"Even if you give the Armed Citizenry 100% credit, you have to ask how they'd beat the US Army today?"
Members of the United States armed forces are also CITIZENS of this land. Each of them has a home, located in some city or town, located in some state or another. Each of them (well, the overwhelming majority, anyway) has loved ones, whom they probably value more than they value the US government.
I'll remind you of General Robert E. Lee, who didn't want to see the states fight each other - but decided that if there were to be a fight, he would fight for his home state of Virginia.
If revolution should happen, you cannot rely on the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force to remain intact as fighting units, to be used against the people of the United States. Nor can you rely on the government's ability to retain control over all the hardware, command infrastructure, or much of anything else.
For this reason, and others, the Department of Homeland Security was formed. The government hopes to retain control of DHS if and when the shit hits the fan. Unfortunately for the government - DHS consists of mostly incompetent buffoons, far less capable than agents from any other agency. Further, the loyalty of Napolitano's troops remain untested.
Anyone can sit around and make up scenarios about how a revolution would evolve, and the results of said revolution. History proves one thing: civil wars are fucking MESSY!!
It appears that they might be actually dealing with a criminal. They little shit threatened to stab his sister to death. TFA doesn't really give details of that incident - but it does put an interesting spin on this incident. Sounds like a violent little shit to me!
Talk as far over their heads as possible. Give them the facts, but don't waste time dumbing it down for them. Leave them as clueless as they started. Make sure the "executive summary" states your goals clearly.
You're going to dazzle the clueless. But, they won't admit to being dazzled, they'll be mimicking your words to sound intelligent. The guys with a clue might ask you a serious question or two, but they'll probably just agree with you, because it's outside their area of expertise. You'll find that they don't mimic you so much, as they try to explain what they know so that idiots can understand it.
When they approve of your planned course of action, just work extra damned hard to ensure that they don't have problems at THEIR end of things.
I sort of fit into the group you're talking about.
My intro to Debian was through Suse. I've been a distro hopper all of my Linux life, but I settled on Ubuntu as my "household" distro, because it was easy to use. The wife and kids used Ubuntu for a long time. We broke with Ubuntu when Unity came along. Now, the household distro is Linux Mint Debian. I still use anything and everything, but at home, it's Mint.
I'm comfortable enough in Linux to appreciate the inherent stability of Debian. Debian has historically been more difficult to install than some more popular distros. It's a bit more difficult to administer than those more popular distros. But, the difficulty isn't extreme - it just takes a bit more thought.
Constant updates aren't always a "good thing". Sometimes, updates break things. Sometimes, updates that don't actually break anything introduce new attack vectors. Sometimes, I just don't like the updates. Stability can often be more important than new, shiny whatever.
Besides - running a stable distro such as Wheezy doesn't confine me to using old software. Any time I like, I can browse the testing repos, decide that I want to upgrade Firefox to the latest and greatest, download any dependencies, and upgrade everything related to Firefox in one shot. Or, I can just set the testing repo as my default, let Synaptic to work out those dependencies and conflicts, and upgrade - then set my repo back to the same Wheezy repos that I have always used.
Maybe it's weird. I don't care, really. What's wrong with weird? All I care is, my desktop behaves in a manner that I find acceptable. Debian does that.
I see things a bit differently though. Debian provides a solid backbone upon which to customize an installation. Debian doesn't necessarily have the time and resources to create their own desktop environments.
Want the best of two worlds? Install Debian, then install the stuff you actually want. Mate desktop might be a good start. That's what I'm using, thanks to Linux Mint Debian.
I didn't realize that Debian was so user-friendly.
"Debian can now be installed using software speech, above all by visually impaired people who do not use a Braille device."
That's pretty awesome, when you think about it. Maybe add in memories of slaving your butt off to make drivers work while trying to install Linux, and the awesomeness is increased by a couple orders of magnitude.
I really want to see this installation - I'll download it soon. Stick disk into computer, boot up. "Computer - I want to use drive sda1 for installation. Use the existing virtual memory on drive sda3 please. Just use default partitioning on sda1, only use free space though. Yes, use enhanced security. I don't wish to join any networks. User name is Muppet. Password is CookieMonster. There will not be any other users. I choose the K desktop environment. Yes, go ahead. What? You didn't understand me? Very well - proceed."
Yeah, I've made it all up - but that's about the way it should go. Simple, to the point, and all verbal.
India has these draconian laws specifically BECAUSE all those various peoples have used any excuse to go wild and act violently whenever they feel like it.
All the same? Well - of course not. If everyone were the same, there wouldn't be much of an excuse to go wild, now would there?
Today, Indians are crying loudly about gross injustices. Women are crying the loudest, and they are joined by decent men who love their women. Gang rapes are COMMON in India. And, the cops don't investigate them. It is presumed that a lone woman is to be preyed upon. Some of my reading suggests that as many as 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 women are assaulted in India. Especially in the cities, but it isn't uncommon out in the countryside either.
You call it generalizing if you wish. I stand by my post.
Ossifer says you're a bigot. I disagree with him. But - you are somewhat uninformed. India is home to several religions, and all of them can get violent if they feel their own gods are being denigrated. We might argue that the Muslims are the most violent - but I'd have to do some research before I actually committed myself to that position.
I would invite some Indian people to weigh in on what "hate speech" means in India. Any speech that might lead to discord between any two or more religious believers seems to qualify. And, I mean any such speech. It seems that Indians take license to be violent if they hear anything that denigrates any of their gods. And, India is also host to a number of Muslims, who we know reserve license to be violent if they hear something THEY deem offensive. Pakistan and Afghanistan both make fine examples of that stuff.
Oh yeah - in India, men also assume license to violent gang rape any time they find a woman alone, without defense. Actually, it doesn't even have to be a woman - two five year old girls have been brutally raped in recent weeks. One is dead, the other was left for dead. Until recently, the cops would just shrug and wink, on the supposition that an unattended female deserved being raped.
They have problems over there - it's a whole different world. I certainly wouldn't want to see western governments honoring these type of subpoenas.
East is east, and west is west, and despite globalization, never the twain shall meet.
Please note - the location of the "study" being in Canada has nothing to do with the Canadians. It was a flawed study, performed by Bayer. Canadians didn't do the study, didn't approve of the study, didn't participate in any way.
All in all, Canadians seem to be better at regulating business than the US.
Switzerland is not an isolated island thousands of miles away from accidental contamination sources. It has been shown that this pesticide is spread by the wind, after which it "soaks" into the vegetation and the soil.
First - it is DESIGNED to kill insects. That is it's purpose. Second - it was approved for use based on flawed research, conducted in Canada only, in an area that had no honey bee populations to be affected. Private research, conducted by Bayer - research that should never have been admitted as "science". Third - the colony collapses happen most frequently in areas that use this specific insecticide. Fourth - there is data that supports the ban - Steeltoe posted a link above: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/without_honeybees_we_may_cease_to_be/
"Additionally, it notes that after Italy temporarily banned neonicotinoids in several crops, reports of high honeybee mortality decreased from 185 to two."
Your "logic" is flawed. No food means EVERYONE goes hungry, and the hungriest will die. Expensive food means that more people will go hungry, and only some of the hungriest will die.
Plentiful resources is desirable, of course. Limited resources is undesirable. Again, of course. No resources is a circumstance that ensures that people do not survive.
The only DRM'd item I own, is a dumb phone. It's almost a necessity that I carry a phone, but I'll be damned before I pay anyone $500 or more for a DRM'd piece of hardware. If I EVER buy a smart phone, it will be cyanogen modded pretty damned quick.
How about all the stupid, pointless, and even unconstitutional laws?
Hot Springs, Arkansas decided that it was going to "beautify" the lake fronts around it. So, they took to the skies, and took photos of everything. Your old care sitting out back had to be towed away. Your aluminum can collection had to go. The weathered siding on some buildings had to be replace, while other buildings were condemned. All because they wanted a "pretty" tourist trap.
And, most of it was wrong.
This was years ago, before the advent of drones. Today, Hot Springs probably has plans for daily flyovers. If they can catch you tanning in your enclosed back yard, you'll probably be ticketed for indecent exposure.
Trained dog? Probably not. I guess it's possible, but probably not. But - you can put this piece of pie on a pole, or whatever, and forget about it. Toss it on your roof, or put it on your bird feeder, whatever. No need to walk it, water it, or much anything else. No fleas. It won't steal your covers in the middle of the night. No muddy tracks in the hallway. All that it will ever need is a supply of electrons!
Three time dad here. I held each of my sons before the wife did. I spent more time with them as newborns and infants than just about any dad in my area. Most dads don't want much of anything to do with their kids until they are at least toddling, and some won't even mess with toddlers very much. My kids were more important to me than is apparent from most dad's behaviour.
But, even so - there are some basic facts of life here. Mothers always have been, and always will be, primary care givers. Only a mother can give birth. No dad is debilitated from giving birth. No dad suffers the psychological impact of post partum blues and related stuff. No dad needs time off to recover from either the physical or psychological impact of giving birth. It's just that simple.
Historically, many mothers have died during childbirth. I have never read of one single dad dying from the shock of becoming a dad.
Give Mom her time off - however much time she needs. And, I won't feel slighted in the least.
Oh - I got two days off when the first was born. One day for the second. Due to complications, I got almost two weeks off with the third. I did what was necessary, in each case, then got my ass back to work, to earn the money to provide for those little bundles of joy.
You're right - the trackers are leeches, and we need to throw those blood suckers in a bucket of lye! I told you not to wade in the shallow end of the gene pool!
HEY!!! Why did YOUR school have computers in the seventies, and all MY school had was electric typewriters?
I am curious though - where did you go to school? My school system was considered pretty wealthy, but we had zero computer access. I mean, zero. The most computer-like device on school grounds were Texas Instruments scientific calculators!
It has been demonstrated that oral histories of various tribes around the world are amazingly accurate. But - no, they weren't much into written records. What with all the disease and genocidal wars, much of that oral history has been lost.
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How about Mate? I've not even looked at it yet, but if Mate is available, my testing will be considerably more enjoyable.
"Even if you give the Armed Citizenry 100% credit, you have to ask how they'd beat the US Army today?"
Members of the United States armed forces are also CITIZENS of this land. Each of them has a home, located in some city or town, located in some state or another. Each of them (well, the overwhelming majority, anyway) has loved ones, whom they probably value more than they value the US government.
I'll remind you of General Robert E. Lee, who didn't want to see the states fight each other - but decided that if there were to be a fight, he would fight for his home state of Virginia.
If revolution should happen, you cannot rely on the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force to remain intact as fighting units, to be used against the people of the United States. Nor can you rely on the government's ability to retain control over all the hardware, command infrastructure, or much of anything else.
For this reason, and others, the Department of Homeland Security was formed. The government hopes to retain control of DHS if and when the shit hits the fan. Unfortunately for the government - DHS consists of mostly incompetent buffoons, far less capable than agents from any other agency. Further, the loyalty of Napolitano's troops remain untested.
Anyone can sit around and make up scenarios about how a revolution would evolve, and the results of said revolution. History proves one thing: civil wars are fucking MESSY!!
It appears that they might be actually dealing with a criminal. They little shit threatened to stab his sister to death. TFA doesn't really give details of that incident - but it does put an interesting spin on this incident. Sounds like a violent little shit to me!
Talk as far over their heads as possible. Give them the facts, but don't waste time dumbing it down for them. Leave them as clueless as they started. Make sure the "executive summary" states your goals clearly.
You're going to dazzle the clueless. But, they won't admit to being dazzled, they'll be mimicking your words to sound intelligent. The guys with a clue might ask you a serious question or two, but they'll probably just agree with you, because it's outside their area of expertise. You'll find that they don't mimic you so much, as they try to explain what they know so that idiots can understand it.
When they approve of your planned course of action, just work extra damned hard to ensure that they don't have problems at THEIR end of things.
So it is, so it is. I'm already updated, no sweat, no muss.
I sort of fit into the group you're talking about.
My intro to Debian was through Suse. I've been a distro hopper all of my Linux life, but I settled on Ubuntu as my "household" distro, because it was easy to use. The wife and kids used Ubuntu for a long time. We broke with Ubuntu when Unity came along. Now, the household distro is Linux Mint Debian. I still use anything and everything, but at home, it's Mint.
No Linux distro is for everyone.
I'm comfortable enough in Linux to appreciate the inherent stability of Debian. Debian has historically been more difficult to install than some more popular distros. It's a bit more difficult to administer than those more popular distros. But, the difficulty isn't extreme - it just takes a bit more thought.
Constant updates aren't always a "good thing". Sometimes, updates break things. Sometimes, updates that don't actually break anything introduce new attack vectors. Sometimes, I just don't like the updates. Stability can often be more important than new, shiny whatever.
Besides - running a stable distro such as Wheezy doesn't confine me to using old software. Any time I like, I can browse the testing repos, decide that I want to upgrade Firefox to the latest and greatest, download any dependencies, and upgrade everything related to Firefox in one shot. Or, I can just set the testing repo as my default, let Synaptic to work out those dependencies and conflicts, and upgrade - then set my repo back to the same Wheezy repos that I have always used.
Maybe it's weird. I don't care, really. What's wrong with weird? All I care is, my desktop behaves in a manner that I find acceptable. Debian does that.
You seem to have a somewhat valid view of things.
I see things a bit differently though. Debian provides a solid backbone upon which to customize an installation. Debian doesn't necessarily have the time and resources to create their own desktop environments.
Want the best of two worlds? Install Debian, then install the stuff you actually want. Mate desktop might be a good start. That's what I'm using, thanks to Linux Mint Debian.
More relevant would be, "When will LInux Mint Debian upgrade to this Debian release?"
Think I'll go browse the Mint Debian forum to see . . .
I didn't realize that Debian was so user-friendly.
"Debian can now be installed using software speech, above all by visually impaired people who do not use a Braille device."
That's pretty awesome, when you think about it. Maybe add in memories of slaving your butt off to make drivers work while trying to install Linux, and the awesomeness is increased by a couple orders of magnitude.
I really want to see this installation - I'll download it soon. Stick disk into computer, boot up. "Computer - I want to use drive sda1 for installation. Use the existing virtual memory on drive sda3 please. Just use default partitioning on sda1, only use free space though. Yes, use enhanced security. I don't wish to join any networks. User name is Muppet. Password is CookieMonster. There will not be any other users. I choose the K desktop environment. Yes, go ahead. What? You didn't understand me? Very well - proceed."
Yeah, I've made it all up - but that's about the way it should go. Simple, to the point, and all verbal.
Generalize? Hello - here's a wake up call.
India has these draconian laws specifically BECAUSE all those various peoples have used any excuse to go wild and act violently whenever they feel like it.
All the same? Well - of course not. If everyone were the same, there wouldn't be much of an excuse to go wild, now would there?
Today, Indians are crying loudly about gross injustices. Women are crying the loudest, and they are joined by decent men who love their women. Gang rapes are COMMON in India. And, the cops don't investigate them. It is presumed that a lone woman is to be preyed upon. Some of my reading suggests that as many as 1 in 4 or 1 in 5 women are assaulted in India. Especially in the cities, but it isn't uncommon out in the countryside either.
You call it generalizing if you wish. I stand by my post.
Ossifer says you're a bigot. I disagree with him. But - you are somewhat uninformed. India is home to several religions, and all of them can get violent if they feel their own gods are being denigrated. We might argue that the Muslims are the most violent - but I'd have to do some research before I actually committed myself to that position.
I would invite some Indian people to weigh in on what "hate speech" means in India. Any speech that might lead to discord between any two or more religious believers seems to qualify. And, I mean any such speech. It seems that Indians take license to be violent if they hear anything that denigrates any of their gods. And, India is also host to a number of Muslims, who we know reserve license to be violent if they hear something THEY deem offensive. Pakistan and Afghanistan both make fine examples of that stuff.
Oh yeah - in India, men also assume license to violent gang rape any time they find a woman alone, without defense. Actually, it doesn't even have to be a woman - two five year old girls have been brutally raped in recent weeks. One is dead, the other was left for dead. Until recently, the cops would just shrug and wink, on the supposition that an unattended female deserved being raped.
They have problems over there - it's a whole different world. I certainly wouldn't want to see western governments honoring these type of subpoenas.
East is east, and west is west, and despite globalization, never the twain shall meet.
Please note - the location of the "study" being in Canada has nothing to do with the Canadians. It was a flawed study, performed by Bayer. Canadians didn't do the study, didn't approve of the study, didn't participate in any way.
All in all, Canadians seem to be better at regulating business than the US.
"Do something, right or wrong."
That was one of my Dad's favorite witticisms, so yeah, he would agree with you.
Switzerland is not an isolated island thousands of miles away from accidental contamination sources. It has been shown that this pesticide is spread by the wind, after which it "soaks" into the vegetation and the soil.
Consider the facts surrounding this insecticide.
First - it is DESIGNED to kill insects. That is it's purpose.
Second - it was approved for use based on flawed research, conducted in Canada only, in an area that had no honey bee populations to be affected. Private research, conducted by Bayer - research that should never have been admitted as "science".
Third - the colony collapses happen most frequently in areas that use this specific insecticide.
Fourth - there is data that supports the ban - Steeltoe posted a link above: http://www.salon.com/2013/03/21/without_honeybees_we_may_cease_to_be/
"Additionally, it notes that after Italy temporarily banned neonicotinoids in several crops, reports of high honeybee mortality decreased from 185 to two."
Your "logic" is flawed. No food means EVERYONE goes hungry, and the hungriest will die. Expensive food means that more people will go hungry, and only some of the hungriest will die.
Plentiful resources is desirable, of course.
Limited resources is undesirable. Again, of course.
No resources is a circumstance that ensures that people do not survive.
Take your pick.
No mod points - this should be +5 insightful.
The only DRM'd item I own, is a dumb phone. It's almost a necessity that I carry a phone, but I'll be damned before I pay anyone $500 or more for a DRM'd piece of hardware. If I EVER buy a smart phone, it will be cyanogen modded pretty damned quick.
How about all the stupid, pointless, and even unconstitutional laws?
Hot Springs, Arkansas decided that it was going to "beautify" the lake fronts around it. So, they took to the skies, and took photos of everything. Your old care sitting out back had to be towed away. Your aluminum can collection had to go. The weathered siding on some buildings had to be replace, while other buildings were condemned. All because they wanted a "pretty" tourist trap.
And, most of it was wrong.
This was years ago, before the advent of drones. Today, Hot Springs probably has plans for daily flyovers. If they can catch you tanning in your enclosed back yard, you'll probably be ticketed for indecent exposure.
Trained dog? Probably not. I guess it's possible, but probably not. But - you can put this piece of pie on a pole, or whatever, and forget about it. Toss it on your roof, or put it on your bird feeder, whatever. No need to walk it, water it, or much anything else. No fleas. It won't steal your covers in the middle of the night. No muddy tracks in the hallway. All that it will ever need is a supply of electrons!
Three time dad here. I held each of my sons before the wife did. I spent more time with them as newborns and infants than just about any dad in my area. Most dads don't want much of anything to do with their kids until they are at least toddling, and some won't even mess with toddlers very much. My kids were more important to me than is apparent from most dad's behaviour.
But, even so - there are some basic facts of life here. Mothers always have been, and always will be, primary care givers. Only a mother can give birth. No dad is debilitated from giving birth. No dad suffers the psychological impact of post partum blues and related stuff. No dad needs time off to recover from either the physical or psychological impact of giving birth. It's just that simple.
Historically, many mothers have died during childbirth. I have never read of one single dad dying from the shock of becoming a dad.
Give Mom her time off - however much time she needs. And, I won't feel slighted in the least.
Oh - I got two days off when the first was born. One day for the second. Due to complications, I got almost two weeks off with the third. I did what was necessary, in each case, then got my ass back to work, to earn the money to provide for those little bundles of joy.
You're right - the trackers are leeches, and we need to throw those blood suckers in a bucket of lye! I told you not to wade in the shallow end of the gene pool!
HEY!!! Why did YOUR school have computers in the seventies, and all MY school had was electric typewriters?
I am curious though - where did you go to school? My school system was considered pretty wealthy, but we had zero computer access. I mean, zero. The most computer-like device on school grounds were Texas Instruments scientific calculators!
It has been demonstrated that oral histories of various tribes around the world are amazingly accurate. But - no, they weren't much into written records. What with all the disease and genocidal wars, much of that oral history has been lost.