Which is the very definition of oligarchy... your point? :)

One guy saying something does not an oligarchy make, regardless of who that guy is.

... ask yourself a question, why is it that everything in USA was done "up until the 1970s" and then all of a sudden there was a gigantic decline (from building, to meaningful manufacturing jobs, to wage disparity, to ability to afford anything, etc.etc.etc.)?

So what is it that happened in the 70s that changed the USA economy so much? 1971 - Nixon defaults on the gold US dollar. The reason? Inflation that was caused by the Fed, all the massive government that could never be paid for with any amount of taxes (never mind the insane tax rates before that time).

It's the government, my dear, USA government has destroyed USA economy.

Please stop misquoting Orwel, he was talking about war not about abusing prisoners.

First of all, whoever Orwel was talking about, I did not "misquote" him — the quote is perfectly accurate.

As for who he was talking about — you are attempting to make a distinction without difference. The idea remains the same — you can abjure waterboarding as "stooping low" all you want, but you are only able to do that, because others are waterboarding your enemies on your behalf.

Hope you're feeling all snug and cozy under your blanket of US exceptionalism.

Yes, thank you, the only drawback of the US exceptionalism is the nasty butthurt it is causing among citizens of lesser countries...

Christopher Hitchens changed his tune afterwards.

I'm sure, Mr. Hitchens, whoever he is, did not like it — by all descriptions, it feels horrible. It does not change the facts I stated: waterboarding works by fear, rather than pain. That sets it aside from "torture".

It may still be "bad", or even "outside any civilized standard", but that's not what I was saying: it is not torture.

Your opinion in the matter is completely irrelevant

Why, thank you, why didn't you say so from the beginning? Until now I labored under assumption, that I'm facing a good faith opponent...

That you happily put yourself there

Happily? Where did you get the "happily" part? Of course, I'm very much unhappy, that we — the US — had to apply the questionable procedures to the captured enemies in order to save ourselves from actions of their still-at-large comrades. But we had to — broken spirits of the handful of bona-fide terrorists aren't worth the lives of Americans, civilians or otherwise, and I'm glad, the Bush Administration had "the minerals" to act as it did.

makes my point in highlighting how far the US has fallen.

You are displaying a fantastic naivette, if you believe, the US — like all others — have not used this and similar methods in the past. That we are now more open about it, rather than being "shocked, shocked, waterboarding is going on here", is a good sign.

What if this was not 'OpenSSL' but instead it was some form of 'ClosedSSL' library that had this problem in it?

NSA would still have access to THAT code, you can bet your ass they would, they wouldn't leave a project like that alone. However nobody else would know (unless stumbling upon it by chance or being able to access the source OR if some insider SOLD that information to somebody on the outside and now you'd have a vulnerability that is exploited by the gov't and by shadiest of the organisations/people out there).

This does not change the discussion in terms of open source code being safer, this changes the discussion around certain practices of development / testing and also this may attract more attention of people towards the SECURITY of our information on the Internet and hopefully we'll move in the direction of working out the details of actually much more SECURE methods of communications.

I certainly have a few ideas of my own that I would like to implement now, but never mind that. The point is that this is good stuff, it finally shed a light on this topic, that should have had much more light on it for a much longer period of time in the first place.

We need better methods around building security within our systems and I think this raises the bar.

by "whining" are you implying that I do not vote in firehose? Is that your professional opinion, I mean, are you paid to believe that or is this just a result of being an ass, your statement here?

By the way, if we are already on the topic of taxes, anybody who is interested should listen to this show, not only does it discuss the illegality of taxes, but also it provides some insight on what the USA citizens doing today to reduce their taxes (offshore accounts, etc.etc.)

Americans, you need to listen to this of-course, you should eliminate your federal government, a good step towards that (before you end up shooting the bastards) is to stop paying your taxes.

this is of-course a dupe, but hey, what else is new.

Ted talk on this device.

You are wrong, but that's your right to be wrong.

USA government is unconstitutional, it has abandoned the principles upon which the Republic was established. There are no private property rights anymore. This started with the Sherman's act and continued into everything, from income taxes themselves, IRS, the Fed destroying the value of the people's savings, all of the departments, SS, Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, payroll taxes, every type of income related tax of-course.

The correct thing to do is to remove USA federal government from power, which it usurped illegally and unconstitutionally and it must be removed from power immediately, by force and with extreme prejudice. Of-course this means that people must not give up any of its earnings to the central mafia that is known as the federal government.

For you it's an issue. For science, scientists, and those who are scientifically literate, it's still just science. If the evidence changed, so would their opinions. Your opinion most likely will never change, regardless of the evidence - if that weren't the case, you'd not be parroting this Monckton-esque nonsense all over the internet for everyone to read, highlighting your ignorance and stubbornness for all to see. Get a grip - you are the very thing you are complaining about. You are the ideologue. Your cause is the ideology. You don't even realise it - it's tragic. History will not look back kindly on people of your ilk, and quite rightly so. With all the benefits we have of education, you seem quite happy to just pick what you want to know, ignore the rest, complain it doesn't exist, and then condemn those who sought the truth out for themselves and tried to educate you on your own selfish shortcomings. You are a lazy, ignorant, scared little human being. I pity you.

what was breaking Kosovo from Serbia than? "use of out-of-this-world-force"?

Kosovo was torn away from Serbia to become independent — not to be annexed by one of the powers doing the tearing away. That's the major difference.

NATO fucked up when it broke sovereign state by use of ... flowers?

NATO intervened in Yugoslavia after the Belgrade regime committed serious crimes against humanity — and only after the UN-forces demonstrably failed to end the abuses. Now Russian propaganda keeps repeating the same accusations against Ukraine's current government — except Russia is obviously lying.

But, no doubt, Putin will thank you for this rhetorical cover. He needs every sympathizer (or even a neutral) in the West he get...

Kosovo comes to mind

Kosovo did not vote to join the US — nor any of the others, whose military was occupying the land.

Finally, would the British Empire accept a referendum by residents of it's colonies in the new world

As a matter of fact, India left the British empire without war. Look up Ghandi...

Those sorts of things are not achieved by throwing roses at your enemies.

We'll never know, what roses (or stones) Crimeans would've thrown at Kyiv on their own — had it been so clear-cut, Russia would not have had the need to occupy the peninsula before the referendum — nor would they have had the need to shut off Ukrainian TV rebroadcasts over it, replacing them with Putin's lying propaganda.

What we do know is that the fraudulent vote took place under the guns of the occupiers.

And yes I think if Texas voted to join Mexico the USA would accept it.

American Constitution does not provide for territories leaving the Union. At the least, it would require a Constitutional Amendment. Interestingly, Ukrainian law does provide for such border-changes — they can happen by nationa-wide referendum...

I can't imagine the USA holding millions of people and hundreds of square miles of territory by force.

You have a very limited imagination then.

Now try imagining Russia letting Kurils Islands go... However hard you may try, you'll see only the same reaction, Russia has shown to Chechnya's vote for independence 20 years ago. We know, how that played out, don't we?

in due time all websites will list it under Russia.

Only the Russian websites will do so. The rest will list it as "Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation". Unwieldy, perhaps, but reflecting the truth.

Or, as they keep saying about Jerusalem, it will go something like this: "Annexed by Russia in a move not recognized internationally."