However, we would then have to go and round up everyone who has the tools to make bullets at home, and then provides them for their friends and families. And we would have to confiscate all that equipment. In doing this we would have to remove the right of the citizenry to own or make their own bullets, which while not actually being stated in the second amendment, is implied, since guns are useless without anything to fire out of them. What about the hunters as well? Are we going to increase the already high cost of hunting, charging law-abiding people for the crimes of others?
This is just as unworkable an idea as "gun control". And in the end would not really change anything, but rather just serve to allow people to feel like we are making a difference, to give politicians the appearance that they are trying to keep us safe, and for the state to continue to erode our civil rights, and our ability to rise against them should we ever need to.
Well, as soon as I saw this topic I had to wonder what the hell it was doing on slashdot. But as I read over some of the comments I started to realize that this is also an issue of freedom, much as opposition to the DMCA is, or opposition to Carnivore is.
But this also really made me think about the responsibility I had as a member of this community with 5 moderator points. I could of course have used them to moderate any opinion I have disagreed with straight down to troll level, or I could use them to bolster anyone who was of the same mind as I am. I opted for a third path, and tried to find the most insightful and interesting posts I could. I managed to mark one up as +1 insightful, and then added a +1 funny to a comment about the 3rd amendment. Then I started looking at some of the comments that had been marked as trolls, and it would seem that some people really are moderating opinions they don't happen to agree with.
So I made the decision to post this instead, which of course will void my moderations, but I can live with that.
But does this really show a flaw in the system? Should we maybe just remove the -1 moderations? Or at least change things so that a post cannot be modded below 0? If we really are worried about people trolling, why is it that we can't simply just all change our thresholds to 1, and then we won't see anything that shows up posted by Anonymous Cowards, unless it is actually an insightful or interesting or funny comment. Moderators of course can still be encouraged to view at a 0 threshold. I am sure that others can come up with a better solution than this, but there has to be a way to remove the ability of one person to almost completely remove a comment they don't happen to agree with from the discussion.
That all being said, one of the views I have not really seen expressed, and this will primarily only apply to those livening in the US, is that as Thomas Jefferson once said "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect against tyranny in government."
If I was at home I could simply open a file I have and include a great many other quotes to the same effects, from many of the ones who were involved in creating out constitution. Unfortunately I am at a job, and so it is unavailable. But one link that I remembered off the top of my head is Militia of Montana.
With the recent passage of both the PATRIOT act, and the homeland security bill, we are continuing to surrender more and more of our rights to the government. Will we ever have to take up arms against the state? I hope not, I would prefer that most of America wake up and start to realize that freedom is not an abstract concept that can be bartered for safety. But just in case that never happens, and just in case the state does become a threat to my and every other Americans freedom, I would hope that we have not lost our right to bear arms. Since when it comes right down to it, asking an oppressor to stop nicely very rarely works.
damn, and here I thought when I first read the headline that NASA was threatening to mothball it because it is a huge waste of taxpayer money, and will fail to produce almost any results or experiments that couldn't be done for less cash by robots launched into space for 1/10 the price.
Honestly, I really can't think of a better thing to happen to the JPL. Call me a Ludite, but this is exactly the type of thing that should be in the private sector. My tax money should not be going to towards this, especially when there is a very real private sector interest in a fair amount of this technology. Yes I think it is nice that we are exploring space, and yes, I really like reading about the advances in space propulsion that people theorize, but let the private sector figure this all out, and foot the bill for it, rather than forcing me, and millions of other Americans, to foot the bill. If the public wants it, then they will pay for it and allow it to happen, if they don't want it, why charge them for it?
Probably not going to be a popular opinion, but what the hell, I am wondering when they will privatize NASA.
Maybe it was just that the first computer that I ever had had only 500 megs of hard drive space. So i got used to removing everything that was no longer usefull or redundant. But I have a 20 gig hard drive on my curent computer, and have yet to even fill it half way. I can see how this is definatly usefull on servers and as data backup, but my question is, for home users, how is this needed? It would seem to me that this would only serve to give most people even more space to install programs that are just going to screw up or slow down your computer.
we just slashdoted the website of one of the most widely read and well respected multimedia orginizations in the world. I am sure they will be really happy about this. Not that the BBC really has had the most efficent site/servers/bandwidth anyway, but still, there are people the world over wondering why they can't even access the BBC front page.
Maybe it is time to start working on a slashdot stored cached version of the submitted URLs.
Okay, let me get this straight, my choices for advertising are:
1)annoying and senseless feel good adds on TV about how if I buy this phone I will be popular with all my friends, and be able to take an easy and convenient picture of the girl i just met because my friends called me on the phone to tell me about a great party that was happening somewhere and had lots of hip techno music playing loudly in the background.
2)I can go out to the local bar and there might be some attractive women there to serve as eye candy.
"Public Criticism: Free-speech advocates complained that UCITA let software makers prohibit public criticism of their products. A new section says that any provision limiting criticism rights is not enforceable, according to NCCUSL."
Between this and the Patriot act, the new Homeland Security plans, and the limiting of F.O.I.A. during the "War on Terrorism", I am really starting to wonder what the first amendmend really means anymore.
Please please support the ACLU and the EFF. And if you should happen to decide you want to be a Libertarian, that would be good as well.
I fail to see how it is a good idea to ban the sales of copy protected CDs. The record comapnies are more than free to sell them as such, and I would hate to see the even more legislation from the government telling companies what they can and can't do, especialy when it is in a situation where no harm can come to the users of the products. The Libertarian in me cringes at this idea.
However, doing something like simply mandating a truth in advertiseing plan, so that CDs that are copy protected are labled as such, and ones that aren't are the only ones that can carry the Compact Disk logo would be a fine comprimise. And would also I think let the market police itself.
where does it say anything about DoS attacks? From the article:
"His bill would allow copyright holders to set up decoy files and use other techno-tricks like file-blocking and redirection to throw P2P pirates off the trail, but it would forbid those holders from employing tactics that would damage or destroy pirates' own computer systems"
And further along....
A copyright owner should not be allowed to damage the property of a P2P file trader or any intermediaries, including ISPs," Berman said. "(I) wouldn't want to let a particularly incensed copyright owner introduce a virus that would disable the computer from which copyrighted works are made available... "
Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a good thing, but I also don't think we need to blow it out of proportion, who does that really help in the end? No one.
Are there many Scientologists there? It could be that Xenu is actualy imprisioned in Scotland, and the UFOs are just the Loyal Officers stopping by to check up on him.
is that while Australias evil music empire thing gets a name like ARIA which actualy makes sense in a music context, we get RIAA, which really doesn't sound like anything. Maybe if they got a better acronym?
"A presentation for Xbox Live, Microsoft's online service for its game console, stressed hack-proof servers."
Should we start a pool maybe? For when it will first be cracked? I want 24 hours after they some online myself.
Disclaimer: no this is not a shot at Microsoft just because it is microsoft. But if anyone calls anything hack-proof, you can bet that there are a lot of folks out there who are just dieing to prove you wrong.
Well, so far the opening was rather good, with hte exception of the music. I was not sure if I was suposed to pull out my old Poison World Tour shirt, and light my lighter, or head to Audiogalaxy and download one of the old ones to play over it. I always sort of liked the fact that the opening songs had not lyrics. hopefully this was just for the premier.
The really scarry thing is that even the ACLU backed out of representing the rights of the Japanese Americans in a court case against the internment policy. Hopefully both the ACLU and the EFF, not to mention others will not shirk their responsability this time around, and neither should we.
This is the text of their statement located at http://english.islamway.com/article.php?sid=110
Islamway.com has come under attack from the Canadian chapter of the B'nai B'rith Jewish organization, better known as the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL generated a story reported in the Ottawa National Post today (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/national/story.h tml?f=/stories/20010816/648534.html) alleging that Islamway.com website is "used to recruit Islamic terrorists" and "calls on Muslims to train for holy war at paramilitary camps run by mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan."........ Continue
The story links Islamway.com to the case of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian living in Montreal, who was arrested on the Canadian border with Washington state carrying explosives. The report states: "Terrorist organizations have been making increasing use of the Internet to further their violent agendas. They use computers to communicate, spread propaganda, fundraise and organize operations. Canada may be becoming a base for such cyber-terrorism because of its technological advancement, refugee policies, diverse immigrant population and weak counter-terrorism laws."
No representative from Islamway.com or the Islamic Assembly of North America was contacted for comment, and the only quote in the story is from the executive vice-president of the B'nai B'rith organization in Canada, saying "It is a very frightening thought that there is a Web site situated in Canada that is recruiting for people to participate in jihad."
The entire story is based upon a posting by a private individual on Islamway's English language discussion board, in the context of an ongoing dialogue between two individuals. There are over 28,000 postings on the discussion board, with more than 34,000 visitors to the page everyday, and over 4,000 active members. Islamway is in no way responsible for the content of postings by private individuals, anymore than CNN.com or Yahoo! are responsible for the postings found on the discussion boards on their sites.
The B'nai B'rith met with Canadian authorities today to take action against Islamway. A reporter from an Ottawa television station conveyed to Islamway staff that the Canadian authorities have dismissed the issue as baseless, and B'nai B'rith has refused any further comment.
We urge all members and supporters of Islamway to forward the included letter to the editor of the National Post, criticizing the paper for its negligent approach to this story; relaying, without any investigation, charges made by the highly subjective B'nai B'rith organization against Islamway, and not seeking any contact or interview with the staff of Islamway itself.
We cannot allow these kinds of attempts to restrict our da'awah and slander our website. Please support Islamway's effort to correct this situation.
WE REQUEST THAT ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEWSPAPER @ :
letters@nationalpost.com
And Also to : The Writer of the article : sbell@nationalpost.com
A Sample Letter can be found at : http://www.islamway.com/replyto.htm
Well, if you are going to pin this on Clinton, can we also crucify Carter for pissing off the Muslum world with the Camp David accord? Or how about Reagan for sending arms and support to the Iraqis? Or Bush for doing that whole Gulf war thing?
Look, no one person or administration can be blamed for this. No one even can be blamed for this. And most likely no one person or country can be blamed for this. I would love to say that the only reason that this happened is because of Bush (who I really don't like, didn't vote for, and don't think should rightfully be president)and the fact that we continue to suport Isreal even when it is clearly in the wrong. (Which is not all the time, but it does happen.)
But I can't, it goes deeper than that. The actions yesterday were the culmination of to many factors to list. Instead of infighting, we need to figure out who is responsable for this, and to destroy them. Then we have to figure out what we can do to make sure this never happens again, by both increasing our security, and by thinking about how maybe we can not piss so many other people off.
I realize this is slightly off topic, but none the less.
If anyone remembers after the OKC bombing everyone thought it was Arabs (specificly muslums), and there were instances of violence agains Arabic Americans. We do not know yet who did this, and even if it does turn out to be Arabs, or Muslums, please make it a point to speak out against any type of retaliation agains Arabs and Muslums in the US. No more inocent people need to suffer for the actions of a few extremists. We all need to make sure that freedom in this country survies through this disaster. It almost scares me that things like this need to be writen, but humanity being what it is, I figure it can't hurt.
Its actually kind of funny, the "coin" of the Diablo 2 world (for in game trades at least) is a ring called the Stone of Jordan. Since it is rather good equipment, and only takes up one slot in the inventory, it made sense to be the standard monetary unit. Then everyone figured out ways to either dupe them (a way that you could trick the game into giving you two of them if you only had one to start) or ways to get them through gamboling for items. Now, one would expect that since there were so many fake ones out there, or that since there are so many of them, that the value of them would plummet. Oddly enough that hasn't happened, and most people who trade in game will start out by listing the item they have, and how many SOJ's they want for it. Now if only the US economy could work like that I wouldn't have to worry about getting laid off any time soon.
"Frankly, if that helps stop bombs from going off at olympic games and helps track down illegal militias, hate groups, etc. then Im all for it!"
This was rather disturbing.
Stopping bombs is good, however, if a group is going to go about planning how to make a bomb, sneak it into the Olympic games, and then set it up so that no one finds it before it goes off, do you really think they would not think to encrypt their emails?
Um, what exactly makes a Militia illegal? Not all are, some just happen to be rather far right groups of people living together as off the grid as possible. (Sorta like the hippy communes in the 60's, except with lot of guns, and probably less posters of Marx.) Yes, militias have gone outside the bounds of the law, but not most of them.
And finally the part about hate groups, um, what part of freedom of speech, and the thus implied freedom of thought, don't you understand. Do I like the fact that the KKK DO exist? No, not in the least. Will I do everything in my power to ensure that they CAN exist? Yes. Simply because someone is a Klan member, does not mean that the FBI can bug their phones, or email, anything. When they start to do that then we are starting along the path of thought control, and the get really ugly. What happens when they decided that I am not thinking right?
This all comes down to what I believe is a quote from Ben Franklin - "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
At this point I really don't think this should be his fight. Not his country, why should he have to be here, while his family is in Russia, just because of some F-ed up corperate sponsered law, that only applies to him if he is in this country. He can head home, and never have to worry about this again. I kinda doubt he will be wanting to spend any of his PTO on a nice vacation to the US in the future, so what does he have to lose? Russia most likely won't send him back. It might be another blow to the image of "harckers" but it's just one more, and most people will never accept that a hacker could be a good person anyway.
This is our country, it is up to us to fix the laws here. Let him go home, sure the company that put up the bail loses out, but how much would it cost if they go on with his legal defence?
Unless he is seriously altruistic, I see no reason why he should stay.
Slashdot Mirror
However, we would then have to go and round up everyone who has the tools to make bullets at home, and then provides them for their friends and families. And we would have to confiscate all that equipment. In doing this we would have to remove the right of the citizenry to own or make their own bullets, which while not actually being stated in the second amendment, is implied, since guns are useless without anything to fire out of them. What about the hunters as well? Are we going to increase the already high cost of hunting, charging law-abiding people for the crimes of others?
This is just as unworkable an idea as "gun control". And in the end would not really change anything, but rather just serve to allow people to feel like we are making a difference, to give politicians the appearance that they are trying to keep us safe, and for the state to continue to erode our civil rights, and our ability to rise against them should we ever need to.
Justin Fitzsimons
Well, as soon as I saw this topic I had to wonder what the hell it was doing on slashdot. But as I read over some of the comments I started to realize that this is also an issue of freedom, much as opposition to the DMCA is, or opposition to Carnivore is.
.
But this also really made me think about the responsibility I had as a member of this community with 5 moderator points. I could of course have used them to moderate any opinion I have disagreed with straight down to troll level, or I could use them to bolster anyone who was of the same mind as I am. I opted for a third path, and tried to find the most insightful and interesting posts I could. I managed to mark one up as +1 insightful, and then added a +1 funny to a comment about the 3rd amendment. Then I started looking at some of the comments that had been marked as trolls, and it would seem that some people really are moderating opinions they don't happen to agree with.
So I made the decision to post this instead, which of course will void my moderations, but I can live with that.
But does this really show a flaw in the system? Should we maybe just remove the -1 moderations? Or at least change things so that a post cannot be modded below 0? If we really are worried about people trolling, why is it that we can't simply just all change our thresholds to 1, and then we won't see anything that shows up posted by Anonymous Cowards, unless it is actually an insightful or interesting or funny comment. Moderators of course can still be encouraged to view at a 0 threshold. I am sure that others can come up with a better solution than this, but there has to be a way to remove the ability of one person to almost completely remove a comment they don't happen to agree with from the discussion.
That all being said, one of the views I have not really seen expressed, and this will primarily only apply to those livening in the US, is that as Thomas Jefferson once said "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect against tyranny in government."
If I was at home I could simply open a file I have and include a great many other quotes to the same effects, from many of the ones who were involved in creating out constitution. Unfortunately I am at a job, and so it is unavailable. But one link that I remembered off the top of my head is Militia of Montana
With the recent passage of both the PATRIOT act, and the homeland security bill, we are continuing to surrender more and more of our rights to the government. Will we ever have to take up arms against the state? I hope not, I would prefer that most of America wake up and start to realize that freedom is not an abstract concept that can be bartered for safety. But just in case that never happens, and just in case the state does become a threat to my and every other Americans freedom, I would hope that we have not lost our right to bear arms. Since when it comes right down to it, asking an oppressor to stop nicely very rarely works.
Justin Fitzsimons
damn, and here I thought when I first read the headline that NASA was threatening to mothball it because it is a huge waste of taxpayer money, and will fail to produce almost any results or experiments that couldn't be done for less cash by robots launched into space for 1/10 the price.
well, maybe next year.
Is it just me, or have we gone from having two posts about the same issue, to having two stories in the same post about the same thing?
Honestly, I really can't think of a better thing to happen to the JPL. Call me a Ludite, but this is exactly the type of thing that should be in the private sector. My tax money should not be going to towards this, especially when there is a very real private sector interest in a fair amount of this technology. Yes I think it is nice that we are exploring space, and yes, I really like reading about the advances in space propulsion that people theorize, but let the private sector figure this all out, and foot the bill for it, rather than forcing me, and millions of other Americans, to foot the bill. If the public wants it, then they will pay for it and allow it to happen, if they don't want it, why charge them for it?
Probably not going to be a popular opinion, but what the hell, I am wondering when they will privatize NASA.
Maybe it was just that the first computer that I ever had had only 500 megs of hard drive space. So i got used to removing everything that was no longer usefull or redundant. But I have a 20 gig hard drive on my curent computer, and have yet to even fill it half way. I can see how this is definatly usefull on servers and as data backup, but my question is, for home users, how is this needed? It would seem to me that this would only serve to give most people even more space to install programs that are just going to screw up or slow down your computer.
we just slashdoted the website of one of the most widely read and well respected multimedia orginizations in the world. I am sure they will be really happy about this. Not that the BBC really has had the most efficent site/servers/bandwidth anyway, but still, there are people the world over wondering why they can't even access the BBC front page.
Maybe it is time to start working on a slashdot stored cached version of the submitted URLs.
Okay, let me get this straight, my choices for advertising are:
1)annoying and senseless feel good adds on TV about how if I buy this phone I will be popular with all my friends, and be able to take an easy and convenient picture of the girl i just met because my friends called me on the phone to tell me about a great party that was happening somewhere and had lots of hip techno music playing loudly in the background.
2)I can go out to the local bar and there might be some attractive women there to serve as eye candy.
Thank you I will take door number 2.
from the article:
"Public Criticism: Free-speech advocates complained that UCITA let software makers prohibit public criticism of their products. A new section says that any provision limiting criticism rights is not enforceable, according to NCCUSL."
Between this and the Patriot act, the new Homeland Security plans, and the limiting of F.O.I.A. during the "War on Terrorism", I am really starting to wonder what the first amendmend really means anymore.
Please please support the ACLU and the EFF. And if you should happen to decide you want to be a Libertarian, that would be good as well.
I fail to see how it is a good idea to ban the sales of copy protected CDs. The record comapnies are more than free to sell them as such, and I would hate to see the even more legislation from the government telling companies what they can and can't do, especialy when it is in a situation where no harm can come to the users of the products. The Libertarian in me cringes at this idea.
However, doing something like simply mandating a truth in advertiseing plan, so that CDs that are copy protected are labled as such, and ones that aren't are the only ones that can carry the Compact Disk logo would be a fine comprimise. And would also I think let the market police itself.
where does it say anything about DoS attacks? From the article:
... "
"His bill would allow copyright holders to set up decoy files and use other techno-tricks like file-blocking and redirection to throw P2P pirates off the trail, but it would forbid those holders from employing tactics that would damage or destroy pirates' own computer systems"
And further along....
A copyright owner should not be allowed to damage the property of a P2P file trader or any intermediaries, including ISPs," Berman said. "(I) wouldn't want to let a particularly incensed copyright owner introduce a virus that would disable the computer from which copyrighted works are made available
Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is a good thing, but I also don't think we need to blow it out of proportion, who does that really help in the end? No one.
Are there many Scientologists there? It could be that Xenu is actualy imprisioned in Scotland, and the UFOs are just the Loyal Officers stopping by to check up on him.
umm, what is it?
this is just needless text to fill up the 20 seconds that I have to wait to post. thank you.
is that while Australias evil music empire thing gets a name like ARIA which actualy makes sense in a music context, we get RIAA, which really doesn't sound like anything. Maybe if they got a better acronym?
from the article:
"A presentation for Xbox Live, Microsoft's online service for its game console, stressed hack-proof servers."
Should we start a pool maybe? For when it will first be cracked? I want 24 hours after they some online myself.
Disclaimer: no this is not a shot at Microsoft just because it is microsoft. But if anyone calls anything hack-proof, you can bet that there are a lot of folks out there who are just dieing to prove you wrong.
Well, so far the opening was rather good, with hte exception of the music. I was not sure if I was suposed to pull out my old Poison World Tour shirt, and light my lighter, or head to Audiogalaxy and download one of the old ones to play over it. I always sort of liked the fact that the opening songs had not lyrics. hopefully this was just for the premier.
Justin
The really scarry thing is that even the ACLU backed out of representing the rights of the Japanese Americans in a court case against the internment policy. Hopefully both the ACLU and the EFF, not to mention others will not shirk their responsability this time around, and neither should we.
Justin
This is the text of their statement located at http://english.islamway.com/article.php?sid=110
h tml?f=/stories/20010816/648534.html) alleging that Islamway.com website is "used to recruit Islamic terrorists" and "calls on Muslims to train for holy war at paramilitary camps run by mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan." ........ Continue
Islamway.com has come under attack from the Canadian chapter of the B'nai B'rith Jewish organization, better known as the Anti-Defamation League. The ADL generated a story reported in the Ottawa National Post today (http://www.nationalpost.com/news/national/story.
The story links Islamway.com to the case of Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian living in Montreal, who was arrested on the Canadian border with Washington state carrying explosives. The report states: "Terrorist organizations have been making increasing use of the Internet to further their violent agendas. They use computers to communicate, spread propaganda, fundraise and organize operations. Canada may be becoming a base for such cyber-terrorism because of its technological advancement, refugee policies, diverse immigrant population and weak counter-terrorism laws."
No representative from Islamway.com or the Islamic Assembly of North America was contacted for comment, and the only quote in the story is from the executive vice-president of the B'nai B'rith organization in Canada, saying "It is a very frightening thought that there is a Web site situated in Canada that is recruiting for people to participate in jihad."
The entire story is based upon a posting by a private individual on Islamway's English language discussion board, in the context of an ongoing dialogue between two individuals. There are over 28,000 postings on the discussion board, with more than 34,000 visitors to the page everyday, and over 4,000 active members. Islamway is in no way responsible for the content of postings by private individuals, anymore than CNN.com or Yahoo! are responsible for the postings found on the discussion boards on their sites.
The B'nai B'rith met with Canadian authorities today to take action against Islamway. A reporter from an Ottawa television station conveyed to Islamway staff that the Canadian authorities have dismissed the issue as baseless, and B'nai B'rith has refused any further comment.
We urge all members and supporters of Islamway to forward the included letter to the editor of the National Post, criticizing the paper for its negligent approach to this story; relaying, without any investigation, charges made by the highly subjective B'nai B'rith organization against Islamway, and not seeking any contact or interview with the staff of Islamway itself.
We cannot allow these kinds of attempts to restrict our da'awah and slander our website. Please support Islamway's effort to correct this situation.
WE REQUEST THAT ALL BROTHERS AND SISTERS SEND A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEWSPAPER @ :
letters@nationalpost.com
And Also to : The Writer of the article : sbell@nationalpost.com
A Sample Letter can be found at : http://www.islamway.com/replyto.htm
Well, if you are going to pin this on Clinton, can we also crucify Carter for pissing off the Muslum world with the Camp David accord? Or how about Reagan for sending arms and support to the Iraqis? Or Bush for doing that whole Gulf war thing?
Look, no one person or administration can be blamed for this. No one even can be blamed for this. And most likely no one person or country can be blamed for this. I would love to say that the only reason that this happened is because of Bush (who I really don't like, didn't vote for, and don't think should rightfully be president)and the fact that we continue to suport Isreal even when it is clearly in the wrong. (Which is not all the time, but it does happen.)
But I can't, it goes deeper than that. The actions yesterday were the culmination of to many factors to list. Instead of infighting, we need to figure out who is responsable for this, and to destroy them. Then we have to figure out what we can do to make sure this never happens again, by both increasing our security, and by thinking about how maybe we can not piss so many other people off.
Justin
well, they were already the tallest, so this is a bit hard to believe.
However, they were evacuated, since a threat was made shortly after the WTC buildings went down.
Justin
I realize this is slightly off topic, but none the less.
If anyone remembers after the OKC bombing everyone thought it was Arabs (specificly muslums), and there were instances of violence agains Arabic Americans. We do not know yet who did this, and even if it does turn out to be Arabs, or Muslums, please make it a point to speak out against any type of retaliation agains Arabs and Muslums in the US. No more inocent people need to suffer for the actions of a few extremists. We all need to make sure that freedom in this country survies through this disaster. It almost scares me that things like this need to be writen, but humanity being what it is, I figure it can't hurt.
Thank you
Justin
Its actually kind of funny, the "coin" of the Diablo 2 world (for in game trades at least) is a ring called the Stone of Jordan. Since it is rather good equipment, and only takes up one slot in the inventory, it made sense to be the standard monetary unit. Then everyone figured out ways to either dupe them (a way that you could trick the game into giving you two of them if you only had one to start) or ways to get them through gamboling for items. Now, one would expect that since there were so many fake ones out there, or that since there are so many of them, that the value of them would plummet. Oddly enough that hasn't happened, and most people who trade in game will start out by listing the item they have, and how many SOJ's they want for it. Now if only the US economy could work like that I wouldn't have to worry about getting laid off any time soon.
"Frankly, if that helps stop bombs from going off at olympic games and helps track down illegal militias, hate groups, etc. then Im all for it!"
This was rather disturbing.
Stopping bombs is good, however, if a group is going to go about planning how to make a bomb, sneak it into the Olympic games, and then set it up so that no one finds it before it goes off, do you really think they would not think to encrypt their emails?
Um, what exactly makes a Militia illegal? Not all are, some just happen to be rather far right groups of people living together as off the grid as possible. (Sorta like the hippy communes in the 60's, except with lot of guns, and probably less posters of Marx.) Yes, militias have gone outside the bounds of the law, but not most of them.
And finally the part about hate groups, um, what part of freedom of speech, and the thus implied freedom of thought, don't you understand. Do I like the fact that the KKK DO exist? No, not in the least. Will I do everything in my power to ensure that they CAN exist? Yes. Simply because someone is a Klan member, does not mean that the FBI can bug their phones, or email, anything. When they start to do that then we are starting along the path of thought control, and the get really ugly. What happens when they decided that I am not thinking right?
This all comes down to what I believe is a quote from Ben Franklin - "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"
Justin
At this point I really don't think this should be his fight. Not his country, why should he have to be here, while his family is in Russia, just because of some F-ed up corperate sponsered law, that only applies to him if he is in this country. He can head home, and never have to worry about this again. I kinda doubt he will be wanting to spend any of his PTO on a nice vacation to the US in the future, so what does he have to lose? Russia most likely won't send him back. It might be another blow to the image of "harckers" but it's just one more, and most people will never accept that a hacker could be a good person anyway. This is our country, it is up to us to fix the laws here. Let him go home, sure the company that put up the bail loses out, but how much would it cost if they go on with his legal defence? Unless he is seriously altruistic, I see no reason why he should stay.
yet another machine that will be able to beat me at chess.