My previous employer had a &70/mo. "tobacco surcharge" added to their insurer's policy (United Healthcare, in case you;re asking which company.)
Not a few folks lied to avoid paying $70 (or $140 if they had a spouse). Problem is, everyone who said they didn't use tobacco got a surprise urinalysis test that had to be performed that day. As a smoker, I was exempted (since I paid the surcharge, so I never saw the notice.) Basically, anyone who said they didn't use tobacco but had sufficient levels of nicotine in their system was given two choices: either pay up the surcharge, back to the last enrollment period (about 6 months' worth at that point), or be summarily fired.
As a former customer of the VAMC... seriously? VistA?
*shakes head*... just... just shut the hell up, disconnect from the Internet, burn your computer, and while you're at it? Burn down your house, just in case.
Hate to say it, but thanks to this new little law, it will be to the point where health insurance == healthcare.
Even now, most hospital policies and prices are vastly inflated specifically because they know they can charge insurance plans a metric shit-ton of money for every little thing.
Err, dunno how to say this, but that wasn't an analogy** - there was an actual dude agitating quite angrily while waving around a thinly disguised weapon. I'd be a hell of a lot more worried about him doing someone else harm than I would some ordinary guy plinking targets at a gravel pit.
Either way, I made no absolutes, merely questions.;)
Not to troll of anything, but since when was there an established priority in amendments? Perhaps I'm asking out of ignorance, but I always figured all amendments to have equal priority and enforcement, except where they collide (...which leaves the courts to sort out depending on circumstance, motive, etc.)
Wouldn't users who tag someone as a dangerous gun owner run up against potential libel laws?
Laws, no. A lawsuit, maybe... depends on how the app is constructed, and what it 'says'. There's a difference between (note the contrast): * "A gun owner lives here that scares me right out of my Birkenstocks" * "OMFG THIS LUNATIC IZ TEH EVILZ AND HE EATS BABIES!!!11!!"
I know, way too blatant, but used to illustrate a point - you can only sue for libel/slander if what it says isn't true, and it is done in a malicious manner. While the prof does remove the first safety (by making a politically charged app that can be very easily construed as being used for malicious intent), the way it's worded still has to be used to project an untruth about the person who gets offended enough to sue over it.
Why isn't the argument basis for geotagging potentially violent people of any stripe, no matter what their weapon of choice? Ah, it's the ideology. Bound to stir up some flamage.
You know? Yesterday, there was a bit of a protest as the local longshoremen decided to clog up our building and get noisy for a bit (the business they were protesting occupies a floor in the building). After seeing one of the protesters walking in with a sign nailed to a baseball bat (and a rather agitated look on his face), not to mention the rather battle-ready attitude of most the strikers (and then seeing this article today)? I kind of wonder why everyone fixates on weapons, when the problem is people... I mean, if the argument was about dangerous weapons, then maybe someone ought to geotag all the farmers who live next to truck stops, since a mixture of diesel fuel and fertilizer is way the hell more dangerous than a gun could ever be.
Given all of that, the argument is, IMHO, nothing more than a way to agitate for an ideology centered around what the guy considers to be a scary weapon... and nothing more. It's a means to put a stigma on gun owners that someone, somewhere thinks to be 'dangerous' (whatever that may mean) - much like one would geotag sex offenders or other 'undesireables' (in that person's mind).
Well, fair enough I guess, if that's what floats his ideological boat. Then again, I hope he can afford the potential lawsuit that would come from someone being incorrectly 'tagged'...
I for one was disappointed, but only because I fully expected to see evidence of leather goddesses.
Damnit.
OTOH, the sense of wonder was less to do with eye-candy, and more to do with mentally placing myself on that remote plain, watching the thing rise. Sort of like how I felt the first time I saw a satellite pass over on a clear, moonless evening in the country.
Sure, it's just a dot, but as someone elsewhere in here said, when you know a little about what you're watching, that little moving dot becomes pretty fricking amazing.
I agree in principle. On the other hand, there are similar precedents that fall under 'aiding and abetting', for perhaps 'incitement to commit...' It's like not only arresting a killer, but also arresting the guy who got the killer drunk and egged him on to do the deed.
(Knowing) possession of (actual, not drawn) CP is a gray area, but IMHO actively collecting the actual photographic/video variety of the crap should count as a solid misdemeanor with a fine, but (minus a lack of any credible evidence showing that you're making the stuff) not an automatic prison sentence or having a lifetime stigmata (unless it's serial, then maybe ramp things up with each successive offense). Sort of like how having a joint will get you a ticket/fine in most states, but actively making and selling the stuff in quantities will get you locked up.** Or, if you prefer, it should remain as much of a crime as 'incitement' would be (that is, treat the buyer like he's egging someone on to commit the original crime of abuse, but with a lesser punishment since it's not direct).
There is firm and ethical precedent for doing this, and it can be done without violating or denying any innocent party's freedom.
**mind you, the point isn't to preach for/against marijuana; I merely used it as an example of a usable gradient of punishment.
Some freedoms are more important than others, and some safety mechanisms are more effective than others. The TSA (and arguably most or all real consequences of the Patriot Act) is a sham, and it's disingenuous to lump together baby formula and baby porn as being even remotely comparable on the danger scale.
Actually, there are parallels - the TSA will be all over you (or deny you your paid-for flight, then probably add you to a no-fly list) if you even think about making a bomb/terrorist joke in the security line. You can run into massive legal trouble if you draw something erotic that even remotely looks like it's younger than 18 years old. Both have one very important thing in common - they're thoughtcrimes.
Citation needed. No doubt that's one reason, but what about the effects of conditioning people (or leaving the legal door open for them to condition themselves, if you prefer) to respond sexually to minors? There are some very good reasons not to encourage or allow child pornography which doesn't directly involve children.
1) Seriously - Google. It's not that hard for such a simple concept (besides, I don't feel like tripping work proxy alerts, even if I do have root access to the thing).
2) Conditioning? Outside of a few overly-impressionable people, your hypothesis doesn't hold up. Consider: Paedophilia was once commonly accepted as late as the 17-18th centuries (see also at least half of the females in Casanova's autobiography, Histoire De Ma Vie, if you want some indication of just how common) , and pr0n wasn't exactly commonplace back then. Nowadays, the phenomenon relatively rare by comparison, or at least has declined greatly when expressed as a percentage of the population, in spite of the explosion of child porn, delivery of same via the Internet, etc.
To semi-invoke Godwin's Law, are you saying (as equivalent) that reading Mein Kampf will make someone conditioned towards becoming a Nazi, merely because of having read the book? Doesn't really make sense.
Only true insofar as quantity. Quality OTOH will likely improve, if you want the truth. Any site that relies (even in large part) on ad impressions for its survival is likely one that has starved itself to death a long time ago, is is barely straggling along.
there are far too many other ways of making income from a website (an internal store, premium content, even donations stand out as examples.)
Making and supporting a web site takes time and money.
So does any other worthwhile endeavor. Doesn't mean it has to have adverts, though.
I am not sure if you remembered how horrable adds were in the late 1990's early 2000.
I beg to differ - it's uglier today.
Turn off all your blockers/add-ins/extensions sometime, and go visit ZDNet or parts of CNET. They stand out as only a couple examples of how a company can jack in a shit-ton of intrusive dancing adverts (where even clicking on what looks like blank space will toss an advert at you). Also note that back in the late '90s you only had popups and cookies at worst (okay, they had Bonzi Buddy or whatever-the-hell-that-was, but that bullshit required your explicit collusion to install).
Today you have to contend with LSOs, stealth "toolbars" that slide in just because you updated Java and weren't paying attention, and other intrusive-as-fuck tracking techniques that slip right by most non-techies. Oh, and I won't even have to mention that now we get to put up with ISP collusion as a matter-of-course (ad-packed redirects for failed DNS lookups, anyone?)
1) A nitpick: Prohibition of alcohol (the 18th Amendment) was ratified in 1919, before the "roaring-twenties". It was repealed (the 21st Amendment) in 1933, during the Great Depression.
2) If it is in the monetary interest of enough people to provide it, porn continue unabated online... just as (to bring up your example) alcohol was still very readily available during the 1920's.
Lots of U.S. "twenties" are also doing this as well.
Perhaps, but lots of "U. S. twenties" also get out of the house to socialize, find work, and many even live there along with their young wives (and perhaps kids?)
The rest is tinfoil, IMHO - something better ascribed to incompetence (or at best apathy) than to some fanciful malicious plan.
I understand and feel the revulsion that a healthy adult has towards child porn, but from an objective/legal point-of-view, the West got stupid about how they enforce such laws. Here's why: The basis of laws surrounding it is that the production of child porn harms a child - something that makes perfect sense, and should have laws in place to prevent/limit as much as logically possible. OTOH, who exactly is harmed in a comic strip? One would think that it would present a means of release for those pervs who do get into such crap, and to let them do so without harming anyone in the process. A teenaged kid sexting his/her SO should get a stern talking-to by the parents, and definitely should be enlightened on why that is a monumentally stupid idea - but no, the kid should not get tossed in the slammer and stigmatized for life.
Possession/distribution of actual photography or video depicting actual kids being sexually abused *is* illegal in Japan - because sexual abuse is just as much a crime there as it is in any other civilized country. Hell, if I remember right, distributing photographic/video porn depicting genitalia of *adults* is a crime in Japan (albeit a misdemeanor w/ a heavy fine...) OTOH, the comic/drawn ones can show whatever detail the artist feels like including.
You (tqk) are definitely correct in that Japan is an enigma unto itself, culturally. Millennia of isolation will morph any culture into something that will likely never be understood from any POV outside of it. That said, Japan got hella creative in what their multi-faceted culture is and represents - to themselves. Anyone else could blow off an entire a lifetime trying to understand it.
As for TFA? I can see why it would make sense for some Japanese men to simply withdraw from society... Japan isn't exactly an easy-going culture to live in, competition for anything (females, jobs, status, whatever) is incredibly intense, and there are few other routes available to the typical Japanese man that doesn't involve a shitload of money (e.g. move self and family to another country whose culture you may get on better in.) These men still have a non-negotiable duty to care for their parents, and real estate/rent is frickin' astronomical anyway. They spent nearly every waking hour of their childhood with little outside of intense study and discipline, so it's not like they learned to be social mavens in the first place - they likely only found peace when they were alone.
Hell - even if they do find a job and a wife, they may not leave home anyway. The answer why is pretty simple; If their parents own and don't rent, they stand a better chance of inheriting their parents' home than they do of ever being able to afford one of their own - which is pretty traditional in its own right. In most cases, it's not like they have as much potential competition from siblings, what with smaller family sizes over the decades.
It is like if the rest of the world would detect that you are from the States and serve everything in Spanish because there is a big Hispanic community.
Hell, the State of California practically does that now.:/
In all seriousness though, Belgium has it easy compared to Switzerland... the gov't there has four official languages (German, French, Italian, Romanian), and yet nearly everything defaults to German (because 65 some-odd percent of the population speaks it first-most.)
( Glad my ancestry came form the German bit of it - made the genealogy easier...:) )
But, about the NSA thingy? Heh - non-issue when it comes to Open Source, but only insofar as you can trust whoever wraps the distro.
Ostensibly, this is a means to help folks who don't have a bank account to carry electronic money around. In some cases, it's on the up-and-up; many of these cards charge monthly fees that are lower than what, say, Bank of America will weasel out of you on a monthly basis. I had a NetSpend card for awhile as an experiment of sorts, and it worked out very well... enough to get me to drop my old BoA account for about a year, until I found a credit union that better suited my needs.
OTOH, many of these cards are shady as hell, and little wonder some employers push them - the kickbacks have got to be extremely tempting, to say the least. Then again, many banks are just as bad, if not worse.
Long-term, I see it as an overall move towards ditching cash altogether - the poor are the last barrier to such a society, and these card programs are aimed squarely at them. Most are unable to get a bank account (bounced checks, etc), they often get state assistance nowadays in the form of debit cards now. OTOH, cash has a wonderful way of getting paid without the IRS knowing about it, so I can see government's angle in wanting e-money over the regular stuff. Cash also makes it hard for police to track money flow, etc... so yeah, I can see the allure from that viewpoint. I can also see the allure of not having to print and distribute paychecks from the employer's end.
All that said, I wonder how long it will be until cash is done away with altogether, and what the drawbacks to society will be from doing so. Cash is a beautiful means of buying things without the purchase being tracked (and yes, most times it is not only legit, but done for good reasons), and it has the advantage of being accepted pretty much anywhere (even if you have to convert currency first. Finally and most important, cash doesn't require a transaction fee every time it gets used - way too much room for abuse and corruption there.
In both cases, a psychological exam might be prudent.
...sort of how the People's Republic of China used to label dissenters as 'psychologically deficient' to give them legal cover for imprisonment or worse.
Thanks, but no thanks. It's all about intent, not content - at least, that's how it should be.:(
And yet he is still allowed to own guns... Because that freedom is so much more important
Flamebait, but I'll bite:
If he made a joke about drunk driving, do you think his driving privileges should be permanently revoked too?
There's a *huge* difference between a credible threat leveled at a specific target, and just farting around. If you cannot tell the difference, kindly stop your internet service, burn your computer, and cancel your TV/cable/sat subscription.
It also sums up the fact that space is an enormous deadly vacuum with no real reason to send people there.
Hate to say it, but we already live in space - this big ball of mud and air that we call home happens to float in it. It'd be nice to get out in the neighborhood a little, no?
Slashdot Mirror
My previous employer had a &70/mo. "tobacco surcharge" added to their insurer's policy (United Healthcare, in case you;re asking which company.)
Not a few folks lied to avoid paying $70 (or $140 if they had a spouse). Problem is, everyone who said they didn't use tobacco got a surprise urinalysis test that had to be performed that day. As a smoker, I was exempted (since I paid the surcharge, so I never saw the notice.) Basically, anyone who said they didn't use tobacco but had sufficient levels of nicotine in their system was given two choices: either pay up the surcharge, back to the last enrollment period (about 6 months' worth at that point), or be summarily fired.
Problem is, government is forcing business decisions, which in turn forces behavior.
Not seeing any part of the Constitution where this is anywhere near okay to do.
As a former customer of the VAMC... seriously? VistA?
*shakes head*... just... just shut the hell up, disconnect from the Internet, burn your computer, and while you're at it? Burn down your house, just in case.
Hate to say it, but thanks to this new little law, it will be to the point where health insurance == healthcare.
Even now, most hospital policies and prices are vastly inflated specifically because they know they can charge insurance plans a metric shit-ton of money for every little thing.
Err, dunno how to say this, but that wasn't an analogy** - there was an actual dude agitating quite angrily while waving around a thinly disguised weapon. I'd be a hell of a lot more worried about him doing someone else harm than I would some ordinary guy plinking targets at a gravel pit.
Either way, I made no absolutes, merely questions. ;)
** Here's a bit of video from that event. Note that it's the 'clean' version, likely taken by one of the strikers.
First Amendment > Second Amendment.
Not to troll of anything, but since when was there an established priority in amendments? Perhaps I'm asking out of ignorance, but I always figured all amendments to have equal priority and enforcement, except where they collide (...which leaves the courts to sort out depending on circumstance, motive, etc.)
Wouldn't users who tag someone as a dangerous gun owner run up against potential libel laws?
Laws, no. A lawsuit, maybe... depends on how the app is constructed, and what it 'says'. There's a difference between (note the contrast):
* "A gun owner lives here that scares me right out of my Birkenstocks"
* "OMFG THIS LUNATIC IZ TEH EVILZ AND HE EATS BABIES!!!11!!"
I know, way too blatant, but used to illustrate a point - you can only sue for libel/slander if what it says isn't true, and it is done in a malicious manner. While the prof does remove the first safety (by making a politically charged app that can be very easily construed as being used for malicious intent), the way it's worded still has to be used to project an untruth about the person who gets offended enough to sue over it.
Dunno about you, but having been in the military, and having done IPSC events as a civilian alongside cops?
I can tell you that I trust a typical soldier's sense of gun safety (and accuracy!) far more than I would trust a typical police officer's.
Why isn't the argument basis for geotagging potentially violent people of any stripe, no matter what their weapon of choice? Ah, it's the ideology. Bound to stir up some flamage.
You know? Yesterday, there was a bit of a protest as the local longshoremen decided to clog up our building and get noisy for a bit (the business they were protesting occupies a floor in the building). After seeing one of the protesters walking in with a sign nailed to a baseball bat (and a rather agitated look on his face), not to mention the rather battle-ready attitude of most the strikers (and then seeing this article today)? I kind of wonder why everyone fixates on weapons, when the problem is people... I mean, if the argument was about dangerous weapons, then maybe someone ought to geotag all the farmers who live next to truck stops, since a mixture of diesel fuel and fertilizer is way the hell more dangerous than a gun could ever be.
Given all of that, the argument is, IMHO, nothing more than a way to agitate for an ideology centered around what the guy considers to be a scary weapon... and nothing more. It's a means to put a stigma on gun owners that someone, somewhere thinks to be 'dangerous' (whatever that may mean) - much like one would geotag sex offenders or other 'undesireables' (in that person's mind).
Well, fair enough I guess, if that's what floats his ideological boat. Then again, I hope he can afford the potential lawsuit that would come from someone being incorrectly 'tagged'...
I for one was disappointed, but only because I fully expected to see evidence of leather goddesses.
Damnit.
OTOH, the sense of wonder was less to do with eye-candy, and more to do with mentally placing myself on that remote plain, watching the thing rise. Sort of like how I felt the first time I saw a satellite pass over on a clear, moonless evening in the country.
Sure, it's just a dot, but as someone elsewhere in here said, when you know a little about what you're watching, that little moving dot becomes pretty fricking amazing.
I agree in principle. On the other hand, there are similar precedents that fall under 'aiding and abetting', for perhaps 'incitement to commit...' It's like not only arresting a killer, but also arresting the guy who got the killer drunk and egged him on to do the deed.
(Knowing) possession of (actual, not drawn) CP is a gray area, but IMHO actively collecting the actual photographic/video variety of the crap should count as a solid misdemeanor with a fine, but (minus a lack of any credible evidence showing that you're making the stuff) not an automatic prison sentence or having a lifetime stigmata (unless it's serial, then maybe ramp things up with each successive offense). Sort of like how having a joint will get you a ticket/fine in most states, but actively making and selling the stuff in quantities will get you locked up.** Or, if you prefer, it should remain as much of a crime as 'incitement' would be (that is, treat the buyer like he's egging someone on to commit the original crime of abuse, but with a lesser punishment since it's not direct).
There is firm and ethical precedent for doing this, and it can be done without violating or denying any innocent party's freedom.
**mind you, the point isn't to preach for/against marijuana; I merely used it as an example of a usable gradient of punishment.
Some freedoms are more important than others, and some safety mechanisms are more effective than others. The TSA (and arguably most or all real consequences of the Patriot Act) is a sham, and it's disingenuous to lump together baby formula and baby porn as being even remotely comparable on the danger scale.
Actually, there are parallels - the TSA will be all over you (or deny you your paid-for flight, then probably add you to a no-fly list) if you even think about making a bomb/terrorist joke in the security line. You can run into massive legal trouble if you draw something erotic that even remotely looks like it's younger than 18 years old. Both have one very important thing in common - they're thoughtcrimes.
Citation needed. No doubt that's one reason, but what about the effects of conditioning people (or leaving the legal door open for them to condition themselves, if you prefer) to respond sexually to minors? There are some very good reasons not to encourage or allow child pornography which doesn't directly involve children.
1) Seriously - Google. It's not that hard for such a simple concept (besides, I don't feel like tripping work proxy alerts, even if I do have root access to the thing).
2) Conditioning? Outside of a few overly-impressionable people, your hypothesis doesn't hold up. Consider: Paedophilia was once commonly accepted as late as the 17-18th centuries (see also at least half of the females in Casanova's autobiography, Histoire De Ma Vie, if you want some indication of just how common) , and pr0n wasn't exactly commonplace back then. Nowadays, the phenomenon relatively rare by comparison, or at least has declined greatly when expressed as a percentage of the population, in spite of the explosion of child porn, delivery of same via the Internet, etc.
To semi-invoke Godwin's Law, are you saying (as equivalent) that reading Mein Kampf will make someone conditioned towards becoming a Nazi, merely because of having read the book? Doesn't really make sense.
Then you will not have as many websites.
Only true insofar as quantity. Quality OTOH will likely improve, if you want the truth. Any site that relies (even in large part) on ad impressions for its survival is likely one that has starved itself to death a long time ago, is is barely straggling along.
there are far too many other ways of making income from a website (an internal store, premium content, even donations stand out as examples.)
Making and supporting a web site takes time and money.
So does any other worthwhile endeavor. Doesn't mean it has to have adverts, though.
I am not sure if you remembered how horrable adds were in the late 1990's early 2000.
I beg to differ - it's uglier today.
Turn off all your blockers/add-ins/extensions sometime, and go visit ZDNet or parts of CNET. They stand out as only a couple examples of how a company can jack in a shit-ton of intrusive dancing adverts (where even clicking on what looks like blank space will toss an advert at you). Also note that back in the late '90s you only had popups and cookies at worst (okay, they had Bonzi Buddy or whatever-the-hell-that-was, but that bullshit required your explicit collusion to install).
Today you have to contend with LSOs, stealth "toolbars" that slide in just because you updated Java and weren't paying attention, and other intrusive-as-fuck tracking techniques that slip right by most non-techies. Oh, and I won't even have to mention that now we get to put up with ISP collusion as a matter-of-course (ad-packed redirects for failed DNS lookups, anyone?)
Agreed with sibling. Very apt hypothesis.
Couple o' things:
1) A nitpick: Prohibition of alcohol (the 18th Amendment) was ratified in 1919, before the "roaring-twenties". It was repealed (the 21st Amendment) in 1933, during the Great Depression.
2) If it is in the monetary interest of enough people to provide it, porn continue unabated online... just as (to bring up your example) alcohol was still very readily available during the 1920's.
Lots of U.S. "twenties" are also doing this as well.
Perhaps, but lots of "U. S. twenties" also get out of the house to socialize, find work, and many even live there along with their young wives (and perhaps kids?)
The rest is tinfoil, IMHO - something better ascribed to incompetence (or at best apathy) than to some fanciful malicious plan.
This, right here.
I understand and feel the revulsion that a healthy adult has towards child porn, but from an objective/legal point-of-view, the West got stupid about how they enforce such laws. Here's why: The basis of laws surrounding it is that the production of child porn harms a child - something that makes perfect sense, and should have laws in place to prevent/limit as much as logically possible. OTOH, who exactly is harmed in a comic strip? One would think that it would present a means of release for those pervs who do get into such crap, and to let them do so without harming anyone in the process. A teenaged kid sexting his/her SO should get a stern talking-to by the parents, and definitely should be enlightened on why that is a monumentally stupid idea - but no, the kid should not get tossed in the slammer and stigmatized for life.
Possession/distribution of actual photography or video depicting actual kids being sexually abused *is* illegal in Japan - because sexual abuse is just as much a crime there as it is in any other civilized country. Hell, if I remember right, distributing photographic/video porn depicting genitalia of *adults* is a crime in Japan (albeit a misdemeanor w/ a heavy fine...) OTOH, the comic/drawn ones can show whatever detail the artist feels like including.
You (tqk) are definitely correct in that Japan is an enigma unto itself, culturally. Millennia of isolation will morph any culture into something that will likely never be understood from any POV outside of it. That said, Japan got hella creative in what their multi-faceted culture is and represents - to themselves. Anyone else could blow off an entire a lifetime trying to understand it.
As for TFA? I can see why it would make sense for some Japanese men to simply withdraw from society... Japan isn't exactly an easy-going culture to live in, competition for anything (females, jobs, status, whatever) is incredibly intense, and there are few other routes available to the typical Japanese man that doesn't involve a shitload of money (e.g. move self and family to another country whose culture you may get on better in.) These men still have a non-negotiable duty to care for their parents, and real estate/rent is frickin' astronomical anyway. They spent nearly every waking hour of their childhood with little outside of intense study and discipline, so it's not like they learned to be social mavens in the first place - they likely only found peace when they were alone.
Hell - even if they do find a job and a wife, they may not leave home anyway. The answer why is pretty simple; If their parents own and don't rent, they stand a better chance of inheriting their parents' home than they do of ever being able to afford one of their own - which is pretty traditional in its own right. In most cases, it's not like they have as much potential competition from siblings, what with smaller family sizes over the decades.
Actually, it wasn't Magic Johnson, but his massive pile of cash.
It is like if the rest of the world would detect that you are from the States and serve everything in Spanish because there is a big Hispanic community.
Hell, the State of California practically does that now. :/
In all seriousness though, Belgium has it easy compared to Switzerland... the gov't there has four official languages (German, French, Italian, Romanian), and yet nearly everything defaults to German (because 65 some-odd percent of the population speaks it first-most.)
( Glad my ancestry came form the German bit of it - made the genealogy easier... :) )
But, about the NSA thingy? Heh - non-issue when it comes to Open Source, but only insofar as you can trust whoever wraps the distro.
Ostensibly, this is a means to help folks who don't have a bank account to carry electronic money around. In some cases, it's on the up-and-up; many of these cards charge monthly fees that are lower than what, say, Bank of America will weasel out of you on a monthly basis. I had a NetSpend card for awhile as an experiment of sorts, and it worked out very well... enough to get me to drop my old BoA account for about a year, until I found a credit union that better suited my needs.
OTOH, many of these cards are shady as hell, and little wonder some employers push them - the kickbacks have got to be extremely tempting, to say the least. Then again, many banks are just as bad, if not worse.
Long-term, I see it as an overall move towards ditching cash altogether - the poor are the last barrier to such a society, and these card programs are aimed squarely at them. Most are unable to get a bank account (bounced checks, etc), they often get state assistance nowadays in the form of debit cards now. OTOH, cash has a wonderful way of getting paid without the IRS knowing about it, so I can see government's angle in wanting e-money over the regular stuff. Cash also makes it hard for police to track money flow, etc... so yeah, I can see the allure from that viewpoint. I can also see the allure of not having to print and distribute paychecks from the employer's end.
All that said, I wonder how long it will be until cash is done away with altogether, and what the drawbacks to society will be from doing so. Cash is a beautiful means of buying things without the purchase being tracked (and yes, most times it is not only legit, but done for good reasons), and it has the advantage of being accepted pretty much anywhere (even if you have to convert currency first. Finally and most important, cash doesn't require a transaction fee every time it gets used - way too much room for abuse and corruption there.
In both cases, a psychological exam might be prudent.
...sort of how the People's Republic of China used to label dissenters as 'psychologically deficient' to give them legal cover for imprisonment or worse.
Thanks, but no thanks. It's all about intent, not content - at least, that's how it should be. :(
And yet he is still allowed to own guns... Because that freedom is so much more important
Flamebait, but I'll bite:
If he made a joke about drunk driving, do you think his driving privileges should be permanently revoked too?
There's a *huge* difference between a credible threat leveled at a specific target, and just farting around. If you cannot tell the difference, kindly stop your internet service, burn your computer, and cancel your TV/cable/sat subscription.
"...can't stop the signal, Mal."
It's amazing how science fiction is so indicative of the real world sometimes.
It also sums up the fact that space is an enormous deadly vacuum with no real reason to send people there.
Hate to say it, but we already live in space - this big ball of mud and air that we call home happens to float in it. It'd be nice to get out in the neighborhood a little, no?