As far as espionage, it's being going on since Cain and Able, and they have been spying, stealing, killing ever since. What does civilian intelligence have to do with this anyway? If you have an axe to grind with civilian intelligence, please have at it. Have fun, wallow in it, I will applaud. But seriously, don't you find it kind of silly to be busting the NSA's balls over working with Google?
For me it's a tell that they are working with Google. Frankly if they are, it's kind of a disappointment. To me, they shouldn't have to "work with them". They should have things nailed down, and working with Google to me is a sign of weakness. WTF is with that? Shouldn't they have the resources to get the job done already? Or have they been hamstrung by politicians so that they are weaksauce and easy to dance around if you are a multinational corporation wanting to stick your dick in everything in sight without being fussed with by the NSA? I see far too many government regulatory agencies being castrated and lo and behold we end up in some serious shit from the lack of proper oversight of the real assholes. Look at Wall Street and how the regulation of it was cut down to nothing and now "the bubble burst". "The bubble burst" translates into "We fucked everyone until it all collapsed."
This might all be fine and dandy to us, but China doesn't give a flying fuck. They have us by the balls financially if you haven't noticed. The fuckers have had a field day with us since Clinton. Google stood up to them if you don't recall. Then Google gets attacked by them. Are we suppose to take it? And if we do something official, then doesn't that mean we can anger our "Chinese Overlords?" That's all we need right now is some law geeks poking around for conformation. If you haven't noticed, we are in a game for all the marbles with these Chinese cocksuckers. Sure, we have plenty of assholes, but at least they are OUR ASSHOLES. Get with the program or help teach Mandarin.
I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind as I was mashing down the 9s that someone would take them literal. But on the other hand, why spoil someone's fun of scrutinizing them? Please keep in mind, as I do, the following; 76% of all statistics are made up on the spot. (that number just was..lol) And there are liar, damn liars and statisticians.
The point was, to the average Joe, this is all meaningless. Honest people seriously don't care. Which is a problem of course, because it enables such entities in question to operate off the reservation with relative impunity from the prying eyes of the public. You aren't going to interrupt the average Joe's interest in American Idol or whatever brain dead past time, long enough to even explain the problem.
Secondly, just what are you going to ask, "Hey, are you guys watching me?" To which they should naturally reply, "No, should we?" This whole conversation reminds me of my home state, we have a Tax Stamp for marijuana, if you don't have this on your weed and you are busted, you get charged with not having a tax stamp. Nobody in their right mind who is up to no good is going to apply for a Tax Stamp for their weed nor are they going to knock on the NSA's doors and ask for a cup of sugar and by the way, are you watching me?
Third, most people are small boring fish to them. We are creatures of habit and if you have a file, it's probably a small boring one at that. Now if you are a person of interest to them, then you probably know about most of this anyway unless you are "low hanging fruit". Now as far as our 300 number, that is a serious amount of trouble makers to keep track of. Again, consider UBL and how long he evaded us. Even if they knew about him and let him romp around free to extend the war and their budgets, we still get to kid them about it. Anyway, consider 299 more of his ilk running around. That suddenly becomes a big number when you put the right magnitude to it.
As far as them going rogue, I doubt it. This isn't the USSR, we have an iota of accountability here. Which means one thing to me, if your co-worker or boss is doing something against the rules, you can burn them, get rid of them and either move up or get a pain in your ass out of the way. Then you have agency squabbles over jurisdiction. Also, someone mentioned the private sector's intelligence agencies, these are seriously disturbing, but then again, that is human nature. All of this to me equates into some twisted check and balance system. They are NOT going to make enough racket to wake the sleeping giant.
This is why you have a judge looking at some law nerds wanting to beat on the NSA door, thinking they are some pseudo-tea party out to liberate us from "the man", and he tells them "NO!". It's all very complicated and if you are late to the party, please STFU. Besides its like playing Whack-a-Mole, (no pun intended), you get rid of one batch of these assholes and 3 more pop up to replace them. Better the devil you know over the devil you don't.
The whole Assange/Wikileaks thing is a comedy of errors OR its a straw man. I lean towards it being a straw man of sorts, or bait; a kind of honeypot if you will. If they put enough emphasis on Assange/Wikileaks they become more "credible". Then you set back and watch what rolls their way from whom. Lo and behold, they have earned their "bones" by fighting with the US and doing some "incarceration". Hell, they probably don't even know they are bait, that is the best kind, no? I seriously don't think Assange will have much happen to him. They will rough him up so to speak, and turn him back out on the street. He will have an attitude that will play well into his role. Then he and his people become a "fishing hole", the surveillance orgy will begin.
Or not.
But lets pretend everything is as it appears. Assange/Wikileaks are some rogue out of American jurisdiction freedom fighters that have rumpled the tail feathers of the powerful elite and they want him silenced. We can't have people like that dumping state secrets out to the world can we? Of course not, but we have to wait for the slow wheels of the justice machine to grind him up, so we keep him on ice and out of more mischief, because heaven knows, we can't find anyone if they give us the slip. 10 years to catch the most wanted man in the world, right?
So what are we looking at, extradition? Prison time? Oh yeah, a trial of course. This is what one would expect, no? But will it?
What we will have is probably as follows. Extradition of course, then a trial, then he gets freed. The case will be made that we need tougher laws, more comprehensive ones for situations like this and budgets will swell. It will play out with boring predictability, much like the DSK situation is. I say free him now, spare us the charades and the elevated drama.
I have a bumper sticker for you; "It's a modern world; Surveillance Happens!"
Our government has been eavesdropping on us since the telegraph. Accept it, get over it. I don't worry because I am a "good ole boy". If they watch the likes of me with an iota of interest, the world must indeed be safe and boring. 99.99999999% of us are boring as hell. Hence is why you have to automate this crap and search for key words, then individual vocal and speech patterns. I bet they have some sweet gear for listening in on us these days. If they don't, I am so seriously disappointed it makes me want to cry. If they don't, lets pitch in and get them something for Christmas, ok?
On a slightly more somber note, I can't imagine what kind of monster computer these guys have. Seriously, what would YOU do with their computers if you were contracting for them and had access to them for a few hours. I would find a list of women who like middle aged fat guys. Make some serious raytraced animated porn? Or would you submit your "mind simulator" into it and see if you create a singularity? I think therefor I am? Or just get everyone in the building to get on a terminal and see what game everyone could play at once? Everyone log into WoW, make gnomes and storm Ironforge to be epically annoying?
Eww! I know, one could steal back all the money and give it to the poor. They would just blow it and the rich would get it again, but it would make a grand holiday.
Come on, people. It's the NSA, they are the weird uncle of the intelligence agencies as it is. They aren't worried about your mp3s, torrents, or your pron. 99.9999% of us are incapable of being weird enough to make their radar. Right? Besides, I am a Google fan, they stood up to China, and probably still are standing up to them. If the NSA is working with Google, that is cool. I bet they have some awesome apps for agents. "Google Agent"; I can see it now.
So, if you take your fat, and make human jello out of it and eat it, do you get fat again and get to repeat the whole process?
Actually this is kind of exciting for the medical field. I would think. If we can develop human genetics to take off in another medium and cultivate parts to replace our own dying ones, that would be GREAT. What's even better is we can make BETTER replacements. They did say a form of jello? The first thing that comes to mind is even BETTER breast enhancements.
Nerve splicing is going to be the really great thing to see. Mix that in with organ farming and tada! Brain replacement is the only part that puzzles me. We need to mimic a human neural network, an emulator if you will, then mirror the brain over onto hardware via some kind of interface. I would highly advise keeping that hardware isolated from any other networks until it could be appraised. I can't imagine the whole process not involving camping in a big vat of gelatinous goop for weeks on end with an array of esoteric electronics and tubing sprawled throughout.
The irony will be, prisoners will be able to serve out those multiple life sentences. What an interesting can of worms that will be to open.
Let not thine bean-counters have party to the "fun", for surely upon that day that thou let thine bean-counters soil the "fun", the Lord, thine customers shall smite thee in thine wallet and it shall sting, And there shall be weeping and gashing of teeth in the outer darkness of the unemployment lines by the wicked unfaithful devs, so saith the Gods of Gaming. Amen.
No, it just shows what a big bunch of emasculated pussies we all are. I feel like Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman", him screaming "If I was half the man I was 20 years ago, I would take a flamethrower to this place!"
Who gets to arrest them for illegal governing? I find the whole TSA a Constitutional violation. Disorderly conduct? I think it's the conduct of a citizen who SHOULD be disrupting such a violation of our freedoms. I think its high time for mass civil disobedience, in fact its a moral responsibility that we do.
People get the government that they deserve. I am proud of this mother and I am glad I wasn't there. I would be doing hand-to-hand combat with them trying to arrest a mother for not wanting her kid groped. They would have a REAL threat on their hands. They have to be trying to provoke us. Are they trying to brew up some home grown "terrorists" with this kind of disrespect of our basic human rights? It's this kind of shit that brings things to a head real fast. I know if this pisses me off to read about, it will seriously piss off others. Keep playing those odds and you will end up with a "winner."
Bejeweled, this is one my mother plays. She got it for her 73 year old friend who plays it. I will have to let her know that her silly game company sold for 1.3 Billionish.
Never underestimate simple games. I can't get my dear old mom to try many games, but Bookworm hooked her in, then it was Bejeweled. Complicated games are beyond her, watching her death grip a mouse trying to steer around in a FPS makes me fret. Relax mom! But her and her friends love cheesy games. Things you don't catch a dyed in the wool hard core gamer ever touching, goofy cute stuff, they like.
Look at Angry Birds! Or not,...lol That genre is old as Scorched Earth or probably before that I am sure. Worms was a bit later. I guess you can reinvent the wheel in game software and the world really doesn't give a a big damn, especially if it's fun.
Meh. I had a dose of Asian pride when I was serving in Korea. You had to love the Korean Rock Soldiers though, they were all about proving they were #1 G.I. The people were pretty warm though and quick with a smile or a deal. My take on the Asian attitude at that time was they thought were were a bunch of giant barbarians who lumbered around like big dumb kids. As a nation, but not as soldiers. We have some monsters that are awesome to behold when they tower over you by a good half or third. They wish they had our power, they would romp around with it and not be bashful. We are timid and bashful with our power, or at least used to be. Now we are starting to shoot first ask questions later. I would say it's a product of our home environment.
What I can't figure out is why Sony throws away chances at really being great with their incredibly mediocre efforts into software, i.e. the big tuna: MMOs. They have the deep pockets to come up with something Earth shattering, and they sure as hell have the hardware capabilities, but they are simply "stuck on stupid".
I know people flipped out over the things they did in SWG. I knew I had to avoid them or I would be driving to their office loaded up like I was "Postal." They screwed Planetside up badly before I got in it, then they screwed it up more so I wouldn't feel left out. They know how to kill the ever living hell out of fun and piss off their user base. They only rank ahead of Microsoft as a really shitty company to manage an MMO.
If Sony had one fucking ounce of MMO brains, they would be outdoing EVE with the space aspect of SWG and WoW on the RPG part. Sweet Jesus, what the hell more could they have been handed than the Star Wars Franchise to work with. How can you fuck up something like that? Seriously? Fucking just shoot yourself if you are that damn retarded. Give me the franchise to work with...lol. And a mountain of money.
I would take EVE tech, and mash it together with something like a seriously upgraded version of Anarchy Online and sprinkle in some MineCraft type tech, and of course some RTS tech for drones...hirelings...etc...etc...etc. It would be one universe but a big one, with lots of room for lots of strange things to come out to play.
Wow, just when you thought the UN couldn't get any more worthless and a complete waste of every country's tax dollars, they top themselves.
I agree with Canada on this one. AND, I think we need to cut them off of every penny we give them until they wake up, as in ALL aid to anyone gets cut off while Norks chair anything but an electric chair.
Please, lets not forget we have to protect the children from terrorists. So what is the price of some electronic junk being stolen, or perhaps some discomfort as the TSA searches your body in comparison to the safety of the children. We should thank this thief for he will make people carry less stuff out of fear of being stolen, hence there will be less stuff to search and fewer places to hide a bomb that might hurt the children.
Terrorism isn't something new. It's been around for eons and how its been dealt with has just changed. There is a reason why we see uniformed armies, its to distinguish the fighting forces of a nation from the civilian population. Why is this important for reasons other than not to hurt civilians? It's important because it shows that if you conquer a nation, you don't have to commit genocide, the people will go along with whomever is in charge.
Now in the modern era, we have become "civilized" but this comes at a high price. Our populations have to deal with the continued threat of reprisals from groups that are only encouraged to do more reprisals. Governments thrive on this because frankly, these days governments derive their power from fear.
In America, our history shows how to deal with "terrorists". The native, aboriginal Americans, aka Indians, fought gorilla warfare against us and by modern definition would be considered terrorists. We responded with genocide, and containment. Had we not done this, we would still be fighting skirmishes with them, and people living in the countryside would be worried about getting scalped. Sure, your inner hippie can be repulsed by this, but the mechanics of it are pretty sound.
But the modern world and all of its "civilization" give us impossible to win scenarios. The IRA situation is only on hold, we all know they will cycle back to violence eventually. The Palestinian situation will never resolve its self, even if they get their own country, they will still be wanting to blow up Israel. Enormous amounts of resources will be spent and innocent lives will be lost and in the end, we will still be in the same spot we are now.
You can't play the "civilized human game" if only one side will play it. Take the United States for example, you couldn't beat our military and expect to take over this country. We are an armed camp here that would rather die fighting than live a second under foreign rule. (at least we used to be like that, we might be a bunch of pussies now) If you were an invader, you wouldn't turn your back on any of us for a second, even old women would be trying to kill you somehow. Nor would you engage us with any traditional sense of warfare rules. We shot all the conventional rules of warfare in the head during our Revolutionary War, and I am sure that 99% of all Americans would laugh at the Geneva Convention Rules of Warfare if it came down to a war on our own country. Not only that, you couldn't just pack up and leave, we would follow you home and kill every last one of you, then dance on your graves.
Effectively, the IRA should have brought genocide to their country. If you kill every last one of them down to every man, woman and child. The problem is solved, you don't have terrorists popping up out of a population if they are all dead. Again this is back to why uniformed military are important for civilization and why adhering to this is a must unless you are willing to gamble the lives of EVERYONE in your country.
The United States understands all of this. Why do you think we "over reacted" to 9/11? We have had to fight terror with terror. We had to show the world if you come blow up buildings here, we will come blow your country to utter hell. You can't hide from us just because you don't wear a uniform. If you hide in some dipshit country who is dumb enough to harbor you, we will blow that entire country to hell. If we think that you are squirrelly and MIGHT pull some bullshit like some terrorist actions, we will blast your asses all the way back to the stone age. Consider yourselves lucky you have something we can use, like oil, or we might just nuke you off the planet. The thought we pound home with bombs is this; "don't go fucking around with America or they will come kill us all." And yes, I think the world is finally getting the point. Fuck you and your "America is a paper tiger" theory.
Oddly though, we have some kind of weird guilt about this, and when others try to do it, we get excited about it. Frankly you ca
The first thing I would do is make it against the law for any government representative to take a penny beyond their salary. If someone so much as gives them a candy bar and they accept it, we hang both the person who gave it to them and the representative publicly. (And anyone involved) Campaigning outside of authorized venues is also against the law. There will be a forum of all the candidates, they will each have equal time to present their views. This will be a mandatory broadcast on all radio and TV channels to include cable. If the media is found guilty of promoting any politician there are two things that can happen, if it's a slight mistake, all the other candidates are given equal time on the air, on the broadcaster's dime. If it's a blatant violation, the broadcaster and all involved are publicly executed, including the candidate if he was party to it.
As far as voting, it should be a privilege. You should have to take a test, like a drivers test. Also participation in the grass roots process should be mandatory if you wish to vote. Our education system should have a mandate to teach what the grass roots process is from an early age. To enforce people to be part of the process we should tax them extra for not voting, if you don't vote and do your civic duty, there is a penalty tax of 10 to 25% tacked onto your taxes each year.
Anticipating the incredible chilling effect on professional politicians, we take it a step further and draw our candidates from a pool, much like we select jurors. In effect we draw from the rank and file of the people, kicking and screaming if must be, into office for ONE term. All in all, we need to focus on the purity of our representatives representing US, the people and not other interests.
But I don't see us ever being represented again. The system is too engrained with corruption. You can't fix something this twisted, yet powerful. It will destroy anything or anyone in it's way. A few rebels here and there will be crushed and they will capitalize yet again on another way to clamp down more control on us all.
We have to think like Frank Herbert's Dune. Which I am surprised they haven't read it and adopted that strategy in the Middle East. I think his Dune series was kind of an analogy of the oil situation in the Middle East. Think of The Middle East as the Planet Dune and the oil as spice. "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."
What is our spice here in the USA? I am afraid to say almost. I can condense it down to a perfect singular thing that could bring us down. If you disrupt our country from one end to the other, the smoke and mirrors disappears. That is the only way you will get rid of this cancer, you have to destroy the whole system as we know it and start all over again from the very basics. How does a single person do that? Pretty easy actually, I am shocked it hasn't been done already.
What is the magic that makes our civilization run? What magical element give life to about everything in the modern world? Electricity! I am not talking about knocking out power plants, there is no need. The complete greed of the power companies have left us with an infrastructure of electricity delivery systems that are in such shambles and disrepair that many are afraid the system will collapse if its strained. Enter the lone gun man out with a.22 caliber squirrel rifle who simply drives throughout the countryside blasting key transformers. *pop* there goes another section of the countryside without power. *pop* there goes another. *pop* there goes another one! *pop*...FUCK! another one! One guy could send them scrambling trying to figure out what the fuck.
Now imagine a group of assholes with squirrel rifles, or slingshots, or a big rock and all with cellphones and twitter. They all go to their assigned spots and at the same time shoot out transformers. *pop* half the United States is without power. The timing on this is also important for maximum effect. Do it during a holiday when the weather is extreme, like Chris
It's hard to argue that point. I was looking at the new girl in the latest Transformers movie and she was posed in front of a backdrop and on it was the Transformers name and logo, but also over a dozen corporate sponsors. I thought WTF, is this the movies or NASCAR? Yes, I only noticed the logos after looking at her for a while, so yes it was a hetro test and I passed it.
You must understand that Hollywood isn't Holywood. There is no sacred duty for them to be some kind of temple for our culture. They are pure capitalists and out to make as much money as they can. Sure there are independent films that are making strong headway. You can thank NetFlicks for many of them seeing the light of day for the public. As far as corporations, just start digging into whom owns whom and I am sure both Hollywood and TV are all their puppets. They would be slacking if they didn't, right?
Jingoist, now that is my "Word De Jour", I had to google it. It's appropriate though, good word usage! Where the fuck did you come up with that one from? I thought I had all the good political terms nailed down.
I will look past your labeling me as a troll as someone who frankly doesn't understand me, thus your reaction is rather predictable.
Allow me to demonstrate my "troll" abilities.
First let me address you and another poster and your faulty thinking of "we must entertain to educate". First let's agree that children are biological and social creatures; hence they have need of boundaries. Boundary reinforcement has fallen slack over the decades, one can attribute a large percentage of this on the "hippie movement" of the 60s. Child rearing was another field in which the norms were challenged, yet sadly it seems, nothing was learned and while disassembling the process, it's never been put back together right. Hurray for change for changes sake.
Discipline is one of the first things that has been kicked to the curb, and we have seen the byproduct thereof. This has resulted in a cascade of failure of brat kids having and raising even bigger brat kids. Brat kids if you haven't noticed, often grow up into some complete douchbags as adults.
Being that discipline has been trashed, everyone looks for a substitute. Following along with the impulsive idiot hippie idealism, why not tap into "lets feel good" as a motivator? This would work fine and dandy, but there are plenty of inherent problems with that system. First that comes to mind is the subjects develop a type of immunity to the stimulus. Like germs becoming immune to medicine, requiring more and more until the medicine doesn't work at all, the subjects require more and more stimulus until nothing works.
My hypotheses is this; Without a balanced system, you will have a singular directional system that will head one direction with increasing efforts to get any gains, reaching a point of diminishing returns, then it will slingshot backwards into complete failure. A balanced system will keep the values of both polarities in regulation. Simply put, if you have to put on the razzle dazzle to get their attention, you have over-reached the effectiveness of this reinforcement. Understand an education isn't about learning what numbers mean in an equation, but also the functioning as a social creature in a society. It must prepare the student for the reality of what is to soon face them.
Lets face it, the world is a brutal and cruel place. By not teaching discipline and boundaries to children, you are not only failing to prepare them for reality, but you are handicapping them and possibly putting them into danger. A REAL education that prepares a child to be an adult in a world such as ours, isn't from trying to find something that might finally entertain little Johnny enough to pay attention to it. This is the kind of poisoned thinking I am on about, because obviously it doesn't fucking work. Whoopity fucking doo, you found another sugary sweet, bright shiny thing to try to lure little Johnny down the track a little farther. Seriously people, they used to call it "spoiling the kids", that was back before we fucked things up. Don't flush us all down the toilet and try to convince me it's progress.
Back to this poster; Don't try to bullshit the argument with sampling farmers kid's results throwing off the mean. Don't look at the test results, look at the tests themselves. The questions that were required of kids at 8th grade are BRUTAL compared to the mental pablum that kids are fed these days. I was talking recently with one of my sociology professors who's in his 70s;the amount education has degraded since his days going to school as a student has him dismayed.
If I don't stop to do my analysis...lol. I always get a big kick out of people who learn a few big words and learn a few mechanics of analysis and by just the merit of knowing this little bit, think their analysis isn't faulty. I call this the "Those who think they know it all annoy us who do" syndrome.
You do realize that human knowledge is built upon prior human knowledge? It's not a cognitive predisposition to understand the importance of past successes, and being able
Yeah, fuck all of those tough subjects like math, science and history. Things that require "study", what a complete waste of time "study" is. We just need to please little Johnny so he will take his nose out of his texting to give a nod at some Facebook page. That will solve our education problems and why we are collectively becoming the dumbest fucking people on the planet.
Do you seriously know just how far down the toilet our education system has slid in the past 50 years? An 8th grade test from that era would make an 4.0 AA graduate feel like a retard. How about we try to go back to when education was working first before we try to improve on the complete disaster that we are using now? This is the one problem with a free society, any idiot can open their mouth with an idea, and there are more idiots than non-idiots, hence the idiots can have their way.
Blame parents indeed. Humans on Earth really need to adopt a policy that only the best are allowed to have children. Bad parents = more bad people on the planet. And sadly there are more bad parents than good ones.
Look at how coddled American children are. They are treated like little fairy prince and princesses until they turn of age and realize that their life so far has been a big lie and they have absolutely no skills to offer the world. Our public schools are a complete joke and Bush's "no child left behind" is another antonym like "patriot act". It should have been "all kids left behind".
Teacher: Mr & Mrs Jones, I hate to tell you that your little Johnny is going to fail. Mr & Mrs Jones: We will sue you if you flunk our precious little Johnny! Principle: Oh fuck! We can't have that! Pass the little brat! Johnny: Nothing matters! I can be a fuck off tool and nothing happens! Society: We are crushed by the influx of douchebags of all these "little johnny" bastards coming of age!
Indeed, blame the piece of shit parents. If perhaps they didn't aspire to a standard of living that was so far beyond them, one of them could stay at home and BE A FUCKING PARENT. You know who raises kids? The internet. Behold as computer games become the new babysetters, and your World of Warcraft community and it's ilk has to take on dealing with people's malcontent, need of attention brats. This is where punks from hacker groups like Lulsec and others draw from to fill their ranks.
Kids need to be in school. Who the fuck cares if they are "entertained"? If we don't start acting like responsible adults and start hammering an education into these kids, who will? These slacker, retard parents? I don't think so, they just want quiet after they have been slaving for their masters, they don't have time for parenting. Please, the next time some idiot wants to placate kiddies and entertain them instead of educating them, take a fucking ball-bat to their head. Do it for the children.
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I loved Sesame Street, leave it alone!
As far as espionage, it's being going on since Cain and Able, and they have been spying, stealing, killing ever since. What does civilian intelligence have to do with this anyway? If you have an axe to grind with civilian intelligence, please have at it. Have fun, wallow in it, I will applaud. But seriously, don't you find it kind of silly to be busting the NSA's balls over working with Google?
For me it's a tell that they are working with Google. Frankly if they are, it's kind of a disappointment. To me, they shouldn't have to "work with them". They should have things nailed down, and working with Google to me is a sign of weakness. WTF is with that? Shouldn't they have the resources to get the job done already? Or have they been hamstrung by politicians so that they are weaksauce and easy to dance around if you are a multinational corporation wanting to stick your dick in everything in sight without being fussed with by the NSA? I see far too many government regulatory agencies being castrated and lo and behold we end up in some serious shit from the lack of proper oversight of the real assholes. Look at Wall Street and how the regulation of it was cut down to nothing and now "the bubble burst". "The bubble burst" translates into "We fucked everyone until it all collapsed."
This might all be fine and dandy to us, but China doesn't give a flying fuck. They have us by the balls financially if you haven't noticed. The fuckers have had a field day with us since Clinton. Google stood up to them if you don't recall. Then Google gets attacked by them. Are we suppose to take it? And if we do something official, then doesn't that mean we can anger our "Chinese Overlords?" That's all we need right now is some law geeks poking around for conformation. If you haven't noticed, we are in a game for all the marbles with these Chinese cocksuckers. Sure, we have plenty of assholes, but at least they are OUR ASSHOLES. Get with the program or help teach Mandarin.
I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind as I was mashing down the 9s that someone would take them literal. But on the other hand, why spoil someone's fun of scrutinizing them? Please keep in mind, as I do, the following; 76% of all statistics are made up on the spot. (that number just was..lol) And there are liar, damn liars and statisticians.
The point was, to the average Joe, this is all meaningless. Honest people seriously don't care. Which is a problem of course, because it enables such entities in question to operate off the reservation with relative impunity from the prying eyes of the public. You aren't going to interrupt the average Joe's interest in American Idol or whatever brain dead past time, long enough to even explain the problem.
Secondly, just what are you going to ask, "Hey, are you guys watching me?" To which they should naturally reply, "No, should we?" This whole conversation reminds me of my home state, we have a Tax Stamp for marijuana, if you don't have this on your weed and you are busted, you get charged with not having a tax stamp. Nobody in their right mind who is up to no good is going to apply for a Tax Stamp for their weed nor are they going to knock on the NSA's doors and ask for a cup of sugar and by the way, are you watching me?
Third, most people are small boring fish to them. We are creatures of habit and if you have a file, it's probably a small boring one at that. Now if you are a person of interest to them, then you probably know about most of this anyway unless you are "low hanging fruit". Now as far as our 300 number, that is a serious amount of trouble makers to keep track of. Again, consider UBL and how long he evaded us. Even if they knew about him and let him romp around free to extend the war and their budgets, we still get to kid them about it. Anyway, consider 299 more of his ilk running around. That suddenly becomes a big number when you put the right magnitude to it.
As far as them going rogue, I doubt it. This isn't the USSR, we have an iota of accountability here. Which means one thing to me, if your co-worker or boss is doing something against the rules, you can burn them, get rid of them and either move up or get a pain in your ass out of the way. Then you have agency squabbles over jurisdiction. Also, someone mentioned the private sector's intelligence agencies, these are seriously disturbing, but then again, that is human nature. All of this to me equates into some twisted check and balance system. They are NOT going to make enough racket to wake the sleeping giant.
This is why you have a judge looking at some law nerds wanting to beat on the NSA door, thinking they are some pseudo-tea party out to liberate us from "the man", and he tells them "NO!". It's all very complicated and if you are late to the party, please STFU. Besides its like playing Whack-a-Mole, (no pun intended), you get rid of one batch of these assholes and 3 more pop up to replace them. Better the devil you know over the devil you don't.
The whole Assange/Wikileaks thing is a comedy of errors OR its a straw man. I lean towards it being a straw man of sorts, or bait; a kind of honeypot if you will. If they put enough emphasis on Assange/Wikileaks they become more "credible". Then you set back and watch what rolls their way from whom. Lo and behold, they have earned their "bones" by fighting with the US and doing some "incarceration". Hell, they probably don't even know they are bait, that is the best kind, no? I seriously don't think Assange will have much happen to him. They will rough him up so to speak, and turn him back out on the street. He will have an attitude that will play well into his role. Then he and his people become a "fishing hole", the surveillance orgy will begin.
Or not.
But lets pretend everything is as it appears. Assange/Wikileaks are some rogue out of American jurisdiction freedom fighters that have rumpled the tail feathers of the powerful elite and they want him silenced. We can't have people like that dumping state secrets out to the world can we? Of course not, but we have to wait for the slow wheels of the justice machine to grind him up, so we keep him on ice and out of more mischief, because heaven knows, we can't find anyone if they give us the slip. 10 years to catch the most wanted man in the world, right?
So what are we looking at, extradition? Prison time? Oh yeah, a trial of course. This is what one would expect, no? But will it?
What we will have is probably as follows. Extradition of course, then a trial, then he gets freed. The case will be made that we need tougher laws, more comprehensive ones for situations like this and budgets will swell. It will play out with boring predictability, much like the DSK situation is. I say free him now, spare us the charades and the elevated drama.
I have a bumper sticker for you; "It's a modern world; Surveillance Happens!"
Our government has been eavesdropping on us since the telegraph. Accept it, get over it. I don't worry because I am a "good ole boy". If they watch the likes of me with an iota of interest, the world must indeed be safe and boring. 99.99999999% of us are boring as hell. Hence is why you have to automate this crap and search for key words, then individual vocal and speech patterns. I bet they have some sweet gear for listening in on us these days. If they don't, I am so seriously disappointed it makes me want to cry. If they don't, lets pitch in and get them something for Christmas, ok?
On a slightly more somber note, I can't imagine what kind of monster computer these guys have. Seriously, what would YOU do with their computers if you were contracting for them and had access to them for a few hours. I would find a list of women who like middle aged fat guys. Make some serious raytraced animated porn? Or would you submit your "mind simulator" into it and see if you create a singularity? I think therefor I am? Or just get everyone in the building to get on a terminal and see what game everyone could play at once? Everyone log into WoW, make gnomes and storm Ironforge to be epically annoying?
Eww! I know, one could steal back all the money and give it to the poor. They would just blow it and the rich would get it again, but it would make a grand holiday.
Come on, people. It's the NSA, they are the weird uncle of the intelligence agencies as it is. They aren't worried about your mp3s, torrents, or your pron. 99.9999% of us are incapable of being weird enough to make their radar. Right? Besides, I am a Google fan, they stood up to China, and probably still are standing up to them. If the NSA is working with Google, that is cool. I bet they have some awesome apps for agents. "Google Agent"; I can see it now.
Can't lick 'em, join 'em?
So, if you take your fat, and make human jello out of it and eat it, do you get fat again and get to repeat the whole process?
Actually this is kind of exciting for the medical field. I would think. If we can develop human genetics to take off in another medium and cultivate parts to replace our own dying ones, that would be GREAT. What's even better is we can make BETTER replacements. They did say a form of jello? The first thing that comes to mind is even BETTER breast enhancements.
Nerve splicing is going to be the really great thing to see. Mix that in with organ farming and tada! Brain replacement is the only part that puzzles me. We need to mimic a human neural network, an emulator if you will, then mirror the brain over onto hardware via some kind of interface. I would highly advise keeping that hardware isolated from any other networks until it could be appraised. I can't imagine the whole process not involving camping in a big vat of gelatinous goop for weeks on end with an array of esoteric electronics and tubing sprawled throughout.
The irony will be, prisoners will be able to serve out those multiple life sentences. What an interesting can of worms that will be to open.
Let not thine bean-counters have party to the "fun", for surely upon that day that thou let thine bean-counters soil the "fun", the Lord, thine customers shall smite thee in thine wallet and it shall sting, And there shall be weeping and gashing of teeth in the outer darkness of the unemployment lines by the wicked unfaithful devs, so saith the Gods of Gaming. Amen.
No, it just shows what a big bunch of emasculated pussies we all are. I feel like Al Pacino in "Scent of a Woman", him screaming "If I was half the man I was 20 years ago, I would take a flamethrower to this place!"
Indeed, but violating the Constitution seems to be what politicians do for sport these days.
Who gets to arrest them for illegal governing? I find the whole TSA a Constitutional violation. Disorderly conduct? I think it's the conduct of a citizen who SHOULD be disrupting such a violation of our freedoms. I think its high time for mass civil disobedience, in fact its a moral responsibility that we do.
People get the government that they deserve. I am proud of this mother and I am glad I wasn't there. I would be doing hand-to-hand combat with them trying to arrest a mother for not wanting her kid groped. They would have a REAL threat on their hands. They have to be trying to provoke us. Are they trying to brew up some home grown "terrorists" with this kind of disrespect of our basic human rights? It's this kind of shit that brings things to a head real fast. I know if this pisses me off to read about, it will seriously piss off others. Keep playing those odds and you will end up with a "winner."
Bejeweled, this is one my mother plays. She got it for her 73 year old friend who plays it. I will have to let her know that her silly game company sold for 1.3 Billionish.
Never underestimate simple games. I can't get my dear old mom to try many games, but Bookworm hooked her in, then it was Bejeweled. Complicated games are beyond her, watching her death grip a mouse trying to steer around in a FPS makes me fret. Relax mom! But her and her friends love cheesy games. Things you don't catch a dyed in the wool hard core gamer ever touching, goofy cute stuff, they like.
Look at Angry Birds! Or not, ...lol That genre is old as Scorched Earth or probably before that I am sure. Worms was a bit later. I guess you can reinvent the wheel in game software and the world really doesn't give a a big damn, especially if it's fun.
1.3 Billion ...lol
Try working for them for a while.
Meh. I had a dose of Asian pride when I was serving in Korea. You had to love the Korean Rock Soldiers though, they were all about proving they were #1 G.I. The people were pretty warm though and quick with a smile or a deal. My take on the Asian attitude at that time was they thought were were a bunch of giant barbarians who lumbered around like big dumb kids. As a nation, but not as soldiers. We have some monsters that are awesome to behold when they tower over you by a good half or third. They wish they had our power, they would romp around with it and not be bashful. We are timid and bashful with our power, or at least used to be. Now we are starting to shoot first ask questions later. I would say it's a product of our home environment.
What I can't figure out is why Sony throws away chances at really being great with their incredibly mediocre efforts into software, i.e. the big tuna: MMOs. They have the deep pockets to come up with something Earth shattering, and they sure as hell have the hardware capabilities, but they are simply "stuck on stupid".
I know people flipped out over the things they did in SWG. I knew I had to avoid them or I would be driving to their office loaded up like I was "Postal." They screwed Planetside up badly before I got in it, then they screwed it up more so I wouldn't feel left out. They know how to kill the ever living hell out of fun and piss off their user base. They only rank ahead of Microsoft as a really shitty company to manage an MMO.
If Sony had one fucking ounce of MMO brains, they would be outdoing EVE with the space aspect of SWG and WoW on the RPG part. Sweet Jesus, what the hell more could they have been handed than the Star Wars Franchise to work with. How can you fuck up something like that? Seriously? Fucking just shoot yourself if you are that damn retarded. Give me the franchise to work with...lol. And a mountain of money.
I would take EVE tech, and mash it together with something like a seriously upgraded version of Anarchy Online and sprinkle in some MineCraft type tech, and of course some RTS tech for drones...hirelings...etc...etc...etc. It would be one universe but a big one, with lots of room for lots of strange things to come out to play.
Sony wrecked it just like everything else they touch in MMOs. They wrecked PlanetSide, it baffles me how a company like that can be so fucking daft.
*cussing rant deleted by author*
Wow, just when you thought the UN couldn't get any more worthless and a complete waste of every country's tax dollars, they top themselves.
I agree with Canada on this one. AND, I think we need to cut them off of every penny we give them until they wake up, as in ALL aid to anyone gets cut off while Norks chair anything but an electric chair.
Yes, but we had great music, like A Flock of Seagulls.
Please, lets not forget we have to protect the children from terrorists. So what is the price of some electronic junk being stolen, or perhaps some discomfort as the TSA searches your body in comparison to the safety of the children. We should thank this thief for he will make people carry less stuff out of fear of being stolen, hence there will be less stuff to search and fewer places to hide a bomb that might hurt the children.
+1 mod Funny as hell.
Tang, I don't think I will be able to drink it now.
Oh I want to know more about these guys...lol /popcorn
Terrorism isn't something new. It's been around for eons and how its been dealt with has just changed. There is a reason why we see uniformed armies, its to distinguish the fighting forces of a nation from the civilian population. Why is this important for reasons other than not to hurt civilians? It's important because it shows that if you conquer a nation, you don't have to commit genocide, the people will go along with whomever is in charge.
Now in the modern era, we have become "civilized" but this comes at a high price. Our populations have to deal with the continued threat of reprisals from groups that are only encouraged to do more reprisals. Governments thrive on this because frankly, these days governments derive their power from fear.
In America, our history shows how to deal with "terrorists". The native, aboriginal Americans, aka Indians, fought gorilla warfare against us and by modern definition would be considered terrorists. We responded with genocide, and containment. Had we not done this, we would still be fighting skirmishes with them, and people living in the countryside would be worried about getting scalped. Sure, your inner hippie can be repulsed by this, but the mechanics of it are pretty sound.
But the modern world and all of its "civilization" give us impossible to win scenarios. The IRA situation is only on hold, we all know they will cycle back to violence eventually. The Palestinian situation will never resolve its self, even if they get their own country, they will still be wanting to blow up Israel. Enormous amounts of resources will be spent and innocent lives will be lost and in the end, we will still be in the same spot we are now.
You can't play the "civilized human game" if only one side will play it. Take the United States for example, you couldn't beat our military and expect to take over this country. We are an armed camp here that would rather die fighting than live a second under foreign rule. (at least we used to be like that, we might be a bunch of pussies now) If you were an invader, you wouldn't turn your back on any of us for a second, even old women would be trying to kill you somehow. Nor would you engage us with any traditional sense of warfare rules. We shot all the conventional rules of warfare in the head during our Revolutionary War, and I am sure that 99% of all Americans would laugh at the Geneva Convention Rules of Warfare if it came down to a war on our own country. Not only that, you couldn't just pack up and leave, we would follow you home and kill every last one of you, then dance on your graves.
Effectively, the IRA should have brought genocide to their country. If you kill every last one of them down to every man, woman and child. The problem is solved, you don't have terrorists popping up out of a population if they are all dead. Again this is back to why uniformed military are important for civilization and why adhering to this is a must unless you are willing to gamble the lives of EVERYONE in your country.
The United States understands all of this. Why do you think we "over reacted" to 9/11? We have had to fight terror with terror. We had to show the world if you come blow up buildings here, we will come blow your country to utter hell. You can't hide from us just because you don't wear a uniform. If you hide in some dipshit country who is dumb enough to harbor you, we will blow that entire country to hell. If we think that you are squirrelly and MIGHT pull some bullshit like some terrorist actions, we will blast your asses all the way back to the stone age. Consider yourselves lucky you have something we can use, like oil, or we might just nuke you off the planet. The thought we pound home with bombs is this; "don't go fucking around with America or they will come kill us all." And yes, I think the world is finally getting the point. Fuck you and your "America is a paper tiger" theory.
Oddly though, we have some kind of weird guilt about this, and when others try to do it, we get excited about it. Frankly you ca
The first thing I would do is make it against the law for any government representative to take a penny beyond their salary. If someone so much as gives them a candy bar and they accept it, we hang both the person who gave it to them and the representative publicly. (And anyone involved) Campaigning outside of authorized venues is also against the law. There will be a forum of all the candidates, they will each have equal time to present their views. This will be a mandatory broadcast on all radio and TV channels to include cable. If the media is found guilty of promoting any politician there are two things that can happen, if it's a slight mistake, all the other candidates are given equal time on the air, on the broadcaster's dime. If it's a blatant violation, the broadcaster and all involved are publicly executed, including the candidate if he was party to it.
As far as voting, it should be a privilege. You should have to take a test, like a drivers test. Also participation in the grass roots process should be mandatory if you wish to vote. Our education system should have a mandate to teach what the grass roots process is from an early age. To enforce people to be part of the process we should tax them extra for not voting, if you don't vote and do your civic duty, there is a penalty tax of 10 to 25% tacked onto your taxes each year.
Anticipating the incredible chilling effect on professional politicians, we take it a step further and draw our candidates from a pool, much like we select jurors. In effect we draw from the rank and file of the people, kicking and screaming if must be, into office for ONE term. All in all, we need to focus on the purity of our representatives representing US, the people and not other interests.
But I don't see us ever being represented again. The system is too engrained with corruption. You can't fix something this twisted, yet powerful. It will destroy anything or anyone in it's way. A few rebels here and there will be crushed and they will capitalize yet again on another way to clamp down more control on us all.
We have to think like Frank Herbert's Dune. Which I am surprised they haven't read it and adopted that strategy in the Middle East. I think his Dune series was kind of an analogy of the oil situation in the Middle East. Think of The Middle East as the Planet Dune and the oil as spice. "He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing."
What is our spice here in the USA? I am afraid to say almost. I can condense it down to a perfect singular thing that could bring us down. If you disrupt our country from one end to the other, the smoke and mirrors disappears. That is the only way you will get rid of this cancer, you have to destroy the whole system as we know it and start all over again from the very basics. How does a single person do that? Pretty easy actually, I am shocked it hasn't been done already.
What is the magic that makes our civilization run? What magical element give life to about everything in the modern world? Electricity! I am not talking about knocking out power plants, there is no need. The complete greed of the power companies have left us with an infrastructure of electricity delivery systems that are in such shambles and disrepair that many are afraid the system will collapse if its strained. Enter the lone gun man out with a .22 caliber squirrel rifle who simply drives throughout the countryside blasting key transformers. *pop* there goes another section of the countryside without power. *pop* there goes another. *pop* there goes another one! *pop*...FUCK! another one! One guy could send them scrambling trying to figure out what the fuck.
Now imagine a group of assholes with squirrel rifles, or slingshots, or a big rock and all with cellphones and twitter. They all go to their assigned spots and at the same time shoot out transformers. *pop* half the United States is without power. The timing on this is also important for maximum effect. Do it during a holiday when the weather is extreme, like Chris
It's hard to argue that point. I was looking at the new girl in the latest Transformers movie and she was posed in front of a backdrop and on it was the Transformers name and logo, but also over a dozen corporate sponsors. I thought WTF, is this the movies or NASCAR? Yes, I only noticed the logos after looking at her for a while, so yes it was a hetro test and I passed it.
You must understand that Hollywood isn't Holywood. There is no sacred duty for them to be some kind of temple for our culture. They are pure capitalists and out to make as much money as they can. Sure there are independent films that are making strong headway. You can thank NetFlicks for many of them seeing the light of day for the public. As far as corporations, just start digging into whom owns whom and I am sure both Hollywood and TV are all their puppets. They would be slacking if they didn't, right?
Jingoist, now that is my "Word De Jour", I had to google it. It's appropriate though, good word usage! Where the fuck did you come up with that one from? I thought I had all the good political terms nailed down.
I will look past your labeling me as a troll as someone who frankly doesn't understand me, thus your reaction is rather predictable.
Allow me to demonstrate my "troll" abilities.
First let me address you and another poster and your faulty thinking of "we must entertain to educate". First let's agree that children are biological and social creatures; hence they have need of boundaries. Boundary reinforcement has fallen slack over the decades, one can attribute a large percentage of this on the "hippie movement" of the 60s. Child rearing was another field in which the norms were challenged, yet sadly it seems, nothing was learned and while disassembling the process, it's never been put back together right. Hurray for change for changes sake.
Discipline is one of the first things that has been kicked to the curb, and we have seen the byproduct thereof. This has resulted in a cascade of failure of brat kids having and raising even bigger brat kids. Brat kids if you haven't noticed, often grow up into some complete douchbags as adults.
Being that discipline has been trashed, everyone looks for a substitute. Following along with the impulsive idiot hippie idealism, why not tap into "lets feel good" as a motivator? This would work fine and dandy, but there are plenty of inherent problems with that system. First that comes to mind is the subjects develop a type of immunity to the stimulus. Like germs becoming immune to medicine, requiring more and more until the medicine doesn't work at all, the subjects require more and more stimulus until nothing works.
My hypotheses is this; Without a balanced system, you will have a singular directional system that will head one direction with increasing efforts to get any gains, reaching a point of diminishing returns, then it will slingshot backwards into complete failure. A balanced system will keep the values of both polarities in regulation. Simply put, if you have to put on the razzle dazzle to get their attention, you have over-reached the effectiveness of this reinforcement. Understand an education isn't about learning what numbers mean in an equation, but also the functioning as a social creature in a society. It must prepare the student for the reality of what is to soon face them.
Lets face it, the world is a brutal and cruel place. By not teaching discipline and boundaries to children, you are not only failing to prepare them for reality, but you are handicapping them and possibly putting them into danger. A REAL education that prepares a child to be an adult in a world such as ours, isn't from trying to find something that might finally entertain little Johnny enough to pay attention to it. This is the kind of poisoned thinking I am on about, because obviously it doesn't fucking work. Whoopity fucking doo, you found another sugary sweet, bright shiny thing to try to lure little Johnny down the track a little farther. Seriously people, they used to call it "spoiling the kids", that was back before we fucked things up. Don't flush us all down the toilet and try to convince me it's progress.
Back to this poster; Don't try to bullshit the argument with sampling farmers kid's results throwing off the mean. Don't look at the test results, look at the tests themselves. The questions that were required of kids at 8th grade are BRUTAL compared to the mental pablum that kids are fed these days. I was talking recently with one of my sociology professors who's in his 70s;the amount education has degraded since his days going to school as a student has him dismayed.
If I don't stop to do my analysis...lol. I always get a big kick out of people who learn a few big words and learn a few mechanics of analysis and by just the merit of knowing this little bit, think their analysis isn't faulty. I call this the "Those who think they know it all annoy us who do" syndrome.
You do realize that human knowledge is built upon prior human knowledge? It's not a cognitive predisposition to understand the importance of past successes, and being able
Yeah, fuck all of those tough subjects like math, science and history. Things that require "study", what a complete waste of time "study" is. We just need to please little Johnny so he will take his nose out of his texting to give a nod at some Facebook page. That will solve our education problems and why we are collectively becoming the dumbest fucking people on the planet.
Do you seriously know just how far down the toilet our education system has slid in the past 50 years? An 8th grade test from that era would make an 4.0 AA graduate feel like a retard. How about we try to go back to when education was working first before we try to improve on the complete disaster that we are using now? This is the one problem with a free society, any idiot can open their mouth with an idea, and there are more idiots than non-idiots, hence the idiots can have their way.
Blame parents indeed. Humans on Earth really need to adopt a policy that only the best are allowed to have children. Bad parents = more bad people on the planet. And sadly there are more bad parents than good ones.
Look at how coddled American children are. They are treated like little fairy prince and princesses until they turn of age and realize that their life so far has been a big lie and they have absolutely no skills to offer the world. Our public schools are a complete joke and Bush's "no child left behind" is another antonym like "patriot act". It should have been "all kids left behind".
Teacher: Mr & Mrs Jones, I hate to tell you that your little Johnny is going to fail.
Mr & Mrs Jones: We will sue you if you flunk our precious little Johnny!
Principle: Oh fuck! We can't have that! Pass the little brat!
Johnny: Nothing matters! I can be a fuck off tool and nothing happens!
Society: We are crushed by the influx of douchebags of all these "little johnny" bastards coming of age!
Indeed, blame the piece of shit parents. If perhaps they didn't aspire to a standard of living that was so far beyond them, one of them could stay at home and BE A FUCKING PARENT. You know who raises kids? The internet. Behold as computer games become the new babysetters, and your World of Warcraft community and it's ilk has to take on dealing with people's malcontent, need of attention brats. This is where punks from hacker groups like Lulsec and others draw from to fill their ranks.
Kids need to be in school. Who the fuck cares if they are "entertained"? If we don't start acting like responsible adults and start hammering an education into these kids, who will? These slacker, retard parents? I don't think so, they just want quiet after they have been slaving for their masters, they don't have time for parenting. Please, the next time some idiot wants to placate kiddies and entertain them instead of educating them, take a fucking ball-bat to their head. Do it for the children.