Do you have any reliable source of data for this? I have never paid much attention to it, since I don't sell cars, and my last info was years ago. I suppose things can change over a long enough period.

Good grief. If you think you can see different levels of corruption in the political parties, you are part f the corruption.

I give Occupy Wall Street A for recognizing Wall Street corruption, F for thinking that the government actually would want to do something about it. You sound about as politically competent.

I believe every single state requires that cars be sold through dealers, not direct by manufacturers. If not all, at least most of them.

The government isn't doing what I want with the taxes they collected from the public.

Gosh that's terrible.

If it goes to trial, all the charges are back in play, and probably proveable given how sloppy the law is. Furthermore, judges pay a lot of attention to prosecutors, and if the jury comes back with (say) 20 convictions,each of which has a minimum six months, that's a huge factor too.

You are incredibly naive about how corrupt the US judicial system is. I suggest you read the book Three Felonies a Day.

IFFF he pleaded guilty. If he wanted one of those quaint trials, they were going full retard with the 35 years.

That six months was only if he pleaded guilty. If he had pleaded innocent and taken it to trial, they were prepared to throw the book at him.

Gee whillikers. Karma. How's that work?

99.999% of human knowledge is utterly irrelevant to living today. Sherlock Holmes was famously ignorant of whether the Earth revolved around the sun or the other way round, unless he was putting on Dr. Watson. I had a girlfriend who practiced astrology, for money.

Why worry about her beliefs? If she can put up with you believing men and dinosaurs were eons apart, why can't you put up with her believing the opposite?

All of us have different sets of beliefs. Unless you two get into screaming arguments, it just doesn't matter. If it's so important to you that you feel it necessary to change her mind, then leave her alone; she deserves someone more tolerant. And you better examine your tolerance.

One of the few things the navy taught me was how to get along with people I couldn't stand. The navy couldn't fire us and we couldn't quit; we had to get along one way or another. If you don't have the tolerance to put up with different ideas which don't actually affect you, then life is going to get pretty bad for you, son.

Wasn't Top Job the early James Bond villain who flung sharp edged top hats at people to kill them?

I have visions of him flinging sharp DVDs which not only decapitate but also electrocute.

It's ok for the US but no one else?

Guess some left hand isn't talking to the right hand.

The first Wright flyer was a joke. Didn't have enough power to lift off the ground; didn't even have wheels, just skids. It was only controllable in a very limited way. They didn't fly figure eights for another couple of years. They were also secretive, didn't share their ideas, and in fact refused to give demonstrations to prospective buyers without a deposit. People back in Cleveland did see some of their experimental flights between Kittyhawk and later public demonstrations, but not many; they were pretty secretive.

And the Wright brothers had almost no impact on aviation after that first flight. They preferred to sit on their heels and wait for the world to come to them. Everyone else was out experimenting in public and advancing the state of aircraft design. They were one hit wonders and contributed almost nothing beyond that first flight, and a famous demonstration in Paris in 1908 (maybe 1906). After that, nothing. What they are secondly famous for is their patent battles with the world, which were only settled by the US government strong arming everybody into sharing patents because they wanted to buy military aircraft for WW I in 1917.

The Wright Bros, along with James Watt, are great examples of the counter productive nature of patents.

I'm afraid you're off by about 42 million years, and whoosh to boot.

I was responding to "all". You are attempting to walk that back. There are a whole lot of left leaning Obama supporters who are willfully blind.

Perhaps your partisanship has led you to forget that Senator Obama spoke against and campaigned against the wars, against deficit spending, against the health insurance mandate, against all sorts of things that President Obama has been only too happy to engage in.