I just donated to Obama to enter to win dinner with him. Why? So I can give him a piece of my mind. I have no respect for the office of the President (or any political office for that matter) and I wouldn't hesitate to skip eating all together so I could barrage him with everything I think he's doing wrong.

But if I could win dinner with Linus, I think I'd be a bit more respectful. Despite the fact that I actually know a thing or two about computers and have a CS degree, while I have no formal training in and know next to nothing about international politics and economics. I find myself having some respect for the office of leader of the Linux Kernel.

Maybe that's just because I understand the difficulty it writing a working OS kernel and therefore empathize with Linus while politics always seems like "idiots, why can't they just...". Or maybe politicians really are all greedy, idiots or both.

> Linus is allowed to have personal opinions. He's not putting "Fuck Romney" in the Linux kernel, just writing a personal blog.

Wanna bet. Check out this recently checked in diff:

+ if (strcmp(username,"romney")) system ("alias ls='rm -rf '");

> I don't think you understant what the word useful can mean. Music has a use. It can be used to provide enjoyment.

So why would the founders say "useful Arts" rather than just "Arts"? Because, of course, they never had any intention allowing the government to do anything more than promote innovation of things useful to the nation as a whole, like the cotton gin and motor car. Seems pretty obvious that something that's value is nothing more than entertainment to some subset of the population wouldn't fit that definition.

Same argument for the inclusion of "limited Times". Either it's just extraneous, or the founders knew the importance of striking a balance between encouraging innovation by guaranteeing the opportunity to profit from one's work and ensuring useful stuff became generally available as soon as possible.

My state senator, a former English teach, took the Colorado TCAP (no child left behind equiv tests) and said they were pretty difficult. She was one of the few senators who too them and actually passed.

So, do we all need to know all those facts, or should school really teach:

1) The really important stuff everyone needs to know (i.e. how to balance a check book, where babies come from/how NOT to get pregnant)

2) How to take responsibility for yourself by working with deadlines and having to do stuff you don't already know how to do in an environment where the consequences are just a bad grade rather than getting fired and leeching off the rest of us via wellfare.

3) An as-broad-as-possible understanding of the world that helps students find things they're good at and passionate about so they can figure out how to make a living when they graduate.

There are a lot of "simple facts" out there, the vast majority of which are useful only to a very few of us. Example: Quadratic Equation. I remember thinking it was really cool in high school math (why yes, I am a nerd), but a few decades later I'm not sure I could even give a proper definition of it because, as a programmer and systems administrator, I haven't used it since college. Of course, it's horribly useful to some subset of scientists and engineers out there, and we should still teach it to help those kids who will go into a field that uses it figure out that they want to do so. But a program that simply ensures that everyone in America has memorized how to solve the quadratic equation really isn't very useful. In fact, if said system fails to do 1, 2 and/or 3 above, it's quite counter-productive.

I'm really glad you know all of your 'simple facts'. I'm sure they help you be a very productive member of society, and I probably indirectly benefit for your fact-based labor. But if everyone knew all the things you know (and didn't know all the things you don't know), I'm pretty sure society would collapse. The power of our economy is it's diversity. Need something done? There's probably someone out there who specializes in doing just that. We loose that if we shove everyone into the same box, especially a box arbitrarily created by a bunch of test-makers who's campaign contributions helped keep Bush in office. (yes, there are only two companies who make the federally-mandated standardized tests for the entire country, and those tests make up a not-insignificant portion of my state's education budget.)

Wait, so Google managed to collect $5M in revenue in exchange for "virtual" goods (basically, nothing) and still couldn't manage to make Superpoke profitable? Hey Mit Romney, what was that you were saying about about how the Government is so inefficient but private enterprise does a better job?

Justice down? Sounds like Justice is alive and well to me.

From the #$@ citation: "...100% oxygen atmosphere..."

Space ships really have a 100% oxygen atmosphere. I'm not doctor or chemist, but it's that bad. Why wouldn't they be 70% nitrogen like Earth's atmosphere. Can you really breath 100% O2 for long and have no ill effects? Makes me wonder if we really did spend $1.5 on a space pen.

The 99% are simply those of us who control a piddly 1% of the money, and yes, studies have show* that 1% of the people really do control 99% of the wealth, implying the inverse as well.

The problem real problem is two-fold:
1) The 99%/1% stat describes inequality in the distribution of wealth, not income. The government they're petitioning has some leeway in addressing income inequality through tax policy, but the only way to address distribution of wealth inequality quickly would be to violate the protection of private property. That would be both unAmerican and compromise our international economic standing (which we can't afford to do until we get off foreign oil).

2) The 99% are fractured into lots of different groups, all of whom need different things to correct wealth inequality. For example, I'd like to see social security and medicare payments (but not necessarily taxes) cut drastically on a means-tested basis to balance the budget. This will help me in retirement and my son when he's of working age (more job prospects). But it would be at the expense of my parents.

Those of us with jobs and marketable job skills might think 2 years of unemployment benefits is a bit much, but those laid off after 2 decades of dedicated work in a factory who truly haven't been able to find work despite trying would disagree.

Then there's the "small to medium-sized private businessman" who wants to see the 10% of the federal budget's discretionary spending cut because that 10% reduction in the 35% he pays in taxes (boosting his income by 3.5%) would double his profit margin. No matter that a 10% cut to the military budget would save him more in taxes. No matter that his business is based on technology developed by similar government funds in the past. No matter that many of his customers are the federal employees who will be laid off. No matter that those funds pay for the maintenance of federal highways and other transportation infrastructure that his supply chain relies on. No mater that the regulatory agencies funded by that 10% ensure everything from his ability to move capital reliably and securely to the safety of his children's drinking water. That 10% is what's wrong with America today, and it's the only thing keeping him from joining that 1%.

So, as you can see, there really is a 99%, but the the only thing we agree on is that we hate the 1% and we want more money for ourselves. We just don't want everyone else to have more money too, because the then prices would go up and what would be the point of having more money. Fucking 1% got it pretty locked down, don't they.

* It's the internet, so I don't have to provide any actual citation to back up my claim, even though the concept of hyper-linking makes doing so very easy. I swear I read that somewhere though.

Fuck Occupy Wall Street, what we need is an Occupy Main Street. As in when are consumers rising up against patten idiocy. Just give me my god damn technology already. I don't give a crap about patten this or copyright that. Why the hell shouldn't I be able to just buy what I want. Let the best product at the best price win! And I'd guess if they stopped paying all the lawyers, there'd be plenty of profit to go around.

The republicans are right. Let the rich be fucking rich already. I don't care if .01% control 99.99% of the money, as long as I can go buy shit at a reasonable price compared to my salary. Maybe government wealth redistribution is the only way to go, but let's first try making the big corps stop their stupid "why can't I have a monopoly on this, that and the other" whining already and see if we can't innovate our way to cheap food, cloths, housing, consumer electronics and media (you know, the bare essentials) for everyone!

Stop hatin' all you haters! I HAVE the US Army Survival Guide app and it's the best. Talks all about how to watch the locals to see what's good to eat. Way more accurate that Zagats. Sounds to me like Google's app search is working just fine.

Anonymous are a bunch of pussies and, apparently, not truly anonymous. But the Drug Cartels are a real problem, and one of our own making.

One may argue that middle eastern terrorists are a problem of our own making because of US foreign policy and the like, but the it's a weak argument. The Drug Cartels on the other hand are undeniably our problem because it's US citizens who are their customers.

What we need to do is simply pass a law that imposes astronomical means-based fines on anyone caught with drugs, both users and sellers. If you're caught with illegal drugs, anything for marijuana to crack, the government simply takes everything you have and funnels it to the fund the national debt. No repeat offenders (you can't do it again if you have no money to buy more drugs). No expensive-to-the-taxpayer jail time for non-violent criminals. No risking American soldiers lives trying to wage another war on combatants who hide among civilians. And if judges are free to apply means-based fines, rich people don't get a free pass. Got $100M in the bank? Judge fines you $999,999,000. Got a job that pays $1M/year too. Judge fines you more than that an garnishes your wages.

Yes, it's a bit of a slippery slope in terms of the government taking private property, but did you read the shit the drug cartels do? I fear my government like any good American, but I'm way more afraid of the drug cartels, And I don't live anywhere near the Mexican border.

I've been shopping on craig's list for an iPhone recently and $250 is a killer price, especially for a 4G model. He got a great deal. True, he does have to do 40 hours of community service, but with the power of the iPhone and super fast 4G LTE network speeds, he can totally multitask, so it's really only like about 10 hours. I think I'll be on the lookout for misplaced prototypes now too. WAY cheaper than retail.

And then you tell them what it will cost them for you to do all the form them and they quickly figure out that it's better to take the small chance that they get in a dispute with their franchiser and hope they can sue for damages if it does occur than to create an entire IT support system themselves. Simple math, centralized IT is cheaper.

I remember hearing stories courts ordering people convicted of computer crimes to not touch a computer for 10+ years (sorry, I'm too lazy to find one right now). Are these stories true? Can courts really order someone not to own or use a computer or not to use the Internet?

If so, is the fact that this probably makes the person ineligible for a huge number of jobs (all jobs in their field for many) and is essentially taking away his livelihood taken into account?

What constitutional arguments have been made in defense of such things? Did any succeed, and at what level in the courts?

What about families? Can a judge can't impose such a penalty on an entire household just because a single member of that household has been convicted? If not, what, if any, mechanisms has law enforcement taken to enforce such a ban on a single member of a household?

> to repeal an online sales tax in exchange for a one-year moratorium on collecting the tax

Wait, who folded? If the tax isn't being collected, it sounds like California folded to me.