I was talking about the bribery issue; it hardly matters what way people vote in elections if the politicians can be "induced" to always vote in favour of the rich minority.
And to a great extent, I agree with you there, but this has a lot more to do with increased Federal power and the popular election of the Senate (and the general decline in morals) than it does anything else. Early America was structured similar to a feudal system, in the sense that power was distributed from the top down and each group depended heavily on the groups below it. Today, we've for everything flipped over. The Federal government takes money from the people of a state and then offers it back to them as long as they meet certain requirements,ignore their sovreignty, and bascially just shut the heck up. And on the state level, we do the same thing. The state legislature taxes the counties and the cities and then offers them funding for things they need as long as they toe the line. It's rather depressing.
I apologize if I came across too harsh in my initial response to you, I just don't like the phrase "one dollar, one vote" as it frequently gets used to support unconstitutional campaign finance reforms, and I've been trying to challenge the premise when I have the chance.
There is a line here and it is so fine that a man or a company can step across it, go on about his business, and never know the difference. Google says it is trying to use this as an opportunity to help bring global censorship into the spotlight of American politics, but how would we feel if it were Microsoft saying that they have been trying to bring the dangers of illegal monopolies into the public light, or the RIAA, claiming to illuminate the hardships of the consumer.
Maybe Google is working "undercover" here. Maybe they are functioning as an operative. Or maybe they have switched sides and they don't even know it yet. Anandpur posted a link to the normal Google Image search for Tianamen square and to the Google China Image search for the same thing. The differences were both astounding and exactly what you would expect.
But in a world of "one dollar, one vote", who's going to stop them?
if you are talking about the power of money in getting a Senator to vote on a bill, you are at least somewhat accurate (though this has much more to do with the fact that post-Civil War, we have two popularly elected houses of Congress) If, instead, you are talking about "one dollar, one vote" in actual elections, you are out of your mind. There are many, many examples of political races where the loser had a much better financed campaign (The Forbes campaign is one perfect example of a phenomenally well-financed campaign failing miserably.) Poltical connections and negotiable values are much more valuable than money in our current political system.
I think right now we're in an anti-intellectual period in the United States, but I think the pendulum will swing back in the other direction again
Primarily because it would be anti-intellectual to expect any other sort of response from a pendulum?
I myself believe it is the Greek goddess of swinging things, Pendulus (she also has two other uhm... circles of influence) that maintains the expected reciprocation, but to each his or her own....
According to their Web site the Space Elevator company Lifport recently managed to get their platform and climbing robot to the mile-high mark over the Arizona desert.
In other news today, Denver-based Space Elevator company Black Shaft Industries have succeeded in achieving a height of 35 feet with their platform and climber, still easily besting their rivals Lifport. "We had a head start," acknowledges Chief Engineer, Michael Wesznick, "but our elevator didn't really need it. Plus, it has a cooler name." Wesznick went on to claim, that the elevator in question (named "Darth-Vator" to those of you who were wondering) will be the "father of all other space elevators", and, adding to this reporter's confustion, will at some point in the future "betray the Emperor to save it's son's life." Personally, I'm rooting for Lifport.
In the US, the Fifth Amendment may not specifically apply here, but neither should the Amendments to the Constituion be taken as an exhaustive enumeration of the rights of the people. The concept still applies. A large part of American (and English, and lately, EU) law is based around the concept of protecting the citizens from the power of an (inreasingly powerful) central government. Who says we're talking about kiddie porn? We might be talking about the "seditious" emails that you sent out when you organized a protest. We might be talking about perfectly legal documents in the possession of a government whistleblower. We might be talking about almost anything.
200 years ago (lack of computers aside), when the most powerful people in your life were your county commisioners, your mayor, or your local constable, this might not have mattered that much, but today, when Senators couldn't care less about the rights of the state, when judges couldn't care less about the words in the Constitution and when the President couldn't care less about the scope of his authority, it matters a great deal.
Since when does the government have a right to all evidence in any case? One aspect of English law that I thought existed, is that the people should be protected from the government (particularly from self-incrimination). One could reasonably argue that the average citizen needs the availability of government-inaccessible encryption, due to the decreased cost (in terms of time and manpower) required to search through computer records vs. paper records. Current computers, and the massive amounts of data that they store (internet cookies, browsing history, cache data, registry entries, etc.) make fishing expeditions much, much, easier on law enforcement than sifting through physical documents and interviewing co-workers and family.
On the down side, the new processor has been known to erase credit cards upon power up and tear zippers from pant fronts. It is surly towards and dismissive of all non-ferrous metals. It is demanding. In early testing, it refused to work for three days until its creators rented the movie Toys and watched the "deviled-egg" scene 111 times (while still cruel, this is not as excessive as it first seems).
Lastly, any user of the processor in an area frequented by Boy Scouts, may find that their home being referred to as "the North Pole", "Santa's Workshop", or something similar.
it might be better to side with Goliath when facing a patent wielding David.
Maybe I'm forgetting something about the Bible story (involving, I'm sure, the poor aerodynamic quality of patent attorneys and their unwillingness to sit still in the sling), but shouldn't this sentence read: "it might be better to side with Goliath when facing anyone but David"
LRO will count craters and image American and Soviet landing sites.
OK... you had me till right there. American and Soviet "landing sites"? On the moon? Next you'll be telling me that your gonna send a probe to Mars or that we've broken the "sound barrier."
In other news, the fighting in Iran stopped for several hours yesterday when American college students hacked into a group of the Army's UGVs and used them to simulate games of Nintendo's RC Pro-Am and Mario Cart. Fortunately, control was restored later in the day, but not before the battlefield had been strewn with bananas, ricocheting tortoise shells and decoy power-ups.
I have been a bit leery of anything called "Seamonkeys" ever since I ordered a kit off of the back of my Amazing Spider-Man comic book many years ago. I was quite disappointed when it arrived and the creatures that hatched in my goldfish bowl were not the family of happy trident-bearing mer-creatures pictured in the ad, but a bunch of freaking shrimp. So go ahead Mozilla, and sell the world on your little state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. I'm not gonna be sucked in to your little scheme. In the words of our great President Bush, "Fool me once, shame on... you.... The Fooled man can't be fooled again"
Microsoft has just made available their latest beta preview build of their Internet Explorer 7.0 web browser.
Additionally, users of the new Internet Explorer will be treated to the beta versions of many new viruses and exploits, allowing them to experience all that the web has to offer.
Slashdot Mirror
I was talking about the bribery issue; it hardly matters what way people vote in elections if the politicians can be "induced" to always vote in favour of the rich minority.
And to a great extent, I agree with you there, but this has a lot more to do with increased Federal power and the popular election of the Senate (and the general decline in morals) than it does anything else. Early America was structured similar to a feudal system, in the sense that power was distributed from the top down and each group depended heavily on the groups below it. Today, we've for everything flipped over. The Federal government takes money from the people of a state and then offers it back to them as long as they meet certain requirements,ignore their sovreignty, and bascially just shut the heck up. And on the state level, we do the same thing. The state legislature taxes the counties and the cities and then offers them funding for things they need as long as they toe the line. It's rather depressing.
I apologize if I came across too harsh in my initial response to you, I just don't like the phrase "one dollar, one vote" as it frequently gets used to support unconstitutional campaign finance reforms, and I've been trying to challenge the premise when I have the chance.
There is a line here and it is so fine that a man or a company can step across it, go on about his business, and never know the difference. Google says it is trying to use this as an opportunity to help bring global censorship into the spotlight of American politics, but how would we feel if it were Microsoft saying that they have been trying to bring the dangers of illegal monopolies into the public light, or the RIAA, claiming to illuminate the hardships of the consumer.
Maybe Google is working "undercover" here. Maybe they are functioning as an operative. Or maybe they have switched sides and they don't even know it yet. Anandpur posted a link to the normal Google Image search for Tianamen square and to the Google China Image search for the same thing. The differences were both astounding and exactly what you would expect.
But in a world of "one dollar, one vote", who's going to stop them?
if you are talking about the power of money in getting a Senator to vote on a bill, you are at least somewhat accurate (though this has much more to do with the fact that post-Civil War, we have two popularly elected houses of Congress)
If, instead, you are talking about "one dollar, one vote" in actual elections, you are out of your mind. There are many, many examples of political races where the loser had a much better financed campaign (The Forbes campaign is one perfect example of a phenomenally well-financed campaign failing miserably.) Poltical connections and negotiable values are much more valuable than money in our current political system.
I think right now we're in an anti-intellectual period in the United States, but I think the pendulum will swing back in the other direction again
Primarily because it would be anti-intellectual to expect any other sort of response from a pendulum?
I myself believe it is the Greek goddess of swinging things, Pendulus (she also has two other uhm... circles of influence) that maintains the expected reciprocation, but to each his or her own....
According to their Web site the Space Elevator company Lifport recently managed to get their platform and climbing robot to the mile-high mark over the Arizona desert.
In other news today, Denver-based Space Elevator company Black Shaft Industries have succeeded in achieving a height of 35 feet with their platform and climber, still easily besting their rivals Lifport. "We had a head start," acknowledges Chief Engineer, Michael Wesznick, "but our elevator didn't really need it. Plus, it has a cooler name." Wesznick went on to claim, that the elevator in question (named "Darth-Vator" to those of you who were wondering) will be the "father of all other space elevators", and, adding to this reporter's confustion, will at some point in the future "betray the Emperor to save it's son's life." Personally, I'm rooting for Lifport.
Neither of them have a win condition.
No win condition?
No win condition?
Well you just wait and see; Tom Nook's head will hang upon my wall.... Oh yes, it will.
Nooooooooook!!!!
From the MeasureMap site:
Measure Map helps you understand what people do at your blog, and what influence you are having on the world.
Great, exactly what my ego needs, a blog-equivalent of the Total Perspective Vortex
Visitors today: your grandmother and one accidental click-through.
Comments: 0 (Not even Spam is interested in your site)
sigh...
In the US, the Fifth Amendment may not specifically apply here, but neither should the Amendments to the Constituion be taken as an exhaustive enumeration of the rights of the people. The concept still applies. A large part of American (and English, and lately, EU) law is based around the concept of protecting the citizens from the power of an (inreasingly powerful) central government. Who says we're talking about kiddie porn? We might be talking about the "seditious" emails that you sent out when you organized a protest. We might be talking about perfectly legal documents in the possession of a government whistleblower. We might be talking about almost anything.
200 years ago (lack of computers aside), when the most powerful people in your life were your county commisioners, your mayor, or your local constable, this might not have mattered that much, but today, when Senators couldn't care less about the rights of the state, when judges couldn't care less about the words in the Constitution and when the President couldn't care less about the scope of his authority, it matters a great deal.
This is just conceptually a wierd idea to me.
Maybe so, but your kids will love it.
Opera on the Gameboy DS
Hmm. I personally think that porn on the PSP is going to be more popular...
Since when does the government have a right to all evidence in any case? One aspect of English law that I thought existed, is that the people should be protected from the government (particularly from self-incrimination). One could reasonably argue that the average citizen needs the availability of government-inaccessible encryption, due to the decreased cost (in terms of time and manpower) required to search through computer records vs. paper records. Current computers, and the massive amounts of data that they store (internet cookies, browsing history, cache data, registry entries, etc.) make fishing expeditions much, much, easier on law enforcement than sifting through physical documents and interviewing co-workers and family.
Well, it's 10:39 at night and I'm checking and posting to slashdot...
You make the call.
So, first they model their cencorship policy on our "model", then they criticize it. And apprently, we agree with them..
I'm so confused...
So... how long before Lady Godiva and I can legally marry?
On the down side, the new processor has been known to erase credit cards upon power up and tear zippers from pant fronts. It is surly towards and dismissive of all non-ferrous metals. It is demanding. In early testing, it refused to work for three days until its creators rented the movie Toys and watched the "deviled-egg" scene 111 times (while still cruel, this is not as excessive as it first seems).
Lastly, any user of the processor in an area frequented by Boy Scouts, may find that their home being referred to as "the North Pole", "Santa's Workshop", or something similar.
Please dear God, let there be no "Hang 10" jokes in this thread...
it might be better to side with Goliath when facing a patent wielding David.
Maybe I'm forgetting something about the Bible story (involving, I'm sure, the poor aerodynamic quality of patent attorneys and their unwillingness to sit still in the sling), but shouldn't this sentence read: "it might be better to side with Goliath when facing anyone but David"
LRO will count craters and image American and Soviet landing sites.
OK... you had me till right there. American and Soviet "landing sites"? On the moon? Next you'll be telling me that your gonna send a probe to Mars or that we've broken the "sound barrier."
Well, it kinds of throws the supreme value of having the government as a client into sharp relief, doesn't it?
I was thinking ahead. Since it's new, I thought it might not see action until we invade.
In other news, the fighting in Iran stopped for several hours yesterday when American college students hacked into a group of the Army's UGVs and used them to simulate games of Nintendo's RC Pro-Am and Mario Cart. Fortunately, control was restored later in the day, but not before the battlefield had been strewn with bananas, ricocheting tortoise shells and decoy power-ups.
I imagine the Librarian being a several hundred pound orangutan didn't hurt things either. I hope they didn't call him a monkey. He hates that.*
*for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, you have my pity and should click here or here for more information.
I have been a bit leery of anything called "Seamonkeys" ever since I ordered a kit off of the back of my Amazing Spider-Man comic book many years ago. I was quite disappointed when it arrived and the creatures that hatched in my goldfish bowl were not the family of happy trident-bearing mer-creatures pictured in the ad, but a bunch of freaking shrimp.
So go ahead Mozilla, and sell the world on your little state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. I'm not gonna be sucked in to your little scheme. In the words of our great President Bush, "Fool me once, shame on... you.... The Fooled man can't be fooled again"
Microsoft has just made available their latest beta preview build of their Internet Explorer 7.0 web browser.
Additionally, users of the new Internet Explorer will be treated to the beta versions of many new viruses and exploits, allowing them to experience all that the web has to offer.
Teenage, earth-loving, wiccan hackers unite!
the above comment is an unfair stereotype and should be viewed with extreme suspicion