It wouldn't shock me to find out that a person using anonymous proxies, VPNs, encryption, blah blah, is up to no good, but that's not the real issue here. Why are they jumping to the conclusion that these nerds are terrorists?

A terrorist is someone who performs indiscriminate mass violence to make populations afraid, for political reasons. A hacker is NOT a terrorist. Why do they call them terrorists? So they can treat them as enemy combatants, hold them indefinitely in custody (or kill them) without a trial. Same thing with that dotcom/megaupload guy. They destroyed his business without even going through the courts. This is literally part of a suprisingly successful movement to bypass due process when dealing with anyone that threatens big money. We should really be concerned by the gov'ts use of this word.

I agree. It also says a lot that liberal economists like Paul Krugman support the 'sweatshops.' It brings millions of dollars to impoverished local economies and will slowly improve the standard of living for everyone there. On the other hand, the turnover at Foxconn is ridiculous. I can't find a precise number, but it's somewhere between 5% and 40% monthly. With something like 400,000 workers, that's at least 20,000 a month! This tells me two things: 1) it's not necessarily slave labor if they can leave at will. 2) Foxconn might eventually find it more profitable to improve standards to retain their labor.

That's one of the major criticisms I've heard, that it's too episodic. I've also noticed he uses 'ex deus machina' too often: there's the big battle in Two Towers (Minas Tirith?) that goes on forever, but when everything looks hopeless, the Ents storm in and save the day. That happened again in the third book with the spirits that Aragorn (if I remember correctly) summons. You can probably find more examples.

That said, I think they're great books and probably the best feat of world-building in the history of fantasy writing, afaik. They're incredibly rich and detailed in this regard, and that, in my mind, is what makes them fun to read.

Your making the fallacy that ALL muslims think like that. Right-wing muslims, christians and jews are all the same, and they all spread fear and hatred toward the other religions because it helps them make money and keep power. Right now, a Muslim and a Jew are both writing the same thing you just wrote but with some religion names switched around, because they have the same money and power controlled media as we do and the same asses that believe every dumb simplification that gets repeated on that media.

BTW:

Godwin's law. You lose.

Or how many consumers stopped consuming because of the sales tax :)

Yes, I acknowledge that and agree it's a shame, but, optimistically speaking, a work in progress. Either way, it's nice to see a population standing up for itself under a corrupt regime and I would never say they shouldn't have tried.

As a Manning supporter, I agree that in all fairness he should be punished if found guilty, but the punishment he's endured so far is beyond the law as we know it, and I should hope it's given it's day in court as well. And you're right that it's ridiculous to contend that he did nothing illegal. There's no way around that. However, the issue, for me, is whether what he did was for the greater good. I happen to believe that it was.

Also, we here on slashdot know a collective thing or two about security. Security by intimidation is not good security. If the information was THAT secret, it should've been more secure. We blame website developers for creating potential SQL injection attacks, but we don't blame the gov't for allowing what they believe to be top-secret information to be retrieved and disseminated so easily?

I wonder if the treatment he received in prison will play into the trial at all? I agree he should of course be punished, as the law is the law, but let's not forget these leaks were a catalyst for the Tunisian uprising, which lead to the revolts in Egypt and Libya, which is leading to the ongoing riots in Syria, etc. Some would argue the Arab Spring was furthermore a catalyst for OWS and the earlier protests in Wisconsin.

Of course, by the looks of it, he leaked everything he could get his hands on and so had no particular motive in mind except to undermine the classification system, but wittingly or not, the man's a hero. I wish him the best of luck.

The great work they're doing now will help ensure they'll be able to look back happily on these times. It's better than sitting on your hands in ignorance, mocking people who are trying to improve our country.