We operate torrent seedboxes, nothing illegal in them itself, but many users seem to use it for illegal purposes
I personally think that whether what you are doing is illegal or not (depends on the jurisdiction), morally you are a jackass for trying to profit from other people's work and slightly insane for thinking that you are some kind of a victim for having to sneak around the Internet instead of being a jackass out in the open. Why don't you use your abilities to do something creative instead of wasting them on something that is destructive and immoral.
We don't live in a tyranny but we are moving in that direction. What about having nearly half of our income taken by force and most of it passed on to others whether we want it or not (tax/welfare), how about a tax system so complex that it is impossible not to break the law and where we collectively spend over $250 billion (yes with a b, look it up) on accountants just to comply with it. How about when we are forced to buy a specific health insurance policy even if we don't want one (Obamacare)? How about when we want to start a small business and have to buy a permission (license) to do so, one each from city, county and state, as well as jump through a hundred loops, each one with its own fee. How about when eminent domain is abused to take property from people on the grounds that handing it over to corporate use will bring more tax dollars? The only time kids on this site get worked up about it when their favorite stupid torrent sharing site gets shut down.
There is a ridiculous number of anonymous cowards posting the same thing in this thread, that Assange is not a US citizen. I hate responding to AC, but if you read back couple of posts in the thread you will see that it is nothing to do with Assange but about those who leaked the information, who are indeed US citizens.
We might be talking about different things here. I am in favor of outsourcing certain security functions to private companies under strict rules and ultimately under the government control. You wouldn't want to privatize US military the same way a utility company might be privatized - by putting it under control of a private company, right?
People just love to pose unreasonable puzzles for libertarian with the implication that if they don't immediately provide a perfect solution, the government is the default alternative without having to solve the same puzzle itself. The incentive for private business it to serve their paying customers, not to piss them off with unnecessary and humiliating procedures and to balance that with the potential expense of lawsuits in case security fails. The incentive for a government bureaucrat is all on one side: to set more and more stringent security rules because if security fails he may lose his job, if the customers are dissatisfied he doesn't lose anything. In any case, national security is a legitimate duty of the government, I don't know any libertarians who would like to privatize it.
So an Al-Qaeda member comes to the CIA with information about a terrorist plot and CIA should say sure your information would be very valuable, but just so you know we will have to publish your name on the Internet because we can't keep a secret?
a) "war" is strictly legally defined (or at least used to be) and the real definition did not involve phrases like "whenever we say it is" or "all the time" or "perpetual" or "always" or "endless" or "Eurasia"
So your point is that what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan is not war? I agree that a was should be declared by congress as per constitution but we are where we are and without doubt we are in a war. We are not talking about nebulous concepts here like "war on terror" but actual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which is what the documents in question are about.
b) "secret military information" is in the eye of the beholder. If the governments could be trusted to label as "secret" only the things that actually affect immediate operations: names of spies, access codes to nuclear silos, etc, then you would perhaps have a point. But today's governments label as "secret" anything even remotely likely to cause some kind of embarrassment or threat to the hold on power to one of the stooges of the aristocratic political dynasties that run these "republics", or possibly to one of their business associates.
I think you are getting caught up in baseless conspiracy theories there. The reason government labels thing a 'secret' that it shouldn't is the same a reason why TSA forbids printer cartridges when a bomb is found in one (while ignoring a million other similar sized things that the same bomb could be put in): bureaucratic incompetence. What is foremost in their mind is not a conspiracy to turn USA into a police state but a fear of losing their jobs in case another bomb in a printer cartridge actually explodes and the media finger pointing frenzy gets under way. It is safer to reveal far too little information than even a little bit too much.
c) "the enemy" is defined here as "the unwashed peon masses" who are apparently much better off not knowing what their "betters" do in their name. Another one of those shining towers of noble principles that the western "democracies" are supposedly perched on.
That's just ranting. The enemy is defined as jihadist forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere who know how to download useful information off the internet and use it against us.
And what is treason if it doesn't include releasing top secret military information in time of war? Aiding the enemy applies here. But never mind whether the charge is treason or not, it is a serious crime and I hope they don't get away with it lightly and I don't think they will.
In a perfect world I would agree with you. It is not a perfect world though and there are times when keeping secrets is necessary. In particular, the reason I think those who leaked this (not those who published it) should be tried for high treason, is that it undermines the trust that our allies have in us to be able to keep a secret and therefore reduces our ability to attract more allies in regions of conflict in the future. This includes anyone from the individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq who risk their lives to provide us with information about the terrorists, to friendly countries who don't want the degree of their friendship with the US to be known publicly.
Most likely the embarrassing part of this is that Turkey is helping us (USA) more than it wishes to be publicly known for the sake of it's internal politics. This is the most damaging part of these leaks: it put our friends in a difficult position and reduces their trust in us and reduces the number of friends we are going to have in the future if we can't be trusted to keep a secret.
the left, who traditionally value civil liberties more than the right
Depends on your definition of left and right. Libertarians, usually understood to be on "the right", traditionally value civil liberties more than anyone else.
My guess is it will get overturned as well unless by some miracle he has hard evidence that Seagate acted in bad faith when it hired him. Plus, he worked there for 9 months before he was laid off. Jury probably felt sorry for a small guy against a big company, but appellate courts will be a bit more hard-nosed about following the law.
Well how about this. When my cat wants to go outside, usually in the evening, he scratches on the (glass) door at the back of the house and then stares at me. Simple enough so far, he scratches the door, I open it. However, when I'm upstairs and I can't see him doing it, he will come up and scratch on any piece of glass, a window or a mirror. It seems like it went from 'let me through this door' to 'when I scratch on glass it means I want to go outside', a bit more complex concept.
I have attempted to train a cat and I can tell you that you can easily get it to understand what you want it to do but it just doesn't understand why the hell it should bother. Dogs/wolves are social animals that in the wild live in packs with strict hierarchy, cats are not. They just don't get the concept of someone telling them what to do.
The point of giving someone a prize is that they have accomplished (notice the past tense) something worthy of it. At least five of the names (Kissinger, Arafat, Peres, Gore, Obama) were given the prize either prematurely or as a political gesture in order to encourage them to do something in the future. Notice that the Nobel prize that is actually widely respected (physics) is given only when the work is tested by time, on average 20 years later. Compare this with Al Gore's peace prize in 2007 for a documentary he made in 2006. It could have been complete garbage in terms of science and and in terms of policy as far as the committee knew at the time and yet they were happy to award it because it happened to agree with their political views at the time. Obama got his for...hmm what exactly? At least 4 of them, Kissinger, Arafat, Peres, Gore, when in power were active in promoting more aggressive prosecution of war, respectively Vietnam, Palestine, Yugoslavia. If Kissinger, Peres and Arafat deserve the peace prize because they were involved in a peace process at the end of a particular conflict (failed in case of Arafat/Peres) shouldn't the Japanese and German generals who signed the surrender at the end of WWII also get one? How about Milosevic for peace in Bosnia, or Saddam Hussein for capitulating in the first Gulf War and therefore bringing peace?
But why do they have to taint the science prizes by being so ridiculous with the peace prize? Kissinger, Mother Theresa, Arafat, Peres, Al Gore, Obama... Don't they realize that it seriously devalues the entire institution, not just the peace prize. I understand that it is given out by a different (Norvegian?) committee but Swedish Academy should separate itself from it or make them rename it or something.
Feedback is always important with any product. This is a great new way to critique movies, perhaps before they even come out on the big screen
Yes, I think this will be very useful. Especially since feedback will accurately represent the opinions of the movie going public:
OpizzapieO First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
babygirlz29 This is the most dumbs video Ever how lame losers 2who ever liked this just kiddin
omar29180589 I like this movie
CoolFilmz wtf! GAY!!!
skunkystar9 Who the fuck are you talking to exactly, fucking idiot, and by the way America sucks ass ! oh and fuck Jesus and all your religious bull shite, , hahaha, your a tool ! FUCK YOU
AMERICA1111 Ok idiot, you need a history lesson, are you too LAZY to learn the FACTS! You are probably PAID by me and the rest of the HARD WORKING AMERICAN WORKERS!
The last elections weren't business as usual. Abolishing earmarks initiative that Tea Party is pushing right now isn't business as usual. There is a a long way to go but it's a good start.
This mistaken belief that 'Jews' support Israel doing whatever it wants is due to the Israeli lobby in US, which like to claim that all Jews think the way it does. Which isn't true in the US or Israeli.
Of course it is not true that ALL Jews support Israel policies but most do.
The neocon right in the US, the hardliners in Israel, and fanatic Muslim leaders, all have incentive to present Israel, supported by the US, at war with the Muslim world.
I would add non-blind people to your list, because it is obvious to anyone with eyes that Israel is in fact at war with Arabs if not the entire "Muslim World".
No, the leader of Iran doesn't want to wipe Israel off the map, he wishes it would, in an analogy he made in every speech except the one time he didn't further explain it, disappear like the USSR. Yet warmongers here distorted that into a threat of nuclear annihilation.
That's just semantics. A head of state saying that another state should disappear from the pages of history is as threatening as it gets. He also finances a variety of anti-Israel militant groups, denies holocaust and has said in numerous statements that any Arab country that accepts existence of Israel is a traitor to the Muslim world. Many more anti-Israel statements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
In any case, all this is argument over unimportant details. Do you really doubt that if the day comes when Arab countries and Iran have the power to destroy Israel that they will hesitate for even one second? It is Israel who is bending backwards for "peace" by returning land it won fairly in wars that it did not start. But that's a foolish idea because Israel will only have peace as long as it is militarily superior to all surrounding Arab countries combined even though population wise they outnumber it by at least 20 to 1. That's a pretty scary place to be for a civilized democracy surrounded by people mostly guided by a primitive medieval ideology and I am glad that the US is on the right side in that fight.
(Note to self: Don't forget to underpay science teachers and destroy teachers' unions.)
Actually the solution to terrible performance of public schools at all levels in the US is very simple and everybody knows it: ban teachers unions which are currently the most destructive force standing in the way of reforming the education system, abolish the tenure system except at universities and only after many years of teaching and heavy vetting, and make it a LOT easier to fire incompetent teachers and administrators, as well as to reward the best ones with the kind of salaries that are competitive with private industry. Then gradually decrease funding to public schools and switch to a voucher system where parents can have much more choice over which school they send their children to and badly performing schools will find themselves literally out of business as nobody will send their kids there. Since that will never happen, because teachers unions are too powerful and concerned much more with the best interest of teachers rather than students, the next best thing is charter schools.
Experts are wrong sometimes. While the link in the article is slashdotted, her is a similar one that's pretty persuasive: http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/ Can your expert tell the difference between an actual aircraft contrail at sunset (taken on Dec 31st last year):
Military is the only profession where part of your job description is to give your life for others if necessary. Not to mention that it's a very hard job and for not that much money. I think they deserve a bit of credit, considering that they protect your interests as determined by the politicians that you elect, who are actually the ones who control what our military does and who they invade or not invade. If you disagree with a particular war, fine, blame the politicians who started it. By calling the soldiers murderers, you are no better than the ignorant hippie pieces of shit who spat on the crippled Vietnam veterans and called them baby killers.
Slashdot Mirror
We operate torrent seedboxes, nothing illegal in them itself, but many users seem to use it for illegal purposes
I personally think that whether what you are doing is illegal or not (depends on the jurisdiction), morally you are a jackass for trying to profit from other people's work and slightly insane for thinking that you are some kind of a victim for having to sneak around the Internet instead of being a jackass out in the open. Why don't you use your abilities to do something creative instead of wasting them on something that is destructive and immoral.
We don't live in a tyranny but we are moving in that direction. What about having nearly half of our income taken by force and most of it passed on to others whether we want it or not (tax/welfare), how about a tax system so complex that it is impossible not to break the law and where we collectively spend over $250 billion (yes with a b, look it up) on accountants just to comply with it. How about when we are forced to buy a specific health insurance policy even if we don't want one (Obamacare)? How about when we want to start a small business and have to buy a permission (license) to do so, one each from city, county and state, as well as jump through a hundred loops, each one with its own fee. How about when eminent domain is abused to take property from people on the grounds that handing it over to corporate use will bring more tax dollars? The only time kids on this site get worked up about it when their favorite stupid torrent sharing site gets shut down.
There is a ridiculous number of anonymous cowards posting the same thing in this thread, that Assange is not a US citizen. I hate responding to AC, but if you read back couple of posts in the thread you will see that it is nothing to do with Assange but about those who leaked the information, who are indeed US citizens.
We might be talking about different things here. I am in favor of outsourcing certain security functions to private companies under strict rules and ultimately under the government control. You wouldn't want to privatize US military the same way a utility company might be privatized - by putting it under control of a private company, right?
Maybe you should try reading the whole thread before "spewing" your opinions. I am talking about people who leaked the information, not about Assange.
People just love to pose unreasonable puzzles for libertarian with the implication that if they don't immediately provide a perfect solution, the government is the default alternative without having to solve the same puzzle itself. The incentive for private business it to serve their paying customers, not to piss them off with unnecessary and humiliating procedures and to balance that with the potential expense of lawsuits in case security fails. The incentive for a government bureaucrat is all on one side: to set more and more stringent security rules because if security fails he may lose his job, if the customers are dissatisfied he doesn't lose anything. In any case, national security is a legitimate duty of the government, I don't know any libertarians who would like to privatize it.
So an Al-Qaeda member comes to the CIA with information about a terrorist plot and CIA should say sure your information would be very valuable, but just so you know we will have to publish your name on the Internet because we can't keep a secret?
a) "war" is strictly legally defined (or at least used to be) and the real definition did not involve phrases like "whenever we say it is" or "all the time" or "perpetual" or "always" or "endless" or "Eurasia"
So your point is that what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan is not war? I agree that a was should be declared by congress as per constitution but we are where we are and without doubt we are in a war. We are not talking about nebulous concepts here like "war on terror" but actual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which is what the documents in question are about.
b) "secret military information" is in the eye of the beholder. If the governments could be trusted to label as "secret" only the things that actually affect immediate operations: names of spies, access codes to nuclear silos, etc, then you would perhaps have a point. But today's governments label as "secret" anything even remotely likely to cause some kind of embarrassment or threat to the hold on power to one of the stooges of the aristocratic political dynasties that run these "republics", or possibly to one of their business associates.
I think you are getting caught up in baseless conspiracy theories there. The reason government labels thing a 'secret' that it shouldn't is the same a reason why TSA forbids printer cartridges when a bomb is found in one (while ignoring a million other similar sized things that the same bomb could be put in): bureaucratic incompetence. What is foremost in their mind is not a conspiracy to turn USA into a police state but a fear of losing their jobs in case another bomb in a printer cartridge actually explodes and the media finger pointing frenzy gets under way. It is safer to reveal far too little information than even a little bit too much.
c) "the enemy" is defined here as "the unwashed peon masses" who are apparently much better off not knowing what their "betters" do in their name. Another one of those shining towers of noble principles that the western "democracies" are supposedly perched on.
That's just ranting. The enemy is defined as jihadist forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere who know how to download useful information off the internet and use it against us.
Calling someone fascist when they are clearly not is flamebait.
And what is treason if it doesn't include releasing top secret military information in time of war? Aiding the enemy applies here. But never mind whether the charge is treason or not, it is a serious crime and I hope they don't get away with it lightly and I don't think they will.
In a perfect world I would agree with you. It is not a perfect world though and there are times when keeping secrets is necessary. In particular, the reason I think those who leaked this (not those who published it) should be tried for high treason, is that it undermines the trust that our allies have in us to be able to keep a secret and therefore reduces our ability to attract more allies in regions of conflict in the future. This includes anyone from the individuals in Afghanistan and Iraq who risk their lives to provide us with information about the terrorists, to friendly countries who don't want the degree of their friendship with the US to be known publicly.
Most likely the embarrassing part of this is that Turkey is helping us (USA) more than it wishes to be publicly known for the sake of it's internal politics. This is the most damaging part of these leaks: it put our friends in a difficult position and reduces their trust in us and reduces the number of friends we are going to have in the future if we can't be trusted to keep a secret.
the left, who traditionally value civil liberties more than the right
Depends on your definition of left and right. Libertarians, usually understood to be on "the right", traditionally value civil liberties more than anyone else.
My guess is it will get overturned as well unless by some miracle he has hard evidence that Seagate acted in bad faith when it hired him. Plus, he worked there for 9 months before he was laid off. Jury probably felt sorry for a small guy against a big company, but appellate courts will be a bit more hard-nosed about following the law.
Well how about this. When my cat wants to go outside, usually in the evening, he scratches on the (glass) door at the back of the house and then stares at me. Simple enough so far, he scratches the door, I open it. However, when I'm upstairs and I can't see him doing it, he will come up and scratch on any piece of glass, a window or a mirror. It seems like it went from 'let me through this door' to 'when I scratch on glass it means I want to go outside', a bit more complex concept.
I have attempted to train a cat and I can tell you that you can easily get it to understand what you want it to do but it just doesn't understand why the hell it should bother. Dogs/wolves are social animals that in the wild live in packs with strict hierarchy, cats are not. They just don't get the concept of someone telling them what to do.
The point of giving someone a prize is that they have accomplished (notice the past tense) something worthy of it. At least five of the names (Kissinger, Arafat, Peres, Gore, Obama) were given the prize either prematurely or as a political gesture in order to encourage them to do something in the future. Notice that the Nobel prize that is actually widely respected (physics) is given only when the work is tested by time, on average 20 years later. Compare this with Al Gore's peace prize in 2007 for a documentary he made in 2006. It could have been complete garbage in terms of science and and in terms of policy as far as the committee knew at the time and yet they were happy to award it because it happened to agree with their political views at the time. Obama got his for...hmm what exactly? At least 4 of them, Kissinger, Arafat, Peres, Gore, when in power were active in promoting more aggressive prosecution of war, respectively Vietnam, Palestine, Yugoslavia. If Kissinger, Peres and Arafat deserve the peace prize because they were involved in a peace process at the end of a particular conflict (failed in case of Arafat/Peres) shouldn't the Japanese and German generals who signed the surrender at the end of WWII also get one? How about Milosevic for peace in Bosnia, or Saddam Hussein for capitulating in the first Gulf War and therefore bringing peace?
But why do they have to taint the science prizes by being so ridiculous with the peace prize? Kissinger, Mother Theresa, Arafat, Peres, Al Gore, Obama... Don't they realize that it seriously devalues the entire institution, not just the peace prize. I understand that it is given out by a different (Norvegian?) committee but Swedish Academy should separate itself from it or make them rename it or something.
Feedback is always important with any product. This is a great new way to critique movies, perhaps before they even come out on the big screen
Yes, I think this will be very useful. Especially since feedback will accurately represent the opinions of the movie going public:
OpizzapieO First!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
babygirlz29 This is the most dumbs video Ever how lame losers 2who ever liked this just kiddin
omar29180589 I like this movie
CoolFilmz wtf! GAY!!!
skunkystar9 Who the fuck are you talking to exactly, fucking idiot, and by the way America sucks ass ! oh and fuck Jesus and all your religious bull shite, , hahaha, your a tool ! FUCK YOU
AMERICA1111 Ok idiot, you need a history lesson, are you too LAZY to learn the FACTS! You are probably PAID by me and the rest of the HARD WORKING AMERICAN WORKERS!
turdbugs i hate niggers
flyingcats lol i watch this when im high
.....
(random selection of actual youtube comments)
The last elections weren't business as usual. Abolishing earmarks initiative that Tea Party is pushing right now isn't business as usual. There is a a long way to go but it's a good start.
Jews in the US are actually mostly on the left, and antiwar.
Wrong. 75% of American Jews think (correctly) that the goal of Arabs is the destruction of Israel. Majority supports a US strike against Iran. Majority oppose calls on Israel to freeze settlement building. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/news/poll-56-of-american-jews-think-u-s-should-strike-iran-1.6950
This mistaken belief that 'Jews' support Israel doing whatever it wants is due to the Israeli lobby in US, which like to claim that all Jews think the way it does. Which isn't true in the US or Israeli.
Of course it is not true that ALL Jews support Israel policies but most do.
The neocon right in the US, the hardliners in Israel, and fanatic Muslim leaders, all have incentive to present Israel, supported by the US, at war with the Muslim world.
I would add non-blind people to your list, because it is obvious to anyone with eyes that Israel is in fact at war with Arabs if not the entire "Muslim World".
No, the leader of Iran doesn't want to wipe Israel off the map, he wishes it would, in an analogy he made in every speech except the one time he didn't further explain it, disappear like the USSR. Yet warmongers here distorted that into a threat of nuclear annihilation.
That's just semantics. A head of state saying that another state should disappear from the pages of history is as threatening as it gets. He also finances a variety of anti-Israel militant groups, denies holocaust and has said in numerous statements that any Arab country that accepts existence of Israel is a traitor to the Muslim world. Many more anti-Israel statements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
In any case, all this is argument over unimportant details. Do you really doubt that if the day comes when Arab countries and Iran have the power to destroy Israel that they will hesitate for even one second? It is Israel who is bending backwards for "peace" by returning land it won fairly in wars that it did not start. But that's a foolish idea because Israel will only have peace as long as it is militarily superior to all surrounding Arab countries combined even though population wise they outnumber it by at least 20 to 1. That's a pretty scary place to be for a civilized democracy surrounded by people mostly guided by a primitive medieval ideology and I am glad that the US is on the right side in that fight.
(Note to self: Don't forget to underpay science teachers and destroy teachers' unions.)
Actually the solution to terrible performance of public schools at all levels in the US is very simple and everybody knows it: ban teachers unions which are currently the most destructive force standing in the way of reforming the education system, abolish the tenure system except at universities and only after many years of teaching and heavy vetting, and make it a LOT easier to fire incompetent teachers and administrators, as well as to reward the best ones with the kind of salaries that are competitive with private industry. Then gradually decrease funding to public schools and switch to a voucher system where parents can have much more choice over which school they send their children to and badly performing schools will find themselves literally out of business as nobody will send their kids there. Since that will never happen, because teachers unions are too powerful and concerned much more with the best interest of teachers rather than students, the next best thing is charter schools.
No, the difference is that Iran stones women, Saudi Arabia beheads them. Both agree that Facebook is immoral though.
Experts are wrong sometimes. While the link in the article is slashdotted, her is a similar one that's pretty persuasive: http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/ Can your expert tell the difference between an actual aircraft contrail at sunset (taken on Dec 31st last year):
http://consci.s3.amazonaws.com//skitch/Preview-20100119-154110.jpg
and what he thinks was a missile:
http://consci.s3.amazonaws.com//skitch/Mystery_Missile_Launch_Seen_off_Calif._Coast_-_CBS_News-20101109-073423.jpg
Here is an actual missile launch: http://www.air-and-space.com/20061214%20Camino%20Cielo/_BEL7403%20Delta-II%20NRO%20launch%20l.jpg
Military is the only profession where part of your job description is to give your life for others if necessary. Not to mention that it's a very hard job and for not that much money. I think they deserve a bit of credit, considering that they protect your interests as determined by the politicians that you elect, who are actually the ones who control what our military does and who they invade or not invade. If you disagree with a particular war, fine, blame the politicians who started it. By calling the soldiers murderers, you are no better than the ignorant hippie pieces of shit who spat on the crippled Vietnam veterans and called them baby killers.