Sorry, but it won't. They'll just fudge the numbers. The trouble your having here is your blind faith in the free market taking care of you. The solution is 20% more pay, it's protectionism. You can't possibly compete with foreign labor. Weight of numbers alone gives them an advantage. Some people don't need sleep. Some people can push themselves harder than others. There's 3 billion of them. The odds are in their favor. On top of that their economy means they can be trained for a fraction of the cost of you, and you can treat them as completely disposable. This isn't a fight you're going to win. It's like that old quote from Wargames (you old enough to remember that?): "The only way to win is not to play"...

You're right about our 2 party system. But it was designed for that. Our entire constitution was written to protect wealthy landowners from the working class. That's why we have a senate, it prevents populist movements from taking off :(. About the only times we've ever seen any reason progress have been when one of the 1% broke ranks (FDR) and after WWII when too many workers had died off and when we were the only country left with working infrastructure...

but what are we going to do about it? We're too diverse and too different. Nothing in the pot actually melts. There are also way too many single issue voters. The Gun Lobby, Gay Rights, Abortion, Cuba (it screws with our presidential election). These things bring folks to the polls to vote and they don't care about economic issues economic issues (which at it's heart this MPAA flap really is).

The reason Germany & the Icelandic countries are doing so well is they're united. Their working class has solidarity. Things are looking up a little. Gay Rights is more or less done. The Left is dropping gun control and Obama opened up Cuba. But looking at crap like this shows me they're just as good at dividing and manipulating us as every...

doesn't work if you've got a teenage daughter. There are a tonne of shows not on netflix/amazon. I suppose I could tell her no, but TV for teens is a social thing. Kinda like how us nerds used to gather round and trade strategies on beating Zelda/Mario. Since most of the shows are on at 8pm (just after most teens finish their Homework but just before bed) it's not practical for her to just go over to her friends house. It's part of a finely honed machine designed to entrap parents...

Oh, cry me a river. Drone operators no longer have an unlimited right to invade people's privacy and endanger their safety. Sorry dude, but the airspace is common property and it's sensible to regulate its use for the common good. Either that, or we can have drone wars, where people who don't want your drones in the skies fly their own to take them down.

What's so damned special about relationships? If it's about equality, then tell me, why does a childless married couple pay less in tax than a widow with a child who earns the same as the couple? I'd say the widow's relationship to the child matters to society, the couple's relationship doesn't matter to anyone but them.

Why is it legal to discriminate on the basis of marriage?

Why does any government in a secular country have anything at all to do with marriage?

A large proportion of the time it ends with MS sending patches. On Patch Tuesday the damned thing is useless for an hour sometimes. Other times I have to reboot it to make it usable.

Windows: "Quality? Why make a quality product when crap sells so well?"

to enforce the existing laws for _everyone_? Instead of just saying "Well, the plat owners are violating the law so it's OK if Uber does it too"?

Oh, and while I'm on the subject, Uber's choice of prey is slightly different. Uber requires a pretty nice car. The sort that you're run of the mill cabbie doesn't have. That's why cabbies get stuck renting their cars. Uber drivers are mostly desperate folks who just lost their job with a decent car from when they had one. The cab companies prey on recent immigrants. Uber preys on the recently unemployed.

Both practices are abhorrent. Let's shut 'em both down.

Que Grumpy Cat Meme. Uber is a major part of the global race to the bottom all us wage slaves are caught up in. In every way possible their "drivers" are employees. They can't work for competitors, they have to carry the Uber phone and if they turn down too many rides they get fired (what the hell else would you call it?). The only little difference is they don't pay benefits, reimburse expenses, pay unemployment insurance or any of the other things regular employers do. In a society where your entire quality of life depends on your job it's kinda important to clearly define what a "job" is.

And for all you young comp-sci majors out there who want to chime in with how great your 1099 gig is; Uber is NOT THE SAME THING...

I thought Instagram is the duckface selfie social network. Facebook is where your old high school acquaintance posts his daily deranged political rants and slowly kills your faith in humanity and democracy, a little every day.

I suspect that the floor is for official marketing and the ceiling is the real marketing.

Since teenagers don't use Facebook anymore, because all of us old farts are there, this might be a way of trying to get the teenies back.

I use power point. Does that count?

Seems like people running mailing lists need to take a look at how spam filters work, rather than mail providers changing anything.

No, you're backwards. It's up to spam filter developers to understand how mailing lists work and not falsely flag legitimate traffic. If your filter breaks a mailing list, your filter is broken.

at least not in their banking laws. The way the laws are written is if you violate the spirit of the law but not the letter you're still in trouble. Of course, Rich people lose money when banking laws are violated. You know, we could learn something from those people. Violating the spirit of the law should carry the same weight. Screw this noise where corps just maneuver around laws. Put a little more power in our Judicial system to interpret intent, and maybe a few odds/end checks and balances to prevent abuses and problem solved. I know I'm over simplifying it, but it's better than throwing our hands up and saying we're all done for...

Um... the reduction in McDonald's is nationwide, while the study makes the point that there are more hospital visits near fracking, which is a localized thing. You're point isn't relevant.