Any links to comments from current Democrats on this issue? I would be willing to move to the dark side if there were some clearish policies about it from Dems.
So far I have been surprised to hear nothing about it as I think is it is good vote winner for nerds, plus it doesn't alienate any of the existing Democratic base so I don't see the problem with them using strong language about the issue.
This will be interesting considering that the current administration has for the first time in 30 years...
Very dishonest, another poster has pointed out that the current administration raised it by 30% before dropping it just a few percent.... reduced the funding of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and not allowed its budget to keep up with inflation and shows their lack of commitment to bioscience research...
Maybe some of the population would rather put that money into other public services. Calling a fractional decrease in funding 'damage' or anything similar just shows to me that you do not even consider for a second the other sides point of view.
... with technology advancements cool new features.
... let's not pretend these ideas are "new".
Not only are they 'new' to Google (very acceptable usage of 'new' by the GP post), they are also new to search engines in general.
everything google does is available elsewhere, and in a form such that the quality of our lives would not significantly change if google dried up and died.
Did anyone come close to claiming such a thing? Certainly not the post you replied to.
... because during war, targetting an enemy soldier is the goal,...
Don't be foolish. The goal of a war, any war, is to enforce a nation's will in circumstances where the preferred tools such as diplomacy, bribery, threats, blackmail etc have not been productive.
Obviously I did not mean that the entire reason for war is for the fun of killing people. Obviously I was pointing out the goal of killing enemies (who are trying to kill you, not surrendering) compared to the negative goal of killing civilians.
Terrorism is the act of terrifying people for your goals. Common usage is not as broad as the real definition, and rightly so I don't use the strict definition in common speech (as I said above).
The original poster in the thread that I responded to claimed that use of terror by some drug gangs had nothing *whatsoever* to do with terrorism. My only point was to correct that *factual error*. I have no interest in broadening the common usage of the word, (which has been assumed by 100% of replies).
his actions aren't designed to do anything about the problems (real or imagined) posed by terrorism.
Utter bullshit sorry. If you like I will list all things I can find that the US governement has done to counter terrorism, along with commentary by independent terrorism experts on whether they think each measure is useful or not.
you're missing the point. GP is saying when vengence takes you over, rational goes out the window. Right and Wrong don't factor into the the equation.
I was under the impression that we were talking about right and wrong, in an ideal sense. I never implied that in real life people would act in ways they know are right (good luck getting that to happen).
That being said your post is very defeatist. In times of war there has been countless cases of generosity across enemy lines. Enemy civilians sheltering AWOL soldiers, Jews being hidden in houses by a population that was against them etc.. Not everyone turns into animals when the chips are down you know, some people retain their dignity and some sense of morality (albeit knocked around a lot).
By generalizing the whole population in the way that you did (that they'll turn to killing innocent civilians belonging to the enemy country), really tries to legitimize terrorism by implying that it is a logical path when the squeeze gets tight. You could not be more wrong, and I am sure I speak for many others who consider themselves above targetting a civilian ever.
GP post said:... it is NOT terrorism. It is not even related to terrorism... in response to someone alleging that the drug lords are using terrorism at a lower level than we normally associate with terrorism.
So bank robbery is terrorism.
Only if they terrorize people for their ends, which does sometimes occur.
Mugging is terrorism
If they terrorize them for the purpose of getting the money (grabbing a wallet wouldn't count).
... when you open your mouth in public you're ultimately going to have to settle on definitions for terms that are (a) commonly agreed upon and (b) useful.
I totally agree.
Defining "terrorism" in such a manner as to include witness intimidation, of all things, is neither.
Well, I didn't define it! But I would ask why you draw a distinction at the size of the terrorism that is taking place? Or why restrict it to only specific goals (politics, religion, land). It is simply the act of scaring innocent people for your own goal.
That being said the normal usage of terrorism does not include small scale, or non-political ends. And I would never use that word in such an anal way in *normal* conversation. But I invite you to look at the inflammatory GP post that was far from normal conversation (and funnily enough he is wrong by dictionary definition which he so gleefully accused someone).
You don't need to explicity "target" civilians in order to kill them.
Here is where you try to convince me there's not much difference between targetting civilians and targetting enemies amongst civilians right?
Secondly, why is it only civilian death that counts ?
Of course, nobody ever said that military deaths don't count.
Perhaps you meant to ask, why are they less important that civilian deaths. The reason that the general public may feel this way (and they do) is because during war, targetting an enemy soldier is the goal, whereas targetting a civilian is a severe crime. I'm not sure if I need to go into much more detail for you to agree with me that killing civilians and soldiers are two very different things.
Does the fact that someone was conscripted into the Iraqi army mean they deserve to die ?
I have never heard anyone claim such a thing in my life, but to answer your question, no they don't deserve to die just because they joined their country's army.
In particular, does it mean its OK to kill them in their own country by dropping bombs from planes ?
If we are at war with a country, then not only is it ok to kill enemy soldiers in their own country, but it is the goal.
The reasons behind the war are a different issue. You are really either at war or you aren't, you either go in there with the bombs going hard or not, no?
I don't necessarily think we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and so would think all military action that is taking place there is wrong. But as far as military strategy and USA public interest goes, I support the war because it is decided by our democratically elected government. They were given permission by all of us because the powers they (and the president) have are shaped by the country over many years. If democrats get in next time and decide to not invade Iran for instance, whereas say republicans would have, I will support the no-war stance of our government.
Ummm, dude, check the dictionary. What you describe there is criminal behaviour and/or lawlessness, but it is NOT terrorism. It is not even related to terrorism.
So threatening innocent witnesses isn't terrorism?
You seem to be under the impression that terrorism must be for political ends. That is false. Terrorism can occur for any ends, but is more often for political, religous and idealogical reasons. It only has to involve coercion of civilians through demonstration of violence against their peers.
Governments tend only to be interested in opposing terrorism which is a threat to themselves. Most terrorists are not any kind of threat to governments in the first place.
Wow you can't win can you. Either Bush is blowing terrorism out of proportion for votes or leaving them alone because they are no threat. How about some intellectually honest discussion for a change.
The World Trade Center building 7 fell in exactly the same way as WTC 1 and 2, and it was NOT hit by an airplane. ALL the collapses looked exactly like controlled demolitions.
Let me guess, the Jews were behind it just like they made up the holocaust too?
People always try to demonise terrorist and distance themselves as much as possible even though we'd often act in a similar way if the roles were reverse.
Sorry but your analogy is misleading and faulty. If we were overrun by Fiji, with military down, it would _still_ be wrong and very immoral to target Fijian civilians. Or do you disagree?
How hard is it to call in a bomb threat to a skyscraper? How hard is it to claim that you injected 500 random cows with mad cows disease (or whatever). How hard is it to mail talcum powder to a hundred people.
It's actually pretty hard when you're against the largest anti-terrorism push in USA's history. Doing all 3 of those things are quite traceable with forensics and other means, for instance.
"A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members."
Sounds pretty much like open source to me.
You seem to have a problem with the word 'communism' as if it is some kind of insult. As a libertarian (quite far from communist), I find it frustrating that people take such offence to the word.
Tell me, which current system of government is (was) defined by free speech and transparency?
Firstly, just because current instances of communism have become corrupt in those ways, does not make that inherent to the concept itself.
Secondly, the (troll) parent was not comparing those parts of communism in the analogy. After all, lack of free speech and non-transparency are not part of the concept of communism, only the instantiations of it that have occurred in history.
Thirdly, the wording of the parent was 'communistic', which to me can be used to mean commune-like, as in hippy commune, or as in many people working together without much of a heirarchy of power. Rather than meaning straight-out communism.
Never have you met so many people that can know so much about so little, people with mountians of theoritical knowledge and no idea how to apply it at all.
It's well known fact that 'smart' is not the same as 'knowledge'.
We have a lab in our building that is devoted to studying networking, and literally most of the people in there couldn't point out the switch in their room,...
So they have mountains of theoretical knowledge yet can't identify a switch? Perhaps you are overestimating their knowledge.... people that have, with a stright face, used the phrase "statically configured dynamic address".
Just because someone mispoke a word in a 4 word technical phrase, doesn't make them stupid. They also may have been referring to a normally dynamic address that has been made static.
You get grad students and professors that have spent a lot of time on theory but have never applied the knowledge in meaningful ways and are out of touch with the real world.
Maybe if you compare them to people who have worked in the industry for an equivelent amount of time. Isn't it also a bit much to ask a uni to do projects that are as 'meaningful' as commercial projects? Ironically this professor has done just that (tried to give them a real world project) and then you lambast him for it!
Thus they make requests and demands that are totally off the wall because the mental picture they have of how things work isn't anything like how it really works.
Huge generializations. Give me some examples of how you think professors cannot picture how things work in the real world.
We need a term that sums up a person who knows people that will rig elections for him, and is able to convince america that not only is he a "good" person, that they should follow exactly what he says, without a thought. wait a minute.
"Leadership"? What do you call a person stating allegations as fact?
But then we go and invade a country and kill a whole lot of innocent people, and then say "but look at all the food we give you!" It just doesn't fly.
But that is circular. The people we are after in Iraq are angry at us because the US treats them badly (allegedly). So what's wrong with pointing out that the US has done a lot of good? (along-side allegedly bad things).
Slashdot Mirror
Any links to comments from current Democrats on this issue? I would be willing to move to the dark side if there were some clearish policies about it from Dems.
So far I have been surprised to hear nothing about it as I think is it is good vote winner for nerds, plus it doesn't alienate any of the existing Democratic base so I don't see the problem with them using strong language about the issue.
Damn, that's pretty cutting-edge, being able to store and retrieve string data.
But this is special string data that has been touched by the blessed DNF engine (may it bring us everlasting joy amen).
This will be interesting considering that the current administration has for the first time in 30 years ...
... reduced the funding of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and not allowed its budget to keep up with inflation and shows their lack of commitment to bioscience research ...
Very dishonest, another poster has pointed out that the current administration raised it by 30% before dropping it just a few percent.
Maybe some of the population would rather put that money into other public services. Calling a fractional decrease in funding 'damage' or anything similar just shows to me that you do not even consider for a second the other sides point of view.
Non-case
... " to the computer that he signed that contract for?
Couldn't a case be that he caused "... damage without authorization, to a protected computer
To me the only issue would be to prove whether or not deleting company data on a machine counts as 'damage'.
The goal of the company may not necessarily be to make a profit, but it may be convenient to define itself as capable of doing so.
It is purely academic though isn't it. The original point was that their far overriding goal is to make money (like 99% of other companies).
Not only are they 'new' to Google (very acceptable usage of 'new' by the GP post), they are also new to search engines in general.
everything google does is available elsewhere, and in a form such that the quality of our lives would not significantly change if google dried up and died.
Did anyone come close to claiming such a thing? Certainly not the post you replied to.
Don't be foolish. The goal of a war, any war, is to enforce a nation's will in circumstances where the preferred tools such as diplomacy, bribery, threats, blackmail etc have not been productive.
Obviously I did not mean that the entire reason for war is for the fun of killing people. Obviously I was pointing out the goal of killing enemies (who are trying to kill you, not surrendering) compared to the negative goal of killing civilians.
Terrorism is the act of terrifying people for your goals. Common usage is not as broad as the real definition, and rightly so I don't use the strict definition in common speech (as I said above).
The original poster in the thread that I responded to claimed that use of terror by some drug gangs had nothing *whatsoever* to do with terrorism. My only point was to correct that *factual error*. I have no interest in broadening the common usage of the word, (which has been assumed by 100% of replies).
his actions aren't designed to do anything about the problems (real or imagined) posed by terrorism.
Utter bullshit sorry. If you like I will list all things I can find that the US governement has done to counter terrorism, along with commentary by independent terrorism experts on whether they think each measure is useful or not.
you're missing the point. GP is saying when vengence takes you over, rational goes out the window. Right and Wrong don't factor into the the equation.
I was under the impression that we were talking about right and wrong, in an ideal sense. I never implied that in real life people would act in ways they know are right (good luck getting that to happen).
That being said your post is very defeatist. In times of war there has been countless cases of generosity across enemy lines. Enemy civilians sheltering AWOL soldiers, Jews being hidden in houses by a population that was against them etc.. Not everyone turns into animals when the chips are down you know, some people retain their dignity and some sense of morality (albeit knocked around a lot).
By generalizing the whole population in the way that you did (that they'll turn to killing innocent civilians belonging to the enemy country), really tries to legitimize terrorism by implying that it is a logical path when the squeeze gets tight. You could not be more wrong, and I am sure I speak for many others who consider themselves above targetting a civilian ever.
GP post said: ... it is NOT terrorism. It is not even related to terrorism... in response to someone alleging that the drug lords are using terrorism at a lower level than we normally associate with terrorism.
... when you open your mouth in public you're ultimately going to have to settle on definitions for terms that are (a) commonly agreed upon and (b) useful.
So bank robbery is terrorism.
Only if they terrorize people for their ends, which does sometimes occur.
Mugging is terrorism
If they terrorize them for the purpose of getting the money (grabbing a wallet wouldn't count).
I totally agree.
Defining "terrorism" in such a manner as to include witness intimidation, of all things, is neither.
Well, I didn't define it! But I would ask why you draw a distinction at the size of the terrorism that is taking place? Or why restrict it to only specific goals (politics, religion, land). It is simply the act of scaring innocent people for your own goal.
That being said the normal usage of terrorism does not include small scale, or non-political ends. And I would never use that word in such an anal way in *normal* conversation. But I invite you to look at the inflammatory GP post that was far from normal conversation (and funnily enough he is wrong by dictionary definition which he so gleefully accused someone).
You don't need to explicity "target" civilians in order to kill them.
Here is where you try to convince me there's not much difference between targetting civilians and targetting enemies amongst civilians right?
Secondly, why is it only civilian death that counts ?
Of course, nobody ever said that military deaths don't count.
Perhaps you meant to ask, why are they less important that civilian deaths. The reason that the general public may feel this way (and they do) is because during war, targetting an enemy soldier is the goal, whereas targetting a civilian is a severe crime. I'm not sure if I need to go into much more detail for you to agree with me that killing civilians and soldiers are two very different things.
Does the fact that someone was conscripted into the Iraqi army mean they deserve to die ?
I have never heard anyone claim such a thing in my life, but to answer your question, no they don't deserve to die just because they joined their country's army.
In particular, does it mean its OK to kill them in their own country by dropping bombs from planes ?
If we are at war with a country, then not only is it ok to kill enemy soldiers in their own country, but it is the goal.
The reasons behind the war are a different issue. You are really either at war or you aren't, you either go in there with the bombs going hard or not, no?
I don't necessarily think we should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and so would think all military action that is taking place there is wrong. But as far as military strategy and USA public interest goes, I support the war because it is decided by our democratically elected government. They were given permission by all of us because the powers they (and the president) have are shaped by the country over many years. If democrats get in next time and decide to not invade Iran for instance, whereas say republicans would have, I will support the no-war stance of our government.
Ummm, dude, check the dictionary. What you describe there is criminal behaviour and/or lawlessness, but it is NOT terrorism. It is not even related to terrorism.
So threatening innocent witnesses isn't terrorism?
You seem to be under the impression that terrorism must be for political ends. That is false. Terrorism can occur for any ends, but is more often for political, religous and idealogical reasons. It only has to involve coercion of civilians through demonstration of violence against their peers.
Governments tend only to be interested in opposing terrorism which is a threat to themselves. Most terrorists are not any kind of threat to governments in the first place.
Wow you can't win can you. Either Bush is blowing terrorism out of proportion for votes or leaving them alone because they are no threat. How about some intellectually honest discussion for a change.
The World Trade Center building 7 fell in exactly the same way as WTC 1 and 2, and it was NOT hit by an airplane. ALL the collapses looked exactly like controlled demolitions.
Let me guess, the Jews were behind it just like they made up the holocaust too?
People always try to demonise terrorist and distance themselves as much as possible even though we'd often act in a similar way if the roles were reverse.
Sorry but your analogy is misleading and faulty. If we were overrun by Fiji, with military down, it would _still_ be wrong and very immoral to target Fijian civilians. Or do you disagree?
terrorised and killed by b52
Wow, didn't know we targetted civilians with B52s. You learn something new each day.
Don't worry about evidence, we'll just take your word for it.
How hard is it to call in a bomb threat to a skyscraper?
How hard is it to claim that you injected 500 random cows with mad cows disease (or whatever).
How hard is it to mail talcum powder to a hundred people.
It's actually pretty hard when you're against the largest anti-terrorism push in USA's history. Doing all 3 of those things are quite traceable with forensics and other means, for instance.
From http://www.answers.com/communism :
Sounds pretty much like open source to me.
You seem to have a problem with the word 'communism' as if it is some kind of insult. As a libertarian (quite far from communist), I find it frustrating that people take such offence to the word.
Tell me, which current system of government is (was) defined by free speech and transparency?
Firstly, just because current instances of communism have become corrupt in those ways, does not make that inherent to the concept itself.
Secondly, the (troll) parent was not comparing those parts of communism in the analogy. After all, lack of free speech and non-transparency are not part of the concept of communism, only the instantiations of it that have occurred in history.
Thirdly, the wording of the parent was 'communistic', which to me can be used to mean commune-like, as in hippy commune, or as in many people working together without much of a heirarchy of power. Rather than meaning straight-out communism.
Never have you met so many people that can know so much about so little, people with mountians of theoritical knowledge and no idea how to apply it at all.
...
... people that have, with a stright face, used the phrase "statically configured dynamic address".
It's well known fact that 'smart' is not the same as 'knowledge'.
We have a lab in our building that is devoted to studying networking, and literally most of the people in there couldn't point out the switch in their room,
So they have mountains of theoretical knowledge yet can't identify a switch? Perhaps you are overestimating their knowledge.
Just because someone mispoke a word in a 4 word technical phrase, doesn't make them stupid. They also may have been referring to a normally dynamic address that has been made static.
You get grad students and professors that have spent a lot of time on theory but have never applied the knowledge in meaningful ways and are out of touch with the real world.
Maybe if you compare them to people who have worked in the industry for an equivelent amount of time. Isn't it also a bit much to ask a uni to do projects that are as 'meaningful' as commercial projects? Ironically this professor has done just that (tried to give them a real world project) and then you lambast him for it!
Thus they make requests and demands that are totally off the wall because the mental picture they have of how things work isn't anything like how it really works.
Huge generializations. Give me some examples of how you think professors cannot picture how things work in the real world.
Doom certainly was a shocker. Avoid at all costs.
Don't worry about it. I am sure these riots over free speech have done more harm to Islam in the eyes of Democrats than anything Bush has done.
Especially interesting is to compare the reputational damage of the killings/riots compared to the damage of the original cartoon.
We need a term that sums up a person who knows people that will rig elections for him, and is able to convince america that not only is he a "good" person, that they should follow exactly what he says, without a thought. wait a minute.
"Leadership"? What do you call a person stating allegations as fact?
Why is it ok to support Hamas but not Al Queda? They are as deadly as each other as far as I have seen.
But then we go and invade a country and kill a whole lot of innocent people, and then say "but look at all the food we give you!" It just doesn't fly.
But that is circular. The people we are after in Iraq are angry at us because the US treats them badly (allegedly). So what's wrong with pointing out that the US has done a lot of good? (along-side allegedly bad things).