I think that any group capable of assembling the various components and materials needed for a Fat Man, actually putting it together and getting it to go off can, by definition, can do better than Fat Man on their own.
And yet having the Fat Man's design handy would help them a lot.
Anyway, I was just responding to someone, who claimed there is no problem in the assholes' ability to assemble a "Fat Man", because they would not be able to transport it anywhere. There is no need to transport...
You're going to have trouble sneaking this monstrosity, say, through the Holland tunnel into NYC.
I don't need to transport it anywhere. A "Fat Man" exploding in a house bought for the purpose years ago anywhere in Brooklyn or Jersey City will still be devastating to New York... Especially, if you scale the project and blow up several of these in different locales.
Wikileaks has released a diagram of the first atomic weapon, as used in the Trinity test and subsequently exploded over the Japanese city of Nagasaki, together with an extremely interesting scientific analysis.
Thank you for contributing to nuclear weapons proliferation... Looks like you did...
Wikileaks has not been able to fault the document or find reference to it elsewhere.
Hopefully, there is, indeed, a fault in there somewhere, which Wikileaks were either sincerely unable to find or are simply lying about having missed.
These — along with their recent run-in with the judge — raises important questions, however. Are there secret documents in existence, that WikiLeaks would refuse to make available if given?
I mean, if it is not an ancient (though just as deadly) nuclear bomb design, but something more recent? How about plans for America's invasion of Iran or North Korea? What about the plans for our defense of Taiwan — there must be some uncomfortable answers to ugly questions in there...
What about civil government? A police-department's plans for riot-prevention, or a coordinated anti-drug raid?
What about "personal" secrets? How about a politician's diary? How about that of a CEO of a big corporation — he may have recorded private thoughts in there, such as whether his secretary is genuinely more affectionate to him, than his wife?
When does "strong transparency" turn into treason, obstructing justice, or invasion of privacy?
anti-guerilla strategy? that's easy don't be an ass, and don't invade other countries on false intel, with the misguided hope that they will think you are saviors just because you deposed their idiot leader.
Without arguing on whether the above "donts" apply to our most recent Iraq invasion, is there — in your opinion — ever a situation, when wrongs committed by a country's government justify invasion aiming at correcting those wrongs?
To truly fight guerrilla you must fight them like you fight pirates. You take away the economic/political incentive for it to begin with.
That's how you discourage them. To fight them you chase them, sink their ships, and hang the captured ones along the shores. Add drawing-and-quartering to taste... Sometimes I really wish we could apply these methods to the guerrilla assholes, but I don't think we can any more... The risk of mistakingly killing an innocent person is just too high for a modern conscience.
Why not just let the peoples fight it out for dominance?
As Jews and Arabs do?..
I mean, that's what is happening in Iraq right now. Seems to be the only way to get a stable government in a region. Arrogant Westerners thought they had to 'civilize' these regions and force their own systems upon those regions. Doesn't seem to have worked well.
The alternatives — such as Rwanda — were far worse.
Why couldn't the US just give the Jews a chunk of Utah?
It could've, it did, and it still does: it was and remains perfectly legal for Jews to buy land in Utah. They preferred to do so in Palestine, however, for some reason... Their dramatic successes in farming and the ability to buy more and more land resulted in the negative reaction by the local Arabs. So much so, it remains de-facto illegal to this day for a Palestinian to sell land to a Jew — Hamas and friends will hunt such a seller down. Selling to Christians is Ok, and there is a small industry in Europe specializing in middlemenship...
I see the formation of Israel as a foolish and arrogant plan executed with ignorance of the regions being manipulated.
Unlike those you accuse, you are ignorant of history — the Jews fought their way to dominance in the region, defeating armies of several (earlier-formed) Arab nations — just as is, apparently, required by you, right after seeking — and obtaining — legal international recognition. If ever a new nation was born "properly" — satisfying both the "might is right" people like yourself and the peaceful consensus-seekers — it was Israel in 1948. Had the Arabs done the same — instead of conspiring for decades to destroy Israel — they would've lived pretty good by now.
Not that they live badly now — Gazans' are fairing better than those of Egyptians right across the border:
Al-Nahal said he wasn't exactly impressed with Egyptian Rafah which, with mudbrick buildings and unpaved streets, has more of a village feel than its larger, bustling counterpart of multistory apartment buildings on the Gaza side.
You are not just ignorant, but also racist — implying, that certain peoples "just aren't" capable of democracy and that "a strong hand" is the best for them...
Also your blaming of "the West" for the world's ills is such a (disproved) cliche, that I'll probably stop responding here... My hands already hurt from beating you up with all these heavy facts, sorry.
You have nothing to be ashamed of as a "westerner" — your shortcomings are ignorance and racism, but those are your own...
I'd be some kind of hypocritical retard if I didn't also believe that Jordan, Syria, Iraq, etc...
So, who should have been given sovereignty over those vast lands — after the Ottoman Empire collapsed thanks in no small part to the (British-assisted) Arab Revolt? And, back to the previous subject, why was it particularly wrong to give sovereignty over a particular patch of the land (under 1% of the total) to the Jews?..
The answer is, it was not. The whole problem is artificial from the beginning to these days. First the Arab nations tried to vanquish Israel by the brute force in several "conventional" wars. Now, they are continuing with terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other.
The people who lived in that area were given an offer they couldn't refuse by the western nations who had conquered those lands.
Right. Conquered. But not from the "Palestinians". The previous "occupier" was Ottoman Empire, which waged war on the "western nations" and lost. The Arabs had no sovereignty over what's now Israel, just as they did not have it over all other today's Arab countries. Yet the land of Israel — its size less than 1% of the Arab world, BTW — is today the only point on which "western nations" are being accused of "Moral Relativism" (and other bullshit accusations).
Right back at you, in other words...
Somehow it was Ok for those "western nations" to create — with non-refusable offers — (Trans)Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, etc. — but not Israel...
Since academics' income depends greatly on the taxpayers' money, they tend to be Statist and/or rather Illiberal.
Sorry to break it to you, but universities existed long before there were governments to fund them. And, they will continue to exist long after governments refuse to fund them.
You may have tried to contradict me here — an attempt at sarcasm is noted — but you did not. I was referring to today's academics, who are today dependent on government funds, and who thus tend to be Statists and/or Illiberal (taxing the masses to sponsor the elite). No, I'm no accusing them all of being consciously dishonest. It is more of a state-of mind thing...
Would you rather they come up with a free-speech-restricting law that's more enforceable?
Why not? Anonymous political donations, for example, are quite impossible already — and sites like this even make the donors easily searchable. (One can even incorporate such searches into their Human Resources practices — legally.)
And if donations aren't anonymous, and limited (as per McCain-Feingold and other unconstitutional legislation) — to your liking, then it is rather inconsistent on your part to complain about bans on anonymous speech...
To an extent that's true, but science is science and sooner or later the facts will win out over dogma. Eventually someone is going to do the experiment that incontrovertibly proves that said underdog theory is true.
Certain things, although treated as science, are not really open to an experiment... And while disagreements over, say, some aspect of Cosmogony can be discussed in a friendly manner, issues like Global Warming tend to polarize people along their political persuasions...
Since academics' income depends greatly on the taxpayers' money, they tend to be Statist and/or rather Illiberal. Hence the dominant "scientific" opinions about Global Warming predicting gloomy scenarios and demanding drastic actions — mostly from "the rich" (citizens and nations), of course. Anybody disagreeing (or even questioning) is "anti-science" (even if burning at a stake is no longer practiced) — even though no experiment could possibly be conducted on a planetary scale.
I'm sorry, but I don't view the plight of the movie industry as something even close to the level of a fight for essential human rights.
Why not? King's phrase was — rightly — all-encompassing. The meaning is obvious: if something, that is wrong, is allowed anywhere, it threatens to become common place and should not be ignored, because it is not wide-spread "enough" (yet). The narrowing of the scope, that you insist on, is quite artificial.
If you take that to imply that I don't want people to receive compensation for their works then you are being deliberately ignorant.
Awesome! Then we are in agreement, that it is wrong to violate a copyright.
Don't be a smart ass.
I'm sorry, if my intelligence seems overwhelming to you. Sometimes I just can't help it...
It was very important that they granted the creator a temporary monopoly, and it was equally important that that monopoly expire after a period of time. [...] "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times [emphasis mine -mi] to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Oh, Ok. So, your point is, some copyrights should be invalid, because they are on stuff created too long ago. Maybe. But you are changing the subject. The article is about record box office, yet theaters overwelmingly show very recently created movies. This means, that the expiration of a copyright is irrelevant to the discussion, because copyrights on any of those movies would not have expired anyway — even if your ideal interpretation of "limited Times" was in effect.
You seemed to have another objection — if a copyright-holder's wealth exceeds certain quota, it is Ok to violate that copyright — but you no longer insist on it...
The little matter — whether Dr. King can be quoted by defenders of "big business" — is not really important. I suggest, you discuss it among friends — you will be less irritated as a result...
I think applying a quote from Dr. King to this situation is a stretch of epic proportions in the scope of the injustice.
Is it really? Why — the quote is quite explicit about the differences in scale: "anywhere" vs. "everywhere". That's why it is so striking, and that's why it is perfectly applicable. A single person benefitting from something without paying those, who created it, is a threat to all creators of value...
Perhaps the true injustice is that...
Oh, so you don't really view the copyright violation as an injustice to begin with. Very well, then, why are you participating in the huggling over numbers anyway? As far as you are concerned, there is no problem if nobody pays for the content they enjoy...
[...] companies with access to billions of dollars [...]
Sorry, I must've missed the new Constitutional amendment, spelling out the quotas, exceeding which makes one inelligible to participate in public discourse. Could you post a link, please?
I think the most interesting thing is that people seem to be looking for explanations that somehow involve nefarious US activity
What exactly is "nefarious" about intercepting (or trying to) one's sworn enemy's communications?.. I mean, even if US is behind the recent outages (and splicing an optical cable — under water! — ought to be much harder than an electrical one), there is nothing nefarious about it.
Maybe you haven't noticed that, in the past seven years, the Administration has pretty much gutted the Bill of Rights
No, I have not noticed particular gutting in the past seven years, although I did meet dimwits like yourself (gee, namecalling!) on the net and in real life. Past administrations have committed far worse "gutting" — screening of all foreign post, for example, was set up about a century ago. Eavesdropping phone calls to another country is no worse than that. "Domestic spying"? How about Roosevelt authorizing foreign (British) intelligence agencies to not only spy upon, but to also kill Americans deemed (by those foreigners) linked to their enemy?
In other words, take your petty Bush-bashing agenda, write all the points down, cramp the paper into a ball and shove it. There is nothing exceptional about our times — we were talking about long term trends here.
Have you ever actually read the constitution? It borders on paranoid as to the extent to which it goes to ensure that the government doesn't become too powerful. America's worst infractions have been a result of directly and blatantly violating the constitution.
I think, the GP's point was, Americans today don't care as much — we don't share the Founders' paranoia. Probably, because we have not seen the problem firsthand in too many generations — thanks, no doubt, to the Constitution.
The First Amendment itself is getting chipped away — you can't fake e-mail headers (there goes the anonymous speech, deemed precious on this very forum every time some asshole tries to get away breaking copyrights), and you can't be helping a political candidate too much.
But Americans welcome these laws, because they seem to address an acute problem (spam, lobbyists with too much freedom of speech, etc.). We clearly lost most of that paranoia of 200 years ago... Don't even get me started on the Second Amendment...
Making a legal distinction between spamming and protected speech is the task as painfully difficult as describing a difference between appearances of a cat and a dog or, to get back to legislation, between (erotic) art and pornography. "I know it when I see it" is the only reliable standard...
I'd be the first to sign up a "kill the spammers" petition, if it weren't for my respect for the 1st Amendment. I'm not alone at this — all anti-spamming bills target not the "bulk e-mailing" itself, but the headers-forging and other related activities.
But even that should raise outcry... Where are the solemn-speaking defenders of the right to anonymity, for example? Should not even the headers-forging be protected by their vision of the 1st Amendment — spammers really do do it to remain anonymous...
At least, political speech is still protected... Oh, wait, it is not — not since that infamous bit of "bi-partisan" legislation named "McCain/Feingold" was passed. Seems like even simply standing on a street talking up a candidate may be a violation, if you do that for too long — everyone's political contribution is limited by this Constitution-busting law, so once you've talked for enough hours to reach the limit at some reasonable rate, your time is up...
Did the Founding Fathers err with the limitless Freedom of Speech, or are we interpreting it too widely and are forced to reinterpret chunks of it away, when dealing with abusers?
That's pretty clear, it seems to me. "Read", not "write".
Yes, the article does start with that, but if you read the whole of it, there is no mention of actual prohibition to read:
Stringent regulations, read literally, require Army officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online [emphasis mine -mi], in case they leak secrets.
There is this, of course:
Now there's the Air Force's argument, that blogs aren't legitimate media outlets -- and therefore, shouldn't be read at work.
But the actual fact (rather than the article's author's imagination) is that Air Force is blocking all sites with "blog" in their name. A really stupid "carpet-bombing" (pun intended) — yes, but not a prohibition to read blogs — just not from work... Unlike posting, which should not be done from anywhere without approval.
If it weren't for junk mail, first class mail would cost considerably more than it does. Junk mail subsidizes regular mail and helps keep costs down.
This is a BS argument often raised by people, who see only "one side" of the economics... As was famously said about some other absurdly stupid idea: "This is not even wrong."
Whoever is paying and whoever is paid, it all boils down to a lot of people doing a lot of work sending (the spammers) and delivering (USPO) the junk, so a lot of other people (recipients) do some more work discarding. "Printed on recycled paper" — yeah, right, and delivered with recycled fuel by a recycled postman, who has nothing better to do. That's just wrong.
You may as well pay people to carry water from Hudson to East River in buckets — if your goal is to keep them busy with something, so that the useful service, which can not keep them busy full-time stays cheap. But it is mostly not useful (to anyone) work — and nobody should be paying for it. Contrary to what a politician in need of pork for his district may tell you, it is wrong to order something "to create jobs". The only good reason is because you want to have it (whatever it is).
The whole idea of paying for work, instead of paying for result is ludicrous and I don't understand, how people paid for delivering junk mail feel themselves above, say, welfare recipients and other beggars...
The mentality I speak of is "The entire world around me should be adjusted to fit my way of thinking or doing things."
We all have this mentality — the difference is in how we react to others not agreeing. Reactions range from shrugs, to voting to make one's way the encouraged (or the only legal) one, to blowing up other people to make one's point...
Who is "extremist" and who is not is determined by where on the above scale their reactions reside...
Slashdot Mirror
And yet having the Fat Man's design handy would help them a lot.
Anyway, I was just responding to someone, who claimed there is no problem in the assholes' ability to assemble a "Fat Man", because they would not be able to transport it anywhere. There is no need to transport...
I don't need to transport it anywhere. A "Fat Man" exploding in a house bought for the purpose years ago anywhere in Brooklyn or Jersey City will still be devastating to New York... Especially, if you scale the project and blow up several of these in different locales.
Thank you for contributing to nuclear weapons proliferation... Looks like you did...
Hopefully, there is, indeed, a fault in there somewhere, which Wikileaks were either sincerely unable to find or are simply lying about having missed.
These — along with their recent run-in with the judge — raises important questions, however. Are there secret documents in existence, that WikiLeaks would refuse to make available if given?
I mean, if it is not an ancient (though just as deadly) nuclear bomb design, but something more recent? How about plans for America's invasion of Iran or North Korea? What about the plans for our defense of Taiwan — there must be some uncomfortable answers to ugly questions in there...
What about civil government? A police-department's plans for riot-prevention, or a coordinated anti-drug raid?
What about "personal" secrets? How about a politician's diary? How about that of a CEO of a big corporation — he may have recorded private thoughts in there, such as whether his secretary is genuinely more affectionate to him, than his wife?
When does "strong transparency" turn into treason, obstructing justice, or invasion of privacy?
Without arguing on whether the above "donts" apply to our most recent Iraq invasion, is there — in your opinion — ever a situation, when wrongs committed by a country's government justify invasion aiming at correcting those wrongs?
That's how you discourage them. To fight them you chase them, sink their ships, and hang the captured ones along the shores. Add drawing-and-quartering to taste... Sometimes I really wish we could apply these methods to the guerrilla assholes, but I don't think we can any more... The risk of mistakingly killing an innocent person is just too high for a modern conscience.
As Jews and Arabs do?..
The alternatives — such as Rwanda — were far worse.
It could've, it did, and it still does: it was and remains perfectly legal for Jews to buy land in Utah. They preferred to do so in Palestine, however, for some reason... Their dramatic successes in farming and the ability to buy more and more land resulted in the negative reaction by the local Arabs. So much so, it remains de-facto illegal to this day for a Palestinian to sell land to a Jew — Hamas and friends will hunt such a seller down. Selling to Christians is Ok, and there is a small industry in Europe specializing in middlemenship...
Unlike those you accuse, you are ignorant of history — the Jews fought their way to dominance in the region, defeating armies of several (earlier-formed) Arab nations — just as is, apparently, required by you, right after seeking — and obtaining — legal international recognition. If ever a new nation was born "properly" — satisfying both the "might is right" people like yourself and the peaceful consensus-seekers — it was Israel in 1948. Had the Arabs done the same — instead of conspiring for decades to destroy Israel — they would've lived pretty good by now.
Not that they live badly now — Gazans' are fairing better than those of Egyptians right across the border:
You are not just ignorant, but also racist — implying, that certain peoples "just aren't" capable of democracy and that "a strong hand" is the best for them...
Also your blaming of "the West" for the world's ills is such a (disproved) cliche, that I'll probably stop responding here... My hands already hurt from beating you up with all these heavy facts, sorry.
You have nothing to be ashamed of as a "westerner" — your shortcomings are ignorance and racism, but those are your own...
So, who should have been given sovereignty over those vast lands — after the Ottoman Empire collapsed thanks in no small part to the (British-assisted) Arab Revolt? And, back to the previous subject, why was it particularly wrong to give sovereignty over a particular patch of the land (under 1% of the total) to the Jews?..
The answer is, it was not. The whole problem is artificial from the beginning to these days. First the Arab nations tried to vanquish Israel by the brute force in several "conventional" wars. Now, they are continuing with terrorism on one hand and propaganda whining on the other.
Right. Conquered. But not from the "Palestinians". The previous "occupier" was Ottoman Empire, which waged war on the "western nations" and lost. The Arabs had no sovereignty over what's now Israel, just as they did not have it over all other today's Arab countries. Yet the land of Israel — its size less than 1% of the Arab world, BTW — is today the only point on which "western nations" are being accused of "Moral Relativism" (and other bullshit accusations).
Right back at you, in other words...
Somehow it was Ok for those "western nations" to create — with non-refusable offers — (Trans)Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, etc. — but not Israel...
You may have tried to contradict me here — an attempt at sarcasm is noted — but you did not. I was referring to today's academics, who are today dependent on government funds, and who thus tend to be Statists and/or Illiberal (taxing the masses to sponsor the elite). No, I'm no accusing them all of being consciously dishonest. It is more of a state-of mind thing...
Why not? Anonymous political donations, for example, are quite impossible already — and sites like this even make the donors easily searchable. (One can even incorporate such searches into their Human Resources practices — legally.)
And if donations aren't anonymous, and limited (as per McCain-Feingold and other unconstitutional legislation) — to your liking, then it is rather inconsistent on your part to complain about bans on anonymous speech...
Certain things, although treated as science, are not really open to an experiment... And while disagreements over, say, some aspect of Cosmogony can be discussed in a friendly manner, issues like Global Warming tend to polarize people along their political persuasions...
Since academics' income depends greatly on the taxpayers' money, they tend to be Statist and/or rather Illiberal. Hence the dominant "scientific" opinions about Global Warming predicting gloomy scenarios and demanding drastic actions — mostly from "the rich" (citizens and nations), of course. Anybody disagreeing (or even questioning) is "anti-science" (even if burning at a stake is no longer practiced) — even though no experiment could possibly be conducted on a planetary scale.
Watch angry responses to this posting for more :-)
It is not a crime, and most Americans have done this. Yours is not even a persecution mania, but simply that of greateness.
Why not? King's phrase was — rightly — all-encompassing. The meaning is obvious: if something, that is wrong, is allowed anywhere, it threatens to become common place and should not be ignored, because it is not wide-spread "enough" (yet). The narrowing of the scope, that you insist on, is quite artificial.
Awesome! Then we are in agreement, that it is wrong to violate a copyright.
I'm sorry, if my intelligence seems overwhelming to you. Sometimes I just can't help it...
Oh, Ok. So, your point is, some copyrights should be invalid, because they are on stuff created too long ago. Maybe. But you are changing the subject. The article is about record box office, yet theaters overwelmingly show very recently created movies. This means, that the expiration of a copyright is irrelevant to the discussion, because copyrights on any of those movies would not have expired anyway — even if your ideal interpretation of "limited Times" was in effect.
You seemed to have another objection — if a copyright-holder's wealth exceeds certain quota, it is Ok to violate that copyright — but you no longer insist on it...
The little matter — whether Dr. King can be quoted by defenders of "big business" — is not really important. I suggest, you discuss it among friends — you will be less irritated as a result...
Slide 10 out of 37 (emphasis mine -mi):
Is it really? Why — the quote is quite explicit about the differences in scale: "anywhere" vs. "everywhere". That's why it is so striking, and that's why it is perfectly applicable. A single person benefitting from something without paying those, who created it, is a threat to all creators of value...
Oh, so you don't really view the copyright violation as an injustice to begin with. Very well, then, why are you participating in the huggling over numbers anyway? As far as you are concerned, there is no problem if nobody pays for the content they enjoy...
Sorry, I must've missed the new Constitutional amendment, spelling out the quotas, exceeding which makes one inelligible to participate in public discourse. Could you post a link, please?
... and counting other people's money...
What happened to the famous Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere?
I mean, if it is wrong to watch a movie without paying its makers, does it really matter, whether 1% or 30% of the makers' money is lost to them?
He is not. The job of a senior statesman is waiting for him — and it is a very well paid one:
What exactly is "nefarious" about intercepting (or trying to) one's sworn enemy's communications?.. I mean, even if US is behind the recent outages (and splicing an optical cable — under water! — ought to be much harder than an electrical one), there is nothing nefarious about it.
What exactly is nefarious about intercepting an enemy's communications?
No, I have not noticed particular gutting in the past seven years, although I did meet dimwits like yourself (gee, namecalling!) on the net and in real life. Past administrations have committed far worse "gutting" — screening of all foreign post, for example, was set up about a century ago. Eavesdropping phone calls to another country is no worse than that. "Domestic spying"? How about Roosevelt authorizing foreign (British) intelligence agencies to not only spy upon, but to also kill Americans deemed (by those foreigners) linked to their enemy?
In other words, take your petty Bush-bashing agenda, write all the points down, cramp the paper into a ball and shove it. There is nothing exceptional about our times — we were talking about long term trends here.
I think, the GP's point was, Americans today don't care as much — we don't share the Founders' paranoia. Probably, because we have not seen the problem firsthand in too many generations — thanks, no doubt, to the Constitution.
The First Amendment itself is getting chipped away — you can't fake e-mail headers (there goes the anonymous speech, deemed precious on this very forum every time some asshole tries to get away breaking copyrights), and you can't be helping a political candidate too much.
But Americans welcome these laws, because they seem to address an acute problem (spam, lobbyists with too much freedom of speech, etc.). We clearly lost most of that paranoia of 200 years ago... Don't even get me started on the Second Amendment...
Making a legal distinction between spamming and protected speech is the task as painfully difficult as describing a difference between appearances of a cat and a dog or, to get back to legislation, between (erotic) art and pornography. "I know it when I see it" is the only reliable standard...
I'd be the first to sign up a "kill the spammers" petition, if it weren't for my respect for the 1st Amendment. I'm not alone at this — all anti-spamming bills target not the "bulk e-mailing" itself, but the headers-forging and other related activities.
But even that should raise outcry... Where are the solemn-speaking defenders of the right to anonymity, for example? Should not even the headers-forging be protected by their vision of the 1st Amendment — spammers really do do it to remain anonymous...
At least, political speech is still protected... Oh, wait, it is not — not since that infamous bit of "bi-partisan" legislation named "McCain/Feingold" was passed. Seems like even simply standing on a street talking up a candidate may be a violation, if you do that for too long — everyone's political contribution is limited by this Constitution-busting law, so once you've talked for enough hours to reach the limit at some reasonable rate, your time is up...
Did the Founding Fathers err with the limitless Freedom of Speech, or are we interpreting it too widely and are forced to reinterpret chunks of it away, when dealing with abusers?
Yes, the article does start with that, but if you read the whole of it, there is no mention of actual prohibition to read:
There is this, of course:
But the actual fact (rather than the article's author's imagination) is that Air Force is blocking all sites with "blog" in their name. A really stupid "carpet-bombing" (pun intended) — yes, but not a prohibition to read blogs — just not from work... Unlike posting, which should not be done from anywhere without approval.
This is a BS argument often raised by people, who see only "one side" of the economics... As was famously said about some other absurdly stupid idea: "This is not even wrong."
Whoever is paying and whoever is paid, it all boils down to a lot of people doing a lot of work sending (the spammers) and delivering (USPO) the junk, so a lot of other people (recipients) do some more work discarding. "Printed on recycled paper" — yeah, right, and delivered with recycled fuel by a recycled postman, who has nothing better to do. That's just wrong.
You may as well pay people to carry water from Hudson to East River in buckets — if your goal is to keep them busy with something, so that the useful service, which can not keep them busy full-time stays cheap. But it is mostly not useful (to anyone) work — and nobody should be paying for it. Contrary to what a politician in need of pork for his district may tell you, it is wrong to order something "to create jobs". The only good reason is because you want to have it (whatever it is).
The whole idea of paying for work, instead of paying for result is ludicrous and I don't understand, how people paid for delivering junk mail feel themselves above, say, welfare recipients and other beggars...
I did RTFA, and found no mention of
The article only talks about limitations on service-members' own logs and/or contributing to those of others.There is nothing wrong with such limitations per se — controlling, what information gets out of the military, is perfectly legitimate.
We all have this mentality — the difference is in how we react to others not agreeing. Reactions range from shrugs, to voting to make one's way the encouraged (or the only legal) one, to blowing up other people to make one's point...
Who is "extremist" and who is not is determined by where on the above scale their reactions reside...