The second case is completely legal, though currently there are limits on the amount of money an individual can contribute to a campaign or party (RNC or DNC). The first case of getting a bonus for donating money to a political party must be illegal, though I admit I don't know through what law.

This doesn't deny corporations from running ads, they just have to do it on their own, and out in the open where everyone can see who they are telling people to vote for. They have to buy their own ads to tell people to vote for Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell.

I don't think you are familiar with the case. What you describe above and said should be allowed is exactly what Citizens United did. They released a feature length film called "Hillary: The Movie" about Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Federal Election Commission said that you can't spend that much money on a movie like that so close to the election, so they took them to court.

It's the people in the van helping the wounded that are the crime.

For trying to save the life of an innocent photographer? How the hell were they to know this would get them killed? Does the military distribute leaflets telling them that if they try to save the wounded they will be fired upon?

You never shoot wounded, ever, ever, ever.

Maybe on paper, but the pilot was a little trigger happy. It was nerve racking to hear him say, "Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a wepon." just so he could fire on an unarmed journalist.

The Pentagon had their chance to release the video and explain themselves at the press conference covering the attack. In fact, David Petraeus said he would. Then they could have shown from the video footage that there were two guys with assault rifles, and that it would have been impossible to tell that there were two children in the van, and that the camera looks like an RPG from head on, and that they (supposedly) followed the rules of engagement. They could have cut out some of the audio and the images of the Hummer driving over dead bodies. Instead they denied Reuters the video despite repeated FOIA requests, and proceeded to lie about how the children were injured.

My hunch was that Petraeus thought they were following the rules of engagement, and then when they looked at the video later they realized it was worse than they thought, and decided not to release the video. I don't have the experience or understanding to know what's going on either, but those in the Pentagon do. If they're not comfortable releasing the video because they can't justify what happened, and they have to subsequently lie about certain important details, it means that someone screwed up.

For anyone who wants to know the actual numbers

Apparently, in 2008 in the NHS Tees area (Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar and Cleveland) there were fewer than 10 cases of syphilis - so few that, under data-protection rules, the NHS can't give out the exact number.
But in 2009, 30 cases of heterosexual syphilis were notified to the NHS. So, yes: a four-fold increase, but a very small sample from which to drawn any very big conclusions.

Long story short, they noticed an increase, asked the patient where they got the disease. The patient said they met partners on the internet, which gets translated into Facebook. I'd put my money on it being Craigslist, as someone mentioned earlier.

I've got to say, the hubris implied by that last one seriously reduced by sympathy for these guys.

I read it as an homage to the movie 300!
THIS.. IS.. WIKILEAKS!!!!!!!!!!

No, the first amendment is the law.

I think the parent was trying illustrate how ridiculous the three letter agencies will sound using that justification right after the series of attacks against wikileaks.

But the problem is the same govermnental departments that make that argument are also incredibly secretive themselves (CIA, NSA, FBI). It's a double standard. You can't have it both ways. It makes complete sense to say that when when the NSA wants to listen to my international phone calls, but then when the President wants to squelch the release of torture photos, we're told that the photos really aren't that bad, and that it's a matter of national security.

Unfortunately, the media in this day and age only care about ratings and ad revenue.

Human rights have nothing to do with it. Google was hacked. If people can't trust the contents of their GMail inbox to remain out of the hands of Chinese intelligence, and Google can't ensure that some Chinese entity isn't stealing proprietary code, Google's profits will suffer. Pulling out of China will make this less of a threat. It's a cost-benefit analysis, and that's how it would be presented to the shareholders.

Except that Baidu already dominates search in in China. If Google pulls out, most people won't notice. For the few Google users, they'll move to Baidu and search like everyone else.