Yes, the rich should be paying more back into the economy (through taxes or spending) instead of hoarding wealth, and the H-1Bs and other outsourcing of costs has to be curtailed.

However, when the poor stop getting earned income credits totaling in the several thousands every year (which goes up with the number of children claimed as dependents), while they don't pay a penny in income tax because they're unemployed for whatever reason, then you'll have a solid argument. Until then, too many of the "poor" are getting a free ride on the backs of bad government policy - and they have no skin in the game. Maybe they need to get rid of their iPhones, stop buying $250 Nikes, and cut their cable to pay some taxes back into the system that's paying for those luxuries.

The kicker is that if you have a cheap, corded phone that ALSO plays a role. I bought the Radio Shack device, plugged it into a cheapo speakerphone I had purchased at Target, and it didn't work. If you turned your speakers all the way up, you could barely hear a mumble in the recording.

I bought the JK Audio device online, and THAT didn't work well, either. Surprised, I threw out the speakerphone and got a better one - and the JK Audio device suddenly worked like a champ.

I wish I would've kept the Radio Shack device to try it out on that new speakerphone, but I guess the rule was that you generally get what you pay for when you buy the cheapest thing at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.

I was also thinking of another control variable that's missing: religion. Communist countries attempt to instill an atheist dogma because the people are supposed to "worship" the state (in a nationalist sort of way), where capitalist countries (whether they had socialist leanings or not) generally have religious freedom in varying degrees.

I'm simplifying, but if you fear a God that commands you to be honest, then you try and be honest because you don't want to burn in hell. If you're brought up in an atheist communist society, however, and the government is your "god", you can more easily cheat or lie to it because people invariably figure out how to beat non-omnipotent/omniscient systems of governance and their punishments (which aren't eternal, either).

At the same time, I have found that comments on news sites were actually some of the best information out there - just like here on Slashdot. Yes, there are ahole trolls and idiots, but there aren't as many as some make it out to be - and there are usually sides to a story that aren't being told by the story itself where commenters fill in the blanks.

To be fair, though, the quality of comments overall - including here at Slashdot - has declined, simply because people don't spend the time typing up large treatises anymore. More people want a Twitter-like soundbyte more than information, and won't read comments more than a few lines long. They have better thing to... squirrel!

I know you're half-joking, but there are likely millions of other men out there in the US (including myself) alone that could say the same thing. Porn use (and in some cases addiction) is pervasive but hardly universal.

If I pay with cash, it's mine and nobody has that data to sell to someone about me. Also, nobody ever knows if I ever watched it at all, or if I went back and watched a hot sex scene or some dude's head exploding over and over again.

Streaming services track this kind of info. Many just blow that off, but it matters to some.

For public work docs we put together. I was trying to hit "Alt+F, S" to save everything for quite a while.

I personally don't like the change because not every piece of software behaves that way (yet), and that leads to confusion.

I also like having control over what is saved and when for a reason. Maybe I don't want some server having every thought I've ever had (and then deleted later because it was a bad idea, such as an angry email you never sent) stored somewhere in "Big Data". Imagine the psychological profile that someone could build about you with everything you ever typed anywhere in any Google product, Facebook, Twitter, etc...

With that said, I get why most people don't have such paranoid thoughts. It's all about convenience.

I don't, actually - and I've intentionally avoided GM primarily for that reason.

I'd have to verify that I could kill OnStar at the hardware level (i.e. unplug it) before buying one, actually.

5. For all of the talk from some libertarians, most Americans want to feel safe - and through their inaction (despite the revelations) have ratified GW's and Obama's acceptance of the spy programs.

What would be REALLY interesting to see, IMO, is if Rand Paul (by some miracle) was elected president in 2016 and despite his lineage and rhetoric even he decided to leave the surveillance in place. You'd have to wonder exactly what they're keeping from us, security-wise...

BTW - Looking at some people's defense of Obama on this topic shows that like past Slashdot articles have said, the more people are shown facts that disprove what they believe to be true, the more they clench onto their mistaken beliefs (in this case about Barack Obama's administration being a good thing for the country overall.)

"or face increasing regulation of said killing devices."

Reasonable regulation is understandable, but doesn't the government have to prove at some point that they need to be regulating stupidity with guns within the walls of people's homes?

That's a key part of this debate that people sweep under the table with various gruesome statistics (4000 dead each year, etc.). What is the price of freedom from over-regulation, or taken to the extreme, tyranny?

By the way - Do you own a "said killing" device?

"gun fondlers"

Troll... Didn't read beyond that point.

The government can't disable a key (or a car) - yet. It's about control over what you own.

While schools had Apple computers, many 40 somethings first cut our teeth with computers at home on the C64 or Vic-20. With the C64, I first saw a modem (300 baud) and connect to a BBS system, a floppy disk drive (5.25" - holepunched to use both sides), and compressed digital music (at a C64 club meeting someone had a 10 second snippet of compressed, digital music on a C64 - sounded like crap and took (the usual) 2 minutes to load, but it was a decade ahead of MP3s.)

It also had BASIC programming capabilities with the disk drives for storage. You could draw sprites/graphics, program songs, do basic word processing, etc. Save it on your floppy disk and you were set.

Finally, the C64 had great games that made the pre-NES home consoles like the Atari 2600 look like garbage. The game selection was big enough to where a lot of good games were eventually produced: Ultima III/IV/V (or Bard's Tale, Temple of Apshai, Sword of Fargoal) = World of Warcraft. Arcade/Adventure/Pinball Construction Kit(s) = Minecraft. Karateka/Yie Ar Kung Fu = every fighter game ever. Beachhead = a 2D Call of Duty. Other great games off the top of my head -- Mission Impossible, Raid Over Moscow, Summer/Winter Games (Epyx), Raid on Bungeling Bay, etc.

It was also our first exposure to pirated software trading and beating DRM (Fast Hack'Em, etc.). To play our pirated version of archon (a great cross of chess and 2-D shooter):

load"*",8,1 (,8,8)
sys 24832

The system is a fossil today, but it was great for its time... You just kinda had to be there.

Whether Romney was just lucky or not doesn't matter. The real problem is that the guy that won was so arrogant and clueless about Russia. And his administration has made multiple, big mistakes abroad. AND it probably doesn't help that they're appointing top campaign contributors as foreign ambassadors even if they know nothing about the country they'll be living in.

Seriously - They're running their foreign policy like a bunch of amateurs playing catch-up.

And yes - The GOP was really wrong to push for and lead the invasion of Iraq. It was a total waste of political capital, a trillion+ dollars, and the scarring of thousands of American soldiers' lives. The problem with that "I hate the GOP no matter what" argument, however, was that Romney was willing to stand on his own at times, and he was definitely not a Sarah Palin like candidate.

This CANNOT be posted enough. Obama was 100% wrong, and Romney was 100% right.

Call it sour grapes for the 2012 election, but the guy that lost saw the potential problems coming - and our current administration mocked him for it. And Romney haters mocked him online and in the media.

Bottom line: As of today, when it comes to international relations, the executive branch looks like it's being run today by an amateur - supported by amateurs, all living in the same intellectual bubble full of yes men.