Not copyright, but trade secret misappropriation.
The Uniform Trade Secrets Act is where to start. In California, its codified under Section 3426 to 3426.11 of the California Civil Code. What may trip up Blizz in this case is Misappropriation - "Acquisition of a trade secret of another by a person who knows or has reason to know that the trade secret was acquired by improper means." And that includes "Derived from or through a person who owed a duty to the person seeking relief to maintain its secrecy or limit its use". The UTSA expressly defines "improper means" to include "theft, bribery, misrepresentation, breach or inducement of a breach of a duty to maintain secrecy". The plain language of the statute and the Comments emphasize that both reverse engineering and independent development are not misappropriation, which means Blizz (and interestingly enough, the bot authors) are free to reverse engineer each other operationally - but trying to acquire the source code is probably breaking the law, at least on the face of things. The law plainly says that anyone who obtains by subterfuge or outright taking any information he has reason to know is confidential, is guilty of misappropriation. If a person obtains information directly or indirectly from someone who does not have authority to disseminate it, that person (or corporation in this case) may be liable for misappropriation by wrongful acquisition. The fact that the person under an obligation of nondisclosure (the bot emplouee or subcontractor) willingly or accidentally disclosed the information (source code) does not protect the recipient (Blizz). Thats the law.
This paints Blizz in a pretty bad legal light *if* whats is alleged (attempts to buy or coerce source code containing trade secret information, i.e. the the protected information of the bot company whcih was derived from the legal reverse engineering of the Blizz functionality).
Where this might bite Blizz is the penalties set forth in the law: At a minimum the bot company/author may recover attorneysâ(TM) fees for bad faith tactics in trade secret litigation or willful and malicious misappropriation (Cal. Civ. Code  3426.4), recover compensatory damages for loss (Cal. Civ. Code  3426.3(a)), and this is the kicker: they have the right for recovery of "exemplary" (punitive) damage award if the misappropriation is "willful and malicious" (Cal. Civ. Code  3426.3(c)).
On top of that, the California Business and Professions Code  17200 prohibits "any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice." This statute is extremely broad in its coverage of prohibited acts and practices, and it creates a private right of action for redress of any practice forbidden by any other law (civil, criminal, federal, state, municipal, statutory, regulatory or court made). So further sources of actions may be contained there - but thats so broad that I'm not going to speculate on what creative use of that law the parties may use against each other.
So that's the civil side. Here's where the real fun comes in: Criminal code. As in someone might become a felon, and/or go to state/federal prison. Federal and California laws address this - California first: Cal. Penal Code  499c "Theft of Trade Secrets". It subjects trade secret misappropriators (and persons conspiring with them) to criminal penalties if they appropriate trade secrets by wrongful or dishonest means, or if they offer anyone a bribe to do so. [emphasis added] . A violation is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000.00, imprisonment of up to one year, or both. The violation can be either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the value of the trade secret stolen.
Summary of Vital Statistics 2012 The City of New York, Pregnancy Outcomes, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Vital Statistics
Table 1: the total number of live births, spontaneous terminations (miscarriages), and induced terminations (abortions) for women in different age brackets between 15 and 49 years of age. The table also breaks that data down by race â" Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander, Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black â" and also by borough of residence: Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island.
The numbers show that in 2012, there were 31,328 induced terminations (abortions) among non-Hispanic black women in New York City. That same year, there were 24,758 live births for non-Hispanic black women in New York City. There were 6,570 more abortions than live births of black children.
Try applying that 100% to RNs. How are you going to predict patients that get worse, that get better, that crach, etc. Impossible to predict workload of an individual patient. So impossible to get that mythical 100%. You need slack to be there when multiple codes hit a single ICU or unit, or when a big motor vehicle accident hits the ER and surgical staff. The article is written by some idiot efficiency expert who apparently has no idea how you need some sort of reserve to draw upon, both staff-wise and personal-wise. Running flat out for a full shift is enough to wreck even the greatest surgeon or nurse if done too often. Same goes for coders, having been both (RN and Sr SW Engr)
You can demand full access when that person sues you for libel. That's what we are talking about here. Its not a random grab by a critic, but a request (subpoena) for information in a suit BROUGHT BY MANN. So save your anger and your wild imagination trips. This is not about opening up your daughter's email, its about the right of a person to subpoena information from a public employee who is suing him.
It wasn't the "critics" or the political commentator who brought this to court. It was Mann who sued them, opening the way for discovery subpoenas against him, not FOIA requests. This blocks the defendant from getting to a public employee's communications that may possibly be used to defend one's self against a suit by that employee. This could be a very bad precedent. And don't confuse this with the FOIA stuff, nor with critics/skeptics using it to harass Mann: Bottom line is that if Mann had not sued in order to silence a political columnist, none of this would ever have been necessary.
That is what worries me more than anything else - if a public employee sues you in a matter of free speech (to silence you from criticizing him, via use of libel laws), this precedent gives that government employee a huge shield to hide behind and resist your attempts to discover information to defend yourself with against his lawsuit. This is a terrible precedent because it will provide for government coverups and denials of FOIA requests in the long run. Imagine this being used by a public employee you do not like politically, for a libel suit for your criticism of him - whether justifiable or not, it limits your ability to defend yourself. These folks are public employees, and their correspondence should as a general rule be available (excluding classified information, or personal privacy redacted info). A blanket limit on discovery when defending against a lawsuit from a public employee is a bad thing
I transitioned from Software Engineer to RN. Med-Surg, then ER. Licensed. Also US Army veteran, so doubly useful. My wife is a pastry chef (baker) - and an amateur brewer -- as well as an Army veteran too (thats where we met) So if the worst happens, we will be well positioned to help.
With that uid you have been around long enough to remember the AOL invasion of Usenet and the massive chaos that imposed on users. However, unlike Usenet back then, we now have plenty of alternatives, and this place will become quickly abandoned if a similar impact happens. I wonder if those pushing this have read Santayana...
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
There is always further to fall (I didn't think we could get worse than Reagan... And yet we continually managed).
Yeah bringing down "stagflation" ( inflation averaged 12.5%, compared with 4.4% during Reagan's last year in office, unemployment rate declined from 7.5% to 5.4%) , then starting one of the biggest economic booms, initiating the START treaty (actually eliminating nuclear weapons and reducin warhead counts for the first time ever), and setting up the fall of Communism without the horror of a war or bloody revolution in Europe. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 3.85% per year; Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Robert A. Mundell, argue that Reagan's tax policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s. That Reagan was really terrible, yeah? I suggest you learn a bit more of the real history of that era. I was a kid, and I remember Carter and the misery, and how Reagan (and the Dem Congress, truly bipartisan) worked to repair the damage done.
If their supply of diesel is cut off, do you really expect them to have a supply of hydrogen, which is refined from natural gas? (It can be made in other ways, but this is how it is done.)
US has massive natural gas reserves and production - it is an exporter of natural gas, over 1.4 trillion cubic feet to Canada and Mexico alone, via pipeline. So obtaining hydrogen from that source will not be a question like crude-oil based diesel or gasoline fuel might be. Thats likely why they chose it, the environmental angle is just a PR bonus
Just buy a USB number pad and call it a day. They cost $30 for wireless ones, i have one i used forever as a macro keypad for WoW rather then drop $100+ on the G15 keyboard.
I know this is slashdot, but really, Read The Fine Original Post, the one at the very top before all the comments.
For practicality reasons, an external USB keypad is less convenient than a built-in one.
The Swiss are also the beneficiaries of very mountainous terrain (notoriously hard to attack) and VERY heavily armed (An assault rifle in most homes). Plus in their history (there's that word again, history), the Swiss were feared mercenaries, and even the subject of treaties regarding use. There have also been civil wars, and repression of the populace. You seem to omit those. Switzerland is unique in its position, and hardly applicable as a realistic example, plus they too, have had blood in their past as I showed. Again, human nature is just to bloody to disarm.
I recommended you learn history - apparently your grasp of history only extends to Wikipedia. Rather poor examples, you must be joking. Pax Romana? Constant small wars and battles all around the edges of the empire - study your history, you can start with Boudica and her routing the IX Hispana Legion in a rebellion. And you overlook the rest of the world - for instance the Han Dynasty's 100+ years Sino-Xiongnu war. Pax Britannica? An even bigger joke - you completely overlook the US Civil war, and lots of smaller wars like the Crimean war (Charge of the light brigade), the Opium wars in China, the Russian-Japanese wars of the early 20th, and the multiple Prussian wars in Europe, and even the Boer war towards the end of the period. Pax Americana? Come on, you should know better. For the US itself, there are a ton: Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan (Both the US and the Russians have had a go there). World wide there have been nearly innumerable colonial, then tribal wars that cause massive starvation in Africa, not to mention the Arab-Israeli wars, Indo-Pakistan. and numerous insurgencies all over the place like the Moro-Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines (who really need a different acronym if they want to stop people from snickering). Like I said, you need to learn some history. Come back when you learn the lessons of said history. Thanks for playing, have a nice day.
War is not so much a matter of weapons as of money -- Thucydides That was 25 centuries ago. Care to give even one instance of an extended period in civilized history in which war did not occur? That was what the point (which you apparently completely missed). Human nature insures there will always be war, naively wishing war would not happen doesn't make it go away. Santayana was right: Only the dead have seen the end of war. It is not a matter of if you have to spend money on military and war, its how much (and how well spent the "much" is). "A wise man in times of peace prepares for war." -- Horace's ancient advice still rings true down all the centuries. The only real choice is not whether to spend, but how much. War is such a horrid thing that it is incumbent to spend enough money and time to preclude one if possible, and to win one quickly and as bloodlessly as possible if not.
Your problem is, human nature. Those who beat their swords into plowshares will till the soil for those who have not.
It's not human nature, it's your civilization and its institutions.... Violence is human nature, war is not.
I suggest you take a few history courses. War of some sort or another (for gain or subjugation) has existed as long as any human civilization larger than a family has existed.
Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. ~Charles Sumner
It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953
I'll just leave these in this thread...
Nice sentiments. But far too idealistic and unrealistic. Your problem is, human nature. Those who beat their swords into plowshares will till the soil for those who have not.
you are rather simpleminded and frozen in your political outlook if you think the D party doesnt covent defense spending nearly as much as the R party. Two sides of the same coin.
You're the one who's "frozen in your political outlook". Obama's budget proposal would cut military spending. By quite a bit, in fact. See for yourself. Click the department totals tab.
Nice fantasy: depending on Obama's budget. I live in reality. Obamas budget was defeated by a unanimous vote (0 voting for, 414 D and R voting against) in case you didn't notice. Try to read what I said instead of being frozen to your preconceived "D Good R Bad" misconception: 2 sides, same coin. Learn. Or else all you will ever be is a convenient dupe for one side or the other.
Will Panetta still be in if the Willard Romney wins? No - that's why he wants to lay the groundwork *now*. He wants to help his industrialist buddies. Very little R vs D here to see - you are rather simpleminded and frozen in your political outlook if you think the D party doesnt covent defense spending nearly as much as the R party. Two sides of the same coin.
They have to be beaten down, shoved aside, and ignored
A rather unique approach you have to the scientific method, and applying it to public policy, which by nature demands consensus for anything to be done. Either you are an idiot who is doing more harm to his cause than he realizes, or I bow to you for trolling me with that jack-booted comment.
Slashdot Mirror
Not copyright, but trade secret misappropriation. The Uniform Trade Secrets Act is where to start. In California, its codified under Section 3426 to 3426.11 of the California Civil Code. What may trip up Blizz in this case is Misappropriation - "Acquisition of a trade secret of another by a person who knows or has reason to know that the trade secret was acquired by improper means." And that includes "Derived from or through a person who owed a duty to the person seeking relief to maintain its secrecy or limit its use". The UTSA expressly defines "improper means" to include "theft, bribery, misrepresentation, breach or inducement of a breach of a duty to maintain secrecy". The plain language of the statute and the Comments emphasize that both reverse engineering and independent development are not misappropriation, which means Blizz (and interestingly enough, the bot authors) are free to reverse engineer each other operationally - but trying to acquire the source code is probably breaking the law, at least on the face of things. The law plainly says that anyone who obtains by subterfuge or outright taking any information he has reason to know is confidential, is guilty of misappropriation. If a person obtains information directly or indirectly from someone who does not have authority to disseminate it, that person (or corporation in this case) may be liable for misappropriation by wrongful acquisition. The fact that the person under an obligation of nondisclosure (the bot emplouee or subcontractor) willingly or accidentally disclosed the information (source code) does not protect the recipient (Blizz). Thats the law. This paints Blizz in a pretty bad legal light *if* whats is alleged (attempts to buy or coerce source code containing trade secret information, i.e. the the protected information of the bot company whcih was derived from the legal reverse engineering of the Blizz functionality). Where this might bite Blizz is the penalties set forth in the law: At a minimum the bot company/author may recover attorneysâ(TM) fees for bad faith tactics in trade secret litigation or willful and malicious misappropriation (Cal. Civ. Code  3426.4), recover compensatory damages for loss (Cal. Civ. Code  3426.3(a)), and this is the kicker: they have the right for recovery of "exemplary" (punitive) damage award if the misappropriation is "willful and malicious" (Cal. Civ. Code  3426.3(c)). On top of that, the California Business and Professions Code  17200 prohibits "any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice." This statute is extremely broad in its coverage of prohibited acts and practices, and it creates a private right of action for redress of any practice forbidden by any other law (civil, criminal, federal, state, municipal, statutory, regulatory or court made). So further sources of actions may be contained there - but thats so broad that I'm not going to speculate on what creative use of that law the parties may use against each other. So that's the civil side. Here's where the real fun comes in: Criminal code. As in someone might become a felon, and/or go to state/federal prison. Federal and California laws address this - California first: Cal. Penal Code  499c "Theft of Trade Secrets". It subjects trade secret misappropriators (and persons conspiring with them) to criminal penalties if they appropriate trade secrets by wrongful or dishonest means, or if they offer anyone a bribe to do so. [emphasis added] . A violation is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000.00, imprisonment of up to one year, or both. The violation can be either a misdemeanor or a felony, depending on the value of the trade secret stolen.
Summary of Vital Statistics 2012 The City of New York, Pregnancy Outcomes, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Vital Statistics
Table 1: the total number of live births, spontaneous terminations (miscarriages), and induced terminations (abortions) for women in different age brackets between 15 and 49 years of age. The table also breaks that data down by race â" Hispanic, Asian and Pacific Islander, Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black â" and also by borough of residence: Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island.
The numbers show that in 2012, there were 31,328 induced terminations (abortions) among non-Hispanic black women in New York City. That same year, there were 24,758 live births for non-Hispanic black women in New York City. There were 6,570 more abortions than live births of black children.
Fact are stubborn things. You're wrong. Admit it.
Try applying that 100% to RNs. How are you going to predict patients that get worse, that get better, that crach, etc. Impossible to predict workload of an individual patient. So impossible to get that mythical 100%. You need slack to be there when multiple codes hit a single ICU or unit, or when a big motor vehicle accident hits the ER and surgical staff. The article is written by some idiot efficiency expert who apparently has no idea how you need some sort of reserve to draw upon, both staff-wise and personal-wise. Running flat out for a full shift is enough to wreck even the greatest surgeon or nurse if done too often. Same goes for coders, having been both (RN and Sr SW Engr)
You can demand full access when that person sues you for libel. That's what we are talking about here. Its not a random grab by a critic, but a request (subpoena) for information in a suit BROUGHT BY MANN. So save your anger and your wild imagination trips. This is not about opening up your daughter's email, its about the right of a person to subpoena information from a public employee who is suing him.
It wasn't the "critics" or the political commentator who brought this to court. It was Mann who sued them, opening the way for discovery subpoenas against him, not FOIA requests. This blocks the defendant from getting to a public employee's communications that may possibly be used to defend one's self against a suit by that employee. This could be a very bad precedent. And don't confuse this with the FOIA stuff, nor with critics/skeptics using it to harass Mann: Bottom line is that if Mann had not sued in order to silence a political columnist, none of this would ever have been necessary.
That is what worries me more than anything else - if a public employee sues you in a matter of free speech (to silence you from criticizing him, via use of libel laws), this precedent gives that government employee a huge shield to hide behind and resist your attempts to discover information to defend yourself with against his lawsuit. This is a terrible precedent because it will provide for government coverups and denials of FOIA requests in the long run. Imagine this being used by a public employee you do not like politically, for a libel suit for your criticism of him - whether justifiable or not, it limits your ability to defend yourself. These folks are public employees, and their correspondence should as a general rule be available (excluding classified information, or personal privacy redacted info). A blanket limit on discovery when defending against a lawsuit from a public employee is a bad thing
I transitioned from Software Engineer to RN. Med-Surg, then ER. Licensed. Also US Army veteran, so doubly useful. My wife is a pastry chef (baker) - and an amateur brewer -- as well as an Army veteran too (thats where we met) So if the worst happens, we will be well positioned to help.
With that uid you have been around long enough to remember the AOL invasion of Usenet and the massive chaos that imposed on users. However, unlike Usenet back then, we now have plenty of alternatives, and this place will become quickly abandoned if a similar impact happens. I wonder if those pushing this have read Santayana...
Heh.
Same opinion of beta.
Your tax dollars at work
Where are my mod points when I need them? Great post. From inside the Healthcare industry, that's the view of a lot of people I know.
There is always further to fall (I didn't think we could get worse than Reagan... And yet we continually managed).
Yeah bringing down "stagflation" ( inflation averaged 12.5%, compared with 4.4% during Reagan's last year in office, unemployment rate declined from 7.5% to 5.4%) , then starting one of the biggest economic booms, initiating the START treaty (actually eliminating nuclear weapons and reducin warhead counts for the first time ever), and setting up the fall of Communism without the horror of a war or bloody revolution in Europe. Real gross domestic product (GDP) grew during his eight years in office at an annual rate of 3.85% per year; Nobel Prize winners Milton Friedman and Robert A. Mundell, argue that Reagan's tax policies invigorated America's economy and contributed to the economic boom of the 1990s. That Reagan was really terrible, yeah? I suggest you learn a bit more of the real history of that era. I was a kid, and I remember Carter and the misery, and how Reagan (and the Dem Congress, truly bipartisan) worked to repair the damage done.
And 4 more years of Obama's failed policies and terrible economics would be anything other? We're hosed either way.
If their supply of diesel is cut off, do you really expect them to have a supply of hydrogen, which is refined from natural gas? (It can be made in other ways, but this is how it is done.)
US has massive natural gas reserves and production - it is an exporter of natural gas, over 1.4 trillion cubic feet to Canada and Mexico alone, via pipeline. So obtaining hydrogen from that source will not be a question like crude-oil based diesel or gasoline fuel might be. Thats likely why they chose it, the environmental angle is just a PR bonus
I use BT, chat, email, FG and even play WoW and flash games. So I guess I'm in trouble:
Come see the symptoms inherent in the system, Help Help, I'm being depressed!
Just buy a USB number pad and call it a day. They cost $30 for wireless ones, i have one i used forever as a macro keypad for WoW rather then drop $100+ on the G15 keyboard.
I know this is slashdot, but really, Read The Fine Original Post, the one at the very top before all the comments.
For practicality reasons, an external USB keypad is less convenient than a built-in one.
The Swiss are also the beneficiaries of very mountainous terrain (notoriously hard to attack) and VERY heavily armed (An assault rifle in most homes). Plus in their history (there's that word again, history), the Swiss were feared mercenaries, and even the subject of treaties regarding use. There have also been civil wars, and repression of the populace. You seem to omit those. Switzerland is unique in its position, and hardly applicable as a realistic example, plus they too, have had blood in their past as I showed. Again, human nature is just to bloody to disarm.
I recommended you learn history - apparently your grasp of history only extends to Wikipedia. Rather poor examples, you must be joking. Pax Romana? Constant small wars and battles all around the edges of the empire - study your history, you can start with Boudica and her routing the IX Hispana Legion in a rebellion. And you overlook the rest of the world - for instance the Han Dynasty's 100+ years Sino-Xiongnu war. Pax Britannica? An even bigger joke - you completely overlook the US Civil war, and lots of smaller wars like the Crimean war (Charge of the light brigade), the Opium wars in China, the Russian-Japanese wars of the early 20th, and the multiple Prussian wars in Europe, and even the Boer war towards the end of the period. Pax Americana? Come on, you should know better. For the US itself, there are a ton: Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan (Both the US and the Russians have had a go there). World wide there have been nearly innumerable colonial, then tribal wars that cause massive starvation in Africa, not to mention the Arab-Israeli wars, Indo-Pakistan. and numerous insurgencies all over the place like the Moro-Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines (who really need a different acronym if they want to stop people from snickering). Like I said, you need to learn some history. Come back when you learn the lessons of said history. Thanks for playing, have a nice day.
Anything to get a mm wave look at some underage breasts.
Sadly, this may have some truth to it - she looks like a cute enough high school girl in the online picture in the article. TSA and Pedobear, BFF
War is not so much a matter of weapons as of money -- Thucydides That was 25 centuries ago. Care to give even one instance of an extended period in civilized history in which war did not occur? That was what the point (which you apparently completely missed). Human nature insures there will always be war, naively wishing war would not happen doesn't make it go away. Santayana was right: Only the dead have seen the end of war. It is not a matter of if you have to spend money on military and war, its how much (and how well spent the "much" is). "A wise man in times of peace prepares for war." -- Horace's ancient advice still rings true down all the centuries. The only real choice is not whether to spend, but how much. War is such a horrid thing that it is incumbent to spend enough money and time to preclude one if possible, and to win one quickly and as bloodlessly as possible if not.
Your problem is, human nature. Those who beat their swords into plowshares will till the soil for those who have not.
It's not human nature, it's your civilization and its institutions. ... Violence is human nature, war is not.
I suggest you take a few history courses. War of some sort or another (for gain or subjugation) has existed as long as any human civilization larger than a family has existed.
Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace. ~Charles Sumner
It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers. ~Author unknown, quoted in You Said a Mouthful edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, American Society of Newspaper Editors, 16 April 1953
I'll just leave these in this thread...
Nice sentiments. But far too idealistic and unrealistic. Your problem is, human nature. Those who beat their swords into plowshares will till the soil for those who have not.
you are rather simpleminded and frozen in your political outlook if you think the D party doesnt covent defense spending nearly as much as the R party. Two sides of the same coin.
You're the one who's "frozen in your political outlook". Obama's budget proposal would cut military spending. By quite a bit, in fact. See for yourself. Click the department totals tab.
Nice fantasy: depending on Obama's budget. I live in reality. Obamas budget was defeated by a unanimous vote (0 voting for, 414 D and R voting against) in case you didn't notice. Try to read what I said instead of being frozen to your preconceived "D Good R Bad" misconception: 2 sides, same coin. Learn. Or else all you will ever be is a convenient dupe for one side or the other.
Will Panetta still be in if the Willard Romney wins? No - that's why he wants to lay the groundwork *now*. He wants to help his industrialist buddies. Very little R vs D here to see - you are rather simpleminded and frozen in your political outlook if you think the D party doesnt covent defense spending nearly as much as the R party. Two sides of the same coin.
They have to be beaten down, shoved aside, and ignored
A rather unique approach you have to the scientific method, and applying it to public policy, which by nature demands consensus for anything to be done. Either you are an idiot who is doing more harm to his cause than he realizes, or I bow to you for trolling me with that jack-booted comment.