While I like the convenience, ease of distribution and reduction of clutter provided by digital publications, I don't think they are worth the current cost with the extremely limited DRM.

With a real book or magazine, for almost the same price as an electronic publication, i can legally share with my family and friends and even donate to a library or sell to a used bookstore when done.

None of these are allowed on the curent restricted electronic publishing systems. Instead, content distributers have cut out the manufacturing and distribution, and pocketed all the past costs as new profit, while selling a product with substantially less use.

Frankly, the costs and restrictions placed on library lending of electronic media are excessive and we risk loosing the value that free information shared in libraries has provided to our cultural growth. When restricted e-publications become substantially cheaper than real books and are provided with the ability to transfer ownership, or provide limited lending, then I may consider them.

For now, there are plenty of excellent classic books in the public domain that are available to read for free. Unfortunately, the publishing industry and governments of the world are waging war on the public domain.

The only true theft and piracy of intelectual property is that committed when works are prevented from entering the public domain. All money earned through extended IP terms is theft and involves the transfer and reductions of physical wealth from the public. As much as the industry proclaims otherwise there is no transfer of wealth when consuming freely copied media since the intrinsic value of an additional copy is zero.

Limited terms to intelectual property rights are an essential part of the growth and development of technology, the arts and our society. We must stand up to the publishing industry and its attempts to make intelectual property rights practically indefinite through continued extensions.

The US is in deep trouble if it can't withstand $5/gal gas.

The rise of US power is closely tied to our natural wealth of oil. The UK based its global power on steam and coal, the US superseded the UK to global dominance on its oil wealth.

-The US was the first and is the largest oil power in history.
-In total oil extracted combined with known reserves, the US contained more oil than any other nation.
-We are still the third largest oil producing country in the world.
-We consume about 50% of the world oil with only 5% of its population.
-The US hit peak oil in the early 70's, prompting the oil crisis and dependance on foreign oil. We no longer were finding new reserves of oil faster than we extracted them.

As the first country to hit peak oil, the US should have initiated policies to reduce our oil dependance, but as we see today we are still addicted.
Our private and government development since the 70's has largely ignored the impact higher gas prices.

The hypocrisy in the oil price arguments are astounding.
-People believe they have a right to cheap oil, a limited resource.
-It is considered impossible for the US to implement a 50mpg standard even though this is common everywhere else.
-Our country has dismantled large privately operated mass transit systems in cities and towns that existed before 1950, while subsidizing free roads, parking and suburban sprawl.
-We fight fuel saving alternatives such as High Speed Rail and mass transit.
-The highway trust fund is going bankrupt. It is unable to keep up with the demands sprawling development puts on new capitol construction, and has never covered maintenance.
-The cheap fuel and car economy has encouraged suburban and rural growth that would not be possible without cheap fuel. Real estate values in these areas will plummet as fuel prices increase.
-User costs such as parking meters, odometer taxes and vehicle licence fees are fought as excessive taxes while governments at all levels need to divert general funds to build and maintain a car infrastructure.
-Federal gas taxes are fixed per gallon and not as a percentage of cost and are lower than most sales taxes. At 18 cents per gallon the fuel tax is 4.5%, lower than sales tax in many places.
-More efficient Diesel fuel is taxed higher at 24 cents.

Of all the speculation about oil, one thing is certain.

The price will continue to go up.
If we don't choose where and how to live without considering this fact, we will suffer the results.

Our government has gone out of its way to subsidize our car lifestyle with the largest public works projects in US history. Its time to ween americans off these subsidies and allow them to bear the full cost of car use and ownership.

The markets will quickly correct the lack of mass transit and sprawling development that has occurred as a result of these subsidies.

The privacy notion isn't much of a stretch when you consider that the only way a government could prosecute an abortion is by demanding a doctor or hospital to break Physician-patient confidentiality.

Regardless of your view on abortion,

The Roe vs Wade ruling forming the basis of US abortion law today determined that abortion is a privacy issue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
"the Court ruled that a right to privacy under the due process clause in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution extends to a woman's decision to have an abortion"

The TSA was created to comfort passengers after 9/11 by providing a highly visible change to the airport security measures through inconveniencing all passengers as much as possible.

In reality, even without the TSA, the nature of in flight security changed forever on 9/11. Now everyone understands that the risk of hijacked planes is far greater than just the lives of those held hostage on the plane. By showing the larger threat hijacked planes pose as weapons, the hijackers on 9/11 effectively ended hijacking as a means to terrorize the greater population since most will accept that hijacked planes must be shot down before the plane can be used to pose a larger threat. Passengers and crews now know that their only hope for survival in a hijack attempt is to take down the hijackers themselves and regain control of the plane.

Security is still required to keep weapons and bombs off of flights, but even the security before 9/11 was sufficient to deter the hijackers from bringing guns or other large weapons. As prisoners have shown, sharp weapons can be made from virtually anything solid, but these weapons would be less effective in a hijack today since the passengers and crew would be willing to be cut to overpower hijackers.

The only minimal additional security provided since 9/11 is in limiting compounds that could be used to make explosives with the intent of destroying a plane rather than hijacking. This is battle of diminishing returns, where ever growing intrusions into personal privacy and intrusions provide ever smaller degrees of increased security and protection.

I have no problem with scanned luggage and carryons, but requiring everyone to remove shoes and clothes is purely an attempt to make each passenger feel and intimately experience the security.

These are psychological steps that accomplish virtually nothing to improve our security, but only raise the perception of safety.

The argument I was responding to was that those who are vested in paying more or any taxes will vote for candidates who support tighter controls on spending. This is a common fallacy.

You are right that we have spent more than we take in at an incredible rate, however, it is the tax revenue that has dropped at a greater rate than the spending has increased. The tax revenue has dropped due to reduced economic activity and the massive tax cuts provided to the top income earners.

The reason that blue states tend to spend more in taxes than they take in federal funding is that they have a larger middle classes due to higher wages and benefits. This directly correlates to anti-union right to work states vs union states. As jobs flow to more non-union states, expect the number of people not paying taxes to increase, as companies move to a cheaper labor pool.

Just like the last two wars, none of the tax cuts were offset in the budget by spending cuts or other revenue increases. This leads to deficits. The Laffer curve has never realized the increased revenues predicted, which has left our country with massively escalating deficits every time we cut taxes. Maybe it is just too good to be true...

Back to the original point, raising taxes on the poor will have much more adverse economic impact than reversing the tax cuts on the wealthy.

The issue is not the percentage of people who don't earn enough to pay taxes, but rather why do so many earn so little that they are considered in poverty? Maybe the stagnation of the middle class and the massive migration of wealth from the middle class to the uber-wealthy has something to do with our growing poverty rate.

As americans we are all invested in the system.

The poorer people who don't pay any income taxes are overwhelmingly residence of red states and congressional districts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?pagewanted=all

Part of this is due to the lower wages and lower cost of living in many of these conservative states.

Similarly, the ratio of government spending to tax receipts is tilted heavily in favor republican districts and states.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/sr139.pdf

Lastly, taxing poor people has little economic benefit. When such a large portion of their income is spent on goods, increased taxes only reduce their economic consumption and also reduce the amount they might be able to save. Similarly these people pay a higher percentage of their income on sales taxes than wealthier people. This is why sales tax and flat taxes are considered a regressive as it punishes poor people more than wealthy ones.

Wealthier people have much more discretionary wealth which they may choose to spend or invest.

We cannot forget that one of the main reasons we have a deficit is due to the huge tax breaks provided to the very wealthy. During WW2 we had a 91% top tax rate, this lowered after the war to 70% in the 1970s, 50% in the 80's and to 33% now, but with capital gains income that can go down to 15%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Historical_income_tax_rates_.281913.E2.80.932010.29

Another reason is that we never included the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the budget, and never found a way to pay for them, by either cutting spending or raising taxes. Notice the fiscal responsibility used during WW2 to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for defending our country. This is in stark contrast to the war we chose to start in Iraq.

Property taxes exist in the US.
This is a tax on one form of wealth rather than income.

If you are granted stocks or options, you should pay taxes on the current value of the item that is granted to you, minus any contribution you need to make.

Any new stock, item or wealth provided to you is income.

I think the question is more appropriately:
Whats the difference between campaign contributions and bribery?

Lobbying can be done without cash donations.

Privately financed campaigns == corruption.

Apples magsafe power supply uses as patented magnetic connector.
As far as i know there is no 3rd party power block available for mac laptops due to this connector.

They have already "killed" this accessory market.

What makes you think private industry cares more about your privacy than the government.

Companies actively look to analyze and sell your data to anyone who will pay. Most companies see your data as an asset. Recall the ATT/NSA scandal. ATT provided locked secret rooms to the NSA. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/04/6585.ars

At least the government, would likely try and keep the information obtained through spying classified, rather than sell it.

While a few privacy laws may exist, the US has no formal fundamental right to privacy.

In reality both governments and corporations have little interest in anyones perceived natural privacy rights, and in the US as most celebrity tabloids show, the right to freedom of speech trumps peoples privacy.

People who are not required to file income taxes are exempt from the mandate since they are provided Medicaid.
Religious and numerous other exemptions also exist.

Income earners are required to pay into social security among other programs.
Is that unconstitutional?

The law clearly allows you to not by insurance and pay a fixed sum tax to the government. Therefore you are not required to pay any corporations, only the government.

Also, what is the difference legally and rationally between:
A) A tax penalty for those that don't buy compliant insurance. or
B) Imposing a fixed $750 tax on all income tax filers and then providing an equivalent credit if you own compliant insurance.

There is no effective difference, and description B is definitely constitutional.

The government has the constitutional right to tax incomes, this is part of your income tax bill. The uninsured penalty (or insurance credits) result from comercial activity. Almost all tax credits involve comercial activity.

If anything, Obamacare is a massive subsidy to insurance corporations with a minor tax in income earners who choose to avoid any health insurance.

If the insurance industry wishes to survive as a FOR PROFIT industry, they better start defending these subsidies, or a single payer system is destined replace it. We cannot afford the massive redundancies and inefficiencies inherent in hundreds of private insurance companies duplicating processes, forms, coverages and profits for the delivery of healthcare insurance.

The right to free speech has minor limits. The right to free speech does not allow you to trespass inorder to exercise that speech.

Free speech is limited for matters of immediate public safety. You cannot falsely yell fire in a crowed theater.

Similarly, BART explicitly restricts civil protest in the BART system. Train platforms can be dangerous places when crowded and tempers flare. BART also restricts eating and drinking, both activities that we also have natural rights to.

Since BART is very crowded during rush hour. Any tussle between police, protesters or others (including irate commuters) could result in people being pushed onto the tracks, electrocuted by the third rail or run over by an approaching train. BART has a public obligation to maintain order and safety within the system.

The protesters have been allowed to protest and speek their message outside the stations, their right to speech has not been violated.