Thanks for making all of the already publicly available documents public, but not quite a notch on the ol' transparent belt.

Just as long as these people are not exploited for their talents (extreme case, see "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex", episode 11) and are treated as any other worker, sounds good to me.

Exactly. In March 2011, a month after the Japanese Fukushima tsunami, there was a NYTimes article critical of Japan's leadership during the disaster. However, after re-reading it 8 hours post-original online publication, I noticed that it had become watered down and so I inquired to the NYTimes public editor about the discrepancy. I received the following response a month later from the Office of the Public Editor:

"To answer your question, yes, stories can be edited if they are part of the continuous news cycle. Mr. Brisbane [NYT public editor at the time] asked assistant managing editor Jim Roberts to address this in one of his first letters columns: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10... ... Hopefully Roberts’ response gives you some more info on how The Times processes material as part of the continuous news cycle. It seems that this article was constantly being updated with new information due to the changing nature of events right after the tsunami."

I tried to find the article just now, originally entitled "Flaws in Japan's Leadership Deepen Sense of Crisis," (March 16, 2011) only to find that even the title had been altered to the less damning "Dearth of Candor from Japan's Leadership," and the even weaker "In Tokyo, a Dearth of Candor" for the print edition. I always suspected that someone in the JST time zone made a last minute call in those critical hours between online print and hard copy, lots of "new information" right there.

Paul's Flat-Tax is not mischaracterized at all. A similarly recent article, Senator Rand Paul's Very Good Tax Plan Needs One Important Tweak, further expounds this point about the Flat-Tax taking the form of a VAT.

1) "...neglecting the compensating benefits of reducing the corporate income tax..." So for this plan to be beneficial to the middle-class, we must rely on the corporations to decide to pass the benefit further on to those working for them, a bit more trickle-down action? According to Paul, so many of those corporations are already paying zero because they're using loopholes; But where was the spread of wealth from those monies? Are we to believe that those companies really want to share benefits with their workers when their taxes are officially made less? I don't follow that logic, and thus far history hasn't supported it either.

2) Alleged reduction in benefits? I don't know if people are keeping tally, but much of what is currently left in federal budgets to slash would be political suicide to the ones who did, including Social Security, Medicaid, VA, preK-12 education, pell grants, transportation infrastructure, etc. Suggesting that further spending cuts from such a flat-tax wouldn't negatively affect this group of people is ludicrous.

And as far as cuts in government spending, they tend to stimulate the economy when interest rates are non-zero--which at the moment they are not, which is probably why that point was explicitly ignored.

IMO the Bloomberg article wasn't a "hit-piece", but rather a heads-up to an important issue with the Paul tax plan.

"All in all, then, what Paul is proposing is a big tax cut for high earners and businesses with almost no direct benefits for most Americans. It's the latest evidence that a flat tax that cuts most people's taxes while keeping revenue at a plausible level is just not possible" (Ramesh Ponnuru, 22Jun15, Rand Paul's Implausible Flat Tax). The flat tax may treat everyone fairly, but the added consumption tax negates any benefit that middle-income families would have received. And this is the latest version of Paul's plan.

Can you store non-kindle format in Amazon's Cloud? Amazon explicitly allows for several other formats (non/proprietary) as well, and if these can't be stored in the cloud, you've got a problem. As for myself, I have several, very large reference libraries of pdf's that I regularly access which I couldn't possibly store in the limited space of 5 GB and could easily have been handled by the larger storage capacity of a removable card.

With a 30 minute timer, replete with ads--and my head just exploded. If the Olympics are the world's games, all bidders should be forced to make content available to everyone, especially since the ads have already paid for it. What a travesty that in 2014 we can't freely watch the Olympics online. By allowing any blockage of games, the IOC is violating the following items within its own list of stated roles:

• 3. Ensure the regular celebration of the Olympic Games
  4. Cooperate with the competent public or private organisations and authorities in the endeavor to place sport at the service of humanity and thereby to promote peace
  5. Take action in order to strengthen the unity, to protect the independence of the Olympic Movement, and to preserve the autonomy of sport;
  6. Act against any form of discrimination affecting the Olympic Movement
  15. Encourage and support initiatives blending sport with culture and education

Of course, how much should we expect from an organization that so freely issues DMCA take downs to non-licensed videographers and photographers of events; The IOC does after all play the role model for the brand of censorship which it would like others to follow.

In the meantime, this is the sign I'll be carrying at the rally: Bring \.

Schadenfreude? Because companies are people with psychology, too, and want to feel good? As if. This isn't about getting even, it's about turning a buck. Besides, Schadenfreude talks about others' misfortune, or bad luck, which couldn't have been enacted by the party deriving the pleasure. Sadism is more like it.

Rapidly? This has been going on for over a century. Reinforcing the reality? Companies have been garrisoning off sections of reality for years with patents like Apple's--hindering everyone's innovation, including their own--and countries have typically done little to bat down these claims has being preposterous. But destructive isn't exactly the ideal word for this. I would go more for something like:

• debilitating
• retarding
• anti-culture-cultivating (i.e., anti-humanity).

But maybe you are referring to the idea that patent reform is on the way because this is becoming a hot media? Yep, everyone say hello to our new Overlord, the ACTA.

Great. Nibiru fodder. Quick, someone tell my brother so he can start linking those videos on YouTube again. SOB!

Because this thing doesn't (yet). What do you suppose it would look like? Upside down tanker? Bent,leaking pipe? Drippy sea animal? How about any symbol with an arrow in it, shifting the blame? Really looking forward to hearing about the wacky miscommunications/misinterpretations that will no doubt arrise.

I dunno. Got stuck on "about as much as a parrot?" . . . but even 'dead parrots' are funny, so what's not to love? And the "Soviets cluster[ing] you" is funny for the very reason that it draws not only on the original joke, but a whole slew of remaining Soviet stereotypes involving breakdowns. Indeed, it may not have taken much mental stamina to put said words together, but in comedy, that's not what matters--it's all in the delivery, and those jokes deliver because they can instantly create laughs in those ingesting whom happen to have the 'intelligence' to recall those special pieces of culture. Isn't that all humor is, the perfect stitching together of cultural insights in ways which garner spontaneous positive reaction? I think, in so far as your analysis of comedy via memes being un-funny wastes of time, because they're mindless, you have a fairly critical view of what constitutes humor--i.e. are a tough crowd. Honestly, my post is for the sake of intellegent conversation, not meant to deride or knock. I happen to agree with you about the ubiquitous nature of trolls in places where their addition to the dialogue is anything but that. Time and place for all, right? Though, if I were in the middle of anything, I would lose it (in a good way) if someone walked in and said "What's the deal with Corn-nutz"? I would point out that you should be glad to be so much more intelligent than the internet trolls to be able to glide over the outbursts, but also glad to partake in a few (as you've said you do). And I do agree that they are mindless, because who would waste his time trying to grab a laugh without the pleasure of experiencing the other's laughter--except that just knowing that it may cause it (even if it doesn't) is enough to elicit the euphoric compounds within the troll (junkies') mind. It is epidemic (in the Greek sense of the word): meme insertion as meme (I'm sure that's been said). The sad part is how easily they can get their fix. Stating the obvious only serves to rub it in, but it must be uttered yet again: We're feeding the fire, man's oldest meme. Welcome to the (comedy) club.