I would imagine that the reason Cobol code has so few bugs is because the vast majority of it was written years ago and any bugs that might have been there have been fixed already.
That turns out not to be the case. A Gartner report back in 1990 or thereabouts said that something like 100 billion lines of corporate COBOL existed. By 2010, that had doubled to about 200 billion.
Let's fret about things that happened 60 years ago.
Yes, who cares about Pearl Harbor or the Holocaust? Let alone the crucifixion of Jesus or the evolution of homo sapiens.
Those in power generally like to think that "history is bunk". After all, history has put them in the driving seat, and they don't want any action replays or adverse rulings from the referee.
Yes, there are problems that come from individual use of drugs (of whatever type). Then, there is prohibition (or whatever legal term you feel is appropriate). So, when you get right down to it, with prohibition, you get both. You get the problems of drug use, and you get the problems of prohibition (violence, theft, etc.).
Nicely put. As some wise person observed, any organization ostensibly created to stamp out some form of behaviour actually has a powerful vested interest in the continuation of that behaviour. (Who wants to become unemployed as a result of being too successful?)
It follows that, if a government agency can manage to get people to break the law in two ways instead of one, it's all good (from the agency's point of view).
This guy makes $100,000 a year on this stuff. They told him he needed to pay a $1100 regulatory fee and needed to secure his stash.
Maybe he didn't want to stand still for the shakedown. Some people don't like to pay protection money when they are simultaneously told they need to provide their own security.
'A DEA spokesman describes this as 'collateral damage' not resulting from DEA regulations but from the selfish actions of criminals."'
That is obviously, factually untrue.
The harm was caused directly by the DEA regulations. They, in turn, may have been necessary because of the actions of criminals; but the spokesman's reported words are self-evidently untrue.
What actually fits more accurately would be Mussolini-style fascism, that is: the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police state as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive state the unlimited master of society.
I tend to agree. With the proviso that, in Italian and German fascism, the state was very clearly on top and in a position to tell the corporations what to do. (If their executives didn't want to be garotted with piano wire).
Today, we have a more ambivalent situation in which national governments (and emerging supra-national governments like the EU) are trying to impose their control on corporations, while at the same time huge multinational corporations are trying to control governments. Both can succeed, of course: big powerful ruthless governments like those of China, Russia, and the USA can dominate their corporations to a considerable extent, while simultaneously multinationals hold their own pretty well with the most powerful governments and roll right over weaker ones (Greece being the obvious example might now).
How Libya fits into this view of the world is left as an exercise for the student.
HE's making stuff up? Apparently it takes one to know one.
The word "Republic" comes from REPresenting the PUBLIC.
Rubbish. It comes from the Latin words "res publica", roughly translated "the concern of the people" or "the public interest". Look it up in a dictionary, if you have one. Failing that, try a library.
As previous replies have made clear, a republic was originally the alternative to a monarchy. Arguably, a dictatorship is more like a monarchy; but note that the term "dictator" itself is another Roman word, originally meaning a military ruler with all power in his hands. In the Roman republic, a dictator was appointed only in times of critical danger for the state, and only for the shortest possible time.
The bottom line is that we have an impressive menagerie of colourful terms for political dispensations, but they overlap a good deal. Moreover, there is often a very great difference between what a polity is called and what it really is. If a state were to elect a dictator for life, would that be "representative democracy"? If not, why not - that scenario would differ from ours in the USA and UK only in the number of elected representatives and their length of tenure.
Personally, I think that what we have in both countries (and in most other so-called democracies) is a plutocracy - rule by the rich - with cosmetic elements of democracy to keep the masses quiet.
Then you end up with an aging population and a whole other kind of unsustainable misery.
So you prefer to go on breeding without restriction, so that within a few years those people who haven't yet died of starvation and thirst are routinely eating one another. I guess we may be on the way to finding out experimentally why we haven't heard from any other intelligent life in the Universe. Maybe it always grows uncontrollably until it destroys its own ecosphere - like a colony of bacteria on a Petri dish.
And, by the way, what is "unsustainable" about an ageing population? True, everyone might not be able to have lots of brand new clothes and shiny gadgets every week, but we might all live through it. With care and a reasonable amount of decency. (Not as great as was required of our Ice Age ancestors, who underwent far greater privations and managed to survive).
People accept the threat of unlimited liabilities all the time in all sorts of situations. For example, criminals have a threat of life in prison or even the death penalty, and yet they still elect to take the risks.
I think the key word there is "criminals".
As for your other examples, they are all subject to the discipline of the market. If they get their risk calculations wrong, they suffer - not others.
Here's a clue from history. About the only time an important, active state was ever run by direct democracy was... ancient Athens. As a result of the people voting directly for what they wanted (under the influence of silver-tongued demagogues, of course) the city sent two huge expeditions, with almost every single able-bodied soldier and sailor it could muster, to conquer Syracuse. The invasion was an utter disaster, the army and fleet were wiped out with virtually no survivors, and shortly after Athens itself was conquered by Sparta - which, ironically, led to the end of the experiment in democracy.
Considering that national affairs are now immensely more complex and difficult to understand than they were in those bygone days, and that the average citizen has a much greater range of concerns and interests to distract him from thinking about politics, direct democracy looks like a recipe for chaos. I say this advisedly: it would be even worse than the leadership of the politicians we have doing the job today. And that's not easy to imagine.
'The head of the agency in charge of federal elections says it's time to modernize Canada's elections, including testing online voting and ending a ban on publishing early election results.'
Why?
Although it was no doubt intended as such, "modernizing" is not a reason. Quite the contrary: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
As far as I can see, the only people who stand to gain are the manufacturers of electronic voting machines and the companies who sell, support, maintain, and otherwise profit from them.
The point is that a politician mentioning the possibility of censorship is some distance removed from an actual law invoking censorship.
It's about as far removed as a private soldier with mine detection gear walking cautiously down a road checking to see if it is safe. If he finds no mines, about 20 minutes later an armoured division will be rattling down the road, on its way to blot someone out of existence.
Which is somewhat my point. What provisions? None have been proposed. None. What we have here is a comment made in a speech. Not a policy paper. Not a proposal. A comment.
That is exactly the way such politicians normally operate. Terrified of anything that might give them bad publicity or affect their popularity ratings, before they even consider doing anything they fly a kite - as Cameron did - to see what reactions it provokes.
Which is precisely why it is essential for everyone to give it a sound drubbing, point out how illiberal and repressive it would be, and mock Cameron soundly for aligning himself with the Chinese government. It won't take much of that for him to think twice, and with any luck the whole damn thing will sink without trace.
They just bury people in legal fees and then drop it when it's become clear that they have someone tenacious on their hands.
Intuitively, what's missing here is the ability of private citizens to prosecute public servants who misbehave in such cynical ways. When the DA drops the case, someone should be able to open an inquiry into why he did so and why, in that case, he had prosecuted the case in the first place.
As Heinlein observed, "civil servant" actually means "civil master". It's time that changed a little.
The cops were in the middle of arresting a criminal, and the criminal tried to run away.
I take it the person whom you call "a criminal" has now been tried and found guilty of an actual crime. Even so, the policeman could not have foreknowledge of that at the time.
Now imagine that, in circumstances we can only guess at, a public servant set on you while you were going about your business, harmed your vision permanently and fractured your face. How would you like it if the officer in question added insult to injury by calling you "the criminal"?
Even if police habitually think of everyone who isn't a policeman as a criminal, they should keep that prejudice to themselves.
Rubbish. It's illegal to carry certain types of knives in certain places in certain cases.
In other words, it's OK to carry a pocket knife as long as you remember to take it out of your pocket and put it in a drawer every time you leave your house.
That sounds useful to me. And certainly not anything you would ever forget to do, thus rendering yourself an instant criminal.
Conspiracy theories aside, the UK still has a free press and a functioning democracy. I don't know what kind of utopia you're dreaming of but I'm afraid to say that we in the West may not be far off having it as good as it gets, civil liberties-wise.
1. "Free press" - but one that subtly conforms to establishment preferences (like the US media, but not quite as much yet). It's only when you latch onto some important and interesting story that is consistently appearing in none of the media that you start to wonder, "Why?" The beauty of this is that there is no conspiracy: it is a natural consequence of good journalists and editors being ambitious, and knowing where the path to promotion and preferment lies. (Not in stirring up trouble on behalf of unpopular minorities).
2. "Functioning democracy". Well, I grant you something is functioning in its own way. Why it ever got called "democracy" I have not the slightest idea. Except that calling something exactly what it isn't is a very effective technique of controlling people - remember the "Big Lie"? (No calling Godwin - I'm referring to Madison Avenue, which pioneered the method, although it had many forerunners such as Machiavelli and virtually any ruler before the 19th century who stayed alive for more than a year or two). "Democracy" means "power [of] the people", and that is exactly what we don't have. When is the last time you tried to get anything significant to change in our "functioning democracy" or yours? Just try some time.
And the illegal waging of war on Libya... the list goes on and on and on. It all stems from the gradual replacement of a belief in the rule of law by what is, essentially, the Fuehrerprinzip: the belief that one man on a white horse knows what is best, and so makes all the decisions. While everyone else SHUTS UP AND OBEYS.
Robert Harris' excellent novel "Fatherland" gives a good introduction to how the system worked - although it is set in an alternative world where the Germans won WW2.
Of course they did. And they enforced the laws rigorously. (Of course, the Nazis made the laws).
But the judges I was referring to were the judges at the Nuremberg Tribunal, who tried many German soldiers and others and sentenced many to death. When some of the accused pleaded that they were just following orders, the judges declared that that was no valid defence.
Clearly the idiots in charge of this little corner of Soviet Russia don't clearly understand the law or the American Constitution.
Don't be too hard on them: neither does the President - and he's a professor of constitutional law.
Mind you, it's sometimes hard to tell the practical difference between someone who doesn't understand a thing and someone who just doesn't give a flying fuck about it.
Slashdot Mirror
I would imagine that the reason Cobol code has so few bugs is because the vast majority of it was written years ago and any bugs that might have been there have been fixed already.
That turns out not to be the case. A Gartner report back in 1990 or thereabouts said that something like 100 billion lines of corporate COBOL existed. By 2010, that had doubled to about 200 billion.
Obviously it's being employed by a "proper" newspaper, TV or radio station - i.e. one that does what the government tells it to.
Let's fret about things that happened 60 years ago.
Yes, who cares about Pearl Harbor or the Holocaust? Let alone the crucifixion of Jesus or the evolution of homo sapiens.
Those in power generally like to think that "history is bunk". After all, history has put them in the driving seat, and they don't want any action replays or adverse rulings from the referee.
... a very long time ago, we had a saying about this.
"It's called preventive maintenance because it prevents the computer from working".
Yes, there are problems that come from individual use of drugs (of whatever type). Then, there is prohibition (or whatever legal term you feel is appropriate). So, when you get right down to it, with prohibition, you get both. You get the problems of drug use, and you get the problems of prohibition (violence, theft, etc.).
Nicely put. As some wise person observed, any organization ostensibly created to stamp out some form of behaviour actually has a powerful vested interest in the continuation of that behaviour. (Who wants to become unemployed as a result of being too successful?)
It follows that, if a government agency can manage to get people to break the law in two ways instead of one, it's all good (from the agency's point of view).
I think it's quite possible that you are.
This guy makes $100,000 a year on this stuff. They told him he needed to pay a $1100 regulatory fee and needed to secure his stash.
Maybe he didn't want to stand still for the shakedown. Some people don't like to pay protection money when they are simultaneously told they need to provide their own security.
'A DEA spokesman describes this as 'collateral damage' not resulting from DEA regulations but from the selfish actions of criminals."'
That is obviously, factually untrue.
The harm was caused directly by the DEA regulations. They, in turn, may have been necessary because of the actions of criminals; but the spokesman's reported words are self-evidently untrue.
What actually fits more accurately would be Mussolini-style fascism, that is: the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police state as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive state the unlimited master of society.
I tend to agree. With the proviso that, in Italian and German fascism, the state was very clearly on top and in a position to tell the corporations what to do. (If their executives didn't want to be garotted with piano wire).
Today, we have a more ambivalent situation in which national governments (and emerging supra-national governments like the EU) are trying to impose their control on corporations, while at the same time huge multinational corporations are trying to control governments. Both can succeed, of course: big powerful ruthless governments like those of China, Russia, and the USA can dominate their corporations to a considerable extent, while simultaneously multinationals hold their own pretty well with the most powerful governments and roll right over weaker ones (Greece being the obvious example might now).
How Libya fits into this view of the world is left as an exercise for the student.
You're just making stuff up.
HE's making stuff up? Apparently it takes one to know one.
The word "Republic" comes from REPresenting the PUBLIC.
Rubbish. It comes from the Latin words "res publica", roughly translated "the concern of the people" or "the public interest". Look it up in a dictionary, if you have one. Failing that, try a library.
As previous replies have made clear, a republic was originally the alternative to a monarchy. Arguably, a dictatorship is more like a monarchy; but note that the term "dictator" itself is another Roman word, originally meaning a military ruler with all power in his hands. In the Roman republic, a dictator was appointed only in times of critical danger for the state, and only for the shortest possible time.
The bottom line is that we have an impressive menagerie of colourful terms for political dispensations, but they overlap a good deal. Moreover, there is often a very great difference between what a polity is called and what it really is. If a state were to elect a dictator for life, would that be "representative democracy"? If not, why not - that scenario would differ from ours in the USA and UK only in the number of elected representatives and their length of tenure.
Personally, I think that what we have in both countries (and in most other so-called democracies) is a plutocracy - rule by the rich - with cosmetic elements of democracy to keep the masses quiet.
Then you end up with an aging population and a whole other kind of unsustainable misery.
So you prefer to go on breeding without restriction, so that within a few years those people who haven't yet died of starvation and thirst are routinely eating one another. I guess we may be on the way to finding out experimentally why we haven't heard from any other intelligent life in the Universe. Maybe it always grows uncontrollably until it destroys its own ecosphere - like a colony of bacteria on a Petri dish.
And, by the way, what is "unsustainable" about an ageing population? True, everyone might not be able to have lots of brand new clothes and shiny gadgets every week, but we might all live through it. With care and a reasonable amount of decency. (Not as great as was required of our Ice Age ancestors, who underwent far greater privations and managed to survive).
People accept the threat of unlimited liabilities all the time in all sorts of situations. For example, criminals have a threat of life in prison or even the death penalty, and yet they still elect to take the risks.
I think the key word there is "criminals".
As for your other examples, they are all subject to the discipline of the market. If they get their risk calculations wrong, they suffer - not others.
Here's a clue from history. About the only time an important, active state was ever run by direct democracy was... ancient Athens. As a result of the people voting directly for what they wanted (under the influence of silver-tongued demagogues, of course) the city sent two huge expeditions, with almost every single able-bodied soldier and sailor it could muster, to conquer Syracuse. The invasion was an utter disaster, the army and fleet were wiped out with virtually no survivors, and shortly after Athens itself was conquered by Sparta - which, ironically, led to the end of the experiment in democracy.
Considering that national affairs are now immensely more complex and difficult to understand than they were in those bygone days, and that the average citizen has a much greater range of concerns and interests to distract him from thinking about politics, direct democracy looks like a recipe for chaos. I say this advisedly: it would be even worse than the leadership of the politicians we have doing the job today. And that's not easy to imagine.
'The head of the agency in charge of federal elections says it's time to modernize Canada's elections, including testing online voting and ending a ban on publishing early election results.'
Why?
Although it was no doubt intended as such, "modernizing" is not a reason. Quite the contrary: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
As far as I can see, the only people who stand to gain are the manufacturers of electronic voting machines and the companies who sell, support, maintain, and otherwise profit from them.
The point is that a politician mentioning the possibility of censorship is some distance removed from an actual law invoking censorship.
It's about as far removed as a private soldier with mine detection gear walking cautiously down a road checking to see if it is safe. If he finds no mines, about 20 minutes later an armoured division will be rattling down the road, on its way to blot someone out of existence.
So we had better hope he finds some mines.
Which is somewhat my point. What provisions? None have been proposed. None. What we have here is a comment made in a speech. Not a policy paper. Not a proposal. A comment.
That is exactly the way such politicians normally operate. Terrified of anything that might give them bad publicity or affect their popularity ratings, before they even consider doing anything they fly a kite - as Cameron did - to see what reactions it provokes.
Which is precisely why it is essential for everyone to give it a sound drubbing, point out how illiberal and repressive it would be, and mock Cameron soundly for aligning himself with the Chinese government. It won't take much of that for him to think twice, and with any luck the whole damn thing will sink without trace.
They just bury people in legal fees and then drop it when it's become clear that they have someone tenacious on their hands.
Intuitively, what's missing here is the ability of private citizens to prosecute public servants who misbehave in such cynical ways. When the DA drops the case, someone should be able to open an inquiry into why he did so and why, in that case, he had prosecuted the case in the first place.
As Heinlein observed, "civil servant" actually means "civil master". It's time that changed a little.
The cops were in the middle of arresting a criminal, and the criminal tried to run away.
I take it the person whom you call "a criminal" has now been tried and found guilty of an actual crime. Even so, the policeman could not have foreknowledge of that at the time.
Now imagine that, in circumstances we can only guess at, a public servant set on you while you were going about your business, harmed your vision permanently and fractured your face. How would you like it if the officer in question added insult to injury by calling you "the criminal"?
Even if police habitually think of everyone who isn't a policeman as a criminal, they should keep that prejudice to themselves.
Can I get into trouble if I incite riots in London (I'm in the U.S.)?
That's an easy one. The answer is "No".
It would be unwise to try it the other way round, though.
Rubbish. It's illegal to carry certain types of knives in certain places in certain cases.
In other words, it's OK to carry a pocket knife as long as you remember to take it out of your pocket and put it in a drawer every time you leave your house.
That sounds useful to me. And certainly not anything you would ever forget to do, thus rendering yourself an instant criminal.
Conspiracy theories aside, the UK still has a free press and a functioning democracy. I don't know what kind of utopia you're dreaming of but I'm afraid to say that we in the West may not be far off having it as good as it gets, civil liberties-wise.
1. "Free press" - but one that subtly conforms to establishment preferences (like the US media, but not quite as much yet). It's only when you latch onto some important and interesting story that is consistently appearing in none of the media that you start to wonder, "Why?" The beauty of this is that there is no conspiracy: it is a natural consequence of good journalists and editors being ambitious, and knowing where the path to promotion and preferment lies. (Not in stirring up trouble on behalf of unpopular minorities).
2. "Functioning democracy". Well, I grant you something is functioning in its own way. Why it ever got called "democracy" I have not the slightest idea. Except that calling something exactly what it isn't is a very effective technique of controlling people - remember the "Big Lie"? (No calling Godwin - I'm referring to Madison Avenue, which pioneered the method, although it had many forerunners such as Machiavelli and virtually any ruler before the 19th century who stayed alive for more than a year or two). "Democracy" means "power [of] the people", and that is exactly what we don't have. When is the last time you tried to get anything significant to change in our "functioning democracy" or yours? Just try some time.
But go on believing that Gaddafi's just a good guy who's the victim of Western Imperialism.
If you believe there are good guys and bad guys, there isn't much point in saying anything to you.
And the illegal waging of war on Libya... the list goes on and on and on. It all stems from the gradual replacement of a belief in the rule of law by what is, essentially, the Fuehrerprinzip: the belief that one man on a white horse knows what is best, and so makes all the decisions. While everyone else SHUTS UP AND OBEYS.
Robert Harris' excellent novel "Fatherland" gives a good introduction to how the system worked - although it is set in an alternative world where the Germans won WW2.
They had judges in Nazi Germany?
Of course they did. And they enforced the laws rigorously. (Of course, the Nazis made the laws).
But the judges I was referring to were the judges at the Nuremberg Tribunal, who tried many German soldiers and others and sentenced many to death. When some of the accused pleaded that they were just following orders, the judges declared that that was no valid defence.
Clearly the idiots in charge of this little corner of Soviet Russia don't clearly understand the law or the American Constitution.
Don't be too hard on them: neither does the President - and he's a professor of constitutional law.
Mind you, it's sometimes hard to tell the practical difference between someone who doesn't understand a thing and someone who just doesn't give a flying fuck about it.