It's easy if you state the problem correctly: how to reach the income level the local municipality expects from the speeding tickets, while minimizing the number of tickets (processing fees) and potential court challenges.

Dark matter is not an invented concept, it is a name for something we observe.

Precisely the opposite - it's a name for something we haven't observed. And instead of appropriately referring to it as a paradox, inconsistency, etc. a concept of an entirely new "matter" was conjured up. I might agree with you that it's more likely that something is missing in the estimates of galaxy masses as opposed to physical laws breaking down, but gp is perfectly correct in saying that at this point it's a theoretical (i.e. invented) concept.

This is yet another surcharge which, in time, will likely be hidden just like a ton of other special taxes and fees that are commonly being added to the advertised price. Most of the time I can't tell how much the purchase will actually cost me. Where is the push for requiring retailers to advertise a complete price?

Sure, but the point is that the rest of the world has been able to unify behind a reasonable unit system, and we're the weird kid in the corner that insists on calling everyone by a different name.

Try to exhale more often than allowed and we'll charge you extra!

That's right, drop it. Because $20 billion per year in tax breaks to oil companies is money well spent, but using $20 billion dollars to learn how to build a real fusion reactor is a total waste. Why try to go after a technology that can bring virtually unlimited locally-sourced energy when we've got such bright prospects in oil trade?

There must be a special subsystem on the die that checks if the OS ID is linux-gnu and annihilates itself in a puff of smoke if it is so.

Indeed! I found it very helpful not having to worry about cops trying to catch me for speeding when driving on autobahn in Germany. It's amazing how much more attention I could afford to pay to the right things - the road, cars around you, etc. instead of trying to spot a speedtrap around each corner.

I was just thinking about this the other day! This would be great for these modern bathroom scales to id the user - the impedance measure only needs enough accuracy to distinguish between the family members whose weight is close enough. They already measure impedance for body fat anyhow.
But I also wondered how much your signatures would change if you, let's say, drank a bottle of beer, or ate something salty.

Think Different (TM)

This is indeed the case currently, but I think that's wrong. If you're expecting donors to go out on a limb and sign a blanket consent form allowing their samples to be used for honest research purposes, there should be a reciprocal way for us to provide data back to them. It will require yet another consent form or other legal framework, but putting in effort to make that possible seems only fair.

But ... but ... Joe the Plumber made an impact. Right? See, all you have to do is get hand-picked to be a puppet of a corporate media machine.

It's not an original proposal, and a poorly thought out one at that.
Let's say you've started your own company. You're barely breaking even, and not taking any income from it at all. Yet, under your proposed rule, a government accountant will evaluate the "market value" of your company and suddenly you're on the hook for a hefty sum to the government. Most likely you'll have to sell a large share of your business to vulture capital at cut-throat rates to find the cash. Or, perhaps following the state-run capitalism model of the East, you'll give up much of your hard-built company to the government. Way to stick it to the small guys!
It's much easier to tax the effective income (including that from loans).

obligatory

Wish I had mod points :)