These two words describe a situation where an abuse is perpetrated on a child.
These people are children, and probably do not have the full context to understand just how bad life can get when they are older, and realize that most of the owrld is out for themselves and there are no parents or teachers around to protect them.
As for calling it abuse: using tech like this to track other people has not yet become abuse - but I feel strongly that is exactly where this trend will go. It will migrate from voluntary to beneficial to compulsory and eventually, to involuntary. Already in the US and in bars in Latin America do we hear about people putting them in their skin. In the name of safety, in the name of peace, in the name of efficiency, in the name of prosperity and growth and everything good, people will eventually be forced to accept the tracking chip that tracks them cradle to grave. And when we are there, we will look back at these voluntary, ignorant, precious children and realize that it was an abuse to start the process.
Somehow in this techstrubation system I see research like this that has completely lost touch with what is good about living simply, without gadgets or crutches or machines that inevitably make things better for a minority of people in power, but worse for a majority of not-in-power people.
subject humor aside, it is understandable that the US would come to this. Fear of terrorism, and tech ability (stripped of morals) lead to the "if they can, they will" conclusion.
Given that the system that transports email does so to any address, anywhere, that system could easily be argued that it has more in common with "public space" than private space. Independent of the obvious fallacy that private companies run it -- the line between companies and govt. blurs as the US head more down the line of fascism. Shouting your message on the street corner in public affords one no expectation of privacy, so, people would argue, neither does throwing unencrypted text out into a public data exchange ether. This is not an argument I agree with, but I can see how it will (has) come to that.
For that reason, I've been hosting my own mail server since 1995, and (when possible) getting service from an ISP facility with owners I know and trust. It's a pain and time consuming - I've now learned and administered sendmail, postfix, qmail, and exim... and I read my mail on the server over an encrypted ssh connection.
I agree, in theory, with your assertions, but the practical effects of parties are overlooked in this analysis.
While this is technically true: "No party has the power to keep anyone off the general election ballot for any position." - the obvious reality in the US is that the parties have so much power and are so ingrained in the financial support, the media coverage, and the voting decision process - that they do have the power to control who is elected. Without the support of one of these two parties, being elected is almost impossible for high visibility political positions.
Same applies for this statement: "You don't have to affiliate with a party to run for an office at any level." Technically true, but in practice, on the ground, the way the system works today - actually getting elected absolutely requires playing the game with these two powerful organizations. And this "No party has the power to keep anyone off the general election ballot for any position. " - also technically true, but in practice this is a blatantly misleading assertion. That's like saying "You can get any job you want" or "Anyone can be president"; both technically true, but in practice they are not functional assertions.
This word election: I do not think it means what you think it means. When I use the word "elected" I mean in a government election. There is an INTERNAL selection within these two organizations to select their leadership. This is not an election. This is not democratic as would befit the level of power and influence these people have over the state.
Asserting I'm not informed and ignorant is childish, and a person attack. Not helpful. I'm quite familiar with the system in place, and stand behind my views. The internal organizational dynamics of these private clubs is not the same as an open, everyone-must-participate system of the state, a government based on laws.
I would go much much farther on characterizing the real nature of these organizations - beyond lack of above-board transparency or abuses of power. Those problems are the obvious ones; everyone who looks can see those. These organizations hold an effective lock on political fundraising in the US. They are, without question the two most powerful private organizations in the country. Their mandates dictate the way that Senators and Representatives vote in the congress. Trying to play this off as a need of the running candidate for "supportive followership" is offensive to me. What exactly does that mean? Funding support, votes? Politician are party of these groups only because they would not get elected any other way.
I don't beget these two organizations their right to exist, raise money, and peddle influence. It is their right. However, that the US has devolved to (effectively) only 2 organizations, and their power combined is so great that they warp the decision process of elected representatives is an unavoidable wrong, and in opinion, a serious problem.
Eliminating existing organizations would be very difficult. It could really only happen by passing laws, and given the the same organization (the political parties) control the way the people vote who make the laws - that ain't gunna happen.
The real problem is that when people are unhealthy, they tend to simplify complex problems down to black and white - extreme viewpoints. Take each of the major, complex issues in US politics: social supports, abortion, gun control, tax policy, environment, foreign policy - and on each one the issue has been simplified to only 1 of two possible extreme options, which aligns exactly with a system with only 2 parties. It just so happens these two parties can cover all the issues when you simplify every problem down to its unhealthiest extremes.
It is a local minima in social dynamics - like a society with two warring factions, making life so unpleasant (for politics, so non functional), that each person needs to join a faction to survive (in the political sense, to join a party to get elected). If there were 4 or more parties all powerful enough to get people elected, then there would be an opening for real expression of interest, real choice (competition) for high quality politicians.
I don't see any way out of this minima except by artificially stopping both organizations, and starting again with new ones. I don't know any good way that could happen. The French did it, but that was not pretty or good.
Wow, I wrote that quickly. The grammar errors make me look like a moron. I don't think I am, but hey, I'm posting on Slashdot.
I can't believe I actually typed "Show me where the Constitutional process for how the Rebuplic runs discusses that kind of political power." Brain, please come back from lunch.
What I meant was something like this: "I'd like to see where in the Constitution, in creating the rules by which the Republic is run, there exists a discussion of the kind of politicall power current held by the political parties." but even that doesn't make sense, because I know it is not there. These organiations are central to the problems in the USA. There is no reason to justify their existence other than their own self interest, and the emotions it causes in me to watch these awful people pervert the system makes my typing come out all jumbled.
Colbert, in his own way is an absolute genius. (personally I believe everyone has a genius, but Colbert has both found his, and developed a way to profitably express it).
The denial of his candidacy is a stark reminder of what is really going on with political parties in the USA. It is an old-boys power network, and frankly, Colbert was not playing by their rules. Those rules are (im my opinion) pretty close to these: be rich, be a career politician, suck up to companies, trade favors with those more powerful, be a political insider, lie cheat and steal your way into power -- and, depending on the party, when one meets most of these rules, the current party system will accept you as one of their own, and "allow" you to run.
Why are there 2 private organizations that run how governement works in the USA? That's crap and very few people see it. No one elected the leaders in these groups to decide "the party line", to pressure senators to vote a certain way, to hide emails, and whatever else they do. Why on earth should 13 people in SC get to tell the people of that state if a legal citizen can or can't run for president? Show me where the Constitutional process for how the Rebuplic runs discusses that kind of political power. It is an abomination of the system the US had.
While I don't think Colbert is a serious candidate, his running was deeply meaningful. His rejection highlights the absurdity of the process, and the entrenched position of political parties that control the US and governements.
Mid-30s cynical geeks congregating to office space an old computer while celebrating Slashdot culture could happen in hundreds of locations every year. Just get bunch of startup shwag partners, run the/. Party schedule software, collect the videos and photos and make it an annual thing.
I think I may not have made the point at all to you. From what you write, it seems you have exactly the misconception that is so rampant. I'm very familiar with sematics and this is not a semantic difference.
There is no [ democracy -> representative democracy -> republic ] sliding scale. There is no increased specificity that moves you from one to the next. The fundamental premise of a republic is different than that of a democracy. The US is NOT a Representative Democracy. People may have told you that, but it simply not true. The preseident, the congress, elected federal officials are NOT charged with representing US citizens (as they are in a democracy) - they are (as the US is a Republic) charged with upholding the Constitution - the rules that created the country. There is a huge difference there, and at the heart is this idea of Polling - asking everybody what they think.
By saying "people know what you're talking about". Actually, they don't know and from your post, saying the US is a democracy -- it appears you don't either. Your post is exactly the problem I'm talking about. People in the US do not understand how and why the country exists, and how dangerous the current situation is with the current federal administration.
As for your tree analogy, it is way off. The difference is not one more detailed wording for the same idea. Democracies and Republics are apples and oranges. Both fruits, but clearly different things.
If you are interested, I would suggest a careful reading of the US Contitution, so you understand what it really says, and then read up on political theory on republics and democracies.
I read stories like this and have to, with a wry grin, shake my head and roll my eyes.
The idea that groups determine with a democratic vote how a society functions is both absurd and an essential part of the American dream. By dream I mean just that - a mythical non-reality created to give hope to people who otherwise would not accept the reality they have.
Repeat after me: America is not a democracy! America is not a democracy! America is not a democracy!
America is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC. Learn the difference. This means the country has laws first (a Constitution), and the US has a democratic process to elect the people respnsible for upholding and execting the rules of the republic. At no time, and in no way were the opinions of the masses asked for, expected, or accepted in figuring out how the system works - and with good reason: their beliefs were/are easily swayed, grossly under-informed, and as anyone who has tried to decide anything by committee or group: group opinion taking is non-functional.
However, most American dwell in the dream that things in the US are "democratic" - that the way a group, the world, the Internet, or the USA "should" function is that we ask everyone, take a vote, and the highest count wins. Bzzzzt. WRONG. Bad Idea. I see this mentality driving the idea that Zogby should do some poll of the population for what "the people" think the government should do about Internet content. This mentality is extremely wrong, and will get people into a lot of trouble. In America, the answer you get from the masses is directly proportional to what rich, powerful white men craft as messages for the masses to believe.
Strangly, increased capacity for communication will and has made such polling much easier than ever before. It does not make it more valid or more useful in creating policy or a smoothly functioning, successful society.
Aside from the bonehead mentality that we should all vote to determine policy - there is an even simpler issue here. Once one understands how and why this country was formed, and the principles behind it - it becomes obvious that regulating content on huge ditributed computer networks is NOT EVEN CLOSE, not even in the ballpark to what the original intention of the US government was. It is off beyond the outfield, over the green monter, and somewhere off in the bay. It is, in fact, criminal, by all definitions of the term, to distort the function of government so far outside the legal bounds of it's creation.
On a long enough time scale, most everything balances out.
The premise of the libertarian movement is small governement. There is a reason that a candidate like Ron Paul is getting so much press and support now - the actions of the government are becoming onerous and encroaching on basic human freedoms.
What the world needs now is a large group of people to collectively tell the state (Read: US FEDERAL GOVERENMNET) to "Back the fuck off" and stay where they belong: defending the country against known threats, domestic and international and creating real domesitc security (not this fake, fear mongering/engineered solution cycle).
"Watch lists" are part of LAZY POLICE WORK. If there is a person that is planning something - investigate them, charge them, arest them. Follow the laws we have now. All the rest of this crap in the name of security is just plain ineffective, lazy behavior driven by the need to cover their asses and assauge their fears that they will be accountable if any thing happens.
The reality is that there is no way to stop terrorism, and people have to get OK with that. If some sicko wants to kill a bunch of people, he or she will. If some sicko wants to fill a truck with fertilizer and gas, and drive into a building, they will. Tough shit. Somebody should have listened to their pleas for help long ago. Living is a world that makes it impossible for someone to bring down a plane is not a world that I want to live in, becuase it means draconian crontrols on freedoms. Those same freedoms we fought for and won hundreds of years ago, and many have died defending. I'd much rather we build a world where people DON'T WANT TO BRING DOWN PLANES. That is completely possible, and if we spent our energies there instead of the current track, we would all have happier, healthier lives.
The debate is not "should we have watch lists or not". The debate is, "who came up with this ridiculous crap and how soon can we remove them from power?"
basically, have articles start at the bottom, and work their way up the tiers by community consent, edit history, and most importantly: internal consistentcy. This will allow a resurgence in interest in the concept. Each person on the planet can have their own minutia page on themselves, each and every party that happened, each and every minute detail of life can be cataloged - and those that become interesting, they go up the chain and eventually become Wikipedia articles.
the kids wearing blue in the forground is clearly rooting for it to crash, you see his left arm raise victorious before the crowd goes ohhhhhh, and he continues to cheer as pieces fall.
and, if you listen carefully at the very end of the video, the announcer proclaims, "shit" over the loudspeaker
Please, for the love of all things healthy in the Universe, we need to get back to money being denominations of value, not denominations of promises (notes). Whoever does create the de-facto intergalactic standard for currency would be better off convincing people to conduct trade with promises, but the people who use it are much better off with items that translate to real value (just like everyone else today).
At the risk of getting flames from a tech-oriented/. crowd, I still don't agree or possibly don't fully understand the mentality behind a push to get laptops into the hands of children in poor countries. I see it as folly, and missing the point of what people really want.
Strip away all the bullshit of society and people are very simple emotion-driven machines: they want the good feelings and they avoid the bad feelings. That's it. At the deepest level, there is nothing more - everything else people want is an artifact or support within a (very) dysfunctional cultural system. Good feelings come from learning, food, sex, (long term) safety, love, and gratification (self worth). Bad feelings come from physical pain, attachment, sickness, hunger, sorrow, guilt, shame, anger and hate. These lists are incomplete and gross simplifications - but no where in there is the latest technology, the fastest ipod/palm pilot/pc/ whatever. No where on the lists is the fastest Comcast download speed, a cool car, or any of the other techno-pushed bullshit that people think is important.
The only reasons people want this stuff (new technology) both in 1st worlds and 3rd, is that these people get the emotions they want in society when they have them. Expensive do-dads are signals of status and status gets you laid, it gets you security through a job, it gives (sort of) some access to learning, and from ones job, it gets you food and a safe place to live. I can't help but think that pushing laptops into children of third world countries we are exporting our own techno-centric unhealth, our materialistic orientation on how to have the feelings we really want, but that new technology does not and can not give us.
There is extreme irony that the same technology that reflects signals of status also supports online systems of non-economic status that is increasingly important (explicit reputation), and cannot be easily purchased. Reputation- explicit, online and public is enabled in a connected world, and (I think) will become more powerful than the petty materialism people revert to in order to have self worth within a culture that thrives on most people having low self worth and working hard to make up for it. In fact, these systems are already here, people just have not realized it yet - as it takes years for people to understand how the rules of society change.
and for those of us (purists) who still use mutt and read their email as text? I certainly hope that I don't get "I think this was spam, please resend to this captcha-encoded-email address to really get it through." Because then I'm usnig a graphical browser, which has more spam and security issues than my current solution.
having been through a few trials myself, I've found that misuse is by far the most common application of the courts' powers - especially in EAST TEXAS.
This is why there are so many lawyers and they are paid so much when they are good. Courtrooms are a very complex game.
Your statement is correct, we do not treat an infant as "a human" (meaning: an adult). We treat them as infants, and care for them as they need to be cared for.
What point are you trying to make? Would you like the reader to jump to the conclusion that because of this similarity we would then treat embryos as we treat infants? Someone has marked this comment as "insightful" - but I don't see why.
Slashdot Mirror
At what point does the story become so absurd that people will rise up with some energy and stop this insanity.
This is one of a long list now that together paints absurdity:
gag orders from the state like TFA
fake government news conferences
secret rules for companies offering travel
warrentless searches, warrentless wiretaps without oversight
executive officials declaring they aren't part of the executive branch
former AG and AG in the approval process both who think simulating death by drowing is OK
overt torture of dissidents by the state
political litmus tests for federal prosecutors
taking water and degrading people with "security theatre" before they can fly
secret prisons
history rewritten with medals of freedom
CIA IG hamstrung by OMB red tape preventing the investigation of illegal activity
police that require papers on demand, without reason
overtly funding terrorist dictators, then attacking them
being tazed and arrested for asking tough questions to Senators and acting up
the lead opposition party candidate supporting the war through 2012
somehow "not finding" the Saudi prince who was "responsible" for the 9/11 attack
spending fully 60% of the global military expenditures ($623 Billion, not counting Iraq)
a looming awful choice: a draft -or- mid-east civil war. Pick one.
a president beating war drums about WW III
an endless war on fear that causes fear
This is the United States today. Any memory or idealism of some other "land of the free" is completely gone.
Child abuse.
These two words describe a situation where an abuse is perpetrated on a child.
These people are children, and probably do not have the full context to understand just how bad life can get when they are older, and realize that most of the owrld is out for themselves and there are no parents or teachers around to protect them.
As for calling it abuse: using tech like this to track other people has not yet become abuse - but I feel strongly that is exactly where this trend will go. It will migrate from voluntary to beneficial to compulsory and eventually, to involuntary. Already in the US and in bars in Latin America do we hear about people putting them in their skin. In the name of safety, in the name of peace, in the name of efficiency, in the name of prosperity and growth and everything good, people will eventually be forced to accept the tracking chip that tracks them cradle to grave. And when we are there, we will look back at these voluntary, ignorant, precious children and realize that it was an abuse to start the process.
Somehow in this techstrubation system I see research like this that has completely lost touch with what is good about living simply, without gadgets or crutches or machines that inevitably make things better for a minority of people in power, but worse for a majority of not-in-power people.
subject humor aside, it is understandable that the US would come to this. Fear of terrorism, and tech ability (stripped of morals) lead to the "if they can, they will" conclusion.
Given that the system that transports email does so to any address, anywhere, that system could easily be argued that it has more in common with "public space" than private space. Independent of the obvious fallacy that private companies run it -- the line between companies and govt. blurs as the US head more down the line of fascism. Shouting your message on the street corner in public affords one no expectation of privacy, so, people would argue, neither does throwing unencrypted text out into a public data exchange ether. This is not an argument I agree with, but I can see how it will (has) come to that.
For that reason, I've been hosting my own mail server since 1995, and (when possible) getting service from an ISP facility with owners I know and trust. It's a pain and time consuming - I've now learned and administered sendmail, postfix, qmail, and exim... and I read my mail on the server over an encrypted ssh connection.
I agree, in theory, with your assertions, but the practical effects of parties are overlooked in this analysis.
While this is technically true: "No party has the power to keep anyone off the general election ballot for any position." - the obvious reality in the US is that the parties have so much power and are so ingrained in the financial support, the media coverage, and the voting decision process - that they do have the power to control who is elected. Without the support of one of these two parties, being elected is almost impossible for high visibility political positions.
Same applies for this statement: "You don't have to affiliate with a party to run for an office at any level." Technically true, but in practice, on the ground, the way the system works today - actually getting elected absolutely requires playing the game with these two powerful organizations. And this "No party has the power to keep anyone off the general election ballot for any position. " - also technically true, but in practice this is a blatantly misleading assertion. That's like saying "You can get any job you want" or "Anyone can be president"; both technically true, but in practice they are not functional assertions.
This word election: I do not think it means what you think it means. When I use the word "elected" I mean in a government election. There is an INTERNAL selection within these two organizations to select their leadership. This is not an election. This is not democratic as would befit the level of power and influence these people have over the state.
Asserting I'm not informed and ignorant is childish, and a person attack. Not helpful. I'm quite familiar with the system in place, and stand behind my views.
The internal organizational dynamics of these private clubs is not the same as an open, everyone-must-participate system of the state, a government based on laws.
I would go much much farther on characterizing the real nature of these organizations - beyond lack of above-board transparency or abuses of power. Those problems are the obvious ones; everyone who looks can see those. These organizations hold an effective lock on political fundraising in the US. They are, without question the two most powerful private organizations in the country. Their mandates dictate the way that Senators and Representatives vote in the congress. Trying to play this off as a need of the running candidate for "supportive followership" is offensive to me. What exactly does that mean? Funding support, votes? Politician are party of these groups only because they would not get elected any other way.
I don't beget these two organizations their right to exist, raise money, and peddle influence. It is their right. However, that the US has devolved to (effectively) only 2 organizations, and their power combined is so great that they warp the decision process of elected representatives is an unavoidable wrong, and in opinion, a serious problem.
Eliminating existing organizations would be very difficult. It could really only happen by passing laws, and given the the same organization (the political parties) control the way the people vote who make the laws - that ain't gunna happen.
The real problem is that when people are unhealthy, they tend to simplify complex problems down to black and white - extreme viewpoints. Take each of the major, complex issues in US politics: social supports, abortion, gun control, tax policy, environment, foreign policy - and on each one the issue has been simplified to only 1 of two possible extreme options, which aligns exactly with a system with only 2 parties. It just so happens these two parties can cover all the issues when you simplify every problem down to its unhealthiest extremes.
It is a local minima in social dynamics - like a society with two warring factions, making life so unpleasant (for politics, so non functional), that each person needs to join a faction to survive (in the political sense, to join a party to get elected). If there were 4 or more parties all powerful enough to get people elected, then there would be an opening for real expression of interest, real choice (competition) for high quality politicians.
I don't see any way out of this minima except by artificially stopping both organizations, and starting again with new ones. I don't know any good way that could happen. The French did it, but that was not pretty or good.
Wow, I wrote that quickly. The grammar errors make me look like a moron. I don't think I am, but hey, I'm posting on Slashdot.
I can't believe I actually typed "Show me where the Constitutional process for how the Rebuplic runs discusses that kind of political power." Brain, please come back from lunch.
What I meant was something like this:
"I'd like to see where in the Constitution, in creating the rules by which the Republic is run, there exists a discussion of the kind of politicall power current held by the political parties." but even that doesn't make sense, because I know it is not there. These organiations are central to the problems in the USA. There is no reason to justify their existence other than their own self interest, and the emotions it causes in me to watch these awful people pervert the system makes my typing come out all jumbled.
Colbert, in his own way is an absolute genius. (personally I believe everyone has a genius, but Colbert has both found his, and developed a way to profitably express it).
The denial of his candidacy is a stark reminder of what is really going on with political parties in the USA. It is an old-boys power network, and frankly, Colbert was not playing by their rules. Those rules are (im my opinion) pretty close to these: be rich, be a career politician, suck up to companies, trade favors with those more powerful, be a political insider, lie cheat and steal your way into power -- and, depending on the party, when one meets most of these rules, the current party system will accept you as one of their own, and "allow" you to run.
Why are there 2 private organizations that run how governement works in the USA? That's crap and very few people see it. No one elected the leaders in these groups to decide "the party line", to pressure senators to vote a certain way, to hide emails, and whatever else they do. Why on earth should 13 people in SC get to tell the people of that state if a legal citizen can or can't run for president? Show me where the Constitutional process for how the Rebuplic runs discusses that kind of political power. It is an abomination of the system the US had.
While I don't think Colbert is a serious candidate, his running was deeply meaningful. His rejection highlights the absurdity of the process, and the entrenched position of political parties that control the US and governements.
2017???
/. Party schedule software, collect the videos and photos and make it an annual thing.
Mid-30s cynical geeks congregating to office space an old computer while celebrating Slashdot culture could happen in hundreds of locations every year. Just get bunch of startup shwag partners, run the
I would love to organize it.
I hope he's already cashed the check.
I think I may not have made the point at all to you. From what you write, it seems you have exactly the misconception that is so rampant. I'm very familiar with sematics and this is not a semantic difference.
There is no [ democracy -> representative democracy -> republic ] sliding scale. There is no increased specificity that moves you from one to the next. The fundamental premise of a republic is different than that of a democracy. The US is NOT a Representative Democracy. People may have told you that, but it simply not true. The preseident, the congress, elected federal officials are NOT charged with representing US citizens (as they are in a democracy) - they are (as the US is a Republic) charged with upholding the Constitution - the rules that created the country. There is a huge difference there, and at the heart is this idea of Polling - asking everybody what they think.
By saying "people know what you're talking about". Actually, they don't know and from your post, saying the US is a democracy -- it appears you don't either. Your post is exactly the problem I'm talking about. People in the US do not understand how and why the country exists, and how dangerous the current situation is with the current federal administration.
As for your tree analogy, it is way off. The difference is not one more detailed wording for the same idea. Democracies and Republics are apples and oranges. Both fruits, but clearly different things.
If you are interested, I would suggest a careful reading of the US Contitution, so you understand what it really says, and then read up on political theory on republics and democracies.
I read stories like this and have to, with a wry grin, shake my head and roll my eyes.
The idea that groups determine with a democratic vote how a society functions is both absurd and an essential part of the American dream. By dream I mean just that - a mythical non-reality created to give hope to people who otherwise would not accept the reality they have.
Repeat after me:
America is not a democracy!
America is not a democracy!
America is not a democracy!
America is a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC. Learn the difference. This means the country has laws first (a Constitution), and the US has a democratic process to elect the people respnsible for upholding and execting the rules of the republic. At no time, and in no way were the opinions of the masses asked for, expected, or accepted in figuring out how the system works - and with good reason: their beliefs were/are easily swayed, grossly under-informed, and as anyone who has tried to decide anything by committee or group: group opinion taking is non-functional.
However, most American dwell in the dream that things in the US are "democratic" - that the way a group, the world, the Internet, or the USA "should" function is that we ask everyone, take a vote, and the highest count wins. Bzzzzt. WRONG. Bad Idea. I see this mentality driving the idea that Zogby should do some poll of the population for what "the people" think the government should do about Internet content. This mentality is extremely wrong, and will get people into a lot of trouble. In America, the answer you get from the masses is directly proportional to what rich, powerful white men craft as messages for the masses to believe.
Strangly, increased capacity for communication will and has made such polling much easier than ever before. It does not make it more valid or more useful in creating policy or a smoothly functioning, successful society.
Aside from the bonehead mentality that we should all vote to determine policy - there is an even simpler issue here. Once one understands how and why this country was formed, and the principles behind it - it becomes obvious that regulating content on huge ditributed computer networks is NOT EVEN CLOSE, not even in the ballpark to what the original intention of the US government was. It is off beyond the outfield, over the green monter, and somewhere off in the bay. It is, in fact, criminal, by all definitions of the term, to distort the function of government so far outside the legal bounds of it's creation.
On a long enough time scale, most everything balances out.
The premise of the libertarian movement is small governement. There is a reason that a candidate like Ron Paul is getting so much press and support now - the actions of the government are becoming onerous and encroaching on basic human freedoms.
What the world needs now is a large group of people to collectively tell the state (Read: US FEDERAL GOVERENMNET) to "Back the fuck off" and stay where they belong: defending the country against known threats, domestic and international and creating real domesitc security (not this fake, fear mongering/engineered solution cycle).
"Watch lists" are part of LAZY POLICE WORK. If there is a person that is planning something - investigate them, charge them, arest them. Follow the laws we have now. All the rest of this crap in the name of security is just plain ineffective, lazy behavior driven by the need to cover their asses and assauge their fears that they will be accountable if any thing happens.
The reality is that there is no way to stop terrorism, and people have to get OK with that. If some sicko wants to kill a bunch of people, he or she will. If some sicko wants to fill a truck with fertilizer and gas, and drive into a building, they will. Tough shit. Somebody should have listened to their pleas for help long ago. Living is a world that makes it impossible for someone to bring down a plane is not a world that I want to live in, becuase it means draconian crontrols on freedoms. Those same freedoms we fought for and won hundreds of years ago, and many have died defending. I'd much rather we build a world where people DON'T WANT TO BRING DOWN PLANES. That is completely possible, and if we spent our energies there instead of the current track, we would all have happier, healthier lives.
The debate is not "should we have watch lists or not". The debate is, "who came up with this ridiculous crap and how soon can we remove them from power?"
Wikipedia needs to build out tiers of content:
Top-tier: notable, professional, encyclopedic, widely desired content
mid
mid
low
low
minutia
basically, have articles start at the bottom, and work their way up the tiers by community consent, edit history, and most importantly: internal consistentcy. This will allow a resurgence in interest in the concept. Each person on the planet can have their own minutia page on themselves, each and every party that happened, each and every minute detail of life can be cataloged - and those that become interesting, they go up the chain and eventually become Wikipedia articles.
another good rule of thumb for orders of magnitude is this
our best estimate on the total number of atoms in the observable universe: 10^81
the kids wearing blue in the forground is clearly rooting for it to crash, you see his left arm raise victorious before the crowd goes ohhhhhh, and he continues to cheer as pieces fall.
and, if you listen carefully at the very end of the video, the announcer proclaims, "shit" over the loudspeaker
hilarious.
Please, for the love of all things healthy in the Universe, we need to get back to money being denominations of value, not denominations of promises (notes). Whoever does create the de-facto intergalactic standard for currency would be better off convincing people to conduct trade with promises, but the people who use it are much better off with items that translate to real value (just like everyone else today).
At the risk of getting flames from a tech-oriented /. crowd, I still don't agree or possibly don't fully understand the mentality behind a push to get laptops into the hands of children in poor countries. I see it as folly, and missing the point of what people really want.
Strip away all the bullshit of society and people are very simple emotion-driven machines: they want the good feelings and they avoid the bad feelings. That's it. At the deepest level, there is nothing more - everything else people want is an artifact or support within a (very) dysfunctional cultural system. Good feelings come from learning, food, sex, (long term) safety, love, and gratification (self worth). Bad feelings come from physical pain, attachment, sickness, hunger, sorrow, guilt, shame, anger and hate. These lists are incomplete and gross simplifications - but no where in there is the latest technology, the fastest ipod/palm pilot/pc/ whatever. No where on the lists is the fastest Comcast download speed, a cool car, or any of the other techno-pushed bullshit that people think is important.
The only reasons people want this stuff (new technology) both in 1st worlds and 3rd, is that these people get the emotions they want in society when they have them. Expensive do-dads are signals of status and status gets you laid, it gets you security through a job, it gives (sort of) some access to learning, and from ones job, it gets you food and a safe place to live. I can't help but think that pushing laptops into children of third world countries we are exporting our own techno-centric unhealth, our materialistic orientation on how to have the feelings we really want, but that new technology does not and can not give us.
There is extreme irony that the same technology that reflects signals of status also supports online systems of non-economic status that is increasingly important (explicit reputation), and cannot be easily purchased. Reputation- explicit, online and public is enabled in a connected world, and (I think) will become more powerful than the petty materialism people revert to in order to have self worth within a culture that thrives on most people having low self worth and working hard to make up for it. In fact, these systems are already here, people just have not realized it yet - as it takes years for people to understand how the rules of society change.
i watched the trailer for Portal and was dissapointed I could not get a version for my Mac.
not so much that I would get a pc though
and for those of us (purists) who still use mutt and read their email as text? I certainly hope that I don't get "I think this was spam, please resend to this captcha-encoded-email address to really get it through." Because then I'm usnig a graphical browser, which has more spam and security issues than my current solution.
of the courts [powers] being misused
having been through a few trials myself, I've found that misuse is by far the most common application of the courts' powers - especially in EAST TEXAS.
This is why there are so many lawyers and they are paid so much when they are good. Courtrooms are a very complex game.
someone got the marketing spin engine revving to 50K RPM today:
"that can identify people suspected of making or planting bombs."
Bullshit. Using the spray may detect a chemical, (not people) which then people may use to suspect one another.
Big difference.
Well, just the physical constants are in Ruby. They could modify themselves at runtime.
See, Buffalos and Elephants and Tigers - they are all in Java.
Nightmares, worries, and scary stories - C++.
The wind and the stars and the sea - Smalltalk.
We did memories and mathmatics in Erlang.
But the best of all, love dreams and courage, those are straight Lisp.
He has a more recent update:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance103.html
According to Vance, US forces occupy (most recently): "159 regions of the world: 144 countries and 15 territories."
There are now 192 countries in the world.
The DOD spends approximately $200 Million dollars a *day* maintaining this empire.
With numbers like these, one begins to understand the complaint of other people in the world who express angry at the US for being on thier soil.
it seems that this depends heavily on how high up in the administration one is
Your statement is correct, we do not treat an infant as "a human" (meaning: an adult). We treat them as infants, and care for them as they need to be cared for.
What point are you trying to make? Would you like the reader to jump to the conclusion that because of this similarity we would then treat embryos as we treat infants? Someone has marked this comment as "insightful" - but I don't see why.