"If you get a pair of Levis from walmart and compare them to a pair of Levis from another store, you may very well get a completely separate pair of pants."
I would hope so! If the "pair of Levis from another store" is the same pair I bought at Wal-Mart, that would mean someone stole them, repackaged them and just happened to put them where I grabbed them from the Wal-Mart display.
Not exactly. You're confusing the difference between "private" and "disclosure."
The public has no more right to know all internal communications of the President than they would to know all the internal communications of the Chief of Police. The status of "public servant" does not mean every communication is, or should be, publicly available. Additionally, the status of "public servant" does not somehow remove right to privacy of that person.
Secrecy is simply a matter of disclosure. The police don't announce where they will be conducting sting operations, do they? Of course not.
Your last sentence is truly detached from reality. The vast majority of conversations concerning future planning most certainly are NOT suitable for the public, especially those which involve other entities. Privacy is an inherent necessity of negotiations of any sort, no matter who is involved in them.
Yes, there most certainly is a scent of fear. Ask anyone who has had plenty of experience with scared people such as a beat cop, interrogators, etc. To me, scared people smell like wet copper. Human skin is constantly sweating and shedding cells.
Redaction is a different issue. Redaction is one method of following the principles I stated which are the only way any organization can properly function.
Re-read the post I replied to and my comment. My comment was in response to the statement that anything and everything outside of PRA should be available to the public, what is appropriate for disclosure. Methinks you missed that as the gist of my post.
Here's a simple example which illustrates: Suppose you are playing cards with the President. The values of the cards the President has are not covered by the PRA. Should you get to see those cards because the President is a public servant (assuming you are a U.S. citizen)? Of course not. Should U.S. citizens be privy to the brand of toothpaste or magazine subscriptions or other non-PRA aspects of the personal life of the President? No. Should any and every U.S. citizen be privy to any and all discussions not covered by PRA? No.
Not exactly. You're confusing the difference between "private" and "disclosure."
The public has no more right to know all internal communications of the President than they would to know all the internal communications of the Chief of Police. The status of "public servant" does not mean every communication is, or should be, publicly available. Additionally, the status of "public servant" does not somehow remove right to privacy of that person.
Secrecy is simply a matter of disclosure. The police don't announce where they will be conducting sting operations, do they? Of course not.
Your last sentence is truly detached from reality. The vast majority of conversations concerning future planning most certainly are NOT suitable for the public, especially those which involve other entities. Privacy is an inherent necessity of negotiations of any sort, no matter who is involved in them.
Yup, pure Socialism as a method of mob control because the "powers that be" were afraid of people who are free. Ayn Rand's "Anthem" and Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God"...
Well, yes, that was my point. I probably should have pointed out the difference between the "public" reason and the "actual" reason for the "war on poverty." The Democrats also opposed the Civil Rights Act and other, similar, legislation then saw it as a way to destroy social integrity of the "lower class" families. As a side note, I grew up in the South and remember seeing Klansmen runnig for office on TV in the early 1970s.
Interestingly, the definition of "poverty" in the U.S. continues to slide upwards. I remember when my family had a single window air conditioner in the early 1970s and TWO phones. Now, something like 80% of the U.S. has central air conditioning, color TVs, cable or satellite TV, cell phones, etc. That's not poverty at all. That's high luxury for the late 1960s. It's certainly not real poverty.
Social Security is similar. It's a Ponzi scheme which was based on a German system. It hasn't tracked social change as people live longer and are more healthy plus the administrators keep expanding their money transfer system while softly encouraging the lie that it is a "trust fund." The best thing that can happen to that is complete collapse. Hopefully, it won't bankrupt the U.S. the way the Ponzi scheme in Albania drove their collapse.
Methinks you didn't read what I typed. I pointed out the "war on poverty" is a complete failure and, quite frankly, I agree that "free" pablum keeps people babies. How you could think I made any other statement is beyond me.
You and I have a very different view of what constitutes productivity. Ten years ago I was in Cancun and watched about 20 men using hacksaws on an I-beam for about a week. Was that productive? Depends on how you measure it. They were exerting effort and earning more income than they would have if Cancun was still a jungle but they weren't accomplishing much, immediately. Such a task would have been accomplished in a few minutes with proper tools. The goal of their employer wasn't to get that particular task done, it was to meet local political stability.
Now, as to your comment that slave labor societies are the most productive, that's just flat out false. The more freedom people have to pursue their own ambitions and derive greater and greater reqard for meeting the desires of the consumers, the more productive the society. If that were not the case, the wealth of the world would be reversed. Them's the facts, chief. That's why the U.S. is the world economic powerhouse after only a couple of hundred years and far older socieities like Rome and China aren't.
(Yes, yes, I know it's fashionable for simplistic "analysis" of China from fearmongers to claim China is a true powerhouse. They're not. What is happening there is very similar to when Lenin opened up the USSR to foreign investors. China has huge problems with how they are destroying their environment, starving for energy and a billion or so people who they are trying to keep out of the cities so their government doesn't collapse. There are reasons their cities are walled. Their Communist system can't survive under the twin pressures of Capitalism and the starving mobs. It's a slow process, just like the way we bankrupted the USSR.)
Nothing forces you or anyone else to work "longer and harder" other than their own choice. If you want to work "6 hours per day for 4 days per week", find such a job or create your own business. People do it all the time. Nothing stops you other than fear and herd mentality. Unemployment in the U.S. is around 5% which is, for all intents and purposes, full employment. Those who are left, in the vast majority, are not good employees. It's quite common for "simple" factory jobs to have a 50-75% failure on drug tests and basic math. There is actually a shortage of responsible, productive workers in the U.S. and the capable have a far better position to seek higher wages than just a few years ago.
Real wealth is at an all-time high for Americans. There are only 2 ways to generate wealth: steal it (taxation and "closed shops") or provide goods and services which other people willingly pay for because it benefits them. You seem confused on the basic principle of wealth creation. Your comment also "speaks with a forked tongue" in that it decries economic slavery while also eschewing personal responsibility. You post reeks of, "I want "you" to give me prosperity."
Don't whine and complain. Go create the personal destiny you want.
Yeah, that was part of my point but I don't know how to make a "tongue firmly planted in cheek" emoticon.
Most governments end up being composed of people who want to have control over other people which leads to "social welfare" which is really what you describe, a form of economic enslavement which drains incentive.
I have a similar story to yours. My father lost his job when I was a Junior in High School. I qualified for grants for college but the house we lived in was considered too expensive for me to get the grant, even though we had almost no family income other than true necessities for a long time. They literally told us if we sold the house and moved out I could get a grant. Yeah...selling a house, moving and buying another house is...free and instant? The goal wasn't to get money to people for college as an investment in the futue, it was to control them. I was able to get a full ROTC scholarship which was probably the only way I could have paid for college. Other kids couldn't comprehend that I made a four-year commitment to the miltary in exchange for the full ride scholarship...but they took student loans. My payback period was done after four years and they had to find jobs with the uncertainty of paying off the loan. I still get a kick out of people who complain about the cost of college when I tell them their kid should, "go in the military. That's what I did." The really funny ones are the kids who want to get into communications security but not have military or police experience.
Uh....no. That idea goes against human nature and does NOT make good fiscal sense.
Any money "given" to "poor people" must first be taken from people who produce. "Guaranteed" income destroys an economy and a culture by removing the concept of "zero" so money has no value and by removing incentive to achieve.
If it worked, the "war on poverty" in the United States would have ended long ago and highly Socialist countries would have the most advanced infrastructures and most productive people. Historically, societies which "give" "free" money to "the poor" continue to raise the amount of "free money" and the definition of "the poor" with the eventual result that they stagnate and collapse.
Your "logic" makes no sense. There is a near limitless supply of hair but we aren't "swimming in it." For that matter, the most abundant substance is water and we aren't "swimming in it" except by choice.
But, thanks for reinforcing my comment. There's no way to measure the full "supply" of oil, nor the rate of production so there's obviously no way to measure rate of depletion or expansion of the supply. There are only projections based on incomplete data and derived assumptions.
How did this get to be rated 5, insightful? The post is entirely void of comprehension.
The prohibition is against military personnel in uniform attending political events or active duty personnel using their rank and position in an effort to endorse a political cause.
The U.S. military has Public Affairs Officers who are spokesmen, just like any other large organization. They deliver news to the public. Wikipedia, most certainly, is a modern form of media. US military PA people access it just the same as people who are engaged in agitprop against them. (Let's forget, for the moment, the behind the scenes power plays at Wikipedia and assume it's a democratically operating, self policing entity and not an Orwellian "heads I win, tails you lose" propaganda site like KOS.)
Their tasks include correcting misunderstandings, countering propaganda and protecting the forces by doing what they can to remove information about operations. That's no different than how any police department handles vice and other dangerous operations. They don't announce all the details about how they catch criminals and they most certainly do whatever they can to prevent information about how prisons work from the public. That's being responsible. The blanket term is Operational Security. It's just as true now as it was during WWII when President FDR censored all communications between military personnel and everyone else as well as a huge majority of the civilian communications. Well, the difference is he didn't have the legal authority to do that and PA officers most certainly have the authority to make public statements. Wikipedia is a public area of discourse.
There was a really funny occurrence during Gulf War I in which the reporter asked where the Allied invasion forces where going and their plans. The military reply was something along the lines of, "Right, well, if we tell you then that information will be on the television and our enemies also watch it, don't they?"
"And what's wrong with that? We want renewable fuels, and those are the people who deliver it."
Renewable fuel for the sake of renewable fuel is incredibly stupid. The fuel must be efficient to produce, distribute and use and it must have a high ROI.
As an aside, what proof is there that oil is NOT being produced inside the Earth at the same or even a greater rate than it is being harvested by extraction? Projections, models, surveys, etc. are all slightly more accurate than guesses. New extraction technologies allow pulling oil from "depleted" sources, new sources are constantly being found, and so on. There is no proof, for or against, that the Earth's production of crude oil is below the consumption, there are only projections based on datasets and models. If those models and datasets are so "perfect" and "reliable", how is it that large crude deposits continue to be found? Answer, they're not as reliable as most people think.
Ethanol has a horribly low energy ROI. Think about it, the most efficient method of creating energy for a portable vehicle is the internal combustion engine. The most efficient fuel is hydrocarbon, right? (Well, unless you want a little nuke reactor under the hood.) Ethanol, regardless of the source, is still a plant-based oil which means it...rots and decays just like any oil you have in your kitchen. It can't be sent through a pipeline and it's nowhere near as "shelf stable" as a crude-based oil. Ethanol is too similar to food to be an efficient fuel.
Your desire shouldn't be "renewable" energy, per se, but efficient energy with a supply that is practically endless. Those are 2 very different things. The term "renewable" seems to have taken on a public perception to akin to perpetual motion and "free".
Oak Ridge isn't a weapons lab NOW. My Grandfather, Charles Thompson, was pretty high muckety muck there. He's told me about how he had to send the cops and military out to take care of the local yockel cops who were harassing scientist's wives and things like that. Some people also "wandered off" during the war. There was also the situation of lots of young women and very few eligible men which led to some pretty interesting encoutners with the guards.
Regarding loading firmware into ICBMS, I was a Missileer for Minuteman II. It ain't firmware like most people who come here would think of it and, nope, it don't work over and IP address.
"Countless", another unqualified statement? So...never mind the facts, your opinions are reality? Thank God reality isn't subject to your capricious whims.
You contradicted yourself again. The conflict isn't ended and the Geneva Conventions say prisoners should be released at the end of the conflict. The conflict can't exist and not exist at the same time. The Taliban is "clearly a power", like... say... The Roman Catholic Church? Oops, the Roman Catholic Church actually has a soverign land. The Taliban "clearly" does not. The Taliban is as much a soverign power as the Kiss Army is a soverign power.
The military is under authority of the Executive branch, not the Representative branch.
Congress authorized full war powers in a near unanimous vote. There is no such thing as a formal declaration of war. There is no requirement to "negotiate" anything. The goal is victory, not postponement of the threat. WWII did not end from negotiation, it ended by defeat, even though a few stragglers didn't know or wouldn't agree with that.
I never said anything about ALL Americans dying. Staw man, again.
It most certainly IS possible to be both a "hardened terrorist" and a "good kid" at 14 years old. A "good kid" at 14 usually means they follow the leadership of the adults who have authority over and responsibility for them. Age does not absolve anyone of responsibility for their actions. Your last comment in that portion of the reply shows you don't know much about children or conflict.
Exoneration by a legal proceeding or fiat does not negate a past actions. Guantanmo prisoners are the aggregate worst of the worst who have been caught conspiring, committing or providing material support for terrorism. Tellingly, you neglect to mention that some of those "exonnerated" people were caught, again, committing terrorism.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are far left agitprop organizations with an anti-American agenda. If they were truly objective, they would be coming down hardest on the terrorists, Communists and Muslim countries. They don't, which proves they aren't.
Imagination is fantasy. Projecting your conceptual delusions does not make them reality.
The Geneva Conventions most certainly do include ambiguous text. Thank you for proving yourself wrong. "any other form of coercion" cannot be defined to mean anything except, "everything."
The Geneva Conventions are an agreement between signatories concerning behavior of their uniformed military personnel. They do not paralyze the U.S. and give the rest of the world carte blanche to do anything and everything.
To be a POW a person must be a formal member of an armed force. Taliban and terrorists don't meet that requirement.
Research the definition of the legal term, "standing." You are either woefully and dangerously ignorant or willfully dismissive of the foundational concept.
"Countless authorities"? Riiiight. No attack on the U.S. mainland in 6 years just... happened... despite the actions of the U.S. Al Qaeda's fertilizer bomb cargo ships just... evaporated. The tons of chemical weapons Saddam Hussein had just... disappeared... along with the gene-slicing and biochem equipment.
Oh, I get it, "countless authorities" means lying propagandists.
Thankfully, the world has a far larger number of responsible people than it does cavaliar lunatics.
Seriously, I'm not going to reply to you again. You're clearly ignorant and irrational, bordering on dangerous if not destructive. Take it over to Kos.
"totally" is like, so bitchin' dude. I mean, like, peeps should go tubular and stop being so bogus 90s. Righteous call, bro. Gnarly. I mean, those cats are like...whatEVER!
"And you know this how? Neither you nor the government, has presented one iota of credible evidence that anyone at Guantanamo has committed any crimes whatsoever. The Bush administration has fought tooth and nail to prevent any such evidence coming to light."
There is no legal requirement to disclose such information concerning prisoners during a time of conflict. Civilian police also do not announce every person who provides them information nor do they provide advance notice of where and when they will be performing raids, checks or sting operations. "Full" disclosure is not now, nor has it ever been, a requirement of US military or law enforcement of any type. The exception is during a civilian trial which would require all material proposed to be used as evidence to be supplied to both parties and subject to public release. No sane country is going to tell their enemies all the details of collected information. As very succinctly stated elsewhere, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
"You do know that lots of people have been released from Guantanamo, don't you? And that many of those people have been formally exonerated by their home nations of committing any crime?"
Please provide your source for this information and quantification of "many" as well as subsequent actions by the people released. To use your same presentation method: You do know that many of the released people were re-captured fighting against the Allied forces or involved in terrorist attacks, don't you?
"One of the people held at Guantanamo has been there since he was 14. Was he one of the "worst of the worst"? The government won't say what he did but, perversely, has described him as a "good kid" that thrived under the tender mercies of the Guantanamo guards."
Objection: relevance. What is the relevance of the person's age?
Objection: projection. "Perversely" and "that thrived under the tender mercies of the Guantanamo guards" are not statements of fact, they are opinions.
"Staff at Guantanamo have reported that, for the most part, they don't know why most people are being held there."
Exactly, it's a security measure. The less the guards know about why a person is there, the lower the chance of collusion. Given a Muslim military chaplain was caught and prosecuted for providing illegal support to the prisoners, such a policy enhances security for both the prisoners and the guards. If your concern is for the welfare of the prisoners, you should be supportive of this policy.
"First, I hate to break it to you, but "actively fighting American forces" isn't a war crime. "
Straw man.
"Whether you're wearing a uniform or not. Imprisoning prisoners of war outside the theater is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions."
Please provide a direct reference to such a statement in the Geneva Conventions. Every country, whenever possible, removes prisoners from the theater in which they are captured for very obvious security reasons. During WWII, Nazi prisoners of war were held in the Southwest US.
"So is interrogating them."
Please provide a direct reference to such a statement in the Geneva Conventions. Every country, whenever possible, interrogates prisoners. They are prisoners, not winners of a free vacation.
"So even assuming you're correct, Guantanamo Bay is illegal."
Blatantly untrue as noted above.
"Most of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were sold to the US Army by Afghani warlords/drug lords."
Define "sold". Do you mean a bounty for capture or information leading to the capture of a wanted person? If so, explain how that concept is improper, let alone illegal.
Please provide verifiable documentation of your claim and explain how you manage to come to this information given "Neither you nor the government, has presented one iota of credible evidence that anyone at Guantanamo has committed any crimes whatsoever." (btw: you were lying there, a simple search shows evidence far exceeding "one iota".) Clarify and docu
This looks very much like a civilian version of a PRP program. Personnel Reliability Program is a self-monitoring system i which all the people in sensitive positions. Medication is typically limited to aspirin. Anything else, including allergy medicines, is only allowed under supervision from certain doctors, typically flight surgeons. Odd or self-destructive behavior is supposed to be reported and anyone operating outside their "peak" is supposed to be removed from sensitive duties.
This is a security precaution which you might see referred to under two different operational aspects, surety and security. I won't get into the differences but the concepts are that only the proper people should have access to something and that what is supposed to happen happens when it is supposed to happen.
Purchase of precursor components is controlled and monitored (pseudophedrine, "dual use" products, etc.). This is expanding more into raw tech and related research. It is the responsible thing to do.
So much of the discussion in this thread seems confused on the concept of employeement. A "job" does not "belong" to the employee. The employee occupies the job as long as it benefits the employer. The root of the word employee is employ, to use. In this case, the employer has decided to increase security. If you are an employee and won't accept the change, quit or be fired. That's true of any other job. It has happened everywhere as smoking has become prohibited in offices, racial and sexually intimidating behavior has been prohibited, etc.
Some security classifications specifically prohibit non-citizens from having access. NOFORN is common with most NBC. Access to one aspect does not dictate authorization to other parts. (See the reply which mentioned a Pakistani who was prohibted from certain types of meetings.)
Changes in security procedures like this are not cheap to implement. Most likely, the nature of the activities at JPL will be changing or JPL has been found to have a serious lack of security. Maybe there is some combination of the two. Think of the Soviet mathematician whose work was the basis for a lot of the stealth technology developed in the U.S. What had been an esoteric curiosity became a critical security issue or how narcotics have become more restricted over time.
I'm a former SAC missileer. I totally agree with your comments.
My disagreement is with the current agitprop claims that tasers are torture devices. They are a non-contact immobiliation device. As you say, any tool can be used by a person for positive or negative means. A hammer can drive nails or smash a skull. Coffee can be an energy source or a poison (historical note: Polish resistance used it as a slow poison against Nazi occupiers.)
In general, I find the majority of ex-military people to be more disciplined and principle-based than "pure" civilians. My disagreement is with the all too common statements that characterize all police as being undisciplined. Some are, some aren't. Scenarios like the Rodney King submission video tape are more complex than "the police are thugs." He was a known meth user, very large, and very combative. Violent meth users are not an easy takedown and very , very dangerous given they feel no pain, enrage easily and are, basically, super adrenalized. The recent campus police incient where they used tasers that was in the news sure seems like Keystone Kops incident. I remember when tasers were first on the market. The most publicized use was by air marshalls as a way to take down airplane hijackers. Those were the old style that looked a lot like a large flashlight with 2 projectiles in the front.
Tasers, themselves, are tools. They are no more sentient than dentist's drills.
Straw man? Hardly. You made an assertion of probability related to police training and I challenged you to show substantiation. You don't have to meet the requireent of validating your claim in which case it's clear you have no factual basis for your comment. Ergo, it's a fabricated "fact" you invented to support your assertion.
I think you missed the point I was trying to make when I used the word, "anarchy." I was specifically commenting on the idea that only someone who has experienced something can really know the effect. I don't have to be a Meth addict to know it's bad. Likewise, I don't have to be hit with a taser to know it's bad.
CS probably also reliever you of some solids and liquids, too.
Clubs and fists require the police officer to put their own body at risk, don't they? They also won't work at a distance. Your analogy doesn't hold.
The idea that a police officer isn't capable of having feedback during taser use is...really very arrogant, when you think about it unless police officers are braindead zombies. They do have a tendency to become rather callous compared to the average person but they exist to deal with the bad guys, not the good guys, so that's part of they price they and society "pay."
"Given the low probability of the office having otherwise experiences such an intense electric shock,..." Please cite verifiable references for your assertion and define "low probability". It is common for tasers and tear gas to be used on police officers for familiarization.
A few cases of misuse of a control tool by police does not mean the tools should be removed. Some reports say the Polish guy in Canada was on a rampage. People are fallible. That doesn't comden the tool.
They carry guns but aren't shot with bullets during training, are they? Would you propose their guns be removed because they have no ability to appreciate the damage a gun can cause?
"Shock and awe" meant shock and awe of decapitation of the ability to wage war. The press and Joe Blow don't have any real comprehension of the modern ability to use guided munitions. They tend to see lots of WWII and Vietnam-era film of dumb weapons and think that's the current reality. Knocking out the air defense of the 3rd largest (manpower count) military in the world in about 24 hours is pretty darn "shocking" and "awe"ing. It demonstrated, very conclusively, that the miilitary capabilites of the U.S far outpace those of any other country. It was also quite reserved. The goal was to remove the ability to wage war, period. That's why Iraqi officers were told, in very direct indivisualized messages, what to do and what not to do. "Dear x, do not go to your office at xxxx street tomorrow. Signed, the U.S. military" was pretty effective in bringing the destructio of the means to wage war while minimizing human casualties. The attacks against Saddam Hussein's regime were not a theatrical presentation for the entertainment of the media.
I have no idea what you mean by vaccum bomb unless you are confused and don't know what a fuel-air explosion is and does. "specifically design(ed) to terrify the enemy by killing victims in a particular(ly) slow and painful manner" shows extreme ignorance of the weapons, what they do and their use. That comment isn't one that would be expected from anyone with even a moderat understanding of military history. Intimidating the enemy is the primary goal. The ultimate goal is to get the enemy to capitulate without taking action. Anyone who doesn't want their enemy terrified is a fool. Fuel-air bombs work by dispersing a mist of explosive so there is a large area and plenty of oxygen to feed the rapid burn known as an explosion. They are designed to create a massive pressure wave, first positive, then negative as air rushes to fill the void. The softer an item within the blast area, the more likely it is to sustain damage. Damage comes primarily from pressure waves, not burning so residual damage is far less than with "conventional" bombs. There are plenty of examples from both Gulf Wars in which smart and brilliant munitions were used to take out huge numbers of troops/vehicles in an incredibly short time, followed by the absolute surrender of troops who witnessed the attacks. Which is better, a single targeted attack which takes out the military objective and creates fear or hundreds of dumb weapons? Fuel-air explosives have been in use for quite a while. The U.S. daisy cutter (nicknamed for the shape of the explosive effect) was used in Vietnam and the updated version used only a couple of times against Saddam's Iraq. The Soviets used something similar in Afghanistan. They're great for clearing confined spaces like caves and tunnels. Remember, the goal is to get the enemy to capitulate WITHOUT having to fight to minimize casualties on both sides. The only way to do that is intimidation. Technology has provided the means to do this which is why combat fatalities (military and civilian) are so small. I have no idea how any sane person would think a fuel-air bomb is specifically designed to create pain more than any other explosion. That idea certainly wouldn't come from anyone who has an elementary understanding of explosives. Pressure with minimalresidual fire is very humane. I see how the accusation could be made for agitprop reasons but it won't stand up to scrutiny.
Slashdot Mirror
"If you get a pair of Levis from walmart and compare them to a pair of Levis from another store, you may very well get a completely separate pair of pants."
I would hope so! If the "pair of Levis from another store" is the same pair I bought at Wal-Mart, that would mean someone stole them, repackaged them and just happened to put them where I grabbed them from the Wal-Mart display.
Words have meanings. Yours were lax.
Troll? Nope, not at all.
Not exactly. You're confusing the difference between "private" and "disclosure."
The public has no more right to know all internal communications of the President than they would to know all the internal communications of the Chief of Police. The status of "public servant" does not mean every communication is, or should be, publicly available. Additionally, the status of "public servant" does not somehow remove right to privacy of that person.
Secrecy is simply a matter of disclosure. The police don't announce where they will be conducting sting operations, do they? Of course not.
Your last sentence is truly detached from reality. The vast majority of conversations concerning future planning most certainly are NOT suitable for the public, especially those which involve other entities. Privacy is an inherent necessity of negotiations of any sort, no matter who is involved in them.
Yes, there most certainly is a scent of fear. Ask anyone who has had plenty of experience with scared people such as a beat cop, interrogators, etc. To me, scared people smell like wet copper. Human skin is constantly sweating and shedding cells.
Redaction is a different issue. Redaction is one method of following the principles I stated which are the only way any organization can properly function.
Re-read the post I replied to and my comment. My comment was in response to the statement that anything and everything outside of PRA should be available to the public, what is appropriate for disclosure. Methinks you missed that as the gist of my post.
Here's a simple example which illustrates: Suppose you are playing cards with the President. The values of the cards the President has are not covered by the PRA. Should you get to see those cards because the President is a public servant (assuming you are a U.S. citizen)? Of course not. Should U.S. citizens be privy to the brand of toothpaste or magazine subscriptions or other non-PRA aspects of the personal life of the President? No. Should any and every U.S. citizen be privy to any and all discussions not covered by PRA? No.
Not exactly. You're confusing the difference between "private" and "disclosure."
The public has no more right to know all internal communications of the President than they would to know all the internal communications of the Chief of Police. The status of "public servant" does not mean every communication is, or should be, publicly available. Additionally, the status of "public servant" does not somehow remove right to privacy of that person.
Secrecy is simply a matter of disclosure. The police don't announce where they will be conducting sting operations, do they? Of course not.
Your last sentence is truly detached from reality. The vast majority of conversations concerning future planning most certainly are NOT suitable for the public, especially those which involve other entities. Privacy is an inherent necessity of negotiations of any sort, no matter who is involved in them.
How in the world (boo, bad joke) could revising a formula change the chance of any occurrence?
The actual chance is the same it was just before the predictive formula was revised. What changed was the predictive formula, not the chance itself.
Typical Slashdot post...
Yup, pure Socialism as a method of mob control because the "powers that be" were afraid of people who are free. Ayn Rand's "Anthem" and Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God"...
Well, yes, that was my point. I probably should have pointed out the difference between the "public" reason and the "actual" reason for the "war on poverty." The Democrats also opposed the Civil Rights Act and other, similar, legislation then saw it as a way to destroy social integrity of the "lower class" families. As a side note, I grew up in the South and remember seeing Klansmen runnig for office on TV in the early 1970s.
Interestingly, the definition of "poverty" in the U.S. continues to slide upwards. I remember when my family had a single window air conditioner in the early 1970s and TWO phones. Now, something like 80% of the U.S. has central air conditioning, color TVs, cable or satellite TV, cell phones, etc. That's not poverty at all. That's high luxury for the late 1960s. It's certainly not real poverty.
Social Security is similar. It's a Ponzi scheme which was based on a German system. It hasn't tracked social change as people live longer and are more healthy plus the administrators keep expanding their money transfer system while softly encouraging the lie that it is a "trust fund." The best thing that can happen to that is complete collapse. Hopefully, it won't bankrupt the U.S. the way the Ponzi scheme in Albania drove their collapse.
Methinks you didn't read what I typed. I pointed out the "war on poverty" is a complete failure and, quite frankly, I agree that "free" pablum keeps people babies. How you could think I made any other statement is beyond me.
You and I have a very different view of what constitutes productivity. Ten years ago I was in Cancun and watched about 20 men using hacksaws on an I-beam for about a week. Was that productive? Depends on how you measure it. They were exerting effort and earning more income than they would have if Cancun was still a jungle but they weren't accomplishing much, immediately. Such a task would have been accomplished in a few minutes with proper tools. The goal of their employer wasn't to get that particular task done, it was to meet local political stability.
Now, as to your comment that slave labor societies are the most productive, that's just flat out false. The more freedom people have to pursue their own ambitions and derive greater and greater reqard for meeting the desires of the consumers, the more productive the society. If that were not the case, the wealth of the world would be reversed. Them's the facts, chief. That's why the U.S. is the world economic powerhouse after only a couple of hundred years and far older socieities like Rome and China aren't.
(Yes, yes, I know it's fashionable for simplistic "analysis" of China from fearmongers to claim China is a true powerhouse. They're not. What is happening there is very similar to when Lenin opened up the USSR to foreign investors. China has huge problems with how they are destroying their environment, starving for energy and a billion or so people who they are trying to keep out of the cities so their government doesn't collapse. There are reasons their cities are walled. Their Communist system can't survive under the twin pressures of Capitalism and the starving mobs. It's a slow process, just like the way we bankrupted the USSR.)
Nothing forces you or anyone else to work "longer and harder" other than their own choice. If you want to work "6 hours per day for 4 days per week", find such a job or create your own business. People do it all the time. Nothing stops you other than fear and herd mentality. Unemployment in the U.S. is around 5% which is, for all intents and purposes, full employment. Those who are left, in the vast majority, are not good employees. It's quite common for "simple" factory jobs to have a 50-75% failure on drug tests and basic math. There is actually a shortage of responsible, productive workers in the U.S. and the capable have a far better position to seek higher wages than just a few years ago.
Real wealth is at an all-time high for Americans. There are only 2 ways to generate wealth: steal it (taxation and "closed shops") or provide goods and services which other people willingly pay for because it benefits them. You seem confused on the basic principle of wealth creation. Your comment also "speaks with a forked tongue" in that it decries economic slavery while also eschewing personal responsibility. You post reeks of, "I want "you" to give me prosperity."
Don't whine and complain. Go create the personal destiny you want.
Yeah, that was part of my point but I don't know how to make a "tongue firmly planted in cheek" emoticon.
Most governments end up being composed of people who want to have control over other people which leads to "social welfare" which is really what you describe, a form of economic enslavement which drains incentive.
I have a similar story to yours. My father lost his job when I was a Junior in High School. I qualified for grants for college but the house we lived in was considered too expensive for me to get the grant, even though we had almost no family income other than true necessities for a long time. They literally told us if we sold the house and moved out I could get a grant. Yeah...selling a house, moving and buying another house is...free and instant? The goal wasn't to get money to people for college as an investment in the futue, it was to control them. I was able to get a full ROTC scholarship which was probably the only way I could have paid for college. Other kids couldn't comprehend that I made a four-year commitment to the miltary in exchange for the full ride scholarship...but they took student loans. My payback period was done after four years and they had to find jobs with the uncertainty of paying off the loan. I still get a kick out of people who complain about the cost of college when I tell them their kid should, "go in the military. That's what I did." The really funny ones are the kids who want to get into communications security but not have military or police experience.
Uh....no. That idea goes against human nature and does NOT make good fiscal sense.
Any money "given" to "poor people" must first be taken from people who produce. "Guaranteed" income destroys an economy and a culture by removing the concept of "zero" so money has no value and by removing incentive to achieve.
If it worked, the "war on poverty" in the United States would have ended long ago and highly Socialist countries would have the most advanced infrastructures and most productive people. Historically, societies which "give" "free" money to "the poor" continue to raise the amount of "free money" and the definition of "the poor" with the eventual result that they stagnate and collapse.
Uh...no.
Your "logic" makes no sense. There is a near limitless supply of hair but we aren't "swimming in it." For that matter, the most abundant substance is water and we aren't "swimming in it" except by choice.
But, thanks for reinforcing my comment. There's no way to measure the full "supply" of oil, nor the rate of production so there's obviously no way to measure rate of depletion or expansion of the supply. There are only projections based on incomplete data and derived assumptions.
How did this get to be rated 5, insightful? The post is entirely void of comprehension.
The prohibition is against military personnel in uniform attending political events or active duty personnel using their rank and position in an effort to endorse a political cause.
The U.S. military has Public Affairs Officers who are spokesmen, just like any other large organization. They deliver news to the public. Wikipedia, most certainly, is a modern form of media. US military PA people access it just the same as people who are engaged in agitprop against them. (Let's forget, for the moment, the behind the scenes power plays at Wikipedia and assume it's a democratically operating, self policing entity and not an Orwellian "heads I win, tails you lose" propaganda site like KOS.)
Their tasks include correcting misunderstandings, countering propaganda and protecting the forces by doing what they can to remove information about operations. That's no different than how any police department handles vice and other dangerous operations. They don't announce all the details about how they catch criminals and they most certainly do whatever they can to prevent information about how prisons work from the public. That's being responsible. The blanket term is Operational Security. It's just as true now as it was during WWII when President FDR censored all communications between military personnel and everyone else as well as a huge majority of the civilian communications. Well, the difference is he didn't have the legal authority to do that and PA officers most certainly have the authority to make public statements. Wikipedia is a public area of discourse.
There was a really funny occurrence during Gulf War I in which the reporter asked where the Allied invasion forces where going and their plans. The military reply was something along the lines of, "Right, well, if we tell you then that information will be on the television and our enemies also watch it, don't they?"
"And what's wrong with that? We want renewable fuels, and those are the people who deliver it."
Renewable fuel for the sake of renewable fuel is incredibly stupid. The fuel must be efficient to produce, distribute and use and it must have a high ROI.
As an aside, what proof is there that oil is NOT being produced inside the Earth at the same or even a greater rate than it is being harvested by extraction? Projections, models, surveys, etc. are all slightly more accurate than guesses. New extraction technologies allow pulling oil from "depleted" sources, new sources are constantly being found, and so on. There is no proof, for or against, that the Earth's production of crude oil is below the consumption, there are only projections based on datasets and models. If those models and datasets are so "perfect" and "reliable", how is it that large crude deposits continue to be found? Answer, they're not as reliable as most people think.
Ethanol has a horribly low energy ROI. Think about it, the most efficient method of creating energy for a portable vehicle is the internal combustion engine. The most efficient fuel is hydrocarbon, right? (Well, unless you want a little nuke reactor under the hood.) Ethanol, regardless of the source, is still a plant-based oil which means it...rots and decays just like any oil you have in your kitchen. It can't be sent through a pipeline and it's nowhere near as "shelf stable" as a crude-based oil. Ethanol is too similar to food to be an efficient fuel.
Your desire shouldn't be "renewable" energy, per se, but efficient energy with a supply that is practically endless. Those are 2 very different things. The term "renewable" seems to have taken on a public perception to akin to perpetual motion and "free".
Oak Ridge isn't a weapons lab NOW. My Grandfather, Charles Thompson, was pretty high muckety muck there. He's told me about how he had to send the cops and military out to take care of the local yockel cops who were harassing scientist's wives and things like that. Some people also "wandered off" during the war. There was also the situation of lots of young women and very few eligible men which led to some pretty interesting encoutners with the guards.
Regarding loading firmware into ICBMS, I was a Missileer for Minuteman II. It ain't firmware like most people who come here would think of it and, nope, it don't work over and IP address.
Boy, you really ARE confused, aren't you?
... say ... The Roman Catholic Church? Oops, the Roman Catholic Church actually has a soverign land. The Taliban "clearly" does not. The Taliban is as much a soverign power as the Kiss Army is a soverign power.
... happened ... despite the actions of the U.S. Al Qaeda's fertilizer bomb cargo ships just ... evaporated. The tons of chemical weapons Saddam Hussein had just ... disappeared ... along with the gene-slicing and biochem equipment.
"Countless", another unqualified statement? So...never mind the facts, your opinions are reality? Thank God reality isn't subject to your capricious whims.
You contradicted yourself again. The conflict isn't ended and the Geneva Conventions say prisoners should be released at the end of the conflict. The conflict can't exist and not exist at the same time. The Taliban is "clearly a power", like
The military is under authority of the Executive branch, not the Representative branch.
Congress authorized full war powers in a near unanimous vote. There is no such thing as a formal declaration of war. There is no requirement to "negotiate" anything. The goal is victory, not postponement of the threat. WWII did not end from negotiation, it ended by defeat, even though a few stragglers didn't know or wouldn't agree with that.
I never said anything about ALL Americans dying. Staw man, again.
It most certainly IS possible to be both a "hardened terrorist" and a "good kid" at 14 years old. A "good kid" at 14 usually means they follow the leadership of the adults who have authority over and responsibility for them. Age does not absolve anyone of responsibility for their actions. Your last comment in that portion of the reply shows you don't know much about children or conflict.
Exoneration by a legal proceeding or fiat does not negate a past actions. Guantanmo prisoners are the aggregate worst of the worst who have been caught conspiring, committing or providing material support for terrorism. Tellingly, you neglect to mention that some of those "exonnerated" people were caught, again, committing terrorism.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are far left agitprop organizations with an anti-American agenda. If they were truly objective, they would be coming down hardest on the terrorists, Communists and Muslim countries. They don't, which proves they aren't.
Imagination is fantasy. Projecting your conceptual delusions does not make them reality.
The Geneva Conventions most certainly do include ambiguous text. Thank you for proving yourself wrong. "any other form of coercion" cannot be defined to mean anything except, "everything."
The Geneva Conventions are an agreement between signatories concerning behavior of their uniformed military personnel. They do not paralyze the U.S. and give the rest of the world carte blanche to do anything and everything.
To be a POW a person must be a formal member of an armed force. Taliban and terrorists don't meet that requirement.
Research the definition of the legal term, "standing." You are either woefully and dangerously ignorant or willfully dismissive of the foundational concept.
"Countless authorities"? Riiiight. No attack on the U.S. mainland in 6 years just
Oh, I get it, "countless authorities" means lying propagandists.
Thankfully, the world has a far larger number of responsible people than it does cavaliar lunatics.
Seriously, I'm not going to reply to you again. You're clearly ignorant and irrational, bordering on dangerous if not destructive. Take it over to Kos.
"totally" is like, so bitchin' dude. I mean, like, peeps should go tubular and stop being so bogus 90s. Righteous call, bro. Gnarly. I mean, those cats are like...whatEVER!
"And you know this how? Neither you nor the government, has presented one iota of credible evidence that anyone at Guantanamo has committed any crimes whatsoever. The Bush administration has fought tooth and nail to prevent any such evidence coming to light."
There is no legal requirement to disclose such information concerning prisoners during a time of conflict. Civilian police also do not announce every person who provides them information nor do they provide advance notice of where and when they will be performing raids, checks or sting operations. "Full" disclosure is not now, nor has it ever been, a requirement of US military or law enforcement of any type. The exception is during a civilian trial which would require all material proposed to be used as evidence to be supplied to both parties and subject to public release. No sane country is going to tell their enemies all the details of collected information. As very succinctly stated elsewhere, "The Constitution is not a suicide pact."
"You do know that lots of people have been released from Guantanamo, don't you? And that many of those people have been formally exonerated by their home nations of committing any crime?"
Please provide your source for this information and quantification of "many" as well as subsequent actions by the people released. To use your same presentation method: You do know that many of the released people were re-captured fighting against the Allied forces or involved in terrorist attacks, don't you?
"One of the people held at Guantanamo has been there since he was 14. Was he one of the "worst of the worst"? The government won't say what he did but, perversely, has described him as a "good kid" that thrived under the tender mercies of the Guantanamo guards."
Objection: relevance. What is the relevance of the person's age?
Objection: projection. "Perversely" and "that thrived under the tender mercies of the Guantanamo guards" are not statements of fact, they are opinions.
"Staff at Guantanamo have reported that, for the most part, they don't know why most people are being held there."
Exactly, it's a security measure. The less the guards know about why a person is there, the lower the chance of collusion. Given a Muslim military chaplain was caught and prosecuted for providing illegal support to the prisoners, such a policy enhances security for both the prisoners and the guards. If your concern is for the welfare of the prisoners, you should be supportive of this policy.
"First, I hate to break it to you, but "actively fighting American forces" isn't a war crime. "
Straw man.
"Whether you're wearing a uniform or not. Imprisoning prisoners of war outside the theater is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions."
Please provide a direct reference to such a statement in the Geneva Conventions. Every country, whenever possible, removes prisoners from the theater in which they are captured for very obvious security reasons. During WWII, Nazi prisoners of war were held in the Southwest US.
"So is interrogating them."
Please provide a direct reference to such a statement in the Geneva Conventions. Every country, whenever possible, interrogates prisoners. They are prisoners, not winners of a free vacation.
"So even assuming you're correct, Guantanamo Bay is illegal."
Blatantly untrue as noted above.
"Most of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were sold to the US Army by Afghani warlords/drug lords."
Define "sold". Do you mean a bounty for capture or information leading to the capture of a wanted person? If so, explain how that concept is improper, let alone illegal.
Please provide verifiable documentation of your claim and explain how you manage to come to this information given "Neither you nor the government, has presented one iota of credible evidence that anyone at Guantanamo has committed any crimes whatsoever." (btw: you were lying there, a simple search shows evidence far exceeding "one iota".) Clarify and docu
This looks very much like a civilian version of a PRP program. Personnel Reliability Program is a self-monitoring system i which all the people in sensitive positions. Medication is typically limited to aspirin. Anything else, including allergy medicines, is only allowed under supervision from certain doctors, typically flight surgeons. Odd or self-destructive behavior is supposed to be reported and anyone operating outside their "peak" is supposed to be removed from sensitive duties.
This is a security precaution which you might see referred to under two different operational aspects, surety and security. I won't get into the differences but the concepts are that only the proper people should have access to something and that what is supposed to happen happens when it is supposed to happen.
Purchase of precursor components is controlled and monitored (pseudophedrine, "dual use" products, etc.). This is expanding more into raw tech and related research. It is the responsible thing to do.
So much of the discussion in this thread seems confused on the concept of employeement. A "job" does not "belong" to the employee. The employee occupies the job as long as it benefits the employer. The root of the word employee is employ, to use. In this case, the employer has decided to increase security. If you are an employee and won't accept the change, quit or be fired. That's true of any other job. It has happened everywhere as smoking has become prohibited in offices, racial and sexually intimidating behavior has been prohibited, etc.
Some security classifications specifically prohibit non-citizens from having access. NOFORN is common with most NBC. Access to one aspect does not dictate authorization to other parts. (See the reply which mentioned a Pakistani who was prohibted from certain types of meetings.)
Changes in security procedures like this are not cheap to implement. Most likely, the nature of the activities at JPL will be changing or JPL has been found to have a serious lack of security. Maybe there is some combination of the two. Think of the Soviet mathematician whose work was the basis for a lot of the stealth technology developed in the U.S. What had been an esoteric curiosity became a critical security issue or how narcotics have become more restricted over time.
You fabricated a "fact", then tried to change the statement, then refused to validate the "fact", then disavowed it. You lied. Period.
I will no longer respond to you on this matter.
As I have said, good day.
I'm a former SAC missileer. I totally agree with your comments.
My disagreement is with the current agitprop claims that tasers are torture devices. They are a non-contact immobiliation device. As you say, any tool can be used by a person for positive or negative means. A hammer can drive nails or smash a skull. Coffee can be an energy source or a poison (historical note: Polish resistance used it as a slow poison against Nazi occupiers.)
In general, I find the majority of ex-military people to be more disciplined and principle-based than "pure" civilians. My disagreement is with the all too common statements that characterize all police as being undisciplined. Some are, some aren't. Scenarios like the Rodney King submission video tape are more complex than "the police are thugs." He was a known meth user, very large, and very combative. Violent meth users are not an easy takedown and very , very dangerous given they feel no pain, enrage easily and are, basically, super adrenalized. The recent campus police incient where they used tasers that was in the news sure seems like Keystone Kops incident. I remember when tasers were first on the market. The most publicized use was by air marshalls as a way to take down airplane hijackers. Those were the old style that looked a lot like a large flashlight with 2 projectiles in the front.
Tasers, themselves, are tools. They are no more sentient than dentist's drills.
You were caught lying by your own admission. Good day.
Straw man? Hardly. You made an assertion of probability related to police training and I challenged you to show substantiation. You don't have to meet the requireent of validating your claim in which case it's clear you have no factual basis for your comment. Ergo, it's a fabricated "fact" you invented to support your assertion.
I think you missed the point I was trying to make when I used the word, "anarchy." I was specifically commenting on the idea that only someone who has experienced something can really know the effect. I don't have to be a Meth addict to know it's bad. Likewise, I don't have to be hit with a taser to know it's bad.
..." Please cite verifiable references for your assertion and define "low probability". It is common for tasers and tear gas to be used on police officers for familiarization.
CS probably also reliever you of some solids and liquids, too.
Clubs and fists require the police officer to put their own body at risk, don't they? They also won't work at a distance. Your analogy doesn't hold.
The idea that a police officer isn't capable of having feedback during taser use is...really very arrogant, when you think about it unless police officers are braindead zombies. They do have a tendency to become rather callous compared to the average person but they exist to deal with the bad guys, not the good guys, so that's part of they price they and society "pay."
"Given the low probability of the office having otherwise experiences such an intense electric shock,
A few cases of misuse of a control tool by police does not mean the tools should be removed. Some reports say the Polish guy in Canada was on a rampage. People are fallible. That doesn't comden the tool.
They carry guns but aren't shot with bullets during training, are they? Would you propose their guns be removed because they have no ability to appreciate the damage a gun can cause?
"Shock and awe" meant shock and awe of decapitation of the ability to wage war. The press and Joe Blow don't have any real comprehension of the modern ability to use guided munitions. They tend to see lots of WWII and Vietnam-era film of dumb weapons and think that's the current reality. Knocking out the air defense of the 3rd largest (manpower count) military in the world in about 24 hours is pretty darn "shocking" and "awe"ing. It demonstrated, very conclusively, that the miilitary capabilites of the U.S far outpace those of any other country. It was also quite reserved. The goal was to remove the ability to wage war, period. That's why Iraqi officers were told, in very direct indivisualized messages, what to do and what not to do. "Dear x, do not go to your office at xxxx street tomorrow. Signed, the U.S. military" was pretty effective in bringing the destructio of the means to wage war while minimizing human casualties. The attacks against Saddam Hussein's regime were not a theatrical presentation for the entertainment of the media.
I have no idea what you mean by vaccum bomb unless you are confused and don't know what a fuel-air explosion is and does. "specifically design(ed) to terrify the enemy by killing victims in a particular(ly) slow and painful manner" shows extreme ignorance of the weapons, what they do and their use. That comment isn't one that would be expected from anyone with even a moderat understanding of military history. Intimidating the enemy is the primary goal. The ultimate goal is to get the enemy to capitulate without taking action. Anyone who doesn't want their enemy terrified is a fool. Fuel-air bombs work by dispersing a mist of explosive so there is a large area and plenty of oxygen to feed the rapid burn known as an explosion. They are designed to create a massive pressure wave, first positive, then negative as air rushes to fill the void. The softer an item within the blast area, the more likely it is to sustain damage. Damage comes primarily from pressure waves, not burning so residual damage is far less than with "conventional" bombs. There are plenty of examples from both Gulf Wars in which smart and brilliant munitions were used to take out huge numbers of troops/vehicles in an incredibly short time, followed by the absolute surrender of troops who witnessed the attacks. Which is better, a single targeted attack which takes out the military objective and creates fear or hundreds of dumb weapons? Fuel-air explosives have been in use for quite a while. The U.S. daisy cutter (nicknamed for the shape of the explosive effect) was used in Vietnam and the updated version used only a couple of times against Saddam's Iraq. The Soviets used something similar in Afghanistan. They're great for clearing confined spaces like caves and tunnels. Remember, the goal is to get the enemy to capitulate WITHOUT having to fight to minimize casualties on both sides. The only way to do that is intimidation. Technology has provided the means to do this which is why combat fatalities (military and civilian) are so small. I have no idea how any sane person would think a fuel-air bomb is specifically designed to create pain more than any other explosion. That idea certainly wouldn't come from anyone who has an elementary understanding of explosives. Pressure with minimalresidual fire is very humane. I see how the accusation could be made for agitprop reasons but it won't stand up to scrutiny.