The manufacturers [...] we already know how incompetent they are.
I don't think they're incompetent at all; they designed a system to allow them to sell the elections to the highest bidder, they sell elections to the highest bidder, they get mad paid. They do, quickly and efficiently, the [illegal] job they are hired to do, AND they get away with it. Remember, this is privatization at work - these are highly paid, influential lobbyist and contractors, not bumbling bureaucratic government functionaries. The incompetent ones are e.g. the Secretaries of State and Boards of Elections who sell our collective asses to the political organizations who are the major customers of the election fraud specialists.
When a criminal action is organized on the scale of what we've been seeing in the US national elections, I think it becomes important to look at who is enabling, allowing, and/or paying for the criminal activity, not just the criminal. In this case, Diebold is just more hired, neo-fascist thugs, true, but they are not the incompetent ones, yet. Any appearance of incompetence there is simply their constructed facade of "plausible deniability" - I.E. that's how they get away with it [rigging elections] - by getting people who should know better to think they're simply incompetent, not the thorough-going, deeply rooted Evil we now know them to be - or at least, to be a part of.
It's all part of the "Contract on America" - you might remember that: 1984? The Economic groundwork for the more recent USA PATRIOT Act? Voodoo Reaganomics, and Dubya the First?
Who would, unless he/ she already is greatly disturbed, even think there is a need to blur animal genitalia?
The animal, maybe? You are showing incredible disregard for the rights of the victim, here. What poor dog wants to have the images of his/her genitalia internationally broadcast? Was the dog even consulted before this video was made? Is there a pawprint on the release forms?
What's that? Dogs don't have legal status in such matters? Well there you go! It's obviously an oppression of the canine species, an outright abuse of man's best friend! Have you seen the studies showing sharp increases of abuse of canines by humans and other species in populations when images of dog genitalia are so common?
All I can think of to say to these people is: "DOGGIE PEE-PEE! DOGGIE PEE-PEE! DOGGIE PEE-PEE!"
Completely fascinating that so many posters seem to think the corporate sector is already providing and is the only possible way to provide the "best of all possible [search] worlds" - completely laughable given how badly every single one of the existing ad-supported, hyper-commercialized options leeching away at our souls simply suck the bleeding ass of all things.com - a TLD that didn't even exist back when the Internet actually held useful information that could be easily found and used via a simple subject index - which is exactly how Yahoo started, iirc.
Semantic search, even if poorly implmented, could only be an improvement over the lame excuses these corporate clowns foist off on us as nothing more than baits and lures for their their advertising clients... YOU are the product Google, Yahoo, et al are selling to their real users - their corporate client base.
Fwiw, I find it odd that this URL/content info which Law Enforcement [within the 9th Circuit, at least] is not allowed to collect without a warrant is routinely collected with impunity by tracking cookies, "transparent" proxies, and so on. If this decision is going to stand, there should be some impact on legislation anti-spyware and private monitoring of internet activity by advertisers and ISPs.
Also, if I understand the situation correctly, e.g. Google already tracks all this information about their users, and more. The fact that the information they harvest remains technically "anonymous" is dependent wholly on their corporate "goodwill" right now. How is it that it is not legal for a cop to get this info, but it is legal for Google to use the same info to target users with advertising? It reminds me of statement in the news a few years ago (around the time the Department Homeland Security came into being) that FBI agents were not allowed to "use the Internet" [i.e. public search engines] to collect data [evidence] in the course of an and invesitgation up until that point (the merging of "intelligence" operations within the Federal government).
Finally, what burden does this place on me as an internet hosting provider to e.g. destroy [without looking at, analyzing,or otherwise extracting user data from] the log files I can collect which can provide me with varying levels of detail about the visitors to my site, depending upon just how much trouble I want to go to track them? If it's not legal for Law Enforcement to collect that information and track those users, is it legal for me to do so? If so, that doesn't seem to jibe very well with this whole "Rule of Law" thing that some of us have been trying to get put in place... And what about email? If I use my root privileges on my server to discover illegal activity by reading my users' emails [disregarding for a moment the morality of such an act], is that admissible? Is it legal? Could I be prosecuted for it? And again, where does that leave Google [Gmail] - and soon to be Yahoo and MSN, if they're not already doing it - with their "we're keyword parsing your email, but we don't read it" business stance?
Instead, the FBI is advising these universities on how they can protect themselves from those that would steal important research.
As bad as the government might be, I don't see what good it does to distort the facts.
Given that
the average university administrator is probably at least as apt as the average/. poster to distort facts and misunderstand government policies and actions
it remains implicit in the issuance of such "guidelines" that if the behaviors described are observed, action should follow
channels for the implied actions facilitated by these guidelines will certainly be put in place (probably have been already)
there is a massive potential for abuse of such guidelines and their associated reporting and action channels at every level from that of students jealous of other students, up to and including the administrative level of the FBI
such potential for abuses of such a "brother's keeper" system have never, in human history (to the best of my knowledge) gone untapped
I estimate that the probability that abuses - both willful abuse of the System, and unintentional [due to lack of understanding and simple stupidity] - will be perpetrated by all parties to the application of these guidelines approaches Unity.
I state as a corollary that the abuses which must take place will be amplified by the broader political and socio-ethnic-economic climate for maximum damage to the victims, who will almost certainly not be terrorists, or even remotely connected to terrorism.
Now if they had done this back in the 1970s when the Bush family was getting all their Saudi friends into US colleges, then maybe - just maybe - some of those holders of student visas at that time would not have become the Al Qaeda support network they later became... but that's water under the bridge, now.
If the FBI is really interested in stopping Terror and protecting State Secrets, they should, perhaps raid the Skull'n'Bones frat house... I'm sure the tribes would like to get Geronimo's skull back, at least, and its theft [by a scion of the Bush Dynasty, iirc] was a Federal crime. How's that for undistorted fact? Note that the theft of a skull is almost certainly in violation of local. municipal, and perhaps reservation ordinances against grave-robbery, as well - depending on the jurisdiction.
The biggest problem with Metadata is that nobody wants to take the time to enter the data.
... that may be, but I think there is a more subtle problem that feeds this one: Data format standardization. The EXIF info from the camera is good, but there doesn't seem to be any user-definable data fields except "Comment" and that gets hugely abused - also, I suspect there are at least 2 different "JPEG Comment" mechanisms - If use the properties dialog from Windows Explorer, I see a different set of data attached to the file than if I use e.g. 'jpeginfo' or 'rdjpegcom' from the [Linux] command line. No one wants to spend the time to enter data which is of no particular value except on a single [type of] system. There should at least be an XML schema that can be used to capture metadata that may be kept in the comment field...
The company is almost dead now, let them die alright.
Many of us have thought SCO was dead before - they aren't just Evil, they're The Undead. Regardless of what their losses are, and how many times they are rebuffed by the courts, Microsoft could still dump another couple hundred thousand on them to keep them walking - that's pocket change for Microsoft, and they may well do it just on the outside chance that they will cost someone one or two more Linux jobs.
For my part, I won't be satisfied until the story says that the papers dissolving the corporation have been filed. Fwiw.
Having worked with a few female engineers and listened to the stories about the difficulties manufactured by e.g. senior male engineering faculty at the universities, I sympathize with a lot of what you're saying, but I have to raise the point that women in the US are not exactly a minority, population-wise. Last I heard, and for as far back as I can remember (decades), there have consistently been slightly more women in the US than men. I feel that addressing programs for women as programs for minorities is a bit of a misnomer, in that respect. I think it would be more accurate to say "programs for the disadvantaged" since I have never seen anything in 40-some-odd years to indicate that women are not still discriminated against pretty much from birth when it comes to technical, intellectual, and political disciplines...
it wasn't until I got to college that I met any asshole-men that didn't want women around
Lucky you...
I assume that a female knows jack-all about computers until shown otherwise
I found more and more over the years that it is safest to apply this assumption to everyone - most of the men I know who try to portray themselves as "experts" are typically no more tech savvy than e.g. my mother, my wife, or my daughter. It's kinda pathetic, in a way, but tis very true.
One observation I would put forward regarding women in tech fields: Most of the women I do know who have good knowledge of e.g. computers typically will not say so. Women are far more likely - again, this is in my personal experience - to claim to know "nothing" about computers even if they already have a good knowledge base in the field. Men, on the other hand, will take a little knowledge and try to balloon it into looking like something more than it really is.
Sorry for responding multiply, but I thought I was leaving and then realized I had time to get into it a bit more...
Ethanol - Corn: Beyond it cutting into corn as a food source, corn is grown from the ground, out in the open, and requires that ever-dependable stoic force, NATURE. Yeah, right. Droughts, floods, tornadoes, hail... all of these things destroy corn crops, all of them are not preventable by man.
While most people consider "corn" pretty robust (compared to e.g. maize) it is a pretty weak crop, generally, being expensive to grow and [relatively] temperamental w.r.t. e.g. pests, disease, weather, etc. This is among the reasons I see for making ethanol a "second tier" bio-fuel - that is, while useful in some respects, it is not a "point solution" - it will not work by itself. There are additional infrastructure problems like the H2O condensate in the pipelines as reported during the recent roll-out of ethanol in MD. Some success is possible (IL and their 85% ethanol with gasoline mix), but overall more is going to be required to get the US (or any major industrialized nation) "foreign oil" monkey off our collective backs...
Also, I'd be interested in knowing about the studies that measure the amount of corn that can be grown on the land in a year...
Some years ago I read a book by the guy who coined the term "hydroponics". It was a real mind-blower. The increased crop yields and reduced growing time were phenomenal - something like 6 tons of potatoes from a quarter acre tank in 6 months - I don't remember the exact numbers, but the principals are [imo] sound.
In that context, it's critical to remember that hydroponics started out in the 1940s as a very different thing that what the weed barons of the suburbs are using to grow fine sensimilla (sp?) these days. The book I'm referring to talked about using lumber and polyurethane to construct outdoor tanks - very "low tech" - with hardware cloth or chicken-wire mesh to support the plants. The techniques were developer (by the author) as a way to grow as much food as possible pretty much anywhere on the planet. Too cold? Throw a greenhouse up over the tank. Etc. Very versatile, very scalable, very efficient (compared to farming in soil).
For fertilization, dry chemicals were mixed with a shovel and stirred into the growing solution. He gives formulas for the feed mixtures that worked best with different crops.
Note that I find this whole hydroponics thing to be of interest for bio-diesel, as well. At the time I read the book, my thought was to use the living room of the public housing project unit in which I was living to produce enough soybeans in quantity. From the perspective I have now, there is no doubt that I could have produced enough soybean *oil* to power a small diesel engine for use to and from school, etc.
Better oil yeilds may result from other crops, too - peanuts leap to mind...
they need to cut it in half or a third, because you can't grow corn on the same ground year after year after year, regardless of how much fertilizer you add, unless you're in the blessed state of Iowa. Not rotating your crops is a great way to turn your land useless in a hurry.
The county extension services have been propagating this gospel since I was a whipper-snapper. And of course, the same class of problems applies to biodiesel. Here again, I think distributed hydroponics are a good approach to a solution, here - except perhaps in states where pot hasn't been decriminalized and you still need a license to buy hydroponics gear - or worse - can't get it at all. It's not that you'd have to buy the gear, it's simply that the yokels don't understand that hyrdoponics is good for anything except growing weed, and too many of them are still opposed to that [I.E. "can't spell hemp"].
For instance, had a very interesting time trying to buy the various
Biodiesel: [...] it only works well in moderate or tropical climates. Not only is a diesel engine difficult to start in the winter because batteries don't operate efficiently in the cold, diesel fuel has a tendency to 'gell', or solidify. I haven't had enough experience with biodiesel to know how it reacts to the cold, but here in Minnesota, there was talk about it 5 years ago and nobody's heard about it since. My guess is that it gells at a much warmer temperature than fossil diesel due to the lack of sulphur, or the abundance of wax, or both.
While perhaps not an "expert", I have talked to quite a few people [informally] about the particular problem of cold weather use of biodiesel, and I suspect a couple things:
Sufficient research to solve the cold weather problem has not yet been done in - or at least not in an organized fashion by a mega-corp.
The problem is tractable to the same methods that are used with petro-diesel currently: additives of lighter [more highly refined] fuels [or fuel-derived substances.
There is a potential - give some research funding and some time - for a general solution that involves blends of bio-based alcohols and oils
It is possible to blend bio-diesel with petro products - this is particularly useful using e.g. bio-diesel in a big truck engine in MN in January.
In general, the temperature based problems of bio-diesel are identical with the temperature-based problems of petro-diesel - it's just that with bio-diesel the problems occur at higher temps. These problems are well-understood, and quite tractable, I believe. A quick Google search shows that a number of people are already thinking about / working on it, including e.g. biodiesel.org
A Gallon of biodiesel or a gallon of ground diesel will both produce the same poundage of CO2 in similar engines over similar distances.
As another poster pointed out [can't find the post right now, so no link, sorry], the difference in the source of the C02 that is released by burning petro- or bio-diesel matters. Fossil fuels contain carbons that would not ordinarily be dumped into the atmosphere in the billions of tons a year without we extract them and burn them.
Plants, on the other hand, bind atmospheric C02 into themselves, and that carbon is re-released when the plant (or its derivatives) is burned. It's a "zero sum" problem.
so much oil and pesticides go into growing something like corn
I think this argument is fallacious, esp in the longer term. If you have bio-diesel, why are you burning petro-diesel to farm corn? I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would bet that an Iowa farm co-op can produce more bio-diesel from a soybean crop than fuel is required to farm that crop. That's a net gain in fuel, and the more efficient the farming techniques are, the greater the gain.
Furthermore, what causes you to think that pesticides can't be manufactured from bio- sources? So far, every thing I've looked at leads me to believe that there is not a single petro-based product (including e.g. plastics, packaging, etc) that cannot be produced better and more cheaply from bio-based sources.
And all this before we even start talking about refining bio-diesel into lighter fuels (bio-gasoline, anyone?) and perhaps blending it with something like ethanol.
Finally, I would point out that the main reason for moving to bio fuels generally, and bio-diesel in this particular instance, has a lot less to do with Global Warming than it has to do with National Security - both economic and materiel - in the US.
Bio-fuels represent a sustainable solution to the problem of fueling our transportation [and some other things] without totally distrupting the entire system as it exists at this moment (in the petro-based world). Bio-fuels can be implemented progessively much more quickly than we can e.g. develop the tech for vehicles powered using Hydrogen - or even electricity. Bio-fuel tech not only exists, it is well understood and is a low tech solution that trumps the high-tech, petro-based solution across the board. Any R&D we do is pure profit and long term gain.
In short, all the crap arguments like those presented in TFA have been addressed and solutions proposed. The continuing FUD is almost certainly funded entirely by short-term profit motive. What kind of an idiot goes to all the trouble to cut down a rain forest to create arable land, after all? The profit from rain forests is in things like pharmaceuticals, not bulk crops that are trivially grown far more cheaply in the millions of hectares of existing farmland we already have? The trivial case [for US bio-fuels]: If we produce the soybeans in S. America, we have to pay to ship either the beans or the oil or the finished product from there to here, and with the reasoning you present above [i.e. running tractors on petro-diesel to produce bio-diesel], the ships would be burning bunker C...
No, if we were really high tech about it, we'd just use an energy beam to suck the life forces directly out of the beasties and feed it directly into an implant that would handle all repairs to the organism... we should probably build in a "hypnotize victim and make them a helpless vampire slave" function to this device, as well, if we want to be able to claim to be really hi-tech...
an 'any' key to stop clueless users wondering where the any key is when asked to press any key to continue?
I think the plan is to make the space bar multi-functional such that when the Fn key is held down and the space bar is pressed, the 'any' key function will be invoked. The space bar will have "Any" printed on it in the bluish Fn-key type...
Interesting you should say that - it's a point I've been trying to make for some years now - pretty much since the wall came down - We saw actual breadlines under Reagan and Bush I - not something that gets talked about much, but it always struck me that such were scenes straight out of the Cold War era anti-USSR propaganda disseminated in the US public schools...
but you kinda don't get it... but I'm sure your children will, and they will look at you for answers.
It's already happening - the answers areen't that difficult yet, since it's all right there in front of them - the hardest part is convincing the younger ones that it was ever any different.
Yes, there has come to be a fairly gaping chasm between "National Security" in the literal sense and "National Security" in the sense that it is now used, which is: "security for the Regime that has overthrown the United States Federal Government and is now committed to holding power by any means necessary".
Why now, then, do we surrender to the government so easily?
Well, you're not the only one asking that question, that's for sure. I think the answer is what I've heard called "Boiling Frog Syndrome". While I see that the term is now being more popularly applied to "environmental issues", I think the concept applies equally well to the problem you're addressing when you say "When will America riot?"
In short,
"if people become acclimated to some policy or state of affairs over a sufficient period of time, they come to accept the policy or state of affairs as normal." -Stephen Yates, The Boiling Frog Syndrome
Of course, I would argue that in the current situation, the frog was stunned [WTC, 2001/09/11] by a sap applied sharply and just behind the ear before being tossed in the pot... i don't know, maybe chloroform is a better analogy, but I think you get the idea, at least...
It doesn't need to be violent, but the suggestion that violence is still possible, that the Government may not be permitted to isolate itself from the First Amendment and our rights to due process. Ten Million in Washington, armed but calm, would probably let them know that this is NOT okay. It really doesn't have to be Congressional heads on pikes.
This is brilliant. Really. I think there may be some infrastructural problems, though - perhaps not insurmountable, but...
When was the last time you were in DC? I was there in early 2006... Do you really think you could get even 10,000, let alone, 10,000,000 armed citizens into the city at the same time? Maybe unarmed, but... do you trust the police/Army/DHS not to turn arms against citizens who present even such a subtle threat as you describe? Hell, there's probably some law against even standing around in DC, let alone standing around in large groups packing heat. I seem to recall that there was some recent statute against tourists going about in groups larger than 3 people.
Who's going to show up? Who has time for all that? Most of the population is too busy trying to pay the bills, and honestly believes that what goes on in "politics" really doesn't affect them in the least...
At a minimum, you'll need a good bit of corporate [employer] support to give people a chance to engage in something like you suggest. The problems of work and money faced by the average citizen trying to support a family simply do not allow for things like activism on any level that requires them to take a day off - again, I strongly suspect this is by design...
Do you think something like this could be organized without decisive "black ops" action being taken against the organizers? I would like to think so, but...
Remember that, even if you do manage to stage the event, the only thing the other 300-odd million people in the country, and all those in the rest of the world, will know is what gets reported - which will almost certainly have nothing at all to do with the actual reason and cause of the protest. This has been demonstrated over and over in the last 7 years. There's no particular reason to believe this would be any different, and in fact every reason to believe that a) the numbers involved would be staggeringly under-reported, b) the agenda would be characterized as "minor civil unrest", "gang activity", or simply "terrorism" - also, participants will be c
Interesting - thank-you for the detailed response.
I take your point concerning the use of anonymity to e.g. "narc off" ones neighbor to e.g. the gestapo - pre-world war 2 Germany was famous for this, as was the [totalitarian] USSR regime.
Actually, I think your point in that respect completely supports what I was saying.
If we were to - as you advocate - acknowledge a fundamental inequity amongst people, then anonymity would, in fact, become nothing more than a tool of oppression. Fortunately, as things have been up to this point, anonymity in the US has been much more a cornerstone of Free Thought and [especially initially - see E Publius] a means of fighting oppression.
Anonymity in the former Soviet Union did not promote public discourse.
"When anonymity is against the law, only snitches will have anonymity" - it is my understanding (and this is based primarily on the pro-US propaganda disseminated in US schools during the Cold War era) that there was no anonymity in the USSR - except perhaps for snitches.
This is typically also true in other totalitarian regimes. Everyone has to carry "papers" at all times. Nothing gets published without an attribution. The only "anonymity" is when some snitch picks up a public phone and tells the "police" that e.g. their ex-wife is violating some law, or that their competition in commerce is a Jew [e.g. Germany].
The context here and now is the US in the 21st Century, and yes, I am very much addressing the way things should go, there. Unless we are going to cave to either the Totalitarian tendencies of the current Fascist movement, or the pending socialist rise, we very much should be looking to what is actually Right. It is a principle of Democracy that persons must be responsible for their own behavior. Unless we intend to move yet further from Democratic principles on which the country was founded, we must continue to behave as though in fact "all humans [men] are [created] equal" and imbued with certain Rights...
While what you say about "smearing" is obviously the case in those sorts of instances, I will point out that, in the US, it is [or at least it has been] the policy that some proof must be provided to support the allegation. A simple phone call by my neighbor to the local police claiming that I'm dealing crack out of my apartment is not [or has not been, yet, since I have some practical experience with this] sufficient to get me disappeared into a mental hospital in Siberia or a concentration camp in Poland. In fact, such tactics have yet to get me arrested, or even questioned.
Note that I say this in the context of a growing awareness that such charges regarding so-called "terrorism" in the US (and under the current Regime) typically are sufficient to get some attention - particularly with the implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act. Again, this is my practical experience. In fact, this is in large part the very reason I argue against anti-anonymity provisions of Law in the US. If we are to avoid the sort of police state nightmares you describe in USSR and of which we have heard in other countries, we need to make damned certain we fight tooth and nail against the very sorts of legal and political conditions that create those nightmares. Anti-anonymity Law is is one such pre-condition for the sort of scenario you described in the USSR. If anonymity is taken as the normative case, such that the ideas presented (e.g. "my neighbor is dealing crack") are never accepted without supporting documentation and demonstrable fact, you won't see the kind of scare/smear tactics used amongst citizens as you describe - or at least, when they are attempted, the results are far, far less damaging.
Note also that these sorts of tactics can already be used - and commonly are, actually, in viturperative divorces, etc - with little or practical effect, and the reason the affect is limited is because ano
You might consider for a moment that once anonymity to outlawed - as you seem to suggest it should be - this statement of yours:
Sounds like the Supreme Court got it wrong.
Might be made grounds for a breach of your Right to Speech.
But why should any form of political expression be encouraged?
Stating [and indeed protecting] a Right to a behavior is not synonymous with encouraging that behavior - when the courts uphold a Right, they are simply saying that you may not be punished [under the Law] for that behavior. Encouraging a behavior would be e.g. providing a tax break for those engaging in it. That's not what's going on in this case, so the argument that the courts are encouraging the behavior of anonymous speech is spurious and moot.
This is also a spurious argument:
Why should the ability to say whatever and to not have to face the consequences be granted?
First, we're discussing Rights, not ability. The two are quite different. You may have the Right to Free Speech, but you may not have the ability to exercise that Right. Likewise, you may have the ability to perform some behavior, but you may not have a Right to engage in that exercise.
Second, there is no "say whatever and not face the consequences" Right granted under any Laws, here. You are - still - not allowed [under the Law] to "shout 'FIRE' in a crowded theatre"... unless, perhaps, there really is a fire.
Futhermore (and this refers also to some of your other statements), there is implicit in the Right to Free Speech a responsiblity on the behalf of the audience as well as the speaker. That is: You should not expect to be able to act blindly based on the ravings of random soap-box mounted street-corner lunatics. As a member of a Society which does in fact support the individual's Right to Speech, you are expected to draw your own conclusions and act [or NOT] accordingly.
This promotes smear.
Nonsense. Quite the opposite, in fact. Anonymous speech promotes debate based on ideas instead of personalities.
If the US is to be [as has been suggested a few times] a "Nation of Laws, not a nation of men" (a.k.a. we have the "Rule of Law") then anonymous speech would not be at all unusual. Of course, if you as an individual choose to base your evaluation of some particular speech based on what you do or do not know about the speaker, then - well, you're just exercising your Personal Responsibility [as mentioned above], aren't you.
But isn't embarrasment itself one of the checks that we have for ourselves on what is acceptable in a civil society?
No. I don't believe embarrassment is considered a "check" on behavior under the Law, since any such emotion is based largely on the individual(s) involved and their morality (or lack thereof), and is therefore an element of "personality" [see above] and not properly something that should be made Law.
And isn't the point of the social contract of the law that we give up certain freedoms (such as to intrude into lives of others uninvited) in order to keep a free civil society.
Again, no. Neither of us are giving up any Rights or Freedoms - socially or legally - when I say "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." In fact, we are agreeing on our respective Rights if we agree to that statement, and thereby defining our Freedoms. You do not have the Right to punch me in the nose - you might think you have the Freedom to do so, but if you try to exercise it, I will assert my Rights in defense of my Freedom from being punched in the nose.
Also, note that above you are arguing against intruding on the life of the guy who is
Confederation: While distinct from a unitary state, a federation is also to be distinguished from a confederation. By connotation, a confederation is similar in structure to a federation but with a weaker central government. A confederation may also consist of states that, while temporarily pooling sovereignty in certain areas, are considered entirely sovereign and retain the right of secession. -Federalism as a Political Philosophy
The US Federal Government became an increasingly centralized concentration of power - a very choice plum, ripe for the picking by the neo-con ["fascist": I.E. "National Socialist"] regime that seized power in 2000 and instituted what has since become the Dubya Regime.
Did anyone expect that the so-called USA PATRIOT Act would not be abused by the FBI? If so, who? And when? The reason the Act itself is an abuse is very simply that it was designed and implemented specifically so it could be abused - the fairy tales told on Faux News notwithstanding. Does anyone not see that?
The real question is (imo): What about all those agencies that haven't been auditted yet? Remember, this obscenity of an Act of Congress (the USA PATRIOT Act) was mandated for use across the spectrum - from Federal to state and local levels.
this is typically done with specialized and often proprietary topological modeling tools
Could you give an example of what sorts of tools are used [for Wireless network topology design]? It sounds as though you're talking about cellular phone networks, which may be a viable model for muni WiFi design, I'm just not aware of exactly how cell networks are designed...
40% for frequency licensing
It was my understanding that WiFi networks use "public" frequencies (54Ghz, 900Mhz, etc) - what frequency licensing are we talking about, here? Again, this sounds like a cellular data issue...
I see it today in our cable television monopoly, which is municipally 'outsourced' to a cable provider. This is what most municipalities will end up doing if wireless is publically owned.
Your point about the ineptitude of the cable companies is well taken - Time-Warner is bad, and Comcast is worse, in my personal experience. They have shown themselves to be wholly inept at data network deployment and management, and greedy to boot. Their stupidity is codified right up front into the user agreements, in fact - they try to claim that some particular processor speed and RAM requirements are "minimum system requirements" for network access - as though a DHCP client and a TCP/IP stack required a half Gig of RAM to function...
While many of the slash/geek crowd typically responds w/ l33t h4x0r tales of how they spoofed the system requirements mandated by e.g. Comcast, the fact remains that Comcast will lock users out of the network for showing the temerity to e.g. run Linux or BSD. Again, despite the so-what attitude of the geeks, the problem here is that the [artificial] connection requirements imposed by [specifically] the cable companies are a major component of the so-called Digital Divide.
Comcast declines to provide universal access (i.e. low-income neighborhoods are not served or are underserved) citing lack of users - then proceeds to ensure that no low-income users are "eligible" to use the network, since the minimum system requirements are set to support the $1100 system price-point.
That is, while the low-income customers in my hood may be able to afford the $50/month cable-modem, they probably cannot afford to spend more than $500 for a the computer that will connect to it - if that. So while I can set up and network all the $25 salvage computers we can lay hands on through-out the hood, we can only get hackhaul connection either thru the phone company, or at some point where there I can afford to set up a spanking new Windows box - and if Comcast finds out it's the drop at that point is working as a backhaul gateway, they will shut down the entire neighborhood by shutting down the backhaul network [and probably prosecuting the unfortunate individual in whose name that node is registered].
There is an additional problem that - Comcast explicitly forbade us from using one high-end laptop to provision multiple cable modems. Again, this was not for techinical reasons - they simply want to make sure that no one on their network is spending less than $2k to get conncected, or less than $100/mo for service.
Muni WiFi is the [trivial] solution to this - if the city owns the backhaul connection, and they tell me I can't connect to it, I will sue them. Suing Comcast or Time Warner is problematic, since they simply say "sure you can connect, as long as you have the h/w we specified - it's in the user agreement, if you don't like it, don't buy the service". Which brings us full circle to the real root arguement: Is network access a vital utility as I claim, or is it supplementary consumer entertainment [a function of cable TV], as the cable giants claim?
Note that the experience I'm describing here w/ Comcast is not theoretical - this is [fairly] recent experience - Time Warner didn't prohibit low cost connections, but does not support them - which is
The reason I googled for the incident in question in the first place is because your description sounded like something that would have been a big enough stink long enough that I should hae heard about it somewhere.
Okay, yes, I remember this second incident - it is not the one to which I was referring. I remember this one because it was so bizarre - the incident I referred to happened some months before this - the dates are not lining up with my recollection, though.
I spent some time searching for the original reports after responding to you post previously, and found basically nothing at all, but I do remember specific information from the newspaper stories (there were at least two in the Rockford paper):
the store was having or was about to have a grand opening
there was a good deal of talk about the womans boyfriend, (it was never clear why this was reported)
the weapons used were specifically identified as "Glock" 9mm handguns
specific mention was made of having gotten the woman off the "floor" of the store and into a room [basically a holding cell or interrogation room] in the back of the store where she was "being questioned"
There was mention of the fact that the cops thought she was going for a gun in the waistband of her pants, but there was no gun found
I remember thinking how odd when the story about the pregnant woman hit CNN - such an eerie similarity - I don't think they mentioned the earlier incident, though
Note that in the story you cite, the statement that the woman in question was pregnant was later shown to have been false.
Given the apparent lack of visibility for the first incident, I would very much like to visit the morgue of the Rockford paper and look for the stories I remember seeing - just to verify this to myself, now...
Still, I feel it's fairly clear what happened to the first story - I'm sure Walmart's publicity flacks put on a major push to play it down - they kept it out of the major networks specifically so that now - years later - anyone bringing it up will be expected to prove that it ever happened - how convenient for them that there was a second incident so nearby and so close in time - as is demonstrated by the results of your search: I can't prove it happened, you present a plausible alternative explanation, and everyone except me is convinced... Of course, I'm going to start saying that Walmart created the second incident to whitewash the first, which will marginalize me a bit more, but frankly, I don't really give a crap - as with the [other] neo-cons: Marginalizing people whose memory extends beyond last week won't make their actions any less socio-pathic, nor will it create a better informed, more thoughtful populace. It will prop up their failing paradigms for a few more cycles, but it will also push them further to the "big" side of "the bigger they are, the harder they fall"...
So - anyone making book on whether or not the Rockford shooting(s) was actually just a semi-public failure of a beta version of the facial-recognition/full-body-language profiling Walmart is now applying using their in-store video surveillance networks?
I can see it now - controller in the command and control center gets a red flag box around the waistband and right wrist of the shopper in aisle 3; a beeper goes off; controller alerts security; they box her in and herd her toward the secure room in the back of the store; open the door of secure room and rush her, sweeping her inside where the door is then shut and locks automatically; confused, she stands there for a moment, then wheels around and tries to open the door; she is order to move away from the door; she moves the hand that was indicated by the software a little bit too close to the area at her waistband - the cops, primed for just that move by the heads-up they got from the software - blaze away the Glocks, splattering her guts and brains all over
Unless shoplifters at the Rockford Wal-Mart get shot on a regular basis, the woman you mentioned was, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, shot by actual police officers after she shot and wounded two security guards and an assistant manager and refused police orders to drop her weapon.
Amazing - revisionism in action. Just to make sure we're both referring to the same event: If memory serves, this event occurred in 2001 - (I can nail the date down more precisely if necessary by looking up the dates I was there in Rockford) - there was a "Grand Opening" event going on for the store in question - I believe it was the first "SuperCenter" opening in Rockford.
The local paper (don't recall the name of it, but I'm quite sure it was not the Chicago paper, since I don't read that one) was very explicit that a) no 3rd gun was found, b) the "shoplifting" was not shown - i.e. the woman had no goods on her when killed, the officers were moonlighting as Walmart security, and were not on duty at the time of the shooting. No store employees were injured.
This was a white woman - I believe in her 30s - there was some question about whether or not she may have been a mental patient or on disability.
This is from memory - I don't have a cite - but I am very sure of the bits I've listed above - if there is a Sun Times story to the contrary, I'd very much like to have a cite to it, since the event was well publicized at the time, and I'm relatively certain that I can produce records to show the Sun's "spin doctoring" if they are saying anything to the contrary...
Of course, if there have been other shootings at that store it wouldn't surprise me at all, since overall both Walmart and the local cops seemed quite satisfied with themselves over the incident, and would certainly - in the event they had a chance to do it all over again - rememeber to plant a gun on the "perp", since repeated shootings of unarmed persons might eventually draw unwanted attention.
I would postulate that the event you mention is probably a more recent shooting, since the "official" spin on the story within the month after the shooting was to simply sweep it under the rug and encourage people to forget it. Too much info came out too quickly for them to be able to flatly deny what happened. Although I do find it entirely plausible that five years later the official line could have been modified slightly once they were able to claim that it was far enough in the past that no one would remember it accurately... Unfortunately, I had some "marker" events going on that have caused me to remember it quite vividly.
If there had been store employees shot or killed during the incident I mentioned, I would not have bothered to mention it, and would not particularly care about a perp getting shot; I do favor shooting people who are shooting at unarmed civilians - I also question the comptence of anyone - officer or otherwise - who requires two full clips to do drop a defenseless "suspect" at close range in a locked 9x12 room. What'd she do, try to hide under a table? They said she tried to open the door, which strongly implies she was standing and not obscured by e.g. furniture. Regardless, there should have been an investigation - a fuck up of that magnitude - on duty or off - should have resulted in those two particular James Bond wannabes having their license to kill permanently revoked...
Sounds like "meritism" to me. Persons are discriminated against on the basis of merit. How is that any better [or worse] than e.g. racism or sexism? Is there some way this "merit" you talk about can be accrued? Is it not just as inherent to the individual as are race and gender?
Merit is relative - a value judgement. Until you develop an Objective measure of Merit, the definition of Capitalism you gave is just a rewording of "Survival of the fittest". It trivially leads to counter intuitive results: If it survived, it is the fittest.
The problem with Capitalism is a scoping problem - it can work, provided all agree that it is Good and Right and that it Works. Just as Apartheid or the Third Reich could be said to "work" [i.e. it "survivied" so it had to be the "fittest" - at least, within a certain analytical scope]. Note that both Apartheid and the Third Reich were notably sexist and racist. Since those sorts of systems operate on a severely constrained World View, and within severe temporal limits, it seems natural that they would also adopt the [short-term] sort of pseudo-capitalism that you refer to
What I would expect to see is mobs (thousands or more) storming businesses that are accused of some kind of unfair practices. Then we would start to see some action. A mob standing outside of a bank with pitchforks, axes and staves. Guns, too. Smashing everything in sight, killing anyone that seems to represent the business. This would get some action.
Nice imagery! I've been wondering about this too - why are we so hesitant to get up, go out, and burn something down? I mean, if the RIAA was e.g. losing 2 lawyers to, say, accidental death or "random" violence for each suit they filed, not only would the overall number of lawyers be reduced (generally counted a Good Thing, iirc), but the cost of filing the lawsuits would go up as the supply of lawyers ran short.
Likewise, if a "record label" office were firebombed each time a new batch of lawsuits were filed, the member organizations of the RIAA might eventually begin to realize just how unpopular they really are. This might draw the attention of the courts and the congress-critters when the next constitutional challenge to their copyright bullshite came up, or the next wave of corporate-bought legistlation hit the floor in congress.
There's an old saying: "Every now and then you have to hang a few judges."
If the government won't move to protect the citizens, the citizens must defend themselves.
And don't let's go to that nonsense about the [alleged] moral disparity between RIAA lawsuits and blowing up a few offices or whacking a few lawyers. The damage those fukkers do to individuals and families with their unbridled racketeering and systematic abuses under color of Law makes simple murder look like child's play. These fukkers have created a systemactic culture of death by poverty - the same one enabled and supported by the Regime that overthrew the US Federal government in 2000. Poor people, brown people - these are their victims, and if you think it's not murder I suggest you spend a little time outside your white-bread W.A.S.P. enclaves and find out what the hell really is being done in your name...
not much happened there because these focused on people destroying their own property and own community rather than the property of those they saw as oppressing them
This is a critical point that is widely overlooked. In fact, this is a tivial way to tell who - "outside agitators" or disaffected citizens - is actually responsible for any damage. It's also the difference between Revolution and simple Anarchy.
To put it in plain terms: The Man wants you to burn down your own neighboorhood - and to do it as loudly and wildly as possible. The Man will just bulldoze the smoking wreckage and put up another office tower - and he'll be relieved that so many were killed, since that's just that many fewer that he has to pretend to "re-locate"...
I will say again - if Tim McVeigh had been for real, he would have blown up an insurance company office, not the Federal Building. There was no Revolution there, only an empty gesture conceived by those same entities who wanted to be percieved as the victims of his action - the Federal agencies. The needed money, the created a reason to get some allocated. Likewise WTC - the Regime needed a reason to take down the Constitution, so they created one... Reichstag Fire; whatever. What's so remarkable to me is that not only did people not take up arms in the defense of their nation in 2000, they didn't even blink when their TVs told them the attacks in 2001 came from the outside.
The principle problem is that today you have "activists" that are perfectly willing to sit behind a keyboard and type.
Actually, I don't think this is the principle problem - in saying it, you are blaming the victims, after all - bad form, and usually innaccurate.
Slashdot Mirror
So to speek z9- of the w20th: represent
I don't think they're incompetent at all; they designed a system to allow them to sell the elections to the highest bidder, they sell elections to the highest bidder, they get mad paid. They do, quickly and efficiently, the [illegal] job they are hired to do, AND they get away with it. Remember, this is privatization at work - these are highly paid, influential lobbyist and contractors, not bumbling bureaucratic government functionaries. The incompetent ones are e.g. the Secretaries of State and Boards of Elections who sell our collective asses to the political organizations who are the major customers of the election fraud specialists.
When a criminal action is organized on the scale of what we've been seeing in the US national elections, I think it becomes important to look at who is enabling, allowing, and/or paying for the criminal activity, not just the criminal. In this case, Diebold is just more hired, neo-fascist thugs, true, but they are not the incompetent ones, yet. Any appearance of incompetence there is simply their constructed facade of "plausible deniability" - I.E. that's how they get away with it [rigging elections] - by getting people who should know better to think they're simply incompetent, not the thorough-going, deeply rooted Evil we now know them to be - or at least, to be a part of.
It's all part of the "Contract on America" - you might remember that: 1984? The Economic groundwork for the more recent USA PATRIOT Act? Voodoo Reaganomics, and Dubya the First?
The animal, maybe? You are showing incredible disregard for the rights of the victim, here. What poor dog wants to have the images of his/her genitalia internationally broadcast? Was the dog even consulted before this video was made? Is there a pawprint on the release forms?
What's that? Dogs don't have legal status in such matters? Well there you go! It's obviously an oppression of the canine species, an outright abuse of man's best friend! Have you seen the studies showing sharp increases of abuse of canines by humans and other species in populations when images of dog genitalia are so common?
All I can think of to say to these people is: "DOGGIE PEE-PEE! DOGGIE PEE-PEE! DOGGIE PEE-PEE!"
Completely fascinating that so many posters seem to think the corporate sector is already providing and is the only possible way to provide the "best of all possible [search] worlds" - completely laughable given how badly every single one of the existing ad-supported, hyper-commercialized options leeching away at our souls simply suck the bleeding ass of all things .com - a TLD that didn't even exist back when the Internet actually held useful information that could be easily found and used via a simple subject index - which is exactly how Yahoo started, iirc.
... YOU are the product Google, Yahoo, et al are selling to their real users - their corporate client base.
Semantic search, even if poorly implmented, could only be an improvement over the lame excuses these corporate clowns foist off on us as nothing more than baits and lures for their their advertising clients
Who's got the pool on when GOOG drops below $500?
Fwiw, I find it odd that this URL/content info which Law Enforcement [within the 9th Circuit, at least] is not allowed to collect without a warrant is routinely collected with impunity by tracking cookies, "transparent" proxies, and so on. If this decision is going to stand, there should be some impact on legislation anti-spyware and private monitoring of internet activity by advertisers and ISPs.
Also, if I understand the situation correctly, e.g. Google already tracks all this information about their users, and more. The fact that the information they harvest remains technically "anonymous" is dependent wholly on their corporate "goodwill" right now. How is it that it is not legal for a cop to get this info, but it is legal for Google to use the same info to target users with advertising? It reminds me of statement in the news a few years ago (around the time the Department Homeland Security came into being) that FBI agents were not allowed to "use the Internet" [i.e. public search engines] to collect data [evidence] in the course of an and invesitgation up until that point (the merging of "intelligence" operations within the Federal government).
Finally, what burden does this place on me as an internet hosting provider to e.g. destroy [without looking at, analyzing,or otherwise extracting user data from] the log files I can collect which can provide me with varying levels of detail about the visitors to my site, depending upon just how much trouble I want to go to track them? If it's not legal for Law Enforcement to collect that information and track those users, is it legal for me to do so? If so, that doesn't seem to jibe very well with this whole "Rule of Law" thing that some of us have been trying to get put in place... And what about email? If I use my root privileges on my server to discover illegal activity by reading my users' emails [disregarding for a moment the morality of such an act], is that admissible? Is it legal? Could I be prosecuted for it? And again, where does that leave Google [Gmail] - and soon to be Yahoo and MSN, if they're not already doing it - with their "we're keyword parsing your email, but we don't read it" business stance?
Given that
I estimate that the probability that abuses - both willful abuse of the System, and unintentional [due to lack of understanding and simple stupidity] - will be perpetrated by all parties to the application of these guidelines approaches Unity.
I state as a corollary that the abuses which must take place will be amplified by the broader political and socio-ethnic-economic climate for maximum damage to the victims, who will almost certainly not be terrorists, or even remotely connected to terrorism.
Now if they had done this back in the 1970s when the Bush family was getting all their Saudi friends into US colleges, then maybe - just maybe - some of those holders of student visas at that time would not have become the Al Qaeda support network they later became... but that's water under the bridge, now.
If the FBI is really interested in stopping Terror and protecting State Secrets, they should, perhaps raid the Skull'n'Bones frat house... I'm sure the tribes would like to get Geronimo's skull back, at least, and its theft [by a scion of the Bush Dynasty, iirc] was a Federal crime. How's that for undistorted fact? Note that the theft of a skull is almost certainly in violation of local. municipal, and perhaps reservation ordinances against grave-robbery, as well - depending on the jurisdiction.
... that may be, but I think there is a more subtle problem that feeds this one: Data format standardization. The EXIF info from the camera is good, but there doesn't seem to be any user-definable data fields except "Comment" and that gets hugely abused - also, I suspect there are at least 2 different "JPEG Comment" mechanisms - If use the properties dialog from Windows Explorer, I see a different set of data attached to the file than if I use e.g. 'jpeginfo' or 'rdjpegcom' from the [Linux] command line. No one wants to spend the time to enter data which is of no particular value except on a single [type of] system. There should at least be an XML schema that can be used to capture metadata that may be kept in the comment field...
Many of us have thought SCO was dead before - they aren't just Evil, they're The Undead. Regardless of what their losses are, and how many times they are rebuffed by the courts, Microsoft could still dump another couple hundred thousand on them to keep them walking - that's pocket change for Microsoft, and they may well do it just on the outside chance that they will cost someone one or two more Linux jobs.
For my part, I won't be satisfied until the story says that the papers dissolving the corporation have been filed. Fwiw.
Having worked with a few female engineers and listened to the stories about the difficulties manufactured by e.g. senior male engineering faculty at the universities, I sympathize with a lot of what you're saying, but I have to raise the point that women in the US are not exactly a minority, population-wise. Last I heard, and for as far back as I can remember (decades), there have consistently been slightly more women in the US than men. I feel that addressing programs for women as programs for minorities is a bit of a misnomer, in that respect. I think it would be more accurate to say "programs for the disadvantaged" since I have never seen anything in 40-some-odd years to indicate that women are not still discriminated against pretty much from birth when it comes to technical, intellectual, and political disciplines...
Lucky you...
I found more and more over the years that it is safest to apply this assumption to everyone - most of the men I know who try to portray themselves as "experts" are typically no more tech savvy than e.g. my mother, my wife, or my daughter. It's kinda pathetic, in a way, but tis very true.
One observation I would put forward regarding women in tech fields: Most of the women I do know who have good knowledge of e.g. computers typically will not say so. Women are far more likely - again, this is in my personal experience - to claim to know "nothing" about computers even if they already have a good knowledge base in the field. Men, on the other hand, will take a little knowledge and try to balloon it into looking like something more than it really is.
Sorry for responding multiply, but I thought I was leaving and then realized I had time to get into it a bit more...
While most people consider "corn" pretty robust (compared to e.g. maize) it is a pretty weak crop, generally, being expensive to grow and [relatively] temperamental w.r.t. e.g. pests, disease, weather, etc. This is among the reasons I see for making ethanol a "second tier" bio-fuel - that is, while useful in some respects, it is not a "point solution" - it will not work by itself. There are additional infrastructure problems like the H2O condensate in the pipelines as reported during the recent roll-out of ethanol in MD. Some success is possible (IL and their 85% ethanol with gasoline mix), but overall more is going to be required to get the US (or any major industrialized nation) "foreign oil" monkey off our collective backs...
While perhaps not an "expert", I have talked to quite a few people [informally] about the particular problem of cold weather use of biodiesel, and I suspect a couple things:
In general, the temperature based problems of bio-diesel are identical with the temperature-based problems of petro-diesel - it's just that with bio-diesel the problems occur at higher temps. These problems are well-understood, and quite tractable, I believe. A quick Google search shows that a number of people are already thinking about / working on it, including e.g. biodiesel.org
As another poster pointed out [can't find the post right now, so no link, sorry], the difference in the source of the C02 that is released by burning petro- or bio-diesel matters. Fossil fuels contain carbons that would not ordinarily be dumped into the atmosphere in the billions of tons a year without we extract them and burn them.
Plants, on the other hand, bind atmospheric C02 into themselves, and that carbon is re-released when the plant (or its derivatives) is burned. It's a "zero sum" problem.
I think this argument is fallacious, esp in the longer term. If you have bio-diesel, why are you burning petro-diesel to farm corn? I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I would bet that an Iowa farm co-op can produce more bio-diesel from a soybean crop than fuel is required to farm that crop. That's a net gain in fuel, and the more efficient the farming techniques are, the greater the gain.
Furthermore, what causes you to think that pesticides can't be manufactured from bio- sources? So far, every thing I've looked at leads me to believe that there is not a single petro-based product (including e.g. plastics, packaging, etc) that cannot be produced better and more cheaply from bio-based sources.
And all this before we even start talking about refining bio-diesel into lighter fuels (bio-gasoline, anyone?) and perhaps blending it with something like ethanol.
Finally, I would point out that the main reason for moving to bio fuels generally, and bio-diesel in this particular instance, has a lot less to do with Global Warming than it has to do with National Security - both economic and materiel - in the US.
Bio-fuels represent a sustainable solution to the problem of fueling our transportation [and some other things] without totally distrupting the entire system as it exists at this moment (in the petro-based world). Bio-fuels can be implemented progessively much more quickly than we can e.g. develop the tech for vehicles powered using Hydrogen - or even electricity. Bio-fuel tech not only exists, it is well understood and is a low tech solution that trumps the high-tech, petro-based solution across the board. Any R&D we do is pure profit and long term gain.
In short, all the crap arguments like those presented in TFA have been addressed and solutions proposed. The continuing FUD is almost certainly funded entirely by short-term profit motive. What kind of an idiot goes to all the trouble to cut down a rain forest to create arable land, after all? The profit from rain forests is in things like pharmaceuticals, not bulk crops that are trivially grown far more cheaply in the millions of hectares of existing farmland we already have? The trivial case [for US bio-fuels]: If we produce the soybeans in S. America, we have to pay to ship either the beans or the oil or the finished product from there to here, and with the reasoning you present above [i.e. running tractors on petro-diesel to produce bio-diesel], the ships would be burning bunker C...
No, if we were really high tech about it, we'd just use an energy beam to suck the life forces directly out of the beasties and feed it directly into an implant that would handle all repairs to the organism... we should probably build in a "hypnotize victim and make them a helpless vampire slave" function to this device, as well, if we want to be able to claim to be really hi-tech ...
I think the plan is to make the space bar multi-functional such that when the Fn key is held down and the space bar is pressed, the 'any' key function will be invoked. The space bar will have "Any" printed on it in the bluish Fn-key type...
Interesting you should say that - it's a point I've been trying to make for some years now - pretty much since the wall came down - We saw actual breadlines under Reagan and Bush I - not something that gets talked about much, but it always struck me that such were scenes straight out of the Cold War era anti-USSR propaganda disseminated in the US public schools...
It's already happening - the answers areen't that difficult yet, since it's all right there in front of them - the hardest part is convincing the younger ones that it was ever any different.
Yes, there has come to be a fairly gaping chasm between "National Security" in the literal sense and "National Security" in the sense that it is now used, which is: "security for the Regime that has overthrown the United States Federal Government and is now committed to holding power by any means necessary".
Well, you're not the only one asking that question, that's for sure. I think the answer is what I've heard called "Boiling Frog Syndrome". While I see that the term is now being more popularly applied to "environmental issues", I think the concept applies equally well to the problem you're addressing when you say "When will America riot?"
In short,
Of course, I would argue that in the current situation, the frog was stunned [WTC, 2001/09/11] by a sap applied sharply and just behind the ear before being tossed in the pot... i don't know, maybe chloroform is a better analogy, but I think you get the idea, at least...
This is brilliant. Really. I think there may be some infrastructural problems, though - perhaps not insurmountable, but ...
Interesting - thank-you for the detailed response.
I take your point concerning the use of anonymity to e.g. "narc off" ones neighbor to e.g. the gestapo - pre-world war 2 Germany was famous for this, as was the [totalitarian] USSR regime.
Actually, I think your point in that respect completely supports what I was saying.
If we were to - as you advocate - acknowledge a fundamental inequity amongst people, then anonymity would, in fact, become nothing more than a tool of oppression. Fortunately, as things have been up to this point, anonymity in the US has been much more a cornerstone of Free Thought and [especially initially - see E Publius] a means of fighting oppression.
"When anonymity is against the law, only snitches will have anonymity" - it is my understanding (and this is based primarily on the pro-US propaganda disseminated in US schools during the Cold War era) that there was no anonymity in the USSR - except perhaps for snitches.
This is typically also true in other totalitarian regimes. Everyone has to carry "papers" at all times. Nothing gets published without an attribution. The only "anonymity" is when some snitch picks up a public phone and tells the "police" that e.g. their ex-wife is violating some law, or that their competition in commerce is a Jew [e.g. Germany].
The context here and now is the US in the 21st Century, and yes, I am very much addressing the way things should go, there. Unless we are going to cave to either the Totalitarian tendencies of the current Fascist movement, or the pending socialist rise, we very much should be looking to what is actually Right. It is a principle of Democracy that persons must be responsible for their own behavior. Unless we intend to move yet further from Democratic principles on which the country was founded, we must continue to behave as though in fact "all humans [men] are [created] equal" and imbued with certain Rights...
While what you say about "smearing" is obviously the case in those sorts of instances, I will point out that, in the US, it is [or at least it has been] the policy that some proof must be provided to support the allegation. A simple phone call by my neighbor to the local police claiming that I'm dealing crack out of my apartment is not [or has not been, yet, since I have some practical experience with this] sufficient to get me disappeared into a mental hospital in Siberia or a concentration camp in Poland. In fact, such tactics have yet to get me arrested, or even questioned.
Note that I say this in the context of a growing awareness that such charges regarding so-called "terrorism" in the US (and under the current Regime) typically are sufficient to get some attention - particularly with the implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act. Again, this is my practical experience. In fact, this is in large part the very reason I argue against anti-anonymity provisions of Law in the US. If we are to avoid the sort of police state nightmares you describe in USSR and of which we have heard in other countries, we need to make damned certain we fight tooth and nail against the very sorts of legal and political conditions that create those nightmares. Anti-anonymity Law is is one such pre-condition for the sort of scenario you described in the USSR. If anonymity is taken as the normative case, such that the ideas presented (e.g. "my neighbor is dealing crack") are never accepted without supporting documentation and demonstrable fact, you won't see the kind of scare/smear tactics used amongst citizens as you describe - or at least, when they are attempted, the results are far, far less damaging.
Note also that these sorts of tactics can already be used - and commonly are, actually, in viturperative divorces, etc - with little or practical effect, and the reason the affect is limited is because ano
I get the impression you're trolling, but ...
You might consider for a moment that once anonymity to outlawed - as you seem to suggest it should be - this statement of yours:
Might be made grounds for a breach of your Right to Speech.
Stating [and indeed protecting] a Right to a behavior is not synonymous with encouraging that behavior - when the courts uphold a Right, they are simply saying that you may not be punished [under the Law] for that behavior. Encouraging a behavior would be e.g. providing a tax break for those engaging in it. That's not what's going on in this case, so the argument that the courts are encouraging the behavior of anonymous speech is spurious and moot.
This is also a spurious argument:
First, we're discussing Rights, not ability. The two are quite different. You may have the Right to Free Speech, but you may not have the ability to exercise that Right. Likewise, you may have the ability to perform some behavior, but you may not have a Right to engage in that exercise.
Second, there is no "say whatever and not face the consequences" Right granted under any Laws, here. You are - still - not allowed [under the Law] to "shout 'FIRE' in a crowded theatre" ... unless, perhaps, there really is a fire.
Futhermore (and this refers also to some of your other statements), there is implicit in the Right to Free Speech a responsiblity on the behalf of the audience as well as the speaker. That is: You should not expect to be able to act blindly based on the ravings of random soap-box mounted street-corner lunatics. As a member of a Society which does in fact support the individual's Right to Speech, you are expected to draw your own conclusions and act [or NOT] accordingly.
Nonsense. Quite the opposite, in fact. Anonymous speech promotes debate based on ideas instead of personalities.
If the US is to be [as has been suggested a few times] a "Nation of Laws, not a nation of men" (a.k.a. we have the "Rule of Law") then anonymous speech would not be at all unusual. Of course, if you as an individual choose to base your evaluation of some particular speech based on what you do or do not know about the speaker, then - well, you're just exercising your Personal Responsibility [as mentioned above], aren't you.
No. I don't believe embarrassment is considered a "check" on behavior under the Law, since any such emotion is based largely on the individual(s) involved and their morality (or lack thereof), and is therefore an element of "personality" [see above] and not properly something that should be made Law.
Again, no. Neither of us are giving up any Rights or Freedoms - socially or legally - when I say "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." In fact, we are agreeing on our respective Rights if we agree to that statement, and thereby defining our Freedoms. You do not have the Right to punch me in the nose - you might think you have the Freedom to do so, but if you try to exercise it, I will assert my Rights in defense of my Freedom from being punched in the nose.
Also, note that above you are arguing against intruding on the life of the guy who is
See also: Confederation vs Federation
The US Federal Government became an increasingly centralized concentration of power - a very choice plum, ripe for the picking by the neo-con ["fascist": I.E. "National Socialist"] regime that seized power in 2000 and instituted what has since become the Dubya Regime.
Did anyone expect that the so-called USA PATRIOT Act would not be abused by the FBI? If so, who? And when? The reason the Act itself is an abuse is very simply that it was designed and implemented specifically so it could be abused - the fairy tales told on Faux News notwithstanding. Does anyone not see that?
The real question is (imo): What about all those agencies that haven't been auditted yet? Remember, this obscenity of an Act of Congress (the USA PATRIOT Act) was mandated for use across the spectrum - from Federal to state and local levels.
Could you give an example of what sorts of tools are used [for Wireless network topology design]? It sounds as though you're talking about cellular phone networks, which may be a viable model for muni WiFi design, I'm just not aware of exactly how cell networks are designed...
It was my understanding that WiFi networks use "public" frequencies (54Ghz, 900Mhz, etc) - what frequency licensing are we talking about, here? Again, this sounds like a cellular data issue...
Your point about the ineptitude of the cable companies is well taken - Time-Warner is bad, and Comcast is worse, in my personal experience. They have shown themselves to be wholly inept at data network deployment and management, and greedy to boot. Their stupidity is codified right up front into the user agreements, in fact - they try to claim that some particular processor speed and RAM requirements are "minimum system requirements" for network access - as though a DHCP client and a TCP/IP stack required a half Gig of RAM to function...
While many of the slash/geek crowd typically responds w/ l33t h4x0r tales of how they spoofed the system requirements mandated by e.g. Comcast, the fact remains that Comcast will lock users out of the network for showing the temerity to e.g. run Linux or BSD. Again, despite the so-what attitude of the geeks, the problem here is that the [artificial] connection requirements imposed by [specifically] the cable companies are a major component of the so-called Digital Divide.
Comcast declines to provide universal access (i.e. low-income neighborhoods are not served or are underserved) citing lack of users - then proceeds to ensure that no low-income users are "eligible" to use the network, since the minimum system requirements are set to support the $1100 system price-point.
That is, while the low-income customers in my hood may be able to afford the $50/month cable-modem, they probably cannot afford to spend more than $500 for a the computer that will connect to it - if that. So while I can set up and network all the $25 salvage computers we can lay hands on through-out the hood, we can only get hackhaul connection either thru the phone company, or at some point where there I can afford to set up a spanking new Windows box - and if Comcast finds out it's the drop at that point is working as a backhaul gateway, they will shut down the entire neighborhood by shutting down the backhaul network [and probably prosecuting the unfortunate individual in whose name that node is registered].
There is an additional problem that - Comcast explicitly forbade us from using one high-end laptop to provision multiple cable modems. Again, this was not for techinical reasons - they simply want to make sure that no one on their network is spending less than $2k to get conncected, or less than $100/mo for service.
Muni WiFi is the [trivial] solution to this - if the city owns the backhaul connection, and they tell me I can't connect to it, I will sue them. Suing Comcast or Time Warner is problematic, since they simply say "sure you can connect, as long as you have the h/w we specified - it's in the user agreement, if you don't like it, don't buy the service". Which brings us full circle to the real root arguement: Is network access a vital utility as I claim, or is it supplementary consumer entertainment [a function of cable TV], as the cable giants claim?
Note that the experience I'm describing here w/ Comcast is not theoretical - this is [fairly] recent experience - Time Warner didn't prohibit low cost connections, but does not support them - which is
will do - i just found walmartwatch.com today, so i may take this over there, too
Okay, yes, I remember this second incident - it is not the one to which I was referring. I remember this one because it was so bizarre - the incident I referred to happened some months before this - the dates are not lining up with my recollection, though.
I spent some time searching for the original reports after responding to you post previously, and found basically nothing at all, but I do remember specific information from the newspaper stories (there were at least two in the Rockford paper):
I remember thinking how odd when the story about the pregnant woman hit CNN - such an eerie similarity - I don't think they mentioned the earlier incident, though
Note that in the story you cite, the statement that the woman in question was pregnant was later shown to have been false.
Given the apparent lack of visibility for the first incident, I would very much like to visit the morgue of the Rockford paper and look for the stories I remember seeing - just to verify this to myself, now ...
Still, I feel it's fairly clear what happened to the first story - I'm sure Walmart's publicity flacks put on a major push to play it down - they kept it out of the major networks specifically so that now - years later - anyone bringing it up will be expected to prove that it ever happened - how convenient for them that there was a second incident so nearby and so close in time - as is demonstrated by the results of your search: I can't prove it happened, you present a plausible alternative explanation, and everyone except me is convinced... Of course, I'm going to start saying that Walmart created the second incident to whitewash the first, which will marginalize me a bit more, but frankly, I don't really give a crap - as with the [other] neo-cons: Marginalizing people whose memory extends beyond last week won't make their actions any less socio-pathic, nor will it create a better informed, more thoughtful populace. It will prop up their failing paradigms for a few more cycles, but it will also push them further to the "big" side of "the bigger they are, the harder they fall"...
So - anyone making book on whether or not the Rockford shooting(s) was actually just a semi-public failure of a beta version of the facial-recognition/full-body-language profiling Walmart is now applying using their in-store video surveillance networks?
I can see it now - controller in the command and control center gets a red flag box around the waistband and right wrist of the shopper in aisle 3; a beeper goes off; controller alerts security; they box her in and herd her toward the secure room in the back of the store; open the door of secure room and rush her, sweeping her inside where the door is then shut and locks automatically; confused, she stands there for a moment, then wheels around and tries to open the door; she is order to move away from the door; she moves the hand that was indicated by the software a little bit too close to the area at her waistband - the cops, primed for just that move by the heads-up they got from the software - blaze away the Glocks, splattering her guts and brains all over
Amazing - revisionism in action. Just to make sure we're both referring to the same event: If memory serves, this event occurred in 2001 - (I can nail the date down more precisely if necessary by looking up the dates I was there in Rockford) - there was a "Grand Opening" event going on for the store in question - I believe it was the first "SuperCenter" opening in Rockford.
The local paper (don't recall the name of it, but I'm quite sure it was not the Chicago paper, since I don't read that one) was very explicit that a) no 3rd gun was found, b) the "shoplifting" was not shown - i.e. the woman had no goods on her when killed, the officers were moonlighting as Walmart security, and were not on duty at the time of the shooting. No store employees were injured.
This was a white woman - I believe in her 30s - there was some question about whether or not she may have been a mental patient or on disability.
This is from memory - I don't have a cite - but I am very sure of the bits I've listed above - if there is a Sun Times story to the contrary, I'd very much like to have a cite to it, since the event was well publicized at the time, and I'm relatively certain that I can produce records to show the Sun's "spin doctoring" if they are saying anything to the contrary...
Of course, if there have been other shootings at that store it wouldn't surprise me at all, since overall both Walmart and the local cops seemed quite satisfied with themselves over the incident, and would certainly - in the event they had a chance to do it all over again - rememeber to plant a gun on the "perp", since repeated shootings of unarmed persons might eventually draw unwanted attention.
I would postulate that the event you mention is probably a more recent shooting, since the "official" spin on the story within the month after the shooting was to simply sweep it under the rug and encourage people to forget it. Too much info came out too quickly for them to be able to flatly deny what happened. Although I do find it entirely plausible that five years later the official line could have been modified slightly once they were able to claim that it was far enough in the past that no one would remember it accurately... Unfortunately, I had some "marker" events going on that have caused me to remember it quite vividly.
If there had been store employees shot or killed during the incident I mentioned, I would not have bothered to mention it, and would not particularly care about a perp getting shot; I do favor shooting people who are shooting at unarmed civilians - I also question the comptence of anyone - officer or otherwise - who requires two full clips to do drop a defenseless "suspect" at close range in a locked 9x12 room. What'd she do, try to hide under a table? They said she tried to open the door, which strongly implies she was standing and not obscured by e.g. furniture. Regardless, there should have been an investigation - a fuck up of that magnitude - on duty or off - should have resulted in those two particular James Bond wannabes having their license to kill permanently revoked...
Sounds like "meritism" to me. Persons are discriminated against on the basis of merit. How is that any better [or worse] than e.g. racism or sexism? Is there some way this "merit" you talk about can be accrued? Is it not just as inherent to the individual as are race and gender?
Merit is relative - a value judgement. Until you develop an Objective measure of Merit, the definition of Capitalism you gave is just a rewording of "Survival of the fittest". It trivially leads to counter intuitive results: If it survived, it is the fittest.
The problem with Capitalism is a scoping problem - it can work, provided all agree that it is Good and Right and that it Works. Just as Apartheid or the Third Reich could be said to "work" [i.e. it "survivied" so it had to be the "fittest" - at least, within a certain analytical scope]. Note that both Apartheid and the Third Reich were notably sexist and racist. Since those sorts of systems operate on a severely constrained World View, and within severe temporal limits, it seems natural that they would also adopt the [short-term] sort of pseudo-capitalism that you refer to
Nice imagery! I've been wondering about this too - why are we so hesitant to get up, go out, and burn something down? I mean, if the RIAA was e.g. losing 2 lawyers to, say, accidental death or "random" violence for each suit they filed, not only would the overall number of lawyers be reduced (generally counted a Good Thing, iirc), but the cost of filing the lawsuits would go up as the supply of lawyers ran short.
Likewise, if a "record label" office were firebombed each time a new batch of lawsuits were filed, the member organizations of the RIAA might eventually begin to realize just how unpopular they really are. This might draw the attention of the courts and the congress-critters when the next constitutional challenge to their copyright bullshite came up, or the next wave of corporate-bought legistlation hit the floor in congress.
There's an old saying: "Every now and then you have to hang a few judges."
If the government won't move to protect the citizens, the citizens must defend themselves.
And don't let's go to that nonsense about the [alleged] moral disparity between RIAA lawsuits and blowing up a few offices or whacking a few lawyers. The damage those fukkers do to individuals and families with their unbridled racketeering and systematic abuses under color of Law makes simple murder look like child's play. These fukkers have created a systemactic culture of death by poverty - the same one enabled and supported by the Regime that overthrew the US Federal government in 2000. Poor people, brown people - these are their victims, and if you think it's not murder I suggest you spend a little time outside your white-bread W.A.S.P. enclaves and find out what the hell really is being done in your name...
This is a critical point that is widely overlooked. In fact, this is a tivial way to tell who - "outside agitators" or disaffected citizens - is actually responsible for any damage. It's also the difference between Revolution and simple Anarchy.
To put it in plain terms: The Man wants you to burn down your own neighboorhood - and to do it as loudly and wildly as possible. The Man will just bulldoze the smoking wreckage and put up another office tower - and he'll be relieved that so many were killed, since that's just that many fewer that he has to pretend to "re-locate"...
I will say again - if Tim McVeigh had been for real, he would have blown up an insurance company office, not the Federal Building. There was no Revolution there, only an empty gesture conceived by those same entities who wanted to be percieved as the victims of his action - the Federal agencies. The needed money, the created a reason to get some allocated. Likewise WTC - the Regime needed a reason to take down the Constitution, so they created one... Reichstag Fire; whatever. What's so remarkable to me is that not only did people not take up arms in the defense of their nation in 2000, they didn't even blink when their TVs told them the attacks in 2001 came from the outside.
Actually, I don't think this is the principle problem - in saying it, you are blaming the victims, after all - bad form, and usually innaccurate.
I think the principle problem is t