The "flat tax" idea is seductive in it's simplicity, but extremely unfair in actual practice. For those living at the lowest income levels, n% is a meaningful bite out of their income. As you climb above those levels, n% approaches pocket change. The progressive tax tables in place today were conceived with the notion that every tax payer should feel the burden more or less equally. It worked well for a long time. Then the notion that "rich people need to be rewarded so that they do the right thing" began to gain favor, so the Reagan Tax Cuts came about, and things have gone downhill ever since. A flat tax is not the solution. A true progressive tax, at realistic rates and without any built in "favors" is what is needed.

If you "memories" have ever traversed a public network. Your tax dollars at work.

Backups, accessible via the same system that made them, are not backups. A backup is a thing that lives elsewhere and is not affected by anything that might happen on the primary system. All they had were "copies".

Especially those people. Right? You've either missed the point of TFA or you are a racist. Don't feel bad. Not everyone gets it. You're still a very special person, in your own way.

Wrong question, my friend. People want something that sounds "alive". Let's be clear... I have nothing against electronic music. Some of my favorite pieces have no "real" instruments in them. But I also know that there is no substitute for a well crafted instrument in the hands of a master, and that includes the "vox humana". (Insert rant about Autotune here)
"Sounds just like" never quite does.

Not quite right. Any wheeled vehicle, that can go that fast, is damned fucking impressive. The powerplant has little to do with it at that point.

Fortunately, your average GOP voter will do what he's told if that will "keep him safe from teh terrorists", so all we have to do is explain that we're seeing to the safety of Americans and their children, and those voters will bend over willingly.

Hooray for you. Setting aside, for now, the ridiculously loose definitions of "fiber" being used by the LEC's, your experience is unlike that of the vast majority of ISP customers in the U.S. And if you think that your ISP isn't mining the data that your activity is generating for all it's worth, you are not paying attention.

You wouldn't compete, or can't compete, so you lose. Now STFU.

There's a difference between "dating" and "letting the crazy person affect you to the point of theft, personal harm, etc.". Maybe I just have more experience with them and know when to pull out, so to speak. Not that that's a particularly cool badge to have earned, but I have been able to see where things were heading and jumped off the train. Still it was usually worth the ride.

You say that as if it were a bad thing...

A classic case of corporate interests spending lavishly to buy influence on issues where their interests run counter to those of the public at large. Who was the tool here last week who insisted that this was not a problem?

Human brains, even the bigger one's here on /., often miss sarcasm. It's one of those subtle things that varies immensely with context, intelligence, context, etc. Then again, software can hardly do worse than the Secret Service at differentiating things like "real" from "make believe". For you new kids, please see http://www.sjgames.com/SS/

Thank you, gullible tool, for helping us propagate the message that earning a living wage is bad for workers.
Your friends,
The One Percent

Rubbish. Money and other forms of manipulation have been used to get voters to elect representatives who have clearly not acted in the interests of their electorate. It's going on right now here in TX. Big money is making major races all about guns, abortion, and illegal aliens. None of those issues truly have any appreciable effect on the electorate, and yet they have been made to believe that those are the central issues of the campaign. Nothing, not a single damned thing, of actual substance is discussed in any of the "paid for by..." campaign spots being paid for by those large monied interests. The result, cynical Congressmen/women who don't give a shit about those "central issues" and are free to vote however those who paid to get them elected tell them to.