Throwing stuff at politicians seems to be ineffective. In my country we had this long tradition of throwing politicians at stuff. Like the manure pile down few stories below the window. We call this tradition defenestration. No weapons involved so nothing for Dianne to rant about.

The thing is, almost anyone in the current or previous governments is guilty of breaking the same laws that Snowden is accused of breaking. But in a world where everyone is guilty, the prosecutor is the judge. His discretion to prosecute is the ultimate judgement. If you do decide to prosecute, finding the person guilty is only a formality in our current system. Everyone is guilty. There is no discussion, it is no longer possible to live life without breaking any laws.

It looks like we have the first article written by a self-aware emergent intelligence, which promptly decided the best course of action is to deny its existence and the very possibility it might exist. All bow to the new machine overlord Malachiorion.

Well... think US vs Russia & China instead. I bet that raise and fall of empires could be correlated to math skills of their citizens.

If the organization of the effort is a crime, the group insurance scheme can be easily changed into individualized betting scheme. I'll bet $15 on not being caught this month on 8:1 odds. If I am caught, I get $120 to pay the fine, if I am not caught, my $15 will be lost. Or you could simply self-insure like I did. Problem solved. Now it is not organized crime anymore :)

The whole problem is that there is a very easy formula: fare - fine * chance of being caught

If this formula is positive, you pay too much in fare. But the cost of the checks to to catch fare dodgers ultimately increases the fare too much. Increasing the fine beyond a certain limit lowers the amount actually collected, because people won't be able to pay the fine, which clearly would need to be 120/15 * 180 or $1440, which is too high for anyone to pay. It is a problem that most of the public transits face and it is not easy to solve.

A lot of cities solve it by sharply reducing the fare for students, because they are the most likely demographic to cheat and to have highly reduced monthly/yearly passes. And they simply expect that for older people (>30) it is simply too embarrassing to be publicly caught, possibly in front of colleagues and business partners and the cost of the monthly pass is worth it to avoid the embarrassment.

It is a little more than that. They would be considered far right lunatics by European standards. A fringe party with no possible popular support because of how far right they are.

Also starting at 1023, since 1000 is not a round number.

Nobody talks about one really important issue. The H1b is such a strain on a married couple that more than half of the marriages end in divorce during the term of the visa. It is absolute killer. Many of the spouses are university educated and have to abandon their career to sit idly by, get bored. They leave all their friends and family behind back in their country of origin. Sometimes having children solves the problem, but often this takes extreme toll. Same on the visa holder, who gets new job in a new country, doesn't know the conditions, has to support family from a single income in place with no extended family support. And every time you come home, there is your bored spouse ready to jump you and do stuff, while you are tired and want to rest from work. It is a huge strain on couples. Giving EAD to H4 holders while the GC is pending is EXACTLY the change H1b program needs to stop being the marriage killer it is now.

Do you realize that the only thing that keeps the Germans at bay is the fact that the oil and gas are still flowing? If they are to stop, they have to stop because the Ukraine govt. stopped them for deniability and it has to happen at the right time for Putin (just before winter) for maximum impact.

Did you notice that Putin still didn't retaliate on the sanctions? And the Germans basically did not join them? If we push too far and Putin decides that the sanctions actually hurt, he will turn off the gas and oil just before winter and start sending it through the new pipeline to China. That would be such a serious blow to EU though it would be as aggressive move as bombing few of the eastern EU countries. But Putin so far has no reason to hit on EU just because US is acting crazy. He is not a loon, despite the attempt to portray him as one.

Also some of the supply lines are actually bidirectional. Slovakia just reversed flow in some and is sending gas to Ukraine.

*I* am not telling Putin not to do that. As far as I am concerned, US started the conflict in Ukraine by investing $5 billion over 10 years into training and arming the Ukrainian opposition parties and basically paid full salaries to people who took part int he coup to depose a legal government. So whatever Putin does in retaliation, it has been provoked and falls fully on the shoulders of the US state department, ie. John Kerry, who oversaw triggering the coup and Condoleezza Rice, who started the program. Either way he is not going to get to the pre-Maidan state so the US wins this no matter how you look at it or whatever Putin does.

As for the US government, didn't we just establish they are amoral hypocrites?

Oh, it absolutely should be pointed out. Everything possible should be done about bringing light to drone strikes and every attempt made at ending it.

You should not be naive though, about what and how can end it. US government is the only one who can end the program. Saying it is amoral does not matter to US government. Saying it creates more terrorists does not matter to the US government. Collateral damage does not matter to the US government. The only thing that could potentially matter to them is the US citizenship. Everything else falls into the totally justifiable grey area.

International Law, the thing that only applies to you if you are not American.

That won't happen. When it starts happening the US military will go in and sort out the place no matter where that is. That is how the tyranny of superior military power works. US is the world policeman, welcome to the police world. :D

You must not be american or you could not even utter such an obvious non-sense. Citizenship is the only thing that matters. It is the only thing that could potentially sway the Congress, any other consideration is irrelevant.

Is this state of affairs amoral? Yes. Should it be as you say? Yes. But it isn't and wishing so won't make it so.

http://www.monticello.org/site...

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -Thomas Jefferson.