Then you canadians need to grow a pair. I mean, it's like California has a bigger set if what you say is true.
I'd love to see cannabis legalized. I view it's illegality as a source of pain, suffering, and criminality here in the USA.
The States routinely dictate how things will be done. Canada is setting their clocks back a week later this year, who do you think made a unilateral decision to do that? Canada just followed.
It's helpful sometimes to stay in synch with the USA - Canada didn't have to, I'm sure they went through their procedures to follow suit.
It'd require an interesting definition of 'peaceful' to covuer the women in the article, who have done things like handcuff themselves to chairs, disrupt public meetings, block public access roads, etc...
May I kindly point you into the general direction of this gentleman? Gandhi was most definitly a troublemaker! Still, he was generally very willing to talk and discuss, whereas Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright seem much more 'anti'.
Do you think he should be on a list of criminals, maybe? Possibly for his relentless non-violent protest?
Was he actually arrested for performing illegal acts? Acts that would still be illegal if they weren't in regards to a protest?
Bingo, you just found the way to supress all discent. For example, someone has the gall to wear an anti-bush shirt to a public event? Arrest them, and they will always be treated as a criminal in the future, making their voice that much harder to be heard! Just what we want!
They seem to be able to protest just fine. It's just their hijinks have apparently made them persona non grata in Canada.
Looking further into it, they've probably been convicted/pled guilty by paying the fine to at least some of the charges. There's also records expurgement and false arrest lawsuits if they actually didn't do anything.
"why would Bush be working to make it more difficult for US Citizens to enter Canada?" Remember free speech zones? Anything that makes it harder for Bush to hear those opposed to him is good in his eyes.
Let them go to canada, then refuse them entry back into the USA then. This denial only gets them more news - moreover, it's Canada's rules that got them denied, nothing Bush nor his administration did*.
So in your puny world, anyone that tries to exercise their freedom and hold the government accountable is a troublemaker and deserves to have his activities surpressed?
You're way overgeneralizing here. The way I look at it is like this: You're protesting against Bush. Not wanting to hear you anymore(and because you have a history of doing stuff that gets police involved), somebody tells you to stay off their property. You call this surpession. I call it 'Do your protesting on your own lawn'. See the difference? I'm not saying you can't protest, just don't try to do it on my lawn or in my house. Just scaled up to cover a country called Canada.
*At least the higher ups. They might of gotten arrested by the FBI for some of their hijinks and gotten into the system that way. Still, not likely to reach Bush's desk, or even on of his direct appointees.
When I first read the article it appeared that, at the least, they have been arrested. Going by other links, and rereading the article, I'd say they've actually been convicted.
Remember, we're going by Canada's rules here. If they've decided merely being arrested in the USA is enough reason to deny entry, that's their business.
More like Protesters with multiple arrests and convictions for various 'disturbing the peace' offenses == troublemakers. Wave signs, hire billboards, hand out pamplets, fine and dandy. Vandalize property, block traffic, disrupt meetings, not so fine.
Do you even know any of your country's history? If your founding fathers hadn't protested your country would never have been born. Sometimes people have to make a stand based on their morals, and if they have the balls to do it non-violently then they deserve your respect.
There's a difference between protesting and commiting criminal offenses. Besides, my founding fathers went a bit beyond 'protesting'. They went so far beyond that they actually picked up arms and fought. And yes - they were troublemakers. It would have been within France's rights to deny them entry when they came asking for aid.
It's quite simple - any country that treats dissenters as criminals is in danger of becoming a totalitarian state.
There's a difference between treating dissenters as criminals and treating criminals who happen to be dissenters as criminals. These women have commited acts that would be considered crimes even if they weren't done as 'protests'.
And personally - I don't think a DUI can EVER be considered petty.
I listed it seperately from petty crimes - I don't consider them petty, though their importance is reduced when they're 'decades old'. What I was meaning is that Canada is requiring the same thing these women were complaining about for people who got a DUI 20+ years ago - and have had clean records since then.
Having seen video of various protests back in the '60s, Those sound like accurate crimes to charge peace protestors with.
Did abuse happen? On both sides.
Still, by my understanding, if a conviction for an old reformed hippy showed up from back in the '60s, it'd be up to the Canadian authorities as to whether they allow entry or kick it back to the appeal/reform process.
Read his post - the database does contain the crime and conviction details, possibly the judge's opinion, etc. Just with the caveat that many states are behind in data entry(a normal problem for this stuff).
They're even nice enough to have an appeals process.
That might not be of any help for them - by this and other articles, the women in mention have been arrested a number of times, and probably pled guilty(by paying the fine) to at least some of them.
That would mean that the listings are correct. They'd have to go through the work of getting their records expunged, sealed, or pardoned. All unlikely to happen as long as their position is:
Wright asserted, "We will never be criminally rehabilitated since we intend to continue to engage in non-violent peaceful protest of Bush administration policies, particular the war on Iraq and we intend to peacefully and nonviolently protest all of these until they end. They can lead to arrests for civil disobedience, like refusing to move from the fence in front of the whitehouse or standing up and speaking at congressional hearings."
I get news about the requirements for crossing into Canada occasionally - I live only ~45 minutes from the border. The Canadians have access to our criminal records to the point that their check will find out if you have a DUI, or even certain serious traffic offenses, so the level of crime required to get into whatever database they check must be pretty low.
DUI is specifically mentioned because it has the same requirements for entry as these women are complaining about, except I remember a fee being involved.
I have to be honest here - The 2004 election had a 64% turnout rate, vs a 60% turnout rate in 2000.
I'm doubtful that the results would have been different if the people who didn't vote had gotten off their asses, found out a bit about the candidates and voted.
Or are you guessing that, in 2004, most of the potential voters who stayed home would have voted for Gore?
If you get arrested you got arrested. It might not have been a fair arrest and there should be a process to explain yourself and get past the authorities. BUT, and this is the big BUT how is the border person going to know the difference? There are peace activists that should not be put on the list and then there are some that should be on the list and then some.
Bingo. It's up to Canada to decide whether or not to let you in. I noticed that they didn't deny having been arrested.
As a sidenote, yes, Canada has recently been getting extremely picky about letting people with criminal records into the country, even petty crimes and decades old DUIs.
From Article:
"In the past, Canada has always welcomed peace activists with open arms. This new policy, obviously a creature of the Bush administration, is shocking and we in the US and Canada must insist that it be overturned. Four members of the Canadian Parliament--Peggy Nash, Libby Davies, Paul Dewar and Peter Julian-- expressed outrage that the peace activists were barred from Canada and vow to change this policy.
Huh? What? When did we annex Canada? I'm sure there's some Canadians that this statement would piss off - they're quite capable of running their own country, they don't need Bush's help. Besides, why would Bush be working to make it more difficult for US Citizens to enter Canada?
Wright asserted, "We will never be criminally rehabilitated since we intend to continue to engage in non-violent peaceful protest of Bush administration policies, particular the war on Iraq and we intend to peacefully and nonviolently protest all of these until they end. They can lead to arrests for civil disobedience, like refusing to move from the fence in front of the whitehouse or standing up and speaking at congressional hearings."
IE you're troublemakers, therefore the border agents were quite right to deny you entry.
Wright added, "The fact that the FBI has put us on this list. The National Crime Information Center Computerized Index is a form of political intimidation. The list is supposed to be for felony and serious misdemeanor offenses.
It looks like it's proper for you to be listed: 1. Individuals who have been fingerprinted and whose criminal history
record information has been obtained. Any arrest is generally for at least a 'serious misdemeanor'. Minor misdemeanors get a ticket and a court date.
I've bought a couple things from them without problems.
For more expensive stuff I tend to end up at newegg. While I can often find stuff a couple buck cheaper elsewhere - Newegg has my address, they have what I'm looking for, and for multiple item orders I find it worth a couple bucks to not have to deal with a dozen different package sent by relatively unknown companies.
Even our influence is limited, especially when your choices are limited to Best Buy, Gamestop, and Walmart for your computing/Gaming needs. Maybe Sears/Kmart for things like TV's.
My point would be that no, even people acquainted with/.ers are quite rare in the scope of things.
Besides, I'll admit that, on average, Bestbuy is a decent store for what it is. If I want a decent video card at a decent price, I'm going online. If I need an emergency replacement this hour, best buy is about my only option. Picking up a mouse or keyboard there isn't too painful, same with at least some games. They have a pretty good movie section with decently competitive prices.
As a slashdotter, for anything above $50 I'm likely to go online though. I'm not going to be buying a computer from them(I roll my own), so I'm not a customer there. For my family though, I want them to have a decent warrenty - so I recommend whoever has been getting decent reviews lately when it comes to customer support, while still not jacking prices for a basic econobox up too far.
Heck, I might be able to build a power PC for less than the big names can - but I can't beat their $300-400 econobox. Which is all that grandma needs, as it's still got 10x the power she'll ever use*.
*Yes, I checked out what she does, what she wants to do, etc... It's basically play solitaire and mahjong type games. She also has a sewing program and does some surfing/email/browsing. Nothing so complicated as even CivII.
That would be obvious fraud, with the tiles tossed in simply to give the right 'weight' to the package so the return drone takes it back without question.
I think that you overestimate the influence of/.ers.
We're not even 1% of the population, and while we might make 10x as many purchases as the rest of the population, we're still a small portion of BB and such's customer base; We're too likely to buy our stuff online from places like Newegg and tigerdirect.
In the long term, yes. Especially if you concentrated on reducing the orbital velocity of the shavings when you removed them. However, the microgravitational effects of the ISS would be quite substantial in the medium term. So they might come back. It already appears to be enough to hold the shavings despite any friction.
If the shavings are of a ferrus material a magnet might be a good idea. Otherwise I might suggest canned air. Though once I think about it you'd still have the problems of the shavings coming back due to the microgravity of the station.
A high tech version of the push sweeper might be a better idea - rotating brushes pick up debris and pull it into a storage chamber.
Where should the line be drawn? Using little increments always ends up with "Going X+2 isn't much more dangerous than going X", but in the end, going 122 really is more dangerous than going 100. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and there is a sign by the side of the road telling you exactly where this line is drawn. Most police officers are even kind enough to allow a little buffer over the limit to account for inaccuracies in your speedometer.
The 85th percentile is pretty highly regarded. That's the speed that would have 85% of the people driving at or below if it was like the autobahn with no maximum.
At some point people reach a speed they're comfortable with, and proceed to stay at that speed, adjusting for conditions by themselves rather than trying to go 65 in a blizzard because that's what the signs say.
the bandwidth to download them will still remain the bottleneck...
I can think of a traditional solution, used for games back when I was a kid...
Sneakernet. Hard to beat that bandwidth.
Of course, they're starting to offer 100mbit and even gigabit lines to the house, there was an article claiming that a scientist could get 100x the bandwidth out of copper a couple weeks ago*.
Worst case, netflix and it's competitors.
*Of course, I'll be surprised if his solution gave more than 2X, but it's out there.
I don't think so. Police and politicians have to get places by car, too. Generally I think the speed limits are pretty reasonable. It's just that drivers can't stand any form of restriction, and always want to go faster.
That's where the 'good old boy' system comes in handy. IE the governor and other highly placed politicians get government plates like the cops/fire department which are automatically ignored by the cameras or discarded in the back end system.
Seriously, if people can't follow a simple speed limit, why should they be entrusted with more liberty on the road? If people would obey them and drive like sane people, then they could be allowed to drive faster. You have to earn responsibility.
Why should driving slow have anything to do with 'earning' the right to drive faster? You might have a bit of argument about keeping new drivers off the interstate, but interstates actually tend to be some of the least accident prone segments of road.
Also, speed differentials kill more than speed itself. Everybody on the road is doing 75 is safer than everybody doing 55 except for somebody wandering along at 25.
Training I would give you. Better enforcement of other rules - anti tailgating, proper passing, etc...
Then you canadians need to grow a pair. I mean, it's like California has a bigger set if what you say is true.
I'd love to see cannabis legalized. I view it's illegality as a source of pain, suffering, and criminality here in the USA.
The States routinely dictate how things will be done. Canada is setting their clocks back a week later this year, who do you think made a unilateral decision to do that? Canada just followed.
It's helpful sometimes to stay in synch with the USA - Canada didn't have to, I'm sure they went through their procedures to follow suit.
So, peaceful protesters are troublemakers?
It'd require an interesting definition of 'peaceful' to covuer the women in the article, who have done things like handcuff themselves to chairs, disrupt public meetings, block public access roads, etc...
May I kindly point you into the general direction of this gentleman?
Gandhi was most definitly a troublemaker! Still, he was generally very willing to talk and discuss, whereas Medea Benjamin and Ann Wright seem much more 'anti'.
Do you think he should be on a list of criminals, maybe? Possibly for his relentless non-violent protest?
Was he actually arrested for performing illegal acts? Acts that would still be illegal if they weren't in regards to a protest?
Ooops. Was looking at the two election results too much.
Substitute Kerry for Gore, please.
Though both elections could be considered.
Bingo, you just found the way to supress all discent. For example, someone has the gall to wear an anti-bush shirt to a public event? Arrest them, and they will always be treated as a criminal in the future, making their voice that much harder to be heard! Just what we want!
They seem to be able to protest just fine. It's just their hijinks have apparently made them persona non grata in Canada.
Looking further into it, they've probably been convicted/pled guilty by paying the fine to at least some of the charges. There's also records expurgement and false arrest lawsuits if they actually didn't do anything.
"why would Bush be working to make it more difficult for US Citizens to enter Canada?" Remember free speech zones? Anything that makes it harder for Bush to hear those opposed to him is good in his eyes.
Let them go to canada, then refuse them entry back into the USA then. This denial only gets them more news - moreover, it's Canada's rules that got them denied, nothing Bush nor his administration did*.
So in your puny world, anyone that tries to exercise their freedom and hold the government accountable is a troublemaker and deserves to have his activities surpressed?
You're way overgeneralizing here. The way I look at it is like this: You're protesting against Bush. Not wanting to hear you anymore(and because you have a history of doing stuff that gets police involved), somebody tells you to stay off their property. You call this surpession. I call it 'Do your protesting on your own lawn'. See the difference? I'm not saying you can't protest, just don't try to do it on my lawn or in my house. Just scaled up to cover a country called Canada.
*At least the higher ups. They might of gotten arrested by the FBI for some of their hijinks and gotten into the system that way. Still, not likely to reach Bush's desk, or even on of his direct appointees.
When I first read the article it appeared that, at the least, they have been arrested. Going by other links, and rereading the article, I'd say they've actually been convicted.
Remember, we're going by Canada's rules here. If they've decided merely being arrested in the USA is enough reason to deny entry, that's their business.
Protesters == troublemakers, huh?
More like Protesters with multiple arrests and convictions for various 'disturbing the peace' offenses == troublemakers. Wave signs, hire billboards, hand out pamplets, fine and dandy. Vandalize property, block traffic, disrupt meetings, not so fine.
Do you even know any of your country's history? If your founding fathers hadn't protested your country would never have been born. Sometimes people have to make a stand based on their morals, and if they have the balls to do it non-violently then they deserve your respect.
There's a difference between protesting and commiting criminal offenses. Besides, my founding fathers went a bit beyond 'protesting'. They went so far beyond that they actually picked up arms and fought. And yes - they were troublemakers. It would have been within France's rights to deny them entry when they came asking for aid.
It's quite simple - any country that treats dissenters as criminals is in danger of becoming a totalitarian state.
There's a difference between treating dissenters as criminals and treating criminals who happen to be dissenters as criminals. These women have commited acts that would be considered crimes even if they weren't done as 'protests'.
And personally - I don't think a DUI can EVER be considered petty.
I listed it seperately from petty crimes - I don't consider them petty, though their importance is reduced when they're 'decades old'. What I was meaning is that Canada is requiring the same thing these women were complaining about for people who got a DUI 20+ years ago - and have had clean records since then.
Having seen video of various protests back in the '60s, Those sound like accurate crimes to charge peace protestors with.
Did abuse happen? On both sides.
Still, by my understanding, if a conviction for an old reformed hippy showed up from back in the '60s, it'd be up to the Canadian authorities as to whether they allow entry or kick it back to the appeal/reform process.
Read his post - the database does contain the crime and conviction details, possibly the judge's opinion, etc. Just with the caveat that many states are behind in data entry(a normal problem for this stuff).
They're even nice enough to have an appeals process.
You'd be better off moving/staying in Canada, who denied the complainers entry.
That would mean that the listings are correct. They'd have to go through the work of getting their records expunged, sealed, or pardoned. All unlikely to happen as long as their position is:I get news about the requirements for crossing into Canada occasionally - I live only ~45 minutes from the border.
The Canadians have access to our criminal records to the point that their check will find out if you have a DUI, or even certain serious traffic offenses, so the level of crime required to get into whatever database they check must be pretty low.
DUI is specifically mentioned because it has the same requirements for entry as these women are complaining about, except I remember a fee being involved.
I have to be honest here - The 2004 election had a 64% turnout rate, vs a 60% turnout rate in 2000.
I'm doubtful that the results would have been different if the people who didn't vote had gotten off their asses, found out a bit about the candidates and voted.
Or are you guessing that, in 2004, most of the potential voters who stayed home would have voted for Gore?
As a sidenote, yes, Canada has recently been getting extremely picky about letting people with criminal records into the country, even petty crimes and decades old DUIs.
From Article:Huh? What? When did we annex Canada? I'm sure there's some Canadians that this statement would piss off - they're quite capable of running their own country, they don't need Bush's help. Besides, why would Bush be working to make it more difficult for US Citizens to enter Canada?IE you're troublemakers, therefore the border agents were quite right to deny you entry.It looks like it's proper for you to be listed:
1. Individuals who have been fingerprinted and whose criminal history
record information has been obtained.
Any arrest is generally for at least a 'serious misdemeanor'. Minor misdemeanors get a ticket and a court date.
I've bought a couple things from them without problems.
For more expensive stuff I tend to end up at newegg. While I can often find stuff a couple buck cheaper elsewhere - Newegg has my address, they have what I'm looking for, and for multiple item orders I find it worth a couple bucks to not have to deal with a dozen different package sent by relatively unknown companies.
I'm talking about a 'good ol boy' system here. Do you honesty expect that the politicians wouldn't have a backdoor in the program?
Most of the time discovery would mean nothing.
Even our influence is limited, especially when your choices are limited to Best Buy, Gamestop, and Walmart for your computing/Gaming needs. Maybe Sears/Kmart for things like TV's.
/.ers are quite rare in the scope of things.
My point would be that no, even people acquainted with
Besides, I'll admit that, on average, Bestbuy is a decent store for what it is. If I want a decent video card at a decent price, I'm going online. If I need an emergency replacement this hour, best buy is about my only option. Picking up a mouse or keyboard there isn't too painful, same with at least some games. They have a pretty good movie section with decently competitive prices.
As a slashdotter, for anything above $50 I'm likely to go online though. I'm not going to be buying a computer from them(I roll my own), so I'm not a customer there. For my family though, I want them to have a decent warrenty - so I recommend whoever has been getting decent reviews lately when it comes to customer support, while still not jacking prices for a basic econobox up too far.
Heck, I might be able to build a power PC for less than the big names can - but I can't beat their $300-400 econobox. Which is all that grandma needs, as it's still got 10x the power she'll ever use*.
*Yes, I checked out what she does, what she wants to do, etc... It's basically play solitaire and mahjong type games. She also has a sewing program and does some surfing/email/browsing. Nothing so complicated as even CivII.
That would be obvious fraud, with the tiles tossed in simply to give the right 'weight' to the package so the return drone takes it back without question.
I think that you overestimate the influence of /.ers.
We're not even 1% of the population, and while we might make 10x as many purchases as the rest of the population, we're still a small portion of BB and such's customer base; We're too likely to buy our stuff online from places like Newegg and tigerdirect.
I frequently do this already. Hard for them to argue when you open it up in front of them, in front of *their* cameras.
In the long term, yes. Especially if you concentrated on reducing the orbital velocity of the shavings when you removed them. However, the microgravitational effects of the ISS would be quite substantial in the medium term. So they might come back. It already appears to be enough to hold the shavings despite any friction.
If the shavings are of a ferrus material a magnet might be a good idea. Otherwise I might suggest canned air. Though once I think about it you'd still have the problems of the shavings coming back due to the microgravity of the station.
A high tech version of the push sweeper might be a better idea - rotating brushes pick up debris and pull it into a storage chamber.
Since speed cameras - the camera doesn't know they're a cop.
Actually it'd be pretty simple. Compare the license plates to a database of police officers(and other VIPs), discard if a match is found.
Or have a police/VIP version of 'whisky' plates, where if it matches a secret pattern, discard.
developing nation highways
20 mph difference increases accident risk 3X
Hmmm... Not the same thing, but a link showing that Montana was safer without speedlimits on highways.
Where should the line be drawn? Using little increments always ends up with "Going X+2 isn't much more dangerous than going X", but in the end, going 122 really is more dangerous than going 100. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and there is a sign by the side of the road telling you exactly where this line is drawn. Most police officers are even kind enough to allow a little buffer over the limit to account for inaccuracies in your speedometer.
The 85th percentile is pretty highly regarded. That's the speed that would have 85% of the people driving at or below if it was like the autobahn with no maximum.
At some point people reach a speed they're comfortable with, and proceed to stay at that speed, adjusting for conditions by themselves rather than trying to go 65 in a blizzard because that's what the signs say.
the bandwidth to download them will still remain the bottleneck...
I can think of a traditional solution, used for games back when I was a kid...
Sneakernet. Hard to beat that bandwidth.
Of course, they're starting to offer 100mbit and even gigabit lines to the house, there was an article claiming that a scientist could get 100x the bandwidth out of copper a couple weeks ago*.
Worst case, netflix and it's competitors.
*Of course, I'll be surprised if his solution gave more than 2X, but it's out there.
I don't think so. Police and politicians have to get places by car, too. Generally I think the speed limits are pretty reasonable. It's just that drivers can't stand any form of restriction, and always want to go faster.
That's where the 'good old boy' system comes in handy. IE the governor and other highly placed politicians get government plates like the cops/fire department which are automatically ignored by the cameras or discarded in the back end system.
Seriously, if people can't follow a simple speed limit, why should they be entrusted with more liberty on the road? If people would obey them and drive like sane people, then they could be allowed to drive faster. You have to earn responsibility.
Why should driving slow have anything to do with 'earning' the right to drive faster? You might have a bit of argument about keeping new drivers off the interstate, but interstates actually tend to be some of the least accident prone segments of road.
Also, speed differentials kill more than speed itself. Everybody on the road is doing 75 is safer than everybody doing 55 except for somebody wandering along at 25.
Training I would give you. Better enforcement of other rules - anti tailgating, proper passing, etc...