Now put that same firearm in a household with kids. Do you really want a gun that might fire because somebody got curious? You shouldn't be required to use the digital lock, but it should be required to be present on the firearm as a mandatory safety feature, just like you can disable the air bags in your car, but by default, they come enabled.

The original FISA ruling was "because the court you're being sued in has NOT ordered you to keep them, that suit isn't justification to keep them".

Then, the federal district court did in fact order them to preserve the evidence. That's a fact, not a claim.

So FISA, consistent with its earlier order, now said "because the district court has ordered you to keep them, you should now do so."

There's no "claims" to it, the federal district court entered an order in open court. That order was discussed here on Slashdot a few days ago. The FISA court has simply acknowledged the fact that the district court so ordered.

Sorry, I'll reply again, I was mistaken about what this meant.

Paying an unenforceable tax would be quite foolish, IMHO :)

Or at least not very pragmatic.

Insert Goat.cx here (pun intended)

I consider benefits as part of my salary when I consider jobs. It kind of sucks that they can be unilaterally changed on an annual basis. It also makes it hard to compare. This company offers $70k, but their insurance is per child and way more expensive. This company offer $60k, but their insurance has a "family" rate. This company covers 90% of your insurance costs, but none for your family. This company covers 75% of insurance costs for any plan.

I've see all these examples. It can make a huge difference in your take home pay.

If I as an employer were paying $250 for insurance and my employers were paying $250 as well, then I told my employees they could get their own insurance for $200, saving $50 of the $250 they were paying, I would feel obligated to pay the employees at least a portion of the $250 / month i was saving. I would probably pool it and give everyone a raise.

Sure - a traitor is someone who either aids and abets enemies of America, or one who declares war on the same.

Per the Constitution, "America" is defined by her people, so you can equate "enemies of America" to "enemies of the American people."

As the NSA is routinely violating the civil liberties of American citizens, with impunity, they are de facto enemies of the American people, and thus, they and anyone who assists them are traitors. Same goes for the "War on Drugs" folks, albeit due to the other kind of treason.

You don't know that they're poor. There are a lot of middle-class projects, where people have good jobs and pay market-rate rents.

There was a sociologist named Elliott Liebow who answered the question he was always getting, "Why don't these negroes get jobs instead of hanging out on street corners all the time?" His answer was, most of them do have jobs. The negroes you see hanging out of the street corners during the day have jobs in the evening (and weekends). If you go to a restaurant in the evening, you need a cook there in the evening, right?

They do. They can block your IMEI number, for one thing. For another, they can lean pretty hard on manufacturers who hope to sell phones in their stores.

We mandate lots of things that aren't in the US constitution.

As Adam Smith said, when you benefit from a society, you have an obligation to pay the costs of running that society.

Adam Smith knew about epidemics. We have to cooperate to build hospitals that care for everyone as a last resort. It would be nice if everybody contributed those costs voluntarily.

But they don't. Some people become freeloaders. They know we're going to have to take care of them whether they pay their share or not, so they don't pay. A few freeloaders can encourage everybody to stop cooperating. Then we won't have hospitals for anybody. So if the freeloaders don't pay, we have to make them pay.

If you had a 4-year-old child who got cancer, whose life could only be saved by a $100,000 drug, you'd be demanding that the government, or somebody, give your child that drug. http://www.nydailynews.com/new...

So we have to make you pay your share now of the cost of running society. You don't have any choice.

The NSA hasn't been cancelled, or even had a major budget cut. Ergo clearly bad government programs and agencies continue. Has even one person responsible for that mess been fired?

"Temporary" programs designed to address conditions during the great depression continue to this day.

Of course you can also find ridiculous examples of programs that worked well being shut down. It doesn't appear that there is any logic to it.

My mistake then. I failed to understand the feature from the name.

Still different from what you actually said, okay? I'll drop it, but be more careful in your phrasing, and don't blame me for it.

Attempts to use objective measures, like identical math tests targeted to identical age groups sorta suggests that, yeah. Even discounting countries with the usual things like "they let their students drop out sooner"(as if we don't have incredible drop out rates here).

... to prove we're not abusing it. Yeah, that's the ticket.

(No, this seems like a possibly reasonable decision, for normal courtish type reasons)