Slashdot Mirror
Sci-Fi Author Peter Watts Beaten, Charged During Border Crossing
JoeGee writes "On December 8th, Canadian sci-fi author Peter Watts, author of the Rifters trilogy and Blindsight, was crossing the US/Canadian border at Port Huron, Michigan when he was involved in an altercation with US Border Patrol agents. According to Watts, he was beaten, left half-naked in a cold cell, and finally dumped on the Canadian side of the border with no coat. A legal consultant from the Electronic Frontier Foundation was successful in helping a civil rights lawyer in Michigan free Watts. Watts faces US charges of assaulting a federal officer. Based on the accounts, one can assume Watts did so by hitting the officer's hand with his face. If convicted, Watts faces two years in a US Federal prison."
Has anyone ever succeeded at that? I ask only because maybe I could piggyback on it and get a +5 Offtopic.
Who is John Cabal?
I believe it's nearly time to upgrade our old outdated operating system controlling our laws when we ourselves can't vote each day, like checking e-mail on whatever's current, old outdated laws and reform them, and of COURSE future laws as 360,000,000 North Americans (330 America, 30 Canada, keep it simple. :D)
;)
:P
:D, i'm sure everyone'd still get paid, lmao, point is everyone then "has a say" on a national website, federal white hat guys. I don't even KNOW, I just know Firefox and Ubuntu ROCKED.
:) Anyways trying to get them doing it b/c they COULD and maybe make ad money, voip the cable tv market even. I just want things done by people willing to exploit me for money. Here's my 200 bucks/month, where's my fiber optic options? I'm alright /w being a slave. It's cool. Just pimp my slavery already.
:D). I'm sure all KINDS of awesome ideas could be done. I'd like to at least link to em.
I'm just a garbageman but Love Firefox for web browsing.
Then I loved Ubuntu Linux for an operating system.
Just figured the next step along the path of:
What's important to me?
I could give a shit about a vote every 5 years, most likely rigged, and once in WHOEVER it is, even the "good ones" are most likely given 2 choices, briefcase full of money, and, well, you don't want THE OTHER ONE.
So in tribute to Linux I made a crappy website, http://www.opensourceg.com/
I'm not sure it could handle slashdotting but I think the cause is just. I've posted it on torrent freak, http://torrentfreak.com/ , cbc (deleted or buried in oblivion of other people, ALL SCREAMING AT YOU, WHY WON'T YOU LISTEN??? DAMNIT! AHHHHHHHHHHHH
So ya, the very laws we obide by are in no control over. It's messed up with all this Internet we don't got an organized government to do daily online polls. Surely there are white hats up to the challenge (and black hats to cause troubles.
Ubuntu's got a live add remove programs for God's sake! The swarm is the most powerful. More then anything. Even p2p can't be shut down even if the guys buying the laws say it's illegal.
So I spent 15 bucks and thought the idea was great. Rather pick Open Source distros then politicians . The ground rules should be set like Linux stuff is. You guys will get it (if anyone has, it's been a crappy website for so long and a buddy helped me get a blogging feature so I can rant in a corner of the Internet)
Far as building a voting site, don't think "I'd" be able to. I'll sure as hell link to it if one get's built.
Closet things I found in my quest were: http://www.opencongress.org/ - American one, just liked the voting, just kinda wish a 3rd party does it, like, "here, were not rigging those electronic numbers". Protect a country militarily but the management needs an upgrade. Doing all THEY can in a restrictive environment. Imagine the 1 GOOD congressman pretending to be bad just to TRY and help their country? (or maybe they are all good and just fighting each other instead of the issues)
http://www.mysociety.org/ - UK based, they fix road problems or organized a nice "email your politician" thing.
Granted I'm a complete idiot who shouldn't even vote, I'm pretty ignorant to current politics b/c of lack of faith. No public trust from me. Enhancing people's lives instead of beating them down would be a GREAT start.
Kinda like sending out an email to get Google doing real tv. They are big enough to make it happen and I just want some smart dude to make the ir remote work as standard on websites.
Any way to port Linux to our govt? Format whatever junk was on the drive, install, reboot (once, ever,
Yahoo Answers, the 2 that replied both said no. Wouldn't work f
http://www.opensourceg.com - A Man Can Dream
It is funny how I still catch hell from European friends about how long the US stayed isolated during WWII , calling that someone else's problem. I dont think that those problems were caused by an alliance with the US.
If the US reduces its positions, then we will have to hear about how we dont help out. Just think what could happen if we backed down and Japan decided to start really developing defensive capabilities, or if Israel starting listening less. Those carrier fleets are unfortunately a requirement for some of the little stability we have.
I would be fine with calling it all back, and letting the next 10 or 20 years get spent letting everyone sort out a new power structure, both economically and militarily. if this were to happen, I dont want to hear a damn word about how it is all the US fault.
Honestly, this is exactly what I think we should do. And if it turns into a mess for the rest of the world, that's their problem. Before WWII, we weren't that powerful militarily, and we didn't have nukes. Now we do. We should just concentrate on defending ourselves, and that's it, and let everyone else deal with their own problems. If they get another Hitler, well too bad. As long as we're strong enough, we don't have to worry about him invading us, and if he does, we can unleash the nuclear arsenal.
I'm really getting sick of the rest of the world whining that America is taking advantage of them, but then complaining if America doesn't do enough to "help" them. There's less than 300 million of us, and 6.7 billion of them. They need to take responsibility for themselves and stop looking at us to be their protector and whining when we use the situation to our advantage.
From all the responses to my previous post that the other countries need to tell the USA's government to shove it when it tries to convince them to pass stupid laws, I'm really beginning to think the reason this situation exists is basically because most of the rest of the world is pussies, and they refuse to stand up for themselves. If you're too much of a pussy to stand up for yourself and take care of yourself, then you deserve to be someone else's bitch. Especially if you're too stupid to ally yourself with others and stand up as a group to the bully.