For me it wasn't about love and hate it was fear and loathing. I feared that I'd not be able to afford a cell phone, and I loathed the reason why. Cell phones are damn handy. Almost nobody sells a phone anymore, it's all about smart phones. And they're expensive when adding up the monthly charges. I want a dumb phone. I don't use all the features of a smart phone, so why pay smart phone prices? That's dumb. I had AT&T ever since I bought my RAZR outright because AT&T was the first carrier I got who gave me a phone that didn't work. I really like my RAZR, it just works. As a phone. I tried explaining this all to AT&T and they wanted nothing to do with me unless I handed over spendy ducats every month in usage fees for things I don't use. Why should they care, all other carriers charged about the same if you wanted just a phone. Except T-Mobile. I saved $20 a month by shutting off internet, texting, and even got my RAZR to work with their service after going round and round with AT&T about it being my phone bought much, much longer than 2 years ago and, no, I'm not interested in any bundle or new phone just unlock mine thank you.
If you want to talk about my love/hate with AT&T I'd have to talk about how Comcast won't do (cable upstairs wonky) for TV or internet and AT&T is charging about the same, bundled or otherwise, with Comcast but again, $20 more per month than a local DSL provider than just now is able to offer line *and* service for the same price rather than just an add-on to a required AT&T line.
To those who say less competition means better service, maybe. I doubt it, maybe in sports it's a level of performance competition, but business? I don't doubt that competition means better price competition and more choices competing for my selection, and will be hard pressed to believe otherwise.
No, the timing is not surprising. I gave up Comcast cable internet because the cable in my bedroom wasn't clear enough for TV and the second bedroom only barely so - only place I could get reliable TV and internet was in the living room and while I know I can just throw wireless onto the modem, which I already have, I don't have wireless in all my computers especially the one that has to go upstairs where TV is not and internet *might* work on a good day and I can't risk it not only for Netflix but also for VoIP. So I went with AT&T DSL for internet and satellite for TV. Way cheaper than either Comcast or AT&T bundled services, even if I threw in the phone. Now I'm not so sure. I mean, how does my Netflix compete with DSL? I can see a thin argument about UVerse, since that's the TV end of "network" function, but... really thin. At least I can look into another DSL provider and kick AT&T to the curb of just a phone line (which I had hoped to renegotiate for just DSL no phone that I don't use kinda service).
Ya, I suppose Native American sounds too much like African American which, when my friend retorts when called that, "I'm not from Africa, I'm from Florida." Recently I've encountered a trend of referring to all American Indians as a single ethnic group, too (like saying Native European or something); so I'm not sure how to address the different regional aspects of the Americas. Myself I've got a varied background that includes an unspecified and undocumented tribe from colonial era America, as well as three or more groups of Europeans of which only Swedish and German ancestry is known for certain - tho I'm all Californian (if that means anything). The folk I know who are either still a member of a local tribe or have roots to one prefer to be called either Indian or by their first name.
Yup. That's what I was trying to articulate. Not all slaves were Negroes, and not all Negroes were slaves. Words used during the time the book was written and the time the book depicts are as accurate as Twain wanted them to be, which was for the effect and intent of emotional impact not historical record. The cure is worse than the disease when it comes to this type of "retroactive censoring" of words and ideas expressed in art.
Tom announces that Jim has been free for months: Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will, but Tom chose not to reveal Jim's freedom so he could come up with an elaborate plan to rescue Jim.
Were the characters in the book slaves, or is that just the new politically correct term for African American and Native American? How about excising the icky bits from our past by calling everywhere and everyone someplace and someone instead of Africa or America or Lawyer, Butcher, etc... That'd be oh so easy to understand what the past is, ay? Convincing ourselves that the past wasn't something that it was is called delusion, not reality or health. Words spoken in the past cannot be removed even with a time machine any more than smacking someone in the nose doesn't hurt if you say you're sorry.
So the ONLY people willfully kept in the dark are the soldiers meant to protect us?
I see it as systemic of the privatization disease, since the latest leaks were more about the money men and CEOs than the politicos and soldier men. Kind of like being a union worker that learns the company has outsourced at a higher rate of pay, not lower.
Healthcare is not a personal liberty, it's someone else's goods and services.
Talk about piracy...
I view healthcare as a personal responsibilty, not any kind of liberty. It's hard to exercise any liberties when you are sick or injured. For that matter, it's hard to meet any other personal responsibility than personal health when you are sick or injured, depending on the extent of injury (which is itself a lack of health), which is why healthcare isn't really a cut and dry issue of personal versus communal liability, IMO.
Not even if you live in Nevada, I'd imagine - since the State isn't in the business of selling health insurance in the first place. But if my insurance provider has offices only in Nevada and I live in California does that count as interstate commerce?
I think the issue is not that TSA isn't a private entity, it's that the search is mandated as legal so anything found during the search is admissible in court as evidence of contraband (either drugs or weapons, both are proof of illegal activity) whereas an illegal search, such as one without probable cause, is not.
How will one be recognized as an official journalist? I've heard of a license to kill being properly vetted, but a license just to shoot? Ya, I work for a newspaper...
If someone is not randomly selected for screening, they can take weapons into the airport. The US has a single point of screening, which is burdened with the "we don't profile" excuse of randomness that makes it less effective than the Israeli method of screening with behavior profiling, regardless of ethnicity or citizenship. The US is larger and has a more diverse ethnicity and citizenry of travelers, true; but Israel has a larger problem with attempts to bypass their security than the US, and their security procedures for flight safety are more effective *and* less intrusive.
I don't understand how the specifics of the Israeli security solution that has evolved to what it is today is considered to be something of no value to a US system, regardless of its roots. It also doesn't rationalize the ineffectiveness of the US system represented by these scanners and enhanced pat-downs, so the scale of a nation's size is support of taking those extra steps rather than finding fault with them just because they're not made in America.
Having everybody go thru more advanced scanners will only be possible if said scanners do not pose a greater health risk of slowly killing everyone who boards a plane (or enters an airport) than the chances of quickly killing a few who fly. I'm sure that if such a scanner existed both the Israeli and US airports would want to use them. My point is that in the US it seems that only those would be used (along with other mostly limited procedures you mention) whereas in Israel and other countries they'd be supplemental to other more efficient *and* effective measures.
This whole "we fear more because we are greater" mentality is what allows ineffective and invasive actions by the US government to evolve into degradation of civil and human rights that we are witnessing today. Yes, the scanners are in the news more than the effective screening methods; because they are humiliating and degrading to our citizenry and to people in general while at the same time being arguably ineffective, hazardous, and suspect of a hidden agenda for profit and/or limits to freedom.
"The reason the US doesn't have a system like Israel's is that most flights in the US are domestic."
So you are saying that US domestic flights are more international than Israeli flights (as far as ethnicity of passengers), and that the only reason their system works in Israel is because they only screen Arab-looking individuals rather than randomly picking people out of line, and those two reasons are why a system won't work in the US?
I'm speaking of the multi-layered security approach of behavior profiling as far as what I mean by "like Israeli" system, not the racial profiling you describe. We have a single point of failure called the scanner. Even with the enhanced pat-downs and nudie scanners it is possible to get a weapon or a bomb past that checkpoint because the scans and pat-downs are not applied evenly to all passengers. To do so would be even more inefficient than either the existing US system or the Israeli system. I won't address the racial tensions in Israel because I've never been in an Israeli airport. In US airports, however, I can say that there is still a measure of hostility towards people of color, not just Arab-looking people, and as you've described the white US citizens and non-citizens are not scrutinized as much (tho sometimes they are randomly screened).
>The reason the US doesn't have a system like Israel's is that most flights in the US are domestic.
Seriously? What then is preventing the US from implementing Israel's international flght security system as a US domestic flight security system. From an geographic standpoint, flying from California to Oregon is as much an international flight as any flight leaving Israel; so what is the difference?
I was thinking of replying to a previous post about Beatles being outdated, but I'd rather not. Especially now that I see your post, which articulates the concept more clearly than merely saying, "...these are words that go together well," still applies today as much as it did when they were written and put to music.
Slashdot Mirror
For me it wasn't about love and hate it was fear and loathing. I feared that I'd not be able to afford a cell phone, and I loathed the reason why. Cell phones are damn handy. Almost nobody sells a phone anymore, it's all about smart phones. And they're expensive when adding up the monthly charges. I want a dumb phone. I don't use all the features of a smart phone, so why pay smart phone prices? That's dumb. I had AT&T ever since I bought my RAZR outright because AT&T was the first carrier I got who gave me a phone that didn't work. I really like my RAZR, it just works. As a phone. I tried explaining this all to AT&T and they wanted nothing to do with me unless I handed over spendy ducats every month in usage fees for things I don't use. Why should they care, all other carriers charged about the same if you wanted just a phone. Except T-Mobile. I saved $20 a month by shutting off internet, texting, and even got my RAZR to work with their service after going round and round with AT&T about it being my phone bought much, much longer than 2 years ago and, no, I'm not interested in any bundle or new phone just unlock mine thank you.
If you want to talk about my love/hate with AT&T I'd have to talk about how Comcast won't do (cable upstairs wonky) for TV or internet and AT&T is charging about the same, bundled or otherwise, with Comcast but again, $20 more per month than a local DSL provider than just now is able to offer line *and* service for the same price rather than just an add-on to a required AT&T line.
To those who say less competition means better service, maybe. I doubt it, maybe in sports it's a level of performance competition, but business? I don't doubt that competition means better price competition and more choices competing for my selection, and will be hard pressed to believe otherwise.
No, the timing is not surprising. I gave up Comcast cable internet because the cable in my bedroom wasn't clear enough for TV and the second bedroom only barely so - only place I could get reliable TV and internet was in the living room and while I know I can just throw wireless onto the modem, which I already have, I don't have wireless in all my computers especially the one that has to go upstairs where TV is not and internet *might* work on a good day and I can't risk it not only for Netflix but also for VoIP. So I went with AT&T DSL for internet and satellite for TV. Way cheaper than either Comcast or AT&T bundled services, even if I threw in the phone. Now I'm not so sure. I mean, how does my Netflix compete with DSL? I can see a thin argument about UVerse, since that's the TV end of "network" function, but... really thin. At least I can look into another DSL provider and kick AT&T to the curb of just a phone line (which I had hoped to renegotiate for just DSL no phone that I don't use kinda service).
"If people regularly get free slightly older movies over the air, why bother with netflix?"
Because it's neat. I prefer movie surfing over channel surfing, anyway.
It's the Laughing Man. (again/soon/was)
Ya, I suppose Native American sounds too much like African American which, when my friend retorts when called that, "I'm not from Africa, I'm from Florida." Recently I've encountered a trend of referring to all American Indians as a single ethnic group, too (like saying Native European or something); so I'm not sure how to address the different regional aspects of the Americas. Myself I've got a varied background that includes an unspecified and undocumented tribe from colonial era America, as well as three or more groups of Europeans of which only Swedish and German ancestry is known for certain - tho I'm all Californian (if that means anything). The folk I know who are either still a member of a local tribe or have roots to one prefer to be called either Indian or by their first name.
Yup. That's what I was trying to articulate. Not all slaves were Negroes, and not all Negroes were slaves. Words used during the time the book was written and the time the book depicts are as accurate as Twain wanted them to be, which was for the effect and intent of emotional impact not historical record. The cure is worse than the disease when it comes to this type of "retroactive censoring" of words and ideas expressed in art.
From wikipedia:
Tom announces that Jim has been free for months: Miss Watson died two months earlier and freed Jim in her will, but Tom chose not to reveal Jim's freedom so he could come up with an elaborate plan to rescue Jim.
Were the characters in the book slaves, or is that just the new politically correct term for African American and Native American? How about excising the icky bits from our past by calling everywhere and everyone someplace and someone instead of Africa or America or Lawyer, Butcher, etc... That'd be oh so easy to understand what the past is, ay? Convincing ourselves that the past wasn't something that it was is called delusion, not reality or health. Words spoken in the past cannot be removed even with a time machine any more than smacking someone in the nose doesn't hurt if you say you're sorry.
Ebay? Craigslist?
The mistrial is a non-story, I agree. Highlighting the WikiLeaks as having disrupted justice is *not* a non-story, it's propaganda. IMO.
So the ONLY people willfully kept in the dark are the soldiers meant to protect us?
I see it as systemic of the privatization disease, since the latest leaks were more about the money men and CEOs than the politicos and soldier men. Kind of like being a union worker that learns the company has outsourced at a higher rate of pay, not lower.
Healthcare is not a personal liberty, it's someone else's goods and services.
Talk about piracy...
I view healthcare as a personal responsibilty, not any kind of liberty. It's hard to exercise any liberties when you are sick or injured. For that matter, it's hard to meet any other personal responsibility than personal health when you are sick or injured, depending on the extent of injury (which is itself a lack of health), which is why healthcare isn't really a cut and dry issue of personal versus communal liability, IMO.
Not even if you live in Nevada, I'd imagine - since the State isn't in the business of selling health insurance in the first place. But if my insurance provider has offices only in Nevada and I live in California does that count as interstate commerce?
I don't think information should be made public for the sake of making it public. There are some things that are better off kept secret.
I guess then comes down to the definition of public, not secret. http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2010/12/crs_block.html
I second scubamage. Well said, bkmoore.
I think the issue is not that TSA isn't a private entity, it's that the search is mandated as legal so anything found during the search is admissible in court as evidence of contraband (either drugs or weapons, both are proof of illegal activity) whereas an illegal search, such as one without probable cause, is not.
Fucking right on. I'd vote for that kind of action. It's a change (of attitude) I can believe in.
How will one be recognized as an official journalist? I've heard of a license to kill being properly vetted, but a license just to shoot? Ya, I work for a newspaper...
If someone is not randomly selected for screening, they can take weapons into the airport. The US has a single point of screening, which is burdened with the "we don't profile" excuse of randomness that makes it less effective than the Israeli method of screening with behavior profiling, regardless of ethnicity or citizenship. The US is larger and has a more diverse ethnicity and citizenry of travelers, true; but Israel has a larger problem with attempts to bypass their security than the US, and their security procedures for flight safety are more effective *and* less intrusive.
I don't understand how the specifics of the Israeli security solution that has evolved to what it is today is considered to be something of no value to a US system, regardless of its roots. It also doesn't rationalize the ineffectiveness of the US system represented by these scanners and enhanced pat-downs, so the scale of a nation's size is support of taking those extra steps rather than finding fault with them just because they're not made in America.
Having everybody go thru more advanced scanners will only be possible if said scanners do not pose a greater health risk of slowly killing everyone who boards a plane (or enters an airport) than the chances of quickly killing a few who fly. I'm sure that if such a scanner existed both the Israeli and US airports would want to use them. My point is that in the US it seems that only those would be used (along with other mostly limited procedures you mention) whereas in Israel and other countries they'd be supplemental to other more efficient *and* effective measures.
This whole "we fear more because we are greater" mentality is what allows ineffective and invasive actions by the US government to evolve into degradation of civil and human rights that we are witnessing today. Yes, the scanners are in the news more than the effective screening methods; because they are humiliating and degrading to our citizenry and to people in general while at the same time being arguably ineffective, hazardous, and suspect of a hidden agenda for profit and/or limits to freedom.
I questioned this assertion by Sowelu:
"The reason the US doesn't have a system like Israel's is that most flights in the US are domestic."
So you are saying that US domestic flights are more international than Israeli flights (as far as ethnicity of passengers), and that the only reason their system works in Israel is because they only screen Arab-looking individuals rather than randomly picking people out of line, and those two reasons are why a system won't work in the US?
I'm speaking of the multi-layered security approach of behavior profiling as far as what I mean by "like Israeli" system, not the racial profiling you describe. We have a single point of failure called the scanner. Even with the enhanced pat-downs and nudie scanners it is possible to get a weapon or a bomb past that checkpoint because the scans and pat-downs are not applied evenly to all passengers. To do so would be even more inefficient than either the existing US system or the Israeli system. I won't address the racial tensions in Israel because I've never been in an Israeli airport. In US airports, however, I can say that there is still a measure of hostility towards people of color, not just Arab-looking people, and as you've described the white US citizens and non-citizens are not scrutinized as much (tho sometimes they are randomly screened).
>The reason the US doesn't have a system like Israel's is that most flights in the US are domestic.
Seriously? What then is preventing the US from implementing Israel's international flght security system as a US domestic flight security system. From an geographic standpoint, flying from California to Oregon is as much an international flight as any flight leaving Israel; so what is the difference?
Actually, they are saying "submit to a search or you will be fined for attempting to get on a plane and refusing to be searched."
BIG difference.
I'll second that.
Priceless. True genius.
-applause-
I was thinking of replying to a previous post about Beatles being outdated, but I'd rather not. Especially now that I see your post, which articulates the concept more clearly than merely saying, "...these are words that go together well," still applies today as much as it did when they were written and put to music.
When I clicked to read the slashdot comments for this article, the quote at the bottom of the page reads:
"I consider a new device or technology to have been culturally accepted when it has been used to commit a murder. -- M. Gallaher"