Atlas Shrugged is a book written by Ayn Rand. The main plot idea is that human civilization is destroyed because the small working elite which humanity depends on to feed decides to go in hiding an let all the lazy people (basically everyone else than maybe a thousand people or so, all of them Americans) die. Go read the wikipedia articles on Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged for more details.

They call it a KDE ripoff because it does look a look like KDE, because they borrowed a lot from them in terms of artwork. To be honest, looking at the screenshots, I know I could be fooled into thinking these are KDE screenshots. The only difference is in the lower left part of the taskbar, as far as I can see.

Wow, looking at the screenshots from that browser, it seems the developers of that browser think that "normal people" like to have some of their valuable screen estate wasted with Facebook buttons and small pictures of their friends... No thank you, I'd rather keep that crap in its own tab. Bring you lame astroturfing elsewhere.

You can't shoot a company in the head... They'll just hire the mob or raise a private army, or put a bomb under your car. The idea that you could defend your family against a corporation seems to me ludicrous.

You should go read the Wikipedia article about the Chinese milk scandal. Sure, at least some of the companies involved went bankrupt and two persons were executed, but I can't imagine a parent whose kid may suffer lifelong health problems and/or a reduced life expectancy pointing this as some sort of proof that regulations are cumbersome and unnecessary.

I don't know much about processing fees, but I do know that netflix said recently that it costs them a penny to stream a gigabyte of data. I doubt they get such a nice deal on bandwidth, but even if they pay ten times as much, I think those bundles are far more profitable to them than to the developers per hour of work invested, especially with the default money split which is suggested on purchase.

Yes, the author of noscript made a mistake once, for which he profusely apologized, and worked long and hard to fix. You can read his apology, it's in the first paragraph of the link you provided. If you choose to deprive yourself of noscript because of that, you're missing on some extremely useful functionality for a bad reason. Everybody makes mistakes, and the world is much poorer if they are never given a chance to redeem themselves.

Yeah, that's obviously the future of mobile computing. We're all going to trash our laptops and run ssh on our ipads.

In this particular case, "right wing" simply means "someone that displays a strong dislike of the government".

No. But I think you go a long way to speak about your favorite topic. So far, in fact, that your post doesn't have much to do with the original subject at hand, which is why I agree with the moderation your post was given. The breadth of topics which have a political aspect so large that you could make the same argument about nearly any post you make. But cheer up! Your post is now at 1, so somebody thought you were on topic (or just happened to be favorable to your views).

For the record, I think when the discussion is about programming, you sometimes write interesting things, and I have laughed at some of your jokes. I'll even go as far as to say that I don't think you deserve a negative karma. But the consistent beating of the same old horse nearly every single time I read your comments gets tiresome, and your karma may be a sign that I'm not the only person who thinks the same.

I will not pretend to be unbiased towards opinions from the right. It's just that it gets tiresome to see topics which are not particularly political such as the first one (tech giants don't create jobs) get subverted over and over again into a political discussion (This is about the first link. In this case, I have read enough posts from this person to say that he is a right wing poster.). So I think a down moderation is the most appropriate action here, because I don't care to waste time reading another sterile political debate created by someone that seems to spend all day on /. preaching his political views.

About the third post I looked at, which is about digitizing records (This is the one where I accused the poster of talking out of his ass). I agree that this is a more political discussion, and that it is often more appropriate to make a reply than to moderate down. In this particular case though, the poster speculates about the execution of the digitization, and his post reeks of indignation and sarcasm. How can I expect an interesting discussion when the post starts on dishonest premises (because, remember, the digitization hasn't started yet, so why say that it's going to cost trillions?)? The answer is, I can't expect an honest discussion, because the poster's opinion is already set, and chances are that someone else will come up to present a similar viewpoint, but in a more reasonable and eloquent manner. So I think it's fair to moderate him down, and to have the discussion which the poster wants to make with someone who actually makes a few arguments in the favor of his viewpoint rather than to write a dumb act of faith.

TLDR: Yes, I am biased, yes, it is often better to write a reply than to mod down someone, but in this particular case, the poster gives no argument in favor of his view so I'd rather mod him down and read someone else with the same view who actually makes a case to argue against.

I do not disagree with you, but I read the first three comments you posted, and I don't think they are good examples of poor usage of down moderation.

A right wing advocate subverts the thread topic to blame the government. Thread topic: Tech giants don't create jobs. Poster: You can't be a tech giant! Too much regulation! This is all because of teh evil government! Blablabla.

The poster makes a non sequitur, which is immediately picked on by the following replies. This may or may not be a troll, but it is false. There ought to be a moderation -1 False, but since there isn't, the post was modded troll.

Another right wing poster talking out of his ass. It was modded flamebait, but it seems more like offtopic to me.

I did not bother reading the other comments, but I don't think the moderation in your examples is flat out wrong. As I said, I do not particularly disagree with you, but your examples do not support your point of view (in my opinion).

For their next air drop, I suggest they send oyster spoons, weight loss medication and dog cologne.

You're missing the point. A casino may not be able to pay all the bets on the floor on the spot, but it has enough liquidity to be able to pay very quickly if every chip is cashed in (by quickly, in mean within a day or two) since no chip leaves the casino. Also, while I imagine some frequent players may have accounts to put money in at brick and mortar casinos (not sure, I'm not too familiar with them), most players bring in their money and leave with whatever's left of it. Online poker sites, on the other hand, are a cross between a casino and a bank. Even the smallest money players have some money kept in escrow at the casino. I don't know how much money can be on the floor of a (physical) casino at any point in time, but I am certain it is absolutely dwarfed by the amount of money an online casino keeps. This new development will almost certainly cause a run on the accounts of Absolute Poker and Full Tilt, which may very well force them to declare bankruptcy if the accusations in the summary are true. It sucks for the players, but they should have known better: Full-Tilt and Absolute bet have been caught before in a scandal where an insider was able to look at the cards of everyone at a table and gave the information to someone who played against top tournament and money players. First hand account here.

Picture of the upcoming iphone 5.

You forgot to mention that he was fired the day after he got a pension for disability from the state.