I wonder if people in the middle east realize how steadily their image as pre-enlightenment zealots with no interest in modernization is solidifying in the West. There was once a valid critique that said the West just didn't understand the Mid-East and that it was judging it in a relativistic way. But now that the West has been paying attention for a while, those early truisms seem downright sage-like.

"Experts" continue to offer somber explanations for such violent outbursts, saying that their youth is feeling a profound humiliation and that they are simply taking it out on the Western boogieman their parents and grandparents were taught to fear. This may be true on some level. But at what point do they take the responsibility for their own development. How long before they realize that whether or not you believe someone else is holding you back, you have to move forward on your own.

The "Arab Spring" seemed to offer a tantalizing bit of hope for a change from within, but if the religious right in the US is any indication, there is no reasoning with a zealot. And when the government of such a large and strategically important nation like Pakistan calls for worldwide censorship to avoid further offending an already humiliated culture, where is the path to change?

This is not news. This is Wikileaks publishing uncorroborated "evidence" that matches their expectations about "Big Brother".

Some things to remember:

• 1. The system is in no way secret and there are numerous publicly available sources of information about municipal uptake: public hearings, contracts, etc.
• 2. Most (if not all) of these emails were marketing materials or communiques regarding trial runs.
• 3. There is no evidence that TrapWire is currently in use as described in the Wikileaks release. See the NYTimes, Slate articles (among many others) that investigate the system's actual purpose and use.

Wikileaks has been more or less forgotten by the general public, so it's not surprising that they would take every opportunity to spout sensationalized conspiracy theories to regain the spotlight. After all, what would they be today without Mr. Manning's foolish self-sacrifice? A wanna be World News Daily.

Perhaps it is not feasible (or even desirable) for the /. editorial staff to vet everything that gets posted, but I for one am not interested in hearing every conspiracy theory floating on the web - regardless of the sympathy some may have for the source.

Not GM grass. Naturally bred hybrid. The headline is 100% wrong.

Perhaps you should read the actual article before posting. And, BTW, the first non-PDF result of your posted google search says specifically that it's a hybrid not a GM strain.

If you're actually "not a anti-GM nut" you should act like one.

wow. ok, have fun with that...

You really don't understand economics do you. Do you honestly think that someone handing out flyers on the street has other stuff lined up but just thought it would be nice to be out in the fresh air?

People don't do those jobs by choice, and one can most certainly make the case that they are effectively serfs. They take whatever they can get and live hand to mouth.

Perhaps you've never struggled to find a job to the point of desperation. Good for you, but please show a little compassion for those who must do whatever they can to survive. They may represent a wealthy company, but they are not shareholders.

Your cousin is a jackass. The people he is "protesting" to have nothing to do with the policies they are forced to implement. The TSA thing is different because it's a very public and extreme form of protest that will make the news 100%.

Crumpling some poor sap's flyers in front of him is just a dick move. What does he hope to accomplish? Further humiliating someone that is already forced to give away flyers on the street for pennies per hour? Wasting a telemarketer's time while he's trying to earn a living doing extremely unsatisfying work (believe me i know from experience)?

He's a prankster, not a protester.

• 1. This would reduce the intel to strike time from days to hours (missile cruisers would no longer have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to strike a target)
• 2. It can be launched from within the continental US, which means little or no overseas deployment would be necessary to use it - i.e., no risk to navy personnel.
• 3. I would not be misinterpreted as an ICBM by Russia, China, et al, because it has a very different trajectory and signature (it is a passive glider for a large portion of its trip)

I am not sure if it would be cheaper than an equivalent cruise missile strike, but the fact that no troop/ship deployment would be required makes it likely that this is a more cost effective means of striking a target halfway around the world on short notice. All of that said, I understand the concern that the development costs look frightening, but one must consider it's utility, the cost of an equivalent capability (seal team, cruise missile, airstrike etc), and the fact that it would - under some very specific circumstances - avoid putting US servicemen in harms way.

you sure? this could be a tool for senators to flip-flop in real-time!

Patenting life?!? You mean patenting a particular form of life that did not exist before someone created it, right? Either way, that sounds like a fairly basic thing to patent. It is not possible for anyone to patent strawberries or milk or wheat. They can only patent a particular modification made in a lab. I can't patent "circuitry", but i can patent a unique configuration of circuits that does a very specific thing.

That said, I agree that it is a problem when giants like Monsanto use those patents as a weapon to eliminate competitors and control customers. But that's a corporate governance issue, not a science or even a moral issue. If there were a FSS in the biotech world (and I'm sure there is), then they wouldn't be saying that no one should make GMOs, they would say that you should make GMOs that benefit everyone and follow a pattern of relative openness.

No i don't, but both your position and your words betray a (perhaps willful) ignorance of the environment in which GMOs exist. The very fact that you say that selective breeding is a "whole different thing" is evidence enough that you have not really considered the facts.

When a farmer chooses seeds from the plants producing the most fruit, for example, they are potentially choosing a whole series of other defects or disadvantages that may not become evident for generations. For example, if you pick wheat with the highest output in a given generation and planting those seeds in place of other less productive plants, you may have chosen a plant that was simply better suited to take advantage of transient circumstances - like unusually nutrient rich rain or a temporary reduction of a particular pest. Once circumstances change, those plants may have serious disadvantages. And in times and places where crop output means life or death for a community, such decisions can be utterly disastrous.

And moreover, there is, for all intents and purposes, no such thing as "natural" food anymore. Just about everything we eat has been modified. Cows look almost nothing like they did when they were first domesticated and most would be unable to survive on their own at this point. Eighty-five percent of the rice grown in the world is the result of radiation-induced mutations produced starting in the 1950s. This "scatter-shot" process was developed to speed the already successful selective-breeding process ("natural" mutations from RNA replication failures are increased by using low-level irradiation), but introduced a whole new set of risks similar to those I mentioned earlier because while certain mutations produce an obviously desirable outcome, others can go unnoticed until environmental circumstances turn them into a serious liability. It was therefore a revolutionary step forward when we gained the ability to modify only the genes responsible for a desirable outcome while leaving the rest of the plant's genome (basically) intact.

By moving from a selection-based model (with slow and/or fast mutations) to a targeted manipulation model, the impact from bad decisions can mitigated because the particulars of the change are well understood, and undoing or rectifying the issue is much easier.

Nonsense. First of all, your opinion is not the issue. Its the facts that matter. And from what I read (e.g., "freedom of eating natural veggies"), you do not appear to have the facts straight. And when you talk about GMO tech as "sci-fi", it indicates that you not only don't understand it, you think it's somehow fictional. It is a very well-understood process that has produced extremely successful outcomes all over the world in many different contexts. It is not a panacea for food production, but is is the only tool we have at the moment that has any chance of averting starvation and malnourishment for billions of people over the coming century.

As for my - albeit mild - ad hominum attack, I apologize for making assumptions about your leanings and such, but in the world of interweb forums, you are what you type.

You realize that you sound exactly like a conservative reactionary zealot, right?

What does it do exactly? What negative impact have GMO crops had on the world? I can certainly cite hundreds of examples of how modified crops have saved millions of people from starvation and malnourishment.

And moreover, the G in GMO is a much more focused and safer technique for selection than the radiation-based mutations that have already saved millions of lives (see India in the 1950's).

You're kidding right? Few, if any, of the vegetables you get at the "organic" market are in the same form they were in when they grew in the "wild". Human selective breeding has been going on for thousands of years, and most of the staple crops the world depends on look nothing like the strains that grew before farming took hold.

The irony here is that you probably consider yourself a crunchy geek progressive type. Your anger at Monsanto is well placed, but your ignorant rant about GM crops is foolish at best - dangerous at worst. (Check the latest data on projected food shortages for more on your foolishness)

Nonsense. You can do whatever you like in a public place as long as you don't break the law. A street vendor can sell DVDs as long as they have the right to do so. But if they decide that they are going to sell DVDs they cam-corded at the multiplex, they are breaking the law. (the "copyright" is a constitutional construct that is defined in the law).

On the web it's the same thing. You can sell digital content if you have the right to, but if you distribute that content without the right to do so, you are breaking the law.

The only reason people complain about this enforcement on the web is because they got used to a world without it and don't want their free lunch taken away.

There will always be mistakes and even abuse in the enforcement of any law, but that is not a reason to eliminate enforcement altogether.