I've been saying this for years. Science fiction is a fantastic platform for social commentary precisely because it can convey complex ideas and thought-provoking situations without being overtly political or directly controversial.

Consider how far ahead of its time Star Trek was in terms of exploring a future in which race was irrelevant during the height of the civil rights movement, as well as all of the possible futures that were envisioned (across all of the series) to explore what might happen if humanity continues down a certain path that many people of the time would identify with. Many of those made some pretty grim predictions. Consider also Isaac Asimov's portrayal of robots in the 1950s... many would recognize some social commentary on race in those stories. Twilight Zone, anyone? Sure, some of those episodes were less thought-provoking than others, but quite a few had a poignant "whoa" moment at the end that is both easy to relate to some aspect of society and also hard to forget. The fact that they're all sci-fi stories just means that the writers have a bit more freedom to set the characters up in scenarios that would otherwise be difficult to believe. It's a built-in suspension of disbelief because, after all, "it's just sci-fi, it's not supposed to be real." Conveniently, it still makes you think.

Sci-fi has been able to get people to think about these things for a long time without slapping them in the face with a righteous sermon, and for that I agree it should continue to be much more widely adopted as a platform for "what if..."

Protesting SOPA: you're doing it wrong.

Isn't this precisely what certificate revocation lists are for?

Quite an ironic sig to follow your post! Granted, my own sig is somewhat morally lacking (so there's no value judgment here), and I also appreciate the difference between healthy skepticism and vehement opposition, but I found it amusing nonetheless.

Do you run a sole proprietorship? I do. My business expenses are legally deducted from my taxable income by filing a Schedule C. If I were ever to claim (from the perspective of the IRS) that I "made $1M", it would mean that my actual revenue was significantly greater than that. I don't pay income taxes on the money spent to run the business, because once it goes back into the business, it's not "income" anymore. Obviously there are rules and regulations for what's legitimately deductible, but the point stands.

How many people here have this option? Granted, I don't know what it's like overseas, but I've lived in 5 different US states, and I've never had a choice of electricity providers.

I name my personal devices after moons of the solar system: Titan, Proteus, Oberon, Europa, Callisto, Prometheus, Luna...

In college, our department had a couple of undergraduate computing clusters with interesting naming schemes. One used a combination of Greek gods/goddesses and letters of the Greek alphabet, and another used colors. It didn't take long to figure out that the servers whose names were easy to spell and easy to remember were always the most heavily loaded with users (i.e. "red" was never a good choice, but "salmon" or "ivory" were usually good choices... I very quickly learned how to spell "hephaestus" too, since hardly anyone ever used it).

Way to not RTFA. The FIRST LINE of the GRRM's post says:

Yes, they've set a date for publishing. But really, let's get the summary right at least.

GP was correct. The first amendment, which gives us the right to free speech in the USofA, says (emphasis mine):

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The Constitution gives Congress the power to write certain laws and not others. It is not law in and of itself.