Interesting thought. It may sound harsh, but maybe if we stopped sending food to the multitudes in the "less-developed" regions they'd stop breeding so much. It wouldn't seem they're managing it themselves.
Thanks for the data, definately worth checking out. Kind of ironic given your/. nick.
and the climate swing killed a bunch of guys then, too;
Could be. They disappeared. Could've been like the Vikings during the cold snap, who moved south into Europe on their neighbors, who moved in on their neghbors, who... yeah. Or like several other cultures in warmer regions, such as the Maya and, if memory serves, the Inca, who had great stone structures that are the only things that stand as a testament to the fact that they were there. Neighboring peoples refer to (I think it's the Maya) as "those who left". Not entirely discouraging to imagine of a civilization that had its problems, but was still socially cohesive enough to pick up and head somewhere else for a new kind of life when their ways didn't work.
I do see what you mean about a puff-piece though. And like most articles it sells itself on being sensationalistic, even if this one is slyly so. I don't think the mercantilism behind the article necessarily negates the ecological situation though.
Why in God's name do Americans still refer to the Inuit as 'Eskimos'? It shows all the social sensitivity of 'negro' or 'indian'.
My guess? For the same reason journalists refer to someone by name, add a comma, and tell the reader who the heck this person is. Considering how often Inuit are referred to by the media, and the average level of education, `Eskimo' is something the people of this culture recognize (if as nothing but where all those Eskimo Pies come from).
I wanted to write in with the same sentiment, that it's ironic that the most significant story on/. today is a link added almost as an afterthought. Look at some of the other stories up today... A new JPG standard? A PC made out of a toolbox? The frigging ice on the planet is melting and we're going to end up washed up, for pete's sake! I know the tech-friendly demographic of people on/. who seldom see the big blue room are inclined to downplay the environmental impact tech has, but the mindset demonstrated here is simply staggering.
That having been said, what we do about this `unspoken challenge' seems to be the nub of the matter. Personally, I'm all for tech. I just think it could be approached differently. It's much easier for media and environmentalist groups to trace the symptom of ecological devastation to tech and industry, but that's just another symptom.
The real killer here is that there is so much tech and industry. There has to be, to fulfill society's collective demand. There wouldn't be so much demand if there weren't so much society. There's too many people, people! How much more simple could it be? People write it off as an insoluble problem so easily, and then turn around and do work like this on human cloning, conveniently forgetting and contributing the problem they'd written off as supposedly insoluble.
Fact is, it isn't insoluble. It'll be solved, if nothing else, when we grow to the planet's limit, pushing out every species `useless' to us in the process, and face starvation in the midst of an ecological backlash. So the problem will be solved sooner or later; the only thing we get to choose is how.
Stop breeding! Would it really be so bad, a few generations where two people get together and produce a total of one offspring? Every time a suburban couple gets together and says to one another, "How many children do you want, dear? Six? Seven?" what they're really saying is, "It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things how many children we produce. It's a decision we can base purely on our individual preference. It'll just mean bulldozing a few more acres of rainforest somewhere, that's all. And we can do as we like with them, they do belong to mankind after all." More specious Manifest Destiny reasoning. These are the people who believe that life survives by going to the supermarket. Just because we've taken to living in large boxes and don't have to look at it doesn't mean we aren't part of the food chain. Not that there's much of one left, as we're destroying biodiversity at an alarming pace, meaning that when the climate does shift as it's doing there won't be enough species able to cope or adapt to continue a viable natural food chain. So many millions of years of natural selection, gone in just a few thousand years. But that's okay, because in the meantime we can breed without a second thought, carry our toolbox PC's to LAN parties, and hovercraft across the Northwest Passage area when it melts in a few years. I'm sorry, but if you want my participation in such massive devastation I'd need a much better bribe than that. Honestly, most of the people in our society aren't even happy with the lives they have from such destruction. Hardly seems worth it, does it?
For an extremely insightful look at our society's mindset, and an examination of how it impacts the world, I highly recommend Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Life-changing stuff.
...considering the source. Isn't Wired owned by Viacom, which also owns Paramount / Blockbuster / Showtime / UPN etc.? How nice to be reassured by corporate film interests that we can stop worrying about copy protection initiatives for a while.
[shakes head] Sounds like the government there really has it's priorities straight.
I mean, wouldn't even a tenth of the money spent on "protecting" the morality of the Australian websurfing public be better served by setting a good example and protecting the future of the planet?
That's a sound point. Let's take it a little further. The government, due to it's practice of filtering the 'net and not telling its citizens what is being filtered, must be considered to have an ulterior motive. When considered in light of their relatively recent act of seizing guns from it's citizenry, it seems likely that this motive is self-serving, and therefore that said government is corrupt. And yet it stands, because its people allow it to stand. They are complacent with these events, and since this event hasn't shaken them from their complacency, it is reasonable to conclude that ecological devastation and loss of biodiversity are not going ooncerns for Australia's citizens. That, ultimately, seems to be where the burden of responsibility lays. It's just more comfortable to blame the government, because it allows continued inaction. Just a socially-accepted way of saying with one's actions, "I'm trashing the environment, destroying life on a grand scale, and jeopardizing the continued survival of every form of life on Earth, and I don't give a damn.". And the surprising part of it is that most of them aren't even having that much fun doing it. If I were going to destroy the planet, I'd sure as heck better be enjoying every moment of my existence to the fullest in the process.
I suspect that eventually TV networks will move to banner ads or something similar, with side-band information available to those with "interactive" digital TV sets.
TNN (The National Network) is already doing this. They have what are essentially banner ads running along the bottom of the screen, giving the name of the program and the channel logo.
Not unless you want to pay for the right to have a TV (ala the UK) or pay for every channel you receive.
This is often the case, given that some channels (TNN is one of them) are cable-only.
This represents an extremely disturbing trend.
on
FBI Wants to Tap The Net
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Not only do they want to scan everything, all the time, regardless of just cause, they intend to physically restructure the internet to make it more convenient for them to do so. This is startling, as it would seem to represent an active rather than passive approach to intelligence gathering. AFAIK, it usually involves adopting strategies which adapt to monitor the subject matter; this represents altering the way we live to make it more convenient to monitor, at great expense and a loss of functionality. With a line of thought such as this, we won't be able to institute new protocols and innovations as they arise, on the grounds that they would be "security concerns" or somesuch nonsense because they wouldn't be easy to keep tabs on. Pffft.
Secondly, the notion of tapping the entire internet, aside from the massive outlay of resources that would entail (which is a whole nother thread entirely) is simply ludicrous. The internet is by definition global; the internet traffic of Swiss citizens (for example) is none of the FBI's concern (or shouldn't be, at any rate). You want to talk about a lack of jurisdiction? This all-encompassing, manifest destiny approach is reminiscent of the recent/. story about whether the ban on taxing the 'net would be reinstated or not. Hey, go for it! While we're at it, we can tax Europe outright. Or what about Neptune? A place that size must represent awesome amounts of untapped tax potential. We'd be silly not to!
Seriously, the more I think about this the less it disturbs me. I find it unlikely that the other countries would volunteer to reengineer their networks to assist the U.S.'s FBI in monitoring their traffic. What bothers me is why, presumably knowing this, they're funding a project like this anyway. Perhaps they're just looking to bottleneck the U.S. traffic, in which case we'd be known as Lag Central to the rest of the world. Yup, that'll certainly help e-commerce. ("Oh, don't shop there, they're U.S.-based. Their pages always take forever to load.") I shudder to think what happens when the FBI's systems suffer occasional downtime; do they halt the country's traffic until they can get them up and running again? They'd have to. To do otherwise would be a security risk, and we can't have that.
"Microsoft is keeping a more-vigilant eye on online auctions of old copies of Windows software, with people trying to offload it due to the upcoming release of XP.
Seems to me that people would be trying to stockpile old copies of Windows software due to the upcoming release of XP.
It's a pity that there's no fundamental separation of Corp and State.
We've corps insisting that the government needs to stay out of their affairs, and then demanding that said government legislate in their favor. And in the U.S. we usually find them succeeding on both fronts.
Because we are a community of individualists and therefore very difficult to organize. Also, as a community we are more interested in the latest wireless technology or the soft core porn scenes in Star Trek: Enterprise, then we are in taxes, social security or the public education system.
Which is unfortunate, because the soft core Enterprise porn is an excellent example of people losing their rights in trade for the illusion of something, in this case the illusion of porn. It's amazing how often people will do things like that. My guess is that it's done quite intentionally, if never admitted openly. So we face a country with an increasingly delirious majority, and strive to do something constructive within that scenario. Pretty bleak.
I look forward to a Law & Order episode where they read the email of a suspect, find it all encrypted, and later find out the suspect had nothing to do with the crime.
Same here. Unfortunately, with the current mindset of most Americans and the general tendancy of the mainstream media to pander to/reinforce/create that, we could be waiting a while.
When government officials, cops or otherwise, follow your every move on the internet without a warrant it's considered acceptable. But if they follow you around and watch your every move offline without a warrant, it's considered harrassment.
You know, I'm the first to agree that it's assinine to make new laws to cover territory already covered by old laws simply because of a new information medium, but if we can't reverse the trend what about making new information-based laws to protect our rights there, as our parents originally did with old laws? If the RIAA can pass the DMCA, why can't we get stuff through like "digital harrassment laws" and the like? What, are we too few in numbers or something? We've all seen how sites linked here get slashdotted within minutes; why not slashdot the government similarly? We would seem to have the same basic concerns and motivations, with a few exceptions here and there. Talk about a special interest group waiting to happen.
"The Systems and Networking group at Microsoft Research has a fascinating article that details what sorts of things they believe may be important in Operating Systems of the 21st century."
Isn't that just a little like reading a dissertation on high fashion written by my garbage man?
Hey, at least they recognized the possibility of more than one operating system. Isn't that a first from the people doing business from a place called "One Microsoft Way"?
Actually, I think we're already there. If you wrote a book containing example code for certain cypto schemes, that book would not be allowed to leave the U.S.
Hey, look on the bright side. At least they're still allowing strong crypto into the U.S..
I was just watching The Screensavers, a wannabe tech show on Tech TV for suburbanites who've just started exploring "this internet thing", and they showed statistics claiming only twenty-four percent of Americans were in favor of crypto backdoors, while seventy-six opposed them. Even accounting for different polls, I wouldn't think the disparity to be that huge.
Can you give me some examples of episodes that haven't been seen for a while? I know that there're a few I like that I haven't seen recently, but I'd like to hear some other examples.
I can think of one off the top of my head, I've got it on tape. It's summer, and Bart and Lisa hound Homer to get a swimming pool ("Can we have a pool Dad?" "Can we have a pool Dad?" "Can we have a pool Dad?" "Can we have a pool Dad?"). When they finally get one, all the neighbor kids come around to use it until it gets so full the sides fall out. I haven't been able to find the episode in any episode guide I've seen, but I know I have a copy somewhere on tape to prove that it exists. There was nothing especially racy or disturbing about that episode, although there was a bit where all the kids do a synchronized swim and sing about the joys of summer/having a pool. Was this perhaps just a sub-plot, which would be why I can't find an episode like that?
What about Whacking Day? All of Springfield loves Whacking Day, an eerie parallel to St. Patrick's Day when citizens get a whacking stick and drive the snakes out of Springfield. Even Mayor Quimby participated, although his aides furnished him with handfuls of pre-whacked snakes. Bart and Lisa shelter the snakes in their home, ushering them in by putting their speakers face-down on the ground and playing music with a lot of bass, which the snakes can hear. I haven't seen that episode run in years, although this one does appear on episode guides. Odd.
Makes you wonder what they'll do to the Simpsons episode where Homer's car is parked between the WTC towers. They may never play that in syndication again
Speaking of, there are actually a heck of a lot of episodes that haven't been showing for years now. I've got a few on tape that I haven't seen aired in at least two. Anybody know what's going on there?
Why, Anonymous Coward? Last I checked it was still legal to have a dissenting opinion with legislators and the media. It's easy to accuse from the privacy of anonymity, but I don't think you have anything valid to actually bitch about.
- Govt. knew about a threat, but didn't know about all the vectors it was coming from. Recent news reports support this theory, considering that additional hijacking attempts were averted.
In which case it presents a rather interesting portrayal of the U.S. government. Consider: Here's a threat you know about, but you don't know everything about it. Presumably threats come along with demands, so you either avert the threat or satisfy the demand. But unable to avert the threat, you do neither?! Presumably on the grounds that they'll strike, you'll counterstrike, and you can use the devastation to your own advantage. Not really a better scenario is it?
Actually you're not much more than a common troll.
Actually that's an easy allegation to throw around lightly, Anonymous Coward.
Fast forward to the terrorist attack this week. Do you really honestly believe that U.S. agencies would keep such a thing under wraps? First of all, this is peacetime. There was no paranoia, and with all the petty bickering and backstabbing in Washington, someone is sure to have leaked this info if a coverup was attempted.
Of course they were. Sure to.
Do you realize the implications of phrasing something with that much certainty? I don't know enough about the workings of Washington to make such a[nother] sweeping assumption. Do you? Personally I find it likely that by now everybody there has figured out the best way to take advantage of the situation, and has evolved it into a mutually beneficial parasitic network living off the American people, voting themselves pay raises, etcetera. It's not far to go, and in a situation like that you simply do not rock the boat.
Second, there is no way such a thing would be attempted for a cause so petty as encryption or spying on our own citizens. Once again compare the two situations. Half a century ago, we were literally fearful that the world would be conquered. Nowadays, we're fearful that we might not be able to read someone's email?
I wish I had as much faith in our government as you seem to. Given a scenario where you have a corrupt government trying to get into everybody's pants, what's petty about being able to track everything being done on the 'net (including e-commerce, lest we forget). Antiterrorism to be sure, but my take on it is that it's meant to keep a short leash on malcontents among its own people, rather than deflect any outside threat. If you'll recall they were trying to do that before all this, in several different ways. Regardless of how or why the attack happened, they're definately taking advantage of it now that it has.
This bill is quite limited in its scope, allowing only 48 hours to tap without approval and only for immediate threats to "National Security."
Yes, and with terrorism now the flavor of the month, and theoretically anyone capable of being a terrorist, that's still too broad for my comfort. I wouldn't trust our government with a Swiss Army knife, let alone effective omniscience.
Many civil liberties are restricted during threats to "National Security."
You say that like it excuses it.
Ever heard of martial law and curfews?
Ever heard of Auschwitz?
It's a slippery slope, that's all I'm saying. Taxes were originally raised for wartime purposes as a purely temporary measure as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Spotted the conflict of interest yet? Q.E.D.
Ah, then I did misremember who it was. Thanks.
Thanks for the data, definately worth checking out. Kind of ironic given your
Could be. They disappeared. Could've been like the Vikings during the cold snap, who moved south into Europe on their neighbors, who moved in on their neghbors, who... yeah. Or like several other cultures in warmer regions, such as the Maya and, if memory serves, the Inca, who had great stone structures that are the only things that stand as a testament to the fact that they were there. Neighboring peoples refer to (I think it's the Maya) as "those who left". Not entirely discouraging to imagine of a civilization that had its problems, but was still socially cohesive enough to pick up and head somewhere else for a new kind of life when their ways didn't work.
I do see what you mean about a puff-piece though. And like most articles it sells itself on being sensationalistic, even if this one is slyly so. I don't think the mercantilism behind the article necessarily negates the ecological situation though.
Why in God's name do Americans still refer to the Inuit as 'Eskimos'? It shows all the social sensitivity of 'negro' or 'indian'.
My guess? For the same reason journalists refer to someone by name, add a comma, and tell the reader who the heck this person is. Considering how often Inuit are referred to by the media, and the average level of education, `Eskimo' is something the people of this culture recognize (if as nothing but where all those Eskimo Pies come from).
That having been said, what we do about this `unspoken challenge' seems to be the nub of the matter. Personally, I'm all for tech. I just think it could be approached differently. It's much easier for media and environmentalist groups to trace the symptom of ecological devastation to tech and industry, but that's just another symptom.
The real killer here is that there is so much tech and industry. There has to be, to fulfill society's collective demand. There wouldn't be so much demand if there weren't so much society. There's too many people, people! How much more simple could it be? People write it off as an insoluble problem so easily, and then turn around and do work like this on human cloning, conveniently forgetting and contributing the problem they'd written off as supposedly insoluble.
Fact is, it isn't insoluble. It'll be solved, if nothing else, when we grow to the planet's limit, pushing out every species `useless' to us in the process, and face starvation in the midst of an ecological backlash. So the problem will be solved sooner or later; the only thing we get to choose is how.
Stop breeding! Would it really be so bad, a few generations where two people get together and produce a total of one offspring? Every time a suburban couple gets together and says to one another, "How many children do you want, dear? Six? Seven?" what they're really saying is, "It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things how many children we produce. It's a decision we can base purely on our individual preference. It'll just mean bulldozing a few more acres of rainforest somewhere, that's all. And we can do as we like with them, they do belong to mankind after all." More specious Manifest Destiny reasoning. These are the people who believe that life survives by going to the supermarket. Just because we've taken to living in large boxes and don't have to look at it doesn't mean we aren't part of the food chain. Not that there's much of one left, as we're destroying biodiversity at an alarming pace, meaning that when the climate does shift as it's doing there won't be enough species able to cope or adapt to continue a viable natural food chain. So many millions of years of natural selection, gone in just a few thousand years. But that's okay, because in the meantime we can breed without a second thought, carry our toolbox PC's to LAN parties, and hovercraft across the Northwest Passage area when it melts in a few years. I'm sorry, but if you want my participation in such massive devastation I'd need a much better bribe than that. Honestly, most of the people in our society aren't even happy with the lives they have from such destruction. Hardly seems worth it, does it?
For an extremely insightful look at our society's mindset, and an examination of how it impacts the world, I highly recommend Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. Life-changing stuff.
...considering the source. Isn't Wired owned by Viacom, which also owns Paramount / Blockbuster / Showtime / UPN etc.? How nice to be reassured by corporate film interests that we can stop worrying about copy protection initiatives for a while.
[shakes head] Sounds like the government there really has it's priorities straight.
I mean, wouldn't even a tenth of the money spent on "protecting" the morality of the Australian websurfing public be better served by setting a good example and protecting the future of the planet?
That's a sound point. Let's take it a little further. The government, due to it's practice of filtering the 'net and not telling its citizens what is being filtered, must be considered to have an ulterior motive. When considered in light of their relatively recent act of seizing guns from it's citizenry, it seems likely that this motive is self-serving, and therefore that said government is corrupt. And yet it stands, because its people allow it to stand. They are complacent with these events, and since this event hasn't shaken them from their complacency, it is reasonable to conclude that ecological devastation and loss of biodiversity are not going ooncerns for Australia's citizens. That, ultimately, seems to be where the burden of responsibility lays. It's just more comfortable to blame the government, because it allows continued inaction. Just a socially-accepted way of saying with one's actions, "I'm trashing the environment, destroying life on a grand scale, and jeopardizing the continued survival of every form of life on Earth, and I don't give a damn.". And the surprising part of it is that most of them aren't even having that much fun doing it. If I were going to destroy the planet, I'd sure as heck better be enjoying every moment of my existence to the fullest in the process.
- You have died. -
I suspect that eventually TV networks will move to banner ads or something similar, with side-band information available to those with "interactive" digital TV sets.
TNN (The National Network) is already doing this. They have what are essentially banner ads running along the bottom of the screen, giving the name of the program and the channel logo.
Not unless you want to pay for the right to have a TV (ala the UK) or pay for every channel you receive.
This is often the case, given that some channels (TNN is one of them) are cable-only.
Not only do they want to scan everything, all the time, regardless of just cause, they intend to physically restructure the internet to make it more convenient for them to do so. This is startling, as it would seem to represent an active rather than passive approach to intelligence gathering. AFAIK, it usually involves adopting strategies which adapt to monitor the subject matter; this represents altering the way we live to make it more convenient to monitor, at great expense and a loss of functionality. With a line of thought such as this, we won't be able to institute new protocols and innovations as they arise, on the grounds that they would be "security concerns" or somesuch nonsense because they wouldn't be easy to keep tabs on. Pffft.
/. story about whether the ban on taxing the 'net would be reinstated or not. Hey, go for it! While we're at it, we can tax Europe outright. Or what about Neptune? A place that size must represent awesome amounts of untapped tax potential. We'd be silly not to!
Secondly, the notion of tapping the entire internet, aside from the massive outlay of resources that would entail (which is a whole nother thread entirely) is simply ludicrous. The internet is by definition global; the internet traffic of Swiss citizens (for example) is none of the FBI's concern (or shouldn't be, at any rate). You want to talk about a lack of jurisdiction? This all-encompassing, manifest destiny approach is reminiscent of the recent
Seriously, the more I think about this the less it disturbs me. I find it unlikely that the other countries would volunteer to reengineer their networks to assist the U.S.'s FBI in monitoring their traffic. What bothers me is why, presumably knowing this, they're funding a project like this anyway. Perhaps they're just looking to bottleneck the U.S. traffic, in which case we'd be known as Lag Central to the rest of the world. Yup, that'll certainly help e-commerce. ("Oh, don't shop there, they're U.S.-based. Their pages always take forever to load.") I shudder to think what happens when the FBI's systems suffer occasional downtime; do they halt the country's traffic until they can get them up and running again? They'd have to. To do otherwise would be a security risk, and we can't have that.
Here's the part I don't understand:
"Microsoft is keeping a more-vigilant eye on online auctions of old copies of Windows software, with people trying to offload it due to the upcoming release of XP.
Seems to me that people would be trying to stockpile old copies of Windows software due to the upcoming release of XP.
It's a pity that there's no fundamental separation of Corp and State.
We've corps insisting that the government needs to stay out of their affairs, and then demanding that said government legislate in their favor. And in the U.S. we usually find them succeeding on both fronts.
Because we are a community of individualists and therefore very difficult to organize. Also, as a community we are more interested in the latest wireless technology or the soft core porn scenes in Star Trek: Enterprise, then we are in taxes, social security or the public education system.
Which is unfortunate, because the soft core Enterprise porn is an excellent example of people losing their rights in trade for the illusion of something, in this case the illusion of porn. It's amazing how often people will do things like that. My guess is that it's done quite intentionally, if never admitted openly. So we face a country with an increasingly delirious majority, and strive to do something constructive within that scenario. Pretty bleak.
I look forward to a Law & Order episode where they read the email of a suspect, find it all encrypted, and later find out the suspect had nothing to do with the crime.
Same here. Unfortunately, with the current mindset of most Americans and the general tendancy of the mainstream media to pander to/reinforce/create that, we could be waiting a while.
When government officials, cops or otherwise, follow your every move on the internet without a warrant it's considered acceptable. But if they follow you around and watch your every move offline without a warrant, it's considered harrassment.
You know, I'm the first to agree that it's assinine to make new laws to cover territory already covered by old laws simply because of a new information medium, but if we can't reverse the trend what about making new information-based laws to protect our rights there, as our parents originally did with old laws? If the RIAA can pass the DMCA, why can't we get stuff through like "digital harrassment laws" and the like? What, are we too few in numbers or something? We've all seen how sites linked here get slashdotted within minutes; why not slashdot the government similarly? We would seem to have the same basic concerns and motivations, with a few exceptions here and there. Talk about a special interest group waiting to happen.
"The Systems and Networking group at Microsoft Research has a fascinating article that details what sorts of things they believe may be important in Operating Systems of the 21st century."
Isn't that just a little like reading a dissertation on high fashion written by my garbage man?
Hey, at least they recognized the possibility of more than one operating system. Isn't that a first from the people doing business from a place called "One Microsoft Way"?
It is always a flaw of survays that are voluntary.
Why sure Elf, but fifty-two percent of surveys are spurious to begin with. Seventy-eight percent of Americans know that. =)
Actually, I think we're already there. If you wrote a book containing example code for certain cypto schemes, that book would not be allowed to leave the U.S.
Hey, look on the bright side. At least they're still allowing strong crypto into the U.S..
I was just watching The Screensavers, a wannabe tech show on Tech TV for suburbanites who've just started exploring "this internet thing", and they showed statistics claiming only twenty-four percent of Americans were in favor of crypto backdoors, while seventy-six opposed them. Even accounting for different polls, I wouldn't think the disparity to be that huge.
Can you give me some examples of episodes that haven't been seen for a while? I know that there're a few I like that I haven't seen recently, but I'd like to hear some other examples.
I can think of one off the top of my head, I've got it on tape. It's summer, and Bart and Lisa hound Homer to get a swimming pool ("Can we have a pool Dad?" "Can we have a pool Dad?" "Can we have a pool Dad?" "Can we have a pool Dad?"). When they finally get one, all the neighbor kids come around to use it until it gets so full the sides fall out. I haven't been able to find the episode in any episode guide I've seen, but I know I have a copy somewhere on tape to prove that it exists. There was nothing especially racy or disturbing about that episode, although there was a bit where all the kids do a synchronized swim and sing about the joys of summer/having a pool. Was this perhaps just a sub-plot, which would be why I can't find an episode like that?
What about Whacking Day? All of Springfield loves Whacking Day, an eerie parallel to St. Patrick's Day when citizens get a whacking stick and drive the snakes out of Springfield. Even Mayor Quimby participated, although his aides furnished him with handfuls of pre-whacked snakes. Bart and Lisa shelter the snakes in their home, ushering them in by putting their speakers face-down on the ground and playing music with a lot of bass, which the snakes can hear. I haven't seen that episode run in years, although this one does appear on episode guides. Odd.
Makes you wonder what they'll do to the Simpsons episode where Homer's car is parked between the WTC towers. They may never play that in syndication again
Speaking of, there are actually a heck of a lot of episodes that haven't been showing for years now. I've got a few on tape that I haven't seen aired in at least two. Anybody know what's going on there?
You make me sick.
Why, Anonymous Coward? Last I checked it was still legal to have a dissenting opinion with legislators and the media. It's easy to accuse from the privacy of anonymity, but I don't think you have anything valid to actually bitch about.
- Govt. knew about a threat, but didn't know about all the vectors it was coming from. Recent news reports support this theory, considering that additional hijacking attempts were averted.
In which case it presents a rather interesting portrayal of the U.S. government. Consider: Here's a threat you know about, but you don't know everything about it. Presumably threats come along with demands, so you either avert the threat or satisfy the demand. But unable to avert the threat, you do neither?! Presumably on the grounds that they'll strike, you'll counterstrike, and you can use the devastation to your own advantage. Not really a better scenario is it?
Actually you're not much more than a common troll.
Actually that's an easy allegation to throw around lightly, Anonymous Coward.
Fast forward to the terrorist attack this week. Do you really honestly believe that U.S. agencies would keep such a thing under wraps? First of all, this is peacetime. There was no paranoia, and with all the petty bickering and backstabbing in Washington, someone is sure to have leaked this info if a coverup was attempted.
Of course they were. Sure to.
Do you realize the implications of phrasing something with that much certainty? I don't know enough about the workings of Washington to make such a[nother] sweeping assumption. Do you? Personally I find it likely that by now everybody there has figured out the best way to take advantage of the situation, and has evolved it into a mutually beneficial parasitic network living off the American people, voting themselves pay raises, etcetera. It's not far to go, and in a situation like that you simply do not rock the boat.
Second, there is no way such a thing would be attempted for a cause so petty as encryption or spying on our own citizens. Once again compare the two situations. Half a century ago, we were literally fearful that the world would be conquered. Nowadays, we're fearful that we might not be able to read someone's email?
I wish I had as much faith in our government as you seem to. Given a scenario where you have a corrupt government trying to get into everybody's pants, what's petty about being able to track everything being done on the 'net (including e-commerce, lest we forget). Antiterrorism to be sure, but my take on it is that it's meant to keep a short leash on malcontents among its own people, rather than deflect any outside threat. If you'll recall they were trying to do that before all this, in several different ways. Regardless of how or why the attack happened, they're definately taking advantage of it now that it has.
This bill is quite limited in its scope, allowing only 48 hours to tap without approval and only for immediate threats to "National Security."
Yes, and with terrorism now the flavor of the month, and theoretically anyone capable of being a terrorist, that's still too broad for my comfort. I wouldn't trust our government with a Swiss Army knife, let alone effective omniscience.
Many civil liberties are restricted during threats to "National Security."
You say that like it excuses it.
Ever heard of martial law and curfews?
Ever heard of Auschwitz?
It's a slippery slope, that's all I'm saying. Taxes were originally raised for wartime purposes as a purely temporary measure as well.