> Oh yeah. I can see it now. How long before someone bolts their.357 to the thing, rigs up a solenoid trigger-puller set up to activate when the "foam discs" are supposed to launch.
A.357 would have to be aimed. This 'bot doesn't have good enough aiming capabilities for a handgun to be effective.
Swap out the foam-disk shooters with a pair of shotgun shells, and now you're talking.
Fire both shells simultaneously, because the recoil will probably send the 'bot flying backwards.
For bonus points, weigh the 'bot down or screw it into the floor/ceiling/wall, and belt-feed shells into it. Affordable firepower!
In the mainstream, journalism isn't dead, but reporting's been pushing up the daisies since the 70s.
What CBS does is "Journalism". Figure out what sort of story you want to tell, then send a guy out with a camera (or dig up some stock footage) who can come up with the iamges to tell the story.
Terrorist? Freedom fighter? No problem, we'll find someone to argue both points. Dirtball spammer? Ethikul small bidnidman and oppressed ontreprenooer? All the same to us! Safe car? Time bomb? We've spent a lot of money on this story so far, and we're not gonna throw it away, so let's rig the test to make sure it blows up real good! Obvious Microsoft Word forgery? Story's what we want it to be no matter how obvious the forgery is? No problem, we'll pay off a handwriting expert who's not even taken seriously in his own loopy field, and a couple of Democrat partisans to distract you from the real issue and to repatedly drub it into your silly little minds that our story is true, even though all the evidence we've brought before you is actually pure, Grade-D bullshit.
CBS: All journalism, all the time.
What bloggers do is "Reporting". Look at the screen (or listen to the scanner, or check your IMs and emails from your inside source), and state what's happening. Then spin it -- but always making it clear what parts are spin and what parts are fact.
Blogs: All reporting. "Here's the numbers: K57/B43. Because I support [Kerry|Bush], I think that's [great|horrible]. Be warned that these numbers are unconfirmed. Take with huge grain of salt. I'll report more numbers as I find them."
> > CBS Sees no Journalism in Blogs
I'm tired of getting my news spun for me. I just want the goddamn facts, separated from the spin. Blogs serve this purpose. The mainstream media used to -- but hasn't in decades. No journalism in Blogs? GOOD.
> > Officials found the software used in Broward can handle only 32,000 votes per precinct. After that, the system starts counting backward.
> >
Rule #1: Do not use signed shorts to count the total number of votes. > > Rule #2: Do not used signed Ints (sorry man, short in C/C++ only goes up to 127, C# has short that goes to 32k).
>
Rule #3: Always use 64 or more bit unsigned integers.
Nyet!
Rule #3: Vary word length (and consequently the sizeof(int)) depending on the size of the precinct, and whether or not you expect the number of voters for your candidate and/or the opposing candidate to be "almost" or "barely over" a power of two.
> Think of the early space walkers and how even the most simple tasks caused them to flail about and sweat buckets. You know, Newton's Laws, action and reaction, and how partners having sex will probably have to be tied down with Velcro or something similar.
Wait a minute, I thought you were talking about bad things.
> While it's possible to get work as a refugee camp dweller in the West Bank (unlike in Lebanon where refugees are barred by the government from being doctors for example) it's pretty unlikely. If you have brains, 5 years ago you'd work construction or catering or tourism in Israel (the Jordanian economy is pretty closed to West Bankers these days).
Hey, yeah, somethine else to ponder...
...how come none of the other nearby Arab nations will take these folks in? Ethnically, they're the same people. So why the closed borders?
Closed borders make sense today - you're not gonna get many doctors out of a population raised to see itself as nothing more than delivery mechanisms for suicide bombs - but why have they always been closed?
(Or is it that even if you're a relatively progressive monarchy, it's also politically advantageous to have not just one, but two scapegoats nearby?)
Re:Why NYC and Hollywood Hate the Rest of US
on
Cities Without Borders
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
> Israel, small and poor? Compared to who? Israeli GDP per head is about $19,800, Palestine $830. Who are you trying to kid?
Hmm. Maybe it has something to do with the type of government and economic system.
Naaaaaw, that's got nothing to do with it. It's all the fault of teh 3vil J00Z!
But they live in "refugee camps"! Yeah, yeah, what-the-fuck-ever. I know we westerners are supposed to think of tents and mud when we see the term "refugee camp", but take your green goggles off and just look at the damn place. "Refugee camps" of 100,000 people, featuring roads, water, brick and mortar construction, and that have been there for 30 years... anywhere else on the planet, those are called cities. (Of course, in states with functioning market economies - as opposed to terrorist kleptocracies - there's something to do in those cities other than figure out new ways to kill the Jews, but there we go on the GDP per capita front again. Guess when Saddam stopped paying $25K per suicide bomber, the only economic activity in "Palestine" really crashed.)
Fun exercise: Divide the subsidies from the US to Israel, and from the UN and European states to "Palestine" by the respective populations the two countries.
OK, so I suppose "Palestine" isn't subsidized by the EU or the UN on the grounds that all the money ends up in Switzerland under the control of some French chick. But unless you believe Yasser's AIDS-wracked corpse underwent a last-minute conversion to Judaism last week, you're gonna have a hard time convincing anyone (except possibly the Muslims) that teh 3vil j00z are behind it.
And to stay on topic. I love NYC, but... fuck Hollywood.
> All you reactionaries who will undoubtedly mark this "Troll" or "Flamebait": How else do you categorise a 'roomba' device, attached to an area weapon - like a shotgun?
> > Maybe I've seen a few too many bad sci-fi movies, but robots with shotguns scare me."
> >PAINTBALL III - RISE OF THE MACHINES:Sick of losing to uber-good paintball players? Buy a fleet of cyborgs, swap those 12 gauges for rapid-fire paint launchers, and tell those wusses "I'll be back". Life-size inflatable Linda Hamilton doll not included.
So we're in agreement. The original author needs to either:
watch better sci-fi,
stop typing "scare" when he means "intrigue" or "arouse".
My choice civilian application: Mount one in every bank machine. Any attempt to use an card reported as "stolen" activates the Killbot, and a nearby industrial-size Roomba cleans up the parking lot.
> > There is only so much I can take of seeing the same torture sequences." >
> So its the game's fault that you only figured out how to use one device for torture?
Yeah, talk about having the wrong attitude for this game.
The fun part of torture isn't the victim's reaction (let's be honest here, that gets pretty old after the first few hundred times), it's the feeling of... well, you know... that happy giddy evil feeling that comes over you while you're making up your diabolical little mind about which implements of destruction you want to use today.
"Hmm, bamboo splints? Naw, done that. The red-hot tongs? Feh, too middle-ages. The human-sized garlic press? Maybe, but one of my cuter minions and I had garlic bread for lunch with a lovely glass of Merlot, and why spoil the lovely aftertaste with sprayed blood and organ bits? Roll dice to see which limb to burn off with the house-sized magnifying glass? Bah, I got bored of that with ants when I was six... The box that drops rubber hammer on them, once every 10 seconds, for six hours until they get used to it, which is when you switch to a real hammer? Oh, bother... Decisions, decisions, decisions... so much evil to do, so little time..."
Re:The thing about Evil Genius...
on
Review: Evil Genius
·
· Score: 4, Funny
> I end up with no minions because I'm so evil I kill them all myself:(
That's because you weren't playing Evil Genius, you were playing Sims 2!
> With the first phase of United Nations World Summit (WSIS) held in Dec of 2003 and the next phase to be held in 2005, there have been extensive debates regarding Internet Governance. Can it be governed? Who should govern it? What is Internet governance?
But never "Should it be governed?". Nuh-uh. Not an option. Don't even think about asking that. We're your betters and that means We know best.
> The world needs an effective and well-supported ICANN but the participants in the World Summit on the Information Society and the Working Group on Internet Governance now need to turn their attention to the full panoply of public policy issues that, as discussed above, lie outside the mandate of ICANN.
"Full panoply of public policy issues". That's UN-speak for "We decide what you get to type on that Intarweb thingy, you don't. Because all 200-odd of us UN member nations get to vote. Equal-like. And if that means the Sudan, Chad, Cuba, China, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia outvote you silly free-speech freaks, well then, by Gub, that's democracy!"
> Jurors moved on to figuring out appropriate punishment (please, please, please give them some jail time. Pretty please).
You said "jail time". Is that some sort of newfangled lawyer shorthand for "go all Vlad-the-Impaler on them in front of Genuity or Verio headquarters pour encourager les autres?"
Because if all you mean is "locked in a small room, given free room and board for a few years, subject only to the occasional prison rape", then you'd better make yourself scarce. This here's Slashdot, and we don't take kindly to yuppified murketeering types who publicly express sympathy for spammers 'round these parts.
> The thing is, this is not what virtual worlds are about. How can you have any impact on a world if you're only using it as a portal to a first-person shooter? How do you interact with people if they're battened down in an inaccessible pocket universe? Where's the sense of achievement, of making a difference, of being someone?
But you're not going to have any impact in a non-instanced world either.
You interact with people in the instanced universe the same way as you do with the rest of your groupmates when you're doing something grouped in a non-instanced universe.
The only difference is that when you and your groupmates/guildmates decide to Whack the Foozle of Bigness, you actually get to whack the foozle, rather than stand in line for six hours waiting for your turn to camp the spawn. (Or worse, stand in line for six hours, only to find that you've had your chance to WtFoB stolen by the group standing in line behind you.)
No disrespect intended, Bartle -- but you're wrong on this point. Maybe you're right for a game with 500 players, but spawn-camping doesn't scale. By the time you've got 5000 players in a world, instancing isn't a noob-friendly thing, it's a veteran-friendly thing.
Where's the sense of achievement? It's in the loot, badge, bio entry, or shared experience that says "We whacked the Biggest Foozle In The Game" Not in "We camped the spawn for three days before getting a chance to whack it."
If a game sucks so hard that the only sense of accomplishment for veterans comes from having the patience to camp the spawn for three days, rather than actually doing the goddamn quest, then that game sucks.
And if any MMORPG developer is put off by the corollary to "We whacked the biggest foozle in the game" (which is "...so far, and now the Developers have to give us something new to do"), well, tough. If you want me to pay you $10/month for a year, then by God, you'd better give me a $120 worth of new foozles to whack over the course of that year.
Whacking bigger foozles is boring? Hire a writer to make it interesting. Single-player RPGs can give me 20 hours of enjoyment for $50. Most of that cost is sunk into developing the engine, not writing the story. If you're a MMORPG developer, hire a friggin' writer. Soap Opera writers write banal stories that seem to be able to draw in viewers for periods of time measured in decades. Why have MMORPG developers (who have access to better tools and far more interesting universes) failed to achieve "soap opera" level of literary ability?
> Despite the alleged "split" in the country.... 1) There were no riots in the street. 2) All candidates who started the election process are still alive today. 3) No cities are on fire and there is no looting 4) We all witnessed a historical election which will set the tone for the next generation and we all traveled to work as if it was a normal day
> > > I thought it was vi vs emacs...Or is that too geeky for/.
> > Sadly, yes. It's notepad vs. editpad for the slashdot crowd.
> What about 'touch' vs. 'copy con'?
I've had it with this flamewar. Let's end this transmission. Ctrl-D/EOT. We'll have none of that Ctrl-Z/SUB nonsense around he-aaw, fuck.
> Lincoln - During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus [... ] > > Wilson - During World War I, Congress curbed civil liberties with sweeping censorship and antisedition laws. [... Palmer raids...]
> >FDR - Japanese American Internment, German American Interment, Italian American Internment. > >Truman - National secrecy laws, CIA establishment > >Clinton - The copyright laws, 'roving wiretaps, HUD activities]
And I'll add Waco and Ruby Ridge (even considering it was used against armed fundie whackjobs, pretty fucking excessive force) as well as the use of FBI and IRS against Republican operatives to Clinton's legacy.
But - considering how history views all five of the Presidents in question... I'd say that history's vindicated 'em all, and conclude that civil liberties are overrated.
Judging from the historical record, I can conclude only that there are times when a President deems it worthwhile to put his historical reputation on the line. More often than not (Nixon being a notable exception), it pays off.
The jury's still out on Bush, and will probably remain out for another 10-20 years. If we make it to 2020 or so without a domestic incident of terrorism with civilian casualties in excess of 1000, I think history will give Bush the benefit of the doubt. If we were at a bar, I'd put $1000 on it tonight at 2:1 odds. Would anyone take that bet?
> It hasn't really affected me. I do hear some clicking in my phone every time I talk on it, but I think that's just the phoneline.
To be serious-and-informative for a moment: I've heard the same clicks. If you're calling customer support, that click is probably a buggy attempt by the phone system and/or some VOIP gateway at throwing a periodic "beep" at you to inform you that your call is being recorded for quality purposes by some asshat in India.
To be serious-and-kinda-snarky-about-it: if your phone's being tapped under PATRIOT provisions, you're not gonna hear a beep or a click.
> You know what level and type of war the US is involved in by looking at their activities on the moon. For example: > >
* Decades-long cold war with soviet block --> man on the moon >
* Months long warlet in Iraq --> robot on the moon >
* In time of peace --> gazing at the moon
Generational war with Islam --> either mud huts on the moon, or mud huts in New York, which will look like the Moon by the time this is over.
Like the election, the outcome is too close to call. Unlike the election, the outcome has nothing to do with who becomes President next week.
> > > For meaningful change, the only choice is Michael Badnarik!
> >Wouldn't you find change away from Bush's foreign and human rights policies meaningful?
If whatever you're smoking makes you think Kerry gives a rat's patoot about your rights more than Bush, kindly share it.
Because just as liberals found themselves on the no-fly-list under the Bush administration, conservatives will be subject to the same treatment under Kerry's.
> Please explain how that answers my question. NASA doesn't fund the development of joyrides.
But neither does it fund the development of new manned space vehicles. It develops them until they get to a point at which they might threaten the entrenched Shuttle/ISS pork barrel, and then cancels the project.
With shuttle retirement now a reality, maybe this time it'll be different, but I doubt it.
Personally, I'd like to see NASA scrap the ISS and concentrate on unmanned space science, at which they're pretty damn good. Contract out the probe launches to commercial providers, which they're doing now. And have about $3B/year to use in either doing more science or in actually seeing a next-generation project through to completion.
I don't want NASA to "fund joyrides". I want the joyriders to fund themselves. Once that happens, the joyriders will produce other joyriders, because people will be making money in space. The more meat you can put up in orbit, the more of the meat's money you make. The price drops, and someday the scientist-meat can afford to go too. (Much like the scientist-robots are flying commercial, rather than Shuttle, these days.)
NASA's manned programme is a nest of perverse incentives: a space station that does no science, but requires the shuttle, and a shuttle that does no science, and requires a space station. They're both very good at "making money" (in the sense of burning through Congressional appropriations), but so long as the money keeps coming, NASA's manned programme has no incentive either to put meat into space or do science in space.
So yeah, Burt's a hell of a long way from orbit. But because he's motivated by profit (which he doesn't get if he doesn't build SpaceShip Two/Three), and because NASA has no motivation to do anything other than preserve its current bureaucracy, I'd put even money on Burt getting to orbit before the next-generation Shuttle will. If you give me 3:1 odds, I'd even put money on Burt making at least one orbit before the next-generation Shuttle gets off the drawing board.
Slashdot Mirror
A .357 would have to be aimed. This 'bot doesn't have good enough aiming capabilities for a handgun to be effective.
Swap out the foam-disk shooters with a pair of shotgun shells, and now you're talking. Fire both shells simultaneously, because the recoil will probably send the 'bot flying backwards.
For bonus points, weigh the 'bot down or screw it into the floor/ceiling/wall, and belt-feed shells into it. Affordable firepower!
Close, but not quite:
In the mainstream, journalism isn't dead, but reporting's been pushing up the daisies since the 70s.
What CBS does is "Journalism". Figure out what sort of story you want to tell, then send a guy out with a camera (or dig up some stock footage) who can come up with the iamges to tell the story.
Terrorist? Freedom fighter? No problem, we'll find someone to argue both points. Dirtball spammer? Ethikul small bidnidman and oppressed ontreprenooer? All the same to us! Safe car? Time bomb? We've spent a lot of money on this story so far, and we're not gonna throw it away, so let's rig the test to make sure it blows up real good! Obvious Microsoft Word forgery? Story's what we want it to be no matter how obvious the forgery is? No problem, we'll pay off a handwriting expert who's not even taken seriously in his own loopy field, and a couple of Democrat partisans to distract you from the real issue and to repatedly drub it into your silly little minds that our story is true, even though all the evidence we've brought before you is actually pure, Grade-D bullshit.
CBS: All journalism, all the time.
What bloggers do is "Reporting". Look at the screen (or listen to the scanner, or check your IMs and emails from your inside source), and state what's happening. Then spin it -- but always making it clear what parts are spin and what parts are fact.
Blogs: All reporting. "Here's the numbers: K57/B43. Because I support [Kerry|Bush], I think that's [great|horrible]. Be warned that these numbers are unconfirmed. Take with huge grain of salt. I'll report more numbers as I find them."
> > CBS Sees no Journalism in Blogs
I'm tired of getting my news spun for me. I just want the goddamn facts, separated from the spin. Blogs serve this purpose. The mainstream media used to -- but hasn't in decades. No journalism in Blogs? GOOD.
> > Rule #1: Do not use signed shorts to count the total number of votes.
>
> Rule #2: Do not used signed Ints (sorry man, short in C/C++ only goes up to 127, C# has short that goes to 32k).
> Rule #3: Always use 64 or more bit unsigned integers.
Nyet!
Rule #3: Vary word length (and consequently the sizeof(int)) depending on the size of the precinct, and whether or not you expect the number of voters for your candidate and/or the opposing candidate to be "almost" or "barely over" a power of two.
Wait a minute, I thought you were talking about bad things.
Stop. Giving. The. Goatse. Guy. Ideas.
That is all.
Hey, yeah, somethine else to ponder...
Closed borders make sense today - you're not gonna get many doctors out of a population raised to see itself as nothing more than delivery mechanisms for suicide bombs - but why have they always been closed?
(Or is it that even if you're a relatively progressive monarchy, it's also politically advantageous to have not just one, but two scapegoats nearby?)
Hmm. Maybe it has something to do with the type of government and economic system.
Israel: Parliamentary democracy, capitalism.
"Palestine": Tinpot terrorist dictatorship, kleptocracy.
Naaaaaw, that's got nothing to do with it. It's all the fault of teh 3vil J00Z!
But they live in "refugee camps"! Yeah, yeah, what-the-fuck-ever. I know we westerners are supposed to think of tents and mud when we see the term "refugee camp", but take your green goggles off and just look at the damn place. "Refugee camps" of 100,000 people, featuring roads, water, brick and mortar construction, and that have been there for 30 years... anywhere else on the planet, those are called cities. (Of course, in states with functioning market economies - as opposed to terrorist kleptocracies - there's something to do in those cities other than figure out new ways to kill the Jews, but there we go on the GDP per capita front again. Guess when Saddam stopped paying $25K per suicide bomber, the only economic activity in "Palestine" really crashed.)
Fun exercise: Divide the subsidies from the US to Israel, and from the UN and European states to "Palestine" by the respective populations the two countries.
OK, so I suppose "Palestine" isn't subsidized by the EU or the UN on the grounds that all the money ends up in Switzerland under the control of some French chick. But unless you believe Yasser's AIDS-wracked corpse underwent a last-minute conversion to Judaism last week, you're gonna have a hard time convincing anyone (except possibly the Muslims) that teh 3vil j00z are behind it.
And to stay on topic. I love NYC, but... fuck Hollywood.
>
>PAINTBALL III - RISE OF THE MACHINES:Sick of losing to uber-good paintball players? Buy a fleet of cyborgs, swap those 12 gauges for rapid-fire paint launchers, and tell those wusses "I'll be back". Life-size inflatable Linda Hamilton doll not included.
So we're in agreement. The original author needs to either:
My choice civilian application: Mount one in every bank machine. Any attempt to use an card reported as "stolen" activates the Killbot, and a nearby industrial-size Roomba cleans up the parking lot.
>
>
"It's not easy being Evil, but Evil's what I be! (Choke on it!)"
- Zorak, Space Ghost
>
> So its the game's fault that you only figured out how to use one device for torture?
Yeah, talk about having the wrong attitude for this game.
The fun part of torture isn't the victim's reaction (let's be honest here, that gets pretty old after the first few hundred times), it's the feeling of... well, you know... that happy giddy evil feeling that comes over you while you're making up your diabolical little mind about which implements of destruction you want to use today.
"Hmm, bamboo splints? Naw, done that. The red-hot tongs? Feh, too middle-ages. The human-sized garlic press? Maybe, but one of my cuter minions and I had garlic bread for lunch with a lovely glass of Merlot, and why spoil the lovely aftertaste with sprayed blood and organ bits? Roll dice to see which limb to burn off with the house-sized magnifying glass? Bah, I got bored of that with ants when I was six... The box that drops rubber hammer on them, once every 10 seconds, for six hours until they get used to it, which is when you switch to a real hammer? Oh, bother... Decisions, decisions, decisions... so much evil to do, so little time..."
That's because you weren't playing Evil Genius, you were playing Sims 2!
But never "Should it be governed?". Nuh-uh. Not an option. Don't even think about asking that. We're your betters and that means We know best.
> The world needs an effective and well-supported ICANN but the participants in the World Summit on the Information Society and the Working Group on Internet Governance now need to turn their attention to the full panoply of public policy issues that, as discussed above, lie outside the mandate of ICANN.
"Full panoply of public policy issues". That's UN-speak for "We decide what you get to type on that Intarweb thingy, you don't. Because all 200-odd of us UN member nations get to vote. Equal-like. And if that means the Sudan, Chad, Cuba, China, Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Argentina, and Saudi Arabia outvote you silly free-speech freaks, well then, by Gub, that's democracy!"
You said "jail time". Is that some sort of newfangled lawyer shorthand for "go all Vlad-the-Impaler on them in front of Genuity or Verio headquarters pour encourager les autres?"
Because if all you mean is "locked in a small room, given free room and board for a few years, subject only to the occasional prison rape", then you'd better make yourself scarce. This here's Slashdot, and we don't take kindly to yuppified murketeering types who publicly express sympathy for spammers 'round these parts.
But you're not going to have any impact in a non-instanced world either.
You interact with people in the instanced universe the same way as you do with the rest of your groupmates when you're doing something grouped in a non-instanced universe.
The only difference is that when you and your groupmates/guildmates decide to Whack the Foozle of Bigness, you actually get to whack the foozle, rather than stand in line for six hours waiting for your turn to camp the spawn. (Or worse, stand in line for six hours, only to find that you've had your chance to WtFoB stolen by the group standing in line behind you.)
No disrespect intended, Bartle -- but you're wrong on this point. Maybe you're right for a game with 500 players, but spawn-camping doesn't scale. By the time you've got 5000 players in a world, instancing isn't a noob-friendly thing, it's a veteran-friendly thing.
Where's the sense of achievement? It's in the loot, badge, bio entry, or shared experience that says "We whacked the Biggest Foozle In The Game" Not in "We camped the spawn for three days before getting a chance to whack it."
If a game sucks so hard that the only sense of accomplishment for veterans comes from having the patience to camp the spawn for three days, rather than actually doing the goddamn quest, then that game sucks.
And if any MMORPG developer is put off by the corollary to "We whacked the biggest foozle in the game" (which is "...so far, and now the Developers have to give us something new to do"), well, tough. If you want me to pay you $10/month for a year, then by God, you'd better give me a $120 worth of new foozles to whack over the course of that year.
Whacking bigger foozles is boring? Hire a writer to make it interesting. Single-player RPGs can give me 20 hours of enjoyment for $50. Most of that cost is sunk into developing the engine, not writing the story. If you're a MMORPG developer, hire a friggin' writer. Soap Opera writers write banal stories that seem to be able to draw in viewers for periods of time measured in decades. Why have MMORPG developers (who have access to better tools and far more interesting universes) failed to achieve "soap opera" level of literary ability?
3) Prince George's County Courthouse appears to be suffering from a slight case of burnination, and
1) The black flag has already been hoisted over Governor's Island, New York by an insurrectionist acting on behalf of the Blue Tulip Party...
You're only two for four, but thankfully, they're the important two.
> > Sadly, yes. It's notepad vs. editpad for the slashdot crowd.
> What about 'touch' vs. 'copy con'?
I've had it with this flamewar. Let's end this transmission. Ctrl-D/EOT. We'll have none of that Ctrl-Z/SUB nonsense around he-aaw, fuck.
>
> Wilson - During World War I, Congress curbed civil liberties with sweeping censorship and antisedition laws. [... Palmer raids
>
>FDR - Japanese American Internment, German American Interment, Italian American Internment.
>
>Truman - National secrecy laws, CIA establishment
>
>Clinton - The copyright laws, 'roving wiretaps, HUD activities]
And I'll add Waco and Ruby Ridge (even considering it was used against armed fundie whackjobs, pretty fucking excessive force) as well as the use of FBI and IRS against Republican operatives to Clinton's legacy.
But - considering how history views all five of the Presidents in question... I'd say that history's vindicated 'em all, and conclude that civil liberties are overrated.
Judging from the historical record, I can conclude only that there are times when a President deems it worthwhile to put his historical reputation on the line. More often than not (Nixon being a notable exception), it pays off.
The jury's still out on Bush, and will probably remain out for another 10-20 years. If we make it to 2020 or so without a domestic incident of terrorism with civilian casualties in excess of 1000, I think history will give Bush the benefit of the doubt. If we were at a bar, I'd put $1000 on it tonight at 2:1 odds. Would anyone take that bet?
To be serious-and-informative for a moment: I've heard the same clicks. If you're calling customer support, that click is probably a buggy attempt by the phone system and/or some VOIP gateway at throwing a periodic "beep" at you to inform you that your call is being recorded for quality purposes by some asshat in India.
To be serious-and-kinda-snarky-about-it: if your phone's being tapped under PATRIOT provisions, you're not gonna hear a beep or a click.
So either way, rest easy :)
> and there was no one left to speak out for me.
And then there was the record voter turnout,
and there was no one left to speak out for the trite.
>
> * Decades-long cold war with soviet block --> man on the moon
> * Months long warlet in Iraq --> robot on the moon
> * In time of peace --> gazing at the moon
Generational war with Islam --> either mud huts on the moon, or mud huts in New York, which will look like the Moon by the time this is over.
Like the election, the outcome is too close to call. Unlike the election, the outcome has nothing to do with who becomes President next week.
Times change, and the tools available for controlling the population change with them.
>
>Wouldn't you find change away from Bush's foreign and human rights policies meaningful?
If whatever you're smoking makes you think Kerry gives a rat's patoot about your rights more than Bush, kindly share it.
Because just as liberals found themselves on the no-fly-list under the Bush administration, conservatives will be subject to the same treatment under Kerry's.
But neither does it fund the development of new manned space vehicles. It develops them until they get to a point at which they might threaten the entrenched Shuttle/ISS pork barrel, and then cancels the project.
With shuttle retirement now a reality, maybe this time it'll be different, but I doubt it.
Personally, I'd like to see NASA scrap the ISS and concentrate on unmanned space science, at which they're pretty damn good. Contract out the probe launches to commercial providers, which they're doing now. And have about $3B/year to use in either doing more science or in actually seeing a next-generation project through to completion.
I don't want NASA to "fund joyrides". I want the joyriders to fund themselves. Once that happens, the joyriders will produce other joyriders, because people will be making money in space. The more meat you can put up in orbit, the more of the meat's money you make. The price drops, and someday the scientist-meat can afford to go too. (Much like the scientist-robots are flying commercial, rather than Shuttle, these days.)
NASA's manned programme is a nest of perverse incentives: a space station that does no science, but requires the shuttle, and a shuttle that does no science, and requires a space station. They're both very good at "making money" (in the sense of burning through Congressional appropriations), but so long as the money keeps coming, NASA's manned programme has no incentive either to put meat into space or do science in space.
So yeah, Burt's a hell of a long way from orbit. But because he's motivated by profit (which he doesn't get if he doesn't build SpaceShip Two/Three), and because NASA has no motivation to do anything other than preserve its current bureaucracy, I'd put even money on Burt getting to orbit before the next-generation Shuttle will. If you give me 3:1 odds, I'd even put money on Burt making at least one orbit before the next-generation Shuttle gets off the drawing board.
"elevators"?
You misspelled "suspension bridges".
Build me a suspension bridge out of carbon nanotubes, and I'll be first in line to invest in the space elevator. But not until then.