at least it's better than it was... as opposed to our general backsliding and increased risk of police state. Who knows, maybe Mubarak will get the constitution amended so he can be our president. nah, he'll just run and win. the constitution doesn't matter any more.
how long before we're far enough down the slippery slope that all these powers are used to stifle domestic political dissent on a large scale? I don't want to live in Hosni Mubarak's America.
not long given that they're already used to stifle domestic political dissent on a small scale by claiming that e.g. anti-IMF protesters are "terrorists" and spying on / imprisoning them.
the same era's supreme court also upheld slavery and later provided us with Dredd Scott. So tradition is no defense against a facial violation of the Constitution. If we want unwarranted searches in certain conditions, we ought to do this thing called "amend" the constitution to allow it and enact laws in accordance with those amendments. that is what we call the "rule of law". We certainly shouldn't want to drift further away from being a nation of laws. Look at Zimbabwe for an example of our eventual destiny should we continue down the cult of personality road.
Moreover, while the old precedent was bad, it is notably made worse by other, more recent encroachments that the supreme court is trying desperately not to hear because they clearly like having a king-like president but don't want to admit it.
We used to, as a society, value the idea of improving our country and its governance to more closely resemble our ideals. Sure there were setbacks, but Americans in 1990 were notably more free than in 1950. 1950s Americans were notably freer than 1900s Americans. 1900s Americans were notably freer than 1850s ones. I think it's pretty obvious that 2010s Americans are notably less free than we were in 1990. I want us to return to the positive trend. I don't want a president encouraging dictators (*cough* Egypt *cough*) because they're our toadies and are more predictable and require less work and upkeep. I want freedom and self determination for all.
Sorry, but i just get form letters back telling me in flowery language to fcuk off. It will take mass outrage to enact meaningful change. Hopefully the Tea Party (the real one, not the Koch/Palin/Armey astroturf) keeps at it and picks up some more lefties. The number one problem in our government is the destruction of checks and balances and centralization of power in the executive branch that has transpired in the last 20-30 years since the last time the people cleaned house.
you could have voted for Kucinich, Gravel, or Paul and gotten genuine and positive change in these areas. Oh, but today's Tammany Hall said those choices weren't "serious" and that they "couldn't win".
it's time to form a new center that actually gives a damn out of the far right and far left.
Using tactics that are most likely illegal in the US is not a legitmate thing to do in the US, regardless of the target. Now if Congress were to issue a letter of reprisal on Wikileaks, that might make it legitimate, although still not right, since Wikileaks has not really broken any US laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque which talks mostly about their history which originated in naval warfare, but they are applicable whenever one wants to target a non-state entity. it's supposed to be less alarming than a declaration of war, but one was used as a convenient excuse to start WWI.
yeah. this will be just the make work *cough* i mean gallant enterprise that will spur our tech driven economic recovery. just think of all the programmers, sysadmins, etc. that companies will have to hire to implement and test this. full employment here we come./homer_simpson_voice
benchmarks aren't real work. and sadly the tail is wagging the dog to a great extent as people design computers to be good at benchmarks, rather than being as good at a real workload as possible and designing the benchmark to resemble the workload. it's a contest of napoleon complexes.
i'd judge an architecture not by their slot on the benchmarks lists, but by the number and complexity of real workloads they actually are used for.
then investigate, gather evidence, and prosecute him? i know, that's too old fashioned.
also, presuming guilt by (especially loose) association is not only repugnant but also a logical fallacy. you brush your teeth regularly. so did the unabomber. ergo you're a terrst also.
it is you who has the comprehension problem. you or i would need a license to export a solitaire game for free to iran. this is a separate license from that required to do business with and exchange money with iranian companies.
so far you've called me a number of names as if that somehow bolsters your argument. since you cannot engage in civil debate i will no longer respond to your pompous, condescending rants.
1. by allowing them to see countries other than their own. street view alone ought to help humanize the rest of the world in their eyes, along with allowing them some comparison of relative wealth of societies under different kinds of rule. you know, the same sort of thing oppressive regimes generally deny in order to keep their subjects ignorant and believing they have it good. see for reference north korea.
2. how will (not) having these products affect the iranian government? answer: it won't: i'm sure they already have illicitly acquired GIS software and imagery for government use. therefore, the only thing that can come of this decision is neutral or good for the iranian people.
i think that you should answer your own bonus question given that it is illegal for american companies to do business with and receive money from iran. since there is no apparent monetary reward to google, maybe they're actually trying to not be evil. i know. it's a strange concept.
given that the US is directly responsible for the deaths of well over 100,000 people in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 10 years alone, i think that you are the one employing moral relativism.
no, it's not clearly worse, mr strawman maker. please remove your words from my mouth.
it is merely false to pretend that the US has some higher footing than other countries. it is also false to pretend that we are not backsliding towards those countries we vilify.
here's today's news regarding a us citizen who (it would seem) has done nothing wrong but who has been tortured by Kuwaitis and put on the US no-fly list so he can't get home to the US.
for basic recent history i'm afraid the burden of citation is not on the poster reminding us of it, but rather that the lazy like yourself can use this thing called a search engine to find news stories about it.
it's a new apple product. everyone will want it. it's a pedometer that has gps and tweets your location for you, as well as sanctimonious tweets detailing just how much you've run (even if you actually haven't, though this service is extra).
apparently you have not been on teh intarwebs in a while. proxies pop up and disappear all the time and are ergo disposable. and there's this shiny new proxy-like thing called TOR. i hear that's a bit harder to trace connections through.
so by your (extremely flawed) reasoning it was wrong of our government and the EFF to develop and export TOR to countries with oppressive governments so their people could be more informed and interact with the outside world with less chance of reprisal?
Slashdot Mirror
at least it's better than it was... as opposed to our general backsliding and increased risk of police state. Who knows, maybe Mubarak will get the constitution amended so he can be our president. nah, he'll just run and win. the constitution doesn't matter any more.
so you advocate monarchy? i think we're almost there.
how long before we're far enough down the slippery slope that all these powers are used to stifle domestic political dissent on a large scale? I don't want to live in Hosni Mubarak's America.
not long given that they're already used to stifle domestic political dissent on a small scale by claiming that e.g. anti-IMF protesters are "terrorists" and spying on / imprisoning them.
www.class.uidaho.edu/gillham/research/MTAM%20COPY%20EDIT.doc
hey, the contractors that perform some of these tasks are already trying to freelance outside direct government authority.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns/index.html
http://www.salon.com/about/inside_salon/2011/02/11/threats_against_glenn_greenwald_wikileaks/index.html
the same era's supreme court also upheld slavery and later provided us with Dredd Scott. So tradition is no defense against a facial violation of the Constitution. If we want unwarranted searches in certain conditions, we ought to do this thing called "amend" the constitution to allow it and enact laws in accordance with those amendments. that is what we call the "rule of law". We certainly shouldn't want to drift further away from being a nation of laws. Look at Zimbabwe for an example of our eventual destiny should we continue down the cult of personality road.
Moreover, while the old precedent was bad, it is notably made worse by other, more recent encroachments that the supreme court is trying desperately not to hear because they clearly like having a king-like president but don't want to admit it.
We used to, as a society, value the idea of improving our country and its governance to more closely resemble our ideals. Sure there were setbacks, but Americans in 1990 were notably more free than in 1950. 1950s Americans were notably freer than 1900s Americans. 1900s Americans were notably freer than 1850s ones. I think it's pretty obvious that 2010s Americans are notably less free than we were in 1990. I want us to return to the positive trend. I don't want a president encouraging dictators (*cough* Egypt *cough*) because they're our toadies and are more predictable and require less work and upkeep. I want freedom and self determination for all.
Sorry, but i just get form letters back telling me in flowery language to fcuk off. It will take mass outrage to enact meaningful change. Hopefully the Tea Party (the real one, not the Koch/Palin/Armey astroturf) keeps at it and picks up some more lefties. The number one problem in our government is the destruction of checks and balances and centralization of power in the executive branch that has transpired in the last 20-30 years since the last time the people cleaned house.
you could have voted for Kucinich, Gravel, or Paul and gotten genuine and positive change in these areas. Oh, but today's Tammany Hall said those choices weren't "serious" and that they "couldn't win".
it's time to form a new center that actually gives a damn out of the far right and far left.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/09/tea_party/index.html
Using tactics that are most likely illegal in the US is not a legitmate thing to do in the US, regardless of the target. Now if Congress were to issue a letter of reprisal on Wikileaks, that might make it legitimate, although still not right, since Wikileaks has not really broken any US laws.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque
which talks mostly about their history which originated in naval warfare, but they are applicable whenever one wants to target a non-state entity. it's supposed to be less alarming than a declaration of war, but one was used as a convenient excuse to start WWI.
yeah. this will be just the make work *cough* i mean gallant enterprise that will spur our tech driven economic recovery. just think of all the programmers, sysadmins, etc. that companies will have to hire to implement and test this. full employment here we come. /homer_simpson_voice
or something like that.
indeed. and when it was cheap(er) than supercomputers. and when supercomputer vendors looked down their noses at it.
benchmarks aren't real work. and sadly the tail is wagging the dog to a great extent as people design computers to be good at benchmarks, rather than being as good at a real workload as possible and designing the benchmark to resemble the workload. it's a contest of napoleon complexes.
i'd judge an architecture not by their slot on the benchmarks lists, but by the number and complexity of real workloads they actually are used for.
PS the only code validator should check for the "blink" tag.
and remove it.
Actually, the W3C was crucial to preventing MSFT from just turning IE into a Frontpage renderer.
and then where would we be? many of us cornered into having to use Sharepoint? That's terrible.
oh, wait.
then investigate, gather evidence, and prosecute him? i know, that's too old fashioned.
also, presuming guilt by (especially loose) association is not only repugnant but also a logical fallacy. you brush your teeth regularly. so did the unabomber. ergo you're a terrst also.
it is you who has the comprehension problem. you or i would need a license to export a solitaire game for free to iran. this is a separate license from that required to do business with and exchange money with iranian companies.
so far you've called me a number of names as if that somehow bolsters your argument. since you cannot engage in civil debate i will no longer respond to your pompous, condescending rants.
1. by allowing them to see countries other than their own. street view alone ought to help humanize the rest of the world in their eyes, along with allowing them some comparison of relative wealth of societies under different kinds of rule. you know, the same sort of thing oppressive regimes generally deny in order to keep their subjects ignorant and believing they have it good. see for reference north korea.
2. how will (not) having these products affect the iranian government? answer: it won't: i'm sure they already have illicitly acquired GIS software and imagery for government use. therefore, the only thing that can come of this decision is neutral or good for the iranian people.
i think that you should answer your own bonus question given that it is illegal for american companies to do business with and receive money from iran. since there is no apparent monetary reward to google, maybe they're actually trying to not be evil. i know. it's a strange concept.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/23/us-allowed-american-compa_n_800989.html
does google have such an exemption to do business? i haven't seen any evidence of that. please provide some in your answer to your bonus question.
given that the US is directly responsible for the deaths of well over 100,000 people in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 10 years alone, i think that you are the one employing moral relativism.
and so the us should help this situation by making things even worse for iranian citizens? or by blocking products that might make things better?
trade embargoes always punish the average citizen and poor while the ruling class find ways around them.
no, it's not clearly worse, mr strawman maker. please remove your words from my mouth.
it is merely false to pretend that the US has some higher footing than other countries. it is also false to pretend that we are not backsliding towards those countries we vilify.
read some glenn greenwald
here's today's news regarding a us citizen who (it would seem) has done nothing wrong but who has been tortured by Kuwaitis and put on the US no-fly list so he can't get home to the US.
for basic recent history i'm afraid the burden of citation is not on the poster reminding us of it, but rather that the lazy like yourself can use this thing called a search engine to find news stories about it.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/17/mohamed/index.html
he was falsely claiming that the person he was responding to was making that claim. that is a straw man.
i want my country to be better. right now we're not even trying, in fact we're regressing to (and some would claim below) the mean.
sure, but it does rather render moot the point of the guy i replied to. your point just drives home the pointlessness of the GP's faux concern.
it's a new apple product. everyone will want it. it's a pedometer that has gps and tweets your location for you, as well as sanctimonious tweets detailing just how much you've run (even if you actually haven't, though this service is extra).
apparently you have not been on teh intarwebs in a while. proxies pop up and disappear all the time and are ergo disposable. and there's this shiny new proxy-like thing called TOR. i hear that's a bit harder to trace connections through.
because international proxies apparently don't exist?
because TOR doesn't exist?
because satellite internet doesn't exist?
from a technical perspective, both the export restrictions and the amelioration made by google are idiotic.
so by your (extremely flawed) reasoning it was wrong of our government and the EFF to develop and export TOR to countries with oppressive governments so their people could be more informed and interact with the outside world with less chance of reprisal?