Yep, and Netflix has even said that the reason the DRM is there is because the studios require it. Even when Netflix told them some of it is easy to work around (like region requirements), they still required it, and thus we get plugins like mediahint.

First off, let me say that I agree with your point - I am against the business subsidies of low wages.

But I think you're envisioning a very small subset of Socialism, specifically the subset applied to Communism.

I'm a full blown Socialist as far as my own business goes, since each employee owns a full quarter of it and (generally) earns 1/4 of the profits from it. Yep, that form of Socialism is basically Capitalism with joint employee ownership (yes, you still sell your goods and make a profit). In fact, this is the original form and probably clearest form of what Marx meant by Socialism. Where it got mucky is when merged with Communist doctrine where instead of profiting from the goods, you basically barter them for other goods. This got morphed even further with Lenin/Stalin-ism where the state just takes your excess production and distributes it as it pleases.

I also work for a full blown capitalist company with a multimillionaire CEO and peons getting paid much, much less (but still a comfortable amount, since I'm salaried in a tech company).

In any case, people seem to think Socialism just in terms of Communist doctrine and not that it spans between Capitalism and Communism depending on whether the goods are sold or traded for other goods you (hopefully) want. Since Marxism is a total pipe dream, I'd have to say I'm anti-Communism, since the "Socialism" practiced in other forms of Communism means the state takes your goods and redistributes them as it chooses and gives you what it thinks you want.

To employers, the proper wage is the market clearing wage where employees accept the wages offered by the employer. For every employer who pays below the market wage, another pays the market wage, and the worker choses the employer who pays more.

That works until there are no jobs at the other business. I would far rather work for Costco than WalMart, but the Costco jobs fill quickly and have few openings and there are always openings at WalMart. WalMart then uses that as a reason to cut wages further to boost profits and suddenly nearly all of their employees depend on federal subsidies paid by taxpayers.

Boosting minimum wage pulls many of these people off of welfare and may even make them taxpaying citizens. I don't want my tax dollars subsidizing Sam Walton's low prices. We should be paying the actual value of goods including human labor costs, not a taxpayer subsidized number. This is also why I'm opposed to wage subsidies - what a horrible solution - take away welfare subsidies and make wage subsidies and all you've done is move numbers around on paper and not fixed the problem.

It is widely believed (and disputed) that Stalin intentionally caused events such as the Holodomor (Ukrainian famine). I think sending propaganda into the Ukraine saying "don't eat your children" instead of food says it all, though.

Socialism is an economic system and many people seem to think it's a political system. The political-economic system is Communism, which uses a state controlled form of Socialism (but even that is ass-backward according to Marxism - the people are supposed to voluntarily give excess production to the state, not get it taken by the state, but now we're delving into Lenninism/Stalinism).

What people use the term "socialist country" they mean welfare state, because every single one of those countries is, in fact, mostly capitalist (but just like America, there are employee owned businesses which are socialist such as co-ops).

Well currently it doesn't matter - any whistleblowing to anyone that can't legally see the documents is treason by current law, so your only choice is to go through your superiors, which Snowden did and his grievances were ignored. Basically, all this says is now you are obliged to bring these things up with your superiors when you see them so you can quickly be tossed in a tiny isolated cell and be called a threat to national security before you take the next step and tell the press.

What Snowden did was illegal and treason according to the Espionage Act of 1917. Of course, the Espionage Act of 1917 is entirely broken and redefines treason as giving any confidential information to anyone that isn't supposed to have it. Heck, the White House itself committed treason just last week when it revealed the name of the CIA head in Afghanistan.

Furthermore, the NSA's charter forbids it from collecting information on Americans, but they've wanted their fingers in that honeypot for a long time. They got bashed on the wrist for illegal wiretapping under Nixon, Carter scolded them for phone tapping again and told them to stop, and then they got in trouble again with Echelon, since it scoops up all information from all satellites, including US communications. The NSA only has jurisdiction when one end of the communication is in a foreign country (and only then because of and since the Patriot Act). Anything else is illegal for them to do, since it is FBI jurisdiction and under tighter rules.

And they actually committed espionage. Nobody that has actually committed whistleblowing has finished a trial when accused of espionage under this act - in Ellsberg's case, it was thrown out due to illegal evidence gathering.

That's the problem with the Espionage Act of 1917 - it defines espionage as giving any confidential information to anyone that isn't supposed to have it (and yes, in that loosely worded terminology). That means Richard Armitage, likely Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby, and someone at the White House for last week's press release of the CIA head in Afghanistan are all guilty of treason.

I really question of whether even Ellsberg would have walked if it weren't for the gross misconduct of evidence gathering (you know Nixon loved his wiretapping). He certainly was guilty of the Espionage Act of 1917. I suspect had he been convicted, a legal battle over the Constitutionality of the act would have ensued, but it was delayed by the case's dismissal. I doubt either the Espionage Act or the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (which was designed using the Espionage Act as a template) could stand a serious court challenge.

The problem is the NSA violating its charter against spying on Americans, not their spying on foreigners. That is the job of the FBI and they have a lot more judicial oversight. The NSA has gotten in trouble for overstepping into FBI jurisdiction multiple times all the way back to Watergate, and once again needs to be reigned in. The exceptions put in after 9/11 seem pretty far stretched to justify collecting bulk metadata on American calls by the NSA, and it certainly is out of their jurisdiction (they should only be able to collect information on calls where at least one end is in a foreign country).

As for spying on our foreign allies, I think it is a dick move on our part, but it certainly is in the jurisdiction of the NSA. I'm a little mixed on that one - while it is in NSA jurisdiction, it shows our paranoia is pretty damn acute.

He is guilty of giving the documents to friendly press, not everybody. The press then revealed some of the exposed documents, but not all of them, and censored some information. This is different than Manning, who revealed the documents to a bulk dump leak site.

The real problem is the espionage charge, though. This is based on the loosely worded and likely unconstitutional Espionage Act of 1917, which states that giving Confidential information to anyone that "is not supposed to have it" is illegal. The White House itself has committed treason by this standard by revealing the name of the CIA top official in Afghanistan last week.

As long as the espionage charge stands, I don't think Snowden can get a fair trial in the US. With Obama backing the espionage charge, there is no way he gets pardoned. In fact, I'd say there is a better chance he gets hung than there is he gets a pardon, despite the government promise that they won't chase execution for the espionage charge.

oh that's where _nsakey.lkm comes from (kidding - it's a joke referring to _NSAKEY

I've actually never heard of a silver solar cell; usually they use the same elements used in computer chips like silicon, cadmium telluride or gallium arsenic.

I have to back that post on the ugly house, though - my parents had solar heat, which was ridiculous because they got about 8 hours of sun during the winter if there was any at all. And at best got 1-2 hours of decent heating for their 6 giant ugly panels. This is my biggest issue with solar - it tends to be off when you need it most (if used for electrical, you need it most in the evening). That said, with decent battery technology it may be worth it.

The skin actually is very good at protecting against the radiation from alpha and beta emitters (most of what was leaked), so playing in the water may have little to no effect. Drinking it is an entirely different story. Burns to the skin happen the same as if you hang out too long under the great nuclear reactor in the sky (aka sunburns).

Funny thing is, I never hear people bitching about the uranium kicked out of coal plants or the radon in natural gas, both of which are likely inhaled and bad things to inhale. One of the biggest killers in tobacco is polonium, part of the natural decay cycle of radon (in tobacco it comes from fertilizer).

Actually, the MSR was designed by the same guy that designed pressurized water reactors (or PWRs - the guy is Alvin Weinberg). Nixon had him fired from Oak Ridge National Laboratory for promoting it over PWRs because he was getting a bunch of reactors built in his home state of California and that meant jobs for Californians. Stalling those projects to redesign would mean a crapload of Californians were out of work, and that was against Nixon's agenda.

Just saying Alvin didn't need to learn by other people's mistakes, they were his own :D