The tea party may have originally been about reducing government size, power and daily involvment of the federal government but I'm not sure that's been the case for a long time. My ex-boss was a tea party guy; hard core. After listening to him many, many times I can very definitively tell you he is more anti-liberal than anti-big government. He worships Glen Beck, thinks Obama is a socialist anti-Christ in cohoots with Soros, out to destroy America, and that all of our problems started when the US took prayer out of school. I was at the airport with him one time and some random guy came up, shook his hand and they started talking. (He was wearing one of those pro-tea party shirts.) They weren't talking about how to solve big government; they were just circle jerking about how liberals are the cause of all of our problems and how we should go back to daily religion (Christian only because "the US is a Christian nation") in every aspect of our lives. He's not an idiot mind you, I like the guy, but guys like Beck and other conservatives have zeroed in on the natural fears that most people have and convinced them to not even talk or listen to any other opinions. It's not about making America great, it's only about beating the liberals no matter the cost.

    I have yet to see anything that actually shows tea party people are about smaller government more than drinking the "liberals are what's wrong with America" cool-aid than anything else.

Check them out. I've heard that they are both looking. One of the devs at RedHat told me they are actively looking, especially on graphics stuff.

Where I live, pretty much if you want an IT job you can have one. Other software fields are the same. Most people I know have very little problem finding a job or getting a different one. Maybe we're in a weird bubble though I'm not convinced of that. I have friends all over the US that say they have little trouble finding software jobs.
    Most of them aren't open source though. However there are some.

Considering someone has patented 'Method of swinging on a swing': patent: 6,368,227), single-click, etc. It's safe to say having a patent no longer means anything regarding your technical skills.

Sorry to nitpick. I agree with your premise that experience counts, I just hate when someone thinks patents actually mean anything. Luckily, one bad example does not negate your point.

Bull. There are no new ideas. The details may change, (language, processor, ...) but the over all concepts don't. I just had this discussion with my wife and friends a couple weeks ago. They're doing pretty much the same thing they did 10 years ago. Half of IT (and software and harware) is ooohhhhh shiny new language. Let's rewrite stuff. Don't kid yourself, there really are very, very few new concepts. Experience matters.

This! 100 times, this!

I lived there for a while, went to Uni there, am married to a Chinese person and have many Chinese friends, both here and in China. I'm very comfortable saying that Chinese people do not innovate very well. In general, creativity and innovation are not traits that are encouraged in Chinese society. The culture encourages conformity and the like. In school, they study very, VERY hard but it's route memorization not creativity. They are much better at copying others' ideas than coming up with their own. That's not US marketing speaking, that's my own observations.

Whereas without regulations, everything is happy-happy koombaya land?

Note: I'm not disagreeing with you, but not having regulations doesn't work either.

If this article has any bearing in reality, then no. The courts will say this infringes advertisers' freedom of speech and will be struck down.

Article summary: Freedom of speech is becoming a large stick with which corporations and let-the-market-decide type folks can beat everyone into submission.