Cellphone driving bans of one type or another are present in most developed countries. http://www.cellular-news.com/car_bans/.

You are right, although researchers in the USA were amongst the first to document the danger of cellphone usage whilst driving, the USA is a relative late-comer in banning its occurrence, no doubt due to the usual "my voters don't care what science says" attitude of US politicians.

The even easier answer is just to ignore idiotic security guards talking out their backside, claiming they have legal powers that they do not.

No philosophical discussions about the role of government in society required.

"I'd venture to say the typical "climate denier" is more often denying that humanity is in control of the climate"
Only once their denials of any climate change even occurring have been proven wrong.

Making a massive leap of faith based on highly dubious doctrines and then refusing to acknowledge the proven falsities is fundamentally anti-science. Whereas reducing God simply to a "force which sparked the big bang" is fundamentally anti-religion.

"Both IE9 and Chrome are now FAR better browsers than Firefox 4/5/6."

That's a pretty subjective assertion. If you like those browsers better, good for you, use one of them.

In terms of resource usage though, at least Firefox (and Opera for that matter) actually reports it's resource usage readily rather than hiding half of it in worker threads like Chrome and IE do.

So you live in Manhattan and say it's a "scam" that trucks can't park outside your building?!? WTF, you are living in Manhattan FFS!

Why live in the most densely populated area of the country and then expect a service suited for areas of low population density? It's a pay-off you make for being surrounded by restaurants, bars, employment and everything else. What's more, even within Manhattan, if people being able to park right outside your building is really so important to you, simply live in a building with facilities for parking!

It's not a scam, it's plainly clear. You park where you aren't allowed to park you pay fine. You break basic road laws, you pay fine.

If you don't like it go to one of the many failed states of the world where laws aren't upheld.

Unfortunately, when opinion and reality conflict, most people choose their opinion over reality. http://www.motorists.org/red-light-cameras/

LOL. The link to such a blatantly partisan website is to prove this statement correct, right?

LOL, my thoughts exactly.

Someone using an iPad at a restaurant, is categorically NOT a techie on 2 counts.

But there never was any evidence from the emails of a cover-up, there was just politically motivated loud mouths screaming "conspiracy, conspiracy" until some people believed them. Most of the key data was already publicly available, but some wasn't released due to contractual reasons. Not that the accusers were clamoring to use the data, few would have the slightest clue what to do with it.

It's the same old usual story, clueless politically motivated people like politicians shout the loudest and so get listened to more than the scientists and people who actually know what they are talking about.

Or, even more probable, both are correct. Throughout history species have taken advantage of changes in regional climate (and in particular its effects on other fauna and flora) to expand into new localities.

In the ocean, even a slight change in temperature can cause massive changes in algae and hence crustacean populations, as has been much documented. However if you RTFA the direct reason for their return seems to be the now regular summer thawing of the North West Sea Passage, which is seen as evidence of climate change.

"They're superior in every respect"

In terms of present day speed and not requiring connecting infrastructure they're superior, but that's about it. On the other hand they require more infrastructure at each end, have far increased per-passenger-mile fuel costs (increasing exponentially unless you pack people in like sardines) and are more susceptible to service disruptions from factors like weather. Unlike airports, train stations can be put right in the center of cities, even underground as they have done in many places in Europe.

Logically, high speed rail just make more sense for high-demand intercity routes. Airplanes use most their energy traveling perpendicular to the desired direction of travel (i.e. getting up to 33,000 ft). As technology develops and you create increasingly ideal conditions at ground level (ultimately this means Maglev inside vacuum tunnels) the result is going to be inherently superior to transportation requiring a costly and uncomfortable vertical dogleg.

The USA ruled the second half of the 20th century because unlike others, we had taken the plunge and invested in 20th century infrastructure (interstate highways, airports) whilst most the world was stuck with 19th century infrastructure. Now, whilst our politicians procrastinate, China are investing in 21st century technology, whilst we are stuck with 20th century technology. The result is obvious.

Oil has double in price over the past decade. All indications are we will be lucky if it only doubles in price over the next decade, as costs and demand both rise. In thirty years time these infrastructure projects will be worth their weight in gold (as ours from the 50s/60s proved 30 years later) whilst countries like ours will become less and less competitive as fewer and fewer can afford to utilize our inefficient, oil-dependent 20th century infrastructure.

That's exactly my point. The "plan" is to use a nice underground multi-story carpark. Until bean counters decry it's cheaper to just tarmac over everything which has no direct commercial value.

Hopefully Apple can get it right.

Looks very nice with the stunning scenery of a forest. Really brings out the building. As we all know though, in reality the scenery of such designs usually gets switched from the beautiful parklands, lakes or forest in to a giant car park with a tree and a puddle in the corner.

It's the surroundings which make a good building into an amazing design, and it's the surroundings which most often fail new builds.

Hopefully Apple can get it right.