You may want to look longer than the past couple of years for your data.

Since the 1970s, the tax rate has gone down quite abit, but the purchasing power of the middle class has gone down as well.

In fact, lowering taxes has been shown not to help anyone but the top 1% in any meaningful way. http://politics.slashdot.org/s....

The big difference with all of the above is he does not accept the consequences of his actions.

He is not on the same level as Rosa Parks, Susan B Anthony or Martin Luther King Jr.

He should have gone on the Sunday talk shows and say, "the government is doing really sleazy, illegal and unconstitutional shit, and I am violating my oath and the law by telling you exactly what they are."

People largely dont make the purchasing decisions based off the openness of the software, many other factors are involved. Sales meetings are not open debates; the salesperson has to respond to the "your product is buggy" with a "we have a fast turnaround on bug fixes and feature requests. Our competitors dont do this". This is great for the technical minded people out there, but by and large the people with purchasing power are the point haired bosses; the psychological damage of the "your product is buggy" is done.

If Sales and Marketing say something you are doing is making their job harder, stop doing it and help them sell. Transparency is great: It helps everyone: Customers, Sales Prospects, Development and the Competition. Helping the cometition probably is much worse than the possible benefits received. My advice: Stay out of Sales and Marketing's business, it will be easier to tell them later to stay out of yours.

This is vehicular manslaughter. It does not matter if operating a computer while moving is SOP. There are many guidelines for driving as a professional; the Smith System (used by professional drivers, LEO or not) basically spells out scanning the mirrors once every 8 seconds. The officer had no business to not watch the road on a mountain highway.