No they have not. The courts have punted on the issue by claiming that those who have brought suits lack standing. Basically because we cannot prove the classified activities of the NSA have harmed us the courts refuse to consider whether the NSA is violating the law. Basically the courts are saying that unless the NSA does something really stupid publicly, they can take away our civil liberties at will. This leaves us in limbo because Congress will not act for fear of appearing soft on terrorism and the Executive branch gains in power from the inaction of the other two branches.

No one is arguing that, or at least no one reasonable is arguing that. The problem is that those providing the "security" refuse to have a discussion with those they are charged with protecting regarding what constitutes reasonable surveillance. Instead we have a secret and unaccountable organization apparently running rampant over civil liberties and doing whatever they want in what seems to be blatant violation of at least the spirit of the Constitution if not the letter of it.

The constitution outlines principles but those principles still have to be clarified with specifics. As the old maxim goes, the devil is in the details. What constitutes "arms"? Does that mean I can own a nuclear weapon legally? Is that reasonable? If it is not reasonable where is the line between what is a reasonable arm to carry and an unreasonable one? Are my rights infringed upon if I cannot keep a nuclear weapon? What constitutes "infringement" with regard to keeping and bearing arms? Does bearing arms mean that I can carry them in a manner that threatens others?

I'm not even a lawyer and it is pretty easy to point out that the second amendment needs a LOT of clarification to be useful in a civil society. Same for every other part of the US Constitution.

"Profiling" is a form of rational statistical analysis with a big social problem attached. If you have a known population of people with a propensity to behave in a certain way, then the rational thing to do is to look closely at that population. It is no different analytically than observing that white people are more prone to sunburns and thus have higher rates of skin cancer. If I worked for El Al Airlines security, it would be stupid to not look a little closer at people of Arab descent from a security standpoint because there is a known threat from some portion of that population. It doesn't mean that all Arabs are a threat (most are not) but it does make for a smaller haystack to search through. Profiling by itself is simply a rational form of analysis BUT there is a big problem with using it for policing purposes.

The problem with profiling is that it becomes a cover for overt racism. I know very few black people who have not at some point been harassed by police for no reason other than the color of their skin. Sometimes people do behave in ways that should draw attention from law enforcement but it has to be more than solely the color of one's skin or country of origin.

The problem isn't with the mere fact that the NSA is looking for people with bad intentions. That by itself is fine up to a point. The problem is that the NSA and congress and the executive branch refuse to have an adult discussion with the electorate about boundaries and the fact that the NSA presently is not answerable to the electorate. "Trust us" is not remotely sufficient assurance that the NSA is not abusing their power, especially when every indication is that they are behaving badly.

Some surveillance is reasonable and appropriate but there are boundaries beyond which the government should not step without extremely strict oversight. We have the fourth amendment prohibiting unreasonable searches precisely because governments have a hard time restraining themselves. Ensuring judicial oversight is inconvenient for the government and that is precisely the point of that judicial oversight. Governments have proven time and again that they will abuse power. We understand the need for some reasonable surveillance but that doesn't mean we can or should give carte-blanche to the NSA to do whatever the hell they want. The electorate should have a say in exactly what constitutes "reasonable".

In a democracy the government is supposed to be ultimately answerable to the people. When you have a secretive branch of government, implementing secret policies, "overseen" by a secret (and apparently toothless) court, with secret findings that are never released to the public, then there is no way for the NSA to be answerable to the people. THAT is the problem.

You'll have to cite a source for that because the wheel doesn't know whether it is pushing or pulling and despite being an engineer I cannot think of any physics reason why pushing versus pulling would make a spec of difference in fuel economy. FWD cars are often less performance oriented which means they might be designed with fuel economy higher on the priority list but that isn't an inherent advantage of FWD over RWD.

Which ones? I can't think of any that fit that description and I'm kind of a car nut. Admittedly I'm not familiar with every car out there. The only reason this might happen is if the car is available in FWD and 4WD configurations. In cases like that you aren't going to design separate chassis.

The Aztec was available in FWD and AWD. To get AWD you kind of need a way of getting the power to the rear wheels. An axle is usually involved.

Depends on the weight distribution in the particular car. Drive something like a BMW where the weight distribution is close to 50/50 and you don't have such an advantage from FWD. The type of drive system (FWD, RWD, AWD, 4WD) only actually matters when accelerating. FWD works better for many people for exactly the reasons you mention but a RWD rear engine car (porsche 911) can get excellent traction for the same reasons. Really you want AWD or 4WD if traction under acceleration is a big concern. But a good set of snow/winter tires will make a MUCH bigger difference than the type of drivetrain ever will for most vehicles.

Generally speaking wider tires often perform worse in snow all other things equal because they don't penetrate through the snow as easily. There are plenty of exceptions but they tend to float over the snow rather than penetrating down to pavement.

It's not just the cut of the tread. It also is the rubber compound that matters. Snow tires don't get as hard in colder temperatures in addition to usually have different tread properties. They make a HUGE difference even in relatively modest amounts of snow. In many places a good all-weather tire can perform adequately but you will notice an improvement in sloppy conditions with a set of snow tires.

You'll always have the same problem when accelerating because the weight shifts to the rear tires when you accelerate. This is why FWD cars make rather bad dragsters. You don't typically notice in your boring family sedan because the car doesn't have enough power for it to matter much. Many RWD vehicles are poorly balanced in order to make them understeer so the weight distribution is too far forward. But it doesn't have to be that way and isn't in some RWD cars. I would actually argue (from my own experience) that a well balanced RWD car is easier to drive in the snow than many FWD cars.

If this is true, then it is the world's lamest, most poorly conceived, ham-handed, overblown, and expensive attempt at domestic political attention diversion I have ever heard of... ...So it's probably the NSA then.

Because they will be using their electric cars to power Mechagodzilla!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechagodzilla

Dad was a Rugged Man. Rugged, ate meat that was still mooing, Smoked Cuban Cigars and swilled the finest Whiskey.

Explains why I keep trying to refill myself with Johnny Walker Blue.

They already are bitching about people with solar installations. Whiny babies claiming having to buy back the electricity at 50% under wholesale rates, I.E. chump change is too expensive, yet they sell MY electricity to others at full rate.

They actually want to not only not buy power I send back to them, but they want to have a "minimum billing" so that even if I generate 120% of my energy needs they can still charge me $50 a month as a minimum billing.

It can, for exactly 1 second.

If my employer pays for free battery replacements they can do this all they want. Otherwise I'll simply modify mine to NOT allow power to flow backwards.

Solar panels,windmills, battery bank. They do this already all over the USA. Offset the power use during peak hours (plus a 10% lighting dim and load shedding) and go to town off hours. The coolest system I saw was simply pumped water storage at the top of the building, using pumps to fill the 10,000 gallon tank at night, ten close valves and wait for power to get expensive and high demand, then open valves and let water flow backwards through the pumps causing power generation. more efficient than batteries as there are no losses when it is in storage mode. High rise building can really take advantage of this as they have more potential energy gains from altitude.

Heck the hospital here has enough solar panels to offset 30% of their energy use during the day and their system still offsets 25% during cloudy winter months. because the wind kicks way up and the windmills run non stop at near peak. Nature is funny like that, it's either sunny and calm or cloudy and windy.

Early means the first 8 hours of the day, so it happened between 0000 and 0800 UTC.
Mid UTC is 0800-1600
Late UTC is 1600-2400