If you read the article it states that General Alexander addressed the legal basis.
And just how is anyone supposed to evaluate the soundness of the legal opinions rendered by the FISA courts since their legal opinions are sealed?
The FISA courts have produced significant rulings and new interpretations to the 4th Amendment that no one but a select few are privy to. Are we to have a furtive judicial system where only a select few actually even know what our laws say and mean?
In a letter to one of his officers written in 1777, Washington wrote that secrecy was key to the success of intelligence activities:
Secrecy, of course -- this is always required in war and intelligence activities. But seeing as how he fought against general warrants issued by the crown, I have no doubt that he would be horrified at the scope and breadth of the NSA's broad collection policies.
For some mind numbingly stupid reason people keep wanting to reveal US intelligence operations to all, citizen or noncitizen alike. That isn't likely to end well.
For a robust demonstration regarding the need for (public) whistle blowers just look at nefarious characters like J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon who used the government's intelligence apparatus as a sword against their personal and political enemies. What place is there in this logic for whistle blowers who should expose those who are acting outside the legal confines of our great nation (e.g. Hoover, Nixon, etc.)?
To believe that libertarians are simply anarchists (Somalia is in a state of anarchy) is to fall into error. Libertarians, almost without variance, believe in property rights and common law. This sort of thing necessitates peace officers, national defense, and court systems (among other things).
It is true however, that Libertarians believe in a far more limited government than most people.
True, but, were I in their shoes, I'd have to ask myself:
1. Does acting strangely (i.e., throwing my hard drives in random garbage trucks) prove my guilt in the case?
I worked in electronic discovery for a time which deals with ferreting out electronic information during trials. Doing something in the manner you're pondering would likely get you into a lot more trouble than you're counting on.
During your trial the judge the judge would likely find efforts to destroy to be in bad faith and give the jury an instruction to make an adverse inference about the evidence you destroyed. Basically this means that whatever bad facts the prosecutor claims were on the hard drive (with a modicum of fact and or educated guessing backing it up), the jury would assume those bad things were found to be true during trial. there is a small chance that the judge might invoke a default ruling (i.e. you're guilty).
2. If there is evidence on those hard drives that probably would prove my guilt, which is the lesser sentence: obstruction or whatever I'll get charged with if they find smokinggun.jpg on those drives?
You would likely be found guilty of both the original charges (whatever they were) and destruction of evidence and whatever else the prosecutor can come up with (which is likely to be lengthy). In general it is a bad idea to try to outsmart the court or play fast and loose with evidence. Very few things will tick off a judge faster or more violently than the destruction of evidence in bad faith (i.e. you meant to destroy or hide evidence to avoid getting caught).
Then I would use an email address with periods and filter any "periodless" emails to spam. The spammers don't know how you're really using your email address (with or without periods). In either case you can still filter them.
Nothing but you could use an email address with periods 'buford.pusser@gmail.com' and send everything without periods 'bufordpusser@gmail.com' to spam. Or if you've already started using the address without periods you can flag certain senders as safe and then filter the rest to spam (while starting to give out your 'new' email address with periods).
While not exactly an implementation of a throwaway address, you can use plus sign addressing (subaddressing, i.e. name+slashdot@gmail.com) with Google. I use it for every site I sign up on so I can see who gives out my email address so I can filter everything from that alias into the trash.
Additionally you can also place a period anywhere in the user portion of your email address and gmail will route it to your address.
For instance, if your email address is "bufordpusser@gmail.com", you can also give out "buford.pusser@gmail.com", "b.u.ford.pusser@gmail.com", etc. and all of them will route to your original address.
This new DRM system is essentially a virtual dongle and will likely hold up about as well as the old DRM systems (i.e. not very well at all). The remote server will be emulated or the bits of code which check for the dongle will be cracked.
I don't see how this system is all that different from early attempts at DRM in the 80's other than potentially annoying their legitimate customers a lot more. That and there are a lot more skilled crackers now than in the 80's.
In a modern, well-insulated house (another "green" tech - there even exist passive houses) - and at least in Germany all newer houses are mandated to be built well-insulated - the working poor actually save money.
True, insulation saves a lot of money and if green mandates stopped there I would not mind nearly as much. However, in the example that initially started this thread concerning putting money into green research (solar, wind, etc.) it would almost certainly take money out of the pockets of the poor. Unfortunately, when people start making rules they find it hard to stop because they enjoy the power and authority.:-)
Thank you for the amazingly civil discussion. They have become rare on Slashdot lately. It is always fun to speak with people who have a very different perspective. Have a great day and all that.:-)
No because "green" research is money well spent. Natural resources are finite and everything that helps the efficiency is good. Also a cleaner environment is a better place to live.
Aren't you making life a little worse than it would be otherwise by pursuing a non-optimal solutions? While I applaud your intentions, we must also consider what we're sacrificing. Consider the working poor, don't you think it is especially unfair to them that they have to pay a lot more for their heating bill (relative to their income) because society has decided to solve a problem which may or may not exist? Society is in essence, taking money out of their pocket that they could otherwise spend on more practical things.
Even if global warming is a political sham and most of the "scientific" evidence has been fabricated, as it very well may be, at least it has spurned research into solar and wind technologies, for instance.
Assuming that is the case (i.e. man made global warming is statistically insignificant or totally false), don't you think that the same money could have been better spent in other areas of research instead of solving for a nonexistent problem?
I think the rampant PC game piracy (almost 80-90%) can be blamed for this somewhat.
The truth is no one really knows what the real percentage is regarding pirate games since, as far as we know, it has never been properly studied. Also, piracy does not matter nearly as much as lost sales. The 11 year old kid who has no money (and other similar groups) is not a lost sale and the gaming industry should not care about them too much. We're totally in the dark regarding lost sales since the gaming industry no idea what this number is. Either the gaming industry execs don't enough care to know what the number is, or they know the real numbers and believe it is more effective to spout fictional lost sales numbers. For myself, either answer is completely deplorable.
Brain dead measures such as the ones Ubisoft is apparently enacting will likely only cause them greater expense (infrastructure and DRM costs) and drive more people to pirate their games. It's a shame really, I used to really like some of the games they published.
The Xbox department turned profitable in early 2008... Given that the first Xbox finished as a loss, that would mean the 360 would have to have had to recoup its losses AND the first xbox's for the department to turn profitable. The reason for the delay in turning profitable was due to the 2 billion dollar RROD investment.
I think investors are really only looking for a return on their investment for a single generation of hardware. I believe almost everyone overlooks the loss the first XBox took as the price of admission into the console market.
Also, blaming the RROD is pointless since initial execution has NEVER been MS' strong suit. MS constantly has these sorts of big issues when they ship major revisions of their product. Writing this incident off as a singular mistake ignores MS' long history of shipping initially buggy products.
On the other hand, the longer this console generations life cycle drags on, the more it plays into MS' hands. If nothing else MS is good at steadily improving their products over time (e.g. the old "don't buy MS software until SP2" rule of thumb).
It's a nonsense comment. The software ALREADY defines the consoles. You can have the latest hardware in the world, but if you have no decent games, your system is a paper weight.
Yes, software the console with the best software library wins (e.g. PS1, PS2, and Wii). And yes, none of the those consoles had the best hardware of their generation.
However, I think you're missing the new nugget of information here. The software playing field has been stretched and MS is relying on software other than games (which are mostly cross platform now) to be their key differentiator. We've already seen some of this, but it looks like we'll be seeing a lot more.
MS has wanted to be the home entertainment hub for about a decade now (WebTV, Media Center PCs, etc.) but has failed so far. It will be interesting to see how successful MS will be at pushing the Xbox into the center of our home entertainment centers. I also wonder how much more time MS has (maybe a one more generation?) before their shareholders revolt due to the 360 hemorrhaging cash over its lifetime.
So as long as you wipe or erase the hard drive before litigation begins, or before you become subpoena'ed (aware of the litigation), you're protected if you destroyed any evidence of your activities?
No, that is not a viable strategy. The duty to preserve data arises when litigation has commenced or is reasonably anticipated. The judge would likely hit you with sanctions, an adverse inference (i.e. you destroyed it so the court will assume the worst), or in the worst case a default judgement (i.e. you lose).
This was also the case that introduced me to Slashdot. One day I discovered that people on some crazy place called "Slashdot.org" were going nuts analyzing the transcript of Patti's court appearance. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. It looked like an online Talmudic debate. The people seemed a little like lawyers -- but they clearly were not lawyers -- and many of them seemed to be smarter than lawyers. So I asked a few people, and eventually found one -- my youngest son who is a techie -- who explained it to me.
Since discovering Slashdot, my life hasn't quite been the same.
Thanks a bunch Ray. I know a lot of people here have the same warm feeling towards you. It's a great feeling knowing that there are others out there fighting for justice.
It's also really pleasant to see a principled and eminently competent lawyer getting some exposure. Keep up the good fight!
Lots of people here and analysts have written off AMD. I think AMD is in a great position if they can survive their short term debt problems which is looking increasingly likely.
Consider the following:
Intel's GPU tech is terrible.
Nvidia doesn't have an x86 design / manufacturing experience, x86 license, or even x86 technology they want to announce.
AMD currently has the best GPU technology and their technology is very close to Intel's for CPUs.
AMD is in a great position like no other company to capitalize on the coming CPU / GPU convergence. Everyone jeered when AMD bought ATI but it is looking to be a great strategic move if they can execute on their strategy.
AMD has the best mix of technology, they just have to put it to good use.
That statment and disconnect from reality show exactly why I find libertarians scary. You must have been around some truly rabid Libertarian(s) or something...
That statment and disconnect from reality show exactly why I find libertarians scary. The "This is what the founding fathers meant" is just another from of rapping a political agenda in the flag. Please point to me where I said the founding fathers were the keepers of the one true flame of Libertarian thought and ideology? Neither did I say that the Fathers set out for a Libertarian state, and therefore Libertarian ideology is sacrosanct. I was merely responding to your post that referred to the founding fathers and then how crazy Libertarianism is. Also, I do not understand your reasoning that because the US was not a 100% pure Libertarian Government that we don't have any idea what a Libertarian society would be like. You're completely ignoring that by and large the policies of the day were largely anti-federalist and had an extremely weak Federal Government. You can point out instances where they had elements of socialism creep into their government, but that ignores the whole forest because you're staring at a couple of trees...
Look at the scope of the Federal Government during the early periods of the US and look at it now (up till around say Jackson or Polk). The Federal Government was nothing compared to its scope and breadth today and yet the ceiling didn't fall down around our heads. People by and large took care of themselves and others, without all the of the Federal bureaucracies.
Also, don't you think it is a little unfair that you accuse me of wrapping Libertarian thought in the flag when I referred you to a Frenchman as my inspiration for liberty? I used to think that Libertarian thought was nuts (I still think some of the fringes are way off base) until I heard Bastiat. I again invite you to listen to Bastiat as it is a step by step defense of Liberty, and decidedly not scary crazy.:-)
People with any knowledge of history know the world is different than it was in 1787. Folks living in some idealistic dream world believe otherwise. If the world is so different, then we ought to change the Constitution. If we allow government to subvert the intent of the Constitution then we will be subject to the law of man, in place of the rule of law. If the law simply means whatever a man thinks he can get away with saying on a particular day, then we have started down the road to tyranny. History also shows that democracy has inevitably devolved into tyranny in this manner. We should be particularly on guard against such violations of the law.
Finally, the world has changed, people and their basic impulses are not. The only thing that is demonstrably different is the scale of things.
Much depends on which column your biases place which war and how your biases define winning and losing. Ok, so by your own admission, in these conflicts you never really know if you've won. Since you can never know when you have won, the fighting will tend to drag on for longer periods of time. Recent history certainly confirms this (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, etc.). This is a more rational system than "fight to win and leave" how?
ROFTLMAO. If you believe that in past we weren't in a state of constant conflict... I have some prime waterfront property for you in Florida. I can only assume you are referencing the Indian wars regarding conflict since there was little else of note instigated by the U.S. The British created the Indian mess and the U.S. essentially was left to deal with the ensuing chaos. The U.S. instigated little else of note before the 1900's.
Anyhow, we will not agree on this matter. I simply invite you to look at the following Wikipedia page and note the number and length of major conflicts we've been involved in during the past 100 years, vs. the first 100 years of our country. I know you think the times are so different, but "people is people" as they say.
This isn't a D&D session where you can't use your +5 Sword of MagicBabble unless you specifically tell the DM you are drawing it in preference to your +3 Mace of WooHoo. The real world doesn't work like that. I would certainly agree that the "real world" routinely ignores the Constitution and what it says about war...
The founding fathers certainly have a much better track record than the "police action" crowd. How many "police action" wars have we won (0) vs. how many wars have we won (5)?
The founding fathers had it right: 1. Congress declares and funds the war 2. The President wages the war 3. ??? 4. The Fighting Stops!
This system is certainly preferable to what we have today, which is essentially a constant state of conflict.
Actually the war was declared in the U.S. congress and the only purpose was regime change in Iraq. War was never declared in either Operation Desert Storm or Operation Iraqi Freedom. We are there to supposedly enforce U.N. mandates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States
Winning a war btw, doesn't mean everybody goes home. Just look at WWII. Winning a war means that there is a beginning and an end to hostilities. The Axis were defeated and the fighting stopped. We haven't stopped fighting in Iraq since the first undeclared war in 1991 (Desert Storm).
"I've been through two wars and I know. I've seen cities and homes in ashes. I've seen thousands of men lying on the ground, their dead faces looking up at the skies. I tell you, war is hell!"
You aren't fighting a war to be nice. You are fighting to win and to do so you need to do whatever it takes. Yes, but there is one small problem... We never declared war.
How can you win when you don't even have a "proper" war to begin with? There is no end to this "war" (and insurgencies) because it was never begun and the objectives were never clearly identified.
I know you say that in jest, but the article states that ATI have 9.3% of the problems. It stands to reason that it is representative of their market share. This was a little surprising to me as well, but ATI had about 20% of the market during 2007.
It would seem that AMD has managed to turn around their driver's stability and it is better than nVidia's, who apparently has a pretty poor record at the moment.
Of course it sounds very appealing that your vision of government not only erradicates injustice, but it also gives you "a Coke and a smile" at the end of the day.;-) The peril in these seemingly benign ideas is this, what can government add to society without taking from liberty? It should not force me to group with others in unnatural combinations. This arrangement violates liberty.
Being Canadian means not worrying about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and entertainment. That's an improvement in my book. Again I will rest on Bastiat's elegant explanation of these principles.
"Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first."
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy." - Bastiat (The Law)
I submit that grouping everyone together unnaturally such as in this instance, is forced fraternity and should be avoided. I see that we will simply just disagree, but that is pleasant enough and has made for interesting conversation.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
If you read the article it states that General Alexander addressed the legal basis.
And just how is anyone supposed to evaluate the soundness of the legal opinions rendered by the FISA courts since their legal opinions are sealed?
The FISA courts have produced significant rulings and new interpretations to the 4th Amendment that no one but a select few are privy to. Are we to have a furtive judicial system where only a select few actually even know what our laws say and mean?
In a letter to one of his officers written in 1777, Washington wrote that secrecy was key to the success of intelligence activities:
Secrecy, of course -- this is always required in war and intelligence activities. But seeing as how he fought against general warrants issued by the crown, I have no doubt that he would be horrified at the scope and breadth of the NSA's broad collection policies.
For some mind numbingly stupid reason people keep wanting to reveal US intelligence operations to all, citizen or noncitizen alike. That isn't likely to end well.
For a robust demonstration regarding the need for (public) whistle blowers just look at nefarious characters like J. Edgar Hoover and Nixon who used the government's intelligence apparatus as a sword against their personal and political enemies. What place is there in this logic for whistle blowers who should expose those who are acting outside the legal confines of our great nation (e.g. Hoover, Nixon, etc.)?
To believe that libertarians are simply anarchists (Somalia is in a state of anarchy) is to fall into error. Libertarians, almost without variance, believe in property rights and common law. This sort of thing necessitates peace officers, national defense, and court systems (among other things).
It is true however, that Libertarians believe in a far more limited government than most people.
True, but, were I in their shoes, I'd have to ask myself:
1. Does acting strangely (i.e., throwing my hard drives in random garbage trucks) prove my guilt in the case?
I worked in electronic discovery for a time which deals with ferreting out electronic information during trials. Doing something in the manner you're pondering would likely get you into a lot more trouble than you're counting on.
During your trial the judge the judge would likely find efforts to destroy to be in bad faith and give the jury an instruction to make an adverse inference about the evidence you destroyed. Basically this means that whatever bad facts the prosecutor claims were on the hard drive (with a modicum of fact and or educated guessing backing it up), the jury would assume those bad things were found to be true during trial. there is a small chance that the judge might invoke a default ruling (i.e. you're guilty).
2. If there is evidence on those hard drives that probably would prove my guilt, which is the lesser sentence: obstruction or whatever I'll get charged with if they find smokinggun.jpg on those drives?
You would likely be found guilty of both the original charges (whatever they were) and destruction of evidence and whatever else the prosecutor can come up with (which is likely to be lengthy). In general it is a bad idea to try to outsmart the court or play fast and loose with evidence. Very few things will tick off a judge faster or more violently than the destruction of evidence in bad faith (i.e. you meant to destroy or hide evidence to avoid getting caught).
Then I would use an email address with periods and filter any "periodless" emails to spam. The spammers don't know how you're really using your email address (with or without periods). In either case you can still filter them.
Nothing but you could use an email address with periods 'buford.pusser@gmail.com' and send everything without periods 'bufordpusser@gmail.com' to spam. Or if you've already started using the address without periods you can flag certain senders as safe and then filter the rest to spam (while starting to give out your 'new' email address with periods).
Additionally you can also place a period anywhere in the user portion of your email address and gmail will route it to your address.
For instance, if your email address is "bufordpusser@gmail.com", you can also give out "buford.pusser@gmail.com", "b.u.ford.pusser@gmail.com", etc. and all of them will route to your original address.
The secure version still uses the more traditional approach if the new feature makes your machine cough and wheeze.
This new DRM system is essentially a virtual dongle and will likely hold up about as well as the old DRM systems (i.e. not very well at all). The remote server will be emulated or the bits of code which check for the dongle will be cracked.
I don't see how this system is all that different from early attempts at DRM in the 80's other than potentially annoying their legitimate customers a lot more. That and there are a lot more skilled crackers now than in the 80's.
In a modern, well-insulated house (another "green" tech - there even exist passive houses) - and at least in Germany all newer houses are mandated to be built well-insulated - the working poor actually save money.
True, insulation saves a lot of money and if green mandates stopped there I would not mind nearly as much. However, in the example that initially started this thread concerning putting money into green research (solar, wind, etc.) it would almost certainly take money out of the pockets of the poor. Unfortunately, when people start making rules they find it hard to stop because they enjoy the power and authority. :-)
Thank you for the amazingly civil discussion. They have become rare on Slashdot lately. It is always fun to speak with people who have a very different perspective. Have a great day and all that. :-)
No because "green" research is money well spent. Natural resources are finite and everything that helps the efficiency is good. Also a cleaner environment is a better place to live.
Aren't you making life a little worse than it would be otherwise by pursuing a non-optimal solutions? While I applaud your intentions, we must also consider what we're sacrificing. Consider the working poor, don't you think it is especially unfair to them that they have to pay a lot more for their heating bill (relative to their income) because society has decided to solve a problem which may or may not exist? Society is in essence, taking money out of their pocket that they could otherwise spend on more practical things.
Even if global warming is a political sham and most of the "scientific" evidence has been fabricated, as it very well may be, at least it has spurned research into solar and wind technologies, for instance.
Assuming that is the case (i.e. man made global warming is statistically insignificant or totally false), don't you think that the same money could have been better spent in other areas of research instead of solving for a nonexistent problem?
I think the rampant PC game piracy (almost 80-90%) can be blamed for this somewhat.
The truth is no one really knows what the real percentage is regarding pirate games since, as far as we know, it has never been properly studied. Also, piracy does not matter nearly as much as lost sales. The 11 year old kid who has no money (and other similar groups) is not a lost sale and the gaming industry should not care about them too much. We're totally in the dark regarding lost sales since the gaming industry no idea what this number is. Either the gaming industry execs don't enough care to know what the number is, or they know the real numbers and believe it is more effective to spout fictional lost sales numbers. For myself, either answer is completely deplorable.
Brain dead measures such as the ones Ubisoft is apparently enacting will likely only cause them greater expense (infrastructure and DRM costs) and drive more people to pirate their games. It's a shame really, I used to really like some of the games they published.
The Xbox department turned profitable in early 2008... Given that the first Xbox finished as a loss, that would mean the 360 would have to have had to recoup its losses AND the first xbox's for the department to turn profitable. The reason for the delay in turning profitable was due to the 2 billion dollar RROD investment.
I think investors are really only looking for a return on their investment for a single generation of hardware. I believe almost everyone overlooks the loss the first XBox took as the price of admission into the console market.
Also, blaming the RROD is pointless since initial execution has NEVER been MS' strong suit. MS constantly has these sorts of big issues when they ship major revisions of their product. Writing this incident off as a singular mistake ignores MS' long history of shipping initially buggy products.
On the other hand, the longer this console generations life cycle drags on, the more it plays into MS' hands. If nothing else MS is good at steadily improving their products over time (e.g. the old "don't buy MS software until SP2" rule of thumb).
It's a nonsense comment. The software ALREADY defines the consoles. You can have the latest hardware in the world, but if you have no decent games, your system is a paper weight.
Yes, software the console with the best software library wins (e.g. PS1, PS2, and Wii). And yes, none of the those consoles had the best hardware of their generation.
However, I think you're missing the new nugget of information here. The software playing field has been stretched and MS is relying on software other than games (which are mostly cross platform now) to be their key differentiator. We've already seen some of this, but it looks like we'll be seeing a lot more.
MS has wanted to be the home entertainment hub for about a decade now (WebTV, Media Center PCs, etc.) but has failed so far. It will be interesting to see how successful MS will be at pushing the Xbox into the center of our home entertainment centers. I also wonder how much more time MS has (maybe a one more generation?) before their shareholders revolt due to the 360 hemorrhaging cash over its lifetime.
So as long as you wipe or erase the hard drive before litigation begins, or before you become subpoena'ed (aware of the litigation), you're protected if you destroyed any evidence of your activities?
No, that is not a viable strategy. The duty to preserve data arises when litigation has commenced or is reasonably anticipated. The judge would likely hit you with sanctions, an adverse inference (i.e. you destroyed it so the court will assume the worst), or in the worst case a default judgement (i.e. you lose).
All of this stuff is very essential to eDiscovery and best practices.
Windows CE runs on ARM. Granted, CE doesn't have the level of application support you'll find in other versions of Windows though.
This was also the case that introduced me to Slashdot. One day I discovered that people on some crazy place called "Slashdot.org" were going nuts analyzing the transcript of Patti's court appearance. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. It looked like an online Talmudic debate. The people seemed a little like lawyers -- but they clearly were not lawyers -- and many of them seemed to be smarter than lawyers. So I asked a few people, and eventually found one -- my youngest son who is a techie -- who explained it to me.
Since discovering Slashdot, my life hasn't quite been the same.
Thanks a bunch Ray. I know a lot of people here have the same warm feeling towards you. It's a great feeling knowing that there are others out there fighting for justice.
It's also really pleasant to see a principled and eminently competent lawyer getting some exposure. Keep up the good fight!
Lots of people here and analysts have written off AMD. I think AMD is in a great position if they can survive their short term debt problems which is looking increasingly likely.
Consider the following:
AMD is in a great position like no other company to capitalize on the coming CPU / GPU convergence. Everyone jeered when AMD bought ATI but it is looking to be a great strategic move if they can execute on their strategy.
AMD has the best mix of technology, they just have to put it to good use.
Look at the scope of the Federal Government during the early periods of the US and look at it now (up till around say Jackson or Polk). The Federal Government was nothing compared to its scope and breadth today and yet the ceiling didn't fall down around our heads. People by and large took care of themselves and others, without all the of the Federal bureaucracies.
Also, don't you think it is a little unfair that you accuse me of wrapping Libertarian thought in the flag when I referred you to a Frenchman as my inspiration for liberty? I used to think that Libertarian thought was nuts (I still think some of the fringes are way off base) until I heard Bastiat. I again invite you to listen to Bastiat as it is a step by step defense of Liberty, and decidedly not scary crazy. :-)
Finally, the world has changed, people and their basic impulses are not. The only thing that is demonstrably different is the scale of things. Much depends on which column your biases place which war and how your biases define winning and losing. Ok, so by your own admission, in these conflicts you never really know if you've won. Since you can never know when you have won, the fighting will tend to drag on for longer periods of time. Recent history certainly confirms this (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, etc.). This is a more rational system than "fight to win and leave" how? ROFTLMAO. If you believe that in past we weren't in a state of constant conflict... I have some prime waterfront property for you in Florida. I can only assume you are referencing the Indian wars regarding conflict since there was little else of note instigated by the U.S. The British created the Indian mess and the U.S. essentially was left to deal with the ensuing chaos. The U.S. instigated little else of note before the 1900's.
Anyhow, we will not agree on this matter. I simply invite you to look at the following Wikipedia page and note the number and length of major conflicts we've been involved in during the past 100 years, vs. the first 100 years of our country. I know you think the times are so different, but "people is people" as they say.
The founding fathers certainly have a much better track record than the "police action" crowd. How many "police action" wars have we won (0) vs. how many wars have we won (5)?
The founding fathers had it right:
1. Congress declares and funds the war
2. The President wages the war
3. ???
4. The Fighting Stops!
This system is certainly preferable to what we have today, which is essentially a constant state of conflict.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war_by_the_United_States Winning a war btw, doesn't mean everybody goes home. Just look at WWII. Winning a war means that there is a beginning and an end to hostilities. The Axis were defeated and the fighting stopped. We haven't stopped fighting in Iraq since the first undeclared war in 1991 (Desert Storm).
You aren't fighting a war to be nice. You are fighting to win and to do so you need to do whatever it takes. Yes, but there is one small problem... We never declared war.
How can you win when you don't even have a "proper" war to begin with? There is no end to this "war" (and insurgencies) because it was never begun and the objectives were never clearly identified.
GPU Market Share
=================
Intel 37.6%
Nvidia 32.6%
AMD 19.5%
Source: http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9752280-37.html
It would seem that AMD has managed to turn around their driver's stability and it is better than nVidia's, who apparently has a pretty poor record at the moment.
"Mr. de Lamartine once wrote to me thusly: "Your doctrine is only the half of my program. You have stopped at liberty; I go on to fraternity." I answered him: "The second half of your program will destroy the first."
In fact, it is impossible for me to separate the word fraternity from the word voluntary. I cannot possibly understand how fraternity can be legally enforced without liberty being legally destroyed, and thus justice being legally trampled underfoot.
Legal plunder has two roots: One of them, as I have said before, is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy." - Bastiat (The Law)
I submit that grouping everyone together unnaturally such as in this instance, is forced fraternity and should be avoided. I see that we will simply just disagree, but that is pleasant enough and has made for interesting conversation.