You don't need explosives. Just hundred kg or so of ball bearings and enough of a velocity difference so they come in at a few km/sec (and good tracking as well, but we already know how to do that.)
Actually for low orbit satellites, you don't even need an orbital weapon - if your booster can get your "shotgun spread" to the right altitude and location at the right time, the satellite's own velocity does the work for you as it goes thru the cloud.
Satellites aren't armored (and even for military ones it's impractical to do so due to weight considerations.) A few quarter inch ball bearings traveling at a few km/sec impart a lot of kinetic energy when they hit.
Except where the corporations can buy whatever regulated market they wish to, and individuals have no choice in the matter. I agree with you, but the last decade, at least, has shown that government regulation in this country is for sale to the highest bidder.
An armed society will be a polite society - as long as the government and other powers that be don't try and treat the citizens like slaves.
I can understand an American being rather confused by this situation. After all, I was born here and lived here for more than four decades, and I've watched my fellow citizens vote away their rights for what seems like a very long time.
You, on the other hand, should not have called a police officer names to his face when he was acting like a psychotic.
And you have obviously never been in that sort of situation, when you feel that someone you care for is being threatened unreasonably.
The rest of your post indicates to me that either you are very young, or if not, very naive. I am neither. You really should not assume so much.
I realize it was twenty years ago and maybe your cellphone didnt exist, nevermind take video
Yeah, back then it was word against word *sarcasm*. In any case, this officer already had a history of abusing his authority, otherwise his supervisor would not have taken the actions he did at the time. This all came out during the civil suit, and both the judge and the officer's supervisor said that my actions at the time were correct, even if my language could have been a bit more civil.
I have to say, that I hope you never find yourself in a similar situation. I thought much the same way as you did, before that event, and afterwards I recognized just how stupid I was being in blindly trusting anyone who holds any sort of absolute (meaning physical threat) authority over me.
I remember from the first time this story was posted on slashdot, that some people made the exact same comment. I agree with it*. If the officers on the scene are really nervous about the occupants of the vehicle, and want to search it without having to worry about weapons being used by those occupants, they should ask the people to step out of the vehicle, and place themselves somewhere (a "safe area") where one officer can cover them easily while the car is searched; and where if they need to be gunned down, it can be done so without endangering other innocent bystanders.
This is how law enforcement officers just about everywhere do it, if they have any reasonable suspicion that the occupants might be dangerous. It makes sense. Get them away from the vehicle, away from places where they can hide a weapon, and somewhere they can be supervised more easily. I also seem to remember reading somewhere in that same thread that many professional law enforcement officers thought that the training given to border guards was horribly inadequate.
Obviously this won't protect against potential "booby traps" within the vehicle itself; but that is part of the hazards of the job, regardless. It also might slow customs searches down somewhat, but so what?
* I believe I did as well, but don't remember and am too lazy to search for it.
Interesting, I'd never really looked it up. A quick look at fatal injuries per occupation yields this chart from the BLS. In the homicides category the highest numbers by a ways are in retail sales, food preparation and sales supervisors;-?! Protective service occupations are actually a fair ways down the list.
I assume there are different ways of looking at it, but as someone who has worked a lot of retail sales, it does make a morbid kind of sense...
(It would be nice if they would put their statistics tables in some sort of sortable format... it's not hard...)
I would appreciate a better link if anyone has one.
In addition, very powerful, very important people put very stupid children in positions of power at these places, in order to fill up the resumes of these very stupid children before they can become the new generation of very powerful, very important people (the stupid is assumed redundant by this point).
The real problem is that they can't find enough honest, decent, qualified and willing people to fill the expansion of border security positions we've had in the last ten years.
About twenty years ago, I once called a police officer an asshole, to his face, in front of his immediate superior. It was justified - that man was behaving like a psychotic over a minor traffic issue (jaywalking) involving a friend of mine. The officer took out his baton and threatened to "beat me into submission", at which time his superior collared him and led him back to the squad car, came back and apologized to us. The first officer was suspended without pay and later dismissed from the force as being unfit to be a law enforcement official. My friend brought suit against the local PD - it scared her pretty badly - and although she wasn't awarded damages, the verdict by the judge contributed to the officer being dismissed from the force.
At what point do citizens lose the right in this country to speak up when they are being harassed unfairly by an official of any kind, or when they see someone else being harassed unfairly?
Watts never offered violence (according to other witnesses; the one border patrol officer who was required to be there at the sentencing and who claimed that Watts attacked him first, Mr. Andrew Beaudry, waived his right to a victim's statement during the sentencing; that and a few other things tell me that he was probably lying about the events.
There are enough incidents such as this that go on to suggest that perhaps we need to start scrutinizing our border guard (and LE) hiring practices in a much more thorough manner, and disciplining them when they step out of line. Yes, it's a stressful job. Yes, it has the potential of danger. But anybody wearing the uniform who loses their head when there is no real physical threat to them simply does not belong in that job .
I didn't read the article thoroughly enough before I posted the submission; there is more detail on the case on a link from within the story.
(It was not with the intention of gaining karma; my karma has been peaked out for years, ceased to care about it even before that)
A note on Slashdot's submission/moderation system; I had moderator points before I posted the story, and apparently have moderator points within the story. The editors may have their reasons for allowing it, but I don't feel that it's a good idea to allow story submitters to have moderation points within a story they post. Just sayin'
I did find this bit to perhaps be an indication of the judge's real feelings:
He told Peter that he was a puzzle to him; that he thought he would enjoy having a pint with Peter (Peter told him he would buy; Adair said he would get the next round);
It does sound like the judge would like to know a little more about his side of the story than what he could glean from the courtroom proceedings.
Oh, and thanks for the minor editing Timothy, it does read better that way.
Since this is how a "more reasonable major religion" behaves I think this is an EXCELLENT argument against "moderate" religion.
It's the religious people who should have to 'enforce' their arguments against science; I certainly haven't seen any of them eschewing the technology that enables them to post their superstitious nonsense on the internet. Even on slashdot - unfortunately, after years here I feel I STILL have to point out that it's science that has created it, not religion.
If people who subscribe to religious nonsense over technology are going to use the tools that science and technology gave them to spread their ideology, then I am not going to feel sorry for them when their hypocrisy is revealed for what it is.
More ontopic, the Vatican and all their offshoots have a long ways to go in that respect. Just because there are worse offenders does not exonerate them. Case in point would be birth control, and more specifically the freedom to use it.
I'll make myself clear; I have no problem with religion, in general. I have a problem with groups of people using religion to control other people. Unfortunately the latter is mostly the case, has been for many centuries, and the conflict between some of those organized groups, in the last ten years or so, has caused a lot of destruction, pain and anguish for pretty much everyone.
I hear all this stuff nowadays about how X religious group is being persecuted, etc. Oh, really? Going to keep pursuing that until the heat death of the universe, are you?
I have a message for all of those fundamentalists, whether violent or no; even if you aren't violent, you still contribute to the violence: Keep your religion to yourself. Please. The rational people in this world, and many of your own members, as a matter of fact, are just plain fucking tired of dealing with it. Leave. People. Alone. Keep your religion to yourself. Keep your fanaticism to yourself.
I know, it's been said before; but never has it been more important than it is now, when both sides have weapons that can destabilize our entire global society and can cause death and destruction on a scale that would make WWII look mild.
Just adding my words to the many millions that have come before me. I would be remiss in my duty to all the sapient species on this planet, if I did not do so.
Eleventh Commandment: Keep Thy Religion To Thyself. It's the best one that Bog never came up with.
This has been noted before;-) Personally I prefer the way George Carlin said it "Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told." - and somehow, I don't think he didn't mean it as an all-encompassing comment on all forms of superstition.
I often suspect that one of the criteria for a species to survive it's inauguration into the universe is to shed all forms of self-flagellation, particularly those of superstition; as superstitious belief is not something that can be duplicated in it's entirety by independent experiment. (Before you respond to this, think carefully about what I just said). Technological capability certainly doesn't come about via irrational belief.
Note that I am not saying that technologically advanced species will necessarily have any form of ethics or morals that we would recognize. I just think it's unlikely that superstition would play a major part in their sociological makeup; the resource commitment a species would have to make in order to expand beyond their own limited solar system would have to be near total, even and perhaps especially assuming breakthroughs in technology, and widespread irrationality in their sociological and cultural makeup (ie, majority of members believing in something other than the scientific method) makes it unlikely they could put combine those resources.
Of course, given that the perversity of the universe always operates at a maximum, I am likely wrong in more than one assumption;)
--- and yes, to anyone who is wondering, I am putting together many other people's concepts, but these are my own words. I do think this way.
No, I don't worry about getting laid. That is something that comes when one ceases to worry about it.
Their bits compete with the bits of carriers who go out of state. They also have the ability to travel out of state. Therefore it will be deemed within the scope of the Commerce Clause.
Those bits also travel outside of the country. For that matter, under certain circumstances those bits may travel offplanet. In extraordinary circumstances, even out of the solar system.
Not saying they are wrong, but I suspect a more accurate measure of the problem would require many more sources of data.
Since they rely on statistics generated from their products (not mentioned in TFA but I can't imagine where else they got their data from), there is an automatic bias introduced there.
Oh, hell, I don't know. Watching the news about our government here for the last eight years, maybe?
I hope that has changed. Can't tell for sure, yet.
For our government to try and deny other countries developing nuclear technology is foolish - we don't have the capability to enforce it, short of MAD solutions.
For us to try to find political solutions to them not using their nukes against their neighbors, is not. Considering the stated goals of the Iranian government, however, we perhaps should be pursuing a more MAD solution, hmm?
Slashdot Mirror
You don't need explosives. Just hundred kg or so of ball bearings and enough of a velocity difference so they come in at a few km/sec (and good tracking as well, but we already know how to do that.)
Actually for low orbit satellites, you don't even need an orbital weapon - if your booster can get your "shotgun spread" to the right altitude and location at the right time, the satellite's own velocity does the work for you as it goes thru the cloud.
Satellites aren't armored (and even for military ones it's impractical to do so due to weight considerations.) A few quarter inch ball bearings traveling at a few km/sec impart a lot of kinetic energy when they hit.
SB
Any market that forms that corporate/government interests don't want to form is a black market.
Fixed, with respect.
SB
Except where the corporations can buy whatever regulated market they wish to, and individuals have no choice in the matter. I agree with you, but the last decade, at least, has shown that government regulation in this country is for sale to the highest bidder.
SB
as a side note, when people *really* don't care about things? They don't bother talking about them.
I could almost feel sorry for you. Fortunately I have too full a life for it to even be a waste of my time.
SB
An armed society will be a polite society - as long as the government and other powers that be don't try and treat the citizens like slaves.
I can understand an American being rather confused by this situation. After all, I was born here and lived here for more than four decades, and I've watched my fellow citizens vote away their rights for what seems like a very long time.
SB
It's my understanding from what I read late last year that the videos showed that Watts was telling the truth.
I don't know how much of that was shown in the trial, nor have I seen them myself.
SB
You, on the other hand, should not have called a police officer names to his face when he was acting like a psychotic.
And you have obviously never been in that sort of situation, when you feel that someone you care for is being threatened unreasonably.
The rest of your post indicates to me that either you are very young, or if not, very naive. I am neither. You really should not assume so much.
I realize it was twenty years ago and maybe your cellphone didnt exist, nevermind take video
Yeah, back then it was word against word *sarcasm*. In any case, this officer already had a history of abusing his authority, otherwise his supervisor would not have taken the actions he did at the time. This all came out during the civil suit, and both the judge and the officer's supervisor said that my actions at the time were correct, even if my language could have been a bit more civil.
I have to say, that I hope you never find yourself in a similar situation. I thought much the same way as you did, before that event, and afterwards I recognized just how stupid I was being in blindly trusting anyone who holds any sort of absolute (meaning physical threat) authority over me.
SB
He's a punk who thinks the 'Man' is trying to repress privileged white guys.
You are an idiot.
SB
I remember from the first time this story was posted on slashdot, that some people made the exact same comment. I agree with it*. If the officers on the scene are really nervous about the occupants of the vehicle, and want to search it without having to worry about weapons being used by those occupants, they should ask the people to step out of the vehicle, and place themselves somewhere (a "safe area") where one officer can cover them easily while the car is searched; and where if they need to be gunned down, it can be done so without endangering other innocent bystanders.
This is how law enforcement officers just about everywhere do it, if they have any reasonable suspicion that the occupants might be dangerous. It makes sense. Get them away from the vehicle, away from places where they can hide a weapon, and somewhere they can be supervised more easily. I also seem to remember reading somewhere in that same thread that many professional law enforcement officers thought that the training given to border guards was horribly inadequate.
Obviously this won't protect against potential "booby traps" within the vehicle itself; but that is part of the hazards of the job, regardless. It also might slow customs searches down somewhat, but so what?
* I believe I did as well, but don't remember and am too lazy to search for it.
SB
Interesting, I'd never really looked it up. A quick look at fatal injuries per occupation yields this chart from the BLS. In the homicides category the highest numbers by a ways are in retail sales, food preparation and sales supervisors ;-?! Protective service occupations are actually a fair ways down the list.
I assume there are different ways of looking at it, but as someone who has worked a lot of retail sales, it does make a morbid kind of sense...
(It would be nice if they would put their statistics tables in some sort of sortable format... it's not hard...)
I would appreciate a better link if anyone has one.
SB
Bend over, citizen.
SB
In addition, very powerful, very important people put very stupid children in positions of power at these places, in order to fill up the resumes of these very stupid children before they can become the new generation of very powerful, very important people (the stupid is assumed redundant by this point).
The real problem is that they can't find enough honest, decent, qualified and willing people to fill the expansion of border security positions we've had in the last ten years.
SB
About twenty years ago, I once called a police officer an asshole, to his face, in front of his immediate superior. It was justified - that man was behaving like a psychotic over a minor traffic issue (jaywalking) involving a friend of mine. The officer took out his baton and threatened to "beat me into submission", at which time his superior collared him and led him back to the squad car, came back and apologized to us. The first officer was suspended without pay and later dismissed from the force as being unfit to be a law enforcement official. My friend brought suit against the local PD - it scared her pretty badly - and although she wasn't awarded damages, the verdict by the judge contributed to the officer being dismissed from the force.
At what point do citizens lose the right in this country to speak up when they are being harassed unfairly by an official of any kind, or when they see someone else being harassed unfairly?
Watts never offered violence (according to other witnesses; the one border patrol officer who was required to be there at the sentencing and who claimed that Watts attacked him first, Mr. Andrew Beaudry, waived his right to a victim's statement during the sentencing; that and a few other things tell me that he was probably lying about the events.
There are enough incidents such as this that go on to suggest that perhaps we need to start scrutinizing our border guard (and LE) hiring practices in a much more thorough manner, and disciplining them when they step out of line. Yes, it's a stressful job. Yes, it has the potential of danger. But anybody wearing the uniform who loses their head when there is no real physical threat to them simply does not belong in that job .
SB
Yeah, and border guards never lie, just like cops never lie. Sure.
SB
I didn't read the article thoroughly enough before I posted the submission; there is more detail on the case on a link from within the story.
(It was not with the intention of gaining karma; my karma has been peaked out for years, ceased to care about it even before that)
A note on Slashdot's submission/moderation system; I had moderator points before I posted the story, and apparently have moderator points within the story. The editors may have their reasons for allowing it, but I don't feel that it's a good idea to allow story submitters to have moderation points within a story they post. Just sayin'
I did find this bit to perhaps be an indication of the judge's real feelings:
He told Peter that he was a puzzle to him; that he thought he would enjoy having a pint with Peter (Peter told him he would buy; Adair said he would get the next round);
It does sound like the judge would like to know a little more about his side of the story than what he could glean from the courtroom proceedings.
Oh, and thanks for the minor editing Timothy, it does read better that way.
SB
Oh? Just where, exactly, am I being fanatical?
SB
Since this is how a "more reasonable major religion" behaves I think this is an EXCELLENT argument against "moderate" religion.
It's the religious people who should have to 'enforce' their arguments against science; I certainly haven't seen any of them eschewing the technology that enables them to post their superstitious nonsense on the internet. Even on slashdot - unfortunately, after years here I feel I STILL have to point out that it's science that has created it, not religion.
If people who subscribe to religious nonsense over technology are going to use the tools that science and technology gave them to spread their ideology, then I am not going to feel sorry for them when their hypocrisy is revealed for what it is.
More ontopic, the Vatican and all their offshoots have a long ways to go in that respect. Just because there are worse offenders does not exonerate them. Case in point would be birth control, and more specifically the freedom to use it.
I'll make myself clear; I have no problem with religion, in general. I have a problem with groups of people using religion to control other people. Unfortunately the latter is mostly the case, has been for many centuries, and the conflict between some of those organized groups, in the last ten years or so, has caused a lot of destruction, pain and anguish for pretty much everyone.
I hear all this stuff nowadays about how X religious group is being persecuted, etc. Oh, really? Going to keep pursuing that until the heat death of the universe, are you?
I have a message for all of those fundamentalists, whether violent or no; even if you aren't violent, you still contribute to the violence: Keep your religion to yourself. Please. The rational people in this world, and many of your own members, as a matter of fact, are just plain fucking tired of dealing with it. Leave. People. Alone. Keep your religion to yourself. Keep your fanaticism to yourself.
I know, it's been said before; but never has it been more important than it is now, when both sides have weapons that can destabilize our entire global society and can cause death and destruction on a scale that would make WWII look mild.
Just adding my words to the many millions that have come before me. I would be remiss in my duty to all the sapient species on this planet, if I did not do so.
Eleventh Commandment: Keep Thy Religion To Thyself. It's the best one that Bog never came up with.
SB
If the people in the Vatican making this decision had any damned sense at all they would open up all the data to anyone, everywhere.
Otherwise they are just inviting more criticism. Think about it. They claim to want to "spread the word" but they have things to hide?
What, in particular, do they have to hide?
SB
Indeed.
Hypocrisy is the act of persistently professing beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that are inconsistent with one's actions. Hypocrisy is thus a kind of lie.
This has been noted before ;-) Personally I prefer the way George Carlin said it "Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told." - and somehow, I don't think he didn't mean it as an all-encompassing comment on all forms of superstition.
I often suspect that one of the criteria for a species to survive it's inauguration into the universe is to shed all forms of self-flagellation, particularly those of superstition; as superstitious belief is not something that can be duplicated in it's entirety by independent experiment. (Before you respond to this, think carefully about what I just said). Technological capability certainly doesn't come about via irrational belief.
Note that I am not saying that technologically advanced species will necessarily have any form of ethics or morals that we would recognize. I just think it's unlikely that superstition would play a major part in their sociological makeup; the resource commitment a species would have to make in order to expand beyond their own limited solar system would have to be near total, even and perhaps especially assuming breakthroughs in technology, and widespread irrationality in their sociological and cultural makeup (ie, majority of members believing in something other than the scientific method) makes it unlikely they could put combine those resources.
Of course, given that the perversity of the universe always operates at a maximum, I am likely wrong in more than one assumption ;)
--- and yes, to anyone who is wondering, I am putting together many other people's concepts, but these are my own words. I do think this way.
No, I don't worry about getting laid. That is something that comes when one ceases to worry about it.
SB
Every religion ever created by man has splintered, and will continue to do so.
There is no reality for them to agree on.
SB
Their bits compete with the bits of carriers who go out of state. They also have the ability to travel out of state. Therefore it will be deemed within the scope of the Commerce Clause.
Those bits also travel outside of the country. For that matter, under certain circumstances those bits may travel offplanet. In extraordinary circumstances, even out of the solar system.
An abomination of a Supreme Court decision.
Agreed. The ironing is also wonderful.
SB
Not saying they are wrong, but I suspect a more accurate measure of the problem would require many more sources of data.
Since they rely on statistics generated from their products (not mentioned in TFA but I can't imagine where else they got their data from), there is an automatic bias introduced there.
SB
Your reading comprehension sucks.
SB
Oh, hell, I don't know. Watching the news about our government here for the last eight years, maybe?
I hope that has changed. Can't tell for sure, yet.
For our government to try and deny other countries developing nuclear technology is foolish - we don't have the capability to enforce it, short of MAD solutions.
For us to try to find political solutions to them not using their nukes against their neighbors, is not. Considering the stated goals of the Iranian government, however, we perhaps should be pursuing a more MAD solution, hmm?
Which would you suggest?
SB
Indeed.
How do you, yourself, see those questions? Or are you more comfortable parroting what others have said?
SB