All of the Chrome and none of the Google... gotta love it.

And the matching arrows, too?

So, essentially, the NSA is an industrial espionage agency and any government helping them is too dumb to notice it.

Yeah, but then again, they lost a war. With the victors sitting as judges.

And while I think the NSA would do similar with the people being the judges, it's unlikely they will face the same kind of trial by their current masters. Or do you think Hitler would have convicted his cronies at Nuremberg?

You really want unemployment rates to soar?

Essentially, a lot of those "public workers" are nothing but hidden unemployed.

I'd see that as a job perk.

Also in the news, Nixon was channeled by a medium. Allegedly he claimed his only crime was that he was ahead of his time.

Maybe I can fill that question.

It's a mix of patriotism and idealism at the start, and a mix of wanting job security and jadedness at the end. In between, there's a lot of conditioning. And I don't mean some kind of active and forceful indoctrination, but rather that subtle kind where you are constantly surrounded by the same people who give you resonating and reinforcing feedback. Groupthink isn't a phenomenon that's unique to Slashdot Doubts you might once in a while have when you're crossing your personal line between what you think is good for your country and what you may impose on your people are quickly dispelled by the people around you. Your premise is that you're doing the right thing and you want to listen to people telling you that you still do when doubts cross your mind.

So Obama not showing up and telling them "good job" is probably a quite serious blow to their self-image.

Brew up some well known explosives, touch them off and tell me that stuff that's well understood can't be fun if done yourself.

Dangerous? Hell yeah. So? As long as you can make sure that you're alone should you blow up, more power to you and have fun!

Africa looks more and more appealing...

No, seriously. If people have real problems, they don't concern themselves with non-problems.

From the European's perspective it's more a right leaning industry protecting government, but since either side would fuck us over, who cares which branch of The Party is in charge currently?

One side doesn't want you to know because with the knowledge you could possibly create something that endangers lives, the other side doesn't want you to know because with the knowledge you could possibly create something that endangers profits.

The high school one from the 1950s, no doubt about that. It also has the much more interesting experiments. Problem is just that you can't get 9 out of 10 chemicals you need anymore due to "safety concerns" and trying to get the tenth puts you on a no-fly list and grants you a personal visit from guys that come at 6am.

My point is that with every translation a change of meaning becomes a possibility. A translation is by its very definition entail an interpretation of the text, which invariably will lead to a change of pace and meaning, at the very least the emphasis changes. It's a bit like playing telephone. You can actually try it yourself provided you find a few friends who happen to speak a few different languages, let the first one draft a short text and have the others translate it. Now add the temporal difference between the original draft in Hebrew and the KJB which is literally millennia and you're dealing not only with different languages but different interpreters that have a very different world view and mindset, a completely different background and probably their own agenda in mind, too.

You want to rely on such a translation of a translation of a translation to be the verbatim word of God? After at the very least three humans had meddled with it (provided the original author had some divine inspiration), in three very different time periods with a very different outlook on the world?

I love our subway system. It takes you from one corner of the city to another without giving you even the foggiest idea how you got there. For all I know, I could be on a different planet and wouldn't know for sure. But then again, I'm not in it for the ride, I'm in it to get where I have to go.

While we're at it, I'm also pretty sure that most tourists know more about the monuments of various towns than the inhabitants. I'm pretty sure there have been more Japanese in Notre Dame in Paris than Frenchmen.

1789 called. They wanted to show you, and 1917 is coming with them.