>I've been pulled over at least a dozen times in the 11 years I've been driving, and only come away with a ticket once. Half the time I was definitely over the limit.

Why is a cop pulling you over when you weren't doing something? How is that okay? What are you doing that they keep deciding to pull you over? I certainly am not starting out respectful of someone falsely accusing me of something, especially when there is a high probably that they know they are lying about it.

I've been pulled over for being young in a car, young at night, young with other people in the car, "too young" for the car I was driving. I've been pulled over at various times for my hair being long. I've also been pulled over for doing something that I knew was against the laws of the area.

The people that have pulled me over for doing something worthy of a citation have tended approach me, ask what I was doing, tell me why they pulled me over, and let me respond. I don't fight with someone when I know I'm in the wrong.

BY FAR, the most offensive, lowest form of life I have ever encountered has been the cops that pulled me over for the far more frequent problem of being young. These cops endanger everyone around them, they will openly lie to you, on their reports, and to judges. They will fly down the road and tailgate you to pull you over. They will get in your face and call you a liar. This type is the kind that I have encountered more than anyone positive with a badge.

And the worst part, is that many of the ones that aren't like the above, still cover for them. That doesn't make them particularly good people, either.

I've spent a lot of miles on the road, and while minivans and vehicles like Buicks and such are most likely to be not paying attention... police cruisers are the mostly likely to do something dangerous. I've seen marked cruisers tailgating people with only feet of room on the highway, I've been nearly rear-ended, broadsided, and t-boned by them, because they think they own the road, and just expect people will throw their cars into ditches because there's something with a lightbar behind them, even when it's turned off. Hell, I've had one of these assholes shine a spotlight on me *while driving down a highway*.

As someone that has been driving for well over 10 years, and has worked with police for years, I wish I had something more positive to say about them. The ones worth giving a badge to seem to have a high tendency to change jobs or retire.

That sucks! I found that usually the problem was that I forgot to install GRUB onto the Linux partition instead of the MBR. Messed up a few Windows installs that way before I managed to remember it for good.

Google for EasyBCD. It can fix the bootloader problems for you, if you're still on Vista/7.

Actually, just below the graph you mention it says that Snow Leopard is shipping both 32bit and 64bit version of the kernel and all bundled applications. Apple is doing exactly what MS has been, but shipping a combined OSX product on one DVD, rather than selling two separated editions.

I would say that the Apple way of shipping is far better than MS, but it is certainly not the first away from 32-bit. They are still maintaining a 32bit *and* a 64bit version of their OS.

Definitely not likely to get cheap enough. Perhaps it is possible to build something half-assed that would be just good enough to offset south-east by 500 miles or something.

I don't know how the timing and tracking works on GPS, if you couldn't tell. ;-) I thought it had to do with knowing the expected positions and an exact time. If there isn't encryption, it would certainly be easier.

The better question is "How much will they cost if this nightmare were to become law?"

Actually health care is NYS' largest item, then education, then the STAR program.

Health care = Medicaid and public health ($3.5b)
Education ($2.0b)
STAR = exemptions from school tax ($1.7b)

What they *actually* are trying to do is increase their tax revenue by $3.1b this year. They're doing the typical lying about what they'll cut if you don't give them more money.

As a former local government employee that dealt with budgets, let me tell you that there isn't a year that goes by that your government doesn't lie to you about what they'll actually cut if you turn down the budget. They might do something stupid just to scare the hell out of you into paying, but they'll always find somewhere to cut that they didn't tell you before. For example, you can guarantee that sports will always somehow find its way back, even when they claim that they'll have to fire dozens of teachers.

They'll claim to have to cut the most visible and scary programs every time. If you don't agree to pay more, then "you must be a terrorist, after all".