Yeah, exactly. Have you seen how many hundreds of MB that WindowsUpdate tries to deliver once a month? OS X can be pretty chatty in the background too

Oh, wait, no that's us.

Welp, they sure split that baby.

(No seriously. Remember, the point of Solomon's judgement was to use a decision that's bad for both sides to determine who the real winner should be in the end. Same here. I'm betting we'll see Boeing whine, delay, and run over budget while SpaceX gets down and builds some rockets, but either way, in a few years we'll see who the manned spacecraft baby really belongs to.)

I'm sick of this bullshit belief that "liberal arts" refers to non-STEM majors in the humanities and social sciences, and is college in "easy mode". Quick history lesson: it's called "liberal" arts because from Roman times through the Renaissance, they were the skills that made one worthy of being a free person, as opposed to the manual skills appropriate for a slave. They included both artistic subjects like grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and scientific "arts" like astronomy and math. Of course meaning changed over the years, but today liberal arts colleges try to create well-rounded generalist thinkers, jacks of all trades and masters of at least one.

I've got a BA in physics from one of the top liberal arts colleges in the nation. You might think that's a joke, but my PhD advisor at MIT didn't. I'm now a tenured professor in physics, and my college buddies do stuff like dark matter research at Livermore, software development for Google and Microsoft, etc.

Enough bragging and tech namedropping, the point is that a liberal arts education can get you an excellent technical education. Unfortunately, too many major universities offer a "liberal arts" program which *is* college easymode, intended for folks who go to college for the social scene. But getting a liberal arts at these places is like buying organic local produce from Walmart: sure, they have it, they've got everything, but it's so contrary to the philosophy of the place that you're right to be skeptical.

"Is there any place for degrees in the humanities and social sciences in tech?" Now that's a reasonable question, to which I think the answer is obviously "yes", and my friends the Latin major computer programmer and the religion major tech writer would agree. But if you think "liberal arts" can't provide a top-notch education in STEM subjects, you're not qualified to read a resume.

That's what drones are for

They can't handle the truth. They believe in fictions written by some old lady who collected social security and received other government subsidies she railed against.

That's my guess.

But, yes, the US has an unfortunate tendancy, since the War of Independence, and the Civil War, continued to the present, of always fighting wars off budget. Which is where the budget deficits come from. Social Security pays for itself and has always had a surplus, and still does.

No we told you about those

The debt is mostly from wars that were not paid for.

It also ignores the 50 percent of military budget that is in the "black budget", as well as the NSA and the other four three letter agencies we don't tell you about.

About time this happened.

Next up: removing tax exemptions and tax exclusions for corporations.

Corporations aren't People.

People pay taxes and go to jail.

So, basically more.

Unless the Atlantic conveyor belt shuts down, in which case NYC is doomed, as is Atlanta.

Don't forget the guillotines.

Now that everyone has commented, the monied Powers That Be will weight it accordingly, and rule in favor of the Biggest Lobbyist donations to the corrupt Congress.

What? You thought you weren't actually Serfs?

Yeah, sure.

... and will switch back again in a few years, at a net cost of E12 million.
http://arstechnica.com/busines...

(Yes, I'm trolling, but desktop experience for the average Joe really is a problem, no matter how many excuses we Linux folks make.)

Kind of doubting we will see space wagon trains

Technically, no.

You are bound by the treaties your country signed. In fact, they have more legal weight in the US than laws passed by your own Congress.

As an example, the US has signed Data Treaties with the EU and with Canada that give citizens of those countries more rights to privacy than you as an American would have (exception: if you are also a citizen of an EU country or Canada, you gain those rights in the US as well).

Same goes for any treaties signed for non-countries such as Antarctica (which you are bound to) and space (where those exist).

That's the law. That you choose to be a space pirate, is your own problem. I recommend wearing a gold colored space pirate outfit, with a cape and a cool helmet.