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Jun 7 floater commented on President Obama: "You Can't Have 100% Security, and Also Then Have 100% Privacy and 0 Inconvenience.".

Ah, yes, @15, yes. I haven't heard somebody say that yet.

That was a pretty good and well-prepared answer by Obama. As an aside, it made me wonder how someone like W. Bush would have bungled the question, or what kind of evasive response someone like Romney would have given.

But I sort of accept his premise that 100% privacy with 100% security is impossible. There is always a little surveillance, whether it's security cameras (or drones) or employee background checks, which are much more invasive than what Obama described for the secret programs. Is he lying when he says that no one is listening to our phone calls or matching names with telephone numbers, or that the internet surveillance doesn't pertain to U.S. citizens or those living in the U.S.? I don't know. But, in this age of secret detentions without access to council and crazy fundamentalists (American and otherwise) trying to kill people, I'm finding it hard to be outraged about this. Honestly, I'm more concerned about the recurrent threat of the hobbling of Social Security, or the construction of Keystone XL (thanks, Obama), or the weakening of the rights of workers.

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Jun 6 floater commented on Microsoft (Kinda-Sorta) Denies Participation in NSA's PRISM Wiretapping Program.

Wait - PRISM? Philly's defunct movies-and-Philly-sports cable channel? Phillies, Sixers, and Flyers? Ah, good old Prism.

Jun 5 floater commented on Occupy Gezi, Con't..

See, the protesters outnumber the police, but the police have all the armor and weapons. Imagine if the protesters had weapons. I wonder how the Russians did it in 1917.

I haven't really been paying attention to this. This video has the first images I've seen.

Jun 4 floater commented on With a Wedding Like That, I Hate to Think What They'd Do for a Divorce.

"When are people going to start identifying dotcom millionaires in public and hurting them?"

Come on, Fnarf. We're going to start attacking people in public? What are we? Vigilantes? Surely you don't mean that.

Jun 3 floater commented on Four-Year-Old Finds Gun in the Couch, Shoots Off Finger.

I for one appreciate these repetitive stories because they are tearing down the erroneus conventional wisdom that guns make you safer, overall, by protecting you from the boogie man crawling through your living room window. While said boogie men do, indeed, exist, the thankful rarity of confronting one doesn't outweigh the actual risk of having instruments of instant death in your home. Goldy's stories are hammering this point until we accept it and get sick and tired of it. (Are we there yet?) That's sufficiently good reason to keep the stories coming.

Jun 3 floater commented on Five White Men Charged with Hate Crime on Capitol Hill.

I was also surprised they'd only get three months for pummeling someone like that. I can imagine the perpetrators struggling to hold back their smirks as the judge sentences them to their three or four months. But then, they also have to give up their sources of income and, if they're renters, their homes, and the conviction will follow them wherever they try to regain their lives. So maybe it's a little worse than just three months.

And even three months in prison is three months in hell.

Plus I imagine the victim can also sue them. Why not?

Jun 3 floater commented on The Fall of Will Smith.

I'm surprised at how many people hate Shyamalan. I thought I was the only one.

Jun 1 floater commented on The Saturday Morning News.

First of all, the climber's photographs are tremendous. Out of this world. He could make some money selling prints of them, unless there's a law against making a profit off minor criminal acts.

Also, it would have been so, so much cooler if he hadn't revealed himself, then kept on climbing and posting photographs. Forget the clowns in stupid outfits running around pretending to be superheroes. This guy was the closest thing we had to a local superhero, living a normal life during the day and performing dazzling superhuman feats at night. Those photographs were like graffiti tags, loud statements of a mystery presence, but a million times over the flashiest tag. They were like what every graffiti tag dreams of being.

But the anonymity is what kept it intriguing. Now that he has unmasked himself to the world, if you will, it's like we've come to the end of the movie. Even if he keeps climbing and posting pics of his conquests, we'll just shrug and say, "Oh, it's that guy again. Cool pic. I wonder how he did it this time."

The marvel is gone, or at least a good part of it. Now it's just merely really impressive.

But on the other hand, if he hadn't revealed himself, he wouldn't have been able to sell those photographs, if that's where he's going.

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May 31 floater commented on The Happiness of a Crowded Train.

Is that your picture? I kind of like it.

May 31 floater commented on In Austerity-Crazed Europe, Unemployment Reaches Record High.

Preach it! Given that this is the route they're trying to go through here in the states, we need to raise the alarm of what austerity actually is. Every time I hear a Tea Party moron scream "Stop spending!!" I want to puke.