I did not mention Iraq or Saddam because it wasn't necessary - as far as the constitution is concerned an authorization of force does make this an actual war - in this case a war upon Al Quaeda and its allied terrorists. And besides on Oct. 16th, 2002 congress passed a resolution authorizing military force against Iraq. So technically a separate war was declared against Iraq.
The constitution just says that Congress shall have the power to declare war, but doesn't specify what form this will take. It's generally considered that an authorization of use of military force by congress constitutes a declaration of war. On Sep. 14th, 2001 Congress passed an authorization of military force against all nations, groups, or individuals that authorized or assisted the attacks on Sep. 11, 2001. I know you would like to believe that the U.S. has become an unconstitutional police state, but that's just not the case.
Yes, they always scan your ticket before you enter the plane. One time this actually kept me from getting on the wrong flight - I was running late, the gate had been changed and I didn't notice it. The bar code on my boarding pass didn't match and the flight attendent pointed me to the right gate.
They don't have to file a case. Congress did away with Habeas Corpus recently, so they can just 'disappear' you, like all the other terrorists...
No, they didn't. Habeas corpus still applies to all U.S. citizens. Period.
What congress did in the MCA was say that non-citizens being held in Guantanamo Bay or who have been declared enemy combatants cannot claim habeas corpus rights. Note that it's not clear that they would have had habeas corpus rights even before the MCA was passed. This was an attempt by Congress to clarify the law after the recent Supreme Court Hamdan ruling.
As an aside the habeas corpus was suspended by President Lincoln during the civil war so there is precedent for doing this during wartime.
NASA has lots of smart people working for it. I'm sure they've gone over the risk/rewards calculations for the mission better than any of us can, but here's my attempt at laying out the pros and cons -
Pros:
- Hubble's useful life can be extended to another 6-7 years.
- PR benefit of a successful repair mission
Cons:
- cost of another shuttle mission plus training the crew
- opportunity cost of using a shuttle mission for Hubble vs. using it for the ISS
- risk to astronauts (due to higher orbit)
- possible loss of a shuttle (putting entire manned spaceflight program at risk)
From NASA's perspective, a loss of the shuttle and crew would be catastrophic. It would shutdown the manned spaceflight program for at least a couple of years and endanger the ISS since almost all the remaining shuttle flights are needed for the space station. Politically it would be devastating as well since the public would demand that Something Be Done, and there would be calls to end the program for being too dangerous. This has to be weighed versus the best possible outcome - extending Hubble's lifespan by at most 5 years beyond its current one. And by the time the mission would be launched, the Hubble would be almost 18 years old. Given improved technology and the reduced quality of the Hubble due to a previous repair, a new satelite telescope may be a better investment.
3) The reporter is protected by the courts, and is not required to divulge the source.
Of course there is a downside to this as well - if a reporter has knowledge of the identity of a felon but won't reveal it, it denies justice to the victim. Normally people can be subpoenaed and made to testify under oath about their knowledge of a crime. Reporters don't have an absolute exemption from this requirement, but only where there is a compelling social interest.
I'm not sure that someone's weight correlates strongly with their self discipline or their work performance. People's metabolisms differ and for those disposed, it can be very easy to gain weight. Even a 100 calorie daily surplus over your BMR (basal metabolic rate) will result in an annual gain of 10 lbs. I've had friends who struggled constantly with their weight and other friends who could free feed and never gain any weight. Those who were heavier and struggled probably had more self discipline bcause they were forced to just to keep their weight from ballooning. It's easy to credit yourself with virtue when it really was a gift from genetics.
I'm a big non-fan of the BMI as well. I lift weights and have quite a bit of muscle for my height, yet by the BMI charts I'm obese even though my body fat is relatively low. Unfortunately life insurance companies and many doctors take it as a reliable statistic for determining whether you're fat or not. Even the military uses it for checking if you're overweight. However so many buff guys were failing it yet were in excellent shape, that they now allow you to take a body fat test if you fail the BMI requirement.
Back when I was an undergraduate, I worked in the university's admissions office helping with paperwork and gathering statistics. One of the things they did was to survey incoming students (and students who chose not to attend) and find out what influenced their decision to apply and attend/not attend. Surprisingly the top factors were mostly non-academic. As I recall campus appearance and the social scene were the top two factors. Most had decided to apply based on the recommendations of friends and guidance counselors followed by the performance of the school's sports teams. This was at an upper middle-tier university and the applicants were all well qualified academically. For the two years I helped with this, the results were consistent. For me it was an eye opener to find that most people made a major life decision based on 'shallow' considerations rather than the 'socially correct' reasons that everyone states publicly. Later I realized this is actually more the norm - the real reasons we choose other people for dating/mating or hiring are often far different than what we tell others or even ourselves.
Don't forget about the Tybee hydrogen bomb, lost in 1958 during a collision between two planes. The Air Force has never located it, and it's presumed to still be buried in mud just off the coast of Savannah, GA. Supposedly it didn't have the plutonium core installed, but did have enriched uranium and high explosives.
If you make a public threat to the president, it's likely the Secret Service will come interview you. They're actually very sophisticated is estimating someone's likelihood to commit violence (for details see De Becker's "The Gift of Fear"). Most people turn out to be harmless blowhards, and there are some who could be a threat but are several steps away from actually taking any actions. These may be put on a watch list and/or encouraged to get medical/psych help. Usually public/family scrutiny is enough to keep them from escalating any further. However if someone has expressed a credible threat, taken physical actions to perform that threat, and have other markers for incipient violence, they'll be taken into custody and may face charges or be put under psychological supervision.
I also work in the bay area, and have to agree with the above poster. So far every attempt to outsource software work to India that I've had first-hand knowledge of has not worked out as planned. Even though the labor costs are extremely attractive, there are often a lot of hidden costs. One of the largest is the loss of coordination when you're dealing with overseas teams that are 12 to 14 hours out of sync with engineers in the U.S. Even with video conferencing, nothing really replaces getting guys into the same room with a white board. This is of course assuming that the quality and practices of the coders overseas are on par with local ones - not always a good assumption. Usually the companies end up having to hire local programmers and managers just to quality check and manage the overseas output.
uh, no it's not. Charging the executive of an offshore gambling company with violating U.S. law when he steps foot on U.S. soil is quite different from censoring foreign news coming into a country. About the only thing they have in common is that they involve government action.
As an aside I have no problem with online gambling and think the government is wasting their time pursuing this. However they do have a plausible case given that this is a murky area of the law. Imagine if I was selling handguns here in the U.S. to customers in the U.K. and shipping them without filling out the proper paperwork. From my side, it's a perfectly legal operation in the U.S. However if I were to visit Heathrow, U.K. authorities might consider me an illegal arms dealer.
Exactly. If you dig around in the historical record, you'll find that that's why the concept of a "corporation" was invented. Its original purpose, and one of its primary functions nearly everywhere in the world, was to insulate people committing profitable crimes from prosecution. The legal argument was and is "I didn't do it; the corporation did." It's a variant of the "I was just following orders" defense, but it also applies to those giving the orders.
Incorporation is usually used to protect the top officers, who can't really use the "I was just following orders" defense. But it may be used to protect any employee who is acting in the interests of the corporation (i.e., on orders from superiors).
Actually the concept of a corporation was created to limit the financial liability of the owners to the amount they invested in the company - hence the original term 'limited liability corporation'. Without this, if I owned just one share of HP, I could be personally liable for all HP debts. I doubt anyone would be willing to invest in any business under those conditions. Furthermore under certain conditions, the government can 'pierce the corporate veil' i.e. hold owners libable for the debts of a company. Normally the requirements for this are pretty high and usually require proof that the corporation was formed for fraudulent purposes, but it does happen.
Contrary to what you claim, incorporation does not shield employees from being criminally prosecuted for acts they perform. If a manager tells me to go break into a competitor's office and steal a laptop, and I do it and am caught, I can be personally prosecuted for B&E and theft among other things. Plus the company I work for may also be civilly liable for damages. If corporations were really the magic shields against prosecution you describe, the mafia and drug cartels would have long ago incorporated as official entities.
You're making the fallacy of thinking of the president as the Great Oz who controls all aspects of the government down to the local level. Policy details like the searches you're encountering are usually determined somewhere deep in the bowels of the bureaucracy. The political pressures on the TSA (screening to catch the latest uncovered plot, being seen to do something versus annoying too many people, being accused of racism due to profiling) are pretty static. If Kerry had been elected in 2004, I doubt the TSA's policies would be any different.
I'm a bit skeptical that Homeland Security really requires this info. If it does, certainly the company can give the specific part of the law that requires it. Several companies have been caught requesting extra personal information "as required by the Patriot Act". When pressed, they were unable to show how the PA applied and had to back down. The patriot act make a very useful cudgel for getting customers to do what you want.
"Buyers sign forms acknowledging the Smart Box, agreeing not to tamper with it and promising to return to the dealership for a free removal after the last payment is made."
I doubt that legal issues by themselves would deter anyone from trying to defeat the box. The main reason it will work is that the type of people who are desperate enough to accept this kind of restriction are usually not motivated enough, technically savvy enough, or even clever enough to be able to disable it. The intersection of smart hacker types and credit deadbeats is probably a pretty miniscule percentage of their customers. Of course if these devices do become popular, then there'll be a market for hackers with the skills to defeat them just like with cable black boxes or satellite cards.
Before you sneer at Julia Child, read her obituary here. She was an OSS (forerunner to the CIA) agent during WWII and served in India and China. Making gourmet cooking mainstream was just one of her accomplishments.
here a guy opened up his HP printer and looked at the chips involved. It appears that all the printers with hidden codes use the Canon print engine board. Changing the pattern might be as easy as reflashing an eeprom.
Doxygen is a great help in understanding someone's code. If you have Graphviz installed, and all the options turned on, it will generate call graphs, header dependencies, and even UML diagrams of your classes and structures, along with an html-ized view of the code. And best of all it's free.
Well in industries where software failure could be catastrophic (avionics and medical devices), they make software reliability part of the bidding and contract process and they're willing to pay a premium for it. Clearly there are software providers that are willing to provide this.
Slashdot Mirror
I did not mention Iraq or Saddam because it wasn't necessary - as far as the constitution is concerned an authorization of force does make this an actual war - in this case a war upon Al Quaeda and its allied terrorists. And besides on Oct. 16th, 2002 congress passed a resolution authorizing military force against Iraq. So technically a separate war was declared against Iraq.
The constitution just says that Congress shall have the power to declare war, but doesn't specify what form this will take. It's generally considered that an authorization of use of military force by congress constitutes a declaration of war. On Sep. 14th, 2001 Congress passed an authorization of military force against all nations, groups, or individuals that authorized or assisted the attacks on Sep. 11, 2001. I know you would like to believe that the U.S. has become an unconstitutional police state, but that's just not the case.
Yes, they always scan your ticket before you enter the plane. One time this actually kept me from getting on the wrong flight - I was running late, the gate had been changed and I didn't notice it. The bar code on my boarding pass didn't match and the flight attendent pointed me to the right gate.
They don't have to file a case. Congress did away with Habeas Corpus recently, so they can just 'disappear' you, like all the other terrorists...
No, they didn't. Habeas corpus still applies to all U.S. citizens. Period.
What congress did in the MCA was say that non-citizens being held in Guantanamo Bay or who have been declared enemy combatants cannot claim habeas corpus rights. Note that it's not clear that they would have had habeas corpus rights even before the MCA was passed. This was an attempt by Congress to clarify the law after the recent Supreme Court Hamdan ruling.
As an aside the habeas corpus was suspended by President Lincoln during the civil war so there is precedent for doing this during wartime.
NASA has lots of smart people working for it. I'm sure they've gone over the risk/rewards calculations for the mission better than any of us can, but here's my attempt at laying out the pros and cons -
Pros:
- Hubble's useful life can be extended to another 6-7 years.
- PR benefit of a successful repair mission
Cons:
- cost of another shuttle mission plus training the crew
- opportunity cost of using a shuttle mission for Hubble vs. using it for the ISS
- risk to astronauts (due to higher orbit)
- possible loss of a shuttle (putting entire manned spaceflight program at risk)
From NASA's perspective, a loss of the shuttle and crew would be catastrophic. It would shutdown the manned spaceflight program for at least a couple of years and endanger the ISS since almost all the remaining shuttle flights are needed for the space station. Politically it would be devastating as well since the public would demand that Something Be Done, and there would be calls to end the program for being too dangerous. This has to be weighed versus the best possible outcome - extending Hubble's lifespan by at most 5 years beyond its current one. And by the time the mission would be launched, the Hubble would be almost 18 years old. Given improved technology and the reduced quality of the Hubble due to a previous repair, a new satelite telescope may be a better investment.
3) The reporter is protected by the courts, and is not required to divulge the source.
Of course there is a downside to this as well - if a reporter has knowledge of the identity of a felon but won't reveal it, it denies justice to the victim. Normally people can be subpoenaed and made to testify under oath about their knowledge of a crime. Reporters don't have an absolute exemption from this requirement, but only where there is a compelling social interest.
I'm not sure that someone's weight correlates strongly with their self discipline or their work performance. People's metabolisms differ and for those disposed, it can be very easy to gain weight. Even a 100 calorie daily surplus over your BMR (basal metabolic rate) will result in an annual gain of 10 lbs. I've had friends who struggled constantly with their weight and other friends who could free feed and never gain any weight. Those who were heavier and struggled probably had more self discipline bcause they were forced to just to keep their weight from ballooning. It's easy to credit yourself with virtue when it really was a gift from genetics.
I'm a big non-fan of the BMI as well. I lift weights and have quite a bit of muscle for my height, yet by the BMI charts I'm obese even though my body fat is relatively low. Unfortunately life insurance companies and many doctors take it as a reliable statistic for determining whether you're fat or not. Even the military uses it for checking if you're overweight. However so many buff guys were failing it yet were in excellent shape, that they now allow you to take a body fat test if you fail the BMI requirement.
Back when I was an undergraduate, I worked in the university's admissions office helping with paperwork and gathering statistics. One of the things they did was to survey incoming students (and students who chose not to attend) and find out what influenced their decision to apply and attend/not attend. Surprisingly the top factors were mostly non-academic. As I recall campus appearance and the social scene were the top two factors. Most had decided to apply based on the recommendations of friends and guidance counselors followed by the performance of the school's sports teams. This was at an upper middle-tier university and the applicants were all well qualified academically. For the two years I helped with this, the results were consistent. For me it was an eye opener to find that most people made a major life decision based on 'shallow' considerations rather than the 'socially correct' reasons that everyone states publicly. Later I realized this is actually more the norm - the real reasons we choose other people for dating/mating or hiring are often far different than what we tell others or even ourselves.
Don't forget about the Tybee hydrogen bomb, lost in 1958 during a collision between two planes. The Air Force has never located it, and it's presumed to still be buried in mud just off the coast of Savannah, GA. Supposedly it didn't have the plutonium core installed, but did have enriched uranium and high explosives.
If you make a public threat to the president, it's likely the Secret Service will come interview you. They're actually very sophisticated is estimating someone's likelihood to commit violence (for details see De Becker's "The Gift of Fear"). Most people turn out to be harmless blowhards, and there are some who could be a threat but are several steps away from actually taking any actions. These may be put on a watch list and/or encouraged to get medical/psych help. Usually public/family scrutiny is enough to keep them from escalating any further. However if someone has expressed a credible threat, taken physical actions to perform that threat, and have other markers for incipient violence, they'll be taken into custody and may face charges or be put under psychological supervision.
I also work in the bay area, and have to agree with the above poster. So far every attempt to outsource software work to India that I've had first-hand knowledge of has not worked out as planned. Even though the labor costs are extremely attractive, there are often a lot of hidden costs. One of the largest is the loss of coordination when you're dealing with overseas teams that are 12 to 14 hours out of sync with engineers in the U.S. Even with video conferencing, nothing really replaces getting guys into the same room with a white board. This is of course assuming that the quality and practices of the coders overseas are on par with local ones - not always a good assumption. Usually the companies end up having to hire local programmers and managers just to quality check and manage the overseas output.
uh, no it's not. Charging the executive of an offshore gambling company with violating U.S. law when he steps foot on U.S. soil is quite different from censoring foreign news coming into a country. About the only thing they have in common is that they involve government action.
As an aside I have no problem with online gambling and think the government is wasting their time pursuing this. However they do have a plausible case given that this is a murky area of the law. Imagine if I was selling handguns here in the U.S. to customers in the U.K. and shipping them without filling out the proper paperwork. From my side, it's a perfectly legal operation in the U.S. However if I were to visit Heathrow, U.K. authorities might consider me an illegal arms dealer.
Exactly. If you dig around in the historical record, you'll find that that's why the concept of a "corporation" was invented. Its original purpose, and one of its primary functions nearly everywhere in the world, was to insulate people committing profitable crimes from prosecution. The legal argument was and is "I didn't do it; the corporation did." It's a variant of the "I was just following orders" defense, but it also applies to those giving the orders. Incorporation is usually used to protect the top officers, who can't really use the "I was just following orders" defense. But it may be used to protect any employee who is acting in the interests of the corporation (i.e., on orders from superiors).
Actually the concept of a corporation was created to limit the financial liability of the owners to the amount they invested in the company - hence the original term 'limited liability corporation'. Without this, if I owned just one share of HP, I could be personally liable for all HP debts. I doubt anyone would be willing to invest in any business under those conditions. Furthermore under certain conditions, the government can 'pierce the corporate veil' i.e. hold owners libable for the debts of a company. Normally the requirements for this are pretty high and usually require proof that the corporation was formed for fraudulent purposes, but it does happen.
Contrary to what you claim, incorporation does not shield employees from being criminally prosecuted for acts they perform. If a manager tells me to go break into a competitor's office and steal a laptop, and I do it and am caught, I can be personally prosecuted for B&E and theft among other things. Plus the company I work for may also be civilly liable for damages. If corporations were really the magic shields against prosecution you describe, the mafia and drug cartels would have long ago incorporated as official entities.
You're making the fallacy of thinking of the president as the Great Oz who controls all aspects of the government down to the local level. Policy details like the searches you're encountering are usually determined somewhere deep in the bowels of the bureaucracy. The political pressures on the TSA (screening to catch the latest uncovered plot, being seen to do something versus annoying too many people, being accused of racism due to profiling) are pretty static. If Kerry had been elected in 2004, I doubt the TSA's policies would be any different.
Actually one of the initial claimed benefits of cocaine was that it alleviated pain without addiction. Unfortunately this turned out to not be true.
In 2004 he ran in the GOP primary for state congressman in Michigan. He came in second and lost. So he is indeed a politician - just not a very successful one. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/03/politics /main633681.shtml
I suspect that if you're paying for their monthly programming service, part of the agreement is that you will accept updated firmware.
I'm a bit skeptical that Homeland Security really requires this info. If it does, certainly the company can give the specific part of the law that requires it. Several companies have been caught requesting extra personal information "as required by the Patriot Act". When pressed, they were unable to show how the PA applied and had to back down. The patriot act make a very useful cudgel for getting customers to do what you want.
"Buyers sign forms acknowledging the Smart Box, agreeing not to tamper with it and promising to return to the dealership for a free removal after the last payment is made."
I doubt that legal issues by themselves would deter anyone from trying to defeat the box. The main reason it will work is that the type of people who are desperate enough to accept this kind of restriction are usually not motivated enough, technically savvy enough, or even clever enough to be able to disable it. The intersection of smart hacker types and credit deadbeats is probably a pretty miniscule percentage of their customers. Of course if these devices do become popular, then there'll be a market for hackers with the skills to defeat them just like with cable black boxes or satellite cards.
Before you sneer at Julia Child, read her obituary here. She was an OSS (forerunner to the CIA) agent during WWII and served in India and China. Making gourmet cooking mainstream was just one of her accomplishments.
here a guy opened up his HP printer and looked at the chips involved. It appears that all the printers with hidden codes use the Canon print engine board. Changing the pattern might be as easy as reflashing an eeprom.
Doxygen is a great help in understanding someone's code. If you have Graphviz installed, and all the options turned on, it will generate call graphs, header dependencies, and even UML diagrams of your classes and structures, along with an html-ized view of the code. And best of all it's free.
Well in industries where software failure could be catastrophic (avionics and medical devices), they make software reliability part of the bidding and contract process and they're willing to pay a premium for it. Clearly there are software providers that are willing to provide this.
I believe the actual flag is encoded in the closed caption data, so a filter is certainly possible if you can do without CC.