On my recent trip to Belize I noticed the first thing while landing that there were random small fires everywhere. The place across the hotel from where we stayed had a fire one day in their yard for hours making a lot of smoke. The fire department came with their engine to put it out because it apparently had gotten a little out of control.

I asked a local what was up with all the fires and he said it's due to spontaneous combustion from the "heat" but I know exactly what it is, people burning their trash!

As for the jungle house, one of his houses was right by river where you take the boat to Lamanai. Not sure if it's that one that burned down but there is a lot of tourist traffic around it and the guides were joking that it's half off. I guess it's just land cost now...

"Of course, the colleges have been turning out software drones by the thousands"

lol. That's like saying that Van Gogh was a "paint and canvas drone". Remember, just because an institution teaches a skill, the skill can be applied creatively or not.

Most "high tech" software I see these days is unimaginative and based on pointless corporate executive drone direction (ITIL, ...) It's written often in India by people with low creative angst and inability to tell their supervisors that they are full of shit.

Some of the best software I see these days comes from Israel. In the US people are mostly busy band-aiding low quality code that comes from "low cost" regions.

Unfortunately the truth over the past few years has been that the majority of corporations have lost their way in creating cool new products and the name of the game has become reducing cost by replacing people with contracts sold by people with an army of unmotivated drones who need to be given direction every step of the way. (paying for hands instead of brains)

Not like it makes a difference to her but it's Russia she can see from her home, not Cuba.

Lamanai, not Laminai,, from the Mayan Lama'anayin meaning submerged crocodile.

Beautiful pyramids though and it is very easy to know what they are is as they are always in areas with other Mayan structures.
And yes, the Belize gov is pretty incompetent (ask McAffee)

Invading a few countries over one rogue terrorists using our own planes to destroy a building is appropriate response but defending ourselves against a lot of very fast large rocks isn't? Nice to know that self-preservation is not really a goal of humanity.

No. Exchange of goods should be promoted, not penalized. What should be penalized is hoarding of assets.

Your idea of taxing the fundamentals of capitalism is dumb. We need to promote the exchange of goods and tax it as little as possible. What needs to be taxed more is hoarding of wealth. You can't assume that someone who spends very little money yet has assets valued in the billions should be paying as much tax for protecting those assets as someone who spends and has no assets or probably just a lot of debt to the people who own the assets they spend money for to use.

Oil companies are a perfect example. We are giving away a lot of our income tax money to support their shitty business strategies, which involve making foreigners hate us, while they pay no or very little tax.

It's straight up feudalism.

Why isn't Apple writing good spreadsheet and word programs? I mean Steve Jobs claimed to have invented fonts. Sure wouldn't be that big of a deal to use some open source code for it like they did for their OS.

Sure, a possibility exists that their Spreadsheet would make you bankrupt but it's still an easier bet than Apple Maps.

Or if they go with something safe that they know everything about, go with something riskier. I mean who wouldn't want to see a Star Wars film made by Quentin Tarantino? Just imagine the intergalactic blood bath! And with himself as a fat Darth Vader!

Beautiful.

"Your phone is locked when you get it at a reduced price in exchange for exclusivly using it with the carrier that sold it to you. It is locked to its network. Unlocking a phone yourself was breaking the promise you personnaly made to the carrier. If you are not fine with having your phone locked, you can either buy it unlocked but for a bigger price, or ask the carrier to unlock it, usually free after a (long) time or for a fee."

Bullshit, they charge you a fee to cover the price of the device if you cancel your service early. That's how countries where Apple releases their products into late have users of those devices.

Greed, greed, greed. I like how Apple's stock crashed 10% because of they can't keep up with their own greed.

The Star is actually the sun's mirror image seen through curved space and the orbiting object is earth.
I read something along those lines on a Mayan wall so it must be true.

The space program is another waste that doesn't do much else than make people feel good about the achievement of their government.

There are plenty of other things which need to be done first to increase the standard of living.

Space exploration with available technology is not profitable.

Continuing waste under the premise that there won't be enough money to waste is just another catch-22 military-types have gotten us into.

The problem is that the investment in destruction machines is destructive rather than constructive.

There is plenty of money the government should be spending for constructive purposes if it freed up funds from killing machines. For example investments to lower the cost of living and increase the standard of living could always go to companies like Boeing and Cessna.

One thing that comes to mind as an example is the horrid condition of all american airlines and their aging fleets and terrible service. Just look at airlines like Emirates or Etihad which are heavily subsidized by the UAE government. Their economy class is like flying first class and people working for the airlines are proud of it. Of course, in America for some reason that expenditure is seen as wasteful while a new stealth killing machine with no real purpose at all wouldn't.

If you haven't noticed, we do this in our foreign policy too.
On one hand we blow a country to pieces and on the other hand we send them arms, food, and medical supplies.

Psychotic.

PS South Park covered it best in the episode "I'm a Little Bit Country"

... so ban drinking water to prevent extermination of millions of innocent people.

Also make sure you have tax payers foot the bill for enforcement.
Coca Cola will fund the study.