Its called a dogmatic National Interest. Welcom to international super power politics and self interest. Its how we all feel indignantly justified in our ethnocentric human nature. If the media is from a "foreign" undesirable culture then please feel free to steal it since we won't let you buy it, and you are a criminal anyway. But the legitimate stuff that they sell, first and foremost. America just can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact that China, the most populous nation by far, is not a democracy. If it we're, they'd out vote us every time. Which is exactly how they handle us anyway. Its like trying to push a sleepy grumpy Yak up a mountain with a twig. Moooooo.

....Its whatever Steve Jobs Says. Anytime. Autocrats and Deities make it easy for the plebes.

Its true the flights are delayed. That's as much of the truth we get from this complex system of terribly overworked government and airline employees, national security, information systems, politics, FAA, corporate scum, secret clearance computer firms with bizarre contracts, and the 24/7 news spew with commercial airline as clients. They start by overbooking flights, while trying to account for each seat for security, and the bean counters, vips, and bad weather. To top it off information systems have to share some data, but not other data, while the people working have to comply with all sorts of rigid protocols and odd project management that controls everything except their overtime. I dunno, I have no reason to believe that any news we get about this type of event is necessarily true. It doesn't need to be. Its just the spin that reporters have to make in the absence of any real statement for the record. If they told you the truth you'd stop giving them your money. God forbid airlines make customers a top priority. Ha! Even if they were telling the truth, it would be a fluke, but just as vague and pointless. OK. We know the truth. Its aliens from Orion preparing for 2012. And they work for Delta.

True enough. DNA in this analysis could be interpreted less as fate and more as natal astrology. So long as the stars and the amino acid sequences don't dictate fate or lull folks into a false sense of security. Perhaps for a real good time there might be daredevils who only date those most incompatible...sort of a Taming of the Shrew, when Harry Met Sally, or The Bride of Frankenstein kinda lighting love. What's my sign meets e-harmony, meets prenuptial, paternity, and std testing, all rolled up in Yentl. I guess if we pay for the service, but not for the escort, its all legitimate and potential romance. "People people who need people....."

... the science may progress, but the sociology remains cyclical.

Jeeez, it took long enough to come up with a practical alternative to hieroglyphics carved in stone. So far, that was the best technology for millennial storage. I just want to be certain that I get that 1000 year warranty, in case its just a bunch of empty promises. I don't want to be disappointed 800 years down the road.

...but they all look alike and they're not very good at city driving.

True enough. Meanwhile, here in my County, a few of the local Mayors had a press conference to complain that municipalities were the ones being raped and pillaged, unjustly, by the State, and in precisely the same fashion. I guess that just "shows to go ya" that shit rolls downhill.

As for me, from where I sit, my extended unemployment benefits are cynically referred to as the "landlord stimulus program". Its paid so that home owners can pay their property tax.

Its all just musical dollars going round and round and any minute now the music is gonna stop again.

...not so long ago we called it Pimping, Prostitution and Pandering. Its that familiar stench of a french whore house and television network. Venereal "infectious" media and other social networking diseases are spreading like swine flu over every exploitable piece of social media channeled to the consumerist public. Social Networking today replaces the "soap opera" of the last generation. Only now, we're not just watching the soap while folding laundry - instead we are the soap opera, on Facebook. Now, while we're at work, we can't watch "The Hung and The Breastless" but we can kill a fifteen minute break on Myspace - and bingo! that's where they get busy with that ad budget. But the advertising is over the top on tv with hours of infomercials on half of the pay cable and satellite channels we pay to view. And the internet and social networking are going to get even worse than that. The fact is that squeezing the consumer wallet with annoying ads and phishing scams and products like enzyte is the only "monetizing" opportunity in this mass media slut fest. The fatal flaw is that "they" are diluting the effectiveness of advertising because there is too much of it, and we all resent it. And we're broke. Identity theft is the only career opportunity that's left for RONCO and Chia Pet moguls, because nobody is buying their crap. They can data mine us to death, it won't matter if we are all jobless because this is our only revenue stream. Can't we pay people to actually do something besides "slice and dice" the public in nice bite sized nuggets? Would you like the honey or mustard dipping sauce with your culture today?

Let's not waste perfectly good beer and random pills! Possession of foamy beer barf is a drug no matter how many chunks of pizza topping are in it. Also, we can't overlook phlegm. A good lugie from a stoner can have lots of special flavor crystals. Yummy. Munchies and puke and phlegm: three strike law.

I don't belong the segment of the populace that really cares about this stuff ... but I can hear what you're saying so yeah, I guess this news sucks for people like you.

The term "automation" can be vague. It can mean stuff happens without human intervention or it can mean stuff happens under my control without me leaving the couch. I have a mix of DIY stuff centered around these building blocks: - Homeseer - Elk home security system - Z-Wave light switches (Leviton) - Aprilaire Thermostats -Panasonic IP Cameras -Logitech Squeezeboxes - Denon AV receiver with built-in web server - Universal brand IR/RF remotes Homeseer does the programmatic stuff and talks to the Elk, light switches and thermostats. The Elk has many, many motion sensors wired into it so I throw in a bunch of rules at Homeseer around motion control of lights. The IP cameras are super baby monitors for the nursery and common areas, and cover entrances. Zoneminder (running on an old box with Ubuntu server) is an open source DVR for the cameras. The AV chores are handled by the Denon receiver and the Universal remotes. The Receiver, cable boxes and squeezebox are in the basement and an RFtoIR blaster delivers the remote commands. The key thing to note about all this is that it is not all tied together with a unified interface on a touch panel, or suchlike. The interfaces for AV, security cameras and lighting/climate are separate. BUT, virtually all of it is IP-based. No legacy X-10 stuff or proprietary wiring. This means everything has a web interface because all of the hardware ganglia :) have web servers built in. So rather than get up from the kitchen table to change from radioIO to Radio Paradise, we can do it from our iPhones. The wife isn't 100% fluent in all this geekery but she can get to the Tivo stuff, and listen to music, and bring up the nursery cams on the netbook, so she's pretty happy.

You give the system too much credit: You assume they're organized enough to even know what their own interests are, let alone not stomping their own dicks in the stampede to get it. The government is a disorganized blob of conflicting interests, groups, organizations, and often counter-productive and poorly organized in whatever endeavor it undertakes.

You should be thankful you don't get all the government you pay for.

The thing is the longer you wait between release of a peice of entertainment media and watching it the more chance someone will reveal the ending to you which kinda spoils the suspense. This is especially true if the peice of entertainment is popular among those you interact with (and barely true at all if noone you interact with cares about it).