Sure, society benefits from a public education system. Society would benefit MORE if parents had a choice as to where their kids go. Most parents don't have that choice. For wealthy parent's, it's a no-brainer. For poor parents, it's a no-choice. Why should wealthy kids get that advantage over kids with poorer parents? Shouldn't our kids get equal opportunity?

Really? I've heard the opposite. BTW, 20% of public schools are better than four out of five public schools. What if the public school in your area sucks? And yes, some public schools suck. What can a parent do? They have no choice but to send their kids to a failure of a school. Yes, parents can help and teach their kids and make sure their kids learn at home, but if they do that, why send them to the school at all? Successful students are ignored in public schools. If you are smart enough to pass the tests, the teachers move on to those that can't.

And why would you pay to send your kid to a private school that is no better than a public one? If a school that costs money is no better than the free one, that school will fail. Remember, that's how free markets work. The problem is that public schools may never fail. No matter how bad the school is, it will continue to receive thousands of dollars per student. They'll even get paid for students that don't go to that school. Sure, there is the possibility that the elected officials in charge of the school system will get voted out, but in many communities, that never happens and failure multiplies. Ignorance breeds more ignorance. The more ignorant a voting public is, the more likely a failed politician is to be reelected. Public schools are becoming breeding grounds for ignorance every day. HERE is a teacher telling students that they can be arrested for saying bad things about the president. When asked about Bush, she said it was OK to bash him because he was "shitty". A teacher a private school would be fired for both complete ignorance as well as blatant bias. This teacher was suspended, only because there was an uproar over this video. How many teachers get away with this? And again, if I could not afford to send my child to private school, this is where I'd have to send my kids BY LAW! How many other parents are forced to send their kids to schools to "learn" from teachers like this?

So, whose life should I be living?

Disk drives may be replaced, but they won't be going anywhere. What we are starting to see is SSDs replacing HDDs as the primary, boot, OS and application drive. HDD's are kept around for mass storage for photos, videos, music, documents, and even some larger applications. I see HDDs replacing tape drives in the future for readily accessible backups.

Actually, this is exactly why a free market works. See, the smart, hard working, and let's face it, lucky people tend to win. They are successful and they multiply. Google creates a search engine. It is successful, more search engines emerge. Some may be better. The better ones will survive. The crappy ones will fail. The "nincompoops" almost always fail. Others see their mistakes and make it a point to not repeat them. The nincompoops usually end up working for the successful ones, benefiting both. It's natural, really. See Darwinism. The strong survive and the weak must multiply fast enough to feed the strong. They are dependent on each other.

The problem is when an external entity, like government, steps in to and starts meddling with things. A politician will point at a successful person and say to the nincompoops, "What has he done to deserve the things he has?" Of course, the answer is, work hard, be smart, take chances and eventually you'll get lucky. The nincompoops hear, "luck" and think it's not fair. This is when the politician, in exchange for votes, vows to punish those that have more and reward those with less.

How do you fix this problem? Education. Why is that not working? The nincompoops have taken over education. For example, I pay to send my child to private school. In pre-K, she learned to read, add, subtract and other things that public school kids don't learn until the 1st grade. She learned this in PRE-K! Next year, in kindergarten, she'll be doing stuff on that public school kids do in the second and third grades. Now I bust my ass to pay for that school, but at the same time, I'm also paying to send my kid to public school, even though she doesn't attend (not that pre-K is even offered). Now in a free-market world, I would get whatever money the school would spend to educate my kid to spend it on the school of my choice. Nothing would be lost from the school as they are NOT TEACHING MY KID. An added benefit would be that those that can't afford to send their kids to the same school my child is going to would be able to do so and give their kids the same opportunity my child is getting. It's better for the kids and takes nothing away from the public schools. Why is this not allowed? Because the nincompoops don't like the competition. They feel that they deserve to get paid for doing lower quality work. The nincompoops are running education and have convinced the voting nincompoops that allowing them to choose where they send their own kids would ruin the eduction their kids receive.

Agreed.

Yeah... that would be the free market. The thing that allowed us to go to the moon and fund a space program was a strong economy. We have had the strongest economy because we have a free market. Yes, natural monopolies should be regulated and unnatural monopolies should be broken up. Yes, environmental regulations are needed to ensure responsibility. But for the most part, the market should remain free. People should be allowed to keep what they earn. People should be free. People should be allowed to fail.

You can't succeed when there is no chance of failure. You can not be free until you are responsible for you own actions. /rant off.

Yeah, they initiated the call. When someone calls you and hangs up, it disconects right away. But when you try to disconnect, it takes something like 10-15 seconds to disconnect. I don't know why that's the way it is, but that's the way it is.

Of course, I'm talking about an old POTS line. Not VOIP or cell.

They fired on US personnel monitoring compliance with UN resolutions. They tried to assassinate a former US head of state. They attacked our allies. They filled mass graves with the bodies of women and children.

You know, come to think of it, Germany never attacked us either. What business did we have entering WWII?

Bullshit! We attack building late at night as to limit those causalities. We spend TRILLIONS to develop weapons that will only destroy the designated target with as little collateral damage as possible. We have literally passed on targets because of the risk of civilian casualties.

Fact is, we hold back. We hold back A LOT! Could you imagine what the casualties if we truly didn't care like you say? For starters, there would be zero American casualties. Next, we would save a fortune in transportation and maintenance of equipment, plus the long term health care costs from soldiers injured. All it would take is for the president to punch in some codes and give the go ahead for a full scale nuclear attack. BAM! Problem solved. Even if the leadership survived in a bunker, it will be about 10000 years before they can safely come up for air. Even if we were to resist a nuclear strike, there would be nothing Iraq could do to keep us from carpet bombing any city with 2000 pound bombs from one end of the city to the other until nothing was left standing.

Instead, we gave our blood and treasure to go out of our way to NOT kill civilians. And you still believe we are the same as Al Qaeda, who hijacked a plane full of men, women and children and flew them into civilian buildings, no matter how much evidence you run across that proves you are wrong. Was Al Qaeda worried about collateral damage? Actually, "collateral damage" is the wrong term BECAUSE CIVILIANS WERE THE TARGETS!!!!

Well, let's see:
Obama is a butthead! Mohammed is a child molester. Moses was a traitor to the Pharaohs that cared for him! Jesus liked wine and traveled with a bunch of guys he repeatedly claimed to love wearing in robes with no visible means of income! Buddha was FAT! Confucius smoked opium! I think I will/will not go to church this weekend. I might even protest while I'm there.

Yep! Still got my freedoms. No one is knocking at the door. My wife and kids are not being tortured. I'm not being dragged to the desert to add to some mass grave.

What do you mean I have no freedoms?

The difference is the target and the intent. When we kill civilians, it's truly by accident. They usually die because a weapon malfunctioned or they were too close to a government building. We also tend to apologize for it and in many cases, notify the civilian population before an attack occurs.. In Iraq, for example, the goal was to free the people there from a tyrant.

Of course, you may disagree with this, but if an Iraqi were to disagree with his government in 2001, they would die. They are free to disagree today. What makes you so special that you deserve freedoms like this and others don't? I served, by the way, not to give you freedoms. You already have them. I served, knowing full well that when I signed, I would be giving those that have not rights the very freedoms that you and I have.

When Al Qaeda kills civilians, the civilians are the target. There is no warning before hand and no apology afterwards. The goal of Al Qaeda is not to free the population, but to convert or enslave them. If you are a Christian, Al Qaeda wants to you convert or die. If you are an atheist, Al Qaeda wants you to convert or die. If you are a Jew, Al Qaeda wants you to die.

Then let's hope it's washable.

It was Obama who cancelled the Constellation program and a Democrat led congress that cut NASA's budget. What do Republicans have to do with this?

Hate to respond to a political troll, but I'm tired of seeing Democrats do stupid stuff like this and then turn around and blame Republicans for it.