That IS what the law says in your own post:

So if I'm not carrying one of the listed forms of identification, which is wholly in my right as a US citizen not to, then according to this clause, I am presumed to be an alien unlawfully present in the US. Perhaps you should read it before making crap up.

And stop bringing up the ICE strawman. ICE, as a federal agency, doesn't and cannot stop random people for no reason. That is why I'm not concerned about ICE. But to answer your curiosity, yes, I have been complaining about the Patriot Act's unconstitutional broadening of federal law enforcement power.

1) How do they verify that I'm a US citizen solely based on my name?

2) The reason there is no concern over ICE's power to request ID is because they arent in the business of doing random/targeted stops for other crimes. The Federal Government is not granted general police powers by the Constitution. Take the FBI, for example. They aren't allowed to do random stops on the street like local police. If I'm taken into custody by the FBI (or ICE) its because they've done an investigation and already have a case against me, and not just spotted me on the street and decided I look 'illegal.'

The difference is when you have the Rule of Law the laws are knowable and mostly predictable.

Isn't that the real stumbling block? It doesn't take judges with randomly distributed opinions. All it takes is 600 years of accumulated law, all designed by lawyers for lawyers. After centuries of busily muddying the waters, the law is NOT knowable. It's designed that way. Every judge in the world could be pure as the driven snow and possessed of only the loftiest motives, and they would still completely fail. The corpus of crap they are trying to interpret just doesn't build. It's full of syntax errors, redundant competing libraries, spaghetti code, missing dependencies, and weird legacy global variables.

It doesn't help that judges in the US are usually lawyers.

In the Netherlands, you can add a clause to any contract basically stating that when they are going on training, they will repay 100% if they leave in one year, 66% in 2, 33% in 3 and 0% after that (or any other declining rate that will hold up in court - 100% in 10 years will not hold up). Most of the companies are part of mandatory collective bargaining agreements with a similar clause.

So one of my friend has a new and shiny MBA - and he will have to fork over a serious amount of money if he decides to leave next year. If the new hiring company wants him bad enough, they'll pay it.

I'm surprised this isn't a standard clause in the USA as well, because it solves most of the issues in this area.

China's monetary policy would be a gift to any rational competitor who can print dollars. The US could just buy a massive amount of yuan (say a few hundred billion dollars worth or more) and close down this fixing scheme instantly (the US would exit the strategy by buying back dollars with the now more expensive yen, making a big profit). If China tries to print more yen to play the game, then sell yen to crash the market (alternately, provide your rival, more competitive yuan/dollar exchange). The dynamic of the big export economy in China means the US would win sooner or later. Instead the US apparently bought up to 1.25 trillion dollars worth of iffy real estate to prop up some failed businesses.

I may be wrong, but from the UK perspective this is not "NHS Lite" socialised healthcare, rather this is the wetware equivalent of compulsory motor insurance, now applied to human beings...

Nice civil liberties you have there citizen, shame if anything happened to them, better buy this here medical insurance, know what I mean?

Sounds like this bill has nothing whatsoever to do with medical treatment per se.

One small step from the RIAA et al doing the same thing.

According to Wikipedia, Insurance is, "a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent loss".

But with the mandate for coverage of pre-existing conditions, I don't see how there is a contingent aspect of this anymore. It is like selling "fire insurance" coverage for houses that are already on fire. That is not really "insurance".

You can call the new health care legislation many things, but it is more in the nature of a new medical welfare program than any form of insurance as we know it, since it does not appear that costs are based on actuarial risks.

From the U.S. population point of view - there are very few people that seem to be against reform.

This bill in particular has basically been a power play between the two big parties if I understand correctly.

It didn't really pan out brilliantly for either side - the Republicans get egg on their face because the other side got their bill through anyway, whilst the Democrats didn't really get the thing they wanted because they watered down their original bill to try and get Republican support.

The lead up to why this silly thing got pushed through can basically be summarised as follows (stolen from Digg - it's a great summation):

Democrats: "We need health care reform"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! Give us a majority and we'll do it better"
Democrats: "Done, you have majority of both houses"

12 years later, health care is irrefutably worse in every respect for every single person in the United States

Democrats: "We need health care reform"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! Americans are tired of partisan politics!"
Democrats: "OK, let's compromise"
Republicans: "OK, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done"
Republicans: "Too liberal, get rid of half your ideas"
Democrats: "Done. Time to end debate"
Republicans: "Too liberal, we need more debate, we will filibuster to prevent you from voting"
Democrats: "OK, we'll vote--sorry guys, debate is ended. It's time to vote on the bill"
Republicans: "Too liberal, we vote no"
Democrats: "OK, it passed anyway--sorry guys."

One month later

Republicans: "Wait--wait, OK, we have less of a minority now so we can filibuster forever."
Democrats: "Sorry, the bill already passed, we need it to pass the House now"
Republicans: "But we have enough to filibuster"
Democrats: "Sorry, the bill already passed, we need it to pass the House now"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! You haven't listened to our ideas! You've shut us out of this whole process!"
Democrats: "Sorry, show us your proposal"
Republicans: "Smaller government"
Democrats: "That's not very specific"
Republicans: "OK, here's our detailed proposal--It's our common-sense ideas we spent 12 years not enacting"
Democrats: "OK, we'll add a bunch more of your ideas"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! You included all these back-room deals"
Democrats: "OK, we'll get rid of the back-room deals"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! You're using obscure procedural tricks to eliminate the back-room deals!"
Democrats: "No, we're using reconciliation, which both parties have used dozens of times for much larger bills"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! You're pressuring Congressmen to vote for your bill! Scandal!"
Democrats: "It's called 'whipping', it's been done since 1789"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! Can't you see the American people don't want this?"
Democrats: "This bill is mildly unpopular (40-50%), doing nothing (your proposal) is extraordinarily unpopular (4-6%)"
Republicans: "We need to start over! We need to start over!"
Democrats: "We should really consider voting--"
Republicans: "Liberal fascists! Start over! Clean slate! Common-sense! America!"
Democrats: "OK, suit yourselves, here it comes"

I agree. I refuse to continue polluting my computer with all their DRM crap. Long ago, I didn't mind... But then some DRM was released that accidentally destroyed some hardware and the company refused to admit it. There's no way in hell I'm going to install software that can potentially destroy my hardware.

So my solution? PS3 and XBox 360. Yes, they technically still have DRM, but at least the DRM on them doesn't have a chance to destroy anything, and it never gets in the way of me playing the games.

I still occasionally buy a PC game, but it's more like 1 a year, instead of the 10-15 a year that I used to. And on top of that, I can -rent- console games... So I don't buy them now, either.

DRM is killing the gaming industry moreso than any pirates ever did.

I hardly think digital transmission of data destroys anything.

Ah, this is an easy trap to fall into. Information can be very powerful. This is, in fact, the main reason why we enshrine free speech, as a weapon against corruption. To say that the mere stream of bits, or the vibrations of air molecules could destroy a person, or even a large group of people, seems counter-intuitive, but it can happen, and it has happened before. So, in general, don't underestimate the the transmission of data! It's a good thing the founding fathers didn't make the same mistake!

In this case, the digital transmission of data, in certain circumstances, will destroy the profits of these artists and these companies, and will make it less likely that there will be data worth transmitting in the future. Their existence is dependent upon their providing data to those who wouldn't otherwise have it, and the people paying them back for it. Taking without paying does them nothing but harm. So yeah, the GP got it pretty much right. If P2P of copyrighted files is allowed, then all artists in Spain using copyright are pretty much fucked.

There's quite a difference between what you're proposing and what TFA talks about.

These not bionic eyes, they are contact lenses, and they don't have cameras in them.

You're right that such things could happen, and in some nightmare society, we could end up with compulsary bionics for monitoring purposes.

Buit this isn't anything to do with that.

And you could make this argument about any technological advance. "We've found a way to write in the sky!" "But what if the government uses it for propaganda?"

I also take issue with the social expectations paragraph. If your friends require you to respond that quickly, then you're telling me that you never take a shower, you never sleep, and you never have a social life that involves going to the theatre, the cinema, ice skating... need I continue?

And it IS fear-mongering to expect that. You're telling me that a government organisation (and it'll have to be one that does it) can organise bionic implants for every person in (your country name here) AND manage the massive network and storage infrastructure that would be required to make it work? Given my (the Uk) government's experiences with technological projects, I'm seriously not worried.

We've also had stupid laws for a long time. I don't know if it still is one, but there was a law in the UK that said that you could shoot a man from the walls of York, I think it was, as long as he was Welsh. But you know what? We had an attack of common sense and got rid of it.

And yes, there will be trials and freedom and democracy, because there are still people out there that give a damn, and are willing to swim against the tide.

And you know what? Occaisionally, it works.

Stop being such a pessimist.

How do we know that isn't the case for ANYONE targeted by our Armies using ANY technology.

YES! Exactly.

I remember in 2004/2005 or so, there was this short-lived drama on TNT (? One of the cable channels, anyway), called "Over There", which chronicled a group of soldiers in Iraq.

In one of the episodes, they "found" a house which had a lot of money in the walls. Owner comes home, armed, sees people looting, starts shooting; owner ends up dead.

While watching that episode, I got a really eerie, creepy feeling that perhaps some of our actual military targets aren't "military" so much as economic. Really saddened me, but wth was I going to do about it? Thankfully, we have the ACLU, which has offices at numerous latitude/longitude pairs.

We need to stop letting them get away with that excuse. If there's truly nothing the teacher can do, then that teacher's pay can be cut, or that teacher can be laid off. The job still won't get done, but the money from the failing teacher's salary can be used for something productive.

In other words, we're boned either way.

No. It means stop buying or pirating their shit til they are out of business.

IMO pirating a game garners some amount of game attention to a company (word of mouth sales) than just not buying it.

Then save spend your money on game companies that actually don't use DRM. They are a good deal out there.

Imposing your views will not magically create schools for their education, it'll only lead to them not having a job. Let them have their own development, and maybe they'll end up with their *own* culture instead of yours.