And like we've said before (or at least I have check my posting history if you don't believe me)... there is no two party system. If you think there is a two party system, I point you to the last 3.5 years of the Obama administration. He had two years with a Democratic majority, as well... Seems like the last 4 years have been like the previous 8, and the up times of the Clinton years were going into the toilet before he left office... but it doesn't matter, because the same big government, liberty-destroying idiots carried the flag of the apocalypse right along in lock-step. I don't see how people can't see the obvious.

Republicans run up deficits. Yep, they do. So do Democrats. The only difference between the two parties is the mascot. They are all fucking assholes who are doing nothing but getting rich off the American People. They hate the Constitution. They hate the truth. And they keep getting elected, because well... it's "our fault".

The only way it could be our fault (as a nation) is that we keep electing the same idiots. In that regard, we are all guilty. Those of us who woke up have lots of work to do. You keep yourself in slumberland, because it may get ugly, and we may be blaming people in charge for fucking us all in the ass... so I don't want any of that to get you in a tizzy.

Uh, check your facts. If you think the Clinton White House had nothing to do with repealing the act, I've got some shoreline property in Nebraska just waiting for a beach home with your name on it. 30 years? You do realize a great chunk of the last 30 years (hell, go back 50), is a bipartisan fuck-up of mamoth proportions.

Let's be realistic.

1. He pulled the troops out of Iraq based on the previous administration's timeline (not "6 months" like he campaigned.)
2. His cabinet and staff are full of lobbyists and the Justice Department is chock full of ex *AA lawyers ("No lobbyists in my cabinet.")
3. He has not only given the big finger to repealing the PATRIOT Act (and has expanded it), he has used drones to kill American Citizens (as shitty as he was, he was still a citizen.)
4. He has not repealed any executive order giving his office more power (in spite of claiming otherwise in many speeches.)

So, let's be realistic.

I think the parent poster was confusing marginal with effective tax rates again. It's a common tactic when people want to talk about the past as it compares to the present (and they want to distort reality to serve their particular agenda...)

I would go one step further in explaining the current malaise. Crony "capitalism", and the meddling of otherwise socially minded politicians (affordable housing for all, sure... sounds great on paper... but artificially backing risky loans for homes with tax dollars was a huge bubble that began its life back when Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall.) That, coupled with fun accounting and transferring of debt created from these artificially induced markets onto others, allowing banks to grow, provided they were part of the "plan"... freezing out smaller banks, etc. created this mess and we'll be paying for it for decades because we didn't allow the market to correct itself, and the root of the problem still exists, in spite of "Hope and Change..."

Life is complicated, but corrupt government and banking is a pretty simple scam. (Warren Buffett, champion of "taxing the rich" made a killing off the bailouts... and in fact, through Berkshire Hathaway, actively lobbied for the "stimulus" packages so he could make an obscene amount of bank off the misfortune of others.)

What really makes me wonder what these idiots are smoking is if average Joe gets up and looks for snacks , grabs his wife's boobs, accidentally sharts and has to hit the bathroom, is he violating the contract that makes TV possible?

Why aren't people who pay for cable TV being taxed (so to speak) twice? Once for the subscription and once again for the fucking ads? One of cable TVs big "draws" in the early days was "no commercials..." That didn't last.

Basically we have a bunch of suits who have no idea how stupid they sound... I don't know what's more sad, the idea itself or the actual spreading of the idea... I have this sneaking suspicion no one at Fox (Hey Rupert, suck my crank!) has a voice in their head that tells them "that's a bad idea... keep it to yourself." I imagine they learned about electricity by sticking a fork in a light socket too.

Explains a great many things, I think.. Suffice to say, is there anyone sane left in the entertainment industry? My decision to skip the theater and rental counter is becoming a better and better idea.

I think Joe Sixpack slapped with a lawsuit for getting beer might wake the sheeple up enough to say "what the fuck?" instead of "ooooh. I gotta drop mad bank on a 3D tv so I can experience movies how they were MEANT to be seen! To the Best Buy!"

This horse shit is not new, unfortunately.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Kellner

First, I hate feeding the trolls.
Second, no one is stealing shit. It's infringement... not theft. Get a grip. Stop using the word "steal" as a way to describe infringement. You are either an astroturfing ballsack from the *AA's, or you actually believe their propaganda. I don't know which is more sad.

I have one of those... and it is good as an icebreaker (well, sometimes)... but traditionally I wear my $9 Wal Mart timepiece (analog) because it's not a crime if I lose it or scratch the face of it.

It's a flexible band, so I can wear it easily on either wrist (left-handed geek here.)

There also was a Fossil watch a while back that had the cascading "matrix code" in the background. I could kick myself for not getting one because, like the Binary watch... it's just geeky enough not to look like I'm wearing a PDA on my arm...

I have found it very easy to avoid malware on my android phone. Most apps that seem fishy are pretty obvious, and I pay attention to what the app wants to be able to do as for as permissions go. If an app needs more permissions than I'm willing to give, then I generally don't bother. I have a few free apps that are ad supported... and I generally don't go trolling for sex and fart apps (as has been mentioned elsewhere in this discussion...)

Yes, openness has its drawbacks. But like Jefferson said... (paraphrasing) "I would rather have dangerous liberty than safe servitude." Some people are fine being pawns of Apple, Microsoft and the like. Others aren't. If everyone thought as most ./ users, there'd be no iPhone because it would've died on the vine. Diversity is what it is...

That doesn't make them any more correct that because they're locked down and restricted, that somehow they're better off... just less free.

What puzzled me from TFA was just how they determined which swarms to poison. I suspect the trackers helped them, but I guess I don't know enough about BitTorrent to understand magnet links.

More simply, at what time do they determine it's copyrighted material? I wonder if their new-fangled software solution is going to get caught by false positives? The next time I'm downloading a GParted ISO via bittorrent, I don't want the "Pirate Pay" folks screwing with my torrent on accident. I could give two shits about movie torrents or music torrents (it's not worth pirating OR paying for)... so I would hope these Russians have not overlooked the little fact that there are legitimate torrents out there, and that screwing with them will make things worse... (and blow their credibility out of the water...) The idea is all a bit silly, considering the content industry's revenue has hit record levels... all while they are telling the politicians and ignorant public that they're hanging on by a thread. :)

Yeah... okay. Sure we believe you're sincere.... sincerely crazy.

First, it's a joke, Microsoft fanboy. Second, they may not charge you for security fixes, but they do for FEATURES of the OS... get the point?

Some people really need to get off the Bill Gates worship.