As leader of the Executive branch, it was Bush's job to tug on the rope and wake Congress up. The problem was, Congress didn't tug back by making appropriate laws to cover handling of terrorists. Congress still hasn't made laws that apply. So now you get this circus of trying terrorists picked up on the battlefield in U.S. criminal courts. Criminal law doesn't adequately handle either the conduct of the military or enemies of the United States. More to the point, criminal law shouldn't handle these things (chain of custody for evidence collected on the battlefield ?!?). There needs to be new law that grants or restricts authority. Military prisons and military tribunals were the closest fit under existing laws and authority.

The Bush administration played its expected role in this tension of powers as defined in the Constitution. The Legislative branch did not. Perhaps we ought to fire them for not doing their jobs.

As for 4th amendment rights, if you make phone calls to known terrorists I damn well hope our government is listening in.

So then, if Sony makes a television, only advertising sold by Sony should appear on the television? Apple is trying to make a locked-down vertical stack out of something that by its nature is an interconnection of many horizontal concerns.

tl;dr... busy with TwitterBook

Want to hear more about spokesboobs, though.

I don't know many proponents of the private sector that believe it is the solution for everything. The private sector is better at job creation, it's better at near-term efficiency for most ordinary endeavors. There are a very few things, however, where it is more economically feasible for government to do a thing, than it is for the private sector. For example, maintenance of a military, or building a highway system that spans a continent; these are things where government successfully drives industry. The space program, in terms of the kinds of energies (literal and figurative) needed to succeed at it, is one of those few things that government can establish better than can the private sector. That's just basic economics.

Besides, I thought liberals liked nuance, or is that out of fashion now?

Because Apple has become about being in a certain mindset.

Basically these are Disney devices.

For work not previously made into movies or TV how about:

1. C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner series (forget the Navi, show me some Atevi)
2. Anne McAffrey's Dragon Riders of Pern
3. David Drake's Hammer's Slammers
4. Niven and Pournelle: The Mote in God's Eye

For reboots, how about a truer version of Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files.

An American journalist would've rephrased the marketing blurb on the phone, not tried it out, and welcomed our new invincible mobile overlords, only to be made fun of by Jon Stewart later that night.

Finally, why do entertainers continue to feel that they have to present their beliefs within a movie...?

The best literature or art often advances a belief or a "side" if you will. Do you think Aliens or The Abyss offered no beliefs or morales? Or how about No Country For Old Men (moving beyond James Cameron and SF) which was actually an analysis of free will and fate? The problem with the "beliefs" laid in to Avatar is that they were clumsy, amateurish and clichéd. They stuck out and were annoying and preachy rather than thought-provoking. It is better to avoid allegory altogether than to do it poorly.

A good story teller is one that can engage your mind and your senses. Sadly Avatar only engaged the senses.

No he's saying it sucks less once you get used to it.