"Hey, Silicon Valley: we need paid-off with massive contributions or we'll grandstand on this (while not really giving a shit, other than having red meat to throw to our racist base)." -- GOP

Please make them easily re-fuelable AND establish a real refueling system. Hell, add in the ability to replace / upgrade parts during the pit stops.

We have to stop making future space junk.

but most generally we experience a particular flavor of Arab-dominated Islamic extremism

So... Boko Haram in Nigeria is Arab-dominated? Huh.

Do you also support contract killings? Because he ordered hits on a few people.

Or so you've been told by the Fed^H^H^H Media.

Yes, I can see it now. A stripped Linux kernel will boot, and then in turn will boot the SystemD-OS.

What stuns me is that Linus still doesn't seem to give a care, even as the very ground under his feet erodes into thin air.

Metastasization Continues Unchecked.

While it would be nice to think about FedGov controlling all the fiber pipes, ensuring equal and universal access, real competition, and reasonable pricing, there would be a downside.

It would only be minutes after this dream was realized when moralizing politicians would insist on fine-grained monitoring of all user activities, along with the banning of all websites showing anything more naughty than a fully-clothed nipple. The bible-thumpers and 'think about the children' hand-wringing helicopter freaks would insist on a draconian system that would make even the Suadi Arabian Morality Police jealous.

I'm all for Net Neutrality, but we should be careful what we wish for, as the devil will always own the details.

The endless, brutal, and almost always hypocritical and contradictory criticism of Obama is the 21st-century's GOP method of continuing to shout 'Nigger!!' at the top of their lungs.

Just as Satan is God's Most Valuable Employee (doing exactly what he needs done), Terrorists are the same for Dictators (and those that dream of being a Dictator): a perfect - some might say purpose-built* - excuse to destroy what they fear the most: the freedom of true privacy.

* - As some one pointed out on Twitter: ask yourself why Al-Queda has never even once tried to attack Israel.

I am looking forwards to the day when an enfeebled Grover Norquist demands all of his Federal benefits, just like that hypocritical waste of skin Ayn Rand.

Now that the GOP controls both houses, if anything the FCC proposes angers the Republican paymasters (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, et al.), Congress will just zero-out the parts of the FCC's budget that is even remotely attached to overseeing cable / broadband. Nothing is about to change. Nothing.

Khomeini was a clever bastard who tricked the Iranian reformists who wished to replace the Shah with a democracy. He promised before he got on a plane in France to be merely a figurehead. In short order he had co-opted the revolution (which was, by and large to that point, secular in nature).

History repeats. The intellectuals that started the Russian Revolution got bum-rushed (and ice-axed) by their own thugs (Stalin and Beria).

But that was how many years ago? 500+? The Catholic church and it's beliefs have greatly changed since. The way I see it, Islam (or some members/sections of it) today is where the Christian/Catholic religion was many centuries ago was.

Dr. George Tiller was murdered (ironically in the doorway of his church) by a Christian zealot for daring to assist women in controlling their own freaking bodies.

But this does point out the one common bedrock of all organized religions: the control and subjugation of women, up to and including rape and murder.

Fuck religion (all of them).

One major drug smuggling gang has been able to continue flooding the UK with Class A narcotics unimpeded for the last year after changing their operations.

Simple: legalize it all. Now, you've removed the massive profits, reduced the associated violence of the sellers, the theft and robbery crimes of the users, while also reducing the amount of ODs, allied health costs, and even deaths, ala Portugal.

But they have no idea of allowing these solid, provable benefits to society, as it would be a detriment to their power and money (i.e., they're just another criminal organization).

I wonder if the Norks knew about the on-going US / Cuba negotiations, with the US side-objective of removing one more semi-allied state from their nearly empty ranks.

Relatedly, I'm pleased that this mostly disappointing lame-duck President called the GOP on their kowtowing to the grandchildren of those that fled the collapse of the immorally corrupt Mafia / CIA backed Bautista regime that made their families filthy rich. To quote a former history teacher: "The most a woman could aspire to under Bautista was to become a high-class prostitute."