The only point of the two parties is to make it so that the politicians have a reason to suck up to the corporations. If you're a Republican, in the contested electorates, you have a motive to suck up to the corporation lest the Democrat (who is also being funded by the same people) get all the campaign funds and win. Otherwise the two parties are nearly identical on the issues that matter (to the corporations).

Yeah, same here.

OH NO YOU DINNT!!!

And can I join? Cue porno music: *boom chikka wauu wauu*

I could not agree more. But you know, they got Hitler II. Let's rejoice and beat our fists against our chests and get drunk and be proud to be an American. That's how we're supposed to react.

It's sad how many people have died globally under the pretext of 9/11. And now even the death of Bin Laden doesn't get most people to question the US's actions. It has the opposite effect in that people react viscerally to it.

It's just completely ok and we are awesome that we got him and it's great and YEAH! AMERICAAAAAAAA!

A lot of people have died as you have pointed out and it's sad. Bin Laden's death doesn't bring them back. I just wish violence would end and not a single additional person would die because of all of this. :(

I don't think it changed anything real, to be honest. It's symbolic though. I often resort to mafia analogies when trying to understand these things.

For example, using the mafia don model: You can make an argument that when the mafia don (US) has an enemy, and they finally get him, it "sends a message".

Also, politically it makes Obama look good because it gives the impression he gets stuff done competently. He might be able to point to it in the next presidential campaign.

What you're saying is true. We should organize to change things.

But in practice it's extremely difficult. There are some extremely wealthy corporations you have to contend with and they have a lot of power and sway over politics and who gets elected and what they do once in office.

But yes, it's true, if we ban together and get involved it's possible to change things.

In the meantime I'm all in favor of Wikileaks.

That's pretty much not true. Bin Laden, while he did use his own funds as well, was a Mujahadeen leader and it's pretty well established that the Mujahadeen were given vast sums of money and arms to fight the Russians (indirectly via Pakistan).

Google around to see that lots of people agree Bin Laden was a CIA asset at one point. That fact is politically embarrassing but plainly true.

Also, I stand by my definition that the weapon of the US government is terrorism. It's just not called that when they do it. They sometimes call it liberation or exporting democracy. (which is pretty ridiculous but what's more ridiculous is that the population buys it).

The giant was not sleeping. What reality are you living in? Or do you like to cling to this fantasy because it helps you think that you are on the side of right and justice? It's pretty convenient to believe that because it avoids a lot of cognitive dissonance.

The reality is more like the giant was hard at work sticking its thumbs in everyone else's pie. An example would be the very fact that Bin Laden was armed and trained by the USA back in the 80s when Bin Laden was a good guy because he was fighting the russkies for us. That's just 1 pie. There are probably 50 others you can use as an example for that period or after.

Nope, the giant's been pretty busy at work being an imperialist bastard.

The only difference between "terror" and justice or liberation or whatever misleading labels the propaganda industry uses on death and killing is who is committing it. When we do it, it's "liberation" or "intervention" or whatever and when they do it, it's terror.

Nope, not true. Voyagers 1 & 2 are not powered by the RCA CDP1802, as is popularly believed.

The Voyager FAQ explains this, about halfway down the page:

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html

NASA's JPL says they custom-designed the processors on the two spacecraft and they were manufactured by General Electric (according to JPL specs).

This makes sense, actually, because if you are designing a spacecraft in the 1970s, you have very specific electrical, environmental and other requirements as compared to common off-the-shelf components which are designed with different (terrestrial) criteria in mind.

No, you can't. As of the time of this posting no unlocks exist for newer iPhone 4 models. No holes have been found to do the unlocks on anything other than 01.59.00 baseband. It is unknown whether they will ever be found and any unlock will ever again be available.

Sure. I can do that. But I'm an iPhone developer. I need to have my iPhone. I can't be running around iPhone-less because it costs me business and clients. And yes, I need to have the phone working on a network for some of my testing.

So I can either buy an unlocked iPhone and spend an additional $700 or more -- or do some illegal stuff like violate the DMCA and unlock my phone using Utrasn0w. That is, if I am lucky enough to have a specific model of iPhone (01.59.00 firmware) that actually is unlockable.

I wish what Apple is doing were deemed illegal. It feels like it ought to be.

No, you aren't. You can't even GET an unlocked iPhone for full price in the USA. It's a shame, really. You can go to France or Canada though, and get one. Land of the free!

$199 sounds like a great price but you get locked in to AT&T. I travel a lot and AT&T's international roaming fees are highway robbery. I'm in Romania right now and when I can be spending something like 5 Euros for 3000 minutes on a pre-paid card on Vodafone, why would I pay AT&T $0.29/minute or whatever they want to charge me for the privilege of being an American in Europe?

It's too bad you can't legally obtain an unlocked iPhone in the USA. You have to go to CANADA to do that. Land of the free indeed.

The majority of Indians are not muslim.

Whatever metaphor you want to use. I believe in the Japanese concept of 'spirit' in all things, so to me it is spiritual in the Eastern sense.