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I think by "kid" he meant non-adult. If you want to make 17-year olds full adults, fine, just make sure to lower the voting age, the age of consent, etc.

"Kid" isn't a legal term and it implies more than just "under 18." Another example would be the word "baby" which also applies to people under 18 and implies more than just "under 18"... and calling Trayvon Martin a baby since he's under 18 would be retarded right?

Not to mention the age of consent is already lower in many places -- though it depends what kind of consent you're talking about.

As for "gold teeth"... For starters, my mother had gold teeth and fillings. It's superior to standard dental amalgam. Does that make my mother a thug?

By itself, no.. and yes, when I posted my very short description of Trayvon Martin, I only included a few details. I'm not going to give a 1000 word description outlining his thuggish appearance when someone can do a quick image search. If someone said "Huh he had gold teeth, but my mom had gold teeth and she wasn't a thug, let me see what he really looked like" and then did a search and looked at the pics would say "Oh, yeah, I get it, he's a thug." So I really don't think I was distorting anything.

I mean really, what are you trying to argue? We're not talking in a vacuum here, we've both seen pics of Trayvon Martin (here, I did an image search for you) and we both know he looks like a thug. Everybody reading this thread knows he looked like a thug. I think you're being critical for no reason.

I don't know if you're just ignorant, or if you're actively false. It looks like what you're trying to do there is dehumanize a person by making them up into a stereotype.

That's ridiculous -- again, look at the pics of the older Trayvon Martin. If you think I'm stereotyping him based on his name or race or something, that's just utterly stupid. Given how he posed for the pictures found on his own cellphone, if anybody was stereotyping Trayvon Martin -- it was himself! He wanted to look like a stereotypical thug, and he did. And I then said he looked like a thug. Mission accomplished, Trayvon.

But there's plenty of legal precedent for people going to jail for manslaughter and, if everything Zimmerman has said is 100% true, he's definitely guilty of manslaughter.

If everything Zimmerman said is true then he acted in self defense and wouldn't be guilty of manslaughter. Otherwise I agree that the state should have pursued manslaughter charges, not murder. It would be a much more realistic case.

Of course now they've thrown on the charge of "child abuse" which is similarly ridiculous.

Which part is not true? That the wealthy pay lower tax rates than the poor? Warren Buffet disagrees. Of course, there's some argument that Buffett is misleading us since his secretary might make more than the average secretary. However, it's safe to assume that she makes less than Warren himself. The fact that Buffett's tax burden is proportionally lower than his secretary's (which nobody is arguing is a false statement) is clear, inarguable proof that our tax code is (or at least has the potential to be) regressive. That capital gains tax used to be lower in the past has no bearing on this fact. That children and cripples don't pay income tax has no bearing on this fact. That Social Security withholding is also regressive has no bearing on this fact.

But speaking of falsehoods... Sure, half of people don't pay any income tax. This includes children, the disabled, the elderly, those on unemployment. Does it also include the working poor? The last time I worked a full time minimum wage job, less than a decade ago, I paid income tax. I paid federal and state income tax. I was making the minimum wage allowed by law. And yet I paid income tax. Explain to me how that is possible. Are you suggesting that about half of people are being paid less than minimum wage? Are you suggesting that about half of people make more than I was but were saddled with a lower tax rate? Are you suggesting that my accountant, TurboTax, somehow failed me, but somehow gets these great deals on taxes for everyone else?

Take a look at the Guardian (US version);

http://www.guardiannews.com/

Then take a look at RT News:

http://rt.com/

Then take a look at CNN:

http://www.cnn.com/

Or even the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/

Notice a pattern? Apparently, the Zimmerman trial is all we Americans care about. The media is as complicit as Microsoft, et al. I start with the foreign news outlets, then head to CNN and other mainstream US media for comparison--what is missing from mainstream US media is the real news.

I fully expect "Cold Fjord" to be spewing his disinformation--with earnest--after the latest Prism revelations. If Microsoft is fucked, so is the NSA.

Sounds good to me

I would argue that "monopoly power" is the ability of *one* player to reset the price above the what would normally be a market price. Since the deal Apple brokered among publishers raised the cost of ebooks across all platforms, the term should apply here.

I disagree. In this market, you had en extremely dominant player with 80-90% market share selling products at a loss. One of the benefits of this was extending and maintaining the market share of the Kindle eco system, thus raising the barrier to entry to the market. Another was to train customers into a certain price range. Combining these, it is likely that they could later impose these prices on the suppliers.

Apple entering this unstable market gave the unhappy suppliers an option, which they took advantage of. A new player entering a previously almost monopolized market, and still being a by far smaller player - Kindle still has 50-60% of the market - and being hit by anti-trust laws sounds strange to me. Sure, they probably guessed that prices would increase but that was caused by the intrinsics of this specific market with the 800 lb gorilla selling at a loss. While I think Apple's MFN tactic should be disallowed - at least as far as MFN being applied to the customer price, rather that what Apple would be paying - Amazon also had MFNs in their contracts.

I would argue that "monopoly power" is the ability of *one* player to reset the price above the what would normally be a market price. Since the deal Apple brokered among publishers raised the cost of ebooks across all platforms, the term should apply here.

I disagree. In this market, you had en extremely dominant player with 80-90% market share selling products at a loss. One of the benefits of this was extending and maintaining the market share of the Kindle eco system, thus raising the barrier to entry to the market. Another was to train customers into a certain price range. Combining these, it is likely that they could later impose these prices on the suppliers.

Apple entering this unstable market gave the unhappy suppliers an option, which they took advantage of. A new player entering a previously almost monopolized market, and still being a by far smaller player - Kindle still has 50-60% of the market - and being hit by anti-trust laws sounds strange to me. Sure, they probably guessed that prices would increase but that was caused by the intrinsics of this specific market with the 800 lb gorilla selling at a loss. While I think Apple's MFN tactic should be disallowed - at least as far as MFN being applied to the customer price, rather that what Apple would be paying - Amazon also had MFNs in their contracts.

I would argue that "monopoly power" is the ability of *one* player to reset the price above the what would normally be a market price. Since the deal Apple brokered among publishers raised the cost of ebooks across all platforms, the term should apply here.

I disagree. In this market, you had en extremely dominant player with 80-90% market share selling products at a loss. One of the benefits of this was extending and maintaining the market share of the Kindle eco system, thus raising the barrier to entry to the market. Another was to train customers into a certain price range. Combining these, it is likely that they could later impose these prices on the suppliers.

Apple entering this unstable market gave the unhappy suppliers an option, which they took advantage of. A new player entering a previously almost monopolized market, and still being a by far smaller player - Kindle still has 50-60% of the market - and being hit by anti-trust laws sounds strange to me. Sure, they probably guessed that prices would increase but that was caused by the intrinsics of this specific market with the 800 lb gorilla selling at a loss. While I think Apple's MFN tactic should be disallowed - at least as far as MFN being applied to the customer price, rather that what Apple would be paying - Amazon also had MFNs in their contracts.

don't forget this one - the standard / metric measurement confusion which caused the crash of the NASA Mars orbiter http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric/

It looks like this has hit the press in a large way, which is why nearly every major technology site is covering it:

New York Times

CNN

Reuters

BBC

The end result of this decision should be to allow Amazon to continue selling ebooks at below cost if it wants to.

"A former Navy SEAL known for claiming a record number of sniper killings in Iraq was one of two men shot dead at a Texas gun range, allegedly at the hands of a fellow military veteran, officials say."

I think you'll find the U.S. Military is actually really good about gun safety...

Just don't get the hiccups...

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Thomas Jefferson was an American revolutionary. While you seem very keen on spilling the blood of patriots and tyrants, you aren't really addressing the real issue. In fact, as far as I recall you just completely ignore or try to assume it away every time it comes up. The problem involves this lot, and their brethren:

At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
Muslim Gangs Enforce Sharia Law in London

They have been actively plotting attacks, and used other means as well, to try to force their way of life on ordinary Britons. There have been many arrests and convictions in the UK as a result. A sample:

Bomb plot: Life sentence for Irfan Naseer, ringleader of Birmingham men planning wave of UK suicide attacks
London terror bomb plot: the four terrorists
7/7 London Attacks

Some of those cretins are quite willing to spill not just the blood of patriots and tyrants, but the blood of innocents as well. This has been amply demonstrated in Russia, Afghanistan, and other places.

Russia school siege toll tops 350
Acid attacks, poison: What Afghan girls risk by going to school

Although you may think it wrong, the surveillance by GCHQ is a meaningful part of the security services efforts to protect ordinary Britons. You don't offer anything to replace it.

Waving your hands and saying no system is perfect isn't helpful. Polemics against the monarchy in a story on the UK are misplaced, and overthrowing the monarchy does nothing to protect Britons. What would you do to replace the surveillance to keep British subjects from harm? If your answer is something along the lines of, "Don't cause offense to the rest of the world. Pull back into a shell." then you have just demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the problem. The ideology of the extremists is an aggressive one; they mean to take over the world even if it takes 1,000 years. So we come to the question again: what would you do to prevent British schools and football stadiums from being drenched in blood, besides advocating the overthrow of the monarchy, which is in no way helpful at all?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Thomas Jefferson was an American revolutionary. While you seem very keen on spilling the blood of patriots and tyrants, you aren't really addressing the real issue. In fact, as far as I recall you just completely ignore or try to assume it away every time it comes up. The problem involves this lot, and their brethren:

At Least 4,000 Suspected of Terrorism-Related Activity in Britain, MI5 Director Says
Muslim Gangs Enforce Sharia Law in London

They have been actively plotting attacks, and used other means as well, to try to force their way of life on ordinary Britons. There have been many arrests and convictions in the UK as a result. A sample:

Bomb plot: Life sentence for Irfan Naseer, ringleader of Birmingham men planning wave of UK suicide attacks
London terror bomb plot: the four terrorists
7/7 London Attacks

Some of those cretins are quite willing to spill not just the blood of patriots and tyrants, but the blood of innocents as well. This has been amply demonstrated in Russia, Afghanistan, and other places.

Russia school siege toll tops 350
Acid attacks, poison: What Afghan girls risk by going to school

Although you may think it wrong, the surveillance by GCHQ is a meaningful part of the security services efforts to protect ordinary Britons. You don't offer anything to replace it.

Waving your hands and saying no system is perfect isn't helpful. Polemics against the monarchy in a story on the UK are misplaced, and overthrowing the monarchy does nothing to protect Britons. What would you do to replace the surveillance to keep British subjects from harm? If your answer is something along the lines of, "Don't cause offense to the rest of the world. Pull back into a shell." then you have just demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the problem. The ideology of the extremists is an aggressive one; they mean to take over the world even if it takes 1,000 years. So we come to the question again: what would you do to prevent British schools and football stadiums from being drenched in blood, besides advocating the overthrow of the monarchy, which is in no way helpful at all?

I won't speculate on your motives for making such easily disproven claim about Snowden's character.

Snowden to newspaper: I took contractor job to gather evidence

That would be Edward Snowden, the man who took a contractor job under false pretenses to steal what top secret classified information he could in 90 days. He then fled the United States for a city in the People's Republic of China, after which he fled to Russia due to an extradition request. Since his flight he has been dispensing classified information that has resulted in the compromise of secret intelligence programs and strained diplomatic relationships among multiple allied countries. He is currently under the protection of Russia's President Putin, a former career KGB officer, while he awaits the results of his applications for asylum. So far it appears he has three countries willing to offer him asylum, all are Latin American countries with an ideological disposition hostile to the US. The disposition of Snowden's four laptops of top secret data is unknown. The final damage toll of Snowden's actions will not be known for some time as he continues to leak information and terrorists groups are altering their communication methods in light of Snowden's leaks.

Despite applying to at least 20 countries for refuge to avoid U.S. prosecutors, Snowden’s choices now seem to boil down to a "trifecta" offer of asylum by three leftist and vocally anti-Washington, Latin American nations: Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia. And maybe also Iceland. -- more

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/02/08/us/superdome-power-outage anyone? Did civilization end?

Just to clue you in on another obvious fact, for those of you who may have somehow missed this too: Mossad has been assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists (with the CIA's full cooperation).

Further proof that Slashdot has gone completely to the dogs; vindication. There was no "auto landing". It was pilot error. It was the exact scenario I posted earlier... and I get modded down while the trolls and shit heads take +5s...

Let me ask you this, are you more afraid of government workers, who have had extensive background investigations and have a lot to lose if we ever do something stupid and lose our clearance, or a guy making $15/hr at AT&T?

There is a very important difference between private surveillance and government surveillance. First, real surveillance is expensive and time consuming. At some point you have to switch from computer programs to actual human beings. That costs money. Aside from possible blackmail there just isn't that much profit in it. I can hardly imagine the kind of storage requirements PRISM has. Even with hundreds of thousands or even millions of 4 TB hard drives and superb text compression and decent voice compression, storing every communication in the entire world is just beyond imagining. AT&T might have the money to do it, but they just don't have the motivation. That isn't to say that they might not try to sell as much info about us as they can to advertisers but generally the only result of that is some additional targeted advertising, not being thrown in jail or put on a no fly list or terrorist watch list. Corporations do have power, too much power IMO, but they don't have the power to throw you in jail or send you to gitmo or lock you up in a cage for the rest of your life.

I agree with everything you said. The difference between the US and a police state like this is the NSA (and prolly CIA) makes us go through a lot of ethics classes every year to drive home the legal ramifications of our powers. Every time a phone is tapped, that operator's next 3-5 supervisors are notified. The systems we use are set up for extensive logging and notifications so in the case some idiot wants to stalk his ex girlfriend, he will be in jail by lunchtime.

If you were me, would you believe you? What you are describing sounds more like the way I would expect law enforcement like local police or the FBI to do things. First you have a suspect. Someone you suspect of having committed a specific crime. Only then do you start putting them under surveillance. I don't think most of us have a problem with that. Particularly if they have to get a warrant from a judge in order to do it.

That isn't the picture that I am getting from Snowden's revelations. The kind of picture that many of us are starting to get is of an almost unimaginably large fishing expedition hoping to find criminals before they actually commit a crime. Blanket surveillance of all communications on the planet. The US being just one part of that. Of course speech has also been criminalized in the U.S. Saying certain things, even as an obvious joke, now lands you in prison. That is new and quite scary.

The bottom line is that some of us don't believe that any good is worth monitoring communications from everyone on the planet or even just everyone in the US. We don't care whether it makes us safer or not. Or whether it helps catch some genuinely bad people or save the lives of innocent people. It simply is not worth it. And government programs, especially secret ones, don't tend to shrink. Like all government they have a tendency to grow at least until they run out of money.

Terrorism simply is not a serious problem in the US. Or nowadays really anywhere except maybe Israel. The so called War on Terror is not worth the money spent on it. It's not worth the loss of civil liberties. It's not worth the innocent people who will inevitably be targeted and whose lives may be destroyed because of it. It is not worth sacrificing what was once the freest country in the world in order to defeat a boogeyman that can barely even be said to exist.

"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed," bin Laden said as the U.S. war on terrorism raged in Afghanistan. "The U.S. government will lead the American people -- and the West in general -- into an unbearable hell and a choking life."

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/01/31/gen.binladen.interview/

Source: CNN

That is why you are wrong.

I am a pilot. You're wrong.

I'm the airplane. you're wrong.

"Airport technology called the Instrument Landing System, or ILS -- which normally would help pilots correctly approach the runway -- was not operating at the time, "

Source: CNN

Yet, when the government started wiretapping citizens years ago due to "national security" reasons, there was no such uproar. Sure, there were a few people that wanted the president impeached, but there was no real support for it.

Yes, and there is a reason for that. The Federal government keeps arresting people like this:

With Nidal Hasan bombshell, time to call Fort Hood shooting a terror attack?
Maryland man sentenced to 25 years for plot to bomb military recruiting center
Feds Arrest Somali Teen in Oregon Bomb Plot
Times Square car bomb: Pakistani Taliban 'claims responsibility'

They aren't arresting political dissidents, they're arresting would-be or actual terrorists. They've arrested and convicted hundreds of them. For some reason many people on Slashdot keep waving their hands and speaking the incantations to banish them from discussion. "There are no terrorists. There is no reason for that sort of investigation."

What makes this even more ridiculous is that there appears to be no small overlap in the people objecting to the US government engaging in anti-terrorism investigations by saying the US government can't be trusted while also condemning the US for not having government run healthcare. Apparently you're not supposed to trust the government to keep you alive by preventing you from being blown up or poisoned by terrorists, but you can trust the government with all your medical records, and to keep you alive by cutting open your body to move things around and take things out, or saw off limbs, or pump you full of chemicals and irradiate you, all subject to this years healthcare budget, all the while having access to your financial records through the tax system, and inspecting the food supply to keep you from being poisoned. Anyone that thinks that the medical system can't be used as a tool of oppression clearly has no idea about what various communist regimes have done.

That goes against 10 years of reveled wisdom on Slashdot. You know, "Bush lied..."

Bad example to hang your hat on since it's been well established that Bush et al regularly ignored the intelligence that contradicted their preferred narrative.

Worth the trouble? You should weight how much it costs you privacy vs what could cost you don't worry about it, but unfortunately, english is a bad language to realize how important the future is.

How it could affect you? You can check what have the FBI/NSA about you. You can see precedents of what NSA did with private information (if that the respect that soldiers in the battlefield deserve, good luck about you). You can see the starting trend of misusing information and how it could impact you in the future.

I think that the widespread perception of the danger is not enough... yet. But as jailing/killing the people that could inform you about the real situation is the new normal, you probably won't be aware of why you should had done it before until it hits you. Or won't have the chance, as the next salvo probably will be outlawing consumer encryption (it already started). Some of the things that you can do could be complex or cumbersome to do, but you can start progressively with this tools, taking the path of least resistance, it will protect you not just from the NSA, but from other evil people and organizations too.

He could always board one of these.

Russia and Venezuela have excellent relations, and can no doubt mount a joint operation to make him reach the country safely.

While personally I view Bitcoins as a great experiment, first step out of many that will be taken that will in fact free the individuals from the oppression of governments by giving many viable, easy to use and very attractive alternatives to all of the things that governments have usurped to themselves as monopoly power, there is currently something else that is happening with Bitcoins.

Winklevoss twins are trying to get out of their gigantic position without crashing the market, they want to make tens of millions of dollars by selling a million or so Bitcoins by offering them via an ETF.

This is one thing that would separate the complete financial nubes from the rest: participating in this ETF.

There is not a single reason to buy ETFs if you want to bet on Bitcoins, all you need to do is buy Bitcoins themselves. An ETF makes sense when it is based around a commodity for example that has other costs associated with it, like cost of warehousing something. Say you want to buy coffee beans, you want 10 tons of them because you think the conditions are good for the prices to go up and you are going to make some money, but you don't want to store 10 tons of coffee beans and you don't want to pay various delivery fees, taxes maybe, etc. So then you can buy an ETF.

There is no such problem with Bitcoins, you store them in a file, the cost is already amortised into you owning a computer and an Internet connection and spending some time learning and installing some Bitcoin software. There is no reason for an ETF like that to exist but for the founders of it to get rid of their large position while trying to prevent market from collapsing in a short time period if they set a large sell order. So instead they create an ETF and have a pool of people buy the Bitcoins from them, it's all in that pool, outside of the rest of the market, that's their idea.

DO NOT FALL FOR IT, it's a stupid thing to do in case of Bitcoins.

The NSA is wiping their ass with the U.S. Constitution again.

A recent article in CNN outlines why there is little in the US Media regarding Eric Snowden and the NSA Prism program--the NSA is literally threatening journalists with prosecution for espionage for doing their jobs.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/03/opinion/snepp-journalists-espionage/index.html?hpt=us_mid

We are sliding down that slippery slope fast, folks. I honestly feel the next few months will determine whether or not our Constitution remains viable as a means to protect basic human rights. Help the press help us--tell as many people as you can about this article and the serious repercussions the article outlines. These are not potential repercussions--this is happening folks. A near-complete lack of articles in main-stream media about the Prism program and Snowden is all the evidence I need to come to that conclusion.

You know 2 years ago, when Bin Laden got killed, people were complaining that in Pakistan, their intelligence agency runs the whole country. Look at what's happening now!

Do you have proof to back up that claim or just conjecture?

Why yes, yes I do.

Snowden to newspaper: I took contractor job to gather evidence

The U.S. got caught because they were greedy for data and careless with it" still stands.

That is nonsense. The NSA wasn't careless or "greedy," any organization can be betrayed by a spy. Snowden took the job with the intent of stealing secret information. He has made only part of it public. The question remains - what will he do with the rest? Sell it to the highest bidder? Use it to exchange for a new life in another country?

EU countries are very active in the spy business, and some of them have global reach. Others, mainly regional.

Is not like you won't end in jail for a sarcastic comment, or get expelled over a joke, it will work in the other way, seeing sarcams where they aren't and getting you anyway. And getting this mess in your private mail, where you usually joke and don't care a lot about potential readings of what you say, because, well, you don't have anything to hide, will make life interesting in the next years.

The NSA is wiping their ass with the U.S. Constitution again.

A recent article in CNN outlines why there is little in the US Media regarding Eric Snowden and the NSA Prism program--the NSA is literally threatening journalists with prosecution for espionage for doing their jobs.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/03/opinion/snepp-journalists-espionage/index.html?hpt=us_mid

We are sliding down that slippery slope fast, folks. I honestly feel the next few months will determine whether or not our Constitution remains viable as a means to protect basic human rights. Help the press help us--tell as many people as you can about this article and the serious repercussions the article outlines. These are not potential repercussions--this is happening folks. A near-complete lack of articles in main-stream media about the Prism program and Snowden is all the evidence I need to come to that conclusion.

Well said, plus, state actors have other tools at their disposal. Why go with a one off and rather expensive gun... when you can poison someone with polonium 210, or with ricen and an umbrella, or just a group of assassins.

Government actors like to get away with what they did and with minimal traces... individuals are not always as caring... which brings us to another aspect, to quote Without Fail by Lee Child::

"John Malkovich was looking to take out the President of the United States, and Edward Fox was looking to take out the President of France. Two competent assassins, working solo. But there was a fundamental difference between them. John Malkovich knew all along he wasn't going to survive the mission. He knew he'd die a second after the President. But Edward Fox aimed to get away with it."

A government intelligence agency isn't worried about making a single shot weapon when they have better tools at their disposal... while some nut who wants to take someone down and themselves along with them... it's a good enough weapon to take a shot with.

The issue is and always will be... not detecting the weapon, but detecting the person who wishes to use it. Finding the weapon only removes one item from the intended assassins potential arsenal.

Flawed they may be but the poit is to set the ground rules so people know what to do and have something to look to when things get crazy and emotion runs high. Frankly I agree with the parent, the fact that Egypt can't ride it out until the next election and then replace Morsi having learned a lesson about electing theocrats, suggests to me the nation is unlikely to develop the spine it takes to have a democracy and keep it .

More likely they realized that if they didn't act soon, they wouldn't be able to act at all.
Read the excellent post on CNN from Chariman of the History department in Cairo. He viewed Morsy as his President, he really tried.

Quoting:

The Brotherhoodization policy has gone way beyond what is normally expected in any healthy transitional process. In addition to the provincial governors -- who are gradually being replaced by Brotherhood members -- the Police Academy is reportedly being infiltrated by members of the clandestine organization. Within the Ministry of Education, replacements have reached the level of school principals. And the new Minister of Culture has replaced the head of the Cairo Opera House, dismissed the head of the Cairo Ballet Company, the head of the Egyptian Book Authority (the largest government publishing house) , and the director of the National Library and the National Archives. The new appointees have no credentials except being members or sympathizers of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Its quite telling for an Islamic Majority Nation to step back from the Islamification of everyday life. Far from not "riding it out", waiting for an election that would in all likelihood never happen, they demanded Morsy's ouster, and set about bringing to fulfillment the revolution that was hijacked by Islam.

Even in the US, the Declaration of Independence wasn't followed immediately by the Constitution. We had the failed Articles of Confederation, which was barely sufficient to see us through the War of Independence, but couldn't govern the nation in times of Peace. The major difference is our War was so long (9 years) and so brutal that any remaining disagreement wasn't about the political ideology, but rather the apparatus.

That seems to be the view echoed in this extensive post on CNN by a History professor in Cairo which interesting reading, but probably too long for the average slashdot-er.
TL:DR: he held his nose but hoped for the best when Morsy became President, but simply couldn't stand the "'Brotherhoodization" of the government. The Muslim Brotherhood had systematically replaced every level of government right down to School Principals with unqualified followers.

I'd been watching the stream for hours when cheering an fireworks broke out, and upon looking to Twitter found that the Army had replaced the Muslim Brotherhood leadership with a representative of the Supreme Court. Every military chopper that went overhead was also loudly cheered. Contrary to how CNN is presenting this, it is clearly a popular turn of events.

Egypt may have stepped back from the brink of becoming yet another Islamic Religious Dictatorship.

Here's an example of an App maker who you think feels "entitled" to the app store.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/11/26/apple-bans-android-magazine-app/

I am sure you think it's fine for Apple to reject that app or any other app just because....and because $$$

I don't. That's the difference between us.

5 painful health-care lessons from Massachusetts - June 16, 2010
Massachusetts struggles to rein in health care costs - Apr 30, 2011

It’s a serious problem: Massachusetts boasts that 98 percent of its residents have health insurance, but the state is stricken by the highest health care costs in the country.

Danger ahead? Massachusetts health costs are rising – fast. - February 9, 2013
Massachusetts health care costs out of control as ObamaCare provision hits small business - Mar 4, 2013

Then when the lie is outed, you try to soften it some by saying it was a mistake, an erroor, or I misspoke.

Don't overlook the other responses like one of the authors of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner's response:

As the author of the Patriot Act, I am extremely troubled by the FBI’s interpretation of this legislation. While I believe the Patriot Act appropriately balanced national security concerns and civil rights, I have always worried about potential abuses. The Bureau’s broad application for phone records was made under the so-called business records provision of the Act. I do not believe the broadly drafted FISA order is consistent with the requirements of the Patriot Act. Seizing phone records of millions of innocent people is excessive and un-American.

Oh, so now instead of taking responsibility as the author of that which has threatened your constituents it's the fault of those who interpreted the law incorrectly. Surely, then, you will go after those who interpreted the law incorrectly for breaking the spirit of the law? No? You don't say ...

Or perhaps you'd like to hear George W. Bush's take on his responsibility for his administration allowing the Patriot Act to be passed:

Asked about an NSA program that tracks people's Internet activity, Bush said, "I put that program in place to protect the country. One of the certainties was that civil liberties were guaranteed."

So, we have another slam dunk certainty that civil liberties were guaranteed and as long as you keep saying that, it's true in your own little reality that no one else shares with you! Thank god those were guaranteed, right? RIGHT?

If you are right of center than Big Government is out to make your lives worse. If your are left of center then it is those Corporations that are out to make your lives worse.

... And the extremists on both sides see the ever-increasing collusion between the two as the real culprit. There's still competition between corporations, but it's competition for influencing the right politicians or bureaucrats, instead of being better at serving customers.

Jeff Immelt has become very adept in this environment. Far from being vilified and sanctioned for the massive migration of GE jobs overseas, he actually has Obama going to foreign countries promising billions of dollars for infrastructure investments, of which the vast majority, of course, will not only go into GE's pockets, but actually create a huge new captured market for GE.

I was reading something recently about all the plane hijackings in the 60-70s. A common destination was Cuba, and hijackers thought they would be lauded as heroes. In reality, they were not considered heroes. Most had their freedoms restricted while in Cuba. Some were put directly into labor camps. http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/24/travel/hijacking-book-qa/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

It's a jobs program dumbass! We keep hundreds of scientists employed studying the decay and effectiveness of the warheads. A few of those scientists keep our Courts and Laywers in business along with all of the investigators and juries when they steal secrets for China. Not to mention all of the investigative reporters that would be out of work if they didn't have something to write about. We put thousands of people to work in the military making sure that they're safe and handled properly. Not to mention all of the DOE bureaucrats that oversee the the kit and kaboodle.

No, we need more nukes now to grow American Jobs!

This isn't about swinging fists. It's about writing about it. This isn't about anything physical. It's about a form of expression. About writing. About typing letters on a keyboard.

It's about threatening to swing a fist, which is no more protected than the actual swinging.

And if you don't think words on a keyboard have very real consequences, the family of Gabrielle Molina would like a word. Along with the family of Erin and Shannon Gallagher. And the family of Megan Meier.

The CNN woman that moderated the debate between Romney and Obama outright lied in the middle of the debate to protect Obama, a week later she admitted to lying, she was congratulated as a hero in CNN.

Or are you lying or mistaken? From CNN:

ROMNEY: I -- I think interesting the president just said something which -- which is that on the day after the attack he went into the Rose Garden and said that this was an act of terror. [..] I want to make sure we get that for the record because it took the president 14 days before he called the attack in Benghazi an act of terror.

[..]

CROWLEY: He -- he did call it an act of terror. It did as well take -- it did as well take two weeks or so for the whole idea there being a riot out there about this tape to come out. You are correct about that.

[..]

And here is the transcript from Obama's Rose Garden remarks on September 12, the day after the attack:

"Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe," he said. "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. Today we mourn four more Americans who represent the very best of the United States of America. We will not waver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act. And make no mistake, justice will be done."

[..]

But, as to the original accusation from the conservative critics that Obama never mentioned "acts of terror" until weeks after the attack, they were wrong. Crowley was right.

Here is a list for you. http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/04/us/table.selfdefense.laws/

You guys must have been sleeping through the "stand your ground" laws that NRA and gun manufacturing lobbyists have been getting passed in many states.

Pretty much every state listed here that has "No" in the "Duty to retreat" column allows you to use deadly force against a trespasser that is on your property but still outside your home.

Before you reply that your life has to be in danger, just remember that dead-men-tell-no-tales. If someone is driving a vehicle on your property, that vehicle could be a deadly weapon against you. In a rural area, where there are rarely any witnesses around, all someone would have to do in states with no duty to retreat is go stand in front of the vehicle and shoot the driver, then tell the police you told them to leave and they tried to run you down. In the absence of any other evidence or witnesses against your story, the police would most likely accept it, especially if the dead person is not a local in your area. It's the wild, wild west in some areas and that's just the way the NRA and gun manufactures wants it to be. City folk ought to take those "No Trespassing" signs out in the country side more seriously.

The NSA budget last year was around $75 Billion.
The sequestor for each year is around $85 Billion.

When given a choice of what it should cut instead, the executive branch (Obama), chose White House tours, FAA air traffic controllers, and everything else possible to harm the public as much as possible so he could blame the GOP. What he chose NOT to cut was the NSA spying on US citizens because that was apparently more important to him than the public flying safely and conveintly. The IRS, prosecuting non-law breaking citizens, was also not cut because that was also more important to him.

The Federal government has taken the stance that you are the enemy and you are to be punished long before any of "their illegal programs" will be cut a dime. You either agree to pay increased taxes to pay for this spying or you will be punished even harsher by the NSA and IRS.

It gets more creepy, when a company clones someone and then claims it as their property.
Or "The Island" (movie).

Please keep up with current events.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/13/politics/scotus-genes

Let's consolidate this so people aren't confused.

Cool, so when does the President go on trial for authorizing the murder of civilians using WMDs?

Sorry, that is BS. Apparently you didn't read my post carefully. Hellfire missiles are not WMDs in the military context even if they are for US domestic criminal law. So, suggesting that the President is using WMDs is nonsense. It would also be nonsense domestically in the US since government has the legal authority to use lethal force with weapons not available to civilians. Second, the US isn't deliberately attacking innocent civilian populations. The terrorists do, as did the Boston bomber. Launching a Hellfire missile at a SUV of senior al Qaida or Taliban members traveling down a road isn't going to kill many people other than the intended targets. So third, the 50:1 casualty rate is fiction. If it were true, you would need to find 50,000 dead civilians in the drone attack areas of Pakistan - there would be no way to cover that up. That is obviously nonsense as noted by the Pakistani government spokesman below. That doesn't mean that attacks are never made in error, or that innocent people are never killed. But that is a different question from deliberately targeting them.

Pakistan drone strikes: 2012

Pakistani General: Actually, The Drones Are Awesome

“Myths and rumours about US predator strikes and the casualty figures are many,” Mehmood said, according to Dawn, “but it’s a reality that many of those being killed in these strikes are hardcore elements, a sizeable number of them foreigners.”

He even brought stats. According to the general, “about 164 drone strikes have occurred since 2007 — the New America Foundation tallies 226 since 2004 — have killed “over 964 terrorists.” Of those, 793 were Pakistanis and 171 were foreigners, “including Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Filipinos and Moroccans.” (Filipinos? Huh.) Only “a few civilians” have been killed, he said.

From a wider angle, taking Afghanistan into account, it is the Taliban causing most of the casualties. And you would expect that since one of their key means of attack is bombs and mines placed along roads that kill whomever comes along, as well as bombings in market places, and attacks on institutions like schools. Those are mainly going to kill civilians.

Taliban Causes Most Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan, U.N. Says

Before you respond with any of that , "at war blah blah blah" nonsense, keep in mind that Congress has not declared war on Pakistan.

The SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES. is not limited to geographic area. The US government and Pakistan have had an arrangement.

Ex-Pakistani President Musharraf admits secret deal with U.S. on drone strikes

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- Ex-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged his government secretly signed off on U.S. drone strikes, the first time a top past or present Pakistani official has admitted publicly to such a deal.

Pakistani leaders long have openly challenged the drone program and insisted they had no part in it. Musharraf's admission, though, suggests he and others did play some role, even if they didn't oversee the program or approve every attack.

Well, that's not always the case.. And when hindsight reveals that a killer had joked or made facebook posts or otherwise gave warning signs about the destruction to come, and police write it off as just some kid harmlessly blowing off steam, the public invariably crucifies them for failing to follow up on the warning signs.

So... they're damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Yes, in retrospect it's easy to see which ones really were just harmless sarcastic jokes and which ones were obvious warning signs, because we know how the story turned out.

Was the jail sentence an overreaction? Perhaps. By the time they got to that point they had probably sorted out whether he had a real problem or if he was just sarcastically responding to someone else's comment. But in a world where school shootings are entirely too common and too real, he's got to learn that you can't say stuff like that and not have any consequences. This isn't punishment for a crime he didn't commit; this is ensuring that he doesn't create panic and waste police time with more idiotic statements in the future.

I'm not saying that they did the right thing. I'm just saying, it isn't so black-and-white. They can be too slow to respond and risk finding out the hard way that those "jokes" were a cry for help, or they can be too quick to respond and crack down on somebody for making an innocent, if tasteless, comment. I'm sure glad I never have to make that decision!

No surprise here, they did the same thing on the documents that Manning stole and leaked to Wikileaks. There were also stories like this:

Will reading WikiLeaks cost students jobs with the federal government?

I realize it's not exactly the same thing, but I remember this showing up in the news a few years ago. Women prefer female voices too:

http://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-computer-voices

(yes, as the article mentions, in the U.K., Siri has a male voice.. and iOS 7 will have new voices and user choice of the gender of the voice.)

> Cite?
You really have to ask? Maybe the Michelle Obama incident is a good one. Googled modified their system for her, but not for others. What influence do you think she might have had? Hmmm?

Thank you for that counterexample. Google did not modify the search results in that case. It did insert an "ad" above the result apologizing that sometimes search results can be offensive.

Here's a citation for you: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/25/google.michelle.obama.controversy-2/

So, now that we have one citation countering the original assertion that Google will modify results with the appropriate inducements, do we have anything to support it?

The union stepped up and did their part, and management screwed them, and refused to make an actual management changes.

Actually, no.

I followed this story. The way it actually worked:

Hostess went into bankruptcy in 2004. It found investors who bailed it out and it kept going.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_Brands#Bankruptcy_.282004.29

Hostess went into bankruptcy again. It found additional investors who bailed it out and it kept going.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostess_Brands#Bankruptcy_and_liquidation_.282012.29

Hostess was running out of money. Management set up a deal that would cut costs by paying workers less. This was not what the workers wanted, but according to management, it was essential to save the jobs.

One thing that riled up the workers: management got paid a lot. In an effort to make the workers happier, the top four guys at Hostess had their salaries lowered to $1 per year for 2012.

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/26/hostess-twinkies-bankrupt/

But the major costs at Hostess had to do with worker salaries, particularly with respect to delivery of Hostess products. Union rules required Hostess snack foods and Wonder bread foods to be delivered on different trucks, which had to be loaded by different people. A "Hostess" worker couldn't load a "Wonder" truck, a "Wonder" driver couldn't drive a "Hostess" truck, and the company couldn't contract out delivery. So, if a small town in a distant location wanted to buy Hostess cakes and Wonder bread, two trucks would have to drive out there, not one. Also, there is some complicated stuff I don't really understand about Hostess paying pensions to a whole bunch of workers, many of whom had never worked for Hostess.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/111912-633985-unions-dont-always-benefit-workers.htm?p=full

http://ohioansforworkplacefreedom.com/how-unions-killed-twinkies-and-wonderbread/

Now, pay attention, because here's the key part: the Teamsters Union had been fighting with Hostess management, and they had seen the accounting numbers, and they believed that (at least on this issue) management was not lying. If Hostess didn't cut labor costs, it was doomed.

I am not an expert on unions, but my impression is that the Teamsters Union is not exactly a shill for management.

It wasn't Teamsters Union workers who went on strike: it was workers of a smaller union called the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM). The Teamsters Union publicly told BCTGM not to strike. Check out this page from the Teamsters Union web site:

http://www.teamster.org/content/teamsters-bakery-workers-should-hold-secret-ballot-vote-hostess

The story gets even crazier. Management publicly told BCTGM that if the strike wasn't over by a specific date, they would shut down Hostess. BCTGM continued to strike. Management shut down the company. Then... a judge ordered both sides into an extra round of negotiations, and I thought to myself, "Here is where BCTGM can back down yet save face. They were unwavering in the face of a threat, they can proudly tell their members that they didn't back down until they were forced to, but they can still save all the jobs." But it was not to be. BCTGM continued to strike and Hostess shut down.