I misread the the article's title as "Douche Telecom Call for Google and Facebook to be Regulated like Tacos." I'd misplaced my computer glasses.

They knew exactly what would replace Saddam. Sunni Shia war, just like what predated Saddam and what he carried out for a decade himself.

The only thing we're lying about is being against it.

But Bush could not have said 'We're going into Iraq to get them fighting among themselves until they pump the last of their oil'. It would have defeated the purpose.

You need more practice reading non-native speakers English. The point is clear.

It gave Germany time to build it's army. England not so much. Russia was still executing officers based on Stalin's paranoia up to a few months before Hitler invaded.

So can anybody better versed in the physics fill this in a little: "an ultrasensitive instrument that may soon detect ripples in space and time set off when neutron stars or black holes merge".

If the machine goes ping, we infer the machine is working perfectly, and somewhere a neutron star or black hole has merged? But you have no independent confirmation other than the machine going ping?

So, set the damned thing to go ping, and claim you've found gravitational waves ... profit!!!

Seriously, I'm confused. Surely there has to be some other way to confirm the machine works than having it tell you it worked.

Duh. But why are you calling out military spending in particular? It's a small slice and shrinking.

I bet you got an A in your DARE class. Idiot.

It would not matter. With Saddam out the Sunni and Shia would be back at war inside 5 years in any case. It's a regional tradition and a _GOOD THING!_

Globally the middle class is growing like crazy. Which your grandchildren will be grateful for.

Well, this is the thing about civil disobedience. The classic formula is to keep up awareness of your issue by forcing the government to go through the embarrassing and drawn-out process of prosecuting and punishing you. I'll bet they had to drag Thoreau kicking and screaming out of that Concord jail cell when some joker finally came along and paid his poll tax for him. Holding court for his admirers in the town pokey no doubt suited his purposes nicely.

In that spirit, this announcement is very effective. When was the last headline you read about Edward Snowden? If he comes back for a long and drawn out trial that'll show he's pretty hard core about this civil disobedience thing -- if leaving a cushy, high paying job in Hawaii with his pole-dancing girlfriend to go to fricken' Russia wasn't enough.

It occurs to me, though, that this situation is a lot like what I always say about data management systems: the good ones are easier to replace than the bad ones. Likewise the better governments, the ones with at least some commitment to things like due process, are much easier to face down with civil disobedience than ones where being a political threat gets you a bullet in the head, like Ninoy Aquino or Boris Nemtzov. If Snowden *does* come back, and if he ends up "detained" in limbo somewhere, then it'll be time for everyone to go into the streets and bring the government down.

Hold your nose and watch Fox, MSNBC or Democracy Now. All but the dumbest of reporters know they are lying. They all have tells. Asymmetrical faces while talking. Rapid blinking while telling particularly blatant lies.

Everyone likes getting paid. And all things being equal, everyone likes getting paid *more*.

But one thing I've noticed is that the people who are most dissatisfied with their current pay also happen to be the most dissatisfied with their working conditions overall, particularly how they feel treated. The feeling seems to be that if they ought to get more pay to put up with this shit.

Now I wouldn't suggest to any employer, particularly in tech, to economize by offering low salaries. You want to attract and retain the best people you can. But this suggests to me that many employers would do themselves a favor by paying a little more attention to worker happiness. If you're paying people approaching (or even more than) $100,000, there's bound to be a lot more cost effective ways to goose worker morale than handing out raises they'll perceive as significant.

But oddly many employers seem to think paying someone's salary is a license for handing out indignities. This doesn't even qualify as penny wise pound foolish.

Or, you know ... Factoring-attack on RSA-Export Keys.

Seriously, there's a lot of different ways to do an acronym (or a backronym as this likely is).

My suggestion? Get over it.

"Simply" maybe not, but "accidents" happen to people all the time...