Example of vulgarity, not protected by any amendment
I see nothing in the Amendment I that says "except vulgarity" or "only political speech". Nor do I see anything in Article I Section 8, or anywhere else in the Constitution, granting Congress the power to regulate "vulgarity" - but I do see Amendments IX and X.
"I was only following orders" is not an excuse, whether those orders come from the legistlature (in the form of laws) or from a superior. If Congress passed a law tomorrow requiring all blond-haired people to sit in the back of buses, the executive branch would be obligated - legally (by the Constitution) and morally - to fail to enforce it.
The Judiciary is supposed to rule on the constitutionality of law. This is based on the Constitution itself and the body of cases that have been decided by the Supreme and lower courts since the founding of the nation. The Supreme Court can't throw out a "bad" law unless it violates the constitution.
You think that cops should have the power to choose which laws to enforce?
That's the purpose of separation of powers. If the legislature passes an immoral or unconstitutional law, it is the duty of the executive to not enforce it, and of the judiciary to not convict under it and/or overturn it.
For the whole savage comments, eating American pilots livers, raping women, bayoneting babies, doesn't quite lend to the whole civilized thing.
If atrocities commited by the Japanese army justify the slaughter of innocent Japanese civilians, then what do the recent atrocities by American soldiers justify against innocent Americans?
Japan didn't surrender after the first bomb, thus a second was justified.
They didn't immediately and unconditionally surrender. They were trying to negotiate terms - in fact, they had started looking for a way to sue for peace before the Hiroshima bombing. But it's not like they were white people, after all - they were "savages", and we had to show the Soviets our new weapon anyway.
Braga also addressed the fans questions on whether or not Enterprise is a prequel to Kirks era of Star Trek or if it is in fact set in an altogether different universe.
"Yes, it is definitely a prequel. It's not an alternate timeline, of course not.
...
"In terms of the alternate timeline, I don't understand why people think that.
Everything I find pointing to the "Enterprise is alternate history" theory is fan speculation. (Though Braga doees mention the First Contact/Borg-meets-Archer change.)
If you don't like the show right now, nothing I say's going to change your mind.
Overall, so far I give it a C-, though it's had some very good moments. It's better than Voyager.
Enterprise apologists keep making this claim, but has anyone on the creative team ever said that Enterprise is supposed to take place in a different continuity?Yes, they have.
Details? Quote? Reference?
If the whole series is eventually going to be undone, like a super-sized version of Voyager's "Year of Hell" travesty, then I'll stop giving a damn now and save myself the trouble of screaming at the TV after the final episode...
The whole point of the series is that the timeline was changed, thus altering the continuity.
Enterprise apologists keep making this claim, but has anyone on the creative team ever said that Enterprise is supposed to take place in a different continuity? Seems to me that the whole point is that there's an attempt to alter the timeline (the temporal cold war) which our heroes are engaged in defeating.
Besides, if the events in First Contact had significantly changed continuity, how did Enterprise E apparently get back to the same future they left?
I know, I know: "it's just a show, I should really just relax".
Re:A Dremel? Like in the a-splodin CD experiments?
on
Homemade CD Shooter?
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· Score: 2, Informative
Werent there some people who made videos of themselves, spinning CDs on the tip of a dremel until the centrifugal force made them explode in omnidirectional-flying shards of plastic?
Mythbusters, though IIRC they used something much more powerful than a Dremel tool.
Great show: the scientific method meets real-life engineering meets blowing stuff up.
Shame that the Discovery Channel gives it such little support
So, you're saying that profit and capital gain from invention is evil?
When the gain goes to people who aren't the people doing the inventing (as in the case of Edison, and most modern corporations), yes. When government intervention in the marketplace (in the form of patents) interferes with innovation and is used as a tool of legal intimidation, yes.
For "books that changed my life", I'd recommend instead The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Dennett. It was used as the text for the philosophy class I took my freshman year in college; I can still remember the day when, bored at my part-time campus job, I flipped through it to find Smullyan's Is God a Taoist?, which forever cleared up for me the whole question of free will versus determinism:
Mortal: Anyway, it is reassuring to know that my natural intuition about having free will is correct. Sometimes I have been worried that determinists are correct.
God:
They are correct.
Mortal:
Wait a minute now, do I have free will or don't I?
God:
I already told you you do. But that does not mean that determinism is incorrect.
Mortal:
Well, are my acts determined by the laws of nature or aren't they?
God:
The word determined here is subtly but powerfully misleading and has contributed so much to the confusions of the free will versus determinism controversies. Your acts are certainly in accordance with the laws of nature, but to say they are determined by the laws of nature creates a totally misleading psychological image which is that your will could somehow be in conflict with the laws of nature and that the latter is somehow more powerful than you, and could "determine" your acts whether you liked it or not. But it is simply impossible for your will to ever conflict with natural law. You and natural law are really one and the same.
Mortal:
What do you mean that I cannot conflict with nature? Suppose I were to become very stubborn, and I determined not to obey the laws of nature. What could stop me? If I became sufficiently stubborn even you could not stop me!
God:
You are absolutely right! I certainly could not stop you. Nothing could stop you. But there is no need to stop you, because you could not even start! As Goethe very beautifully expressed it, "In trying to oppose Nature, we are, in the very process of doing so, acting according to the laws of nature!" Don't you see that the so-called "laws of nature" are nothing more than a description of how in fact you and other beings do act? They are merely a description of how you act, not a prescription of of how you should act, not a power or force which compels or determines your acts. To be valid a law of nature must take into account how in fact you do act, or, if you like, how you choose to act.
Mortal:
So you really claim that I am incapable of determining to act against natural law?
God:
It is interesting that you have twice now used the phrase "determined to act" instead of "chosen to act." This identification is quite common. Often one uses the statement "I am determined to do this" synonymously with "I have chosen to do this." This very psychological identification should reveal that determinism and choice are much closer than they might appear. Of course, you might well say that the doctrine of free will says that it is you who are doing the determining, whereas the doctrine of determinism appears to say that your acts are determined by something apparently outside you. But the confusion is largely caused by your bifurcation of reality into the "you" and the "not you." Really now, just where do you leave off and the rest of the universe begin? Or where does the rest of the universe leave off and you begin? Once you can see the so-called "you" and the so-called "nature" as a continuous whole, then you can never again be bothered by such questions as whether it is you who are controlling nature or nature who is controlling you. Thus the muddle of free will versus determinism will vanish.
I can't think of a single reason to prefer PostgreSQL over it, in fact.
Until recently, MySQL was not a relational database (non-ACID). It has added features to meet that goal, but if you value the integrity of your data(!) I suggest sticking with something that's been a real database for a lot longer - PostgreSQL.
I felt compelled to architect an appropriate response
Funny, I would have written or composed a response. Architect? I don't evern think that's a verb, much less a word that should be used to describe the creation of an essay or article.
80% chance of living for five years, and reaping the tremendous bounty of mining an asteroid?
What tremendous bounty? Has anyone really done an economic analysis of the cost versus value of asteroid ore - especially taking into account the probable future increase in non-metallic composite and nano-grown materials?
Seems to me it would be a lot cheaper to increase metals recycling here at the bottom of the gravity well.
Or maybe Microsoft is the premier platform to RUN APPLICATIONS. You know, the whole reason for being for an OS?
Most office workers need a word processor, maybe a speadsheet, a web browser, and an e-mail client, and that's it. All can be found for GNU/Linux systems.
They have no right to use violence because you don't give your name, any more than they have the right to kick your ass because you allegedly stole a pack of gum. They do appear to have the right to arrest you.
Arresting you is using the threat of violence against you. If you walk away, you will be forcably seized; if you resist the cop's use of force (the way you would if some non-cop grabbed you), you will be beaten or shot.
All arrests, all acts of law enforcement, are based on the threat of force. If the cop said, "Please come with me or...I'll have to ask you nicely again," I don't think many people would go.
Political power, including the power to make people obey laws, comes out of the barrel of a gun.
Socialist thinking is the basis for the following craven, idiotic, hoary, red-white-and-blue assertion that infects our society from the ground up:
The issues you're screaming about have nothing to do with socialism. Regulation != socialism.
(And, hmm, since you don't understand that, the weight of your reason is less, therefore according to your own argument you should be disenfranchized. So please don't wote this year.
(What's that? You don't trust me to make the decision as to who's reason is less weighty? Well, who do you trust to make that decision, to decide who are the superior group? Or maybe should we stick with the "one man, one vote" and "equal protection under the law" idea after all.)
That's a wonderful example of truly horrible logic.
Then please, counter it.
If I do not have the right to be anonymous, then it is right and proper for a police officer to arrest me for failing to give my name when he asks.
A police officer is an agent of the state.
A person who is arrested is being compelled by threat of force to come with the police and be caged. All arrests involve a threat of force - if the arrestee tries to walk away he will be forcably seized, and if he resists he will be beaten or shot. (If the cop says, "Please come with me or I'll have to ask you again," I don't think I'd oblige him...)
Ergo, saying that I do not have a right to be anonymous is saying that it is proper for an agent of the state to threaten me with force to make me divulge my name. What part of this chain of reasoning do you dispute?
A guilty conscience doesn't mean you have to be paranoid.
Beleiving in strict limits on the power of the state does not imply a guilty conscience.
The man was suspected of violence, acting in a violent and aggitated manner, was aggressive with the cops, and generally being an obnoxious asshole. He was NOT peacefully and lawfully going about his daily business as a citizen of the United States.
Since he was never convicted (or, I believe, even charged) with any violent offense, we must assume that he was indeed peacefully and lawfully going about his daily business.
However, yes, he was suspected of acting violently. Now, HOW WOULD HIM GIVING HIS NAME HAVE HAD ANY BEARING ON THE QUESTION OF WHETHER OR NOT HE HAD BEEN ACTING VIOLENTLY??? The cops weren't looking for Dudley Hiibel, or for anyone else by name.
every time the government asks for powers to help defend the citizens of the US from people that prey on them
And who's going to defend the citizens from the government preying on them? Remember, the U.S. government is the organization that brought us Prohibition, COINTELPRO, MK-ULTRA, McCarthyism, the genocide of the American Indian nations, the War on (some) Drugs, concentration camps for citizens of Japanese descent, and so on.
Personally, I'm getting to be more worried about the government preying on me than a street punk. At least I've got a shot at being able to run away from a street punk. The punk probably just wants my wallet; it would only take me hours to replace the cash, maybe a few days to straighten out the papers. or kick his ass if cornered. And if it comes down to it, I've got a decent shot at kicking his ass if the "run like hell" and "give him your wallet" options fail.
I'm getting sick of people always defending the criminal class at the expense of the honest hard working law abiding MAJORITY of the US citizen population.
The majority of citizens are criminals. We've almost all broken the law. We drank when we were underage, or smoked cannabis, or had sex in a non-state-approved position or manner, or violated speed limits, or made a copy of an album or movie, or didn't report income on our taxes. It's just a question of who they want to arrest.
In other words, it should be possible to have a democracy, and to maintain all of your other civil rights if you are only required to show ID to police officers.
But we don't just have a democracy. We have (at least in theory) something better: a constitutional democratic republic. A system in which the powers of the state are limited to a small and specific enumeration. The question is not, "why do the citizens have the right to be anonymous", but rather "why is it ok for the state to use force against people who prefer not to give their name?"
It is a highly mutated republic with ponderous socialist leanings.
Really? There are leanings towards an economic system based on the exchange of labor rather than on the private, state-backed, control of capital resources? Please tell me more about the socialist leanings of the U.S. that I have missed...
Yes, the government makes all sorts of restrictions it has no business making. But these have nothing to do with socialism.
The sooner we realize that, the sooner libertarian capitalists and libertarian socialists can realize their common interest in reducing state power. Then we can go back to squabbling about the direction in which that power should be exercised.
Slashdot Mirror
I see nothing in the Amendment I that says "except vulgarity" or "only political speech". Nor do I see anything in Article I Section 8, or anywhere else in the Constitution, granting Congress the power to regulate "vulgarity" - but I do see Amendments IX and X.
Fuck censorship.
"I was only following orders" is not an excuse, whether those orders come from the legistlature (in the form of laws) or from a superior. If Congress passed a law tomorrow requiring all blond-haired people to sit in the back of buses, the executive branch would be obligated - legally (by the Constitution) and morally - to fail to enforce it.
The judicial branch has not just judges, but juries, who have the authority to judge laws and "nullify" bad ones.
That's the purpose of separation of powers. If the legislature passes an immoral or unconstitutional law, it is the duty of the executive to not enforce it, and of the judiciary to not convict under it and/or overturn it.
If atrocities commited by the Japanese army justify the slaughter of innocent Japanese civilians, then what do the recent atrocities by American soldiers justify against innocent Americans?
They didn't immediately and unconditionally surrender. They were trying to negotiate terms - in fact, they had started looking for a way to sue for peace before the Hiroshima bombing. But it's not like they were white people, after all - they were "savages", and we had to show the Soviets our new weapon anyway.
Google finds this:
Everything I find pointing to the "Enterprise is alternate history" theory is fan speculation. (Though Braga doees mention the First Contact/Borg-meets-Archer change.)
Overall, so far I give it a C-, though it's had some very good moments. It's better than Voyager.
Details? Quote? Reference?
If the whole series is eventually going to be undone, like a super-sized version of Voyager's "Year of Hell" travesty, then I'll stop giving a damn now and save myself the trouble of screaming at the TV after the final episode...
Besides, if the events in First Contact had significantly changed continuity, how did Enterprise E apparently get back to the same future they left?
I know, I know: "it's just a show, I should really just relax".
Great show: the scientific method meets real-life engineering meets blowing stuff up. Shame that the Discovery Channel gives it such little support
When the gain goes to people who aren't the people doing the inventing (as in the case of Edison, and most modern corporations), yes. When government intervention in the marketplace (in the form of patents) interferes with innovation and is used as a tool of legal intimidation, yes.
For "books that changed my life", I'd recommend instead The Mind's I by Hofstadter and Dennett. It was used as the text for the philosophy class I took my freshman year in college; I can still remember the day when, bored at my part-time campus job, I flipped through it to find Smullyan's Is God a Taoist? , which forever cleared up for me the whole question of free will versus determinism:
You ought to be using PEAR's DB class anyway, which abstracts away most of the differences in dialect.
Until recently, MySQL was not a relational database (non-ACID). It has added features to meet that goal, but if you value the integrity of your data(!) I suggest sticking with something that's been a real database for a lot longer - PostgreSQL.
That's pretty much the way it gets cut when I push my mower around anyway...
What tremendous bounty? Has anyone really done an economic analysis of the cost versus value of asteroid ore - especially taking into account the probable future increase in non-metallic composite and nano-grown materials?
Seems to me it would be a lot cheaper to increase metals recycling here at the bottom of the gravity well.
Do you not understand the difference between saying "most office workers only need x" and "everyone only needs x"?
Anyway, PeopleSoft is porting its stuff to Linux. SAP runs on Linux. As does Hyperion. So what exactly is this problem linux development faces again?
Most office workers need a word processor, maybe a speadsheet, a web browser, and an e-mail client, and that's it. All can be found for GNU/Linux systems.
Arresting you is using the threat of violence against you . If you walk away, you will be forcably seized; if you resist the cop's use of force (the way you would if some non-cop grabbed you), you will be beaten or shot.
All arrests, all acts of law enforcement, are based on the threat of force. If the cop said, "Please come with me or...I'll have to ask you nicely again," I don't think many people would go. Political power, including the power to make people obey laws, comes out of the barrel of a gun.
The issues you're screaming about have nothing to do with socialism. Regulation != socialism.
(And, hmm, since you don't understand that, the weight of your reason is less, therefore according to your own argument you should be disenfranchized. So please don't wote this year.
(What's that? You don't trust me to make the decision as to who's reason is less weighty? Well, who do you trust to make that decision, to decide who are the superior group? Or maybe should we stick with the "one man, one vote" and "equal protection under the law" idea after all.)
Then please, counter it.
If I do not have the right to be anonymous, then it is right and proper for a police officer to arrest me for failing to give my name when he asks.
A police officer is an agent of the state.
A person who is arrested is being compelled by threat of force to come with the police and be caged. All arrests involve a threat of force - if the arrestee tries to walk away he will be forcably seized, and if he resists he will be beaten or shot. (If the cop says, "Please come with me or I'll have to ask you again," I don't think I'd oblige him...)
Ergo, saying that I do not have a right to be anonymous is saying that it is proper for an agent of the state to threaten me with force to make me divulge my name. What part of this chain of reasoning do you dispute?
Beleiving in strict limits on the power of the state does not imply a guilty conscience.
Irrelevant.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Since he was never convicted (or, I believe, even charged) with any violent offense, we must assume that he was indeed peacefully and lawfully going about his daily business.
However, yes, he was suspected of acting violently. Now, HOW WOULD HIM GIVING HIS NAME HAVE HAD ANY BEARING ON THE QUESTION OF WHETHER OR NOT HE HAD BEEN ACTING VIOLENTLY??? The cops weren't looking for Dudley Hiibel, or for anyone else by name.
And who's going to defend the citizens from the government preying on them? Remember, the U.S. government is the organization that brought us Prohibition, COINTELPRO, MK-ULTRA, McCarthyism, the genocide of the American Indian nations, the War on (some) Drugs, concentration camps for citizens of Japanese descent, and so on.
Personally, I'm getting to be more worried about the government preying on me than a street punk. At least I've got a shot at being able to run away from a street punk. The punk probably just wants my wallet; it would only take me hours to replace the cash, maybe a few days to straighten out the papers. or kick his ass if cornered. And if it comes down to it, I've got a decent shot at kicking his ass if the "run like hell" and "give him your wallet" options fail.
The majority of citizens are criminals. We've almost all broken the law. We drank when we were underage, or smoked cannabis, or had sex in a non-state-approved position or manner, or violated speed limits, or made a copy of an album or movie, or didn't report income on our taxes. It's just a question of who they want to arrest.
But we don't just have a democracy. We have (at least in theory) something better: a constitutional democratic republic. A system in which the powers of the state are limited to a small and specific enumeration. The question is not, "why do the citizens have the right to be anonymous", but rather "why is it ok for the state to use force against people who prefer not to give their name?"
Really? There are leanings towards an economic system based on the exchange of labor rather than on the private, state-backed, control of capital resources? Please tell me more about the socialist leanings of the U.S. that I have missed...
Yes, the government makes all sorts of restrictions it has no business making. But these have nothing to do with socialism.
The sooner we realize that, the sooner libertarian capitalists and libertarian socialists can realize their common interest in reducing state power. Then we can go back to squabbling about the direction in which that power should be exercised.