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Historically, when a President lies and abuses power (more than “normal” lol), he is impeached and/or removed from office.

I wish that were true. Two presidents have been impeached in history. It would be tiresome to list the abuses of power just from the last 5-6, both Republican and Democrat (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_federal_political_scandals_in_the_United_States). The first impeachment was simply political because Johnson was to gentle to the South. The second was for lying under oath but importantly, both where for a direct action by the President not something that a underling did.

Was letting four Americans die and lying to our faces about it for months enough to warrant action by the American people?

I haven’t really been following this closely. I don’t watch 24 hours new channels at all and it appears that that is the forum, in addition to conservative outlets, that have been covering this issue but when I googled what Obama said about the attack I got this as one of the first hits and it is relatively contemporaneous: http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/17/politics/fact-check-terror. It highlights the statements, day by day, in which Obama and other administration officials say that it is an act of terror or a terrorist attack. It, however, doesn’t list all the times that it was linked to the video attack and I couldn’t easily find a list from a reputable source (I will submit myself to the same criticism that I leveled against you in the strike through). It seems like everything revolves around what Rice said on the Sunday after the attack and Clinton said a few days after that. It isn’t absolutely clear to me that they knew for certain that it was premeditated and had nothing to do with the video riots elsewhere in the middle east, which were real. I don’t know anything for sure, and am quite certain that the administration is fighting to make sure that we don’t find out (business as usual for all administrations by the way), but it doesn’t seem totally unreasonable for there to at least be in doubt 5-7 days after an attack that takes place halfway around the world. Even if those Clinton and Rice were pretty sure that it wasn’t because of the video, I haven’t seen any evidence that links their statements to Obama directly (who was campaigning for president at the time). From the CNN link, it seems like the administration was putting out a lot of conflicting information, some people were consistently using terror verbiage and clearly Clinton and her immediate lieutenants were mudding the water with the video information (probably for Clinton’s own political reasons more than Obama’s).

As for four people dying. American’s including diplomates and service members are killed almost every year despite the best efforts of Presidents from both parties: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/etc/cron.html. If America is going to deploy tens of thousands of troops to the more violent places in the world, American’s are going to be killed on occasion. We send diplomats and state department employees into a country during and after a civil war. It isn’t unforeseen that some of them would be attacked or killed.

Here’s the thing, I still don’t understand what we should do to make sure this doesn’t happen. After Iraq and Afganistan, we learned that maybe we shouldn’t be so confident in our intelligence or the ability of our Army to rebuild middle eastern countries. In my opinion, we didn’t send troops to Lybia, Egypt or Syria because we learned a lesson in Afganistan and Iraq. What should we change to make sure that Benghazi? It doesn’t seem like there is a suggestion, other than more security, which will never be enough to prevent all attacks. If you think that Clinton specifically lied about the video quote, you will almost certainly have an opportunity to vote against her in about 3 years. I hope you live in a swing state so it will be meaningful.

5 days ago on Metadata matters: how phone records and obsolete laws harm privacy and the free press 1 reply 2 recommends

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Here let me edit that to increase its accuracy:

“That’s why I said my source was Yahoo answers. Not exactly reliable, just the first thing I could find, and the specificity led me to believe the poster had done his homework which confirmed my preexisting beliefs. Looks like he was just cherry-picking.”

It is terrible that those Americans were killed but they were doing a very dangerous job in a country fresh off of a civil war and revolution. I guess for me this turns into a 9/11 or WMD story. In hindsight it easy to see which signs were missed and what could have been done but it is much hard to pick those gems out of the stream of threats and information before hand. I don’t know if i can remember the last president who had no Americans killed in terrorist attacks on his watch. It has to be pre-Carter administration. Is it the attack that is so upsetting or that someone gave the wrong motivation foe the attack in hours and day after the attack?

5 days ago on Metadata matters: how phone records and obsolete laws harm privacy and the free press 1 reply 3 recommends

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If that is the case why did MS remove the adds in the first place?

5 days ago on Google demands Microsoft remove YouTube Windows Phone app, cites lack of ads

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People didn’t usually pan Apple Maps UI as much as its functionality. Some people thought that the UI was a little bit sparse but mostly it lacked critical features, like transit directions, street view and occasionally gave incorrect directions.

6 days ago on Google Maps integrates Google Earth and Street View in completely redesigned interface

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trillons upon trillions of dollars to combat climate change.

hyperbole much? The GDP of the entire global economy is 70 trillion, you are asserting that 1% or so of everything produced in the world is devoted to combating climate change. To give you some context, the state that I am living in is considering repealing its renewable energy mandate (the vast majority of the climate change legislation in the state). The utilities are allowed to pass on the increased cost of renewables over fossil fuels. The average extra cost per family of this renewable energy, 0.43¢ per family. That is 0.01% of the average family’s income. The world economic forum estimates current anti-climate change spending at about 90 billion a year.

You also neglect the costs associated with climate change. We have invested a lot of money irrigating certain parts of the world to produce food. If those area’s climate changes and they are less productive we will have to bring other areas into food production. That means tearing down whatever is there and irrigating the new land. Large storms are fueled by the energy of evaporating and condensing water so higher ocean temperatures will increase the number of large storms. Sandy caused about $50 billion in damage even an one additional big storm each year would be hugely costly. So the cost of doing nothing is not zero. There are costs to combating climate change and there are costs to climate change. It is difficult calculation with many unknowns on both sides.

It is acceptable to argue that it is merely a tragedy of the commons that can not be solved but that isn’t really want the wolves metaphor was about.

12 days ago on Google's Timelapse project shows how the Earth has changed over a quarter of a century 2 replies

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You noticed the consequence of the wolves actions was their extinction, right. For those who believe the science, people can rationally try to avoid the consequences of certain actions by curtailing those actions. You can argue that the science is wrong or that not enough people will change their behavior because of the insurmountable tragedy of the commons but your particular argument is peculiar.

13 days ago on Google's Timelapse project shows how the Earth has changed over a quarter of a century 1 reply

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Sports and News are about the only things that the networks produce themselves. They are more like investors in the entertainment shows that air on their network. Chuck Lorre and Warner Brothers created the Big Bang Theory for CBS, neither is an employee of CBS. If Google wanted to, it could hire Lorre and a production company to make shows for YouTube. It would just be prohibitively expensive right now. That is what Netflix did with the House of Cards. They outbid the traditional cable channels to hire Kevin Spacey, et al. All the same people could make the same type of shows for Google rather than a network as long as the money is there and Google wants to spend it on content.

I don’t have cable. I watch everything on the internet, some of it network shows but mostly Sports and the rest my Sports I get over the air so this change would suck for me. I would have to pay more money to get cable.

15 days ago on Crazy like a Fox: how broadcast networks could rake in billions by going cable-only 1 recommend

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I am not jealous at all. The joy of google now is the background services. I can pull up the map home in the maps app pretty quickly but google now has it just sitting there in the notification window at 6:00pm every evening. It is a visual prompt and literally one click away. Likewise when it surfaces a navigation card for something that I searched from my computer at home, I only see it because it is waiting in the notification pane. If I had to open an app, I would probably open maps. I hope, but doubt, that services like google now will put pressure on Apple to open up more hooks in iOS. That would be better for everyone.

Besides my wife uses an iPhone and loves it. It doesn’t make my life any better if someone else’s phone isn’t as good as it could be.

23 days ago on Google Now comes to iPhone and iPad with new Search app update 4 recommends

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Guess what, shit happens. My daughter grabbed my GSIII to talk to her grandma and dropped it right on to a metal corner. The glass broke but the digitizer and AMOLED screen were fine. A less repairable phone, might have been a total loss but for $20 in materials and tools, I replaced the glass and it looks perfect. I don’t like having to put a case on my super thin phone so knowing that I can easily replace most components is reassuring.

25 days ago on Galaxy S4 teardown reveals a design that values utility over aesthetics 1 reply 1 recommend

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Good, you don’t like spare batteries, there appear to phones on the market that will satisfy your preference. I was just pointing out that for me a removable battery makes battery life slightly less important.

All your points are correct, you do have to carry the extra batteries, charge all your batteries (although my batteries come with a wall charger so I don’t have to cycle them through the phone to charge), reboot the phone to swap the battery. I carry a bag with a computer pretty much anytime I am running the phone enough to need a spare battery so I don’t carry them in my pocket. It is still better for me because maybe once a month, I am tethering all day and even the iPhone 4S wasn’t making it.

Here’s the thing, every choice has trade offs, a larger screen eats more battery for instance, and Apple says that the choices that we make with the iPhone are the absolute best tradeoffs for everyone or almost everyone. And they are right, at least in the case of my wife, she is a smart and sophisticated computer user who switched from Android to iPhone. It sounds like you believe that the made the right choices for you but I love the fact that I can get a phone that has a 3.5, 4.0, 4.3, 4.5, 4.8 or now 5.0 inch screen, removable or none removable battery, AMOLED or LCD screen, etc. I like Android and iOS, and could use either and I love that Android exists so I can get the exact screen, processor, radio, battery, color that I want. It ended up that the trade offs made the GSIII a better choice than the 4S (the iPhone option that was available when I was purchasing). I probably would have chosen the HTC One if I wasn’t on Verizon. In my opinion, if you have a removable battery, your battery life doesn’t have to be quite as good. I also prefer removable batteries to a mophie (and the GSIII was thinner than a 4S without any cover). I don’t think everyone has to share my opinion. I happy for mophie that there are people like you that don’t share my preferences.

I don’t understand why Apple and iPhone users are so invested in the iPhone being the perfect choice. Apple makes more than one size and shape laptop because people recognize that some people want a bigger screen and some want thinner lighter laptop, so they make a MBP 15"/17" and a Air. It doesn’t seem inconceivable that people would also vary their preferences in phones and tablet sizes. If Apple had offered an LTE phone with a ≥ 4.5" screen, I would probably still be an iOS user but they don’t so I am not.

26 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review

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So you watch a lot of TV, not everyone does. I only watch one or two seasonal shows. I buy them on Amazon for ~$20-$30 rather than $100 for cable. The sports leagues that I care about also have streaming packages. I would get them even if I had cable because I just moved cross country. Local cable and broadcast don’t carry the games that I care about.

No one says that the current deal is a bad deal for everyone. If you watch a lot of TV, across a lot of different shows and channels, the bundle works for you. My dad is retired and watches a ton of TV and loves his 200 channels. I don’t have the same viewing patterns so cable bundles aren’t the best deal for me.

26 days ago on The next decade in television: rooting for Aereo and burying DVDs at Tribeca Film Festival 1 recommend

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It is an additional id. On the GSIII you still have to have the google ID, which most purchasers of high end android hardware already have, and you also have create a Samsung ID. Besides, I own a GSIII, and none of the “features” they advertised worked for me.

28 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 3 recommends

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I have a GSIII because none of the phones I had used before, including iPhones, always made it through the day for me. The GSIII was the only top of the line phone to have a removable battery at the time. I bought 2 spares and a charger for about $30 and I bet I could beat any iPhone on the market for battery life with my spares, maybe even with a mophie case.

28 days ago on Samsung Galaxy S4 review 2 replies 1 recommend

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I am about to uninstall swype just because of dragon. So much worse than google’s voice recognition.

28 days ago on Swype Android keyboard finally available in Google Play store 1 recommend

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I use swype but I hate how it takes over the voice recognition from Google and changes it to Dragon, which isn’t as good. I wish I could turn that off.

28 days ago on Swype Android keyboard finally available in Google Play store