My first thought when I read the summary was that hell had frozen over: Congress is thinking about privacy!

My second thought was that *Congress is thinking about privacy*. This can only be a good thing. I think we should encourage them, saying "you're on the right track, keep going that way" rather than being derisive.

Parent is right, government surveillance/data collection is a huge privacy issue. That does not mean it's the only privacy issue. It is easier for our inherently timid Congresscritters to start by pointing the finger outward from Washington, and I'm OK with that because it at least starts the policy discussion we so desperately need.

The evidence (and there is a LOT of it) that global warming is a hoax is extremely solid

OK, let's take a look at it. Show us some of this evidence.

97% almost exactly the portion of biologists who believe in evolution according to one survey. The Slashdot community seems perfectly ready to accept evolution as fact, yet anthropogenic global warming remains "controversial."

So you say publication bias, and I say confirmation bias.

Theories, predictions, observation, refinement - repeat as needed until the theory and observations reach equilibrium.

I think the point is: that has already happened. 97% concurrence among researches is about as close to objective truth as we can get in the postmodern world.

Let's face it people, there is nothing we can do, accept it and deal with it.

There are plenty of things we can do. There's very little we *want* to do.

News flash: cosmopolitan urban centers are also full of greedy, stupid people. I know because I live in one. You can't escape them by changing your location.

The original show is far out of date. I watched a couple of episodes a few years ago. The visual effects were dated of course, but a lot of the science had gaps as well. When the original Cosmos was produced, the Hubble Space Telescope had not been launched. Exoplanets had not been discovered. The universe was known to be expanding but its rate of expansion was presumed to be decreasing, not increasing. The source of gamma-ray bursts had not been identified. We knew a lot less about black holes. I don't think dark matter was considered important. And, back then, Pluto was a planet. ;-) (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

All that is just off the top of my head. Astrophysics has really advanced since 1980.

I think the key word here is "sold." In the old-fashioned days, when you bought a physical object, it would become yours to do with as you will: to eat, plant, or whatever else you may want to do (including silly things like using them as alternative flooring in your house).

In other words, by the strict definition of the verb "to sell," the seller loses control over what the buyer does with the item once the item has changed hands. IANAL but what worries me about this case is that the idea of selling something for limited set of purposes seems to be implicitly accepted. Why? How can the elevator sell seeds "for" one purpose but not another, and why is the court willing to respect those conditions? It seems like a huge backward step for property rights and a worrisome precedent from that perspective.

If you look at what Bill Gates has been doing with his time and money since he quit Microsoft, it's hard to make the case that he is lacking compassion and humanity. He is doing more and higher-profile philanthropy than any other billionaire I can think of, and doing a lot more good in the world than an average citizen like me is in a position to.

Which is not to say he's a saint. How he got his money is certainly open to criticism: I certainly disapprove of that.

If you feel {compelled, qualified, entitled} to assess the man's character, please consider all the facts. Myself, I don't really know the guy.

Partly, bad timing: his party's brand was tarnished by George W. Bush. Partly, bad choice of running mate.

Blame the party leadership, not McCain himself.