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Apparently Obama will propose that people earning more than $1 million a year pay at least the same tax rate as middle-class earners. That's aiming mighty low.
America's median income is about $50,000. The typical taxpayer at that level pays approximately 20 percent in taxes.
Granted, that's a higher rate than most of today's super rich pay because of countless deductions, credits, and loopholes -- including, especially, their ability to take their incomes in the form of capital gains, taxed at 15 percent. That's a big reason Buffett's hundreds of millions a year are taxed at just over 17 percent -- a lower rate than his secretary faces, as Buffett often says.
But a 20 percent rate is still ridiculously low compared to what millionaires and billionaires ought to be paying. Officially, income over $379,150 is supposed to be taxed at 35 percent....

Robert Reich

So there you have it. Somehow Obama will end up proposing a tax change that will have the millionaires paying a proportionally equivalent share of income, and the Republicans will scream that this qualifies as "redistribution of wealth", and in the end, Buffet will end up with a massive windfall. Warren's a canny one, I'll grant you that.

They're probably too busy colluding with the "content" guys. A "DISNEY HAS TAKEN ABC AWAY FROM YOU" show of manufactured outrage a year can keep the antitrust doctor away, after all, and gives them some time together to research (under the name of their hired survey company and the guise of asking their opinion of a hypothetical competitor's offering, perhaps) how much they can jack up the fees without starting a Tahrir-on-Madison.

That, or they just like the bigger cuts (in dollars, if not percentages) they get from the ol' bundle-and-burden. Why give more TLC when you can get more ARPU?

Led, of course, by Salon's Andrew Leonard, for whom no amount of subsidy is ever enough, and no amount of state intervention can possibly suffice. The reality is far different, of course, and starts with the lousy energy density of solar; but we are dealing with a very heavily government-controlled "market" that is steadily eroding as subsidies decline. The myth of green jobs is something like promising to feed people with tasty barbecued unicorn ribs.

NYT will be happy to publish anything that gets them some readers back, but you actually have to have some sort of proof before you send it to them.

Unless anything is warrantless wiretapping by the government in the name of the war against terror -- then it will sit a year on the story, enough to make sure that the President gets reelected, just because the White House asked them to.

NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
What the Times knew, and when it knew it

Considering the news from just the last week:

• WikiLeaks: Iraqi children in U.S. raid shot in head, U.N. says
• Wall Street Journal: Why Does Jeanne Whalen Have a Hardon for Julian Assange?
• The Guardian Leaks unredacted unpublished US diplomatic cables
• Former Wikileaks Spokesman Destroyed Documents
• New Your Times: The Nixonian henchmen of today:

I am not surprised at all that powerful organizations continue to attack them, cheered on by the usual propaganda fan club.

Ah yes, the NYTimes - The Nixonian henchmen of today

Apparently, faced with hundreds of thousands of documents vividly highlighting stomach-turning war crimes and abuses -- death squads and widespread torture and civilian slaughter all as part of a war he admired for years and which his newspaper did more than any other single media outlet to enable -- John Burns and his NYT editors decided that the most pressing question from this leak is this: what's Julian Assange really like?

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

This is the point I emphasize whenever I talk about why topics such as the sprawling Surveillance State and the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks and whistleblowing are so vital. The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions. And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: they are well aware of, and are petrified by, its power, and want to ensure that the ability to dictate how it is used, and toward what ends, remains exclusively in their hands.

The DOJ has shown itself to be completely unwilling to prosecute bankers or their regulators.

Not only that, but the DoJ has also taken steps to punish other government officials, notably New York AG Eric Schneiderman, for looking for ways to prosecute under their own authority. They've made it clear that the only penalty the Obama administration will accept for the banks is a fine of somewhere around $60 billion, which will look like a big number to satisfy the public but is peanuts compared to what those banks earned with their illegal practices.

I pulled the wrong quote from that link. I meant to use this one: (Emphasis mine)

This is the point I emphasize whenever I talk about why topics such as the sprawling Surveillance State and the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks and whistleblowing are so vital. The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions. And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: they are well aware of, and are petrified by, its power, and want to ensure that the ability to dictate how it is used, and toward what ends, remains exclusively in their hands.

I agree with GP - The Aussie Greens appear to be the only political party with a backbone on these issues. Where are the minority Aussie "right" parties which should also be objecting to this expansion of state power? The US has a few, even if they are completely ignored by the mainstream media circus...

I pulled the wrong quote from that link. I meant to use this one: (Emphasis mine)

This is the point I emphasize whenever I talk about why topics such as the sprawling Surveillance State and the attempted criminalization of WikiLeaks and whistleblowing are so vital. The free flow of information and communications enabled by new technologies -- as protest movements in the Middle East and a wave of serious leaks over the last year have demonstrated -- is a uniquely potent weapon in challenging entrenched government power and other powerful factions. And that is precisely why those in power -- those devoted to preservation of the prevailing social order -- are so increasingly fixated on seizing control of it and snuffing out its potential for subverting that order: they are well aware of, and are petrified by, its power, and want to ensure that the ability to dictate how it is used, and toward what ends, remains exclusively in their hands.

I agree with GP - The Aussie Greens appear to be the only political party with a backbone on these issues. Where are the minority Aussie "right" parties which should also be objecting to this expansion of state power? The US has a few, even if they are completely ignored by the mainstream media circus...

Australia also recently greatly expanded its Surveillance State. In combination with this new "cyberCrime" bill the game is set - This is the states power grab to control information on the internet.

Quote from that last link "A prime aim of the growing Surveillance State":

The emergence of entities like WikiLeaks (which single-handedly jeopardizes pervasive government and corporate secrecy) and Anonymous (which has repeatedly targeted entities that seek to impede the free flow of communication and information) underscores the way in which this conflict is a genuine "war." The U.S. Government's efforts to destroy WikiLeaks and harass its supporters have been well-documented. Meanwhile, the U.S. seeks to expand its own power to launch devastating cyber attacks: there is ample evidence suggesting its involvement in the Stuxnet attacks on Iran, as well as reason to believe that some government agency was responsible for the sophisticated cyber-attack that knocked WikiLeaks off U.S. servers (attacks the U.S. Government tellingly never condemned, let alone investigated). Yet simultaneously, the DOJ and other Western law enforcement agencies have pursued Anonymous with extreme vigor. That is the definition of a war over Internet control: the government wants the unilateral power to cyber-attack and shut down those who pose a threat ot it, while destroying those who resists those efforts.

Not so fast Mr. We-Don't-Need-No-Stinkin-Pilots.

most of us realize that religion inspires good as well as evil

If it doesn't inspire more good than evil, then once you factor in the intellectual dishonesty of religion, it becomes a net evil. Depending on the good/evil ratio, this may be true even if religion inspires more good than evil.

As for myself, I feel obliged to speak out against religion, since for so much of human history, people were killed for doing so, or at least so oppressed by religion that they wouldn't dare to.

Most agnostics are too chickenshit to stand up for rational thought (and be ostracized by the faithful), but they don't mind reaping the benefits of scientific progress. In case you don't see the contradiction, religious belief is at odds with the law of parsimony, a key principle of the scientific method.

Enjoy your air conditioning, inoculation, and internet while thumbing your nose at the mindset that produced them. It's a very safe position, and taking it risks nothing.

A semirelevant sidestory for your contemplation:
  Women's suffrage in the United States was born partially out of the debate over whether women should be allowed to use anesthesia during childbirth. Most Christian ministers said no, since the book of Genesis is quite clear that childbirth and suffering are entwined by divine mandate.

The story is repeated again and again throughout the history of organized religion: The shamans overstep their authority, their flock says, in effect, "Hell no, good sir." and the shamans retire to lick their wounds while they spin some way to change their mind without admitting they were wrong. Heck, given 500 years or so, they even admitted that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the center of the solar system. The faithful masses never notice this pattern, because religions discourage the faculties of critical thinking. "I have faith" is just a way of saying, "I won't change my mind, no matter what evidence surfaces."

We're at the point now where Christianity has largely become a toothless tiger, but it is important to never forget how hard it was to pull those teeth, and also to remember that if the priesthood had its way, we would still be exorcising the demons from left-handed people, burning witches (that's everyone who isn't a Christian), and paying a tax for not attending church.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

The only thing "radical" about Noam Chomsky is that he speaks the truth to power, backed up with plenty of verifiable real world references (which make the often repeated 'He is no more than a conspiracy theorist' little more than a sound bite for the seriously-uninformed to repeat). When presidential candidates dare do the same, they are disappeared off the media circus.

http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love/print.html

Apparently a "work for hire" provision did get slipped into federal copyright law - and I mean literally slipped in while no one was paying attention. After Love's speech brought attention to this, the provision was repealed a year later.

So unless the laws get changed again (and the RIAA *will* try), the artists have the upper hand. Sad to imagine how much they'll spend in legal fees to get to their money though.

DTC is right, but don't believe us - listen to those actually IN the music business (and not just some session musician, either!)...

How 'bout some dumb blonde?
http://www.salon.com/technology/feature/2000/06/14/love

Or one of the first two musical guests on SNL?
http://www.janisian.com/reading/internet.php

Sorry, RIAA, but in the court of public opinion, you're going to have to fork over the goods to their RIGHTFUL owners. The sooner, the better.
Seriously, if your marketing can't rake in a profit in 35 YEARS, then maybe you shouldn't be in the biz in the first place?

The categories aren't that hard - "(1) a contribution to a collective work" could apply to a typical song; the song is a collective work if different people worked on it, e.g. somebody wrote the lyrics, somebody else the music, somebody else did the mixing, somebody else the album art, etc. "(2) a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work," might also fit depending on the definition of "audiovisual work". Does audio-only count as audiovisual? Or maybe having album art makes the work an audiovisual work?

"[T]he work must be specially ordered or commissioned" seems pretty straightforward - "we have a contract, therefore the work was commissioned".

Re " there must be a written agreement between the parties specifying that the work is a work made for hire." , see http://dir.salon.com/tech/feature/2000/06/14/love/index1.html for why this is not an issue.

Although the state secrets privilege has existed in some form since the early 19th century, its modern use, and the rules governing its invocation, derive from the landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953). In Reynolds, the widows of three civilians who died in the crash of a military plane in Georgia filed a wrongful death action against the government. In response to their request for the accident report, the government insisted that the report could not be disclosed because it contained information about secret military equipment that was being tested aboard the aircraft during the fatal flight. When the accident report was finally declassified in 2004, it contained no details whatsoever about secret equipment. The government's true motivation in asserting the state secrets privilege was to cover up its own negligence.

What is truly disconcerting was that the Bush administration didn't really pursue this. It was only once Obama took office that Drake's nightmare began.

Glen Greenwald's analysis on this topic is quite interesting: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/30/whistleblowers/index.html

It's the kind of measure you use when you don't want to discuss subsidized dollars per job. It's also the kind of measure you use when you don't want to discuss how many non-subsidized jobs it cost to pay for one subsidized job.

Indeed. Ours is not a zero sum world, though politicians (successful ones, anyway) often frame an economic issue as if it were a zero sum game. Taxpayer funded energy initiatives (including indirect funding via tax breaks) mean that every job created via those initiatives has a non-trivial cost associated with it. Michael Lind sums it up in an article at salon. A relevant quote:

And if the green crony capitalists of the left succeed, working Americans will be forced permanently to pay artificially higher utility bills to subsidize politically-connected "venture capitalists" who will derive a permanent, rigged stream of income from zombie green corporations, whose uneconomical solar and wind energy will be purchased by utility companies under legal mandates written by green lobbyists.

One need look no further than the the ethanol subsidy program for an easy example from the alternative energy sector of the economy.

It was downgraded in some media. Slate has an informative article that analyses the phenomenon: "Indeed, in many (though not all) media circles, discussion of the Oslo attack quickly morphed from this is Terrorism (when it was believed Muslims did it) to no, this isn't Terrorism, just extremism (once it became likely that Muslims didn't)."

Just to begin with, on your point on putting in so many hours, even ignoring how the people you cite in finance are often playing a zero sum game with each other and other people's money ( http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/25/110725fa_fact_cassidy ) that may add little social value overall, and 70% of what most doctors do is useless to harmful ( http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/the-triumph-of-new-age-medicine/8554/ ), consider the law of diminishing returns on overwork:
""Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?": America's misguided culture of overwork: Germany's workers have higher productivity, shorter hours and greater quality of life. How did we get it so wrong?"
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2010/08/25/german_usa_working_life_ext2010
"Since the start of the recession, the number of unemployed in the U.S. has doubled. Those who are fortunate enough to still have jobs are often working longer hours for less pay, with the ever-present threat of losing being laid off. But even before the recession, American workers were already clocking in the most hours in the West. Compared to our German cousins across the pond, we work 1,804 hours versus their 1,436 hours -- the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour workweeks per year. The Protestant work ethic may have begun in Germany, but it has since evolved to become the American way of life.
According to Thomas Geoghegan, a labor lawyer in Chicago and author of "Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life," European social democracy -- particularly Germany's-- offers some tantalizing solutions to our overworked age. In comparison to the U.S., the Germans live in a socialist idyll. They have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, nursing care, and childcare. In an attempt to make Germany more like the U.S., Angela Merkel has proposed deregulation and tax cuts only to be met with fury on the left. Over multiple trips spanning a decade, Geoghegan decided to investigate how the Germans were living so well, and by extension, what we might be able to learn from them.
Salon spoke to Geoghegan over the phone about Germany's luxurious worker benefits, our own dysfunctional attitudes towards work, and how we can make our lives more like theirs. ...
We don't have any material value of leisure time, which is extremely valuable to people. We don't have any way of valuing what these European public goods are really worth. You know, it's 50,000 dollars for tuition at NYU and it's zero at Humboldt University in Berlin. So NYU adds catastrophic amounts of GDP per capita and Humboldt adds nothing. Between you and me, I'd rather go to school at Humboldt.
So much of the American economy is based on GDP that comes from waste, environmental pillage, urban sprawl, bad planning, people going farther and farther with no land use planning whatsoever and leading more miserable lives. That GDP is thrown on top of all the GDP that comes from gambling and fraud of one kind or another. It's a more straightforward description of what Kenneth Rogoff and the Economist would call the financialization of the American economy. That transformation is a big part of the American economic model as it has morphed in some very perverse directions in the last 30 or 40 years. It's why the collapse here is going to take a much more serious long-term toll in this country than in the decades ahead."

Someone speaking from a German point of view might suggest that if you have to work more than 40 hours a week, either you or your organization are not very competent, and if that much work did indeed need to be done, it would probably be better socially if it was done by

Poor lad, everyone turned on him.
Maybe daddy will buy him an island to play with. He obviously isn't crafty enough to become a despot like daddy.

Well when daddy basically said that everyone underneath him was on their own then they will scatter and protect themselves and he can now only blame himself (although he won't).

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

The CIA is actively engaged in ongoing operations in Somalia - with collusion by "legitimate" government (CIA-backed thugs), to ensure a plan that extends US power dominance over the Horn of Africa and the strategic passage of the Arabian Sea. With several live conflicts at once, the US profits through maintaining and exploiting chaos and disorder, as an effective way to achieve goals without full-blown miltary dominance.

Jeremy Scahill exposed many details of the latest specific CIA activities - including secret prisons and torture - in The Nation, last week.

In Salon.com, Glen Greenwald deconstructs much of the US noise about Somali "terrorism" in light of Scahill. He continues exposing the "coverage" of Somalia's political turmoil by NYT and LAT as CIA and State Dept stenography.:

Independently, note this amazing passage from that LA Times article, regarding how these anonymous officials learned of what they are claiming concerning an AQAP/Shabab grand alliance:

The CIA gained other information when Somali authorities allowed them to interview Shabab militants imprisoned in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, U.S. officials said. The CIA asked about the militants' ability to launch attacks outside Somalia as well as the group's command structure.

That claim presumably refers to the secret Mogadishu prison Scahill revealed, the one the CIA pays Somali agents to guard and at which they're constantly present. The notion that Somali authorities generously "allowed" the CIA to "interview" prisoners there mindlessly disseminates CIA propaganda and ignores the facts Scahill revealed: that this is effectively a U.S.-maintained-and-engineered prison. And, of course, there is no discussion of the legal and human rights repercussions of interrogating prisoners in secret facilities beyond the reach of human rights monitoring agencies, nor any discussion of the role such practices play in further spawning anti-American sentiment.

Ultimately, the exacerbating cause of conflict and turmoil throughout the region which includes Somalia and Yemen is the same as that in Central Asia - the imperial subversion and aggression by the United States, inheritor of the mantle "Evil Empire".

I doubt the US government has much motivation to attempt helping Somalia again... I think you'll learn why so many governments appear to be ignoring Somalia.

On the contrary, the US is very interested in Somalia for the very same reasons the pirates are - it's lack of government and infrastructure means whoever has the most money/guns in their own patch is the law. This makes it an ideal location for the CIA to set up secret prisons, as well as pirates to set up their base of operations.

The sad irony is we won the cold war only to become the enemy by taking the absolute worst parts of their system!

Now we have socialism, only unlike what the republicans want you to think it doesn't have shit to do with giving the poor anything. Instead it is socialism for the rich, where they can gamble like the market is Las Vegas and if they win? Massive profits they then won't pay taxes on by using tricks like the double dutch which is favored by Google btw, and if they lose? Well then they are "too big to fail" and We, the people get left holding holding the bag.

Just as the Russians had we too have a small group of party elite, that through bribery, graft, and corruption shall always come out ahead no matter what happens to the country. Also like the Russians the will of the people is completely ignored, the military sucks down ever larger chunks of our GDP, and they can take you from the street and label you "an enemy of the people" and throw you down a hole and then forget about the hole or even have you executed without trial.

That is why I truly believe that just like the Soviet system we are destined for our own little revolution, perhaps in the form of our very own Arab spring. it is obvious voting now might as well consist of a ballot with two slots "Check here to vote for graft and corruption" and "Let the guys in DC know how you feel...vote for graft and corruption!".

And no matter what the people say, be it an end to the two wars (now three wars! Yay for the MIC! Extra hookers and blow this Xmas!), the securing of our borders and the tossing of those that entered illegally, the protection of medicare/caid and aid to the poor, legalization of pot, stopping of spying and abuses on Americans, increased taxes and the ends of loopholes for the top 5%, no matter what the people time and time and time again say they want they are repeatedly ignored by both parties for the desires of their cronies and those that can offer them bribes.

When it came to the cold war history will most likely record America won the battle but lost the war, becoming as big of a corrupt cabal of insiders as the old USSR before finally collapsing under the weight of all the graft and desire of those at the top to ever enrich themselves at the cost of the people.

If there is a flaw in the Constitution, it is a lack of checks on the court. I honestly don't know how you could set it up differently.

The threat of impeachment doesn't count at a check?

Apparently not.

Cheers,

Ya know, that takes some mega sized brass balls to say that when Obama is the pres. How's that Hope & Change thing working out? Oh yeah he Hopes you don't notice the only Change is from an R to a D on the door. I mean this administration actually has the gall to claim the president has the right to assassinate Americans on American soil with NO oversight or trial, and this is irrevocable under "war powers". Dubya didn't have the balls to do that, even Nixon didn't have balls that large!

Sadly my friend the late great Bill Hicks nailed it more than 20 years ago "Well I believe the puppet on the left shares MY beliefs, well i think the puppet on the right has my interests at heart...hey wait a minute there is one guy controlling both puppets!". Time and time again We, The People have made ourselves heard only to be ignored. We want our borders fixed, we want the wars to end, we want Medicaid/care and aid to the poor left alone, we want taxes to increase on the top 5% and we want companies to stop being rewarded with taxpayer money to close factories and send them overseas like GE did recently. But all you get is two sides to the same coin, and thanks to Citizens United this will only get worse. If you believe either side gives a shit about the American people I have a nice bridge to offer, it goes to nowhere so there is no wear and tear!

As for TFA I hate to be the one to say it, but good riddance to the shuttle, it is only sad we don't have a replacement that should have been built in 1995. The shuttle was a failure from the start, its original mission statement was for a "space truck" that would allow both the military and NASA to share expenses, to allow cheaper and larger loads into space, and to allow fast turnaround. It failed to live up to that statement which is why the military has been using the Delta V.

I would argue the only reason it has hung on this long is Sen Porkus and Congressman Kickbackus were using it to "bring jobs to the area!" which is why there was nearly 20 states working on shuttle parts and why congress pushed for reusing shuttle parts when it made no sense on Orion. Both sides of the aisle have long since quit giving a shit if they hurt this nation as long as it suits their personal goals and spreading the shuttle parts like a shotgun blast across the country helped them show they were bringing home that bacon.

So goodbye shuttle, you did much good work despite failing your original goals and I'm only sorry you weren't put out to pasture years ago and something more practical brought up in your place. maybe we'll have the Delta Vs man rated, hell maybe we should just buy some Soyuz off of Russia. Either way the shuttle should have been in a museum years ago and I hope the astronauts get down safely for this their final ride.

I'm sorry it's just... this has been covered ad nauseum.

This kind of crap happened to Courtney Love. (Original Salon story here.
Happened to TLC.
Happened to Lyle Lovett.
Happened to Janis Ian.

Has happened to almost every goddamn band to walk the face of the earth, with the exception of maybe the "chosen few" like Metallica (who are too fucking brain-dead to check if they are getting ripped off)... and even those usually make the vast majority of their money not from their music, but from endorsement contracts.

True enough. Courtney Love schooled the RIAA years ago on this very subject.

I can counter your right wing sources with left wing ones:

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/27/153179/report-from-poll-taxes-to-voter-id-laws-a-short-history-of-conservative-voter-suppression/
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/05/10711/voter-suppression-bills-sweep-country
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/06/voter-fraud-or-voter-suppression
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/15/voter_suppression

While I do think there is some voter fraud in the modern era, and would point to Florida in the 2000 election and Ohio in 2004, it is often twisted and blown out of proportion to fuel a hysteria that we need to make it harder to vote. So we end up with laws that make it harder to vote for those who vote Democratic. I find it hard to believe that is an accident.

What we need is a way to verify votes that does not end up constituting an effective poll tax, and keeping people who have a right to vote from the polls. I wonder if any slashdot readers have any suggestions? I'd be quite hopeful on that account, some rather clever people read this site and have left encouraging comments on past articles about voting.

Oh please! While you will ALWAYS have a few racist asshats I bet you'll find the majority are just like me and don't give a damn what color he is, we care that he is a lying asshole and a shitty president! Just about every. single. promise. he made on the trail he pulled a 180 on when he walked through the door. get us out of the two wars? nope in fact he started a third! get us out of Gitmo? nope. Warrantless wiretapping? All for it now. The Bush era abuse of authority? Now he says that the office of the president has the right to assassinate Americans on American soil and that this "right" can't even be revoked by congress! hell even Nixon didn't have the balls to pull that shit!

As for TFA it reminds me of a saying I heard years ago (I think it was old Joe Bob Briggs) that went "In America you can't show a tit unless it has a knife in it". For some reason we here in the states have never had a problem with mass slaughter but heaven forbid little Billy knows where his penis goes. Personally I wasn't hung up about any subject when it came to my boys but that was because I actually talked to them and encouraged them to ask questions. Both boys played violent video games if they wanted but after showing how games were actually constructed I wasn't worried about them mistaking reality for GTA. Of course this had the humorous side effect of my oldest having strange "cursing" when playing, such as "You call this level design? I've seen mods with better layouts! And who wrote the AI scripts? Barney? This is awful!"

Sadly picking up my boys from their friends houses on occasion I saw why America is fucked. I saw homes where not a single book resided and where the kids were NEVER read to (while others read kid stories or worse nothing at all my boys got "best Sci Fi of 1975" just like I got when I was a kid) and where the ONLY interaction they got was a few words before the parents went to their idiot box and the kid sat down in front of his. But no matter how many stupid laws you pass (and I agree with SCOTUS you can't have movie access be voluntary and games not, that is discrimination based on format) you ultimately can't have the government raise the kids. Sooner or later the people in the home, that is the PARENTS actually have to get off their collective asses and interact with the child.

Maybe that whole "have to have a license to have a kid" thing isn't such a bad idea. What I saw from watching my boys grow up is there are a hell of a lot of folks out there that are simply letting the boxes raise their kids and don't know shit about their kids, what they are doing, what they are playing/watching, etc. Be it the decline of the west, the fact that so many are single parent households now, that everyone is too tired from working shitty jobs, whatever, there just seems to be a lot of folks out there expecting the government to do their job because they refuse to. But you can't babyproof the planet and you can't send social workers to teach little Billy in his home what is what because the parents are too busy watching their reality TV.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

Dear AC, this WOULD be one of the "most important events in recent technological history" if it wasn't being conducted by asshats that want credit for their actions.

If instead of waving their dicks around while wearing images of Trollface they would just quietly drop the info they gather into Wikileaks and a dozen other sources? Then the government wouldn't know if the leaks were internal or external, wouldn't know whether they have been infiltrated or not, and paranoia helps to undermine power by making it harder for their little cabals to communicate.

Instead what these guy Fawkes wearing dipshits will end up with is a nice new law where unless you are a developer (and if you say you are your line will be tapped) you will have to run an "approved OS to protect you from ID theft" which after all this high publicity will be quite easy to get the general populace to sign on to. This approved OS will be given software to "protect you" that will have a digital sig so that everywhere you go, anything you do, will be marked so as to be trivial to trace. Anyone who tries hooking up a machine without the sig will get a visit from guys in dark suits and their connection will be pulled seconds after the lack of the sig is detected.

If anyone thinks that having that old scrap of paper known as the constitution will keep those in power from crushing your rights like a bug haven't been paying attention to current events lately, and those in power were already looking for excuses to clamp down after seeing the Arab Spring events and how their old cronies who held power for decades are ending up run out on a rail. The fact that the current administration claims dropping bombs isn't hostile and that they have the right to Assassinate Americans on American soil should be pretty clear indicators that the constitution is being ignored.

By splattering their "Lulz" all over the Internet these dumbasses are playing right into the hands of those that want the Internet turned into cableTV. They COULD have been a major force of change, they COULD have brought to light many of the hidden evils these corrupt administrations all over the world are perpetrating on the peoples of the world. But by jumping up and down going "look at me, look!" all they will end up doing is having the ban hammer dropped on one of the last places of free expression left on the planet. So goodbye Internet, it was fun while it lasted but like most things online the trolls took a big shit all over you and ruined it for everyone.

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

It has come to my attention that the entire Linux community is a hotbed of so called 'alternative sexuality', which includes anything from hedonistic orgies to homosexuality to paedophilia.

What better way of demonstrating this than by looking at the hidden messages contained within the names of some of Linux's most outspoken advocates:

• Linus Torvalds is an anagram of slit anus or VD 'L,' clearly referring to himself by the first initial.
• Richard M. Stallman, spokespervert for the Gaysex's Not Unusual 'movement' is an anagram of mans cram thrill ad.
• Alan Cox is barely an anagram of anal cox which is just so filthy and unchristian it unnerves me.

I'm sure that Eric S. Raymond, composer of the satanic homosexual propaganda diatribe The Cathedral and the Bizarre, is probably an anagram of something queer, but we don't need to look that far as we know he's always shoving a gun up some poor little boy's rectum. Update: Eric S. Raymond is actually an anagram for secondary rim and cord in my arse. It just goes to show you that he is indeed queer.

Update the Second: It is also documented that Evil Sicko Gaymond is responsible for a nauseating piece of code called Fetchmail, which is obviously sinister sodomite slang for 'Felch Male' -- a disgusting practise. For those not in the know, 'felching' is the act performed by two perverts wherein one sucks their own post-coital ejaculate out of the other's rectum. In fact, it appears that the dirty Linux faggots set out to undermine the good Republican institution of e-mail, turning it into 'e-male.'

As far as Richard 'Master' Stallman goes, that filthy fudge-packer was actually quoted on leftist commie propaganda site Salon.com as saying the following: 'I've been resistant to the pressure to conform in any circumstance,' he says. 'It's about being able to question conventional wisdom,' he asserts. 'I believe in love, but not monogamy,' he says plainly.

And this isn't a made up troll bullshit either! He actually stated this tripe, which makes it obvious that he is trying to politely say that he's a flaming homo slut!

Speaking about 'flaming,' who better to point out as a filthy chutney ferret than Slashdot's very own self-confessed pederast Jon Katz. Although an obvious deviant anagram cannot be found from his name, he has already confessed, nay boasted of the homosexual perversion of corrupting the innocence of young children. To quote from the article linked:

'I've got a rare kidney disease,' I told her. 'I have to go to the bathroom a lot. You can come with me if you want, but it takes a while. Is that okay with you? Do you want a note from my doctor?'

Is this why you were touching your penis in the cinema, Jon? And letting the other boys touch it too?

We should also point out that Jon Katz refers to himself as 'Slashdot's resident Gasbag.' Is there any more doubt? For those fortunate few who aren't aware of the list of homosexual terminology found inside the Linux 'Sauce Code,' a 'Gasbag' is a pervert who gains sexual gratification from having a thin straw inserted into his urethra (or to use the common parlance, 'piss-pipe'), then his homosexual lover blows firmly down the straw to inflate his scrotum. This is, of course, when he's not busy violating the dignity and co

Is there anything more obvious -- as the world's oil supplies rapidly diminish -- than the fact that our prime objective is to remove Gaddafi and install a regime that is a far more reliable servant to Western oil interests, and that protecting civilians was the justifying pretext for this war, not the purpose?

Conflict in Libya: U.S. oil companies sit on sidelines as Gaddafi maintains hold

In late February 2008, Mulva was “summoned to Sirte for a half-hour ‘browbeating’” from Gaddafi, according to a U.S. State Department cable made available by WikiLeaks. Gaddafi “threatened to dramatically reduce Libya’s oil production and/or expel ... U.S. oil and gas companies,” the cable said.

Wikileaks was the source for these articles. If all cables get leaked, it is difficult for US to pursue its interests.

And more: U.S. Fought To Lower Minimum Wage In Haiti So Hanes And Levis Would Stay Cheap

The problem is it really depends on how bad the government wants to get you thanks to PATRIOT and "enemy combatant". You see miller was sitting in a nice cell with access to her lawyer, everybody knew where she was, etc. But since you can be labeled an enemy combatant by "giving material aid to the enemy" frankly the government can drop a reporter in a hole and promptly forget where the hole is. How many Americans are labeled enemy combatants? Does anyone even know?

Frankly if you are betting on a reporter to save your ass when the current administration says they have the right to assassinate Americans on American soil under irrevocable "war powers" I'd say you better be damned sure that reporter is willing to go all the way friend. Frankly even Nixon didn't have the balls to go as far as the last two administrations,and it ain't getting any better folks. I'm sure the next big leaker WILL be made an example of, mark my words. The Wikileaks leak stirred up too much shit for them to allow anybody to pull that shit again without paying horribly.

A democracy needs to be controlled by the citizens though, and not the citizens controlled by the government's propaganda.

The US government is controlled by the citizens. Or were you referring to the proles?

The proles constitute 85% of the population. They receive little education, work at jobs in which tough physical labour is the norm, live in poverty, and usually die by the age of sixty.

...proles are not expected to understand that they are being exploited by the Party as a source of cheap labour and are unable or unwilling to organize resistance. Their functions are simple: work and breed. They care little about anything but home and family, neighbour quarrels, films and football, beer and lottery tickets. They are not required to express support for the Party, except for a mild form of patriotism. The Party creates meaningless songs, novels, even pornography for the proles. Proles do not wear a uniform, can use cosmetics and have a relatively free internal market economy. Proles also have free sex lives, uninterrupted by the Party, and divorce is permitted. Despite the personal freedoms enjoyed by the Proles, the Thought Police moves among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating any individuals deemed capable of causing trouble.

You would ALSO be interested to know, that the "dingbat that decided to roast his chestnuts" was LET ON by the CIA.

The State Department wanted him kicked off the plane, and the CIA over-road that by saying he was part of an "active investigation."
http://open.salon.com/blog/gordon_wagner/2010/02/03/cia_shielded_flight_253_underwear_bomber
>> There as a Congressional investigation into the matter, and the Senator chairing the investigation got bugged by the same crew that "investigated" ACORN, believe it or not.

>> The OTHER question you should ask, is; why did someone go to all the trouble of procuring C4, and getting this kid on a plane and NOT telling him it requires an electric charge to set it off?

More background on this disgusting and illegal smear job here: http://www.salon.com/news/andrew_breitbart/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/06/02/breitbart_patriotusa_emails

No :-)

In my defence, painting protests as terrorism is all too common nowadays:

• DoD Training Manual: Protests are "Low-Level Terrorism"
• Protesting as a Terrorist Offense
• Bahrain Eyes Execution for Group of Protesters
• Protesters face anti-terror action

Develop a decentralized P2P app for BT links? The way this is supposed to "work" is by blocking websites with P2P links (but of course as any government power I'm sure they'll abuse the shit out of it to say try to kill wikileaks and other whistleblowers) by the thought that if you can't get the link you can't get the torrent.

So the way to go around it, at least with regards to torrents, is to simply use a decentralized P2P app to distribute torrent links. A specialized P2P app designed to give you JUST torrent files, complete with user ratings, would kill this from blocking torrents dead, since you wouldn't need TPB or any other torrent site to find torrents. As for getting rid of whistleblower sites the only answer I have to that would be something like Freenet, but the catch with that is so far nobody has tried their "plausible deniability" theory in court and considering a CP charge can net you 60 year that is a hell of a risk to take on an untested legal theory.

Now please ignore if the situation has changed since I last looked at it, but last I checked you still needed websites for torrent links. By going decentralized P2P tp spread said links that would make blocking sites such as TPB useless, since you wouldn't need them to get the links. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if their next move would be to force search engines like Google to remove ALL torrent links that haven't been given to some committee for approval first.

Of course in the end I have a feeling we'll just have a "great firewall of corporatist Amerika" and we'll have to take lessons from our Chinese friends on how to run a VPN and risk being labeled a "terrorist/pedo" or whatever bogeyman word they use for it this week. Because heaven forbid we don't help entrenched multinationals by using tax dollars to prop up their failing business models and help them keep complete control on what the population hears and sees. God forbid they should have to come up with new business models for a new era, heavens no! If these corrupt bastards would have been in office at the turn of the 20th century we'd all be paying a "buggy tax" on our cars and labeling buggy whip manufacturers as "too big to fail".

As for protecting our rights, what rights would those be? We don't even have the right to a fair trial anymore as Obama declared, in a case of having even bigger brass balls than Bush, that he has the right to perform assassinations on Americans, even on American soil and if you don't even have the right to life under the "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" clause of the constitution, how can you possibly have ANY rights at all? After all, how can giving the corps the right to have you thrown in prison for sharing some shitty Hollywood movie even compare to just having you shot? Welcome to Amerika, where the only freedoms are reserved for the top 1%ers.

Uhhh...just in case you ain't noticed, been hid under a rock or something, the current choices (hell for the last 30 years at least) have been, now choose wisely! A.-Corporate cock sucking rich douchebag in a blue suit, OR B.Corporate cock sucking rich douchebag in a slightly darker blue suit. Man, decisions decisions!

News Flash: when it costs on average something in the neighborhood of 100 MILLION dollars just to be a senator or congressman, and that is from one of the shitty flyover states? Well the odds you are gonna get a choice that isn't Corporate cock sucking rich douchebag in a blue suit is pretty much 0%. That is why no matter how bad things get they ALWAYS vote for the corporate interests, every time.

As for TFA anybody who think the corps won't get everything their hard stolen bribes can buy can think again. the lust for power and control has gotten to the point that they don't even pretend to give a fuck about We The People or the constitution or rule of law anymore. i mean can you imagine Nixon or LBJ having the brass balls to say they have the right to assassinate Americans anywhere, even on American soil without so much as a hearing and get away with it? But that's where getting your corporate pals in control of the media pays off. it lets you label whistleblowers as 'terrorists" and have a dozen talking heads talking about what an evil bastard they are before the end of the day.

I mean for fuck's sake they ruled that a single Goatse style troll can land you in prison since the feds are running their own "kiddie porn" honeypots that don't log referrers and don't actually offer any CP! When you've got a system so corrupted where the rule of law is completely ignored time and time again any corp with a big bank acount can ram shit like this home. Just don't be surprised if you see Nancy Grace talking up how TPB and other P2P sites are nothing but a "home for pedos and pervs!" as they have just about beat the terrorist buzzword to death so they'll need a new bogeyman to sell this to the general pop.

I've yet to see strong evidence that the U.S. government is going after whistler-blowers, in general.

Not sure if your trolling with that statement... In case not and it is just a case of mainstream news not keeping you the least bit informed, here goes (complete with plenty of references):

Obama has made it his mission to prosecute whisteblowers, no matter how morally correct and beneficial for society their actions were. The crackdown, far exceeding any previous presidents attempt - has not been called "Obama's war on whistle-blowers" for nothing.

Mark Klein, the former A.T. & T. employee who exposed the telecom-company wiretaps, is also dismayed by the Drake case. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.

I've yet to see strong evidence that the U.S. government is going after whistler-blowers, in general.

Not sure if your trolling with that statement... In case not and it is just a case of mainstream news not keeping you the least bit informed, here goes (complete with plenty of references):

Obama has made it his mission to prosecute whisteblowers, no matter how morally correct and beneficial for society their actions were. The crackdown, far exceeding any previous presidents attempt - has not been called "Obama's war on whistle-blowers" for nothing.

Mark Klein, the former A.T. & T. employee who exposed the telecom-company wiretaps, is also dismayed by the Drake case. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.

I've yet to see strong evidence that the U.S. government is going after whistler-blowers, in general.

Not sure if your trolling with that statement... In case not and it is just a case of mainstream news not keeping you the least bit informed, here goes (complete with plenty of references):

Obama has made it his mission to prosecute whisteblowers, no matter how morally correct and beneficial for society their actions were. The crackdown, far exceeding any previous presidents attempt - has not been called "Obama's war on whistle-blowers" for nothing.

Mark Klein, the former A.T. & T. employee who exposed the telecom-company wiretaps, is also dismayed by the Drake case. “I think it’s outrageous,” he says. “The Bush people have been let off. The telecom companies got immunity. The only people Obama has prosecuted are the whistle-blowers.