I believe that Sony is a bigger threat to me and my welfare than North Korea and the NKVD.

And if you up the debt to $18Tr, you're the Federal Government.

Google Contributor (contributor.google.com) strives to come close by letting you pay a small amount for each ad it replaces.

It doesn't stop Google from collecting your information, though. They just don't serve you ads. Instead, they serve you to other corporations.

Google Contributor does absolutely nothing to stop Google from tracking anyone. In fact, it gives them additional personal information.

Maybe you didn't understand what I was saying. I want to be able to use Google services without being tracked in any way shape or form, and I'm willing to pay for the privilege. Same goes for Twitter, etc.

Until I am able to do that, I'm just going to block ads, use Blur, Privacy Badger and any tool that lets me confound Google's ability to monetize me. I am not a consumable.

Gawker sites are always useless clickbait advertising traps. Thus they have so many sites linking to each other for more advertising clicks. What passes for journalism there is simply reposting other people's work. Buzzfeed actually manages to be worse (you know it is bad when Gawker calls someone out for plagarisim.)

I've also seen the tilt-trailer trucks. They seem to be a lot more efficient. But don't look nearly as awesome as flipping the entire truck upright.

The width of two horses asses is directly proportional to the width of one horses ass, so I am still correct. :)

That is really watering down the definition of "violent offender", and you know it.

So you are suggesting what, prohibition? Yeah, that worked great the last time.

Drunk drive once: death penalty. Drive over the limit: death penalty. Avoid paying your taxes: death penalty. Jay walking: death penaly. Use drugs: death penalty. You are a facsist.

And even if you were just spouting rhetorical bullthit about the death penalty, how does filling the jails with nonviolent offenders help?

Because children are presumed innocent, and tragedy befalling innocence turns the emotional value of the story up eleventy times.

These various silly "extras" that we add on to DUI sentences don't seem to do much to reduce the DUI rates in this country. I think it is time we join the rest of the industrialized world and start treating DUI as a felony-level offense. Put some fear of real punishment into the hearts of the people who can't control their drinking and they might be less inclined to try their luck.

"It depicts Kim Jong-un as a vain, buffoonish despot, alternating between threats and weeping that he's been misunderstood..."

Yeah, I highly doubt he gives a shit about being misunderstood. The rest of it is spot on.

After the hype it seems that story was overblown -- looked like less than 1% were compromised

That's good. I haven't been able to keep up on the story with the holidays and all.

I'm thinking that services like TOR (and others) are the one hope for having an internet in the future that is worth having.