And since according to TFA there's a good chance what he's selling are largely counterfeits, and we just discussed THAT issue... why isn't he being taken down for selling counterfeit merchandise?
I vaguely recall that there WAS some attempt to sue... a BBS, maybe? (almost 20 years ago, so I forget) over use of ZIPfiles, since everyone knows they're only used to make it easier to move warez.
California has checkpoints at the state borders (they've been there for decades) to protect the produce industry from imported pests. What's so hard about converting them into scan-the-human checkpoints??
LOL! And I was one of those students always down to the last stubs, because I could never remember to bring a new pencil. (Tho that mercifully ended when I discovered mechanical pencils.)
Of course, if we'd just smacked the gov't puppy and pitched it out the door the first time it pooped on our carpet, enforcing the concept that this is unacceptable behaviour the FIRST time it happened (rather than waiting until it was an entrenched habit), we wouldn't be spending these next several decades chasing it around with a spray bottle.
Still, any step toward retraining the gov't to have some manners is better than no step.
"Or in simpler terms, they make you do what they want, because you're afraid of what will happen if you don't."
I don't disagree, but it points out that we've been at the mercy of our own "domestic terrorists" for a long time: the IRS, Zoning/Code Enforcement, and a host of other coercive agencies which hold disproportonate power over our lives, because either we knuckle under, or they'll make our lives hell.
Good point, and I think is probably a "better" coercion tool over the long haul. Embarrassment or humiliation will enforce the desired behaviour far more readily than will any other sort of carrot or stick.
Someone above was complaining that 99% of the people "just don't care" and that's why we're in this shit today. I don't think that's the case; I think it's that 99% of the people don't SEE a reasonable way to avoid both the gov't-sponsored bullshit (like these TSA checkpoints) AND being humiliated. When in doubt, it's usually easier for the average person to put up with the bullshit rather than face the humiliation.
"Armed societies aren't necessarily polite. But there is an immediacy of consequence when the impolite turn violent. When ordinary citizens are armed, there is a built-in limit as to how far a violent criminal act can go unchecked."
And I think that is valuable to society. When the impolite go unchecked and there's no immediacy of consequence to teach 'em better, it turns into bullying of the rest of us (ie. violence against either our persons, our property, or our rights).
Relevant to the nominal topic, in today's society there's no negative consequence to being a TSA goon, so the TSA feels free to commit violence against our personal rights.
Coyotes in SoCal can be pretty bold. When I had a pack living here they'd hang out near my house (and even come up to my porch to get water) -- they're not really afraid of people. And as it happens, they're diurnal more often than not. But I've also seen 'em "not acting right" -- easy to recognise if you're familiar with or work with livestock (which I am/do).
Normally here if you're not actively chasing 'em off, when they see you they'll either casually trot away, or look right at you like "What??" Contrast a sick one -- standing in the middle of the highway on a hot day, head down, frothing at the mouth, tongue hanging to its knees but not panting. That one either had rabies, distemper, or parvovirus, but it was sure as hell "not acting right".
Creepy?? [blink] Oh! Yeah, that would be a, uh, "unique" method of dressing up on Halloween, for sure:D
Anyway... Happy Gobble-Gobble Day:)
Come to mention it, one year we got a frozen turkey from a derailment, just in time for Yankscoming Dinner! (Except that time the railroad picked 'em up and gave them away to needy families, which was cool of them.)
No, the way it worked was when a train derailed and scattered cargo all over the landscape, it wasn't worthwhile to pick it up (which would be fairly expensive in labour costs, and presumably it was insured) and since at that point it all needed to be washed and repackaged and might have minor damage, it couldn't be sold as "new goods" anyway. So after the rail company's investigation was finished, anyone was free to come pick up whatever they wanted. If the cargo was still laying helter-skelter all around the railway, it was free for the taking. If it had been scooped up and sent to a salvage yard, it was sold for a few cents on the dollar. Most often the spills left for anyone to take were clothes or canned food.
So yep, it was salvage, having literally "fell off the train" (boxcar and all). All perfectly legal and aboveboard.
"... they could take out a couple hundred annoyed people..."
Oh, NOW I understand. This is about getting the terrorists to attack the scanner lines, to get rid of those disgruntled types who are annoyed about being groped by our beloved TSA!
Maybe it could have been phrased better, but I don't think it should have been modded down, since you did raise a valid point -- as you say there are also questions of one's views on body exposure, religious beliefs (Christian and otherwise), or whatever.
Likewise, some people have strong beliefs about whether their body (or any portion thereof) should be touched by a stranger. In some cultures, this really IS considered rape.
None of these are given due consideration by either TSA scanners or TSA gropings. (I'm not big on "cultural sensitivity" crap, but the fact that we're all supposed to embrace that, then we get indiscriminately groped and scanned by the TSA, is sheer hypocrisy on the part of those who would tell us how to think and act.)
BTW some people just don't do shared nudity (nor wish to be groped/scanned), and it has nothing to do with shame or religion, but rather with maintaining a sense of having personal armor, so to speak.
Having used railways as footpaths... yeah, there's no real excuse, not even deafness -- you can feel the train coming a long ways off. And it's like most protections; the determined will circumvent them one way or another. This is really no different than the nominal topic; the determined terrorist will find a way.
Yeah, I expect that long-time-see-it-coming hit is indeed the worst for the engineer.:( A slow freight might have time to call it in and get someone to respond, but passenger rail is likely to have only 3-4 minutes from first sight to impact.
Side note: somewhere I go regularly that's about 100 miles away crosses the tracks several times enroute. It's common to encounter the same train multiple times on a single trip. In one case I got to sit and wait for the same damned train to go by THREE different times!!
Train is probably the most surefire way to commit suicide, so yeah, it does attract a "user base". Some of the "car stalled on the tracks" and "pedestrian on tracks" accidents I've heard of in Los Angeles were later determined to be suicides. (There was a big uproar a couple decades ago about fencing/gating off all the tracks, which is hardly practical, nor would it stop the determined "user". This was adequately proven when the next suicide by car-vs-train took place at a fenced and gated "safety intersection". If I remember right, that's the one where the engineer emergency-braked and the train derailed, being it was light passenger rail not freight. Big mess.)
And yeah, it's pretty damned hard on the engineer, who has absolutely no way to stop a zillion tons of train (120-240 tons for the locomotive alone; 40-60 tons apiece for loaded freight cars; even if it's moving very slowly, it takes TIME to halt it) in anywhere near the few seconds it takes someone to place themselves in harm's way.
For comparison, a dozen cars and light trucks might total up at around 20-25 tons. *crunch*
My face is public by default, unless I wear a mask/veil, which I think should be my prerogative. The contents of my bags? None of their business.
And I don't think inspecting our bags makes us any safer; all it does is alert any would-be perps that they should probably ship their bombs by air freight instead of as excess baggage.
I think that's all the same issue. Under a fair libertarian system, your garbage (whatever it may be) isn't allowed to impact my property any more than you're allowed to simply walk onto my land and break my stuff.
Here's something another slashdotter posted recently, that I think covers it adequately (lo and behold, I actually knew where I'd saved this comment at:)
=================== Chemisor (97276) writes: Alter Relationship on 11:13 AM -- Sunday November 21 2010 (#34299584)
In laissez faire economical system all property is private. When I own a plot of land, I own everything above and below it, including the air and water flowing through it. When you pollute the air and it drifts over my land, you are committing vandalism against my property, and are criminally liable for the damages you cause. That's a much stronger protection than what you get from the EPA. ===================
As to whether you can develop your own land even if it is habitat for the [insert endangered species here], I suppose that depends on whether you agree that all wildlife are state-owned (which is the legal fiction employed by most states) and that therefore this is damaging state property. (Then you could get into "but it was trespassing"; and whether the government's rights trump the individual's rights, which I think should NEVER happen.)
The question soon becomes, how invasive should the gov't become to protect individuals' property rights? What starts as "protection from your neighbour" soon becomes a protection racket.
======== A peculiarity of the aforementioned legal fiction: In Montana, if I dig a pond on my property, and stock it with fish which I paid for myself, nonetheless I need a fishing license to fish in my own pond, because the fish are still regarded as state-owned.
An observation about SWAT: the more SWAT equipment the cops have, the more paranoid and jackbooted the cops get, even when the citizenry is pretty much disarmed.
Crap, when I was in grade school, I made little bow-and-arrow sets with rubber bands, straight pins, and old Bic innards. One of 'em was good enough to send a metal-tipped pen refill through the drywall from halfway across the room. I was amazed. (Musta been crappy drywall, too.)
But we did this sort of shit when we had "free time" -- NOT during class. We wouldn't have dared; the teacher would have paddled our ass, then mom/dad would have paddled our ass again when we got home. AND we'd have been the butt of peer jokes for the next month.
And no one ever so much as suggested banning pens and pencils as a means of controlling obstreperous students.
Bah, they're way behind the times. I actually did this (accidentally stabbed a fellow student with a pencil, leaving a chunk of graphite embedded permanently) when I was in the 5th grade... back in 1965.
Seems to me a computer makes a better weapon anyway -- look at all the sharp pieces inside, and if all else fails, you can just bash someone over the head with it!!
I think it's simpler than that; you've got people frustrated by their own situation who want to blame/take it out on someone, anyone, but the biggest visible target makes them feel like they've accomplished the most.
In my observation terrorism is mainly about making the terrorists feel good about themselves (like big men who matter in the world), and has very little to do with what the target ever did (or didn't) to them.
Slashdot Mirror
And since according to TFA there's a good chance what he's selling are largely counterfeits, and we just discussed THAT issue ... why isn't he being taken down for selling counterfeit merchandise?
I vaguely recall that there WAS some attempt to sue ... a BBS, maybe? (almost 20 years ago, so I forget) over use of ZIPfiles, since everyone knows they're only used to make it easier to move warez.
California has checkpoints at the state borders (they've been there for decades) to protect the produce industry from imported pests. What's so hard about converting them into scan-the-human checkpoints??
Someone up above provided a citation showing a 75% drop in air travel since 2001. Apparently the airlines are slow learners.
[My cynical little voice adds, "Or maybe their gov't subsidies are larger than we know."]
LOL! And I was one of those students always down to the last stubs, because I could never remember to bring a new pencil. (Tho that mercifully ended when I discovered mechanical pencils.)
Of course, if we'd just smacked the gov't puppy and pitched it out the door the first time it pooped on our carpet, enforcing the concept that this is unacceptable behaviour the FIRST time it happened (rather than waiting until it was an entrenched habit), we wouldn't be spending these next several decades chasing it around with a spray bottle.
Still, any step toward retraining the gov't to have some manners is better than no step.
"Or in simpler terms, they make you do what they want, because you're afraid of what will happen if you don't."
I don't disagree, but it points out that we've been at the mercy of our own "domestic terrorists" for a long time: the IRS, Zoning/Code Enforcement, and a host of other coercive agencies which hold disproportonate power over our lives, because either we knuckle under, or they'll make our lives hell.
Good point, and I think is probably a "better" coercion tool over the long haul. Embarrassment or humiliation will enforce the desired behaviour far more readily than will any other sort of carrot or stick.
Someone above was complaining that 99% of the people "just don't care" and that's why we're in this shit today. I don't think that's the case; I think it's that 99% of the people don't SEE a reasonable way to avoid both the gov't-sponsored bullshit (like these TSA checkpoints) AND being humiliated. When in doubt, it's usually easier for the average person to put up with the bullshit rather than face the humiliation.
Is not helping turn the US into a police state a form of aiding and abetting our enemies??
"Armed societies aren't necessarily polite. But there is an immediacy of consequence when the impolite turn violent. When ordinary citizens are armed, there is a built-in limit as to how far a violent criminal act can go unchecked."
And I think that is valuable to society. When the impolite go unchecked and there's no immediacy of consequence to teach 'em better, it turns into bullying of the rest of us (ie. violence against either our persons, our property, or our rights).
Relevant to the nominal topic, in today's society there's no negative consequence to being a TSA goon, so the TSA feels free to commit violence against our personal rights.
Coyotes in SoCal can be pretty bold. When I had a pack living here they'd hang out near my house (and even come up to my porch to get water) -- they're not really afraid of people. And as it happens, they're diurnal more often than not. But I've also seen 'em "not acting right" -- easy to recognise if you're familiar with or work with livestock (which I am/do).
Normally here if you're not actively chasing 'em off, when they see you they'll either casually trot away, or look right at you like "What??" Contrast a sick one -- standing in the middle of the highway on a hot day, head down, frothing at the mouth, tongue hanging to its knees but not panting. That one either had rabies, distemper, or parvovirus, but it was sure as hell "not acting right".
Creepy?? [blink] Oh! Yeah, that would be a, uh, "unique" method of dressing up on Halloween, for sure :D
Anyway... Happy Gobble-Gobble Day :)
Come to mention it, one year we got a frozen turkey from a derailment, just in time for Yankscoming Dinner! (Except that time the railroad picked 'em up and gave them away to needy families, which was cool of them.)
No, the way it worked was when a train derailed and scattered cargo all over the landscape, it wasn't worthwhile to pick it up (which would be fairly expensive in labour costs, and presumably it was insured) and since at that point it all needed to be washed and repackaged and might have minor damage, it couldn't be sold as "new goods" anyway. So after the rail company's investigation was finished, anyone was free to come pick up whatever they wanted. If the cargo was still laying helter-skelter all around the railway, it was free for the taking. If it had been scooped up and sent to a salvage yard, it was sold for a few cents on the dollar. Most often the spills left for anyone to take were clothes or canned food.
So yep, it was salvage, having literally "fell off the train" (boxcar and all). All perfectly legal and aboveboard.
"No one has a right to be around his kids unless he knows 'for sure' that they have been vetted and are not a danger."
I wonder if he realized that includes both himself and his child.
"... they could take out a couple hundred annoyed people..."
Oh, NOW I understand. This is about getting the terrorists to attack the scanner lines, to get rid of those disgruntled types who are annoyed about being groped by our beloved TSA!
Maybe it could have been phrased better, but I don't think it should have been modded down, since you did raise a valid point -- as you say there are also questions of one's views on body exposure, religious beliefs (Christian and otherwise), or whatever.
Likewise, some people have strong beliefs about whether their body (or any portion thereof) should be touched by a stranger. In some cultures, this really IS considered rape.
None of these are given due consideration by either TSA scanners or TSA gropings. (I'm not big on "cultural sensitivity" crap, but the fact that we're all supposed to embrace that, then we get indiscriminately groped and scanned by the TSA, is sheer hypocrisy on the part of those who would tell us how to think and act.)
BTW some people just don't do shared nudity (nor wish to be groped/scanned), and it has nothing to do with shame or religion, but rather with maintaining a sense of having personal armor, so to speak.
Having used railways as footpaths... yeah, there's no real excuse, not even deafness -- you can feel the train coming a long ways off. And it's like most protections; the determined will circumvent them one way or another. This is really no different than the nominal topic; the determined terrorist will find a way.
Yeah, I expect that long-time-see-it-coming hit is indeed the worst for the engineer. :( A slow freight might have time to call it in and get someone to respond, but passenger rail is likely to have only 3-4 minutes from first sight to impact.
Side note: somewhere I go regularly that's about 100 miles away crosses the tracks several times enroute. It's common to encounter the same train multiple times on a single trip. In one case I got to sit and wait for the same damned train to go by THREE different times!!
Train is probably the most surefire way to commit suicide, so yeah, it does attract a "user base". Some of the "car stalled on the tracks" and "pedestrian on tracks" accidents I've heard of in Los Angeles were later determined to be suicides. (There was a big uproar a couple decades ago about fencing/gating off all the tracks, which is hardly practical, nor would it stop the determined "user". This was adequately proven when the next suicide by car-vs-train took place at a fenced and gated "safety intersection". If I remember right, that's the one where the engineer emergency-braked and the train derailed, being it was light passenger rail not freight. Big mess.)
And yeah, it's pretty damned hard on the engineer, who has absolutely no way to stop a zillion tons of train (120-240 tons for the locomotive alone; 40-60 tons apiece for loaded freight cars; even if it's moving very slowly, it takes TIME to halt it) in anywhere near the few seconds it takes someone to place themselves in harm's way.
For comparison, a dozen cars and light trucks might total up at around 20-25 tons. *crunch*
My face is public by default, unless I wear a mask/veil, which I think should be my prerogative. The contents of my bags? None of their business.
And I don't think inspecting our bags makes us any safer; all it does is alert any would-be perps that they should probably ship their bombs by air freight instead of as excess baggage.
I think that's all the same issue. Under a fair libertarian system, your garbage (whatever it may be) isn't allowed to impact my property any more than you're allowed to simply walk onto my land and break my stuff.
Here's something another slashdotter posted recently, that I think covers it adequately (lo and behold, I actually knew where I'd saved this comment at :)
===================
Chemisor (97276) writes: Alter Relationship on 11:13 AM -- Sunday November 21 2010 (#34299584)
In laissez faire economical system all property is private. When I own a plot of land, I own everything above and below it, including the air and water flowing through it. When you pollute the air and it drifts over my land, you are committing vandalism against my property, and are criminally liable for the damages you cause. That's a much stronger protection than what you get from the EPA.
===================
As to whether you can develop your own land even if it is habitat for the [insert endangered species here], I suppose that depends on whether you agree that all wildlife are state-owned (which is the legal fiction employed by most states) and that therefore this is damaging state property. (Then you could get into "but it was trespassing"; and whether the government's rights trump the individual's rights, which I think should NEVER happen.)
The question soon becomes, how invasive should the gov't become to protect individuals' property rights? What starts as "protection from your neighbour" soon becomes a protection racket.
========
A peculiarity of the aforementioned legal fiction: In Montana, if I dig a pond on my property, and stock it with fish which I paid for myself, nonetheless I need a fishing license to fish in my own pond, because the fish are still regarded as state-owned.
Makes sense to me.
An observation about SWAT: the more SWAT equipment the cops have, the more paranoid and jackbooted the cops get, even when the citizenry is pretty much disarmed.
Crap, when I was in grade school, I made little bow-and-arrow sets with rubber bands, straight pins, and old Bic innards. One of 'em was good enough to send a metal-tipped pen refill through the drywall from halfway across the room. I was amazed. (Musta been crappy drywall, too.)
But we did this sort of shit when we had "free time" -- NOT during class. We wouldn't have dared; the teacher would have paddled our ass, then mom/dad would have paddled our ass again when we got home. AND we'd have been the butt of peer jokes for the next month.
And no one ever so much as suggested banning pens and pencils as a means of controlling obstreperous students.
Bah, they're way behind the times. I actually did this (accidentally stabbed a fellow student with a pencil, leaving a chunk of graphite embedded permanently) when I was in the 5th grade... back in 1965.
Seems to me a computer makes a better weapon anyway -- look at all the sharp pieces inside, and if all else fails, you can just bash someone over the head with it!!
Wasn't that already done once? Or am I thinking of something else, like the Olympics?
I think it's simpler than that; you've got people frustrated by their own situation who want to blame/take it out on someone, anyone, but the biggest visible target makes them feel like they've accomplished the most.
In my observation terrorism is mainly about making the terrorists feel good about themselves (like big men who matter in the world), and has very little to do with what the target ever did (or didn't) to them.