Turn off the equipment, and take up knitting...

Public relations... What was everybody expecting?

I think the red herring is the 'increased production'. It never happened. Prices are set arbitrarily, just like interest rates. And we all know how well Libor handles that little business. To think that petro/dollar rates are set any different is totally naive. The whole 'supply and demand' thing is a complete fantasy outside the itty-bitty local market.

Looks like you haven't figured out who the politicians serve. Greedy, lying, clever, conniving little rats with illusions of grandeur, absolutely, the only stupid ones are those that lose, or get caught. They don't need to 'know' anything. The lobbyists tell their aides (they all carry their own stories) who tell them who to speak with and how to vote.

If we made it illegal to be stupid, where would we find politicians?

If we made it illegal to be stupid, who would be left to vote for them?

...perhaps restricting such tools will mean that certain critical vulnerabilities may not be discovered in time, or not reported.

Well yes, that is the idea. Reporting these kind of things will become illegal (for an example how it's happening in meatspace)

The US I grew up in during the 1960s/'70s is dead.

Oh, thank god! Who wants to relive Johnson/Nixon? And look what it gave us, the 80s, and he *who shall not be named*!

Once again lawmakers don't understand the issue.

I hate it when you people say that! They have their orders. They understand perfectly well what they are doing. It is the voters that are ignorant and stupid and thus blindly follow them. And in that ignorance it is the voters that give value to the campaign dollar. The politician is not the idiot here.

Ah, but this time it's different!

That was my first thought. *Wow, I've never seen anybody jump that high before!*

If Slashdot closed tomorrow, would Dice notice? It's not incompetence, it's apathy. Slashdot is a hollowed out shell that the spammers moved into, and it's only part of a collection of trinkets sitting on Dice's coffee table. Look at their history, nothing but a very fluid series of mergers and acquisitions. It has to be a tax thing.

I don't really know, or even care that much. The voters get what they want. It's just something to talk about, like the weather, or the Cubs. The presidency is ceremonial, like any other political position that answers to the money that fills the seat. In Reagan's case, he was 'discovered', or maybe rediscovered after the Dean Martin Roasts. I was very disappointed when Goldwater lost, I hated Johnson. Evidently, so did Nixon, but for different reasons. But... I'm the 'crazy conspiracy theorist'. I always did find the Official Narrative quite boring, and frankly quite incredible.

Does it make a difference?

Nah, still merely a hypothesis...

:-) Sounds like something you would be very familiar with...