The point of holding the steering wheel with two hands is greater control of the car in case you you need to veer unexpectedly.

Don't get me started. I too had a bug report resolved as "works as expected". Another one of mine was closed as a duplicate, but Apple's bug tracking software won't let you view other people's bug reports. So I couldn't follow its progress anymore.

Apple's bug reporting policy is a joke. On the user.

The sad truth is that iCal has been getting progressively worse since OS X 10.4. The same is true for Address Book but to a lesser extent.

Wow, I wasn't aware of that before. It never ceases to amaze me how fucked up the American phone market is.

I haven't received a single robo-call in my life. Sure, I sometimes get unsolicited calls but there's always a live human at the other end. Even these are rare -- less than 1 per month. And usually from places I have had previous business with or the occasional survey.

I hate to turn this post into an America-bashing socialist diatribe but the American phone market is a great example how an under-regulated market is not in the best interest of the consumer.

Installed it recently to read annotated PDFs I receive sometimes. I find that preview does a poor job displaying these annotations and won't even display some at all.

FTFY. Report back when you do actual computing on your iPad -- like writing code or crunching scientific data.

For most of humanity the average life span was 30 years. It is now more than double than that. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

A huge factor in that improvement is not only that people get older, but also that fewer children die. Both is directly attributable to the existence of doctors.

So you wouldn't mind living in a house that was built according to code? Apparently your ideology is more important to you than your life or your health. Good luck with that.

Worst. Advice. Evar.

The OP simply wants to take good pictures of his family and friends. He does not need a big camera that he has to haul around, he needs a camera that is small enough to have always on him, i.e. a point-and-shoot. I have heard good things about Lumix (IIRC, a Panasonic brand) although I've never owned one.

Secondly, you pay a hefty premium for Canon and Nikon gear. They do have advantages (mainly availability of secondary accessories), but you get the same features and quality for less money if you buy Pentax, Olympus or Minolta.

The problem is waste in the developed world. We already produce more than enough food to feed everybody on the planet. But half of what is produced for Europe and the US is thrown out before it even reaches the consumer. Meanwhile our food is still so cheap that the sustenance farmer in Africa cannot compete. It's not that his farming techniques are not effective enough, it's that our industrialized food production is much cheaper and he can't sell his crop. He loses his livelihood and now the nation is dependent on foreign inports.

Was it discovered somewhere east, west, south and north of Baghdad and/or Tikrit?

I spent all day in the library where there are no TVs or radios.

Also, I'm not in the US at the moment.

The German word for tax is "Steuer" and it provides a hint to an answer to your question. The verb "steuern", of which "Steuer" is the noun form, means to regulate, control, govern and to steer. (E.g. a car steering wheel or a boat ruder wheel is also simply called Steuer in German.)

In other words, taxes are not only a means to provide income to the state but also a means of regulation by the state. And that is the main purpose of a tax on financial transactions. It's not a way to provide additional income (which would be marginal anyway) but to discourage behavior that is a burdon on the system.

The point is that we have more in common as human beings than what separates us as members of different nations.