By having these drug laws, we provide incentive for criminals to circumvent them. It's no surprise that these drug rings have used more sophisticated methods to smuggle their products into the U.S. The more we ramp up "protecting" our population from drugs, the more drug lords ramp up their methods of importing drugs. Now that these methods exist, there's no reason why terrorists can't use it to piggyback dangerous devices. In summary, add another "+1" to the long list of negatives stemming from our War on Drugs.

FTA: "ITC Judge Paul Luckern on Jan. 24 agreed with the companies on both issues." The first judge was a judge on the ITC. Essentially we have a judge reviewing his own court's decision. It's not like the ITC is trying to reverse a federal Court of Appeals or something along those lines.

Honestly I've never even heard of the Slingbox before. But it looks really cool. I might have to pick one up, thanks.

It seems like it would be difficult to determine whether a Chinese company is using pirated software, unless there is some term in the software's EULA which requires all corporate entities to register their products (which there very well could be). But even with that potential exception, it can't be assumed that the company is using a Microsoft product - there are a ton of various (some free) spreadsheet editors that the foreign company could be using. Furthermore, a Chinese company is outside of the US's jurisdiction and won't be subject to discovery proceedings and we can't subpoena any witnesses from the company itself. While I definitely think this law is a good thing - and that we shouldn't allow foreign companies to unfairly cut costs by stealing software - the practical implications of this law don't seem as massive as initially presumed.

When a school is hiring, it has a duty to hire the teachers most capable of informing students. The teachers aren't necessarily being "discriminated" against because of their views; rather, their capacity to teach modern scientific theory may be in question. There's a difference. If one teacher focuses all of his research energies towards proving intelligent design, why wouldn't that shed at least some minimal light on whether or not the teacher is capable of teaching current views (especially in conjunction with other factors)? I'm not saying it should be dispositive - the teacher's other qualifications should certainly be examined as well - I just don't see a reason why it shouldn't be a factor.

That's one of the many problems with Slashdot. This guy accurately describes the law, yet people mod down as if he was writing a personal endorsement. It's uninformative because you don't agree with the state of reality he's describing?

The summary says that "the fuel could combust." I'm not a nuclear engineer, but is this statement accurate? The article made it seem as though the fuel would reach very high temperatures, and things AROUND it would catch fire (and then carry the radioactive materials in the smoke). It didn't sound as though the fuel itself was going to combust, just that it would melt.

The words 'democracy' and 'democrat' and nearly identical. On the other hand, only 1/2 of the words in "Constitutional Republic" are nearly-identical to a political party. 1/2 1. Argument settled.

Two questions. 1) Which statements do you dispute? 2) How does the chart you linked dispute those statements? You basically said, "Of your ten statements, every single one is wrong. Here's a bar graph." Annnnndddd?

Classic fear mongering. The car always had a driver in it (with override capabilities) while on public roads.

I wish I had more mod points. This post is a great description of why Apple hardly has a trademark and is instead using a generic identifier, whereas "Windows" is a peculiar term that characterizes the software in a non-obvious manner.

*Maybe now I'll be able to kill people in Counter-Strike.

First Person Shooter games just got much, much easier. Maybe now I'll be able to k