cops in unmarked cars might start targeting areas where newly publicized photo radar cameras have been placed and pulling over speeders and checking their plates

Thus negating the point of putting up said cameras.

Maybe the state legislatures and city councils should consider the novel idea of not figuring traffic fine revenue into their budgets and not hiring private companies to do the police department's work.

It's the same for USPS package services (anything above First-Class Mail). You have to generate a zone chart from your originating ZIP Code before determining shipping rates. Priority is based on zone and weight or, in some cases, zone and size. Parcel Post is based on zone and weight, but some ZIP codes that are major hubs offer cheaper "Intra-BMC" rates.

You laugh, but older contract offices still get their software updates, including price changes, via mail.

On 3.5" floppy.

The terminals still use green-text monitors.

The zones are clearly marked but determining which zone you are shipping to is not. They are based on distance from the originating ZIP Code so the application must use Postal Explorer to generate the zone chart ahead of time. (For now, it happens to be working.) And in the case of non-flat-rate Priority Mail, there's a huge price difference between zone 4 (zone and weight only) and zone 5 (zone and weight *OR* zone and size).

Real ID makes sense when it comes to standardizing how DMV records need to be entered/stored, and detecting multiple IDs for one person. Searching one database accurately with erroneous data is hard enough; searching multiple databases, each with their own inaccuracies, for data not stored in the same format is even harder. And how many reasons are there for maintaining multiple state IDs?

Frankly, he should have asked them to dismiss it from federal court on Constitutional grounds (you can't sue in federal court for matters of less than $20 per the Constitution

The way I'm reading the 7th amendment, the $20 clause only seems to apply to protection of the right to a jury trial -- i.e. the court must give the option of a trial by jury in common law suits involving more than $20.

Based on that, they should allow sellers and buyers to submit feedback into a private "holding area." Sellers have 14 days to post feedback, and buyers have 30 days to post feedback, leaving enough time for longer payment methods (mailed payment, or waiting for a check to clear) and longer shipping times. If feedback is received from both sides before 14 days, it is released and posted to the accounts immediately; otherwise, any feedback received within the two time frames is released after 30 days. Until one of those two conditions are met, the feedback stays hidden and doesn't appear on a user's account. And to prevent non-paying bidders from having 30 days to hide their status, allow the seller's feedback to post immediately if eBay declares a user is NPB.

You pay this fee and you're "protected" from litigation for copyright infringement through this covenant. A few months later, you get served notice that you're on the receiving end of a DMCA-based infringement. They claim you downloaded 200 songs on a certain day. You have dial-up Internet. The claim itself is technically impossible, assuming an average file size of 4 MB (about average for 192kbps MP3s, which seem to be the common P2P format now) and a constant 56kbps on dial-up (which isn't going to happen in real life); it would take 32.5 hours to download 200 songs. The lawsuit also violates the terms of the covenant.

You may have grounds to fight the lawsuit for both technical (can't download 800MB in one day on 56kbit dial-up) and non-technical (you paid a so-called "license" fee and are protected under the covenant) reasons, but if you can't afford to fight the lawsuit, either because you can't afford to hire an attorney, or because you can't afford to take time off work to read about copyright and contract law, learn how to write motions, file them, and respond to the court, then the covenant is useless and they've screwed you into paying another "license" fee (aka settlement).

That's the problem; who's to say they won't sue you after they cash the check? I doubt that any of us would find that outside the realm of possibility. Would they sue, then offer an additional "fee" to quietly go away until they "catch" you infringing again?

The average time has gotten much better, according to my customers (I work at a contract postal unit in an area with a lot of military personnel). Germany/Europe averages 1-2 weeks for First Class and Priority, and Iraq/Afghanistan averages 2-3 weeks, though actively-moving units take longer. Parcel services run about 2-6 weeks. It slows down for the holidays but he was two weeks ahead of the recommended mailing date for parcel services.

The only time I've ever seen a package take more than two months before being delivered somewhere was when it was sent by international surface mail (deprecated) and when the sender addressed an international parcel like a domestic one (making the last line "Kampala, Uganda 43250" will trick any automated sorting machine -- and apparently the retail clerk, who charged the customer for domestic mail and printed a domestic barcode -- into sending your package to Kentucky) and it bounced between several offices for four months.

That laptop was sent well before the holiday mailing period for APO/FPO parcel service. It's been stolen, IMO, or sitting in a pile of overlooked boxes. I'd be surprised if Dell shipped by parcel services to APO/FPO, because the difference in service is just not worth the cost on something like a new computer. If they shipped by Priority, Dell should've initiated an inquiry with USPS by now, and if they shipped by Parcel Post, then shame on them.

They are running ads on the TV, saying that when the analogue TV signal gets switched off, if they haven't upgraded, then their tv set may not work properly. The key words are "may not". I think they should be saying "will not". There will be no analogue channels left, so unless they buy a STB or get a DVB capable set, then they will not get a signal. It's probably political, don't startle the proles or they may realise we're forcing them to do something that costs them money.

Any commercial that says "may not" is accurate. If you bought a TV within the past few years, chances are (at least in the US) it has a digital tuner built in. They will still work after the analog shutdown without a converter box; whether you can still pull in the same channels, however, is primarily an antenna issue. It's only people with older televisions -- purchased before the FCC practically forced manufacturers and retailers to sell TVs with digital tuners -- that need a converter box *if* they use rabbit ears.

Besides, some low-power stations in the U.S. will be permitted to transmit an analog signal past the shutoff date, so analog isn't truly going away after February.

I'm not disagreeing with you on the "freeze spending" and "cut the budget" statement. (The second option I gave was "cut other government spending.") What I'm saying is that those types of cost-cutting measures are unlikely to raise the hundreds of billions that Treasury has and will continue to give out, i.e. money that has not been "replaced" by attempting to balance it out within the budget. Given the enormous figure, it makes sense that you'd have to raise taxes on the non-wealthy if you've promised to not raise taxes on the wealthy, and the only other revenue option is rein in government spending. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with that, but we can't continue to run up the deficit.

"may actually get 60" == must run the table, and in some cases force and win a December runoff. That's a lot of cards that have to fall the Dems' way. They made an impressive push this year, but I don't see them pulling off the ultimate upset.

If you propose to make tax cuts targeting the wealthy permanent, and the government needs to raise lots of money to bail out the financial system, there are two places to get that money:

1. Raise taxes on those you didn't give tax cuts too, i.e. the lower and middle class
2. Cut other government spending

Any candidate would say he'd do the second choice, but which do you think is more likely to raise hundreds of billions of dollars quickly?