Dude, what you ask for is impossible.

I won't put any more words in your mouth.

But news organizations far and wide are not now going to come up with any sort of agreement about what's right and proper to do when delivering the news.

Your wish is just a wish then, it can't actually happen. Not without the kind of things I was talking about being implemented.

As a Lutheran myself, I gotta say I really like the idea of Linus nailing the source code to the church door. Spot on metaphor there.

Captain Hindsight is that you??

But you are right about one thing. If the NSA says they're doing what they're doing to protect us, but then an attack happens that proves they can't protect us, then their justifications for their spying are inadequate.

That's the rub with standards and values though.

They have to come down from "on high". They can initially be agreed upon by a group (when the group is small enough), but they will always trend towards having a smaller organization or a single selected leader defining them over time.

The totally decentralized and fragmented nature of news and information on the web naturally resists any incursion of those standards and values.

The people get what the people want, even if its not "good" for them. Good being defined, of course, by a select or selected few.

I extrapolated from your post. You yourself may not want censorship and just want better news sources. But I contend that the mechanisms that would be necessary to create better news sources will inevitably be utilized in an effort to achieve command and control of all news sources.

Then how should the world work?

I will take this decentralized, messy, sometimes inaccurate, active, energized, aggressive reporting of everything under the sun with the caveat of "reader beware" a thousand times over something that is managed by (to borrow from a meme I hate) "Top Men".

Those granted the authority to fix the stated problem in this case will always ALWAYS become corrupted and begin to limit views that do not agree with their "norms". Out of that will eventually be borne far more evil than exists in the chaotic system we have today.

Freedom is messy and I'm getting sick of Tyranny trying to market itself to us as a shiny, clean alternative.

In my mind I pictured a vending machine like many pop machines.

You select your car then it clangs around through the machines inside and comes out at the opening at the bottom ... a mangled heap.

Of course not how it would really work, but a funny juxtaposition of calling these things "vending machines."

Does New Zealand have any?

Your post is unbelievable.

The GP poster posted a subject of:

Seems there's more ice than usual in the antarctic

And then they posted a LINK to a graph that proved their subject.

THIS IS ALL THEY POSTED!! No follow on sentences about global warming. No links to any other sites about global warming or to sites denying global warming for that matter.

The post stated only facts, and made no arguments. Facts that seem to be backed up by the research vessel being stuck in the ice.

YOU brought global warming into the discussion, YOU called the GP poster a denier (note: I am speaking only to evidence in the GP post, if mc6809e is a raging denier elsewhere I don't know it).

This isn't really cherry picking of data, it is only presentation of data.

If there is an increase in antarctic summer ice at the same time there is a decrease in arctic summer ice, we should study what is happening.

There really wasn't a global warming argument being made in the GP. You just saw one there. Check your glasses.

This case could be a huge PR win for the NSA. If they could arrest 10-20 people involved in this using all their data, I think the country would be appreciative. At least they could make their case that their data collection is worth something.

Of course the NSA has done nothing about this because helping protect the citIzens isn't really their job, it's just their bogus excuse for their actions.

No! We need real change away from both what Bush did AND what Obama is doing.

Every time people make the "but Bush" argument they're giving Obama more power to abuse the system.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Next step?

7 Nuke the site from orbit,its the only way to be sure.

Maybe this technology is related to Facebook.

Imagine, Facebook's users are generating unique, pithy, substantive and deep posts to put on Facebook, but this crypto locker stuff is just converting those awesome posts into worthless drivel about piddly silly details about the Facebook breakfast or exercise routine.

It is mind boggling that the inventor of the ball mouse , a hugely successful device, would think it trivial and not patent it when nowadays someone just adds "on the internet" to common practices (not even real tangible things!!) and thinks they deserve huge patent royalties.

Its amazing how far innovation has fallen.

Fuck that. In my book respect has to be earned, even for the President.

And the man currently in the job never earned my respect. The man previously in the job earned my respect, but then he lost it. The one before him didn't have my respect initially, but ironically looking at his whole record and past his indiscretions he's earned some respect for what he did with the job.

But these latest two Presidents; in the end, neither is worthy of my respect.

Don't worry, by version 3 the site will be awesome!!