I would argue that it is actually consumer adoption that drives the health of the bitcoin economy. If every merchant accepts bitcoin, but no one uses it then the bitcoin economy will not be good.

I would agree that merchant adoption will generally drive consumer adoption and will have a positive coloration

US regulators have previously said that anyone engaging in the practice of mining is not considered to be a money transmitter. I have no idea why the attorney in the article would say otherwise (probably to get a little bit of free press while having no idea as to what he is talking about)

I agree with this. If the price is somewhat more stable then it is now, then it will likely see more long term adoption while will likely mean higher long term prices

If you are trying to move five figure amounts of money into bitcon every day then you will probably not be able to find an exchange to do this for you, as it is simply too much risk for them. You could potentially do this with coinbase, however you would not be able to gain instant access to your money, and would be prevented from purchasing additional bitcoin after only a few days.

I would say that your best bet would probably be something like second market (again you would not gain instant access to your bitcoin, and would probably not have access to the bitcoin you purchase period) however the amounts would work

I have looked at LTC gear's website and it looks very sketch to me. I am curious to know if the inputs from their payouts can actually be traced to any coinbase transactions of recently found blocks of anything they claim to mine

This is really not true. Even with 1,000 referrals on a faucet, you will be wasting your time. If you were to spend all day on a faucet then you would be lucky to earn 1/100th of a penny worth of bitcoin per day. If each of your referrals (1,000) were to spend all day on a faucet then they would be lucky to earn a collective amount of $0.10 per day, and with referrals only earning a small percentage of the users' earnings, you would probably earn less then a penny per day with 1,000 referrals.

The moral of the story - do not use faucets, they are not profitable.

A desktop wallet is generally going to be more secure then an online wallet, as you will generally have access to your private keys with a desktop wallet while you will not with an online wallet (blockchain.info being the exception to this - however blockchain does have it's own vulnerabilities)

If you were to use an "offline" wallet (eg cold storage) then your money will be much safer then either an online wallet or a desktop wallet, however you do have your own risks of not being able to access your money if you backup your wallet in too of an "exotic" fashion

This may be true, but not in the way the OP is describing. I would say that investing in the second market bitcoin fund of the COIN (BTC EFT) would be a very productive investment for your overall retirement strategy, however you need to be able to sell in the event that bitcoin no longer appears to be something appropriate for your retirement strategy.

Of the people who challenge these seizures in court, almost all of them will end up winning and/or settling out of court with the agency that seized the property. As part of the settlements, people must generally agree to not sue the agency later in regards to the case. This results in the fact that unless that the amount is relatively small then they will always agree to not sue the local government agency

People will be doomed to be forced to pay back their debts? In this community anyone who borrows money and does not repay (regardless of the reason) will be labeled a scammer. Why should traditional fiat based lending be any different?

I have made a good number of P2P based loans on prosper, and a good number of them have defaulted (and/or declared bankruptcy) after making >3 payments. I personally consider this activity to be criminal and deserving to be put in jail

The Obama administration has been very aggressive against people who are leaking information to the media that the administration does not want leaked, while intentionally "leaking" information they do want leaked but to not be an "official" stance of the administration.

I would certainly agree with the Washington Post's conclusion, with the most troubling example is when journalists' phone lines were tapped in an effort to find a WH leaker's identity

How is this a victory for human rights? We are taking about a parent of a child deciding to end the life of a child whose life is already established.

At this point in the child's life there is no risk to the parent if the child's life is not ended. The child should be able to make this kind of decision on their own if it is found by the court they will never be able to life any kind of "happy" life that is without pain.

This is called the citizens of the locality (or country for federal law enforcement officers) that law enforcement is suppose to be protecting. No one is going to see what the police are doing more then the citizens. Citizens are already allowed to film the police if they choose to do so, and IMO they do not film them enough (nor do they observe what they do enough)

The simple solution would be to disable the turning off of dashcams by officers locally. The dashcams should only be able to turned off by a superior and at least "x" time after the police officer is off duty and the police car is parked at the police station.

The same is true for the body cameras that some police officers are now being mandated to wear. They should remain active for an officer's entire shift and only be able to be turned off by someone above him when the officer clocks out

This is in line with the trend of local school districts on being very strict about potential school violence, while ignoring the underlying root of the school violence problem. It is also in line with the crazy goals of gun control advocates.

There was a 3rd grader who was suspended for eating a poptart into "the shape of a gun"

Well it is a generally accepted fact that people around the world are able to speak their local language as well as English (if English is not their local language). The reason for this is due to the massive amount of influence that the UK had over the world during the time of the British Empire, and the influence the US has over the world today.

Most people in the Romanian section (for example) is likely going to be able to read, and understand an English post while people in the main forum will probably not be able to read other languages that are potentially written. It is a matter of being able to understand what is written, not a matter of racism

This works both ways. They claim to uphold the law (generally only higher ranking officials swear to uphold the constitution), but it is also possible that others can claim the police violated their rights.

All police officers must swear to uphold the law, but there is really not a very good vetting process for potential officers so we will see a lot of bad officers. Plus the fact that police officers are given a lot of perverse incentives to make additional arrests and charge citizens with additional crimes that may not hold up in court.

Obama's nobel prize was actually revoked.

Obama has shown a disregard for the law and the constitution, so I don't see why anyone would be surprised that he is willing to disregard the constitution in this situation. Liberals have always wanted more illegal immigrants in this country so when they do become citizens they can take advantage of social programs and legally vote democrat, and before they become citizens they can cast illegal votes for democrats (this is the main reason why liberals are against voter ID laws)

What are you talking about

The US troops are not executing anyone in Africa. If this was going on, there would be public outrage and the US would be guilty of war crimes.

Troops have been dispatched to help the sick, they are not your traditional infantry fighters but are rather soldiers who would help the soldiers who get injured in battle (eg nurse type soldiers)

I think there should be more subsections reserved for auctions for specific kinds of items (especially for domains). Or even making a separate section for domains - I have noticed that domains generally will receive very few to no bids (probably 90%+ no bids or even replies other then bumps) but take up a huge amount of "room" as many people are trying to farm domain names.