170 Million people killed by Govt. in 20th Century
on
Smart Guns are Coming
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· Score: 1
If you're dealing with someone who has the foresight to use an EMP pulse, and has the equipment necessary to do it, you have bigger things to worry about.
Like a government police force or army? Yeah, that's why we have the second amendment.
Q. How many people were killed by governments around the world in the twentieth century? A. Over half the current population of the United States.
170 million killed in "conflicts of a non-international charater, internal conflicts and tyrannical regime victimization"
How the availability of guns affect crime is beside the point. It seems the grand-parent post alluded to it. You seem to concur. So allow me to drop all ambiguity and state it plainly for those who would consider greater gun control measures.
Though you may consider it antiquated, the second amendment is there for a good reason. Just like the first. Just like the third. Take away the second amendment and Kent State becomes Tiananmen Square. Perhaps you would like to redefine/revise/revoke those other outdated amendments too? Change the meaning of "Support our troops" from tying a yellow ribbon around your tree to bunking a couple of soldiers in your spare bedroom perhaps? For the greater good, right comrades? Though it is the second amendment, removing your right to bear arms is the first step to removing all of your rights.
Cost? You have to be joking. How much does your average bottom of the line mobile phone cost these days? They all have federally mandated GPS as of October 2001, accurate to 100 feet. So doing the GPS thing can't be that expensive. Storing data? Really? But I thought 650 MB CD blanks go for all of 25 cents each in 50 packs. Processing the data? Who cares? Police don't prevent crime. That's not their job. They investigate crime.
Investigator: So and so was killed in his apartment at the corner of first and fifth tonight at approximately 10pm. What cars were in the area?
Desk cop: Let me check... *click*,*click*... here's a list of every car in the area at the time of the murder. Here's another list of every car no longer in the area 10 minutes later.
Investigator: Only one car, eh? Looks like we have a winner!
I'd say if the real killer was on foot and you were at the stoplight when it happened, you're probably screwed.
In the big scheme of things though, is this really a big deal? I mean, you only need to be arrested for a felony in California to have your DNA added to the national criminal DNA database. After the rigged voting machines gave us that, everything else just seems to pale in comparison.
You aren't fighting for fundamental human rights here.
Oh I'm not? How about freedom of speech. Somehow, I thought that was generally considered a fundamental human right in most free nations. Copyright law needs drastic reform, but not of the kind Hollywood envisions.
That you would invoke the name of Dr. King...
Funny, I don't recall mentioning MLK, Malcolm X, or any other central figure in the civil rights movement. Perhaps you simply want to cloud the issue and steer the debate to one about race.
Did you pay for it? No.
Do you now have it? Yes.
Did you take it without permission? Yes.
Did you see the sign? Yes. Did you understand the sign? Yes. Did you drink from the "Whites Only" water fountain? Yes.
It's yet another to understand all of this and still believe that you're not doing anything wrong.
Yeah, that's called civil disobedience. Happy Birthday to You should be public domain by now. Sharing copyrighted files without making a profit only became illegal seven years ago when the No Electronic Theft Act was signed into law. By comparison, prohibition lasted 14 years.
Don your Elliot Ness attire. Keep busting those average Joes. Personally, I hope your kind stays the course. I hope RIAA legal activity mushrooms. Once you piss off enough regular people, this becomes a campaign issue and the majority is clearly not on your side. Go RIAA GO!:-)
They can live without the 3% of their market that's made up of hardcore nerds, but the nerds probably won't live without the 25% or more of their entertainment that comes from mainstream media distributors.
Like hell you say. I only buy non-RIAA affiliated music from CD Baby, or download free tracks with iRate. You know what? I like this stuff a lot better than most of the crap that passes for music on the advertising clogged radio and TV stations.
And so on... All great stuff IMO. So yeah, I'm doing just fine without contributing a penny to the RIAA. (They're not even getting their blank CD tax from me. I bought an iPod + iTrip.) You can get plenty of music without them.
The same will happen to the MPAA. It's only a matter of time. The MPAA fears bandwidth and BitTorrent. They say it's because of piracy. Either they are really stupid, or they think we are. They just don't like competition.
This cracks me up. If I steal a car, and the brakes don't work, so I get to sue the guy who made the car ?. Crime or no crime, you are D/L'ing a file "illegally", and you want to complain when it messes up your computer ?
If you steal a loaf of bread and the grocery store manager shoots you in the back with a 12 gauge as you run away, the grocery store manager goes to jail.
Can you guess the winner? Did Germany pay the Wright Brothers royalties on their intellectual property? How about the USSR and the A bomb? India and AIDS drugs? The very notion that an idea can be owned by any one person or corporation is absurd. As for the alleged wholesale plagiarism, well... that's karma for you. It serves Cisco right for helping build the great firewall of China. I feel no pity for them.
Microsoft Tech Support: I'm sorry sir, but you agreed to lube up and bend over when you clicked "I Agree" to the Microsoft Windows XP Pro EULA:
Consent to Use of Data. You agree that Microsoft
and its affiliates may collect and use technical information gathered in any manner as part of the product support services provided to you, if any, related to the Product. Microsoft may use this information solely to improve our products or to provide customized services or technologies to you. Microsoft may disclose this information to others, but not in a form that personally identifies you.
Computer intrusion is only illegal when unauthorized. The MPAA/RIAA are both undoubtedly Microsoft "affiliates," and you signed away your rights at the door. Thank you, and enjoy your Windows XPerience!:-)
Instead of reading the dictionary, try a law book.
on
LokiTorrent vs. MPAA
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· Score: 1
No selling is required. There are plenty of folks older than you around here, many of whom were pirating software before you were born. We know what the word means.
So you were selling it many moons ago chief? Because it wasn't until the NET Act of 1997 that distribution without profit became an illegal act. Spare us the older/wiser routine and read your DOJ FAQ:
Until recently, the prosecution was required to prove that copyright infringement was done willfully and for commercial advantage or private financial gain. Now the law provides for prosecution in the absence of these monetary considerations. Specifically, the current statute, as codified at 17 U.S.C. 506(a)(2), allows for prosecution in cases involving large scale illegal reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works where the infringers act willfully, but without a discernible profit motive. Congress specifically made this change as part of the No Electronic Theft (NET) Act of 1997
That is such a pile of BS! Patents do not protect little guys from the big guys. That is a figment of our imagination. Maybe 100 years ago that was the case, but it is definitely not the case today.
They [The Wright Brothers] had hoped that their patent would be respected from the start. When that did not occur, they placed their hopes in defending their patent in court. With the patent defended, they assumed that when other manufacturers at last began turning out aircraft in reasonable quantity, paying a royalty on each one, they could devote themselves to other research, not necessarily in aviation.
What? You thought the German's payed the Wright brothers a royalty for every airplane manufactured in WWI?
You might want to read those things sometime. Look at Microsoft's Windows XP Professional EULA for instance:
Internet-Based Services Components. The Product contains components that enable and facilitate the use of certain Internet-based services. You acknowledge and agree that Microsoft may automatically check the version of the Product and/or its components that you are utilizing and may provide upgrades or fixes to the Product that will be automatically downloaded to your Workstation Computer.
UPGRADES. To use a Product identified as an upgrade, you must first be licensed for the product identified by Microsoft as eligible for the upgrade. After upgrading, you may no longer use the product that formed the basis for your upgrade eligibility.
Consent to Use of Data. You agree that Microsoft and its affiliates may collect and use technical information gathered in any manner as part of the product support services provided to you, if any, related to the Product. Microsoft may use this information solely to improve our products or to provide customized services or technologies to you. Microsoft may disclose this information to others, but not in a form that personally identifies you.
(I've intentionally listed terms out of order and added emphasis to make a point.)
In short, Microsoft has the right to change your system in any way they see fit without your knowledge or consent. This includes, but is not limited to, removing your root access. Once they change your system, it is not legal to downgrade to the previous system. Spyware of any sort is perfectly legal if the spyware company is Microsoft or one of its affiliates.
With a license like that, why would anyone use the OS? I did RTFA, and it only shows that the software vendors are being forced to be more upfront with their licenses in stores. Nothing has changed the legally binding status of the EULA. It does not change the fact that Microsoft will ambush you with its licensing changes in security updates and service packs. Perhaps it's time to consider Linux or Mac OS X, eh?
I have to agree here. PCMag is full of it. If you look at the eMac benchmarks posted over at Macintouch just yesterday, you'll notice it has surprisingly good performance. This is likely something John Dvorak threw in there to attract angry Mac zealots. It's his M.O.: Piss off Mac fans to increase ad revenue.
Dogs don't control missle launch systems. Do you really think the first self aware computer is going to be implemented in a customer service call center?
If critter A ingests the rather low concentrations in the general environment, no particular harm occurs. What people immediately missed is that if critter B eats critter A, he'll get a somewhat bigger dose of the material than critter A did, because terrestrial animals need to consume something like ten pounds of food to create a pound of body mass. Critter C gets an even bigger dose, all the way down to critter Z which gets a huge dose.
That assumes 100% consumption of prey critter or an even distribution of a compound throughout the prey critter's body. If the prey critter is not entirely consumed or compound x is not evenly distributed throughout an organism, you may actually get the reverse effect. As an example consider critter a is a corn plant, critter b is a hog, and critter c is a human. X accumulates mostly in the corn's stalk and the hog's organs. Hogs are only fed the grain. Humans are only fed the meat. Now concentration of x is diluted as you travel up the food chain.
If the prosecution has no way of verifying that the files found were not tampered with, then they will lose, and the technology will be refined until they can verify that no tampering was done.
Under your 'Do the right thing' scenario, the police will not only always lose, but they will render any computer evidence completely inadmissible by installing such a program. How can you determine if a file is created by police.exe or by the user behind the mouse and keyboard? There is absolutely no way to verify if the evidence is real or planted. Further, the prosecution won't care. Prosecuting lawyers don't care about being right. They care about winning. They will do everything in their power to hide the technical details, claiming they can't turn over info on the program itself for national security reasons or some other some other steaming pile of BS.
Have a look at the ridiculous crap they're using. The simple fact that it uses rot-13 should speak volumes. Oh and look at that: "open ip:port", "put filespec". Isn't that convenient. The average cop using this thing can't even figure out how to remove the bot's email address from the registry. Now suppose just one of those cops has a brain and a grudge, or perhaps h4x0r cop has no scruples and is looking for that big promotion. Whatever the case, you are screwed and the 'good guys' won't be any wiser. Why? You said it yourself:
People accept that and trust that there are controls in place to prevent Law Enforcement from manipulating them for nefarious purpose. The same would be true in tapping of a computer.
I'm not talking about a big evil conspiracy. Remove all the checks and balances and it only takes one bad apple. Without the full text of the law I can't be certain, but from the looks of it this is really bad news for Australia. Recording keystrokes is bad enough since it catches a lot of text you never actually save or send anywhere. Not specifically baring remote access and arbitrary code execution however removes any similarity to wiretapping/bugging and makes framing anyone a piece of cake.
Can a wiretap imitate your voice and say things incriminating? How about a bug? Spyware is an executing application that can do anything its author wants. It doesn't just listen, it can act. Just leave a port open and remotely execute arbitrary commands. Now you can frame anyone you want without leaving a trace. Not to worry though; It isn't like the police would plant evidence to get a conviction, right? You aussies just got totally screwed by the legislature.
I see your point, but I just checked and found the same definition under payed as well. It seems either is correct as far as the American Heritage Dictionary is concerned:-)
And a Republican controlled Senate and House. BTW, 95-0 sounds like a voice vote to me. Everyone was too busy taking bribes on the golf course to show up to work again... Anyway, the Dems lost both after signing the Brady Bill into law and haven't regained either since. You'd think that would tell them something...
For every successful highschool dropout there are a thousand on food stamps and public welfare. For every professional athlete earning millions in the big leauge, there are a hundred thousand earning minimum wage.
Education != wealth. For every college grad who owns a home and a car, there are thousands hocked up to their eyes in debt and insurance on their house and car. The car will wear out before or shortly after it's payed off. If you define ownership as 'payed for' as I do, most will never own their home. The majority will refinance, move, get a Quicken interest only loan, whatever, and owe something to someone their entire lives. Yet they are much more obligated to slave away their entire life. In the meantime, their kids learn by example. Go to school, get a piece of paper, buy big fancy stuff you can't afford, have kids, then stand by and watch them do the same while slaving life away.
Wealth != success. You are not the sum of your possessions. Dollars are US gift certificates of a variable value currently determined by the Chinese and Japanese. Remember Ozymandias? He who dies with the most stuff still dies.
But I understand your definition of success. After all, the perpetuation of that particular definition of success is all that keeps corporate America afloat.
Let me get this straight... giving a school janitor the same kind of ID card as a nuclear safety inspector is a good idea? When everyone is using the same kind of ID, all it takes is one bright 'IT-Terrorist' to open every lock. The idea is just stupid.
And the original poster will never make it to MIT, since he is apparently not able to think and to compare -- the comparison with the former Soviet Union is just silly and without any substance.
Yeah, totally! I mean, like, the Soviet Union was dumb enough to bankrupt itself fighting a handful of Afghanis. Nothing like that could ever happen here.
The fossil fuel cycle is the same basic equations. Equation 2 happens in engines etc.
But by burning fossil fuels you are releasing CO2 that has been locked out of the atmosphere for millions of years at a rate that equation 1 can't hope to compete with. Plants can absorb the CO2 from fossil fuels, but the rate at which they do it is fixed by the amount of plant life available . The amount of CO2 locked back up by fossil fuel formation is effectively zero over the timescale considered (decades/centuries).
Well, I don't want to get into the name calling, and I must admit that I haven't RTFA (It's slashdotted), but I think you are forgetting a CO2 sink that most global warming papers I've read tend to neglect; Plankton. The Earth's surface is 70% water. The most abundant life form in that water is plankton. Plankton eat CO2. The amount of CO2 locked up by plankton in limestone and such absolutely dwarfs fossil fuels by orders of magnitude. Though some of it is burned for agriculture, humans do not burn CaCO3 on a large scale. That carbon is effectively gone until it is pushed under the Earth's crust and spouts back out of a volcano or is smashed by a giant space rock. By comparison, all the trees on Earth are insignificant. So tell me, does this study focus on deforestation and cows farting, or does it look at the single largest CO2 sink on the planet?
Why is this unnecessary? IMO I should have the right to view my credit report/FICO score any damned time I please. That should just be part of the price on keeping tabs on the citizenry. Who gave them the right to collect this kind of info in the first place? I sure don't recall ever seeing a referendum on the matter or ever hear a politician breath a word about it on camera. Yet, on July 27, 2004 the FICO credit scoring program was expanded to include "non- traditional credit data" like rent payments for apartment dwellers, utility payments, and probably layaways and lemonade stand payments for that matter. These companies are selling YOUR data to businesses. And 80% of the time,they are wrong.
As for making it harder to get mistakes corrected... As if it's a walk in the park now. Try having your identity stolen; You're looking at two years friend. How about having the same first name, middle initial, and last name of someone who has filed bankruptcy. That will take a bit longer. The latter is something my brother has been dealing with for the better part of a decade. Apparently, the good folks at the credit agencies don't understand that he didn't have a $15,000 credit line at age 4.
Frankly though, I'm against the whole process. It would be unconstitutional/unlawful for the US Government to do this, so they just farm it out to private industry. I don't get it. Slashdotters bitch and moan about TIA or MATRIX, yet "Oh FICO? That's grand!"
I recently purchased a DVD player for about $60. My old VHS player finally gave out, and I've noticed it's much harder to find new releases on VHS these days. I would have purchased a nicer player, however I found that there is an incredible lack of recording players out there. I couldn't find a player with two DVD decks for making backups. Not that it would have helped much; I also discovered that the blank DVD disks available in stores could not hold the entire contents of a DVD movie disk. Oh yeah, and my DVD player won't let me fast forward through those nauseating advertisements and movie trailers at the beginning of the disk either.
You appear to be taking a gigantic leap backwards in usability in comparison to good ol' VHS. Since DVD's big sell is the improved picture and sound quality, I have to say I haven't noticed any difference on my $200 21" TV set.
As a result, I've been buying and watching a lot fewer movies these days. It's just too much hassle. The disks are just too expensive and fragile to use in lieu of a cheap backup copy. If the next round of players work this way, I won't be buying a new player regardless of format. The pain of rewinding tapes was nothing compared to this. Thanks for wasting my time and money. Oh and before you implore me to try a PVR, I've heard about that broadcast flag thing and TIVO pop-ups. No thanks. Here's an idea: Give me something that works as well as my VCR did and I'll be happy to spend money with you again.
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Like a government police force or army? Yeah, that's why we have the second amendment.
Q. How many people were killed by governments around the world in the twentieth century?
A. Over half the current population of the United States.
How the availability of guns affect crime is beside the point. It seems the grand-parent post alluded to it. You seem to concur. So allow me to drop all ambiguity and state it plainly for those who would consider greater gun control measures.
Though you may consider it antiquated, the second amendment is there for a good reason. Just like the first. Just like the third. Take away the second amendment and Kent State becomes Tiananmen Square. Perhaps you would like to redefine/revise/revoke those other outdated amendments too? Change the meaning of "Support our troops" from tying a yellow ribbon around your tree to bunking a couple of soldiers in your spare bedroom perhaps? For the greater good, right comrades? Though it is the second amendment, removing your right to bear arms is the first step to removing all of your rights.
Investigator: So and so was killed in his apartment at the corner of first and fifth tonight at approximately 10pm. What cars were in the area?
Desk cop: Let me check... *click*,*click*... here's a list of every car in the area at the time of the murder. Here's another list of every car no longer in the area 10 minutes later.
Investigator: Only one car, eh? Looks like we have a winner!
I'd say if the real killer was on foot and you were at the stoplight when it happened, you're probably screwed.
In the big scheme of things though, is this really a big deal? I mean, you only need to be arrested for a felony in California to have your DNA added to the national criminal DNA database. After the rigged voting machines gave us that, everything else just seems to pale in comparison.
Oh I'm not? How about freedom of speech. Somehow, I thought that was generally considered a fundamental human right in most free nations. Copyright law needs drastic reform, but not of the kind Hollywood envisions.
That you would invoke the name of Dr. King...
Funny, I don't recall mentioning MLK, Malcolm X, or any other central figure in the civil rights movement. Perhaps you simply want to cloud the issue and steer the debate to one about race.
Do you now have it? Yes.
Did you take it without permission? Yes.
Did you see the sign? Yes.
Did you understand the sign? Yes.
Did you drink from the "Whites Only" water fountain? Yes.
It's yet another to understand all of this and still believe that you're not doing anything wrong.
Yeah, that's called civil disobedience. Happy Birthday to You should be public domain by now. Sharing copyrighted files without making a profit only became illegal seven years ago when the No Electronic Theft Act was signed into law. By comparison, prohibition lasted 14 years.
Don your Elliot Ness attire. Keep busting those average Joes. Personally, I hope your kind stays the course. I hope RIAA legal activity mushrooms. Once you piss off enough regular people, this becomes a campaign issue and the majority is clearly not on your side. Go RIAA GO! :-)
Like hell you say. I only buy non-RIAA affiliated music from CD Baby, or download free tracks with iRate. You know what? I like this stuff a lot better than most of the crap that passes for music on the advertising clogged radio and TV stations.
Want some? Here's a small sample:
- Metal - Celldweller (CD Baby)
- Electronic/Industrial - More Machine Than Man (CD Baby)
- Acoustic - Okkervil ("Westfall" via iRate)
- Rap - Poverty ("I'm Hatin'" via iRate)
- New Age - Circle of Mansions ("Sky Machine" and "Number Nine" via iRate though I cannot google a link for either ATM. Try "Left Me." That's good too)
- Electronic - Atari Baby ("Share your love (Aspect Mix)" via iRate)
- Easy Listening - Sheryl Clapton ("Magic Door" via iRate)
- Hard Rock/Metal - Dazychain ("Too Much God" via iRate)
- Industrial - Firewerk (CD Baby)
- Punk Rock - Limit ("Mr. DJ" via iRate)
And so on... All great stuff IMO. So yeah, I'm doing just fine without contributing a penny to the RIAA. (They're not even getting their blank CD tax from me. I bought an iPod + iTrip.) You can get plenty of music without them.The same will happen to the MPAA. It's only a matter of time. The MPAA fears bandwidth and BitTorrent. They say it's because of piracy. Either they are really stupid, or they think we are. They just don't like competition.
If you steal a loaf of bread and the grocery store manager shoots you in the back with a 12 gauge as you run away, the grocery store manager goes to jail.
Can you guess the winner? Did Germany pay the Wright Brothers royalties on their intellectual property? How about the USSR and the A bomb? India and AIDS drugs? The very notion that an idea can be owned by any one person or corporation is absurd. As for the alleged wholesale plagiarism, well... that's karma for you. It serves Cisco right for helping build the great firewall of China. I feel no pity for them.
Computer intrusion is only illegal when unauthorized. The MPAA/RIAA are both undoubtedly Microsoft "affiliates," and you signed away your rights at the door. Thank you, and enjoy your Windows XPerience!
So you were selling it many moons ago chief? Because it wasn't until the NET Act of 1997 that distribution without profit became an illegal act. Spare us the older/wiser routine and read your DOJ FAQ:
No. Not now. Not 100 years ago. Not ever.
What? You thought the German's payed the Wright brothers a royalty for every airplane manufactured in WWI?
(I've intentionally listed terms out of order and added emphasis to make a point.)
In short, Microsoft has the right to change your system in any way they see fit without your knowledge or consent. This includes, but is not limited to, removing your root access. Once they change your system, it is not legal to downgrade to the previous system. Spyware of any sort is perfectly legal if the spyware company is Microsoft or one of its affiliates.
With a license like that, why would anyone use the OS? I did RTFA, and it only shows that the software vendors are being forced to be more upfront with their licenses in stores. Nothing has changed the legally binding status of the EULA. It does not change the fact that Microsoft will ambush you with its licensing changes in security updates and service packs. Perhaps it's time to consider Linux or Mac OS X, eh?
I have to agree here. PCMag is full of it. If you look at the eMac benchmarks posted over at Macintouch just yesterday, you'll notice it has surprisingly good performance. This is likely something John Dvorak threw in there to attract angry Mac zealots. It's his M.O.: Piss off Mac fans to increase ad revenue.
Dogs don't control missle launch systems. Do you really think the first self aware computer is going to be implemented in a customer service call center?
That assumes 100% consumption of prey critter or an even distribution of a compound throughout the prey critter's body. If the prey critter is not entirely consumed or compound x is not evenly distributed throughout an organism, you may actually get the reverse effect. As an example consider critter a is a corn plant, critter b is a hog, and critter c is a human. X accumulates mostly in the corn's stalk and the hog's organs. Hogs are only fed the grain. Humans are only fed the meat. Now concentration of x is diluted as you travel up the food chain.
If the prosecution has no way of verifying that the files found were not tampered with, then they will lose, and the technology will be refined until they can verify that no tampering was done.
Under your 'Do the right thing' scenario, the police will not only always lose, but they will render any computer evidence completely inadmissible by installing such a program. How can you determine if a file is created by police.exe or by the user behind the mouse and keyboard? There is absolutely no way to verify if the evidence is real or planted. Further, the prosecution won't care. Prosecuting lawyers don't care about being right. They care about winning. They will do everything in their power to hide the technical details, claiming they can't turn over info on the program itself for national security reasons or some other some other steaming pile of BS.
Have a look at the ridiculous crap they're using. The simple fact that it uses rot-13 should speak volumes. Oh and look at that: "open ip:port", "put filespec". Isn't that convenient. The average cop using this thing can't even figure out how to remove the bot's email address from the registry. Now suppose just one of those cops has a brain and a grudge, or perhaps h4x0r cop has no scruples and is looking for that big promotion. Whatever the case, you are screwed and the 'good guys' won't be any wiser. Why? You said it yourself:
People accept that and trust that there are controls in place to prevent Law Enforcement from manipulating them for nefarious purpose. The same would be true in tapping of a computer.
I'm not talking about a big evil conspiracy. Remove all the checks and balances and it only takes one bad apple. Without the full text of the law I can't be certain, but from the looks of it this is really bad news for Australia. Recording keystrokes is bad enough since it catches a lot of text you never actually save or send anywhere. Not specifically baring remote access and arbitrary code execution however removes any similarity to wiretapping/bugging and makes framing anyone a piece of cake.
Can a wiretap imitate your voice and say things incriminating? How about a bug? Spyware is an executing application that can do anything its author wants. It doesn't just listen, it can act. Just leave a port open and remotely execute arbitrary commands. Now you can frame anyone you want without leaving a trace. Not to worry though; It isn't like the police would plant evidence to get a conviction, right? You aussies just got totally screwed by the legislature.
The other 25% being due to lightweight wheat products apparently ;-)
I see your point, but I just checked and found the same definition under payed as well. It seems either is correct as far as the American Heritage Dictionary is concerned :-)
And a Republican controlled Senate and House. BTW, 95-0 sounds like a voice vote to me. Everyone was too busy taking bribes on the golf course to show up to work again... Anyway, the Dems lost both after signing the Brady Bill into law and haven't regained either since. You'd think that would tell them something...
Education == wealth? Wealth == success? That's mighty shaky ground.
Education != wealth. For every college grad who owns a home and a car, there are thousands hocked up to their eyes in debt and insurance on their house and car. The car will wear out before or shortly after it's payed off. If you define ownership as 'payed for' as I do, most will never own their home. The majority will refinance, move, get a Quicken interest only loan, whatever, and owe something to someone their entire lives. Yet they are much more obligated to slave away their entire life. In the meantime, their kids learn by example. Go to school, get a piece of paper, buy big fancy stuff you can't afford, have kids, then stand by and watch them do the same while slaving life away.
Wealth != success. You are not the sum of your possessions. Dollars are US gift certificates of a variable value currently determined by the Chinese and Japanese. Remember Ozymandias? He who dies with the most stuff still dies.
But I understand your definition of success. After all, the perpetuation of that particular definition of success is all that keeps corporate America afloat.
Let me get this straight... giving a school janitor the same kind of ID card as a nuclear safety inspector is a good idea? When everyone is using the same kind of ID, all it takes is one bright 'IT-Terrorist' to open every lock. The idea is just stupid.
Yeah, totally! I mean, like, the Soviet Union was dumb enough to bankrupt itself fighting a handful of Afghanis. Nothing like that could ever happen here.
But by burning fossil fuels you are releasing CO2 that has been locked out of the atmosphere for millions of years at a rate that equation 1 can't hope to compete with. Plants can absorb the CO2 from fossil fuels, but the rate at which they do it is fixed by the amount of plant life available . The amount of CO2 locked back up by fossil fuel formation is effectively zero over the timescale considered (decades/centuries).
Well, I don't want to get into the name calling, and I must admit that I haven't RTFA (It's slashdotted), but I think you are forgetting a CO2 sink that most global warming papers I've read tend to neglect; Plankton. The Earth's surface is 70% water. The most abundant life form in that water is plankton. Plankton eat CO2. The amount of CO2 locked up by plankton in limestone and such absolutely dwarfs fossil fuels by orders of magnitude. Though some of it is burned for agriculture, humans do not burn CaCO3 on a large scale. That carbon is effectively gone until it is pushed under the Earth's crust and spouts back out of a volcano or is smashed by a giant space rock. By comparison, all the trees on Earth are insignificant. So tell me, does this study focus on deforestation and cows farting, or does it look at the single largest CO2 sink on the planet?
As for making it harder to get mistakes corrected... As if it's a walk in the park now. Try having your identity stolen; You're looking at two years friend. How about having the same first name, middle initial, and last name of someone who has filed bankruptcy. That will take a bit longer. The latter is something my brother has been dealing with for the better part of a decade. Apparently, the good folks at the credit agencies don't understand that he didn't have a $15,000 credit line at age 4.
Frankly though, I'm against the whole process. It would be unconstitutional/unlawful for the US Government to do this, so they just farm it out to private industry. I don't get it. Slashdotters bitch and moan about TIA or MATRIX, yet "Oh FICO? That's grand!"
I recently purchased a DVD player for about $60. My old VHS player finally gave out, and I've noticed it's much harder to find new releases on VHS these days. I would have purchased a nicer player, however I found that there is an incredible lack of recording players out there. I couldn't find a player with two DVD decks for making backups. Not that it would have helped much; I also discovered that the blank DVD disks available in stores could not hold the entire contents of a DVD movie disk. Oh yeah, and my DVD player won't let me fast forward through those nauseating advertisements and movie trailers at the beginning of the disk either.
You appear to be taking a gigantic leap backwards in usability in comparison to good ol' VHS. Since DVD's big sell is the improved picture and sound quality, I have to say I haven't noticed any difference on my $200 21" TV set.
As a result, I've been buying and watching a lot fewer movies these days. It's just too much hassle. The disks are just too expensive and fragile to use in lieu of a cheap backup copy. If the next round of players work this way, I won't be buying a new player regardless of format. The pain of rewinding tapes was nothing compared to this. Thanks for wasting my time and money. Oh and before you implore me to try a PVR, I've heard about that broadcast flag thing and TIVO pop-ups. No thanks. Here's an idea: Give me something that works as well as my VCR did and I'll be happy to spend money with you again.
Sincerely,
The Customer