What we have is a claim that anyone can make versus an organization that is not allowed to talk about it during an investigation ironically to protect that person. What a world we live in.

If the FBI presses charges that explain why they were investigating let me know. Or when they drop their case and can then talk about it let me know. Until either of these are done we are drawing conclusions on half of the story, if that...

In the days of Windows XP this wasn't an issue. When they usually came out with a user version of Windows every year and a half or so how long was XP the latest version of Windows out? Five plus years? then at least through the Windows Vista days almost all software (and hardware for that matter) work work with XP or Vista. Even now *most* hardware/software that you buy will work with Windows XP. That being said I see XP compatibility in most items being dropped sooner rather then later as there were many changes when they switched to Vista (ans many members of slashdot are well aware).

Also consider that with the very low pricing of computers today from the price wars over the last two decades, and the fact that labor prices have not gone down, if something like a motherboard or hard drive goes bad outside of a warranty it often doesn't cost the customer to much more (and often costs less) to get a new computer that is more powerful that the original.

Like it or hate it, the low to mid range computers sold in the last five plus years are throw away devices. They simply don't have the reliability of the computers that came before. I worked for a major computer manufacturer ten years ago, and even then they kept what they considered a three year supply of replacement parts.

Simple, its their network, they can allow or not as they see fit. What you do with your PS3 is your business, however if you do certain things to it there are consequences, and this is one of them. That's life, live with it...

I am on the opposite side of the fence as you when it comes to privatization as you in general, however something like this would have to be done by our government.

I wonder though, are we just trying to do what has been done in Europe or does our president think this would actually be a good idea.

I'm torn on weather I would support such a railway, while on the plus side a high speed railway would have more benefit I think than it does in many countries in part due to the size of our country, I simply don't see it making much if any money, and worry about it being an additional taxpayer burden

One big hurdle is the existing airline system it would have to compete with, would it be faster or slower, and how much would it cost in comparison?

Another hurdle is the fact that we Americans love our cars. We use them for near everything. For better or worse they are part of our culture, as is the "road trip".

I simply don't see it being a success, at least not in the short term. I wonder if we have the wherewithal to keep paying for it long enough for people to really start using it, and thats assuming that people in general see enough of a benefit in it to use it.

One thing that could help make such an endeavor work would be light package transport. If they can get it cheap enough to compete with trucking and just as fast or faster there may be a supporting market to help pay for it in the long term. I don't see heavy packages using this service but what about mail or much of what goes through UPS or Fedex?

Hmm, the public wants health care reform... Health care reform does not necessarily mean the public health care option which most people in my experience (unscientific obviously) clearly don't want.

The people who pay taxes want an end to tax cuts? I'm sorry no... Are you talking about the same tax cuts that were billed as only affecting the rich up until they were due to expire, now there is a panic on both sides of the isle worrying about the tax increases on the middle class when they expire?

Patriot act repealed, hmm I can't argue with this, never liked it in the first place... My question is what happened to those of you on the left that stopped complaining about this once our current president took office?

I have no problem with closing gitmo, but before we can we need to figure out what to do with the prisoners there first, many of whom the countries we would normally deport them to don't even want them...

I to want to see our brothers and sisters in the military come home. Who doesn't. However, just up and leaving isn't the best solution here or we will find ourselves going back at some point in the future... Did Bush do well in these wars? No. Is our current president doing any better? No.

Odd, three of your five points have been agreed to at least in principle by someone who who is definitely right of center... I do however have a few conditions on some of your absolutes...

One thing I've learned over the years, both the left and the right think they are near the center, in reality neither has a clue as to where the center is and who is actually in it. All to often the people in the center feel their choices when voting are bad and worse, which side is which can vary depending on the beliefs of the individual.

For the most part, people seem to look at reality through the lense of their beliefs, not seeing reality but their interpretation of reality, which doesn't always match up to what is actually happening...

I don't agree with everything this person says but this line hits the nail on the head.

Unfortunately the parties are playing with the system and making anything other than a two party system impossible.

I'd love to see more major political parties so that people can vote closer to their own beliefs rather then a choice between bad and worse, believe it or not most people don't perfectly (or even closely) line up with either party. Although its entirely possible that the choice will be bad, worse, still worse, even more worse...

Wow, first I'm surprised as to how civil the comments have remained. Usually this topic brings out heated debate and arguing very quickly. I have to say good job to those who have posted.

Copponex, I have read many of your posts in multiple threads, I will tell you first off based on what I have read in your posts that we have near opposite views when it comes to politics. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, this is still a free country after all no thanks to the efforts of both political parties.

I'm getting that you are saying just because someone makes more money that they should pay a higher percent of that money in taxes. I don't agree with this on a fundamental level, for even at the same rates they are already paying more in taxes than someone who makes less money. If they pay enough of a higher percentage what is the point of trying to better oneself as the gains quickly dwindle and the extra effort is more and more for not. In the end this line of thought is ultimately self defeating and will eventually lead to collapse, unless you can find a new source of income as the "rich" will not always be "rich".

On your statement of rich Americans being traitors you need to define you definition of "rich". All to often to may people blame the "rich". If you poll pretty much any American they will consider those who make usually not that much more then themselves as rich, and thus being "rich" takes on a different meaning to different people.

The "Tea Party Movement" has a specific set of core beliefs. However, this also is a loose affiliation of different groups within the movement have differing beliefs. Believe it or not there are many Democrats that support this group and call themselves members of the movement. I personally am not a member, however I am sympathetic to some of their core beliefs. People on a grass roots level, primarily the middle class that is largely ignored by both parties have made their mark on politics, and weather you agree with them or not they are trying to make a difference. When the silent majority speaks you would do well to listen or their will or their will be hell to pay, and this goes for both parties, neither one of which has shown much care for this group of people.

The Republican Party at least plays lip service to the beliefs and has given such lip service every time they have been the minority party, before they won control and acted just like Democrats with their enormous spending.

So you think Republicans are only for the rich? Of course this could potentially be true as those on the far right I know seem to believe that anyone who actually has a job is considered rich by Democrat standards. Ironically these two beliefs, while both wrong, seem to be compatible...

Wow.

First off, not me. I once thought I was a republican, then as time went on I realized that I was not. I then thought I was a conservative however I discovered that this was not the case when I actually did research on the subject.

I do have many conservative friends (and many liberal friends as well, go figure).

What you put forth for examples of conservatism don't even remotely match anything that the conservatives I know believe.

First I would take issue with the word Conservative and recommend replacing it with Republican. Believe it or not there is a difference. For example, George W. Bush and his Republican Congress were definitely not Conservative, they clearly spent to much in general...

On to the opinion you put forth, careful putting out opinions like that.

It has been my observation over the years that in politics, when someone accusing what they see as an opposing side of something, their side is just as guilty, if not more so, of the same charge.

I could look up several specific instances of the case but this is off-topic.

As far as the article goes, if it is protected by the Constitution or any federal law in compliance with the Constitution then they may have a case. If its not they have nothing. Which way does this fall? I don't know. Not happy about the way it falls in the end? Vote for people who will change the law as you think it should be changed.

I agree, the google search engine exists to make money for the company that owns it. Being as this is a great source of revenue the company, they continue to put money into it. It takes money to do what they have done, and no one has done it as well. While I have some issues with some other things they have done, their search engine is still the best out there. Others have tried to compete... IMHO no one has made as good of a search engine as google yet, and I have looked around.

Google simply gets me the best and most accurate results, period. It is also free for me to use. I know the difference between advertised results and actual results, and I think most people figure out the difference very quickly... I would venture a guess that much of the time the advertised result is what the person doing the search was looking for anyway.

Just because something is owned by a corporation and makes them money does not make it a bad thing.

Also just because a corporation exists does not make it evil, at least with a corporation we know its end goals, to make money, which makes them somewhat predictable. I wish many other organizations out there were so easy to predict...

1) 99% plus people here in the US do not know how to drive. We take tests that test the absolute basics of driving skill and call people proficient if they pass. Trust me, your not...

2) To few care enough to improve their skills. Driving is just a means of getting around for to many.

3) To many buy cars that are not suited to highway driving and drive them on the highway anyway.

4) People treat the law enforcement here as a joke, usually able to get a lawyer to fix any ticket they get to not accrue points. The police here also treat traffic law enforcement here as a joke.

5) People here don't care about anyone else on the road and it shows.

6) People here don't care about their cars, every day I see and hear cars burning oil, low tires, ect.

7) People think once they pass some tests that driving is more than a privilege, and law enforcement does little to challenge that.

If I had my way driving laws here would be much more like they are in Germany. Our roads would be much safer that way. Unfortunately to many of my countryman would scream bloody murder if you even started enforcing the laws currently on the books, much less enacting more strict laws...

So is it that being in power makes you a better liar, or are you in power because you were the better liar?

To begin I'll flat out tell ya I don't trust either party, or anyone who is a politian.

I'm against this but not for most of reasons most people think someone would be.

Our government was designed to be inefficient for a reason. When government moves fast the people lose. Look whats happened since January, how many big bills (1000 plus pages) have made it through where many of the people voting for them *HAVEN'T EVEN READ THE BILL*, case in point the "stimulus bill" which people simply didn't have time to read it from when it was made available to them to when they voted on it. How many of these went through while congress and the press were talking about other things.

I have no problem with big bills, what I have a problem with is them being pushed down my throat without out even having a chance for a discussion on weather its right for this country or not.

At this point in health care we have a government (and other special interest groups) that claim it wants to have the conversation, but is trying to use its power instead to make people listen without listening itself. At the same time people (democrats, republicans and independants) have questions and concerns that are not being answered. These people are being billed as extreemists. Is this how our government is supposed to work?

I also love the numbers that both sides are putting forth on this issue, these numbers aren't even close. I begin to wonder who is correct, or if neither are correct and the number isn't somewhere in the middle. This is a common occurance, polititions love to fudge the numbers (and in many cases make them up on-site) to suite their purposes.

I honestly don't know what to believe, I guess I'll have to get a copy of the bill and read it my self... Oh yea, that ranks right up there with getting shot, but to see what is on the table its potentially the only real way to have any idea what they are really doing.

Also one thing I've learned over the years, often the best fix for a problem is the least ammount needed to actually fix the problem. This works in the real world, quite well. For instance x computer program stoped working recently, what do you do first:
1) Remove and reinstall the program
2) Wipe the hard drive clean, get another OS, install it, then after noticing that the program doesn't work on the OS acquire another program that was intended for that OS

I would say currently our elected polititions are trying to do option 2 without even considering option 1.

There have been many smaller proposals that have been largely ignored, I'm not saying that any one of these would have fixed health care in this country, but they may have helped the situation, and several of them together might have fixed or minimized many of the issues. My point here is they haven't even tried.

Is this how we want things done?

Also why do we have to quickly approve a bill now that wouldn't take effect until 2013, or by some reports I've heard 2017?

To those who claim I'm against health care reform because I have questions and issues with this bill I say health care reform needs to happen, I'm just not sure this is the way to go about it.

At the moment I have lots of questions that either I'm getting conflicting answers or no answer at all.

Good luck with that.

I'm not saying this would be impossible but it would be very difficult to achieve in todays world as you would have to live completly off the grid...

Think about it, how many databases have your personal info (or at least that of someone you live with). Any phone service (Cell or Land Line), Internet service, Electricity, Trash, Water, Natural Gas. These are all databases, and if you ever live on your own all of these will will include your personal info.

Also, do you have a drivers liscense? If you do your state government has your personal info (and thats if they didn't have it already).

Social Security (assuming your not a member of a religion that has contrary religous beliefs), congrats, the government has you on a list and, while this list doesn't directly include any personal information, what is the one thing that will get someone all the info they will ever want about you?

You wouldn't happen to own a car or house? Or do you live in an appartment with your name on the lease??

Do you have a job that pays other than cash?

Do you have a credit card?

These are just the lists that come to mind offhand, if I put my mind to it I'm sure I can think of more...