you mean you're a hopeless idealist who think things have to be perfect?

i'm glad you agree we need to get rid of corruption

but i'm mystified how you think the country's obvious success has nothing to do with democracy, however imperfectly implemented

i've been commenting on slashdot for years. there's always this steady drip of comments from grammar (punctuation?) nazis like yourself. do you see me changing or caring?

if you don't like the formatting of my comment, don't read it. i don't owe you anything. you're not paying me

this is an informal comment board, not a doctoral thesis. get over yourself

yes, exactly

and that's exactly the next step with a weakened government: corporation owned armies abusing you with no recourse for your rights

oh, i'm making that up? it's science fiction?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

By the early 1890s, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency employed more agents than there were members of the standing army of the United States of America.

During the labor strikes of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, businessmen hired the Pinkerton Agency to infiltrate unions, supply guards, keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories, as well as recruiting goon squads to intimidate workers. One such confrontation was the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which Pinkerton agents were called in to reinforce the strikebreaking measures of industrialist Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie.[citation needed] The ensuing battle between Pinkerton agents and striking workers led to the deaths of seven Pinkerton agents and nine steelworkers.[4] The Pinkertons were also used as guards in coal, iron, and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia as well as the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921. The organization was pejoratively called the "Pinks" by its opponents.

now remember dick cheney and his adventure with blackwater

weaken the government and blackwater expands exponentially, and corporate goons are now stepping on your throat: "get back to work slave, i mean citizen. if you have a problem with our enforcement activities, please see the corporation owned courts, or attempt to fight our legion of well-funded lawyers when you can barely get enough to eat, because we've let 'the market decide' your salary"

you look around the world at kleptocracies, warlords, mafias... you really fucking believe government has a monopoly on force?

if there is no government army, it's not suddenly peace and happiness, it's fucking hell

where do you morons come from with your bullshit unexamined beliefs?

It's OK. The alternate Kate Upton has really let herself go and she's become the alternate Melissa McCarthy.

It doesn't really matter as it is outside any point made. 20 people, one person, or no one at all, it does not make someone a criminal but it doesn't mean the clerk or store owner can hate ski masks.

When we become a non free country, you would be able to take whatever you want from the rich, you will be able to demand they do not buy what you deem frivolous luxury items or that anyone produces them. When we become a non free country, you can invent things for scientists to solve.

But wait, no you cannot because the chances of you being the supreme dictator of this non free country would be about zero. What we will end up with is the same as every single other communist country- an elite few muddled with various levels of corruption and brutal enforcement of their demands to do what they decide is best for you. We may even end up killing thousands if not millions of people in order to make it happen just like in almost every other start of communist ruled countries. You may think, oh noes, couldn't be because this time we will get it right those with more will have less and it will all be unicorns shitting rainbows all over the place, and then they take your Iphone because a nokia flip phone is good enough and everything else is a luxury. Then they take your computer because it wastes electricity and they deemed you do not need it. But hey, that's an ideal world right? Someone making arbitrary decisions about who can purchase what, about who works on what and who can produce what, all based around the whims of someone who doesn't like people with more money than them.

Yes, because China has such a WONDERFUL legacy of recognizing and abiding by International intellectual property rights treaties - the GPL will show them!

Probably not. Google doesn't play with the Chinese Government - and it's one of the reasons it's such a pain to use any of their properties/sites in China. No shareholder revolt over that. It's not the corporate system that is inherently evil - it is the people at the top that tend to put their own personal gain over that of the corporation who are evil.

I may actually be the only person who actually likes God Emperor Of Dune, but I get many peoples' observations that after the third Dune book, the series changed pretty substantially. Being a big fan of Herbert's work, what I saw was that the later Dune books began in many respects to resemble his other later era books in prose style, and it was that which likely turned off many people.

It would make them a lot easier to handle on deck of the ship, what with the dark and harsh lights and all...

I can tell you right now that if I was a successful writer, doubtless making a meaningful, but still modest wage, and someone waved the big bucks in front of me to make my unfinished series into a major multinational television production, I would not hesitate for the briefest moment in taking the cash.

I'm not a fan of the television series, but do enjoy the books. The only thing that really pisses me off is that there is such a length of time between each book that I end up having to reread the entire series from the start just to remember all the characters and story lines. Thus far I've read the first three books three times.

Eagerly awaiting the sequel series:

A Poop for Penguins
A Tit for Tyrion
Another Tit for Tyrion
A Gaggle of Geese
Yet Another Tit for Tyrion
A Bunghole of Bratwurst

He has managed to out-Tolkien JRR Tolkien. Even with three or four contiguous story lines going on, Tolkien had to map out the chronology of events carefully so that he always knew where all the main characters and events were happening in relation to each other. Martin has something like two or three times as many plots going on, and he must spend have his time keeping the plotting straight.

The Game of Thrones series is essentially a shared universe with one writer.

He may not finish it, but you can be damned sure the producers of the series have a solid plot line at their disposal should he kick the bucket. This is a cash cow of monumental proportions, and they won't let something as minor as the author's death get in the way of continuing production.

What is a federal law? I think you need to cite that. The feds do not have jurisdiction over most vehicles once produced and sold.