No. Several broadcasters post the shows for free on their websites which would be great if they just did that. But no. They filter it so that it is blocked by anyone outside that country. They could still sell advertising and gain revenue from a potentially wider audience. Are Canadians and Australians afraid that people outside their countries might like their TV shows? WTF?

That's easy. The best way to control the population is to suck them into being dependent on government programs and entitlements. Once that happens, not only will they tolerate the fraud, inefficiency, and waste inherent in those programs, they will keep voting for the people who will ensure that they remain dependent. These politicians and their useful idiots will claim that by not voting for them, the people are "voting against their best interests". A perfect example are the 'poverty pimps' like Rangel who are in office for decades while their districts largely go to hell.

grrr s/links the/links to the/

Is Google going to provide links the gift shops at these museums too?

So you're willing to put up with massive numbers of people drawing unemployment benefits and doing nothing with people who are working here illegally?

This is one form of agriculture that has avoided mechanization for a long time because of the illegal labor pool. Start throwing farmers in jail and you'll find them willing to either pay reasonable wages or fork over the cash for the equipment. Besides, the illegal immigrants have moved far beyond farms. They've driving packing plant wages to half of what they used to be, make up a large number of construction workers, and are in many other industries. Given the unemployment rates, one would think the Feds would crack down on these employers. :(

they have organized into very successful burglary rings that the police are often afraid to tackle because they're hauling semiautomatic weaponry.

So does every cop on patrol, unless you really mean "fully automatic" weapons.

I have more of a problem with content & site filters than I do with data caps and tiered price plans. Websites are charged by the network providers based on how much traffic they use, sometimes with a data cap (often reached if the site is slashdotted), so what's wrong with something similar being applied to end users? The bandwidth hogs pay for the ability to be bandwidth hogs and (hopefully) fund infrastructure improvements. It seems reasonable to me to have ISPs (wired or wireless) classified as common carriers and having state public utility commissions watch over them to make sure they aren't screwing customers and are funding infrastructure improvements. They should be treated like all other utilities.

What we should be doing is removing the wage cap on the collection of social security, and have it apply to all income (salary or cap gains or "profit"), while remaining revenue-neutral. That would result in lowering the rate by 40% (I think -- haven't calculated that one in a long time). So huge numbers of taxpayers get a nice break, and the tax system as a whole gets flatter.

But the payroll tax cap also imposes a benefits cap when people start receiving benefits. Do you keep the current policy of what one receives in SS benefits is proportional to what one has paid in or do you cap that and essentially turn it into a welfare program for everyone?

Actually, as far as the income tax is concerned, they are paying more than their percentage of income. The kicker is that the rich have the freedom to choose to determine how much they are taxed. The doctor, dentist, or lawyer can turn away clients to keep income under an arbitrary level. Guys like Buffet can structure their finances so that they are taxed on capital gains instead of 'regular income'.

Or all Iranian government personnel will now be "working from home".

I agree that jailing "low impact criminals" is too expensive considering what they did. I suggest that we follow Singapore's lead and beat their asses to a bloody pulp with a cane. Then make them do community service.

which I venture to say most westerners never even come close to doing

Usually because they don't have the luxury of being away from their job for that long.

No, it was improper use of a patented business process. They're using the same reasoning Amazon did in their 1-click lawsuits. I hope Amazon doesn't find out and sue the Cash estate for copying them.

He doesn't have to submit the game to Palm for approval if he doesn't want to. It just won't appear in their on device app store if he doesn't. Their 'web distribution' method would still work ok and wouldn't require any sort of approval.