The preciousness of those materials is in its rarity. If the amount of gold on earth suddenly triples, it'll presumably affect its value. Well, unless we make some arbitrary distinction like the one that attaches different value to artificial vs natural diamond, which everybody accepts for romantic reasons (and to keep De Beers filthy rich).

I'm not sure they wouldn't challenge this. While it may only apply to companies in its jurisdiction, what gives US congress the authority to decide about ownership of stuff in space?

I was wondering about that... Doesn't this kind of prove that this latest offensive against privacy is not aimed at individual investigations, for which cases as you point out they have long had options? So this is about mass-surveillance.

Bad form to reply to self, but I forgot to quote the question I was referring to:

Oh dear. An obvious question, but not one we're supposed to ask out loud. Next thing you know someone might get to wondering what it is, exactly, that Elsevier et.al. are adding here, in terms of actual value.

Sorry, I hit submit by accident... Meant to add that, given what happened to Chelsey Manning, the prospect of being locked up on US soil rather than Guantanamo is hardly reassuring.

You say "illegal combatants" as if it is an old, established concept in martial history -- as opposed to a fairly transparent sleight of hand to get away with gross violations of the GC. Same reason it is on Cuba, not in the US. Pesky laws and regulations.

So anything short of that is acceptable?

You make it sound like there is a light side.

Except that it did. Victoria Nuland admitted to $5B :
http://youtu.be/U2fYcHLouXY

There was regime change without elections. You and I might consider this "just", given that the previous bunch were pretty corrupt, but it certainly wasn't "constitutional".

That's right, and I don't think anonymous GP was arguing they do. But they do accept or deny membership bids, and accepting Poland and various other former East Bloc nations was a violation of the promises made when the cold war ended.

Just thought I'd mention Ralph Merkle, the guy gets nowhere near fair credit for having co-invented public key cryptography. In fact, Hellman argues we should talk about Diffie-Hellman-Merkle key exchange.

And there were some guys at GCHQ who independently did pretty much the same. But I credit them less because it was all kept secret and they work for, you know, evil.

True enough. Still, I wasn't aware of any major change of heart in their part. I haven't been following them too closely, but I would expect to have heard about something that significant. Would love to be wrong, actually.

Oh wait, I just read it again and guess I misunderstood the first time.. This browser written in HTML/CSS/JS is the sample, demonstrating the awesomeness this EdgeHTML engine.

Anyway, I'm not going to be able to check it out due to my Unamerican OS.

So fork it. It's open source. Or is it? The title suggests it is but TFS mentions "sample code" on GH. Which is it?

Also I thought open source was Unamerican according to MS?

Wait, are you suggesting the Confederate flag be repurposed as a symbol for freedom-loving people? I mean that in the true sense of the word, which implies opposing these secret spy programs, not the security theater perversion.

Yeah, somehow I don't think that will fly.

Looks like U.S. Now rank #46 out of 180... source.