I'm not sure why you say this, it sounds like Dem/Repub propaganda. Even if the Libertarian party (or any third-party) doesn't win the presidency or a federal congressman, every vote helps push their platform. If Libertarians start getting enough share of the vote, then Democrats and Republicans start to notice and think about what they can do to appeal to some of those voters. You may not agree with much the Tea party platform, but the protests did demonstrate that a popular movement (even when they are later co-opted by a major party) and non-mainstream candidates actually can affect the outcome of elections.

When was the last time Iran invaded another country? According to wikipedia it was over 100 years ago. When was the last time the US invaded another country?

If you want to know the actual threat that Iran holds to the United States, Noam Chomsky has a pretty good explanation .

At least as important, in my opinion, is an independent study to determine whether the body scanners and other security changes are effective at reducing terrorism and other criminal activity. If they are not effective at their stated goal, then we should just get rid of them regardless of whether they are safe or not.

Well, at least two justices disagree with you, so it's reasonable to argue that they made the wrong decision here.
This is what the consitution has to say regarding copyright:

To me this means that any copyright law which does not promote the progress of science and/or useful Arts is unconstitutional. So you would have to make the case that moving these works out of the public domain accomplishes that.

I was agreeing with you up until this sentence. Unfortunately the NYT and most other mainstream media outlets do not follow good journalistic standards. Sure, there are a few good journalists who actually investigate, but the majority of the NYT is just regurgitated google combined with quotes from anonymous government sources.

From Wikipedia "Since the mid-1990s, it has sued 145 individual US farmers for patent infringement in connection with its genetically engineered seed."

Of course, it's not easy to determine whether the farmers planted the seeds intentionally, or if it was more survival of the fittest seeds, and over several seasons, the Monsanto seeds would be a large portion of the crop.

The main point is that it shouldn't be possible to patent a gene sequence at all, since it's unlikely that DNA patents "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".

I would expect to be able to delete a picture from my profile just as a good usability practice, without having anything to do with ownership of the picture. However, I would not expect that I would be able to delete all copies of the picture, regardless of who owns it. So if I understand your question correctly, then yes, I would oppose a DRM scheme that would try to force Facebook to comply with a request to delete all copies of the picture.

I certainly agree that both parties are at fault for both the original setup and the continued rollout of the scanners and other counter-productive TSA policies. I thought that was the general point of the earlier post, that whichever party is elected it's unlikely that anything significant will change in the TSA or DHS, unless we somehow manage to elect a Ron Paul or some thirdparty candidate.

If by "these devices" you are referring to the body scanners, they were first installed in a few airports under Bush, and the roll-out has just continued during Obama's term. I'm not sure what you mean by "dem TSA" and "dem DHS" since those are not elected officials and they don't seem to have changed much from Bush to Obama and from Dem to Rep congress.

I agree with your first point that it would be at least difficult, but probably not impossible, to find an impartial judge and jury. There is no reason for this fact alone to prevent a trial because it at least gives the appearance that justice is being served.

Your second point is that having an unfair trial, decreases the value and/or effectiveness of subsequent trials. If this is true, then it is a good reason to avoid a trial in certain cases, however I don't believe this is true. As an example, look at the Nuremberg trials. These trials likely had a biased judge and jury, and it's probably fair to at least call some parts of Nuremberg as show trials. However, overall I believe these trials had a positive overall effect on international justice.

Another more recent example is the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Here is a case which is arguably very similar to Gaddafi. It would have been similarly difficult to find an impartial judge and jury for this trial. Whether or not you believe this was a show trial is irrelevant. The question is do you believe this trial had a negative effect on the international justice system, or the justice system of the US or other country?

For your next project/requirements, you might be able to just refer to RFC 2119 to define these terms.

He didn't say it is "evil" for companies to hoard wealth, he only said that they did it. The point was simply that people who don't have a lot of money tend to spend it locally when they get it, compared to weathly people who don't spend it and often invest it overseas.

This seems to be a popular rationalization/argument among Obama defenders: he really wants to legalize marijuana, it's just that all those more serious issues keep getting in the way. But there is no reason why he can't try to legalize marijuana at the same time as he works on all those other issues. Most progressives would be perfectly happy just to hear him say that he is in favor of legalization, he doesn't even need to put any effort into it. But if he really wanted to work at it (i.e. write a bill and push it through congress), then it could have positive effects on the "very serious issues". We could reduce the budget deficit by cutting spending on the war on drugs and creating a new tax on marijuana. Create jobs and improve the economy by spending some of the marijuana tax on job creating infrastructure projects. And there would be new local business opportunities forr things like marijuana bars/depots in various cities.

In addition, Obama has stated more than once that he is against legalization. I've never heard him even make the argument that he's for legalization but it's not possible due to other priorities.

From what I've seen he hasn't been dodging the question at all, he's just not giving you the answer you want. He has flat out stated more than once that he is against legalizing marijuana.

What is the exchange rate between dollars and bit coins? How do these exchanges take place, and is there a risk that the value of bitcoins will deflate making them worthless?