Other people's private personal information is not "political content".
Below is a story from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times:
ST. PETERSBURG -- A 54-year-old man was struck and killed by a truck Friday night while walking his bicycle across U.S. 19.
James Allen, of 2445 38th St. N in St. Petersburg, was crossing in the 3700 block about 6:45 p.m. when he was hit by a northbound 2000 Ford pickup driven by Brian Aldrich, 39, of 3776 28th Ave. N, St. Petersburg, according to a St. Petersburg police report.
Ignoring for a moment the (significant) differences between the US and UK... When the mainstream media freely publishes names and addresses of the people involved in newsworthy events, it becomes problematic to censor that information when it's published by non-mainstream media.
I'm very aware that in your opinion the U.S. is an evil slave state that is irredeemable. I'm just asking that you provide some actual proof of the wild accusations you're making.
You just proved my point when you said "state militia." The Second Amendment means the Federal government does not have the power to disarm the state militias. As you noted, those militias were used to put down slave rebellions. Sure, the army could be called on to put down a slave rebellion, but without the Second Amendment, the army would be the only ones capable of doing it. What if the Army is not available? What if the Army is directed by Congress not to intervene?
The Declaration of Independence is not a legal document like the Constitution is. It's more like propaganda. You can't go into court and claim your rights under the Declaration of Independence not being honored. I mean, you could, but you would be laughed at.
Your comments about abolition of slavery have little place in this discussion, as that didn't happen for another century or so after the States ratified the Constitution. Slavery was very much alive in 1789, "All men are created equal" notwithstanding. (In fact, the Constitution explicitly counts a slave as being 3/5 a person, for purposes of determing proportional representation in government.)
A simple google search for second amendment slaves
Should get you started down the path towards the history you seem intent on denying.
The point of view I presented in my original post is not particularly historically controversial. But it does ruffle the feathers of those who adhere to the mythology of the Founding Fathers and the ideals of Liberty they espoused.
(It happens a lot on Slashdot, which is very understandable, what with this being a hotbed of Libertarianism.)
Discriminating between the propaganda and the true motive is always a challenge. You should consider the ulterior motives that may have induced Jefferson, a slave owner living in a slave state, to present the argument you quoted.
Jefferson's lofty words would certainly have been a lot more palatable to an abolitionist than saying "We Virginians would like to join your Federal government. But, since our way of life is dependent upon slavery, we are going to need an explicit guarantee that the Federal government does not have the power to disarm our militias."
The common mythology, that the purpose of the Second Amendment is some sort of backstop against an unjust government from taking over, has little historical basis. Like the rest of the Amendments, it was written for a pratcial purpose, not an esoteric one.
That practial purpose was: It protected the interests of the slave states by explicity granting them the right to use the tools (firearms) necessary to maintain their economic interests (slavery).
The common mythology, that the Second Amendment is intended to protect from tyrrany, is turned on its head when looked at from the slave's point of view.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not suggesting the Founding Fathers would have banned private ownership of guns in the absence of slavery. But the individual's right to bear arms is specifically carved out in the Constitution to protect the interests of the slave states.
Look at the language of the Second Amendment itself. Ask yourself "What did a militia do 200 years ago?" One of the things they did was put down slave uprisings.
Despite the fact that your post is complete and utter bullshit, shouldn't you adjust those numbers on a per capita basis?
I suspect if you look at victims of murder throughout human history, the person responsible was usually not an atheist.
And should we count murders committed by God in the death toll for the believers? That flood killed (n-2)/n of the human population, a far higher proportion than even the most committed atheist has ever come close to achieving.
Cain murdered 25% of the human population after God rejected his offering... Pol Pot dreamed of blockbuster numbers like that!
It is NOT acceptable for militants to hide amongst civilians so that when they are killed, there are civilian deaths.
Thus, the sinking of the Lusitania was justified. The United States and Britain were terrorists, hiding a military shipment under guise of civilian transport in the First World War. Your logic demands it!
Consequently, the Balfour Declaration, issued by Britain during the First World War, was the act of an outlaw, terrorist state. And from that act of terrorism, Israel was born.
At 63,000 feet MSL, all the gases dissolved in your blood boils. You die in seconds if exposed to rapid decompression.
In other words, my arteries and veins are wholly dependent upon atmospheric pressure to keep the gases in my blood from from boiling out as I type this?
Don't they have some structural integrity on their own? I would be surprised if they suddenly stopped working just because the surface pressure on my skin were removed.
Briefly surprised. Hopefully long enough to think "Hey, that AC was right! gurgle murgle blurgle..."
Well, I never heard about a huge stash of biological warfare equipment found in Iraq. It would have been all over Fox News and consequently the rest of the media, especially if the sale had been approved by Clinton.
So where did all that equipment go? Was Iraq purchasing it for North Korea or something? Or are you just full of it?
While you could buy a $4000 Mac, there were cheaper ones. Sometime around 1996 I bought a Power Computing PowerBase 180 for about $1500. A comparabale Mac, the Performa 6400, was selling for $2500.
(A fairer comparison would be the PowerBase 200, the 200 indicating 200 MHz CPU speed, equal to the Performa 6400, but I didn't buy that one. I think they went for about $1800.)
I think the challenge could be described as "intellectual honesty." Or perhaps just simple honesty.
Certainly, lots of people got wrapped up in this thing who weren't dishonest; from the poor IT guy at Lehman Brothers to the poor family buying a house on a jumbo loan.
But there were shenanigans going on, and some people who knew better just looked the other way. (And some spoke out too, to little effect.)
Mr. Turner remarked that they didn't fully understand the implications of complex financial instruments. It's a bit like a person with a syringe full of heroin, shooting up for the first time, remarking quite truthfully that they aren't really sure how it's going to feel. And then shooting up anyway.
Hmm, I'm not sure if that makes sense now that I read it. Anyway, great link, thanks for that.
Your world (mine too) is better off with the conquest of the New World. The New World itself essentially underwent genocide. (y)Our gain must necessarily be viewed as less significant than their loss of, well, just about everything. And who knows what our culture might have missed out on by destroying theirs? Without knowing, the assertion that we're better off seems empty. One might say "I think we're better off" but more fully it's "I think we're better off, but there's no way to say for sure." (Quantum Mechanics again!)
You said pinning the responsibility for that on 'science' is to allow people to dodge the responsibility.
Well, if that's the case, then pinning the achievements of man on 'science' steals the credit that should be man's, no?
The downsides to alcohol has spurred significant advances in medicine and sociology. AA is, to my mind, a very important achievement, because it's an excellent example of how to structure a support framework for people with crippling problems.
That, my friend, is a circular argument. Society wouldn't have any need to address the problems of alcoholism without alcohol. Society wouldn't have the need for a support framework for those who would otherwise perish without science to save them -- because they'd be dead.
This, I think, is what I mean when I characterize your statement as "mythology." Where science has achieved good things, credit goes to science. Where science has led to disaster, or maybe just Killer Bees, those were Bad Men. I think there's some cognitive dissonance in that point of view. (And by "mythology" I simply mean a way of understanding and explaining the world around us. "The myth of progress" is a touchstone of Western thought.)
Let's turn this question around: If adaptation of technology is such a beneficial trait, why don't we see more examples in nature? There are a few examples, but technology use is pretty sparse among the genomes of this planet. I'm talking here about active employment of tools and the like -- the bird building the nest, not the maple seed that's evolved to fly like a helicopter. But then, the bird doesn't experiment with new ways to build a nest (I don't think).
Ultimately I largely agree with your assessment that science has improved our lot in life. But I still think it's a little too much to say science has always helped. More like, it's an incredibly great good, but it's not 100% good.
Then again, I guess I don't think anything is 100% good. There's always the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Farming is a good technology, right? Is its value greater than one Amazon rainforest? Is that even a judgement we can make?
I liked the anecdote, no idea if it's true, where someone asked Mao Tse Tung what was the impact of the French Revolution on Western civilization. To which he replied "it's too early to tell."
First of all, I am contrary, though I tend to think of myself more as a cynic.
My comment was really a comment on "The myth of progress." It's clearly a mythology you adhere to, which is fine, but I don't think you can make the case so clearly that science always betters society.
Of course, you've set up your argument in such a way that it can't really be assailed, with the statement "in the long run." It will also be quite easy for you to dismiss any counter-indications as "not really being science."
For example, is American society better off today that so many children are being diagnosed with ADHD and treated with drugs that affect brain chemistry? Many think the answer to that question is definitely "no." But then you can argue that (1) it's too early to tell, and (2) the field of psychology isn't really science in the first place, and/or the practitioners of this so-called "science" are operating from less-than-scientific motives.
How have firearms benefited society? How has television?
This is not to dismiss some of the very notable and quite obvious advancements of civilization due to scientific inquiry. But to assert that science is always beneficial seems too good to be true. Sure, an invention might reap some reward, but it often ends up creating new problems too. Antibiotics have certainly provided a great service to mankind, but they've also brought us Hep C and MRSA.
Take the famous woodcuts "Gin Lane" and "Beer Alley." Has hard liquor really had a positive net effect?
I certainly do agree that science marches on. But I think you're kidding yourself if you're sure where it's marching is going to be better than today. "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."
With respect to NASA, I certainly do feel it's a good investment, probably for the same reasons you do. I just don't think it's reasonable to say "invest in science, it always pays dividends!" Did eugenics?
Did the science that brought Christopher Columbus to the New World benefit the indigenous culture?
Come on, the Second Amendment isn't about shooting politicians, despite the Slashdot bias towards that little chunk of Libertarian mythology.
If you look at the history and discussion from back in the day, the people's right to bear arms was granted in order to maintain slavery. That's what the militia was for; to put down a slave uprising.
If people couldn't own guns they would have a much harder time holding slaves, that should be quite obvious.
"Last remaining European colony in Africa" seems like a good description of Israel to me.
Okay so it's not quite in Africa but it's very, very close!
Personally I don't see why the Palestinians should (or will) "give up." Give it a few decades and there will be a majority Arab population in Israel anyway, so unless Israel can find another million Russian "Jews" to reconstitute their population, we'll see just how democratic they are.
About the only thought I have on the contentions issue of Israel is this: Israel could make their nation more hospitable to those who aren't Jewish but have historical roots there by removing the Jewish iconography from their flag. Israel is ostensibly a western democracy, yet the only other country that comes to mind with a similar flag is the theocratic monarchy of Saudi Arabia. Hmmm.
The "right to exist" question has always baffled me. Does the number zero have a right to exist? How about Kurdistan? How about the Roman Empire? The question's purpose seems to be an attempt to detect underlying bias on the part of the responder. I'm not sure what the purpose of such an exercise is, other than a popularity contest.
Anyway, after all that, I think the solution is to give the land back and have a two state system.:)
With respect to your statement that "they fought on the wrong side of WWII and lost" I think Ahmadinejad has a good point that the land gifted to the Jews should rightfully have come from Germany, as it was the Germans who put the Jews in such a position that they deserved a gift. But of course this isn't what happened at all; Israel existed as a vestigial organ (or by-product if you prefer) of the British Empire since at least Balfour, it just didn't fully emerge from its cocoon until after WWII.
So hot on the heels of AMD's "Fusion" ad campaign, they are splitting the company in half?
Looks like AMD got fusion and fission mixed up.
Fusion, fission... both seem appropriate considering the mushroom cloud floating atop AMD's market value crater.
As someone still holding AMD (even after watching the Fusion ad over at The New York Times), I applaud this move. By which I mean, "Things couldn't possibly get any worse!" (/knocks on wood).
I see nothing wrong with having a Yahoo email account for personal email.
Neither do I.
In the eyes of many, including the law, there is something potentially wrong when a public official conducts state business "off the books," as appears to be the case here. Her inbox, along with a bunch of fluff, contains emails from her staff on work-related subjects.
If she didn't act with impropriety, there's certainly the appearance of impropriety.
You mention your wife still uses Yahoo! Is your wife a governor or other public official? Does she conduct government business from her Yahoo! account? Does she use her Yahoo! account for purposes which demand oversight by Sarbanes-Oxles or HIPAA?
There is a difference between the actions of a public official and a private individual. Of course Sarah Palin is allowed to have a private life, and a Yahoo! account.
She can even invite the public into her private life and that of her family, her unwed pregnant daughter, her Iraq-bound son, and her retarded newborn. Though inviting the scrutiny of the press upon my children seems like a very questionable parenting decision to me.
But it's not a two-way street. She is not allowed to use the privacy and inaccountability of a Yahoo! account to shield her official actions as governor from the legal scrutiny under which public officials operate.
I might accept the assertion that it's a personal account if her email address was sarah.palin@email.com. But the email accout that was hacked is gov.palin@yahoo.com.
When you use your official title, you're acting in your official capacity. Not to mention, some of the email subjects clearly indicate official state business.
Two things strike me about this incident: First, we have the uncomfortable truth that Gov. Palin denied doing this, and now we know she was lying. Second, it speaks to her judgement that she chose a Yahoo! account to do this.
To put it in attack ad format: VOICEOVER: Sarah Palin couldn't even keep her "personal" email secure. How can Americans trust her to keep our nation secure?
IMAGES: Slow-mo of Palin scowling, Katrina montage, and beleaguered 9/11 onlookers. (But don't actually show 9/11 itself because that could backfire.)
Slashdot Mirror
Other people's private personal information is not "political content".
Below is a story from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times:
ST. PETERSBURG -- A 54-year-old man was struck and killed by a truck Friday night while walking his bicycle across U.S. 19.
James Allen, of 2445 38th St. N in St. Petersburg, was crossing in the 3700 block about 6:45 p.m. when he was hit by a northbound 2000 Ford pickup driven by Brian Aldrich, 39, of 3776 28th Ave. N, St. Petersburg, according to a St. Petersburg police report.
linky: http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/2009/01/st-petersburg-2.html
Ignoring for a moment the (significant) differences between the US and UK... When the mainstream media freely publishes names and addresses of the people involved in newsworthy events, it becomes problematic to censor that information when it's published by non-mainstream media.
I'm very aware that in your opinion the U.S. is an evil slave state that is irredeemable. I'm just asking that you provide some actual proof of the wild accusations you're making.
Welcome to my "idiots" list.
http://www.vpc.org/press/9805bog.htm
there, was that so difficult? It's the second Google hit for "slavery second amendment" -- and it's referenced in the first hit.
You just proved my point when you said "state militia." The Second Amendment means the Federal government does not have the power to disarm the state militias. As you noted, those militias were used to put down slave rebellions. Sure, the army could be called on to put down a slave rebellion, but without the Second Amendment, the army would be the only ones capable of doing it. What if the Army is not available? What if the Army is directed by Congress not to intervene?
The Declaration of Independence is not a legal document like the Constitution is. It's more like propaganda. You can't go into court and claim your rights under the Declaration of Independence not being honored. I mean, you could, but you would be laughed at.
Your comments about abolition of slavery have little place in this discussion, as that didn't happen for another century or so after the States ratified the Constitution. Slavery was very much alive in 1789, "All men are created equal" notwithstanding. (In fact, the Constitution explicitly counts a slave as being 3/5 a person, for purposes of determing proportional representation in government.)
A simple google search for
second amendment slaves
Should get you started down the path towards the history you seem intent on denying.
The point of view I presented in my original post is not particularly historically controversial.
But it does ruffle the feathers of those who adhere to the mythology of the Founding Fathers and the ideals of Liberty they espoused.
(It happens a lot on Slashdot, which is very understandable, what with this being a hotbed of Libertarianism.)
Discriminating between the propaganda and the true motive is always a challenge. You should consider the ulterior motives that may have induced Jefferson, a slave owner living in a slave state, to present the argument you quoted.
Jefferson's lofty words would certainly have been a lot more palatable to an abolitionist than saying "We Virginians would like to join your Federal government. But, since our way of life is dependent upon slavery, we are going to need an explicit guarantee that the Federal government does not have the power to disarm our militias."
The common mythology, that the purpose of the Second Amendment is some sort of backstop against an unjust government from taking over, has little historical basis. Like the rest of the Amendments, it was written for a pratcial purpose, not an esoteric one.
That practial purpose was: It protected the interests of the slave states by explicity granting them the right to use the tools (firearms) necessary to maintain their economic interests (slavery).
The common mythology, that the Second Amendment is intended to protect from tyrrany, is turned on its head when looked at from the slave's point of view.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not suggesting the Founding Fathers would have banned private ownership of guns in the absence of slavery. But the individual's right to bear arms is specifically carved out in the Constitution to protect the interests of the slave states.
Look at the language of the Second Amendment itself. Ask yourself "What did a militia do 200 years ago?" One of the things they did was put down slave uprisings.
I don't know, but I wish someone would do whatever you just said to your sentence.
Despite the fact that your post is complete and utter bullshit, shouldn't you adjust those numbers on a per capita basis?
I suspect if you look at victims of murder throughout human history, the person responsible was usually not an atheist.
And should we count murders committed by God in the death toll for the believers? That flood killed (n-2)/n of the human population, a far higher proportion than even the most committed atheist has ever come close to achieving.
Cain murdered 25% of the human population after God rejected his offering... Pol Pot dreamed of blockbuster numbers like that!
It is NOT acceptable for militants to hide amongst civilians so that when they are killed, there are civilian deaths.
Thus, the sinking of the Lusitania was justified. The United States and Britain were terrorists, hiding a military shipment under guise of civilian transport in the First World War. Your logic demands it!
Consequently, the Balfour Declaration, issued by Britain during the First World War, was the act of an outlaw, terrorist state. And from that act of terrorism, Israel was born.
That about right?
At 63,000 feet MSL, all the gases dissolved in your blood boils. You die in seconds if exposed to rapid decompression.
In other words, my arteries and veins are wholly dependent upon atmospheric pressure to keep the gases in my blood from from boiling out as I type this?
Don't they have some structural integrity on their own? I would be surprised if they suddenly stopped working just because the surface pressure on my skin were removed.
Briefly surprised. Hopefully long enough to think "Hey, that AC was right! gurgle murgle blurgle..."
Well, I never heard about a huge stash of biological warfare equipment found in Iraq. It would have been all over Fox News and consequently the rest of the media, especially if the sale had been approved by Clinton.
So where did all that equipment go? Was Iraq purchasing it for North Korea or something? Or are you just full of it?
Just as a point of reference, in the past 10 years, IBM is down 15%, MSFT is down 47%. The S&P 500 splits the difference, down 30%.
http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chdet=1230564720000&chddm=1002586&cmpto=NASDAQ:MSFT;INDEXSP:.INX&cmptzos=-18000;-18000&q=NYSE:IBM&ntsp=0
While you could buy a $4000 Mac, there were cheaper ones. Sometime around 1996 I bought a Power Computing PowerBase 180 for about $1500. A comparabale Mac, the Performa 6400, was selling for $2500.
(A fairer comparison would be the PowerBase 200, the 200 indicating 200 MHz CPU speed, equal to the Performa 6400, but I didn't buy that one. I think they went for about $1800.)
I think the challenge could be described as "intellectual honesty." Or perhaps just simple honesty.
Certainly, lots of people got wrapped up in this thing who weren't dishonest; from the poor IT guy at Lehman Brothers to the poor family buying a house on a jumbo loan.
But there were shenanigans going on, and some people who knew better just looked the other way. (And some spoke out too, to little effect.)
Mr. Turner remarked that they didn't fully understand the implications of complex financial instruments. It's a bit like a person with a syringe full of heroin, shooting up for the first time, remarking quite truthfully that they aren't really sure how it's going to feel. And then shooting up anyway.
Hmm, I'm not sure if that makes sense now that I read it. Anyway, great link, thanks for that.
is filled with 'hotmail,' 'yahoo' and 'facebook'
My roommate had a good one the other day.
He said, "If you get on YouTube and Google for this video..."
I... knew what he meant.
Your world (mine too) is better off with the conquest of the New World. The New World itself essentially underwent genocide. (y)Our gain must necessarily be viewed as less significant than their loss of, well, just about everything. And who knows what our culture might have missed out on by destroying theirs? Without knowing, the assertion that we're better off seems empty. One might say "I think we're better off" but more fully it's "I think we're better off, but there's no way to say for sure." (Quantum Mechanics again!)
You said pinning the responsibility for that on 'science' is to allow people to dodge the responsibility.
Well, if that's the case, then pinning the achievements of man on 'science' steals the credit that should be man's, no?
The downsides to alcohol has spurred significant advances in medicine and sociology. AA is, to my mind, a very important achievement, because it's an excellent example of how to structure a support framework for people with crippling problems.
That, my friend, is a circular argument. Society wouldn't have any need to address the problems of alcoholism without alcohol. Society wouldn't have the need for a support framework for those who would otherwise perish without science to save them -- because they'd be dead.
This, I think, is what I mean when I characterize your statement as "mythology." Where science has achieved good things, credit goes to science. Where science has led to disaster, or maybe just Killer Bees, those were Bad Men. I think there's some cognitive dissonance in that point of view. (And by "mythology" I simply mean a way of understanding and explaining the world around us. "The myth of progress" is a touchstone of Western thought.)
Let's turn this question around: If adaptation of technology is such a beneficial trait, why don't we see more examples in nature? There are a few examples, but technology use is pretty sparse among the genomes of this planet. I'm talking here about active employment of tools and the like -- the bird building the nest, not the maple seed that's evolved to fly like a helicopter. But then, the bird doesn't experiment with new ways to build a nest (I don't think).
Ultimately I largely agree with your assessment that science has improved our lot in life. But I still think it's a little too much to say science has always helped. More like, it's an incredibly great good, but it's not 100% good.
Then again, I guess I don't think anything is 100% good. There's always the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Farming is a good technology, right? Is its value greater than one Amazon rainforest? Is that even a judgement we can make?
I liked the anecdote, no idea if it's true, where someone asked Mao Tse Tung what was the impact of the French Revolution on Western civilization. To which he replied "it's too early to tell."
First of all, I am contrary, though I tend to think of myself more as a cynic.
My comment was really a comment on "The myth of progress." It's clearly a mythology you adhere to, which is fine, but I don't think you can make the case so clearly that science always betters society.
Of course, you've set up your argument in such a way that it can't really be assailed, with the statement "in the long run." It will also be quite easy for you to dismiss any counter-indications as "not really being science."
For example, is American society better off today that so many children are being diagnosed with ADHD and treated with drugs that affect brain chemistry? Many think the answer to that question is definitely "no." But then you can argue that (1) it's too early to tell, and (2) the field of psychology isn't really science in the first place, and/or the practitioners of this so-called "science" are operating from less-than-scientific motives.
How have firearms benefited society? How has television?
This is not to dismiss some of the very notable and quite obvious advancements of civilization due to scientific inquiry. But to assert that science is always beneficial seems too good to be true. Sure, an invention might reap some reward, but it often ends up creating new problems too. Antibiotics have certainly provided a great service to mankind, but they've also brought us Hep C and MRSA.
Take the famous woodcuts "Gin Lane" and "Beer Alley." Has hard liquor really had a positive net effect?
I certainly do agree that science marches on. But I think you're kidding yourself if you're sure where it's marching is going to be better than today. "Past performance is no guarantee of future results."
With respect to NASA, I certainly do feel it's a good investment, probably for the same reasons you do. I just don't think it's reasonable to say "invest in science, it always pays dividends!" Did eugenics?
Did the science that brought Christopher Columbus to the New World benefit the indigenous culture?
science has always, in the long run, improved society both culturally and economically.
*citation needed
This is like the one where they had to rename the movie "The Madness of King George."
Americans, the story goes, wouldn't be interested in "The Madness of King George III" because they missed parts I and II.
Come on, the Second Amendment isn't about shooting politicians, despite the Slashdot bias towards that little chunk of Libertarian mythology.
If you look at the history and discussion from back in the day, the people's right to bear arms was granted in order to maintain slavery. That's what the militia was for; to put down a slave uprising.
If people couldn't own guns they would have a much harder time holding slaves, that should be quite obvious.
"Last remaining European colony in Africa" seems like a good description of Israel to me.
Okay so it's not quite in Africa but it's very, very close!
Personally I don't see why the Palestinians should (or will) "give up." Give it a few decades and there will be a majority Arab population in Israel anyway, so unless Israel can find another million Russian "Jews" to reconstitute their population, we'll see just how democratic they are.
About the only thought I have on the contentions issue of Israel is this: Israel could make their nation more hospitable to those who aren't Jewish but have historical roots there by removing the Jewish iconography from their flag. Israel is ostensibly a western democracy, yet the only other country that comes to mind with a similar flag is the theocratic monarchy of Saudi Arabia. Hmmm.
The "right to exist" question has always baffled me. Does the number zero have a right to exist? How about Kurdistan? How about the Roman Empire? The question's purpose seems to be an attempt to detect underlying bias on the part of the responder. I'm not sure what the purpose of such an exercise is, other than a popularity contest.
Anyway, after all that, I think the solution is to give the land back and have a two state system. :)
With respect to your statement that "they fought on the wrong side of WWII and lost" I think Ahmadinejad has a good point that the land gifted to the Jews should rightfully have come from Germany, as it was the Germans who put the Jews in such a position that they deserved a gift. But of course this isn't what happened at all; Israel existed as a vestigial organ (or by-product if you prefer) of the British Empire since at least Balfour, it just didn't fully emerge from its cocoon until after WWII.
So hot on the heels of AMD's "Fusion" ad campaign, they are splitting the company in half?
Looks like AMD got fusion and fission mixed up.
Fusion, fission... both seem appropriate considering the mushroom cloud floating atop AMD's market value crater.
As someone still holding AMD (even after watching the Fusion ad over at The New York Times), I applaud this move. By which I mean, "Things couldn't possibly get any worse!" (/knocks on wood).
For theft to occur the originator must no longer have access to the original property.
So that means Identity Theft isn't theft either?
I see nothing wrong with having a Yahoo email account for personal email.
Neither do I.
In the eyes of many, including the law, there is something potentially wrong when a public official conducts state business "off the books," as appears to be the case here. Her inbox, along with a bunch of fluff, contains emails from her staff on work-related subjects.
If she didn't act with impropriety, there's certainly the appearance of impropriety.
You mention your wife still uses Yahoo! Is your wife a governor or other public official? Does she conduct government business from her Yahoo! account? Does she use her Yahoo! account for purposes which demand oversight by Sarbanes-Oxles or HIPAA?
There is a difference between the actions of a public official and a private individual. Of course Sarah Palin is allowed to have a private life, and a Yahoo! account.
She can even invite the public into her private life and that of her family, her unwed pregnant daughter, her Iraq-bound son, and her retarded newborn. Though inviting the scrutiny of the press upon my children seems like a very questionable parenting decision to me.
But it's not a two-way street. She is not allowed to use the privacy and inaccountability of a Yahoo! account to shield her official actions as governor from the legal scrutiny under which public officials operate.
Have a nice evening.
PERSONAL EMAIL
I might accept the assertion that it's a personal account if her email address was sarah.palin@email.com. But the email accout that was hacked is gov.palin@yahoo.com.
When you use your official title, you're acting in your official capacity. Not to mention, some of the email subjects clearly indicate official state business.
Two things strike me about this incident:
First, we have the uncomfortable truth that Gov. Palin denied doing this, and now we know she was lying. Second, it speaks to her judgement that she chose a Yahoo! account to do this.
To put it in attack ad format:
VOICEOVER: Sarah Palin couldn't even keep her "personal" email secure. How can Americans trust her to keep our nation secure?
IMAGES: Slow-mo of Palin scowling, Katrina montage, and beleaguered 9/11 onlookers. (But don't actually show 9/11 itself because that could backfire.)
What sort of misguided geek thinks it's a good idea to work on a project which facilitates the rest of us getting invited to meetings?