I guess that if Bork made no promise not to actively assist in a cover up then he was a good guy after all.
It was his legal obligation to follow the President's orders, or resign. Resigning would have hurt more than it helped. So yes, he did the right thing, by any reasonable measurement.
You're p0wn3d, dude. His post was completely on the money
Uh, yeah, right. Bork disagreed with the decision and was considering not carrying out, as his two predecessors did, but it would have left the Justice Department in complete chaos. It was actually one of those men who resigned rather than carry out the order -- then-former AG Elliot Richardson -- who convinced Bork to stay and carry out the order, because Richardson had promised he would not interfere (and thus had no choice but to resign, or go back on his word), but Bork had made no such promise.
And this, 14 years or so later, justifies Borking Bork? And saying it does is "owning" me?
Think on.
As an aside, you shouldn't be so scared of new knowledge
Unfortunately, they picked a raging neo-con to be their leader and figurehead
That's a common misconception. Bush really isn't a neocon. He's a plain old conservative with some neoconservative tendencies. The *effect* may be, in your opinion, raging neoconservatism (war with Iraq, increased spending on social programs, high budget deficits), but I think these effects distort the picture of who Bush is.
I will say he is not a paleoconservative either, though. And it's why I voted against him in the 2000 primaries. But to me, he's worlds better than Gore or Kerry, so it was no contest in the general.
The modern Conservative Republicans exceedingly fall under the term "Neo-Conservative", falling away from the traditional budget hawk positions to a Nationalistic "protect the citizens at all costs".
Maybe "increasingly" but not "exceedingly." Modern conservative Republicans are, by far, more closely aligned with the "paleoconservatism" of people like Pat Buchanan, rather than the "neoconservatism" of Richard Perle.
I am personally a bit in-between, as I think most people are, but I lean strongly toward the paleo variety. Bush leans more to the neo variety.
Actually the confirmation of the Thomas was very hard fought. Remember Anita Hill? It was amazing that he was confirmed in the post Bork era, but it was no easy matter.
I don't know what Ford was thinking with Stevens. But Kennedy was only nominated because Bork was Borked, so Reagan had to pick someone more moderate. Same basic thing with Souter (not a specific Borking, but the fear of it).
It's amazing that Thomas ever got confirmed, given how hard it is to get bipartisan support in the post-Bork era the Democrats have given us, but he probably got in primarily because he is black, else he likely wouldn't have been able to get Democratic support. The other three Republican nominees were confirmed in the pre-Bork era.
But Bush has given very clear signals he has no intention of nominating such moderates as Souter and Kennedy.
It's quite clear that a judge that Bush might nominate -- a conservative, a strict constructionist -- would have sided against this decision.
Decisions like this make the case of Judge Bork all the more depressing. If he had not been Borked, he'd be there instead of Kennedy, and we would have a slightly more sane court.
It's not really useful to separate the judges by who appointed them, in most cases. What's more useful is looking at their voting history, which makes Souter a liberal on the court, regardless of the fact that he was nominated by Bush I.
And now we have two prominent cases in a row where the "bad guys" are the liberal judges (yes, Scalia voted "against" medical marijuana, but they would have won without his vote, too). Liberal/Conservative is a different thing in the SCOTUS chambers than it is in the halls of Congress.
Something most people are missing (some, like Declan, intentionally), is that you do not lose your right to have judicial oversight of the subpoena. You have the right to get judicial review of the subpoena before complying with it. Maybe that's not a good thing, but all those who imply that our Fourth Amendment rights are being violated are simply incorrect. Maybe the spirirt is being violated; that's a judgment call, but it certainly is not as bad as many make it out to be.
Funny how when you learn more about something, it's often not as bad as it first seems.
But if a crime was committed in the dining room of your home, and a (legally owned) gun which was not used in the crime was in your bedroom, should that gun be used as evidence against you?
If there is some reason to suspect that the gun might have been used in the commission of the crime, and that you were the only one (or most likely one) with access to it, then yes.
You're almost right, but you're not. There is no indication the encrtyption software was used, or intended for use, in conjunction with the criminal act, which is not the case where a perpetrator has a gun with him during the commission of a robbery.
A better analogy would be that a man *owns* a gun, not that he had one on him during his crime. Since he owns a gun, therefore perhaps he might be willing to shoot someone. This happens often in our criminal trials, and it is weak evidence, just like this encrpytion software is weak evidence. But it is, nevertheless, evidence.
I am old school: relevancy, if there is any question, should be a question for the jury. Let the defense attorney show that encryption software is often used for good, and in itself is not indication of wrongdoing, and let the jury take that into consideration.
What does raise my hackles more than other is prozelysation, though. This of ocurse includes some Christian evangelcal sects and writers
No, all. The so-called Great Commission, the last thing Jesus said before he left the Earth, was to go out and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A church or sect that does not believe in proselytizing is not Christian.
Now, there are more intrusive and annoying sorts of proselytizing, perhaps that is what offends you, the manner in which it is done. But OTOH, the far left antiwar crowd is far more annoying and intrusive with their proselytizing than any Christian group in the U.S.
I want to be able to select a file (or files) in iTunes and open it in QuickTime Player or VLC. So, I wrote this, and save it in ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts/. Select one or more files and select the script in your iTunes scripts menu.
tell application "iTunes"
set myfiles to location of selection
tell application "QuickTime Player"
activate
open myfiles
end tell end tell
Also save a separate version with "VLC" instead of "QuickTime Player". Also works with any media file in iTunes. including MP3s etc.
You don't see many people trying to convert people from Mac OS X, do you? It's about the fact that Microsoft dominates the industry and ruins it. Like take IE: it is a huge security problem, it has many properitary features, and it makes the rest of the Internet suck when people code to it or try to work around its limitations.
I'll say again, that everything about this is to me, plainly wrong.
I'll say again, I can't see where anything wrong was done, and at worst it just kinda looks bad, but since it is about something that is of virtually no importance, I couldn't care less.
All I ask is that if you don't see a problem, you should reconsider.
I am waiting for someone to show me where there actually IS a serious problem I should look at. All I've seen are false assertions that it is unconstitutional, nonsensical comparisons to fascism and McCarthy, and tin-foil-hat-induced claims that this will have a "chilling effect" on... well, anything.
I think you're an idiot just because you don't agree already.
And I think you're retarded for continuing to assert there's something wrong without actually showing that anything -- anything at all -- wrong happened.
That is exactly my point . Just because it's a political appointment does not mean that $250 to the Dems is good criterion
No, that is not your point. You were not saying the criterion may not be good, you were saying it is bad. And you didn't back up that point, you merely continue to reassert it.
I couldn't care less what criteria the President uses as long as it doesn't negatively impact the country. He's the President, and it is his appointment. The rest matters to me not in the least.
The whole thing about people caring for personal reasons makes it all the more laughable to me, as a libertarian, because it just gives me another reason to think the federal government should have no business dealing with such things in the first place.
The members of the commission were attending because their employers directed them to do so.
Maybe in some cases, maybe not. I would presume often it is because they requested it of their employers.
This is a selfish reason, and still a good one that serves our nation and our government well.
Maybe in some cases, and maybe not.
Your criterion for describing this as a political appointment are arbitrary and irrelevant.
They are neither.
I will grant you that many of Clinton's actions, including the one you describe, were worse than this action by the Bush administration. What does that prove?
My main thesis: that this is a nonstory.
By bringing this up, you increase my suspicion that your support here is purely partisan.
Suit yourself, but what it really shows is that the attacks on Bush are purely partisan.
Again, some of the people best suited for the job will not attend this meeting
Like I said, you have not shown this. You have done well to assert it, but that is not the same thing.
I tried to point out that it could have significantly more negative impact for those individuals actually kicked out of the meeting.
How? Only if they are participating in public service for selfish reasons in the first place, which tells me they shouldn't be on the commission in the first place.
This is obviously a punishment
You're missing a "not" in there.
Maybe when we Democrats gain control again, we should fire everyone in the military that donated money to conservative causes, since they are de facto representatives of the executive branch,
Good luck with that.
However, the most significant difference between the military and this commission points out what I've been thinking is probably at the root of this. If you are in the military, your political activities are restricted by the UCMJ. I've been kinda thinking that this may have started because a delegate of the IATC, or a similar commission, was using the opportunity to bash the Bush administration, or because there was some real fear that they either would do so, or that their existence on the commission as an opponent of Bush would be bad PR.
Further, the IATC delegation IS a political appointment, despite protestations to the contrary. What else can you call it? It's an unpaid public service controlled entirely by the President.
And this is nowhere near as bad as Clinton stacking the deck on the Bioethics commission, which was far more pronounced than anything Bush supposedly did to "attack" science. If you recall, Clinton was advised unanimously by his commission that there was nothing at all wrong with research cloning, something that is hotly debated by bioethicists. Bush's panel, while it leans right, has quite a bit of dissent on it, and Clinton's had relatively none.
The only reason that this is ok with you is because it's your guys that made the fuckup.
Too bad you haven't actually shown there is anything wrong with what happened.
Slashdot Mirror
I guess that if Bork made no promise not to actively assist in a cover up then he was a good guy after all.
It was his legal obligation to follow the President's orders, or resign. Resigning would have hurt more than it helped. So yes, he did the right thing, by any reasonable measurement.
You're p0wn3d, dude. His post was completely on the money
Uh, yeah, right. Bork disagreed with the decision and was considering not carrying out, as his two predecessors did, but it would have left the Justice Department in complete chaos. It was actually one of those men who resigned rather than carry out the order -- then-former AG Elliot Richardson -- who convinced Bork to stay and carry out the order, because Richardson had promised he would not interfere (and thus had no choice but to resign, or go back on his word), but Bork had made no such promise.
And this, 14 years or so later, justifies Borking Bork? And saying it does is "owning" me?
Think on.
As an aside, you shouldn't be so scared of new knowledge
He had none to offer.
Unfortunately, they picked a raging neo-con to be their leader and figurehead
That's a common misconception. Bush really isn't a neocon. He's a plain old conservative with some neoconservative tendencies. The *effect* may be, in your opinion, raging neoconservatism (war with Iraq, increased spending on social programs, high budget deficits), but I think these effects distort the picture of who Bush is.
I will say he is not a paleoconservative either, though. And it's why I voted against him in the 2000 primaries. But to me, he's worlds better than Gore or Kerry, so it was no contest in the general.
Yes, from me. Here and now.
... no. Not from you, not ever. *shrug*
Uh
Because anyone who would use the term "Borked", as if something wrong was done, either lacks a knowledge of history or an understanding of it.
Only a stupid person would say such a thing.
The modern Conservative Republicans exceedingly fall under the term "Neo-Conservative", falling away from the traditional budget hawk positions to a Nationalistic "protect the citizens at all costs".
Maybe "increasingly" but not "exceedingly." Modern conservative Republicans are, by far, more closely aligned with the "paleoconservatism" of people like Pat Buchanan, rather than the "neoconservatism" of Richard Perle.
I am personally a bit in-between, as I think most people are, but I lean strongly toward the paleo variety. Bush leans more to the neo variety.
Actually the confirmation of the Thomas was very hard fought. Remember Anita Hill? It was amazing that he was confirmed in the post Bork era, but it was no easy matter.
Yes, I am well aware.
I find your use of the term "Borked" to be offensive.
I couldn't care less.
Do you have any idea of who Bork even was?
Of course.
Time for a history lesson:
Not from you, no.
I don't know what Ford was thinking with Stevens. But Kennedy was only nominated because Bork was Borked, so Reagan had to pick someone more moderate. Same basic thing with Souter (not a specific Borking, but the fear of it).
It's amazing that Thomas ever got confirmed, given how hard it is to get bipartisan support in the post-Bork era the Democrats have given us, but he probably got in primarily because he is black, else he likely wouldn't have been able to get Democratic support. The other three Republican nominees were confirmed in the pre-Bork era.
But Bush has given very clear signals he has no intention of nominating such moderates as Souter and Kennedy.
It's quite clear that a judge that Bush might nominate -- a conservative, a strict constructionist -- would have sided against this decision.
Decisions like this make the case of Judge Bork all the more depressing. If he had not been Borked, he'd be there instead of Kennedy, and we would have a slightly more sane court.
It's not really useful to separate the judges by who appointed them, in most cases. What's more useful is looking at their voting history, which makes Souter a liberal on the court, regardless of the fact that he was nominated by Bush I.
And now we have two prominent cases in a row where the "bad guys" are the liberal judges (yes, Scalia voted "against" medical marijuana, but they would have won without his vote, too). Liberal/Conservative is a different thing in the SCOTUS chambers than it is in the halls of Congress.
Not in practice.
Actually, yes.
If it's served on your bank, landlord, employer, ISP, library, etc., then they have to comply without telling you
That's a completely separate issue from judicial review.
Something most people are missing (some, like Declan, intentionally), is that you do not lose your right to have judicial oversight of the subpoena. You have the right to get judicial review of the subpoena before complying with it. Maybe that's not a good thing, but all those who imply that our Fourth Amendment rights are being violated are simply incorrect. Maybe the spirirt is being violated; that's a judgment call, but it certainly is not as bad as many make it out to be.
Funny how when you learn more about something, it's often not as bad as it first seems.
But if a crime was committed in the dining room of your home, and a (legally owned) gun which was not used in the crime was in your bedroom, should that gun be used as evidence against you?
If there is some reason to suspect that the gun might have been used in the commission of the crime, and that you were the only one (or most likely one) with access to it, then yes.
You're almost right, but you're not. There is no indication the encrtyption software was used, or intended for use, in conjunction with the criminal act, which is not the case where a perpetrator has a gun with him during the commission of a robbery.
A better analogy would be that a man *owns* a gun, not that he had one on him during his crime. Since he owns a gun, therefore perhaps he might be willing to shoot someone. This happens often in our criminal trials, and it is weak evidence, just like this encrpytion software is weak evidence. But it is, nevertheless, evidence.
I am old school: relevancy, if there is any question, should be a question for the jury. Let the defense attorney show that encryption software is often used for good, and in itself is not indication of wrongdoing, and let the jury take that into consideration.
What does raise my hackles more than other is prozelysation, though. This of ocurse includes some Christian evangelcal sects and writers
No, all. The so-called Great Commission, the last thing Jesus said before he left the Earth, was to go out and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A church or sect that does not believe in proselytizing is not Christian.
Now, there are more intrusive and annoying sorts of proselytizing, perhaps that is what offends you, the manner in which it is done. But OTOH, the far left antiwar crowd is far more annoying and intrusive with their proselytizing than any Christian group in the U.S.
You don't seem to realize what corporatism entails.
You don't seem to have sufficient powers of observation to make that statement.
You don't see many people trying to convert people from Mac OS X, do you? It's about the fact that Microsoft dominates the industry and ruins it. Like take IE: it is a huge security problem, it has many properitary features, and it makes the rest of the Internet suck when people code to it or try to work around its limitations.
I'll say again, that everything about this is to me, plainly wrong.
... well, anything.
I'll say again, I can't see where anything wrong was done, and at worst it just kinda looks bad, but since it is about something that is of virtually no importance, I couldn't care less.
All I ask is that if you don't see a problem, you should reconsider.
I am waiting for someone to show me where there actually IS a serious problem I should look at. All I've seen are false assertions that it is unconstitutional, nonsensical comparisons to fascism and McCarthy, and tin-foil-hat-induced claims that this will have a "chilling effect" on
I think you're an idiot just because you don't agree already.
And I think you're retarded for continuing to assert there's something wrong without actually showing that anything -- anything at all -- wrong happened.
That is exactly my point . Just because it's a political appointment does not mean that $250 to the Dems is good criterion
No, that is not your point. You were not saying the criterion may not be good, you were saying it is bad. And you didn't back up that point, you merely continue to reassert it.
I couldn't care less what criteria the President uses as long as it doesn't negatively impact the country. He's the President, and it is his appointment. The rest matters to me not in the least.
The whole thing about people caring for personal reasons makes it all the more laughable to me, as a libertarian, because it just gives me another reason to think the federal government should have no business dealing with such things in the first place.
Have I correctly boiled down the debate?
No, because you're talking about 1. a paid job, and 2. a position where politics is irrevelant, but the qualification is based on political views.
Meanwhile, in the real world, we are talking about an unpaid position that is by definition a political appointment.
positions controlled entirely by the president are not necessarily political.
Yes, they are, actually.
paying $250 to the Democratic party is not still not a good reason to prevent someone from participating in this commission
In your opinion, which has not been backed up by any actual facts. It's begging the question.
I have taken it for granted that Verizon submitted a list of their best candidates, and that most of them were good.
No, you took it for granted that they would be some of the best people suited for the job, not merely that they would be good.
I'd say some are. It's a free country, remember?
What's that got to do with anything?
The problem is that anyone who spoke out against it - even if they were right - got the smackdown. It was a steamroller affair. So is this.
Anyone who would equate what McCarthy did to this either doesn't understand what McCarthy did, or simply has a complete lack of perspective.
The members of the commission were attending because their employers directed them to do so.
Maybe in some cases, maybe not. I would presume often it is because they requested it of their employers.
This is a selfish reason, and still a good one that serves our nation and our government well.
Maybe in some cases, and maybe not.
Your criterion for describing this as a political appointment are arbitrary and irrelevant.
They are neither.
I will grant you that many of Clinton's actions, including the one you describe, were worse than this action by the Bush administration. What does that prove?
My main thesis: that this is a nonstory.
By bringing this up, you increase my suspicion that your support here is purely partisan.
Suit yourself, but what it really shows is that the attacks on Bush are purely partisan.
Again, some of the people best suited for the job will not attend this meeting
Like I said, you have not shown this. You have done well to assert it, but that is not the same thing.
I tried to point out that it could have significantly more negative impact for those individuals actually kicked out of the meeting.
How? Only if they are participating in public service for selfish reasons in the first place, which tells me they shouldn't be on the commission in the first place.
This is obviously a punishment
You're missing a "not" in there.
Maybe when we Democrats gain control again, we should fire everyone in the military that donated money to conservative causes, since they are de facto representatives of the executive branch,
Good luck with that.
However, the most significant difference between the military and this commission points out what I've been thinking is probably at the root of this. If you are in the military, your political activities are restricted by the UCMJ. I've been kinda thinking that this may have started because a delegate of the IATC, or a similar commission, was using the opportunity to bash the Bush administration, or because there was some real fear that they either would do so, or that their existence on the commission as an opponent of Bush would be bad PR.
Further, the IATC delegation IS a political appointment, despite protestations to the contrary. What else can you call it? It's an unpaid public service controlled entirely by the President.
And this is nowhere near as bad as Clinton stacking the deck on the Bioethics commission, which was far more pronounced than anything Bush supposedly did to "attack" science. If you recall, Clinton was advised unanimously by his commission that there was nothing at all wrong with research cloning, something that is hotly debated by bioethicists. Bush's panel, while it leans right, has quite a bit of dissent on it, and Clinton's had relatively none.
The only reason that this is ok with you is because it's your guys that made the fuckup.
Too bad you haven't actually shown there is anything wrong with what happened.