Although your personal environmental practices are admirable, the fact of them does not address the fact that your parent is 100% right.
While I don't dispute the claim that many Americans lack intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, and logic, not all do. I hate being lumped in with the "you Americans" comments.
We just have to face that we live in the most dangerous, self-deluded country in the history of the world and it's going to take a miracle or a revolution to fix it.
For personal safety, there are far worse countries, but I basically agree with you. This last election was downright scary. 9/11/2001 was a disaster, but it doesn't compare to the disaster of 11/2/2004.
You can get tankless on demand water heaters. May be what the parent was describing.
I've seen those, but I was not aware that any of them could heat water that fast. Perhaps if one has a natural gas hookup, they can, but the electric ones are woefully inadequate -- especially in the winter when the inlet temperature can be in the 40's (Fahrenheit).
Bad in that they don't agree with your notion of good.
No, bad in the sense of morality. Any time that someone tries to discredit or dismiss scientific studies for unscientific reasons (political beliefs, greed, religious beliefs, etc.), it is despicable and evil. The tobacco industry is one example that comes to mind.
However they are not scientifically wrong.
The majority of the world's most respected scientists who study the Earth's climate would disagree with you. There is widespread acceptance of global warming and in the theory that man-made pollution contributes to it significantly.
#2: They are denied the right to get married. They cannot go to a Justice of the Peace and become a married couple if Bush has his way.
#3: Is true. Section 427 and 428 of the PATRIOT Act expand civil asset forfeiture so that the government can seize property without proving that the owner is guilty of any crime and without a pre-seizure hearing. Under this provision, the assets of a protest group that arguably fits the USA PATRIOT Act's overbroad definition of terrorism can be more easily seized by the government, and the use of secret evidence is explicitly authorized to permit such seizures.
#4 Is true. Jose Padilla, an American citizen and onetime Chicago gang member also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, has been accused of but not charged with plotting to explode a radioactive bomb in the United States. He was arrested in Chicago on May 8,2002. He has been detained in a military brig for more than two years without charges or trial or even access to counsel. The sole basis for the detention is the President's unilateral detention that he is an "enemy combatant."
#5 Is true. When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us." The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, "As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind."
#6 Is true. In 1978 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created an exception to the Fourth Amendment's "probable cause requirement" for physical searches, wiretaps, and subpoenas of business records. FISA created a secret court that granted search warrants so long as a pleading before a closed court asserted that the "primary purpose" of the search or wire tap was to gather foreign intelligence. The warrant needn't be based on a suspicion of criminal behavior. But the target had to be "linked to foreign espionage." In theory, American citizens were safe unless they were suspected "agents of a foreign power." A good indicator of the objectivity of the FISA court: It rejected only five of the 14,000 warrant applications it received before 2001, although it recently became clear that many of those warrants were based on false allegations. The FISA court is not supposed to second-guess the government. These are not adversarial proceedings. Nor does the FISA court maintain ongoing oversight over the surveillance. The PATRIOT Act amends FISA to allow searches when "a significant purpose" is intelligence-gathering. Not "primary," but significant. Now you can be subject to secret searches authorized by a secret court so long as there is any foreign intelligence component (and increasingly, drug-related offenses are deemed to have a terrorist component). Moreover, the party to be searched need not be connected to foreign espionage anymore. It's enough that the government may merely learn something about a terror investigation. Section 207 of the act lengthens the durations of FISA warrants to as long as 120 days in some cases. Finally, under the pre-Patriot FISA and Title III, fruits of FISA search warrants could be used only for information-gathering, not for prosecution. But now intelligence information obtained using FISA's lower standards for probable cause can be passed along for prosecution purposes.
Agreed, probably there was a lot of screaming, though usually not *in* the scientific community but between scientists and people of *other* mindsets, like in the Darwin & Galileo cases.
The people on Slashdot who are denying the existence of, or human contribution to, global warming are not members of the scientific community. They are the people of "other mindsets" about whom you write.
What I meant: science is not about being good/bad but about true/false (for the time being; science being a process) People "denying" GW are not bad.
If they were denying it based on sound, scientific principles, I would agree. But when they are denying it because they like George Bush, like driving 13mpg SUVs to work, and don't want legislation requiring any sacrifice on their part, they are "bad" people.
Can you solve both all lightning strikes and camp-fire problems, thereby totally eradicating the risk of any more forest fires? No? So you're going to ascertain which is the bigger threat ("*can* cause fires") and tackle that *first*, right?
Just how did you plan to tackle the problem of sunspot activity? Doesn't it seem to make more sense to address the things that we can rather than throwing our hands up in the air and saying 'it's God's will'?
Maybe a little "global warming" is natural and/or even a good thing, too?
And maybe it will destroy 95% of the species on Earth as it did when temperatures rose six degrees at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
It may seem that way, but most people who are sure that Republicans want to take away their rights can't name 3 rights the Republicans want to take away.
This is easy:
1. Abortion rights (as decided by the Supreme Court of the United States). 2. Gay marriage rights (determined to be a right in the Massachusetts Supreme Court). 3. Right to due process (PATRIOT Act takes that away). 4. Right to counsel (again, the PATRIOT Act) 5. Right to free speech. Examples:
a. Protesters who oppose the administration are penned up in "free speech zones" away from the public eye and the press.
b. The PATRIOT Act made it illegal to give "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated international terrorist organizations. (Struck down Federal court in Jan. 2004) 6. Freedom from unreasonable search and siezure. The PATRIOT Act, as championed by Bush, Ashcroft, and most Republicans allows police to conduct searches without probable cause.
So you're lying about science in order to scare people. You want to scare them to control them and make them subservient to you.
Yes! All shall bow before me because I have posted links to studies on global warming. None shall dare oppose me, for, if they did, I would smite them by ridiculing them on Slashdot. I shall command countless throngs to build monuments to me and to create a great pyramid for my ascension into the afterlife, filling it with riches and servants to tend to my every need. You have figured out my evil plan, but it is too late for you, as I have already posted the links. I must go and prepare for the arrival of my followers.
The rest of the world recognises that, but please tell me that you don't think you're representative of your peers.
Anyone too stupid to recognize the problem of global warming is not my peer. But I know what you mean and, sadly, most Americans are woefully ignorant and apathetic about the environment.
WTF happened, then? Rhetorical question, mostly, because we do follow the political machinations of other countries, but it's taken four years for the present administration to admit to their being a problem, despite that vote.
What happened was that Bush used chest-pounding patriotism, homophobia, fear mongering about terrorism, and promises of tax cuts (while we have the worst deficit spending in history) to effectively get votes from the poor and uneducated. This satirical story from The Onion really sums it up well.
You must have a different version than I've seen since I've not seen one that even breaks into the 40mpg range. But you know how car companies are, with the same name on wildly different cars.
My AC consists of a window and a fan; central heating is zone controlled and run by a natural gas boiler. Double-glazed throughout, with additional insulation on walls. Brick construction. Water meter.
Climate can explain the difference in AC needs. My house is also brick construction with fully insulated walls and, since I pay for water, a water meter. I have two heating systems: one is an oil boiler that provides zone-controlled baseboard hot water heat and the aforementioned heat pump. I choose the appropriate system based on outdoor temperature (since heat pumps become less efficient when it is very cold outside).
I have a button that heats up the water when I need it.
I have not seen anything that can keep up with the needs for showering or bathing with just a button. Interesting.
Luxury. We dream of outside lights.
Possibly explaining why motorcycle theft is so much more of a problem in Europe.;-)
The point being is that the above is largely standard for the UK, and pretty much comes under the remit of standard living conditions.
That may be, and I'm not an apologist for the horrible energy waste in the U.S., but to lump us all together as environmentally ignorant buffoons is simply unfair.
If you think your silly scaremongering gives you the ethical right to limit people's freedom, then you're a tyrant who'd put an end to our society.
Sorry that science scares you, but deal with it.
We do have an ethical right to limit your "freedom" because your actions are endangering others. Your freedom is already limited in countless ways and that's just fine. You don't have complete freedom, you never will, and you never should.
are you guys so addicted to your freedom that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
Answer: Yes.
Then you are an idiot. If you think that your "freedom" gives you the ethical right to devastate the Earth's climate, then you are a blight on society. Please kill yourself.
The possibility of denial shows this can't be science. (1) Real science doesn't lead to a lot of screaming.
Galileo and Copernicus would disagree with you. What about Darwin? Ever hear of the "Scopes Monkey Trial"?
(2) You can't republish the same result ("humans responsible for warming") 50 times.
So there was only one published study linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer? ANSWER ME!
(3) Opponents are termed "wrong" not "bad".
You are not an "opponent." An actual opponent would have scientific credentials and expertise in climatology. You are just someone who bad-mouths scientific studies that run contrary to what you want to believe.
If you really believe what you wrote, then you need to spend more time reading than writing.
Denial implies that the condition you're denying actually exists.
It does. That's why the majority of the world's scientists who have studied the issue agree that global warming is real and that man's contribution to it is substantial.
So the gut reaction to anything global warming related is disbelief or disinterest, but not denial.
That "gut reaction" is only from the ignorant among us.
But are you guys so addicted to your gas guzzlers and inefficient houses that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
I'm an American. I drive a VW Golf TDi (diesel) which gets 45mpg. Since moving into my house, I have upgraded the old AC to a very high-efficiency heat-pump with a computerized "set-back" thermostat. The water heater that I recently installed is very well insulated and is microprocessor controlled to minimize energy usage by analyzing demand and adjusting temperature accordingly. I use compact flourescent lights in most ceiling fixtures and lamps throughout the house. I have motion sensors on outdoor lights and my driveway light comes on only at night.
Not all Americans are like the ignorant buffoons on Slashdot who deny the existence of, or man's contribution to, global warming. Many of us are capable of rational thought and recognize that global warming is real and that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that it is largely due to man-made greenhouse gases. Remember that, in 2000, more Americans voted for Al Gore than for George Bush and that Al Gore was a staunch supporter of the Kyoto Treaty and environmental legislation to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
As the end of this article says, "There's more to global climate change than just carbon dioxide."
There's more to car crashes than drunk driving, but it doesn't mean that you should continue to drive around drunk. Your argument is like saying that lightning can cause forest fires, so people need not be careful with campfires.
That's a bit harsh - just because they aren't writing software to send killer cyborgs back through time to eliminate infant spammers doesn't mean they're part of the problem.
Sorry I was not clearer. I am referring to those people who claim that such post-reception filtering is a "solution" to the spam problem and that no laws against spamming are needed.
I for one certainly think we'd be much worse off without post-reception filtering.
I'm not sure. If post-reception filtering was not possible or available, then everyone would be inundated with spam. If that happened, there would be a groundswell of opposition to spam, with Congressional representatives being barraged with complaints. Then something would have to be done.
My company just installed a spam-filter, and it is just randomly deleting emails. It seems to have decided that a load of mailing-lists are spam, as is anything with "MP3" in the email (yes I write audio software at work)
We see the same thing at my work, where e-mail will be mysteriously deleted with no indication to the sender or recipient. Eventually, this is going to happen to some critical piece of correspondence, such as something related to a bid, and then management will pay more attention to the problem.
Anyone who thinks the "solution" is for them to automatically send reams of email, and for me to automatically delete reams of email, probably isn't paying any of the costs involved...
Well said! Spammers are relying on the ignorance of the general public, most of whom think that e-mail is "free" and that the sole problem with spam is that they have to delete it.
The post-reception e-mail filtering crowd is partially to blame for the mess that we have now. Hiding the spam doesn't make the cost go away.
First, it's a joke. I don't think you got it. Have you never seen this form before?
Many, many times. And, had the post been modded "+5 Funny", I might not have replied as I did, but some people actually took it seriously.
Second, you neglected to address "Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business," which is the key problem with "following the money," particularly if the spammer is out of the country.
Wait a second. You just said that it was a joke and implied that I was dimwitted for replying seriously. Now you are arguing the merits of what was posted. So is it only a "joke" when you want to ridicule me for replying?
Framing people is an age-old problem that the legal system has grappled with countless times. This is no different. What's to stop me from anonymously destroying your career or business by means other than spam? What could stop me from signing you up to receive NAMBLA mailings at work? Why couldn't I kill a man, smear his blood on your car door handle, and anonymously report having seen you kill him? This is not a new problem or one that is unique to prosecuting spammers.
Therefore the following can apply:
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money (x) Open relays in foreign countries (x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
Most cases would be open and shut. The AG's office would subpeona the credit card processing company who would identify the person collecting the money. The AG's office would get a search warrant and seize his computer. They would find HTML source for the spams, copies of the spam, and/or other records of the spamming activity, including who he paid to send it. They would find a home filled with penis pumps, miracle weight loss pills, or whatever else he was hawking through spam. They would bring the case to court and assert that he did not advertise through any legitimate means (radio, TV, postal mailings, etc.) and make a rock-solid case that his entire business was predicated on sending spam. End of story. It's kind of hard to claim that you had a legitimate business selling penis pumps if you didn't have a storefront or any legitimate form of advertising.
I think you mistake "ease" with "lack of thinking things through."
I own the domain anti-spam.org. I am a member of CAUCE. I have consulted with a company which produces a spam-filtering appliance. I have studied many laws and proposed laws, including Chris Smith's, which was the most promising before it was killed. Unlike you, I have thought the problem through for a period of years while your "thought" on the matter seems to consist of checking boxes on a 'funny form.'
There's just one thing I don't understand: There are many many many (++++...) orders of magnitude more spam on the internet now than when I first got connected "commercially" back in 1994, but I spend less in real terms now than I did then (if you factor in the cost of metered local phone usage - I'm not in the US) and let's not even begin to talk about bandwidth adjusted terms.
How much did storage cost in 1994? How big was a "big" hard disk and what did it cost? How much did routers cost your ISP? What did high-speed Internet connectivity cost your ISP back then compared to now? How much did the phone service cost your ISP? How much did firewalls cost your ISP? That's one problem with this from a conceptual standpoint: The plummetting costs for computers, bandwidth (at the commercial level), networking equipment, phone connectivity, etc. is masking the real cost of the spam.
So my question is just how much is spam costing ME in actual cold hard cash? Would my DSL service be half-price or even less if spam didn't exist?
I've heard numbers from ISPs attributing up to 1/3 of the consumer's bill to spam. Is that accurate? I really don't know. But I know that the actual amount is not trivial. Some years ago, AOL showed their cost-per-e-mail in a lawsuit against a spammer. I'm sure that it's gone down, but spam has increased just as quickly -- if not more so -- as bandwidth costs have dropped.
This is not a troll - I accept that spam has a cost, which is why I think that private companies such as ISPs are the best people to fight spam in the courts, since they can show economic damage in an accurate and undisputable manner.
I agree and major ISPs like AOL and Microsoft are going after the spammers for just that reason. In the U.S., it is illegal to send unsolicited ads via fax and there is a right to private action. The federal law stipulates that the damages to be awarded will be $500 per fax or three times that ($1,500)if it can be shown that the sender knowingly violated the law. That's why I collected $500 from a junk faxer.
I may hate sorting spam out of my inbox and claim that my time spent doing that is worth a million dollars an hour (to me), but no court is going to buy that.
No, but they may agree that you should be compensated for your legal costs, "mental anguish", and that the spammer should pay a hefty "punitive damages" amount. At least in the U.S.
OTOH, if a phrase was put into the subject line when someone clicks on the mailto, they could filter like that.
That's not how the real world works. People edit subject lines. They save e-mail addresses to write to again. Besides, if you were a real-estate agent, how convenient would it be to have an inbox with 10,372 messages that all had the same subject line? Wouldn't it be more useful to have various subject lines like "Looking for 3BR rambler in Springfield area", "Wish to sell 2BR condo in Marbrey Woods", or "Remax award announcement for all agents."
well, making a law mean the taxpayers STILL have to spend millions of hours reporting SPAM.
No, the law does not require anyone to report spam. But rest assured that people like me will voluntarily report spam, just as we now do. But with laws on the books, we might see legal action against the spammers as a result of our efforts.
but now with the nice little extra of taking time away from the DA, who has more important priorities.
First off, the Attorney General's office investigates the cases under the Ohio law and the AG's most important priority is keeping low-lifes from preying on his state's residents. That's what spammers are doing. They are driving up costs for ISPs, businesses, and consumers. They are annoying consumers with their unwanted mailings. They are making it "unsafe" for children to have e-mail accounts ("Mommy, I clicked on a link and it showed people with no clothes on").
And yes, there are more important priorities then attempting to catch a SPAMMER who probably isn't even within thier jurisdiction.
There are more important priorities than catching shoplifters, but that doesn't mean that we should legalize shoplifting. This may not have occurred to you, but a multi-million dollar fine against a spammer pays for a lot of staff time and personnel in an Attorney General's office.
Of course, by your logic I should be thrown in jail becasue my crossing the street caused a CPA from getting to work a little sooner, thus stealing from them.
Don't be an ass. What are people supposed to do? Stop crossing streets? No. What are spammers supposed to do? Stop sending billions of unwanted e-mails? Gee, that sounds more reasonable.
You don't have to find every one. You have to find enough of them to put the fear of prosecution into the rest of them. They don't catch most shoplifters, but it doesn't mean that laws against shoplifting serve no purpose.
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked
(x) Open relays in foreign countries (x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
You follow the money, not the IP addresses from which the spam was sent. For example, the Attorney General could go to Visa armed with a subpeona and find the identity of the spammer that way.
(x) Jurisdictional problems
Nope. The majority of spams received by people in the U.S. are sent by, or on behalf of, someone in the U.S. The Virginia prosecution of the N.C. brother/sister spam team shows that jurisdiction will probably not be an issue.
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
Bank robbery is extremely profitable, too, but the fear of going to jail keeps it in check.
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
Cases are tried by the judicial branch of government, not by the legislative branch.
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
They don't enter into this equation. Spammer sends out the spam. Complaints are filed. The Attorney General issues subpeonas to find the identity of the spammers. He/she prosecutes the spammers.
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
Most criminals are dishonest. That's why laws generally don't rely on the honesty of the criminals in order to prosecute them.
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
Were this a "feel-good measure," you'd have a point, but this is tough legislation giving Ohio the ability to prosecute, and jail, spammers.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
Apparently, given the ease with which I shot down your argument, you are the "stupid person."
And you don't pay for the bandwidth that spam uses.
Yes, he does. He is just too ignorant to realize it because his ISP doesn't make it an itemized charge on his monthly bill.
He also pays for storage. He also pays his ISP's personnel costs associated with handling spam complaints. Every business that has to deal with spam passes those costs on to someone -- usually the customer. So he pays more for clothes, food, consumer electronics, etc. If he works at a large company, there is probably at least one person who spends the majority of the day fighting spammers, tuning filters, whitelisting IP addresses, blacklisting IP addresses, telling people why the e-mail that they were expecting was bounced (ever try to explain to an executive that the important e-mail he expected was rejected because the sending server had no DNS PTR record?). And that person is on the payroll, taking money away from the pool for raises while increasing the company's cost to do business.
I don't like spam anymore than anyone else but my advice to you is to install a spam filter and shut up. I get one piece of spam a day.
Who the hell cares how much spam you hide from yourself, spam ostrich? Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it's not there. You still paid for the bandwidth the spammer used. If you're using your ISP's mail server, you paid them for the storage and delivery of the spam. Spammers are costing everyone money.
If you can't bare that toll, time to get off the Interweb.
While your time may have zero value, others do value their time and an attorney, CPA, or other professional using the net should not have to invest his time, or his money, fighting off spammers. Spammers are stealing from him and hurting his ability to earn a livelihood and should be jailed just like any other thief. Why the hell should millions of people have to invest billions of dollars and countless hours just so that spammers can spam without fear of jail time?
While your little geek-boy spam filter might suit your needs, I've worked with someone who consults to the real-estate industry and real-estate agents are bombarded with spam -- as well as legitimate business newsletters, business communications, and client communications. In order to be competitive, they have to post their e-mail address online. And that means that it gets harvested. They can't afford to lose a commission on a half-million dollar home sale by posting some javascript obsfuscated mailto link that doesn't work with the buyer's or seller's web browser. Nor do they want to get important mortgage rate information scrapped -- but they don't want some spam with a refinance-your-home scam.
I have my own domain and probably get two to three pieces of spam a week through my blacklists and filters, but I'm a grown-up, so I recognize that what I, as an individual, do isn't going to work for most businesses. If I bounce all mail from Taiwan, that's fine. If a business does, they might miss out on important correspondence that translates to large sums of money.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd be honored.
Although your personal environmental practices are admirable, the fact of them does not address the fact that your parent is 100% right.
While I don't dispute the claim that many Americans lack intelligence, wisdom, knowledge, and logic, not all do. I hate being lumped in with the "you Americans" comments.
We just have to face that we live in the most dangerous, self-deluded country in the history of the world and it's going to take a miracle or a revolution to fix it.
For personal safety, there are far worse countries, but I basically agree with you. This last election was downright scary. 9/11/2001 was a disaster, but it doesn't compare to the disaster of 11/2/2004.
You can get tankless on demand water heaters. May be what the parent was describing.
I've seen those, but I was not aware that any of them could heat water that fast. Perhaps if one has a natural gas hookup, they can, but the electric ones are woefully inadequate -- especially in the winter when the inlet temperature can be in the 40's (Fahrenheit).
Bad in that they don't agree with your notion of good.
No, bad in the sense of morality. Any time that someone tries to discredit or dismiss scientific studies for unscientific reasons (political beliefs, greed, religious beliefs, etc.), it is despicable and evil. The tobacco industry is one example that comes to mind.
However they are not scientifically wrong.
The majority of the world's most respected scientists who study the Earth's climate would disagree with you. There is widespread acceptance of global warming and in the theory that man-made pollution contributes to it significantly.
#2: They are denied the right to get married. They cannot go to a Justice of the Peace and become a married couple if Bush has his way.
#3: Is true. Section 427 and 428 of the PATRIOT Act expand civil asset forfeiture so that the government can seize property without proving that the owner is guilty of any crime and without a pre-seizure hearing. Under this provision, the assets of a protest group that arguably fits the USA PATRIOT Act's overbroad definition of terrorism can be more easily seized by the government, and the use of secret evidence is explicitly authorized to permit such seizures.
#4 Is true. Jose Padilla, an American citizen and onetime Chicago gang member also known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, has been accused of but not charged with plotting to explode a radioactive bomb in the United States. He was arrested in Chicago on May 8,2002. He has been detained in a military brig for more than two years without charges or trial or even access to counsel. The sole basis for the detention is the President's unilateral detention that he is an "enemy combatant."
#5 Is true. When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, "The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us." The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a "designated free-speech zone" on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, "As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind."
#6 Is true. In 1978 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created an exception to the Fourth Amendment's "probable cause requirement" for physical searches, wiretaps, and subpoenas of business records. FISA created a secret court that granted search warrants so long as a pleading before a closed court asserted that the "primary purpose" of the search or wire tap was to gather foreign intelligence. The warrant needn't be based on a suspicion of criminal behavior. But the target had to be "linked to foreign espionage." In theory, American citizens were safe unless they were suspected "agents of a foreign power." A good indicator of the objectivity of the FISA court: It rejected only five of the 14,000 warrant applications it received before 2001, although it recently became clear that many of those warrants were based on false allegations. The FISA court is not supposed to second-guess the government. These are not adversarial proceedings. Nor does the FISA court maintain ongoing oversight over the surveillance. The PATRIOT Act amends FISA to allow searches when "a significant purpose" is intelligence-gathering. Not "primary," but significant. Now you can be subject to secret searches authorized by a secret court so long as there is any foreign intelligence component (and increasingly, drug-related offenses are deemed to have a terrorist component). Moreover, the party to be searched need not be connected to foreign espionage anymore. It's enough that the government may merely learn something about a terror investigation. Section 207 of the act lengthens the durations of FISA warrants to as long as 120 days in some cases. Finally, under the pre-Patriot FISA and Title III, fruits of FISA search warrants could be used only for information-gathering, not for prosecution. But now intelligence information obtained using FISA's lower standards for probable cause can be passed along for prosecution purposes.
There's more to debating than yelling "is not!"
Agreed, probably there was a lot of screaming, though usually not *in* the scientific community but between scientists and people of *other* mindsets, like in the Darwin & Galileo cases.
The people on Slashdot who are denying the existence of, or human contribution to, global warming are not members of the scientific community. They are the people of "other mindsets" about whom you write.
What I meant: science is not about being good/bad but about true/false (for the time being; science being a process) People "denying" GW are not bad.
If they were denying it based on sound, scientific principles, I would agree. But when they are denying it because they like George Bush, like driving 13mpg SUVs to work, and don't want legislation requiring any sacrifice on their part, they are "bad" people.
Can you solve both all lightning strikes and camp-fire problems, thereby totally eradicating the risk of any more forest fires? No? So you're going to ascertain which is the bigger threat ("*can* cause fires") and tackle that *first*, right?
Just how did you plan to tackle the problem of sunspot activity? Doesn't it seem to make more sense to address the things that we can rather than throwing our hands up in the air and saying 'it's God's will'?
Maybe a little "global warming" is natural and/or even a good thing, too?
And maybe it will destroy 95% of the species on Earth as it did when temperatures rose six degrees at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago.
No single raindrop believes it is to blame for the flood.
It may seem that way, but most people who are sure that Republicans want to take away their rights can't name 3 rights the Republicans want to take away.
This is easy:
1. Abortion rights (as decided by the Supreme Court of the United States).
2. Gay marriage rights (determined to be a right in the Massachusetts Supreme Court).
3. Right to due process (PATRIOT Act takes that away).
4. Right to counsel (again, the PATRIOT Act)
5. Right to free speech. Examples:
a. Protesters who oppose the administration are penned up in "free speech zones" away from the public eye and the press.
b. The PATRIOT Act made it illegal to give "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated international terrorist organizations. (Struck down Federal court in Jan. 2004)
6. Freedom from unreasonable search and siezure. The PATRIOT Act, as championed by Bush, Ashcroft, and most Republicans allows police to conduct searches without probable cause.
I could go on and on, but those are just a few.
There is no "science" that predicts people will "devastate the Earth's climate". Some science predicts small to medium climate changes, nothing more.
Get your head out of the sand! Here's an article entitled Global warming 'threatens Earth with mass extinction'. It's about a scientific study from Bristol University. Try reading it.
So you're lying about science in order to scare people. You want to scare them to control them and make them subservient to you.
Yes! All shall bow before me because I have posted links to studies on global warming. None shall dare oppose me, for, if they did, I would smite them by ridiculing them on Slashdot. I shall command countless throngs to build monuments to me and to create a great pyramid for my ascension into the afterlife, filling it with riches and servants to tend to my every need. You have figured out my evil plan, but it is too late for you, as I have already posted the links. I must go and prepare for the arrival of my followers.
The rest of the world recognises that, but please tell me that you don't think you're representative of your peers.
Anyone too stupid to recognize the problem of global warming is not my peer. But I know what you mean and, sadly, most Americans are woefully ignorant and apathetic about the environment.
WTF happened, then? Rhetorical question, mostly, because we do follow the political machinations of other countries, but it's taken four years for the present administration to admit to their being a problem, despite that vote.
What happened was that Bush used chest-pounding patriotism, homophobia, fear mongering about terrorism, and promises of tax cuts (while we have the worst deficit spending in history) to effectively get votes from the poor and uneducated. This satirical story from The Onion really sums it up well.
16v Ford 'scort Zetec. Roughly similar mileage.
;-)
You must have a different version than I've seen since I've not seen one that even breaks into the 40mpg range. But you know how car companies are, with the same name on wildly different cars.
My AC consists of a window and a fan; central heating is zone controlled and run by a natural gas boiler. Double-glazed throughout, with additional insulation on walls. Brick construction. Water meter.
Climate can explain the difference in AC needs. My house is also brick construction with fully insulated walls and, since I pay for water, a water meter. I have two heating systems: one is an oil boiler that provides zone-controlled baseboard hot water heat and the aforementioned heat pump. I choose the appropriate system based on outdoor temperature (since heat pumps become less efficient when it is very cold outside).
I have a button that heats up the water when I need it.
I have not seen anything that can keep up with the needs for showering or bathing with just a button. Interesting.
Luxury. We dream of outside lights.
Possibly explaining why motorcycle theft is so much more of a problem in Europe.
The point being is that the above is largely standard for the UK, and pretty much comes under the remit of standard living conditions.
That may be, and I'm not an apologist for the horrible energy waste in the U.S., but to lump us all together as environmentally ignorant buffoons is simply unfair.
If you think your silly scaremongering gives you the ethical right to limit people's freedom, then you're a tyrant who'd put an end to our society.
Sorry that science scares you, but deal with it.
We do have an ethical right to limit your "freedom" because your actions are endangering others. Your freedom is already limited in countless ways and that's just fine. You don't have complete freedom, you never will, and you never should.
Let me rewrite that:
are you guys so addicted to your freedom that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
Answer: Yes.
Then you are an idiot. If you think that your "freedom" gives you the ethical right to devastate the Earth's climate, then you are a blight on society. Please kill yourself.
The possibility of denial shows this can't be science. (1) Real science doesn't lead to a lot of screaming.
Galileo and Copernicus would disagree with you. What about Darwin? Ever hear of the "Scopes Monkey Trial"?
(2) You can't republish the same result ("humans responsible for warming") 50 times.
So there was only one published study linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer? ANSWER ME!
(3) Opponents are termed "wrong" not "bad".
You are not an "opponent." An actual opponent would have scientific credentials and expertise in climatology. You are just someone who bad-mouths scientific studies that run contrary to what you want to believe.
If you really believe what you wrote, then you need to spend more time reading than writing.
Denial implies that the condition you're denying actually exists.
It does. That's why the majority of the world's scientists who have studied the issue agree that global warming is real and that man's contribution to it is substantial.
So the gut reaction to anything global warming related is disbelief or disinterest, but not denial.
That "gut reaction" is only from the ignorant among us.
But are you guys so addicted to your gas guzzlers and inefficient houses that you refuse to even discuss your behaviour's more or less possible/probable consequences?
I'm an American. I drive a VW Golf TDi (diesel) which gets 45mpg. Since moving into my house, I have upgraded the old AC to a very high-efficiency heat-pump with a computerized "set-back" thermostat. The water heater that I recently installed is very well insulated and is microprocessor controlled to minimize energy usage by analyzing demand and adjusting temperature accordingly. I use compact flourescent lights in most ceiling fixtures and lamps throughout the house. I have motion sensors on outdoor lights and my driveway light comes on only at night.
Not all Americans are like the ignorant buffoons on Slashdot who deny the existence of, or man's contribution to, global warming. Many of us are capable of rational thought and recognize that global warming is real and that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that it is largely due to man-made greenhouse gases. Remember that, in 2000, more Americans voted for Al Gore than for George Bush and that Al Gore was a staunch supporter of the Kyoto Treaty and environmental legislation to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
As the end of this article says, "There's more to global climate change than just carbon dioxide."
There's more to car crashes than drunk driving, but it doesn't mean that you should continue to drive around drunk. Your argument is like saying that lightning can cause forest fires, so people need not be careful with campfires.
That's a bit harsh - just because they aren't writing software to send killer cyborgs back through time to eliminate infant spammers doesn't mean they're part of the problem.
Sorry I was not clearer. I am referring to those people who claim that such post-reception filtering is a "solution" to the spam problem and that no laws against spamming are needed.
I for one certainly think we'd be much worse off without post-reception filtering.
I'm not sure. If post-reception filtering was not possible or available, then everyone would be inundated with spam. If that happened, there would be a groundswell of opposition to spam, with Congressional representatives being barraged with complaints. Then something would have to be done.
My company just installed a spam-filter, and it is just randomly deleting emails. It seems to have decided that a load of mailing-lists are spam, as is anything with "MP3" in the email (yes I write audio software at work)
We see the same thing at my work, where e-mail will be mysteriously deleted with no indication to the sender or recipient. Eventually, this is going to happen to some critical piece of correspondence, such as something related to a bid, and then management will pay more attention to the problem.
Anyone who thinks the "solution" is for them to automatically send reams of email, and for me to automatically delete reams of email, probably isn't paying any of the costs involved...
Well said! Spammers are relying on the ignorance of the general public, most of whom think that e-mail is "free" and that the sole problem with spam is that they have to delete it.
The post-reception e-mail filtering crowd is partially to blame for the mess that we have now. Hiding the spam doesn't make the cost go away.
First, it's a joke. I don't think you got it. Have you never seen this form before?
Many, many times. And, had the post been modded "+5 Funny", I might not have replied as I did, but some people actually took it seriously.
Second, you neglected to address "Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business," which is the key problem with "following the money," particularly if the spammer is out of the country.
Wait a second. You just said that it was a joke and implied that I was dimwitted for replying seriously. Now you are arguing the merits of what was posted. So is it only a "joke" when you want to ridicule me for replying?
Framing people is an age-old problem that the legal system has grappled with countless times. This is no different. What's to stop me from anonymously destroying your career or business by means other than spam? What could stop me from signing you up to receive NAMBLA mailings at work? Why couldn't I kill a man, smear his blood on your car door handle, and anonymously report having seen you kill him? This is not a new problem or one that is unique to prosecuting spammers.
Therefore the following can apply:
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
Most cases would be open and shut. The AG's office would subpeona the credit card processing company who would identify the person collecting the money. The AG's office would get a search warrant and seize his computer. They would find HTML source for the spams, copies of the spam, and/or other records of the spamming activity, including who he paid to send it. They would find a home filled with penis pumps, miracle weight loss pills, or whatever else he was hawking through spam. They would bring the case to court and assert that he did not advertise through any legitimate means (radio, TV, postal mailings, etc.) and make a rock-solid case that his entire business was predicated on sending spam. End of story. It's kind of hard to claim that you had a legitimate business selling penis pumps if you didn't have a storefront or any legitimate form of advertising.
I think you mistake "ease" with "lack of thinking things through."
I own the domain anti-spam.org. I am a member of CAUCE. I have consulted with a company which produces a spam-filtering appliance. I have studied many laws and proposed laws, including Chris Smith's, which was the most promising before it was killed. Unlike you, I have thought the problem through for a period of years while your "thought" on the matter seems to consist of checking boxes on a 'funny form.'
There's just one thing I don't understand: There are many many many (++++...) orders of magnitude more spam on the internet now than when I first got connected "commercially" back in 1994, but I spend less in real terms now than I did then (if you factor in the cost of metered local phone usage - I'm not in the US) and let's not even begin to talk about bandwidth adjusted terms.
How much did storage cost in 1994? How big was a "big" hard disk and what did it cost? How much did routers cost your ISP? What did high-speed Internet connectivity cost your ISP back then compared to now? How much did the phone service cost your ISP? How much did firewalls cost your ISP? That's one problem with this from a conceptual standpoint: The plummetting costs for computers, bandwidth (at the commercial level), networking equipment, phone connectivity, etc. is masking the real cost of the spam.
So my question is just how much is spam costing ME in actual cold hard cash? Would my DSL service be half-price or even less if spam didn't exist?
I've heard numbers from ISPs attributing up to 1/3 of the consumer's bill to spam. Is that accurate? I really don't know. But I know that the actual amount is not trivial. Some years ago, AOL showed their cost-per-e-mail in a lawsuit against a spammer. I'm sure that it's gone down, but spam has increased just as quickly -- if not more so -- as bandwidth costs have dropped.
This is not a troll - I accept that spam has a cost, which is why I think that private companies such as ISPs are the best people to fight spam in the courts, since they can show economic damage in an accurate and undisputable manner.
I agree and major ISPs like AOL and Microsoft are going after the spammers for just that reason. In the U.S., it is illegal to send unsolicited ads via fax and there is a right to private action. The federal law stipulates that the damages to be awarded will be $500 per fax or three times that ($1,500)if it can be shown that the sender knowingly violated the law. That's why I collected $500 from a junk faxer.
I may hate sorting spam out of my inbox and claim that my time spent doing that is worth a million dollars an hour (to me), but no court is going to buy that.
No, but they may agree that you should be compensated for your legal costs, "mental anguish", and that the spammer should pay a hefty "punitive damages" amount. At least in the U.S.
OTOH, if a phrase was put into the subject line when someone clicks on the mailto, they could filter like that.
That's not how the real world works. People edit subject lines. They save e-mail addresses to write to again. Besides, if you were a real-estate agent, how convenient would it be to have an inbox with 10,372 messages that all had the same subject line? Wouldn't it be more useful to have various subject lines like "Looking for 3BR rambler in Springfield area", "Wish to sell 2BR condo in Marbrey Woods", or "Remax award announcement for all agents."
well, making a law mean the taxpayers STILL have to spend millions of hours reporting SPAM.
No, the law does not require anyone to report spam. But rest assured that people like me will voluntarily report spam, just as we now do. But with laws on the books, we might see legal action against the spammers as a result of our efforts.
but now with the nice little extra of taking time away from the DA, who has more important priorities.
First off, the Attorney General's office investigates the cases under the Ohio law and the AG's most important priority is keeping low-lifes from preying on his state's residents. That's what spammers are doing. They are driving up costs for ISPs, businesses, and consumers. They are annoying consumers with their unwanted mailings. They are making it "unsafe" for children to have e-mail accounts ("Mommy, I clicked on a link and it showed people with no clothes on").
And yes, there are more important priorities then attempting to catch a SPAMMER who probably isn't even within thier jurisdiction.
There are more important priorities than catching shoplifters, but that doesn't mean that we should legalize shoplifting. This may not have occurred to you, but a multi-million dollar fine against a spammer pays for a lot of staff time and personnel in an Attorney General's office.
Of course, by your logic I should be thrown in jail becasue my crossing the street caused a CPA from getting to work a little sooner, thus stealing from them.
Don't be an ass. What are people supposed to do? Stop crossing streets? No. What are spammers supposed to do? Stop sending billions of unwanted e-mails? Gee, that sounds more reasonable.
(x) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
Then explain this.
You don't have to find every one. You have to find enough of them to put the fear of prosecution into the rest of them. They don't catch most shoplifters, but it doesn't mean that laws against shoplifting serve no purpose.
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever worked
Again, see this.
(x) Open relays in foreign countries
(x) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes
You follow the money, not the IP addresses from which the spam was sent. For example, the Attorney General could go to Visa armed with a subpeona and find the identity of the spammer that way.
(x) Jurisdictional problems
Nope. The majority of spams received by people in the U.S. are sent by, or on behalf of, someone in the U.S. The Virginia prosecution of the N.C. brother/sister spam team shows that jurisdiction will probably not be an issue.
(x) Extreme profitability of spam
Bank robbery is extremely profitable, too, but the fear of going to jail keeps it in check.
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
Cases are tried by the judicial branch of government, not by the legislative branch.
(x) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers
They don't enter into this equation. Spammer sends out the spam. Complaints are filed. The Attorney General issues subpeonas to find the identity of the spammers. He/she prosecutes the spammers.
(x) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves
Most criminals are dishonest. That's why laws generally don't rely on the honesty of the criminals in order to prosecute them.
(x) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
Were this a "feel-good measure," you'd have a point, but this is tough legislation giving Ohio the ability to prosecute, and jail, spammers.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
Apparently, given the ease with which I shot down your argument, you are the "stupid person."
And you don't pay for the bandwidth that spam uses.
Yes, he does. He is just too ignorant to realize it because his ISP doesn't make it an itemized charge on his monthly bill.
He also pays for storage. He also pays his ISP's personnel costs associated with handling spam complaints. Every business that has to deal with spam passes those costs on to someone -- usually the customer. So he pays more for clothes, food, consumer electronics, etc. If he works at a large company, there is probably at least one person who spends the majority of the day fighting spammers, tuning filters, whitelisting IP addresses, blacklisting IP addresses, telling people why the e-mail that they were expecting was bounced (ever try to explain to an executive that the important e-mail he expected was rejected because the sending server had no DNS PTR record?). And that person is on the payroll, taking money away from the pool for raises while increasing the company's cost to do business.
I don't like spam anymore than anyone else but my advice to you is to install a spam filter and shut up. I get one piece of spam a day.
Who the hell cares how much spam you hide from yourself, spam ostrich? Just because you don't see it, doesn't mean that it's not there. You still paid for the bandwidth the spammer used. If you're using your ISP's mail server, you paid them for the storage and delivery of the spam. Spammers are costing everyone money.
If you can't bare that toll, time to get off the Interweb.
While your time may have zero value, others do value their time and an attorney, CPA, or other professional using the net should not have to invest his time, or his money, fighting off spammers. Spammers are stealing from him and hurting his ability to earn a livelihood and should be jailed just like any other thief. Why the hell should millions of people have to invest billions of dollars and countless hours just so that spammers can spam without fear of jail time?
While your little geek-boy spam filter might suit your needs, I've worked with someone who consults to the real-estate industry and real-estate agents are bombarded with spam -- as well as legitimate business newsletters, business communications, and client communications. In order to be competitive, they have to post their e-mail address online. And that means that it gets harvested. They can't afford to lose a commission on a half-million dollar home sale by posting some javascript obsfuscated mailto link that doesn't work with the buyer's or seller's web browser. Nor do they want to get important mortgage rate information scrapped -- but they don't want some spam with a refinance-your-home scam.
I have my own domain and probably get two to three pieces of spam a week through my blacklists and filters, but I'm a grown-up, so I recognize that what I, as an individual, do isn't going to work for most businesses. If I bounce all mail from Taiwan, that's fine. If a business does, they might miss out on important correspondence that translates to large sums of money.