Normally I don't chime in, but your statement is so wrong about what the flat tax is, I wanted to.
Flat tax= flat marginal tax rate. Aka, someone makes 20k, they pay 2k. Someone makes 1m, they pay 100k. It's not the same actual amount. That said poor don't like the flat tax because currently, they make 20k, they get back 5k. And the rich don't like it because they "make" 100k, and the other 900k just "shows up tax free" so the flat tax closes the loopholes at both ends of the spectrum.

Currently both repub and dem, are BOTH for more government, just can't decide what to do with that more government. It's insane. As a country we are broke, you can't spend more to stop being broke.

In addition Sully had an issue with his plane. He did not intentionally ignore a nav chart and try and take off from an interstate instead of the runway.
This moron parked his boat on one rock, then ran it aground as he was jumping ship.
Sully=doing his job damn well as an example to follow.
This jerk=screw up after screw up followed by saving his own ass as soon as he could.

To be honest, you don't even need to do 1 or 2. Just doing 1.1 a simple one line deal my touchpad went from crap, couldn't play any videos, constantly slow, to really good, played youtube at 720 (assuming good network) and could play HD videos I'd copied onto the device so the kid could watch Shrek etc in the car on trips.

Why they had logging turned up THAT far on a released product is beyond me.

Lots of police cars have automagic plate scanners that pop up vehicle type, etc etc.
So don't have the right type of car, you run a risk of getting a NASTY ticket for that type of nonsense. Also "spoofing" a known plate is a reason for more complete monitoring. It would catch this immediately, "this plate is here, and over here at the same time. dispatch two officers to investigate both vehicles"
teacher gets annoyed for being pulled over, and student gets a nasty ticket.

"Think it was Toyota's fault that your corolla pegged 100 mph all on its own and ignored the brake? A proper data recorder would provide important proof one way or the other. "

Not really.
Since the main complaint was that the system was ignoring the brake depress, and staying on throttle. The data recorder would not know that the brake was depressed. Also, what's to be done in cases like my Jeep with non standard tires?
She came with ~27" tires and now I have ~36" tires. I've also regeared the axles so my speedometer (and odometer) are off by right around 10%.
I'm too lazy to drop the money to fix that last bit since I can do 10% in my head easy enough. :D
Also, if it's damaged, who's fault is it? I've trashed just about everything on my Jeep and street legal dirt bike from off road riding. Do I have to check this constantly? Will they provide the tools for me to check it?
Not a good idea in any way shape or form.

"Best defense is a good offense"

If you can attack them quick and well enough, they won't have any non compromised systems left to come back at you. :)

Well, playing with figures like that is only to get a point across.
What the study shows, is that if you're poor, and you only make 20,000 per year, you spend almost all of that money on something that requires sales tax. So you spend 100% of your income, and have to pay 17.2% in sales tax. (what it doesn't mention is that you might also be getting food stamps and or medicare etc)
the rich start off at 200k, but 50k in tax deferred shelters(401k etc), donate 50k (making up numbers here) live on 100k and a chunk of that is going to mortgage etc.
So they are only paying sales taxes on say 25% of their income that they actually "spend" so even though they still spend say 50k they pay less percentage wise in sales taxes...