Some are better than others. Any number of commercially available off the shelf software products can do any of them. Anyone for instance, who's selling or giving away a computer that at one time held personal or confidential information would be remiss if they did not use this. In fact it's often a crime NOT to use this.

A book is not the perfect indestructible product either. Hell, maybe the eBook reader is bulletproof, unlike a book. The fact that electronic devices are fragile is not an entirely valid criticism. So are cell phones, and laptops and iPods.

Biscotti munching liberals can stare at the ceiling and ponder nice postmodern thoughts all they want. But first you have to stop people killing each other in order to make a middle class. Not the other way around.

Gravel might not be able to make the hard choices but he says the things most of you claim to believe in. So why is it he's nowhere and that crackpot anarchist Ron Paul is the President of teh Intrawebz? I think you folks just like people who talk shit.

With their cattle roaming the streets. Too bad they're not pragmatic like we are and sacrifice all to elevate pets above people. Because we're sensitive and evolved and like that.

Are probably too dimwitted to be anything but a danger to themselves. If someone tells me they don't know if they vote one party vs another come next year I hope they don't shove the ballot sharpie up their nose and hurt themself.

Well, fat white American people at any rate.

Which is a fairly important distinction. For example even with all their Zunes, I'd be amazed if Microsoft produces 5% of the dangerous waste of Sony and yet MS is second to last place.

This is standard operating procedure for all police in and around Wake county NC. One false move, one hesitation to comply and you are getting zapped, pepper sprayed, thrown on the ground and arrested, or worse. In fact, going 20 over in a work zone is an automatic arrest even if you're ghost of Robert E Lee.

I've got another treat for you. By definition, yes by the very letter of the law itself, any action that results in such a series of events automatically includes the charge of resisting arrest.

Did I mention that if you're going fast enough through a work zone it's a felony? And any charge related to that charge or that flow from it, if it's not another moving violation is ALSO considered a felony.

So - speed, and get a beat down a real beat down; bruises, black eye mouth on the pavement beat down, you get charged with 5 or 6 felonies. We also in Wake county NC happen to be graced with some of the craziest hard assed magistrates in the country so the bail charges are insane. We're talking $25,000 - $35,000 in combined bail for all these multiple charges is not uncommon. Since the state law says a bail bondsman can charge 17.5% +2% for credit cards, few people happen to have or want to have a $6,800 debt hanging over them BEFORE they hire a lawyer to get them out of these charges.

The other really funny part about local law enforcement is that we have multiple overlapping police forces. We have Raleigh PD, Raleigh PD DEA (separate organization), State Police, County Sheriff, SBI, Capital City police, Capital City BI (Capital City is the Federal police over Federal facilities), FBI, and branches of every Federal law enforcement agency including Treasury, DHS, CIA, NCIS, Army and DoE. Plus all the towns in surrounding areas have their own Police forces. There are NO functional borders among them. That is, there is no real notion of 'jurisdiction'. It's a free for all, whoever whenever wants to jack you up, that's that.

Also any crime committed on any public grounds belonging to the state of NC carries with it an automatic extra penalty of 50% more prison time and/or fines where appropriate.

But to be fair, it's really about the money. The state rarely cares if you're a dangerous driver, unless you actually kill someone and you're DUI. Then we charge you with murder. But otherwise, they just keep fining you and putting you on probation for years and years with the occasional small jail sentence. It's very lucrative for them to do so. I can remember once in court listening to a young man who was already on probation for a DUI while his license was suspended, being charged later for driving a stolen car, with a stolen gun in the car. He got a few thousand in fines and another 2 years probation (@$250/month as charges accrue).

And generally speaking the people they drag into court who can't make bail are either already pretty messed or the cops messed them up some more. No one worries about it, few notice, fewer even care.

This is what the Real America looks like.

People will have all the warmth and personality of a soda machine. So it's win-win, or at least a draw.

And get ready to spend the rest of your life in court. That's pretty much his bottomline solution to everything. We'll become a nation of people who simply move civil judgments across the table back and forth to each other. Sounds like a piss poor way to run an economy or a society. I, unable to afford millions in litigation would just start killing people and you could sue me but I'd be judgment proof.

The only thing I can think of that approaches a practical model for Ron Paul's world, is the Vikings.

They'll be lower still. See there's an upside to every calamity. As the great Viktor Frankl said when he was sent to the concentration camp "Before I lived in fear, now I lived in hope."