We might be a cross purposes here. I fully agree that unionization ballots should be anonymous and private. I just disagree with using "rights" to justify it. The more we misuse the term rights, the less meaning the term has (and thus the less important our actual rights will be).
I have actually heard people say they have the "right" to cellphones, and software/music piracy, and other silly things, like cheap gas, internet access, etc...
The government became involved in the early days of unionization, when groups (employers, union leaders, and in the 1920s,Communist agitators) were accused of strong-arming employees into voting whichever way. The secret-ballot and union card system were established as a way to create a valid process
Saying that these tactics are still a threat is a much stronger way of validating the position than saying that to do otherwise would violate the "right to an anonymous ballot". Though doing otherwise (opening the ballots) could end up in other, real, rights violations as a result.
but a complete hands-off approach in this situation would have likely led to mass bloodshed.
This is a stronger argument than the rights based one.
Also, sorry for the ambiguity; by private I meant "between individuals, and not society or government", like "private enterprise", which can also contain actions that can be in public, meaning "in the open". Sorry for mangling words, blame the lack of coffee and a long week of herding contractors.
Your "in my house" argument doesn't apply anyway as we _are_ talking about the government - the issue at-hand is to change the LAW in order to forcibly remove the current secret-ballot system. It could be argued that the establishment of the secret-ballot system itself established the right of a private vote.
We are, and I fail to see why the government should be involved. Since as you put it, a union is a third party between workers and employers, and not a governmental body. We're not talking about voting in any form of political election, or any other interface with the government. This it is a private matter, just like voting to decide to eat on the patio.
Also the relationship between employee, employer, and/or the union are not public anyway.
This is my point. Its a private arrangement (or at least should be). If anonymous voting isn't a right in all circumstances (at my dinner party, for example), then why is it a right in this single, private, circumstance?
If the government was trying to take away anonymous voting in actual elections, then this would be a very different story. But in the matter of private parties, I don't see the government has any right (ahem) to decide either way.
you have no power to actually force me to stop talking if I so choose, and therefore cannot actually infringe upon my right of free speech. You can only ask me to leave in which case I can stand on the sidewalk and continue to speak.
This is true, depending on how you look at it. I did bar your ability to speak freely at one specific location, and time. You have no right to free speech in my house, business, etc... And if you take it outside in a disruptive manner, the police can also still arrest you.
Get a Nook then. You can root them (they run Android, and thus the software innards are well known), and there are several interesting 3rd party kernels out there right now.
They also have less DRM than the Kindle, using the fairly open epub format (versus the closed mobi format), which doesn't have as much up-front lock in as the Kindle and Amazon. Yes, an experienced person can switch formats at will, and remove pretty much all the DRM from things, but the Nook pretty much wins on this from an ease standard. Because of the default formats, the Nook works with any online store, where the Kindle REALLY wants you to only use Amazon.
As for the full tablet experience, an incremental approach sounds right to me. Next, how about an audio player for Amazon MP3s. Then color screen and the ability to download Amazon video. That way they keep generating revenue and utilize it as a tool for selling more stuff which is all it was ever designed to be.
Ugh, not another general purpose device that doesn't do anything well. Might as well throw a 2 megapixel camera on it too.
I own an ebook reader (a Nook), I bought it because it DIDN'T have a color LCD screen. I bought it because the greyscale e-ink screen, with an unlimited viewing angle, that can be read in direct sunlight. If it lacked these features, I would have saved my $150 and spent it on real books instead. I don't want another MP3 player, I don't want ANOTHER damn gimpy camera, I don't want to be able to play WoW on it, I don't want it to... etc... I just want an ebook reader.
If they ever made color e-ink, I would be okay with that, but putting a color LCD on an e-reader isn't an upgrade, its a downgrade.
Thats one reason I get sick of reading reviews between the Kindle, Nook, the Sony whatnot, and the unknown company whatnot, and the damn iPad. I always feel like its one of those questions on IQ tests asking what does not belong in a given set.
I generally hate generalist devices, that are not an actual PC.
A right is something that one considers as properly justified. If one has a justified right to privacy, then we have justification to keep how we vote secret. This is seen in our government/political voting system. Therefore removing privacy and doing away with the secret ballot for Unionization votes is indeed taking away a right that currently exists.
But we're not dealing with the Government, we're dealing with private organizations, who can set whatever standards they want.
If you're in my house I can violate your "right" to free speech to my hearts desire, for example. Also, if your in my house, and I say we will "vote for dinner", should I be obligated, by force of law, to make this vote anonymous to protect some "right"?
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the issue at hand. Personally I think it should be anonymous, even if I am generally pro-union. But it really isn't any of my business, its (or should be) only the business of the parties involved, the unions and the workers.
Mostly, though, I am just sick of people over-using the term "right", without any actual understanding of what a right may or may not be.
The "right to privacy" is among the most conditional of all of the things we call rights. You don't have the right to privacy in most public situations.
"...to hold the Supreme Court as final arbiter would leave us in the hands of an Oligarhcy of non-elected men..." "...when there is doubt, call a constitutional convention of the States to amend and clarify the meaning..."
Your doing exactly what I pointed out.
Also, times have changed a lot since that Jefferson's time. Back then holding a constitutional convention was MUCH easier than it would be today. Also, who can say if Jefferson was alive today he would have the same point of view? This is part of my problem with the hardcore constitutionalists, times have changed a lot since the drafting, and this have developed in ways completely outside of the founders wishes (not just the modern stuff we like to harp on, but old stuff, like having two monolithic parties, and the fact that even 40% of us vote for presidents).
"Rather than twist the meaning of the Constitution, go back to the original spirit of the day when the words were written." (i.e. original intent)
This is my point. We don't know the original intent without digging through secondary sources. And when we dig through secondary sources we only dig up people we agree with, who were talking from a time that has very little to do with our own. And often we completely ignore the greater milieu that these people were working in, like the political philosophies that they used as a base (when was the last time you heard a constitutionalist quote Hobbes or Mill?).
I'm fairly certain if you were standing in 1789 when the 2nd amendment was passed, you'd find the original intent was to have Guns be an Individual right, since the men who wrote that law had just finished overthrowing the British government a mere six years earlier.
This may or may not be true. I'm not omnipresent so I will never be sure of that. But reading the actual text of the amendment leaves some room for ambiguity. "The People" instead of "Persons", where in the rest of the document "persons" is used to denote individual rights, where "The People" is a more collective right. Also people completely ignore the first bit of the text.
Regardless, I don't think there is a 100% true and unbiased interpretation of the Constitution. I think we should do the best we can in keeping thing true to the document, and in case of disagreement we should solve it in the traditional American way, raucous debate. Sadly we lost the ability to debate sometime in the last 60 years, and now are settling for either ignoring it, or calling the Psychic Friends Network and channeling the founders themselves, and then claiming ultimate authority.
I doubt our founders would have approved of that one bit.
Wait, weren't most of the early bailouts (TARP, etc) Bush's? Obama throws money around like its going out of fashion, but I still think Bush was a little bit worse. Obama's spending, arguably, was for something useful to the US as a whole. Bush's was for two really stupid wars that benefit no one except some large contractors and perhaps (but probably not) oil companies. If I had to pick one, I pick Obama. I'd rather not pick either of them, though.
(also, saying Obama is better than Bush leaves A LOT of room, since pretty much everything is better than Bush).
I think the article meant to say "It appears the JEWS would like to make it easier for the FBI to obtain records of a person's internet activities without a court order to do so, via the use of an NSL."
What does the Jesuit European Weasel Society have to do with it?
So we really shouldn't have moral high ground? We should be as bad as our worst enemy?
We should completely forget about human rights, ethics, and morals when it is convenient.
An eye for an eye, and all that.
So if we torture how can we really raise the oppositional rhetoric against people torturing us? Accepting your world view, I would have to be completely apathetic and ambivalent to others torturing our people. Who cares if they torture us, since we torture them!
But then again patriotism and nationalism have absolutely nothing to do with reason, or logical consistency (as evident by my fellow Americans blathering about being #1, when statistics no longer back this up in basically any area anymore).
You realize, of course, that "liberal" is as much a political party as "conservative". And right now both of these ideological camps share something in common; they are not represented very well in government.
Obama is as much a Liberal as Bush II was a Conservative.
What makes you think I supported going to War in 1941 or 1916? Those were European Wars and NONE of our business. Let the Europeans squabble amongst themselves w/o American interference.
At what point does someone else's business become ours? And a what point do we own an atrocity by doing nothing to stop it? And at what point to you stop supporting your closest allies just because "its not my problem!"?
I'm not sure about WWI, but the European bits of WWII would have eventually bitten us in the ass if we did nothing.
Pretty much every war since WWII was stupid, though. Afghanistan was okay, but only as far as removing the threat to us, and only if we had a damn good... whats that thing called... oh... a plan!
I hate them all. I wish the Congress was run by Libertarians or constitutionalists. People who obey the 9th and 10th amendments instead of pretending they did not exist.
Whose interpretation? The SCOTUS was being Constitutional when they decided that money is free speech. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say corporations can't be people either. I'm for gun control (not banning, control, before the strawmen begin), and still follow the Constitution since my interpretation doesn't read the individualistic "all persons have the the right to bear arms", only the collective "the people". A lot of Consitutionalists use secondary documentation to aide their interpretation of the document, such as the Federalist Papers, and often they pick and choose founders/authors to support their views, ignoring founders with opposing views. Often people completely ignore parts of the Constitution to fit their limited dogmatic views (when we the last time you heard a Libertarian discuss the "general welfare" bits).
I'm a fan of the 9th and 10th, as much as I'm a fan of all the bits of the Constitution that has nothing to do with Christian idiocy (prohibition, which is sadly documented for perpetuity), but they can also be used for things YOU don't like.
The Constitution is a lot like the Bible, true believers can interpret it which ever way makes them look right. And, being true believers, generally the premise their proving is harmful to the people, which is against the spirit of the document, if not the literal translation.
I would HATE the government being run by one view, even if it is a view I hold as true. A purely Libertarian government would be a tyranny. A purely Constitutional government would have nothing to do with anything as silly as someones favorite flavor of political dogma. You can be a Constitutional socialist! You can be a Constitutional conservative! You can be a Constitutional free-marketeer! You can be a Constitutional libertarian (small "L"). Etc...
Driving is just a means of getting around for to many.
Isn't it just?
So you think we should be more hardcore about "getting around", and others just want to "get around". Okay.
To many buy cars that are not suited to highway driving and drive them on the highway anyway.
I don't get this. What cars ARE suited to the highway in your opinion? Which aren't?
I agree with the rest of your points, but I would be careful what you wish for. As my dad told me when I was learning to drive; most people far overestimate their abilities, so I'm guessing most gear-head types would be bitten in the ass by more, stricter, laws.
I've talked to people who drive 10-15 miles over the limit, while chatting on their cell-phones who still manage to condemn that behavior in others, but its okay for them because they are "skilled" (which I quickly translate into nerd slang as "1337" with all its negative connotations).
American vehicles are equipped with side windows only to order drive through fast food. They serve no other purpose.
Huh? They also are for enjoying nice weather when your not trying to go 300mph, or for venting smoke and other noxious odors, and for many many other reasons. I used to live in a beautiful mountain town that had great weather 75% of the year, in the spring and mid-fall me and a friend would cruise for 100's of miles with the window down, though the woods, and other misc. surface streets (generally with the weak pretext of running errands). My friend is a speed guy too, he somehow managed to go from New Hampshire to Arizona in around 3 days, and got a aggravated speeding ticket in Nevada for going 50 over the limit.
Even now, me and the lady friend cruise around our ghastly and hellish city (Phoenix) when it actually is nice out, generally with the pretext of running errands, but really just for the drive.
Also, when your out in the gloriously uncivilized country side, having your windows open is very nice. Nothing like being on an old ranch road, 100 miles from the nearest settlement with all your windows open.
Cars are not only about getting the maximum speed and performance. There is no point unless you actually enjoy the ride. And people get enjoyment out of different things. I personally never really go much above the posted limit, because I don't see what the big hurry is. Where the hell are you trying to get so fast? And what the hell is wrong with enjoying the scenery?
The federal government has said that anyone with a Ron Paul bumper sticker is a possible terrorist.
[citation needed]
And if its the Napolitano quote about "right wing organisations", then your being purposefully naive. The extreme right is as much a threat as the extreme left was in the 60's and 70's. Timothy McVeigh is an example of a right wing threat, not your average Ron Paul supporter. This wasn't explicitly said, because it didn't NEED to be, no one thought that the population was stupid enough to believe a couple of pundits who misconstrued the comment for their own benefit. There is a level of stupidity that you can't really plan ahead for.
And yes, the extreme right scares me. The extreme left would too, if they had a single testicle among them (as evident as Obama being considered liberal at all). Especially with the really base level the rhetoric has come too, with mainstream media personalities basically inciting violence, and trying to bring the fear level up to some really, REALLY, tragically silly level. I'm waiting for some right wing pundit to come out and say, with a straight face, that Obama has threatened, personally, to come to their house and eat their babies. When the atmosphere and discourse hit a certain level, the small unhinged fringe of any movement can turn into a threat fast.
Look at the liberal activism of the 60's. A majority of the grassroots movements were tame, concerned, and generally well behaved. But the atmosphere also empowered the lunatic fringe (the Weathermen, Black Panthers, and such).
I can see this. Sadly, though, I don't want to play in Apple's walled garden, no matter how beautiful it may be. I ran into this same problem with every Mac I've owned, I loved the environment, but Apple got in the way each and every time. I really hate the "app store" idea, it might be the worst thing to come to personal computing since DRM itself. Its my computer, I should be allowed to install WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT, not just family friendly apps personally approved by the Steve. Its my device, if I want to look a porn, listen to Nine Inch Nails and shake virtual babies to death, I should be allowed to. If I want to install something with a chance of hosing their beautiful technology, this should be my right as well. If I want to install something that competes with Apple's (generally inferior) darling software, I should be able to.
Not even Microsoft completely blocked installing competitor software. Even with IE being bundled deeply into the OS, I was allowed to install Firefox and use it, even if I couldn't kill IE completely. Apple decided that this is verboten.
Perhaps someday someone will make a nice, open, device with the same form factor (perhaps even better looking, since I personally find the new iphone/ipad design to be rather blah), but not completely at the whim (hardware and software wise) of some dictator, and his views of what I should, or should not, be allowed to do with my property. I doubt it, everyone has discovered that the "app store" shenanigans is a GREAT money making opportunity, even if it completely inferior to giving users control.
Erm, isn't it obvious that the illness we prudely call "religion" - the idea that an all-powerful imaginary friend really exists and affects your life - will have been cured long before we have interstellar travel?
I was being a bit facetious. I'm just saying it is almost impossible to guess the intentions of other life forms. A lot of people here, weened on sci-fi and optimism, seem to think aliens are going to be looking to be our best friends. A lot of other people seem to think they are going to enslave us all and take our precious resources (I'm not sure, either, what we have to offer a species that much more advanced than us). Its silly.
If we put our selves in the alien shoes, its very enlightening. They (we) will find a race so incredibly primitive that it is almost unbelievable. At our current technology, we're not even talking about the technological gap between Europe and the New World, this gap would be far larger. We might be talking about a gap the size of the difference between us and our early ancestors.
Would they recognize us as an intelligent race? Would we be "similar" enough to warrant ANY consideration? Etc... These questions are more interesting (though still completely pointless).
As for the weening off of religion, I doubt it will happen to us. Sure, most, if not all, of the religions today might die off, or change into something completely irrecognizable, but I wholly doubt that religion itself will ever vanish. The propensity seems hard wired into us.
Perhaps we'll reduce extremism, and reconcile libertarian (lower-case), and rational ideas with faith, but I doubt that all religious sentiments will die. If the former happens, I don't care about the latter.
Unless you think those random bits of organic gunk might grow up to be a threat to you someday. Best to destroy or co-opt them while it's still trivial to do, rather than wait for a potential rival to grow strong feisty.
Or save their souls. We also ignore the fact that any space-faring aliens might have the same stupid hang ups as us, and be doomed to repeat our history.
If, by some stretch, we managed to get into space, and found an intelligent species you can be sure that various sects of religious wackos will quickly try to convert them to Earthly religion. And probably, judging how these things historically worked, slaughter most of the in the process (in the name of progress and for their own good).
Yet a 64GB collection of MP3, assuming the average filesize is 6MB and each song costs $1, it's worth $10923. Protect your laptops, people!
If you have 64GB of ONLY MP3s then things are a bit absurd. But if you have a disk with an operating system, a player FOR your MP3s (with the overhead for metadata, art, etc...), and maybe a web browser, then you probably broke the 64GB limit already.
Right now, just Windows and misc programs (on fresh disk, just reformatted about 2 weeks ago), is sitting pretty a 20GB. This is ignoring my games directory, which brings to total to around 84GB. This is ignoring my photos and documents, which brings to total up to around 90GB. This is ignoring my music (and associated files), which brings it up to around 130GB. With movies and other media, this could be even higher.
And this is a fresh install, and I doubt completely outside of common usage.
Also, people still own albums, so people still rip their music to their computers. And with storage space being cheap, people often rip them at high bit rates or using lossless compression. If I went through and ripped all the CDs I've collected over the last... however long, I would be far above 64GB if I used any form of decent compression.
In the late 90s I was in a PoliSci class with a refugee from Afghanistan, she was NOT happy about the Soviets (she was not a Muslim extremist, I don't even think she was Muslim). While I'm sure they did a bit (forced) improvements, they also dropped exploding toys around villages to hurt the natives moral. This girl claimed (I have no reason to think she lied) that she personally knew at least 5 people who were mauled and killed by mines, and she was in a rather rural area that was not directly involved in combat.
I do miss my intercity community college, half the people there were refugees and exiles from the east, the other half was normal immigrants from Russia and Mexico. My favorite was a young Bosnian kid (younger than me at the time, so maybe 19/20) who was an actual, honest to goodness, war criminal (allowed here, because he was fighting for whatever side in that mess that the US liked at the time).
Hey, instead of Tab Candy(which seems like a hell of a lot of work to organize tabs while browsing) how about you just learn to properly use a tabbed browser?
So the only proper way of doing things is your way? When I'm trying to research something (currently Windows 7 terrible wireless transfer rates to samba), I will open a TON of links in new tabs, then browse through them, quickly deleting the ones that don't work, or look dumb, moving the ones that might need more time over to the far left, and reading through the ones that may or may not be helpful. I find this much more efficient than just opening a link, reading it, going back and reading the next. Sometimes I use my browser for more than one (gasp) task, like reading/. while troubleshooting something, while doing a random Wikipedia crawl, Oh dear. I know, I'm doing it wrong.
I generally only have around 5 tabs open when I'm doing normal browsing, but at times I can have well over 15 (currently reading 3 wikipedia pages, two/. stories, something on Lifehacker, something on CNN.com, a future dinner at Cooks.com, and I have my RSS reader open, which is 9 tabs... I have no problem keeping track.).
On top of that, it's actually faster to just open a second copy of the browser with a different group of tabs than it is to organize with Tab Candy.
Faster, yes. But does it work as well with some people? I generally only have one browser window open, having more than one annoys me, and I often completely forget about the bottom one. Having 2+ windows open remind of using IE6. I don't mind adding functionality, as long as its optional or has low overhead. I will even try it out, just to see if it might make my work flow better. It might. I realize the way I do things is completely arbitrary, as is the way EVERYONE does things, so something might work a bit better.
Slashdot Mirror
We might be a cross purposes here. I fully agree that unionization ballots should be anonymous and private. I just disagree with using "rights" to justify it. The more we misuse the term rights, the less meaning the term has (and thus the less important our actual rights will be).
I have actually heard people say they have the "right" to cellphones, and software/music piracy, and other silly things, like cheap gas, internet access, etc...
The government became involved in the early days of unionization, when groups (employers, union leaders, and in the 1920s,Communist agitators) were accused of strong-arming employees into voting whichever way. The secret-ballot and union card system were established as a way to create a valid process
Saying that these tactics are still a threat is a much stronger way of validating the position than saying that to do otherwise would violate the "right to an anonymous ballot". Though doing otherwise (opening the ballots) could end up in other, real, rights violations as a result.
but a complete hands-off approach in this situation would have likely led to mass bloodshed.
This is a stronger argument than the rights based one.
Also, sorry for the ambiguity; by private I meant "between individuals, and not society or government", like "private enterprise", which can also contain actions that can be in public, meaning "in the open". Sorry for mangling words, blame the lack of coffee and a long week of herding contractors.
Your "in my house" argument doesn't apply anyway as we _are_ talking about the government - the issue at-hand is to change the LAW in order to forcibly remove the current secret-ballot system. It could be argued that the establishment of the secret-ballot system itself established the right of a private vote.
We are, and I fail to see why the government should be involved. Since as you put it, a union is a third party between workers and employers, and not a governmental body. We're not talking about voting in any form of political election, or any other interface with the government. This it is a private matter, just like voting to decide to eat on the patio.
Also the relationship between employee, employer, and/or the union are not public anyway.
This is my point. Its a private arrangement (or at least should be). If anonymous voting isn't a right in all circumstances (at my dinner party, for example), then why is it a right in this single, private, circumstance?
If the government was trying to take away anonymous voting in actual elections, then this would be a very different story. But in the matter of private parties, I don't see the government has any right (ahem) to decide either way.
you have no power to actually force me to stop talking if I so choose, and therefore cannot actually infringe upon my right of free speech. You can only ask me to leave in which case I can stand on the sidewalk and continue to speak.
This is true, depending on how you look at it. I did bar your ability to speak freely at one specific location, and time. You have no right to free speech in my house, business, etc... And if you take it outside in a disruptive manner, the police can also still arrest you.
Get a Nook then. You can root them (they run Android, and thus the software innards are well known), and there are several interesting 3rd party kernels out there right now.
They also have less DRM than the Kindle, using the fairly open epub format (versus the closed mobi format), which doesn't have as much up-front lock in as the Kindle and Amazon. Yes, an experienced person can switch formats at will, and remove pretty much all the DRM from things, but the Nook pretty much wins on this from an ease standard. Because of the default formats, the Nook works with any online store, where the Kindle REALLY wants you to only use Amazon.
PDF support on all of them suck. Bad.
As for the full tablet experience, an incremental approach sounds right to me. Next, how about an audio player for Amazon MP3s. Then color screen and the ability to download Amazon video. That way they keep generating revenue and utilize it as a tool for selling more stuff which is all it was ever designed to be.
Ugh, not another general purpose device that doesn't do anything well. Might as well throw a 2 megapixel camera on it too.
I own an ebook reader (a Nook), I bought it because it DIDN'T have a color LCD screen. I bought it because the greyscale e-ink screen, with an unlimited viewing angle, that can be read in direct sunlight. If it lacked these features, I would have saved my $150 and spent it on real books instead. I don't want another MP3 player, I don't want ANOTHER damn gimpy camera, I don't want to be able to play WoW on it, I don't want it to... etc... I just want an ebook reader.
If they ever made color e-ink, I would be okay with that, but putting a color LCD on an e-reader isn't an upgrade, its a downgrade.
Thats one reason I get sick of reading reviews between the Kindle, Nook, the Sony whatnot, and the unknown company whatnot, and the damn iPad. I always feel like its one of those questions on IQ tests asking what does not belong in a given set.
I generally hate generalist devices, that are not an actual PC.
A right is something that one considers as properly justified. If one has a justified right to privacy, then we have justification to keep how we vote secret. This is seen in our government/political voting system. Therefore removing privacy and doing away with the secret ballot for Unionization votes is indeed taking away a right that currently exists.
But we're not dealing with the Government, we're dealing with private organizations, who can set whatever standards they want.
If you're in my house I can violate your "right" to free speech to my hearts desire, for example. Also, if your in my house, and I say we will "vote for dinner", should I be obligated, by force of law, to make this vote anonymous to protect some "right"?
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with the issue at hand. Personally I think it should be anonymous, even if I am generally pro-union. But it really isn't any of my business, its (or should be) only the business of the parties involved, the unions and the workers.
Mostly, though, I am just sick of people over-using the term "right", without any actual understanding of what a right may or may not be.
The "right to privacy" is among the most conditional of all of the things we call rights. You don't have the right to privacy in most public situations.
"...to hold the Supreme Court as final arbiter would leave us in the hands of an Oligarhcy of non-elected men..." "...when there is doubt, call a constitutional convention of the States to amend and clarify the meaning..."
Your doing exactly what I pointed out.
Also, times have changed a lot since that Jefferson's time. Back then holding a constitutional convention was MUCH easier than it would be today. Also, who can say if Jefferson was alive today he would have the same point of view? This is part of my problem with the hardcore constitutionalists, times have changed a lot since the drafting, and this have developed in ways completely outside of the founders wishes (not just the modern stuff we like to harp on, but old stuff, like having two monolithic parties, and the fact that even 40% of us vote for presidents).
"Rather than twist the meaning of the Constitution, go back to the original spirit of the day when the words were written." (i.e. original intent)
This is my point. We don't know the original intent without digging through secondary sources. And when we dig through secondary sources we only dig up people we agree with, who were talking from a time that has very little to do with our own. And often we completely ignore the greater milieu that these people were working in, like the political philosophies that they used as a base (when was the last time you heard a constitutionalist quote Hobbes or Mill?).
I'm fairly certain if you were standing in 1789 when the 2nd amendment was passed, you'd find the original intent was to have Guns be an Individual right, since the men who wrote that law had just finished overthrowing the British government a mere six years earlier.
This may or may not be true. I'm not omnipresent so I will never be sure of that. But reading the actual text of the amendment leaves some room for ambiguity. "The People" instead of "Persons", where in the rest of the document "persons" is used to denote individual rights, where "The People" is a more collective right. Also people completely ignore the first bit of the text.
Regardless, I don't think there is a 100% true and unbiased interpretation of the Constitution. I think we should do the best we can in keeping thing true to the document, and in case of disagreement we should solve it in the traditional American way, raucous debate. Sadly we lost the ability to debate sometime in the last 60 years, and now are settling for either ignoring it, or calling the Psychic Friends Network and channeling the founders themselves, and then claiming ultimate authority.
I doubt our founders would have approved of that one bit.
Global warming deniers will exist, so long as there's money to be made from it.
See what I did there?
Wait, weren't most of the early bailouts (TARP, etc) Bush's? Obama throws money around like its going out of fashion, but I still think Bush was a little bit worse. Obama's spending, arguably, was for something useful to the US as a whole. Bush's was for two really stupid wars that benefit no one except some large contractors and perhaps (but probably not) oil companies. If I had to pick one, I pick Obama. I'd rather not pick either of them, though.
(also, saying Obama is better than Bush leaves A LOT of room, since pretty much everything is better than Bush).
I think the article meant to say "It appears the JEWS would like to make it easier for the FBI to obtain records of a person's internet activities without a court order to do so, via the use of an NSL."
What does the Jesuit European Weasel Society have to do with it?
Think of the weasels!
For once I think the AC was going for humor, and not troll value.
But this is Slashdot, during the golden age of American discourse; so who knows?
So we really shouldn't have moral high ground? We should be as bad as our worst enemy?
We should completely forget about human rights, ethics, and morals when it is convenient.
An eye for an eye, and all that.
So if we torture how can we really raise the oppositional rhetoric against people torturing us? Accepting your world view, I would have to be completely apathetic and ambivalent to others torturing our people. Who cares if they torture us, since we torture them!
But then again patriotism and nationalism have absolutely nothing to do with reason, or logical consistency (as evident by my fellow Americans blathering about being #1, when statistics no longer back this up in basically any area anymore).
You realize, of course, that "liberal" is as much a political party as "conservative". And right now both of these ideological camps share something in common; they are not represented very well in government.
Obama is as much a Liberal as Bush II was a Conservative.
What makes you think I supported going to War in 1941 or 1916? Those were European Wars and NONE of our business. Let the Europeans squabble amongst themselves w/o American interference.
At what point does someone else's business become ours? And a what point do we own an atrocity by doing nothing to stop it? And at what point to you stop supporting your closest allies just because "its not my problem!"?
I'm not sure about WWI, but the European bits of WWII would have eventually bitten us in the ass if we did nothing.
Pretty much every war since WWII was stupid, though. Afghanistan was okay, but only as far as removing the threat to us, and only if we had a damn good... whats that thing called... oh... a plan!
I hate them all. I wish the Congress was run by Libertarians or constitutionalists. People who obey the 9th and 10th amendments instead of pretending they did not exist.
Whose interpretation? The SCOTUS was being Constitutional when they decided that money is free speech. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say corporations can't be people either. I'm for gun control (not banning, control, before the strawmen begin), and still follow the Constitution since my interpretation doesn't read the individualistic "all persons have the the right to bear arms", only the collective "the people". A lot of Consitutionalists use secondary documentation to aide their interpretation of the document, such as the Federalist Papers, and often they pick and choose founders/authors to support their views, ignoring founders with opposing views. Often people completely ignore parts of the Constitution to fit their limited dogmatic views (when we the last time you heard a Libertarian discuss the "general welfare" bits).
I'm a fan of the 9th and 10th, as much as I'm a fan of all the bits of the Constitution that has nothing to do with Christian idiocy (prohibition, which is sadly documented for perpetuity), but they can also be used for things YOU don't like.
The Constitution is a lot like the Bible, true believers can interpret it which ever way makes them look right. And, being true believers, generally the premise their proving is harmful to the people, which is against the spirit of the document, if not the literal translation.
I would HATE the government being run by one view, even if it is a view I hold as true. A purely Libertarian government would be a tyranny. A purely Constitutional government would have nothing to do with anything as silly as someones favorite flavor of political dogma. You can be a Constitutional socialist! You can be a Constitutional conservative! You can be a Constitutional free-marketeer! You can be a Constitutional libertarian (small "L"). Etc...
Driving is just a means of getting around for to many.
Isn't it just?
So you think we should be more hardcore about "getting around", and others just want to "get around". Okay.
To many buy cars that are not suited to highway driving and drive them on the highway anyway.
I don't get this. What cars ARE suited to the highway in your opinion? Which aren't?
I agree with the rest of your points, but I would be careful what you wish for. As my dad told me when I was learning to drive; most people far overestimate their abilities, so I'm guessing most gear-head types would be bitten in the ass by more, stricter, laws.
I've talked to people who drive 10-15 miles over the limit, while chatting on their cell-phones who still manage to condemn that behavior in others, but its okay for them because they are "skilled" (which I quickly translate into nerd slang as "1337" with all its negative connotations).
American vehicles are equipped with side windows only to order drive through fast food. They serve no other purpose.
Huh? They also are for enjoying nice weather when your not trying to go 300mph, or for venting smoke and other noxious odors, and for many many other reasons. I used to live in a beautiful mountain town that had great weather 75% of the year, in the spring and mid-fall me and a friend would cruise for 100's of miles with the window down, though the woods, and other misc. surface streets (generally with the weak pretext of running errands). My friend is a speed guy too, he somehow managed to go from New Hampshire to Arizona in around 3 days, and got a aggravated speeding ticket in Nevada for going 50 over the limit.
Even now, me and the lady friend cruise around our ghastly and hellish city (Phoenix) when it actually is nice out, generally with the pretext of running errands, but really just for the drive.
Also, when your out in the gloriously uncivilized country side, having your windows open is very nice. Nothing like being on an old ranch road, 100 miles from the nearest settlement with all your windows open.
Cars are not only about getting the maximum speed and performance. There is no point unless you actually enjoy the ride. And people get enjoyment out of different things. I personally never really go much above the posted limit, because I don't see what the big hurry is. Where the hell are you trying to get so fast? And what the hell is wrong with enjoying the scenery?
You have good points. I mostly agree. but...
The federal government has said that anyone with a Ron Paul bumper sticker is a possible terrorist.
[citation needed]
And if its the Napolitano quote about "right wing organisations", then your being purposefully naive. The extreme right is as much a threat as the extreme left was in the 60's and 70's. Timothy McVeigh is an example of a right wing threat, not your average Ron Paul supporter. This wasn't explicitly said, because it didn't NEED to be, no one thought that the population was stupid enough to believe a couple of pundits who misconstrued the comment for their own benefit. There is a level of stupidity that you can't really plan ahead for.
And yes, the extreme right scares me. The extreme left would too, if they had a single testicle among them (as evident as Obama being considered liberal at all). Especially with the really base level the rhetoric has come too, with mainstream media personalities basically inciting violence, and trying to bring the fear level up to some really, REALLY, tragically silly level. I'm waiting for some right wing pundit to come out and say, with a straight face, that Obama has threatened, personally, to come to their house and eat their babies. When the atmosphere and discourse hit a certain level, the small unhinged fringe of any movement can turn into a threat fast.
Look at the liberal activism of the 60's. A majority of the grassroots movements were tame, concerned, and generally well behaved. But the atmosphere also empowered the lunatic fringe (the Weathermen, Black Panthers, and such).
I can see this. Sadly, though, I don't want to play in Apple's walled garden, no matter how beautiful it may be. I ran into this same problem with every Mac I've owned, I loved the environment, but Apple got in the way each and every time. I really hate the "app store" idea, it might be the worst thing to come to personal computing since DRM itself. Its my computer, I should be allowed to install WHATEVER THE HELL I WANT, not just family friendly apps personally approved by the Steve. Its my device, if I want to look a porn, listen to Nine Inch Nails and shake virtual babies to death, I should be allowed to. If I want to install something with a chance of hosing their beautiful technology, this should be my right as well. If I want to install something that competes with Apple's (generally inferior) darling software, I should be able to.
Not even Microsoft completely blocked installing competitor software. Even with IE being bundled deeply into the OS, I was allowed to install Firefox and use it, even if I couldn't kill IE completely. Apple decided that this is verboten.
Perhaps someday someone will make a nice, open, device with the same form factor (perhaps even better looking, since I personally find the new iphone/ipad design to be rather blah), but not completely at the whim (hardware and software wise) of some dictator, and his views of what I should, or should not, be allowed to do with my property. I doubt it, everyone has discovered that the "app store" shenanigans is a GREAT money making opportunity, even if it completely inferior to giving users control.
Erm, isn't it obvious that the illness we prudely call "religion" - the idea that an all-powerful imaginary friend really exists and affects your life - will have been cured long before we have interstellar travel?
I was being a bit facetious. I'm just saying it is almost impossible to guess the intentions of other life forms. A lot of people here, weened on sci-fi and optimism, seem to think aliens are going to be looking to be our best friends. A lot of other people seem to think they are going to enslave us all and take our precious resources (I'm not sure, either, what we have to offer a species that much more advanced than us). Its silly.
If we put our selves in the alien shoes, its very enlightening. They (we) will find a race so incredibly primitive that it is almost unbelievable. At our current technology, we're not even talking about the technological gap between Europe and the New World, this gap would be far larger. We might be talking about a gap the size of the difference between us and our early ancestors.
Would they recognize us as an intelligent race? Would we be "similar" enough to warrant ANY consideration? Etc... These questions are more interesting (though still completely pointless).
As for the weening off of religion, I doubt it will happen to us. Sure, most, if not all, of the religions today might die off, or change into something completely irrecognizable, but I wholly doubt that religion itself will ever vanish. The propensity seems hard wired into us.
Perhaps we'll reduce extremism, and reconcile libertarian (lower-case), and rational ideas with faith, but I doubt that all religious sentiments will die. If the former happens, I don't care about the latter.
Unless you think those random bits of organic gunk might grow up to be a threat to you someday. Best to destroy or co-opt them while it's still trivial to do, rather than wait for a potential rival to grow strong feisty.
Or save their souls. We also ignore the fact that any space-faring aliens might have the same stupid hang ups as us, and be doomed to repeat our history.
If, by some stretch, we managed to get into space, and found an intelligent species you can be sure that various sects of religious wackos will quickly try to convert them to Earthly religion. And probably, judging how these things historically worked, slaughter most of the in the process (in the name of progress and for their own good).
Yet a 64GB collection of MP3, assuming the average filesize is 6MB and each song costs $1, it's worth $10923. Protect your laptops, people!
If you have 64GB of ONLY MP3s then things are a bit absurd. But if you have a disk with an operating system, a player FOR your MP3s (with the overhead for metadata, art, etc...), and maybe a web browser, then you probably broke the 64GB limit already.
Right now, just Windows and misc programs (on fresh disk, just reformatted about 2 weeks ago), is sitting pretty a 20GB. This is ignoring my games directory, which brings to total to around 84GB. This is ignoring my photos and documents, which brings to total up to around 90GB. This is ignoring my music (and associated files), which brings it up to around 130GB. With movies and other media, this could be even higher.
And this is a fresh install, and I doubt completely outside of common usage.
Also, people still own albums, so people still rip their music to their computers. And with storage space being cheap, people often rip them at high bit rates or using lossless compression. If I went through and ripped all the CDs I've collected over the last... however long, I would be far above 64GB if I used any form of decent compression.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN!?
The Soviets were doing a pretty good job.
In the late 90s I was in a PoliSci class with a refugee from Afghanistan, she was NOT happy about the Soviets (she was not a Muslim extremist, I don't even think she was Muslim). While I'm sure they did a bit (forced) improvements, they also dropped exploding toys around villages to hurt the natives moral. This girl claimed (I have no reason to think she lied) that she personally knew at least 5 people who were mauled and killed by mines, and she was in a rather rural area that was not directly involved in combat.
I do miss my intercity community college, half the people there were refugees and exiles from the east, the other half was normal immigrants from Russia and Mexico. My favorite was a young Bosnian kid (younger than me at the time, so maybe 19/20) who was an actual, honest to goodness, war criminal (allowed here, because he was fighting for whatever side in that mess that the US liked at the time).
Hey, instead of Tab Candy(which seems like a hell of a lot of work to organize tabs while browsing) how about you just learn to properly use a tabbed browser?
So the only proper way of doing things is your way? When I'm trying to research something (currently Windows 7 terrible wireless transfer rates to samba), I will open a TON of links in new tabs, then browse through them, quickly deleting the ones that don't work, or look dumb, moving the ones that might need more time over to the far left, and reading through the ones that may or may not be helpful. I find this much more efficient than just opening a link, reading it, going back and reading the next. Sometimes I use my browser for more than one (gasp) task, like reading /. while troubleshooting something, while doing a random Wikipedia crawl, Oh dear. I know, I'm doing it wrong.
I generally only have around 5 tabs open when I'm doing normal browsing, but at times I can have well over 15 (currently reading 3 wikipedia pages, two /. stories, something on Lifehacker, something on CNN.com, a future dinner at Cooks.com, and I have my RSS reader open, which is 9 tabs... I have no problem keeping track.).
On top of that, it's actually faster to just open a second copy of the browser with a different group of tabs than it is to organize with Tab Candy.
Faster, yes. But does it work as well with some people? I generally only have one browser window open, having more than one annoys me, and I often completely forget about the bottom one. Having 2+ windows open remind of using IE6. I don't mind adding functionality, as long as its optional or has low overhead. I will even try it out, just to see if it might make my work flow better. It might. I realize the way I do things is completely arbitrary, as is the way EVERYONE does things, so something might work a bit better.
How exactly do I take a tab from pinned to "phantom", using the latest dev version?
Damn on the sly upgrades, and the lack of quickly available patch notes!