In my experience, the biggest vulnerability is the firm's legal counsel. The bigger the law firm, the bigger the vulnerability. If you hire people who brag about their amazing abilities to rationalize business behavior, take that talent into account when they solemnly assert their probity.
Obama finally got what doesn't even amount to national healthcare passed, so now the conservatives have shut down the government. He's definitely somewhere left of where they are trying to drag him. And you can't say he isn't trying hard.
When trying to wrangle the so-called "intelligence services" (which are really in the business of subverting governments) Obama has a much more difficult problem. These large, amorphous, name-changing, story-changing agencies have run rings around Presidents and Congress since the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency. Obama has help them look good and given them much of what they have asked for, apparently.
Obama is politically adept. There is reason to think that in exchange for not airing laundry in public he has introduced a higher degree of accountability. He made the intelligence services do or die on getting bin Laden. He has brought the hammer down on leaks. Relieved as one might be that Edward Snowden has documented what anyone with common sense could surmise was going on, secrecy has been operating well below the discipline required for security. "Classification" has been a goody-bag of inside information with widespread leak-power among political players. Obama has introduced a "if you say, you better mean it" approach.
Yes, this interpretation involves desperate hope. One wonders though what adverse treatment by the secret agencies a President -- any President -- must fear. Would they even know what was was being done against them? Could it be that this pathetic state we have now is the upper limit of good outcomes short of pitchfork mayhem? Desperate hope, desperate fear.
In the US, commercial TV broadcast is funded by advertising time. (And, in part, by selling rebroadcasting rights to cable channels.) That's why it's been classically "free" off-air to viewers.
Ancient history, long since expired, but kept alive as the rationale for broadcasters to stay in business
If it weren't for the historical myth, cable companies would not retain the monopolies they built on a stupid Supreme Court ruling that lipsticked a cheap resistor or rectifier in the jack connected to the television into a hocus-pocus sine-qua-non of proprietary signal enhancement , leading to the right to stick a black box next to the television, leading to signal scrambling, then to digital encoding, then to the complete replication of telephone and internet service.
The present suit is a back-door effort to repeat the prior con, and finally win the battle to separate video service from all other Internet services, and put it back under the exclusive controls of media executives.
Only small numbers of households get their signals over-the-air. There is a largely phony contest between local broadcasters and cable companies, but actually local television stations only care about their cable viewers and have to be shoved into providing minimally decent signals. Many don't bother. Their precious "retransmissions" are usually through a direct hardwire feed to the cable companies.
Broadcasters pretend to broadcast. Cable companies pretend to be local.
Cable did not get started as commercial-free, though.
It started as a community antenna service. Clusters of housing with reception problems. After Gerald Levin created Home Box Office, commercial-free premium networks got cable sold where it really wasn't needed but was really profitable, in denser, wealthier suburban areas. Then came the national cable-only "networks" which are really only content feeds, commercially supported because so many people really did just want reception. The ones who were paying to get rid of channels were additional sales, but not the core business.
Because none of the weapons or actions on that list are in themselves unlawful elements of warfare.
If you use a fork to kill a prisoner of war, you commit a war-crime. The use of a fork, however, is not the problem.
If you use a tactical nuclear weapon to eliminate a convoy of ships, that is not a war crime. If you use a match to burn down an occupied orphanage, that is a war crime.
Killing friendlies is not a war crime. Killing civilians as collateral damage is not a war crime.
Volunteers are more culpable, not less.
"You supply the story. I'll supply the war." --- William Randolf Hearst
1953 -- Coded reference in BBC World News broadcast certifies to the Shah of Iran that the British government endorses the impending overthrow of the democratic reformer elected as Prime Minister and leader of the Iranian Parliament.
1992 -- Two radio networks in Rwanda begin falsely reporting impending attacks by Tutsi forces against Hutu civilians, instigating mass murder and mayhem.
"Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war." -- Judith Miller, New York Times, 2002
...but flame troops, flame towers and Tesla coils are surely illegal internationally. Not to mention tactical nukes, using Tanya to C4 civilian buildings, flattening people with tanks, demolishing bridges, etc.
In the discussion below the article, someone from the State Information Technology Agency writes:
If I had not seen the memo myself I would not have believed it.... DBE was actually busy drafting an excellent guideline for e-Education which was solidly grounded on FOSS and MIOS, also mentioning ODF, and still allowing room for proprietary software where there was really no alternative. This is really going to upset Provinces that have been teaching Java (one of the top 10 languages in use worldwide). It is a clear step backwards. Education had the opportunity to push out a positive wave of change but this will have the exact opposite effect. Worst it constricts the opportunity to explore and experiment with the software. I really don't want to even think of the cost. I have heard some schools already starting to total up the cost to convert back to MS Office...
Clearly, they knew what they were undermining.
From the body of the article:
The South African government has a Free and Open Source Software Policy, that was promulgated in 2007, and this directive is counter to that policy completely in that it FORCES the implementation of proprietary technologies where viable FOSS alternatives exists in contradiction to government's own policy.
A generation of government-hacking prodigies will emerge from South Africa because of this. Circumventing government controls will become the first requirement for all neophyte South African programmers.
If I understand correctly, this directive was issued by bureaucrats with the highest responsibility for introducing students to the art of creating software. Ignorance is not a plausible explanation.
We are all absolutely certain that his being jailed for covering up traffic offences, surely the most egregious criminal evasion in modern British history, is completely unrelated to his opposition to unlimited and possibly unlawful spying on all classes of British subjects.
Cockroaches have sensors that directly trigger their legs to run, bypassing the central nervous system. Apparently, for long term genetic survival, it is more important to move than to know where your're going.
Millenia of evolution were invested in freeing their brains from the annoyance of human trespassers. Do you really want know what their next response will be?
When you are desperately trying to remove cockroaches from your iPhone, don't call us.
Explain what a professional observer does that adds credibility to the company's explanation. Enlighten the reader about something that otherwise will never be an essential element of education.
On the other hand, the failure to notice that particular species of whale does not fortify the company's case. It weakens it, logically. Logic is an essential element of education.
It is also now logical, since you've introduced the topic, to add that certified Marine Mammal Observers are not reliable, as this case shows.
rubbed it with a medical nitroglycerin patch to ensure it got the attention of sniffers. (The foregoing claim, being pure speculation, is guaranteed to be free of government disinformation.)
Fake ID's mailed from Canada to the address where the FBI found the servers. Totally plausible, right? That would be the address a clever black-marketeer would use when ordering forgeries internationally, which obviously is the only way to obtain them.
The purpose is to destroy a new product roll-out by providing competition just where the new competitor is setting up. Competitor fails to displace customers, monopolist survives with inferior offer.
Slashdot Mirror
In my experience, the biggest vulnerability is the firm's legal counsel. The bigger the law firm, the bigger the vulnerability. If you hire people who brag about their amazing abilities to rationalize business behavior, take that talent into account when they solemnly assert their probity.
Our schools are great. That's why the Chinese send their best graduate students here to learn economics.
Also, though, exchange rates go up and long-masked inflation kicks in.
The Chinese stop undercutting everyone else's exports and we pay back our debt in half-priced dollars.
"The previous budget did not prevent terrorism. We need more resources."
"Accountability has tied our hands. Don't ask what we do with the money."
The so-called "intelligence services" are really in the business of subverting governments.
They spend most of their time practicing on their home field.
The Soviets had the same problem. It's so much easier to manipulate a government that thinks you're on its side.
Previously attempted to blow up the World Trade Center using the McVey Method.
Previously attempt mass aircraft hijacking.
Taking flight training in the United States.
Now, here's a sample of FBI-CIA counterintelligence heads:
Rick Ames: Led CIA operations in Soviet counterintelligence. Betrayed country for money.
Robert Hanssen: Led FBI counterintelligence operations. Betrayed country for fun.
Sometimes I wonder whether our leaders have the right priorities.
Okay, all true, but...
Obama finally got what doesn't even amount to national healthcare passed, so now the conservatives have shut down the government. He's definitely somewhere left of where they are trying to drag him. And you can't say he isn't trying hard.
When trying to wrangle the so-called "intelligence services" (which are really in the business of subverting governments) Obama has a much more difficult problem. These large, amorphous, name-changing, story-changing agencies have run rings around Presidents and Congress since the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency. Obama has help them look good and given them much of what they have asked for, apparently.
Obama is politically adept. There is reason to think that in exchange for not airing laundry in public he has introduced a higher degree of accountability. He made the intelligence services do or die on getting bin Laden. He has brought the hammer down on leaks. Relieved as one might be that Edward Snowden has documented what anyone with common sense could surmise was going on, secrecy has been operating well below the discipline required for security. "Classification" has been a goody-bag of inside information with widespread leak-power among political players. Obama has introduced a "if you say, you better mean it" approach.
Yes, this interpretation involves desperate hope. One wonders though what adverse treatment by the secret agencies a President -- any President -- must fear. Would they even know what was was being done against them? Could it be that this pathetic state we have now is the upper limit of good outcomes short of pitchfork mayhem? Desperate hope, desperate fear.
Not leased. Owned. Bought and sold. In perpetuity.
What, you don't have a broadcast license, too?
In the US, commercial TV broadcast is funded by advertising time. (And, in part, by selling rebroadcasting rights to cable channels.) That's why it's been classically "free" off-air to viewers.
Ancient history, long since expired, but kept alive as the rationale for broadcasters to stay in business
If it weren't for the historical myth, cable companies would not retain the monopolies they built on a stupid Supreme Court ruling that lipsticked a cheap resistor or rectifier in the jack connected to the television into a hocus-pocus sine-qua-non of proprietary signal enhancement , leading to the right to stick a black box next to the television, leading to signal scrambling, then to digital encoding, then to the complete replication of telephone and internet service.
The present suit is a back-door effort to repeat the prior con, and finally win the battle to separate video service from all other Internet services, and put it back under the exclusive controls of media executives.
Only small numbers of households get their signals over-the-air. There is a largely phony contest between local broadcasters and cable companies, but actually local television stations only care about their cable viewers and have to be shoved into providing minimally decent signals. Many don't bother. Their precious "retransmissions" are usually through a direct hardwire feed to the cable companies.
Broadcasters pretend to broadcast. Cable companies pretend to be local.
Cable did not get started as commercial-free, though. It started as a community antenna service. Clusters of housing with reception problems. After Gerald Levin created Home Box Office, commercial-free premium networks got cable sold where it really wasn't needed but was really profitable, in denser, wealthier suburban areas. Then came the national cable-only "networks" which are really only content feeds, commercially supported because so many people really did just want reception. The ones who were paying to get rid of channels were additional sales, but not the core business.
Because none of the weapons or actions on that list are in themselves unlawful elements of warfare. If you use a fork to kill a prisoner of war, you commit a war-crime. The use of a fork, however, is not the problem. If you use a tactical nuclear weapon to eliminate a convoy of ships, that is not a war crime. If you use a match to burn down an occupied orphanage, that is a war crime. Killing friendlies is not a war crime. Killing civilians as collateral damage is not a war crime. Volunteers are more culpable, not less.
"You supply the story. I'll supply the war." --- William Randolf Hearst
1953 -- Coded reference in BBC World News broadcast certifies to the Shah of Iran that the British government endorses the impending overthrow of the democratic reformer elected as Prime Minister and leader of the Iranian Parliament.
1992 -- Two radio networks in Rwanda begin falsely reporting impending attacks by Tutsi forces against Hutu civilians, instigating mass murder and mayhem.
"Mr. Hussein's dogged insistence on pursuing his nuclear ambitions, along with what defectors described in interviews as Iraq's push to improve and expand Baghdad's chemical and biological arsenals, have brought Iraq and the United States to the brink of war." -- Judith Miller, New York Times, 2002
...but flame troops, flame towers and Tesla coils are surely illegal internationally. Not to mention tactical nukes, using Tanya to C4 civilian buildings, flattening people with tanks, demolishing bridges, etc.
None of the above.
In the discussion below the article, someone from the State Information Technology Agency writes:
If I had not seen the memo myself I would not have believed it.... DBE was actually busy drafting an excellent guideline for e-Education which was solidly grounded on FOSS and MIOS, also mentioning ODF, and still allowing room for proprietary software where there was really no alternative. This is really going to upset Provinces that have been teaching Java (one of the top 10 languages in use worldwide). It is a clear step backwards. Education had the opportunity to push out a positive wave of change but this will have the exact opposite effect. Worst it constricts the opportunity to explore and experiment with the software. I really don't want to even think of the cost. I have heard some schools already starting to total up the cost to convert back to MS Office...
Clearly, they knew what they were undermining.
From the body of the article:
The South African government has a Free and Open Source Software Policy, that was promulgated in 2007, and this directive is counter to that policy completely in that it FORCES the implementation of proprietary technologies where viable FOSS alternatives exists in contradiction to government's own policy.
A generation of government-hacking prodigies will emerge from South Africa because of this. Circumventing government controls will become the first requirement for all neophyte South African programmers.
In the discussion below the original article, it is noted that Microsoft provides free software to the schools covered by this directive.
If a cigarette company wants to supply free cigarettes to your students, should you accept?
If I understand correctly, this directive was issued by bureaucrats with the highest responsibility for introducing students to the art of creating software. Ignorance is not a plausible explanation.
We are all absolutely certain that his being jailed for covering up traffic offences, surely the most egregious criminal evasion in modern British history, is completely unrelated to his opposition to unlimited and possibly unlawful spying on all classes of British subjects.
Cockroaches have sensors that directly trigger their legs to run, bypassing the central nervous system. Apparently, for long term genetic survival, it is more important to move than to know where your're going.
Millenia of evolution were invested in freeing their brains from the annoyance of human trespassers. Do you really want know what their next response will be?
When you are desperately trying to remove cockroaches from your iPhone, don't call us.
Explain what a professional observer does that adds credibility to the company's explanation. Enlighten the reader about something that otherwise will never be an essential element of education.
On the other hand, the failure to notice that particular species of whale does not fortify the company's case. It weakens it, logically. Logic is an essential element of education.
It is also now logical, since you've introduced the topic, to add that certified Marine Mammal Observers are not reliable, as this case shows.
where 960 Jews, under a hopeless siege, committed suicide rather than submit to Roman overlords.
North Korea. Q.E.D.
rubbed it with a medical nitroglycerin patch to ensure it got the attention of sniffers. (The foregoing claim, being pure speculation, is guaranteed to be free of government disinformation.)
Fake ID's mailed from Canada to the address where the FBI found the servers. Totally plausible, right? That would be the address a clever black-marketeer would use when ordering forgeries internationally, which obviously is the only way to obtain them.
The purpose is to destroy a new product roll-out by providing competition just where the new competitor is setting up. Competitor fails to displace customers, monopolist survives with inferior offer.