yep, I got into the habit of using the long options in any of bash scripts. It not only makes it more readable for me later on but also for the next person so they don't have to go look up all the options that I used. Now if I'm just typing the commands at the command line then I'll use the short options.

There's nothing wrong with Slackware. Slackware was the first distro that I installed back in the late 90s. I learned a lot about Linux by using it. I now use Fedora, not because something is wrong with Slackware, but because we mainly use Red Hat at work and I like the fact that they are pretty cutting edge. That's the good thing about having different distributions. They all have their different audiences and use cases. Most users should be able to find a distro that meets their needs. Following the "Oooo! Shiny!!" mentality may not be a good way to do things for the users of Slackware but that is one of the strengths of Fedora. You get to try some of the newest things out there in a pretty stable OS.

Please explain how your free speech to say whatever you want against anything the US believes is important has been subverted. People here on Slashdot slam the NSA every single day and I don't see their free speech being limited in any way. Blogs and news sites critisize the president, congress, and just about every government agency you can think of. So please define this "anything the US believes is important" and how the US disallows your freedom of speech.

RIP? If it's just going to fill spots that were blank anyway I don't see what the big deal is. I don't have a problem with that at all. Let them make a little bit of money on new users who will click on those ads. You would have never even known about it had it not been for this article or you did a fresh install of Firefox anyway.