Okay, can I delete the above post? I read "supports" as "rejects" (can one be dyslexic with entire words?) and went on a totally underserved rant agains someone who was arguing a position I agree with.
It's too early for this shit - where's the SCO posts when you need them?
"South America is largely catholic (a religion that explicitly supports evolution theory)."
Bullshit. Roman Catholic doctrine has no problem with evolution, and hasn't for many years. I went to Cathlic school for 11 years, and the Church specifically rejects a literal interpretation of Biblical Creation - it is an allegory, based in part on how an ancient Jewish craftsman would do a project at a workebnch (what's teh first thing you do when you go into your workshop? Turn on the light.)
It does subscribe to the more philosophical version of "intelligent design" (as opposed to tarted up creationism). It's the "God as Watchmaker" idea - set up the base conditions for the universe, wind it up, and let it go. It has the advantage that, the farther scientific understanding pushes in understanding the origins of the universe, God just steps farther back in the chain, becoming more mysterious yet grander in scope. Personally, I believe a God that created humans and animals and plants, etc. 6000 years ago is rather mundane; a God that set off the Big Bang to keep going over billions of years? - that's impressive.
"If we can find such a site...why don't we just find out whose using it and arrest them? Is this some new take on crime, that instead of arresting criminals we should discredit them? "
Choice A: Perform lengthy investigation, put in for extradition, wait forever, and then put on trial, all while said bad guy is still controlling and making money off his botnets.
Choice B: screw up bad guy's botnets so badly that he can't sell their services, causing him to spend more resources in the battle, until he gives up and picks an easier crime.
Drug interdiction efforts in this country have been law enforcement based - interdict, arrest, trial, imprisonment. Intelligence is limited to that which can be used in court for trial - all else is forbidden.
The techniques referenced in the article are more in the style of warfare, where the objective isn't to arrest a lawbreaker, but defeat an enemy. Different rules apply. For instance, if an anonymous source gives you the key for Botnet A, you don't have to worry about gathering more evidence to be able to convict - just shut the sucker down, or poison it to turn on it's creators, etc.
The confusion between law enforcement and warfare is going to get worse and uglier as time goes on. And I'm not advocating using military thinking domestically on drug trafficking in the US - it doesn't work real well in foreign countries, and I think most drug laws themselves are misguided. But on botnets and international computer crimes? Oh yeah - it's definitely war.
"Since when is it up to a subpoenaed third-party to make claims regarding oversight between branches of government? "
Funny, I RTFA'd, and a subpoena wasn't mentioned. Aparently the committee requested their appearance, that's all. And they politely declined the request, and not everyone is crying foul.
"Ask" for "cooperation", and there will be "consequences" if they don't "help". Sound familiar? The committee is doing the same thing the Administration did to the companies - one for power, and one for political show. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which is which.
"In theory, the three branches of government are supposed to be equal. However, the Executive branch is in charge of the federal prosecutors and the military. If you piss off the Executive, your mergers will get denied by the SEC and the FTC (executive), you might get jailed or Gitmo'd for breaching national security (executive), prosecuted for Enronesque escapades (executive), etc."
1) What do the SEC and FTC have to do with the prosecutors and military. 2) who is in Gitmo for "piss[ing] off the Executive?" 3) Are you proposing that Enron shouldn't have been prosecuted, that it was an abuse of power to do so? I thought the criticism was that the Administration was in cahoots with Enron.
The reality is that the Executive has all these powers because Congress GAVE them. Find me a law passed in the last 60 years that is specific about what is legal or illegal, instead of broad pronouncements with provisions for an executive branch agency to fill in the details. Congress has abdicated their authority. That doesn't mean that the Executive isn't abusing it - it is - but Congress gave away their high horse in the FDR days.
"Don't forget they outted a spy just because her husband was a critic of the Executive."
You mean Richard Armitage? The guy who resigned from the State department because he disagreed with policy? Why wasn't he prosecuted?
You are absolutely correct in that "The 1% that know what their doing have likely never trusted Windows/Microsoft for anything in the first place." That includes sysadmins and supervisors, who turned off auto updates precisely because they don't trust MS to roll out patches correctly. But MS just overrode their business decision, causing some of them problems and probably giving most an uneasy feeling.
There's a difference between watching your vendor closely for QC issues, and watching them closely to prevent deception. MS took a big step into the second category, which will incrementally move some folks away from MS.
Ok, but now apply your general arguement to the specific case.
Question: What part of the recent unannounced, compulsory Windows update was - urgent? - safety critical? - different from previous updates that were handled more conventionally.
The answers to those questions are why peple are in a snit.
As for the fast/good/cheap quandary, the analogy is wrong. The old saw refers to new work, especially custom work. But patches are equivalent to warrantee work or repairs, where "cheap" isn't a factor. When I want something fixed under warrantee, I want it "fast" and "good" - "cheap" is simply irrelevant to me, as I'm not paying the direct cost. Companies that try to provide warrantee work with "cheap" as a factor miss out on "good" or "fast", which ALWAYS hurts their reputation, and deservedly so.
Also, "secret" shouldn't be part of the customer service equation. Ever.
"If third world countries got just half of that market, a lot of lives would be changed."
Bullshit. If more money flowed into the countries in question, it would simply flow into the pockets of the thugs that run the countries, their henchmen, and the western bureaucrats who are "helping those poor people".
And yes, the west bears some of the blame (europe, mostly, except for Liberia), but that excuse is getting old. Africa by and large has not shaken the concept of the headman, and until it does there won't be a lot of progress. My main fear is that that concept is creeping back into western society.
"Most of us don't want a "bundled" Email client to add to the bloat.... we already choose the Email client we want to use."
I think you are missing a fundamental point. Whether or not users "want" Outlook functionality, a great majority of the "need" it. That's because most users are part of organizations that, for better or worse, have become addicted to Outlook functionality - meeting scheduling, sending documents for review, etc.
I am like you - I prefer to have single apps that simply call another app when that funstionality is needed. And I got away with it for many years, because I worked for a construction company where I was on field assignment - if I wanted to schedule a meeting, I just yelled down to the other end of the trailer. Then I changed jobs and went to work for a Very Large Non-Profit Organization, and am forced to use the aforementioned Outlook functions. Why? Because everyone else I deal with uses them. It sucks, but it's reality, and if I want to keep earning a living, reality is the situation I need to deal with.
The problem with the number is that it is not only ridiculous, it's foundation is suspect. By setting the fine as the ENTIRE value of the US gaming industry, they are basically saying "the penalty fo non-compliance is getting rid of your whole gaming industry". Now compare that to the actual damages to Antigua - are they seriously saying that their portion of the US market is $100Billion? More like a fraction of that. It's like forfeiting your car for a speeding ticket.
This reminds me of that jury in Alabama (?) that awarded a guy multiple millions of dollars in damages for a $3000 paint job. he jury did it to "send a message" to BMW, but the message they sent was that the jury was on crack and the award was overturned. I understand the principle of negotiation regarding "start by asking for more than you are willing to settle for". But this is more like the advice they give military commanders: "Never give an order you know your troops won't obey".
Who's stupid here? My post was pointing out that the various US blood banks are all non profit. But that doesn't mean their expenses don't need to get paid somehow.
I assume that you are referring to the fact that Canadian Blood services doesn't "charge" for their blood. Well, since the CBS is fully government funded, and the blood goes to the health system hospitals - also government funded - so why would the government pay itself? The US system is different, with various blood banks charging the hospitals, which are then reimbursed by private insurance or medicare/medicaid.
Calling the Canadian system "non-profit" is a bit of a joke. It is effectively part of your government, like the postal service. the US and Canadian blood services are apples and oranges.
Is it really necessary to consult a chart to make sense of their products?
"Mozilla 2, the big revision coming after Gecko 1.9 and Firefox 3."
So 2 is after 1.9, but is also after 3. But it's Firefox 3. But the product named Mozilla, the suite, stopped at 1.7.X, and was replaced by Seamonkey 1.0, which is really Mozilla 1.8.
"I don't think it's possible to ruin your childrens' lives by giving them too much attention"
The problem with that approach is that it creates people who are accustomed to being the center of attention. And when they get older, and are in situations where they are NOT the center of attention, they get uncomfortable and start demanding attention. This is NOT good preparation for real life (Althogh it is good prep for "Real Life" - is that show still on?)
We just moved, and our neighbor has a 5 year old boy who comes over to play with my 7 yo. He asked if my son could go over to his house. I said it was OK if his Mom said it was ok. He replied "She always says it's OK. Whatever Mom is doing, like if she's working, we just go up to her and ask and she stops what she's doing and gets what we want". Aside from the obvious spoiling, there is the fact that the kid has no compunction about interrupting his mother , whatever she is doing.
My theory is that the explosion of body art and body mods is linked to this. After having been the center of their parents world in elementary school, kids move up to high school and find out that not only aren't they the center of attention anymore, they get ignored! So they do things to their bodies which are the equivalent of a 3 year old jumping up and down shouting "Lookatme!lookatme!lookatme!" to his parents. And it works - they get a lot of attention. For a while. Then they get older and a lot of their peers have the same markings as well.
I try to give my kids attention when they need it, but also instill in them that they are not the center of the universe, and that the best way to get positive attention is to go positive things.
1) "The next president will manage the disengagement in Iraq (yes, it's inevitable)". Nixon was elected in 1968 largely on his promise to get out of Vietnam. He didn't, but still got reelected in '72. The reality is that, when opposition parties are elected in the middle of a war, they get a free pass. They can always say "We didn't start it" and "They left us with a bigger mess than we thought", which gives them the excuse to do dick-all for 4 years and then promise the same thing, only this time REALLY mean it.
2) "some sort of health care reform (although a total re-imagining is unlikely), the immigration question, give an up-or-down on a carbon tax/cap and trade scheme, and probably appoint 2 or 3 Supreme Court justices." Hasn't this been said before every presidential election for the past 20 years? Just because issues are important doesn't mean ther is any real impetus for politicians to solve them. If anything, an issues importance can be counterproductive - it is in the incumbent's interests to do absolutely nothing, because the proponents of the first change made will have their ass handed to tehm. It doesn't matter what the change is - SOMEONE will equate it with starving oldsters and mutilated kittens.
"Don't you find it rather creepy...To sell blood? I fully support giving blood, but what's the point if it's just going to be sold at a profit? I'm not in the habit of giving charitable donations to corporations."
Absolutely. I mean, what costs are there in the blood going straight from your arm to the recipient?
I mean, yeah, there's the person who draws your blood, and the one who drives the truck, and the folks who process it into components, and the ones who test it. But their all selfish bastards, wanting to get paid and all. They should just donate their time.
And there's the trucks themselves, and the machines used for processing, and the special refrigerators and freezers used for storage, and the machines used for testing, and the buildings that house ity all. But again, the corporations that make these items are evil for not simply donating them.
And ultimately, since corporations exist to make a profit, and profit is evil, corporations are evil. Well, except for NON-profit corporations, like Mozilla, who aren't allowed to make a profit but instead plow the money back into whatever they are doing.
Or you are just a gullible oaf, with no clue about the real world and the organizations about which you comment.
Hmmm, which to believe?
Re:It doesn't "remotely shut down vehicles"
on
Stalling Cars Via OnStar
·
· Score: 3, Informative
"It is completely technically feasible for this system to need to be enabled in order for it to work. For example, with BMW Assist, BMW's OnStat-like service, equipment is physically disabled in the car if the user does not subscribe to a service.
This argument appears predicated on the belief that even if a customer doesn't voluntarily and willingly "opt in", that it can still somehow be used by police or hackers. I'm sorry, but that's simply not how it works."
Sure about that? Because such a feature is most easily enabled in software. For instance, the OnStar module sends a signal over the CANBus to the engine computer, telling it to go into the preprogrammed "stop, thief" mode. Now, what is there to "physically disable"? You can't simply "cut the connection" between OnStar and the ECM - it's only 2 wires (or 4?) and it carries all sorts of data. Sure, one could set a bit in the ECM that says "STOP_THIEF=disabled", but that bit is set via - wait for it - the CANBus. So the OnStar module could easily have a "suspected superbadguy" mode, where first the signal is sent to reset the bit - DESPITE the Owner's wishes - and then the "stop, thief" mode is activated.
Yes, it is possible to program hard protocols, or physical disconnects, and TFA is a candidate for a tin foil hat, but saying "it just can't happen" is naive at best.
"This is an important observation and it needs to be followed up," said Dr. Louis Katz, a past president of America's Blood Centers, which provides about half the nation's blood."
Not exactly. From America's Blood Center's website profile: "Founded in 1962, America's Blood Centers (ABC) is North America's largest network of non-profit, community blood centers."
Note the word "network". They are a trade organization - "America's Blood Centers" doesn't "provide" blood products - their members do.
The largest "provider" of blood and blood products is the American Red Cross, with about 40% of the market (cue "ARC is evil" comments". After that is United Blood Services, with about 10%, I think. Then it's a whole bunch of regional blood banks, each with a very small market share.
Regardless of who said what to whom, there is never enough blood in the system for more than a few days.
The need is for more money for registarrs. The ultimate goal is to have companies register their name 1,679,616 times. That's (26+10)^4, for a 4 position TLD.
Sorry, you are on the wrong end of this argument on a couple of accounts:
1) Ad hominem attack, invoking the OP's "set aside their emotions and have a rational discussion on this topic", as well as the first response (possibly not you, but definitely sympathetic) invoking a religious bias that was not in evidence - no invocation to God was made, and "evil's advocate" has been a thoroughly secular phrase for hundreds of years.
2) You are attempting to invoke the spectre of censorship of discussion when teh discussion has no bearing on the topic. "the fascination discussion around the actual origins of consent and rape laws" really has no bearing on the topic at hand. There are pictures of an obviously adult make (pushing middle age) engaging in sexual acts with individuals who are obviously pre-pubescent. Such young individuals CANNOT, under any modern (or even archaic, to my knowledge) legal theory, give consent to a sexual act. Those photos are prima facie evidence that a rape has occurred, unless we want to wander off into NAMBLA land. Now, if they find this guy, and he can show that the pictures were faked, he had a gun to his head, they were actually 40 year old midgets, then he could argue his case. But to a reasonable person, those pictures show a rape occurring.
3) You are picking the wrong example to argue your case. If indeed the subject had been having sex with pubescent or older youths, one might argue that consent was given, etc. There are indeed gray area in law and morality. This is not one of them. You are proposing a classic slippery slope arguement: because some young people might be able to consent to sexual activity, ALL young people might be able to consent http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#slippery I could just as easily take the convers: because the very young cannot give consent, than no one under the age of 21 can give consent. You reject that argument, butit is just as specious as the one you are making.
In short, you've picked a loser. You intend your arguments to make you appear reasoned and rational; instead you come off as hair splitting and equivocating.
Come back with a better subject next time. Good day to you.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, can I delete the above post? I read "supports" as "rejects" (can one be dyslexic with entire words?) and went on a totally underserved rant agains someone who was arguing a position I agree with.
It's too early for this shit - where's the SCO posts when you need them?
"South America is largely catholic (a religion that explicitly supports evolution theory)."
Bullshit. Roman Catholic doctrine has no problem with evolution, and hasn't for many years. I went to Cathlic school for 11 years, and the Church specifically rejects a literal interpretation of Biblical Creation - it is an allegory, based in part on how an ancient Jewish craftsman would do a project at a workebnch (what's teh first thing you do when you go into your workshop? Turn on the light.)
It does subscribe to the more philosophical version of "intelligent design" (as opposed to tarted up creationism). It's the "God as Watchmaker" idea - set up the base conditions for the universe, wind it up, and let it go. It has the advantage that, the farther scientific understanding pushes in understanding the origins of the universe, God just steps farther back in the chain, becoming more mysterious yet grander in scope. Personally, I believe a God that created humans and animals and plants, etc. 6000 years ago is rather mundane; a God that set off the Big Bang to keep going over billions of years? - that's impressive.
"If we can find such a site...why don't we just find out whose using it and arrest them? Is this some new take on crime, that instead of arresting criminals we should discredit them? "
Choice A: Perform lengthy investigation, put in for extradition, wait forever, and then put on trial, all while said bad guy is still controlling and making money off his botnets.
Choice B: screw up bad guy's botnets so badly that he can't sell their services, causing him to spend more resources in the battle, until he gives up and picks an easier crime.
I'll take "B".
Drug interdiction efforts in this country have been law enforcement based - interdict, arrest, trial, imprisonment. Intelligence is limited to that which can be used in court for trial - all else is forbidden.
The techniques referenced in the article are more in the style of warfare, where the objective isn't to arrest a lawbreaker, but defeat an enemy. Different rules apply. For instance, if an anonymous source gives you the key for Botnet A, you don't have to worry about gathering more evidence to be able to convict - just shut the sucker down, or poison it to turn on it's creators, etc.
The confusion between law enforcement and warfare is going to get worse and uglier as time goes on. And I'm not advocating using military thinking domestically on drug trafficking in the US - it doesn't work real well in foreign countries, and I think most drug laws themselves are misguided. But on botnets and international computer crimes? Oh yeah - it's definitely war.
"Since when is it up to a subpoenaed third-party to make claims regarding oversight between branches of government? "
Funny, I RTFA'd, and a subpoena wasn't mentioned. Aparently the committee requested their appearance, that's all. And they politely declined the request, and not everyone is crying foul.
"Ask" for "cooperation", and there will be "consequences" if they don't "help". Sound familiar? The committee is doing the same thing the Administration did to the companies - one for power, and one for political show. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which is which.
"In theory, the three branches of government are supposed to be equal. However, the Executive branch is in charge of the federal prosecutors and the military. If you piss off the Executive, your mergers will get denied by the SEC and the FTC (executive), you might get jailed or Gitmo'd for breaching national security (executive), prosecuted for Enronesque escapades (executive), etc."
1) What do the SEC and FTC have to do with the prosecutors and military.
2) who is in Gitmo for "piss[ing] off the Executive?"
3) Are you proposing that Enron shouldn't have been prosecuted, that it was an abuse of power to do so? I thought the criticism was that the Administration was in cahoots with Enron.
The reality is that the Executive has all these powers because Congress GAVE them. Find me a law passed in the last 60 years that is specific about what is legal or illegal, instead of broad pronouncements with provisions for an executive branch agency to fill in the details. Congress has abdicated their authority. That doesn't mean that the Executive isn't abusing it - it is - but Congress gave away their high horse in the FDR days.
"Don't forget they outted a spy just because her husband was a critic of the Executive."
You mean Richard Armitage? The guy who resigned from the State department because he disagreed with policy? Why wasn't he prosecuted?
1000 porn dvd's @ 2 hrs/dvd=2000hrs porn
2000 hrs porn*80%sex/filler ratio=1600hrs (derating for dialog, etc)
1600 hrs video sex/.25hrs/"session"=6400 "sessions" (gotta be efficient)
6400 sessions/2 sessions/day=3200 days
3200 days/365 days/year=8.77 years.
over 8 years worth of porn per HD. That's quality.
(I can't believe I bothered to do the math for this)
"Porn, glorious porn..."
You are absolutely correct in that "The 1% that know what their doing have likely never trusted Windows/Microsoft for anything in the first place." That includes sysadmins and supervisors, who turned off auto updates precisely because they don't trust MS to roll out patches correctly. But MS just overrode their business decision, causing some of them problems and probably giving most an uneasy feeling.
There's a difference between watching your vendor closely for QC issues, and watching them closely to prevent deception. MS took a big step into the second category, which will incrementally move some folks away from MS.
Ok, but now apply your general arguement to the specific case.
Question: What part of the recent unannounced, compulsory Windows update was
- urgent?
- safety critical?
- different from previous updates that were handled more conventionally.
The answers to those questions are why peple are in a snit.
As for the fast/good/cheap quandary, the analogy is wrong. The old saw refers to new work, especially custom work. But patches are equivalent to warrantee work or repairs, where "cheap" isn't a factor. When I want something fixed under warrantee, I want it "fast" and "good" - "cheap" is simply irrelevant to me, as I'm not paying the direct cost. Companies that try to provide warrantee work with "cheap" as a factor miss out on "good" or "fast", which ALWAYS hurts their reputation, and deservedly so.
Also, "secret" shouldn't be part of the customer service equation. Ever.
"Haven't you ever made a blade of grass whistle between your thumbs?"
I'm whistling impaired, you insensitive clod!
"If third world countries got just half of that market, a lot of lives would be changed."
Bullshit. If more money flowed into the countries in question, it would simply flow into the pockets of the thugs that run the countries, their henchmen, and the western bureaucrats who are "helping those poor people".
And yes, the west bears some of the blame (europe, mostly, except for Liberia), but that excuse is getting old. Africa by and large has not shaken the concept of the headman, and until it does there won't be a lot of progress. My main fear is that that concept is creeping back into western society.
"Most of us don't want a "bundled" Email client to add to the bloat.... we already choose the Email client we want to use."
I think you are missing a fundamental point. Whether or not users "want" Outlook functionality, a great majority of the "need" it. That's because most users are part of organizations that, for better or worse, have become addicted to Outlook functionality - meeting scheduling, sending documents for review, etc.
I am like you - I prefer to have single apps that simply call another app when that funstionality is needed. And I got away with it for many years, because I worked for a construction company where I was on field assignment - if I wanted to schedule a meeting, I just yelled down to the other end of the trailer. Then I changed jobs and went to work for a Very Large Non-Profit Organization, and am forced to use the aforementioned Outlook functions. Why? Because everyone else I deal with uses them. It sucks, but it's reality, and if I want to keep earning a living, reality is the situation I need to deal with.
"$100 billion annual Stupid Tax."
The problem with the number is that it is not only ridiculous, it's foundation is suspect. By setting the fine as the ENTIRE value of the US gaming industry, they are basically saying "the penalty fo non-compliance is getting rid of your whole gaming industry". Now compare that to the actual damages to Antigua - are they seriously saying that their portion of the US market is $100Billion? More like a fraction of that. It's like forfeiting your car for a speeding ticket.
This reminds me of that jury in Alabama (?) that awarded a guy multiple millions of dollars in damages for a $3000 paint job. he jury did it to "send a message" to BMW, but the message they sent was that the jury was on crack and the award was overturned. I understand the principle of negotiation regarding "start by asking for more than you are willing to settle for". But this is more like the advice they give military commanders: "Never give an order you know your troops won't obey".
Who's stupid here? My post was pointing out that the various US blood banks are all non profit. But that doesn't mean their expenses don't need to get paid somehow.
I assume that you are referring to the fact that Canadian Blood services doesn't "charge" for their blood. Well, since the CBS is fully government funded, and the blood goes to the health system hospitals - also government funded - so why would the government pay itself? The US system is different, with various blood banks charging the hospitals, which are then reimbursed by private insurance or medicare/medicaid.
Calling the Canadian system "non-profit" is a bit of a joke. It is effectively part of your government, like the postal service. the US and Canadian blood services are apples and oranges.
Is it really necessary to consult a chart to make sense of their products?
"Mozilla 2, the big revision coming after Gecko 1.9 and Firefox 3."
So 2 is after 1.9, but is also after 3. But it's Firefox 3. But the product named Mozilla, the suite, stopped at 1.7.X, and was replaced by Seamonkey 1.0, which is really Mozilla 1.8.
Anybody?
"I don't think it's possible to ruin your childrens' lives by giving them too much attention"
The problem with that approach is that it creates people who are accustomed to being the center of attention. And when they get older, and are in situations where they are NOT the center of attention, they get uncomfortable and start demanding attention. This is NOT good preparation for real life (Althogh it is good prep for "Real Life" - is that show still on?)
We just moved, and our neighbor has a 5 year old boy who comes over to play with my 7 yo. He asked if my son could go over to his house. I said it was OK if his Mom said it was ok. He replied "She always says it's OK. Whatever Mom is doing, like if she's working, we just go up to her and ask and she stops what she's doing and gets what we want". Aside from the obvious spoiling, there is the fact that the kid has no compunction about interrupting his mother , whatever she is doing.
My theory is that the explosion of body art and body mods is linked to this. After having been the center of their parents world in elementary school, kids move up to high school and find out that not only aren't they the center of attention anymore, they get ignored! So they do things to their bodies which are the equivalent of a 3 year old jumping up and down shouting "Lookatme!lookatme!lookatme!" to his parents. And it works - they get a lot of attention. For a while. Then they get older and a lot of their peers have the same markings as well.
I try to give my kids attention when they need it, but also instill in them that they are not the center of the universe, and that the best way to get positive attention is to go positive things.
2 Items:
1) "The next president will manage the disengagement in Iraq (yes, it's inevitable)". Nixon was elected in 1968 largely on his promise to get out of Vietnam. He didn't, but still got reelected in '72. The reality is that, when opposition parties are elected in the middle of a war, they get a free pass. They can always say "We didn't start it" and "They left us with a bigger mess than we thought", which gives them the excuse to do dick-all for 4 years and then promise the same thing, only this time REALLY mean it.
2) "some sort of health care reform (although a total re-imagining is unlikely), the immigration question, give an up-or-down on a carbon tax/cap and trade scheme, and probably appoint 2 or 3 Supreme Court justices." Hasn't this been said before every presidential election for the past 20 years? Just because issues are important doesn't mean ther is any real impetus for politicians to solve them. If anything, an issues importance can be counterproductive - it is in the incumbent's interests to do absolutely nothing, because the proponents of the first change made will have their ass handed to tehm. It doesn't matter what the change is - SOMEONE will equate it with starving oldsters and mutilated kittens.
"In some ways Florida in 2000 is a serious contender for the biggest election crime ever."
Absolutely. Thank God the Supreme Court stopped the Democrats from getting away with it.
"Don't you find it rather creepy...To sell blood? I fully support giving blood, but what's the point if it's just going to be sold at a profit? I'm not in the habit of giving charitable donations to corporations."
Absolutely. I mean, what costs are there in the blood going straight from your arm to the recipient?
I mean, yeah, there's the person who draws your blood, and the one who drives the truck, and the folks who process it into components, and the ones who test it. But their all selfish bastards, wanting to get paid and all. They should just donate their time.
And there's the trucks themselves, and the machines used for processing, and the special refrigerators and freezers used for storage, and the machines used for testing, and the buildings that house ity all. But again, the corporations that make these items are evil for not simply donating them.
And ultimately, since corporations exist to make a profit, and profit is evil, corporations are evil. Well, except for NON-profit corporations, like Mozilla, who aren't allowed to make a profit but instead plow the money back into whatever they are doing.
Or you are just a gullible oaf, with no clue about the real world and the organizations about which you comment.
Hmmm, which to believe?
"It is completely technically feasible for this system to need to be enabled in order for it to work. For example, with BMW Assist, BMW's OnStat-like service, equipment is physically disabled in the car if the user does not subscribe to a service.
This argument appears predicated on the belief that even if a customer doesn't voluntarily and willingly "opt in", that it can still somehow be used by police or hackers. I'm sorry, but that's simply not how it works."
Sure about that? Because such a feature is most easily enabled in software. For instance, the OnStar module sends a signal over the CANBus to the engine computer, telling it to go into the preprogrammed "stop, thief" mode. Now, what is there to "physically disable"? You can't simply "cut the connection" between OnStar and the ECM - it's only 2 wires (or 4?) and it carries all sorts of data. Sure, one could set a bit in the ECM that says "STOP_THIEF=disabled", but that bit is set via - wait for it - the CANBus. So the OnStar module could easily have a "suspected superbadguy" mode, where first the signal is sent to reset the bit - DESPITE the Owner's wishes - and then the "stop, thief" mode is activated.
Yes, it is possible to program hard protocols, or physical disconnects, and TFA is a candidate for a tin foil hat, but saying "it just can't happen" is naive at best.
"This is an important observation and it needs to be followed up," said Dr. Louis Katz, a past president of America's Blood Centers, which provides about half the nation's blood."
Not exactly. From America's Blood Center's website profile:
"Founded in 1962, America's Blood Centers (ABC) is North America's largest network of non-profit, community blood centers."
Note the word "network". They are a trade organization - "America's Blood Centers" doesn't "provide" blood products - their members do.
The largest "provider" of blood and blood products is the American Red Cross, with about 40% of the market (cue "ARC is evil" comments". After that is United Blood Services, with about 10%, I think. Then it's a whole bunch of regional blood banks, each with a very small market share.
Regardless of who said what to whom, there is never enough blood in the system for more than a few days.
GIVE BLOOD!
The need is for more money for registarrs. The ultimate goal is to have companies register their name 1,679,616 times. That's (26+10)^4, for a 4 position TLD.
Sorry - typo on the "evil's advocate" - it was supposed to be "Devil's advocate". Fat fingered the CTRL key.
Sorry, you are on the wrong end of this argument on a couple of accounts:
1) Ad hominem attack, invoking the OP's "set aside their emotions and have a rational discussion on this topic", as well as the first response (possibly not you, but definitely sympathetic) invoking a religious bias that was not in evidence - no invocation to God was made, and "evil's advocate" has been a thoroughly secular phrase for hundreds of years.
2) You are attempting to invoke the spectre of censorship of discussion when teh discussion has no bearing on the topic. "the fascination discussion around the actual origins of consent and rape laws" really has no bearing on the topic at hand. There are pictures of an obviously adult make (pushing middle age) engaging in sexual acts with individuals who are obviously pre-pubescent. Such young individuals CANNOT, under any modern (or even archaic, to my knowledge) legal theory, give consent to a sexual act. Those photos are prima facie evidence that a rape has occurred, unless we want to wander off into NAMBLA land. Now, if they find this guy, and he can show that the pictures were faked, he had a gun to his head, they were actually 40 year old midgets, then he could argue his case. But to a reasonable person, those pictures show a rape occurring.
3) You are picking the wrong example to argue your case. If indeed the subject had been having sex with pubescent or older youths, one might argue that consent was given, etc. There are indeed gray area in law and morality. This is not one of them. You are proposing a classic slippery slope arguement: because some young people might be able to consent to sexual activity, ALL young people might be able to consent http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#slippery I could just as easily take the convers: because the very young cannot give consent, than no one under the age of 21 can give consent. You reject that argument, butit is just as specious as the one you are making.
In short, you've picked a loser. You intend your arguments to make you appear reasoned and rational; instead you come off as hair splitting and equivocating.
Come back with a better subject next time. Good day to you.