There are many factors besides how Obama never was a classic "liberal" and in many ways is actually like a republican of 40 years ago. His vague hope campaign was bound to be harmed by its success and the unrealistic ignorant imagination of the public. Good cop, bad cop.
Another overlooked factor is how extremely difficult it is to swim upstream in the cesspool of corruption. Even if completely honest, you'll get dirty in the process and you are lucky to even move forward if you tack your way forward. This is why the corrupt leaders can get a whole lot more done working with the powerful corrupting influences (see Bush.) It is rather irrelevant whether or not Obama is good or bad. His good acts will be against the flow and likely fail or fall short; which will not do much win over voters - his bad acts will be more successful and net him more power to sucker voters.
The best description of the system I have ever seen is in the HBO series "The Wire." It takes a long time to form the picture of the system and the show wonders a bit in the 1st and last season. It is not easy to give a good depiction of a complex social system but it has the best I've seen (it was written by a real reporter.) The dialog by the actual former mayor is priceless. The job is mostly about eating shit created by others and being held hostage by a system that can't change quick enough to fix much of anything. It is a juggling act of eating shit and smiling while trying to get only a few things done; never as planned because the details and complexity come out as you delve deeper.
There is a point of no return, where the limits on change can not be overcome; a fall into despotism is the destination for all democracy, as tiny failures compound unchecked until they become insurmountable. If you fix something with strong support, as soon as relief is felt the support weakens to complete the job. With the system based problems, the public is ignorant or unconcerned because it does not directly impact them in a way their selfish minds can comprehend - hell, in the USA a large percentage think government is some external entity and forgot the "of the people by the people" which cripples them.
New specs should all be metric; it is not modern if it is using imperial measurement. The new 21" should be 534mm. Keep the outside stuff the same but convert it all into metric.
The early years of cable had no ads on some channels and fewer ads on channels with ads. Greed caused the cable company to hold onto more money forcing channels to need advertizing or add more. I'm surprised HBO and some other channels have not been forced into ads (I bet you a share of the premium fee goes to the cable company!) At some point the local cable company started inserting local ads over the ads on the broadcast channels when they were on cable-- one could easily see this with a TV that was not on cable. I still wonder how that one made it out of court (it must have been in court) because if I pay a lot of money for a local area ad on the broadcast channel I would be upset to know that it would not be seen by cable subscribers unless I pay the cable company too.
I've only noticed the changes over many years in my area. Regardless, the business models of today require constant growth and unsustainable returns for publicly traded companies. Obviously, going backwards in profits is extremely bad (some corps kill people over it) but just staying at the same level of profit is also bad and hurts share price. The model promotes pushing things to the extremes and for short term gains; until the system is patched the design flaws will continue to harm customers for greater profit. In all businesses. It also can warp the influence of competition in the so-called marketplace towards competing for profits and not for customers, which is why you can see whole industries engage in price fixing when competition is supposed to be their primary focus. Cost externalization is the name of the game today. think about it.
Dr. Who brushes over technical details with a generalized summation, at least they did it more in the older series. The new series has some Star Trek nerd BS that rubbed off on it where they feel the need to explain more detailed BS while in the old shows they rarely went into any more detail than necessary to the story. They were/are also more realistic in the sense that some expert (in a hurry) describes things to laymen in a simple metaphorical summation.
It is rarely ever used like a screwdriver. Character: "What's that?" Doctor: "Its my sonic screwdriver." Simple description for something that is just a tool to move the plot along quicker.
These days the sonic screwdriver is much more like a magic wand; but then the stories have become more fantasy in recent years.
We are nowhere near using enough wind power for it to become a problem and if we covered everything in those towers over then next 100 years... they lose MOST the wind energy for the tiny surface area the blades cover. This is a complete waste, getting undue attention by the idiotic media.
How about the controversy of people selfishly and irresponsibly popping out babies? Nobody wants to bring up the TRUE and controversial issue of the population crisis and how it is causing all these problems, from climate change to endangered animals to resource cost increases. We don't even discuss population even being a problem or how we are contributing to the problem and then never even begin to address possible solutions to that problem.
Public roads, on public land are the essential infrastructure on which our society functions, it dates back long ago. It is done by the people (aka the government.) Everybody puts money in and everybody benefits.
The electrical grid gets heavy subsidizes and often leverages its monopoly power to corrupt government. The grid should be another public network just like the roads it usually runs next to. City water and sewage is also an old solution we continue. Electricity is now essential and while it is not as important as the traditional grids it is next in line to be made public. We should cast off these crooks who exploit our needs, corrupt our officials, and often poorly manage our power grid. It may cost us the same amount but we have 1 less source of corruption and an open grid to build a larger marketplace around. Private power grids are too cheap to think LONG term while government can build a grid to last longer and run cheaper in the end... such as putting power lines underground near the roads instead of cheaply on poles... higher voltage DC with local DC to AC with plenty of R&D available that no private company can compete with.
Like the roads, water, sewer grids before it, an open public electrical grid will foster competition built upon it and promote a distributed robust marketplace. Grid power storage services that buy cheap and sell high; small distributed power generation and a FAIR payback to individuals who feed to the grid. Many schemes could be devised on such systems, beyond just subsides for example, consumers could choose to pay more for solar and solar producers then get a higher payback. Power rates could be managed automatically down to the second; fostering a whole market of smart devices to save you money.
Power generation can remain private; just as cars, trucks are private but run on the public transportation grid. Although, I can't still see nuclear being possible without huge government intervention as has always been the case.
Science does not write the sensational news stories; almost no politicians are scientists; the public embarrassingly seems ignorant about science in general and lends as much credence to an actual scientist as the opposing PR person who has no credibility, that is if they even hear from an actual scientist.
Science is not a game of debate or a political compromise but that is how it is presented and processed by the masses. Science in those arenas appears as an extremist position since it is all about about finding fact.
The fear industry pulls in some scientists and other industries corrupt scientists but those are made into visible figures and do not fairly represent their communities. They can exaggerate and sensationalize minor issues or the unsettled areas of knowledge.
TFA: Global Dimming is fairly recent, the extent of the impact is even more recent and that is just preliminary in the larger picture. Global Dimming is what is saving us from the extreme predictions and delaying them; it used to be a little controversial because it seemed to contradict the rest the science but it turned out with further research it strongly supports it. Nutshell: reflective pollution is helping counter the heat retaining CO2 pollution which is why it is not as hot as if you figure/estimate using pure CO2 alone. Early estimates lacked the data and research from the future which turned out to be quite significant; some got caught up in it a little some a lot, possibly being slow to change if they were too attached to their theory.
The vast majority of new "literature" is crap. We are not losing a great deal if there is no longer money in it. Artists have been starving for generations before and after monopoly rights yet we still have a large number of artists. Many make their livings being hired to CREATE (work for a living) and not from past efforts.
It is not the government's job to prop up old defunct business models; laws and constitutions are designed to be adapted to the times.
>we're talking about an industry thats basically run its own government sanctioned regulatory board. this board is a shining example of why an agency charged with regulating as well as promoting is flawed on a fundamental level.
Same thing with nuclear power, the board are also the promoters. The farm lobby is also similar in many of its government connections.
I frankly don't want to bother despite that I have university access, more fun to read the pointless commentary on/. while I wait for an email reply. That it gets published into one of these greedy journals puts the credibility above any mainstream news source or elected official.
It is not exactly lies; it is wild speculation or possibly even a reasonable guess based upon ignorance. Even when they purposely distort things greatly it gets the results they want; therefore, they continue with the tactics. Do you not find it funny that Greenpeace is playing reality distortion with Apple?
We live in an age of PR where education and truth do not matter to a huge segment of the population and corporations who project their image with marketing and PR. Its cheaper for them to distort, cover, or lie their flaws than to fix anything and lawsuits or government are not that effective (if not working in the other direction.) Attacking their image they work so hard to create is one way to threaten effectively and cheaply. I would be surprised if they did not use the tactic against a 100x larger organization who has a great deal vested in their appearance.
Maybe they go too far, maybe they do not. It depends on how effective they are. In the USA Greenpeace gets a bad rap no matter what they do -- this is an org who've had corps paying for various types of spies and moles along with PR aimed against them for many decades. I am not a member or donor but I try to put the situation into context. The mission of activist groups is not to to be liked by all consumers - its to create change and please a like minded minority so they continue; the cause does not have to benefit society positively.
Exactly! However I find citing X's Law distasteful, it works on stupid people and I've seen it bypass critical thought; which is not productive long term - even when it makes sense to get a concept across quickly for some people that is not how it works and likely these are the people one is trying to "wake up."
I sometimes wonder if people ever remember the Earth Liberation fanatics or the PETA nuts who want to ban anything that is not a wildlife reserve (I guess they are not extreme because that is easy to see as exaggeration?)
I DO however understand how when faced against something which is going to impact the earth and the human race more than WW2 (it may kill more people too) people can see that forced compliance at above average levels is required. The problem is big enough that some kind of wartime sacrifice... its is just that the enemy is US not some other culture we can degrade into subhumans to easily hate. Just like WW1 and WW2 the USA will be thick headed about the problem; but this time the USA likely will not join the fight until the war is lost. Its more like we are helping to appease Germany while saying we want to fight them (if you've been following the climate summits the USA has been strongly undermining. We make China look good.)
How about a rules system of combining words; a grammar which defines the language -- putting a patent on that--- since it is a lot like software is a certain order of instructions... this would be certain orders of statements which let a human instruct the computer in the abstract...
How about a patent on software design patterns?
Lets patent new slang grammars found in pop music and hip hop...
The phone book is sorted... can I patent a process of ordering database entries for faster access times? Prior art... but you get my point.
I guess I'm way too smart. I actually referred to that because it was the most recent crazy thing getting wide attention even if it was being taken a bit too far. The Rush defenders are not worth my time; these rash statements on the extremes help push things even further and make extreme positions look relatively good. I think they serve a purpose - just because most conservatives are not that bad does not mean I can't use it as an example of the kind of thing going on.
These "jokes" are not far from Glenn Beck's "questions" where it is a thinly veiled attack or to establish a premise/attitude indirectly. To me, this is just an adult version of the childish word games we've all experienced. Sure one can't be 100% sure of the intent but that is whole point of playing those games in the first place.
Rush derails ALL serious discussions; I don't think he is capable of one, at least not in public.
When you see what is actually going on and are unable to do anything you QUIT or you fight back and are asked to resign.
Plus on the outside the perspective is different. Remember when you are an insider you have all these special tools and experts surrounding you; you get information the public will not know about in your lifetime. You make decisions based on stuff nobody else has or knows about-- it is easy to think that everybody outside your tiny elite group is "naive".
The USA did not only outsource some of its economy to China, it outsourced a great deal of US pollution to China; also as a result it externalized the pollution costs from the business model to lower prices at a higher long term cost to the Chinese (who are largely doing it to themselves but we are not free from blame, our corporations could self-regulate the pollution they always claim they would do here if we removed government regulations... it proves how little self restraint they actually have.)
The dysfunctional political AND ECONOMIC situation we are in today really does not lend credibility to the so called experts who thrive in our dysfunction; meanwhile the ones who had the best grasp of the mess we are in continue to be marginalized - and they are just as "qualified" -- I have no problem when Hansen's ideas, I find them to be every bit as realistic as the alternatives being proposed (many of which are not strong enough to fix anything which is why Hansen needs to be involved because the areas overlap.)
I largely agree but the "progressives" are not for extreme environmentalism - the conservatives greatly exaggerate their attacks to the point where it is hard to use satire to ridicule it. 1st time I saw Glenn Beck I thought he was over the top satire. The conservatives just went too far lately labeling a woman a slut just for wanting access to birth control. They'll often call Obama a Nazi and a Communist in the same rant.
Restraining the extremes of capitalism is not anti-capitalism anymore than Firemen are anti-fire. To an extreme capitalist, any criticism of their religion is blasphemy - and they are at the point of religion just like communists in the USSR. (A god is not required for something to be a religion.)
I agree progressives want to strengthen and expand democratic institutions greatly; not all of them believe centralized power is always the solution.
You can't just go around having brawls then wimp out and shoot somebody. Even clear self defense should require mandatory charges so a proper complete investigation is performed. Maybe an "innocent" person spends some money, suffers a little, or ends up in jail a few years. That is a small price to pay for one's whole life... assuming the threat was actually real.
Just about everybody would trade a trial and some possible jail time against death. Nobody should be able to leave a murder scene, go home, clean up, add some bruises, leave the country, etc.
Slashdot Mirror
There are many factors besides how Obama never was a classic "liberal" and in many ways is actually like a republican of 40 years ago. His vague hope campaign was bound to be harmed by its success and the unrealistic ignorant imagination of the public. Good cop, bad cop.
Another overlooked factor is how extremely difficult it is to swim upstream in the cesspool of corruption. Even if completely honest, you'll get dirty in the process and you are lucky to even move forward if you tack your way forward. This is why the corrupt leaders can get a whole lot more done working with the powerful corrupting influences (see Bush.) It is rather irrelevant whether or not Obama is good or bad. His good acts will be against the flow and likely fail or fall short; which will not do much win over voters - his bad acts will be more successful and net him more power to sucker voters.
The best description of the system I have ever seen is in the HBO series "The Wire." It takes a long time to form the picture of the system and the show wonders a bit in the 1st and last season. It is not easy to give a good depiction of a complex social system but it has the best I've seen (it was written by a real reporter.) The dialog by the actual former mayor is priceless. The job is mostly about eating shit created by others and being held hostage by a system that can't change quick enough to fix much of anything. It is a juggling act of eating shit and smiling while trying to get only a few things done; never as planned because the details and complexity come out as you delve deeper.
There is a point of no return, where the limits on change can not be overcome; a fall into despotism is the destination for all democracy, as tiny failures compound unchecked until they become insurmountable. If you fix something with strong support, as soon as relief is felt the support weakens to complete the job. With the system based problems, the public is ignorant or unconcerned because it does not directly impact them in a way their selfish minds can comprehend - hell, in the USA a large percentage think government is some external entity and forgot the "of the people by the people" which cripples them.
oh wait, somebody probably did.
No time; but the summary was not in metric either. Some of us do not use that crap system.
New specs should all be metric; it is not modern if it is using imperial measurement. The new 21" should be 534mm.
Keep the outside stuff the same but convert it all into metric.
The early years of cable had no ads on some channels and fewer ads on channels with ads. Greed caused the cable company to hold onto more money forcing channels to need advertizing or add more. I'm surprised HBO and some other channels have not been forced into ads (I bet you a share of the premium fee goes to the cable company!) At some point the local cable company started inserting local ads over the ads on the broadcast channels when they were on cable-- one could easily see this with a TV that was not on cable. I still wonder how that one made it out of court (it must have been in court) because if I pay a lot of money for a local area ad on the broadcast channel I would be upset to know that it would not be seen by cable subscribers unless I pay the cable company too.
I've only noticed the changes over many years in my area. Regardless, the business models of today require constant growth and unsustainable returns for publicly traded companies. Obviously, going backwards in profits is extremely bad (some corps kill people over it) but just staying at the same level of profit is also bad and hurts share price. The model promotes pushing things to the extremes and for short term gains; until the system is patched the design flaws will continue to harm customers for greater profit. In all businesses. It also can warp the influence of competition in the so-called marketplace towards competing for profits and not for customers, which is why you can see whole industries engage in price fixing when competition is supposed to be their primary focus. Cost externalization is the name of the game today. think about it.
Dr. Who brushes over technical details with a generalized summation, at least they did it more in the older series. The new series has some Star Trek nerd BS that rubbed off on it where they feel the need to explain more detailed BS while in the old shows they rarely went into any more detail than necessary to the story. They were/are also more realistic in the sense that some expert (in a hurry) describes things to laymen in a simple metaphorical summation.
It is rarely ever used like a screwdriver.
Character: "What's that?" Doctor: "Its my sonic screwdriver."
Simple description for something that is just a tool to move the plot along quicker.
These days the sonic screwdriver is much more like a magic wand; but then the stories have become more fantasy in recent years.
We are nowhere near using enough wind power for it to become a problem and if we covered everything in those towers over then next 100 years... they lose MOST the wind energy for the tiny surface area the blades cover. This is a complete waste, getting undue attention by the idiotic media.
How about the controversy of people selfishly and irresponsibly popping out babies? Nobody wants to bring up the TRUE and controversial issue of the population crisis and how it is causing all these problems, from climate change to endangered animals to resource cost increases. We don't even discuss population even being a problem or how we are contributing to the problem and then never even begin to address possible solutions to that problem.
Public roads, on public land are the essential infrastructure on which our society functions, it dates back long ago. It is done by the people (aka the government.) Everybody puts money in and everybody benefits.
The electrical grid gets heavy subsidizes and often leverages its monopoly power to corrupt government. The grid should be another public network just like the roads it usually runs next to. City water and sewage is also an old solution we continue. Electricity is now essential and while it is not as important as the traditional grids it is next in line to be made public. We should cast off these crooks who exploit our needs, corrupt our officials, and often poorly manage our power grid. It may cost us the same amount but we have 1 less source of corruption and an open grid to build a larger marketplace around. Private power grids are too cheap to think LONG term while government can build a grid to last longer and run cheaper in the end... such as putting power lines underground near the roads instead of cheaply on poles... higher voltage DC with local DC to AC with plenty of R&D available that no private company can compete with.
Like the roads, water, sewer grids before it, an open public electrical grid will foster competition built upon it and promote a distributed robust marketplace. Grid power storage services that buy cheap and sell high; small distributed power generation and a FAIR payback to individuals who feed to the grid. Many schemes could be devised on such systems, beyond just subsides for example, consumers could choose to pay more for solar and solar producers then get a higher payback. Power rates could be managed automatically down to the second; fostering a whole market of smart devices to save you money.
Power generation can remain private; just as cars, trucks are private but run on the public transportation grid. Although, I can't still see nuclear being possible without huge government intervention as has always been the case.
Science does not write the sensational news stories; almost no politicians are scientists; the public embarrassingly seems ignorant about science in general and lends as much credence to an actual scientist as the opposing PR person who has no credibility, that is if they even hear from an actual scientist.
Science is not a game of debate or a political compromise but that is how it is presented and processed by the masses. Science in those arenas appears as an extremist position since it is all about about finding fact.
The fear industry pulls in some scientists and other industries corrupt scientists but those are made into visible figures and do not fairly represent their communities. They can exaggerate and sensationalize minor issues or the unsettled areas of knowledge.
TFA: Global Dimming is fairly recent, the extent of the impact is even more recent and that is just preliminary in the larger picture. Global Dimming is what is saving us from the extreme predictions and delaying them; it used to be a little controversial because it seemed to contradict the rest the science but it turned out with further research it strongly supports it. Nutshell: reflective pollution is helping counter the heat retaining CO2 pollution which is why it is not as hot as if you figure/estimate using pure CO2 alone. Early estimates lacked the data and research from the future which turned out to be quite significant; some got caught up in it a little some a lot, possibly being slow to change if they were too attached to their theory.
The vast majority of new "literature" is crap. We are not losing a great deal if there is no longer money in it. Artists have been starving for generations before and after monopoly rights yet we still have a large number of artists. Many make their livings being hired to CREATE (work for a living) and not from past efforts.
It is not the government's job to prop up old defunct business models; laws and constitutions are designed to be adapted to the times.
>we're talking about an industry thats basically run its own government sanctioned regulatory board. this board is a shining example of why an agency charged with regulating as well as promoting is flawed on a fundamental level.
Same thing with nuclear power, the board are also the promoters. The farm lobby is also similar in many of its government connections.
I frankly don't want to bother despite that I have university access, more fun to read the pointless commentary on /. while I wait for an email reply. That it gets published into one of these greedy journals puts the credibility above any mainstream news source or elected official.
Web pages with FLASH waste more power.
It is not exactly lies; it is wild speculation or possibly even a reasonable guess based upon ignorance. Even when they purposely distort things greatly it gets the results they want; therefore, they continue with the tactics. Do you not find it funny that Greenpeace is playing reality distortion with Apple?
We live in an age of PR where education and truth do not matter to a huge segment of the population and corporations who project their image with marketing and PR. Its cheaper for them to distort, cover, or lie their flaws than to fix anything and lawsuits or government are not that effective (if not working in the other direction.) Attacking their image they work so hard to create is one way to threaten effectively and cheaply. I would be surprised if they did not use the tactic against a 100x larger organization who has a great deal vested in their appearance.
Maybe they go too far, maybe they do not. It depends on how effective they are. In the USA Greenpeace gets a bad rap no matter what they do -- this is an org who've had corps paying for various types of spies and moles along with PR aimed against them for many decades. I am not a member or donor but I try to put the situation into context. The mission of activist groups is not to to be liked by all consumers - its to create change and please a like minded minority so they continue; the cause does not have to benefit society positively.
I keep telling people China will not rise much higher because they are setting up MBA schools like crazy.
Exactly!
However I find citing X's Law distasteful, it works on stupid people and I've seen it bypass critical thought; which is not productive long term - even when it makes sense to get a concept across quickly for some people that is not how it works and likely these are the people one is trying to "wake up."
I sometimes wonder if people ever remember the Earth Liberation fanatics or the PETA nuts who want to ban anything that is not a wildlife reserve (I guess they are not extreme because that is easy to see as exaggeration?)
I DO however understand how when faced against something which is going to impact the earth and the human race more than WW2 (it may kill more people too) people can see that forced compliance at above average levels is required. The problem is big enough that some kind of wartime sacrifice... its is just that the enemy is US not some other culture we can degrade into subhumans to easily hate. Just like WW1 and WW2 the USA will be thick headed about the problem; but this time the USA likely will not join the fight until the war is lost. Its more like we are helping to appease Germany while saying we want to fight them (if you've been following the climate summits the USA has been strongly undermining. We make China look good.)
How about a rules system of combining words; a grammar which defines the language -- putting a patent on that--- since it is a lot like software is a certain order of instructions... this would be certain orders of statements which let a human instruct the computer in the abstract...
How about a patent on software design patterns?
Lets patent new slang grammars found in pop music and hip hop...
The phone book is sorted... can I patent a process of ordering database entries for faster access times? Prior art... but you get my point.
Somebody please trademark War On Terror.
I guess I'm way too smart. I actually referred to that because it was the most recent crazy thing getting wide attention even if it was being taken a bit too far. The Rush defenders are not worth my time; these rash statements on the extremes help push things even further and make extreme positions look relatively good. I think they serve a purpose - just because most conservatives are not that bad does not mean I can't use it as an example of the kind of thing going on.
These "jokes" are not far from Glenn Beck's "questions" where it is a thinly veiled attack or to establish a premise/attitude indirectly. To me, this is just an adult version of the childish word games we've all experienced. Sure one can't be 100% sure of the intent but that is whole point of playing those games in the first place.
Rush derails ALL serious discussions; I don't think he is capable of one, at least not in public.
If you cant make the connection then you are not worth my time.
When you see what is actually going on and are unable to do anything you QUIT or you fight back and are asked to resign.
Plus on the outside the perspective is different. Remember when you are an insider you have all these special tools and experts surrounding you; you get information the public will not know about in your lifetime. You make decisions based on stuff nobody else has or knows about-- it is easy to think that everybody outside your tiny elite group is "naive".
The USA did not only outsource some of its economy to China, it outsourced a great deal of US pollution to China; also as a result it externalized the pollution costs from the business model to lower prices at a higher long term cost to the Chinese (who are largely doing it to themselves but we are not free from blame, our corporations could self-regulate the pollution they always claim they would do here if we removed government regulations... it proves how little self restraint they actually have.)
The dysfunctional political AND ECONOMIC situation we are in today really does not lend credibility to the so called experts who thrive in our dysfunction; meanwhile the ones who had the best grasp of the mess we are in continue to be marginalized - and they are just as "qualified" -- I have no problem when Hansen's ideas, I find them to be every bit as realistic as the alternatives being proposed (many of which are not strong enough to fix anything which is why Hansen needs to be involved because the areas overlap.)
I largely agree but the "progressives" are not for extreme environmentalism - the conservatives greatly exaggerate their attacks to the point where it is hard to use satire to ridicule it. 1st time I saw Glenn Beck I thought he was over the top satire. The conservatives just went too far lately labeling a woman a slut just for wanting access to birth control. They'll often call Obama a Nazi and a Communist in the same rant.
Restraining the extremes of capitalism is not anti-capitalism anymore than Firemen are anti-fire. To an extreme capitalist, any criticism of their religion is blasphemy - and they are at the point of religion just like communists in the USSR. (A god is not required for something to be a religion.)
I agree progressives want to strengthen and expand democratic institutions greatly; not all of them believe centralized power is always the solution.
Wish I had mod points. Does not matter what you think of them America is too ignorant to realize the high amount hypocrisy that goes on.
You can't just go around having brawls then wimp out and shoot somebody. Even clear self defense should require mandatory charges so a proper complete investigation is performed. Maybe an "innocent" person spends some money, suffers a little, or ends up in jail a few years. That is a small price to pay for one's whole life... assuming the threat was actually real.
Just about everybody would trade a trial and some possible jail time against death. Nobody should be able to leave a murder scene, go home, clean up, add some bruises, leave the country, etc.
Corporations are the dominant institution of modern times; so it makes sense that they are given equal footing with national TLDs.
If you do not want USA to have control over your domain get one in a freedom loving country.
Note: USA gets the non nation domains because they were first. The UK stamps were first so they do not have to label their nation on them.