"Penny stocks are the playground of scammers..."

So is investment banking, apparently. Is this just another area the SEC can fail at?

It's too bad when informative posts are downmodded.

Oh, please. Defending individual rights is what my post was all about. I just happen to think that capitalism/corporatism is as inclined as any other system to tend towards enslavement because in the end it's all about sociopaths taking control.

By the way, I've read most of what Ayn Rand wrote and was rabid about her so-called philosophy for a long time. Now I just think she was extremely limited in her view of the world.

"...militant atheistsâ¦"

I have yet to see an atheist that is as militant as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or any of your garden variety tent revival blowhards.

"Honestly?... communism just turns into dictatorshipâ¦"

Sooner or later everything turns into dictatorship. The rose-colored glasses approach to capitalism is just as bad as the rose-colored glasses approach to communism. In the end the people have to be on guard against oppression from whatever system they have chosen.

"As far as I can tell anything not deemed illegal is legal for government operations."

That's kind of funny, because that is exactly what the Constitution grants to ordinary citizens. The ninth amendment:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The US is heading down a very bad path.

"Joe's carrying his trombone case out to the woods to do some practicing."

Apparently you're not aware that some trombones do in fact have a trigger.

I was referring to you. Pardon me if I misconstrued your meaning. Since websites/applications ARE software I am not sure what you meant.

Websites are no less than distributed applications. If you had been paying attention you would have noticed that website development has gotten a lot more rigorous than in the old days.

"Your emotions would be going through a process a lot like the five stages of mourning. [greaterswiss.com]"

Aha! Yes, those were the exact stages I went through after realizing that the U.S. was just another torturing state and that all that BS they taught me in high school about how we were above all that was indeed BS.

"Nothing new there, and sadly, the money pit they are doesn't look to change any time soon."

Find the NASA budget in this chart:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html?hp&_r=0

"I don't pay the fucking news outlets to guard my country's secrets."

No. You pay them to guard your rights and freedoms.

Fox news? You mean the same people who complain about too much government involvement until it's their kind of government involvement?

Also, we also have to thank Glenn Greenwald and we have to not-thank the US press for failing to be trustworthy enough to be government watchdogs.

Go read the article. That is exactly what they are doing; removing all references to him. Orwellian is the proper descriptor.

"Disabling data access per app is a different story though, so your point still stands."

On iOS 7 you can do this, but only if you're not using wifi. In the prefs you can turn off cellular data access on a per app basis. You can also see how much of your cellular data plan each app is eating.