My wife is probably on that list. She ordered two small pressure cookers via Amazon recently one for her and one for our daughter. But it was TWO. Automated add to terror list.
You should see that this is a good thing overall. The quicker this list can be proven worthless in the eyes of everyone, the faster it will become a heated target within politics, ripe for attack. It's own absurdity will remove it's power to abuse.
I somehow doubt that. In my experience absurdity is no obstacle for a policy; especially one driven by fear. As flawed at it is, if we get rid of the list terrorists will start downing planes left and right. You wouldn't want that, would you? Would you?!
Journalists like Conor Friedersdorf have suggested that one explanation for this is that the public is "informed by a press
Balderdash. There is not a press. What is this, communism, comrade? We have many presses. The problem is that the public follows the sensational ones instead of the informative. We The People have the government, and thus the press, which we deserve.
But when they're owned by 5 media companies, all of which are in turn owned by rich media barons, they tend to walk the party line. Remember when Phil Donohue was fired for being against the Iraq war, and couldn't get a job anywhere else? That wouldn't happen if the various media were really independent.
Likewise, the militarization of domestic police forces and their gradual shift from a community law enforcement role to more resemble a national occupation force complete with armored vehicles and heavy crew-served weapons.
A SWAT team per city / county, a few of which might have a light armored vehicle, is an "occupation" army?
You don't suppose you might be overstating things a bit, do you??
Were you in Boston on April 15-20th, 2013? Occupation army isn't too far off.
I know. I would rather they dump their kids off somewhere, drive two-seaters, and whoop it up at all the latest hot spots. Thing is, when their kids are growning up (teen age...college) they will have a much richer life than you will without those people (kids and all their friends and family) in your life. Being a parent is rather inglorious at first, in fact it is downright humiliating, but coming out of it with your kids in tow is a great life. Careful what you wish for.
Thanks for letting me know how my poor decisions will lead to a meager life later on, stranger on the Internet!
Presumptuous much? Child rearing is not the end-all of human existence. One can live a happy and fulfilling life without children. I frankly do not want the responsibility, and have made a conscious choice. It seems you have made a different choice, and if you're happy with it I applaud you. But don't assume yours is the only way. I enjoy my single life and have no regrets about it.
Maybe so, but there is still a stigma attached to minivans. They say, "I now live a boring suburban lifestyle". A friend of mine said as much when he bought his Honda Odyssey. He loves the Odyssey, but he knew he was no longer cool. And, to be fair, once he and his wife had kids they became just as staid and boring as their minivan suggested.
It's cool; they're happy with their lives and love their kids and home life. But it reminded me of why I'm still single and childless. That life is unattractive to me.
The other thing is from an individual point of view you can live off the grid in a tent but it won't make any difference. Even if your whole country starts living in a tent off the grid it won't make a big change. So why live in extreme discomfort when it won't make any difference, anyway? Instead we need to accept that people will not modify their habits and do something like perhaps cut military spending a smidgeon and direct it into a Manhattan-project style push for better technology for generating power and for using it more efficiently.
This is my view. I believe that AGW is real, but I am not taking any extra measure to save energy in light of that understanding. It won't make a difference if I change my lifestyle. Society has to change its lifestyle. I support green energy initiatives and try to vote for people who seem to get it. I'm willing to pay more for energy if need be. But I'm driving my car just as much as I would otherwise. I'd love to drive an electric car, but mostly for the torque not the efficiency. My electric bill is already about $35 a month, so there is probably little to reduce there.
What we really need is for the powers that be to give up their dreams of petroleum riches and start society on the path to clean, sustainable energy. But a new energy economy is uncertain, while the oil, gas and coal in the ground are known quantities. Those reserves represent potential profit to the energy industry, and they want that money. So they baffle people with bullshit to keep the money train running, putting us all at risk. AGW is an issue that can't wait for oil to get expensive enough, or solar to get cheap enough. Therefore it is not a problem capitalism can solve. But capitalism is what runs the world; maybe over a cliff.
Cash needs to be done with because its primary uses these days include buying illegal drugs, pay for illicit services, dodge taxes, and conduct money laundering.
No normal human being in America really needs to keep using cash for legitimate purposes these days.
I can't wait till cash is just abolished, anonymous money transactions are really evil and hurt America.
Hmm, what to make of this one? Trolling? Naive? Paid shill? Pure sarcasm? It can be hard to tell these days!
Are we assuming all transactions humans do are with merchants?
Naive as hell !
Crappy list of examples, I'm sure there are hundreds of examples:
1) What about if I want to buy your [insert bike or computer or whatever]?
2) Baby sitter?
3) Kid's allowance?
4) Pay some kid kid to mow yard.
5) Underground transactions (illegal stuff)
The importance of cash will continue to decline with transactions with merchants, but it will never remotely approach "cashless".
And, as implied here, once we go cashless they've got us by the balls. People might not appreciate the value of easy, anonymous transactions until they're gone. Who are "they" you ask? Insert your favorite power structure. There is utility in being able to conduct private business without the need for any middle-man or money transfer service.
Remember what happened with Wikileaks donations and the credit card companies, when the latter started denying payment services for the former? Cash enables the average person to pay for or support things without permission. That's important if you want an empowered citizenry. I'll keep using cash, thanks.
Or you could realize that we should live up to the title of 'land of the free' and make decisions based on that. There really doesn't need to be a 100% literal and explicit definition of those things for you to see that things like the TSA and NSA spying are unconstitutional.
Changing times and ambiguities in the original text say otherwise.
Then consult historical documents. It's a living document only in the sense that it can be amended.
Even in the case where we're explicitly saying "this is a dead document, follow it literally", the meanings of words change over time and the original meaning imparted by the text is lost.
Only true if the government intentionally ignores history.
What is the literal, non-interpreted meaning of "unusual punishment" or "unreasonable search"?
This was specifically for international flights into the US originating from certain countries, not a TSA-wide procedure.
Good point! However, it is not being reported that way. It's being reported like Syrian and Yemeni terrorists (it's spreading!) have found a new way to be diabolical, so the TSA has stepped up security, so you'd better be careful and not run afoul of the TSA. That detail about it only being from certain countries is not being conveyed in the reporting I've seen.
Thanks for the links, very interesting. Our world is getting more complex, and it is increasingly difficult for the concerned observer to understand the why, how and who of what happens.
Testify! As was said before on/. change your information to nonsense and leave. Afterthought Look up the British journalist whose photo was used for a prostitution service she objected and was told because the advertisers liked her photo they could use it and there was nothing she could do about it.
Facebook's ability to do that is right there in the EULA. Yes, I actually read Facebook's EULA. Anything you post on the site is yours, but they enjoy the right to use it in any way they like while it's there. So this journalist agreed to let them do that when she signed up. She likely didn't know that, because who actually reads EULA's, right? It's one more reason I'm not on Facebook.
I'm not sure where you got my hope for my country to sabotage itself. That was not my intent. My point was that the reasons given publicly for our foreign policy actions are almost never the actual reasons. They are feel-good reasons that are designed to get the population to support the mission, even though they are lies.
I would love to have some influence on my country's foreign policy. However, foreign policy is deliberately insulated from the democratic process; always has been. So I can protest or write my congressman, but that's about it. And I would not expect much in the way of results from either action. The alternative would be to move to Washington DC and try to get directly involved. But I don't have the motivation to reorient my life like that. So I am left with trying to warn people on the Internet to not believe the reasons given the next time we go to war to liberate some population from some dictator that we supported up until he started doing things we didn't like.
Then again, maybe "Ow my Balls!" will soon become a real show, probably on Fox.
It's already a real show. It's called Ridiculousness and it's on MTV.
Though I hate to admit it, I actually enjoy that show. But I realized a while back that it is essentially "Ow, My Balls". That knocked my self-regard down a peg.
I could go on and on about the moral implications and what not but the fact of the matter is this argument was resolved thousands of years ago with the simple line: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" It's not a hard concept to grasp. WE are better than that. We don't need to do this. It's wrong, we all know it. It should stop immediately.
Wouldn't it be nice if our leaders considered what kind of world they're contributing to rather than just what they need to do to advance their "interests"?
...every single country in the world still has a military, and won't disband it just because "killing is wrong".
Countries have interests. They have a foreign policy aimed at defending these interest.
I hope we can all keep this in mind the next time our leaders tell us we are going to war to free an oppressed people or to stop some evil dictator form doing stuff evil dictators do. Foreign policy isn't about that. Ever.
Slashdot Mirror
My wife is probably on that list. She ordered two small pressure cookers via Amazon recently one for her and one for our daughter. But it was TWO. Automated add to terror list.
You should see that this is a good thing overall. The quicker this list can be proven worthless in the eyes of everyone, the faster it will become a heated target within politics, ripe for attack. It's own absurdity will remove it's power to abuse.
I somehow doubt that. In my experience absurdity is no obstacle for a policy; especially one driven by fear. As flawed at it is, if we get rid of the list terrorists will start downing planes left and right. You wouldn't want that, would you? Would you?!
Then it means that 60% from this list have terrorist ties ? Good result.
How is a 40% error rate a good result?
Journalists like Conor Friedersdorf have suggested that one explanation for this is that the public is "informed by a press
Balderdash. There is not a press. What is this, communism, comrade? We have many presses. The problem is that the public follows the sensational ones instead of the informative. We The People have the government, and thus the press, which we deserve.
But when they're owned by 5 media companies, all of which are in turn owned by rich media barons, they tend to walk the party line. Remember when Phil Donohue was fired for being against the Iraq war, and couldn't get a job anywhere else? That wouldn't happen if the various media were really independent.
Likewise, the militarization of domestic police forces and their gradual shift from a community law enforcement role to more resemble a national occupation force complete with armored vehicles and heavy crew-served weapons.
A SWAT team per city / county, a few of which might have a light armored vehicle, is an "occupation" army?
You don't suppose you might be overstating things a bit, do you??
Were you in Boston on April 15-20th, 2013? Occupation army isn't too far off.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/radley-balko
Don't forget power and hegemony!
I know. I would rather they dump their kids off somewhere, drive two-seaters, and whoop it up at all the latest hot spots. Thing is, when their kids are growning up (teen age...college) they will have a much richer life than you will without those people (kids and all their friends and family) in your life. Being a parent is rather inglorious at first, in fact it is downright humiliating, but coming out of it with your kids in tow is a great life. Careful what you wish for.
Thanks for letting me know how my poor decisions will lead to a meager life later on, stranger on the Internet!
Presumptuous much? Child rearing is not the end-all of human existence. One can live a happy and fulfilling life without children. I frankly do not want the responsibility, and have made a conscious choice. It seems you have made a different choice, and if you're happy with it I applaud you. But don't assume yours is the only way. I enjoy my single life and have no regrets about it.
Government made them difficult and expensive to buy compared to SUV's, which were classified as trucks (hence a lower gas mileage standard).
"Stigma" had nothing to do with it.
Maybe so, but there is still a stigma attached to minivans. They say, "I now live a boring suburban lifestyle". A friend of mine said as much when he bought his Honda Odyssey. He loves the Odyssey, but he knew he was no longer cool. And, to be fair, once he and his wife had kids they became just as staid and boring as their minivan suggested.
It's cool; they're happy with their lives and love their kids and home life. But it reminded me of why I'm still single and childless. That life is unattractive to me.
The other thing is from an individual point of view you can live off the grid in a tent but it won't make any difference. Even if your whole country starts living in a tent off the grid it won't make a big change. So why live in extreme discomfort when it won't make any difference, anyway? Instead we need to accept that people will not modify their habits and do something like perhaps cut military spending a smidgeon and direct it into a Manhattan-project style push for better technology for generating power and for using it more efficiently.
This is my view. I believe that AGW is real, but I am not taking any extra measure to save energy in light of that understanding. It won't make a difference if I change my lifestyle. Society has to change its lifestyle. I support green energy initiatives and try to vote for people who seem to get it. I'm willing to pay more for energy if need be. But I'm driving my car just as much as I would otherwise. I'd love to drive an electric car, but mostly for the torque not the efficiency. My electric bill is already about $35 a month, so there is probably little to reduce there.
What we really need is for the powers that be to give up their dreams of petroleum riches and start society on the path to clean, sustainable energy. But a new energy economy is uncertain, while the oil, gas and coal in the ground are known quantities. Those reserves represent potential profit to the energy industry, and they want that money. So they baffle people with bullshit to keep the money train running, putting us all at risk. AGW is an issue that can't wait for oil to get expensive enough, or solar to get cheap enough. Therefore it is not a problem capitalism can solve. But capitalism is what runs the world; maybe over a cliff.
Cash needs to be done with because its primary uses these days include buying illegal drugs, pay for illicit services, dodge taxes, and conduct money laundering. No normal human being in America really needs to keep using cash for legitimate purposes these days. I can't wait till cash is just abolished, anonymous money transactions are really evil and hurt America.
Hmm, what to make of this one? Trolling? Naive? Paid shill? Pure sarcasm? It can be hard to tell these days!
Are we assuming all transactions humans do are with merchants? Naive as hell ! Crappy list of examples, I'm sure there are hundreds of examples: 1) What about if I want to buy your [insert bike or computer or whatever]? 2) Baby sitter? 3) Kid's allowance? 4) Pay some kid kid to mow yard. 5) Underground transactions (illegal stuff) The importance of cash will continue to decline with transactions with merchants, but it will never remotely approach "cashless".
And, as implied here, once we go cashless they've got us by the balls. People might not appreciate the value of easy, anonymous transactions until they're gone. Who are "they" you ask? Insert your favorite power structure. There is utility in being able to conduct private business without the need for any middle-man or money transfer service.
Remember what happened with Wikileaks donations and the credit card companies, when the latter started denying payment services for the former? Cash enables the average person to pay for or support things without permission. That's important if you want an empowered citizenry. I'll keep using cash, thanks.
Yeah, I was afraid of that. It's at +3 at the time of this writing.
Moderated -1. Way to make the point.
Or you could realize that we should live up to the title of 'land of the free' and make decisions based on that. There really doesn't need to be a 100% literal and explicit definition of those things for you to see that things like the TSA and NSA spying are unconstitutional.
We can certainly agree on that.
So the TSA is accomplishing what exactly?
Getting people used to invasive authority?
Changing times and ambiguities in the original text say otherwise.
Then consult historical documents. It's a living document only in the sense that it can be amended.
Even in the case where we're explicitly saying "this is a dead document, follow it literally", the meanings of words change over time and the original meaning imparted by the text is lost.
Only true if the government intentionally ignores history.
What is the literal, non-interpreted meaning of "unusual punishment" or "unreasonable search"?
This was specifically for international flights into the US originating from certain countries, not a TSA-wide procedure.
Good point! However, it is not being reported that way. It's being reported like Syrian and Yemeni terrorists (it's spreading!) have found a new way to be diabolical, so the TSA has stepped up security, so you'd better be careful and not run afoul of the TSA. That detail about it only being from certain countries is not being conveyed in the reporting I've seen.
They probably agreed to it when they signed up!
Thanks for the links, very interesting. Our world is getting more complex, and it is increasingly difficult for the concerned observer to understand the why, how and who of what happens.
Testify! As was said before on /. change your information to nonsense and leave. Afterthought Look up the British journalist whose photo was used for a prostitution service she objected and was told because the advertisers liked her photo they could use it and there was nothing she could do about it.
Facebook's ability to do that is right there in the EULA. Yes, I actually read Facebook's EULA. Anything you post on the site is yours, but they enjoy the right to use it in any way they like while it's there. So this journalist agreed to let them do that when she signed up. She likely didn't know that, because who actually reads EULA's, right? It's one more reason I'm not on Facebook.
I'm not sure where you got my hope for my country to sabotage itself. That was not my intent. My point was that the reasons given publicly for our foreign policy actions are almost never the actual reasons. They are feel-good reasons that are designed to get the population to support the mission, even though they are lies.
I would love to have some influence on my country's foreign policy. However, foreign policy is deliberately insulated from the democratic process; always has been. So I can protest or write my congressman, but that's about it. And I would not expect much in the way of results from either action. The alternative would be to move to Washington DC and try to get directly involved. But I don't have the motivation to reorient my life like that. So I am left with trying to warn people on the Internet to not believe the reasons given the next time we go to war to liberate some population from some dictator that we supported up until he started doing things we didn't like.
Then again, maybe "Ow my Balls!" will soon become a real show, probably on Fox.
It's already a real show. It's called Ridiculousness and it's on MTV.
Though I hate to admit it, I actually enjoy that show. But I realized a while back that it is essentially "Ow, My Balls". That knocked my self-regard down a peg.
I could go on and on about the moral implications and what not but the fact of the matter is this argument was resolved thousands of years ago with the simple line: "An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind" It's not a hard concept to grasp. WE are better than that. We don't need to do this. It's wrong, we all know it. It should stop immediately.
Wouldn't it be nice if our leaders considered what kind of world they're contributing to rather than just what they need to do to advance their "interests"?
Your panties aside, the whole problem here is that NSA is using "national security" as reason for a whole bunch of other things.
Unfortunately, it's been that way since the State Secrets doctrine was created.
...every single country in the world still has a military, and won't disband it just because "killing is wrong".
Countries have interests. They have a foreign policy aimed at defending these interest.
I hope we can all keep this in mind the next time our leaders tell us we are going to war to free an oppressed people or to stop some evil dictator form doing stuff evil dictators do. Foreign policy isn't about that. Ever.
I'm sure it's perfectly okay. See how that works out. It's tough to get the law enforced against the law enforcers, nomsayin'?