No idea, but Dotcom, as far as I am aware, is not planning on suing the NZ government; he is actually (at least according to the summary) planning on suing the US government to fund his venture. The poster I was replying to was suggesting that we should not be happy with anyone suing the US government as the money ultimately comes out of the US taxpayers wallet. My point was simply that $400 million, while a lot of money, is a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of the war in Afghanistan ($582 billion according to google) and should not be used as an excuse to deny Dotcom justice.

Out of interest, I was under the impression that it is correct English to use 'do' in this context, e.g. "they do, in fact, offer a telephone service...". Perhaps this is something only the English do, or perhaps it is just widely used poor grammar?

I'm sorry, my message was not clear. The service is only dial-out I believe - I use it to connect to the two-hour conference calls at work when I am not in the office, rather than racking up huge cell-phone bills. I think it may be called called Google Voice but I just use it through gmail's web UI (the little phone icon in the contact list on the left). If they do listen in on my calls I expect they have a few suicidally bored employees by now.

The hope of not being dragged into another war in the Middle-East?

Amusingly google do offer a telephone service on which it is free to call any US number - I use this all the time for conference calls.

So all those people in the Free Open Source movement are what exactly?

Is this seriously an issue? The amount of money he is going for is probably less than the cost of one fucking port-a-potty in Afghanistan.

Don't the Yanks love spending their tax dollars on providing 'freedom' (^TM) to people in other countries? Looking at Australia's recent track record its looks like its right about time for a good ole' intervention!

In the UK a 'tariff' in this context means what you guys would call a 'plan'. From Wikipedia: The word comes from the Italian word tariffa "list of prices, book of rates," which is derived from the Arabic ta'rif "to notify or announce."

*Are* there any other countries than the US that guarantee free speech? Other countries always seem to have extra qualifications.

I disagree. For me, as a postdoctoral researcher, the literature review that comprised the first 100-odd pages of my thesis was one of the most useful thing I got out of my PhD in the long-term. When else do you get the time to really sit down and work everything through and put it down clearly and concisely in your own words? I find myself referring back to my thesis pretty much every day to remind myself of things that are still relevant to my research. On the other hand, the original research I did for my PhD I could probably do over from scratch in about a week these days, and was detailed in sufficient depth in our several papers to make my thesis superfluous.

It does seem to be that way in the US, but it wasn't a few years ago when I was doing my PhD in theoretical physics in the UK. I knew noone who worked anywhere approaching those hours. Yeah, some days you might do 10 hours to get something finished for a meeting or conference, but that's par for the course for any job really. I am currently doing a postdoc at an Ivy League college in the US, and the grad students here do seem to work longer hours; perhaps that is something to do with the US grad student culture.

They shut down websites because they go against the values of their leaders, we also shut down websites because they go against the values of our leaders, only in our case those values are measured in US dollars and the driving motivation is not a (perhaps misplaced) belief in a higher power but instead pure, unadulterated greed.

I am a Brit and I support this statement. I fully intend to write to my MP, although I expect nothing but the usual pat response (yay, democracy).

I had the fortune not to have read the book before watching the movie. I later tried to read the book but found it too slow for my liking (I may appreciate it more now that I am older). I had a similar experience with Dune; I saw the film before reading the book so I did not have any preconceptions. Of course the book is far far better but I do not hate the film, even though it strays from the book in so many respects. Learning from these experiences I have tried wherever possible to watch the film before reading the books (Watchmen, Hunger Games), and if a film/television adaptation of my favourite books appears later I pretend it does not exist until I have heard a suitable amount of praise that I am able to approach it with an open mind (e.g. Game of Thrones).

I don't see this as a bad thing, its what we have in Britain and it works very well for us. I believe Obama's ultimate goal is universal healthcare, so perhaps the consequences of a low penalty for businesses not providing healthcare is intentional as you suggest.