Slashdot Mirror

1. When having access to produce and livestock became a 'right'

2. Why people have to have foodstuffs that requires 90% or more of the country to pay for it because of where they choose to live

3. Why I should pay more because someone wants to live in an urban center where they can't make any food for themselves and don't have land for livestock.

4. Why they can't move

She's a double edged sword, pavement-dweller.

5. Why, after all of the above, if they don't have skills, can't live off the land, can't get a job, can't move, and are poor, we don't relocate them someplace else since they must already be living on the government dole. When you don't make your own way and don't contribute to society, you don't get to decide the rules that govern how you receive free money and other things.

That one is easy to answer:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

Some countries already have laws about animated stuff and written erotic fiction...

Yes. For example, the United States has a basic law that, according to the courts, say such things are legal unless they are actually obscene (a work doesn't have to portray under-aged characters to be obscene).

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/2012.html As well I am pretty sure Anwar al-Awlaki, Samir Khan, and Ahmed Hijazi would say that he took away all of their rights.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

How much more explicit does it have to get?!?

A lot of tough talk ...

This has gone beyond "tough talk" !!

We, the People, have been too complacent for too long

We, the People, have let those motherfuckers played fool on us for way too many times

This matter is not about us any longer, it has gone beyond who *WE* are, what kind of suffering *WE* gonna go through, and so on

This is about ***OUR COUNTRY*** !!

We, the Americans, are never afraid of fighting and dying for what is right

We fought and die in places thousands of miles away from home, in Europe, against the Nazis, in Asia, against the Japs, in Vietnam, against Vietcon, in Korea, against them crazy gooks

And now, it's the turn for ***OUR OWN COUNTRY***

Today, the enemy is not from without, they are from within

Yes, today, the enemy of our beloved nation are those motherfuckers in Washington D.C.

They have torn our Constitutions to shreds

In other words, those who are in the Capital Hill don't work for our country no more. They work AGAINST the very notion of why the United States of America was formed, in the first place

If you are citizen of the United States of America, I suggest you to re-read the Declaration of Independence ( http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html ), particularly the following part:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

The reason our founding fathers have penned the above into the Declaration of Independence is to provide us a guide as what we should do, when it comes the time the government has turned into absolute Despotism

I am not calling for an all out arm struggle - I do not want my country to be destroyed, much like what Syria is going through

But what I want to see, is that, We, the People, must stand up and be counted

No more should we allow those fuckers to play us for fools

No more should we allow anyone to reduce our nation into an absolute Despotism

It has come time to draw a line in the sand

It has come time to say "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !!!"

eric conspiracy pointed out:

Maybe on some other planet, but on Earth John Adams did not write the US Constitution.

You are, of course, correct. I was thinking of James Madison. My error.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_wrote_the_US_Constitution

Piss-poor authority, especially given the page's unreadability without Javascript.

Try this one, instead:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_history.html

We did Operation Iraq Liberation for reasons that had nothing to do with WMDs.

Oh, it must be true then.

Well, they provided a citation for it. Bush said it during a televised address to a Joint Session of Congress on September 20th, 2001:

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

Of course, if you'd looked at the reference provided you'd already know this.

Of course, if you'd referenced the citation directly instead of referencing Wikipedia which references the citation, it would have been clear from the outset where the information came from

Oh, it must be true then.

Well, they provided a citation for it. Bush said it during a televised address to a Joint Session of Congress on September 20th, 2001:

Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime.

Of course, if you'd looked at the reference provided you'd already know this.

Given the birth rate difference between atheists versus religious people, how exactly do you atheists hope to prevent a complete Christian takeover in 20 years or so ?

I am serious.

Since we are talking about the United States Postal Service, I will invoke the United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, first amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

And in case you've forgotten, it takes a little more than a positive growth rate to amend the Constitution. The population of fundamentalist Christians is also actually becoming more and more of a minority. The largest religious growth segment of the US population is Latino Catholics (or other, more traditional religious sects). I posit that Latinos are much less likely to support a repeal of religious freedom because they are collectively more likely to have experienced persecution first hand.

Of course, the backup plan is a sex-for-IT-support campaign starting right here on slashdot...

What does 9/11 have to do with Iraq? Nothing. So why are you bringing it up? No one said it did.

George Bush and his stooges very much indicated that the Iraq "problem" was part and parcel of our "war on terror." There is no question whatsoever that he linked the one to the other, and expected us to accept that. To claim otherwise is both revisionist and deceptive.

Contrary to what you may think, there was WMDs. Gas was used to kill hundreds of thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq.

Those are not WMD's in the sense that the US had any reason to be concerned with them, hence are completely irrelevant as justification for our declaring war on Iraq. The question is, was Iraq going to deliver these things to us, did they pose, in any way, a credible threat to the United States of America? The answer is not only "no", but "Fuck no." No delivery system, no demonstrated intent to deliver, no sane survival strategy post having delivered, complete inability to achieve any kind of meaningful military success no matter how much of that crap he collected, stated policy of the USA to respond to WMD use with our own WMDs, which aren't chemical and aren't survivable, and would turn Iraq or whatever target we should choose into Allah's own glowing skating rink.

The Kurd issue was an internal Iraqi problem, just as Waco and Ruby Ridge and Kent State and the Chicago riots and the assault on US WWI soldiers in Washington by MacArthur and the internment of Japanese in WWII and the Montana "Freemen" and the current assault by the government on our constitutional rights -- and many other injustices -- were and remain internal US problems.

The argument for going into Iraq 3 years later came down to 3 points (which Bush laid out in his national address 2 weeks before going into Iraq).

Of course, his national addresses are online.

1. 30 million people living in Iraq were in danger. Saddam had begun cutting off shipments of food to cities, shutting off water, etc. He had bombed Kurds and chased them out of their homes, forcing them to hide in caves.

Nope, this claim doesn't appear in the transcript.Or in any of the other statements or speeches that I can find from this time period. He does make the references to 'freeing the Iraqi people' using various phrasings, but not nearly as much as he talks about WMD.

2. The cease fire from 1991 was based on Iraq's compliance. The UN Security council then passed 75 resolutions over the next 10 years citing that Iraq was refusing to comply and waving their fist. Bush contended that Iraq had refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire, so the initial authorization for military conflict in 1991 stood. Some say this is cheap logic, but at the same time, if you never once follow through on an ultimatum, then the UN Security Council becomes a paper tiger (if they aren't already).

Nobody on the Security Council except the US and UK believed that individual members were allowed to take any action they wanted in response to any breaches of UN Security Council resolutions. And the many Middle Eastern countries that are in breach of resolutions but happen to be 'friends' of the US never face any consequences whatsoever. The Security Council has never been allowed to pass any resolutions on Israel.

3. He said the CIA had presented evidence that Iraq had been pursuing WMD. This is the biggest point of contention. I know Powell despises war, but argued for war because he believed the intel as well. In retrospect, I guess some of the intel was flawed. And the term WMD is so vague, that the American public perceived this as ICBMs where Iraq could nuke the US, which is absurd.

Gosh, why would people think that Iraq was going to use WMD against American cities. Could it be because GWB told them this:

Saddam Hussein has a long history of reckless aggression and terrible crimes. He possesses [note - not 'had been pursuing'] weapons of terror. He provides funding and training and safe haven to terrorists who would willingly deliver weapons of mass destruction against America and other peace-loving countries.

The attacks of September the 11, 2001 showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terror states could do with weapons of mass destruction.

Anyway...

Bush also screwed up big time by asking the UN permission to invade in advance (tipping off Iraq) and then announcing on national TV he was going to invade two weeks later. Then famously, we saw a huge caravan leave Iraq and head into Syria. Powell then noted we'd likely never find the smoking gun on WMD evidence as we gave them warning to move it out of country.

We did find training manuals, storage facilities, missiles with sarin gas, etc. but not a huge smoking gun of lots of really dangerous WMD. Maybe they had more, and maybe they didn't. I guess we'll never know.

If only there had been an investigation.

ISG formed a working group to investigate the possibility of the evacuation of WMD-related material from Iraq prior to the 2003 war.... Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judge

The argument for going into Iraq 3 years later came down to 3 points (which Bush laid out in his national address 2 weeks before going into Iraq).

Of course, his national addresses are online.

1. 30 million people living in Iraq were in danger. Saddam had begun cutting off shipments of food to cities, shutting off water, etc. He had bombed Kurds and chased them out of their homes, forcing them to hide in caves.

Nope, this claim doesn't appear in the transcript.Or in any of the other statements or speeches that I can find from this time period. He does make the references to 'freeing the Iraqi people' using various phrasings, but not nearly as much as he talks about WMD.

2. The cease fire from 1991 was based on Iraq's compliance. The UN Security council then passed 75 resolutions over the next 10 years citing that Iraq was refusing to comply and waving their fist. Bush contended that Iraq had refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire, so the initial authorization for military conflict in 1991 stood. Some say this is cheap logic, but at the same time, if you never once follow through on an ultimatum, then the UN Security Council becomes a paper tiger (if they aren't already).

Nobody on the Security Council except the US and UK believed that individual members were allowed to take any action they wanted in response to any breaches of UN Security Council resolutions. And the many Middle Eastern countries that are in breach of resolutions but happen to be 'friends' of the US never face any consequences whatsoever. The Security Council has never been allowed to pass any resolutions on Israel.

3. He said the CIA had presented evidence that Iraq had been pursuing WMD. This is the biggest point of contention. I know Powell despises war, but argued for war because he believed the intel as well. In retrospect, I guess some of the intel was flawed. And the term WMD is so vague, that the American public perceived this as ICBMs where Iraq could nuke the US, which is absurd.

Gosh, why would people think that Iraq was going to use WMD against American cities. Could it be because GWB told them this:

Saddam Hussein has a long history of reckless aggression and terrible crimes. He possesses [note - not 'had been pursuing'] weapons of terror. He provides funding and training and safe haven to terrorists who would willingly deliver weapons of mass destruction against America and other peace-loving countries.

The attacks of September the 11, 2001 showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terror states could do with weapons of mass destruction.

Anyway...

Bush also screwed up big time by asking the UN permission to invade in advance (tipping off Iraq) and then announcing on national TV he was going to invade two weeks later. Then famously, we saw a huge caravan leave Iraq and head into Syria. Powell then noted we'd likely never find the smoking gun on WMD evidence as we gave them warning to move it out of country.

We did find training manuals, storage facilities, missiles with sarin gas, etc. but not a huge smoking gun of lots of really dangerous WMD. Maybe they had more, and maybe they didn't. I guess we'll never know.

If only there had been an investigation.

ISG formed a working group to investigate the possibility of the evacuation of WMD-related material from Iraq prior to the 2003 war.... Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judge

The argument for going into Iraq 3 years later came down to 3 points (which Bush laid out in his national address 2 weeks before going into Iraq).

Of course, his national addresses are online.

1. 30 million people living in Iraq were in danger. Saddam had begun cutting off shipments of food to cities, shutting off water, etc. He had bombed Kurds and chased them out of their homes, forcing them to hide in caves.

Nope, this claim doesn't appear in the transcript.Or in any of the other statements or speeches that I can find from this time period. He does make the references to 'freeing the Iraqi people' using various phrasings, but not nearly as much as he talks about WMD.

2. The cease fire from 1991 was based on Iraq's compliance. The UN Security council then passed 75 resolutions over the next 10 years citing that Iraq was refusing to comply and waving their fist. Bush contended that Iraq had refused to abide by the terms of the cease-fire, so the initial authorization for military conflict in 1991 stood. Some say this is cheap logic, but at the same time, if you never once follow through on an ultimatum, then the UN Security Council becomes a paper tiger (if they aren't already).

Nobody on the Security Council except the US and UK believed that individual members were allowed to take any action they wanted in response to any breaches of UN Security Council resolutions. And the many Middle Eastern countries that are in breach of resolutions but happen to be 'friends' of the US never face any consequences whatsoever. The Security Council has never been allowed to pass any resolutions on Israel.

3. He said the CIA had presented evidence that Iraq had been pursuing WMD. This is the biggest point of contention. I know Powell despises war, but argued for war because he believed the intel as well. In retrospect, I guess some of the intel was flawed. And the term WMD is so vague, that the American public perceived this as ICBMs where Iraq could nuke the US, which is absurd.

Gosh, why would people think that Iraq was going to use WMD against American cities. Could it be because GWB told them this:

Saddam Hussein has a long history of reckless aggression and terrible crimes. He possesses [note - not 'had been pursuing'] weapons of terror. He provides funding and training and safe haven to terrorists who would willingly deliver weapons of mass destruction against America and other peace-loving countries.

The attacks of September the 11, 2001 showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terror states could do with weapons of mass destruction.

Anyway...

Bush also screwed up big time by asking the UN permission to invade in advance (tipping off Iraq) and then announcing on national TV he was going to invade two weeks later. Then famously, we saw a huge caravan leave Iraq and head into Syria. Powell then noted we'd likely never find the smoking gun on WMD evidence as we gave them warning to move it out of country.

We did find training manuals, storage facilities, missiles with sarin gas, etc. but not a huge smoking gun of lots of really dangerous WMD. Maybe they had more, and maybe they didn't. I guess we'll never know.

If only there had been an investigation.

ISG formed a working group to investigate the possibility of the evacuation of WMD-related material from Iraq prior to the 2003 war.... Based on the evidence available at present, ISG judge

1: It ain't Congress' job. See the Constitution (but we've covered that).

Yes, we have indeed covered that you have some imaginary Constitution in your head that says the US Government can't lend or give money out. However, I kind of insist on using the real US Constitution, which (fortunately) says no such thing.

If you want to believe otherwise as a matter of personal faith, that's your business. However, if you want to argue the point publicly with me, I'm going to have to insist you start by pointing out the exact articles that say this foolish thing you seem to think they say.

OK, you said a lot of things I agree with, and a lot of things I strongly disagree with. Each of your statements stand fairly well on their own, so I'll group them together for convenience of discussion.

The constitution is in place for a reason. Laws are made for reasons. . . Freedom does come at a price. Having what we have has come at the cost of many lives. . . I think people need to truly look around and understand why they have the freedoms they have today.

So far we're in perfect agreement. I'll return to this later.

If you constrain law enforcement and the military too much, bad things could happen to our country. . . Law enforcement is responsible for taking peoples lives when the bad American is going to do something bad, and there are no other alternatives other than to take the bad person's life. There could easily be a time when law enforcement cannot or does not have the ability to act against bad Americans, and the military with their drones may be the only thing able to deal with these bad people. By making a law that says drones cannot be used to kill an American could easily cost another 3000 Americans their lives. This is a very complicated world we live in. We sometimes need to do things we are not proud of to protect this country. . . You can be outraged at what Holder says, but at least understand why he is saying what he is saying.

Here we diverge almost completely after the first sentence. I'll go point-by-point:

• Yes, bad things can happen. Doing worse things to prevent anything bad from happening is not an acceptable alternative. At the risk of sounding trite, I'm with the Dory character from Finding Nemo: it's not the Government's job to make sure that nothing bad ever happens.
• Law enforcement's job is not to kill people before they commit crimes. Nor have The People of the United States given up their rights to self-defense; the use of deadly force is not restricted to the Executive Branch (under whose umbrella both the Military and Law Enforcement act). There is no department of pre-crime, nor should there ever be. Law enforcement's role is to uphold the law and prosecute violations. Your statement appears to support murdering suspects as a form of crime prevention, and you're frightening me.
• You speculate a hypothetical situation where somehow only use of U.S. military power against its own citizens will keep 3000 other citizens safe. I find this highly implausible, but even if it weren't then use of the military on U.S. soil would still be a frightening prospect to be avoided at all costs (even the lives of 3000 civilians). Armies and civilians don't mix well, and both the Declaration of Independence and the Posse Comitatus act were written in reaction to bad results from such.
• Yes, the world is complicated. I may agree that to address that complexity we need to do things we're not comfortable with, but I don't agree that we need to compromise our principles to live in a complex world. If such things as "innocent until proven guilty" and "freedom of speech" are ever important then they're important all the time, not just when it's convenient or simple.

• I think I do understand where Holder is coming from. I used to oppose the release of suspects whose guilt was proven via illegal searches. The fundamental question is this: "how much harm is done be releasing the guilty versus allowing Police more power to conduct searches?" I've moved over to wanting restricted police power, since I now believe that abuse of police power is the greater harm.

The constitution and our laws were written for a reason; it originally was to protect The People against abuses of power. The Ame

This is the slippery slope by which DHS can barge into any home in America. Any.

So could any terrorist. It's the duty of the citizens to protect themselves, thus we never needed a DHS in the first place.

No one is safe.

Not true. Freedom doesn't imply safety; However, by taking away freedoms the government is now fairly safe from its citizens. Life is dangerous, "safety" is a disease; Use caution instead. The DHS was founded under the guise of providing safety, see? Instead of panicking we should have just used personal caution, and not rely on others to provide non-existent preemptive safety.

If you read the US Declaration of Independence, down near the bottom in the list of abuses of the citizens it cites that the King of England "has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance." It's pretty much like what's happening now: We're being forced to pay for the many new offices of the DHS which only serve to harass us while eating away our sustenance in the form of taxes, and eating the funds of other beneficial programs.

I encourage everyone to read those list of abuses and compare them to events of today: "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures." Hell, they go worse than this and simply try coming up with laws decided in Secret via treaty, remember ACTA? Kangaroo Courts, where the famous and police can get away with murder or massive fraud -- Corporations frequently try to file suits in such a way to make them more expensive to get to, just ask G.Hotz. I could go on, but it really is quite uncanny how many of the abuses listed by our forefathers are now mirrored in today's happenings. The founding fathers thought many of the practices today's people are subjected to were intolerable and that it was their duty to fight a revolution and not "suffer, while evils are sufferable", instead they chose to "right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed". If only they could see us now... The once brave now cower, because their Land of the Free isn't.

I guess some good has come of it all: If we every did want to turn it off and on again, we could simply re-use the same declaration, and just add some new signatures.

umm, I think they're doing this precisely because everybody already knows how much of a bully the US is. But hey, whip out your penis if you want.

US bullies?

It is strange that someone with your interest in penises has such a difficult time figuring out who the real dicks are between the two. As to world-wide? Not even close.

A US made nuke, good!
A NK made nuke, evil!

Got it!

Somehow I doubt it. Maybe this will help:

Good US, made nuke, OK. Evil NK, made nuke, evil.

Do you still get it?

Where does the Constitution (or any other legal document) guarantee you the right to know exactly how you're being investigated?

Right here:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

(text of the Fourth Amendment from archives.gov)

Specifically, "Warrants... particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.". No searches without a warrant and warrants must precisely state what they are warrants for.

You dont see scientists flying planes into building, commiting suicide bombings, mutilating women, bashing gay people

You may want to investigate what the 9/11 terrorists studied in school before they hijacked those planes.

"We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering."

Source: New York Times, The Madrassa Myth

cock blocking helpful advances like stem cell

You are, I assume, referring to the infamous Bush position that federal money would not be used for stem cell research? Bush simply witheld federal dollars for stem cell recearch on new stem cells, he did not limit study on pre-exisiting stem cells, nor did he prevent any private funding of stem cell research.

In fact, George W. Bush was the first President to provide ANY federal funding for stem cell research.

just came here to make a few points. "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." from the deceleration of independence http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html and, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." 2nd amendment. the WHOLE point was a) to be able to defend from {Europe,India,Africa,unknown} and b) so that when the government gets to broken we can use guns, in the hands of regular citizens to push the reset button. Tell me this, with all the restrictions like above, how are you supposed to go against an M1 Abrams tank, or an F-22? you know the best funded military in the world 7 times over. "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass." It has been declared this attribution is "unsubstantiated and almost certainly bogus, even though it has been repeated thousands of times in various Internet postings. There is no record of the commander in chief of Japan’s wartime fleet ever saying it. However the sentiment holds true, and without something like the new Red Dawn movie to "Magically" take out all the infrastructure. I can understand the need for some semblance of gun control i guess. would not want children cruising the streets with them. but why should they be that much different that they you get cigarets or alcohol?

Every company needs a "we can do whatever we want" clause in their terms of usage, why not the United States?

Because the contract expressly forbids it

Precisely how they did it is yet to be revealed by a truly independent investigation with full subpoena power. This timeline leaves no doubt that the official story is a crock of lies, and indicates a number of people who should be taken in for questioning. For a longer exposition including proof of controlled demolitions, details of disinformation tactics, and information on moving companies, a "factoring company" that specializes in "unconventional transactions worldwide" and deals with the Pentagon, the CIA and the FBI, and possible links to organized crime, see here.

Pre-9/11 Timeline

1946: July 22. Menachem Begin's Irgun Jewish terrorists dress as Arabs and bomb the King David Hotel, killing 92 people. The Irgun also plot to assassinate British foreign secretary Ernest Bevin; fortunately, this conspiracy is foiled by MI6.

1948: May 14. David Ben-Gurion declares the independence of the new Zionist State of Israel, born from deception and from the blood of victims of Jewish terrorism hours before the British Mandate is due to expire. It takes effect at midnight, Tel Aviv time. May 15. Eleven minutes after midnight, U.S. President Harry Truman officially recognises the proclaimed Jewish state in Palestine.

1954: July. An Israeli spy ring is arrested in Egypt. These Israeli secret service agents have been assigned to attack U.S. and British interests in Egypt. "Operation Susannah" is a typical example of false-flag terrorism in which the perpetrators pin the blame on another party - in this case, Egypt and "the Arabs" - for political gain. The operation is unsuccessful, the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon is forced to resign as a result of the scandal, and the incident becomes known as the Lavon Affair.

1967: June 8. Israel carries out a sustained air and naval attack on the USS Liberty for over an hour, employing torpedoes, machine guns and napalm rockets, even to the extent of machine-gunning lifeboats launched to save the most seriously wounded. 34 men are killed and more than 170 wounded.

1983: Christopher Bollyn marries

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

Actually, taxing exports requires a Constitutional amendment.

Bullshit. You never actually read the Constitution, did you? Where did you get the idea that taxes need a constitutional amendment?

Section. 8.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

Except the US has this thing called The Constitution. Specifically the tenth amendment.

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Without an amendment to the constitution stripping the states of their power the state law trumps the international one in the US.

550 goddamn votes in Florida and you'd see what difference not electing Bush the Lesser would have made, kemosabe.

Would we? Here are a couple of views:

The History of the U.S. – If Al Gore Became President
If Al Gore Had Won in 2000

Here are a few of mine:

Al Qaida was attacking United States embassies and the Cole under the Clinton administration.
It seems pretty certain that 9/11 would still have happened.
If 9/11 happens, it's pretty certain a global war against Al Qaida follows, and very likely war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Invasion? Probably.

Economic crashes? Of course. The internet-centric business meltdown is virtually certain to have occurred, and the housing bubble not much less so. The internet-centric business meltdown was the result of trends started in the Clinton administration. The actual wrong-doing for Enron occurred under the Clinton administration. The housing bubble was a result of policies with broad bi-partisan support.

Iraq? That is more of a wildcard. The US policy calling for regime change in Iraq was set under the Clinton administration. It is virtually certain that there would have been conflicts with Iraq, including armed action. Would it have lead to invasion and occupation of Iraq? Somewhere along the line of less likely to no. There almost certainly would have been bombings though, probably a lot more of them to compensate for the lack of ground forces. Saddams army in 2003 was strong enough to hold Iraq against rebellion that wasn't aided externally. It seems pretty certain that either Saddam or one of his sons would still be in power. They might even have thrown off sanctions due to the "Oil for Food" program bribes and the loss of interest in the world community in containing him. Saddam with no sanctions means a Saddam rearming and continuing to support terrorism (no, not Al Qaida). He might ever do it with a vengence. Would Iraqis be better off? Very unlikely. Saddam used the food money to build palaces and buy weapons while the infrastructure crumbled, and people perished. That is from simple neglect. Saddam's government filled Iraq with large numbers of mass graves. Had Saddam's regime not been overthrown, the killing would have continued.

You may recall that Saddam had to restrain his sons, they were crueler than he was.

How Bad Was Saddam’s Son?

. . . Latif’s first lesson was to learn how to not react in disgust or become sick at Hussein regime cruelty. He was taken to a viewing room holding thousands of videos of torture sessions.

Saddam’s son had learned the same way. “Uday told me whenever he seemed weak or squeamish as a child his father would beat him with an iron bar and then force him to watch videos of prisoners being tortured.”

It worked. “Just wait until I become president,” Uday promised, “I’ll be crueler than my father ever was. You mark my words. You’ll yearn for the days of Saddam
Hussein.”

Now, read this carefully. If there is no US invasion of Iraq, there is not the same opportunity for an Al Qaida supported and led insurgency in Iraq that drew Al Qaida members from around the world to Iraq. That movement generated intelligence and provided opport

From Section. 8.

"The Congress shall have Power To ... provide for the common Defence" and later on "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations". This is clearly both.The president is complying with an enacted law providing for the common defense by attemption to prevent a foreign nation from putting an ECM suite next to a test range, which is also a law which regulates commerce with foreign nations.

Want to show me where I'm wrong?
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

Article I, Section1:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

If you are a US Citizen, you should be deeply, deeply ashamed of yourself. Your right to vote should be revoked since you know so little about your country.

The United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 grants Congress the exclusive power to establish a postal service. There can be no other postal service without the approval of Congress, and so far they haven't approved any.

Except that's not true. The Constitution does give Congress the power "To establish Post Offices and post Roads", but the world exclusive is nowhere to be found. A competing postal service is no more unconstitutional than privately owned highways, of which there are hundreds in the US.

Now, you were going on about being embarrassed?

False. There are only 2 states that divide up the vote (Nebraska and Maine), and neither of them matter much due to low population. Source: http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#wtapv

Every other state is winner-takes-all, which is why voting in any state that is not a swing state basically doesn't matter. Politicians know this. Check out spending per state: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Focus_on_large_swing_states

California and Texas have almost no money spent on them despite their huge number of electoral votes. If you live in those states, your vote REALLY doesn't matter.

The law in it's present state allows this sort of monitoring.

Actually, it it doesn't; the only reason the federals get to take carte blanche with regard to ignoring Constitutional limitations is because they hold the states hostage via extortion, i.e. "pass this draconian law / allow us to enforce this unconstitutional law in your state, or we'll pull funding from your critical programs." Personally, I don't imagine any elected President would have the balls to actually pull funding, especially during an election year, but the threat seems to be sufficient to keep the states enslaved, er, in line.

The only out I see at this point is to return power to the states by producing what we need on our own, without federal dollars. Barring that, we're screwed.

thing is, the local police and the courts and the feds -- all executive officials, top to bottom -- have copped an attitude that the bill of rights doesn't translate into the digital age. and courts are conflicted about it. that's why we need elected officials -- from bottom to top -- to specifically tell them that they cannot collect and retain and share this data without restriction.

you are right that we need to stop accepting federal dollars for surveillance programs, tho. that needs to happen at the most local level possible. if you are interested in fighting ALPR at the local level, go to privacysos.org/alpr. there's some info there.

The law in it's present state allows this sort of monitoring.

Actually, it it doesn't; the only reason the federals get to take carte blanche with regard to ignoring Constitutional limitations is because they hold the states hostage via extortion, i.e. "pass this draconian law / allow us to enforce this unconstitutional law in your state, or we'll pull funding from your critical programs." Personally, I don't imagine any elected President would have the balls to actually pull funding, especially during an election year, but the threat seems to be sufficient to keep the states enslaved, er, in line.

The only out I see at this point is to return power to the states by producing what we need on our own, without federal dollars. Barring that, we're screwed.

We after all do vote for these politicians.

Yup, and it matters not, a single iota. Besides, voting out one lobbyist-controlled, billionaire criminal to replace them with another lobbyist-controlled, billionaire criminal hasn't worked for us yet; what's the point in continuing to flog that poor dead horse?

I recently pulled the census data and it's pretty much useless since any information you could use to look at results by city or region have been stripped out in the version available to the general public. Sucks.

What else did you expect when you privatize data collected using public funds> http://corporate.ancestry.com/press/press-releases/2006/06/ancestry.com-digitizes-entire-u.s.-federal-census-collection-from-1790-1930/.

See also http://www.archives.gov/digitization/digitized-by-partners.html

Misquote and wrong amendment.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.html
Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Misquote and wrong amendment.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.html
Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

You're thinking of the Second Amendment. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures.

The actual text of the Second Amendment as ratified reads:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed"

See it for yourself if you want to.

On the contrary, I possess a very good bullshit detector

I'm sorry but you just don't. You look at a site which is practically surrounded by signs flashing 'disinformation' and you have not an inkling as to why a serious visitor would be dubious about its contents. You need to exercise way more skepticism in assessing the credibility of your sources of information.

... this is still the essence of ad hominem.

Now pay attention and try to understand it this time! What I wrote was that "I've made no claim of invalidity" and since an ad hominem argument is in essence a claim of invalidity there can be no ad hom. Yes?

You'd be better off trying to characterise it as a species of argumentum ad verecundiam, which it is. But that's science for you. ;)

... you are questioning the source based on where it happened to appear ...

Just to clarify some terminology. The source is where it appears. You know the thing you italicise in your notes (have you actually ever done any academic writing?)

you DIDN'T EVEN EXAMINE THE ACTUAL SOURCE. You only examined the site it was posted on.

Do calm down. But yes, [translating] I didn't examine the actual article having dismissed the source as an overly obvious disinformation site. If Latour is presenting a serious scientific argument one would expect to find some form of it from a credible source (i.e. the scientific literature). If such a source exists, why not cite it? If it doesn't exist in the literature but only on an obvious disinformation site ... well forgive my skepticism.

It may seem counter-intuitive, but being well informed involves filtering out information perhaps as much as acquiring it. You could spend a lot of time reading all the information on timecube.org, but there is an opportunity cost. And after all, it is the uncritical acceptance of disinformation that has compromised your own grasp on reality

To show just how STUPID that position is, by analogy: I could post the Declaration of Independence on this website ... and you would ASSUME whether it was valid based on where you read it?

Again, it's not a question of validity, every word he wrote could be true. The nature of the source (site) is such that the threshold is not met at which validity of its contents even enters into consideration. But ... this has the makings of a good example. OK forget anything you know about the text of the Declaration and I will do as you suggest, publish it (the start anyway) right here:

When in the cause of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which had connected them to another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and the LORD God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the courses which compelled them toward that separation.

Now the problem is that the text published in this comment on this site differs occasionally from that found on the National Archives site.

... you would ASSUME whether it was valid based on where you read it?

Bearing in mind that we have both forgotten the text how to resolve the discrepancies in the two published versions? I would simply presume that the version on the authoritative source more likely reflects the actual wording. Yes I admit it.

And yes, Latour's contribution, if it appeared in Nature Geosciences say, would warrant our attention in a way it does not when it appears exclusively on the Sky Dragon disinformation site. Of course the mere fact of existing in the scienti

It's unclear whether they are Constitutional or whether anyone would follow orders to enforce them.

It's only unclear to people who are incapable of reading 4,500 or so words OR people living in Washington, DC. Everyone else knows they're unconstitutional.

This was the prevailing ideology leading up to the financial crisis, where drastic deregulation to get government "out of the way" paved the way to disaster.

Funny, and here I thought that the amended Community Reinvestment Act (as amended in 1991 and 1994, and heavily enforced by regulators beginning in 1994) forced banks to relax lending standards to such an extent that they had to find new and exciting (read: untested and dangerous) ways to get said loans off their books. I was under the impression that this began the rapidly snowballing practice of handing out loans to people who weren't the least bit qualified (from a strictly financial perspective) and that it was heavily encouraged by both President Clinton and (far moreso) by President George W. Bush via Housing and Urban Development.

Further, I kinda figured that several years of practically free money flowing from the quasi-government entity known as the Federal Reserve fueled all kinds of terrible investments (like a housing bubble?). And you know, I didn't think it was helpful that a pair of government-sponsored entities (who were under the direction of the US Congress, had the implicit backing of the Full Faith and Credit of the United States, and who've been taken into conservatorship by the US Federal government) kept prices and rates artificially low at great cost to the US taxpayer and who - together - account for about 60% of the US mortgage market. Doesn't that sort of thing usually spawn... a bubble?

Not really sure what led me to believe all of that stuff. Does the narrative even make sense? Congress changes an existing law and the President changes enforcement to pressure those who give mortgages to hand out more loans to the "economically disadvantaged" in their communities in the mid-1990s which causes lenders to put a ton of loans on their books that don't look very good? I mean, I guess the banks and such would already be lending to people who were qualified for loans; there's no reason not to, right? If you're qualified, the bank makes money through the life of the loan, you get a house, and everybody wins, yeah? So I suppose if Congress had to force banks to make a bunch of loans, it'd probably mean that those loans weren't so great. Now from what I know of banks, they've got to answer to the bean counters and stock holders and all sorts of other people who get fussy when the books start looking scary. I guess if that started to happen, "the government made me do it" probably wouldn't cut it for very long. So on the one side, you've got the government pressuring the lenders to create loans they wouldn't normally create, and on the other hand, you've got people who are like "hey, if you go out of business, I lose a lot of money, so don't do that!" After a little while of that and not seeing things get any better, I know I'd be looking for another way out. Which is interesting, because the US government invented a neat way to get loans off your books back in 1970 with what are called "Mortgage-backed securities" (courtesy of Ginnie Mae). More than half the mortgages in the US have been turned into those, (including $3 Trillion worth in 2003 alone in a $12 Trillion total market) so that's pretty neat.

Ok, so the lenders have a good way move the bad loans off their books, and by all accounts, they start doing just that. By 2002, President Bush was

That is a new law.

"New" as in from 1790. Specifically, the 1790 Patent Act - passed just 3 years after the Constitution was drafted - included as patentable subject matter "any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein." The term "useful art," as it was known at the time, meant an industrial process.

The original constitution states "physical inventions".

Au contraire. The Constitution grants Congress the power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

The phrase "physical inventions" does not appear in the Constitution.

In fact, the word "physical" does not appear in the Constitution.

If it subverts the original meaning that is grounds for the supreme court to throw it out.

First, as noted above, the same people who wrote the Constitution wrote the Patent Act, passing it just a couple years later. Thomas Jefferson was the first Patent Examiner. It's a pretty tough argument to say that the founders didn't understand what the founders intended.

Second, the patent clause of the Constitution is one of the explicitly enumerated powers of Congress, and Congress has the power to pass any laws "necessary and proper" to performing those powers. Which means that the Supreme Court is supremely deferential when it comes to whether Congress has the power to pass a law regarding one of those enumerated powers. Basically, if Congress says that "useful arts" includes processes, the Supreme Court isn't going to reverse that by arguing they lack the power to define "useful arts".

Third, as noted, the Constitution doesn't include "physical inventions" as a limitation. Accordingly, it's a misreading to say that by allowing patenting of processes, they are "subverting the original meaning". I think you're getting confused with an entirely different clause - the "to promote the progress of [the] useful arts". Whether patenting processes subverts that is an entirely different question, which as of yet, you've not raised.

The second issue is math should not be patentable because they are laws of nature and not manmade. Computer algorithms are just this and a process is simply math.

You're right, and that's why computer algorithms are not patentable by themselves. Instead, they must be explicitly tied to a machine or performed by a machine, because machines are not laws of nature, nor are they man-made.

Laws of nature have been ruled not to be patentable as well in the past and I think your text from the America Invents act are clearly unconstitutional but I am no lawyer.

I have no idea what part of the AIA you're referring to. It says nothing about patenting laws of nature. Would you care to quote a passage?

What I want to know is if laws of nature as unpatentable are a European idea or American or both?

Both. However, "software patents" are patentable in both Europe and America, provided they are tied to a physical machine. It is software per se that is unpatentable.

The grandparent is correct in that original patents were for physical inventions with a prototype already functional only. Not for an idea.

As noted above, the grandparent is provably wrong, based on the Constitution and the original Patent Act of 1790. Additionally, the requirement of a prototype went away in 1880.

Otherwise everyone would be quite wealthy or broke as nothing could be made without infringing on everyone else.

And yet the economy continues and Apple

We should be clear about the problem. All this information actually is publicly available

This much is true.

We should be clear about the problem. All this information actually is publicly available: the US Code is versioned by codification year (a new version is codified every six years with interim supplements), and you can find out who voted for or introduced what (including amendments) in the Congressional record. The Code of Federal regulations and the Federal Register serve an analogous function for agency regulations.

So the problem is not the availability of the information. It is all publicly available from multiple government sources on the internet

Except when it isn't. With respect to federal statutes, for instance, the US Code, as you note, is widely available, but it is not the complete body of US statute law. It is the output of the subset of the statute law that happens to be phrased as insertions, updates, moves, and deletions to the US Code.

The actual thing you are looking for is the Statutes at Large, which "is not available in electronic format" but only "from the Superintendent of Documents, or at any Federal Depository Library."

I don't think this is limited to the TV news.

Incorporation by reference is one of the tools that private corporations use to get their will imposed through government regulation. It is a shady practice at best, and leads to all kinds of problems with unfunded mandates being exercised on the people, among other things.

Many standards must be licensed, generate quite a bit of revenue for the private companies that develop them.

It is true that many standards are costly to develop, but therein lies the problem - if we need them, we should be paying for them once and making them available to everyone.

This practice should be immediately outlawed, and all regulatory standards should be made open and free to citizens at no cost.

Here is a listing of all the standards incorporated by reference into the Federal Register:
http://standards.gov/sibr/query/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.main

See:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_by_reference
- http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/cfr/ibr-locations.html

If you want to talk constitutional theory then you've got to take the tenth amendment into consideration:

Amendment X
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The US government is supposed to be a government of limited and enumerated powers and the Supremacy Clause (Article VI, clause 2) is supposed to be confined to conflicts with its specifically enumerated powers.

That's the theory of course. The reality, as we well know, is much different. 200 years of stretching the Elastic Clause and the Commerce Clause have largely eviscerated the idea and reality of state sovereignty. One of the reasons that people get so worked up about PPACA (ObamaCare) is the way the Commerce Clause is being used to compel the purchase of insurance; there's little the Federal government can't do if they're allowed to use the Commerce Clause that way.

Yeah all those social issues where the Democrats have moved right. Like how they now oppose gay marriage, oppose affirmative action, oppose abortion, and endorse religion in schools and public spaces... wait, no.

Wait, when was I talking about social issues? But lets go ahead and go through your attempted deflection, starting with affirmative action. Which party was Richard Nixon from, again?

Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Section 503 requires affirmative action and prohibits employment discrimination by Federal government contractors and subcontractors with contracts of more than $10,000. [1]

President Richard Nixon signed H.R. 8070 into law on September 26, 1973.

Executive Order 11625

The opportunity for full participation in our free enterprise system by socially and economically disadvantaged persons is essential if we are to obtain social and economic justice for such persons and improve the functioning of our national economy.

Still throwing stones here?

Like how they now oppose gay marriage

Who signed the Defense of Marriage Act? Who's defended it in court? Who said "god is in the mix" and that marriage is 'between a man and a woman'? Just how do small-government conservatives rationalize Big Government Action in preventing gay marriage, anyway?

oppose abortion

Who issued an executive order re-affirming the Hyde Amendment? Who overruled the FDA's science-based decision on Plan B? Just how do small-government conservatives justify Big Government Action in preventing abortion, anyway? Especially when they don't give a shit about the actual health of actual mothers and children once they are born? Few things are as evil as forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies and then throwing those children to the wolves if their families are incapable of supporting them.

and endorse religion in schools and public spaces

Why do you hate the Constitution?

You must have a very left-wing definition of what right-wing means.

Your definition of "left wing" is divorced from reality. Maybe you could see a nice proctologist in North Korea for help on getting your head out, and then you can see what "left wing" really looks like.

Now, how about the Democrats supporting indefinite detention, assassinations of American citizens, austerity over job creation, endless war with ever-increasing DOD budgets, cutting Social Security and Medicare, deporting more immigrants than Bush, opening more offshore drilling than Bush, cutting corporate taxes more than Bush, cutting home heating assistance more than Bush, passing the Heritage Foundation's health care plan from 1992, immunity from prosecution for torturers, and immunity for bankers that caused a financial collapse 70 times worse than the S&L crisis when Reagan and H.W. Bush sent a thousand people to jail for it? While giving same bankers trillions in bailout money?

Nice try, chief.

Uh, yes? There are plenty of things that need whole organisms to test on, not single cells.

Uh, missing the obvious point that there's obviously no comparison between testing a single cell destined for a trash can and live animal testing, and thus no hypocrisy in being fore the former and against the latter?

No it's not. It's opposed by people who think nuclear power = proliferation, even though countries are developing nuclear weapons all on their own without our help.

Too bad the facts don't match your storyline - starting to get to be a pattern here. Nucle

He's a States Rights-er.

You say that as if you think that's a bad thing; it's not. In fact, if you actually read the damn Constitution, you'll note that the founders were also big supporters of state's rights and limited federal government.

*sigh* How far we've fallen from the lofty ideals of our Republic's fathers...

"The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

Now, I think they might be able to get him on bribery. But "they" could be got for bribery as well, so that's unlikely. Seems like failing to uphold the constitution should be an impeachable offence, but I guess when it was written they didn't think that the president was likely to fail in that duty.

Disney literally built their empire on PD works. Most of their best-loved and most successful movies come from work that predates copyright--their original classics (Snow White, Pinocchio, and Cinderella), the films that sparked their revival in the late 80s/early 90s (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin), and many others.

FUCK THEM, and the lawmakers they buy. Read that old paper you swore to uphold: Article I, Section 8: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"

Key words there:

• "limited times" -- yes, a million years is "a limited time" but you know that's not what they meant
• "authors and inventors" -- not "their descendants and agents."
• "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" -- not "to promote megacorps' bottom lines"

Fuckers, it's not even halfway down the page. PD did exactly what it was supposed to do: things that weren't in copyright were available for (in this case) Disney to do wonderful things with. Now, art will be relatively inaccessible from 1928 on.