I also find it hard to accept a wide array of wacky statements. Whenever I see a statistic or comparison that would be interesting if true, I assume it's not true. Usually such statements are, at best, highly exaggerated.

Everyone with your attitude sold their stock a year ago when the Fire Phone came out.

The IRS targeting of political opponents killed any chance this will ever happen. There's no basis for anyone to trust any government agency in the US. A few people will still trust blindly, or temporarily while their team is in charge, but it won't be many. Not for a long, long time.

I live in the 8th largest US city by population. Lots of cities have huge problems -- maybe even most of them.

Is municipal broadband only meant for people in a few well-managed cities? What about everyone else then?

The protection should be from reasonable doubt. If the prosecution hasn't explained their case so the jury understands it, the case isn't proven to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt. It is very reasonable to doubt someone when you don't understand what they're saying.

I don't want to hold my elected officials accountable for my broadband. They can barely keep the roads paved.

I'm wondering why everyone seems to think so highly of their local officials. What cities have such great local officials that we want to give them all these new responsibilities?

Honest question: Is your local city government efficient, responsible, technically savvy, and trustworthy enough to expect them to do a great job as your ISP? If so, where do you live?

Why is municipal broadband appealing? Is it only better versus Comcast, or is it actually good in some way? Are you expecting to get it for "free" -- a.k.a. paid for by your neighbors?

Where in the US do they have municipal broadband with a long track record of working well, with competitive pricing not subsidized by tax revenue?

Sometimes you can't solve problems. Less government power is the answer to not creating new problems.

When you have a non-government problem, you can often escape it or fix it for yourself or at least mitigate it somewhat. When it's the government causing problems, it's a lot harder to deal with.

This is one reason why some of us want to stop giving the government more power. Because they can never be held accountable when they misuse that power and hurt people. No one in power is ever guilty of anything. Care and recklessness are rewarded equally.

It's easy to say you're for "openness" (and whatever other buzzwords) when you never have to actually live up to any sort of standards. Why should anyone listen or believe or trust? Apparently, we shouldn't.

DuinoKit until you try it

If they don't care about the 4th Amendment, why would they care about FCC licensing laws? Besides, what is the FCC going to do? Fine the FBI?

Two things about software-based instruction: it can improve over time and it can be widely distributed. Human-based instruction is limited in both those areas. Someday the software-based instruction will be really good. Human teachers can get better for a while, but they eventually retire -- losing all their instructional capability.

Like I said, no simple countermeasures.

Please cite some examples of similar services that were attacked by a similar attack and managed to stay up and still be useful to the users. I don't doubt it's possible. But let's see some examples.

Because of Sony haters. And entitlement mentality. Sony was a victim of this attack. They don't need anyone's sympathy, but they shouldn't be treated like they did something wrong in this incident. It's not like there are simple countermeasures to prevent or fix DDoS attacks.

All of these things have pluses and minuses. Rather than picking a side and defending it, companies should regularly weigh the benefits versus the costs of these choices and watch for opportunities that might tip the scales away from the current policy.