It isn't necessarily any worse, really. One counter-argument to the one I made above is that intelligence and the capacity for culture and civilization is really the ultimate evolutionary adaptation. It gives us the ability - if not always the wisdom - to mold our environment and now even our genes to suit our needs. Genetic adaptation for a species with a generation length of around 20 years is not a quick process. Our intelligence allows us to adapt on a much shorter time scale than that, if we have the collective will to do it.
Your genes still have a lot to say about whether you'll pass them on to the next generation, but they've probably become less important than cultural and social factors like what country you live in and whether you have access to decent nutrition, education, and medical care. Natural selection is still happening in the human species, but it tends to be in the details, like whether you can digest lactose in milk as an adult or how well you resist pathogens like malaria. Of course, details like those have sculpted entire civilizations.
So maybe we needn't worry too much about short-circuiting evolution with anti-aging research. There will be consequences, though, and it's probably time to start thinking about them...
Evolution does not work on individuals but rather on populations, and for the population, it is better to have individuals eventually die off to make room for the next generation of random mutations
Exactly. People tend to think too much in terms of the "survival of the fittest" individuals, but evolution depends on successful mutations achieving sufficient penetrance in the population to eventually (or even quickly) become dominant. There are also important "meta-genetic" traits (like the rate of mutation) that do nothing to promote the fitness of individuals but have a huge impact on the efficiency of the evolutionary process itself as an optimization algorithm. Aging is clearly one of those.
Assuming that immortality (other than random accidents, etc.) is a biologically possibility, you'd expect to see a lot more of it unless it were detrimental to the long-term survival of species. It apparently hasn't fared too well in the survival sweepstakes, has it? Almost every known species is genetically programmed for senescence and death after a fairly small number of generations worth of life span. That suggests that mortality from "old age" is not a disorder, but rather an adaptation that promotes the efficiency of the evolutionary process itself. I'm not so sure it's a good idea to be screwing with it (although our emerging ability to do so is also an evolutionary adaptation, so we'll see where it takes us, I guess)...
But you see, here's the problem: this simply hasn't happened.
You miss the point: The legal framework for it is in the process of being erected by the current Congress and administration. You may trust completely your current leaders not to abuse their new powers - as incredible as that is to some of us - but these are powers that will be equally available to future governments as well. And since they can - and surely will - be abused in complete secrecy, you're not going to be getting an offical memo about it when it happens. The President decides who are "the terrorists", at home or abroad. The President is, through his minions, the judge, the jury, and the executioner.
I'm listening to our current one on the radio right now. He's ranting about how he needs these powers to fight his ideological war against the "extremists". He's also being completely disingenuous about why the existing legal framework isn't adequate to the job. You do the math.
but the Bush administration is NOT popular among conservatives.
He used to be the conservative demigod. What's changed, other than his approval ratings in the polls? Did he betray conservative principles, or maybe by adhering to them too closely he merely revealed their consequences? A lot of well-meaning but misguided leftists climbed aboard the Lenin and Mao bandwagons decades ago, ignoring the fact that absolute power will corrupt absolutely despite even the best of intentions. The authoritarian bent of many (most? (all?)) conservatives is leading them down the same path now.
And the fact of the matter is that the Geneva Convention simply DOES NOT APPLY to terrorists, I don't know how it can be any more clear.
And the new official definition of a "terrorist" is: Anyone so designated at the whim of the President, for any reason that need not be disclosed and is beyond review (and hence for no legal reason whatsoever).
I'm sorry, but I can't believe anyone can be so blind as to not see both sides taking advantage of this.
You're resorting to the "everybody does it" escape clause, under which nobody can be held accountable for anything other than a blowjob. Of course you're right that no political party has a monopoly on "corruption and villainy" or the use of fear and deceit to manipulate the public, but I put to you that what we're seeing today is as close as it has ever - and, I hope, will ever - come.
I'm mostly conservative and come from a family of conservatives
So it's genetic, then?
Can you tell me what essential liberties YOU have lost since 9/11?
That's something that no one can know for sure until they're hauled off to prison (or lose their jobs, perhaps) for reasons that don't have to be explained to them. If anyone in government has the "legal" power to take your freedom without due process, on any pretext whatsoever, then you have already lost your freedom whether or not they choose to use that power at a particular time.
Now, I have actually heard with my own ears some conservative pundit say something like "isn't it worth it to just give up a little bit of one of your constitutional rights if it ensures your safety?" And I, and everyone within earshot, said "NO!".
I would like to hear more people - conservatives in particular - question the whole notion that safety can be secured by surrendering liberty. Would you have felt "safe" in Stalin's USSR? It's a false bargain. When you give up liberty, you inevitably turn your own government against you and thereby become less safe.
The "real pussies" are those who want to roll over and pretend nothing happened, pretend it's a law enforcement problem, complain that people fighting for our enemies are not getting the rights guaranteed by the constitution for U.S. citizens.
But that's just a straw-man argument put forth by conservatives to justify whatever our current government wants to do. I don't know anybody who would advance the argument you suggest, and neither do you.
By the way (while we're on the subject of the Geneva Convention and such), have you ever considered that the powers demanded by the Bush admin will be far more useful toward hiding its own misfeasance and malfeasance than in the "war on terror"? Why go to the trouble of finding real terrorists at all when you can pluck anyone at random off the streets of Kabul and claim the same political victory? Do conservatives have that much faith in their leaders? Even their current ones?
This guy is right: politicians and terrorists ARE working together, but if he's got a valid complaint against conservatives, there's a MUCH more valid complaint against liberals and the media.
I can't argue with you about the media; they're always leading one national hysteria campaign or another, just because it sells. But regarding liberals, they seem to be the only ones who have kept their wits about them even as conservative politicians cynically cash in on the politics of fear and the vast opportunities for corruption and villainy that it opens for them.
Those who would give up freedom in exchange for security, deserve neither.
Yet it's amazing how often those of us who think this way get called "pussies" or worse by conservatives who themselves are hiding under their beds trembling in fear, begging Daddy Government to please take all of our rights and liberties if that's what it takes to keep the Boogie Man at bay for one more night.
What surprises me is that more people aren't speaking up like Schneier.
There's quite a groundswell right here. Now if we can only spread it to the mainstream media, the "general population", and at least one major political party, maybe we'll really have something...
Are you so uncomfortable with the possibility that a likely-mostly-Democrat staff forgot to put a box on a truck that you'd rather propose some conspiracy?
I doubt that it takes much more than a single election worker to disrupt the vote in this manner, so there's not much of a "conspiracy" required; just a touch of ruthlessness and a basic understanding of the needs of the moment. Why one particular party gets the preponderance of benefit from these disruptions is something I'm sure you'd say we shouldn't worry our silly little heads over.
Montgomery and PG counties are just outside D.C. and are probably the most Democratic-leaning counties in Maryland. I'd feel a little bit more comfortable with the "oops" hypothesis if this kind of thing ever happened in primarily conservative Republican precincts...
Of course, you're assuming that votes will be fraudulently added or deleted, rather than simply switched from one candidate to another. On the plus side, though, it should be possible to prevent "spoiled ballots" by alerting the voter if his/her vote might be invalid for any reason...
The only two ways it can fail (that I can think of):
Here's a third: After the ballots are collected, they are systematically "spoiled" by someone desiring to subvert the election. Hanging chads, anyone?
We can process millions upon millions of bank transactions every day but cannot count votes without grotesque errors? Come on people! It's not that hard!
The difference being that when a bank transaction is in error, someone notices, and usually very quickly when accounts no longer balance. When you vote, regardless of the method, you really have no way to know whether it was counted properly. The problem isn't the counting, it's the susceptibility to fraud.
But while we're on the subject, I wonder if anyone has followed up on all of those children who were exposed to multiple milliseconds of Janet Jackson's nipple a couple of years back on the Superbowel halftime show. Can they possibly be leading normal lives by now, or is the damage permanent? Could be a good grant application, anyway.
What annoys me most are people who on the one hand complain about the poilce being over the top and then subsequently complain post 9/11, 7/7 etc 'why didnt the police do something about it'.
Like, maybe, killing a bunch of innocent people unrelated to the plot? That would certainly make us all safer. You're missing the point here: There's a difference between diligent, professional police work and simply putting on a public relations show to spread fear and manipulate the public for political purposes. A fairly big one, in fact.
Oh, and by the way... The FBI did know about the 9/11 hijackers well in advance. Field agents were practically screaming about it, but were basically told to lay off and STFU by their superiors in Washington...
you already know all of that, which means you're just grinding some idealogical axe, not talking about the realities of the situation.
Perhaps. But there's never been a time that I've trusted my government less not to be grinding a political axe of its own in these matters. I hope I'm wrong, because there is a rapidly growing number of people with similar misgivings, and this is not a time for our government to have exhausted its credibility. Yet it never seems to miss an opportunity to do just that.
Was the plot itself real? Probably it was, and I'll be satisfied in that regard when the suspects are brought to trial and the UK government presents its case in public. If there is a public trial, that is.
The security measures now being imposed on airline passengers are another matter, however. According to reports I've heard, the US government was notified of the plot at least 2 weeks ago, and it's been under investigation in the UK for several months. Why wait until the suspects have already been arrested and are in custody to issue the terror alert? Was there less danger when they were at large? Or was this just an opportunity to spread a little election-year fear and trepidation?
Terrorism of all kinds is a scourge on humanity, but these days it's not nearly what I'm most afraid of.
Apparently not, because they're emptying all of these containers of potential explosive and dangerous chemicals into big trashcans right in the middle of airport crowds:
Is there any way they would endanger the public this way if they really thought there was any chance the "liquids" could be dangerous? And if they don't think there's such a chance, why are they confiscating them in the first place?
In a few months, if we are lucky, we will know the truth.
If there is actually a fair and public trial, that is. Many people don't realize that the government's interest in detention without trial (or secret trials) for terrorists may have more to do with a desire to manipulate public opinion and cover its own incompetence than with real security concerns.
In an environment where proof isn't necessary and questions are never asked, you can expect a lot of spectacular plots to be uncovered, especially in election years. I'll believe this stuff when it's proven in a court of law.
you cannot deny that he said he created the Internet while in Congress. That is the only reasonable interpretation. This simply is not a true statement
He entered Congress in 1978. The beginnings of ARPAnet predated that, of course, but in scope and scale it was only a foreshadowing of what the Internet would become. The TCP/IP protocol was only first demonstrated in 1977, and crudely at that. Gore took an interest in it at a time when very few members of Congress had even heard of it or knew what it was (still just "a series of pipes" to at least one senator).
You can argue about the phrase "took the initiative in creating", but it certainly is true that he took the initiative in expanding and evolving the Internet as we are familiar with it today. From Wikipedia:
Cerf and Kahn response
In response to this controversy, Internet pioneers Vint Cerf and Robert E. Kahn, wrote an e-mail dated 2000-09-28, that stated:
As the two people who designed the basic architecture and the core protocols that make the Internet work, we would like to acknowledge VP Gore's contributions as a Congressman, Senator and as Vice President. No other elected official, to our knowledge, has made a greater contribution over a longer period of time.
Last year the Vice President made a straightforward statement on his role. He said: "During my service in the United States Congress I took the initiative in creating the Internet." We don't think, as some people have argued, that Gore intended to claim he "invented" the Internet. Moreover, there is no question in our minds that while serving as Senator, Gore's initiatives had a significant and beneficial effect on the still-evolving Internet. The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective.
So, I have to ask, what's your talking point, exactly? Is there someone else in Congress at the time whose thunder you feel Al Gore has stolen? Someone who was more instrumental in the growth of ARPAnet beyond just a defense research network? Or is this just another case of Republicans swiftboating people with real accomplishments, because they have none to show of their own?
I'm just looking at what he actually said, and the context in which he said it. Your contention of what he meant by it is simply ludicrous.
The Stevens analogy stands. If he gives an interview after the bridge is built in which he claims to have "taken the initiative in its creation", I can't imagine any reasonable person objecting. No reasonable person will claim that Stevens meant that he designed the bridge, or "invented" the idea of bridges. But Reason itself is the enemy these days, isn't it?
As for the "worship" of political leaders, I'm guessing you'd have more experience with that than me.
Sounds like somebody's in a grouchy mood at the cable company this morning.
The way I read it is that there'd be a $35/mo. fee for anything but dialup-level speeds, so it's not free. In fact, it seems a little expensive to me for the speeds they're talking about.
I realize that the truth means nothing in the New Republican Dystopia, but please. Gore claimed that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet". In Congress, that means championing an idea and shepherding it through the funding process. It doesn't even make sense to suppose that it means anything else, unless you're being deliberately disingenuous. If someone else deserves more of the credit for that, perhaps you can tell us who that might be.
Years from now Sen. Stevens in Alaska will be able to proudly claim that HE built the "bridge to nowhere", and you won't get any argument from me about it. And yes, we all understand that he didn't physically build it (or even design it) himself. It will stand as a monument to Republican achievement regardless.
Or maybe he just doesn't see wealth and expensive status symbols to be the most important thing in life?
Indeed. Maybe he "gets it" (life, that is) in a way that the ostentatiously affluent don't. I've been around successful people of both stripes, and I've always found the ones that are incessantly driven to display their wealth to be oddly pathetic in that way. It's as if they're desperately trying to conform to perceived societal expectations of how "rich guys" are supposed to behave, rather than living the best life that they can.
For shallow scratches, you don't need anything but your finger and a cloth (like part of your t-shirt). Just rub it out with a perpendicular motion like you would a scratch on your car.
I attribute most of these errors to poor design, not anything intentional.
Poor design? This sort of thing can hardly be a complete accident, although I doubt I could prove that it was done deliberately to enable election tampering.
Circumstantially, however, this is the same Diebold whose CEO wrote a memo before the last election promising to "deliver the vote" for Republicans all over the country. He may not have meant anything nefarious by that, but it is a very peculiar thing to say for the CEO of a company that produces voting machines and needs the confidence of everyone participating in the political process. Diebold has also made large contributions to the GOP, and has close ties with officials in the Bush administration.
In this context, the discovery of what is effectively a hidden back-door to their electronic voting machines is hardly a thing to be dismissed as an honest mistake. At the very least there should be an investigation, but I doubt that either the Justice Department or our current Congress will be much interested in that.
You still make the error of assuming that "the government" is a monolithic entity that has only your best interests at heart, and that therefore you won't be messed with unless you break the law.
In fact, there are many people inside and outside of government that have access to your collected data. Some of them are the diligent and dedicated people you want to believe they all are, and some aren't. There are people who might like to screw you over for any number of reasons, be they personal, political, or commercial. This isn't merely hypothetical; the Nixon administration routinely made use of intelligence agencies to harrass and sabotage its political enemies.
You may feel you have "nothing to hide", but what if you owned a business and found that one of your competitors or major customers had an "in" with the powers that be, and might be privy to everything there was to know about your company and employees, as well as all of your internal communications? That would be a little more than an average day at the office, don't you think? Clearly, the business community hasn't managed to think this through quite yet.
Slashdot Mirror
It isn't necessarily any worse, really. One counter-argument to the one I made above is that intelligence and the capacity for culture and civilization is really the ultimate evolutionary adaptation. It gives us the ability - if not always the wisdom - to mold our environment and now even our genes to suit our needs. Genetic adaptation for a species with a generation length of around 20 years is not a quick process. Our intelligence allows us to adapt on a much shorter time scale than that, if we have the collective will to do it.
Your genes still have a lot to say about whether you'll pass them on to the next generation, but they've probably become less important than cultural and social factors like what country you live in and whether you have access to decent nutrition, education, and medical care. Natural selection is still happening in the human species, but it tends to be in the details, like whether you can digest lactose in milk as an adult or how well you resist pathogens like malaria. Of course, details like those have sculpted entire civilizations.
So maybe we needn't worry too much about short-circuiting evolution with anti-aging research. There will be consequences, though, and it's probably time to start thinking about them...
Evolution does not work on individuals but rather on populations, and for the population, it is better to have individuals eventually die off to make room for the next generation of random mutations
Exactly. People tend to think too much in terms of the "survival of the fittest" individuals, but evolution depends on successful mutations achieving sufficient penetrance in the population to eventually (or even quickly) become dominant. There are also important "meta-genetic" traits (like the rate of mutation) that do nothing to promote the fitness of individuals but have a huge impact on the efficiency of the evolutionary process itself as an optimization algorithm. Aging is clearly one of those.
Assuming that immortality (other than random accidents, etc.) is a biologically possibility, you'd expect to see a lot more of it unless it were detrimental to the long-term survival of species. It apparently hasn't fared too well in the survival sweepstakes, has it? Almost every known species is genetically programmed for senescence and death after a fairly small number of generations worth of life span. That suggests that mortality from "old age" is not a disorder, but rather an adaptation that promotes the efficiency of the evolutionary process itself. I'm not so sure it's a good idea to be screwing with it (although our emerging ability to do so is also an evolutionary adaptation, so we'll see where it takes us, I guess)...
But you see, here's the problem: this simply hasn't happened.
You miss the point: The legal framework for it is in the process of being erected by the current Congress and administration. You may trust completely your current leaders not to abuse their new powers - as incredible as that is to some of us - but these are powers that will be equally available to future governments as well. And since they can - and surely will - be abused in complete secrecy, you're not going to be getting an offical memo about it when it happens. The President decides who are "the terrorists", at home or abroad. The President is, through his minions, the judge, the jury, and the executioner.
I'm listening to our current one on the radio right now. He's ranting about how he needs these powers to fight his ideological war against the "extremists". He's also being completely disingenuous about why the existing legal framework isn't adequate to the job. You do the math.
but the Bush administration is NOT popular among conservatives.
He used to be the conservative demigod. What's changed, other than his approval ratings in the polls? Did he betray conservative principles, or maybe by adhering to them too closely he merely revealed their consequences? A lot of well-meaning but misguided leftists climbed aboard the Lenin and Mao bandwagons decades ago, ignoring the fact that absolute power will corrupt absolutely despite even the best of intentions. The authoritarian bent of many (most? (all?)) conservatives is leading them down the same path now.
And the fact of the matter is that the Geneva Convention simply DOES NOT APPLY to terrorists, I don't know how it can be any more clear.
And the new official definition of a "terrorist" is: Anyone so designated at the whim of the President, for any reason that need not be disclosed and is beyond review (and hence for no legal reason whatsoever).
I'm sorry, but I can't believe anyone can be so blind as to not see both sides taking advantage of this.
You're resorting to the "everybody does it" escape clause, under which nobody can be held accountable for anything other than a blowjob. Of course you're right that no political party has a monopoly on "corruption and villainy" or the use of fear and deceit to manipulate the public, but I put to you that what we're seeing today is as close as it has ever - and, I hope, will ever - come.
I'm mostly conservative and come from a family of conservatives
So it's genetic, then?
Can you tell me what essential liberties YOU have lost since 9/11?
That's something that no one can know for sure until they're hauled off to prison (or lose their jobs, perhaps) for reasons that don't have to be explained to them. If anyone in government has the "legal" power to take your freedom without due process, on any pretext whatsoever, then you have already lost your freedom whether or not they choose to use that power at a particular time.
Now, I have actually heard with my own ears some conservative pundit say something like "isn't it worth it to just give up a little bit of one of your constitutional rights if it ensures your safety?" And I, and everyone within earshot, said "NO!".
I would like to hear more people - conservatives in particular - question the whole notion that safety can be secured by surrendering liberty. Would you have felt "safe" in Stalin's USSR? It's a false bargain. When you give up liberty, you inevitably turn your own government against you and thereby become less safe.
The "real pussies" are those who want to roll over and pretend nothing happened, pretend it's a law enforcement problem, complain that people fighting for our enemies are not getting the rights guaranteed by the constitution for U.S. citizens.
But that's just a straw-man argument put forth by conservatives to justify whatever our current government wants to do. I don't know anybody who would advance the argument you suggest, and neither do you.
By the way (while we're on the subject of the Geneva Convention and such), have you ever considered that the powers demanded by the Bush admin will be far more useful toward hiding its own misfeasance and malfeasance than in the "war on terror"? Why go to the trouble of finding real terrorists at all when you can pluck anyone at random off the streets of Kabul and claim the same political victory? Do conservatives have that much faith in their leaders? Even their current ones?
This guy is right: politicians and terrorists ARE working together, but if he's got a valid complaint against conservatives, there's a MUCH more valid complaint against liberals and the media.
I can't argue with you about the media; they're always leading one national hysteria campaign or another, just because it sells. But regarding liberals, they seem to be the only ones who have kept their wits about them even as conservative politicians cynically cash in on the politics of fear and the vast opportunities for corruption and villainy that it opens for them.
Those who would give up freedom in exchange for security, deserve neither.
Yet it's amazing how often those of us who think this way get called "pussies" or worse by conservatives who themselves are hiding under their beds trembling in fear, begging Daddy Government to please take all of our rights and liberties if that's what it takes to keep the Boogie Man at bay for one more night.
Makes you wonder who the real "pussies" are...
What surprises me is that more people aren't speaking up like Schneier.
There's quite a groundswell right here. Now if we can only spread it to the mainstream media, the "general population", and at least one major political party, maybe we'll really have something...
Are you so uncomfortable with the possibility that a likely-mostly-Democrat staff forgot to put a box on a truck that you'd rather propose some conspiracy?
I doubt that it takes much more than a single election worker to disrupt the vote in this manner, so there's not much of a "conspiracy" required; just a touch of ruthlessness and a basic understanding of the needs of the moment. Why one particular party gets the preponderance of benefit from these disruptions is something I'm sure you'd say we shouldn't worry our silly little heads over.
Montgomery and PG counties are just outside D.C. and are probably the most Democratic-leaning counties in Maryland. I'd feel a little bit more comfortable with the "oops" hypothesis if this kind of thing ever happened in primarily conservative Republican precincts...
Of course, you're assuming that votes will be fraudulently added or deleted, rather than simply switched from one candidate to another. On the plus side, though, it should be possible to prevent "spoiled ballots" by alerting the voter if his/her vote might be invalid for any reason...
The only two ways it can fail (that I can think of):
Here's a third: After the ballots are collected, they are systematically "spoiled" by someone desiring to subvert the election. Hanging chads, anyone?
We can process millions upon millions of bank transactions every day but cannot count votes without grotesque errors? Come on people! It's not that hard!
The difference being that when a bank transaction is in error, someone notices, and usually very quickly when accounts no longer balance. When you vote, regardless of the method, you really have no way to know whether it was counted properly. The problem isn't the counting, it's the susceptibility to fraud.
You're being sarcastic, right?
But while we're on the subject, I wonder if anyone has followed up on all of those children who were exposed to multiple milliseconds of Janet Jackson's nipple a couple of years back on the Superbowel halftime show. Can they possibly be leading normal lives by now, or is the damage permanent? Could be a good grant application, anyway.
What annoys me most are people who on the one hand complain about the poilce being over the top and then subsequently complain post 9/11, 7/7 etc 'why didnt the police do something about it'.
Like, maybe, killing a bunch of innocent people unrelated to the plot? That would certainly make us all safer. You're missing the point here: There's a difference between diligent, professional police work and simply putting on a public relations show to spread fear and manipulate the public for political purposes. A fairly big one, in fact.
Oh, and by the way... The FBI did know about the 9/11 hijackers well in advance. Field agents were practically screaming about it, but were basically told to lay off and STFU by their superiors in Washington...
you already know all of that, which means you're just grinding some idealogical axe, not talking about the realities of the situation.
Perhaps. But there's never been a time that I've trusted my government less not to be grinding a political axe of its own in these matters. I hope I'm wrong, because there is a rapidly growing number of people with similar misgivings, and this is not a time for our government to have exhausted its credibility. Yet it never seems to miss an opportunity to do just that.
Was the plot itself real? Probably it was, and I'll be satisfied in that regard when the suspects are brought to trial and the UK government presents its case in public. If there is a public trial, that is.
The security measures now being imposed on airline passengers are another matter, however. According to reports I've heard, the US government was notified of the plot at least 2 weeks ago, and it's been under investigation in the UK for several months. Why wait until the suspects have already been arrested and are in custody to issue the terror alert? Was there less danger when they were at large? Or was this just an opportunity to spread a little election-year fear and trepidation?
Terrorism of all kinds is a scourge on humanity, but these days it's not nearly what I'm most afraid of.
Get over it & Grow up these ARE REAL THREATS!
d _could_.html
Maybe, but the Transportation Safety Administration apparently doesn't even believe it themselves...
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/10/if_the_liqui
If they really thought that the confiscated liquids were potentially dangerous, you'd think they'd handle them a little more carefully, no?
Apparently not, because they're emptying all of these containers of potential explosive and dangerous chemicals into big trashcans right in the middle of airport crowds:
d _could_.html
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/08/10/if_the_liqui
Is there any way they would endanger the public this way if they really thought there was any chance the "liquids" could be dangerous? And if they don't think there's such a chance, why are they confiscating them in the first place?
I call bullshit.
In a few months, if we are lucky, we will know the truth.
If there is actually a fair and public trial, that is. Many people don't realize that the government's interest in detention without trial (or secret trials) for terrorists may have more to do with a desire to manipulate public opinion and cover its own incompetence than with real security concerns.
In an environment where proof isn't necessary and questions are never asked, you can expect a lot of spectacular plots to be uncovered, especially in election years. I'll believe this stuff when it's proven in a court of law.
He entered Congress in 1978. The beginnings of ARPAnet predated that, of course, but in scope and scale it was only a foreshadowing of what the Internet would become. The TCP/IP protocol was only first demonstrated in 1977, and crudely at that. Gore took an interest in it at a time when very few members of Congress had even heard of it or knew what it was (still just "a series of pipes" to at least one senator).
You can argue about the phrase "took the initiative in creating", but it certainly is true that he took the initiative in expanding and evolving the Internet as we are familiar with it today. From Wikipedia:
So, I have to ask, what's your talking point, exactly? Is there someone else in Congress at the time whose thunder you feel Al Gore has stolen? Someone who was more instrumental in the growth of ARPAnet beyond just a defense research network? Or is this just another case of Republicans swiftboating people with real accomplishments, because they have none to show of their own?
I'm just looking at what he actually said, and the context in which he said it. Your contention of what he meant by it is simply ludicrous.
The Stevens analogy stands. If he gives an interview after the bridge is built in which he claims to have "taken the initiative in its creation", I can't imagine any reasonable person objecting. No reasonable person will claim that Stevens meant that he designed the bridge, or "invented" the idea of bridges. But Reason itself is the enemy these days, isn't it?
As for the "worship" of political leaders, I'm guessing you'd have more experience with that than me.
Sounds like somebody's in a grouchy mood at the cable company this morning.
The way I read it is that there'd be a $35/mo. fee for anything but dialup-level speeds, so it's not free. In fact, it seems a little expensive to me for the speeds they're talking about.
I realize that the truth means nothing in the New Republican Dystopia, but please. Gore claimed that he "took the initiative in creating the Internet". In Congress, that means championing an idea and shepherding it through the funding process. It doesn't even make sense to suppose that it means anything else, unless you're being deliberately disingenuous. If someone else deserves more of the credit for that, perhaps you can tell us who that might be.
Years from now Sen. Stevens in Alaska will be able to proudly claim that HE built the "bridge to nowhere", and you won't get any argument from me about it. And yes, we all understand that he didn't physically build it (or even design it) himself. It will stand as a monument to Republican achievement regardless.
But a Golf?
Oh, didn't see that.
Well, never mind...
Or maybe he just doesn't see wealth and expensive status symbols to be the most important thing in life?
Indeed. Maybe he "gets it" (life, that is) in a way that the ostentatiously affluent don't. I've been around successful people of both stripes, and I've always found the ones that are incessantly driven to display their wealth to be oddly pathetic in that way. It's as if they're desperately trying to conform to perceived societal expectations of how "rich guys" are supposed to behave, rather than living the best life that they can.
For shallow scratches, you don't need anything but your finger and a cloth (like part of your t-shirt). Just rub it out with a perpendicular motion like you would a scratch on your car.
I attribute most of these errors to poor design, not anything intentional.
Poor design? This sort of thing can hardly be a complete accident, although I doubt I could prove that it was done deliberately to enable election tampering.
Circumstantially, however, this is the same Diebold whose CEO wrote a memo before the last election promising to "deliver the vote" for Republicans all over the country. He may not have meant anything nefarious by that, but it is a very peculiar thing to say for the CEO of a company that produces voting machines and needs the confidence of everyone participating in the political process. Diebold has also made large contributions to the GOP, and has close ties with officials in the Bush administration.
In this context, the discovery of what is effectively a hidden back-door to their electronic voting machines is hardly a thing to be dismissed as an honest mistake. At the very least there should be an investigation, but I doubt that either the Justice Department or our current Congress will be much interested in that.
You still make the error of assuming that "the government" is a monolithic entity that has only your best interests at heart, and that therefore you won't be messed with unless you break the law.
In fact, there are many people inside and outside of government that have access to your collected data. Some of them are the diligent and dedicated people you want to believe they all are, and some aren't. There are people who might like to screw you over for any number of reasons, be they personal, political, or commercial. This isn't merely hypothetical; the Nixon administration routinely made use of intelligence agencies to harrass and sabotage its political enemies.
You may feel you have "nothing to hide", but what if you owned a business and found that one of your competitors or major customers had an "in" with the powers that be, and might be privy to everything there was to know about your company and employees, as well as all of your internal communications? That would be a little more than an average day at the office, don't you think? Clearly, the business community hasn't managed to think this through quite yet.