It's not dependent on the visa. People from visa waiver nations (such as the UK, Germany, Japan, etc) will still get enrolled into US-VISIT (the photograph/fingerprinting system.)

Canadians have a special exemption.

Ballots that can be traced to a voter, or where the voter can be watched filling in the ballot paper, can be bought.

True, but nothing says that I can't videotape myself on my camera phone selecting candidates (either on machine or paper) and then submitting that ballot. (I have uploaded my own absentee ballots online to show people how I voted.)

My point is, there are plenty of ways of showing people how you voted, not having identifying marks on the ballot does not prevent that from occurring.

Limiting voting to citizens is assumed to be a universal thing, but it's not. As another poster mentioned, the Commonwealth countries still have a system of voting rights in place between each other. It is a bit peculiar. For instance, a citizen of Jamaica doesn't necessarily have the right to live and work in Britain. However, if they should get the right to live in Britain, they automatically get the right to vote for Parliament. (I believe a Jamaican could not stand for office, but an Irishman can.)

If you did go to Spain or Germany, and you are an EU citizen, you can vote in local elections. Any EU citizen can vote in EU local elections regardless if they are a citizen of that country or not.

In the US, you do not need to be a citizen in order to vote in Takoma Park, Maryland. You need only be a resident of that city. If you remember the move Gangs of New York, a lot of work went into getting freshly immigrated Irish to vote in local elections.

Interesting, I had not heard of that, and I have an Ohio license (and research these issues quite closely.)

The thing that bugs me is that this is an unnecessary public relations problem for motor vehicle agencies. Ok, so your software sucks and can't do facial recognition on facial expressions.

Take one photographs of a neutral expression for the database.

Take another photograph, if the person wants, where they can have whatever smile they want to print on the license card.

The best authentication has three components:

This is an old mantra that I don't think is believed anymore (except by companies that sell biometric systems of course. :)

Numbers 2 and 3 are essentially the same...they are both something you have. The idea that number 3 is somehow different from number 2 stems from the assumption that biometrics does something special, like it's uncopyable. It's not magical though and it really is just something you have.

is an exceptionally powerful psychological motivational force

I would have to disagree. After all, go to an urban school district and see how powerful that motivational force is for the students there. Even if you visit a lot of good school districts, you'll find that a lot of the students are motivated to play the game and make their masters happy, more than they are actually sincerely learning.

Teachers do get good benefits, government jobs are like that, they get actual pension plans, which is more an indication that everyone else is getting fucked than one that teachers are getting an unfairly awesome deal

There is some evidence to suggest that, economically speaking, the idea that a significant percentage of the population can just stop working when healthy and live off of savings for ten years is simply unworkable in the big scheme of things. You either need people to save a huge amount during your working life, or you need a huge cohort of young people who are productive to pay for the retirees to live.

This problem hit the private sector earlier, but it is beginning to hit the public sector. Public sector pensions are severely underfunded (particularly since 8% growth has been assumed, which is nothing shortly of ridiculous in this day and age.)

You can but I'd argue that is a mistake.

Here's an example: we know that women take the trait of masculinity into account when seeking a partner. Studies have shown that the amount of masculinity is correlated with the health care quality of the country they grew up in. A Jamaican woman is more likely to select a man with masculine features--hoping to pass on nice strong genes to her child to survive the many problems of Jamaica. However a Swedish woman will be more likely to take a less masculine more androgynous man. The androgynous man may not pass on the strongest genes, but that doesn't matter in Sweden. What does matter is that the less masculine man is more likely to be a caring, dependable father, which is a nice boon for young Sven.

Without context, the Swedish woman's decision seems to be a step backward. (It certainly would seem that way from the Jamaican woman's point of view.) But in the context of modern Sweden, it's a movement forward.

Any trip to Walmart will convince you that the situation today seems less clear, and obtaining children seems entirely disassociated with the ability to attract a mate.

Perhaps actually Walmart shows the opposite--that evolution is quite alive and well.

If we're saying that there is a group of people who are disadvantaged in some way (I guess the thesis on the table is that the Walmart people are less intelligent than others) then perhaps it makes sense for them to start buying lottery tickets--having lots of children--knowing that any one child of theirs probably won't have great genes (and that because of their lifestyle there is no advantage to that one child if they have no siblings) and may not pass them on, but a bunch of children may pass them on, and besides, there may be a bright child in the bunch.

For me it's because I am on a iBook G4 and there is no PPC version beyond 3.6, plus there is no PPC version of Chrome. All I have is Safari (which isn't bad) plus unsupported versions of Firefox and maybe Opera?

Actually I suspect that there would be healthy sales of such a vehicle, it's just that the financials work out poorly. There is just a certain minimum cost for the design and manufacture of a vehicle, and the price of such a vehicle gets too close to larger better equipped vehicles. (The TATA Nano has this problem in India--for just a bit more you get a much better car.) In the US the Nissan Versa is the cheapest car but for a bit more you can get a lot more car.

It's a slice of the market that automakers rather just leave alone.

GM continually sank money into it

And at the same time, they also didn't. They didn't put enough money into designing new models, so in a relatively short period of time the cars were outclassed by rivals. And then GM did the GM thing of going the cheap route, rebadging other GM cars as Saturns. (Some of which were ok, others which you note were crap, but all of which destroyed the brand.)

First generation of the Odyssey was a terrible POS.

But Mercedes? Really? I know they have improved from the craptastic vehicles they put together in the 2000s, but from the horror stories of new ones I read I'd be terrified to own one.

Keep in mind it's all relative of course. I am a Saab guy and I have found them inexpensive to own and repair, though it requires knowing the right people and where to get parts from.

The RFID was made to specifically avoid this cross referencing databases. We didn't want countries to have access to citizen files.

it's a Canadian official, not a US official, that checks your passport. The passport is to help you get permission from the Canadians to enter their country, not to get permission from the US to leave.

This is actually a rather complex example, and your statement requires revision.

The United States unilaterally decided that a passport would be required for land crossings. Canada did not and doesn't give a damn. They'd be happy to let you in with a birth certificate. However because the US now requires a passport to enter the US, Canada has to ensure you have one so that you don't get stuck in Canada for an extended period of time.