Which is probably related to the fact that you can't openly discuss the political role of the king in Thailand.

The King likes to maintain the fiction that he has nothing to do with these laws, or with the army overthrowing the elected government whenever he feels like it. He might usually issue pardons, but he does not always do that. How is that "not being above criticism"? Sometimes he pardons someone after they've been harassed by the judicial system ... and sometimes he doesn't. Better stay on his good side, eh?

Sure materials which we need to use in order to build e.g. wind turbines are theoretically finite. They are not being used up by building wind turbines, they can be recycled if that's economically interesting. Stuff like "While sunlight is renewable -- for at least another four billion years -- photovoltaic panels are not." is just silly. We are not going to run out of sand in any plausible scenario, so that's just nitpicking.

In any case, renewable energy refers to the energy source. That clearly sets it apart from other energy sources, and is thus a good description. There is nobody who believes the installations required to use renewables can be build without any environmental impact in terms of pollution, area use etc. That doesn't distinguish them from other installations. If people were calling renewable energy plants "impact free", fine the author would have a point. The myth the article is debunking is one which doesn't exist, however.

Of course I have. You keep using "inalienable rights" as if that had a legally defined meaning apart from other fundamental rights. It doesn't. In addition you make the claim that "An inalienable right cannot be curbed". What do you base that on? The declaration of independence lists as inalienable rights "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness". Do you believe they thought prisons shouldn't exist?

"An inalienable right cannot be curbed."

The US bill of rights does not distinguish between inalienable and other rights.

What you say isn't true for any other constitutional rights in the US. The government doesn't have to supply you with guns or buy you newspapers either.

That's fundamentally the problem with having a bill of rights, and that's the arguments which were made against having it in the US constitution. It's hard to say today whether it would have been better not to have such a list of rights - the list has worked well in terms of limiting government intrusion, but it also has acted as that precedent that now everything not on that list is not considered to be a right.

In any case it's too late now to avoid setting a precedent, the deed is done. I guess you are stuck building on what you already have.

Hmmm. The parliament selecting the government is not a system which was developed in mainland Europe, I think. As far as I know it's derived from the British "crown in parliament" system. The electorate votes for the parliament, and all other functions of the state are derived from parliament.

In a presidential system like in the US or France you don't get to vote for the setup of all positions of government, either. Then the president gets to choose who is in charge of which department (though there can be parliamentary controls).

Well businesses can have corruption without politicians being involved (e.g. when awarding contracts, purchasing or outsourcing). The larger an organization the more susceptible it is to corruption - it really doesn't matter what type of organization - whether it's a business, a political party, an independent institution, a charity, a church or whatever else.

Well in Germany the Pirate Party is doing quite well - polling at around 8% of the vote they could make quite a splash in the next federal elections. What Germany needs (and apparently gets) is public participation.

But I agree with all the posters that the chances of crowdfunding as a complete replacement for more traditional funding sources are highly unlikely.

It's not just unlikely, it seems an extremely dangerous approach to take. Seen from the outside it's fascinating, frightening as well as somewhat hilarious, how the US is dismantling itself - trying to become a third-world country by destroying all it's functioning institutions. So might crowdsourcing be a future model for science funding in the U.S. and abroad? Not abroad no, I can't imagine any other country going down that road - in the US maybe, but it's a pretty bleak version of the future.

Or like Ubuntu One.

I used to only use my Windows box to play games. Now the humble bundles have removed that need.

You might want to check out RuneSoft and LGP as well.

Or maybe he thinks Jobs is an exception rather than the rule and would prefer his kids to finish college. Anyway, he is a journalist, he earns money selling interviews amongst other things. Regardless whether you like him or not: why should he give away his work for free?

Apple Germany can still sell phones in Germany - only Apple Inc. can't, but they never did.

That's very dubious, but as the article points out: even if Apple's interpretation were to hold up, it should be trivial for Motorola to have the injunction extended to Apple Germany.