"Undue influence" is quite an understatement. Israel doesn't allow Palestinians to leave, and prevents anyone it can from entering. They're not allowed to import anything aside from life-sustaining rations Israel approves of. Israel did all it could to prevent Palestinians from voting for who they wanted to in their own elections. They're not allowed to have an army. Israel encourages extremists to take Palestinian territory with force. On top of that, Israel is attacking Palestine in an extremely one-sided conflict.

Aside from the freedom to reproduce, there doesn't seem to be much that Israel doesn't attempt to control about Palestinian life.

..which empirically is not enough to stop the current situation...

You'd suggest what? Cynicism is warranted with politics, but when it gets into resignation, then it's usually a contributor to the problem. People who would stand against the spying are too busy lamenting how the country is going to hell in a handbasket to actually demand something real. People who like their politics to be like a wrestling match in the meantime cheer on their team and let everything else get trampled.

Hey now! Did we even read the bill? We don't know that it will be bad, I mean the Senate has stood up against ... wait

Never mind. We're doomed.

I agree. Furthermore, why make an egg now? Fuck that, wait for a chicken first, THEN make an egg. Greedy fucking ovipares always jumping the gun...

I did some quick googling, I'm sure there is controversy over some of these numbers:

Number of Knesset members: 120
Number of current Arab Knesset members: 12 or 10%
Number of Israelis: 8 million
Number of Palestinians: 4.4 million

Given that Israel rules Palestine, that really doesn't meet my definition of democracy. As an American I'm sure I'd have problems with an Islamic Israel, but we tell ourselves we value democracy and freedom above all else. Furthermore, I can't imagine the current course will end up better.

Angry birds... IN 3D!!

They were honest: comcast is very scared of it. And those cities WERE failed experiments in the sense that they weren't very experimental. What's the hypothesis here being tested? That the city can offer a municipal service... involving computers?

The rights of corporations to put out fliers has never been in question. It has nothing to do with corporate personhood, nothing to do with spending money as speech.

If you don't want corporations to be considered people in terms of freedom of speech, fine, lets pretend that's the case. Only real people have freedom of speech, done. What a roadblock for comcast! Why, they would have to give money to some real person in order to have THAT person exercise their freedom of speech in the form of misleading fliers! Man, that could add a whole hour or two to the process, imagine how much freedom we'd have! (single tear runs down cheek)

Ignorance is no excuse from legal repercussions is the meaning of that phrase. Google made that statement to a reporter asking for comment, not in a courtroom. In reality (as opposed to the legal system) yes, ignorance of a law definitely is a good excuse. Look at patent trolls, those are clear cases where ignorance of the laws are unfortunately not a legal defense but are definitely a moral excuse.

That's disingenuous. Those aren't really in the same category as modern nukes. We're talking about much more power than all of WWII including those two bombs

A man goes to a doctor. The doctor says "You need to stop smoking." Man says "SNORE! Old news, you told me that last time, tell me something I don't know!" and lights up. The man dies shortly thereafter *.

It is news because it is still happening and most people don't know it, or like to pretend we're not in for rough times. If a story is a duplicate on slashdot, then that's one thing. If it's so obvious that everyone already knows it, then that's also fair to object.

Maybe start by asking why they are all spouting the same nonsense. Then conclude that it's because we have stupid voters who tolerate it. Then move.

I get the impression that you have about equal chances of getting a rude gate agent no matter what airlines you fly with. Which is to say they're almost all reasonable people, but sometimes have bad days, other times it depends more on how you ask. The guy here seems to have an entitlement. He's a frequent flyer, his kids aren't, he was asking if they could get on with him in the early boarding. He could have paid the early check-in fee for them and gotten on before most people anyway. I think it's $15 on southwest. Point is, he had other options. It's fine to ask for favors, but if you're fuming about someone NOT granting you a favor, you're probably the asshole in that situation.

Moreover, personally, I'm willing to pay for more polite staff. Specifically, I'm willing to pay maybe five dollars. Southwest is still cheaper usually. Who cares about rude gate agents?

On service (as in flights on time) I have gotten the impression that they're slipping. Their fleet isn't as young as it used to be. Mechanical issues seem to be causing more delays. That said, they're still newer planes than Delta. I suspect southwest's reputation is working against them here: If Delta is delayed 2 hours you think "Fucking Delta, always pulling this shit, good thing I brought a book to read just in case this happened." If Southwest is delayed you think "WHAT THE FUCK!!! SOUTHWEST ISN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THIS SHIT!!! AAAAA!!!!"

I may be biased though because Delta woke me up in very the middle of a trans-pacific flight to fucking sell me duty free shit, and I didn't get back to sleep the remaining 6 or so hours, then on the ground I learned they had smashed both of my checked articles, and then told me with a straight face that I took that risk when I checked it. Southwest doesn't do international flights, so doesn't have a chance to wake me up trying to sell me something, and I don't check bags anymore.

While terrorists have and will claim victory over causing economic damage, that's not their goal, and it never was. Their cult doesn't promise them forty grapes/virgins if they total a million dollars in lost GDP or anything like that.