Actually one of the Bush's started that, Obama is just continuing and expanding it. All of the other people I listed would have kept it too. Its probably the only tool that can attack Al Qaeda affiliates around the globe without the quagmires involved in invading countries to root them out.

I don't think drone wars are the worst thing happening right now, they are the least bad alternative to fighting Al Qaeda affiliates. The two down sides are A) killing innocent bystanders which radicalizes all their friends and family B) it can be over used to kill people who probably shouldn't be killed. Since its such an easy way to fight a war chances are everyone will be doing it soon and it things are going to get really messy. Read Suarez, Kill Decision

You think Romney or Hillary Clinton or any of the Bushes would have done anything different? Only candidates that would would try to put an end to the corruption and abuse of power in the American system these days would be Ron or Rand Paul. They will never get elected because all the powers that be fear and hate them. If, by some fluke, they did get elected by the actual American voters, inspite of the negative media bombardment aimed at them, they would be assassinated in months.

It is a correct sentence though isn't it :)

Pedants this is your chance to strike.

As far recording goes within their respective countries it sound like the NSA and China are probably on par. China is censoring much more heavily and probably acting on the traffic with a heavier hand than the NSA.

NSA almost certainly dwarfs China in recording global fiber optic traffic. First a lot of it flows through the U.S. and second the NSA has cuts deals with governments and telecoms all over the world to get more access. China is probably trying to play catch especially through Huawei, and subsidizing telecom in places like Africa, but I wager they are far behind the NSA.

Not sure why the world trusted the U.S. government, tech and telecom companies with so much, while they feared China, since the NSA's voracious appetite for information has been no secret for a long time. Maybe it was just the U.S. pioneered the Internet and it was so cool, so everyone forgot you can't trust the U.S. with your comm traffic.

Bruce Sterling had some great lines in his recent piece The Ecuadorian Library

On the role of the FISA court in controlling the NSA:

"It's like a cardboard steering wheel in the cockpit of a Predator drone"

Most people don't realize the FISA court is appointed entirely by one person, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts. Its a bizarre anomaly, a critical protector of the American Constitution completely controlled by a single person. If he or one of his successors goes bad, the Constitution can be eviscerated overnight and since its completely secret we probably wouldn't even know it.

Hogwash.

In the "Jungle" animals are pretty much born on a level playing field. Only thing you have going for you is if you are born or raised to be stronger, smarter, faster or to work harder.

It was the creation of political structures, money and inheritence that led to the massive inequality endemic in and unique to the human race. This allows clearly inferior individuals to triumph over their superiors because they "were born with it" or actually inherited their wealth and power from their ancestors or caste.

Trust fund babies would most probably die a horrible death if they were actually living in the "Jungle".

Their might be some concept of inheritence in the animal kingdom, I'm thinking among insects who are builders like ants and bees, but its just really not very common.

The CEO of Aetna was on CNBC recently. He insisted medical insurance would be a buyer's market under Obamacare. For some reason he didn't explain, it was just going to be really expensive to buy.

Yes everybody does it but the NSA has taken it to a level completely unprecedented thanks to the vast troves of information flowing through the worlds fiber optics now and the fact they have tapped nearly all of it.

The real problems start when governments start spying on its own citizens, with no limits, and with modern technology. Its now possible to spy on just about everything everyone does, email, phone, social networks, credit card purchases, what books you read, how much electricity you use, where you go and to keep that information indefinitely. Its quite possible they can use the now ubiquitous camera's and microphones we all carry all the time to listen to and watch everything targetted people are doing.

It is now possible to use this information along with machine learning to automatically spot people who have almost any kind of interest, habit, bias or political leaning. You just need to compose the right query.

When does it get really bad. When the NSA, or someone with access to the NSA firehose, starts spying on the all the politicians, journalists and judges that form the government that is supposed to oversee them. Once you have dirt on all of them you control them. Once you control them the checks and balances essential to a democracy are completely gone.

You will quickly find yourself in a totalitarian state, something the U.S. and U.K. have been rushing towards at breakneck speed since 9/11. Only thing stopping it is if the people with all this power engage in self restraint. Chances are some of the powers that be, have been and will be haven't and wont.

This isn't about being white or race in general, it's about domestic labor versus imported labor.

They could have hired British H1B workers and it would be just as illegal.

The H1B wars... begun they have...

Heh. I like my toilets more complicated than a short, narrow trough in the ground, but a large portion of those that even have flush toilets have just that...

The only existing fancy technology from a use-perspective that makes sense is the integrated bidet. The new types of technology that can make the toilet experience better have only to do with form factor. Changing the shape of the seat and the size of the opening, and changing the height of the bowl. In short, these changes would make the toilet less uncomfortable to sit on, and will allow one to get off of the toilet if one is infirm.

I don't see how using the toilet is improved by being a multimedia experience, though I suppose it would be funny if every time a solid dropped in, the toilet played the Mario Brothers' coin-collect sound...

Its pretty simple, individuals should be able to contribute to the candidates of their choice with caps. Elections should be running on small money, not big money.

If people are part of a larger organization encouraging them to contribute in a certain way that is no ones business as long as its the individual making the contribution and not the organization.

If an organization is collecting funds via dues, corporate profits or anything else and spending that money in a coordinated fashion to buy political influence it shouldn't be allowed. Nor should organizations be allowed to spend unlimited funds running ads on TV's designed to influence policy, candidates and elections.

Public funding of campaigns could fix the problem in some respects but how you decide gets funded and who doesn't and giving money to crackpots who have no popular support, and will never acquires it, isn't a good idea.

Of course the bigger issue is we need to have people running for office who don't suck and that appears to be increasingly problematic these days.

The thing you are trying to accomplish is for everyone to have a reasonably even chance of influencing the democratic process. When a tiny affluent minority, whatever their agenda, can buy disproportionate influece your democracy is, for all practical purposes, gone. This is pretty much where the U.S. sits today.

Why would the language of choice matter terribly much if the programmer has skills with the language?

Wouldn't a C++ programmer generate an applicable program effectively as quickly as a Java programmer? It's not like compiling is the time-consuming part anymore...

I have to wonder how accurate that really is.

What it comes down to is where the platform ends and the applications begin, and I don't think that Stallman or any other even-remotely-credible free software advocate would deny that there is a value in commercial applications, so long as they reduce vendor lock in.

A good analogy would be that the platform is the road, and the applications are the vehicles that can drive on it. The intent being to avoid toll roads or roads that exclude vehicles because of their brands or manufacturers.

I don't know the man though, and I admit that I well could be incorrect.

Linux the kernel is the core of both Android the operating system and GNU/Linux the operating system. If one gets pedantic, then technically Microsoft Office for Android satisfies the argument that it's supported on an OS running Linux the kernel, but when most people use "Linux", they're not referring to the kernel, but the operating system with all of its GNU and POSIX stuff.

So, this is a win in the same sense that the Spruce Goose flew.