Then as an educator you should know what the real problem is. It breaks down to 3:

1. Localized school boards more interested in political gains than education. They are busy trying to maintain their kingdoms that they have built and trying to expand it.That leads to differing results from community to community.

2. Changes in laws such as No Child Left Behind (an Orwellian title if ever there was one) mandating that teacher retention be tied to student performance has made it necessary for self preservation for teachers to teach to the tests. Add in dwindling budgets and anything not directly related to those tests gets cut from the curriculum. Many primary schools have dropped music, art and classics from their teaching programs all together.

3. Lack of parental involvement in their children's education. This may be one of the most important reasons that education is failing in the US. With both parents needing to work just to make ends meet because the average income level has declined while costs have increased, it makes it difficult for parents to spend the proper amount of time with their kids education.

Until these issues are addressed, we will continue to see a decline in education in the US.

Still, 3,382 requests in a three-month span doesn't sound like all that much.

Maybe not to you, but that's where the value of the comparison you are so quick to dismiss comes into play.

Not only that, but if you have never had to respond to one then you really don't know what is involved. It is gathering all requested documents within the time limit the laws (yes, there are differing state FOIA laws) allow as well as knowing what is exempt in those laws and should not be disclosed. There is the tedious process of redacting documents of data not covered as well as preparing the deliverable. It isn't as easy as you would think.

There are legitimate reasons to deny a FOIA request that the law allows for like it or not. National Security is one of those reasons.

As people grow older, they tend to get more conservative. The baby boomers are retiring now and when they do finally retire, that is when you will see havoc. Why? Because old people have nothing better to do with their time than visit their friends and family in the cemetery and vote! So if you think it is conservative now, just wait... The worst is yet to come.

The 4th Amendment allows the government to wiretap as long as a warrant has been sought.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

With restrictions, the US Government can wiretap. Further, see

Olmstead v. United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmstead_v._United_States

and Katz v. United States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katz_v._United_States

In the Olmstead case, the courts upheld the Federal Government's argument that wiretapping doesn't require a warrant. In Katz, that ruling was overturned.

The NSA case remains at odds with these two cases since FISA is in play.

Private companies are governed by both federal and state privacy laws such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (18 U.S.C. 2510 et. seq.) That authority comes from Article 4:

This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land.

You might suggest this is an over-reaction, that you're merely pointing out that the internet isn't for people who want to hide. But the point is, it should be.

No, it shouldn't. You are doing the same exact thing you are accusing the poster of doing. Imposing your will on the entire Internet when you do that. The whole intent of the Internet is to share data. What form that data takes is irrelevant. It is far easier if you are that paranoid that you leave the Internet than to ask the Internet to conform to your paranoia.

Good for you...

I also had a combination of public and private school with military training (Field Radio Repair) and graduated that in the top 5. I started out taking apart gadgets as a kid. I progressed to the 150 in 1 electronics projects kit from Radio Shack (back when they actually sold electronics parts instead of becoming just another cell phone store). My dad was very supportive of my technical learning. And that is what it all comes down to. Do the parents actually take an interest in what their kids do and support them in their efforts.

The same goes with the choice of schools. Why would anyone support a failing school and risk their kids future just to prolong that failing school's agony so they can force the same substandard education on other victims? This whole argument is based on the premise that parents have the time or inclination to keep that substandard school around for nostalgic reasons alone. The best thing for those schools is to vote with your feet.

Add to that a crappy market where even secretary positions ask for college educations. Schools know how valuable their diplomas are, so they dangle them over our heads on a platinum barb.

The value of a college degree is decreasing as your two statements show. As more jobs require them, justified or not, more people will get the degree just to satisfy that job requirement. As more people do get it, the higher the degree level requirement will become since having say an undergraduate degree will no longer distinguish individual achievement. The cost will go even higher as higher levels of degree become the norm.

Essentially the problem boils down to that the president doesn't have the mandate to enter into an international treaties and other nations tend to not know this.

Poppycock! In fact, the President is the ONLY one in the federal government with a mandate to enter into treaty with other nations. Article 2 Section 2 gives him the power with the advice and consent of the Senate. Without the President initiating it, you have no treaty.

"Article 2 Section 2 Clause 2: He shall have the power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties..."

It doesn't get any clearer than that. It's the President who does the negotiating with the Senate. It starts with the President.

Although you may be correct, the real telling will be how many return to cable after getting the shows illegally without the advertising. Once the forbidden fruit is bitten, they may like it and never return...

It's partly about their business and partly about public safety. Taxi services have higher insurance rates as well as safety inspections of both the cars and the drivers.

Look, this ride share serves is every bit as dangerous as hitchhiking. You are taking your chances with it that you won't be robbed of everything you have with you and your naked corpse found in the remotest part of California.

This case isn't over with yet. Like the OJ Simpson case there will be the inevitable wrongful death civil suit where the bar is far lower than the reasonable doubt bar. So until the outcome of that trial is over, I don't expect the streets of Florida to be that bad.

There is also another reason...

You haven't worked for a state agency before if you think the "customer" is the emergency management team. It is the IT departments that have control of all the equipment as well as have the responsibility for its maintenance and upkeep.

Having said all that, is it really the job of even the IT department to fix a flaw in equipment supplied by a vendor? Or is it the job of the vendor (who usually has a maintenance contract for it) to do that fixing?

It has been happening since before the 1800 yet we live hundreds of times better than they did in the 1800

That depends on how you define "better". Life was far simpler then than it is now. Wages were increasing instead of staying flat or declining like it is today and exploration of new horizons and inventions were more plentiful and beneficial to society than they are today. Today we have diseases that were unheard of then, economies that are so interdependent globally that the slightest ripple will be felt world wide and technology that is pretty much stagnant due to a patent regime that is totally unsustainable.

Human kind has a way of making it work out. As long as we keep working on world issues we will make it.

Unless we so fuck up the world all in the name of the mighty dollar that humans can no longer live on it. Then only the rich will be able to escape to spread their nastiness to the next world they will inhabit.

Completely relevant.
Facebook has no obligation to police content to comply with the laws of any nation except the USA.
Everyone else can fuck right on off. Let the government of Italy (try to) block Facebook if they're actually serious about it.

Leaving aside the international question, even in the US contracts entered into by a minor are considered invalid. Facebook does nothing to try to actively restrict access to legal adults even according to US law. There is nothing legally that Facebook can do to enforce an invalid contract such as their AUP. That is the angle the Italians are taking and to me it seems a valid one.

If they fly less than 500ft (and most do) then they are not in the Air Traffic space.

Which completely ignores helicopter traffic... (News, police, medical air lifts, etc...)