Yeah. And Russian aircraft have SUCH a good performance record against American aircraft, as evidenced by the almost total losses off Iraqi-owned Soviet-built aircraft in head-to-head encounters with American and NATO fighters. As far as the "serious Russian army with 9500 nuk heads and 22,000 tanks," it's entirely possible we could neutralize that capability without recourse to a single nuclear warhead, instead using kinetic-kill weapons delivered by ICBMs or other platforms. You're living in the past, chief. But keep on living there. We actually prefer it.

This is a bullshyt argument and you know it. Speaking from the perspective of 2011, all Obama accomplished by demurring for months on McChrystal's requests was to get Americans and our allies unnecessarily killed. And the only reason - after the gains were realized from giving McChrystal what he wanted - for dismissing the man is that Barack Obama is a thin-skinned wuss who can't handle reading the truth about himself in print. McChrystal never advocated invading a neighboring country from the one he was making war in, as MacArthur (note the correct spelling) did. That was something the guy Obama replaced McChrystal with did, invading Pakistan.

Amazon has excellent points. Left unspoken was the issue of criminal liability for helping Assange's co-conspirator, the US Army private who stole the documents in the first place, violate the Espionage and Internal Security Acts. Amazon acted responsibly and prudently, as did every other US-based corporation which chose to not enable Wikileaks' publication of classified information.

Sounds like an answer to a question nobody asked. If the porn site vendors won't register under the .xxx domain, why promulgate it?

Maher has misrepresented himself as a libertarian throughout his career. Bill Maher really is a clever leftist who triangulates like Bill Clinton. The fact (and we have it in the quotes above, so it IS a fact) is that Maher has joined the Left in demonizing conservatives; he rarely turns his incisive wit on leftists, who are at least as anathematic to real libertarians as are conservatives.

I used to enjoy Maher's late night show on ABC. Gradually, though, I began to realize that Maher was either a faux libertarian at best, or that he was sliding from true libertarianism to leftism in a libertarian skin. It's really unclear which happened, but one of the two DID happen.

As to the article above - half good marks. There are so-called conservatives who think their worldview is dandy and want others to be forced to share it. I married the daughter of two such people; I see them as little as humanly possible.

True conservatives think that liberty is more important than conformity, and are concerned with a society that does what the Constitution requires of it - maintain the common defense, domestic tranquility, and promote the common welfare. And no more. A society that seeks to take more responsibility than that for its people inevitably ends up seeking to control its people to an unacceptable extent - and that is where conservative empathy lies - in seeking to protect the people from an over-reaching government and create a society where all kinds of people can live well - not just the ones we happen to like.