There is a trick to creating a AppleID account with no credit card. It does, however cost $5. First buy an iTunes gift card for $5 at the local grocery store. Next use that when you set up the account. It works great and is safe.

Health insurance works more like the extended warranty I bought on my car. To add 4 years and and an extra 40000 miles to my cars warranty, it cost me $2,000. Car insurance of the normal type is about 800 per year for my car.

I am not sure I would call the extended warranty ridiculously expensive.

The poor Elbonain farmer can then not find a market for his corn because the 1st world country dump their surplus grain on Elbonia by the shipload thereby making an effective economy impossible in their little country.

Uni-Solar made some seriously crappy cells. If the plastic membrane on those cells got a scratch (and they scratched pretty easy) the cell would bloom into a rust ball that produced no power. Also the mounting adhesive could not handle multiple heating and cooling cycles without coming apart. The warranty department also had no idea how to fix the problems.

The problem with decriminalization as opposed to legalization, is that the supply chain is still unregulated. The upper chain are still criminals and can still adulter the product in dangerous ways. The product is still sold along side of harder drugs which is the mechanism for the gateway drug argument. And drug dealers exist outside of the law so there is no reason for them to not sell to children.

++Or liter... which makes me think he's not an American at all....
oddly enough one of the only metric things to stick after the ill fated attempt at using the metric system in the 70s was the that soda is commonly sold in 1, 2 and 3 liter bottles.
I can't think of much else that stayed metric after the choice was given.

It turns out to be really hard to comunicate with stuff on the bottom of the ocean. Salt water absorbs RF like crazy at useful frequencies. ULF works but has an abysmal data rate. This means you either hang your submersible on a tether or let it go black and operate fully independently for long periods and surface to report back.
There are a ton of unmanned craft using both methods.

Part of adulthood is learning how to deal with difficult people and difficult situations. Turning violent every time you don't get your way is the way a toddler lives.

They were told it was a completely different movie called "desert warrior" and all of the anti islamic stuff was dubbed in later. All of the interviews with the folks in it that I read, nobody bitched about not being paid.

Let me tell you about what my union did for me. I am a federal employee in a large building for a large agency. I get paid well and have many fine benefits. One day some years ago a rat died in the subfloor under my desk. I called in a work order for the dead rat and not much happened. A week went by and the rat smell intensified. I asked for an update on the rat issue and was told it was in the system and awaiting a tech. Another week and it was unbearable. I spoke to my union rep, he made a few phone calls, and the next day they took apart my floor and removed the dead animal from under my cube.
This is one reason you need the union guy. All of my managers agreed that there was a problem, but they all were powerless to fix it. The union guy put on his hat with the extra bit of legal force and the problem is solved.

I read that the there was a cast/crew of 80 and that they were being paid $75 per day each (industry minimum is supposed to be $100, but sometimes you gotta eat). That gives about $6k per day or $30k per week. My educated guess is two weeks with most of the first week getting organized, and most of the second week realizing the budget was blown. My total estimate is somewhere between $75k and $100k.

The protesters need to grow the fuck up. If I am walking down the street and somebody calls me a name I don't walk over and start a fight, because I am a gwon up and that is not how grown ups live. If the islamists want to be part of the global community they need to toughen up and let shit slide.
Of course there is also the strong possibility that they do not want any part of the rest of the world.

As an engineer, I know that it is possible to get any results you want, given the right amount of money.

Some of us in the lower left corner are also blanketed in a thick marine layer. The ground is wet and it is about 60 outside.

Hold on, Maps is a poor example, I have a functional but low end Garmen GPS. Do you know where it gets its maps. It has them stored inside it. This is why it bugs me to hook it up to the internet for a map update (only $60). This is also why when I took it with me to japan it was basically a paper weight.