I understand why both researchers and journalists sometimes foster this kind of hype, and I'm sure this is an interesting quantum-scale optical effect. However, can we have a new rule that until they can make a Klingon Bird-of-prey invisible to the naked eye, they're not allowed to call it a cloaking device? Everybody remember where we parked!

Insofar as every form of politics and government can be charted on a one-dimensional spectrum, I believe fascism is at least as often equated with the Right as with the Left.

I personally prefer paper ballots as well, and you're right that it's all about trust in the process. However, the fact is that many areas are rolling out electronic voting whether we would like it or not. And in a narrow field of options, I would like more than just a buggy, black-box Diebold piece of shit. If they can provide an OSS solution that works and can be audited for security and reliability, that would be infinitely preferable to the proprietary options with a poor track record. Just make sure there are paper receipts!

I think it is a big leap of specious reasoning to go from "enjoys a depiction of something" to "will commit an act." The fact that I can enjoy an R-rated movie doesn't mean that I'm going to go shoot someone. If I watch porn, that doesn't mean I want to go participate in an orgy. You attempt to marginalize the free-speech advocates that would protest the persecution of someone on these grounds, but there are a number of reasons for someone who is not a child molester to want to defend someone so accused. Most significantly, as the GP said, prosecuting someone for a "crime" involving purely imaginary entities where no real person is harmed is tantamount to thoughtcrime. You are fine with this case because you find those particular thoughts morally reprehensible, but other people with other values might find the thoughts of you or I to be equally vile. Should we be imprisoned for our thoughts just because some other group finds them despicable? They came for _blank_, but I said nothing, etc. etc.

So, we should start killing for much lesser reasons than being threatened with death in return? That's what is unfortunate in your estimation? I think that having alternatives to violence (such as rational discourse) is what makes us a civilized society, rather than a bunch of violent idiots.

"I saw this in a movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty. And if its speed dropped, the bus would explode! I think it was called... 'The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down.'"