"Look, I don't like this either, but I can't figure out why, whenever anyone does *anything* wrong, people call for that person to be fired."
I pay his paycheck.
"Being fired sucks, especially if you have kids and a house and can't move easily."
A congresscritter's chief of staff? Yeah, I can see him collecting unemployment benefits, playing the world's smallest fiddle.
Even if he isn't hired by another MC in ten seconds flat, I'm sure there'd be enough lobbyists beating a path to his door.
"It's unlikely that he's going to do the same thing again, "
It's more likely he does "the same thing" for a living.
"So what's the deal with firing him?"
He violated ethics rules associated with his job (the kind he agreed to when he accepted the position to begin with). He did so in a way that is antithetical to the republican ideals of the government he's supposed to be working for.
Speaking of which, his boss is subject to biennial elections. There's supposed to be a high turnover rate!
"What a funny reflection of the world (or at least the US) today; politicians meddle with something that belongs to the public, making it worse, using it to their own advantage, and the public has to kick them out."
We hold these Truths to be self-evident... (t)hat whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is in the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
"If they're going to fire the Chief of Staff of the Congressman for small issues like that, they're going to have to sack the staffs of most congressmen."
Fine by me.
"There are much more important ethical issues going on (i.e. Abramoff) to be worried about Congressmen changing their own Wikipedia entries."
It's a lack of enforcement of the Little Rules that allows violations of the Big Rules to happen. Besides, we're not talking about ejecting Members of Congress (which would involve a vote) but firing a personal staffer, soemthing that is generally left to the discretion of the Representative.
"By Wikipedia's design anybody can change entries,"
Then you are unaware of the rule against editing your own biography? I seem to recall a Wikipedia founder getting in trouble for violating that rule recently...
"Besides, it's just an extension of what they do in campaigns to project themselves with a certain image."
That makes it right?
"If you're upset with it, get in an edit war with them and if you lose, that's too bad for you."
I was under the impression that the ethics rules were there to (among aother things) avoid petty bickerings like this by having an agreed-upon list of "Thou shallt not."
In January 2006, Matt Vogel, Meehan's chief of staff, admitted to authorizing a replacement article on Meehan published on Wikipedia, with an approved and sanitized staff-written biography [1] [2]. This ran afoul of internal Wikipedia guidelines [3], and government ethics' rules on the use of employee time.
The simple thing to do: fire Matt Vogel. If the Representative simply turns a blind eye to this sort of activity, then it is indicative of how he feels about ethical questions and what he thinks about the place of informed public debate in a republican form of government.
With Members of Congress like this about information on themselves, is it any wonder nobody there disclosed information on the warrantless wiretaps?
"Is it just me or does consulting a dictionary sound like a really poor way of deciding an issue of law?"
Until laws are written in some sort of self-referential language isntead of English, this is going to have to happen. It's either that or haul in the legislators and ask them what they meant when they passed a law, but doing that you shift from "rule of law" to "rule of legislators."
It's unfortunate enough that Congress gets to change the meaning of the words of the Constitution on a daily basis, I'd rather not see that creep down into the everyday statutes as well.
"I guess this means Best Buy doesn't hate their customers after all."
No, it means they can harvest (and sell) your address and contact info without having to pay for the envelope opener and data-entry team. That, and the cookies (oh, the cookies).
"So if they are foreign nationals our Constitution does not apply."
Even illegal aliens are required to be told their "Miranda" rights.
Generally speaking, the constitution only says "the people" and little about "these people vs. those people."
"So what sort of obligation are we under to provide them with lawyers and such?"
At least a moral obligation, lest we commit some of the very same grievances we accused King George and his Parliament of in the Declaration of Independence, such as
He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislaton:
For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond the Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
Remember that Microsoft has "opened" their code before (within the United States, even). The EU court may simply be remembering that what Microsoft says isn't always the same as what Microsoft means.
"Ya know, I guess this is why this country was set up as a Republic to begin with, because as I get older, its becoming readily apparent that the people don't always know what's best for them."
You know, you made my head hurt until I realized that you were one of those right-wingers that is willfully ignorant of what the word "republic" means. It means "government of the people, by the people, for the people," a government in which the people are the supreme sovereigns. "Republic" and "elected leaders" are mutually exclusive phrases, because in a republic the people are the leaders.
And on the topic of "what's best for them," was it best for "the people" to prop up the reprehensible regime of the Houe of Saud? Because that's why we're here in this "War on Terror" to begin with.
"Marketing of this "War on Terror" is done so well that people are readily willing to hand over their freedoms for an obviously flawed perception of additional security."
This is a sign that we are moving away from republicanism, not maintaining it.
"The fact that the government is currently telling people that they are doing it is actually a huge improvement."
That don't make it legal.
"If somebody in Cleveland calls"
And that's all that matters. Cleveland is a part of the State of Ohio, which was accepted into the Union in 1803. All persons born in or naturalized by the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside and are entitled to all privileges and immunities of United States citizens, such as those covered in the Fourth Amendment.
Why? IIRC, EQ for the PS2 uses separate servers from the main EQ population, why wouldn't this be different for SWG for the PS3? Those players could be in a completely different game and nobody would know the difference.
To date, unless you count PCs and Macs as two different platforms, the only MMORPG that has people playing on different platforms playing on the same server is Final Fantasy XI, and with all the headaches Square-Enix is getting with having to deal with Live, I don't see it happening again. So SOE has a blank check to write a completely different game for the console players without having to change the game for PC players.
We have a terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, which has repeatedly stated they want to kill lots and lots of american civilians."
And I don't see what the big deal is with dealing with the FISA court. He's the fifth president to have to deal with them, you can get warrants ex post facto, and it's painfully rare that the court doesn't give them a warrant.
The only possible explanation is that President Bush is trying to expand (excuse me, "restore") executive power and is using that attack you mentioned as a backdrop to play petty political games instead of, you know, finding bin Laden.
It's not like he couldn't have gotten warrantless wiretaps thrown in with the USA PATRIOT Act. There's precious little the 107th Congress wouldn't have given him.
"When they get phone calls from places like Morocco, Algeria, Syria, well.... I'd like for our government to know what the f they're discussing."
Red herring. Incoming calls are fair game and always have been. FISA only need be involved in outgoing calls, but President Bush couldn't manage even that much.
"Those will not be tapped (according to whats being discussed here anyways). This is about international calls (though that is barely discussed in the summary, likely for partisan reasons)."
So long as those calls are being made by a citizen of the United States within the United States, the Constitution must apply. We already have too many places where it does not apply (Guantanamo comes to mind), but when it doesn't apply to citizens within the Union proper, the document becomes completely worthless.
"every administration since the telephone was invented would be guilty of this to some degree,"
So? If the statute of limitations hasn't expired, bring them before a federal court. "Unless somebody else got away with it" is not a phrase that appears in the Constitution.
"I obviously don't think it should be considering where the world is at to day, but as always, ymmv."
So you don't think it's hypocritical for us to be running around creating new "constitutional republics" when we have so much trouble abiding by our own constitution?
"I look at the games and graphics for the DS and it looked HORRIBLE."
This from someone who in the previous paragraph lauded the NES? Sounds to me like you'd have been more likely to be one of the six people in North America who got a Sega Master System instead of an NES because "the games and graphics for the NES looked HORRIBLE!"
"Now I can play fun games with great graphics,"
Great games for the PSP? Both of them?
"downloaded movie clips, listen to my MP3s,"
So can the DS (and the GBA, for that matter). For considerably less money.
"Hell it even supports emulators."
"Support?" Since when does racing to put out new firmware updates to lock out the latest bach of homebrew count as "support?" You can get a flash card and get emulators to play on your DS with less fustration and without having to make sure you have the right hardware revision, but of course neither solution is as simple as the GP2X
And of course, if you have all those "fun games with great graphics" on UMD, why would you want to bother with emulators?
"However, the experience of playing Mario 64 without an analog stick was awkward."
So you would have Nintendo break the DS product line (only a slim minority will be trading in their current DS for a new one) simply because a game designed for a totally different console plays awkward on it?
Everybody and their mother on Slashdot complaining about ports and sequels, and your problem is because it won't play a port of a sequel well?
"it has been widely speculated that Nintendo would release an upgraded version in the future with an analog stick."
It's also widely speculated that there are Martians among us. What's your point?
"Now, we all know that Nintendo doesn't really listen to game pundits,"
And yet, somehow, they continue to make money hand over fist.
"Does it strike anyone else as hypocritical that Nintendo refuses to release small upgrades to their first party games (releasing sequels to games that just add new levels instead of totally redesigning the game engine which would mean having a new Mario/Mario Kart game each year instead of one every 3-5 years) but they release tons of incremental upgrades to their portable systems?"
Game Boy--1989 Game Boy Pocket--1996 (7 years) Game Boy Color--1998 (2 years) Game Boy Advance--2001 (3 years) Game Boy Advance SP--2003 (2 years) Game Boy micro--2005 (2 years)
Seems to me that they don't release an "incremental upgrade every year." We're not exactly talking about an EA Sports franchise.
Also, you're still advocating a design chagne to the DS that would break existing DSes in the wild, which runs against the trend with Game Boys, where the micro will still play games released in 2001.
And according to the blurb, he's reversing the policy of another president who said "nukular," and that one even worked on nuclear reactors for a living.
"Yet my problem with Campbell is his desire to enforce morality by LAW."
TFA makes no such assertions. If you are getting this from some other source, post a link. Otherwise this is the biggest strawman I have ever seen, all in an attempt to justify posting your diatribes in a more popular medium than your own blog.
"Are you a shill for the US Department of Justice?"
If I did, I'd be happy with the slap on the wrist given by the DoJ to Microsoft. Also, the USDoJ has nothing to do with the European Union, where Microsoft was also found guilty of similar crimes.
"According to the US DOJ, how long should a marijuana user be put in prison for, shill?"
Slashdot Mirror
"[Microsoft] has also expressed fears that making its source code public could allow hackers to find security holes in Microsoft products"
Microsoft has had access to the Windows sourcecode since 1.0 and there are still security holes they can't find themselves.
Heck, I'd wager opening the source would actually lower the rate that these security flaws are found.
"Look, I don't like this either, but I can't figure out why, whenever anyone does *anything* wrong, people call for that person to be fired."
I pay his paycheck.
"Being fired sucks, especially if you have kids and a house and can't move easily."
A congresscritter's chief of staff? Yeah, I can see him collecting unemployment benefits, playing the world's smallest fiddle.
Even if he isn't hired by another MC in ten seconds flat, I'm sure there'd be enough lobbyists beating a path to his door.
"It's unlikely that he's going to do the same thing again, "
It's more likely he does "the same thing" for a living.
"So what's the deal with firing him?"
He violated ethics rules associated with his job (the kind he agreed to when he accepted the position to begin with). He did so in a way that is antithetical to the republican ideals of the government he's supposed to be working for.
Speaking of which, his boss is subject to biennial elections. There's supposed to be a high turnover rate!
"If they're going to fire the Chief of Staff of the Congressman for small issues like that, they're going to have to sack the staffs of most congressmen."
Fine by me.
"There are much more important ethical issues going on (i.e. Abramoff) to be worried about Congressmen changing their own Wikipedia entries."
It's a lack of enforcement of the Little Rules that allows violations of the Big Rules to happen. Besides, we're not talking about ejecting Members of Congress (which would involve a vote) but firing a personal staffer, soemthing that is generally left to the discretion of the Representative.
"By Wikipedia's design anybody can change entries,"
Then you are unaware of the rule against editing your own biography? I seem to recall a Wikipedia founder getting in trouble for violating that rule recently...
"Besides, it's just an extension of what they do in campaigns to project themselves with a certain image."
That makes it right?
"If you're upset with it, get in an edit war with them and if you lose, that's too bad for you."
I was under the impression that the ethics rules were there to (among aother things) avoid petty bickerings like this by having an agreed-upon list of "Thou shallt not."
With Members of Congress like this about information on themselves, is it any wonder nobody there disclosed information on the warrantless wiretaps?
"Is it just me or does consulting a dictionary sound like a really poor way of deciding an issue of law?"
Until laws are written in some sort of self-referential language isntead of English, this is going to have to happen. It's either that or haul in the legislators and ask them what they meant when they passed a law, but doing that you shift from "rule of law" to "rule of legislators."
It's unfortunate enough that Congress gets to change the meaning of the words of the Constitution on a daily basis, I'd rather not see that creep down into the everyday statutes as well.
"telephone call that you receive"
Red herring. The question is about calls made by US citizens.
"I guess this means Best Buy doesn't hate their customers after all."
No, it means they can harvest (and sell) your address and contact info without having to pay for the envelope opener and data-entry team. That, and the cookies (oh, the cookies).
"No problem disassembling an ROV then."
No disassemble Johnny Five!
Even illegal aliens are required to be told their "Miranda" rights.
Generally speaking, the constitution only says "the people" and little about "these people vs. those people."
"So what sort of obligation are we under to provide them with lawyers and such?"
At least a moral obligation, lest we commit some of the very same grievances we accused King George and his Parliament of in the Declaration of Independence, such as
Remember that Microsoft has "opened" their code before (within the United States, even). The EU court may simply be remembering that what Microsoft says isn't always the same as what Microsoft means.
"Ya know, I guess this is why this country was set up as a Republic to begin with, because as I get older, its becoming readily apparent that the people don't always know what's best for them."
You know, you made my head hurt until I realized that you were one of those right-wingers that is willfully ignorant of what the word "republic" means. It means "government of the people, by the people, for the people," a government in which the people are the supreme sovereigns. "Republic" and "elected leaders" are mutually exclusive phrases, because in a republic the people are the leaders.
And on the topic of "what's best for them," was it best for "the people" to prop up the reprehensible regime of the Houe of Saud? Because that's why we're here in this "War on Terror" to begin with.
"Marketing of this "War on Terror" is done so well that people are readily willing to hand over their freedoms for an obviously flawed perception of additional security."
This is a sign that we are moving away from republicanism, not maintaining it.
"The fact that the government is currently telling people that they are doing it is actually a huge improvement."
That don't make it legal.
"If somebody in Cleveland calls"
And that's all that matters. Cleveland is a part of the State of Ohio, which was accepted into the Union in 1803. All persons born in or naturalized by the United States are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside and are entitled to all privileges and immunities of United States citizens, such as those covered in the Fourth Amendment.
Why? IIRC, EQ for the PS2 uses separate servers from the main EQ population, why wouldn't this be different for SWG for the PS3? Those players could be in a completely different game and nobody would know the difference.
To date, unless you count PCs and Macs as two different platforms, the only MMORPG that has people playing on different platforms playing on the same server is Final Fantasy XI, and with all the headaches Square-Enix is getting with having to deal with Live, I don't see it happening again. So SOE has a blank check to write a completely different game for the console players without having to change the game for PC players.
"Basically his career continues because he is a guaranteed money loser. It boggles the mind."
It's springtime for Hitler and Germany!
"I don't really understand what the big deal is.
We have a terrorist group, Al-Qaeda, which has repeatedly stated they want to kill lots and lots of american civilians."
And I don't see what the big deal is with dealing with the FISA court. He's the fifth president to have to deal with them, you can get warrants ex post facto, and it's painfully rare that the court doesn't give them a warrant.
The only possible explanation is that President Bush is trying to expand (excuse me, "restore") executive power and is using that attack you mentioned as a backdrop to play petty political games instead of, you know, finding bin Laden.
It's not like he couldn't have gotten warrantless wiretaps thrown in with the USA PATRIOT Act. There's precious little the 107th Congress wouldn't have given him.
"When they get phone calls from places like Morocco, Algeria, Syria, well.... I'd like for our government to know what the f they're discussing."
Red herring. Incoming calls are fair game and always have been. FISA only need be involved in outgoing calls, but President Bush couldn't manage even that much.
"Those will not be tapped (according to whats being discussed here anyways). This is about international calls (though that is barely discussed in the summary, likely for partisan reasons)."
So long as those calls are being made by a citizen of the United States within the United States, the Constitution must apply. We already have too many places where it does not apply (Guantanamo comes to mind), but when it doesn't apply to citizens within the Union proper, the document becomes completely worthless.
"every administration since the telephone was invented would be guilty of this to some degree,"
So? If the statute of limitations hasn't expired, bring them before a federal court. "Unless somebody else got away with it" is not a phrase that appears in the Constitution.
"I obviously don't think it should be considering where the world is at to day, but as always, ymmv."
So you don't think it's hypocritical for us to be running around creating new "constitutional republics" when we have so much trouble abiding by our own constitution?
So the only violent video game allowed in Utah is "America's Army?" Because everybody knows the Pentagon only uses force appropriately...
"I look at the games and graphics for the DS and it looked HORRIBLE."
This from someone who in the previous paragraph lauded the NES? Sounds to me like you'd have been more likely to be one of the six people in North America who got a Sega Master System instead of an NES because "the games and graphics for the NES looked HORRIBLE!"
"Now I can play fun games with great graphics,"
Great games for the PSP? Both of them?
"downloaded movie clips, listen to my MP3s,"
So can the DS (and the GBA, for that matter). For considerably less money.
"Hell it even supports emulators."
"Support?" Since when does racing to put out new firmware updates to lock out the latest bach of homebrew count as "support?" You can get a flash card and get emulators to play on your DS with less fustration and without having to make sure you have the right hardware revision, but of course neither solution is as simple as the GP2X
And of course, if you have all those "fun games with great graphics" on UMD, why would you want to bother with emulators?
"However, the experience of playing Mario 64 without an analog stick was awkward."
So you would have Nintendo break the DS product line (only a slim minority will be trading in their current DS for a new one) simply because a game designed for a totally different console plays awkward on it?
Everybody and their mother on Slashdot complaining about ports and sequels, and your problem is because it won't play a port of a sequel well?
"it has been widely speculated that Nintendo would release an upgraded version in the future with an analog stick."
It's also widely speculated that there are Martians among us. What's your point?
"Now, we all know that Nintendo doesn't really listen to game pundits,"
And yet, somehow, they continue to make money hand over fist.
"Does it strike anyone else as hypocritical that Nintendo refuses to release small upgrades to their first party games (releasing sequels to games that just add new levels instead of totally redesigning the game engine which would mean having a new Mario/Mario Kart game each year instead of one every 3-5 years) but they release tons of incremental upgrades to their portable systems?"
Game Boy--1989
Game Boy Pocket--1996 (7 years)
Game Boy Color--1998 (2 years)
Game Boy Advance--2001 (3 years)
Game Boy Advance SP--2003 (2 years)
Game Boy micro--2005 (2 years)
Seems to me that they don't release an "incremental upgrade every year." We're not exactly talking about an EA Sports franchise.
Also, you're still advocating a design chagne to the DS that would break existing DSes in the wild, which runs against the trend with Game Boys, where the micro will still play games released in 2001.
And according to the blurb, he's reversing the policy of another president who said "nukular," and that one even worked on nuclear reactors for a living.
"but we're all well educated athiests"
So theists must therefore be uneducated?
"Yet my problem with Campbell is his desire to enforce morality by LAW."
TFA makes no such assertions. If you are getting this from some other source, post a link. Otherwise this is the biggest strawman I have ever seen, all in an attempt to justify posting your diatribes in a more popular medium than your own blog.
"Ethanol would take up too much of our ag land that we need to sustain our food supply."
Considering the glut of corn-based junk foods out there, that actually might be a good thing.
"With your permission, I'd like to use that in one of my staff meetings."
It's not really mine, I stole it from elsewhere on the internet.
"Are you a shill for the US Department of Justice?"
If I did, I'd be happy with the slap on the wrist given by the DoJ to Microsoft. Also, the USDoJ has nothing to do with the European Union, where Microsoft was also found guilty of similar crimes.
"According to the US DOJ, how long should a marijuana user be put in prison for, shill?"
I'm unhappy with Gonzales v. Raich as well.