This legislation is a way to legitimize the ongoing illegal activity. It implicitly suggests that what was going on before was legal and now is being scaled back. This is worse than nothing -- it is a victory for the NSA, plus it's such weak tea, it's a double victory for those assholes.

No. What is irresponsible and harmful is making it a risk free proposition to kill other people. That just leads to more killing of other people. It also leads to greater animosity toward the US and that leads to more people wanting to harm us.

Wars should be waged in an arena, one soldier at a time, to the death. Aside from a few psychopaths who would dispense with themselves quickly ... and good riddance ... most would refuse. Secondly, the order of battle should be from high rank to low rank. Put those with the most to lose in the ring first, starting at the presidential level.

The armed forces, including those who give the orders and those who follow the orders (I'm not about to grant a "get out of morality free" card just because a person is the trigger puller rather than the general), are despicable. That said, those who commit evil without even risking their own safety are especially despicable. That's all I said and meant.

Drone is nothing more then a boogy man to detract from the real issue becasue cowards don't want to be seen as arguing against military personal, especially pilots, so they use drones to scare people.

I blame those who give the orders and those who carry out the orders. And I especially despise the wimps in our Chair Force for risking nothing more than a fender bender in doing their evil deeds.

That said, although I didn't vote for Obama either time, if you can't admit that he suckered all the people wanting peace, and co-opted all the candidates who would have actually delivered, you are too deluded to have a rational discussion.

'Radical' in this case typically means orchestrated bombings resulting the the deaths of civilians

Watch this:

Butchersong fucks his mother every Saturday afternoon.

Because I'm a random person on the net, this is a troll. Now replace me with any of the self-interested power hungry psychopaths comprising the Federal government. Now it is "truth."

When you fall for the notion that the attorneys of one side coming to a conclusion is evidence, you have lost touch with what it means to be an American, except in the nationalistic glory to god and the Marines sense. In America, such accusations are supposed to be considered mere accusations until proven at trial. Without such a check on Executive power, it can be as capricious as it wants and SWAT raid you any weekend it wants -- it's important that you you get your dick out of your mother after all.

Add to that the fact that the GP is apparently unaware that we are still in Afghanistan. Or that Iraq ending was more about Obama's failure to extend it by getting an extension to the Status of Forces Agreement than anything else.

Ah, the famous bullshit comeback used to avoid facing certain facts.

The fact is that the Federal criminal code base has become so large that the human mind cannot remember it, and because of poorly documented agency rules, or merely weird agency interpretations of laws, it is not actually possible to even list all the laws one would have to memorize. Worse, the element of intent is often not even pertinent, and over time, more and more crimes devoid of the intent element are made.

But of course, ignorance of the law is no excuse. How convenient, make an unknowable criminal code base, and punish people for not knowing it. Then convince idiots like yourself that the system is fair and justly applied so that your knee jerk reaction is to immediately dismiss all criticism, and smugly feel secure and safe in the system.

Here ya go, complete with helpers and voyeurs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Or pick your own:
http://www.youtube.com/results...

Three Felonies A Day, by Harvey Silverglate, Constitutional Lawyer:
http://www.harveysilverglate.c...

It is impossible to even count the number of Federal crimes:
http://online.wsj.com/news/art...

Actually, I often use cash to buy stuff precisely because I do care about my anonymity. Considering how apathetic the public is to the 4th Amendment, and considering how absolutely rabid the government is about finding out information, cash is the only thing left to preserve some level of dignity.

I won't call it a probability, merely a possibility, but sometime in the future, it could well happen that eating lunch at McDonalds too many times per week could adversely affect health insurance rates. Or maybe you buy some booze at a liquor store and become a target for being pulled over on the off chance you also drank the booze and drove. Or maybe you bought a particular book 5 years ago that becomes illegal and subject to retroactive prosecution.

I'm not saying I expect these things to happen, just that they are possibilities. Of course in the 90s, if you asked me if I expected the Feds to spy on all Americans, I would thought that a foil hat concept, but look at where we are today. Anyway, using cash is a method to protect against future government abuse and when you look at how the US Federal Government operates in such fundamentally un-American ways, there's certainly no harm in taking steps to protect yourself from it. Minimizing your purchase history is a good place to start. That takes cash.

Not just your smartphone -- your car, microwave, stove, radio, computer, and a host of other devices. Clocks are simply everywhere. Except for some specialized jobs or hobbies, a watch of any kind is just unnecessary -- I haven't owned a watch in many years, and my wrists are more comfortable for it.

It's just alphabetical order. Doesn't really matter -- "both" (ha!) parties suck beyond the ability of science to measure.

Yes, common carriers do have competition. I don't know how old you are, but I remember when the choice in long distance providers came. Then sometime in the early 90s, more companies sprang up where you would enter a numeric code first, and then they would bill even less for long distance. Back in the 80s and 90s, a long distance call for an hour could easily cost you $6 on top of your monthly fees for basic service and long distance service. So going from 10c a minute to 4c a minute by entering a code or switching providers was a big deal.

Today, who even thinks of long distance? Back before competition, making a call from the county into town a mere ten miles would cost a dime a minute. How much do you pay for a long distance call now? Do you even think about long distance or instead do you think about the flat monthly rate for unlimited calling? I suspect it is the latter. So instead of paying $30 for basic service, another charge for a long distance plan, and then 10c a minute on top of that, you pay a $20 to $30 flat rate and never even think about how long you talk and how far away the endpoint of your call is.

That's what happens when there is competition.

This is all rooted in the notion that the internet is not like a phone, a decision made in the early 2000s. Of course, the internet actually is a phone, among other things. If the FCC had decided to treat the net like a phone, we would have massive competition, lower prices, and better service. What we have instead, is non-regulated monopoly cable providers.

This planet money episode gives a neat little history, and a comparison with how much better it is in Britain with respect to internet service:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money...

here's the link to that quote:

http://www.whatcar.com/car-new...