Your 4-pack of incandescents will last 4 x 8 weeks of use (in my experience)....whereas one CFL will last several years.....

Totally agree. Monitoring the activities of foreign diplomats in your own country is standard operating procedure. To be expected. This story is interned to confuse the ignorant and weak-minded.

China is governed by people who see themselves as deeply rational. The modern Republican Party, to them, is deeply irrational and exemplifies the reasons for avoiding democracy and hindering religion. I can't disagree with them on this. . China and Russia signed a treaty back in 2000 for much the same purpose: to give the world an alternative to American domination.

I agree. Any sales guy who does well at the top probably wasn't a very good sales guy. It's a completely different mindset.

These are deliberate "leaks" because they know few people actually believe official statements. That's why no one is looking for these "lakers"

You're on shakey ground there. Employers ARE responsible for the actions (and their consequences) of their employees. This has been true for decades. Nothing new.

The US has always been somewhat corrupt and not very democratic. Technology tended to limit the reach and power of the corrupt and to constrain the worst consequences of a lack of fair democracy. Those days are over. The corrupt can now listen to you in your home through your own computer or cellphone without you knowing it. You have nothing to fear if THEY think you've done nothing wrong.

Americans are "safe" now....in much the same way Germans were "safe" in 1936.

The United States can't be trusted any more. They have all the powers they need to be an unaccountable dictatorship.....and only the will to do so cynically is lacking. That is only a matter of time given how the US political structures reward amoral cynicism.

Most extradition treaties don't include political 'crimes' or civil infringements. This is why the US has had to manufacture laughable "money laundering" charges against Kim Dotcom to have any hope of extraditing him from New Zealand. Snowden's actions would appear to fall squarely into the political category. It will be interesting to see which bogus charges the US tries to conjure up to enable any extradition effort. Who did he murder? What back did he rob? What drugs was be selling?

They definitely have the storage capacity. Never doubt that for the simple reason that they spend billions of dollars on this.

I agree. People who put their guns ahead of their kids are beyond understanding. A gun isn't a home appliance. It's is designed for killing. People who make and sell them are grossly negligence in being willing to supply them to anyone at all. The only reason they can't is because regulations exist that prevent it...and these criminals fund the NRA to campaign to have even these regulations moved. Guns are a cancer on the American mind. The results speak for themselves: Over 30,000 dead EVERY year thanks to guns....but everyone has to take their shoes off when they travel because ONE guy tried to blow up his shoes...and failed. That is insane....and I don't expect insane people (gun nuts) to understand that.....I'm speaking to the people who aren't gun nuts.

I'm glad I don't live in the US. It would be so sad to live in a country with so little concern for the future that it was ready to crap in its own nest endlessly....thinking there would be no consequences.

Shale extraction techniques are pure poison for water tables everywhere. The US may well find it had loads of fossil fuels for a time....and ever higher rates of cancer for which no one else held accountable...(as usual). The sheeple had better wake up soon or their kids (and their kids...and their kids) will be dying thanks to the oil addiction of the present generations.

What were / are the subsidies for?