In 2005 a clandestine group known as Les Dégonflés, The Deflated, began a campaign of sabotage against SUVs in the City.
"Under cover of night, Marrant's troops target Jeep Cherokees, Porsche Cayennes and other four-wheel-drive vehicles parked on the tree-lined avenues and cobblestoned lanes of wealthy neighborhoods. The eco-guerrillas deflate tires without damaging them, smear doors with mud and paste handbills on windshields proclaiming that the vehicles are dangerous, polluting behemoths that do not belong in the city."
And now, far from criminalizing their behavior, the government of the City is going to ratify it. Lessons to be learned, here: Direct Action gets the goods.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Sun had published Solaris under the GPLv3 in 2007. With the Torvalds set on keeping the Linux kernel under GPLv2, would Free Software and Open Source have split as the more Libre-centric folks put the Gnu environment on the Solaris kernel? Would Debian Gnu/Solaris have really taken off?
It would have been late for Sun, but it sure would have been interesting.
OTOH, I find the sequence "Woodward, Bernstein, Assange" distasteful.
Right. Because Woodward has spent the last 30-plus years as a sycophant to power and Assange has never done anything as reprehensible as writing Bush at War.
Ecuador ranks a whooping 101 on the press freedom index, with an annually deteriorating index value. I'm not quite convinced it's the best country to exile to for people publishing inconveniant documents.
The compilers of that "press freedom index" is Reporters Without Borders. RWB are primarily funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct, sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party.
I would consider that the "US State Dept Press Freedom Index".
I really don't have the time right now to explain the concepts of "natural monopoly" and "common carrier" to you. But I suggest you do some Googling on those just to get you up to speed.
As many here have pointed out, it's absurd to think that this app would be useful for a terrorist who has the resources to obtain a surface to air missile. If you're going to shoot down a civilian plane, do you really need to know the flight number? Or do you just pick the one you see above you?
A more likely concern is that the device can be used to reveal government misconduct. It was hobbyist plane-spotters who, through their observations of civilian air traffic, exposed the CIA's Torture Jet flights or "extraordinary renditions", wherein they kidnapped people abroad and transferred them to third countries like Egypt, Jordan and Uzbekistan for interrogation using tortures that even the CIA wouldn't use (I guess there still are some).
If the choice is between ceasing their crimes against humanity, or trying to cover them up better: they prefer the latter strategy.
This is apropos because the Pennsylvania State Police began in the early 19th century as the private Iron and Coal Police of the mine and mill owners. The owners tired of paying for their muscle all by themselves and recruited the taxpayers of Pennsylvania to chip in by getting the State of Pennsylvania to... what's the opposite of "privatize"? Publicize? Anyway, the State adopted the bosses' private security apparatus as a whole, changed its name to the State Police, and started to pay their salaries to do what they had been doing anyway: fighting the unions and communities that were struggling to improve wages and working conditions in the coal mines and steel mills of Pennsylvania.
This is all detailed in Kristian Williams's excellent history of the police in America Our Enemies in Blue.
After the last round of "Wikileaks has blood on its hands" hysteria I resolved to donate money to them every time there is a new attack on Wikileaks in the media. I can see this is going to get expensive.
To help the now-wealthy to become yet more wealthy, or help all of humanity to avert climate disaster and live in a cleaner environment? Hmmmm decisions, decisions...
Reporters Sans Frontiers/Reporters Without Borders are primarily funded by the US government [zcommunications.org] through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct [ned.org], sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party [counterpunch.org].
I'm sure that the US government would much prefer that whistleblowers send any leaked video of massacres by US troops or State Department cables to this new site rather than Wikileaks [wikileaks.org]. The only way it would be easier for them to discover the identity of the whistleblower would be if the leak went directly to the CIA with a return address.
It appears to me that this new Reporters Sans Frontiers project is a honeypot intended to catch would-be whistleblowers.
Reporters Without Borders are primarily funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct, sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party.
I'm sure that the US government would much prefer that whistleblowers send any leaked video of massacres by US troops or State Department cables to this new site rather than Wikileaks. The only way it would be easier for them to discover the identity of the whistleblower would be if the leak went directly to the CIA with a return address.
Dear Mr AC,
Your comment has some substantive things to say about screen sizes and resolution. It appears that your comment was modded down because some moderators disagreed with it, not because of its quality. Just want you to know that we can see that.
"I am pretty sure, the answer is a resounding 'Yes'."
Only if you aren't concerned with democracy. Democracy requires that a government rule by the consent of the governed. We cannot consent to what we do not know.
We may elect government officials, but how meaningful is that really if their activities in office are secret from us? If we are choosing whether or not to re-elect an incumbent candidate, or selecting among candidates who have held previous government office, how can our approval or disapproval of their past performance be meaningful if we don't know what they have been doing?
You may say that the threats to our society from outside it are greater than the threats from government abuse of power. You may say that government officials' priorities are to protect us from those threats. You may say that government officials require secrecy to effectively protect us.
I think the greatest threats to my health and safety come from sources from which government officials have no interest in protecting me (see Toyota product safety, Wall Street sub-prime mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps, etc). How many people have died as a result of terrorism in the US in the past 20 years? How many from on-the-job injuries?
If the largest and most powerful military in the world cannot effectively occupy a devastated, impoverished country a fraction of it's size, how am I supposed to believe that any outside force of Islamic radicals could occupy the US with it's 300 million (often armed) citizens and impose sharia law? I think the greatest threats to my freedom come from the US Government (USA PATRIOT spying, sneak-and-peek break-ins, wiretapping, COINTELPRO disruption of peaceful movements for social change).
In the main, I don't think that the Government is keeping secrets from me to protect me. Rather I believe that the Government keeps secrets from me to protect those in office from being held accountable by me and my fellow citizens.
I want to live in an effective democracy. That desire is greater than my fear of outside threats, threats that I don't believe government secrecy helps to combat anyway
Slashdot Mirror
In 2005 a clandestine group known as Les Dégonflés, The Deflated, began a campaign of sabotage against SUVs in the City.
"Under cover of night, Marrant's troops target Jeep Cherokees, Porsche Cayennes and other four-wheel-drive vehicles parked on the tree-lined avenues and cobblestoned lanes of wealthy neighborhoods. The eco-guerrillas deflate tires without damaging them, smear doors with mud and paste handbills on windshields proclaiming that the vehicles are dangerous, polluting behemoths that do not belong in the city."
And now, far from criminalizing their behavior, the government of the City is going to ratify it. Lessons to be learned, here: Direct Action gets the goods.
For him, it's free beer that counts.
I think beer is something Putin drinks when he wants to sober up after a vodka bender.
Putin doesn't drink alcohol at all.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Sun had published Solaris under the GPLv3 in 2007. With the Torvalds set on keeping the Linux kernel under GPLv2, would Free Software and Open Source have split as the more Libre-centric folks put the Gnu environment on the Solaris kernel? Would Debian Gnu/Solaris have really taken off?
It would have been late for Sun, but it sure would have been interesting.
The divide has always been there. It is just now becoming visible.
You Have the right to free speech
So long as you're not dumb enough to actually try it
-- The Clash, "Know Your Rights"
OTOH, I find the sequence "Woodward, Bernstein, Assange" distasteful.
Right. Because Woodward has spent the last 30-plus years as a sycophant to power and Assange has never done anything as reprehensible as writing Bush at War .
Ecuador ranks a whooping 101 on the press freedom index, with an annually deteriorating index value. I'm not quite convinced it's the best country to exile to for people publishing inconveniant documents.
The compilers of that "press freedom index" is Reporters Without Borders. RWB are primarily funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct, sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party.
I would consider that the "US State Dept Press Freedom Index".
That's why I never watch movies set in the Roman Empire. I totally know how it's going to end.
I really don't have the time right now to explain the concepts of "natural monopoly" and "common carrier" to you. But I suggest you do some Googling on those just to get you up to speed.
As many here have pointed out, it's absurd to think that this app would be useful for a terrorist who has the resources to obtain a surface to air missile. If you're going to shoot down a civilian plane, do you really need to know the flight number? Or do you just pick the one you see above you?
A more likely concern is that the device can be used to reveal government misconduct. It was hobbyist plane-spotters who, through their observations of civilian air traffic, exposed the CIA's Torture Jet flights or "extraordinary renditions", wherein they kidnapped people abroad and transferred them to third countries like Egypt, Jordan and Uzbekistan for interrogation using tortures that even the CIA wouldn't use (I guess there still are some).
If the choice is between ceasing their crimes against humanity, or trying to cover them up better: they prefer the latter strategy.
The IAEA has become increasingly technologically sophisticated.
This is apropos because the Pennsylvania State Police began in the early 19th century as the private Iron and Coal Police of the mine and mill owners. The owners tired of paying for their muscle all by themselves and recruited the taxpayers of Pennsylvania to chip in by getting the State of Pennsylvania to ... what's the opposite of "privatize"? Publicize? Anyway, the State adopted the bosses' private security apparatus as a whole, changed its name to the State Police, and started to pay their salaries to do what they had been doing anyway: fighting the unions and communities that were struggling to improve wages and working conditions in the coal mines and steel mills of Pennsylvania.
This is all detailed in Kristian Williams's excellent history of the police in America Our Enemies in Blue .
After the last round of "Wikileaks has blood on its hands" hysteria I resolved to donate money to them every time there is a new attack on Wikileaks in the media. I can see this is going to get expensive.
To help the now-wealthy to become yet more wealthy, or help all of humanity to avert climate disaster and live in a cleaner environment? Hmmmm decisions, decisions ...
Because the stuff I've read clearly calls for moon settlements to have transparent glass domes.
Reporters Sans Frontiers/Reporters Without Borders are primarily funded by the US government [zcommunications.org] through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct [ned.org], sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party [counterpunch.org].
I'm sure that the US government would much prefer that whistleblowers send any leaked video of massacres by US troops or State Department cables to this new site rather than Wikileaks [wikileaks.org]. The only way it would be easier for them to discover the identity of the whistleblower would be if the leak went directly to the CIA with a return address.
It appears to me that this new Reporters Sans Frontiers project is a honeypot intended to catch would-be whistleblowers.
Reporters Without Borders are primarily funded by the US government through the National Endowment for Democracy which was founded during the Reagan administration to channel funds to organizations abroad that would support US foreign policy. Sometimes this funding is direct, sometimes it is conducted through the international arms of the US Democratic Party or Republican Party.
I'm sure that the US government would much prefer that whistleblowers send any leaked video of massacres by US troops or State Department cables to this new site rather than Wikileaks. The only way it would be easier for them to discover the identity of the whistleblower would be if the leak went directly to the CIA with a return address.
when you mean "contradict". To refute something means to disprove it. That's an important distinction.
I agree. When the New York Times reported that Iraq had bought yellow cake uranium from Nigeria I knew I could take that to the bank.
what would have happened to you if you'd gone around distributing thousands of CDs to people that, when placed in a computer, installed a rootkit?
Now, what happened to Sony?
another data point in favor of Godwin's law!
Dear Mr AC, Your comment has some substantive things to say about screen sizes and resolution. It appears that your comment was modded down because some moderators disagreed with it, not because of its quality. Just want you to know that we can see that.
Kay proposed the same price nominally for the Dynabook as today's iPad. But, adjusting for inflation, $500 in 1972 was about equal to $2535 today.
There are mirrors in Sweden and Switzerland.
Only if you aren't concerned with democracy. Democracy requires that a government rule by the consent of the governed. We cannot consent to what we do not know.
We may elect government officials, but how meaningful is that really if their activities in office are secret from us? If we are choosing whether or not to re-elect an incumbent candidate, or selecting among candidates who have held previous government office, how can our approval or disapproval of their past performance be meaningful if we don't know what they have been doing?
You may say that the threats to our society from outside it are greater than the threats from government abuse of power. You may say that government officials' priorities are to protect us from those threats. You may say that government officials require secrecy to effectively protect us.
I think the greatest threats to my health and safety come from sources from which government officials have no interest in protecting me (see Toyota product safety, Wall Street sub-prime mortgage derivatives and credit default swaps, etc). How many people have died as a result of terrorism in the US in the past 20 years? How many from on-the-job injuries?
If the largest and most powerful military in the world cannot effectively occupy a devastated, impoverished country a fraction of it's size, how am I supposed to believe that any outside force of Islamic radicals could occupy the US with it's 300 million (often armed) citizens and impose sharia law? I think the greatest threats to my freedom come from the US Government (USA PATRIOT spying, sneak-and-peek break-ins, wiretapping, COINTELPRO disruption of peaceful movements for social change).
In the main, I don't think that the Government is keeping secrets from me to protect me. Rather I believe that the Government keeps secrets from me to protect those in office from being held accountable by me and my fellow citizens.
I want to live in an effective democracy. That desire is greater than my fear of outside threats, threats that I don't believe government secrecy helps to combat anyway
.