It amazes me that so many allegedly "educated" people have fallen so quickly and so hard for a fraudulent fabrication of such laughable proportions. The very idea that a gigantic ball of rock happens to orbit our planet, showing itself in neat, four-week cycles -- with the same side facing us all the time -- is ludicrous. Furthermore, it is an insult to common sense and a damnable affront to intellectual honesty and integrity. That people actually believe it is evidence that the liberals have wrested the last vestiges of control of our public school system from decent, God-fearing Americans (as if any further evidence was needed! Daddy's Roommate? God Almighty!)

Documentaries such as Enemy of the State have accurately portrayed the elaborate, byzantine network of surveillance satellites that the liberals have sent into space to spy on law-abiding Americans. Equipped with technology developed by Handgun Control, Inc., these satellites have the ability to detect firearms from hundreds of kilometers up. That's right, neighbors .. the next time you're out in the backyard exercising your Second Amendment rights, the liberals will see it! These satellites are sensitive enough to tell the difference between a Colt .45 and a .38 Special! And when they detect you with a firearm, their computers cross-reference the address to figure out your name, and then an enormous database housed at Berkeley is updated with information about you.

Of course, this all works fine during the day, but what about at night? Even the liberals can't control the rotation of the Earth to prevent nightfall from setting in (only Joshua was able to ask for that particular favor!) That's where the "moon" comes in. Powered by nuclear reactors, the "moon" is nothing more than an enormous balloon, emitting trillions of candlepower of gun-revealing light. Piloted by key members of the liberal community, the "moon" is strategically moved across the country, pointing out those who dare to make use of their God-given rights at night!

Yes, I know this probably sounds paranoid and preposterous, but consider this. Despite what the revisionist historians tell you, there is no mention of the "moon" anywhere in literature or historical documents -- anywhere -- before 1950. That is when it was initially launched. When President Josef Kennedy, at the State of the Union address, proclaimed "We choose to go to the moon", he may as well have said "We choose to go to the weather balloon." The subsequent faking of a "moon" landing on national TV was the first step in a long history of the erosion of our constitutional rights by leftists in this country. No longer can we hide from our government when the sun goes down.

* - I take no credit nor blame for this post.

Wow, you Apple fanatics sure know how to circle the wagons!

The "But every other tech company does it!" defense doesn't resonate particularly well coming from a company whose corporate slogan tells us to "Think different".

If Apple doesn't want to be relegated to "just another tech gadget company" status, perhaps they should seize this opportunity to take the lead in reforming the tech manufacturing industry.

"They don't want the content of every packet.. they want to tie the endpoint IP's and timestamps... to a person...."

In the case of web traffic, if they have the endpoints, they have the contents.

Perhaps you should read the post I replied to for context.

I would argue that the Interstate Commerce clause doesn't give the federal government the authority to monitor private communications either. Statists are entitled to their opinions, I suppose.

You might also want to consider the amount of technological progress that has taken place over the last 100 years and compare it to the last 100,000 years.

I'm not saying the system is perfect, or even that its current manifestation serves the public particularly well. But you can't simply disregard the entire concept of Intellectual Property and pretend that it hasn't encouraged (and rewarded) innovation.

I'm not one of the "deniers" (and I HATE the connotations that comes with that word) but your arguments might resonate a little better if you cited more than a single, very biased source throughout this thread.

Fair enough. And it looks like you took enough abuse that ya didn't need me piling on :)

I don't think you really do "get" it. What happens when someone in authority decides you're a "jackass" (your word, not mine) by some completely subjective and arbitrary measure and uses that as a basis for repressing your point of view?

You'll find there are plenty of self-described "liberals" in Congress who support these bills.

Odd, I'm not sure why those last 2 comments posted AC. Feel free to continue the discussion. For the record, I believe that ACC is happening, but I wish the rhetoric dominating the discussion wasn't so visceral.

Proponents of bills like this are particularly dangerous because they can express their support in single-line sound-bytes that the less-initiated can easily digest (think PATRIOT Act).

What we need to do is simplify the explanation of why this is so bad, in the most specific terms possible. Joe Sixpack doesn't understand (or care) that SOPA/PIPA = censorship and restriction of free speech; for him, those are little more than abstract concepts. Joe Sixpack needs to understand how this can and will directly affect him, even if we find some of those things trivial.

My completely subjective measure of whether or not someone is worth discussing anthropogenic climate change with is whether they use the term "skeptic" to describe people who aren't sold on the theory, or "denier". Anyone who uses the latter is trying to draw a parallel between taking the "wrong" side of the issue and systematic genocide.

I think 6 million Jews deserve better than being used as a rhetorical bludgeon to demonize one's political opponents as a substitute for thoughtful debate

I can't imagine having to (often remotely) support 700+ PCs without having local admin rights via ACL, but then my experience on Unix-based systems (outside my Ubuntu/Mint desktop at home) is admittedly limited.

"1) While most users do not need admin access and by default Vista and 7 do not give it to you, I still see people assigning admin rights to themselves and deactivating UAC as a prerequisite to using the computer, which puts the lie to your top two paragraphs."

That's an issue of users trading security for convenience, not an inherent weakness of the OS.