I'd argue it's more that lawyers have a nasty habit of convincing stupid people who are upset about something to pursue frivolous lawsuits. Schools can weather bitching and angry letters. What they're paranoid about is getting sued for things beyond their control, so they think a piece of paper with a signature will prevent that.
As someone who has been sued for $200K for giving someone a sore knee (trying to get money from my insurance provider), I'm convinced sometimes greedy lawsuits just happen and there's not much you can do to avoid it. In the case of a nuclear meltdown, parents would sue for not providing lead shields and rad-x.
If Inhofe denies the consensus that climate change is real and is willing to screw over the future for his fossil-fuel industry customers, he's probably basing other policy decisions not on utilitarian principles but on self-interest.
For instance, he voted against raising the debt ceiling. I'm no economist, and it's a matter of opinion (or crystal balls) as to whether the cuts the republicans are trying to get as ransom are a good idea or not, but based on his position on climate change, that really makes me suspect he'd tank the economy in an attempt to get tax cuts for his rich friends.
Or worse, he's one of a disturbing number of representatives who seem to be religiously conservative, who ignores reality when it disagrees with his worldview. That can be more dangerous than simple greed in any numbers, since it can't be reasoned with.
Anyway, as far as China, it's less likely that China will reduce their emissions until it's financially advantageous if we're still pumping out carbon like there's no tomorrow, and Inhofe is yet another barrier to changing that.
The NSA, facebook, and google seem to demonstrate that spying on everyone requires shockingly little investment and gets good returns even when you don't know exactly what you want to find in your spying.
Plus, there seem to be a lot of stuff that is worth knowing. There's oil and other natural resources in Africa, right? Seems like intercepting geological reports within western companies, or whoever, about where the oil might be could be very advantageous to China.
There's a valid point that your sarcasm hides: high school girls are often stubborn, irrational, and value popularity of a product more than the product itself. Aside from microsoft employees and apple fanatics, high school girls are the group I'd most expect to be resistant to changing OS. Yet they seem to have no problem with it.
It drives home the point that the only reason people don't switch to linux is inertia. It's not that people reject linux, even very stubborn, crazy groups of people.
(Disclaimer: I may still be a little bitter at high school girls from when they wouldn't talk to me when I was in high school.)
That is well and good, but if you refuse to buy any phone whose manufacturer has not done some shady stuff, what does that leave you with? I don't immediately recall hearing anything about HTC being evil, but that's undoubtedly due more to me not really being interested than them being a company of saints.
I suspect that the rich people's cars were safer anyway. You probably can't take a Bentley to a chop shop, and the police probably ONLY really investigate stolen cars that are worth significantly more than my 2006 toyota.
Businesses can either be agents of bringing innovation to society and driving it forward technologically, or they can oppose it, and that depends a great deal on who is in charge.
What's boring about this story is background. Was Mansfield one of the guys who was more interested in lawsuits and making money, or was he one of the tech executives who was busy pushing things forward? I could look it up I suppose.
And Jesus wasn't a Christian, but those humps sure put his mug on everything. Then again, they chose the instrument of his death as their symbol, so I guess that kind of cancels it out.
And in yet MORE fairness, for everything you think goes in that 10%, you will find people online loudly telling the world how much they hate that thing.
I will demonstrate this by trolling for such people:
Anyone care to comment on... hang on, just got a text that TF2 is extremely overrated and blah blah blah.. and oh, I've just been tapped on the shoulder and someone is telling me that sex is overrated. My wife.
Show many ANY time in nature where plants have modified themselves with ANIMALS and FISH and then and ONLY then will I buy your bullshit, because in case you ain't been keeping up on current events they have been mixing everything from starfish to grasshopper into plants to increase yields and make them grow larger.
I had fish with asparagus the other day. It was pretty tasty. Is there supposed to be something inherently wrong with mixing species?
Studies show that hands-free phones aren't any safer while driving than holding it up to your ear. Everyone assumes the dangers of driving on the phone come from just having one hand, but it's the distraction factor, not the having one hand. When this is brought up, everyone says "then what's the difference between talking to a passenger and a phone?" The answer is "your brain for some reason treats the two different, and the passenger has their own eyes to compensate or add attention to the road."
So your rage against bluetooth while driving should be equally directed at using speakerphone while driving.
Depends on the type of censors. There are probably some people who honestly think the entire world needs to be nerfed to protect kids against accidents. There are some censors who simply hate sex due to religious reasons aren't concerned about guns, they're clearly more concerned about preventing sex than violence. And the professionals are paid by the RIAA and MPAA. They do use that language, but only because it's an effective way to kill the internet that threatens their business.
I dislike Eric Holder intensely, but I'm going to have to call foul on the Black Panther thing. Exactly TWO members of the black panthers were outside of a polling place. ZERO complaints were filed by voters. As far as whether Holder had the case dropped because he's racist and the whole Obama administration hates black people with a passion, it's a case of lawyer said other lawyer and conservative blogs said. I'd hardly call that definitive proof that he lies. It sounds to me like having zero complaints to work with and one out of context video is pretty weak evidence for a federal case to go forward.
Again, I think he is a liar. Possibly even for a politician. I just think you weaken your case by bringing up that bit.
If he wrote a bot that worked on their system and released it into the wild, I'm pretty sure the part about "improving the overall reservations process" will mean at least that they'll find a way to break his bot. That's something that is at least partially not bullshit.
This has always been evident to anyone with half a brain, yet it hasn't stopped the insanity. So perhaps we can use the paranoia of terrorism to do good things.
I don't know really anything about GPS. I've heard the military has one or two better systems which are barred from civilian use, but aren't that hard to use. Maybe we could use "OMG TERRORISM!" as an excuse to demand it for everyone. Alternatively, if military grade GPS is vulnerable to the same attack here, then it seems like that could have actual security implications. "Oh no, a plane is off course" is less of a threat than "Oh no, a cruise missile is off course" but maybe no one gave a shit until they mentioned terrorism.
Anyway, I think we should be using the constructed threat for actual important things, for instance, getting regulation on antibiotic use. The brits are starting to use terrorism as a reason why we need to clamp down on antibiotic abuse. A tool is only as good or as evil as the person using it. "We have to protect against the terrorists" has been used mainly to justify writing big checks to the military industrial complex, and ideally the voters would, as you suggest, grow brains and relax about terrorists. In the meantime, we could use the tool for good.
What karma? We didn't vote for the spying. We knew, or rather some of us knew, that Obama wasn't going to change much when it came to national security theater and control, but at no point was that a question that was put to us. We brought it up with the patriot act and others, those efforts were obviously unsuccesful, and looking back, I'm still not sure how that campaign could have succeeded. Seriously. If I had to go back to before 9/11, I STILL wouldn't know how to keep it from happening. Let alone how to turn it back now.
Not to say I'm giving up, and hopefully neither is anyone else, but this seems like saying to someone who lost their house to a tsunami "Karma's a bitch: you should have prevented the tide from coming in."
Or you might find yourself taxed, a' la PBS or the BBC, in order that these entities have operating funds. Some might applaud that, but some will scream bloody murder about the additional levy.
If it happens that we rid ourselves of commercials AND get something like another PBS or BBC, then I can tolerate a lot of screaming from some people.
Cameron gets to go to his shrill and reactionary base and go "see, now the kiddies can't see the titties!"
"... online. Which is much worse somehow than seeing them in the newspapers somehow." They still have that, right? Was it the Sun that had naked women on the second page?
Slashdot Mirror
I'd argue it's more that lawyers have a nasty habit of convincing stupid people who are upset about something to pursue frivolous lawsuits. Schools can weather bitching and angry letters. What they're paranoid about is getting sued for things beyond their control, so they think a piece of paper with a signature will prevent that.
As someone who has been sued for $200K for giving someone a sore knee (trying to get money from my insurance provider), I'm convinced sometimes greedy lawsuits just happen and there's not much you can do to avoid it. In the case of a nuclear meltdown, parents would sue for not providing lead shields and rad-x.
If Inhofe denies the consensus that climate change is real and is willing to screw over the future for his fossil-fuel industry customers, he's probably basing other policy decisions not on utilitarian principles but on self-interest.
For instance, he voted against raising the debt ceiling. I'm no economist, and it's a matter of opinion (or crystal balls) as to whether the cuts the republicans are trying to get as ransom are a good idea or not, but based on his position on climate change, that really makes me suspect he'd tank the economy in an attempt to get tax cuts for his rich friends.
Or worse, he's one of a disturbing number of representatives who seem to be religiously conservative, who ignores reality when it disagrees with his worldview. That can be more dangerous than simple greed in any numbers, since it can't be reasoned with.
Anyway, as far as China, it's less likely that China will reduce their emissions until it's financially advantageous if we're still pumping out carbon like there's no tomorrow, and Inhofe is yet another barrier to changing that.
The NSA, facebook, and google seem to demonstrate that spying on everyone requires shockingly little investment and gets good returns even when you don't know exactly what you want to find in your spying.
Plus, there seem to be a lot of stuff that is worth knowing. There's oil and other natural resources in Africa, right? Seems like intercepting geological reports within western companies, or whoever, about where the oil might be could be very advantageous to China.
There's a valid point that your sarcasm hides: high school girls are often stubborn, irrational, and value popularity of a product more than the product itself. Aside from microsoft employees and apple fanatics, high school girls are the group I'd most expect to be resistant to changing OS. Yet they seem to have no problem with it.
It drives home the point that the only reason people don't switch to linux is inertia. It's not that people reject linux, even very stubborn, crazy groups of people.
(Disclaimer: I may still be a little bitter at high school girls from when they wouldn't talk to me when I was in high school.)
That is well and good, but if you refuse to buy any phone whose manufacturer has not done some shady stuff, what does that leave you with? I don't immediately recall hearing anything about HTC being evil, but that's undoubtedly due more to me not really being interested than them being a company of saints.
I suspect that the rich people's cars were safer anyway. You probably can't take a Bentley to a chop shop, and the police probably ONLY really investigate stolen cars that are worth significantly more than my 2006 toyota.
Businesses can either be agents of bringing innovation to society and driving it forward technologically, or they can oppose it, and that depends a great deal on who is in charge.
What's boring about this story is background. Was Mansfield one of the guys who was more interested in lawsuits and making money, or was he one of the tech executives who was busy pushing things forward? I could look it up I suppose.
I suspect that many people signing this petition will be brits while the lynch mob twitterers are mostly american.
And Jesus wasn't a Christian, but those humps sure put his mug on everything. Then again, they chose the instrument of his death as their symbol, so I guess that kind of cancels it out.
And in yet MORE fairness, for everything you think goes in that 10%, you will find people online loudly telling the world how much they hate that thing.
I will demonstrate this by trolling for such people:
Ahem... I LOVE the following things:
-Rap music
-Halo 3
-Team fortress 2
-Sex
-The Matrix
-Inception
-Beer
Anyone care to comment on... hang on, just got a text that TF2 is extremely overrated and blah blah blah.. and oh, I've just been tapped on the shoulder and someone is telling me that sex is overrated. My wife.
Show many ANY time in nature where plants have modified themselves with ANIMALS and FISH and then and ONLY then will I buy your bullshit, because in case you ain't been keeping up on current events they have been mixing everything from starfish to grasshopper into plants to increase yields and make them grow larger.
I had fish with asparagus the other day. It was pretty tasty. Is there supposed to be something inherently wrong with mixing species?
Studies show that hands-free phones aren't any safer while driving than holding it up to your ear. Everyone assumes the dangers of driving on the phone come from just having one hand, but it's the distraction factor, not the having one hand. When this is brought up, everyone says "then what's the difference between talking to a passenger and a phone?" The answer is "your brain for some reason treats the two different, and the passenger has their own eyes to compensate or add attention to the road."
So your rage against bluetooth while driving should be equally directed at using speakerphone while driving.
The resulting bodies and persons do not represent the student body or its values.
Ideally, college students would be negatively affected by more student government stuff and would learn the price of apathy in democratic systems.
Depends on the type of censors. There are probably some people who honestly think the entire world needs to be nerfed to protect kids against accidents. There are some censors who simply hate sex due to religious reasons aren't concerned about guns, they're clearly more concerned about preventing sex than violence. And the professionals are paid by the RIAA and MPAA. They do use that language, but only because it's an effective way to kill the internet that threatens their business.
Hi strawman argument, nice to meet you.
I dislike Eric Holder intensely, but I'm going to have to call foul on the Black Panther thing. Exactly TWO members of the black panthers were outside of a polling place. ZERO complaints were filed by voters. As far as whether Holder had the case dropped because he's racist and the whole Obama administration hates black people with a passion, it's a case of lawyer said other lawyer and conservative blogs said. I'd hardly call that definitive proof that he lies. It sounds to me like having zero complaints to work with and one out of context video is pretty weak evidence for a federal case to go forward.
Again, I think he is a liar. Possibly even for a politician. I just think you weaken your case by bringing up that bit.
If he wrote a bot that worked on their system and released it into the wild, I'm pretty sure the part about "improving the overall reservations process" will mean at least that they'll find a way to break his bot. That's something that is at least partially not bullshit.
I'm confused. Don't hipsters hate popular things? Wouldn't they be making bots to make reservations only in restaurants that have no one else in them?
This has always been evident to anyone with half a brain, yet it hasn't stopped the insanity. So perhaps we can use the paranoia of terrorism to do good things.
I don't know really anything about GPS. I've heard the military has one or two better systems which are barred from civilian use, but aren't that hard to use. Maybe we could use "OMG TERRORISM!" as an excuse to demand it for everyone. Alternatively, if military grade GPS is vulnerable to the same attack here, then it seems like that could have actual security implications. "Oh no, a plane is off course" is less of a threat than "Oh no, a cruise missile is off course" but maybe no one gave a shit until they mentioned terrorism.
Anyway, I think we should be using the constructed threat for actual important things, for instance, getting regulation on antibiotic use. The brits are starting to use terrorism as a reason why we need to clamp down on antibiotic abuse. A tool is only as good or as evil as the person using it. "We have to protect against the terrorists" has been used mainly to justify writing big checks to the military industrial complex, and ideally the voters would, as you suggest, grow brains and relax about terrorists. In the meantime, we could use the tool for good.
but you voted for spying by not doing enough to have this amendment passed.
Like WHAT? What are we supposed to do that we're not doing now?
What karma? We didn't vote for the spying. We knew, or rather some of us knew, that Obama wasn't going to change much when it came to national security theater and control, but at no point was that a question that was put to us. We brought it up with the patriot act and others, those efforts were obviously unsuccesful, and looking back, I'm still not sure how that campaign could have succeeded. Seriously. If I had to go back to before 9/11, I STILL wouldn't know how to keep it from happening. Let alone how to turn it back now.
Not to say I'm giving up, and hopefully neither is anyone else, but this seems like saying to someone who lost their house to a tsunami "Karma's a bitch: you should have prevented the tide from coming in."
Or you might find yourself taxed, a' la PBS or the BBC, in order that these entities have operating funds. Some might applaud that, but some will scream bloody murder about the additional levy.
If it happens that we rid ourselves of commercials AND get something like another PBS or BBC, then I can tolerate a lot of screaming from some people.
A billion dollars they're spending. The NIH, the people who fund research that is going to cure cancer, they had their funding cut about 1.5 billion.
Hey, NSA! I'm thinking highly unpatriotic, violent thoughts right now!
Cameron gets to go to his shrill and reactionary base and go "see, now the kiddies can't see the titties!"
"... online. Which is much worse somehow than seeing them in the newspapers somehow." They still have that, right? Was it the Sun that had naked women on the second page?
Hmm... I've never thought about the sea urchin numbers and red queen as being the same thing. DAMNIT, you one upped me again!