This is more or less a justification for any action the NSA might take.

They already have access to pretty much *all* communications in the world. I for one am sure glad that helped prevent the Boston bombings and the recent attack on the mall in Kenya.

If they are already unable to detect and prevent bad things from happening at the hands of terrorists, what justifies attempting to crack one of the few means of privacy we have left? In their rampant pursuit of obtaining *all* communications they have trampled the rights of individuals to any shred of privacy - and apparently accomplished absolutely nothing of major value before it happened. Sure, the ability to subvert communications world wide might let them track down a terrorist leader a decade or so later but is that enough justification for crushing the rights of every human on the fucking planet?

They used to do this stuff using human assets - actual members of the CIA going out and recruiting agents, analyzing data received, finding targets and then determining what to do about them, but when they came across the absolute "sexiness" of electronic spying, they cut waaaaaaay back on human spying, turned the problem over the NSA and cut the budget (more likely spend more on the NSA than they did on CIA employees and bribes to prospective agents). In the process they apparently decided it was necessary to spy on all American citizens as well, in violation of the law, as well as on all the citizens of their friends and allies.

I hope they have been unable to crack TOR, even though I don't use it, because its one of the few options people have for privacy, and I have yet to hear them provide any details on anything they have concerning terrorists actually using this technology.

Well perhaps the point isn't that any new algorithms are uncrackable so much as they present a more considerable obstacle to being deciphered. If the current NIST-approved cyphers have been deliberately weakened by the NSA, its so that its easier and more importantly faster for them to decipher the text - with their available computing power and budget they can probably do a lot of these on the fly.

If you increase the difficulty of that task, and if its implementation is more widely spread, then they may have to prioritize what they attempt to decipher because it isn't a weakened algorithm, therefore there might be some added security in that even if they *can* crack your ciphertext, its not worth bothering to do so unless some other factor marks you as a person of interest. Not much but better than nothing and we will likely never know the NSA's true capabilities anyways.

I know its oh so popular to deprecate all religions and religious people these days, particularly on the net and even more particularly on websites like /. and reddit, BUT, Relgion has obviously filled a void in people's lives, served a social function, defined cultural norms for morality and generally been useful, in the past, or it would not be so popular today.

You may find the concept completely illogical and therefore dismiss it, but whether or not its logical is completely irrelevant when determining if Religion has been useful and functional for its adherents throughout human history. The answer is an unequivocal Yes! or we wouldn't be having this discussion :P

That can't really happen, most of the politicians would find themselves warring on themselves :P

Well they have put a nice web interface on the front end, but its only for NSA internal use :P

He is right though that a lot of the appeal of Eps IV-VI was the gritty frontier feel of things. The environment is dangerous most of the places we go. Things are barely held together to keep working - like the Millenium Falcon, the droids that malfunction, Luke's beater of a landspeeder etc. The characters are in precarious situations and the environment is dangerous, the whole plot follows the path of the hero in wester mythology etc.

Even the Death Star being new and polished is a reflection of that. We are aware the Rebels are cobbling together their opposition to the Empire, and the Empire has the shiny new equipment, i.e. increased threat. Its a contrast to the some of the crap the Rebels are using etc.

Come the prequels and this is largely abandoned, and there is little threat (hell there is very little acting), things are more polished etc. In particular many sequences seem to be present only because they offered an opportunity to sell toys to kids, rather than to augment the story. Lucas got so hooked on making money off of sales of toys to fans that he forgot about making really good movies.

The original three had elements of humour but tried to keep a lid on it mostly (Ewoks aside, since they were too cute and didn't fit the rest of the movies at least IMHO). The prequels went overboard with stupid humour at the expense of the movie and the result, at least for me, is that most of the prequels are not really easily remembered but the irritating things like JarJar Binks are easily remembered and reviled. He blew the balance on that stuff badly. I think almost *anyone* could have made better prequels than Lucas, which is a real shame.

If there is anything at all that makes the US a "Great" nation, it is the belief in and adherence to the concepts expressed in the US Constitution. If the citizens of the country stop believing in the Constitution and the US Government stops obeying the laws that came from it, then the US is no better than any other nation on earth.
Sadly the later seems to be the case, although the former is probably mostly true. Americans themselves want to believe in the Constitution and the moral superiority of their nation but sadly those in government seem to be focused more on their own power and influence, in helping US corporations get material advantage in the world by using government resources to give them an illegal advantage, and in gaining absolute power over their own citizens so that nothing threatens their control or threatens the wealth of the rich people they represent.
If the US can rise above this corruption and the degradation of its noble principles, then it can be a great nation again. Right now, sorry but not so much.
BTW: I am Canadian but I admire a lot of things about the USA.

The modern day equivalent to Bread and Circuses, Cheezeburgers and Movies/TV perhaps?

Consumers get focused on consuming, poor people get focused on where the rent is coming from and can they afford to eat. Neither gets involved in Politics, particularly when everyone knows that politicians do not have the interests of the people at heart, are actively accepting bribes (in the form of campaign contributions) and that the system is rigged to ensure that one of two candidates who are mostly the same will be elected no matter how they choose to vote, plus of course the rich are running it all.

Wrong response mind you but its easy to see how it happens.

So we convert 6000 nuclear weapons into something useful and decrease the risk to the planet at the same time. We have 10s of thousands of extras right? Really a Swords to Ploughshares initiative :P

Do realize just how much money it would take to finance another revolution successfully? Why you'd probably have to get corporate sponsorship, oh wait...

The revolution will be monetized! :P

I know! Kickstarter...

Facebook got rid of something that took away their control over how the users interacted with FB's pages. Is that surprising? FB wants direct interaction and monitoring of its cattle so that it can package up their information to sell to the highest bidder. Why would they tolerate anything that threatens that by giving users better control over their use of the site. It might hide some useful information that they are gathering by the inefficient design they have created.

Facebook: always remember you are the product, not the customer. The customers are Big Business (and now the NSA apparently) :P

This is why every single user should delete their FB account.

How about Rocky Wood as in "She likes to Rock The Wood" or something.

The whole generation thing is BS anyways. I was born in 1959. I don't fit that generation or the one after it very well at all. I like computers, am quite computer literate, I play computer games (mostly MMOs), I read SF and Fantasy. I have a smart phone, I use the web in a variety of ways on a daily basis.
I get very tired of being lumped into a generation that somehow doesn't get it or something just because of my age.

Now, I don't sk8, I don't use text speech abbreviations, I can usually spell, I have owned various game systems but got rid of them because I don't like playing them as much as computer games, but I get tired of being treated like I am from the Middle Ages too :P

In the original democracy of Athens, they had a stone wall in the center of the Agora (the marketplace) on which were printed *all* the laws which governed Athens, so that no citizen could claim to be unaware of them (if you couldn't read, you got a slave to read it to you etc). Hardly practical these days but indicative of the solution: we need a reduction in laws such that the average person *can* theoretically be familiar with most of them, or at least those which affect their lives. We need laws free of "lawyerese" phrasing or at least a commentary that spells out the impact in clear language.

These days we could post the laws on the Internet even, but not if there are 15 million of them :P

I think we are just more aware of it due to the Internet. Our western society has always been more or less free and equal around the edges, as long as the powerful and influential types are able to remain in control. When they can't, it shows its ugly side.
We live in a very polite, nice, and mostly peaceful Police State which has pretty iron control over things.