Looking at the balance sheet, there's about $2.8BN in cash, $900MM in inventory (figure that's basically zero now), and payables exceed receivables by about $1BN, so you're looking at a liquidation value of around $2BN. There's $2.2BN in property/plant/equipment, but it's highly unlikely you could actually get $2.2BN for that.

While you're right about the franchise fees, it's important to note that virtually no areas of the country (outside of private housing developments) have monopoly franchises, as they're generally banned. In 99% of the US, if you want to start your own cable company, can show that you have the financial wherewithal to see it through (don't want people to just start tearing up the streets willy-nilly, and are willing to pay the standard franchise fee, you're on your way. Your way to bankruptcy, that is. Cable operators aren't legal monopolies, they're _natural_ monopolies - it's a great business if you can get 50% penetration in an area. If you get 20% penetration, it's a terrible business, and you never make back your cost of capital. Even an operator like Verizon, who already has a huge presence, strong brand, customer service in place, yadda yadda, will probably never earn a return on FiOS.

In that noted hotbed of free market radicalism, Germany, the Post Office has been a private business since 2000... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Post

Astrophysicist walks into a bar, orders a Mexican beer. Bartender yells, "OK, that's it, everybody out NOW!!!" As they're all leaving, another customer asks the astrophysicist, "what the heck is going on?" Astrophysicist replies "Coronal Mass Ejection."

This is good health policy. "There is compelling evidence that male circumcision reduces the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men by approximately 60%." - WHO (http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/)

This is garbage health policy.

You've been able to do more without a paid subscription on the PS3 as well, and it hasn't seemed to have handicapped the Xbox's sales and market share.

"A very good example: the 16th Amendment, which has been used to justify Federal income tax, was never legally ratified. Before anybody argues: I am aware that it was declared to have been ratified, but by the end of the time limit it was still one state short of the minimum required. " This is just playing a semantic game. It was declared ratified by the Secretary of State. The declaration has been confirmed on multiple occasions by the courts. That's what DEFINES ratified.

Maggie has already appeared in Who, though... http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Helen_A

Don't make DEEP SEVEN angry. You wouldn't like DEEP SEVEN when they're angry.

www.canistream.it Will tell you if it's available for streaming across multiple platforms, available for on-demand rental, available for on-demand sale, or available for DVD or blu-ray sale. Works for folks in the US.

Agreed. I used to use AVG, but switched all our machines over to MSE over the past year or so. Performance at least seems better (don't claim to have a robust benchmark for this), and haven't seen any problems.

Most reviewers regard "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" as one of the better Bond movies, if not the best.

Saying that it's "not true" is wildly overstating the case. The results of the investigation were that, bottom line, the KLM captain took off without clearance. Several things contributed to that, including simultaneous radio transmissions (which meant that neither could be heard). Excessive cockpit deference may have been a contributor as well. It's not clear that it was, but there was enough evidence that it was to drive the industry to roll out Crew Resource Management over time.

In fairness, some of those (Chernobyl, certainly) were the result of flawed _design_, not workmanship.

The idea that marriage is now much later than it used to be is a common misconception, at least for Europe and the US. Really, the outlier in (relatively) recent history was the post-WWII era, when age of first marriage dropped sharply from the levels of the late 19th and early 20th century. In 1890, average age of first marriage for women in the US was 23.5, and 26.5 for men. http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/marriage/data/acs/ElliottetalPAA2012figs.pdf In the late 18th century, average age was 20-22 for women, ~26 for men. http://www.amazon.com/Marriage-England-1500-1800-Abridged-footnotes/dp/0061319791/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1327690657&sr=8-3