The wonderful thing about the Constitution, that you seem to care about, is that it provides protections and due process so that people aren't subject to mob rule and kangaroo courts, such as the one you are advocating. Clearly all 20000 people are guilty, and if not, it is because of a bribed judge, so lets hang them all. Good Lord, I'm glad I live in the US as it is and not the US as you think it should be. The moral certainty of the outraged around here is very much like a theocracy; better not speak against all the Constitutional scholars around here who know what is best for everyone.
If only that were so. Thanks to precedents set during the administrations of Obama and Bush, any duly constituted National Guard unit should be able to hold a military tribunal and find those responsible guilty without all that mess and bother about due process and so on. Oh, wait, that was only supposed to apply to people on the government's private hit list, wasn't it?
I'm not sure when it changed, but it became obvious once Obama was in office and decided to let the previous administration's habit of torturing people to death get swept under the rug.
The deal was only made after locals started protesting. And the buses are not and should not be the focal point here - as I said in my original post, the buses are a minor point. What's important is what they are serving as a focal point for: growing wealth disparity and its effects. People protesting are worried that they're going to be forced out of their homes in the middle-term. If the US did not have a very real, large, and growing problem with wealth distribution these protests would not exist.
What you're missing is that these private buses are using public stops. It's a very minor thing, yes. But it's also a perfect symbol of what's been happening in America: Private companies enrich a tiny fraction of the population, while moving as much of the costs of their personal enrichment onto the public, often damaging the public interest in some way or another while enriching themselves.
Again, this is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and in a country that did not have levels of wealth inequality comparably to Imperial Rome it would never be an issue. But it represents the problems of 21st Century America so perfectly, I'm not surprised it has ignited something of a firestorm.
...guess I'll go play some Pathfinder to celebrate.
Actually, I have a straight 1st Ed. game scheduled with some friends. But it is kind of sad that the name has been so badly handled by the current owners at Hasbro. I can't even find anything at their website to acknowledge, much less celebrate, the anniversary.
How does the old aphorism go? If you look around the table and you don't know who the sucker is, it's you? Take a good look around Google. Yes, they're convenient. (Except when they're not.) But you're paying for that convenience, and not in cash.
I've slowly moved away from my unquestioningly enthusiastic space-geekiness as I've grown older. But claiming "there's only one solution!" particularly when it happens to be the solution that you obviously support, is a surefire way to blow your own credibility right out of the gate.
Demonoid had a treasure trove of rare files you could not find on other public OR private trackers let alone on USENET. So no, Demonoid was like no other file sharing site on the web. And the community is what made Demonoid great. Who care about the latest LOST or Intelligence tv episode ? But then you were looking for some rare comic or ebook the D was the place to go. I still have a lot of torrent files from Demonoid. Could never bring myself to delete them hopeing for a day when the tracker would come back online again. It seems that day has come. Long live the D and its superb community.
Exactly this. Demonoid was like a torrent Library of Alexandria, and the whole human race was made poorer when it went down. It'll still be a long while before I'll trust the new one though.
Demonoid also had (legally or not) a great deal of otherwise inaccessible material. Books and music that were out of print and/or out of copyright. TV shows that were never going to get a DVD release even in this day and age. Obscure movies and serials, many of them from the early 20th.
Of course it's a lie. It's a public statement from the NSA. Ideally, any statement from the NSA should be simply ignored. Even better, the whole agency should be eliminated. After all, by their own admission, they are now 100% useless, thanks to Snowden! (Or perhaps, simply run by idiots who can't communicate and thus equally useless and worthy of being ended.)
The deniers are so desperate for "data" I'm surprised I didn't have a bunch of them at my house when my furnace went out, claiming it was evidence that global warming isn't happening.
How can Congress "do their job" when the intelligence officials who report to them are openly lying to them? (Leaving aside the issue of congressional corruption, post-facto and otherwise.)
Arguably, depressing the general public is part of the point. The inverse totalitarianism of the US has three basic pillars:
1) convince the public that corporate capture of the government is normal,
2) create a persistent state of political apathy in as much of the population as possible,
3) convince everyone that the US is actually a democracy.
Unless I'm missing something here, it doesn't look like the police response accomplished anything. They arrived after the crime was over and done with.
Slashdot Mirror
The wonderful thing about the Constitution, that you seem to care about, is that it provides protections and due process so that people aren't subject to mob rule and kangaroo courts, such as the one you are advocating. Clearly all 20000 people are guilty, and if not, it is because of a bribed judge, so lets hang them all. Good Lord, I'm glad I live in the US as it is and not the US as you think it should be. The moral certainty of the outraged around here is very much like a theocracy; better not speak against all the Constitutional scholars around here who know what is best for everyone.
If only that were so. Thanks to precedents set during the administrations of Obama and Bush, any duly constituted National Guard unit should be able to hold a military tribunal and find those responsible guilty without all that mess and bother about due process and so on. Oh, wait, that was only supposed to apply to people on the government's private hit list, wasn't it?
I'm not sure when it changed, but it became obvious once Obama was in office and decided to let the previous administration's habit of torturing people to death get swept under the rug.
People who focus on Snowden's "crimes" instead of what he revealed are ignorant fools at best and willing apologists for a criminal state at worst.
Apparently he thinks he's the attorney general for the Cardassian Empire - verdict first, trial afterwards.
The deal was only made after locals started protesting. And the buses are not and should not be the focal point here - as I said in my original post, the buses are a minor point. What's important is what they are serving as a focal point for: growing wealth disparity and its effects. People protesting are worried that they're going to be forced out of their homes in the middle-term. If the US did not have a very real, large, and growing problem with wealth distribution these protests would not exist.
What you're missing is that these private buses are using public stops. It's a very minor thing, yes. But it's also a perfect symbol of what's been happening in America: Private companies enrich a tiny fraction of the population, while moving as much of the costs of their personal enrichment onto the public, often damaging the public interest in some way or another while enriching themselves.
Again, this is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, and in a country that did not have levels of wealth inequality comparably to Imperial Rome it would never be an issue. But it represents the problems of 21st Century America so perfectly, I'm not surprised it has ignited something of a firestorm.
...guess I'll go play some Pathfinder to celebrate.
Actually, I have a straight 1st Ed. game scheduled with some friends. But it is kind of sad that the name has been so badly handled by the current owners at Hasbro. I can't even find anything at their website to acknowledge, much less celebrate, the anniversary.
But the human race being obliterated by orbital bombardment does not make for entertaining cinema.
Robotech, Cowboy Bebop, and Defiance beg to differ.
How does the old aphorism go? If you look around the table and you don't know who the sucker is, it's you? Take a good look around Google. Yes, they're convenient. (Except when they're not.) But you're paying for that convenience, and not in cash.
I've slowly moved away from my unquestioningly enthusiastic space-geekiness as I've grown older. But claiming "there's only one solution!" particularly when it happens to be the solution that you obviously support, is a surefire way to blow your own credibility right out of the gate.
Demonoid had a treasure trove of rare files you could not find on other public OR private trackers let alone on USENET. So no, Demonoid was like no other file sharing site on the web. And the community is what made Demonoid great. Who care about the latest LOST or Intelligence tv episode ? But then you were looking for some rare comic or ebook the D was the place to go. I still have a lot of torrent files from Demonoid. Could never bring myself to delete them hopeing for a day when the tracker would come back online again. It seems that day has come. Long live the D and its superb community.
Exactly this. Demonoid was like a torrent Library of Alexandria, and the whole human race was made poorer when it went down. It'll still be a long while before I'll trust the new one though.
Demonoid also had (legally or not) a great deal of otherwise inaccessible material. Books and music that were out of print and/or out of copyright. TV shows that were never going to get a DVD release even in this day and age. Obscure movies and serials, many of them from the early 20th.
I left google for my own little email server as part of a New Year's resolution. This makes me confident I made the right decision.
http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Minya
Do that and the telcos will kill it with excessive rent extraction.
Anyone calling it "Hadrian's Firewall" yet?
If they're co-operating with the FBI to create a backdoor, then they wouldn't be precisely lying now, would they?
Of course it's a lie. It's a public statement from the NSA. Ideally, any statement from the NSA should be simply ignored. Even better, the whole agency should be eliminated. After all, by their own admission, they are now 100% useless, thanks to Snowden! (Or perhaps, simply run by idiots who can't communicate and thus equally useless and worthy of being ended.)
The deniers are so desperate for "data" I'm surprised I didn't have a bunch of them at my house when my furnace went out, claiming it was evidence that global warming isn't happening.
I believe that the appropriate term is "Congresscritter".
How can Congress "do their job" when the intelligence officials who report to them are openly lying to them? (Leaving aside the issue of congressional corruption, post-facto and otherwise.)
Arguably, depressing the general public is part of the point. The inverse totalitarianism of the US has three basic pillars: 1) convince the public that corporate capture of the government is normal, 2) create a persistent state of political apathy in as much of the population as possible, 3) convince everyone that the US is actually a democracy.
The NSA is a cataclysmic cyber threat destroying the economy. (And the country too.)
Once again demonstrating to all and sundry why piracy is superior, and why the public should never trust megacorporations.
It appears that the timeline is:
Shooter enters school and shoots 1 student.
Shooter kills himself.
Police respond.
Police claim credit.
Unless I'm missing something here, it doesn't look like the police response accomplished anything. They arrived after the crime was over and done with.