"Should billionaires rule our schools?"

To that question, I answer NO! At least to schools that receive ANY public money. If it is an ENTIRELY private schools, OK. Most charter schools (at least in my state) receive a voucher from the parents which, in my opinion, is the same as getting state money.

On another front, which I find extremely troubling, is universities accepting Koch Foundation funds. The money coming from this foundation comes with BIG strings attached. The university has to agree to allow the Koch Foundation to veto any professor tenure for any reason. There goes your academic independence. If the foundation wants to entirely fund and buy that university, I find that to be acceptable. Right now, public funding of universities is declining so more and more universities are tempted to accept that money and the strings that come with it.

"it's that there are frequently no words"

Are you crazy or did you only listen to a superficial sampling of classical music. Granted, a lot of classical music is only instrumental but there are a lot a vocal pieces as well. There is all the operas, the 9'th symphony by Beethoven, Handles Messiah and these examples are just for starters. To say classical music is mostly instrumental is ludicrous.

The German air raid that almost destroyed Coventry was an example of this, The Brits knew it was coming but they also knew that the Germans were beginning to get suspicious. As a result, the British government felt that they had to let this air raid occur even though they knew many people would be killed.

Doesn't Ron Paul represent parts of East Texas? If not, he's not too far away from there. They have some strange ideas in those parts of Texas.

But, then they would just pack up their bags and abandon that toehold. Only corporations with significant USA holdings would stay. If the patent extortion lasted long enough and was onerous enough, they too would leave.

Let's apply this to the entire concept of bundling! For starters, how about your cable TV bill? ( I know, I know! Most Slashdot readers have dropped cable TV!) By some estimates, about 30% to 40% of your cable bill goes to paying for ESPN. If you have cable TV, then you must have ESPN even if you don't want it. ( At least in my area you do not have a choice not to have it.) I have even done a channel block for ESPN on my TV set. I never see it and don't want it but still have to pay for it. I call it the ESPN tax. I'm sure that there are many more examples of this!

Isn't it ironic that Zuckerberg doesn't like it when the privacy of FaceBooks IPO is violated when his business model is to gather as much private information about the users of FaceBook as possible. There is an old saying that seems to apply here...

"What's good for the goose should be good for the gander!"

The Post Office is losing money, do we really want to do this? I have a radical proposal. How about the Post Office printing just one stamp for each denomination. Once a stamp design is decided, NEVER change it. This printing up new stamps to satisfy stamp collectors is lunacy. If the stamp collectors want new stamps to collect why don't they hire a printing company to issue stamps just for their personal hobby. Yes, they will tell you that their hobby adds to the revenue of the Post Office. Does the money brought in actually pay for the cost of designing new stamps? You have to pay for artists to design the stamp and then have to retool the printing press to produce the stamp and then distribute and possibly advertise the new stamp.

The same is true for coin collectors.

There is some more interesting trivia about the "Star of Bethlehem" mythology.

1. The "Star of Bethlehem" was supposed to be in the east. We all know that the stars appear to move from the east to west through the night. Stars appearing in the north appear to circle around the north star. and really can't be describes as appearing in the east. How can it be that any star, except Polaris, can appear to be fixed in the sky?

2. According to legend, the magi were wise men that came from the orient, and followed the "Star of Bethlehem". If the magi came from a location that was somewhere east of Bethlehem, and they were following a star that appeared in the east, they would be going in a westward direction. How did they get to Bethlehem? They would have to circle the globe to do that!

Just some riddles to think about. The story of the "Star of Bethlehem" is not an important belief of Christianity. However for fundies, it is in the Bible so they have to believe that it is exactly the way it happened. They have some explaining to do. There are more inconsistencies in that story, if you just think about it a bit.