I'll get this off the ground by saying that in terms of the use I get out of it the 1800 watt Duxtop induction cooktop I got earlier this year is by far the most frugal purchase I made in 2012, I use it multiple times every day and it saves me both time and money on electricity on every single use.

This is one of the very few things I have bought new in quite some time and to date it was worth every penny I paid for it, this unit is so much superior in both convenience and efficiency to both my propane stove and the resistance heating cooktop I was using before that there's almost no comparison.

Even the safety aspect is greatly improved over what I had before, nothing gets hot but the pan you cook in, I've even put a piece of paper between the cooktop and the pan, fried bacon and eggs in the pan and then removed the paper unscorched and the top is only mildly warm in the middle to the touch and still cool on the outside portion.

http://www.amazon.com/1800-Watt-Portable-Induction-Countertop-8100MC/dp/B0045QEPYM

This one is truly impressive, could it be given an award of some sort?



http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2085048

What we need is Villageologists to study DC like Kremlinologists used to study the Vat.. errr the Kremlin.

Keeping up with this stuff is like looking through the latest pictures of Soviet leaders to see who's been cut out of the picture.

http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84

A Wild Ass Guess about how much it would take to make each of those schools reasonably secure against an Adam Lanza would be a million dollars each. That may sound like a lot but good security is expensive and would require considerable renovation of most schools. Renovation is more of a craft work than standard new construction and it takes more skills and tools to accomplish the job.

Also you really wouldn't want the resulting renovations to look like a prison or reform school setting, that's going to drive up the costs considerably.

That's 67 billion dollars, round it off to 70 billion and double it you get 150 billion more or less.

Now think of the budget for personnel. You're going to have high standards for anyone hired as a guard so it will be expensive, at least $70K year and bennies to drive it up closer to $100K and quite possibly over that depending on location. That's another $6.7 billion yearly just for one guard per grammar school, double that and round off to $15 billion/year.

That's a very rough estimate of the magnitude of the security problem in the grammar schools if we actually care enough about our kids to try to stop [strike]another[/strike] the next Adam Lanza.

Wouldn't be too bad an economic stimulus as well.

It's deja vu all over again y'all.

Apparently this is something that's needed more than ever here at Drama Underground, anyone else has good ideas please feel free to expound on 'em.

I'm going to start with the most basic one, address the post, the words on your display rather than the person writing the words.

"You are an idiot" will get your post hidden.

"Your post is idiotic" won't.

"Your post sounds like it was written by an idiot" shouldn't but might.

I've had one post hidden on DU3 and that was sarcasm I thought was far enough over the top no one would remotely think I was serious.

Bzzzt.. Wrong.

Sarcasm and satire are a subtle art form, don't transfer well to text based format and are best left to experts. If you are not sure you're an expert, stick a label on sarcasm or satire, if you want to you can scroll down some before you put the sarcasm smiley.

Hope this helps.

Apparently this is something that's needed more than ever here at Drama Underground, anyone else has good ideas please feel free to expound on 'em.

I'm going to start with the most basic one, address the post, the words on your display rather than the person writing the words.

"You are an idiot" will get your post hidden.

"Your post is idiotic" won't.

"Your post sounds like it was written by an idiot" shouldn't but might.

I've had one post hidden on DU3 and that was sarcasm I thought was far enough over the top no one would remotely think I was serious.

Bzzzt.. Wrong.

Sarcasm and satire are a subtle art form, don't transfer well to text based format and are best left to experts. If you are not sure you're an expert, stick a label on sarcasm or satire, if you want to you can scroll down some before you put the satire smiley.

Hope this helps.

Are you happy now that the conversation is shifting back to the "fiscal cliff"?