I've got to hand it to you, an absolutely fascinating argument.

You are the one who sounds like an intolerant axe grinder and name caller. Cold fjord furnished substance with references. You didn't.

An interesting way to look at it. I think you will find that it takes big government to control those assets.

You don't know me. Don't be a fucking half-wit moron or a liar. I didn't blame socialism for anything. I specifically avoided singling it out. So take your disgusting bile and go jump in a lake.

There is an itsy bitsy problem with making that claim; namely, the Constitution is the foundation of the law of the land, and it cannot be altered or overridden short of a well defined process of amendment. So the TPP can say what it fucking wants, but the Constitution trumps it. Yes, I am fully aware that the clowns in the Supreme Court have abandoned the Constitution, but they have no enforcement arm. When they go rogue, unless the Executive Branch goes rogue with them, they can blow in the wind. Now, the Supremes are insulated from accountability, but the executive is not. The White House is due for a change in 18 months. If there are enough patriots among the people, there will be a correction. If not, well, the people do not deserve to have their Republic continue.

Paragraph two of the United States Constitution states, in part, that: "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness..."

Maybe you're having an off day, so I'll be gentle. That quote is not from the Constitution. It's from the Declaration of Independence. There's a bit of difference. The Constitution is the foundation of the law of the land. The Declaration of Independence is nothing more than a statement ("declaration"). It has no force of law.

As such, the Constitution is a lot more specific. For example, the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." It doesn't go into a lot of carrying on about where those rights come from. It just guarantees them.

But, really, there has to be a degree of cognitive dissonance between the hope you'll do well and be super rich ... and the actual reality that, it's a tough slog, you might not get there, and you might have to trade away some equity to someone else to get there ... in which case your payout might not be as big as you hoped.

The difference between con-man and entrepreneur can be a thin line.

I've known a few people who fancied themselves the latter, but had worked themselves into such a feverish pitch trying to get there ended up as the former.

Sometimes people convince themselves things really are going to work out OK, even when completely unfounded. The human brain doesn't always like lying to itself.

You can't stop people from communicating with each other sub rosa. You can make it awful tough for them if they use a cipher (SSL). A cipher is pretty obvious, and you can use force to compel them to give up the key if they don't destroy it first. And you can immediately see if the key works. So they don't use a cipher. They use a code. "The oranges are falling from the tree in Grant Park". That could mean "attack against Fort Sumter the third week of August". Or it could mean "The pigs discovered cell number 377". Or it could equally well mean "I left three joints of marijuana for you at the agreed place". Want to know what it means? The target can tell you it's not written down anywhere, and he's not telling you. Hell, street slang is a code that is not written down.

Or they can just go into the woods and whisper to each other. They can send runners. Carrier pigeons.

I'll try to make it easy for you. Socialism demands big government, and big government always progresses naturally to bigger and finally to biggest. Simple as that.

No, obviously socialism is not the ONLY source of (or route to) big brotherism. But it is one important source/route. The question is, no matter what ism you choose, can you keep it focused, controlled, and harnessed. For example, the US Constitution was a strong attempt at doing so, but nine criminal, off the rails and off the wall swelled heads in black robes are effortlessly and without the slightest counteraction defeating it.

In the end, whether you have a formal Constitution (US) or not (Britain), if the general population is not sufficiently committed to keep the government under control, it will always evolve into a tyranny.

Finally comes the time nothing short of a revolution will fix it, and you have to hope enough patriots are left to step up.

If they can stay up for 80 hours, they should be able to do a "round-the-world" flight too.

It's going to take several days to fly from Japan to Hawaii. In the process he's beaten the record for longest solo flight ever.

P.S. Are you 12?

Are you asshole? Or do you just play one on the internet?

It's a single person aircraft, travelling at an average speed of 50 to 100 km/h (31 to 62 mph).

Yes, it's not a continuous flight. But it will, nonetheless, be the first time a solar powered aircraft will do it, and every leg is pretty much an epic task.

It's still circumnavigation.

So, boo hoo, you disagree with the terminology. Nobody else gives a damn.

I don't care about a plane making a series of relatively short flights under optimal conditions (daylight), and I don't see why anyone else does either.

Well, that doesn't seem to be what is happening:

Solar Impulse 2 took off from Nagoya, Japan on Sunday for its audacious five-day flight across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii with Swiss pilot and Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg at the helm. It has since stayed in the air for three days and nights without using a single drop of fuel, grabbing the distance and duration records, 5,663 km (3,518 mi) and 80 hours respectively, in the process.

This isn't some jet engine which does this in a few hours.

You can whine all you want, but the records are real.

They're for solar aviation, which means it's a lot harder and a lot slower.

Call us back when you've done better.

Well, should that happen, then all the people who have been demanding their 2nd amendment rights be recognized will know what to do.

Yup, if we showed you the level of abuse we'll be doing you'd get scared off and not use our service, and our IPO could be in jeopardy.

For now they're trying to pretend they won't start acting like assholes as soon as they can.

Can't tell you how many times a day I hear or say "The 9".

You mean the Nazgul??

I always thought IBM was evil, but I never expected that.

I have no idea if it was the government or not.

I'm just no longer willing to dismiss out of hand that it was, and no longer wiling to accept the dismissal of the government being involved as crackpot.

As I said, stuff which used to be tinfoil-hat-crazy is now pretty much a daily reality.

Do I think they're beyond sowing some fear to be allowed to declare it under their control? Not even a little.

In fact, given everything else we know has actually happened, it's disturbingly plausible.

You simply can't be paranoid enough these days, because reality keeps trumping fantasy. And what used to sounds ridiculous is now pretty much established as fact.