Ex post facto has a relatively narrow legal interpretation in the U.S. - essentially, it only means you can't *increase* punishments in a criminal case retroactively. Decreasing punishments is (and should be) fine.

See Calder v. Bull. Note that compulsory sex offender registration is not considered a punishment by SCOTUS.

Disclaimer: IANAL

Furthermore, it's probably a good idea to get kids interested in competitions. www.artofproblemsolving.com has an amazing forum for mathematically interested kids.

Watergate? If the offense is particularly egregious, getting it out in the open is usually enough to force change.

Actually, what generally happens in the US with eminent domain is an independent appraiser comes and the government then pays a significant premium OVER the appraised value. For example, in Kelo v. New London, the NLDC offered all the eminent domain'd people *twice* the appraised value of their homes.

'"We haven't any use for old things here."
"Even when they're beautiful?"
"Particularly when they're beautiful. Beauty's attractive, and we don't want people to be attracted by old things."
"But the new ones are so stupid and horrible... Why don't you let them see Othello instead?"
"It's old. Besides, they wouldn't understand it."'
-Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

It is good to note, though, that colleges are far more selective than public high schools.

You're actually integrating one, not zero...

I'm not sure about that "slow giant" characterization. Consider the one-child policy, which will have absolutely wrecked their demographics by 2021, 50 years afters its beginning.

Yeah, the anti-trust laws are named that for a reason. They were originally written in the late 1800s to fight the monopolies and collusion created by "trusts" - secretive organizations of all the largest corporations in an industry. Honestly, the Google-Yahoo deal struck me as similar to these criminal trusts.

Rootkits can be scanned for. See Rootkit Revealer. If you don't trust the kernel to accurately report the contents of the HD, just don't use it.

It's in alpha. You can't really expect it to have a fully-formed community or mature addons.

The very reason our do-nothing Congress "stood up" to the automakers is that it does nothing.

I doubt this will ever happen. The fact is, hard drives (SSD or traditional) are and will remain a very efficient way of storing data. Maybe there would be some sort of mirroring, but I doubt we'll ever see computers just become thin clients.

Pepto-Bismol is Bismuth salicylate if I remember correctly.