The solution is simple. Make guns illegal for all men, and legal for all women. Then you can have your protection, and keep the guns out of the hands of the vast majority of violent criminals. As long as you always have an armed girlfriend/wife with you, that is. Touch that gun though, and an electric shock ends your life!

The most significant quote of the article: "we expect overseas cash balances will continue to grow unless tax laws encourage U.S. companies to repatriate money".

The corporate tax rate for what Apple is doing is around 35%; that is, Apple would have to pay 35% of their cash pile in taxes if they repatriated it. Which would be generally reasonable if not for the fact that it was already taxed once in the originating country on the original sale. As a result the 35% tax rate is essentially a kind of 35% tariff on exports and foreign sales. You only need to pay it once if you sell within the US, but you pay it along with a second set of local taxes on anything you sell outside of the US, regardless of whether it was even made here. The ultimate effect is that if every dollar were immediately repatriated, foreign sales would either be immensely less profitable than domestic sales, or American companies would be at a significant competitive disadvantage against foreign companies that aren't getting taxed twice (e.g. Samsung).

Congress needs to give up on this pipe dream that they can have 35% of the profits made off of all foreign sales. When no one else is double-taxing like this, it makes the American tax system look foolish and antiquated.

Its not amusing at all. Amazon dominate by competing on old fashioned things like price,

Competing on price is an understatement. Amazon was losing money on purpose; it's more fair to say Amazon was competing via predatory pricing . Lose money on books now until everyone else has been run out of business, then significantly raise the prices once they're the only game in town. The outcome of that would have been something that would have benefited no one but Amazon.

On a side note, the wholesale model doesn't make any sense for ebooks anyhow. It's based around the realities of inventory, which wouldn't apply to ebooks.

You're not wrong, but using the generic reckless driving laws requires proving that the driver was actually being reckless, which inevitably leads to a long trial where the suspect argues that they were still taking due care despite their self-imposed handicap. When you enumerate badness you get to skip proving whether something is bad, and simply have to prove the suspect was doing the action. This is why we have laws against specific things like drunk driving and text messaging.

Start by giving it back to all the people who lost their jobs because of Bill's illegal slash and burn tactics. How about all the money extorted from governments for Microsoft systems that cost them more in the long run, that could have been used to solve their internal problems. How about paying all the taxes on his wealth that he criminally hides in things like, oh, foundations. Now he gives away a few dollars to appease his ego, and people forgive him? Fuck that.

50 years ago this would have been a major scandal. Now it's "ho hum business as usual." This country is fucked.

That's the theory, but that is no longer the case. The value of currency is whatever currency traders are willing to pay for it. I worked for traders when the markets took the Mexican peso down to nothing. What a feeding frenzy. It's only a matter of time before the world markets "cash in" the US dollar the same way.

But in that case you do have to forfeit the stolen vehicle, so you are out the money that you paid for it. I guess the thinking is that he has to pay back any profits he made? I don't agree with the decision or the lawsuit, but the car analogy is not that different.

When will people realize that every time we increase the food supply in a region, the population increases in the same proportion. There will always be starvation until people slow their breeding down to zero population growth, or dare I even suggest it, negative growth. And I'm not saying don't feed people that are already here.

Flame away breeders. I'm getting used to it.

The thing to remember about these crazed sociopaths is that they NEVER have enough money, prestige, power. Bill is just channelling his ego in a different direction now. He's trying to get his own legacy, the guy who cured malaria, to one-up Jobs. Who knows what he'll decide tomorrow. Maybe we need criminal profilers to figure these guys out.

More importantly, how many responders are serious? Would they really climb into a craft to go to mars? I'd wager around, let's see, none.

And if he is batshit crazy, how much of what he said is true, and how much is PR to keep him out of jail and to sell (sensationalize) his new book? I'd trust his responses rat spitting distances.

Yes, but that requires proving that the driver was actually driving without due care, which inevitably leads to a long trial where the suspect argues that they were still taking due care while wearing the glasses. When you enumerate badness you get to skip proving whether something is bad, and simply have to prove the suspect was doing the action. This is the same basic rationale for why laws were passed specifically to deal with text messaging.

That's US and UK you are thinking about. A lot of the rest of the world is still sane.

I could not find a version of retail Windows 8 anywhere

You're looking for something that doesn't exist because it's no longer needed.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-WN7-00403-English-Version/dp/B009HI2W66/ref=sr_1_2?s=software&ie=UTF8&qid=1367939128&sr=1-2&keywords=windows+8

OEM is the new retail. MS unified the TOS; Win8 OEM's terms are essentially identical to Win7 retail's terms, including the ability to resell it.