Don't get me wrong. The mullahs are no saints. The Iranian regime is tyrannical and brutal.

You're sure you're not trying to hard to be reasonable and balanced?

The Iranian regime does not look all that tyrannical to me if you compare to the neighborhood, but then I also think they never had a nuclear weapons program, so that may be a bit too much to swallow for reasonable people, especially if you take in account the rough neighborhood they're in.

This is nothing more than Pro-Israel FUD surrounding the nuclear deal. There will be a lot more of that the coming weeks.

It's useful to keep in mind there's two layers to the Snowden-betrayal array of claims.
- There's the claims that he did damage.
- there's the underlaying claim that this proves that he did wrong.

In fact whenever a whistleblower comes out, there will be some damage in some areas. The same applies to journalism. Whenever you expose wrongdoings or questionable practices from those in charge it can be argued this helps the enemy, even if only by tarring the image of the government. But I think the main point is, it should be considered an acceptable cost of transparency of governance. Transparency has been embedded in the US constitution 200 years ago for a reason. Mostly, those accusing Snowden don't understand that reason, or see no reason to bother with it. Transparency means that to some extent the governing still represent the governed(although you need to close the feedbackloop to really achieve that).

So yes, I think the claims that Snowden damaged the US foreign policy are wildly out of proportion, but I also think that as long as some precautions were taken to limit damage done, then it's acceptable. That should be the general attitude towards whistleblowers: that some damage due to disclosures is acceptable, worth it.

Well put. That's what effectively happens. That is what a poll before and after would show up, despite verifiable claims that the article states China/Russia did probably not get the files from Snowden.

I will consider the story a case of creative storywriting until given verifiable proof. It's made to promote the narrative that Snowden is irresponsible and damaging - or even a bad person.

Chinese government corruption has moved away from the central government to the local governments. It's not fair or accurate to say that there hasn't been progress made.

Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe said: "If people imagine that we’ve got the resources to do as much intrusion as they worry about, I would reassure them that it’s impossible.”

In other words, "
If people think we're trying to screw them as much as possible with the limited resources we have, I would reassure them we are."

I haven't clicked the youtube link but if it's bicyclerepairman then it's indeed obligatory. Otherwise, not..

And that has been Tesla's argument for the last ten years, yet they still lose about $9,000 on each car they make.

"On" each car, or "for" each car?

"On" makes it sound like their marginal costs are negative -- that, literally, producing one more car increases their losses by $9K. Were it "for" each car, then they're losing money only after fixed costs, R&D, etc. are taken into account.

That latter makes considerably more sense -- folks can legitimately decide to back a company investing in itself rather than taking out a profit; indeed, Amazon has done that for years.

Tried Parker Quink, or the Noodler's Bernanke series? Both are quick-drying.

I'm actually a right-handed overwriter (rare thing that is), so I feel at least some subset of your pain.

please enlighten us as to why the fountain pin and/or feathered quill is superior to the free pens I get from the bank?

Y'know, I actually don't mind giving this a serious answer.

You don't need pressure to write with a fountain pen -- at all. (The modern competitor is a rollerball, not a ballpoint; rollerballs don't give you amount of flexibility on nib grind or opportunities for flex and shading effects that you get with a fountain, but at least you're not forced to use tons of pressure). Allows different, more comfortable grips.

Also, they're refillable with water-based inks -- meaning that they're not disposable, and that you have a huge amount of choice in terms of color and properties of your ink. Want an ink that's still viscous in below-freezing weather? I've got a bottle on my desk! Want an ink that changes from yellow to red depending on how much you're putting down on the paper? That too! Want an ink that responds to ultraviolet and is completely waterproof you can mix in with other inks that are water-soluable, so you can see where writing that's been washed away used to be under a blacklight?

Lots of room for geekery. :)

We can make modern flex nibs better than the old ones!

(Good flexible fountain pen nibs are pretty much all circa 1950s or prior right now; it's a sad, sad state of affairs).

Joe Haldeman wrote a novel about it, The Long Habit of Living(renamed to Buying Time). One had life extension procedures that in principle allowed the rich to amass more wealth and power , making the wealth distribution more skewed. But then the the life extension procedure was made extremely expensive and short lasting, which in principle could redress the balance. As long as the foundation that handled it would take care of redistribution, because it became a huge concentrator of wealth. I liked that book. It was reworked into a graphic novel that reused the same themes in different ways.

The guy already apologized to the cops. http://www.trust.org/item/2015...
Yeah, streetwise. He knows to keep his head down.

Sure, things are more complicated than I'm claiming. But I was well aware of what was happening while it was going on. You're using as reference the most egregious cheerleader of the WMD campaign.

Do you think people currently care about Iranian WMD? Not only did they never exist, nobody even would care if they did.It's just an alibi. Of course you need to make a lot of noise about it to make the alibi work.