Dennis Kucinich.

. so far so good. It gets ruined as soon as a Ron Paul fan jumps in.

The keep talking of "the metadata" as if there were an agreed upon term in this context. "What" data other than the routing information is "meta"? Now you and I might say; the email address and routing information -- but aren't we forgetting that the NSA and government are trying to squash the interest in this issue? Couldn't a slippery person portray something like "the relationship data of the person sending, who they send to, the people they commonly send to, the friends and associates of everyone connected to them, a weighting algorithm on the words, analysis (for a computer) of whether the content is negative or positive and some relative understanding of the intent" all in a nice bundle that can be data mined to say; "What kinds of relationships does this person have with all the people they are connected to?

And then we sit around and discuss two, five, or ten years about some imaginary BS that isn't really what the NSA is data mining. For all we know they capture your DNA and grow tiny copies of you for a simulation. They are only admitting to the least damming thing of what Snowden proved was going in, and it's likely he wasn't deeply into ALL of what the NSA and other security organizations are involved in.

It's like using an ordinance against Horse Heads to control the mob from extorting people -- the problem isn't the horse head on your bed -- it's the mob.

WE also have no idea of the INTENT of the NSA -- a point I keep bringing up because this entire program seems useless for capturing terrorists like Al Qaeda.

In my state they "deregulated" our Natural Gas supply. Now they've got about 2 dozen companies I can shop with -- only they cost about 5 times what we used to pay for Natural Gas. The same guys who install and cut off your gas are the same guys now -- only they have no job security and they can work for any of 2 dozen companies that someone has to bill and compensate them for. Same work, less pay.

You call them and get either a robot "Your call is important to us, press 3 if you would like another series of options" or you get someone after a long wait who is doing a passing job with English and can't solve any of your problems.

So one pipe, one gas supply, 24 different P.O. Boxes and bills that have "transfer fees" and every few months a new company runs a special because it's their turn.
I've got no interest in a pretend free market on one pipe without regulations.

Would it score higher or lower that they covered the example they made of Bradley Manning? I mean, not letting a person sleep, lights and sounds at all times, no clothes in a cold room -- standard long-term torture regime.

No point in torturing if people don't learn about it and get a bit worried, right?

So do we get freedom of press points for letting people know we torture our dissidents or do we lose points?

No but you have to give him props for

Presumably he was debating a talking point by first pulling the data out of his rear end but I'm just guessing by reading what he said.

Well since much of the "news" is from recycled AP reports -- the "Netizens" like Bradley Manning are releasing information that might have come from someone labelled a "Journalist" a few decades ago.

Now it's pay for play access and reporters and politicians want to go to the same parties after work is done.

We even get our news on Slashdot these days -- are there reporters here?

So yes, arresting Bradley Manning, and going after the founder of Wikileaks in my book is suppressing freedom of the press -- the REAL press, not the advertiser driven gossip columns.

Well, to be fair, if GOP Governors were not firing so many workers -- we'd have about 6% unemployment right now.

But yes, it seems like the Dems and Republicans have done a great job keeping down wages, job growth and killing the economy with Austerity. They are STILL printing lots of money -- it's just not going to the people at the bottom so it isn't spurring real growth that might offset the deficit.

If we had higher taxes at the top, that would force capital investment rather than profit taking -- and it would reduce the budget shortfall by PAYING FOR THINGS.

I think we could debate the fact that the $3.5 Trillion could have done more for "My economy" had it been spent in public works projects and landed in my pocket.

Bernanke kept "his economy" going -- and that's stocks and record profits. That's 400 families who have more wealth than over 150 million Americans combined.

I'm not some moron who can't understand that we need some bank liquidity to keep paychecks going -- but it would be much better to let a few banks go bankrupt and to redistribute this wealth. It's too depressing to look at the lack of any increase in standard of living since the 70's for the vast majority. And rich people trading paper isn't going to create "demand".

You aren't going to kill that myth until you can beat the kid who grew up programming. I think anyone can become competent. But the people who push boundaries are naturally curious at a young age. Those people who reverse engineered their computer games. People like Steve Wozniak for instance -- he didn't learn most of what he knows in schools. He was hacking cable boxes and tricking long distance dial tones.

Especially when it comes to cyber security. A person has to get down and not take for granted what signals are getting passed.

That was my first thought. The truly great hackers and programmers are going to be people who have been poking sticks into electronics since they were kids.

Sure, someone who can read binary and train and do what they are wanting them to learn can get much better -- but that will be a few thousand people covering the same skills as the instructor -- what you want is people who are looking at things nobody else is looking at. 4,000 people who can find the same exploit is 3,999 to many.

On the plus side, this makes me feel a bit more at ease with an overbearing paranoid government -- at least they aren't competent at being overbearing.

President Barak H. Obama only said the Government will no longer store the data; he favours private corporation(s) to store the data until such time as the Government wants access thereto.

Yeah, that's the exact same "end run around the Constitution" arrangement they were already using.

A private corporation that is motivated by profits is WORSE than the government, which "on a good day with the wind blowing the right way" might have motivations or at least a whimsy to do something for the common good.

Snowden was able to carry off a boatload of their snooping secrets BECAUSE they outsourced a lot of this. The economic model will always, always, always, put profits above all else unless you put a gun to their head. "Security" was just lip service. They will get the lowest wage workers and the lowest cost equipment that will fill the specs. If you don't pay top dollar, you can't get the loyalty of the corrupt people you want.

They'll have to recruit from religious colleges to get people who will be naive enough to NOT KNOW this is wrong, and dutiful enough to do it without decent wages. Fascists tend to love theocrats because they are so damn useful. But if you've got fascism you need three things; Corruption, Loyalty, Intelligence. You can only have two of the three in any one person. This is why corrupt oligarchies and empires kill themselves off -- it's really the only reason Humanity has not quite yet extinguished itself.

In WW II they fought both the East and the West -- because they took orders from idiots. And so their dedicated, loyal and religious people and their intelligent and loyal scientists, and their corrupt and evil Generals could not win with the best military in the world.

The NSA, no matter how many brilliant people they bring in, will still have Rat Bastards, Egomaniacs, and Greedy Morons because those are the only ones you can trust to do the wrong thing on a consistent basis.

It sounds like I've run all over the map here, going from the NSA to WW II and Religious Colleges, but I'm making short work of a larger dynamic that has been going on since the 80's in this country. There is a push towards supporting fundamentalist churches -- because certain power groups find them useful. It's the best way to get people to not fight for their own self interest -- to use the Heaven "lay away" plan. And they aren't looking for a hot war like WW II - -but it's the exact same type of elitists and manipulators at the top of America as were at the bottom of Nazi Germany. Anyone spending any time listening to the biographies of Rumsfeld and Cheney need only change the accent to understand the mindset.

These people are rotten, and they are lapdogs for the super wealthy and connected and if you think the NSA is just about security, you probably were shocked by the Snowden revelations. The NSA is about preserving the status quo, and our military is the muscle for multinational organizations, and they support religious fundamentalism here and elsewhere because they create the justifications and make the best useful idiots.

With the NSA going hard after anyone duped by Snowden, and the President mouthing a bunch of words of concern -- I can guarantee you that they at the very least don't give two fucks.

Unbeknownst to many in our "Security USA Hell Yeah! Inc." there may be real heroes hidden behind those made in China flag pins.

Fiat Money may not be perfect - but it's better than Gold and Silver coins. You don't want resources wasted digging holes in the ground trying to scratch up more useless Gold to be turned into a vehicle for exchange. Money is best if it represents a good or service -- not if it has intrinsic value.

The only problem with fiat currency is third parties making counterfeits and the money producers printing excessive amounts. The first is technology while the latter is policy. We the people if we are in control have an impact on that last part.

Regardless of the form of currency, if a government is corrupt of falls into expediency -- then it doesn't matter what type of currency they have.

discredited Keynesian theory
Citation needed. Preferably from some non-hack promoting Globalism, within a libertarian think tank promoting economic models that parrot failed third world nations and free market pixie dust.

The "stagflation" under Obama is due to not taxing people with money to play for all these government services, and not forcing companies to invest profits.

If this government printed a lot of money and handed poor people -- that would create demand because they'd have something to spend. The OPPOSITE is creating the economic malaise; printing lots of money and handing it to banks. The only reason it has some settling effect on the markets is because they've got trillions of dollars to depreciate from the 2008 bust due to speculation with the Credit Default Swaps.

We aren't implementing Keynesian theory right now -- it's as if you were blaming Unions for keeping American non-competitive, while we've had a 900% increase in productivity and no such increase in wages. You are whipping a dead horse that got fatally wounded in the 1980's.

It's as if you were saying high taxes and limits on large companies were causing us not to have jobs. What about our current market isn't 100% in line with what Corporatists suggested?