I never watched it...
on
Lost Ends
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
so I don't really have anything to add to the discussion. Still, on another note, 24 will be ending soon. Will CmdrTaco have a thread for us to discuss what we think of that?
No, the Judiciary has to subsequently agree that it does when someone raises the issue to their level.
Okay, well, I'm clearly not the legal scholar you are. So perhaps you could answer a question for me. When was the last time any court ruled (and was not later overturned) that a progam funded with taxpayer dollars and administered by the U.S. Federal government which was designed to promote the general welfare or common defense was deemed unconstitutional because it was found to actually be detrimental to that which it had intended to promote?
I can think of plenty of programs the government has funded that actually made worse the social ills they were supposed to solve. The War On Poverty for instance was supposed to end poverty, but we still have the poor; it wasn't until it was scaled back that people started to realize that they didn't have to be beholden to the government to earn a better living all by themselves. What about Social Security and Medicare? Well they're just taxpayer backed Panzi schemes. There are plenty of exmples of corporate welfare, and other redistributive programs that have inflicted demonstratable harm on those they were meant to help or had unintended consequences that adversely affected others.
As for this issue of a government secure coding office, the author of the original article advocated the government develop its own software in house. And that aspect, while I still don't think it's a good idea, is not an unreasonable function of government. However, when he starts making comments about it being "the stratigic problem" and implying that this office should also be developing software for the private sector, I have a real problem with that in terms its Constitionality. Why? Having seen government (not) work up close for quite a while now, I don't believe they'll get it right. I believe (and point to those past failures as evidence supporting this belief) that the end result will be to detract from the general welfare and the common defense, not enhance or promote it.
That's not to say that there is no government role in this area, but it's in the area of regulation and enforcement (regulating interstate commerce), not providing software development services. I think NSA and NIST are both very capable of providing insight into what those standards should look like, though neither are equipped to perform an enforcement function.
And in case you didn't notice by observing those around you, comprehension and reason were not requirements for wearing a uniform
While that's certainly a true statement, I generally found your that most of those with whom I had the honor to serve had a strong appreciation of the Constitution and a deeper understanding of its intent and the reasoning behind its structure and content than the vast majority of Americans.
Took me all of two years to figure out that my mental abilities were being wasted in that environment, no matter how much fun the toys were
Well, I guess you joined for the wrong reasons. Still I would like to thank you for your willingness to serve; perhaps if you had a different perspective on the reasons for service, you would feel a bit differently about it now.
So you're suggesting we should measure the intent of a law appealing to the General Welfare clause rather than the actual outcome? You missed the point. Just because Congress and the President say that something promotes the general welfare doesn't make it so. Most of the programs that tie back to that clause have largely failed to achieve their stated goals and have instead had exactly the opposite effect. So what's the Washington answer: throw more money down the cespool and hope that something good comes of it and that the taxpayers don't notice the whole thing was a sham in the first place.
I see no evidence that while appealing to the general welfare to create an office of Secure Coding that network / software vulnerabilities will be any less prevalent in fifty years than they are right now. In fact I see a great deal of evidence that they would be far less successful at such an initiative than if they were to leave it in the hands of the private sector.
As for your assertion that I have no understanding of the meaning of the Constitution, well then I guess those 20 years I spent supporting and defending it were rather wasted then.
Obvious jokes aside, the government doesn't innovate very well. It has clear limits to its power under the Constitution, and this would just be another example of it stepping outside of those bounds... Kind of like this little red star. All in the name of security? Yeah right.
Google and Yahoo have invested heavily in cloud computing infrastructure. They don't really care about protecting individual privacy except where it will come back to bite them in the bottom line.
I'm not knocking capitalism, mind you... I kind of like it. But if you think that either of these companies are taking these actions based on an some principled appreciation of the 4th Ammendment, you're deluding yourself.
Not that politicians (or anybody else for that matter) take my opinion seriously but I think the 16th ammendment (and actually the 17th one too) needs to be repealed and the income tax (both personal and corporate) banished forever onto the ash-heap of history where it belongs. What taxes corporations pay are simply taken out of their profits. Where do corporate profits come from? Ultimately the consumer (i.e. you and me).
There is some merit to something analogous to the Fair Tax provided it was the only source of revenue to the U.S. Federal Government. It would bring out into the open all of the hidden taxes that are burried in the things we buy each day.
But again, nobody listens to me anyway, which is why I'll probably be modded down.
Are you well studied in how the microphysics of ice, rain, sleet, graupel, etc are handled in the climate models? How the terrain resolution and the corresponding land-use fields are interpolated and any potential effects of such? How about the sources of the snowpack fields and how often they're updated?
Good question. I think something a bit more to the point however is whether or not climate scientists understand how to VV&A their models, and once accredited for a particular use, are they actually restricting the use of their models to the realm for which it is valid? How can they have validated the output of their models against obervations nobody has ever made? They are making predictions decades or centuries out describing a climate nobody has ever seen before... so how sure are they that they have taken into consideration all of the salient variables that come into play in the actual, highly complex system that is the Earth's climate?
And before you ask, no I'm not a climate scientist. I've got a Ph.D. in computer science specializing in modeling and simulation though, so I'd like to think that I'm at least marginally qualified to be skeptical on this particular aspect of the controversy.
It's what Gaia would want. She needs his body and soul returned to the mother nest.
It gets back to the old adage that if you want a job done right, do it yourself. If all of Gaia's little envirominions can't take care of her, then I say it's well past time for her to take matters into her own hands.
Slashdot Mirror
so I don't really have anything to add to the discussion. Still, on another note, 24 will be ending soon. Will CmdrTaco have a thread for us to discuss what we think of that?
In response to your closing thoughts above...
That's not what we do. We're Americans.
No, the Judiciary has to subsequently agree that it does when someone raises the issue to their level.
Okay, well, I'm clearly not the legal scholar you are. So perhaps you could answer a question for me. When was the last time any court ruled (and was not later overturned) that a progam funded with taxpayer dollars and administered by the U.S. Federal government which was designed to promote the general welfare or common defense was deemed unconstitutional because it was found to actually be detrimental to that which it had intended to promote?
I can think of plenty of programs the government has funded that actually made worse the social ills they were supposed to solve. The War On Poverty for instance was supposed to end poverty, but we still have the poor; it wasn't until it was scaled back that people started to realize that they didn't have to be beholden to the government to earn a better living all by themselves. What about Social Security and Medicare? Well they're just taxpayer backed Panzi schemes. There are plenty of exmples of corporate welfare, and other redistributive programs that have inflicted demonstratable harm on those they were meant to help or had unintended consequences that adversely affected others.
As for this issue of a government secure coding office, the author of the original article advocated the government develop its own software in house. And that aspect, while I still don't think it's a good idea, is not an unreasonable function of government. However, when he starts making comments about it being "the stratigic problem" and implying that this office should also be developing software for the private sector, I have a real problem with that in terms its Constitionality. Why? Having seen government (not) work up close for quite a while now, I don't believe they'll get it right. I believe (and point to those past failures as evidence supporting this belief) that the end result will be to detract from the general welfare and the common defense, not enhance or promote it.
That's not to say that there is no government role in this area, but it's in the area of regulation and enforcement (regulating interstate commerce), not providing software development services. I think NSA and NIST are both very capable of providing insight into what those standards should look like, though neither are equipped to perform an enforcement function.
And in case you didn't notice by observing those around you, comprehension and reason were not requirements for wearing a uniform
While that's certainly a true statement, I generally found your that most of those with whom I had the honor to serve had a strong appreciation of the Constitution and a deeper understanding of its intent and the reasoning behind its structure and content than the vast majority of Americans.
Took me all of two years to figure out that my mental abilities were being wasted in that environment, no matter how much fun the toys were
Well, I guess you joined for the wrong reasons. Still I would like to thank you for your willingness to serve; perhaps if you had a different perspective on the reasons for service, you would feel a bit differently about it now.
So you're suggesting we should measure the intent of a law appealing to the General Welfare clause rather than the actual outcome? You missed the point. Just because Congress and the President say that something promotes the general welfare doesn't make it so. Most of the programs that tie back to that clause have largely failed to achieve their stated goals and have instead had exactly the opposite effect. So what's the Washington answer: throw more money down the cespool and hope that something good comes of it and that the taxpayers don't notice the whole thing was a sham in the first place.
I see no evidence that while appealing to the general welfare to create an office of Secure Coding that network / software vulnerabilities will be any less prevalent in fifty years than they are right now. In fact I see a great deal of evidence that they would be far less successful at such an initiative than if they were to leave it in the hands of the private sector.
As for your assertion that I have no understanding of the meaning of the Constitution, well then I guess those 20 years I spent supporting and defending it were rather wasted then.
Obvious jokes aside, the government doesn't innovate very well. It has clear limits to its power under the Constitution, and this would just be another example of it stepping outside of those bounds... Kind of like this little red star. All in the name of security? Yeah right.
Google and Yahoo have invested heavily in cloud computing infrastructure. They don't really care about protecting individual privacy except where it will come back to bite them in the bottom line.
I'm not knocking capitalism, mind you ... I kind of like it. But if you think that either of these companies are taking these actions based on an some principled appreciation of the 4th Ammendment, you're deluding yourself.
to be completely apathetic towards the plight of the complainers on this.
Get a life! One in the real world!
Oh, I almost forgot... they definitely need to learn how to felch safely.
Let's let the public schools teach them how to safely consume large quantities of alcohol and get behind the wheel of an automobile...
Or to safely use cocaine or other illegal drugs...
Or to safely text while driving...
It's for the children after all.
Well said! I'd mod you up if I had any points left.
You guys... you're always so negative. When are we going to see a headline on /. that says another day comes to a close where the world didn't end?
Not that politicians (or anybody else for that matter) take my opinion seriously but I think the 16th ammendment (and actually the 17th one too) needs to be repealed and the income tax (both personal and corporate) banished forever onto the ash-heap of history where it belongs. What taxes corporations pay are simply taken out of their profits. Where do corporate profits come from? Ultimately the consumer (i.e. you and me).
There is some merit to something analogous to the Fair Tax provided it was the only source of revenue to the U.S. Federal Government. It would bring out into the open all of the hidden taxes that are burried in the things we buy each day.
But again, nobody listens to me anyway, which is why I'll probably be modded down.
Are you well studied in how the microphysics of ice, rain, sleet, graupel, etc are handled in the climate models? How the terrain resolution and the corresponding land-use fields are interpolated and any potential effects of such? How about the sources of the snowpack fields and how often they're updated?
Good question. I think something a bit more to the point however is whether or not climate scientists understand how to VV&A their models, and once accredited for a particular use, are they actually restricting the use of their models to the realm for which it is valid? How can they have validated the output of their models against obervations nobody has ever made? They are making predictions decades or centuries out describing a climate nobody has ever seen before ... so how sure are they that they have taken into consideration all of the salient variables that come into play in the actual, highly complex system that is the Earth's climate?
And before you ask, no I'm not a climate scientist. I've got a Ph.D. in computer science specializing in modeling and simulation though, so I'd like to think that I'm at least marginally qualified to be skeptical on this particular aspect of the controversy.
Phil Jones admitted it.
He must have been mistaken.
Yup. Time to throw away that democracy and liberty and all that stuff the bitter clingers are... well ... clinging to.
Of course I could be wrong.
I understand the hypothesis... I just don't believe it, thus my taunt.
Sure, and hormone-soaked teenagers whose brains are still trying to develop good impulse control always think rationally
I think daddy coming along with a shot gun will have a very positive impact on "impulse control" and "think[ing] rationally".
Sounds an awful lot like Nevada.
It's what Gaia would want. She needs his body and soul returned to the mother nest.
It gets back to the old adage that if you want a job done right, do it yourself. If all of Gaia's little envirominions can't take care of her, then I say it's well past time for her to take matters into her own hands.
It depends who you are.
... this should have been on Idle.
...but the government is really not the enemy.
I think Mr. Paine may have disagreed:
"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
-- Thomas Paine
I was actually thinking of this one.
... the making of a lousy Keanu Reeves movie.