Like most utopias it's probably got a downside.

The fees will go up and those who can't afford them will be converted into serfs or indentured labourers. Finally the CSA (Confederate States of America) will arise again with the newly recruited serfs growing cotton on those 20 acres.

all these software engineers that work for nsa/gov , do they have any fucking morals? do they really believe they are securing the world from the evil guys? are they kept at gunpoint? are they just plain stupid?

Imagine a fraternity house filled with hundreds of "bro-grammers" looking to impress their peers and outsiders, alongside more socially inept nerds with a superiority complex and a grudge against society for its refusal to pay homage to their obviously superior intellects. The herd is managed by a cadre of MBA/careerist sociopaths with a lust for profit, exploitation and power. The entire operation has been given essentially unlimited budgets, unprecedented resources, and unrestricted access to private industry and the backbone of the net, and finally has been mandated to gather all it can, on whoever it can, by whatever means necessary by an ascendancy whose interests are explicitly opposed to the general public good.

Things have worked out about as well as you'd imagine. The fraternity house has engaged in naked, shameless and destructive criminal behaviour; in effect the NSA has become the largest hacker/cyber-crime organization on the globe. The Rule of Law now has no meaning on the network, or for computers, and society itself has been pushed into a literal sci-fi dystopia of surveillance and state security excess.

And were it not for one single fraternity member who found the courage to turn back and listen to his conscience, we would be spiraling into an even darker scenario at this very moment. Whether we eventually meet this fate is still uncertain.

The NSA is an out of control cyber-criminal gang. It is a matter of time before insiders at the NSA make contact with the criminals who run the banking industry, and at that point western society will probably be ripped apart in an orgy of computer-aided looting, sabotage, fraud, and political suppression. This is what happens when you let the hyenas run the zoo.

Russia is still inhabited by a lot of people who still have power AND who were trained in the Soviet version of MAD (Mutual Assured Distruction, for those who didn't spot or don't grok the acronym already) . This means that, when people in the west start classifying Putin as another possible 'classic nutcase leader', along the lines of Saddam Hussein, Moammar Kadafi or the Ayatollah Khomeini , they should remember, Putin has some very different reasons why he might just want to give the appearance of being one. ,

Of course, neither political party is anything like they were when Abe was around. In most issues they have swapped position.

Actually, in most places people have been propagandized to THINK they swapped position. But when you look at how they actually voted on various subjects (civil rights laws and Internet censorship, for two of a host of examples) or how the programs they produced actually worked out (The Great Society for just one in a host of examples), expect to find that the alleged swap is mostly smoke, mirrors, and very effective political propaganda.

To be honest, my biggest Amazon Prime purchases are around the holidays or events like birthdays/weddings/baby showers etc. It is so much easier to just order something and have it shipped -- the sheer convenience of it all makes it worthwhile.

While I may order a 3-4 orders a month for most of the year, I end up ordering at least three times that during the holidays.

I try and make sure that my local bookstore gets my business -- but sometimes, I just don't have the time or the energy to look for a book, only to find that they don't have it yet. Especially when they're written by authors who aren't particularly mainstream. So, I can pre-order some of these books by my favorite authors, which is a huge perk.

There's also something to be said about impulsive shopping -- for instance, I just saw a book that looked quite interesting, and it was under $10. Normally, shipping would have been expensive relative to the cost of book, but given that I have Prime, I just ordered the book. A few weeks ago, it was a sandwich maker.

Prime Membership also provides you with "subscribe and save" offerings that I take advantage of (whey protein for my workouts, diapers etc).

So, yeah. Personally, I think that even at $99, it is definitely worth the money.

You mean: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. - Hanlon's Razor

The crime is flying a plane without a license. It would be a crime to hire someone to fly a plane without a license. It would not be a crime for you to operate a plane if you did have a license, so it is legal to hire someone with a license to operate a plane.

Government can't claim sovereign immunity from the Constitution. That includes constructive violations. There is no such thing as immunity from legal principles, only from laws. Mind you, that doesn't mean that the courts (including the well stacked Supreme Court) haven't routinely looked the other way for any number of violations.

What part of the bitcoin protocol and algorithm was supposed to address this issue?

It was a regulatory failure in general. MtGox was for all practical purposes a bank but the relevant regulators allowed themselves to be blinded by the unconventional currency. It would have gone the same way if they dealt in quatloos.

Actually, it is a principle of common law and so is a lens the Constitution is to be read through (though our current government seems to consider the Constitution as non-applicable as well).

The problem with a more easily amended Constitution is that we would have the same idiots that brought us the Patriot Act amending it.

Ah yes, the spelling ad hom and no actual refutation.
Brilliant!

Why?

Nope.
It's a "conspiracy theory." when you have no actual data to back up a statement. Usually note be the ever expanding circle the conspiracy must encompass when you raise questions about the person uttering the conspiracy theory.

I'm sorry* reality doesn't coincide with your pet narrative. Doubly sorry* you seem to be aware of critical thinking, yet have no idea how to use it or what it actually is.

*I'm no really sorry.

healtchcare.gov was no worse then any other website as complex as it.. oh wait, there has never been a launch of anything the complex on the web.

Tesla can't do the job.

EMP has little to know impact on vehicles.

http://www.empcommission.org/d...

Stop, and I repeat STOP! getting you information form survivalist shows and movies. It's almost always wrong.

Actually, it will. As will most cars.

Please red up on technical shit before sounding like an idiot.