Who says this is only going to be used in American airports? Are you really so blissfully unaware of what goes on outside our borders? A cheap system that could detect bombs reliably and discreetly* would save countless lives in the Middle East. And making sure people aren't carrying explosives hardly counts as spying on them.
But no. This is Slashdot. America is the source of all evil. Technology enables the evil Americans. All other people in the world are simply animals reacting to the evil Americans. That's why the world was all rainbows and unicorns up until 1775.
*I'm aware that this system is neither cheap nor reliable. But I was responding to the OP, who clearly thought it was, and pointing the idiocy of such knee-jerk reactions against technological advancement.
What the Senate was doing by month: July: Kennedy was too sick to do his job August: Kennedy was too sick to do his job, and died at the end of the month September: Kennedy's seat was vacant until Kirk was finally seated at the end of the month. The rules of the Senate say even with 99 total senators, you still need 60 to break a filibuster, so an empty seat is essentially a vote to keep the filibuster going. October: Intra-party negotiations trying to get the Democrats to unanimously vote for the bill. Lieberman and Nelson were the big stumbling blocks. November: Lieberman agrees to support the bill in exchange for dropping the Public Option. This negotiation took a long time, as the Democrats tried to a lot of compromises (the "Rockfeller option", the "opt-out" option, the "opt-in" option, the "Medicare buy-in" option, etc.), but Lieberman wouldn't budge. Nelson keeps the filibuster going. December: Slimebag Nelson finally bought off with the Cornhusker Kickback, which would have given extra money to Nebraska for no particular reason. Obamacare finally passes the Senate. The Kickback is later removed during the reconciliation process. January: The Senate typically takes most of this month off. They convened on January 19th. Scott Brown took office a week later.
In short, the Democrats had three in-session months of filibuster-proof majority, all of which were spent trying to get Lieberman and Nelson to break the filibuster.
Stop repeating that lie. Between the GOP delaying Franken's entry to the Senate through frivolous court challenges, followed by by Ted Kennedy's sickness and death, the Democrats only had a few months of filibuster-proof majority. They used it to pass Obamacare.
Presidents are the de facto leader of their party. If Romney pushes a tax plan and the Republicans control the House (which they almost certainly will), then Romney's plan will pass. It could possibly get stalled in the Senate, but I don't expect the Democrats to have the balls to actually fight back.
Read that page. Then read it again. Repeat until it sinks in.
The free market is not some kind and loving god. It doesn't have the answers to all our problems. It doesn't work. It never has, it never will. Markets need regulation.
Uber isn't being allowed in because there are some pre-existing exclusive contracts that will last for a few more months. Are you proposing we just tear up any contract we don't like? Do you have the slightest goddamned inkling what that sort of precedent would do to business in this country?
Fucking anarchists. Like everyone else, they've got the world "figured out" by the time they're a teenager. Unlike everyone else, they don't grow out of it.
The reason Uber isn't being allowed in NYC is because there are some pre-existing contracts that prohibit them. Those contracts will expire in a few months (February of next year), at which point we can negotiate new contracts that allow Uber in.
Is your position that we should just tear up contracts whenever we no longer feel like they're benefiting us? Because that would spell the end of the civilization that you love to take for granted.
According to a statement from TLC Commissioner David Yassky, existing "exclusive contracts" are the reason that Uber can’t use cabs in the city.
Those contracts are part of the Taxicab Passengers Enhancement Project (TPEP), which provides various hardware including GPS data collection, credit card processing and two-way messaging with drivers. Under the TPEP system, Creative Mobile Technologies and VeriFone have an exclusive contract to provide such infrastructure and services to the TLC.
But Yassky added that these contracts are set to expire in February 2013 and will help the agency move "towards rule changes that will open the market to app developers and other innovators."
What a load of nonsense. There are plenty of used cars to be had. According to Wikipedia, there are around 200 million passenger cars registered in the US. And that doesn't include the 8 million motorcycles and 40 million light trucks.
So, around 0.3% of them were destroyed, and you're gonna spout some conspiracy nonsense about evil Islamo-Commie Obama making it impossible for poor people to find used cars?
I don't know where you got that crap from, but you need to stop listening to that source. They're poisoning you with lies.
So answer me this very simple question: Who decides who gets nuclear weapons?
That's far from a simple question.
This isn't some video game where a developer can just set the rules. Ultimately, the answer to every "who decides?" question is "the group who has the military force to back up their decision". We humans aren't particularly comfortable with that knowledge, so we create all sorts of rules to hopefully resolve questions before they reach that level. But if you peel back all the layers of rules, you'll find that they ultimately rest on military force.
In this case, the applicable law is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran signed it, saying that they wouldn't develop nukes. In exchange, like all non-nuclear equipped signatories, they get two things: 1) Support for the development of peaceful nuclear tech 2) The promise that nuclear armed countries would work towards disarmament. The New START treaty between the US and Russia shows our continuing commitment towards this.
Iran certainly seems to be breaking this rule. And as I said before, all rules ultimately rest on military force. I'm glad Obama has been looking for alternatives that don't get people killed. But if that fails, the rule will be tested: "Does the rest of the world have the military force (and will to use it) needed to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes?" If not, then there is no rule at all.
Uhh, yes, that's true. I never suggested otherwise. But the fact that some atheists don't call the elimination of religion does not mean that no atheists do. As with any belief set, you've got extremists who want to force their views on everyone.
Indeed, just five minutes after you posted, an AC posted to say that our species is better off without religion (going as far to include a Hitler analogy), thus proving me right.
Mr. Panetta is making the same mistake we made 80 years ago: Backing our enemies into a corner. Well, what happens when you back any animal (or person!) into a corner? They attack, of course. And the United States has a long tradition of setting traps just like this -- using economic manipulation and supplies to tip the balance of conflicts while claiming it's not involved... and then using the inevitable military response by its enemies as an excuse to enter said conflict.
He is claiming, in no uncertain terms, that the US is at fault for Pearl Harbor. That they created an "inevitable military response" so that they would have an "excuse" to go to war. So if the US declares war, we're evil. If we try to use non-violent methods, we're creating an "inevitable military response", and we're at fault there too. The only morally okay solution is, apparently, for the US to roll over and die whenever anyone asks nicely.
I wonder if that works in the other direction? Let's say the US decides to invade Canada. The EU, shocked by this, stations fleets nearby, embargoes the US, and provides the Canadians with supplies. Would you guys claim that the US is backed into a corner and has no choice but to launch a pre-emptive war against the EU?
Who is modding this down? It's the best advice in the thread. Learning hand-eye co-ordination from video games is absurd. Go buy a glove and some plush baseballs, since you probably shouldn't be throwing anything harder than that at a three year old. Graduate to baseballs, basketballs, and/or footballs depending on whatever the kid seems to enjoy. The best part is that, at least for the next several years, it doesn't matter how awful you are at sports -- your kid will think you're awesome.
That doesn't mean the kid shouldn't interact with computers. You want to help make your kid into a well-balanced individual.
Absolutely. But if you praise an organization for its stand in a conflict, perhaps you should not be so quick to call for its complete obliteration. Einstein, to my knowledge, never called for the complete elimination of religion. But I'd wager that someone will do just that before this thread falls off the first page.
It would be even better if there were no nukes, but there are. The fact that the US developed and used nukes over half a century ago does not mean that everyone should have them. That's a childish way of thinking.
If you think advertising doesn't affect you, that goes to show how well it is working. The fact that I am aware of how well it works and take pains to avoid seeing it does not make me weak-willed. It makes me self-aware.
Obviously advertising works, but it doesn't control what I do.
Those statements are contradictory. The entire goal of advertising is to get people to do certain things. You can't say advertising works while simultaneously thinking that it doesn't allow some form of control over people.
Banning the sale of abortions is equivalent to banning abortions. Banning the sale of a 20 ounce cup of soda in a restaurant is not equivalent to banning soda.
Additionally, the change in perceptions wrt abortions is based on treating women as humans. The change in perceptions wrt soda serving sizes is based on McDonald's wanting to make more money.
You heard it here first, folks: being forced to give birth against your will is EXACTLY AS BAD as getting 16 ounces of soda when you really wanted 20.
Anyway, as people have repeatedly pointed out, there is no ban on drinking more than 16 ounces of soda. There's a ban on selling more than 16 ounces in a single cup. The only reason you even want 20 ounces is because marketers tell you that 20 ounces is "normal" and 16 ounces is "small". A 16 ounce serving would have been considered huge for decades until the advertisers decided to change your perceptions.
That's independence not freedom. If I'm sick and my mum takes care of me am I not free?
Yes, if you are relying on another person to take care of you, you're not entirely free. Your mother could, in theory, refuse to feed you unless you did something she wanted. Obviously, she wouldn't, but the point is that whenever you rely on other people, you intrinsically give up a bit of your freedom. The key is to find the balance point between free-but-alone and supported-but-controlled. We can argue all day about where the ideal balance point is -- the answer is likely different for different people -- but we can hopefully agree that both extremes are undesirable.
I'm supposed to be upset that my cell phone cost me only slightly more than the cost it took to produce? I'm supposed to be upset that I don't get to pay huge markups?
You know what? Sure. If paying extra makes you happy, you go right ahead.
You're right that OJ is also high in calories, but how often do you see people ordering an entire quart of OJ to drink in one sitting the way they do with soda?
Slashdot Mirror
Who says this is only going to be used in American airports? Are you really so blissfully unaware of what goes on outside our borders? A cheap system that could detect bombs reliably and discreetly* would save countless lives in the Middle East. And making sure people aren't carrying explosives hardly counts as spying on them.
But no. This is Slashdot. America is the source of all evil. Technology enables the evil Americans. All other people in the world are simply animals reacting to the evil Americans. That's why the world was all rainbows and unicorns up until 1775.
*I'm aware that this system is neither cheap nor reliable. But I was responding to the OP, who clearly thought it was, and pointing the idiocy of such knee-jerk reactions against technological advancement.
Yeah, who cares about bombs killing people!? This infringes on my right to secretly carry my lucky bag of ANFO with me wherever I go!
What the Senate was doing by month:
July: Kennedy was too sick to do his job
August: Kennedy was too sick to do his job, and died at the end of the month
September: Kennedy's seat was vacant until Kirk was finally seated at the end of the month. The rules of the Senate say even with 99 total senators, you still need 60 to break a filibuster, so an empty seat is essentially a vote to keep the filibuster going.
October: Intra-party negotiations trying to get the Democrats to unanimously vote for the bill. Lieberman and Nelson were the big stumbling blocks.
November: Lieberman agrees to support the bill in exchange for dropping the Public Option. This negotiation took a long time, as the Democrats tried to a lot of compromises (the "Rockfeller option", the "opt-out" option, the "opt-in" option, the "Medicare buy-in" option, etc.), but Lieberman wouldn't budge. Nelson keeps the filibuster going.
December: Slimebag Nelson finally bought off with the Cornhusker Kickback, which would have given extra money to Nebraska for no particular reason. Obamacare finally passes the Senate. The Kickback is later removed during the reconciliation process.
January: The Senate typically takes most of this month off. They convened on January 19th. Scott Brown took office a week later.
In short, the Democrats had three in-session months of filibuster-proof majority, all of which were spent trying to get Lieberman and Nelson to break the filibuster.
Stop repeating that lie. Between the GOP delaying Franken's entry to the Senate through frivolous court challenges, followed by by Ted Kennedy's sickness and death, the Democrats only had a few months of filibuster-proof majority. They used it to pass Obamacare.
Presidents are the de facto leader of their party. If Romney pushes a tax plan and the Republicans control the House (which they almost certainly will), then Romney's plan will pass. It could possibly get stalled in the Senate, but I don't expect the Democrats to have the balls to actually fight back.
You call what the Yankees are doing lately "playing"? That's generous.
Based on those numbers, I now know for certain that you have never tried to hail a cab in NYC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Read that page. Then read it again. Repeat until it sinks in.
The free market is not some kind and loving god. It doesn't have the answers to all our problems. It doesn't work. It never has, it never will. Markets need regulation.
Uber isn't being allowed in because there are some pre-existing exclusive contracts that will last for a few more months. Are you proposing we just tear up any contract we don't like? Do you have the slightest goddamned inkling what that sort of precedent would do to business in this country?
Fucking anarchists. Like everyone else, they've got the world "figured out" by the time they're a teenager. Unlike everyone else, they don't grow out of it.
The reason Uber isn't being allowed in NYC is because there are some pre-existing contracts that prohibit them. Those contracts will expire in a few months (February of next year), at which point we can negotiate new contracts that allow Uber in.
Is your position that we should just tear up contracts whenever we no longer feel like they're benefiting us? Because that would spell the end of the civilization that you love to take for granted.
According to a statement from TLC Commissioner David Yassky, existing "exclusive contracts" are the reason that Uber can’t use cabs in the city.
Those contracts are part of the Taxicab Passengers Enhancement Project (TPEP), which provides various hardware including GPS data collection, credit card processing and two-way messaging with drivers. Under the TPEP system, Creative Mobile Technologies and VeriFone have an exclusive contract to provide such infrastructure and services to the TLC.
But Yassky added that these contracts are set to expire in February 2013 and will help the agency move "towards rule changes that will open the market to app developers and other innovators."
What a load of nonsense. There are plenty of used cars to be had. According to Wikipedia, there are around 200 million passenger cars registered in the US. And that doesn't include the 8 million motorcycles and 40 million light trucks.
So, around 0.3% of them were destroyed, and you're gonna spout some conspiracy nonsense about evil Islamo-Commie Obama making it impossible for poor people to find used cars?
I don't know where you got that crap from, but you need to stop listening to that source. They're poisoning you with lies.
So answer me this very simple question: Who decides who gets nuclear weapons?
That's far from a simple question.
This isn't some video game where a developer can just set the rules. Ultimately, the answer to every "who decides?" question is "the group who has the military force to back up their decision". We humans aren't particularly comfortable with that knowledge, so we create all sorts of rules to hopefully resolve questions before they reach that level. But if you peel back all the layers of rules, you'll find that they ultimately rest on military force.
In this case, the applicable law is the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran signed it, saying that they wouldn't develop nukes. In exchange, like all non-nuclear equipped signatories, they get two things:
1) Support for the development of peaceful nuclear tech
2) The promise that nuclear armed countries would work towards disarmament. The New START treaty between the US and Russia shows our continuing commitment towards this.
Iran certainly seems to be breaking this rule. And as I said before, all rules ultimately rest on military force. I'm glad Obama has been looking for alternatives that don't get people killed. But if that fails, the rule will be tested: "Does the rest of the world have the military force (and will to use it) needed to prevent Iran from obtaining nukes?" If not, then there is no rule at all.
Uhh, yes, that's true. I never suggested otherwise. But the fact that some atheists don't call the elimination of religion does not mean that no atheists do. As with any belief set, you've got extremists who want to force their views on everyone.
Indeed, just five minutes after you posted, an AC posted to say that our species is better off without religion (going as far to include a Hitler analogy), thus proving me right.
Here is what he said, to refresh your memory:
Mr. Panetta is making the same mistake we made 80 years ago: Backing our enemies into a corner. Well, what happens when you back any animal (or person!) into a corner? They attack, of course. And the United States has a long tradition of setting traps just like this -- using economic manipulation and supplies to tip the balance of conflicts while claiming it's not involved... and then using the inevitable military response by its enemies as an excuse to enter said conflict.
He is claiming, in no uncertain terms, that the US is at fault for Pearl Harbor. That they created an "inevitable military response" so that they would have an "excuse" to go to war. So if the US declares war, we're evil. If we try to use non-violent methods, we're creating an "inevitable military response", and we're at fault there too. The only morally okay solution is, apparently, for the US to roll over and die whenever anyone asks nicely.
I wonder if that works in the other direction? Let's say the US decides to invade Canada. The EU, shocked by this, stations fleets nearby, embargoes the US, and provides the Canadians with supplies. Would you guys claim that the US is backed into a corner and has no choice but to launch a pre-emptive war against the EU?
Who is modding this down? It's the best advice in the thread. Learning hand-eye co-ordination from video games is absurd. Go buy a glove and some plush baseballs, since you probably shouldn't be throwing anything harder than that at a three year old. Graduate to baseballs, basketballs, and/or footballs depending on whatever the kid seems to enjoy. The best part is that, at least for the next several years, it doesn't matter how awful you are at sports -- your kid will think you're awesome.
That doesn't mean the kid shouldn't interact with computers. You want to help make your kid into a well-balanced individual.
Absolutely. But if you praise an organization for its stand in a conflict, perhaps you should not be so quick to call for its complete obliteration. Einstein, to my knowledge, never called for the complete elimination of religion. But I'd wager that someone will do just that before this thread falls off the first page.
Wait, so pre-emptive wars are okay, so long as it's not the US conducting them?
It would be even better if there were no nukes, but there are. The fact that the US developed and used nukes over half a century ago does not mean that everyone should have them. That's a childish way of thinking.
If you think advertising doesn't affect you, that goes to show how well it is working. The fact that I am aware of how well it works and take pains to avoid seeing it does not make me weak-willed. It makes me self-aware.
Obviously advertising works, but it doesn't control what I do.
Those statements are contradictory. The entire goal of advertising is to get people to do certain things. You can't say advertising works while simultaneously thinking that it doesn't allow some form of control over people.
Banning the sale of abortions is equivalent to banning abortions. Banning the sale of a 20 ounce cup of soda in a restaurant is not equivalent to banning soda.
Additionally, the change in perceptions wrt abortions is based on treating women as humans. The change in perceptions wrt soda serving sizes is based on McDonald's wanting to make more money.
You heard it here first, folks: being forced to give birth against your will is EXACTLY AS BAD as getting 16 ounces of soda when you really wanted 20.
Anyway, as people have repeatedly pointed out, there is no ban on drinking more than 16 ounces of soda. There's a ban on selling more than 16 ounces in a single cup. The only reason you even want 20 ounces is because marketers tell you that 20 ounces is "normal" and 16 ounces is "small". A 16 ounce serving would have been considered huge for decades until the advertisers decided to change your perceptions.
That's independence not freedom. If I'm sick and my mum takes care of me am I not free?
Yes, if you are relying on another person to take care of you, you're not entirely free. Your mother could, in theory, refuse to feed you unless you did something she wanted. Obviously, she wouldn't, but the point is that whenever you rely on other people, you intrinsically give up a bit of your freedom. The key is to find the balance point between free-but-alone and supported-but-controlled. We can argue all day about where the ideal balance point is -- the answer is likely different for different people -- but we can hopefully agree that both extremes are undesirable.
I'm supposed to be upset that my cell phone cost me only slightly more than the cost it took to produce? I'm supposed to be upset that I don't get to pay huge markups?
You know what? Sure. If paying extra makes you happy, you go right ahead.
You're right that OJ is also high in calories, but how often do you see people ordering an entire quart of OJ to drink in one sitting the way they do with soda?
What ? Your supermarket does not sell lemons ? Yeah, you live in a retarded society.
You've never actually set foot in the US, have you?