Let me try... The free market isn't a game someone wins it is the playing field and the rules of the game.

Not this libertarian. A free market requires freedom not feudalism. And the only way capitalism is an efficient system is when capital is spread out into as many hands as possible. Capitalism is meant as the economic form of democracy in the sense that many hands will most often make better decisions than central planners or kings. Free Market Capitalism isn't meant as a winner take all sport of who can accumulate the most capital in order to buy Hawaii... ie Larry's World. For Free Market Capitalism to work as a system there have to be high taxes on the most rich and/or on vast estates as a way to periodically re-level the playing field and keep some equity in the system.

In the case of nuclear power I think we need a government subsidized build out to insure longer term stability of our energy supply in a carbon free future rather than leave it up to short term whims of profiteers. With nuclear materials the risks and benefits are just too high to leave it to the free market alone.

It should not be considered unexpected.

Common Core is a set of curriculum standards not a detailed curriculum itself or the educational materials that go along with that. Having a Common Core shared by most states allows for more competition in educational products such as books, software, handouts and curriculum. This allows publishers to focus on quality rather than spending much time aligning their content to 50 different state standards. I believe the overall effect on education quality has been to raise it, but there are many more important factors to education than just the Common Core.

I think a debate over particular requirements is good and the Common Core should be updated to reflect best practices as much as possible and there should be room in state and Federal funding for new curriculum standards being adopted by schools or school districts in order to properly assess them, but for the most part what I've heard is sniping over examples of poor implementation of the Common Core which is more an issue of bad purchasing decisions by schools and individual school districts.

I think the Google rule is more a function of battery life since that kind of constant radio communication uploading video back to the cloud is a drain on batteries.

In terms of personal privacy or police state concerns... The police already have decent facial recognition technology available to police and government along with fixed cameras that are hard wired for power. Yes there is a performance issue if you try to match too many faces to too many faces, but as others have said this is subject to Moore's law and the price performance curve of Cloud Computing making this more attainable and more affordable starting with the police and government and hopefully working its way down to civilian use.

To me it is of greater concern if facial recognition technology remains only affordable and practical for the police and government when the technology could be of great help to pro democracy activists. If I were a pro democracy activist in a police state I would want access to facial recognition in order to identify known or suspected police agents that were trying to thwart, subvert or otherwise undermine political organizing activities. Basically all it takes is one paid operative within a peaceful protest to start throwing rocks at the police to justify a police crackdown as law and order rather than political repression. It has even been an issue in the US with paid police infiltrators caught being the ones inciting violence and criminality in order to justify the subsequent police crackdown. If that person could be identified ahead of time as a police operative, then organizers can intervene and expel the person from the protest before they start causing trouble.

Identifying and controlling the troublemakers that try to blend in and cause trouble would be a sea change in a groups ability to organize peaceful protest. Not all troublemakers are paid operatives, some people just like causing trouble. So the ability to take someone's picture, tag them as a potential or known troublemaker and then share that with other organizers would be of great help in countering and exposing that kind of government sponsored sabotage or even just criminal elements out to cause trouble for sport.

Teaser has been updated, so disregard the first paragraph of what I wrote.

The original post was edited to correct the language. When it was first posted it just said the letters were "sent out" but it didn't say to whom they were sent so it could be inferred the 2.4 million letters were sent to the people they were trying to get signatures from.

It is called a form letter. They are used by issue advocacy groups all the time.

If the form says... fill out this form and we will send this form letter with this wording to your representatives... then that is just an honest and straightforward exercise of free speech. Making it convenient for people that share your views to express their views is the most honest thing that is done in politics.

Bribing newspapers and media to cover your issues or candidates in a favorable light by spending big money on advertising is dishonest and undermines our democratic system. Individuals sending individual feedback to their congressmen is a good thing no matter how that is facilitated.

Was just about to point out the dishonest spin in the teaser, but you took the words out of my mouth. I have been involved with issue mailings to people that have previously indicated interest in something and gotten far far less of a response. A 34% response indicates that they had a very very well targeted mailing and indicates that there are a lot of people that do in fact share the perspective. I still think there is a large majority for net neutrality and therefore the FCC which represents the interest of the public should clearly act in that direction.

Also, I have to add that given my more or less libertarian perspective I don't think the Koch brothers anti-regulation libertarian perspective is completely wrong. I just think in this case regulation has already been applied in a lopsided manner that benefited larger businesses, prevented competition and penalized consumers so there is a need to undo the damage caused by previous regulation in a thoughtful way and in this case that means applying different regulations including net neutrality and regulations that effectively promote local competition.

But if all else was equal with vibrant local competition for ISPs I would have been against net neutrality as a government overreach, but I think that largely as a result of regulatory capture that we now are faced with monopolies that are able to corrupt the free market and exert more than their fair share of control so that we need a well crafted net neutrality policy to counterbalance that.

But in my perfect world the FCC would be dissolved by Congress and a new government agency would be focused solely on licensing and regulating over the air spectrum to prevent interference. I see the problem with Comcast and Verizon as being issues of a broken free market and not strictly communications, where issues of local monopolies should be addressed by the Federal Trade Commission in a more vigorous and consistently anti-monopoly way.

What we have gained is smaller and smaller computing devices with more and more energy efficiency which allows us to go mobile and to also reduce costs on cloud infrastructure. Maybe it forced a step backwards in terms of application software compared to high powered desktops... but being able to put what would have been a fully spec'd computer less than a decade ago in your pocket and have it run for a day on batteries is something to find amazing and should not be lamented.

I'd say if we are looking at making the desktop more relevant again, then it has to be a worthwhile enough experience to overcome the trade off to be sitting at a desk. High resolution monitors, multi-monitor applications, touch screen high resolution monitors laid flat on a conference table. (not head-mounted displays because those should be hooked to mobile devices to avoid cords), these seem like opportunities for "desktop" or workstation class or fixed computing applications where the display or inputs won't just fit in your pocket or on your glasses. Otherwise mobile and cloud computing are where it is at.

I basically agree with you, but I think this is a case of the technology and experience of making extreme earth environments more habitable eventually being applicable to Mars when we are prosperous and have the robotic construction technology for it to make sense. If we can bring greater sustainable habitability to our oceans, deserts and Antarctica or even underground cities on Earth, then I think that would be a good starting point and proof of concept for the even more extreme environments on other planets. Another Moon-shot scenario where we go to Mars as some sort of competition at unsustainable expense won't lead to sustainable colonization. Reducing the cost of Earth based construction and mining with more practical automation would be a good way to develop the types of technology that are needed for colonization or asteroid mining. And being able to build and rebuild housing at lower cost would raise people's standard of living here at home.

I think that is an important point. Unmanned drones certainly can give additional capabilities at potentially lower costs. But the privacy consideration should be in what the police are allowed to do without a warrant regardless of whether it is a manned helicopter or an unmanned one or a person up on a hill or a tower that has a good vantage point. Restrictions such as not peering in through windows into a house or using different wavelengths of light to determine heat signatures in a house or using a laser/radar to ease-drop on the conversations of occupants of a house or building without a warrant or a bona fide emergency situation are all appropriate restrictions that should equally apply to all technology rather than single out any one particular technology. This could be a case where the more specific a law protecting privacy is, then the more loop holes for using other technology in the same way are created.

They just approved a 37% electricity rate increase here in Massachusetts... The utility companies will get their money until people can go off the grid completely: http://www.masslive.com/busine...

This is the most important point being lost in the arguments against Corporate "Inversions" and other ways profits made overseas are "stashed" overseas. The taxes that discourage bringing profits earned overseas back to the US are the problem. Let companies bring the money back to the US tax free and the capital will get invested here resulting in taxable wages and salaries that help grow the US economy. No, this tax free arrangement wouldn't work for individual income taxes because it would be an easy tax dodge for those getting income from outside the country and still actually residing in the US. But companies ARE different than individuals in that even a cursory audit would demonstrate where the sales and revenue were actually coming from. Large companies should be taxed where they are doing business regardless of where their headquarters are.