The Constitution came to be as an agreement between people that was voted on and approved. It's not magic pixie dust, but it is the document which is the people's contract with our government. I think it's a pretty good foundation. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than what we've got now. I can read the entire Constitution. I have read it several time in fact. It's a concise document that is pretty clear on most issues. It's been changed because the political class always desires more power and the people have lost the enthusiasm for liberty that the founding fathers had. Bread and circuses is what we have now to keep the masses content. How long do we have to wait for the fiddling to start?

There was at least one American on board.

Because some relatively small number of events may have a conspiratorial aspect does not mean all events do. In this case, it does appear that a bunch of separatists in Ukraine got their hands on some pretty sophisticated hardware and, obviously by accident, blew a civilian airliner out of the sky. Now, that's not as sexy an explanation as secret US operatives standing in the bushes near the separatists, or secret Russian operatives bringing the plane down in an even more elaborate scheme to make the West look bad by making themselves look bad so they can say "Those rotten Americans are trying to make us look bad."

Something like this was bound to happen when relatively poorly trained and disciplined weekend warriors get their hands on serious military hardware. The Russians have been quite keen to back the separatists with weapons, intelligence and some of their own personnel. It would be nice that if they are going to allow these separatists to use advanced AA equipment that maybe they have someone nearby who actually knows how to use such equipment, or at very least to put a bullet in the head of some daft nimrod who thinks he knows how to use the equipment.

"bascially, tt looks like what needs to be done is the PHP runtime needs to be tightned up."

Boy, you could put that on the PHP developers headstones.

Winston Churchill confessed, guiltily, in his History of WWII, to being happy at the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, because he knew at that moment, the Germans had lost the war.

You know, I'm beginning to think conspiratorial thinking is just another form of apathy. "Oh well, it's probably made up, so I'll sit in my cocoon, spout my paranoia on the Internet on occasion, and play PS3 the rest of the time."

Alternatively we need a legal precedent that a false claim of ownership of Copyright in a work is tort (e.g. trespass to chattels) as the real owner is deprived of the use/benefits of the work; moreover if the claim was made dishonestly (the claimant knew it to be false) then the claim should be tantamount to theft. Such a precedent could potentially be established in any common law jurisdiction.

For most of the existence of mankind and indeed all of mankind's progenitors, having too much food was a rare problem and being hungry all of the time was a fact of life. We are not necessarily well-evolved to handle it. So, no surprise that we eat to repletion and are still hungry. You don't really have any reason to look at it as an illness caused by anything other than too much food.

Yes. The US tried very hard to push the EU to put much stronger sanctions into place, but key EU players; in particular Germany (which does a lot of business with Russia), was unwilling to sign on for anything more than the lukewarm sanctions.

I have a feeling he's going to get a bullet to the head fairly soon.

I thought it was the US's fault. Isn't every single bad that has happened in the last 75 years the fault of America?

Well then fuck you too. Libertarians respect people who don't believe what they do. Apparently you can't do the same. I don't take the Federalist Papers as the bible, but I do see the wisdom in the words it contains. The threat of democracy doesn't lie in the distinction between direct voting and representative voting, but in the idea that whatever is popular should be the law. The Constitution is written to protect individual rights regardless of what is popular by limiting the powers of government. Libertarians only ask that the government stay within the bounds of its charter. A federal enforcement arm such as the FBI or federal marshals is fully within the bounds of the Constitution and a Republic, even one with democratically elected representatives. However, your original argument of "like a democracy" was bullshit as a monarchy or even a dictatorship can still have government enforced tort law.

So basically you attack a libertarian because you don't respect them and don't even put together a coherent argument. So if you aren't going to respect me, or anyone who believes as I do, then I will return your lack of respect with another fuck you in closing.

Of course I am postulating that a hacker can break it.

No. You are postulating that a hacker that can break it WOULD TURN TO CRIME INSTEAD OF MAKING $150,000+ A YEAR WORKING FOR A COMPANY THAT MANUFACTURES THOSE CARS.

Why would the car be the only computer in human creation immune to hacking you completely absurd asshat?

No one except you has claimed that.

I'm saying that the skills needed to crack that system are very rare AND very valuable IN LEGITIMATE BUSINESS SETTINGS.

So WHY would someone who could make a lot of money LEGALLY use those very rare skills in a crime? Why would that person WANT to become a criminal?

Martin,

The last time I had a professional video produced, I paid $5000 for a one-minute commercial, and those were rock-bottom prices from hungry people who wanted it for their own portfolio. I doubt I could get that today. $8000 for the entire conference is really volunteer work on Gary's part.

Someone's got to pay for it. One alternative would be to get a corporate sponsor and give them a keynote, which is what so many conferences do, but that would be abandoning our editorial independence. Having Gary fund his own operation through Kickstarter without burdening the conference is what we're doing. We're really lucky we could get that.

I think you are mixing up what I am saying. Poor people would take coal power without hesitation because it's cheap and it's better than what they have. They then can use electricity to heat their food instead of burning wood. Coal is the cheapest power source and thus the most likely to be within reach of the poor. Thus coal burning is going to replace wood and charcoal burning in the long run.