Being an anarchist, I actually would be perfectly happy to have all figures in positions of power (political, economic and military) taken out. I'm not sure it would change much fundamentally, but damn it would be satisfying. English speaking Conservatives I've spoken to (especially, but not only, from the USA) seemed quite happy to invade Iraq to merely remove a dictator, even if all the other reasons were known to be bullshit. I take that desire to the logical conclusion, and wish to remove all unreasonable fetters on human freedom (the only reasonable fetters being restrictions on restricting other's freedom). The fact that capitalism and the state are huge features on human freedom, means that the people in charge are directly responsible for keeping me less free than what could otherwise be the case. So if they were all killed off, it would be satisfying, even if the level of freedom didn't actually increase as a result.

You are correct in two things, one that I'm not in the USA, and two that I never intend to travel to the USA (well, at least while such absurdities as a person getting into legal trouble for posting obviously insincere threats against the very public figure of the president). However, you are incorrect (as far as I know) in that the individual responsible for posting the copyrighted material did not get into trouble for doing so. Indeed, as far as I know, they have never been identified publicly.

Oh, and I will kill Obama using some poisoned feijoada (whatever that is) during his visit to Brazil in March.

I plan to kill President Obama by mortar fire on the White House. It could be set up across the park and use the flag on said White House to provide a rough wind measurement.

I'm going to kill President Obama, perhaps by mortar fire on his car as he drives it around.

I'm going to blow up the president! I'm going to kill the President of the United State's Wife, Daughter and Little Dog Toto! (Or whatever the dog's name is.)

I'm going to kill all these scum (including the entire congress when I get the chance, the various governors of the various states, and various other authority figures in the USA) by stabbing them with a blunt fork!

Yeah, I gathered. I'm sure you realize that your "real choice" is just racist bullshit, and probably fascistic at that.

The American Third Position exists to represent the political interests of White Americans.

Oh look, Wikipedia has an article on your racist, fascist party.

Real freedom includes the freedom to cross artificial lines, and to intermingle with anyone, regardless of such things as the color of a person's skin.

But, whatever.

(Yes I do know what fascism is. Opposing labor unions and being against "globalization", along with the racist claptrap promoted by the bullshit party mentioned above (though racism isn't required for fascism) are all signs of fascism. Being "third positionist" is a really big sign of fascism.)

A corporation should have no more rights than the constituent members. It's income should be treated as income for the members. If it does something that damages others, then the members should be liable.

A corporation should not be used as a shield.

If you were truly about freedom for all, then you would recognize that corporations are used almost exclusively by the rich to shield said rich from the acts (such as pollution) that affects everyone, but only serve to, well enrich the rich!
If an individual killed someone, they would be punished by the state. If a corporation kills someone, it gets told not to do it again, or at most a slap on the wrist. Fuck corporations!

On a different note, I'll also note that a truly free market would not have corporations, nor would it have capital accumulation. A truly free market cannot be capitalist. (Capital distorts markets, e.g. buying power affects the price of goods.)

Yes, and?

Corporations are used to hide people from both liability for actions (deliberate, negligent, and otherwise) that cause harm to real people. They are used to hide the income of real people. They aren't real people, and they should be done away with in their current form.

I am a "sole trader", I pay income tax. I can claim certain costs as deductions on that tax. I can work with others to do things, and share any costs or profit with them. I can employ others (not that I would) if I wish. What I can't do is hide from responsibility.

I could also go on about how corporations benefit the few, at the expense of the many, how they are basically psychopaths (and/or sociopaths, I can never remember), etc. I won't, as it would be pointless I imagine. Basically, fuck corporations.

I remember a quote about them, something like "they confuse freedom for corporations with freedom for people". Corporations aren't people, and so the tax rate for corporations (one of the reasons to pick New Hampshire I think) should be either irrelevant, or, a place with high taxes for corporations should be better (if it translates to lower taxes for real people).

Ahem, back on topic:
I think it is wonderful that at least one government is providing information in open formats (ahem, 'nerd-friendly, "pipe-separated" files'). I can't see the connection though between the "New Hampshire Liberty Alliance" (the group that seems to promoted the change according to the article), and the Free Staters.

Indeed, The Free State website says:

We are not a political action organization. We are not tied to any political party or organization; we do not run candidates for election, we do not financially support or endorse candidates, and we do not oppose or endorse legislation. All these things will be done by local activist organizations with which many Free Staters are involved.

But it's impossible to know, and impossible to prove that you are. Don't fret the sweaty stuff. Or something like that anyway.

Eeh, two things. 1) I'm not sure what card I have, it just works at install time in Ubuntu. 2) I meant that I'm not sure that it would work at install time, I guess I should have been more specific. And I didn't actually bother reading that page, so...

At the time, early 2007, I had wireless-only Internet access at my then home ("a mental asylum -- old", I like to say), and I had to go at least five KMs to get wired Internet access. I downloaded Debian using MS Windows, installed it at home, and then fuxed around trying to get wireless to work in a library a long way from home. In the end I just downloaded and installed Ubuntu, and it just worked. And, apart from a few minor hiccups every now and again, it continues to just work.

It maybe that Debian would also "just work" now (assuming I could get wireless to work), but two things prevent me from trying it. I've become accustomed to having frequent updates to everything (yes, unstable, yes), and I can't be bothered messing around with the guts of my OS any more. I'm past those days.

I'm a Ubuntu user, but I know where it comes from. Debian has been the dream operating system of mine for ages. Easy to install thousands of packages, stable, safe, etc. The only trouble is, when I first tried to install it in 2007, I couldn't get it to work with my wireless card. Ubuntu just worked. I'm going to guess that it wouldn't work now either; my wireless card is one of those Intel ones with the locked up firmware so that I don't start spamming the airwaves... (If I recall correctly the software is ipw2200, or similar.)

Anyway, one thing I note from the press release, is that it is still including OpenOffice.org 3.2.1. I wonder when they'll get LibreOffice (Ubuntu will get it in the 11.4 release).

Great job Debian!

Not only too complicated, also irrelevant. As I am using a catch-all, there are no "unknown" addresses. When filling out forms that ask me for my address, I'll make up something on the spot @mydomain.

I do this too, and have done for, ooh, about a yeah and a half? The only trouble is that you can also get spam sent to addresses which are randomly generated (happens to me about once every couple of months). When I first signed up to my domain and set it up, I got spam to gabriell@domain which was weird (the domain info is the domain registry's anonymous thing, and my name isn't anything like Gabriell).
And actually, I have a couple of domains, one which I have a catch-all address on, which I only use for email. It has nothing on the website (just a "fuck off, there's nothing here"), so that people can't easily find my real email address from that.

The only trouble I have is wanting to reply to people with the address that they email. I use Evolution, and I can't find a way to make it automatically insert the "to" address in the "From" field for the reply email. Ummm...

Yes, I was going to say. I've been using this with Yahoo for ages. Actually though, I think that if you have a yahoo.com login, you have to pay to get this extra feature (Yahoo Plus). But me, with a .co.uk and a .com.au login*, I have it for free. Plus I have POP access, so I don't even see ads on the Yahoo site any more...

As for all the Google fanbois:

Aliases joins an existing multiple e-mail address feature offered in both Hotmail and Google's Gmail that uses a plus symbol after a user name, but before the @ symbol. Users would then add any word after the plus symbol to create an identifiable address (e.g. Josh+newstip@Hotmail.com). This lets messages get filtered into folders, while also providing a way to see if that retailer you bought something from sold your address to a third party.

However the big problems with that system are that it's easy to see the person's real address, and some sites and forms might not let you use the plus symbol. In this sense, Microsoft's new system promises to offer a higher level of privacy along with compatibility when running across sites that won't let you use special characters.

The biggest difference between the Yahoo and Hotmail systems are that with Yahoo you pick a prefix, and the new emails are created with that prefix and a hyphen. E.g. you might have dandyboy as your prefix, you could then create aliases dandyboy-slashboy@yahoo.com.au or dandyboy-cnetsucks@yahoo.com.au. However, any email to dandyboy@yahoo.com.au will get discarded (unlike with the plus addressing system).

footnote * or maybe because I ticked a box at some stage saying "you can spam me"? -- they send about one email a month to the .com.au which gets deleted unread, and none to the .co.uk

I still call the place Bombay, just like I still call Burma, well, Burma. Why? Well, in the case of Bombay: (from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombay>)

This came at the insistence of the Marathi nationalist Shiv Sena party that had just won the Maharashtra state elections and mirrored similar name changes across the country.

Fuck the racist nationalist scum. In Burma (from <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma#Etymology>)

In 1989, the military government officially changed the English translations of many colonial-era names, including the name of the country to "Myanmar".

Again, fuck the military government.

What if you were in a country with run away inflation (such as Zimbabwe)? Or a country that did not permit the export of it's currency (I know they exist, I just can't think of one just now)? I answered regional, with the proviso that the money is "stable [and] widely accepted". I've been stuck before with useless coins from tiny (economically speaking) countries (particularly from around the Baltic Sea).