You left off the largest component of the cost of medications: marketing.

That's comedy gold, right there!

Unless, of course, you happen to have this form of blindness without being a multimillionaire. Then, it's just an insult.

That's not "fixing it" so much as "breaking it" unless you have some sort of actual proof that the FCC acted illegally.

Pai is a liar, so what he says means little. This is a case in point -- he says this like it's a good reason to get rid of NN rules, even though he could easily keep them in place until such legislation is passed.

He doesn't give a shit about process or what's best for the American people. What he cares about is giving a huge gift to the major telecoms.

The majority of butts-in-seats may very well be those who see a movie once per month or less. I couldn't find numbers about that specifically, but the numbers that are readily available seem to indicate this is a strong possibility.

Well, the punch cards were always a terrible idea and remain so. And you're right that there is no perfectly secure method. That said, there are two things that make the electronic systems worse: they're easier to subvert (more points of potential failure), and if subverted, it's easier to make it unnoticeable and/or impossible to prove tampering.

Yes, that's still a point of potential failure. But at least paper ballots reduce the number of points of potential failure.

It makes election tampering more difficult to pull off.

Electronic voting systems guarantee that it's impossible to actually trust the results of elections.

Yes, they exist. No, they have almost no chance of ever winning (no matter how qualified their candidates). This because of institutional rules that the two main parties maintain for this reason.

You misunderstood what I wrote. I said that it wasn't because the one I voted for didn't win.

True, they are there. But they may as well not be, as I said before. Their technical presence is required to maintain the illusion of choice, but it's just an illusion.

No, it leads us back to changing the system to make third (and fourth, and fifth, etc.) parties actually viable.

Although, since you keep saying this, I should point out -- a "none of the above" option is something to consider. It wouldn't address the issue I have with US elections, but it would be at least something. But if "none of the above" wins, that doesn't mean the office remains vacant. It means that the election needs to be held again.

That's not my point. My point is simply that a two-party system is deeply flawed, in that you must choose between option A and option B even when neither option is acceptable.

Take the last election, for instance. I had no voice not because my preferred candidate didn't win, but because there was no viable candidate that I was OK with. That's the two-party system in action.

Yes, swatting should be a felony (I'm surprised that it's not!)

However, in the case of SWauTistic, the charge should be negligent homicide.

"Managerial differences", like "wanting to spend more time with family", are the "acceptable" reasons to give for leaving when the real reason is extremely unflattering to someone (usually, but not always, the employer).

They are code phrases, nothing more.

I have little hope for 2018. Tech advances aren't going to solve the major issues we have, and the increasing prevalence of things like Big Data are likely to make them even worse.

The Las Vegas monorail is largely pointless. Most people on the strip want to walk on the strip, not bypass it on a stupid train.