Any terrorist with half a brain trying to plan an attack on an airplane now knows exactly how to do it: Forge an identity or recruit a new terrorist that can meet the Trusted Traveler requirements. Then use the Trusted Traveler identity to bypass the security that might catch your terrorist plot. Bruce Schneier writes a great deal about this: If you create an easier-than-standard path through security constraints, the bad guys, just like the good guys, will take the easier route, every single time.
The military is not a Constitution-free zone: The UCMJ actually makes it quite clear that they're implementing the same rules, just within a military structure.
For instance, since he's military, his trial may be in front of a court-martial, rather than in front of a civilian judge. Similarly, his right to counsel may be fulfilled by JAG rather than a civilian attorney. There are limits within military law on what a commander can do to punish somebody under their command (e.g. your CO can't just shoot you without repercussions).
Absolutely. The President also swears loyalty to the Constitution. The oaths are supposed to emphasize that the US is a country ruled by laws rather than men.
However, there's lots of evidence that this is no longer the case. For instance, Bradley Manning's confinement is violating the spirit if not the letter of at least 3 of the 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights: Fifth Amendment - depriving him of liberty without due process, quite possibly attempting to compel him to incriminate himself Sixth Amendment - depriving him of a speedy and public trial by jury, failing to inform him of the charges against him, failing to allow him to confront the witnesses and evidence against him, and limiting his access to counsel (including numerous attempts to spy on his lawyer) Eighth Amendment - cruel and unusual punishment (specifically, borderline torture according to most international organizations that study that sort of thing)
But it doesn't matter, because those responsible for prosecuting crimes have decided to look the other way on government misdeeds, and the courts have blocked nearly all lawsuits pertaining to government misdeeds on the grounds that they might compromise national security.
Ahh, but they have to pick and choose between which corporations they get bought by. I think this scene from The Distinguished Gentleman explains it all:
TOMMY (Eddie Murphy) Sugar price supports. Where do you think I should be, Tommy? O'CONNOR Shit -- makes no difference to me. If you're for 'em, I got money for you from my sugar producers in Louisiana and Hawaii. If you're against 'em, I got money for you from the candy manufacturers. TOMMY You pick. O'CONNOR Let's put you down as for. Now what about putting limits on malpractice awards? TOMMY You tell me. O'CONNOR Well, if you're for 'em, I got money from the doctors and insurance companies. If you're against 'em, I got money from the trial lawyers. Tell you what, let's say against. Now how about pizza? TOMMY I'll stick with the salad. O'CONNOR Not for lunch, shmuck, for PAC money. A lot of the frozen pizzas use phony cheese. There's a law pending requiring them to disclose it on their labels. Where do you stand? TOMMY If I vote for the labels...then I get money from the dairy industry... O'CONNOR Good... TOMMY And if I vote against the labels, I get money from the frozen food guys. O'CONNOR Excellent! And don't forget the ranchers, because they get hurt if pepperoni sales go down! TOMMY A pepperoni lobby. I love this town. O'CONNOR So which is it? TOMMY Fuck the cheese people. Thanks to them my office smelled like smelt for a week. O'CONNOR All right. For. TOMMY So Tommy, tell me -- with all this money on every side, how does anything get done? O'CONNOR It doesn't! That's the genius of the system!
Even better than your standard outhouse - a composting outhouse. Those are designed to collect the crap rather than put it in a hole in the ground. Then at some point you move it from the bin where you've been keeping it to a separate composting area, wait a while, and eventually end up with something that can be used as fertilizer.
It's worth noting that much of Africa has been improving significantly with regards to water safety and sanitation in a lot of areas, precisely because a lot of the governments and NGOs have been focusing on it. It's a way to get a big health and quality-of-life improvement in rural areas at a relatively low cost.
The Gates Foundation is targeting the right problem, no question. What they aren't realizing is that there are established really good solutions out there already. (More cynically, they might be looking for a solution that somebody can patent and make big bucks off of. I sincerely hope that's not the case.)
If we all outsource all the hands-on work, that means nobody will have to do it anymore!
Seriously, this seems to be the way some business folks think. Outsource your call centers to India, and poof, no more call centers. Outsource your development to Russia, and poof, no more developers. Because it's not taken care of internally, it must be that the work doesn't happen or isn't necessary anymore.
Another angle on the Dominique Strauss Kahn case: They may also have been targeting New York AG Eric Schneiderman, who just happened to be making moves to prosecute the banking giants under New York law. By having the case blow up in his face, they probably succeeded at discrediting Schneiderman as well.
Because the UN can't actually do anything of any substance without the US agreeing to it? Because (although it's against the rules) the US likely gains a ton of intelligence by spying on the diplomats in New York? Because the UN occasionally give international stamp of approval to what the US is going to do anyways? Because it makes the smaller countries feel less butt-raped by the US? Because if the US withdrew, and the UN decided to do something the US didn't like, instead of issuing a nice veto in the Security Council, they'd have to fight WWIII to stop them?
I can keep going. Even Mr Realpolitik himself, Henry Kissinger, admitted that there were some uses for the UN.
One not-very-surprising conclusion of psychological research is that parents will do just about anything that they think will benefit their children, even if they're suicidal. Parent's love of their kids basically short-circuits the reasoning part of their brain. Love of the spouse is not quite as strong, but still very effective at short-circuiting reasoning.
Why does that matter? Because it means that if somebody wants to short-circuit the reasoning part of your brain, one way to do it is to present the threat or benefit as being to your children or spouse. That's why there's massive amounts of BS tossed around as "for the children" and "to protect women": the last thing you want a propaganda target doing is thinking carefully.
My preferred term these days is "tinkle-down economics" - anyone who's not at the top of the heap gets pissed on, and the further down you go the stinkier it gets.
Also, the $2.5 trillion surplus that Social Security has is in... wait for it... US Treasury Bills. Any possible balancing of the general budget by trimming Social Security comes at the cost of defaulting on those Treasury Bills, which is exactly what this whole debt ceiling business is about trying to avoid (at least in theory).
Ergo, anyone advocating cutting Social Security in the name of preventing debt default is basically advocating destroying the village in order to save it.
The trouble with your entire argument is that you assume that the only possible way to balance the budget is to cut spending in half. There's another way about equally likely (that is, whelk's-chance-in-a-supernova likely), namely double tax revenue to solve the budget problem.
As far as what taxes to hike, there are a lot of choices: dividends, business profits, FICA for income currently above the cap, capital gains, or upper end of the income tax range. All of those have historically low tax rates, and have done better than ok in the last few years.
Let's say the financial contributions of the partnership are 70%-30%. If you're the 30% partner, marriage is great, because if you divorce you pick up a significant chunk of your ex's income. Even if you're the 70% partner, it might be a good idea economically if the savings on insurance and the like save you more than that same chunk of income.
And of course, there's another piece of this as well: Just because you're married doesn't mean you and your spouse can't agree to allow sleeping with other people.
It's very simple: Have the laws on the books, but don't enforce them. That way, congressmen / MPs can go back to their district / riding and announce that they've gotten some law passed to deal with a problem, but your pals in industry don't have to actually deal with the law.
There were lots of laws that the SEC and Federal Reserve could have used to squash down much of the real estate bubble. They didn't use them. After the fact, there were people and organizations who had committed criminal fraud, and the "Justice" Department has refused to investigate them. There were laws on the book that the MSHA could have used to prevent the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia. They didn't use them, despite lots of evidence that the owner of the mine routinely violated the law and then bribed the judges in the state to ensure that they were effectively immune from lawsuits. There are laws on the books saying that torturing people is illegal. A few grunts have been prosecuted for it, but those giving the orders have gotten off without even a cursory investigation.
Sad to see Harper go that route though. I thought the Canadians had more resistance to the blending of corporate and government power that's so prevalent in the US.
Working but looking bad is inherently preferable to looking good but not working....
... unless you're dealing with a salesperson, in which case they'll just take the snazzy-looking-but-broken software and present it in a way to hide its brokenness.
Sounds like what you're saying is that agile methods push you towards the same goal as code reviews, just a different way. That makes sense - if I'm paired up to develop, I've got different eyes, different design perspectives, etc.
What TFA is talking about are the kinds of programmers who demand that their code go live without anyone else ever looking at it. That just seems stupid and arrogant at best.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems like Mr Putsch here has pulled off quite a coup.
Not sure where the attitude against Argentina came from, but they are some ok dudes...
Maybe he's from the UK and pissed off about the Falklands War?
Any terrorist with half a brain trying to plan an attack on an airplane now knows exactly how to do it: Forge an identity or recruit a new terrorist that can meet the Trusted Traveler requirements. Then use the Trusted Traveler identity to bypass the security that might catch your terrorist plot. Bruce Schneier writes a great deal about this: If you create an easier-than-standard path through security constraints, the bad guys, just like the good guys, will take the easier route, every single time.
The military is not a Constitution-free zone: The UCMJ actually makes it quite clear that they're implementing the same rules, just within a military structure.
For instance, since he's military, his trial may be in front of a court-martial, rather than in front of a civilian judge. Similarly, his right to counsel may be fulfilled by JAG rather than a civilian attorney. There are limits within military law on what a commander can do to punish somebody under their command (e.g. your CO can't just shoot you without repercussions).
You can read the UCMJ for yourself if you don't believe me:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ucmj.htm
How could you be more realistic than something that is in fact a real issue?
Absolutely. The President also swears loyalty to the Constitution. The oaths are supposed to emphasize that the US is a country ruled by laws rather than men.
However, there's lots of evidence that this is no longer the case. For instance, Bradley Manning's confinement is violating the spirit if not the letter of at least 3 of the 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights:
Fifth Amendment - depriving him of liberty without due process, quite possibly attempting to compel him to incriminate himself
Sixth Amendment - depriving him of a speedy and public trial by jury, failing to inform him of the charges against him, failing to allow him to confront the witnesses and evidence against him, and limiting his access to counsel (including numerous attempts to spy on his lawyer)
Eighth Amendment - cruel and unusual punishment (specifically, borderline torture according to most international organizations that study that sort of thing)
But it doesn't matter, because those responsible for prosecuting crimes have decided to look the other way on government misdeeds, and the courts have blocked nearly all lawsuits pertaining to government misdeeds on the grounds that they might compromise national security.
Ahh, but they have to pick and choose between which corporations they get bought by. I think this scene from The Distinguished Gentleman explains it all:
TOMMY (Eddie Murphy) Sugar price supports. Where do you think I should be, Tommy?
O'CONNOR Shit -- makes no difference to me. If you're for 'em, I got money for you from my sugar producers in Louisiana and Hawaii. If you're against 'em, I got money for you from the candy manufacturers.
TOMMY You pick.
O'CONNOR Let's put you down as for. Now what about putting limits on malpractice awards?
TOMMY You tell me.
O'CONNOR Well, if you're for 'em, I got money from the doctors and insurance companies. If you're against 'em, I got money from the trial lawyers. Tell you what, let's say against. Now how about pizza?
TOMMY I'll stick with the salad.
O'CONNOR Not for lunch, shmuck, for PAC money. A lot of the frozen pizzas use phony cheese. There's a law pending requiring them to disclose it on their labels. Where do you stand?
TOMMY If I vote for the labels...then I get money from the dairy industry...
O'CONNOR Good...
TOMMY And if I vote against the labels, I get money from the frozen food guys.
O'CONNOR Excellent! And don't forget the ranchers, because they get hurt if pepperoni sales go down!
TOMMY A pepperoni lobby. I love this town.
O'CONNOR So which is it?
TOMMY Fuck the cheese people. Thanks to them my office smelled like smelt for a week.
O'CONNOR All right. For.
TOMMY So Tommy, tell me -- with all this money on every side, how does anything get done?
O'CONNOR It doesn't! That's the genius of the system!
Aye, matey! Thar be the bones of dragons in the deeps. But which fell by His Noodlyness, and which by me blunderbuss?
Well, it means you get an entirely different meaning from the phrase "partisan hack"
Yes, seawater. Exactly what you have a surplus of in the Serengeti.
Even better than your standard outhouse - a composting outhouse. Those are designed to collect the crap rather than put it in a hole in the ground. Then at some point you move it from the bin where you've been keeping it to a separate composting area, wait a while, and eventually end up with something that can be used as fertilizer.
It's worth noting that much of Africa has been improving significantly with regards to water safety and sanitation in a lot of areas, precisely because a lot of the governments and NGOs have been focusing on it. It's a way to get a big health and quality-of-life improvement in rural areas at a relatively low cost.
The Gates Foundation is targeting the right problem, no question. What they aren't realizing is that there are established really good solutions out there already. (More cynically, they might be looking for a solution that somebody can patent and make big bucks off of. I sincerely hope that's not the case.)
If we all outsource all the hands-on work, that means nobody will have to do it anymore!
Seriously, this seems to be the way some business folks think. Outsource your call centers to India, and poof, no more call centers. Outsource your development to Russia, and poof, no more developers. Because it's not taken care of internally, it must be that the work doesn't happen or isn't necessary anymore.
No, but it is endorsed by Anthony Wiener.
Another angle on the Dominique Strauss Kahn case: They may also have been targeting New York AG Eric Schneiderman, who just happened to be making moves to prosecute the banking giants under New York law. By having the case blow up in his face, they probably succeeded at discrediting Schneiderman as well.
Because the UN can't actually do anything of any substance without the US agreeing to it?
Because (although it's against the rules) the US likely gains a ton of intelligence by spying on the diplomats in New York?
Because the UN occasionally give international stamp of approval to what the US is going to do anyways?
Because it makes the smaller countries feel less butt-raped by the US?
Because if the US withdrew, and the UN decided to do something the US didn't like, instead of issuing a nice veto in the Security Council, they'd have to fight WWIII to stop them?
I can keep going. Even Mr Realpolitik himself, Henry Kissinger, admitted that there were some uses for the UN.
That's not quite the entire story though.
One not-very-surprising conclusion of psychological research is that parents will do just about anything that they think will benefit their children, even if they're suicidal. Parent's love of their kids basically short-circuits the reasoning part of their brain. Love of the spouse is not quite as strong, but still very effective at short-circuiting reasoning.
Why does that matter? Because it means that if somebody wants to short-circuit the reasoning part of your brain, one way to do it is to present the threat or benefit as being to your children or spouse. That's why there's massive amounts of BS tossed around as "for the children" and "to protect women": the last thing you want a propaganda target doing is thinking carefully.
Trickle down economics do not work
My preferred term these days is "tinkle-down economics" - anyone who's not at the top of the heap gets pissed on, and the further down you go the stinkier it gets.
Also, the $2.5 trillion surplus that Social Security has is in ... wait for it ... US Treasury Bills. Any possible balancing of the general budget by trimming Social Security comes at the cost of defaulting on those Treasury Bills, which is exactly what this whole debt ceiling business is about trying to avoid (at least in theory).
Ergo, anyone advocating cutting Social Security in the name of preventing debt default is basically advocating destroying the village in order to save it.
The trouble with your entire argument is that you assume that the only possible way to balance the budget is to cut spending in half. There's another way about equally likely (that is, whelk's-chance-in-a-supernova likely), namely double tax revenue to solve the budget problem.
As far as what taxes to hike, there are a lot of choices: dividends, business profits, FICA for income currently above the cap, capital gains, or upper end of the income tax range. All of those have historically low tax rates, and have done better than ok in the last few years.
And here I was expecting some sort of B movie entitled "Attack of the Giant Radioactive Jellyfish!"
That's not as preposterous as it sounds - the Athenians did quite a bit of picking people at random to lead.
The other very interesting idea the Athenians had was immediately putting former officials on trial as soon as their term ended.
Actually, it's not that simple.
Let's say the financial contributions of the partnership are 70%-30%. If you're the 30% partner, marriage is great, because if you divorce you pick up a significant chunk of your ex's income. Even if you're the 70% partner, it might be a good idea economically if the savings on insurance and the like save you more than that same chunk of income.
And of course, there's another piece of this as well: Just because you're married doesn't mean you and your spouse can't agree to allow sleeping with other people.
It's very simple: Have the laws on the books, but don't enforce them. That way, congressmen / MPs can go back to their district / riding and announce that they've gotten some law passed to deal with a problem, but your pals in industry don't have to actually deal with the law.
There were lots of laws that the SEC and Federal Reserve could have used to squash down much of the real estate bubble. They didn't use them. After the fact, there were people and organizations who had committed criminal fraud, and the "Justice" Department has refused to investigate them. There were laws on the book that the MSHA could have used to prevent the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia. They didn't use them, despite lots of evidence that the owner of the mine routinely violated the law and then bribed the judges in the state to ensure that they were effectively immune from lawsuits. There are laws on the books saying that torturing people is illegal. A few grunts have been prosecuted for it, but those giving the orders have gotten off without even a cursory investigation.
Sad to see Harper go that route though. I thought the Canadians had more resistance to the blending of corporate and government power that's so prevalent in the US.
Working but looking bad is inherently preferable to looking good but not working....
... unless you're dealing with a salesperson, in which case they'll just take the snazzy-looking-but-broken software and present it in a way to hide its brokenness.
Sounds like what you're saying is that agile methods push you towards the same goal as code reviews, just a different way. That makes sense - if I'm paired up to develop, I've got different eyes, different design perspectives, etc.
What TFA is talking about are the kinds of programmers who demand that their code go live without anyone else ever looking at it. That just seems stupid and arrogant at best.