Certain rights are granted. For example, copyright.

Of course you could argue that it should really be called copyprivilege...

DVD burning types have known this for years. Burning a full DVD over a USB2 connection? Better not go higher than 12X, if you want to avoid underruns.

Just about every state has a state rock, mineral, or gemstone.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_minerals,_rocks,_stones_and_gemstones

You seem to think that because a school is private (and especially because it's expensive), that it must be immune from such stupidity. This is not so.

The proper course of action upon seeing your computer infected with viruses is not to throw the computer away and buy a more expensive one. The proper course is to clean up the machine. Similarly, the proper course of action upon seeing stupidity like "zero tolerance" rules and such infecting your public schools is not to abandon the concept of public schools, it's to fix the public schools.

Remember, they're yours and you're paying for them. Get out there and give voice to your ideas, and fight the stupid ideas. Go to school board meetings. Vote. Participate in campaigns. Running away is not the solution.

Spot on.

I was party to a class-action lawsuit against a former employer. Long story short, I ended up with a check for over $500, and didn't have to lift a finger.

But yeah, class-action lawsuits are totally worthless, right?

All this is giving me serious schizophrenic affects.

You're my hero for today. Fight the good fight!

Actually, this constitutes gender discrimination, twice over. It's saying men are not allowed to do something women can do: marry a man. And women are not allowed to do something men can do: marry a woman.

Fertility rates are primary inversely dependent on the empowerment of women. If you want to avoid a Malthusian disaster, give women education, a voice in the public sphere, and the power to decide their own reproductive course.

This is why it makes me sad to see PBS sliding into being almost just-another-commercial-outlet. Remember when underwriting acknowledgments at the top of the show were a textual/voiceover mention of the company, and not a whole ad-like video segment? And when no PBS station would be caught dead airing show-length commercials and pretending they're shows?

I'd be interested to see how the "minutemen" and other anti-brown-people groups would react to knowing that their ability to have untrackable phones is owed to those same targets of their rage...

You may be describing behavior on the right, but I have yet to see, for example, a pro-choice group give Ben Nelson a pass because he has a (D) after his name.

I don't suppose there's any possibility that they might attempt to prevent the occurrence of gravely ill children by giving them some damn care before they reach nigh-irreversible crisis stage? Like they love to not do now?

Nah, you're right, caring for children is a losing proposition, so fuck 'em.