Not at all. Each individual must agree to join the collective. Failing that, the collective has no just power over that individual.

Governments do not have rights,only people do. Legitimate governments have powers which are delegated by the people, who agree to limit their freedom in certain areas in exchange for order in society. I do believe I read that somewhere once. Sadly, people seemed to have forgotten, or perhaps never learned, the basic principles of government espoused by the Founders of the United States. Personally, I blame parents for this - they have allowed the schools, which are run locally here, to become cesspools that no longer provide even a semblance of good education. Kids here succeed in spite of their 'education' not because of it....

The social graph is a very interesting thing to police and intelligence agencies. Just knowing who knows who can be very useful. That said, there are lots of dead-ends and rabbit trails on the social graphs....but it is a great place to start.

Pretty sure he means age of majority - the age at which you can legally enter into contracts, join the armed forces and generally control your own legal, financial, living and life arrangements. In the US, this is generally 18, though there are exceptions (e.g alcohol age is 21). Nothing to do with age of consent, which is about sexual relations (and tis age varies widely from US state to US state).

Get the SafariCookies plug-in. Manages flash cookies as well. Works a treat!

And that my friends is "front-running" which if done by certain people (brokers, for example) is illegal. Doing it by computer with the assistance of the exchange is using a loophole. Close the loophole and this goes away...

This is changing. The local airfield where my son is taking flying lessons just installed required security gates, and access now must be verified by cardkey or going past an attendant.

And yet, on balance, he has done a lot of good. Consumers like his products. They are selling faster than Apple can make them in many cases. The majority of Apple's revenue comes from products that didn't exist 5 years ago at all. I can't say that my life is any worse for my Macbook Pro, my iPad and my Mac Mini which runs my media center. In fact, I'd say it's better. I don't have an iPhone - I think the Nexus One is an all-around better phone. But the other stuff? Rocks. All of it. Better than anything the competitors make.

Our educational system is designed to foster corporatism, mediocrity, and blind submission to authority. Creative thinking and action are purposely suppressed and individualism is held out to be evil. The real question is, why would anyone be surprised?

Summary judgment is not automatic and can be appealed. And that costs money.

Which does NOT preclude Tetris from suing Google. I was personally involved in a lawsuit where AT&T, Yahoo and others claimed immunity. The person suing disputed the immunity. They spent a lot of money, all they way through the US Court oF Appeals to defend their immunity. Immunity is from LIABILITY, not from being sued. Anyone can sue over anything in the US.

Maybe to avoid liability, but it doesn't keep you from being sued. Anyone can sue anyone. Winning such a suit might be impossible for Tetris, but does Google really want to waste time and money defending a lawsuit? Not much upside and a big moneynsink on the downside.

There is NOTHING unmanageable about Google. Their management and board are doing just fine, thanks. Breaking up a company for being successful is INSANE. The entire claims appear to be predicated on a wrong understanding of what the law says. Being a monopoly is not, in and of itself illegal. Anti-competitive practices ARE illegal. Google is not, from what I can see, doing anything other than being very good at what they do.

Barriers to entry are limited to having servers and a search algorithm. I can have a web-crawer running tomorrow and a search engine in short order. If I do bette than Google, people will come to me. If I don't, I don't get to whine to the government because I am not competent enough to do a better job!

The stock trades higher when the street thinks that the bids are too low. Nobody is going to tender their shares @ $5.75 when they can get a better price by selling at market. If the above the offer price is sustained, then either the bid will have to be increased or withdrawn. This happens all the time, and is a normal function of a stock market. The value of a company may be more or less after it is taken over - the goal of the bidder is to bid as low as possible. The goal of shareholders is to get the highest bid possible. The goal of management is to maximize shareholder value, which can involve sale, profit improvement, or a host of other things.