 'Power the Future' because there's a lot of stuff they simply can't get right. Take their new search. If I enter "James Bond" into a Facebook search, my expectation is that the first thing it will search is my friend's feeds, followed by the feeds of companies and organization I like, followed by public feeds - Returning "James Bond"- related Facebook posts. Instead it just does a lousy web search. Why?

Or take ads. I'm a Facebook regular, posting daily. Yet FB has never been able to serve an ad up to me about anything I care about. Never. Not once.

...and my feed is just a total dog's breakfast with FB selectively choosing what to show me. I know I can pick "show recent" but the setting doesn't stick for more than 48 hours or so...

So will they power the future? No. They can't even power themselves.

you are quickly into the (very low admittedly) billions.

You're into the high(er) billions once you add all the satellite bandwidth into the mix.

And yet, people stated that "it would be soooo expensive" to add proper tracking to planes.

The 'people' are correct. $50M is much, much less than the billions it would cost to add 'proper tracking' to planes that cross oceans - And it still doesn't address the problem of someone in the cockpit switching the tracking off.

the only explanation that makes sense to me is okham's racer

Occam's razor dictates that there's no way some guy named Okham turned the plane into his own private racer.

Gotta side with BlackBerry on this one.

Keyboards like this one...

http://0.tqn.com/d/ipod/1/0/w/...

...have been around for years.

However, one look at the "Typo" tells you that it's a blatant BB ripoff. If you want / need a keyboard like that, buy a 'Berry.

And that would be our fault...how exactly?

Because if you hand someone over knowing they're going to be shot in the head then you're no better than the killers.

It's the same reason we (Canada) won't extradite someone to the USA if we know a conviction will result in their being killed. It's uncivilized to do otherwise.

If you don't have proof then send them home

They don't have 'homes' - There is nowhere to send them. Furthermore, if you did somehow prove that some of them are Yemeni or Saudi or whatever, they'd be shot as soon as you pushed them off the plane.

How in the hell is this allowed to persist?

A majority of the citizens that vote don't care.

Didn't our current Glorious Leader promise to close down that shame of a concentration camp years ago, incidentally?

The main problem with "Gitmo" is there isn't anywhere to send many of the prisoners. You put them on a plane and send them to Yemen and Yemen says "They're not citizens. I refuse them admission. Take them back where they came from." Unless you just drop them off in the Afghan desert, what do you do with them?

Actually, I think you will need *two* wives.

That the USA for example.

What is Godwin's law for Slashdot called? i.e. any Slashdot story about North Korea, after sufficient threads, will claim the USA is similar to North Korea in the given trait being discussed..

Show me a competent public-sector IT employee

My buddy.

Pension plan, 9-5, 5 weeks vacation, stat holidays. job security. Lots of reasons people stay in the public sector.

When has Microsoft supported its products?

I ran Windows Update on my XP box last night. Seemed to work fine. So I guess the answer to your question is "yesterday."