They don't have taxes.

They just have 'fees' for everything. So the rich stay rich and the poor are nibbled to death by ducks.

Not to mention that it gives those same companies huge incentives to medal in politics.

Well that's unintentionally true - especially for assholes like the Kochs that are awarding gold medals to lapdog morons across the US.

it took this long for the NSA find a backdoor that worked.

Brandeis would have had the entire notion of 'Parallel Construction' thrown up against a dirty brick wall, then gut-shot. And rightly so.

It must have been great to have a Supreme Court not packed with partisan, corporate / police state lapdogs.

Simple: file a Bugzilla report on them: that will definitely get the word out!

point being, they're breaking the law in the country where the servers were in... they're going to slip up some day and hack someone that sues them abroad and in usa...

Sue? Nah, I want the offended country to consider the hacking as an act of war, justifying the seizing of assets and jailing of US government officials on charges of espionage. And a big country; too big to drone / carpet bomb. I'd advise Brazil to conduct a test case.

The first fatal casualty in The War on Drugs (TM) was an honest justice system, with someone in the back screaming 'She's got a gun!' while bursting through the front door of a knock and announce.

Just try saying that fast three times: tax disk; tax disk; tax disk.

I hear they're also available where they sell seashells by the seashore.

that means members of the FBI should be subject to extradition and trial in those other countries just as they would be if they had been caught (and prosecuted) for breaking American law.

Oh, my aching sides! Are you here all week?

Each app gets a separate Linux user, so it's data is separate and inaccessible to other apps.

Ignoring the endless screens of permission requests with each update, including your mothers maiden name and bra size. But yeah, sandboxes are great.

It shouldn't be called the Internet of Things; it should be honestly called the Panopticon of Things.

But expecting honesty from the largest tech company is like expecting the DOJ to prosecute bankers.

Whenever you look up at the near side of the moon, you see a face looking back at you.

Nope. Never.

I saw my first gun-packing meathead in Walmart last week end (why, he was White - how did you guess?). I was very tempted to go up to him and ask :"What are you so scared of, that you have to carry a gun in public?" We all should, every time.

Unless you're living in Beirut, the real reason for 'packing' is race-based fear and / or small, limp junk.

I first read the trilogy when I was an atheist, and it helped remove that particular hurdle in my later study of the world religions that lead to my conversion to Catholicism.

So you highest belief set is Empire.

Just like having a water filter and/or softener at the entrance of a house's service, LED bullbs (and other electronics) might live up to their projected lifetimes if they were fed with filtered, rock-solid power, free of spikes and sags.