I won't argue the facts that you presented here; there is no doubt in my mind that you are far more acquainted with them than I. I will, however, argue that we are not on any moral high ground, nor are we building many friends around the world with our actions. As a result of 9/11, we have since pretty much invaded four sovereign countries -- one of which (Pakistan, the other three being Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya) is ostensibly our ally (at least for now).
The US has not invaded Libya, and furthermore Libya has nothing to do with 9/11. As for Pakistan, I believe "ostensibly" is the key word there. They were harboring the #1 person responsible for 9/11.
As for friends, no one has friends in the Middle East. Elsewhere in the world, the US built friends by electing Obama and lost them by electing Bush, despite their foreign policies being indistinguishable. Go figure.
The problem with multigenerational homes, is that the elderly often feel they have right to control the life of their adult children.
Same goes when the elderly aren't at home. That's a pretty large reason their adult children don't visit. It seems to be difficult for parents to treat their children as responsible adults, regardless of their absolute age.
Judges are often in a position where law and precedent require that they make an unjust ruling. If they do so, they're not good judges.
They don't necessarily have a choice there.
That's a cop-out. They can always choose to ignore precedent. They can even choose to ignore the law. Their ruling may not survive, but they won't be imprisoned for their actions.
If the law itself is unjust (and it is far more often that what I would like) it is the politicians we should complain about, not the judges!
Judges are supposed to serve as a check on the politicians; if they defer to them instead, the system breaks.
Well, thank God and Congress, along with a certain past presidential administration, that China is a "Most Favored Trading Partner".
Every country in the world that the US recognizes, with the exception of Cuba and North Korea (well, maybe Libya is back off the list too, I haven't checked) has that status. It's now called "Normal Trade Relations" though.
Is there anything more obvious -- as the world's oil supplies rapidly diminish -- than the fact that our prime objective is to remove Gaddafi and install a regime that is a far more reliable servant to Western oil interests, and that protecting civilians was the justifying pretext for this war, not the purpose?
Note that this is a quote from the author of the Salon article, not from the leaked cables.
That Ghadafi has been a thorn in the side of the US for decades, for many reasons, is no particular secret.
That the US intervention was not "humanitarian" but intended for "regime change" is no real secret either; the "humanitarian" thing was a transparent lie for the consumption of Obama supporters, presumably so he wouldn't look so obviously just like Bush.
Greenwald's claims are just that US motives aren't pure. Which is just silly; of course US motives aren't pure. Even if the primary reason for intervention was humanitarian (and nothing in the cables refutes that hypothesis, though I don't believe it myself), US motives wouldn't have been pure. Why should purity of motive be required? Even if, cynically, the US simply used Gaddafi's atrocities as an excuse to make a move against him, isn't doing the right thing for the wrong reason better than doing the wrong thing?
While I agree that part of what you say is true, you must be careful not to make a sweeping generalization out of it. I know some cops, some judges and some lawyers (no politicians thankfully) and they are honest, respectful and responsible.
Lawyers, maybe. Judges, unlikely. Cops, no. There are too many bad cops for there to be any significant number of good cops. It is a cop's job to stop wrongdoing by other cops, and they don't; even if there are some who do not do wrong themselves, they will still protect and defend the wrongdoing of other cops. Thus all cops are bad cops.
Judges are often in a position where law and precedent require that they make an unjust ruling. If they do so, they're not good judges. If they don't, they will be marginalized and not advance in their career. So good judges are quite unlikely as well. Further, many judges are former prosecutors and end up prosecuting from the bench.
Lawyers don't have such problems, but the profession appears to attract the wrong type.
Another way to look at it is that within the next 17 years nearly everything will be public domain.
No, it won't. Because someone else will get another patent covering basically the same area with different language. If you cry "prior art" they'll point out some trivial difference and have the patent upheld. If you actually build the prior art, they'll claim your device is equivalent to theirs and thus covered by the patent... and likely win.
The Fun Theory does this from time to time. My favorite is the piano stairs in Stockholm. It's a classic example of a "nudging" effect, and yes - I do consider it "ethical".
That's not pure nudging; there's a strong element of quid pro quo there -- that is, you get to enjoy the piano stairs by using them.
Where I get creeped out is when the do gooders don't want to reason anymore, they want to do the jedi mind trick.
I prefer that to the usual do-gooder alternative, which is force. The Jedi mind trick I can recognize and ignore (especially since the do-gooders are rarely subtle about it). Force can only be countered with sneakiness or more force, both of which can be beaten with yet more force.
Unfortunately, and ironically, computers are too prevalent in cars to really be able to do that nowadays. I knew two kids in HS a couple years back that were building hotrods, but they were building the same hotrods you were talking about - '70s Corvettes and GTOs and things. Modern cars are really too complex to take apart and fiddle with, unfortunately.
It's not really the computers are the problem; you can get replacement engine computers that can be programmed to change the timing and fuel injection if you care to. It's that there's so much less untapped potential in modern cars. Car makers don't make cars with basically powerful engines but with crappy exhaust, strangled intake, very mild cams, etc. Nor is the casting and machining still so sloppy that hand-porting can get you massive gains (still some, just not as much).
This policy framework charts a collaborative path forward for applying digital information or â(TM)smart gridâ(TM) technologies to the nationâ(TM)s electricity infrastructure to facilitate the integration of renewable sources of power into the grid; help accommodate the growing number of electric vehicles; help avoid blackouts and restore power quicker when outages occur; and reduce the need for new power plants.â
Uh, yeah. Doesn't matter how "smart" you make your grid, every watt used has to be generated at some power plant. It's not like our current grid is dumping massive amounts of power into a hole somewhere. So if you want to reduce the need for power plants, you're talking about reducing demand, and the only way to do that through the grid is to turn people's stuff off whether they like it or not. Do not want.
And electric vehicles can only increase demand. Massively, if they were to really catch on.
Local news is killing itself. You get maybe a 5 minute top story of whatever murder, rape, or robbery happened recently. Then a thinly disguised commercial masquerading as investigative reporting. Then some human-interest story (probably also a thinly disguised commercial). Then sports (usually at least as long as the entire rest of the newscast). On a "slow news day", the top story will be the weather or a human interest story. Why bother watching?
Do you actually have kids? You obviously have no idea that a big part of parenting is letting kids explore on their own. It's our job to insure that in general, the place they are exploring is safe.
You only get to do that if it's _your_ place. Or some place catering to kids, like an elementary school or a daycare. You don't get to child-proof the world (or the Internet), against the will of the adults who would like to live there. You certainly don't get to demand that others child-proof the world (or the Internet) for you.
If you have kids, then you have a right to talk. Otherwise, take your attitude and STFU.
Letting only some of the interested parties have a say is a great way to get the outcome you want, but the rest of us aren't likely to co-operate.
I'd just like to ask timothy to revisit this post after he's had some months or years. Being stranded for several hours is pretty frickin' minor as far as bad things that can happen when flying or in life in general; calling it a 'glitch' isn't much of a euphemism, although I might call it a 'major glitch'. Bad things seem much worse when they happen to you, but when you're an adult you're supposed to be able to get some perspective on it.
No, when you're an adult you're supposed to be able to take whatever crap everyone gives out and just say "it's fine, treat me like the rug I am". This is called "maturity".
They bought the biggest supercomputer in the world outside various national intelligence agencies, and all they can do is come up with yet another variation of just-around-the-corner solar technology? What's next, tokamak fusion, batteries with high energy and power density, and flying cars?
What the hell does this mean "go to prison for possession of certain comic books"
Comic books with drawn pictures of naked underaged persons, I would suspect. The Supreme Court has struck this down on several occasions, but still people rot in prison for it.
Again I think you are leaving out a couple of facts with this beauty "Teenagers have been arrested for photographing themselves".
The only salient fact he's leaving out is the word "naked".
Sticking your head in the sand won't make the problem go away.
You're only reading the charts that tell you that. Try it in real life.
There's two sets of charts. The ones they trot out when lobbying for reduced BAC levels, which are based on 12 oz of 3.2 beer or something similar. And the ones they trot out after they've gotten the laws passed, which are based on 16 oz of 5% beer. It's the latter that show that two beers put me right at the limit.
There's this habit in the US of regarding freedom of speech as a binary thing
In my experience, people who object to binary things are usually just trying to add enough noise to demonstrate that 1 is 0 and vice-versa. This appears to be no exception.
The argument goes something like this Rakofsky: Hey, no calling me an asshat! Blogger: I can call you an asshat all I want, I have freedom of speech Rakofsky: Well, could you falsely yell "fire" in a crowded theatre and expect to go unpunished? Blogger: Well, I suppose not. Rakofsky: So your freedom of speech is not unlimited Blogger: I suppose that's true. Rakofsky: Well, no calling me an asshat! Blogger: Hey, I have freedom of speech Rakofsky: We've already established that has limits; now we're just haggling over where the line is drawn.
(Any similarity to a similar argument involving a woman who may or may not be a prostitute is entirely intentional)
Because of DMCA, a user generated content site can publish anything, without fear of direct reprise from the person libelled.
Actually, no. It's Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which provides this immunity, not the never-sufficiently-damned DMCA. A good thing, too, or else few uncensored user generated content sites could exist thanks to people like Mr. Rakofsky... and apparently yourself.
Let's pick a nice, round number to reduce it to. Zero is a nice, round number.
Reducing the term to anything more is just putting a band-aid on a festering boil. Until the USPTO gets far more selective about what is considered patentable, and the courts get far more selective about what is considered infringement, there's no empirical way to tell whether software patents could have any value at all. As it is, they are clearly of negative value.
Go get a good testing device. Get drunk to 0.11%. You'll have trouble finding your keys. It's scary, and why most states moved the limit down to 0.08%.
No, states moved the limit down to 0.08% because the feds made them do it (on pain of losing highway funding). The feds did it because the neo-prohibitionist lobby groups like MADD waved the bloody shirt until they did.
A BAC of 0.08% is low enough to make the classic "2 beers" illegal in many people. The idea isn't to prevent drinking and driving; it's to prevent drinking by making it impractical to get home from the bar without risking jail time.
That sucks, but as a condition of you using the public roads, you agree to be subject to DUI screens.
If the government can simply require me to waive my fundamental rights as a condition to doing quite ordinary activities, those rights have gotten pretty darned watered down. Want to drive, take an airplane, take the subway, train, or interstate bus? No Fourth Amendment for your person. Hmm, but most of us use public water and/or sewer... maybe as a condition to that, we'll give up protection against search and seizure for our homes. What about those newspaper boxes on the sidewalk? maybe to be sold there, they should accept government censorship.
All.us domains have the legal restriction that not only the web servers, but the DNS servers too, have to be in the USA.
The contract with NeuStar appears to specify such a requirement, when it says "In addition to the current policy set forth in RFC 1480 requiring that usTLD domain name registrations be hosted on computers located within the United States...".
However, unless I missed it, RFC 1480 contains no such requirement. It's not even normative. The closest it comes is "Any computer in the United States may be registered in the US Domain."
Neither NeuStar nor the registrars mention such a requirement.
Slashdot Mirror
The US has not invaded Libya, and furthermore Libya has nothing to do with 9/11. As for Pakistan, I believe "ostensibly" is the key word there. They were harboring the #1 person responsible for 9/11.
As for friends, no one has friends in the Middle East. Elsewhere in the world, the US built friends by electing Obama and lost them by electing Bush, despite their foreign policies being indistinguishable. Go figure.
Same goes when the elderly aren't at home. That's a pretty large reason their adult children don't visit. It seems to be difficult for parents to treat their children as responsible adults, regardless of their absolute age.
That's a cop-out. They can always choose to ignore precedent. They can even choose to ignore the law. Their ruling may not survive, but they won't be imprisoned for their actions.
Judges are supposed to serve as a check on the politicians; if they defer to them instead, the system breaks.
Every country in the world that the US recognizes, with the exception of Cuba and North Korea (well, maybe Libya is back off the list too, I haven't checked) has that status. It's now called "Normal Trade Relations" though.
Note that this is a quote from the author of the Salon article, not from the leaked cables.
That Ghadafi has been a thorn in the side of the US for decades, for many reasons, is no particular secret.
That the US intervention was not "humanitarian" but intended for "regime change" is no real secret either; the "humanitarian" thing was a transparent lie for the consumption of Obama supporters, presumably so he wouldn't look so obviously just like Bush.
Greenwald's claims are just that US motives aren't pure. Which is just silly; of course US motives aren't pure. Even if the primary reason for intervention was humanitarian (and nothing in the cables refutes that hypothesis, though I don't believe it myself), US motives wouldn't have been pure. Why should purity of motive be required? Even if, cynically, the US simply used Gaddafi's atrocities as an excuse to make a move against him, isn't doing the right thing for the wrong reason better than doing the wrong thing?
Lawyers, maybe. Judges, unlikely. Cops, no. There are too many bad cops for there to be any significant number of good cops. It is a cop's job to stop wrongdoing by other cops, and they don't; even if there are some who do not do wrong themselves, they will still protect and defend the wrongdoing of other cops. Thus all cops are bad cops.
Judges are often in a position where law and precedent require that they make an unjust ruling. If they do so, they're not good judges. If they don't, they will be marginalized and not advance in their career. So good judges are quite unlikely as well. Further, many judges are former prosecutors and end up prosecuting from the bench.
Lawyers don't have such problems, but the profession appears to attract the wrong type.
No, it won't. Because someone else will get another patent covering basically the same area with different language. If you cry "prior art" they'll point out some trivial difference and have the patent upheld. If you actually build the prior art, they'll claim your device is equivalent to theirs and thus covered by the patent... and likely win.
That's not pure nudging; there's a strong element of quid pro quo there -- that is, you get to enjoy the piano stairs by using them.
I prefer that to the usual do-gooder alternative, which is force. The Jedi mind trick I can recognize and ignore (especially since the do-gooders are rarely subtle about it). Force can only be countered with sneakiness or more force, both of which can be beaten with yet more force.
It's not really the computers are the problem; you can get replacement engine computers that can be programmed to change the timing and fuel injection if you care to. It's that there's so much less untapped potential in modern cars. Car makers don't make cars with basically powerful engines but with crappy exhaust, strangled intake, very mild cams, etc. Nor is the casting and machining still so sloppy that hand-porting can get you massive gains (still some, just not as much).
Uh, yeah. Doesn't matter how "smart" you make your grid, every watt used has to be generated at some power plant. It's not like our current grid is dumping massive amounts of power into a hole somewhere. So if you want to reduce the need for power plants, you're talking about reducing demand, and the only way to do that through the grid is to turn people's stuff off whether they like it or not. Do not want.
And electric vehicles can only increase demand. Massively, if they were to really catch on.
Strange bedfellows are nothing new in politics or statecraft (or espionage for that matter).
Slow?
Local news is killing itself. You get maybe a 5 minute top story of whatever murder, rape, or robbery happened recently. Then a thinly disguised commercial masquerading as investigative reporting. Then some human-interest story (probably also a thinly disguised commercial). Then sports (usually at least as long as the entire rest of the newscast). On a "slow news day", the top story will be the weather or a human interest story. Why bother watching?
You only get to do that if it's _your_ place. Or some place catering to kids, like an elementary school or a daycare. You don't get to child-proof the world (or the Internet), against the will of the adults who would like to live there. You certainly don't get to demand that others child-proof the world (or the Internet) for you.
Letting only some of the interested parties have a say is a great way to get the outcome you want, but the rest of us aren't likely to co-operate.
No, when you're an adult you're supposed to be able to take whatever crap everyone gives out and just say "it's fine, treat me like the rug I am". This is called "maturity".
They bought the biggest supercomputer in the world outside various national intelligence agencies, and all they can do is come up with yet another variation of just-around-the-corner solar technology? What's next, tokamak fusion, batteries with high energy and power density, and flying cars?
Comic books with drawn pictures of naked underaged persons, I would suspect. The Supreme Court has struck this down on several occasions, but still people rot in prison for it.
The only salient fact he's leaving out is the word "naked".
Sticking your head in the sand won't make the problem go away.
There's two sets of charts. The ones they trot out when lobbying for reduced BAC levels, which are based on 12 oz of 3.2 beer or something similar. And the ones they trot out after they've gotten the laws passed, which are based on 16 oz of 5% beer. It's the latter that show that two beers put me right at the limit.
In my experience, people who object to binary things are usually just trying to add enough noise to demonstrate that 1 is 0 and vice-versa. This appears to be no exception.
The argument goes something like this
Rakofsky: Hey, no calling me an asshat!
Blogger: I can call you an asshat all I want, I have freedom of speech
Rakofsky: Well, could you falsely yell "fire" in a crowded theatre and expect to go unpunished?
Blogger: Well, I suppose not.
Rakofsky: So your freedom of speech is not unlimited
Blogger: I suppose that's true.
Rakofsky: Well, no calling me an asshat!
Blogger: Hey, I have freedom of speech
Rakofsky: We've already established that has limits; now we're just haggling over where the line is drawn.
(Any similarity to a similar argument involving a woman who may or may not be a prostitute is entirely intentional)
Actually, no. It's Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which provides this immunity, not the never-sufficiently-damned DMCA. A good thing, too, or else few uncensored user generated content sites could exist thanks to people like Mr. Rakofsky... and apparently yourself.
Here you go:
No sorry, nevermind, you can find your own goatse link.
Let's pick a nice, round number to reduce it to. Zero is a nice, round number.
Reducing the term to anything more is just putting a band-aid on a festering boil. Until the USPTO gets far more selective about what is considered patentable, and the courts get far more selective about what is considered infringement, there's no empirical way to tell whether software patents could have any value at all. As it is, they are clearly of negative value.
No, states moved the limit down to 0.08% because the feds made them do it (on pain of losing highway funding). The feds did it because the neo-prohibitionist lobby groups like MADD waved the bloody shirt until they did.
A BAC of 0.08% is low enough to make the classic "2 beers" illegal in many people. The idea isn't to prevent drinking and driving; it's to prevent drinking by making it impractical to get home from the bar without risking jail time.
If the government can simply require me to waive my fundamental rights as a condition to doing quite ordinary activities, those rights have gotten pretty darned watered down. Want to drive, take an airplane, take the subway, train, or interstate bus? No Fourth Amendment for your person. Hmm, but most of us use public water and/or sewer... maybe as a condition to that, we'll give up protection against search and seizure for our homes. What about those newspaper boxes on the sidewalk? maybe to be sold there, they should accept government censorship.
The contract with NeuStar appears to specify such a requirement, when it says "In addition to the current policy set forth in RFC 1480 requiring that usTLD domain name registrations be hosted on computers located within the United States...".
However, unless I missed it, RFC 1480 contains no such requirement. It's not even normative. The closest it comes is "Any computer in the United States may be registered in the US Domain."
Neither NeuStar nor the registrars mention such a requirement.