Why make fanvids and end up fighting with the studio that owns the property? Make something original instead. Firefly was good stuff but it is, in a way tainted by the fact that you can't do anything with it unless Fox tells you it's ok.
Instead of fighting lawyers all the time I'd rather be making episodes and building a following. A series built like that could literally live as long as people wanted to watch it.
It's not going to be Firefly but eventually we're going to see something that does fit into the niche that I see so many Firefly fans (I refuse to call you people "Browncoats") wishing their show could get into. That would be the "paid for by the fans" niche which I think we're heading for with some property eventually. Look at the fan made stuff being done for Star Trek New Voyages right now and think about how cheaply that's being made. Then look at the estimates for what it was going to cost those poor misguided bastards who wanted to finance another season of Enterprise. Somewhere in between those two numbers (much closer to the New Voyages price I'm sure) is going to be the spot where fans pay for their show.
Production values won't be what you'd like them to be but they'll be damned close. Actors will get (low paying) work on these shows and some of them will go on to bigger and better things. It will be like a step below working in soaps or something.
Firefly won't be the show that does this because it's owned by Fox and so you can't keep it alive without paying them. This business model doesn't allow for that or, at the very least it doesn't allow for it on the scale that Fox is expecting bank. It'll be more like Open Source Television.
Fans of Science Fiction should just get together and cut the studios out. It needs to be an original story. Nothing studio owned will work. The guys getting traffic doing Star Trek episodes for free are the place to start. If people can get together and make fan based shows like New Voyages then they can use that as a stepping stone to an original story Sci-Fi pay per episode series.
When an old or weak programmer can no longer do his or her duty they are given the option of taking "The Long Walk" where they are sent outside of the cubicle farm and out to the Cursed Earth with only a laptop and a short stack of CDR's. There they will spend their last remaining days bringing code to the codeless.
See, now you're going off on your own and making sense again. What did we tell you about doing that? Clearly you have no place in this kind of conversation until you stop thinking like this and get in step with the rest of Washington D.C.
I'm sure that's fine and I doubt very seriously that they're missing you over at the iTunes music store. I even get where you're coming from because I don't buy everything from iTunes myself. Some things I simply must have a CD and in those cases I don't give a crap about how small I can get that mp3. I want it to sound absolutely perfect.
iTunes wasn't built for you (or me when it comes to those CD's I care a lot about). It was built for the people who listen to the radio and think that sounds just fine too. It was built with background noise in mind and road noise in your car. It was built to be good enough for the majority of listeners.
On Sunday I want to go to the store and buy something. The store I want to go to is closed though because it's Sunday and the law states that they must close on Sunday. Why? The store I wish to shop at is owned by an Indian family who to the best of my knowledge are not Christians. I was born and raised here (Here is in the so called bible-belt of the United States) but I am not a Christian. I am forced to obey their idiotic idea of a Sabbath though because they passed a law that stated that even those who don't share their beliefs must comply with them.
Why can I not buy a beer on Sunday morning. Certainly that's a bit early for drinking but I'm going to an NFL football game that starts at noon and I'm meeting some friends to tailgate before the game. Last night I forgot to go the store and buy some beer but I can't rectify that mistake on the way to the game because the god squad long ago made sure that by law nobody can by that old demon alcohol on their holy Sunday morning.
Exactly. It's not like radio these days makes any effort to tell you what a song is called or even who performed it most of the time. If it's a band or singer you aren't familiar with then the single fastest way to find out who did and what it's called is to throw a line or two in Google.
The labels have moved past greedy and stupid. They're on to new territory here with this kind of talk. They're pioneers in the art of customer fucking.
Well obviously that doesn't make sense so I need to clarify what I was thinking (as opposed to what I said). You take their domain away from them and it becomes available again. Then of course in order for it to be registered the person doing so must provide correct and current information. They don't get a domain name for as long as they insist on not being willing to provide the required information which, in theory could stretch out to as long as they live I guess.
Look I'm not really against anyone being able to remain anonymous for 90% of the reasons most of the other posters are giving. I just don't think the current system works very well at all if you have people owning domains that can't possibly be contacted while at the same time anyone who uses their real information gets swarmed with spam and telemarketers.
This information should not be available in the same manner it is today and nobody should be able to register a domain in complete anonymity. That is possible you know. This isn't one of those situations where we can't have our cake and eat it too. It's just the result of a bad plan and nothing more. It can be fixed.
And yes, I understand that privacy and spamming are a concern. That information should have been far better protected from the very start. It should be possible to find out who owns a domain without having a database available for anyone who wishes to gang-bang whenever they please.
Start taking them down one by one until real information and accurate contact information is provided. This should have been done from the very start. Anyone who doesn't have proper information loses their URL until they comply and anyone who fails to comply loses it permanently. If you don't notice that your website is gone then you weren't using it anyway.
From time to time it becomes necessary to punch the hell out of the gas pedal to get out of a situation where you are about to get killed by another vehicle driven by a fucktard. The idea that my car is going to start resisting me when I try to get out of that fucktard's way is unacceptable. I hope this dies a quick death and doesn't gain any interest in the US. M.A.D. This isn't just a bad idea. This is a top ten bad idea.
I always thought a Dark Knight Returns movie was what I wanted to see. Then Kingdom Come appeared and now that's the source material for what I really want to see. Like almost everything else I want to see it's got the word "Impossible" written all over it. No way it could ever be made without destroying pretty much everything I love about it.
And THAT is why we need to organize now and start protesting the exploitation of the moon before "the corporations" have a chance to spoil it like they did our planet. Imagine all the potentially helpful species on the moon that will be wiped out if "the corporations" get there without someone keeping an eye on them!
It's time we have a big Hippy Jam Festival to raise awareness of this issue!
Quite likely. I never said (or meant to imply) that the American portion of the net was anything special or in any way better than the European or Asian portions of the net. The relative merits of all three is an argument for another day and for other participants because I don't really care much at all, being the typical American that I am.
Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't all be happier with three "Internets" (for now, more coming soon). Dure their would be less but the typical American, European, or Asian mostly wouldn't know or care. Hell they'd probably like it better since there would now be less chance of running into that annoying web site in a language you don't understand.
I agree with you that repeating something many times has no effect on whether or not it's true.
This particular statement you are commenting on is true of course and would be if it had been stated only once but that's beside the point. You could disconnect all of Europe and Asia and the vast majority of Americans would not even notice. There, I said it again.
Just some quick points and then it's off to the newer stories.
You're right about what would be more effective and INS does spend a great deal of time raiding employers of illegal aliens.
As I said the same people who talk about all the money illegals leech out of our system also often are the ones who want them rounded up to make the streets safe and will turn right around and go "hire me a couple of wetbacks" to do some particularly tiresome task around their house. I am white and I personally think that Mexicans living and working here in Texas get the short end of the stick. They contribute far more than they take out of our state.
Yes the idea of the law is that you're supposed to tell a police officer who you are on demand and provide him with any information necessary to confirm that identification. The short version is "Gimmie your drivers license" but it's not absolutely necessary. The officer can of course go ahead and proceed with arresting you or just detaine you long enough to try and verify what you've told him. You obviously understand what I'm talking about so no need to elaborate further. Suffice to say that it's something an officer can abuse as far as he thinks he can safely take it. Judges and Police Departments down here will also pay attention to an officer who does this too often and it can screw your career up if you don't develop some apptitude for guessing right. Either that or you get enough wrong, get in trouble, and keep your head down for a while.
I got that you weren't just railing away at me or anything. You made very good points and I was just wanting to chime in on something that I happened to have some small experience in. I imagine the number of former police officers isn't very large on Slashdot.
I was an MP in the army for 8 years before returning to the civilian world and getting my Peace Officers license here in Texas. I did not care for what I saw and fell back on my hobby/obsession, computers. In the law enforcement community there is something very close to a race-neutral state between fellow officers. Sure there are exceptions but everyone you work with is "Blue" before they're white, black, or hispanic. Participation in this isn't 100% but it is significant. This doesn't extend to civilians however and so it's not out of the question to see a white officer who is very close to other black or hispanic officers turn right around and treat black or hispanic citizens in a very biased manner.
When I was in the army I got my first real exposure to other races and cultures. It was overall a pretty positive experience and so as an MP you did have that "Blue" attitude running through the MP Corps to some extent. Where it differed with civilian law enforcement was that past the "We're all Blue" attitude you had a "We're all Green" attitude that extended to the rest of the army. Military law enforcement was much more fairly administered in my opinion than civilian law enforcement in Texas. It was more severe and in general your rights were fewer but taking that into account you also had a much better chance of having those rights respected and not infringed because you were a minority.
I didn't like what I saw working in and around Houston so I got out.
And yeah, Europeans are not that different from us (regardless of what they'd like to think) in this kind of thing and in fact have a history that easily demonstrates that they can be far worse when they want to. They can "Ethnic Cleanse" with the best of them over there.
I'm way off topic and it's late . Take it easy Shakrai. Good conversation.
ISAID: Our INS people randomly stop people all of the time to see if they have green cards. There is no outrage because it rarely happens in places where people are "outraged" by this happening. How do I know this? Texas peace officer for 5 years. I worked with INS on a fairly regular basis.
USAID: I call bullshit. How would the INS randomly stop somebody to check for a Green Card? What happens if they stop me (natural born US Citizen) and I tell them to go fuck themselves? Are they going to deport me? If they are stopping people who look like immigrants then they are profiling and it probably wouldn't survive a court case (equal protection, what?).
Now, if during the course of normal business they should ask a known immigrant for his ID card then that's another matter. But I doubt you'll find the INS stopping groups of people in immigrant neighborhoods and asking for Green Cards.
IREPLY: Call whatever you want but it happens. INS drives up to a group of Mexican men waiting to do day labor and asks them for ID literally on a daily basis. Sometimes (around elections for instance) they get criticized for it and someone wonders aloud in front of a television camera why these poor men looking for work are harrassed in such a manner and then it stops for a little while. A month or so later they'll pull right back up to the same corner and the same thing will happen all over again. It's weird but it's life in this part of the country where the exact same people who want the government to stop the flood of illegal aliens also want someone to do their yard work at a very agreeable price with no questions asked.
ISAID: Police officers ask civilians for their ID at almost every encounter without starting massive riots.
USAID: Yes and if that encounter is part of normal police business then nobody has any reason to get pissed. I had a police officer ask me for my ID because I was a witness to a car accident. That's all well and good. But if a police officer walks up to me on the street and asks for ID I'm going to politely decline. If an INS officer asked me for my Green Card I probably would tell him to go fuck himself.
IREPLY: In the state of Texas (and I can only claim to have knowledge of the laws of the state of Texas) there is a misdemeanor offense called "Failure to Identify" which means that if I (as a peace office, which I no longer am) ask you for your ID and you don't give it to me then I can take you to jail. Now the question of "why" I asked you for your ID does not come up unless one of two things happens. A) You are a turd who is wanted by the police or is in the process of doing something wrong, or B) You are a law abiding citizen who takes offense to being asked for your ID since you did nothing wrong and you want to make a stink about it.
Allow me to state right up front that I completely understand if you want to make a stink about it. That's your right and yes, the entire system is a little fucked up.
What this ends up meaning is that police often make an "educated guess" and do some very basic racial profiling. They aren't instructed to do that by their department and there is no official policy (that I'm aware of) telling them to do this. I think that most officers pick it up from one another. It's part of learning the job (and not particuarly right IMO but there it is) They simply decide that "Umberto" over there looks like he might have had a few too many beers this evening. He stumbles maybe or he laughs a little too loud. They then go ask him how everything is this evening and ask him to step over here "towards the car where I can speak to you for a moment". "Umberto" complies and is asked for his ID. He gives it over without an argument and the police run his DL. He comes back clean and then they make a show of giving him a field sobriety test and then tell him that he's free to go. If he asks why they did this the reply will be something like "I thought you looked intoxicated" Cops "fish" like this all the time.
Our INS people randomly stop people all of the time to see if they have green cards. There is no outrage because it rarely happens in places where people are "outraged" by this happening. How do I know this? Texas peace officer for 5 years. I worked with INS on a fairly regular basis. Police officers ask civilians for their ID at almost every encounter without starting massive riots.
The ban on religous headwear was not and is not a case of the muslims being "singled out" or discriminated against. In France you "are" French before you're anything else and it's not like crosses or stars of david get an arms wide open welcome in schools while muslim head coverings are banned. If you immigrate to a country (any country) the onus is on you to comply with the laws of that county. You are also going to find that your success or failure in that county is directly affected by the level to which you integrate into that culture. That's just unavoidable no matter who's country you're talking about and what culture you're coming from.
Now everyone who disagrees with me (and who has mod points) go ahead and mod me down.
Of course there are factories in peoples back yards. This is America, not Utopia (does somebody need to make another trip to the clue box?) so obviously this isn't a perfect society.
What would you like to wager that the emissions of your typical back yard factory are not as bad as emissions are in countries located in other parts of the world which do not have laws in place to attempt to limit the amount of damage they can do to the air?
Now you're just being intentionally obtuse and you're no fun to argue with when you do that. Go have a cigarette (in a public place no less) and say to yourself "Fuck you JudgeFurious! Fuck you in your (probably) Republican voting asshole! Take That!" and then blow some smoke up into the air or maybe even in someones face who's passing by. If they have a child with them be sure to give him some too. I've heard there are four year olds who love the smell of smoke.
Who says I don't have a right to decide what the atmosphere around me is comprised of? I believe that countless city ordinances across the United States state just the opposite. By your reasoning we have no right to stop a factory or refinery from polluting the air which is complete bullshit like everything else you've said so far.
Clues are kept in the box marked "Clues". Feel free to get one at any time.
That's an interesting and exciting way to look at this problem. It's complete bullshit and entirely unrelated to what we're talking about but I can't deny it's interesting and exciting.
You think smoke smells good. Excellent, go home and enjoy as much of it as you like. It is after all your "right" (for now). If the majority (in all their tyrannical glory) feel that it smells terrible then you're going to lose that one as far as public places go and you know what? You should lose that one.
This is an odor we're talking about, not some deeply significant civil rights issue. Depriving you of your "good smelling cloud of smoke" isn't some shocking injustice. It's the majority asking you nicely to stop smoking around us and then forcing you to when you decide to be an asshole yourself.
Nice attempt at jacking this around towards race. Take the word black out of it and then lets discuss 90% of the people saying that a relative handful of society stank. Of course you wouldn't ban them from public places. You would tell them to take a damn bath. I've worked with people who stank and I've told them to their faces that they need to get intimate with a bar of soap as soon as practical. Some of us human beings lack necessary personal hygiene habits, it happens. It doesn't mean the rest of us have to put up with it.
You don't have a right to make everyone in the room breath that shit when in public. Get that through your ignorant fucking head.
Go learn what "hypocrite" means before you use it again in a conversation. It makes you look stupid when you call someone a hypocrite who hasn't said one single hypocritical thing while talking to you or demonstrated any hypocritical behaviour. It looks like you just pulled it out of your box marked "Insults for when I can't think of anything else".
> A dog turd in the sun is almost universally considered to be something that "stinks"
>>yes, that's because it contains indole alkaloids - which are what makes shit smell like shit. >>cigarette smoke does not contain these.
And that was merely an example so while I'm impressed that you know why shit stinks I don't think it really matters all that much in this instance. The example is still valid and it is absolutely a fact that odors exist and that when presented with some of them a majority of human beings will frequently agree they stink.
Also I'm glad to hear that cigarette smoke (and I assume cigarettes themselves) do not contain dog shit. I was worried about that since they STINK SO FUCKING MUCH! Thank you.
> He can't taste anything either
>>yet more bullshit from the anti-smoking whiners - i smoked for many years, and now i don't. i've noticed no difference at all in my sense >>of smell or taste. i've had excellent senses of smell and taste all along. >>smoking didnt "stunt my growth", either. i started smoking at 11. i grew to 6'5" tall. in fact, even though i smoked for over 20 years, i can't >>think of one single health problem i've ever had that was related to smoking except maybe slightly elevated blood pressure. OTOH, i know >>for a fact that smoking helped me in my work because it helped me to concentrate on programming and systems administration problems, >>and it helped my memory. on balance, the drug nicotine helped me to make a lot of money over the years and definitely contributed to a >>better lifestyle for me.
Well good for you and I applaud your mighty taste buds. That does not exactly match the experience of my brother who used to smoke. He insists that his sense of taste is much improved. That makes a tie between the "I can taste food again" camp and the "I smoked for 20 years and my Kryptonian-like senses remain un-affected" camp. I went for the tie breaker and asked my dad who smoked for about twice the length of time that you did and his response was that it his sense of taste was better without the smoking.
Finally I considered my own experience with Copenhagen (that's smokeless tobacco just in case you are not familiar with it) but I had to throw that "data" out since it really wasn't smoking. My final conclusion on this may surprise you, I don't give a shit! That's because I'm mostly concerned with depriving you of your "right" to make every public place stink. What you (or any other smoker/former smoker) can or can't taste doesn't matter to me.
Now you can tell me about how horrible dipping is. That's fine go right ahead. It did have the advantage of being a singular habit. When I put a dip in I didn't make every single person in the room join me like smokers do.
>>i stopped not because it had already caused me harm, but because i decided i was getting too old to continue smoking, that the personal >>risk to me had increased (due to my age - late 30s) to unacceptable levels and that it probably would cause me harm in future....that it >>would be sensible to stop now before any damage had been done than in 10 or 15 years time when it might be too late.
Yeah, I just got tired of dipping. One day I finished the last pinch of snuff in that can, threw it away and said that's about enough of that.
> Do you smoke? >>no, i don't. i did smoke for many years, but i don't any longer. unlike most ex-smokers, though, i see no reason to become a self->>righteous arsehole about it. i used to choose to smoke, now i choose not to. nobody's business but my own, and i don't need to bolster my >>will-power by demonising either smoking or smokers with ridiculous claims about outdoor second-hand smoke.
Good, you don't smoke. That's one less person I could possibly be forced to spend time near who stinks. Outstanding.
Slashdot Mirror
Why make fanvids and end up fighting with the studio that owns the property? Make something original instead. Firefly was good stuff but it is, in a way tainted by the fact that you can't do anything with it unless Fox tells you it's ok.
Instead of fighting lawyers all the time I'd rather be making episodes and building a following. A series built like that could literally live as long as people wanted to watch it.
It's not going to be Firefly but eventually we're going to see something that does fit into the niche that I see so many Firefly fans (I refuse to call you people "Browncoats") wishing their show could get into. That would be the "paid for by the fans" niche which I think we're heading for with some property eventually. Look at the fan made stuff being done for Star Trek New Voyages right now and think about how cheaply that's being made. Then look at the estimates for what it was going to cost those poor misguided bastards who wanted to finance another season of Enterprise. Somewhere in between those two numbers (much closer to the New Voyages price I'm sure) is going to be the spot where fans pay for their show.
Production values won't be what you'd like them to be but they'll be damned close. Actors will get (low paying) work on these shows and some of them will go on to bigger and better things. It will be like a step below working in soaps or something.
Firefly won't be the show that does this because it's owned by Fox and so you can't keep it alive without paying them. This business model doesn't allow for that or, at the very least it doesn't allow for it on the scale that Fox is expecting bank. It'll be more like Open Source Television.
Fans of Science Fiction should just get together and cut the studios out. It needs to be an original story. Nothing studio owned will work. The guys getting traffic doing Star Trek episodes for free are the place to start. If people can get together and make fan based shows like New Voyages then they can use that as a stepping stone to an original story Sci-Fi pay per episode series.
When an old or weak programmer can no longer do his or her duty they are given the option of taking "The Long Walk" where they are sent outside of the cubicle farm and out to the Cursed Earth with only a laptop and a short stack of CDR's. There they will spend their last remaining days bringing code to the codeless.
I thought everybody knew that.
See, now you're going off on your own and making sense again. What did we tell you about doing that? Clearly you have no place in this kind of conversation until you stop thinking like this and get in step with the rest of Washington D.C.
My iPod plays songs in mp3 format so I don't follow you. What's the lock-in exactly?
I'm sure that's fine and I doubt very seriously that they're missing you over at the iTunes music store. I even get where you're coming from because I don't buy everything from iTunes myself. Some things I simply must have a CD and in those cases I don't give a crap about how small I can get that mp3. I want it to sound absolutely perfect.
iTunes wasn't built for you (or me when it comes to those CD's I care a lot about). It was built for the people who listen to the radio and think that sounds just fine too. It was built with background noise in mind and road noise in your car. It was built to be good enough for the majority of listeners.
Such as?
On Sunday I want to go to the store and buy something. The store I want to go to is closed though because it's Sunday and the law states that they must close on Sunday. Why? The store I wish to shop at is owned by an Indian family who to the best of my knowledge are not Christians. I was born and raised here (Here is in the so called bible-belt of the United States) but I am not a Christian. I am forced to obey their idiotic idea of a Sabbath though because they passed a law that stated that even those who don't share their beliefs must comply with them.
Why can I not buy a beer on Sunday morning. Certainly that's a bit early for drinking but I'm going to an NFL football game that starts at noon and I'm meeting some friends to tailgate before the game. Last night I forgot to go the store and buy some beer but I can't rectify that mistake on the way to the game because the god squad long ago made sure that by law nobody can by that old demon alcohol on their holy Sunday morning.
This should suffice I think.
Exactly. It's not like radio these days makes any effort to tell you what a song is called or even who performed it most of the time. If it's a band or singer you aren't familiar with then the single fastest way to find out who did and what it's called is to throw a line or two in Google.
The labels have moved past greedy and stupid. They're on to new territory here with this kind of talk. They're pioneers in the art of customer fucking.
Downloading your free music and dooming these entertainers to lives of only semi-luxury. How do you sleep at night mister?
Well obviously that doesn't make sense so I need to clarify what I was thinking (as opposed to what I said). You take their domain away from them and it becomes available again. Then of course in order for it to be registered the person doing so must provide correct and current information. They don't get a domain name for as long as they insist on not being willing to provide the required information which, in theory could stretch out to as long as they live I guess.
Look I'm not really against anyone being able to remain anonymous for 90% of the reasons most of the other posters are giving. I just don't think the current system works very well at all if you have people owning domains that can't possibly be contacted while at the same time anyone who uses their real information gets swarmed with spam and telemarketers.
This information should not be available in the same manner it is today and nobody should be able to register a domain in complete anonymity. That is possible you know. This isn't one of those situations where we can't have our cake and eat it too. It's just the result of a bad plan and nothing more. It can be fixed.
And yes, I understand that privacy and spamming are a concern. That information should have been far better protected from the very start. It should be possible to find out who owns a domain without having a database available for anyone who wishes to gang-bang whenever they please.
Start taking them down one by one until real information and accurate contact information is provided. This should have been done from the very start. Anyone who doesn't have proper information loses their URL until they comply and anyone who fails to comply loses it permanently. If you don't notice that your website is gone then you weren't using it anyway.
From time to time it becomes necessary to punch the hell out of the gas pedal to get out of a situation where you are about to get killed by another vehicle driven by a fucktard. The idea that my car is going to start resisting me when I try to get out of that fucktard's way is unacceptable. I hope this dies a quick death and doesn't gain any interest in the US. M.A.D. This isn't just a bad idea. This is a top ten bad idea.
I always thought a Dark Knight Returns movie was what I wanted to see. Then Kingdom Come appeared and now that's the source material for what I really want to see. Like almost everything else I want to see it's got the word "Impossible" written all over it. No way it could ever be made without destroying pretty much everything I love about it.
And THAT is why we need to organize now and start protesting the exploitation of the moon before "the corporations" have a chance to spoil it like they did our planet. Imagine all the potentially helpful species on the moon that will be wiped out if "the corporations" get there without someone keeping an eye on them!
It's time we have a big Hippy Jam Festival to raise awareness of this issue!
Quite likely. I never said (or meant to imply) that the American portion of the net was anything special or in any way better than the European or Asian portions of the net. The relative merits of all three is an argument for another day and for other participants because I don't really care much at all, being the typical American that I am.
Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't all be happier with three "Internets" (for now, more coming soon). Dure their would be less but the typical American, European, or Asian mostly wouldn't know or care. Hell they'd probably like it better since there would now be less chance of running into that annoying web site in a language you don't understand.
I'd miss my English websites though.
I agree with you that repeating something many times has no effect on whether or not it's true.
This particular statement you are commenting on is true of course and would be if it had been stated only once but that's beside the point. You could disconnect all of Europe and Asia and the vast majority of Americans would not even notice. There, I said it again.
Just some quick points and then it's off to the newer stories.
You're right about what would be more effective and INS does spend a great deal of time raiding employers of illegal aliens.
As I said the same people who talk about all the money illegals leech out of our system also often are the ones who want them rounded up to make the streets safe and will turn right around and go "hire me a couple of wetbacks" to do some particularly tiresome task around their house. I am white and I personally think that Mexicans living and working here in Texas get the short end of the stick. They contribute far more than they take out of our state.
Yes the idea of the law is that you're supposed to tell a police officer who you are on demand and provide him with any information necessary to confirm that identification. The short version is "Gimmie your drivers license" but it's not absolutely necessary. The officer can of course go ahead and proceed with arresting you or just detaine you long enough to try and verify what you've told him. You obviously understand what I'm talking about so no need to elaborate further. Suffice to say that it's something an officer can abuse as far as he thinks he can safely take it. Judges and Police Departments down here will also pay attention to an officer who does this too often and it can screw your career up if you don't develop some apptitude for guessing right. Either that or you get enough wrong, get in trouble, and keep your head down for a while.
I got that you weren't just railing away at me or anything. You made very good points and I was just wanting to chime in on something that I happened to have some small experience in. I imagine the number of former police officers isn't very large on Slashdot.
I was an MP in the army for 8 years before returning to the civilian world and getting my Peace Officers license here in Texas. I did not care for what I saw and fell back on my hobby/obsession, computers. In the law enforcement community there is something very close to a race-neutral state between fellow officers. Sure there are exceptions but everyone you work with is "Blue" before they're white, black, or hispanic. Participation in this isn't 100% but it is significant. This doesn't extend to civilians however and so it's not out of the question to see a white officer who is very close to other black or hispanic officers turn right around and treat black or hispanic citizens in a very biased manner.
When I was in the army I got my first real exposure to other races and cultures. It was overall a pretty positive experience and so as an MP you did have that "Blue" attitude running through the MP Corps to some extent. Where it differed with civilian law enforcement was that past the "We're all Blue" attitude you had a "We're all Green" attitude that extended to the rest of the army. Military law enforcement was much more fairly administered in my opinion than civilian law enforcement in Texas. It was more severe and in general your rights were fewer but taking that into account you also had a much better chance of having those rights respected and not infringed because you were a minority.
I didn't like what I saw working in and around Houston so I got out.
And yeah, Europeans are not that different from us (regardless of what they'd like to think) in this kind of thing and in fact have a history that easily demonstrates that they can be far worse when they want to. They can "Ethnic Cleanse" with the best of them over there.
I'm way off topic and it's late . Take it easy Shakrai. Good conversation.
ISAID: Our INS people randomly stop people all of the time to see if they have green cards. There is no outrage because it rarely happens in places where people are "outraged" by this happening. How do I know this? Texas peace officer for 5 years. I worked with INS on a fairly regular basis.
USAID: I call bullshit. How would the INS randomly stop somebody to check for a Green Card? What happens if they stop me (natural born US Citizen) and I tell them to go fuck themselves? Are they going to deport me? If they are stopping people who look like immigrants then they are profiling and it probably wouldn't survive a court case (equal protection, what?).
Now, if during the course of normal business they should ask a known immigrant for his ID card then that's another matter. But I doubt you'll find the INS stopping groups of people in immigrant neighborhoods and asking for Green Cards.
IREPLY: Call whatever you want but it happens. INS drives up to a group of Mexican men waiting to do day labor and asks them for ID literally on a daily basis. Sometimes (around elections for instance) they get criticized for it and someone wonders aloud in front of a television camera why these poor men looking for work are harrassed in such a manner and then it stops for a little while. A month or so later they'll pull right back up to the same corner and the same thing will happen all over again. It's weird but it's life in this part of the country where the exact same people who want the government to stop the flood of illegal aliens also want someone to do their yard work at a very agreeable price with no questions asked.
ISAID: Police officers ask civilians for their ID at almost every encounter without starting massive riots.
USAID: Yes and if that encounter is part of normal police business then nobody has any reason to get pissed. I had a police officer ask me for my ID because I was a witness to a car accident. That's all well and good. But if a police officer walks up to me on the street and asks for ID I'm going to politely decline. If an INS officer asked me for my Green Card I probably would tell him to go fuck himself.
IREPLY: In the state of Texas (and I can only claim to have knowledge of the laws of the state of Texas) there is a misdemeanor offense called "Failure to Identify" which means that if I (as a peace office, which I no longer am) ask you for your ID and you don't give it to me then I can take you to jail. Now the question of "why" I asked you for your ID does not come up unless one of two things happens. A) You are a turd who is wanted by the police or is in the process of doing something wrong, or B) You are a law abiding citizen who takes offense to being asked for your ID since you did nothing wrong and you want to make a stink about it.
Allow me to state right up front that I completely understand if you want to make a stink about it. That's your right and yes, the entire system is a little fucked up.
What this ends up meaning is that police often make an "educated guess" and do some very basic racial profiling. They aren't instructed to do that by their department and there is no official policy (that I'm aware of) telling them to do this. I think that most officers pick it up from one another. It's part of learning the job (and not particuarly right IMO but there it is) They simply decide that "Umberto" over there looks like he might have had a few too many beers this evening. He stumbles maybe or he laughs a little too loud. They then go ask him how everything is this evening and ask him to step over here "towards the car where I can speak to you for a moment". "Umberto" complies and is asked for his ID. He gives it over without an argument and the police run his DL. He comes back clean and then they make a show of giving him a field sobriety test and then tell him that he's free to go. If he asks why they did this the reply will be something like "I thought you looked intoxicated" Cops "fish" like this all the time.
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Our INS people randomly stop people all of the time to see if they have green cards. There is no outrage because it rarely happens in places where people are "outraged" by this happening. How do I know this? Texas peace officer for 5 years. I worked with INS on a fairly regular basis. Police officers ask civilians for their ID at almost every encounter without starting massive riots.
The ban on religous headwear was not and is not a case of the muslims being "singled out" or discriminated against. In France you "are" French before you're anything else and it's not like crosses or stars of david get an arms wide open welcome in schools while muslim head coverings are banned. If you immigrate to a country (any country) the onus is on you to comply with the laws of that county. You are also going to find that your success or failure in that county is directly affected by the level to which you integrate into that culture. That's just unavoidable no matter who's country you're talking about and what culture you're coming from.
Now everyone who disagrees with me (and who has mod points) go ahead and mod me down.
Of course there are factories in peoples back yards. This is America, not Utopia (does somebody need to make another trip to the clue box?) so obviously this isn't a perfect society.
What would you like to wager that the emissions of your typical back yard factory are not as bad as emissions are in countries located in other parts of the world which do not have laws in place to attempt to limit the amount of damage they can do to the air?
Now you're just being intentionally obtuse and you're no fun to argue with when you do that. Go have a cigarette (in a public place no less) and say to yourself "Fuck you JudgeFurious! Fuck you in your (probably) Republican voting asshole! Take That!" and then blow some smoke up into the air or maybe even in someones face who's passing by. If they have a child with them be sure to give him some too. I've heard there are four year olds who love the smell of smoke.
Who says I don't have a right to decide what the atmosphere around me is comprised of? I believe that countless city ordinances across the United States state just the opposite. By your reasoning we have no right to stop a factory or refinery from polluting the air which is complete bullshit like everything else you've said so far.
Clues are kept in the box marked "Clues". Feel free to get one at any time.
That's an interesting and exciting way to look at this problem. It's complete bullshit and entirely unrelated to what we're talking about but I can't deny it's interesting and exciting.
You think smoke smells good. Excellent, go home and enjoy as much of it as you like. It is after all your "right" (for now). If the majority (in all their tyrannical glory) feel that it smells terrible then you're going to lose that one as far as public places go and you know what? You should lose that one.
This is an odor we're talking about, not some deeply significant civil rights issue. Depriving you of your "good smelling cloud of smoke" isn't some shocking injustice. It's the majority asking you nicely to stop smoking around us and then forcing you to when you decide to be an asshole yourself.
Nice attempt at jacking this around towards race. Take the word black out of it and then lets discuss 90% of the people saying that a relative handful of society stank. Of course you wouldn't ban them from public places. You would tell them to take a damn bath. I've worked with people who stank and I've told them to their faces that they need to get intimate with a bar of soap as soon as practical. Some of us human beings lack necessary personal hygiene habits, it happens. It doesn't mean the rest of us have to put up with it.
You don't have a right to make everyone in the room breath that shit when in public. Get that through your ignorant fucking head.
Go learn what "hypocrite" means before you use it again in a conversation. It makes you look stupid when you call someone a hypocrite who hasn't said one single hypocritical thing while talking to you or demonstrated any hypocritical behaviour. It looks like you just pulled it out of your box marked "Insults for when I can't think of anything else".
> A dog turd in the sun is almost universally considered to be something that "stinks"
>>yes, that's because it contains indole alkaloids - which are what makes shit smell like shit.
>>cigarette smoke does not contain these.
And that was merely an example so while I'm impressed that you know why shit stinks I don't think it really matters all that much in this instance. The example is still valid and it is absolutely a fact that odors exist and that when presented with some of them a majority of human beings will frequently agree they stink.
Also I'm glad to hear that cigarette smoke (and I assume cigarettes themselves) do not contain dog shit. I was worried about that since they STINK SO FUCKING MUCH! Thank you.
> He can't taste anything either
>>yet more bullshit from the anti-smoking whiners - i smoked for many years, and now i don't. i've noticed no difference at all in my sense >>of smell or taste. i've had excellent senses of smell and taste all along.
>>smoking didnt "stunt my growth", either. i started smoking at 11. i grew to 6'5" tall. in fact, even though i smoked for over 20 years, i can't >>think of one single health problem i've ever had that was related to smoking except maybe slightly elevated blood pressure. OTOH, i know >>for a fact that smoking helped me in my work because it helped me to concentrate on programming and systems administration problems, >>and it helped my memory. on balance, the drug nicotine helped me to make a lot of money over the years and definitely contributed to a >>better lifestyle for me.
Well good for you and I applaud your mighty taste buds. That does not exactly match the experience of my brother who used to smoke. He insists that his sense of taste is much improved. That makes a tie between the "I can taste food again" camp and the "I smoked for 20 years and my Kryptonian-like senses remain un-affected" camp. I went for the tie breaker and asked my dad who smoked for about twice the length of time that you did and his response was that it his sense of taste was better without the smoking.
Finally I considered my own experience with Copenhagen (that's smokeless tobacco just in case you are not familiar with it) but I had to throw that "data" out since it really wasn't smoking. My final conclusion on this may surprise you, I don't give a shit! That's because I'm mostly concerned with depriving you of your "right" to make every public place stink. What you (or any other smoker/former smoker) can or can't taste doesn't matter to me.
Now you can tell me about how horrible dipping is. That's fine go right ahead. It did have the advantage of being a singular habit. When I put a dip in I didn't make every single person in the room join me like smokers do.
>>i stopped not because it had already caused me harm, but because i decided i was getting too old to continue smoking, that the personal >>risk to me had increased (due to my age - late 30s) to unacceptable levels and that it probably would cause me harm in future....that it >>would be sensible to stop now before any damage had been done than in 10 or 15 years time when it might be too late.
Yeah, I just got tired of dipping. One day I finished the last pinch of snuff in that can, threw it away and said that's about enough of that.
> Do you smoke?
>>no, i don't. i did smoke for many years, but i don't any longer. unlike most ex-smokers, though, i see no reason to become a self->>righteous arsehole about it. i used to choose to smoke, now i choose not to. nobody's business but my own, and i don't need to bolster my >>will-power by demonising either smoking or smokers with ridiculous claims about outdoor second-hand smoke.
Good, you don't smoke. That's one less person I could possibly be forced to spend time near who stinks. Outstanding.
>>if i don't like the smell of ciga
And that one, while less important to the "big picture" has been foremost in my mind and now, finally I can stop worrying about it.
As a citizen of the state of Texas allow me to exhale in relief and say "Thank God Kansas went first!"