More importantly, just because it's an ex post facto law does not make it unconstitutional. Again, from Wiki.
"However, not all laws with ex post facto effects
Here, "ex post facto" is the opinion of the un-credentialed Wikipedia author, not of the Supreme Court or any Justice appointed by the President, approved by both Houses, and sworn in as a member of the Court. It's just the opinion of some guy with a computer and an Internet tube. You have been claiming that the matter is settled, which would require a precedent, repeatedly upheld, that positively asserts that legislation that alters whether an action is criminal can take effect retroactively. The ruling you cited to support that claim very specifically says that it is not a question of ex post facto because what the legislation alters is not considered a "punishment." Back to the Wikipedia excerpt, we find that the Supreme Court did not uphold any ex post facto law, it ruled that the particular law was not an ex post facto law at all, thus not applicable to your claim in any way.
... have been found to be unconstitutional. One current U.S. law that has an ex post facto effect is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006." This law, which imposes new registration requirements on convicted sex offenders, gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to apply the law retroactively.[1] The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Doe (2003) that forcing sex offenders to register their whereabouts at regular intervals and the posting of personal information about them on the Internet does not violate the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws, because compulsory registration of offenders who completed their sentences before new laws requiring compliance went into effect does not constitute a punishment.
So the source that you cited does not support, in fact it refutes the claim you're making, that the Supreme Court has established and upheld a precedent that retroactive legislation is generally legal in the United States. From the same Wikipedia article:
Generally speaking, ex post facto laws are seen as a violation of the rule of law as it applies in a free and democratic society. Most common lawjurisdictions do not permit retroactive legislation, though some have suggested that judge-made law is retroactive as a new precedent applies to events that occurred prior to the judicial decision. In some nations that follow the Westminster system of government, such as the United Kingdom, ex post facto laws are technically possible as the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy allows parliament to pass any law it wishes. However, in a nation with an entrenched
Let's prove you right.
Aside from trolls which could be weeded out from the discussion easily, the geek side of slashdot could (I think) easily come up with a way and agree on the best way to solve this. We could discuss the feasibility of charging a fee to use port 25. To start the conversation, let's suppose the fee is commensurate with the cost of one local toll telephone call or one snail mail letter, then just round to $0.50 per message. Let's make this payable to one's ISP as part of one's regular bill, or via PayPal for users of free e-mail services without their own ISP account of any kind, because we can't infringe their 1st Amendment rights, but we can impose payment to speak to somebody! Now, to make communication with our actual friends and legitimate business contacts as affordable as ever, suppose we add to this system a refund or offsetting payment any time our ISP's mail server receives a reply or original message to our address from a recipient for whom we've paid to send a message. This way, once a recipient implies agreement to ongoing communication with a sender, these two e-mail addresses can exchange messages free of charge as they always do, but unwanted mail will cause the sender a significant amount, if they continue to send messages at the volume of current spam bots.
Infected victims should of course be able to reverse the charges by showing that their computer was sending mail because of malware, and ISP's using this system would be responsible for providing thorough malware-removal software with easy-to-use documentation. Better yet, any request to send outgoing mail would result in a dialog requesting payment on the spot. The timeout should be set to 5 or 10 minutes to allow looking up details of one's PayPal account, but not long enough to brute-force payment details. Now, if I'm sending e-mail the right way, I have time to pay to send it, but if my computer is infected with a spam bot, the payment window times out unless I happen to be sending my legitimate mail at the same time.
In communist China, Olympics boycott you.
before China blocks Slashdot? A text description of whatever the YouTube videos depicted in Lhasa would do, I guess.
Q: Which acts of war should be illegal in cyberspace?
A: The U.S. military complies with all applicable domestic and international laws
T: I misinterpreted your question because I have a really guilty conscience. That was my impression also.
Free speech vs. prohibited speech have a lot to do with what's "fair." Libel and slander are distinguished from parody, satire and other protected statements of uncomplimentary facts by whether the statement is true. Fairness is a very good indicator of whether something you might want to say is protected by law or not.
OK, who do you prefer to Obama? I'm seriously considering Ron Paul even if I have to write him in, because he's the first candidate I've seen since turning 18 that I can honestly vote for, but if I stick to who's printed on the ballot, my choice would definitely be Obama.
I like the freedom I have with free software, for sure, and I have less freedom with proprietary software. The only point I'm trying make is that freedom is not the absence of all rules, in fact it requires the presence of the right rules, and only the right rules.
The point ive been trying to make is that in the Free software movement you have choices... you dont have to follow linus's rules, you can choose make your own rules and compete with him (to the extent that licensing allows) But that isn't anarchy, it's just governance that's limited to its legitimate function: protecting the right to profit by reasonable behavior by prohibiting unreasonable behavior. I still have to follow some of Linus's rules to benefit from Linus's work, which is fine. Anarchy would mean I don't have to follow Linus's rules, and neither do you, and we can both compete with him to an extent determined by our deviousness because licensing would have no enforcement power to allow or disallow anything. But in that case, we don't have the benefit of being sure that the code others release really includes the improvements they made, or whether they're able to get every contract by using better code than they make public. I wouldn't want anarchy. Anarchy is a bad idea, and you're using that word to describe good ideas. It's kind of weird that you're using "anarchy" incorrectly, because you identified the good ideas in free software correctly.
The 3rd law of software freedom is "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.", nowhere does it mention getting permission from the provider of the source. True, access to the source code is considered a right, not a privilege, under Free Software principles. I happen to think that access to the source code is also more consistent with the concept of traditional property ownership and traditional American commerce law, ie prior to special protections for corporations.
Obama should be working for his principles the sensible, level-headed way that he does, not "railing" about anything. Most citizens haven't done shit about privacy, so good for him for being on the right side of the issue, period. We're all going to have to write to our representatives, and give to the ACLU and the EFF, and convince our friends to do the same, even if they don't really like them very much in general, to really have privacy. Obama can't do it all himself and we can't expect him to. He can be part of the solution but we have to be also, and force our legislators to be too.
Obama should be railing against the constitutional abuses of the Bush administration and making concrete proposals for reversing them, not waiting to be asked by the media. If the press fails to ask the questions that are of interest to the electorate they're doing a crappy job as the fourth branch of government and do not deserve their honorable mention in an Amendment to the Constitution. With privileges come responsibilities.
Hillary is worse What an understatement!
...but then less is expected of her. She is not running on a "change' platform. She is Bush-lite. Let's not talk about Hillary, I feel nauseous already!
Not to defend sloppy admin practices, but I despise hypocracy. What do you have against government of the hypopotami, by the hypopotami, for the hypopotami? One hypopotamus, one voat, I say!
Correction: I dismissed the point, which I could not have done had I missed it! And, as you acknowledged with "semi-" in your description of my comment as a "bash," I did not dismiss it out of hand, but I specifically dismissed what I see as a false implication that tends to follow from your comment, without discounting in any way the true parts of your statement. So, I'll try to make that clearer, and see whether you then agree that I dismissed your point, fairly: I can agree -- with qualifications that the default configuration is still atrocious, and completely inappropriate to the home market, which is a major and important component of Microsoft's business, which in fact they need in order to retain their "Enterprise" customers -- that more recent Windows systems are not as insecure as their predecessors that you cited, but I will not agree with any statement that suggests that, generally, Windows is [now, and still less for any previous time] "secure" because...
I'm saying that Windows machines have the ability now, to be reasonably secure enough for 99.9% of attackers to be kept out -- IF the Admins are good enough to keep them that way.
The same is true of Linux.
OK, sure, but the important distinction you're ignoring is that Joe Sixpack isn't, and doesn't have, an Admin. He only has on his Dell "out of the box" the OS and third party anti-virus trialware, a package which is advertised as suitable for him to play video games, visit only the websites he chooses to visit, send data only to the parties he wishes, and generally to pursue his happiness by extending his practical ability to exercise his rights to speak and associate as he chooses with only those whom he chooses. In short, Windows is presented as a commodity or appliance, and fails to deliver on claims that are not made by Linux at all, generally. Using Windows as-is "out of the box" in fact demonstrably diminishes his practical ability to associate freely according to his wishes, which is my greatest complaint about Microsoft. An unsecured web server vs. an unsecured home user's Internet/multimedia + maybe word processing/financial planning appliance is not a legitimate comparison, and that in a nutshell is the whole point, and the kernel of my refutation of your claim that I "missed" your point. I didn't miss it, I disagree with it. If you really enjoy sarcasm for its own sake, or if you really want to advocate for Microsoft, you might want to keep reading. I feel it's only fair to warn you, that although I thought your tone was pretty moderate and I wanted to discuss civilly, your content, especially the idea that Microsoft is criticized unfairly on Slashdot, was like Kryptonite to my Supermanners. But, I had too much fine writing it to delete it all and just say "but Linux doesn't target Joe Sixpack, then paint a target on him."/warning
Additionally, if you found that Linux had the market share of Windows, I'd be hard pressed to see it make the strides over time (from 98 to XP for example) that Microsoft has.
Why? Would more users, more contributing programmers or more revenue be the problem, or something else even funnier? What "point" are you going to say I have "totally missed" now?;-) I have friends who are hardcore Linux admins. I used to, but their bellies are flabby now. They're more like beer belly Linux admins these days.
I have friends who work for Microsoft. I'd say they are both extremely smart, and I'd venture to guess that Microsoft doesn't tend to hire stupid programmers too often. So why is it that people assume Microsoft is stupid
I don't know. You'd have to ask somebody who has said that. I talk about the operating system and the marketing, not the people. Well, except recently for Steve Ballmer, but I have the impression you're fair enough, or recognize the need to publicly
More importantly, just because it's an ex post facto law does not make it unconstitutional. Again, from Wiki.
"However, not all laws with ex post facto effects have been found to be unconstitutional. One current U.S. law that has an ex post facto effect is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006." Those are bad laws, and should be invalidated, by the Supreme Court if John Kerry doesn't have the courage to do so himself, and of course he does not. It would not be the first time the Supreme Court struck down legislation, and as long as people remain fallible, that is as it should be. Hopefully, we gradually make better and better precedents through overturning more bad than good laws and rulings, but it is hubris to imply, as you have, that because the Legislature has passed or the Supreme Court has ruled, the precedent is now beyond question. Furthermore, I easily found evidence that where the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled on a case prosecuted under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, some of it has already been ruled un-constitutional for even more egregious faults than the ex post facto problem under discussion here.
Judge Britt found that this idea violated the division of legislative authority between Congress and the state governments. The Supreme Court has upheld state civil commitment laws similar in their broad outlines to this federal provision, and clearly the states have legislative authority to address threats to the welfare of their citizens. Britt could find no anchor for this law in the Article I enumerated powers of Congress. It is a criminal statute, pure and simple, with no real anchor in the Commerce Clause, even though it masquerades as a "civil commitment" statute. It basically imposes incarceration for propensity (which should raise other serious issues for people, issues the judge felt unnecessary to address given the outcome of his analysis). A reasonable conclusion to draw from this is not that ex post facto laws are sometimes Consitutional, but that they are featured in the worst of all statutes, so heinous the Supreme Court cannot take the time to enumerate each violation contained within. The real, honest solution to legitimate concerns about pedophilia is life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, in maximum security facilities, not freedom with surveillance, and other nonsense so easily used against innocent citizens for your political motives. As easy as it has been to prove your first example to be totally without merit, I shall not expend more of my time discussing this Lautenberg law, nor anything else in all likelihood, with you, ever.
2. AT&T was basically giving the CIA/NSA a pipeline of raw info that far exceeded any "warrant" or current "virtual warrants" (my term...no I'm not a lawyer). Do you mean that the data provided far exceeded even the broadest possible interpretation of reasonable suspicion, probable cause, and crime? I am not a lawyer either, but I do know that my rights are not dependent on having nor being one. And by the way, the prolific disclaimers of not being lawyers appear to me to be artifacts of shady lawyers who are too stupid to make a buck while respecting the spirit of the law. I plan to offer my opinions even on matters of law, without any such disclaimers, on the premise that any need for professional representation is tantamount to infringement on equal protection.
Exactly right.
I'm sorry, but that's not even remotely true. Once we started flinging bombs around, sure the rest of the world wasn't feeling so sorry for us anymore, but immediately after 9/11 we certainly DID see a lot of support coming from around the world before Bush squandered it. Do a little research and maybe you won't come off as quite such an ass? Europeans have been dying dozens at a time by pan-Arab and radical Muslim terrorists, for much longer than most US citizens understand, even now. They did have sympathy for our crash course in modern religio-petro-geo-politics. King George's adventures in Iraq have made all decent, sensible people uncomfortable, but there are probably only a few dozen people on the planet who regret the US invasion of Afghanistan that ridded it of the Taliban. Too bad we didn't see that task through before we started messing around in Iraq. It's not difficult to see how that "mistake" has "necessitated" much more redistribution of my wealth and other American taxpayers' wealth to tax recipients, primarily Halliburton, than would have been the case had the estimate of the Iraq threat been based on the most recent data, instead of Clinton- and H. W. Bush-administration "intelligence."
It's already been said, but it bears repeating. His competitors have positive records of support for abuse of surveillance powers. Obama's vote against invading Iraq also speaks volumes about his willingness to initiate the use of force. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is reasonable to suppose that vote was based on a belief about the initiation of force against people generally, a libertarian and Libertarian value which applies directly to the subject of unwarranted surveillance. These are quite pedestrian applications of elementary logic, not leaps of logic or tenuous extrapolations on sparse data.
I, for one, have no sense of humor about either of the two topics you've confused. I can't speak with certainty for the rest of those guys, but I am reasonably confident that all or most of them are genuinely as much at a loss as I am to find any humor in your comments. I know I'm not playing coy, and I really doubt that the others are, either. If you're really just trying to tell a joke, not to provoke, please explain. I know that detailed explanation generally diminishes the humor, but it would at least clarify what statement you want to make, and since nobody is getting the humor anyway nothing would be lost in this case. I've quickly gotten the impression that you actually prefer to make brief, vague comments so that you can give offense, but then claim to have been "misunderstood." Of course, the nature of your comments makes certainty of this hypothesis impossible, but my desire to extend you the benefit of any doubt is rapidly waning.
Excellent point.
My only worry is that we shouldn't expect too much of a very wealthy lawyer. My worry is that we expect too little of ourselves. I agree "that we shouldn't expect too much of a very wealthy lawyer." We also shouldn't expect too much of a very wealthy former munitions manufacturer, a very wealthy oil well owner, or for that matter any not-at-all wealthy, moderately wealthy, nor very wealthy person, of any profession. Our Republic got to the sick state in which it is now by too many citizens expecting too much from it with too little participation in it, for a very long time. This trend is obvious, at least as far back as JFK, whose reign is still described as "Camelot," a very telling indicator of the superstitious, irresponsible thinking people are prone to apply to our governments, our cultural heritage, or anything else symbolic of something basically good, whenever we're not vigilant against our own escapist tendencies. I do think Barack Hussein Obama is likely to do his part to keep the government off my back and off other peaceful, law-abiding citizens enough to do our part to remake a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Whether the people will then continue to tell the political class exactly what changes to make, incessantly, until they make them all, exactly as they're told, is the real problem. Reasonable people have an unfortunate tendency to compromise with unreasonable people, even when black-and-white questions of individual rights are at issue. We must stop making certain compromises, especially with the political class. If, with our personal liberties intact and protected by an Executive Branch as good, meaning non-intrusive, as I think Obama would direct, the blame would be fully on the people, not the leader.
I think US moderates need to elect Barack Obama, but then make even more noise than the extremists have been making the past eight years, or we'll lose not only the government but the entire culture to them, permanently. Our "eternal vigilance" was turned exclusively to the commies too long, and we forgot to be wary of the military-industrial complex. While we thought we were safe from all but suicidal lunatics, we fell under the rule of collectivist neo-con tyrants who are Americans only by birth, but blatantly anti-American in philosophy.
Individual rights to privacy have nothing to do with what we have or do not have to hide. Individuals' rights to privacy derive directly and unequivocally from the rights to free speech, association, freedom from undue search and seizure, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, which we have already seen to be an accurate description of unjustified wiretaps. Vegans, and all others who refuse to harm the innocent, are indeed a threat to some, but they are a fair-and-square, perfectly legal and non-violent threat to those who have power they don't deserve and lack the intelligence, integrity and discipline to earn. I simply have better things to do with my time than speak to or associate with the busybodies who have nothing better to do with their time than spy on anybody who is not a barbarian. What I have or do not have to hide is not subject to discussion because I refuse to communicate with anybody who thinks of individual rights to privacy in the idiotic context you just espoused. I hope your earlier remark about humor applies to that comment as well, because if you were serious about not worrying about government employees recording my phone conversations without due process, you're an utter waste of skin.
In free software, or any voluntary organization, the power is at the bottom, not at the top. I think free software empowers me to work as an independent contractor with much more de facto independence than I could have specializing in proprietary software, which I'd have to describe as "solutions." But "the power" is still at the top, within each structure. For proof, try bossing Linus Torvalds around. Unless you are Linus Torvalds, and you just feel like you have less control over Linux now than you used to, your comments don't make much sense to me. Or, maybe I've misunderstood you, but it looks to me like the important difference between free and unfree software is in what kinds of rules are enforced more than in the types of hierarchical structures doing the enforcing.
No. No one said it was bad/evil/wrong to question the government. Treason is not questioning the government. We're talking about violating key laws and policies... No. No, we're not. We're talking "about legal and non-controversial wire taps!" And we're talking about material that supposedly "was probably available legally via FOIA request."
Every time people do something like this, it's like a spit in the face of the people and politicians who worked very long and very hard to bring about the Freedom of Information Act. If you think government privilege should trump individual rights, a spit in the face is too good for you.
He is promising a change of style but I have not seen or heard anything about any change of substance. Yes you have. He voted against the invasion of Iraq. What else would you like him to discuss that he hasn't already been asked, and why don't you blame Hillary, the debate hosts, and the mainstream media for not asking him?
That's not surveillance, it's gathering evidence. If the cops had nothing to hide, they would be ecstatic to have more thorough records. If they do routinely beat people until they confess, video records will be inconvenient for them.
For example, having to edit a handful of documented registry keys to re-enable old file formats in Office 2007 (ignoring the rights and wrongs of disabling them in the first place) is "ludicrous" and "impractical for 99% of the user-base", but much more complex command line actions are routinely required even on Ubuntu. I suggest that those who claim exclusive use of the GUI is sufficient are content with the default software and settings. Define "routinely" and define "complex" then try to make your trumped-up case, I double-dog-dare you!
Slashdot Mirror
"The Supreme Court does not uphold ex post facto laws."
Wrong. Wrongity wrong wrong wrong.
It does not mean what you think it means!
Consider this Wikipedia article you cited.
More importantly, just because it's an ex post facto law does not make it unconstitutional. Again, from Wiki.
"However, not all laws with ex post facto effects
Here, "ex post facto" is the opinion of the un-credentialed Wikipedia author, not of the Supreme Court or any Justice appointed by the President, approved by both Houses, and sworn in as a member of the Court. It's just the opinion of some guy with a computer and an Internet tube. You have been claiming that the matter is settled, which would require a precedent, repeatedly upheld, that positively asserts that legislation that alters whether an action is criminal can take effect retroactively. The ruling you cited to support that claim very specifically says that it is not a question of ex post facto because what the legislation alters is not considered a "punishment." Back to the Wikipedia excerpt, we find that the Supreme Court did not uphold any ex post facto law, it ruled that the particular law was not an ex post facto law at all, thus not applicable to your claim in any way.
... have been found to be unconstitutional. One current U.S. law that has an ex post facto effect is the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006." This law, which imposes new registration requirements on convicted sex offenders, gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to apply the law retroactively.[1] The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Smith v. Doe (2003) that forcing sex offenders to register their whereabouts at regular intervals and the posting of personal information about them on the Internet does not violate the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws, because compulsory registration of offenders who completed their sentences before new laws requiring compliance went into effect does not constitute a punishment.
So the source that you cited does not support, in fact it refutes the claim you're making, that the Supreme Court has established and upheld a precedent that retroactive legislation is generally legal in the United States. From the same Wikipedia article:
Generally speaking, ex post facto laws are seen as a violation of the rule of law as it applies in a free and democratic society. Most common law jurisdictions do not permit retroactive legislation, though some have suggested that judge-made law is retroactive as a new precedent applies to events that occurred prior to the judicial decision. In some nations that follow the Westminster system of government, such as the United Kingdom, ex post facto laws are technically possible as the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy allows parliament to pass any law it wishes. However, in a nation with an entrenched
Infected victims should of course be able to reverse the charges by showing that their computer was sending mail because of malware, and ISP's using this system would be responsible for providing thorough malware-removal software with easy-to-use documentation. Better yet, any request to send outgoing mail would result in a dialog requesting payment on the spot. The timeout should be set to 5 or 10 minutes to allow looking up details of one's PayPal account, but not long enough to brute-force payment details. Now, if I'm sending e-mail the right way, I have time to pay to send it, but if my computer is infected with a spam bot, the payment window times out unless I happen to be sending my legitimate mail at the same time.
Mission accomplished.
The Supreme Court does not uphold ex post facto laws.
is the advertisement at the bottom.
A: The U.S. military complies with all applicable domestic and international laws
T: I misinterpreted your question because I have a really guilty conscience. That was my impression also.
Free speech vs. prohibited speech have a lot to do with what's "fair." Libel and slander are distinguished from parody, satire and other protected statements of uncomplimentary facts by whether the statement is true. Fairness is a very good indicator of whether something you might want to say is protected by law or not.
I see no reason why somebody who experiments with astrology couldn't be destined for a scientist.
OK, who do you prefer to Obama? I'm seriously considering Ron Paul even if I have to write him in, because he's the first candidate I've seen since turning 18 that I can honestly vote for, but if I stick to who's printed on the ballot, my choice would definitely be Obama.
...but then less is expected of her. She is not running on a "change' platform. She is Bush-lite. Let's not talk about Hillary, I feel nauseous already!You totally missed the point.
Correction: I dismissed the point, which I could not have done had I missed it! And, as you acknowledged with "semi-" in your description of my comment as a "bash," I did not dismiss it out of hand, but I specifically dismissed what I see as a false implication that tends to follow from your comment, without discounting in any way the true parts of your statement. So, I'll try to make that clearer, and see whether you then agree that I dismissed your point, fairly: I can agree -- with qualifications that the default configuration is still atrocious, and completely inappropriate to the home market, which is a major and important component of Microsoft's business, which in fact they need in order to retain their "Enterprise" customers -- that more recent Windows systems are not as insecure as their predecessors that you cited, but I will not agree with any statement that suggests that, generally, Windows is [now, and still less for any previous time] "secure" because ...
I'm saying that Windows machines have the ability now, to be reasonably secure enough for 99.9% of attackers to be kept out -- IF the Admins are good enough to keep them that way.
The same is true of Linux.
OK, sure, but the important distinction you're ignoring is that Joe Sixpack isn't, and doesn't have, an Admin. He only has on his Dell "out of the box" the OS and third party anti-virus trialware, a package which is advertised as suitable for him to play video games, visit only the websites he chooses to visit, send data only to the parties he wishes, and generally to pursue his happiness by extending his practical ability to exercise his rights to speak and associate as he chooses with only those whom he chooses. In short, Windows is presented as a commodity or appliance, and fails to deliver on claims that are not made by Linux at all, generally. Using Windows as-is "out of the box" in fact demonstrably diminishes his practical ability to associate freely according to his wishes, which is my greatest complaint about Microsoft. An unsecured web server vs. an unsecured home user's Internet/multimedia + maybe word processing/financial planning appliance is not a legitimate comparison, and that in a nutshell is the whole point, and the kernel of my refutation of your claim that I "missed" your point. I didn't miss it, I disagree with it. If you really enjoy sarcasm for its own sake, or if you really want to advocate for Microsoft, you might want to keep reading. I feel it's only fair to warn you, that although I thought your tone was pretty moderate and I wanted to discuss civilly, your content, especially the idea that Microsoft is criticized unfairly on Slashdot, was like Kryptonite to my Supermanners. But, I had too much fine writing it to delete it all and just say "but Linux doesn't target Joe Sixpack, then paint a target on him." /warning
Additionally, if you found that Linux had the market share of Windows, I'd be hard pressed to see it make the strides over time (from 98 to XP for example) that Microsoft has.
Why? Would more users, more contributing programmers or more revenue be the problem, or something else even funnier? What "point" are you going to say I have "totally missed" now? ;-) I have friends who are hardcore Linux admins. I used to, but their bellies are flabby now. They're more like beer belly Linux admins these days.
I have friends who work for Microsoft. I'd say they are both extremely smart, and I'd venture to guess that Microsoft doesn't tend to hire stupid programmers too often. So why is it that people assume Microsoft is stupid
I don't know. You'd have to ask somebody who has said that. I talk about the operating system and the marketing, not the people. Well, except recently for Steve Ballmer, but I have the impression you're fair enough, or recognize the need to publicly
It's already been said, but it bears repeating. His competitors have positive records of support for abuse of surveillance powers. Obama's vote against invading Iraq also speaks volumes about his willingness to initiate the use of force. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, it is reasonable to suppose that vote was based on a belief about the initiation of force against people generally, a libertarian and Libertarian value which applies directly to the subject of unwarranted surveillance. These are quite pedestrian applications of elementary logic, not leaps of logic or tenuous extrapolations on sparse data.
I, for one, have no sense of humor about either of the two topics you've confused. I can't speak with certainty for the rest of those guys, but I am reasonably confident that all or most of them are genuinely as much at a loss as I am to find any humor in your comments. I know I'm not playing coy, and I really doubt that the others are, either. If you're really just trying to tell a joke, not to provoke, please explain. I know that detailed explanation generally diminishes the humor, but it would at least clarify what statement you want to make, and since nobody is getting the humor anyway nothing would be lost in this case. I've quickly gotten the impression that you actually prefer to make brief, vague comments so that you can give offense, but then claim to have been "misunderstood." Of course, the nature of your comments makes certainty of this hypothesis impossible, but my desire to extend you the benefit of any doubt is rapidly waning.
I think US moderates need to elect Barack Obama, but then make even more noise than the extremists have been making the past eight years, or we'll lose not only the government but the entire culture to them, permanently. Our "eternal vigilance" was turned exclusively to the commies too long, and we forgot to be wary of the military-industrial complex. While we thought we were safe from all but suicidal lunatics, we fell under the rule of collectivist neo-con tyrants who are Americans only by birth, but blatantly anti-American in philosophy.
Individual rights to privacy have nothing to do with what we have or do not have to hide. Individuals' rights to privacy derive directly and unequivocally from the rights to free speech, association, freedom from undue search and seizure, and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, which we have already seen to be an accurate description of unjustified wiretaps. Vegans, and all others who refuse to harm the innocent, are indeed a threat to some, but they are a fair-and-square, perfectly legal and non-violent threat to those who have power they don't deserve and lack the intelligence, integrity and discipline to earn. I simply have better things to do with my time than speak to or associate with the busybodies who have nothing better to do with their time than spy on anybody who is not a barbarian. What I have or do not have to hide is not subject to discussion because I refuse to communicate with anybody who thinks of individual rights to privacy in the idiotic context you just espoused. I hope your earlier remark about humor applies to that comment as well, because if you were serious about not worrying about government employees recording my phone conversations without due process, you're an utter waste of skin.
That's not surveillance, it's gathering evidence. If the cops had nothing to hide, they would be ecstatic to have more thorough records. If they do routinely beat people until they confess, video records will be inconvenient for them.