No it is not. Yes, there are two major parties, but since everyone I know complains about both and wishes there was an alternative, perhaps it is time they began voting for the alternatives. I am so sick of the whining and complaining from those too lazy to vote or write their representatives or fucking vote for a different party. If you think you are throwing away your vote by doing so, why bother at all. It everyone that wishes for another choice actually took one of the available alternatives we may end up better off. So stfu and vote for somebody new or run for office yourself, but don't pretend there are only 2 choices.

I have had bad experiences with Comcast in the past, but recently my local telco's DSL service began dropping my connections to web pages. Only when attempting to load any web page would I have an issue, and it was across multiple computers. The Qwest helpdesk people would not believe me that my Netflix streaming, games, and torrents were all fine. Finally I called Comcast as the only other provider in my area and the sales lady let me speak with one of the Internet Support guys for about 10 minutes. They are not blocking ports or screwing with my torrent traffic and stated the only 2 restrictions on my account are they will block port 25 if they see more than 999 messages per day on it (which I can call and have them re-enable as it is a SPAM blocking measure) and I cannot go over 250 GB data transfer per month. So far I am averaging 20 - 25 GB per week according to my router running Tomato. Maybe they are being smaller assholes since they had the deal with Xfinity, I don't know. Also, I pay for a 12 Mbps connection and consistently receive over 30 Mbps down and 5 up, where as I was paying for a 12M/896k DSL connection before and getting 7M down if I was lucky, 750k up. Ping time decreased about 15 ms on the game servers I play on as well. I have to say, I have only had them about 3 weeks this time, but am quite happy so far.

Lack of caps and not blocking ports/services. Comcast blocked everything I wanted to use, Qwest blocks nothing, only thing I want from them is higher upload speed.

Actually according to http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html Google broke $10 billion in profit.

I hear this quite a bit, but have not had this problem in over 5 years. Do you have any recent examples?

Painfully.

I use Linux, and am happy to purchase and use closed source software. I wish there was more. I often prefer the open source version or replacement for specific applications, but when unavailable I am happy to buy them. There is simply not enough offered. For me I tried Linux because it was free and I had a box running Windows ME...well, you can see why I wanted away from that. I tried it. I loved it. I haven't run Windows at home since. I find it desirable that people want to run different Operating Systems. They can run whatever makes them happy and they are comfortable with. I deal with lack of support from ISV's by finding solutions that work for me. I wish there were better solutions at times, either open source or closed, for certain situations. I would certainly be willing to purchase more.

I find this to be true. I would be completely fucked had an ADA not kept screwing up my charges until the case was open long enough the judge told them to finish it that day. I would have had a felony that would have put me in Huntsville State Prison in Texas (min 6 month stay). Because of the miraculous incompetence of the ADA I ended up with a misdemeanor and time served from my arrest as my sentence. If you care the case entire issue came about after some friends of mine went on a graffiti spree if Houston. I purchased spray paint and had given it to one of them who turned out was under 18. It is illegal in Texas to sell or provide certain aerosol products to minors, part of the state health code dealing with drug abuse. So I should have been charged with Criminal Mischief, a felony, but was charged with distribution of an aerosol paint to a minor for purpose of inhalation. I explain it on every application that asks about arrests or crimes, some specifically mention only reporting felonies on the application, and have not had a problem. If it had been the Criminal Mischief charge however I would likely be where the other two are at this time. One is working rigs in the gulf last I heard, and the other was able to land a job in Portland at some rock club.

That should be "+1: Tinfoil Hat"

I assume there is a major problem, or problems, with sound for many people on Ubuntu? My experience has been the opposite. Since upgrading to 9.10, issues I had with sound just not working have been fixed. Graphics problems I had under 8.10 and 9.04 are resolved (though after the upgrade they were worse until I updated). Overall experience on my old Dell Dimension 3000 is improved. Then again this is simply my experience, and yours may be worth more.

You must work here at IBM too

That she likes the python....of love.