Problem is, everyone is claiming that the image would fall under parody or similar nonsense. It *would* be able to argue that *if* the kid who did it had made an actual parody. But all he did was take a copyrighted image and change the color of Obama's hair and face then post it online as his own work. It's clearly not his own work. Now, if he had made an actual PARODY of the Time magazine cover, gave it slightly different appearance, changed all the text and other little images on it to something else, THEN *that* would have been parody and then I would completely agree that his rights of free speech and expression were being censored by Flickr. Oh, and a reminder, Flickr is free to do whatever the hell it wants. Flickr is not the United States government beholden to follow the letter of the Constitution and its laws. And neither did the government order Flickr to take down the image. No. Flickr is a business entity. Flickr chose to do this on its own, which it is completely and entirely free to do. It is under no legal obligation to allow its users to post whatever they want. The GOVERNMENT is expected to respect free speech and can not (with obvious exceptions, rules, limitations, etc) curtail free speech by citizens. Flickr is not the government. There is no Constitution of the United Web Servers of Flickr. All you nut jobs screaming about censorship, free speech, and whatnot need to calm down and go look at the FACTS then make an intelligent post.

I completely agree with that post's final sentence: "If you want to upgrade early then you will have to pay full price with no subsidy discount. You can't blame anyone but yourself for your predicament." Every American cell-phone user knows this is standard practice. If you want to buy a new phone from your provider before your contract is up or your upgrade option renews, then you pay the non-subsidized price. I simply do not feel the slightest bit sorry for these whiners who feel that buying an iPhone last June/July somehow makes them special.

Dead astronauts usually go hand-in-bodypart with a destroyed spacecraft. Said spacecraft is probably worth billions to build and more billions to maintain and actually use. Those 7 astronauts are probably not exactly cheap, either. There's usually decades of training and education involved for each one of them. I haven't even thought to add in the value of the shuttle's payload if it were lost in the same accident.

Now let's look at those soldiers dying by the tens of thousands in a foreign war. Each soldier is pretty cheap on an individual basis compared to an astronaut. Society hasn't invested that much time, resources, or education on the average soldier compared to an astronaut. Their future value to humanity is also statistically and economically lower than the astronaut. The equipment the average soldier goes to war with is only a few thousands - maybe few tens of thousands - of dollars. Said equipment is typically common stuff easily replaced, as is the solider lost with that equipment. Heck, you could easily give a dead soldier's equipment to a live soldier and save a few dollars.

So, dollar for dollar, you have to lose thousands of soldiers and their equipment to reach the same financial loss as the destruction of a shuttle and it's crew. Looking at the Iraq war, America has lost a paltry 4000+ soldiers spread out over a period of 6 years. Compare that to losing a shuttle, it's crew, and it's payload all in one fast blast, and it becomes easy to see why sending soldiers to die in war is so much easier than risking a shuttle mission to repair Hubble.

My point is more commentary on the state of human affairs; life is only important if there is a significant dollar value attached to it.

This is yet another proof that 99.9% of consumers are sheep.

Or, put into the perspective of those 99.9% of consumers, they simply don't give a shit about what a bunch of nerds (who whine amongst each other on a geek website) think about stuff that doesn't affect anyone with a sex life.