The point is that those who genuinely fear government trying to control them should realize that to staunchly defend a policy of "No censorship, ever!" is to invite that result.
Huh?
Tell me, when Jews speak of the Holocaust and say "Never again!" does that invite ethnic cleansing?
You don't compromise with evil. Censorship is evil.
If you value what you have now, then the internet community will have to come up with its own solution.
The solution is simple and old-fashioned - supervise your own damn kids and leave me alone.
The point is that as the net grows it will be exposed to new users who will be unfamiliar with it and who will have concerns about it.
Fine. They can learn about the net and how it works, use it as they desire, and allay those concerns; or they can choose to not use the net. I have no obligation to deal with their concerns about content, and attempts to force me to do so will be resisted by any means necessary.
Hire the skills you will need long-term. Pay them what they are worth
The problem seems to be that no one is willing to pay highly skilled people a full-time wage that compares to what they can make contracting.
A friend of mine is a contractor who does embedded software. She had a client who loved her work and wanted to offer her a full time position - but the problem was, an equivalent wage would have her making more than anyone else except the company president.
I'm about to take a new contract at around $50/hour (on a W2 basis), and I had a few other leads around the same range. But people who I talked to about full time jobs would balk at a 70k salary - even with a good benefits package, figure that works out to 10 to 15k per year less.
What would be my incentive to take such a pay cut? Job security? Ha! I learned the hard way that there's no job security in a full-time "permanent" position - I had two full-time jobs evaporate out from under me in just over a year due to corporate politics and restructuring. Feeling "part of the team?" That doesn't depend on who issues my paycheck.
I wouldn't rule out a full-time position, but there seem to be very few out there that are as good a deal as contracting.
Nope. 50% will always be below the median, but the mean (average) is another matter entirely.
Average doesn't necessarily imply "mean". Mean, median, and mode are all types of averages.
In a Gaussian distribution the mean equals the median. I think that IQ is supposed to be Gaussian; it's an interesting question whether programming ability is also. Possibly so within the general population, but I'd doubt it within the set of professional programmers.
Actually most Pagans don't use numerology...in fact, I would say that more Christians and Jews do so.
Well, except for the law of fives.
The Law of Fives
The Law of Fives is one of the oldest Erisian Mysterees. It was first revealed to Good Lord Omar and is one of the great contributions to come from The Hidden Temple of The Happy Jesus.
POEE subscribes to the Law of Fives of Omar's sect. And POEE also recognizes the holy 23 (2+3=5) that is incorporated by Episkopos Dr. Mordecai Malignatus, KNS, into his Discordian sect, The Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria.
The Law of Fives states simply that: ALL THINGS HAPPEN IN FIVES, OR ARE DIVISIBLE BY OR ARE MULTIPLES OF FIVE, OR ARE SOMEHOW DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY APPROPRIATE TO 5.
The Law of Fives is never wrong.
In the Erisian Archives is an old memo from Omar to Mal-2: "I find the Law of Fives to be more and more manifest the harder I look."
If I understand properly, there's a vast difference between a "Von Neumann machine" (a theoretical self-replicating space probe) and a "Von Neumann architecture" (the stored program computers we know and love).
I don't care if Hoover did spend his leisure time in a nice Chanel day-to-evening and tasteful-yet-daring Ferragamo pumps -- he got in and kept good people who did real detective work
And I think all NSA ratings, except D1 which offers no protection require that the machine not be connected to a network and not have a floppy drive.
There is a network interpretation of the TCSEC; it's the Red Book in the rainbow series. However, it does make all sorts of assumtions about the physical security of the network that are unrealistic for most of us.
I worked on a firewall based on HP's trusted (B1/CWM) version of HP-UX with MaxSix trusted networking. It was a real mindfuck.
And I think it's possible to have a floppy drive or other removable media in a trusted system; you just can't have the possibility of booting from it.
IIRC, at least one person in the compound was an FFL holder - a registered, legal firearms dealer. That's not a "stockpile", that's "inventory".
The gummint didn't dump gasoline all over the compound, the nutty religious zealots did.
There's no evidence of this. On the other hand, the feds did fire a tear gas with a flammable base on to the Branch Davidians' land; and, as the power was out, the Davidians quite likely were using kerosense lamps or some other type of fires for light and heat. Knocking building over with tanks just might make those fires spread.
They broke the law and resisted arrest.
Actually, I believe their actions were found to be legimate self-defense.
Yes, their religion was a little bit odd - but, to my mind, so's any branch of Christianity. That doesn't make it a crime.
You know, both the ACLU and the NRA protested the feds' actions. Anytime these two very different groups agree on something, I'd suggest it's a serious issue.
There's ample evidence that SAT scores are racially biased.
Dunno about racial bias (is there a box that says, "What color is your skin?"), but cultural bias in standardized tests is, I think, pretty well documented. I recall two examples:
An "X is to Y as Z is to what?" type question where one of the pairs was "regatta" and "boat". Sure, inner city kids get out to regattas all the time, right?
"Buttercups." If you live in the 'burbs or the country, you know that these are little yellow flowers. In the concrete jungle, though, one tends not to see many flowers, and even a smart kid might think that a "buttercup" is a cup full of butter.
Some wise fellow once observed that if an Australian aborigine drafted an IQ test, most of Western civilization would flunk it. ("Sheesh, these stupid white guys can't even tell kangaroo tracks from wombat ones!")
Our external storage - first cave paintings, then clay tablets, scrolls, books, recordings, and now computers - lets us store the information and put our brains to work on the knowledge.
We don't have to remember the endless details (wish I could find a link to Feynman's "map of the cat" story!) and can spend more time on the knowledge rather than the easily recorded and retrieved information.
In net discussions, I often pause to go seach for some little fact. I would love to be able to do this in real time conversations.
(For instance, can you imagine political debates where the candidates could instantly call up, say, the federal budget figures, or their opponent's voting record, or any statistic they needed? And the folks watching at home could instantly check them on it?)
I'm sorry you feel that the enforcement of property rights was an example of the Supreme Court being "challenged in basic reading skills".
It was the Court's judgement that no freed slave or decendant of slaves could be a citizen of the United States that is Constitutionally baseless. Prior to the Fourteenth Amendment, it was the power of the individual States to determine who constituted their citizenry; there was no federal authority to make any such determination.
Slavery was a sin of capitalism alone -- which presents a particular problem for Libertarians.
Perhaps, but if so only for libertarian capitalists. Libertarians who take a people-based, rather than property-based, approach have no problem here. (Libertarian != libertarian capitalist, unless one is speaking of the Libertarian party.)
There are many Federal functions and powers that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. As I've already addressed in other posts, this is a non-issue.
It's already been pointed out that your position is explicitly contradicted by the text of the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
It's right there in black and white. (Or whatever colors you may have set on your browser.) If you find this a non-issue...well, I can't find a polite way of saying what this suggests about your mental state.
In our current system, the Supreme Court is the final word on whether such a law is Constitutional.
De facto, yes, this is the case. De jure, however, it is not; the Court assumed the power or judicial review for itself decades after the Constitution was ratified, in the Marbury v. Madison decision. It is not a role provided for by the Constitution. That is not a value judgement that the Court should or should not have such power; it is a textual and historical fact.
I don't attend school, remove any amount of taxes which goes to pay for public schooling.
An electorate with a basic education is essential to the proper functioning of a democratic system. Also, educated people are able to get good jobs; they thus are able to provide the services you need, provide a good tax base for the future, and are less likely to become criminals. Public education programs (when they work; yes, they are badly broken in some places) provide an important infrastructure from which we all benefit.
I'm not on welfare, remove any portion of my taxes that goes to pay for welfare.
Similarly, welfare programs (when properly designed and administered) provide a safety net that benefits everyone - it's there if you fall on hard times, and it's there for your neighbor so that he doesn't have to steal your TV to feed his kids. (There'd be a lot less need for these programs in a more just economic system, where the state didn't serve to direct wealth into the hands of the few, but that's another discussion.)
Contrary to popular belief, federal spending on welfare programs makes up a small part of your tax bill, and most recipients only use the benefits for a short time. (When you hear talk of how huge "entitlement" spending is, that's because Social Security, veteran's programs, and federal pensions are being included in the tally.)
National defense, criminal justice, roads, schools, a basic social safety net, and basic science research are things that everyone benefits from, directly on indirectly, and it's reasonable that we all share the cost. It is however also reasonable to note that government often provides these services poorly; which is why IMHO there should be direct dollar-for-dollar tax credits for contributions to organizations that provide these services - charities, research foundations, some types of charter schools, etcetera.
There should be a 200 question written test before anyone is allowed to run for office or vote! It should cover basic history of the state/country and office you are running/voting for, general knowledge and literacy, basic problem solving.
And it then becomes a simple matter to bias the tests so that people who agree with your views score higher, and to deny certain racial/ethnic/religious groups the educational background that would allow them to pass.
Even without deliberate tampering, there's no way to create a culturally unbiased test - there's already enough of a problem with the SATs.
It may be true that there are people too stupid to be allowed to particpate in government. The problem is, who gets to make that determination? As soon as you let the government decide who can vote and who can't, you've given them too much power to perpetuate their own rule.
You might as well say, "I don't like their decisions" -- unless, of course, you can provide examples other than your own subjective interpretations?
Dred Scott leaps to mind. So do civil forfeiture, and most of the federal drug laws - unless there's interstate trade or they levy a tax, there's no Constitutional justification.
The Court does not determine what is or is not Constitutional; it determines what the government is going to treat as Constitutional or not.
This is simply playing with words.
Oh, we're not playing; the words of laws are very serious business. People take them seriously enough to lock you in a cage, or even kill you, over them.
I believe it was Lincoln who said "If we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four - calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one." Calling something Constitutional doesn't make it so. If, for example, Congress & Clinton were to pass into law the proposal about posting the Ten Commandments in schools and the SC ok's it, it would still remain a blatant violation of the First Ammendment.
Why don't we make this a little fairer and say a ten year sentence for anyone giving false testimony?
Because cops have additional powers, and their testimony carries additional weight. It's only fair that they carry additional responsibility. The gravest penalties should wait police officers who betray the public trust.
An end to "no-knock" blitzkreig-style searches. Stupid idea, that will get a lot of cops killed when criminals are armed.
But no cops or civilians killed when the stormtroopers go barrelling through the wrong door, or when they execute a search on non-violent criminals.
Note that I'm only talking about searches here; if you're serving an arrest warrant on a violent suspect, that's a different story.
And quite frankly, if decreasing the risk of stormtroopers busting down my door (and possibly getting into a firefight with me) because they got an address wrong - or because an unhappy neighbor told them I was smoking crack while filming kiddie porn - slightly increases the risk for cops, too bad. There's a term for nations where we make laws for the convenience of the police: "police state".
It's high time to disempower the police and re-empower the citizens to defend themselves.
(Note to my fans in domestic surveillance: if you should decide to search my house for "illegal" drugs, guns, porno mags, and/or other politically incorrect items which may or may not be in my possession, and you have a warrant, hey, just knock and I'll let you in; come busting down the door and I'll have to assume that you're crooks and start shooting. If you don't trust me to let you in, how about just waiting till I come out of the house? It would just be a lot safer all around, ya know? Oh, and please don't shoot the dogs; they're loud but mostly harmless.)
And how many should that be? Too vague and can't take into account changes in the crime level.
The number would be a factor of the population of the district, and perhaps of the previous year's crime rate.
That would only allow organized crime to send in their cronies to the oversight committees to find out the locations of impending raids. Better to have a review done ex-post facto and have it publically available via the Web.
Sorry, apparently I wasn't clear. The recording would be done before the search, to prevent ex post facto justifications. The public review would be done afterwards.
The laws exist to protect you. The law enforcement agencies exist to enforce the law, which protects you.
And just how exactly do the laws that punish you for having sex for money (or with members of the same sex or of other races, those laws are still on the books in some places), for growing or smoking the buds of certain plants, or for buying or selling pictures of naked people, protect me?
Laws are the will of the lawmakers, nothing more. Occasionally that will is benign; often it is not.
Supreme Court case law, as well as history, strongly disagrees with you.
The Court has said many things over the years. A large number of its decisions have shown a lack of basic reasoning and reading comprehension skills.
The Court does not determine what is or is not Constitutional; it determines what the government is going to treat as Constitutional or not. It's a buggy parser; but bugs in the parser don't change the meaning of the code. They just mean that you need a new parser.
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"I dunno, Daddy. What's in The Shining?"
"Jack Nickelson chopping people up."
"Is it funny?"
"Not in the least."
"I wanna see Willie Wonka! Um-pah, Um-pah, doobie-do-do..."
Tell me, when Jews speak of the Holocaust and say "Never again!" does that invite ethnic cleansing?
You don't compromise with evil. Censorship is evil.
The solution is simple and old-fashioned - supervise your own damn kids and leave me alone. Fine. They can learn about the net and how it works, use it as they desire, and allay those concerns; or they can choose to not use the net. I have no obligation to deal with their concerns about content, and attempts to force me to do so will be resisted by any means necessary.A friend of mine is a contractor who does embedded software. She had a client who loved her work and wanted to offer her a full time position - but the problem was, an equivalent wage would have her making more than anyone else except the company president.
I'm about to take a new contract at around $50/hour (on a W2 basis), and I had a few other leads around the same range. But people who I talked to about full time jobs would balk at a 70k salary - even with a good benefits package, figure that works out to 10 to 15k per year less.
What would be my incentive to take such a pay cut? Job security? Ha! I learned the hard way that there's no job security in a full-time "permanent" position - I had two full-time jobs evaporate out from under me in just over a year due to corporate politics and restructuring. Feeling "part of the team?" That doesn't depend on who issues my paycheck.
I wouldn't rule out a full-time position, but there seem to be very few out there that are as good a deal as contracting.
In a Gaussian distribution the mean equals the median. I think that IQ is supposed to be Gaussian; it's an interesting question whether programming ability is also. Possibly so within the general population, but I'd doubt it within the set of professional programmers.
Arrgh! It's not a single atom, it's a single molecule. A few people on the thread have munged this.
Fnord.
If I understand properly, there's a vast difference between a "Von Neumann machine" (a theoretical self-replicating space probe) and a "Von Neumann architecture" (the stored program computers we know and love).
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Ever hear of offsite backups? Or commerical key escrow? Or n of m data splitting techniques?
Either (1) this is an outright lie, or (2) Micro$oft doesn't know how to manage critical data. (And that's not an exclusive or.)
Factoring the product of two large primes is the difficult problem.
I suggest Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst. (Search forward from the link for "Ravenhurst".)
Or the Red Scare?
Or Nixon's "enemies list"?
Calling a thing a name doesn't make it so.
I worked on a firewall based on HP's trusted (B1/CWM) version of HP-UX with MaxSix trusted networking. It was a real mindfuck.
And I think it's possible to have a floppy drive or other removable media in a trusted system; you just can't have the possibility of booting from it.
Yes, their religion was a little bit odd - but, to my mind, so's any branch of Christianity. That doesn't make it a crime.
You know, both the ACLU and the NRA protested the feds' actions. Anytime these two very different groups agree on something, I'd suggest it's a serious issue.
- An "X is to Y as Z is to what?" type question where one of the pairs was "regatta" and "boat". Sure, inner city kids get out to regattas all the time, right?
- "Buttercups." If you live in the 'burbs or the country, you know that these are little yellow flowers. In the concrete jungle, though, one tends not to see many flowers, and even a smart kid might think that a "buttercup" is a cup full of butter.
Some wise fellow once observed that if an Australian aborigine drafted an IQ test, most of Western civilization would flunk it. ("Sheesh, these stupid white guys can't even tell kangaroo tracks from wombat ones!")Corporations are artificial creations of the state. They have no natural, inherent rights.
Our external storage - first cave paintings, then clay tablets, scrolls, books, recordings, and now computers - lets us store the information and put our brains to work on the knowledge.
We don't have to remember the endless details (wish I could find a link to Feynman's "map of the cat" story!) and can spend more time on the knowledge rather than the easily recorded and retrieved information.
In net discussions, I often pause to go seach for some little fact. I would love to be able to do this in real time conversations.
(For instance, can you imagine political debates where the candidates could instantly call up, say, the federal budget figures, or their opponent's voting record, or any statistic they needed? And the folks watching at home could instantly check them on it?)
De facto, yes, this is the case. De jure, however, it is not; the Court assumed the power or judicial review for itself decades after the Constitution was ratified, in the Marbury v. Madison decision. It is not a role provided for by the Constitution. That is not a value judgement that the Court should or should not have such power; it is a textual and historical fact.
Contrary to popular belief, federal spending on welfare programs makes up a small part of your tax bill, and most recipients only use the benefits for a short time. (When you hear talk of how huge "entitlement" spending is, that's because Social Security, veteran's programs, and federal pensions are being included in the tally.)
National defense, criminal justice, roads, schools, a basic social safety net, and basic science research are things that everyone benefits from, directly on indirectly, and it's reasonable that we all share the cost. It is however also reasonable to note that government often provides these services poorly; which is why IMHO there should be direct dollar-for-dollar tax credits for contributions to organizations that provide these services - charities, research foundations, some types of charter schools, etcetera.
Even without deliberate tampering, there's no way to create a culturally unbiased test - there's already enough of a problem with the SATs.
It may be true that there are people too stupid to be allowed to particpate in government. The problem is, who gets to make that determination? As soon as you let the government decide who can vote and who can't, you've given them too much power to perpetuate their own rule.
I believe it was Lincoln who said "If we call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Four - calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one." Calling something Constitutional doesn't make it so. If, for example, Congress & Clinton were to pass into law the proposal about posting the Ten Commandments in schools and the SC ok's it, it would still remain a blatant violation of the First Ammendment.
Note that I'm only talking about searches here; if you're serving an arrest warrant on a violent suspect, that's a different story.
And quite frankly, if decreasing the risk of stormtroopers busting down my door (and possibly getting into a firefight with me) because they got an address wrong - or because an unhappy neighbor told them I was smoking crack while filming kiddie porn - slightly increases the risk for cops, too bad. There's a term for nations where we make laws for the convenience of the police: "police state".
It's high time to disempower the police and re-empower the citizens to defend themselves.
(Note to my fans in domestic surveillance: if you should decide to search my house for "illegal" drugs, guns, porno mags, and/or other politically incorrect items which may or may not be in my possession, and you have a warrant, hey, just knock and I'll let you in; come busting down the door and I'll have to assume that you're crooks and start shooting. If you don't trust me to let you in, how about just waiting till I come out of the house? It would just be a lot safer all around, ya know? Oh, and please don't shoot the dogs; they're loud but mostly harmless.)
The number would be a factor of the population of the district, and perhaps of the previous year's crime rate. Sorry, apparently I wasn't clear. The recording would be done before the search, to prevent ex post facto justifications. The public review would be done afterwards.Laws are the will of the lawmakers, nothing more. Occasionally that will is benign; often it is not.
The Court does not determine what is or is not Constitutional; it determines what the government is going to treat as Constitutional or not. It's a buggy parser; but bugs in the parser don't change the meaning of the code. They just mean that you need a new parser.