And? I didn't say that they were. Regardless of how the US treats the people there, though, it's still a US territory. The people he sold to were undercover Federal agents. I'll admit that I'm only presuming that they're US citizens, but that seems a reasonably safe presumption.

You might want to re-read the article. He was arrested in Saipan, with is an island in the Pacific... and a US Territory. Thus, he was arrested by the US, for selling to US citizens while on US soil.

Basically, he got greedy and decided the potential gain was worth the risk that it was a set-up, and bet wrongly.

As Orwell put it, "The object of power is power."

Bad Slashdot. No more character-biscuits.

Half the linear size would be a quarter the area. To get half the area, you'd need to have ( 1 / square root of 2 ) the linear size... so about 7/10.

Mine was down this morning, but I can ping my home box and SSH to it now from work. Looks like it's fixed in my area (Tallahassee, Florida). My past experience is that CenturyLink is reliable - at least, more so than Comcast, which is my only other broadband option that doesn't involve satellite or the like.

So... you agree that no one can use an iPad for document creation, because it doesn't work for you?

Way to over-generalize. For me, I bought an Apple Wireless Keyboard (http://www.apple.com/keyboard/) to use with mine. Since my home computer is an Imac, it's quite literally the exact same keyboard I use on my desktop. It's a bit longer than the iPad, but it's light and tough - I've dropped it in parking lots several times, and never had a problem from it.

I use it for emails, and for writing stories, using an editor that saves RTF and can use Google Drive or Dropbox (and some others as well, but those are the two I use with it). There are also ones that will save Word format.

Basically, Bill's complaint boils down to "Nobody should be using an iPad for document creation, because we haven't created a version of Word for it yet!"

Quibble: the state doesn't 'allow' gambling on Indian reservations. It has no power to stop it. The Supreme Court has held that states do not have power to regulate activities performed by Indians on Indian reservations.

Sure, I can look up directions before I start driving. However, then, if the directions are more than moderately complex, I need to write them down or print them out... which means having one or more pieces of paper that I will need to consult while driving. That leaves me a choice of either finding somewhere to pull over every time I need to glance at the directions to see what I need to look for next, or pick up and look at a piece of paper while operating a moving vehicle.

With a GPS, on the other hand, I can let it essentially act as navigator for me, telling me when I'm getting close to somewhere that I need to turn, which way to turn, what street name I'm looking for, etc. With a GPS that does that decently, I never actually have to look at the GPS at all while driving, nor take a hand off the wheel.

Further, using a GPS is superior to pre-looked-up directions in several ways: 1. Detours happen. There might be road work being done, an accident, or heavy traffic that I have to find a route around.

(Indeed, one of my brothers uses a GPS to get around Atlanta, in spite of having lived there for more than twenty years now. When I was up visiting him, I kidded him about it, saying, 'Don't you know your way around here yet?' His reply was: 'Sure, I know all the roads. But the GPS knows where all the traffic backups are right now.' I have another brother who also lives in Atlanta, who uses his own knowledge of the roads to get around. After riding around with him a while, I quickly saw the wisdom of the first brother's statement.)

2. Related to detours, if I miss a turn or need to go off-route to get food, gas, or something else, the GPS can smoothly handle the change, giving me a different route. A good one won't just say 'make a u-turn now' - it'll find a new route that won't require me to do something quite so drastic. And speaking of food and gas...

3. A good GPS will also have a database of points of interest, including gas stations, restaurants, etc. This is very useful information on a long trip through unfamiliar territory. And yes, some maps have that information as well... but you're the one who insisted that directions need to be looked up beforehand. If I look at a map while on the trip, that's not looking up directions beforehand. And speaking of that....

4. Plans change. I get a call while on the way up to Atlanta telling me that the brother I was going to stay with has had an emergency, and need to go to my other brother's house instead. Only he's in a new house, in a new neighborhood, so I don't already know how to get there. Or my wife gets sick on our five-day trip, and I need to find a clinic she can go to. Or I find out that an old friend I haven't seen in a decade or so is in the city, and need to get somewhere to meet him. Not everyone has the luxury of always planning out their itinerary ahead of time... and sometimes it even changes while you're in the car driving.

So the upshot is... yeah, I can do that. I did do it for many years, since I was driving long before consumer-level GPSes. But why would I go back to doing that, when using a GPS is so much better?

... which is not what you said before. But, now that you've decided to change your tune, we can now extend this back:

A democracy in which the majority do not obey the laws, but require a minority to obey them, is a tyranny. A democracy in which the majority make harsh laws that they are not subjected to is a tyranny.

See? The same rules that apply to a king apply to the majority in a democracy. Thus, a democracy can be a tyranny, just as an absolute monarch can be a tyrant, even though there is no legal restraint on his power.

Look carefully at your argument. You start with "by the (sic) definition the rightful rulers of a democracy are the people, the majority. A tyranny is a regimen where the power has been taken from its rightfully (sic) rulers and its ruler is not subjected to any law or constitution."

Let's examine where this logically leads us: By definition, the rightful rulers of a hereditary monarchy are those of a certain bloodline. By your argument, a hereditary monarch can't be a tyrant - after all, he or she is the rightful ruler, and your argument states that tyranny only exists when power has been taken away from the rightful rulers. By definition, the rightful rulers of a theocracy are the priestly class. So, by your argument, a theocracy can't be a tyranny.

Quite simply, your definition of what it takes to be a tyranny makes no sense.