The site owners clearly stated Ron Paul didn't even attempt to negotiate before filing his greivance, completely bypassing a free market solution he always favors over government intervention. In every one of his speeches he always bashes every function of government and only relents to the necessity of government in vague terms when pressed. As a congressman he participated in pork barrel spending for his district and his response was basically "when in Rome...". Appearantly he has no issue wielding the force of law on an unethical basis when it furthers his own personal interest. He is a hypocrite.

Even with Internet streaming A list content choices are fewer than with a cable subscription. Hopefully the box will support DTCP-IP. SiliconDust started to support DLNA earlier this year for the HDHomerun prime which means you can finally have CableCard->HDHomeRun-> IP-> TV on any DLNA supported device in the home like a Samsung smart TV and smart phone. Even premium content can be played on DTCP-IP enabled devices like the PS3 which means the windows media server monopoly for premium content has been ended. This summer SiliconDust is going to release the HDHR4-US with h264 encoding which means lower bandwith streaming and more device support. The only downside is the lack of TV guide support altough most HTPC software already has TV guide support via the Internet.

Also during his presentation Vint Cert raved about the taste of his company's dog food.

Yeah, with all the free trade agreements in place purchasing outside the US will be even more appealing. Why buy a chinese made monitor from a US retailer when one can buy the same one for less including shipping and without taxes from a korean retailer off the internet.

Interesting that Congress is focusing on tax loop holes that individuals take advantage of while leaving in place loop holes that allow corporations to hide hundreds of billions of dollars in tax havens. Equally interesting is that all these states that are groveling for additional revenue grant egregious tax breaks to said corporations in the hopes of luring their facilities for fleeting benefit until the inevitable better deal comes along. Who does Congress represent again?

The Constitution is pretty clear that "unreasonable searches" cannot be performed "without probable cause". We can deduce the government is intercepting every electronic communication through various leaks and investigations. I think any average American would agree that these searches are unreasonable and lack probable cause. Certainly there would have been no American independence if King George had this technology.

As for personal harm, the mere knowledge that the government is monitoring everyone's communications creates a chilling effect on the free flow of knowledge and ideas. Does anyone really want to associate themselves with political movements like Occupy Wall Street, even if they identify with their values, when they know the government is actively infiltrating and monitoring them? Has know one suffered mental anguish over expresing an opinion that may put them on a political watch list?

These so-called conservative judges, who are protecting the use of these tools of tyranny that Stalin and Hitler would have salivated over, will be remembered in history for their inaction to combat totalitarianism is America.

On September 10th, 2001 Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced the pentagon could not track 2.3 trillion dollars. To this day, the Pentagon cannot be accurately audited For an institution with organization and discipline as its creed this is laughable. If Congress mandated that they would not receive one penny in funding until they got their house in order this problem would be solved overnight. Unfortunately the power of fear, obstinate Militarism, and the federal reserve corporations ability to manufacture unlimited debt provides no impetus for Congress to take the necessary corrective action.

There is precedence for this, it happened before with the Sun OpenDS and the Sun/Oracle Hudson Open Source projects. When the contest of ownership comes down to project developers and corporate lawyers the lawyers usually win the legal battle but the developers win the community battle due to forking.

This isn't illegal when the government does it in mass.

If it is its own distro maybe valve could get official cablecard support. There are no linux cablecard apps for secure content and microsoft is dumping windows media center. I would love to have a better alternative to renting a five year old dvr for 20 dollars a month.

Promotion is about the rate of change, not change itself. Obviously since the Renaissance the arts and sciences have improved over time, with and without patents. The conversation now is about how patents fit into the world as it is now. America has all but abandoned tariffs, a taxation cornerstone of governments for thousands of years, in favor of global free trade. If America can jettison one form of commerce restriction why not another?

China has lax patent enforcement as it is and with America in trillions of dollars of debt to them I seriously doubt they will care much in violating US patent law if it furthers their interests. Foxconn is already planning on replacing most of its human workforce with robots. If they can make an iPhone with robots they can make a toaster. As I alluded to earlier the velocity of technology is a barrier enough to competitions making the need for patents obsolete.

Patents have always been a contract between innovators and society to promote the progress of the arts and sciences, emphasis on progress. I personally agree with the St. Louis Fed that the times have changed and patents have become more of a hindrance than an incentive for progress. Back when America first established the patent system as a part of its experimental government the economy was almost totally based on agriculture. Scientific progress was difficult as there was only a small minority of the population who had access to higher education, scientists worked in practical isolation due to communications delays and access to publications, and they also had restricted access to raw materials needed for experimentation. Contrast that with today where we live in the information age and a global economy consisting of hundreds of millions of scientist and engineers who have the entire world's knowledge at their fingertips. In the near future 3D printing technologies will change the course of manufacturing and may allow anyone to manifest pre-rendered designs into the corporeal world. With this true paradigm shift in scientific development and manufacturing can it be said with certainty that government granted and enforced monopoly on ideas that by all accounts are arbitrarily defined promote progress instead of stifle it?

Let's also not forget about the chilling effect patents have on scientific research. A notable example of this is breast cancer research where a company patented the key genes related to breast cancer causing other researches to become concerned with legal liability.

I also disagree that without patents there will be no innovation. As Plato wrote two thousand years ago, necessity is the mother of all invention. Innovation brings competitive advantage and that will always be rewarded by the markets.

One may argue that patents are still needed for investment intensive research like drug manufacturing. However, today most pharmaceutical companies spend only a small percentage of their budget on R&D. If patents were abolished then an alternative means to fund expensive research would be to bolster the existing public research grants that already fund research in areas that promote aggregate societal benefit or fund X-Prize type contests.

I disagree, I think personal income records should be public record if we all truly believe in the "Free Market" and allowing competition to chase profit.

What if the doctor lies about their performance? Or like was popular in the 80's TV news shows moves from state to state setting up news businesses but performing the same malpractice? Any attempt by the government to require publishing accountable performance metrics is always met with "undo government regulation" by libertarians and conservatives.. Checks and balances are fundamental to a market and to say the government has no place in them defies the result of the past 200 years.