I'm not categorically saying 'the government' wiped out these exchanges. I've been saying all along that the governments have the most to gain by the failures of private currencies. Remember a couple months ago when governments were demading that the exchanges bow down to banking regulations and the exchanges told them to go fuck themselves?

It doesn't threaten governments, it threatens the government monopoly on money.

Bitcoin offered an alternative to state-backed currencies. Whether the premise was right, wrong, or indifferent, it offered an alternative. A reasonably untraceable alternative.

Um, no. Bearer bonds aren't fiat currencies, they're financial instruments guaranteeing a stake in something, a company, a government economy, whatever. Point is, they are legitimised and regulated as part of the system. Bitcoin went outside the system.

Bitcoin itself is immaterial. The concept of currencies outside of government control tends to make governments nervous. Remember when they took down Silk Road? Government spokespeople went on and on and on about how Bitcoin was being used to launder drug money and was a Bad Thing because there was no government oversight on it. Silk Road was what, maybe 1% of all Bitcoin traffic? But I digress...

Again, look at the forest here. Who benefits the most if private nongovernmental currencies come undone? Governments and corporations. Occam's Razor says, even if there was no governmental or corporate involvement in the heist, they won't bend over backwards to help the victims recover their losses, and just may be quietly cheering on the 'thieves' from the sidelines. It looks win/win for them to me.

I never said it wasn't. I DID say there isn't a hard currency on the planet that I can find. So is the US dollar, the Euro, the yen, the...

I could go on and on and on, but you get my point.

That seems to be the problem all around. Read a Federal Reserve note sometime. There is nothing backing it but the government's promises. There isn't a hard currency on the entire planet at the moment. The difference between Bitcoin and a government currency is, Bitcoin didn't have a government 'guaranteeing' the cash.

Fiat money works only as long as there remains confidence in the issuing agency. If you don't trust the government to back up its currency, its currency is so much paper, and it doesn't even make good asswipe. Want to get rid of a competing currency? Undermine confidence in it, it'll go away. We're seeing that with Bitcoin. Whether it's by 'criminal activity' or government design is immaterial; confidence in Bitcoin is gone.

Keep in mind that private currencies undermine government monopolies. Governments back 99.999% of the currencies out there. Bitcoin had no such backstop, was getting popular, and was considered a 'threat' because it had no government behind it. I've read quite a few anti-Bitcoin raves by government spokespeople, mostly decrying it because it's outside of their system and thus not subject to taxes.

I'm reminded of the old bumper sticker that said "Don't steal. The government hates competition". Governments hiring hackers after they've been convicted of cybercrimes is common. Could it be a case of criminals in a government being behind this? Likely, governments have the most to gain if private currencies fall.

Actually, reform has been tried on and off for decades. It's never been consistently applied, though. Somebody gets a reform program pushed through, it runs for a year or so, then the funding is cut and so is the program, and things go back to the way they were.

Problem with simple confinement is, it doesn't fix the problems, just delays the next dose. And don't think for a minute that jails and prisons are drug-free. They're not. Drugs are available, just at insanely high prices due to scarcity.

Speaking as a recovering addict, you need to fix the cause, not the symptoms. Incarceration does neither, and tags the 'offender' with a felony rap, making it that much harder for them to reintegrate to society by blocking employment opportunities when they get back to the streets. End results? The 'offender' ends up back in jail.

The committee wants all the data, including medical data that the EPA is required by federal law to withhold. And the committee knows that data cannot be released. It's grandstanding to position itself to neuter the EPA.

Catch-22. Reveal the data and you break the law. Don't reveal the data and the needed regulation won't happen.

Since the NSF would be precluded from redoing the research, it would fall to private companies to do it. How very convenient indeed. You, sir, have just found the gator in the swamp. My hat is off to you.

Except if you're a Republican, it's a knee-jerk reaction to reauthorise it, and if you're a Democrat, your Republican opponents in the next election will use your vote to get you out of office because you are 'soft on terrorism'.

The Tealiban minority in the GOP keeps getting further and further out there, and regularly blackmails more mainstream GOP candidates, telling them that they'll 'get primaried' unless they toe the Tealiban party line. Considering the Tealiban is backed financially by the richest portion of the 1%, it's a valid threat. Senator Robert Bennett, of Utah, was considered to be the most conservative sitting senator. In 2010, he got 'primaried' by Mike Lee when he actually cooperated with Democrats on some legislation before the Senate in 2010 and refused to denounce Obama as a 'socialist'. Bennett got endorsements from Hatch, Garn, hell, even ROMNEY, while Lee got endorsements from the Tealiban darlings. Lee won.

No, we're saying Smith's handlers wrote this legislation and gave it to him to introduce, as is common these days: The industry to be 'regulated' writes the legislation in their favor and gets it voted in. Knowing who Smith's handlers are, and knowing said handlers' track record, I can be reasonably confident that this legislation is not in our favor and will benefit his handlers. What's the point of buying Congressmen if you can't get your special perks embedded in federal law?