"In the last 20 years, a Republican has been President for 10 years (2 years H.W. Bush 1, 8 years G.W. Bush), Republicans controlled the Senate for 10 years and controlled the House for 12 years."

The more significant point is that starting in 1993, the Democrats had control of the House, Senate and Presidency for two years. Beginning in 2003, the Republicans had their turn for four years. For the first two years of Obama, the Dems had yet another chance.

All I've seen in that time is continuously bigger government, steady erosion of civil liberties, a declining middle class and worldwide U.S. militarism ... In fact, I'm having a damned hard time thinking of any piece of Federal legislation which I deemed to be good policy ...

Both of these parties suck, and anyone that supports them is wasting their vote.

"I'm sure you realize that your "real choice" is just racist bullshit ..."

"American Third Position Party ... defines its principal mission as representing the political interests of White Americans."

OMG! RACISM!!!!!! :-0

We have the NAACP which represents the interests of African Americans. The National Council of La Raza (The Race) represents the interests of Hispanic Americans. You can find a thousand other organizations large and small specifically representing other races and ethnicities. We call all of those groups "Civil Rights Organizations" however.

Why is it only "racism" when someone thinks that White people should have equal rights and an equal opportunity to organize for their collective best interests?

>>Banks create money out of thin air through the magic of fractional reserve banking.

>Without which we could never have enjoyed economic growth and prosperity...

Rubbish! Fractional reserve banking is nothing more than legally sanctioned fraud. We could easily achieve the same or more economic growth and prosperity in a system where the function of money creation was taken away from the goldsmiths and modern day banking cartel. The wealth and prosperity thus created would also be much more widespread across the population and not concentrated in the hands of a few elite banking institutions.

It's not too late however. I think more and more people are waking up to the scam of the Federal Reserve System and fractional reserve banking.
 

"The reason people hated it was because people who like physics based sci-fi are not comfortable with meta-physics and fantasy sci-fi..."

The idea of an ultra-sophisticated system able to enslave the human race that can only be defeated by virtual-reality karate fighting was what did it for me.

"...as the law of the land sits now, these leaks are illegal. Doesn't the government have a responsibility to investigate?"

They have the power to investigate the person or people who leaked the documents. e.g. Mr. Manning.

What are they investigating by going after the Twitter accounts of wikileaks supporters? AFAIK, Neither Julian Assange nor anyone invovled with Wikileaks has been charged with a crime related to publication of these documents. IANAL, but from what I've read, it will be difficult or impossible for the U.S. government to go forward with a criminal prosecution against Assange or Wikileaks. Pesky First Amendment, and legal precedents set in the Pentagon papers incident.

At least the government is attempting to do this legally, through the court system. What I find disturbing however is this whole tactic of demanding information about individuals, and then attempting to enforce a gag order against the person/business from whence the information is being sought. I think that's one of the first things Twitter was challenging.

"magical monolith"?

Was it magic or simply advanced technology? Today's common electronic gadgets would have seemed like magic only a few hundred years ago.

Also, the monolith didn't tamper with DNA, it just taught the apes how to use the tools already at their disposal.

There's deliberate ambiguity with the Bowman transformation, but I think the only conceptual leap necessary to accept it is to conceive of consciousness transcending flesh and blood. I don't find that idea completely "magical". For the film, it was obviously necessary to use some sort of visual device for conveying the idea to the audience. I think the space embryo was just a metaphor signifying that Bowman died as a human being and had been "re-born".

I guess it depends on your definition of "realism".

I think the film is awesome for a number of reasons. What I like best is the fact that it touches on several enormous philosophical concepts in a very subtle manner which leaves judgment and interpretation largely up to the observer.

-2001 fanboy

The government at all levels is working to establish a massive database of people engaged in activities deemed "suspicious" by local law enforcement or even their fellow citizens. People who are not criminals, not engaging in any ILLEGAL activities, and aren't even suspected of any criminal wrongdoing.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/20/surveillance/index.html
(contains link to: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/monitoring-america)

Seems like the government has developed this idea that "protecting the United States" translates into "protecting the GOVERNMENT of the United States"(i.e. from the people). With the people now seen as an enemy from which the government needs to protect itself, any recording of government operations, employees or facilities is interpreted as a threat. Investigative journalism is now seen as "espionage". Likewise, anyone that criticizes government policy or advocates smaller, less powerful government instantly becomes a "terrorist", regardless of whether they are engaged in any sort of criminal activities. After all, if you want to shrink the government or scale back its powers in any way, you are, in a very warped way, an "enemy of the state".

offtopic

"I don't get it. If congress can't set a federal drinking age how can they outlaw drugs?"

I'd argue that federal drug laws are blatantly un-Constitutional, but if you ask the feds what gives them the power to do something blatantly un-Constitutional, the answer will always be one of:

> Interstate Commerce
> The General Welfare
> National Security

The Supreme Court struck down the California medical marijuana law in the case of "Raich v. Gonzales" on the ridiculous grounds of "Interstate Commerce". They make this argument even if the marijuana is GROWN, SOLD and USED within state boundaries. Unfortunately, there's a precedent in "Wickard v. Filburn" (another travesty of justice). This is WEAK, but the government's claim in the Raich case was that marijuana grown in CA was indistinguishable from that grown elsewhere, so interstate commerce came into play.

The states are pushing back however. Check out the "Montana Firearms Freedom Act" and the similar law in TN. Those state laws assert that firearms manufactured, sold and used within the state are not subject to federal firearms laws. To get around the Raich argument, the weapons are going to have "Made in Montana" engraved in the receiver. It will be interesting to see how the feds handle that one.

You don't need Wikileaks or /. comments to see obvious evidence of fraud, corruption and criminal activity by BofA and all of the other big banks.

Municipal bond bid-rigging

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-24/bankers-rigging-municipal-contract-bids-admit-to-lying-to-cover-up-tracks.html

Failing to transfer mortgage notes into MBS trusts . . . but not keeping them on the balance sheets either? Hmmmmm.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2010/11/countrywide-routinely-failed-to-send-key-docs-to-mbs-trustees.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EconomistsView+(Economist's+View+(EconomistsView))
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/bofa-drags-balance-sheet-confidence-backward-commentary-by-jonathan-weil.html

These are great because a senior BofA executive testified under oath that BofA routinely never trasnferred mortgage notes to the mortgage trusts when they were sold as "Mortgage Backed Securities" i.e. they were really "Nothing Backed Securities"

Now, the funny part is that BofA is Disavowing the testimony of its own executive.

http://www.bankinvestmentconsultant.com/news/bofa-mortgage-2670073-1.html?zkPrintable=1&nopagination=1

If you need any further evidence of fradu and corruption, "4closurefraud.com" also has a mountain of dirt and evidence of fraud, forgery and corruption bu BofA and the other the big banks.

Anyone still doing business with these scumbags is either completely apathetic to the idea of "voting with your dollars" as a form of social activism, or just a fool.

Guilty as charged. *&^$#%!!!

sed "s/threshold/line"/g
sed "s/paradigm/reality"/g

Better?

"buzzword bingo"? LOL