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Comment Re:Bullshit we won't notice (Score 1) 466

Me? I think I have more right not to be in physical pain for hours then they do to recline their seat.

It's not like it reclines enough to make a real difference to them anyway. And they hardly ever do it to "sleep".

In my experience, if I don't recline the seat about half way, I get serious back pain over the course of the flight. This is because the part of the seat with the headrest that angles forward is usually at the top of my back, which forces me to sit angled forward with my back at an awkward angle. So a very tall person's knees may hurt, but also consider some people may get back pain without reclining the seat.

Comment Re:Few Alternatives... for now. (Score 1) 443

I love the idea of bitcoin. In principle an anonymous, decentralized currency would be a very cool thing to have.

But its implementation is flawed in a way that will prevent it from being a useful currency. Here's a couple good articles that explains a few reasons why (there are many such articles out there by various economists):

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/bitcoin-is-no-longer-a-currency/274859/

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/adam-smith-hates-bitcoin/?_r=0

I'm ready for a another attempt with the same goals as Bitcoin.

Comment Re:Proud? (Score 1) 1233

4. We need term limits for all members of congress. Members of congress are supposed to be private citizens that leave the private sector in order to serve the public, and once their service is over they return to the private sector. Congress should have a 4-term limit across both the House and Senate. You can serve 4 terms as a Representative, but then you are not eligible to be a Senator. You can serve 2 terms in each. Whatever the combination, once you serve 4 terms in congress you are done. The notion of a career politician needs to be eliminated. Politicians are there to serve the public, not themselves.

I agree with most of your points a great deal; that was a very concise summary of the greatest problems facing democracy in the US. The 4th point though, I don't agree with. If your other points were implemented and restricted the income sources of our elected officials while they are in office, I don't think they would need term limits.

Imagine if politicians could not keep any income that exceeds their government salary while in office, with some additional restrictions to prevent revolving-door type abuses. Then I would be OK with career politicians, because they would clearly be in the game for public service and not personal gain.

Comment Re:It is very simple ... (Score 1) 827

In other countries the education is largely paid by the public sector (government) and the government sets limits on how much more Universities are allowed to charge.

This is exactly the direction we need to move in. That would be comparable to how medicare controls costs, while non-medicare patients get screwed by hospitals charging whatever they want. The gov't should dictate what Universities are allowed to charge in tuition to _all_ students, and also require that a certain percentage of the student body be from lower income brackets (and these disadvantaged student could pay even less).

Additionally, the government should limit how much employees of non-profit universities are allowed to be paid. It is very common to have university administrators making millions of dollars a year at so-called "non profit" universities. Sorry, you shouldn't be able to run a non-profit (tax-exempt) institution and also make yourself filthy rich.

Comment Re:Or not (Score 2) 404

Parse their words. They are denying a very pointed question that wasn't asked. They are all saying, "We don't allow the government direct access to our servers" This isn't the denial you think it is.

THIS. Notice that all their responses are very similar. They may have even asked the government "the press is asking about PRISM, how should we respond to this?"

"Direct access to our servers" could mean a lot of things, for example, they could be copying user data directly to NSA servers, and their statement would still be true.

Comment Re:So what the article is saying... (Score 1) 758

As we see from the resounding success of social policy in Europe, where every country has coffers full of tax revenues and a vibrant, healthy workforce to support the millions upon millions of pensions.

Assuming you were being sarcastic: compared to what, the US? Yes we certainly have a "vibrant, healthy workforce" (such great healthcare, such great labor rights)! And isn't it great that our government doesn't have any funding concerns right now like those darned Europeans...

Comment Re:sigh (Score 1) 620

We are talking about the same SCOTUS that fucked up Citizen's United right?

No, we're talking about the same SCOTUS that got Citizen's United perfectly *right*, and protected the right of corporations and anonymous political organizations with untraceable funding to engage in political speech.

Fixed that for you.

Comment Re:materials... (Score 1) 519

I happened to see this on local news, and it as usual with local media, they praised the TSA and only showed interviews of TSA agents and pro-TSA people who were "happy they caught the guy". No questions were raised about violations of rights, or whether or not the watch was actually an explosives trigger device or just looked strange to the TSA. Glad the mainstream media encourages everyone to bend over for the TSA...

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