No, comparing the TSA to the Sturmabteilung is not ridiculous at all.
While I don't think it's very likely that we would as easily enter a "TSA = proto-Nazis" situation, people who say things like "It's just a little bother, it could never get that bad" were around prior to every major bad thing that ever happened.
"It's just a metal detector, it's really quite sensible... only holds us up for a few minutes."
"Searching through my luggage is no big deal. Someone could have a bomb/gun/etc.! It's only a few minutes here and there."
"Well sure, the body scanners and pat downs are a pain in the ass at airports, but they have to protect rail stations just as much as they do airports!"
"Well, sports stadiums are just as vulnerable if not more than transportation stations... hell, can you imagine a bomb going off in Giants Stadium?"
"Sure, it's annoying to have to submit to a full car search every time I try to get onto the highway, but can you imagine what would happen if a terrorist blew up a bomb on a bridge? It could collapse the entire region's ability for people to move around!"
Death by a thousand cuts.
They're not going to massively crack down with riot troops in the streets. They're going to chip away at rights, little by little. It will take years - if not generations. When our kids grow up, they wouldn't at all be bothered by the things that are unfathomable to us - say, mandatory national ID cards, or retinal scanners, or troops with automatic weapons posted in the street because they will have grown up with this being the status quo.
This isn't a matter of Republicans or Democrats being bad. It's a matter of 99% of politicians wanting more power, being greedy, being corrupt. As much as one party might hate another, that hatred can evaporate pretty quickly if an opportunity for them to collude and increase both of their power is made available to them.
We look at those guys who post the "Power, Greed, Etc. are enemies of the county" copy/pastes on things like Slashdot as nothing more than a nuisance - a bunch of nutters - but they're probably some of the sanest people of all. Okay, I'd admit that the possibility of a Zionist Reptilian Invasion conspiracy is a bit off the wall, but a government that is growing more and more corrupt and trying to amass more power is certainly not remotely as insane as so many people easily dismiss it to be.
If you want to truly keep our liberties intact, please, as a fellow American I ask that you do not let these things pass by as lightly. Don't say it's just an "irritation" or "inconvenience". All of these little irritations and inconveniences will add up over the next 20-50 years to something that will really be quite horrible. You have to be loud and over the top. A whisper won't be heard by the people who are distracted by the day-to-day comforts of their life like Dancing With The Stars and Farmville. You need to be loud and angry. Sometimes violent, sometimes not.
There have been far too many times in the history of the world where terrible things have been done because the populace was too ignorant or indifferent to what was going on in their own goddamned countries. By being silent - or even just relatively quiet - you are giving your consent. For the love of the freedoms this country was based on and your brothers and sisters in this country and around the entire world, do not let these things pass quietlly.
A buddy of mine who currently lives in Sacramento told me about a nature walk he took while in in elementary school in California:
These trees have been here for hundreds of years... and that's a meth shack, over there... if you look to your left, you can see a stream that runs off from a nearby natural spring... and there's another meth shack...
Well for one thing, the Pirate Party is probably the only political part in most countries that even gives a shit about open source on ethical or ideological grounds, not just "hey, free software lolololol" grounds.
"Doubles" refers to the last two digits in your post number (22 in this case).
Every post on 4chan is numbered, with each forum having its own individual counter. So while something small like/int/ (International) might have tens of thousands of posts, something more popular like/v/ (Video Games) or/b/ (Random, the sewage drain of the Internet) have millions.
There are often posts such as "doubles/triples/quads names my dog", or games wherein events are determined by post numbers like a roll of the dice. During the leadup to Christmas, there were more than a few threads that would gift games to people who managed to reach a certain number or pattern of numbers.
Aside from this, there's the quirky odd coincidences that result, such as a post saying "I am God" ending in 666.
Lastly, certain numbers on certain boards have a special significance, and bits here and there of Internet culture were born just because a particular idea, image, etc. managed to get that post number. Aside from obvious stuff like post #2,000,000, there's things such as post 11223344, or post 44444444, etc.
But yes, as the brother post says, it's essentially cultural bleedover from 4chan.
Besides, even if you were at a dead stop and cold, couldn't you just hold down the brakes and pump the gas for a few quick taps to get it running again?
Think of it this way. The planet's shields are effectively down. All we need to do is fill a photon torpedo with tachyons and launch it into the core so it reverses the core's polarity. That will fix everything.
Now granted, the women didn't come forward for a while, but to be fair a lot of rape victims don't immediately come forward (if at all). However, considering the timing (i.e. they both found out about the other's existence) and/or there was some sort of political motivations here, the whole thing sounds absolutely fishy.
As a man, I absolutely agree that a line has to be drawn somewhere. Yes, women get legitimately sexually assaulted all the time, but they also hold a lot of power. All a woman has to do is point the finger at a man and accuse him of raping her and that's enough for the police to ask questions. If a girlfriend is really, really pissed at her boyfriend (say, she found out that he was cheating on her), all she has to do is accuse him of rape.
I really just don't know. Maybe it has to be defined as involving force or violence specifically. If a woman goes through a rape kid and has traces of a guy's semen but otherwise no injuries (from being held down, strangled, etc.) can you really call it rape? If there was no attempt to restrain her and/or no attempt on her part to resist (and, as a result, injuries on one or both parties), can you really call it rape?
It's unpopular to say what I and the parent post are saying, but until we have some sort of solid standard, the accusation of rape will always be a power that women can use to screw over men for whatever reason. Yes, women have suffered hundreds and hundreds of years of abuse and social inequity, but that's no reason to tip the scale the other way.
If the environment within which you are working requires you to be intellectually disingenuous, then perhaps you should work in a different environment.
The best way to handle "non-PC" subjects is to discuss them anyway and ignore what people consider "PC". Fuck 'em. It's "voluntary" censorship on the parts of people who refuse to discuss certain subjects and that's fine, but not when they put you down for discussing someting they don't wish to discuss. Political Correctness is the hallmark of totalitarian governments and sociopaths.
For reasons that don't make any sense to anybody outside the oil industry, oil gets heavily subsidized while renewable energy gets only a very small fraction of the government support.
Oil companies have deeper pockets.
If we had to start from 0 and decide what form of energy to use, business would find whichever is cheapest and legal and go with that.
I'm a lot like you, but I do give gifts and receive them. I just completely ignore holidays.
For instance, I was out shopping a few years ago and saw a fedora in a store that I thought a friend would like. So, I bought it and gave it to him. No need to wait for a birthday or Hallmark holiday.
Kindness (and, in turn, gratitude) knows no season.
Slashdot Mirror
& l t ; = <
(minus the spaces, obviously)
The moar you know...
So we want them to be slow and precise? Okay, they can play a level of Swat 4 on Elite Difficulty.
1) Derek Lyons is a murderer!
2) Plant dead hooker in his home
3) Get frontpage /. article
hahahaha... oh man, that's a good one right there... I'll have to pass it along to my buddy! ;D
No, comparing the TSA to the Sturmabteilung is not ridiculous at all.
While I don't think it's very likely that we would as easily enter a "TSA = proto-Nazis" situation, people who say things like "It's just a little bother, it could never get that bad" were around prior to every major bad thing that ever happened.
"It's just a metal detector, it's really quite sensible... only holds us up for a few minutes."
"Searching through my luggage is no big deal. Someone could have a bomb/gun/etc.! It's only a few minutes here and there."
"Well sure, the body scanners and pat downs are a pain in the ass at airports, but they have to protect rail stations just as much as they do airports!"
"Well, sports stadiums are just as vulnerable if not more than transportation stations... hell, can you imagine a bomb going off in Giants Stadium?"
"Sure, it's annoying to have to submit to a full car search every time I try to get onto the highway, but can you imagine what would happen if a terrorist blew up a bomb on a bridge? It could collapse the entire region's ability for people to move around!"
Death by a thousand cuts.
They're not going to massively crack down with riot troops in the streets. They're going to chip away at rights, little by little. It will take years - if not generations. When our kids grow up, they wouldn't at all be bothered by the things that are unfathomable to us - say, mandatory national ID cards, or retinal scanners, or troops with automatic weapons posted in the street because they will have grown up with this being the status quo.
I don't know about you, but when I see things like a Newark Police officer armed with a M4, tactical combat vest, and a kevlar helmet standing in front of a building in the downtown of my own goddamned city you can bet your ass that I am more than a little perturbed.
This isn't a matter of Republicans or Democrats being bad. It's a matter of 99% of politicians wanting more power, being greedy, being corrupt. As much as one party might hate another, that hatred can evaporate pretty quickly if an opportunity for them to collude and increase both of their power is made available to them.
We look at those guys who post the "Power, Greed, Etc. are enemies of the county" copy/pastes on things like Slashdot as nothing more than a nuisance - a bunch of nutters - but they're probably some of the sanest people of all. Okay, I'd admit that the possibility of a Zionist Reptilian Invasion conspiracy is a bit off the wall, but a government that is growing more and more corrupt and trying to amass more power is certainly not remotely as insane as so many people easily dismiss it to be.
If you want to truly keep our liberties intact, please, as a fellow American I ask that you do not let these things pass by as lightly. Don't say it's just an "irritation" or "inconvenience". All of these little irritations and inconveniences will add up over the next 20-50 years to something that will really be quite horrible. You have to be loud and over the top. A whisper won't be heard by the people who are distracted by the day-to-day comforts of their life like Dancing With The Stars and Farmville. You need to be loud and angry. Sometimes violent, sometimes not.
There have been far too many times in the history of the world where terrible things have been done because the populace was too ignorant or indifferent to what was going on in their own goddamned countries. By being silent - or even just relatively quiet - you are giving your consent. For the love of the freedoms this country was based on and your brothers and sisters in this country and around the entire world, do not let these things pass quietlly .
So yes, I think
A buddy of mine who currently lives in Sacramento told me about a nature walk he took while in in elementary school in California:
These trees have been here for hundreds of years... and that's a meth shack, over there... if you look to your left, you can see a stream that runs off from a nearby natural spring... and there's another meth shack...
giant 8' bean bag
65" TV
[expensive] audio system
Mustang
According to my handy dandy "Expensive Purchases to Compensate for Penis Size" chart, you're currently sitting at -4 inches.
Don't you think that your opinion is a bit biased? After all, there are those allegations that you pushed a kid down the stairs...
Well for one thing, the Pirate Party is probably the only political part in most countries that even gives a shit about open source on ethical or ideological grounds, not just "hey, free software lolololol" grounds.
"Doubles" refers to the last two digits in your post number (22 in this case).
Every post on 4chan is numbered, with each forum having its own individual counter. So while something small like /int/ (International) might have tens of thousands of posts, something more popular like /v/ (Video Games) or /b/ (Random, the sewage drain of the Internet) have millions.
There are often posts such as "doubles/triples/quads names my dog", or games wherein events are determined by post numbers like a roll of the dice. During the leadup to Christmas, there were more than a few threads that would gift games to people who managed to reach a certain number or pattern of numbers.
Aside from this, there's the quirky odd coincidences that result, such as a post saying "I am God" ending in 666.
Lastly, certain numbers on certain boards have a special significance, and bits here and there of Internet culture were born just because a particular idea, image, etc. managed to get that post number. Aside from obvious stuff like post #2,000,000, there's things such as post 11223344, or post 44444444, etc.
But yes, as the brother post says, it's essentially cultural bleedover from 4chan.
Besides, even if you were at a dead stop and cold, couldn't you just hold down the brakes and pump the gas for a few quick taps to get it running again?
No no no, are you crazy?
Think of it this way. The planet's shields are effectively down. All we need to do is fill a photon torpedo with tachyons and launch it into the core so it reverses the core's polarity. That will fix everything.
There are a lot of problems with the whole thing.
Now granted, the women didn't come forward for a while, but to be fair a lot of rape victims don't immediately come forward (if at all). However, considering the timing (i.e. they both found out about the other's existence) and/or there was some sort of political motivations here, the whole thing sounds absolutely fishy.
As a man, I absolutely agree that a line has to be drawn somewhere. Yes, women get legitimately sexually assaulted all the time, but they also hold a lot of power. All a woman has to do is point the finger at a man and accuse him of raping her and that's enough for the police to ask questions. If a girlfriend is really, really pissed at her boyfriend (say, she found out that he was cheating on her), all she has to do is accuse him of rape.
I really just don't know. Maybe it has to be defined as involving force or violence specifically. If a woman goes through a rape kid and has traces of a guy's semen but otherwise no injuries (from being held down, strangled, etc.) can you really call it rape? If there was no attempt to restrain her and/or no attempt on her part to resist (and, as a result, injuries on one or both parties), can you really call it rape?
It's unpopular to say what I and the parent post are saying, but until we have some sort of solid standard, the accusation of rape will always be a power that women can use to screw over men for whatever reason. Yes, women have suffered hundreds and hundreds of years of abuse and social inequity, but that's no reason to tip the scale the other way.
If the environment within which you are working requires you to be intellectually disingenuous, then perhaps you should work in a different environment.
Oh yeah? Well fuck both of you, Soul Caliber is better than Tekken any day of the week!
Wait, what are we talking about again?
It isn't PC to discuss differences intelligence
The best way to handle "non-PC" subjects is to discuss them anyway and ignore what people consider "PC". Fuck 'em. It's "voluntary" censorship on the parts of people who refuse to discuss certain subjects and that's fine, but not when they put you down for discussing someting they don't wish to discuss. Political Correctness is the hallmark of totalitarian governments and sociopaths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#The_metric.2FUS_customary_units_mix-up
Chess is medieval Starcraft.
How many of the world's top competitive Starcraft players are chicks?
Learning how to deliberately write (and speak) in a different manner than you usually do is helpful to those who are aware of what you've said.
100 launches there have only been two disasters.
According to my official NASA calculator, that's a failure rate of only 0.2%. Not bad at all.
BANKER: I want that students paper rated EC-10 and BURNED!
ASSISTANT: For the last time sir, Equilibrium was not a documentary...
For reasons that don't make any sense to anybody outside the oil industry, oil gets heavily subsidized while renewable energy gets only a very small fraction of the government support.
Oil companies have deeper pockets.
If we had to start from 0 and decide what form of energy to use, business would find whichever is cheapest and legal and go with that.
Give a game away for free (or damn near), and charge for a service. See: EVE Online.
Now imagine how much of a problem that would be if there were only 4 farmers in the entire country who would willingly collude to prevent competition.
I'm a lot like you, but I do give gifts and receive them. I just completely ignore holidays.
For instance, I was out shopping a few years ago and saw a fedora in a store that I thought a friend would like. So, I bought it and gave it to him. No need to wait for a birthday or Hallmark holiday.
Kindness (and, in turn, gratitude) knows no season.