Perhaps the best way to deal with the Taliban for the next several years is to deny Afghanistan access to all modern technology. No transport, medical, communication, industrial, agricultural, textile, (especially) military - absolutely nothing. We could start by taking out what little electricity they already have so in about a week most cellphones and computers will become useless. I realize that this may sound cruel but in the long run it may be what is needed to drive the Taliban out once and for all.

Why would anyone consider a crop "dangerous" simply because it may have had some gene spliced or DNA sequence slightly altered? After ingesting food doesn't the body break the food down anyway then build its own proteins as it sees fit?

...and creation of a police state was never necessary prior to today.

Since when was this ever necessary?

How long will it be before some "terrorist" figures this out that this is possible and uses it for more nefarious purposes? Before it was cellphones being used to trigger IED, next it will be flying IEDs on "toys". I can't wait to see the news on Fox.

Even if it were punishable (which is probably already is) there would be little or no effect as most people negatively affected by such behavior do not have the resources to sue in court as the large media corporations do. This is just another tool to be used along with SLAPP lawsuits.

The whole thing is designed so that people must have debt in order to beg the banks for more debt. It's absolutely crazy

I have noticed this myself. Now that I have almost completely paid off my credit cards and am actually starting to save money saved my credit score has actually gotten worse. Just thinking about it gives me a headache.

Now, about the real problem. Why is everybody so concerned about their credit worthness?
You must be from Europe. Over the past 20 years in the USA (and I think Canada) a person's credit worthiness is everything. Both positive as well as negative information is reported and not having a decent credit score can negatively impact your quality of life. It is not at all uncommon for potential employers to investigate prospective employees' credit scores. As an American I find these increasingly intrusive trends in the US quite disturbing as it all seems to somehow fall under employers' rights to "free speech" as everything seems to be a "public record" these days. What the US needs are EU style data protection laws.

Hasn't this judge ever heard of the Streisand Effect? By requiring this guy to delete his blog the judge probably made the woman's problems even worse. When will the legal establishment ever learn?

There is a lot to criticize in life, but this study is not one.

Although most Slashdotters do not. Most "normal" users out there do however require as much handholding as they can get and it's a major selling point for commercial OS manufacturers. (They call it "user friendliness") I also switched the interface to "classic" (or whatever it's called) on my windows 7 installation which I hardly ever boot anyway.

The correct way to protest is to make a 'no vote'. This is where you tick all the boxes, or none of them, or you write a message voicing your dissatisfaction on the ballot, or smear faeces or stick chewing gum on the ballot, or you vote for a joke candidate.
Unfortunately this is at best not a very effective and at worst counter-productive in the US given our winner-takes-all voting system which results in a zero-sum-game. We saw this happen in the 2004 where any vote for Ralph Nader was effectively a vote for George W. Bush. Kerry probably would have won the election had Nader not been on the ballet.

Yeah, how dare the TSA overstep its bounds! Only real cops should be the ones allowed to routinely sexually assault and humiliate their victims.

While there may appear to be justifiable reasons to implement this now, the long term unintended consequences may be devastating.

Anyone who uses their own employer's email system to carry out conspiracy and fraud deserves to get caught.

"I assume it's part of the Patriot Act and I really don't mind,"
I guess it's ok since it's only just part of the Patriot Act.