Apology accepted. Although, yes, you can do something incredibly stupid and still be innocent. I'm forty now and a tolerably sensible adult, but I still remember being a child and then a teenager, and the brain chemistry involved. Innocent and stupid is when you do something without thinking. Sometimes the results take away that innocence, force you to grow up fast, but guilty and stupid is when you refuse to learn from your mistakes and refuse to take responsibility for the consequences.
Or so I figure it, anyway. Getting back on topic. Note the article's phrase "home printer". I remember back when a monochrome dot-matrix printer cost over a thousand and took a minute per page. Today I can buy a colour laser printer for less than half that and it can do a page every three seconds. We're just in the early days of home 3D printing technology.
So the translation from Formal Bureaucratic English to Blunt Australian English is, "3D printed guns are bloody illegal and The Liberator's a piece of crap that'll blow your own bits off, we ain't just covering our arses, you've got no bloody excuse if you make one."
No. The "clown" is afraid of some adventurous innocent "blowing themselves up with it":
“My greater concern is that someone would do this, make one, and then suffer the consequences and kill themselves [after a catastrophic failure]. They don’t want to shoot someone, they’re just fascinated [by 3D printing]. If we didn’t alert someone to what happened to us, we would be considered negligent.
“Don’t try it, no matter what end of this gun you can be on, you could die. Do not download, do not manufacture The Liberator,” the Commissioner concluded.
Unless, of course, you realise that doing so compromises the "herd immunity" effect that protects you in the long term.
If a broken law allows you to kill your neighbour and get away with it, and you do, what reason is there for your other neighbour not to do the same to you (especially since you've just demonstrated that YOU are willing to kill your neighbours, and oh hey, they're a neighbour).
Bitching about a company minimizing their tax by using every trick within the law at their disposal is like complaining that some guy playing American football used his hands because the rules for soccer (i.e., "football) say that isn't allowed.
The rules of American football don't allow the players to change the rules mid-game, let alone to suit themselves at everyone else's expense.
Avoiding taxes without breaking the law is not immoral. To not do everything in your power to protect your investors' money would be immoral.
What's really going to bake your noodle is the realisation that at a certain point, morally doing everything in your power to protect your investors' money includes paying taxes.
"Herd immunity" effects are susceptible to "tragedy of the commons" effects regardless of whether the field is vaccinations, voting or taxation.
READ TO ALL: Turning to other issues... ASK ALL: Q33 As you may know, the U.S. Senate recently voted down gun control legislation. Do you think the Senate should (debate and vote on gun control legislation again) or should the Senate (move on to other issues)? ASK ALL: Q34 After the Boston Marathon bombings, which of the following do you think is more likely to happen... ASK ALL: Q35 Thinking about the manhunt for the suspected terrorist in a Boston neighborhood...what if this happened in your own community? Does this make you more likely to want a gun in your home, less likely to want a gun in your home, or does it not make much difference either way? ASK ALL: Q36 Next...some Americans own 3-D printers, which can make a variety of plastic objects. Do you think Americans should or should NOT be allowed to use this technology in their own homes? ASK IF SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE 3-D PRINTERS (Q36=1) Q37 3-D printers can be used to make guns or gun parts. Do you think Americans should or should NOT be allowed to print their own guns or gun parts in their own homes? ASK ALL: Q38 As you may know, many states have legalized marijuana use for medical or recreational purposes, however, marijuana is still ILLegal under federal law. Would you favor or oppose a bill in Congress that would PREVENT the federal government from prosecuting people who grow, possess, or sell marijuana in the states that have legalized it?
I'd've been interested in seeing responses to a hypothetical "Q37.5: Have you ever seen or used a 3-D printer?" and "Q37.6: Please rate your level of knowledge in 3-D Printer technology (none, low, medium, high, don't know, other)?"
Someone else has already mentioned the "first mover advantage".
But it's kind of funny you should mention bigger and richer competition copying your work.
(1) Want to know when the USA ignored foreign copyright and patents? Way back when it was trying to grow and improve its own local economy, and compete with the big well-established European markets.
(2) As far as cheap mass-produced knockoffs go, China has been something of the current "poster child" and doesn't exactly have a shining track record of paying attention to foreign patents (at least within its own borders). What does it also have in common with the early USA? Trying to grow its own local economy and compete with the big well-established European and American markets. Japan did much the same thing post-WW2.
So if patents are all that good, why do entities historically ignore other entities patents when they want to grow their own economy? Answer: because the true purpose of patents is to protect an established market (the big fish) from newcomers (the little fish).
This being the internet, for the sake of argument I'll presume you're not just being funny.;)
Maxwell's equations are "a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits."
So if by turtles we actually meant math, it really does seem to be turtles all the way down.:)
First set of key words being voluntary refusal. It isn't completely voluntary, is it?
The military has said that some prisoners are pressuring others to join the hunger strike, and that some of those being tube-fed occasionally eat regular meals or voluntarily drink nutritional supplements when they are removed from their cell blocks and are alone with medical personnel. . . -- American Medical Association questions Guantanamo force-feedings
I know I'm being idealistic and picky here. I am reading your links in full before I post. First, "some". So, not "all", not "most", not "half". Second, "pressuring". If this is in the form of "peer pressure", i.e. non-physical persuasion, is that particularly unexpected in a harsh "us" vs "them" environment? I refer you to the Stanford prison experiment and its UK counterpart as to how quickly that "us" vs "them" mentality can form even amongst random Western civilians, including hunger strikes. Third, "alone with medical personnel". So, however momentarily, they weren't in that "us" vs "them" environment?
Second set of key words being capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment.
Almost 100 Guantánamo prisoners were classified by the US army as having psychiatric illnesses including severe depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the prison camp files reveal. -- Guantánamo Bay files: Grim toll on mental health of prisoners
So we have almost 100 mentally ill people being kept in an extra-territorial maximum-security military prison instead of a (military, even) mental hospital?
100 out of 179 is a pretty big fraction. It is also oddly close to the number of inmates on hunger strike.
The ones that are left in Guantanamo are pretty much the hardcore. They were willing to give their life for the cause if need be. They have previously engaged in synchronized suicide attempts as a political attack. The suicide Jihad continues, just without bombs in this case.
Um. This might be a stupid question, and feels quite surreal, but: if they truly want to kill themselves, but this time without killing anyone else, and the only alternative (that we're willing to do) is - by our ethical standards - to perform torture upon them, why are we lowering our standards?
But to go on. From your link, "None of the five detainees believed to have killed themselves at Guantánamo Bay have any mental health issues noted within the files. However, all have a record of alleged disruptive behaviour and non-compliance. Most are among the 25 detainees who the files say went on hunger strikes." So we apparently have - had - at least five detainees potentially "capable of forming unimpaired and rational judgements" who killed themselves rather than submit to prison authorities.
Furthermore, "Yasser Talal Zahrani, one of three prisoners who killed themselves on 10 June 2006, was noted to be of low intelligence value", (note "value", so it's referring to military intelligence not personal psychology), "with "unremarkable" exposure to jihadist elements." So are we sure it's just the "hardcore" ones that are "willing to give their life"?
This is the country - the US, I mean - that has both a strong democratic tradition (CIA World Factbook) and the world's highest incarceration rate (International Centre for Prison Studies). What exactly does that say about us? (and yes, I know I keep using "us" and "we" and such, despite not being an American citizen, but the jokes about Australia/Canada/other being the "51st State" exist for a reason, and I was named and raised by a family that likes Westerns, so I associate even though I'm foremost Australian).
The American Medical Association, the World Medical Assembly, etcetera, etcetera, disagree with you.
6. Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially. The decision as to the capacity of the prisoner to form such a judgment should be confirmed by at least one other independent physician. The consequences of the refusal of nourishment shall be explained by the physician to the prisoner.
It turns out that this "torture" is a routine medical procedure performed daily for large numbers of people, from infants to the elderly: Feeding tube. Are they being "tortured" too?
So, question for you - if the US authorities were to stop forced feeding, and 60 detainees actually did starve themselves to death, would you complain? I expect so. Sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, isn't it? What do you think would happen if the threat of starving yourself to death becomes a "get out of jail free card?"
Why yes it is a damned if you do, damned if you don't - but is that any surprise when you're "indefinitely detaining" people extra-territorially to avoid those pesky "habeus corpus" laws? There's no "get out of consequences free" card just because you allege a higher moral ground than your enemy. And it seems to me it's not a "get out of jail free" card either, unless you mean "free" as in dead. But they're not even allowed that. And no, the probability that most of them are evil terrorists does not excuse torture.
Keep in mind that the Islamists fighting the West do not fight alone, they have allies.
[snips quoted links] I too have some links too if you want them. There's one in particular with video of Rumsfeld and Saddam shaking hands in 1983, around the time US administration decided to look the other way for a while whilst Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran.
How much has really changed since then? Has the government really done anything to truly show those allies that it's much nicer now and they have no reason whatsoever to be suspicious despite the long US habit of funding coups against democratically elected foreign governments that don't bend to its demands?
Major-General Ghayur Mehmood spoke to a group of Pakistani reporters on a rare trip to Miran Shah, the administrative center of North Waziristan.
The Pakistani general says that information the military has gathered from its sources suggest most of those killed in drone attacks are hardcore militants, and the number of innocent people being killed is relatively low.
....
Also from that article, "Because on one hand the drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and it is also a violation of international law. But at the same time, they have a certain tactical utility in the sense that Pakistan has lost control over these areas and if the American drones help in containing these forces and also killing some of the militants, specially their top leadership, then it will facilitate Pakistan's fighting against the militant forces," Masood states.
How's that old rationalization go? "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs"?
If you have any brainstorms about how to do this better, I'm sure the Pentagon would love to hear about it. Send them a letter. Maybe something like, "Dear General, I know how you can get all the Al Qaida to stop fighting. All you have to do is....." If the next part is, "give up their fringe religious views an
On a related note, can you post any facts on whether the CIA had or has a policy of followup drone strikes on rescuers/funerals and/or of treating multiple civilian casualties as acceptable if it means another dead terrorist? E.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world
I'm more than beginning to have the disturbing sense that the US government/military has stared too long into the abyss. Yeah, we know the bad guys are evil. Flying airliners packed with civilians into buildings is pretty damn obviously evil. But it's becoming less obvious how good those claiming to be the good guys still are.
That raises a question: if a corporation can throw sufficient money at an election to dominate the associated "airtime", complete with hiring PR firms that have centuries of collective experience in manipulating human psychology for commercial gain, what chance does an individual human brain with its limited attention span and processing capacity actually have in filtering out the trickery and subversive ideas?
Hmm. Effectively, the Democrat and Republican parties would become proxies for corporate voting blocs. Unaligned humans will need to form/join non-profit orgs such as the EFF, ACLU, NRA, etc, simply to retain any political power at all. Er, wait...?
"Maybe just a hint as to why they don't think that people who join together to spend their money more efficiently should have free speech rights after all."
So if the board of directors decides to fund Politician Bob (tax cuts for corporations) from the corporate treasury while the majority of their employees, who also happen to be on minimum wage, would rather fund Politician Joe (minimum wage increases), whose speech is it?
If the company is majority foreign-owned, whose speech is it?
(I am also reminded that the guillotine was once considered a marvel of humane efficiency).
By old, he means "before it was decided that you could patent inventions that can reproduce" or "before we had the technology to invent things that could reproduce".
And frankly, if you're selling a thing with the inherent ability to produce copies of itself? What's the difference, patent-wise, between a seed and a zygote? How blasted arbitrary are the patent laws going to have to get so that companies can extend patents to every living thing other than "humans"? And if they do, what would prevent patenting "humans", too?
Never underestimate the ability of people to read something other than what you wrote.:)
You also said, "[...] the general right of search with a warrant." (emphasis mine). Warrants (in the US) grant a specific right, not a general one. And you do still retain (at least some of) your general right to privacy even then; for example, the police can't simply hand a copy of the contents of your phone to the local press or upload your collection of daffodil videos to their youtube channel.
Furthermore, there's nothing special about mobile phones that says you can't encrypt them, or buy one with better encryption than others, just because a police officer might one day obtain a warrant to search it (or if you're in a part of the world where you cannot trust your local police, exactly because).
You may think I'm being picky; I think we need to be very clear on what the police - since they are granted extra-ordinary legal powers - are allowed to do. The police I've personally met and known may be good citizens but, as even a brief websearch will demonstrate, the aphorism "power corrupts" does not have an "except police officers" clause.
There is such a right. The specific right to search with a warrant is an exception to, not a removal of, the general right to privacy. You have a general right to secure what is yours (e.g. your phone). The police have, with a duly processed warrant, a specific right to pierce that security in a specific manner. They cannot legally, for example, hit you with a five dollar wrench until you confess the password.
At least in this country. Other posters may not be so lucky.
The phrase is a lot older than Bush, but when its most known use in modern times is by a President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on Earth, using it in a very public speech intended to be heard by all the other nations of the world, and subsequently that same man controversially orders the invasion of Iraq, claiming Divine inspiration... well, yeah: "Bushism".
It's not that you deserve to find your money gone, it's that - unless you're incredibly naive - you should be unsurprised to find it gone. Important difference.
Gross negligence would be if it wasn't your money, but you had promised to keep it safe - in which case you still would not deserve to find it gone, but you would deserve the owner's ire.
(as an aside, if I saw an unlocked car with the windows rolled down and a stack of hundred dollar bills in the front seat, I'd be looking around for the hidden camera crew)
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Apology accepted. Although, yes, you can do something incredibly stupid and still be innocent. I'm forty now and a tolerably sensible adult, but I still remember being a child and then a teenager, and the brain chemistry involved. Innocent and stupid is when you do something without thinking. Sometimes the results take away that innocence, force you to grow up fast, but guilty and stupid is when you refuse to learn from your mistakes and refuse to take responsibility for the consequences.
Or so I figure it, anyway. Getting back on topic. Note the article's phrase "home printer". I remember back when a monochrome dot-matrix printer cost over a thousand and took a minute per page. Today I can buy a colour laser printer for less than half that and it can do a page every three seconds. We're just in the early days of home 3D printing technology.
So the translation from Formal Bureaucratic English to Blunt Australian English is, "3D printed guns are bloody illegal and The Liberator's a piece of crap that'll blow your own bits off, we ain't just covering our arses, you've got no bloody excuse if you make one."
School systems designed by "morons" to be "the way it is" are unlikely to produce "kids her age that are well aware".
We should be pleased as to how many strive for it anyways.
No. The "clown" is afraid of some adventurous innocent "blowing themselves up with it":
Unless, of course, you realise that doing so compromises the "herd immunity" effect that protects you in the long term.
If a broken law allows you to kill your neighbour and get away with it, and you do, what reason is there for your other neighbour not to do the same to you (especially since you've just demonstrated that YOU are willing to kill your neighbours, and oh hey, they're a neighbour).
The rules of American football don't allow the players to change the rules mid-game, let alone to suit themselves at everyone else's expense.
What's really going to bake your noodle is the realisation that at a certain point, morally doing everything in your power to protect your investors' money includes paying taxes.
"Herd immunity" effects are susceptible to "tragedy of the commons" effects regardless of whether the field is vaccinations, voting or taxation.
I noticed the questions on 3-D printers were immediately after questions about the Boston Marathon bombings. I wonder if that affected the responses. Excerpt from the questionairre at http://reason.com/poll/2013/05/17/reason-rupe-may-2013-national-survey
READ TO ALL: Turning to other issues...
ASK ALL: Q33 As you may know, the U.S. Senate recently voted down gun control legislation. Do you think the Senate should (debate and vote on gun control legislation again) or should the Senate (move on to other issues)?
ASK ALL: Q34 After the Boston Marathon bombings, which of the following do you think is more likely to happen...
ASK ALL: Q35 Thinking about the manhunt for the suspected terrorist in a Boston neighborhood...what if this happened in your own community? Does this make you more likely to want a gun in your home, less likely to want a gun in your home, or does it not make much difference either way?
ASK ALL: Q36 Next...some Americans own 3-D printers, which can make a variety of plastic objects. Do you think Americans should or should NOT be allowed to use this technology in their own homes?
ASK IF SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO USE 3-D PRINTERS (Q36=1)
Q37 3-D printers can be used to make guns or gun parts. Do you think Americans should or should NOT be allowed to print their own guns or gun parts in their own homes?
ASK ALL: Q38 As you may know, many states have legalized marijuana use for medical or recreational purposes, however, marijuana is still ILLegal under federal law. Would you favor or oppose a bill in Congress that would PREVENT the federal government from prosecuting people who grow, possess, or sell marijuana in the states that have legalized it?
I'd've been interested in seeing responses to a hypothetical "Q37.5: Have you ever seen or used a 3-D printer?" and "Q37.6: Please rate your level of knowledge in 3-D Printer technology (none, low, medium, high, don't know, other)?"
Oh, for the want of mod points. That would've been simply perfect as a post-credits easter egg. :)
Someone else has already mentioned the "first mover advantage".
But it's kind of funny you should mention bigger and richer competition copying your work.
(1) Want to know when the USA ignored foreign copyright and patents? Way back when it was trying to grow and improve its own local economy, and compete with the big well-established European markets.
(2) As far as cheap mass-produced knockoffs go, China has been something of the current "poster child" and doesn't exactly have a shining track record of paying attention to foreign patents (at least within its own borders). What does it also have in common with the early USA? Trying to grow its own local economy and compete with the big well-established European and American markets. Japan did much the same thing post-WW2.
So if patents are all that good, why do entities historically ignore other entities patents when they want to grow their own economy? Answer: because the true purpose of patents is to protect an established market (the big fish) from newcomers (the little fish).
This being the internet, for the sake of argument I'll presume you're not just being funny. ;)
Maxwell's equations are "a set of partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electrodynamics, classical optics, and electric circuits."
So if by turtles we actually meant math, it really does seem to be turtles all the way down. :)
First set of key words being voluntary refusal. It isn't completely voluntary, is it?
The military has said that some prisoners are pressuring others to join the hunger strike, and that some of those being tube-fed occasionally eat regular meals or voluntarily drink nutritional supplements when they are removed from their cell blocks and are alone with medical personnel. . . -- American Medical Association questions Guantanamo force-feedings
I know I'm being idealistic and picky here. I am reading your links in full before I post. First, "some". So, not "all", not "most", not "half". Second, "pressuring". If this is in the form of "peer pressure", i.e. non-physical persuasion, is that particularly unexpected in a harsh "us" vs "them" environment? I refer you to the Stanford prison experiment and its UK counterpart as to how quickly that "us" vs "them" mentality can form even amongst random Western civilians, including hunger strikes. Third, "alone with medical personnel". So, however momentarily, they weren't in that "us" vs "them" environment?
Second set of key words being capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment.
Almost 100 Guantánamo prisoners were classified by the US army as having psychiatric illnesses including severe depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the prison camp files reveal. -- Guantánamo Bay files: Grim toll on mental health of prisoners
So we have almost 100 mentally ill people being kept in an extra-territorial maximum-security military prison instead of a (military, even) mental hospital?
100 out of 179 is a pretty big fraction. It is also oddly close to the number of inmates on hunger strike.
The ones that are left in Guantanamo are pretty much the hardcore. They were willing to give their life for the cause if need be. They have previously engaged in synchronized suicide attempts as a political attack. The suicide Jihad continues, just without bombs in this case.
Um. This might be a stupid question, and feels quite surreal, but: if they truly want to kill themselves, but this time without killing anyone else, and the only alternative (that we're willing to do) is - by our ethical standards - to perform torture upon them, why are we lowering our standards?
But to go on. From your link, "None of the five detainees believed to have killed themselves at Guantánamo Bay have any mental health issues noted within the files. However, all have a record of alleged disruptive behaviour and non-compliance. Most are among the 25 detainees who the files say went on hunger strikes." So we apparently have - had - at least five detainees potentially "capable of forming unimpaired and rational judgements" who killed themselves rather than submit to prison authorities.
Furthermore, "Yasser Talal Zahrani, one of three prisoners who killed themselves on 10 June 2006, was noted to be of low intelligence value", (note "value", so it's referring to military intelligence not personal psychology), "with "unremarkable" exposure to jihadist elements." So are we sure it's just the "hardcore" ones that are "willing to give their life"?
This is the country - the US, I mean - that has both a strong democratic tradition (CIA World Factbook) and the world's highest incarceration rate (International Centre for Prison Studies). What exactly does that say about us? (and yes, I know I keep using "us" and "we" and such, despite not being an American citizen, but the jokes about Australia/Canada/other being the "51st State" exist for a reason, and I was named and raised by a family that likes Westerns, so I associate even though I'm foremost Australian).
"Give me liber
The American Medical Association, the World Medical Assembly, etcetera, etcetera, disagree with you.
6. Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially. The decision as to the capacity of the prisoner to form such a judgment should be confirmed by at least one other independent physician. The consequences of the refusal of nourishment shall be explained by the physician to the prisoner.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Tokyo and http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c18/index.html
It turns out that this "torture" is a routine medical procedure performed daily for large numbers of people, from infants to the elderly: Feeding tube. Are they being "tortured" too?
Have you ever been intubated? Against your will? Infant, elderly or otherwise, if they or their next of kin are capable of informed consent, refuse, and then are shackled, restrained and operated on anyway, then yes, they are being tortured. If my word isn't enough, I refer you to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Tokyo and http://www.wma.net/en/30publications/10policies/c18/index.html
So, question for you - if the US authorities were to stop forced feeding, and 60 detainees actually did starve themselves to death, would you complain? I expect so. Sort of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation, isn't it? What do you think would happen if the threat of starving yourself to death becomes a "get out of jail free card?"
Why yes it is a damned if you do, damned if you don't - but is that any surprise when you're "indefinitely detaining" people extra-territorially to avoid those pesky "habeus corpus" laws? There's no "get out of consequences free" card just because you allege a higher moral ground than your enemy. And it seems to me it's not a "get out of jail free" card either, unless you mean "free" as in dead. But they're not even allowed that. And no, the probability that most of them are evil terrorists does not excuse torture.
Keep in mind that the Islamists fighting the West do not fight alone, they have allies.
[snips quoted links] I too have some links too if you want them. There's one in particular with video of Rumsfeld and Saddam shaking hands in 1983, around the time US administration decided to look the other way for a while whilst Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iran.
How much has really changed since then? Has the government really done anything to truly show those allies that it's much nicer now and they have no reason whatsoever to be suspicious despite the long US habit of funding coups against democratically elected foreign governments that don't bend to its demands?
Maybe this will help: Pakistan Says Drone Strikes Have Been Effective
Also from that article, "Because on one hand the drone attacks are a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty and it is also a violation of international law. But at the same time, they have a certain tactical utility in the sense that Pakistan has lost control over these areas and if the American drones help in containing these forces and also killing some of the militants, specially their top leadership, then it will facilitate Pakistan's fighting against the militant forces," Masood states.
How's that old rationalization go? "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs"?
If you have any brainstorms about how to do this better, I'm sure the Pentagon would love to hear about it. Send them a letter. Maybe something like, "Dear General, I know how you can get all the Al Qaida to stop fighting. All you have to do is ....." If the next part is, "give up their fringe religious views an
Although sometimes the torture is indeed deliberate policy. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/13/guantanamo-bay-hunger-strike-forced-feeding
On a related note, can you post any facts on whether the CIA had or has a policy of followup drone strikes on rescuers/funerals and/or of treating multiple civilian casualties as acceptable if it means another dead terrorist? E.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/19/world/asia/19pstan.html?_r=1&ref=world
I'm more than beginning to have the disturbing sense that the US government/military has stared too long into the abyss. Yeah, we know the bad guys are evil. Flying airliners packed with civilians into buildings is pretty damn obviously evil. But it's becoming less obvious how good those claiming to be the good guys still are.
That raises a question: if a corporation can throw sufficient money at an election to dominate the associated "airtime", complete with hiring PR firms that have centuries of collective experience in manipulating human psychology for commercial gain, what chance does an individual human brain with its limited attention span and processing capacity actually have in filtering out the trickery and subversive ideas?
Hmm. Effectively, the Democrat and Republican parties would become proxies for corporate voting blocs. Unaligned humans will need to form/join non-profit orgs such as the EFF, ACLU, NRA, etc, simply to retain any political power at all. Er, wait...?
So if the board of directors decides to fund Politician Bob (tax cuts for corporations) from the corporate treasury while the majority of their employees, who also happen to be on minimum wage, would rather fund Politician Joe (minimum wage increases), whose speech is it?
If the company is majority foreign-owned, whose speech is it?
(I am also reminded that the guillotine was once considered a marvel of humane efficiency).
Why am I reminded of Pyrrhus: "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined."
By old, he means "before it was decided that you could patent inventions that can reproduce" or "before we had the technology to invent things that could reproduce".
And frankly, if you're selling a thing with the inherent ability to produce copies of itself? What's the difference, patent-wise, between a seed and a zygote? How blasted arbitrary are the patent laws going to have to get so that companies can extend patents to every living thing other than "humans"? And if they do, what would prevent patenting "humans", too?
Never underestimate the ability of people to read something other than what you wrote. :)
You also said, "[...] the general right of search with a warrant." (emphasis mine). Warrants (in the US) grant a specific right, not a general one. And you do still retain (at least some of) your general right to privacy even then; for example, the police can't simply hand a copy of the contents of your phone to the local press or upload your collection of daffodil videos to their youtube channel.
Furthermore, there's nothing special about mobile phones that says you can't encrypt them, or buy one with better encryption than others, just because a police officer might one day obtain a warrant to search it (or if you're in a part of the world where you cannot trust your local police, exactly because).
You may think I'm being picky; I think we need to be very clear on what the police - since they are granted extra-ordinary legal powers - are allowed to do. The police I've personally met and known may be good citizens but, as even a brief websearch will demonstrate, the aphorism "power corrupts" does not have an "except police officers" clause.
There is such a right. The specific right to search with a warrant is an exception to, not a removal of, the general right to privacy. You have a general right to secure what is yours (e.g. your phone). The police have, with a duly processed warrant, a specific right to pierce that security in a specific manner. They cannot legally, for example, hit you with a five dollar wrench until you confess the password.
At least in this country. Other posters may not be so lucky.
Did you see what you did there? :)
The phrase is a lot older than Bush, but when its most known use in modern times is by a President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on Earth, using it in a very public speech intended to be heard by all the other nations of the world, and subsequently that same man controversially orders the invasion of Iraq, claiming Divine inspiration... well, yeah: "Bushism".
If being hit by traffic is your concern, the centre-line is not the middle path.
It's not that you deserve to find your money gone, it's that - unless you're incredibly naive - you should be unsurprised to find it gone. Important difference.
Gross negligence would be if it wasn't your money, but you had promised to keep it safe - in which case you still would not deserve to find it gone, but you would deserve the owner's ire.
(as an aside, if I saw an unlocked car with the windows rolled down and a stack of hundred dollar bills in the front seat, I'd be looking around for the hidden camera crew)
Really? Teenagers playing around in a bathroom for kicks and youtube?
That's not what the slashdot summary, news articles, or police report states. http://www.scribd.com/doc/138927259/Wilmot-Arrest
Are you confusing this with some other event?