It is common. Where I live, in San Jose, California, our police department was caught illegally monitoring phone calls by operating a Stingray, which mimics a cell phone tower. Of course no one was punished or disciplined, and certainly no one lost their badge, because, hey, they are cops, and boys will be boys.

It is likely that the military doesn't need deniability. Many FCC rules don't apply to the military. It is quite likely that they they can legal operate their own cell towers. Similar exceptions are made for prisons, which can operate their own cell towers to keep inmates from making calls from smuggled cell phones.

What if you have to talk to a normal person, and they don't have a clue about encryption? Encryption requires technical knowledge at both ends of the phone call. Even if you use encryption, "they" can still see who you are calling and how long you talk.

From Putin's point of view, how is that irrational?

That seems totally rational to me. I consider myself to be rational, and I wouldn't mind being dictator for life of a country with nukes.

That is unfair. What does his height have to do with his ability as a leader?

From what I have read, their parting was amicable, and mutually agreed to. He was busy with his job, they spent little time together, and drifted apart.

If you don't change your own spark plugs, would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?

I think the much more interesting story is "Why do presumably educated and internet savvy Slashdot readers repeatedly believe journalistic garbage that can be debunked with a 30 second Google search?".

Leonid Brezhnev ran the Kremlin for more than 18 years, which most people would not consider "brief". For Andropov and Chernenko, you have the cause and effect reversed. They were chosen specifically because they were old and sick, and thus good compromise candidates for various factions that wanted someone likely to have a short tenure.

Yes, that helps, since these sources contradict many of the "facts", and the main theme, of TFA:

- His book The Insurrectionist was published more than three years ago.
- School authorities have been aware of the book since it was first published.
- His book had little or no influence on the decision to place him on administrative leave.
- The main reason for his suspension was a "bizarre" four page letter that he wrote to county officials, that raised mental health concerns.
- He has not been arrested, and is not being charged with any offence (TFA does not say he was, buy many commenters here have assumed this).
- It does not appear that his mental health evaluation was mandatory or coerced in anyway other than as a condition of returning to work.

So it appears that there were some legitimate concerns about his mental health, and that authorities' response to those concerns was measured and reasonable.

So we should hope that someone can collect millions in taxpayer dollars because they were placed on paid leave? TFA is a biased opinion piece presenting third and fourth hand information, and quotes with no context, in a clear attempt to generate outrage, and thus pageviews. I have no idea what the real story is, but maybe everyone should just calm down and wait for the facts to come out from a reputable source that doesn't use "Soviet-Style Punishment" in their headline. The Soviets didn't send their enemies home on paid leave.

How are they playing both sides? It seems to me that Code.org and FWD.us are on the same side, with the same goal: To increase the number of programmers in America.

They already do. It is called "Internet Explorer". You can use it to program in JavaScript, Scratch, and dozens of other programming languages. You can also use it to download hundreds more. Microsoft provides free programming tools for Visual Basic, Visual C++, and C#.

No, because as soon as prices recover, the mines will reopen. There is enough uranium stockpiled to cover the transition. If prices ever go back to where they were in 2010, it will be cost effective to extract uranium from seawater, where the supply is almost limitless. At current consumption rates, we will not run out of relatively cheap uranium for thousands of years. There are plenty of reasonable arguments against nuclear energy, but "we are running out of fuel" is not one of them.

There is a glut of uranium on the market, with prices for yellowcake falling by more than 50% since Fukushima.

It could deliver to the roof. Then you could go up and get it, or a robot could bring it to your apartment.

But if deliveries are faster and cheaper there will be fewer single-person private cars on the road. Many car trips are to fetch a few items from the grocery or hardware store, or to fetch some documents that you left at work. If on-demand drone delivery was available, these trips could be avoided.