You are basically advocating violent overthrown of the government, a.k.a. treason - "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them..." which is NOT going to convince a lot of people to join your side. Sure, you'll get the retards but having them in charge after the overthrow, assuming it all works out, would be even worse.

For all the flag-waving Constitution spouting anti-current-government rhetorical BS that gets thrown around here, you fundamentally can't have it both ways. You can't declare the Constitution perfect and the Founding Fathers all geniuses and things would be so much better if we'd just follow it to the letter, and ignore the fact that lobbyists and the money in politics and even political parties themselves were STUFF THEY DIDN'T FORSEE that is currently screwing things up. And the ugly truth is lobbyists have a first amendment right to advocate for their position - the fact they are better funded and more organized than a bunch of keyboard online ranting jihadists in their mom's basement isn't a fault of the system. The 1st Amendment says (paraphased) "Congress shall make no law abridging the right of the people to petition the government". Not "except the ones you don't agree with" or "except the ones with more money and organization" or "but not the people who do it professionally a.k.a. get paid a.k.a. lobbyists" or "not when their point of view makes me butthurt".

Think of it this way, gun nuts: what if lobbyists defended their right to petition the government as much as gun-tards defend their 2nd Amendment right to bear arms?

That is the ongoing clusterfuck of money in politics.

So man up and organize, exactly like Lessig is trying to do. That's working WITH the system, which again so many radical-Republitardian-free-market-gun-flag-waving-freedom-liberty-self-reliance-antitax ooze out of their pores constantly. Except when they don't agree, THEN its OK to throw the whole thing out amirite? You get everything you want OR violent overthrow? Democracy ONLY serves your interests? Fuck you.

Or as so nicely put in The Codeless Code:
http://thecodelesscode.com/cas...

Probably? Come on, that skit was from Saturday Night Live.

There is an excellent book about this: http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sug...

The modern processed food industry, OK the American processed food industry, works hard to make processed foods appetizing by tweaking formulations and experimenting with salt/sugar/fat ratios.

I think the book does a balanced job of presenting the info without blaming the industry (too much). They do make the point the food industry targets convenience and cost, which consumers respond to. It isn't all the food companies fault that their customer base is kinda lazy.

The food industry has tried a few times to make their stuff healthier by reducing additive amounts, trying new tech - one very interesting thing for example is trying to use a different salt crystal, one ground into a different shape that absorbs quicker. It gives the same "pop" with less, due to its different shape. That's pretty cool!

Fascinating concepts... tell me, how do you rationalize your stance with the fact the U.S. was founded by stealing the land from the previous occupants? Are you willing to declare the experiment over and return all lands that were seized by force (i.e. all of them) back to the Native Americans?

That would be ideal, and there's nothing stopping the OpenSSL project from doing that.

OpenBSD is a group that says - we are relying on this code that is totally busted, let's fix it - and they prioritized their OS first. I don't see a problem with that. OpenBSD is already making their work publicly available for free, they don't have the onus to actually provide bullet-proof solid code for every platform on the planet. Turns out other OS hackers need to roll up their sleeves too, and fork over some cash to support the effort.

I don't think they care about how their font is interpreted.

I think this is more like - we're busy actually fixing code and not going to hire a team of web designers to produce a web 2.0 dynamic social-media-hooked-into website with a few links and a bit of text.

I'm not sure anybody is saying give Obama a free pass; some of us are just wondering where the FUCK all you constitutional-waving administration critics were during the Bush years... suddenly crawling out of the woodwork after hibernating 8 year I gather.

Sure, maybe Obama hasn't done everything perfect, but I know one thing: throwing Obama under the bus for what clearly started under Bush/Cheney is 100% bullshit.
It gives the impression of really wanting to hide and/or distance one group of politicians from a lot of crap they don't want to own up to, prefer to ignore or forget.

You want to examine and investigate Obama? I say heck yes, I'd welcome that, as long as the previous administration is similarly cross-examined. Bush/Cheney housed goddamn war criminals by any reasonable measure, and no way in hell is there justice if that whole group walks free, after convincing legion of fucktards like yourself to shift the spotlight. This crap didn't appear out of thin air in Jan 2009.

If I wanted to "easily poison" a water supply, I'd just form a corporation, say one that stores chemicals meant for coal mining, and build my facility near a river that supplies a small city's water supply.

That way, not only would I get limited liability if there was an "unforseen accident", my corporation could declare bankruptcy and dodge all lawsuits.

What happened to Ubuntu was they decided to "differentiate" themselves more, dreaming of monetization and profits. I'm not sure it is working out the way they thought it would.

I like Mint - the version that tracks debian (Linux Mint Debian edition). They do a ~3 month rolling upgrade from debian testing. So I get something a little more current than debian stable on Mint's nice Cinnamon UI. It's ideal except for one little thing - no LVM install by default. For that you need to jump through some hoops but it can be done. Well maybe I'll grab the latest and see if that separation has gone away.

Don't forget about all the Bush admin people that lied us into the Iraq war. Lots of those folks were the ones that STARTED all these surveillance programs.
Plenty of politicians you could repeat your phrase about:

Bush is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.
Cheney is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.
Rice is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect she would.
Rumsfeld is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.
Wolfowitz is under no compunction to tell the truth. And there's no reason to expect he would.
etc.

Not to dispute the rest of your quote, but Nixon wasn't immune from prosecution. He resigned and President Ford pardoned him.
I guess that is a fine/moot distinction, but the President (and governors) are allowed to pardon people so.... that's just the system.

Targeted donations are great and all, but I think corporations that NEED this security layer should step up. Banks for example - oh hell, the clearly don't give a crap if they can cry to Congress for a bailout.

If I were Zuckerburg, I'd go big and throw in 50 million for a rewrite effort. The publicity alone would be gold. Facebook could brag for years how they take their user's information and privacy seriously enough to pay. God, they already spent billions on a photo sharing app and VR glasses, 50 million would be round off in comparison.

Or the compiler might helpfully optimize out your buffer clear : http://www.viva64.com/en/d/020...
Or in general: http://www.viva64.com/en/b/017...

There's just a ton of landmines to avoid while coding in C. Including the tools themselves.

Yes... but at the hiring authority of corporations first. Whatever credentials they demand, job seekers must provide.