If and when SpaceX becomes a stable and above all profitable enterprise there will be plenty of others who will get in the game. SpaceX is just doing the hard work upfront with their R&D and working out how to stream line the operational and safety procedures needed to support such a venture. As long as the government doesn't smother them with regulations and the governments version of standards they should be quite successful in the future.

At the international level it is more of the government spying on other governments not your average citizen. And every country of note on the planet does it and the rank hypocrisy of the countries raising a fuss about a US intelligence agency performing it's functions is simply breath taking. OMG a spying agency that actually spies. Stop the fucking presses and get ready to charge the barricades. The whole NSA spying issue has been blown out of proportion when it comes to spying on individuals. There isn't a spying agency on the planet or the necessary technology capable of real time data collection and worthwhile analysis on individuals. At best they can collect a whole shitload of worthless data that they can use if a particular person or group shows up on their radar from the HUMINT side of things. Or they can use any stored data to do a post mortem after the next 9/11 to figure out who is to blame for not stopping it from happening. That's where all this nonsense started in the first place. People weren't satisfied with blaming the people who actually committed the act they wanted to blame someone for letting it happen and of course no one wanted to take the blame so they started devising ways to make sure they could not be blamed for any future random suicidal attack. Meanwhile the real danger to online security and privacy protection for the individual is credit card theft and identity theft from sophisticated criminal enterprises. These dangers do effect the individual and causes all types of problems every day all over the world. The technology crowd has also been silent when it comes to evaluating some of the capabilities that the NSA purportedly has. Most of the information stolen from the NSA contains no details about how these capabilities are implemented or even if they were ever built and deployed. The Power Point presentations released look more like something used to procure future funding than any actual system that is up and running. And of course no one has vetted any of the released documents and have just automatically assumed they are 100% accurate. If the NSA technical capabilities are any where close to what is claimed then why would you not hire a company with the knowledge and technical expertise to make sure you are not vulnerable to any existing exploits the NSA is supposedly taking advantage of? Ask yourself what caliber of people would the NSA have building their cutting edge systems? The engineers and software developers building the NSA capabilities are in the upper tier of that particular labor pool and any chance to get access to their services to secure your own systems would be worth the money and it would be very profitable for the companies proving these services. To automatically assume they are still working for the NSA shows more paranoia than prudence.

I don't think this will be an issue much longer giving the current state of relations between the US and Russia. As US sanctions continue to ramp up they will start sanctioning entire industries instead of just sticking it to Russia's wealthy elite. They have already cancelled a contract for Russia to provide 10 refurbished helicopters to Afghanistan. The only reason Russia has not mentioned down sizing the cooperation on the ISS is because the US currently owes them over $470 million for their launch services. Now if China ever gets busy with their manned moon mission it will force the US to finally get back in the game no matter the cost. The US first manned mission to the moon was first and foremost a way to show up the USSR while also providing a convenient way for the US to develop the rocket technology needed in the development of their ICBM's. NASA's budget may be pathetic but the military budget is another matter.

Britain's breaking of the ENIGMA code in WW2 would not have been as timely as it was without the 2 Polish scientists who figured it out first and rushed to get the information to England just before the Germans invaded Poland. They also lucked out and were able to retrieve one of the ENIGMA machines off a German sub they sunk before the German captain and crew could destroy it. Like most scientific discoveries it was a case of standing on the shoulders of those before them that made the advances possible. As far as I remember I don't think there was one encryption scheme during WW2 that wasn't broken by the combatant countries except for the US cypher system based upon the Navajo language. Of course back in WW2 they didn't have access to super computers to do the bulk of the work. The scientists and engineers of that era still make today's scientists and engineers look like amateurs in some key areas.

The primary cost of transitioning to solar energy to power even a mid-size municipality is the distribution infrastructure needed to deliver the power. Do you build an entirely new power distribution grid or work with the existing utility providers to modify an existing grid? Would you need to run parallel distribution systems while transitioning to a different power source? Slapping a few solar panels on your roof is one thing. But using an large solar farms to collect energy for wide spread usage is another. The transition to electric vehicles is slow going because of the lack of charging infrastructure. You will need to run parallel distribution systems to satisfy both the new electric cars and the current fuel delivery infrastructure.

Japan has already made changes to their pacifist constitution in order to provide their military with the legal means to expand it's military doctrine. They still rely 100% on the US protection but they are starting to hedge their bets and the US has no problems with Japan ramping up it's military capabilities.

If he had stayed in the US he would have been arrested and prosecuted in the justice system. He would not have been targeted for execution by a drone or sent to Guantanamo. He would have had his chance to defend his rights and actions in open court with defense counsel if he wished. And there is a fine line between 1st Amendment speech and incitement to commit a violent act. It would have been an interesting case and he could have milked the notoriety and publicity better than he ever could sitting in a tent in Yemen in front of a web cam.

To maintain a some what effective justice system centered around upholding the US Constitution requires examining existing precedents raised in similar but possibly very different circumstances where a particular law or protected right has been applied. I think the killing of a US citizen who is located in a foreign state who is preaching violence and providing religious indoctrination for those carrying out acts of violence against the state and it's citizens is an exceptional case that does not lend itself to being judged by the same laws he would face in the US had he been located there. If the countries where the known terrorists groups are located cannot or will not make an effort to handle the matter it leaves a gigantic loop hole where a US citizen could break any number of laws and be assured safe heaven in another country. Had the Afghani, Iraqi, Yemini, or Pakistani governments been able to capture and prosecute or extradite the alleged offenders the US would not have to take matters into it's own hand. The fact that one or two US citizens have been targeted under these circumstances does not mean the government is throwing all citizen rights and protections out the window. It means there was really no other viable alternative to reaching this person.

Well it seems a lot of people have no problem with Russia annexing Ukraine because the US invaded Iraq in 2003. And Putin is taking full advantage of this ideology while trying not to laugh to hard.

People tend to complain about the government as if it was somehow better in the past and the abuses or faults are something new. Their knowledge of history spans back a whole 10 years or so which sort of hampers their understanding of just about everything. The US was founded by rich, white, land owners, and the imported aristocracy looking to setup their own little fiefdom. They actually job a pretty good job considering how things turned out. The US has been in one war or another ever since the Revolutionary War. Some wars have just been a little more involved but they were all military actions used to support the state in some fashion. We have had presidential assassinations, unpopular wars, race riots, issues with keeping religion separated from state, oil embargoes, violent union actions, violent political demonstrations, domestic terrorist groups, FBI privacy abuses, institutionalized bigotry, and corporate robber barons that make today's corporations look like charity organizations, To say the US is falling presumes that the US was ever at the top to begin with. The US is a young country when compared to almost all others but it does have over 250 years of history that needs to taken into account when making broad denunciations concerning it's current state of affairs.

The US didn't conquer Ukraine. The EU as usual has created this mess. Their continued incompetence is both embarrassing and dangerous. As far as orchestrating any uprising goes exactly how does the US government force the actions of thousands of people? Threaten to nuke them? Deposit thousands of dollars in everyone's checking account? It's so much easier to blame the US or Russia when it's the people on the ground that are making the decisions and carrying out the actions. Although in this case Russia isn't even trying to hide their involvement and will certainly not be apologizing to anybody because Putin knows he gets a free ride on all his actions because the US invaded Iraq 2003 which evidently makes all future military incursions perfectly acceptable from here on out. There are internal political factions in every country in the world and they fight amongst themselves and jockey for money and influence to empower themselves. You make it sound like all these innocent people are standing around waiting for the US to tell them what to do or how to act. It's actually quite insulting because you write off any self determination these people may have and make them look like mindless automatons working for the US government when there is not a shred of evidence to support that argument. Russia has a lot of leverage to promote their goals in the region but the US really has no leverage or interest in the region. The only possible thing they could be worried about is Russia moving on some the other Baltic states in the same manner and a couple of those states are in NATO and covered under article 5 of the common defense provision.

The Ukraine voluntarily gave up their nuclear weapons and look at their current predicament. Thanks to Putin violating the treaty under which the Ukraine gave up their nuclear arsenal no country in the world is going to give up their nuclear weapons. On a side note if there is one country in the world that actually needs nuclear weapons it is Israel. They live in a region where everyone around them is taught to hate them practically from birth.

You do realize IBM has been a going concern since way before the term "Open Source" was ever uttered? Apple is one of the most closed computing ecosystems in existence for both hardware and software. Like Goggle they open source some code but don't think for a second they are open sourcing anything might actually result in giving a competitor a chance to catch up. Their contributions to open source are used to generate good PR in the development world.

Why do you assume the American public is not capable of locating other media outlets across the world? Do you think you are some how smarter then everyone else? It's becoming harder everyday to get to the truth about anything. Media outlets with prejudicial and biased editorial lines publish nothing more than opinions which are usually derived from information taken out of context and purposely omitting any facts that would contradict the publishers predetermined stance. It's become a competition between those supporting opposite ends of any controversial issues and winning the argument is put ahead any facts that might force someone to re-examine their arguments.

"People expect Linux to look like Windows."
No, people expect the applications they use on a daily basis to continue working. In the end that is the only thing that matters.