However this is just you lying. 4mbps is not "enough" for the modern Internet.

You are quite right to put "enough" in quotes. What I don't understand is, how you can seriously accuse anyone of lying (without quotes) on a matter as subjective as this.

The minimum needs to keep rising.

Sure. And it will — when multiple providers begin competing with each other for each home. Until then, attempting to force incumbent monopolies to improve service will remain a losing proposition — they talk directly to the powers that be and, being a monopoly, aren't afraid to lose many customers.

Meanwhile, the popular anger is directed against the Koch brothers — the favorite target of fans of government's regulations.

They're now facing charges and lawsuits related to "impersonating police", and the ADA who was involved is likewise facing some severe penalties.

Exactly. Now, where is the movement to stop the property seizures? Is anyone even collecting signatures?

Much like the For Profit Prison model

Let's not get distracted, huh?

And how does a For Profit Police/Prison company make more money? By finding more criminals, and increasing criminality.

You are perfectly right that it is in the interests of such companies to find more criminals. However, the "increasing criminality" allegation needs citations... Got any? The article sure does not... It enumerates some questionable practices, but nowhere is there are an allegation of an innocent person getting locked-up "for profit".

Against corporations, how else do you deal with a bad actor?

By switching to a competitor, that's how... You don't like Coke, you switch to Pepsi, that's all.

A bunch of individuals acting in concert? Congratulations: that's what Government is.

It can also be a charity, a for-profit corporation, a collective farm, a non-profit corporation, etc. And, yes, any of those are "bunch of individuals acting in concert" — and, yes, they can do almost all, that the government is doing... And whereas government is necessarily a monopoly, all of those things compete with each other for our monies and attentions. Switching from Consumer Digest to Consumer Reports is just as easily as switching from Coke to Pepsi.

Private business performing the duties of cops using a privately run intelligence network with no oversight or rules but lots of personally identifiable information to track people whom the state isn't even legally interested in, in order to sieze their assets and then keep a piece of those assets and form a major portion of the business's profit stream?

Seriously? You find the fact, that it is a private business to be the most offensive? A private business can neither arrest nor prosecute — much less convict anybody. They can not even seize any assets themselves. Their personally identifiable information (PII) about us is unlikely to be any less regulated, than what Google or Slasdhdot collect. If anything, they are more cautious than NSA is likely to be.

That said, it is quite hilarious, how the big government types — who usually support its ever increasing role in our lives (because "corporations" are evil) — still get turned off by the police — as if the Department of Education and the FBI are not from the same government...

No, the only scandalously wrong thing described in the article is the ease, with law enforcement's can seize our assets... And the most offensive part is that the authors aren't even offended by this particular aspect.

Desert Snow encouraged state and local patrol officers to post seizure data along with photos of themselves with stacks of currency and drugs

Law enforcement doing their job — and bragging about it — is fine. All professions do that, it is normal.

I don't even mind them seizing the (illegal) drugs, but possession of cash is not against the law. Unfortunately, a loophole in the American legal thinking (as well as the British, which we inherited) does not provide much protection to a person's property . Nowhere near as much as to the person himself.

The Executive can seize cash, vehicles, and even real estate without Judiciary oversight or approval — and that ought to stop. Their justification — that what they are seizing things was used for "criminal activity" — comes into play, before anyone is convicted in any criminality.

That must stop. A judge may impose limitations on using of the suspect property (and fund-transfer) — the same way movement limitations are imposed on a person, while investigation is ongoing or a trial is pending. But no seizures ought to be permitted until a "Guilty" verdict is pronounced and the sentencing enumerates, what's to be seized as a punishment.

What's settled is that the climate is changing at the hands of man

Yeah, sure. And every time I jump, the Earth moves (a little bit) in the opposite direction. Right... No, what is far from settled, is whether the humanity's impact is anything to speak of — or whether a single volcano's eruption produces more "greenhouse effect gases", than the Earth's entire bovine population and thus there is little justification in limiting beef-consumption on that account.

In other words, what's very far from being "settled" is whether humanity's impact matches that of other factors. Counting CO2 — and making predictions based on that — has already been demonstrated to be stupid. By those predictions, for example, Arctic ice should've disappeared this summer — instead, it has grown.

Kudos for tossing in the pinch of anti-government paranoia, it has to be that and not the desire for massively profitable fossil fuel corporations to defend said profits.

The profits of fossil fuel corporations are not endangered by the "green" moves at all — the demand for oil and gas is unaffected. Besides, for each such corporation, there is a bunch of solyndras peddling their wares to the "green" crowd — you aren't going to convince many, that it is the corporate world, that opposes "green initiatives".

But for the government folks — those, who are sincerely convinced, they know better than their subjects — this is a perfect way to expand their control. And if the already government-heavy countries (like Cuba) are helping persuade the free world's scientists, then all the better. Let's look the other way...

A little scary when press cozies up to a law-enforcement branch of government, isn't it?

Unbeknown to most members of the public, among the first Executive Orders signed by President Obama upon taking office was the one, declaring Dissent is no longer patriotic .

So, whereas it was glamorous and noble to dissent against RethugliKKKan election-thieves of the past, you better get all your stories pre-approved by the loving and caring government officials as long as a Nobel Peace laureate is in office.

Consensus is the business of politics.

Exactly, darn it...

And yet, we are constantly bombarded with assertions that, though there are still perfectly valid debates in almost any other branch of science (dieting, economics, pedagogy, biology, and even computers — you name it — it is all in flux), the science of climate is "settled" and anybody doubting the line pushed by the governments must also believe, the Earth is flat.

And, for some reason, all measures proposed (and mandated) to solve the problems require the industrialized West to slow down, to not produce as much stuff, and to not enjoy themselves as much. And, for another mystery, all of the propositions lead to increased government control of both the industries and the individual lives.

Is it just, as Thomas Jefferson put it, "the natural process" of liberty yielding and government gaining ground? Or is there some foreign "help" leaning on Western academics to "settle" the branches of science, that would slow the West down and otherwise help the competing cultures prove, they aren't as inefficient as the history suggests?

When I pick up the phone, I want to be able to call anybody else who has a phone.

Sure. And you can. The price might differ depending on the destination, though...

Fortunately, we have some choice of phone companies now — so if one of them is not to your liking, you can switch. Until a similar choice appears in the ISP-market, attempting to legislate the behavior of existing monopolies will remain in vain.

Yep... And — for a car analogy — if I'm driving, I want to be able to drive on any road with any speed by car can go, and park wherever I see fit. No matter, who built the road or attends to the parking lot.

legitimate ISP does, as opposed to a censored ISP like sometimes exists in the USA and often exists overseas.

Legislating service is a losing proposition. The service provider will get around the legislation (have we not seen it just recently, when telcos were forced to allow other DSL-providers access to their copper-wires?), but the costs for you and the barrier to entry for a would-be competitor will both be higher.

The government's role is to help competition appear — by reducing the red-tape around laying down wires and fiber — not by trying to force the incumbent monopoly to play nice(r).

Because he chose to amass it

Everybody "chooses" it — few people succeed.

the methods he used to amass it

His critics are perfectly ignorant of the anti-competitive practices in Microsoft's past. They would've been just as loud against Warren Buffet or, dare I mention their names, the Koch brothers.

Why don't we let foxes into hen-houses?

You are implying, Bill Gates is trying to rewrite history of the world somehow. How would he rewrite it, and what evidence to have of his plans to do it? According to what we are reading here, it is only the method of teaching history — not the content — that he wants changed...

Bill Gates' wealth is the only reason that he has power.

That's a pretty good reason in my opinion. It is certainly a better reason, than that of the various nobility of the past — who have always been deemed "better". Bill Gates' made money by doing something other people wanted to buy — rather than by conquest. Yet, somehow, I suspect, if it were, say, the Queen of England — or, better yet, one of the adorable princ(ess)es) — who offered to subsidize the history class, there would've been fewer objections than Bill Gates is eliciting.

Because Bill Gates's history would be very different from somebody else's who wasn't worth $50-60 billion.

Huh? Why? Is this the "there are two Americas" crap again? Why would "his" history of America be different from that of any of the rest of us?

"He just happens to be a guy that watched a DVD and thought it was a good idea and had a bunch of money to fund it."

Ok, so he did not even devise the course himself — he just liked what he saw. I don't particularly like the guy — and do remember his company's anti-competitive practices of the past. But none of these critics do. So why is his wealth being held against him?

You can see how they perform in life maybe?

No, I don't know a single Finn or Korean. And even if I did, one person's circle of acquaintances is not sufficient to make meaningful conclusions about the quality of school system in any of their countries.

You do know that the even the most struggling students in Finland graduated trilingual right?

Big deal. I graduated trilingual too (Ukrainian, Russian, English) — and most of Europe does, I guess, out of necessity. I don't know, how well they write (in any language) or whether all the graduates can solve a quadratic equation. If you have any evidence, that Finns (or South Koreans) are, indeed, the best educated in the world, you should've offered citations two posts ago...

That's an idiotic way to read it.

I apologize. Because there could not possibly have been anything wrong with how you wrote it, all of the idiocy must be on the reader's side...

The point is that if the best of the best are CHOOSING to become teachers then EVERYBODY gets the best education

That "point" of yours is rather dubious. In fact, I think, it is not true at all. Being a master of something and being able to teach it to others are two very different things...

Even Linus Torvalds did a stint teaching !

Great example! Were you going to add, that Linus quit teaching, when he discovered a better programmer and OS-designer teaching in a classroom next door?

Of all the ways to measure a students abilities, exams are just about the LEAST accurate.

That was a great opportunity to list some MORE accurate alternatives, but you missed it. Likely, because none exist.

Thanks for playing.

You're assuming too much:

1. That exams do not do so much harm to the educational process as to undo any good you see in them (which when we look at the actual patterns of behaviour that emerge seems to be highly unlikely).
2. That comparing schools is both a necessary and a good thing to do.

....

The two countries with the best education outcomes in the world today

And how do we know that? Without exams of some sort?

they don't have to compare schools to see which one is better - since they are all excellent.

Sure. And I too am an excellent singer — so long as you don't compare me with anyone else.

That is ultimately the difference between a good or a bad school system - how many of the smartest people it produces go back to work in it.

That "difference" seems rather self-serving. The purpose of a school system is not produce good teachers. It is to prepare students for all pursuits they may choose — not just teaching.

I still don't understand, how you would know, your education is particularly good without some means to compare the results...