I think most people forget that the United States is an ideologically-based nation. Most nations of the world are built upon a common cultural and/or ethnic heritage. Even if they have ethnically diversified, there is still a core cultural base and history of what makes an Englishman, a German, an Italian, or even down to whatever smaller sub-cultural block they belong to (Scotsman, Bavarian, Milanese, etc.); that core is what holds those nations together. However, the United States does not have any such common core and is instead held together by a base ideology of immigrants woven into a tapestry of democratic governance, diversity and individual rights (though execution of said ideology is a neverending work in progress, and like any ideology has a million and one different interpretations leading to a million and one different definitions of what it means to be American). Therefore, things like patriotism and strong adherence to the Constitution are taught aggressively and weaved through the history curriculum because this ideology glue that holds the nation together.

Zombie bacon.

The NSA serves a very real military purpose: electronic warfare, signals intelligence, US diplomatic and military communications security, cryptography, etc. The problem isn't that the NSA exists but that it's scope has expanded far beyond its traditional, military and diplomatic focused mission to a much broader, more ambiguous dragnet. Whether this was due to internal NSA scope growth or directed by the Clinton, Bush II and Obama administrations is the real question.

Don't forget, before you launch this thing, you really ought to make sure you've notified the appropriate authorities. I'm not simply referring to your own government, but to all the appropriate air traffic commands and strategic military commands globally. These are both groups that do not like to be surprised, particularly by large, multi-stage, rocket-propelled devices of unknown origin. The commercial air traffic folks are to ensure that you have no aircraft (military, commercial and general aviation) that may accidentally stray into your flight path. On the more extreme side, strategic commands are not going to like seeing a missile-like object launching from the middle of the ocean, especially if that poor, bleary eyed operator mistakes it for a submarine launched ballistic missile.

How is the ownership of the Washington Post by Bezos any different than the past? Most major US newspapers have always been owned and controlled by a small handful of influential families. The Meyer and Graham families have traditionally owned and directly controlled the Post for most of its history (in addition to a whole slate of other interests like Kaplan and Slate), and those families have been active in the reporting and management of the newspaper. The New York Times for example has been owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family for most of its history; even if it's "public" now, the vast majority of shares are still controlled by them. This doesn't even start talking about the other, newer media families like the Murdochs, the Turners and now the Buffett family through Berkshire Hathaway. The only thing that's different is that a new player has entered into the space, but the concerns levied against Bezos could easily be applied to the historic owners of other newspaper and media outlets.

Actually, Sino-African relations are much more complicated than that. African elites are getting large amounts of money from China, benefiting from the money they bring and the new infrastructure they build. Most common Africans however are starting to become uneasy with China however: the Chinese aren't bringing them jobs, instead of using local labor for construction projects, they just see armies of Chinese laborers being brought in to do the construction. At the same time, they see their own indigenous manufacturing being decimated by the sudden influx of cheap Chinese goods. It smacks of economic imperialism no different than the Europeans and Americans before them.

Believe me, even if every drug on the face of the planet was legalized, there would still be a Silk Road. As long as there are products and services that governments prohibit, whether it be weapons, children or something else, there will be demand for this sort of service.

This is no different than an IT budget that gets to the end of the year, realizes it still has some extra money, and then goes and makes a few extra purchases before the money disappears. I really don't see why this is such a big deal.

Clearly you don't understand how Foreign Military Sales (FMS) work. For a large percentage of arms deals, the DoD acts as a broker between the foreign government and the contractor. So in this case, the French gave the DoD money, and the DoD turns around and buys the drones on behalf of the French government.

I get tired of the constant blaming of corporate woes on the bean counters "ruining things" with questions of money. A company run by "technical people" is not really any better. I've seen it first hand: huge amounts of R&D are spent design technically exquisite and cutting edge products. They talk with their customers about what they want and manage to work out beautiful systems that solve their wildest dreams. The problem? The actual price tag for those products is way more than the customer's budget can afford; they chase after that last 1% percent of efficiency and end up doubling the price. Thus, the customer ends up buying the competitor's solution which was not nearly as whiz-bang but was "good enough" to get the job done. All we have left to show for it is huge amounts of money burned on "science projects" with nothing to show for it. You need balance between the different camps to make a business work, not simply blame one side or the other for all the problems in your enterprise.

While I agree that trust in the US is harmed, and this is a significant setback for US power and influence, I think we are a VERY long way from a "divorce" with the United States and a BRIC-centered world order. The former is a long way off because even if the United States is no longer the center of the world, it will still be the most powerful nation on the planet with its combination of economic, military and cultural influence. Unless your nation is trying to go "off the grid" like a North Korea, you cannot escape American influence. Second, the BRIC nations are right now very fragile or in bad shape, and even if they were not, given the the track records of several of those nations in human rights and Internet freedom, I don't know if a world order centered on them is going to be any better.

For the entire idea to even be feasible, let alone economical and profitable, all three companies have big hurdles to beat. Google has to prove that it's technology can be deployed affordably over a large fleet of cars. Tesla has to prove that it can mass produce their vehicles at a price point that makes this scheme economical. Uber has to figure out how it's going to get through all the strict taxi regulations in each city; they barely have peace in a few metropolitan areas now, but if you talk about automated cars, that will completely freak the vested interests out. And all three will need to figure out the liability issues surrounding automated cars. If something happens, who will pay for it?