The truth is more onerous than that. The thing is, they *don't* want that. No major American company actually *wants* to wipe out the middle class. After all, who would you sell your products to if nobody has any money? Companies need a strong middle class and are well aware of that fact. Yet they still work to reduce wages as cost cutting measures for a temporary return. It's blatantly self-destructive behavior that everybody seems to be in on, aware of, wants to stop, but consistently take the wrong routes.

If there were a few guys up at the top in swivel chairs with fluffy cats going "mwaahahahaha" as they plot and scheme, that would be one thing. They could be stopped. How do you stop a society from marching over the cliff - fully aware the cliff is there, fully aware they don't want to fall off it, yet somehow not willing or able to stop themselves from doing it?

Good to see racism is alive and well in the modern age...

Fighting the immigrants is the wrong battle. I'd much rather have that Pakistani born programmer be working here as a US citizen - protected by US labor laws and paid a competitive US salary than be "on loan" under an H1-B visa which his employer can use to depress the wages of his other employees.

Full disclosure - I recently switched to a t-mobile pay as you go plan on an unlocked smartphone and have been happy with the coverage (though it's nowhere near as broad as ATT or Verizon).

Look into the MVNOs (Straight Talk or net10 or whomever) - there are more options than ATT, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

Some do - I recall an episode of Voyager with some weapon that would essentially erase the target from existence (make it so it never existed). I don't recall if the episode was particularly great (it was Voyager, after all), but they did at least explore the butterfly effect in that way - and without using time travel itself. They'd used this weapon in a war and it had drastic personal consequences, so they kept trying to use it to correct the timeline. A moon here, an asteroid there, but any time they fixed one thing, something else would get unraveled.

There are good ones out there, but it's just too often done poorly. I don't know if it's writers that just don't grasp it or producers who shut down a lot of these ideas fearing the audience won't grasp it.

...Probably because you're still going for the same cell phone contract as you would be if you were getting a new phone? There are plenty of contract-free options out there at significantly lower cost if you look around a bit. The simple fact is, *most* people tend to replace their phone whenever they're eligible to. That's what the pricing is geared toward and why data plans are as expensive as they are. I'm sure the networks love folks who hang on to their old phones and old plans out of contract.

From TFS ('cause lord knows *I* didn't RTFA) it sounds like the exemption was on unlocking phones still under contract - implying that once the contract has expired the users would be able to do as they wish with their phone. Of course, the rest of what you say is right on, perhaps even a little optimistic. Subsidized cell phones are a horrible deal for the consumer who seem to love paying for "unlimited everything" even if a pay-as-you-go plan for a fraction of the cost will cover their use.

Seems to be right in line with the current American culture: Always need the newest phones, TVs, and cars - not because they do things their old equipment couldn't, just because it's the newest shiny.

More misses than hits in my opinion. Time travel *should* scare away more novice sci-fi writers than it does because more often than not, it's used as a cheap deus ex machina to introduce or resolve some part of the plot (like in the SG-1 season 8 finale, series finale, or *most* of Enterprise). If you want to explore time travel - explore it! Don't use it as a cheap gimmick to push along (or reboot!!) the story.

The more I observe, the more I come to the conclusion that all of politics is a tragic high school shouting contest. North Korea is just somebody's obnoxious eight year old brother that nobody wants to claim.

You fiend!! How do you expect me to see the baby pictures from people I don't remember from high school? Think of the children!!

Same here. I must now go drown my shame in beer.

Slashdot! Why do you make me drink!?!?!?

This entire thread makes me so happy.

I don't think that's true at all - I've seen several times on laugh track shows (notably Big Bang Theory and That 70s Show) where an actor will say a few words, pause for the laugh track, then continue the line. You can even see it a bit in the linked youtube (though admittedly there I don't think any were mid-phrase). In any case, it definitely causes an odd timing to shows that rely on them.

Don't be naive. Right now this minute, in some top secret Iranian bunker, they are drafting elaborate plans to hit us where it will irrecoverably cripple us. They will break down the social structures upon which our civilization rests. Yes my friends, they mean to take down Facebook.

Don't send mail bombs. The feds take that shit seriously. That, and why would any company want to send an employee to the house of the person who keeps pestering them?