If I already have the capacity to recognizes faces, there's nothing really all that bad about me getting a thousand times better at it.

Okay you already have the ability to recognise faces and remember seeing people at certain place, but that not a valid comparison to having devices in every nook and cranny of a city that can do it with perfection. As a similar example, our society is having a similar debate around requiring or not requiring a warrant to place a GPS tracker on a car. Those saying a warrant isn't required assert "It's no different from assigning a tail to a subject so no warrant should required." The biggest difference between the two is cost and scalability. The cost of assigning officers to tail someone around the clock is high and serves as a deterrent to doing so without a good reason. When that can be done at a low or zero cost that deterrent is no longer there and it becomes time to have a discussion about what is or is not reasonable. The same is true of facial recognition technology. Fifty years ago people would unlikely argue there was something wrong with Sears hiring clerks to maintain detail records of every person who every walked into their store. The ease and low cost with which that can be done today means it's time to have a discussion about what is and is not reasonable.

Tort reform. Serious, hardcore tort reform at the state level which takes an axe to all of the areas where frivolous lawsuits can be brought would eliminate the argument for any policy that is grounded in the fear of what some idiot might sue over.

While I agree that there is a strong need for this, I don't think this really solves the problem. We see schools catering to unreasonable parents and assume or the school asserts is an issue of avoiding potential liability. The problem seems to be more than just fear of litigation in that we have a cultural value of catering to the least reasonable denominator out of a general fear of conflict.

Think about your family or the group of friends you hang out with. Somewhere in that group, there's someone that everyone talks about behind their back. They've some character flaw that's just tremendously exaggerated that they do their best to pretend doesn't exist and everyone else just goes along with it. In my group, there a woman who's a completely unreliable flake, we used to take bets on how late she'd be or how many excuses she'd have as to why it wasn't her fault she was late or couldn't do what was promised. But when something would come up in the group, say we were headed some we needed to be punctual to, most people in the group would rather just suffer the tardiness than say to her "You're always late, so we're going without you." They preferred to suffer her shortcomings rather than deal with the conflict of addressing them, a theme that seems very pervasive in our culture.

Here, here!

As parent said the last Harry Potter book didn't need to be split into two separate movies the proof is in how they did it. The first of the two movies did very telling of the story, it was mostly building atmosphere. The second of the two was kind of the opposite.

I think you're over-generalizing the benefits and being presumptuous that anyone's looking down their nose any anyone. Personal anecdote, while I share OP's refusal to work for the military once upon a time actually served in the military. I entered with the idea that, yes, the country needs defending because without a military we'd be vulnerable to attack from those who didn't like us. Once I was in the military I found I didn't feel the work I was doing was support the ends I had intended it to. I was eventually kicked out because I said "I can't do work I think you'll use to kill people I who I feel have done nothing to deserve being killed."

The same idea applies OP's other citations. You may think drugs that save lives may be worth the animals sacrificed, and I'd agree with you. But if I refuse to work for said company because I don't think a drug that light masks symptoms but is more profitable is worth the lives of the animals sacrificed, that doesn't mean that I'm against medical research and advancement.

None of that is speculation, none of the is fear mongering. Those are are facts.

Why exactly does those facts mean that it is not fear mongering? Being technically correct and engaging in fear mongering aren't mutually exclusive things. I could post all sorts of gruesome facts about the horrible things disease X does to the human body, the fact that those things may be true doesn't mean I'm not trying to incite fear.

The Internet has dramatically reduced paper formerly consumed in transmitting information, has reduced the need for individual to travel as people no longer need to co-locate to communicate, has nearly bankrupted USPS as much of their services are no longer needed.

Everyone focuses on the negative while failing to notice the progress we are making. I remember in the 90s one of the big environmental concerns was batteries, both in their production and disposal. Now most electronic devices have embedded batteries so the concern has largely been addressed. No one really noticed we've solved that problem because it took place very slowly and because there's still many more ways we could improve. Don't get me wrong, more progress is needed, but needing further progress isn't the same as having no progress.

The case isn't nearly as simple as the summary or the full article would indicated. I recommend the following:

http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio_detail.aspx?argument=10-945

Mod parent up!

In theory laws are a tool to facilitate justice, and many of our rulers have abandoned that principal so long ago that now they're even abandoning the illusion. To quote Frederic Bastiat: "The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law." While I'd rather not have to choose, I'm far more comfortable retaining my sense of morality.

To borrow from Robert Heinlein, because of the false notion that Democracy means that my ignorance is just as valid as your knowledge.

Sounds good in theory, but domestic counter-terrorism efforts falls under the FBI's jurisdiction, not the NSA's.

violating the oaths and vows that he took upon joining the military

Having taken that same oath, I completely disagree. The oath goes something to the effect of "I swear to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic ... and obey the orders of those above me."

The order in that oath is deliberate and very important. I see Bradley Manning's leak of information as an execution of his oath, not a violation of it.

Hate crimes are different. In manslaughter vs murder you're judging whether or not the perpetrator indented to kill another individual. Delineating between a hate crime and a regular crime, for example let's say assault, you're not judging whether the perpetrator's intent was to cause harm to another individual, but rather the reason he indented to cause harm to another individual.

One, routine follow-ups don't generally tend to involve extradition.
Two, I never said their was a conspiracy. The amount of effort in extraditing him is pretty out of balance with the strength of the case against him.
Three, again allegedly.

You reject the possibility that the US is trying to get the Wikileaks founder somewhere from which they could extradite him with no more evidence than "No, the US wouldn't do that. That sounds all conspiratorial."

I allow that it's possible such is what's going on (note I said allow that it is possible, not that I'm utterly convince that such is the case) base on the issues cited above.

Accepting a theory as true with no supporting evidence is pretty dumb. Asserting that a theory is definitively false without any evidence seems pretty dumb too.

But exactly how much of an insane conspiracy theory is this? If you've followed his treatment at all it doesn't take some nut-job to postulate his treatment has nothing to do with the alleged crimes he's accused of. I can grant not buying into a conspiracy theory because there's no direct supporting evidence. But that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Here we have an individual who's accused of rape by a woman who ran a blog, the meat of which was a guide to using the legal system to get back at your ex lovers, and another woman accusing him of rape bought him breakfast the morning after the alleged incident. So while I can provide no definitive evidence of a conspiracy theory, I ask if anyone can provide an explanation as to why they're trying so hard to prosecute these case when the only evidence in question is the accusers word, the former of which has a tremendous credibility problem, and the latter of which doesn't jive well with the established facts.

You're absolutely right that addiction is fuelled by something more deeply seeded than a lack of willpower, and I can agree that its fair to characterise addiction as a mental illness. It is a bit unfair that society regards physical illness with pity and mental illness with disdain.

With mental illnesses, as with all diseases it is up to the individual what they're going to do about it. I would gladly stand by a loved one struggling with an addiction so long as they were actively perusing treatment for such. The same for a loved one struggling with mental illness. But if the person abandons their attempts to get better I won't and I think no one should stand by their side and say "I understand. Its okay."

My attitude isn't one of callous disregard. There's a difference between someone who says "I'm sick, I have an addiction, will you please stand by me while I try to get better?" and someone who says "I'm sick, will you please stand by me because whatever I do isn't my fault." I've seen examples of both, and I've infinite patience for the former and absolutely none for the latter.