You did NOT make clear that your statements were about Imperial Japan, rather than the Japanese at large, because there is not a semantic agreement that the "Imperial" Japanese are any different than normal Japanese of the time.
Give up the pathetic damage control. How can repeatedly inserting the word "Imperial" in front of "Japan" or "Japanese" NOT imply something different. From dictionary.com:
"adjective 1. The part of speech that modifies a noun or other substantive by limiting, qualifying, or specifying"
Does that clear up your semantic agreement problem?
Furthermore, given that you do not have either the intelligence or respect to even bother reading up on the source of my arguments.
Your argument was a rediculous misstatement of a well known arguement. I am quite familiar with the real arguments and Imperial Japan's feelers with the USSR. Do not confuse criticism of your befuddlement with criticism and the real arguments.
It perhaps would have been wiser to actually cite REAL AUTHORITATIVE evidence in your arguments rather than simply state disjointed suppositions as facts as recklessly as I did.
You did not cite facts. You presented one side of an argument as fact. Assuming your source is not some crackpot you misunderstood actual scholarly opionions. For example "We dropped the bomb on Japan specifically because we wanted to ensure that the Japanese surrendered to the United States, instead of the Soviets." The real scholarly opinion is something like Japan attempted to make a separate peace with the Soviets to prevent Soviet entry into the war. Re-read your line and think of the illogic. How can you surrender to a third party to end a war waged against someone else?
Imperial Japan's biological warfare research in China and planned biological and radiological attacks on the US are not "supposition".
Admittedly, Japanese surrender was not as likely as I may have made it seem, but it is impossible to ignore the evidence that certain members of the Japanese polity at the time were considering it, and it is impossible now to guess how much more fighting would have been necessary to garner a Japanese surrender, if not peace.
All you really offer is that Imperial Japan was not a hive mind and that there were some dissenters. That proves nothing. Admiral Yamamoto was against the treaty with Hitler, against war with the US, yet despite his rank well earned respectability he had to be sequestered on board warships to prevent assassination by pro-war Army officers. However when his orders came he oversaw the development and execution of a brilliant attack on the US. It did not matter that he thought it was a bad idea and that he believed the war would begin to turn against Japan in 6-12 months.
Do the sick actions of a fascist government therefore necessitate the murder of innocent civilians? Can you really justify the decades long suffering and pain caused by nuclear fallout, when you yourself cite Japanese atrocities as examples of the cruelty of men?
Fighting was not strictly necessary although a massive invasion was planned. One strategy could have been to blockade the islands and "starve them out". Invasion or blockade, the fact remains that Japanese casualties probably would have been far higher than those of the atomic attacks. Sometimes aggressively prosecuting a war to unconditional surender costs fewer lives than the alternatives. There is certainly a strong argument that this holds true for the war with Imperial Japan. Again, I'll offer my main point, things are far more complicated than you believe. In other words, your analysis is superficial. It actually seems more political than historical.
Your arguments, however, seem to be more predicated on a vilification of the Japanese as a race and nation...
That is a pathetic attempt at playing the "racist" card. Normally the most heated of exchanges do not bother me but you crossed the line. I expect an apology for that one.
Note my use of "Imperial Japan" and "Imperial Japanese" throughout my posts. I do so to differentiate Imperial Japan of the 1930s and 40s from the Democratic Japan that followed. My vilification is of a government that was rightfully removed from the face of the earth nearly sixty years ago and its agents who committed war crimes beyond imagination. The only thing you could conceivably criticize is that I did not specify the 1930-40s timeframe. Imperial Japan's behavior in the First World War, and possibly the Russo-Japanese War but I could be mistaken, was "civilized" with respect to non-combatants and prisoners.
I doubt that popular opinion will ever coincide with this until all the WWII vets are dead and gone.
Again, things are not as simple as you believe. As time passes we learn that Imperial Japan's crimes are greater than originally believed. For example the biological research conducted on Chinese civilians. That only became common knowledge, well in the US, relatively recently. It was classified for many years because the US government made a deal with the Imperial Japanese war criminals who conducted the research. We traded their freedom for their knowledge. Their notes and other materials advanced our bio warfare program a decade or more. The Imperial Japanese researchers who used Chinese civilians as lab rats, actually I think they referred to them in reports as "logs", were free to pursue their normal lives after the war and become leaders in Japanese politics, medicine, and business.
I call bullshit on your statement about dropping tha tomic bomb on Japan
Pot. Kettle. Black. Things are far more complicated than you realize. You are as simplistic and misinformed as those you criticize. You only differ from them in terms of politics.
Japan had already attempted to surrender to Moscow weeks before Hiroshima
You seriously misrepresent things. Imperial Japan made an unofficial attempt to make peace with Russia. That was not a surrender to the Allies, it was an attempt to split the Allies, they were willing to continue fighting the US(1) but did not want the Russians to join in. Large segments of the government were not aware of the "feelers" to Russia, the military was not aware. The military would have instantly shot as a traitor anyone involved had they known. Hell, parts of the military staged a coup to prevent the Emporer's surrender orders from being broadcast. They wanted to separate the emporer from the "traitors and cowards" who were "deceiving" him. And that was after two atomic bombs(2).
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were one of the greatest massacres in the history of the world
Actually conventional bombings from World War II inflicted greater casualties than the atomic bombings. Read up on Dresden for example. While you are at it read up on Nanking.
(1) Imperial Japan was willing to continue fighting the US in part because they were preparing both nuclear and biological attacks on the US. The had conducted extensive biological warfare research on Chinese prisoners, conducted field trial on Chinese villages, and were preparing to deliver biological agents to the US homeland via balloons and submarine launched aircraft. Perparations were also underway to deliver radiological material to the US homeland.
(2) I've seen Imperial Japanese Army training films showing soldiers training while covered in white sheets. The sheets were an attempt to reduce casualties from the flash of an atomic bomb.
It doesn't really matter what the lunatic fringe such as yourself think or feel or fear may happen. Government is given power by the people and it is necessary for the government to use power on their behalf to a degree. So far it has done so reasonably with respect to domestic security. If the people felt otherwise the people would vote to change things. The vast majority who voted for Bush or Kerry do not share your lunacy.
Nope. Read the specs. The Mac mini comes with a DVI-to-VGA adapter in the box. So you don't need a DVI KVM; just a USB model.
Thank you but I did read the specs. The point you are missing is that someone who has a DVI capable monitor probably does not want to use the VGA. If they wanted only VGA they could have saved a lot of money.
You misunderstand the problem. The problem is not that a one button mouse exists. The problem is that there is no multibutton w/ scrollwheel mouse available from **Apple**. For a computer that is sold partly on its look and style, ie fashion, not having an alternative mouse is counterproductive. The one button should be the default but a multibutton/wheel mouse should be available as a build-to-order option for when you are buying a system for yourself rather than grandma.
No. Those are Apple's second worst enemies. Apple's worst enemies are the people who predicted Apple's demise when they stopped shipping with floppies.
Then predicted Apple's demise when they started using USB.
What a load of crap, revisionist history. The complaint was not that Apple dropped the floppy, the complaint was that the rev A iMac had no removable media. No zip. No CD-R. Nothing. Apple solved this deficiency and eventually added a CD-R. If I had to guess I would say they wanted a CD-R all along but had to go to plain CD to make their price point.
I've been using Apple's since 1981, Mac's since '83 (developer - Lisa actually). I'd comment on your other nonsense but I've fed the trolls enough tonight.
It will need to be a USB KVM, they cost a little more. Also the KVM will probably support VGA connectors not DVI. If you want DVI that will cost a lot more. That said, I have used a USB KVM and a nice 21" tube to go between a couple of PCs and a Mac and it worked fairly well. The only trouble spot was when I plugged in the USB speakers. If I was switching between Windows and Mac desktops everything was fine soundwise, but if I was dual boxing in some game I could loose sound during the switch. Overall the USB KVM worked far better than I expected and having one keyboard, mouse, monitor, and 2.1 sound on the desk was nice.
You are correct. Its a little more complicated though, that modestly educated blue collar gas company guys knows how not to blow up your home or neighborhood but the average citizen does not.
If they were truly trolls why does the mini fix so many of their complaints? There were no shortage of legitimate complaints about recent Mac products, and many came from people who own and use Macs.
Apple's worst enemies are the fanboys who think Apple can do no wrong. Thankfully Apple seems to be listening to the market not the fanboys.
Hidden costs indeed. If you upgrade the Mac mini to 1GB of memory through the Apple store, the additional cost is $425! So that $500 marvel is now $925. And for OS X to really sing, mucho memory is required.
You conveniently neglected to mention the upgrade to 512MB for $75. For a machine of this type 512MB is plenty, this is not a development class system. It is for more casual use. Hell for typical home users just doing email, browsing, and letters to grandma 256MB is probably OK given that you won't have the spyware and virus bloat. Apple's math is just fine. You are presenting an unrealistic edge case as if it was the norm.
Fine, but the statement was that people would be lining up to sue the government, so I responded with a fact.
You offered an opinion not a fact. An erroneous opinion too.
"Representing the Big Apple in the nation's most litigious city is Michael Cardozo... The city's top legal gun runs an office of 650 lawyers in all five boroughs... Included in Cardozo's annual budget is $560 million to pay off lawsuit judgments or settlements... New York's lawyers post a pretty fair 52 percent winning mark in court"
But the real issue here is that the poster seems to be trying to obtain this information for free, rather the paying the fees/subscriptions required by the states for providing the data in a presentable, standardized format.
Even the GPL lets you charge a fee. I don't have to make my source freely available on a website. I can require you to be a "customer" and I can require a "reasonable" fee.
The government is not suable, at least not for damages that an ambulance chaser would want.
That's odd, teachers, school principals, and police officers that I know all have multi-million dollar insurance policies to protect them from personal lawsuits. They seem to share the opinion that performing their jobs properly, within both the law and department policies, provides them no personal protection. Those government employees who are saying no are not trying to protect just the town bank accounts, they are also trying to protect their own personal bank accounts. I think things are a bit more complex than you suggest.
If the lawyer could win (see above on whether or not it could), then this says a lot on the current state of America.
It does. That is why tort reform is such a big issue over here. Unfortunately many senators and representatives are lawyers and the trial lawyers are pretty big campaign contributors. In the US criminal law, when the government takes you to court, is very different from civil law, when a "person" takes you to court. In criminal law the threshold for guilt is pretty high, "beyond reasonable doubt". For civil law the threshold for winning is lower, "preponderance or evidence" for example. And when juries are involved anything can happen.
It's actually the earth that "provided" the info by having the various elevations that it has. Ohhh lets sue the earth. What a cop out statement. The town could not feasibly be sued for this and you know it. The information is already available from commercial sources; all this is is ignorance.
If by "all this is is ignorance" you are referring to your own post, I agree. If you had bothered to read the article you would have known that the data involves more than terrain elevations.
Secondly, it is irrelevant that the information could be obtained from a different source. If you are the source and you have deep pockets you will probably be sued. It does not really matter if you had behaved reasonably or within the law. You can still lose and/or you can be foreced to spend a lot of money defending yourself. Frivilous lawsuits happen. Sometimes they win.
Please, show me a terrorist who would attack anything in Greenwich, CT over in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., or any other major metropolitan area in the US.
The folks in the cities are stressed because they feel targetted. The folks in the suburbs and country feel safe. Naturally the later are a perfectly logical target. You naively assume that the purpose of terrorism is a large body count. It is not, it is to make everyone feel unsafe. Right now large chunks of the country feel safe. An attack in one suburban or small town shopping center would make the rest of the country as stressed out as those in the big cities.
Secondly, it is the job of the town officials in Greenwich to worry about Greenwich. The fact that an attack is highly likely to occur elsewhere, irregardless of whether it is big city, suburb, or country, does not mean they should not prepare locally.
if there is not a very, very compelling reason to keep people's noses out of such information
There is. If a bad person does something the town does not want to be the source of that person's information. There will be no shortage of ambulance chasing lawyers suing the town if something happened and the town had provided info of its own free will, as opposed to be compelled to by a court order.
In my opinion, it's just a cop-out so they don't have to do any extra work to provide it to the public.
It is naive to think that things are that simple. Things are far more complicated than most people around here realize.
Slashdot Mirror
You did NOT make clear that your statements were about Imperial Japan, rather than the Japanese at large, because there is not a semantic agreement that the "Imperial" Japanese are any different than normal Japanese of the time.
Give up the pathetic damage control. How can repeatedly inserting the word "Imperial" in front of "Japan" or "Japanese" NOT imply something different. From dictionary.com:
"adjective 1. The part of speech that modifies a noun or other substantive by limiting, qualifying, or specifying"
Does that clear up your semantic agreement problem?
Furthermore, given that you do not have either the intelligence or respect to even bother reading up on the source of my arguments.
Your argument was a rediculous misstatement of a well known arguement. I am quite familiar with the real arguments and Imperial Japan's feelers with the USSR. Do not confuse criticism of your befuddlement with criticism and the real arguments.
It perhaps would have been wiser to actually cite REAL AUTHORITATIVE evidence in your arguments rather than simply state disjointed suppositions as facts as recklessly as I did.
You did not cite facts. You presented one side of an argument as fact. Assuming your source is not some crackpot you misunderstood actual scholarly opionions. For example "We dropped the bomb on Japan specifically because we wanted to ensure that the Japanese surrendered to the United States, instead of the Soviets." The real scholarly opinion is something like Japan attempted to make a separate peace with the Soviets to prevent Soviet entry into the war. Re-read your line and think of the illogic. How can you surrender to a third party to end a war waged against someone else?
Imperial Japan's biological warfare research in China and planned biological and radiological attacks on the US are not "supposition".
Admittedly, Japanese surrender was not as likely as I may have made it seem, but it is impossible to ignore the evidence that certain members of the Japanese polity at the time were considering it, and it is impossible now to guess how much more fighting would have been necessary to garner a Japanese surrender, if not peace.
All you really offer is that Imperial Japan was not a hive mind and that there were some dissenters. That proves nothing. Admiral Yamamoto was against the treaty with Hitler, against war with the US, yet despite his rank well earned respectability he had to be sequestered on board warships to prevent assassination by pro-war Army officers. However when his orders came he oversaw the development and execution of a brilliant attack on the US. It did not matter that he thought it was a bad idea and that he believed the war would begin to turn against Japan in 6-12 months.
Do the sick actions of a fascist government therefore necessitate the murder of innocent civilians? Can you really justify the decades long suffering and pain caused by nuclear fallout, when you yourself cite Japanese atrocities as examples of the cruelty of men?
Fighting was not strictly necessary although a massive invasion was planned. One strategy could have been to blockade the islands and "starve them out". Invasion or blockade, the fact remains that Japanese casualties probably would have been far higher than those of the atomic attacks. Sometimes aggressively prosecuting a war to unconditional surender costs fewer lives than the alternatives. There is certainly a strong argument that this holds true for the war with Imperial Japan. Again, I'll offer my main point, things are far more complicated than you believe. In other words, your analysis is superficial. It actually seems more political than historical.
Your arguments, however, seem to be more predicated on a vilification of the Japanese as a race and nation ...
That is a pathetic attempt at playing the "racist" card. Normally the most heated of exchanges do not bother me but you crossed the line. I expect an apology for that one.
Note my use of "Imperial Japan" and "Imperial Japanese" throughout my posts. I do so to differentiate Imperial Japan of the 1930s and 40s from the Democratic Japan that followed. My vilification is of a government that was rightfully removed from the face of the earth nearly sixty years ago and its agents who committed war crimes beyond imagination. The only thing you could conceivably criticize is that I did not specify the 1930-40s timeframe. Imperial Japan's behavior in the First World War, and possibly the Russo-Japanese War but I could be mistaken, was "civilized" with respect to non-combatants and prisoners.
Oops, forgot one comment ...
I doubt that popular opinion will ever coincide with this until all the WWII vets are dead and gone.
Again, things are not as simple as you believe. As time passes we learn that Imperial Japan's crimes are greater than originally believed. For example the biological research conducted on Chinese civilians. That only became common knowledge, well in the US, relatively recently. It was classified for many years because the US government made a deal with the Imperial Japanese war criminals who conducted the research. We traded their freedom for their knowledge. Their notes and other materials advanced our bio warfare program a decade or more. The Imperial Japanese researchers who used Chinese civilians as lab rats, actually I think they referred to them in reports as "logs", were free to pursue their normal lives after the war and become leaders in Japanese politics, medicine, and business.
I call bullshit on your statement about dropping tha tomic bomb on Japan
Pot. Kettle. Black. Things are far more complicated than you realize. You are as simplistic and misinformed as those you criticize. You only differ from them in terms of politics.
Japan had already attempted to surrender to Moscow weeks before Hiroshima
You seriously misrepresent things. Imperial Japan made an unofficial attempt to make peace with Russia. That was not a surrender to the Allies, it was an attempt to split the Allies, they were willing to continue fighting the US(1) but did not want the Russians to join in. Large segments of the government were not aware of the "feelers" to Russia, the military was not aware. The military would have instantly shot as a traitor anyone involved had they known. Hell, parts of the military staged a coup to prevent the Emporer's surrender orders from being broadcast. They wanted to separate the emporer from the "traitors and cowards" who were "deceiving" him. And that was after two atomic bombs(2).
the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were one of the greatest massacres in the history of the world
Actually conventional bombings from World War II inflicted greater casualties than the atomic bombings. Read up on Dresden for example. While you are at it read up on Nanking.
(1) Imperial Japan was willing to continue fighting the US in part because they were preparing both nuclear and biological attacks on the US. The had conducted extensive biological warfare research on Chinese prisoners, conducted field trial on Chinese villages, and were preparing to deliver biological agents to the US homeland via balloons and submarine launched aircraft. Perparations were also underway to deliver radiological material to the US homeland.
(2) I've seen Imperial Japanese Army training films showing soldiers training while covered in white sheets. The sheets were an attempt to reduce casualties from the flash of an atomic bomb.
I call bull. ... If they already had an AI that was "way too good for [a] human to beat" then why didn't they just put that in instead?
For the simple reason that the goal of "insanse" was not to produce something that was unbeatable. Insanely difficult should still be beatable.
All their AI was script-based so it shouldn't have been that hard
No, portions were script based.
The only thing under your desk is your right hand, assuming of course you are not a lefty.
It doesn't really matter what the lunatic fringe such as yourself think or feel or fear may happen. Government is given power by the people and it is necessary for the government to use power on their behalf to a degree. So far it has done so reasonably with respect to domestic security. If the people felt otherwise the people would vote to change things. The vast majority who voted for Bush or Kerry do not share your lunacy.
Nope. Read the specs. The Mac mini comes with a DVI-to-VGA adapter in the box. So you don't need a DVI KVM; just a USB model.
Thank you but I did read the specs. The point you are missing is that someone who has a DVI capable monitor probably does not want to use the VGA. If they wanted only VGA they could have saved a lot of money.
You misunderstand the problem. The problem is not that a one button mouse exists. The problem is that there is no multibutton w/ scrollwheel mouse available from **Apple**. For a computer that is sold partly on its look and style, ie fashion, not having an alternative mouse is counterproductive. The one button should be the default but a multibutton/wheel mouse should be available as a build-to-order option for when you are buying a system for yourself rather than grandma.
No. Those are Apple's second worst enemies. Apple's worst enemies are the people who predicted Apple's demise when they stopped shipping with floppies. Then predicted Apple's demise when they started using USB.
What a load of crap, revisionist history. The complaint was not that Apple dropped the floppy, the complaint was that the rev A iMac had no removable media. No zip. No CD-R. Nothing. Apple solved this deficiency and eventually added a CD-R. If I had to guess I would say they wanted a CD-R all along but had to go to plain CD to make their price point.
I've been using Apple's since 1981, Mac's since '83 (developer - Lisa actually). I'd comment on your other nonsense but I've fed the trolls enough tonight.
It will need to be a USB KVM, they cost a little more. Also the KVM will probably support VGA connectors not DVI. If you want DVI that will cost a lot more. That said, I have used a USB KVM and a nice 21" tube to go between a couple of PCs and a Mac and it worked fairly well. The only trouble spot was when I plugged in the USB speakers. If I was switching between Windows and Mac desktops everything was fine soundwise, but if I was dual boxing in some game I could loose sound during the switch. Overall the USB KVM worked far better than I expected and having one keyboard, mouse, monitor, and 2.1 sound on the desk was nice.
You are correct. Its a little more complicated though, that modestly educated blue collar gas company guys knows how not to blow up your home or neighborhood but the average citizen does not.
If they were truly trolls why does the mini fix so many of their complaints? There were no shortage of legitimate complaints about recent Mac products, and many came from people who own and use Macs.
Apple's worst enemies are the fanboys who think Apple can do no wrong. Thankfully Apple seems to be listening to the market not the fanboys.
Hidden costs indeed. If you upgrade the Mac mini to 1GB of memory through the Apple store, the additional cost is $425! So that $500 marvel is now $925. And for OS X to really sing, mucho memory is required.
You conveniently neglected to mention the upgrade to 512MB for $75. For a machine of this type 512MB is plenty, this is not a development class system. It is for more casual use. Hell for typical home users just doing email, browsing, and letters to grandma 256MB is probably OK given that you won't have the spyware and virus bloat. Apple's math is just fine. You are presenting an unrealistic edge case as if it was the norm.
What is the point of gathering GIS data with taxpayer money if it is not going to be made accessible to the public.
For example. Someone, or their contractor, is going to be digging somewhere. The city will check for water and gas lines before issuing a permit.
A right or privelage given to a State does not apply to a Town or County.
If the lawyer could win (see above on whether or not it could), then this says a lot on the current state of America.
Ammusing and sad at the same time:
http://www.nylawyer.com/news/04/12/122004n.html
Fine, but the statement was that people would be lining up to sue the government, so I responded with a fact.
You offered an opinion not a fact. An erroneous opinion too.
"Representing the Big Apple in the nation's most litigious city is Michael Cardozo... The city's top legal gun runs an office of 650 lawyers in all five boroughs... Included in Cardozo's annual budget is $560 million to pay off lawsuit judgments or settlements... New York's lawyers post a pretty fair 52 percent winning mark in court"
http://www.nylawyer.com/news/04/12/122004n.html
But the real issue here is that the poster seems to be trying to obtain this information for free, rather the paying the fees/subscriptions required by the states for providing the data in a presentable, standardized format.
Even the GPL lets you charge a fee. I don't have to make my source freely available on a website. I can require you to be a "customer" and I can require a "reasonable" fee.
The government is not suable, at least not for damages that an ambulance chaser would want.
That's odd, teachers, school principals, and police officers that I know all have multi-million dollar insurance policies to protect them from personal lawsuits. They seem to share the opinion that performing their jobs properly, within both the law and department policies, provides them no personal protection. Those government employees who are saying no are not trying to protect just the town bank accounts, they are also trying to protect their own personal bank accounts. I think things are a bit more complex than you suggest.
If the lawyer could win (see above on whether or not it could), then this says a lot on the current state of America.
It does. That is why tort reform is such a big issue over here. Unfortunately many senators and representatives are lawyers and the trial lawyers are pretty big campaign contributors. In the US criminal law, when the government takes you to court, is very different from civil law, when a "person" takes you to court. In criminal law the threshold for guilt is pretty high, "beyond reasonable doubt". For civil law the threshold for winning is lower, "preponderance or evidence" for example. And when juries are involved anything can happen.
It's actually the earth that "provided" the info by having the various elevations that it has. Ohhh lets sue the earth. What a cop out statement. The town could not feasibly be sued for this and you know it. The information is already available from commercial sources; all this is is ignorance.
If by "all this is is ignorance" you are referring to your own post, I agree. If you had bothered to read the article you would have known that the data involves more than terrain elevations.
Secondly, it is irrelevant that the information could be obtained from a different source. If you are the source and you have deep pockets you will probably be sued. It does not really matter if you had behaved reasonably or within the law. You can still lose and/or you can be foreced to spend a lot of money defending yourself. Frivilous lawsuits happen. Sometimes they win.
Please, show me a terrorist who would attack anything in Greenwich, CT over in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., or any other major metropolitan area in the US.
The folks in the cities are stressed because they feel targetted. The folks in the suburbs and country feel safe. Naturally the later are a perfectly logical target. You naively assume that the purpose of terrorism is a large body count. It is not, it is to make everyone feel unsafe. Right now large chunks of the country feel safe. An attack in one suburban or small town shopping center would make the rest of the country as stressed out as those in the big cities.
Secondly, it is the job of the town officials in Greenwich to worry about Greenwich. The fact that an attack is highly likely to occur elsewhere, irregardless of whether it is big city, suburb, or country, does not mean they should not prepare locally.
if there is not a very, very compelling reason to keep people's noses out of such information
There is. If a bad person does something the town does not want to be the source of that person's information. There will be no shortage of ambulance chasing lawyers suing the town if something happened and the town had provided info of its own free will, as opposed to be compelled to by a court order.
In my opinion, it's just a cop-out so they don't have to do any extra work to provide it to the public.
It is naive to think that things are that simple. Things are far more complicated than most people around here realize.