The real problem is people who board ahead of the current row that is boarding, like elite and first class passengers.
I'm one of those elite passengers, for 9 years in a row. In my experience, we are not the problem. We know what will fit into the overhead bin and under the seat, know how to get carry-on's stowed quickly, and to step out of the aisle as soon as possible to allow people to get past -- because we have repeatedly had to stand and wait for someone that does otherwise. I get upgraded to first class occasionally, but otherwise I'm usually one of the first people into the plane after first class had boarded, and invariably I find all of them seated and the aisle is clear.
My least favorite time to travel is near the holidays, because that's when you get the people that fly once or twice a year. They stand in the aisle while they take off their coat, try to stuff an oversize department store shopping bag into the overhead bin, and argue over who is going to sit next to the window. Or they insist that their 4-year old lead them down the aisle, who stops at every row to ask "is this it?", and bumps every person sitting in an aisle seat with his/her Barney backpack.
I won't bother to describe the incredibly clueless people I see at the security checkpoint near the holidays (and no, I'm not talking about the TSA).
Wouldn't the "pertinent facts" be easily established by looking at the incoming documentation saying "Jane Smith, Age 83, SSN XXX-XX-1234 died on 1/1/08" and noticing that "Billy McAnyone, Age 30, XXX-XX-1243" is the one you killed?
That would actually require that someone analyze the results and make a judgment call. The SSA doesn't hire data entry operators that can make those decisions.
The solution is the same as what was used years ago in the punch card era: every input is performed twice. After the first data entry operator entered the data on a set of punch cards, the deck of cards went to a second operator who would duplicate the data entry in "verify" mode. Any discrepancies would sound a buzzer, and the second operator would have to stop and re-enter the data or create a new card with the correction.
Today, it wouldn't be difficult to simply assign the data to two different data entry operators and then compare the results -- flagging any differences for review.
However, that won't solve the problem of incorrect incoming data. Requiring input (and verification) of additional details like name, age, etc. would allow those to be validated against existing records, spitting out exceptions for review.
It's also worth noting that, contrary to popular belief, denial of certiorari does not mean that the Court "agrees" with the lower court. It could mean, for instance, that this particular case is not conducive to a proper analysis/determination of the issue. It could mean that the four who would vote to hear it think the rest of the Court isn't "ready" to come around and thus will granting cert likely result in the "wrong" outcome. Or it could mean that instead of challenging the wiretapping (of which they don't even know they've been the target), they should be challenging the failure of the NSA to disclose whether they've been targeted.
Good point. I've had to remind people of this in the past, although in a bit different text. The best quote I've found, written by Justice Frankfurter:
Inasmuch, therefore, as all that a denial of a petition for a writ of certiorari means is that fewer than four members of the Court thought it should be granted, this Court has rigorously insisted that such a denial carries with it no implication whatever regarding the Court's views on the merits of a case which it has declined to review. The Court has said this again and again; again and again the admonition has to be repeated.STATE OF MD. v. BALTIMORE RADIO SHOW -- 338 U.S. 912
Some of these guys are hand-picked by the very same administration, did you expect these shrewd men and women to bite the very hand that feeds them? Don't expect any real change unless there are fundamental changes to the whole administrative.
This particular legal doctrine has nothing to do with the Bush administration. Despite the Catch-22 of "lack of standing", it's used quite often. Courts have been avoiding Second Amendment challenges for decades, using the same rationale.
A writ of certiorari requires only four votes among the nine Supreme Court justices. Four justices: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, are generally thought of as the Court's liberal wing. If they felt strongly about this case, they could have voted to do so.
See footnote 3. However, they are somewhat difficult to get: cell service providers don't stock them (at least AT&T doesn't), and it requires a special order. The only ones I have seen were obtained through a corporate contract.
HP actually has 2 Class A's and a class B (though they may have let the B go).
HP used to have another Class B: 130.168.x.x, which it acquired along with Convex Computer. However, they subsequently gave it to Agilent when spinning it off.
Within a few years I don't think we'll just be using statistics of past data, but rather real-time traffic data from cars that link into a real-time network. All it will take is a certain density of smartphones with GPS. The data is already available in many metropolitan areas:
The methodology for gathering the info varies, but in Houston they use the electronic tolltags, even on roads that are not tolled. By measuring the time between stations, it calculates the average speed of cars on that segment.
The results are downloaded into the navigation system in my car, and depicted as green, yellow, or red bars adjacent to the route. However, I've never been able to determine if the GPS routing uses the speed information to calculate the fastest route, as I don't live in an area for which speed information is available.
A couple of years ago, it was reported on Slashdot that Baltimore was going to test monitoring of traffic speeds using (presumably generic) cellphones. This article, although somewhat dated, reports initial results and also notes that the state of Virginia is doing the same thing.
One would hope that any reasonable judge would be able to distinguish between a malfunctioning weapon that was not designed to fire more than one shell, and one that was deliberately modified to do such.
Unfortunately, not everyone is reasonable. Do a search for "US v. Olofson" in Google, and you'll find a lot of references to a US District Court case regarding a malfunctioning firearm.
The trick is that "Assault rifle" is a meaningless term, or more to the point, a term whose meaning get warped to whoever is trying to ban anything scary at the moment.
Assault rifle has a very specific meaning -- it's a select-fire weapon. But in the US, it's a class 3 weapon, which requires a specific license to own. In the 70+ years the licensing policy has been in effect, there's been only one confirmed case of a legally-owned class 3 weapon being used in a crime, and that was by a police officer (although it was a personally-owned firearm).
Illegal class 3 weapons aren't commonly used in crime, either. They are expensive to acquire, expensive to operate, difficult to use properly, and no more effective than most other firearms unless you are attacking or defending against a large group of people at close to medium range.
Assault weapon is a politically-loaded term, at least in the US. The proponents of the decade-long ban in the US admitted they deliberately chose it to confuse the average person on the street into supporting the ban. Legally, it was defined by cosmetic attributes, rather than functional attributes. So, it was literally a ban on "scary-looking" weapons, according to what some people thought looked scary. But, the attributes had no effect on the effectiveness of the firearm, so it only required moderate adjustments to manufacture a version that wasn't prohibited.
Functionally, the common version of an assault weapon (according to the legal definition) is much less effective than many firearms that have a more conventional appearance.
Furthermore, since you have merely disagreed with him without clarifying your position, ANYTHING he argues would be a straw man. No real arguement exists for him to counter!
A strawman argument (or fallacy of extension) is attacking an exaggerated or caricatured version of your opponent's position. However, I chose not to respond further to his second posting because it was nothing more than a rhetorical question.
Finally, he is correct in his assertion that, with the extreme example of nuclear weapons, there clearly exists a limit to the citizenry's right to bear arms. The arguement is now where do we draw that line.
This particular strawman argument is nothing more than an attempt to assert that a line must be drawn by legislation. Anyone that gives any thought to the issue would realize that the line has already been drawn by economics, without legislation.
In the future, contribute something coherant to the conversation, or go fuck yourself.
Everybody'? I don't know what planet you where on back then, but most people in Europe didn't buy the theory of a link to Al-Qaeda. Most governments of Europe also wanted the weapons inspections to continue instead of invading.
I was referring to the existence of WMD, not the link to Al-Qaeda. I also thought the latter was dubious. But in the US, there were very few high-ranking politicians that opposed the former -- including some that are running for President now and are claiming otherwise.
You have to remember: the "governments of Europe" aren't considered to be credible in US politics, just as I doubt the the US government is respected in European politics.
Personally, I expected an invasion to become the quagmire the current Vice President of USA predicted.
So did I. Earlier, someone posted a brief history of the region that was mostly sarcastic, but pretty accurate. Historically, the only "peaceful" times have been when a strong-man ruler has kept all the various factions from killing each other.
So at the risk of sounding like I am attempting to interpret the constitution for my own interests, I think the concept behind the second amendment would be to keep arms that the government would use against you. This would rule out nukes and most biological warfare that couldn't be easily obtained.
I think that it's a non-issue, but my reasoning is reflected in the last sentence in your posting that I quoted above.
Effective weapons of mass destruction are prohibitively expensive. You can't just go down to the Wal-Mart and buy them: it requires a significant investment in technology and/or equipment that is either classified or otherwise restricted by agreement by those that have them (i.e. non-proliferation treaties).
The cost of development is the most effective control on them, and anyone (or group) that can afford them is not going to be deterred by legislation. That's why I consider the argument to be a strawman -- it's just not realistic unless you are trying to force someone to concede a point.
Next you're going to cite the fact that it was Bill Clinton's stated policy to see Saddam removed from power, too.
Along with just about everyone else on both sides of the political aisle.
I've noticed that now there's a "study" about all the lies that the Bush administration told about Iraq, back when almost everyone else was apparently telling the same lies, or at least believing them.
There's an excerpt on Yahoo News of an interesting interview from "60 Minutes", with the guy that interrogated Saddam after he was captured. According to this interrogator, Saddam said he didn't believe that Bush would actually order the invasion -- he thought that there would be a few days of air strikes, and it would be over. Saddam survived it when Clinton tried that, and Saddam thought he could survive it again. And he admitted that's why he continued to let everyone believe that he had various weapons of mass destruction.
I always wondered why Saddam behaved like he had something to hide, when he really didn't. I guess he thought the WMD threat would discourage his enemies -- which included most of the Middle East, various Western democracies, and a large percentage of the people in his OWN country.
Hang on a second, if the Constitution is not up for negotiation how the hell did the amendments get there in the first place?
For the Bill of Rights (the first 10), it was a compromise to achieve ratification of the new Constitution by the remaining states.
There was actually a lot of debate about whether the Bill of Rights was necessary. One side said that it was. The other side said that it wasn't, because the federal government would never infringe on those rights anyway -- and there was a risk that they would be interpreted as the only rights that were protected from infringement. In retrospect, I think they were both right.
I'll also emphasize my choice of words: the Bill of Rights do not grant rights. Rights were considered to be pre-existing. The Bill of Rights was only supposed to explicitly prohibit the federal government (and the states, by extension of the 14th) from infringing on them.
I am arguing that a line needs to be created defining what arms are permitted to bear and what aren't. If you disagree with this statement, you are affirming that the Constitution guarantees you the right of each citizen to bear nuclear arms. I am assuming this is not the case.
I didn't disagree or agree with anything. Any conclusions are your own: stop attributing them to me.
Your "nuclear arms" argument is the classic strawman when you can't make a coherent argument for your position.
The rest of your posting doesn't merit a response.
Given this, I think that it is completely fair to ban assault rifles.
Using that logic, it would also be completely fair to ban or severely censor the Internet, because it is far more effective than the 18th century printing press.
Apply the same to the 18th century definition of "regulated" as well.
Someone thought they should mod this funny, but the parent poster is correct.
Dig up an unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, and check out the definition for "regulated". There are examples dating back to the 1600's that use this term when referring to a militia, although they are now considered obsolete or archaic. In the context of a militia, the most appropriate synonym for "well-regulated" in the 17th and 18th centuries would be "effective" in the 21st century.
However, the first clause wasn't intended to limit the second clause. The Congressional Record shows that a "collective" interpretation was proposed in the Senate during the debate of the Bill of Rights by adding "for the common defense" (a phrase that was in at least one of the original 13 state constitutions). It was explicitly voted down.
I live in the Dallas area and this is exactly what I see happen at intersections where the emergency vehicles cannot force the light green in their direction of travel. The emergency vehicles can sit at the back of a pack of cars at the red light and honk their horn all they want, the drivers at the head of the pack won't move until the light changes.
I recently heard sirens and could see an approaching fire truck in my rear view mirror. I was waiting at a red light, but didn't dare pull into the intersection as long as it was green in the other direction -- the other traffic hadn't stopped.
Finally, the fire truck behind me got close enough to the intersection to turn the light green. I started to move out, and nearly drove into the path of another fire truck approaching from my left. I couldn't see the truck on the left due to the large truck on my left blocking my view in that direction.
It's an unusual situation for emergency vehicles to be converging on an intersection from two directions (actually three, as I subsequently encountered another firetruck going opposite my direction), but the problem is not unique. It's difficult to drive through an intersection against a red light without the risk of being broad-sided. And even with the best of intentions, you would be deemed at fault if an accident occurred.
Not a single passenger jet has been downed from the type of missiles these "high power lasers" are supposed to be able to prevent.
RTFA:
American [Airlines] said it opposes putting anti-missile systems on commercial planes but agreed to the tests to understand technology that might become available.
The secondary screening that I was referring to was pulling "random" people off the boarding line at the gate.
What airports are still doing this? The TSA stopped doing this in the US long ago, unless they started doing it again in the past two weeks.
For the relatively brief time it was done in the US, it was a joke. The frequent flyers quickly learned to game the system, by not approaching the gate to board until immediately AFTER some else was "randomly" chosen for search (usually from the front of the line).
It was comical to watch some flights (typically Monday AM and Friday afternoon) that was mostly frequent flyers -- no one would go near the gate when security was standing there. The gate agent would keep calling for people to board, and no one would approach.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm one of those elite passengers, for 9 years in a row. In my experience, we are not the problem. We know what will fit into the overhead bin and under the seat, know how to get carry-on's stowed quickly, and to step out of the aisle as soon as possible to allow people to get past -- because we have repeatedly had to stand and wait for someone that does otherwise. I get upgraded to first class occasionally, but otherwise I'm usually one of the first people into the plane after first class had boarded, and invariably I find all of them seated and the aisle is clear.
My least favorite time to travel is near the holidays, because that's when you get the people that fly once or twice a year. They stand in the aisle while they take off their coat, try to stuff an oversize department store shopping bag into the overhead bin, and argue over who is going to sit next to the window. Or they insist that their 4-year old lead them down the aisle, who stops at every row to ask "is this it?", and bumps every person sitting in an aisle seat with his/her Barney backpack.
I won't bother to describe the incredibly clueless people I see at the security checkpoint near the holidays (and no, I'm not talking about the TSA).
That would actually require that someone analyze the results and make a judgment call. The SSA doesn't hire data entry operators that can make those decisions.
The solution is the same as what was used years ago in the punch card era: every input is performed twice. After the first data entry operator entered the data on a set of punch cards, the deck of cards went to a second operator who would duplicate the data entry in "verify" mode. Any discrepancies would sound a buzzer, and the second operator would have to stop and re-enter the data or create a new card with the correction.
Today, it wouldn't be difficult to simply assign the data to two different data entry operators and then compare the results -- flagging any differences for review.
However, that won't solve the problem of incorrect incoming data. Requiring input (and verification) of additional details like name, age, etc. would allow those to be validated against existing records, spitting out exceptions for review.
In the US, wholesale transactions are corrected to 60 F, but retail transactions are not:
http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/resources/DPReportHotFuelUSAJune07.pdf
However, there is a lawsuit pending on the subject:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/12/hot_fuel.html
Good point. I've had to remind people of this in the past, although in a bit different text. The best quote I've found, written by Justice Frankfurter:
Inasmuch, therefore, as all that a denial of a petition for a writ of certiorari means is that fewer than four members of the Court thought it should be granted, this Court has rigorously insisted that such a denial carries with it no implication whatever regarding the Court's views on the merits of a case which it has declined to review. The Court has said this again and again; again and again the admonition has to be repeated. STATE OF MD. v. BALTIMORE RADIO SHOW -- 338 U.S. 912
This particular legal doctrine has nothing to do with the Bush administration. Despite the Catch-22 of "lack of standing", it's used quite often. Courts have been avoiding Second Amendment challenges for decades, using the same rationale.
A writ of certiorari requires only four votes among the nine Supreme Court justices. Four justices: Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer, are generally thought of as the Court's liberal wing. If they felt strongly about this case, they could have voted to do so.
Several others have been mentioned, but I'll add that the Palm Treo phones are available without a camera:
http://www.palm.com/us/products/smartphones/treo680/multimedia.html
See footnote 3. However, they are somewhat difficult to get: cell service providers don't stock them (at least AT&T doesn't), and it requires a special order. The only ones I have seen were obtained through a corporate contract.
HP used to have another Class B: 130.168.x.x, which it acquired along with Convex Computer. However, they subsequently gave it to Agilent when spinning it off.
Warning! Do not look into black hole with remaining eye!
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080131
http://www.xmradio.com/navtraffic/market_coverage.xmc
The methodology for gathering the info varies, but in Houston they use the electronic tolltags, even on roads that are not tolled. By measuring the time between stations, it calculates the average speed of cars on that segment.
The results are downloaded into the navigation system in my car, and depicted as green, yellow, or red bars adjacent to the route. However, I've never been able to determine if the GPS routing uses the speed information to calculate the fastest route, as I don't live in an area for which speed information is available. A couple of years ago, it was reported on Slashdot that Baltimore was going to test monitoring of traffic speeds using (presumably generic) cellphones. This article, although somewhat dated, reports initial results and also notes that the state of Virginia is doing the same thing.
I think it's the same reason that the First Amendment combines freedom of speech and freedom of religion -- similar rights were grouped together.
This article discusses the issue: The Second Amendment and the Historiography of the Bill of Rights
Unfortunately, not everyone is reasonable. Do a search for "US v. Olofson" in Google, and you'll find a lot of references to a US District Court case regarding a malfunctioning firearm.
Assault rifle has a very specific meaning -- it's a select-fire weapon. But in the US, it's a class 3 weapon, which requires a specific license to own. In the 70+ years the licensing policy has been in effect, there's been only one confirmed case of a legally-owned class 3 weapon being used in a crime, and that was by a police officer (although it was a personally-owned firearm).
Illegal class 3 weapons aren't commonly used in crime, either. They are expensive to acquire, expensive to operate, difficult to use properly, and no more effective than most other firearms unless you are attacking or defending against a large group of people at close to medium range.
Assault weapon is a politically-loaded term, at least in the US. The proponents of the decade-long ban in the US admitted they deliberately chose it to confuse the average person on the street into supporting the ban. Legally, it was defined by cosmetic attributes, rather than functional attributes. So, it was literally a ban on "scary-looking" weapons, according to what some people thought looked scary. But, the attributes had no effect on the effectiveness of the firearm, so it only required moderate adjustments to manufacture a version that wasn't prohibited.
Functionally, the common version of an assault weapon (according to the legal definition) is much less effective than many firearms that have a more conventional appearance.
A strawman argument (or fallacy of extension) is attacking an exaggerated or caricatured version of your opponent's position. However, I chose not to respond further to his second posting because it was nothing more than a rhetorical question.
Finally, he is correct in his assertion that, with the extreme example of nuclear weapons, there clearly exists a limit to the citizenry's right to bear arms. The arguement is now where do we draw that line.This particular strawman argument is nothing more than an attempt to assert that a line must be drawn by legislation. Anyone that gives any thought to the issue would realize that the line has already been drawn by economics, without legislation.
In the future, contribute something coherant to the conversation, or go fuck yourself.Right back at you.
I was referring to the existence of WMD, not the link to Al-Qaeda. I also thought the latter was dubious. But in the US, there were very few high-ranking politicians that opposed the former -- including some that are running for President now and are claiming otherwise.
You have to remember: the "governments of Europe" aren't considered to be credible in US politics, just as I doubt the the US government is respected in European politics.
Personally, I expected an invasion to become the quagmire the current Vice President of USA predicted.So did I. Earlier, someone posted a brief history of the region that was mostly sarcastic, but pretty accurate. Historically, the only "peaceful" times have been when a strong-man ruler has kept all the various factions from killing each other.
I think that it's a non-issue, but my reasoning is reflected in the last sentence in your posting that I quoted above.
Effective weapons of mass destruction are prohibitively expensive. You can't just go down to the Wal-Mart and buy them: it requires a significant investment in technology and/or equipment that is either classified or otherwise restricted by agreement by those that have them (i.e. non-proliferation treaties).
The cost of development is the most effective control on them, and anyone (or group) that can afford them is not going to be deterred by legislation. That's why I consider the argument to be a strawman -- it's just not realistic unless you are trying to force someone to concede a point.
Along with just about everyone else on both sides of the political aisle.
I've noticed that now there's a "study" about all the lies that the Bush administration told about Iraq, back when almost everyone else was apparently telling the same lies, or at least believing them.
There's an excerpt on Yahoo News of an interesting interview from "60 Minutes", with the guy that interrogated Saddam after he was captured. According to this interrogator, Saddam said he didn't believe that Bush would actually order the invasion -- he thought that there would be a few days of air strikes, and it would be over. Saddam survived it when Clinton tried that, and Saddam thought he could survive it again. And he admitted that's why he continued to let everyone believe that he had various weapons of mass destruction.
I always wondered why Saddam behaved like he had something to hide, when he really didn't. I guess he thought the WMD threat would discourage his enemies -- which included most of the Middle East, various Western democracies, and a large percentage of the people in his OWN country.
For the Bill of Rights (the first 10), it was a compromise to achieve ratification of the new Constitution by the remaining states. There was actually a lot of debate about whether the Bill of Rights was necessary. One side said that it was. The other side said that it wasn't, because the federal government would never infringe on those rights anyway -- and there was a risk that they would be interpreted as the only rights that were protected from infringement. In retrospect, I think they were both right.
I'll also emphasize my choice of words: the Bill of Rights do not grant rights. Rights were considered to be pre-existing. The Bill of Rights was only supposed to explicitly prohibit the federal government (and the states, by extension of the 14th) from infringing on them.
I didn't disagree or agree with anything. Any conclusions are your own: stop attributing them to me.
Your "nuclear arms" argument is the classic strawman when you can't make a coherent argument for your position.
The rest of your posting doesn't merit a response.
Using that logic, it would also be completely fair to ban or severely censor the Internet, because it is far more effective than the 18th century printing press.
Someone thought they should mod this funny, but the parent poster is correct.
Dig up an unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, and check out the definition for "regulated". There are examples dating back to the 1600's that use this term when referring to a militia, although they are now considered obsolete or archaic. In the context of a militia, the most appropriate synonym for "well-regulated" in the 17th and 18th centuries would be "effective" in the 21st century.
However, the first clause wasn't intended to limit the second clause. The Congressional Record shows that a "collective" interpretation was proposed in the Senate during the debate of the Bill of Rights by adding "for the common defense" (a phrase that was in at least one of the original 13 state constitutions). It was explicitly voted down.
Uh, no.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200003/ai_n8887933
This doesn't excuse the Bush Administration. But don't pretend they invented it, it just makes you look like a lame partisan hack.
I recently heard sirens and could see an approaching fire truck in my rear view mirror. I was waiting at a red light, but didn't dare pull into the intersection as long as it was green in the other direction -- the other traffic hadn't stopped.
Finally, the fire truck behind me got close enough to the intersection to turn the light green. I started to move out, and nearly drove into the path of another fire truck approaching from my left. I couldn't see the truck on the left due to the large truck on my left blocking my view in that direction.
It's an unusual situation for emergency vehicles to be converging on an intersection from two directions (actually three, as I subsequently encountered another firetruck going opposite my direction), but the problem is not unique. It's difficult to drive through an intersection against a red light without the risk of being broad-sided. And even with the best of intentions, you would be deemed at fault if an accident occurred.
RTFA:
American [Airlines] said it opposes putting anti-missile systems on commercial planes but agreed to the tests to understand technology that might become available.
Wow, thanks for the tip.
That's yet another reason to avoid flying during peak holiday periods.
What airports are still doing this? The TSA stopped doing this in the US long ago, unless they started doing it again in the past two weeks.
For the relatively brief time it was done in the US, it was a joke. The frequent flyers quickly learned to game the system, by not approaching the gate to board until immediately AFTER some else was "randomly" chosen for search (usually from the front of the line).
It was comical to watch some flights (typically Monday AM and Friday afternoon) that was mostly frequent flyers -- no one would go near the gate when security was standing there. The gate agent would keep calling for people to board, and no one would approach.