Who builds toll roads? Private ventures licensed by the government.

Who can use a toll road? Anyone willing to pay for the roads.

Why do you think only government can build roads? The PA, NJ, and hundreds and hundreds of other toll roads were built by toll road authorities that receive ZERO tax dollars.

If people making $30,000 a year knew they paid over $1000 a month in taxes

How much in taxes does a person making $30K/year really pay? You really think it's $12,000 worth? I think, after deductions, subsidies, and credits they pay much, much less. Remember, 47% of tax filers pay no net taxes, they get back more than they had withheld from their paychecks.

And if broadband allows one in a thousand to take online classes and go from unemployed and on assistance to being a productive member of society?

If I follow your logic, and assume a perfectly reasonable per month/subscriber cost of $25, you'd have the government consider a success a program that spends $25,000/month (1,000 recipients @ $25 per recipient) for two years (24 months @ $25,000/month) for a cost of $600,000 do that one person can lift themself off of public assistance with an associates degree... $1.2M if that one in s thousand decides to go for a bachelors degree.

That spells boondoggle in my book.

Now the FCC is proposing that the program, which is funded by a fee on telecom providers which they pass on to consumers and businesses , be extended to broadband, on the logic that high-speed internet is as necessary today as telephone service was a generation ago.

Every tax and fee government imposes on businesses are passed on to the customers.

I imagine that they're popular with woman, fags, ignorant, sheep, etc.

Wow. Just Wow.

Google did not develop and release their free Android operating system to profit off the (free) OS, they wanted to lower costs to increase the user base and thereby increase their advertising market.

At over a billion devices in the market, they have expanded the user base.

If android users migrate to iOS (for whatever reason), evidence proves that iOS users are among the most profitable market segment in the mobile advertising market, so Google sees ad revenue (and profits) increase.

Android is the gateway is to the 'harder' OSes, like iOS, and that's where the real money is.

Google is getting exactly what it wants from it's free Android OS.

Personally, I think the biggest challenge Android devices have is that many users are drawn in by the exceptional bargain devices (like a $40 7" tablet) and soon learn that a) they really like the functionality of a tablet and b) you really can't make a 'good' tablet for $40. That initial exposure to lie-quality/lie-cost android devices ultimately could drive frustrated users to iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

And what is $0K/yr? You know, like all the unemployed folks in the Bay Area earn?

One Purchasing excess electricity isn't a subsidy

Yes, it is.

Try and sell someone a solar panel install that can not sell it's excess electricity to the power company at a premium over the going rate on the spot market.

BTW, the excess electricity typically goes to waste, and the money paid to the solar panel owner drives up the cost of electricity for everyone else.

He's not only 'poor' he's among the poorest in California... Apparently he earns less than his unemployed neighbors.

The fact that the middle class bears the heaviest burden of taxes is an indictment against the political realities, not against the idea of giving solar panels to the poor.

Citation please.

The top 5% earn 20% of all Income and pay 40% of all income taxes...

The US actively taxes anything that might upset the local utilities. There are relatively few incentives to do it and more disincentive than anything.

You are kidding, right?

The US Gov't subsidizes:

solar panel research,
solar panel manufacturing,
training solar panel installers,
the purchase and installation of solar panels,
AND requires utilities to buy all the energy the panels generate at above market rates, if they want it or not.

What more could the government do to support adoption of solar power?

And there's no one in California poorer than this fellow with his $70K salary?

When did homeowners become 'poorest residents' in California?

Seems to me a person too poor to buy a house is, by definition, 'poorer' than a homeowner.

That 99/100 believe one thing shouldn't be used silence the 1/100 - that is what I, as a layman perceive as going on in the scientific community.

An easy example of this is when climate scientists refuse to make their raw data available to those that wish to challenge their findings. If they have faith in their findings, what's the problem?

Other notable issues arise when things like the famous hockeystick graph which clearly showed temperatures rising in advance of rising CO2 levels is used to argue that rising CO2 levels are responsible for the temperature increases observed. Or when dire predictions are made (No polar ice by 2015!) and then the predictions fail to come true.

To the average person, being asked to accept and act based on scientific consensus these public mis-steps undermine their faith in science and those that claim to practice it.

I don't want to debate the above examples (but hey, it's Slashdot, go for it!), my point is the above are examples that have flown in the face of what everyone was taught in 8th grade science (mis-reading a graph, refusal to share data, and making outlandish predictions based on a desire to gain publicity rather than scientific facts).

The point is the perception science by the layman, and the above examples all undermine the perception of science's infallibility.

...when we replaced the scientific method with scientific consensus?

That 99 out of 100 scientists agree one thing is true doesn't make it true - it may be, it may not be, but the number of people that believe doesn't make it so.

When the scientific community is caught 'correcting' raw data and ostracizing 'non-believers' that challenge their beliefs they undermine the public trust in 'science'.

I was taught that the scientific method welcomed challenges to accepted beliefs - a return to that position would go a long way towards reforming belief in science.