I don't understand your comment. I'm saying that whatever Disney's trademark rights in the Mickey Mouse character are, once the first work in which the character appears enters the public domain, that opens the door for third parties -- that is, parties other than Disney -- to use the character, at least in some ways, and it limits the scope of Disney's trademark.

How the hell did you get from that to shilling in favor of Disney? I think perhaps you should read posts more carefully before replying.

Once they have located an attacker, having privately owned armed drones would be very handy. if the attacker is a nation state, even more aggressive measures could be used.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership gives them the right to use "even more aggressive measures". It's called "corporate sovereignty" and it will be our undoing. Basically, it says that a corporation can sue governments for damages for any law that might conceivably cost them money.

We already have a mercenary military. Imagine the armies the Fortune 500 will put into the field, and the mischief they could create.

No, and I would greatly prefer if people the Clintons and Obama didn't hand these people trillions of tax payer dollars.

You mean Obama's the one paying all those Wall Street bonuses?

Damn, no wonder we got us a deficit, amirite?

If that were true, why haven't Chromebooks taken over?

The power of marketing.

I think capitalism could solve it, it's just that by the time AGW began kicking the living shit out of the economy and causing widespread ecological damage, much of it would be irreversible.

But guys like the Koch's want it that way. They'll walk away with vast amounts of money and insulate themselves from the woes being suffered by everyone else. We are literally allowing our economic and political systems be completely co-opted to serve a tiny fraction of the population. And worse, many of us actually think that the Heartland Institute and the Wall Street Journal are some sort of purveyors of truth.

Perhaps when people come to grips with the fact the physical laws of nature don't give a flying fuck about anyone's favorite economic system or political ideology, we can move on to solving problems. But I suppose it's always easier to believe that whatever deity you worship, be it Yahweh or the Invisible Hand, will save you, and just go on as if nothing is happening.

There are a few people who believe that we don't need a government; that the free market can solve all problems up to and including national defense.

And all of those people are running for the GOP presidential nomination.

Maybe now, we can build some more dams

California? Dams?

I thought hydroelectric dams need water to operate.

Clinton also announced a new initiative to replace the warplanes of the American air force with modern and environmentally sound flying pigs.

We already have the F-35.

I wish I could vote for the real Al Gore.

It wouldn't matter unless you could get the Supreme Court to vote for him too.

About half of my power bill is the cost of generation, the other half is transmission...

He didn't say "price", he said "cost". Because "transmission costs" are how power companies raise rates. The transmission costs have not gone up, but they've raised to transmission price as an end-around local consumer groups that have gotten laws passed to limit energy cost increases.

Transmission "costs" are actually a profit center for companies that really should be regulated utilities instead of one-way piggy banks for billionaires.

Social networking is actually a good idea I think, but not with the proprietary platforms we've had until now. Something like Diaspora, a decentralized platform, is what we really need; that way people can control what they share, with whom, and they control the platform itself (since you run it on your own webserver, or one you sign up for to have an account on, but your data is your own and is easily moved to a competing service).

Having everything all centralized on one site with no democratization is making it usable because there's no real consumer choice or control.

Is that like being a "Vegan of the second degree", when you eat nothing but vegans?

Because you have a choice whether you want to use Facebook or something else or nothing. No one is forcing you to use Facebook. Your dumb relatives posting stupid pictures of themselves is not a compelling reason to use Facebook; it's not like trying to be a computer professional and refuse to use email (which would prevent you from getting a job in the field) or normal job posting sites.

Do we mind the reputable advertisers? Hardly. And before any snide comments, yes, they do exist. Advertisers that understand that the only effect those in-your-face ads with blaring music have is that more people are getting pissed to the point where they start looking for a way to block that shit. Normal ads, banners and maybe even flashing banners, don't provoke that reaction. People load them and may even click them when the topic is interesting.

These are also the kind of advertisers that will honor such do-not-track standards.

And then there's the assholes that just want to abuse you for their gains. The kind of junk that comes piggy-backing with some "free" software that messes with your browser settings and invades your privacy. The kind you absolutely do NOT want.

And these are also the same assholes that don't give a shit about such DNT systems.

And as long as this is the case, people will use ad-blockers and of course they in turn won't give a shit about blocking the "good"... or let's say "less annoying" advertisers along with the real reason they install such content sanitizing tools.

"Honest" advertisers, if you really want us to believe in your DNT tech and not block you whenever we have a chance: Weed out the bad apples in your industry. Lobby for laws that outlaw such practices. For as long as these assholes are allowed to exist, we will block you, too.