Does anyone else remember when "America's Army" came out, just before the Iraq 'war'? It was a free first person shooter, and a very advanced game (for the time). Coincidence? I think not...

Well, in that case, what is the meaning of the new game, where you shoot members of the Tea Party? Celebration of tolerance? Respect for other people's opinions?

Please, don't hate.

That's only accurate if you ignore the cost incurred by the child-soldiers themselves, as elaborated even more in the subsequent books.

Compared to saving the human race that "cost" is a pebble in the Universe. For even if humanity prevailed through other means, it would have taken longer — meaning (much) higher losses and expenses. Many more children would've suffered the loss of their parents and older siblings, for example.

Well, in "Ender's Game" the plan resulted in a wonderful victory for our side... It is a sad story because of the genocide of the enemy, but not because children's abilities were creatively used by the military.

If you're hitting a BSOD, you can help diagnose the problem

You should also close your /.-account — and never come back, for all I care...

A bump living in the tunnels of a New York metro

A "bump" born and raised in America — the land of milk and honey, where millions of immigrants (legal and otherwise) not only do well despite the culture-shock and the disadvantages of having to learn a new language, but also manage to support their extended families back home — such a bump has no one but himself to blame for lacking anything he wants, but can not afford.

waive certain parts of the nearly half-century-old California Environmental Quality Act

This seems to affirm the giant elephant in the "save the Earth" room: Tesla (as well as other products relying on highly-capable batteries) aren't all that "green". It may be a great car to drive, but if one needs violates environmental regulations — and not the recent ones — to make it, then green it is not.

Oh, and then comes the problem of disposing of those wonderful batteries — or recycling them...

Had the Wright brothers, Henry Ford, or Nicola Tesla fallen to something like "How to live United" propaganda and gone to "help the poor", how much longer would it have taken for the affordable air-travel, mass-produced cars, and the numerous other wonders to appear?

Especially, if they traveled to the Third World and caught something nasty?

Thankfully, such "sacrifice" was not very popular 100 years ago. Unfortunately, it seems to be all the rage nowadays...

The word "equality" is meaningless without the clarification: equality of what? Hair color? Penis size?

In the context of politics, the following two equalities are usually meant by the arguing sides — even when neither side makes their own meaning explicit:

Equality of Opportunity versus Equality of Results .

The "all men created equal" concept is about equality of opportunity: you start with (roughly) the same things as everybody else and whatever you achieve (or not achieve as the case might be) is due to your own industry, frugality, and, perhaps, genes. We might be created equal (subject to gene variations), but what we do after the creation is up to us.

The equality of results is the opposite: whatever you do, you will have (roughly) the same things at the end: if you are more successful than average, the State will tax you to ensure the results of the less successful aren't too different from yours — a concept lovingly referred to as "spreading the wealth around".

A large number of politicians made careers of conflating the two equalities — by harping at the absence of latter and implying, the former does not exist. Such demagoguery patently dishonest not only in theory, but also in practice...

originally that was the author/inventor, but that ship has long sailed - now it's corporate profits almost exclusively

The "inventor vs. corporation" distinction you are trying to make is without difference . For an inventor to use his invention — whether he himself forms a company to profit from it or sells the invention to an existing company — either way the intellectual property must be controlled by him initially. In this regard nothing has changed since "last century".

We know, what was happening before "intellectual property" was invented — unless they had other sources of income, poets and writers (creators of easily copiable wares) were starving. Inventors, likewise, either went unrewarded for their inventions or were forced to monetize it themselves — and rare is a human, who is both a good inventor and a good businessman. As usual, leftists proclamations are dragging humanity into the past in the guise of "progress"...

artificial scarcity

There is no such thing.

This is the term Marxists use to justify spreading other people's wealth around, that's all. Oh, sure, music and movies can be copied indefinitely and designs and algorithms can be used by anyone once created. But all of those creators need very material things to sustain themselves — and neither food, nor shelter, nor (gasp!) healthcare can be copied via torrent.

Some companies are willing to release software to the wild, others do not. Basing one's employment decisions on that is, indeed quixotic.

Fox news routinely puts the letters (D) after Republican's names if they are in trouble

Citation needed.

Or she could have obeyed the law and filled out the one page form

And there is nothing wrong with mandatory ID-carrying either, is there? "Papers please" much?

Óh réällý?

That's pretty cool. I guess, the entire ISO-8859-15 is Ok? But not Cyrillics :-( Or else, you would've seen some Ukrainian-Russian conflict right here...