It has been my experience that those exact same people are very quick to label anything but their own thinking jingoism. They can't even accept there might be such a thing as patriotism, and if it did exist it surely wouldn't apply to America, the nation that is worse than Nazi Germany. How do you have an argument with people who believe that borders shouldn't exist?

Education is funded by property taxes, not sales tax. In Austin, people are being priced out of their homes because they voted for every social program out there, and now the taxes are too damn high.

"I'm at the breaking point," said Gretchin Gardner, an Austin artist who bought a 1930s bungalow in the Bouldin neighborhood just south of downtown in 1991 and has watched her property tax bill soar to $8500 this year.

"It's not because I don't like paying taxes," said Gardner, who attended both meetings [of "irate homeowners"]. "I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can't afford to live here anymore."
-- Austin American-Statesman

There is no culture in rural areas. There is no learning. For the active mind, it is a fate worse than death. Intelligent people want to be around other intelligent people. Who wants to live in the country with a bunch of bigots who dismiss any ideas they don't agree with?

No, the heavy hand of government would have shut the private company down.

I will never understand people who like big government. What is your freaking deal? Do you hope to get in and control the rest of us? It ain't gonna happen, you're not an elite, otherwise you won't be wasting your time posting on Slashdot. The boot is going to stomp on your face just like everyone else's.

This article is precisely why we need to NOT worship science as the end-all, be-all of solutions to our problems. Science will happily lead us down the primrose path of racism. Something for the science-worshippers among us to contemplate. Again and again we see Slashdot users angrily condemning competing belief systems and saying science is the one true way of thinking. It's not, and this is precisely why.

Just to add, Joseph McCarthy was right - there really were communists in the State Department. They would have overthrown the US government if they had had the chance. I know this sounds looney but it's absolutely true, and after the NSA revelations then loonies don't look so looney any more, eh?

What a bunch of B.S. You run red lights because you're on a bicycle and you know you won't get pulled over for it. Gimme a break with playing the victim! Bikes obey traffic laws only when it's convenient.

Funny, the US Army would like nothing more than a straight-up fight in Afghanistan. And yet the enemy hides among civilians and blows up schools and churches. Where's the shaming for the enemy? Oh, that's right, you don't do that. Only Americans can be wrong.

Funny, here I was thinking that Republicans and Democrats were two sides of the same coin. Now, they're uniquely and blameably wrong? I swear, this is exactly the same "we have always been at war with Eurasia" doublethink that Orwell wrote about. One day, the first idea. The next day, the other - with no acknowledgement of the other idea ever having been uttered.

I thought it was idiotic when I read 1984 way back when, but here it is, live and right in front of my face.

Do you REALLY think they just drew the name Brownsville out of a hat? And then decided to locate there? WTF? You're talking about it like it's some kind of voluntary choice. Please tell me you're not that stupid.

Look at a map of America. Brownsville is at the southern tip. Being as far south as possible as advantageous for putting satellites into orbit. Why do you think Cape Canaveral is located where it is?

Ah, OK, so it's not their fault, then. Whew! I thought they might actually have to take responsibility for their actions, but now I see nothing negative can ever be their fault. It's like some sort of mental state that defends itself in the face of contradictory information because the alternative is too horrifying to contemplate...what's that called again? Oh, right, cognitive dissonance.

It's nice you vomited the first thing you thought of onto the page, but you won't find anything even vaguely resembling Taco Bell in Mexico. Did you really think that? Sad.

How's it different? Cameras aren't different than your friends and neighbors voluntarily going to the government to inform on you? Can you honestly see no difference there? Or are you just SO KEEN to say NSA=Gestapo that you will make any mental gyrations necessary to maintain your previously-established mental conclusions?

The Gestapo actually wasn't that good at spying. The German people were, however, quite good at turning their neighbors in to the Gestapo. There's a lot of myth concerning the Nazi police force. It's unfortunate that even today people repeat it without thinking.

Ukraine caused by US neocons? You mean Obama and Kerry? Yeah, those famous Jewish conservatives...