All presidential records will become public no more than 12 years after the president in question leaves office, according to the Presidential Records Act. So whether "the media" ever looks at Obama's emails, you'll be able to to your heart's content.
When he's claiming the right to summarily execute and/or imprison without trial American citizens, yes, I'd say he's riding roughshod over the Constitution. Now, George W Bush was a bit different, in that he just claimed the right to lock up and possibly torture US citizens without trial, and a lot of people howled that he was riding roughshod over the Constitution, but it's safe to say that right now riding roughshod over the Constitution is bipartisan.
How about using real actual statistics rather than anecdotes?
Motor vehicle accidents are the #1 leading cause of accidental death in the US, and the #7 leading cause of all death. (citation) About 1/3 of those are alcohol-related (a href="http://www.co.larimer.co.us/compass/fatalities_h_aod.htm">citation). So attempting to put a stop to drunk driving is in fact a perfectly rational societal goal.
Now, one could reasonably argue that sobriety checkpoints aren't the most effective way of reaching that goal, or that the tradeoffs are more important than that goal.
You're in the United States, so the Bill of Rights always has bearing. For instance, there is Fourth Amendment case law that makes it quite clear that cars on public streets do fall into "houses, persons, papers and effects".
Actually, the basic problem with the security of payment systems is that there's money involved. If there's money involved, there will be fraud and theft.
There was fraud when the standard money was gold or silver coin (as minters would substitute in other metals). There's fraud with cash by counterfeiters today. There's fraud with checks. There's fraud at ATMs. There's fraud with credit cards and electronic check payments. There's rampant fraud with PayPal.
So there's no reason to think that cell phone payments (which wouldn't even be available to large segments of the world population) would be immune to fraud.
Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems but by itself it is a path to a very dark place, albeit rarely, but those places are very dark. The challenge the world faces is building systems which both represent the best interests of the people, including taking their opinion into account, and resolving when those two things (best interests and desires) do not align. But if people will vote for less taxes, more spending, conquest at the expense of others and so on, then democracy is unsustainable, and must be balanced by control from people who actually have some sense. The people who are in control, are, in turn, hopefully balanced against being nuts and can be removed if they fail that test. But democracy has a tendency to form a feedback loop of corruption and incompetence. I'm sure there's ways to deal with that, but not in a/. post.
The short version appears to be: Sir_Sri believes the majority of people at large are too stupid to be trusted to manage the government, but there's the possibility of some enlightened despots who are less stupid than the masses. That's been the excuse of every not-so-enlightened despot in history.
The reference wasn't the US Civil War, but the period shortly after the US Civil War. Some of the stuff that was going on in that period included a lot of idealistic former slaves getting elected to public office, while a fair number of idealistic white folks were getting involved in teaching the newly freed slaves to read and write. There was a lot of anti-racism efforts going on, and a lot of folks were calling on the government to help them in those efforts. You also have the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments: the 14th in particular applied the Bill of Rights to the states.
And that's also completely ignoring 2 other major issues with ebooks: 1. The fact that they can and will take your merchandise back without compensation. The equivalent in the world of real actual books would be if the publisher could, whenever they wanted, send some guy to break into your house and make off with the book they published without any legal repercussions whatsoever. 2. The First Sale Doctrine, which would normally make it legal for the owner to sell their copy to somebody else, but in eBooks is generally prohibited.
Once, government was once seen as a protector of freedoms of the general public, and not just the bailer-out of large, well-connected banks and car companies/union.
Err, when was that? About the only times I can really think of where a truly free country threatened to form in the US were (a) during the 1870's, but Ulysses Grant put a quick end to that idea, and (b) the 1780's, where a few of the states were experimenting with really going forward with that Bill of Rights business.
Global Thermonuclear Stress Test sounds like potentially a lot of fun. A very strange game though, the only winning move is to play very very carefully.
Ben and Jerry's had that kind of rule for a while too. They got rid of it when both Ben and Jerry quit the company and they had to look for an outside CEO.
The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics actually keeps track of these things. It looks like ridership peaked in July of 2007 and has been dropping off slightly since. But that suggests that it's more tied to the fact that people aren't flying for leisure as much, probably because they're broke than due to any TSA stupidity.
Airlines are also really getting burned by the speculation in the crude oil markets that have been driving gas and other fuel prices through the roof.
I've done a lot of extended trips via Amtrak. It's quite pleasant so long as you just don't worry so much about the "gotta get there" feeling and just enjoy the view, the conversation, and the generally relaxed atmosphere.
As far as the freight problem, it varies a lot depending on which area of the rail network you're in. Northeast Corridor - no problem, that's track dedicated to passenger rail, so there's not much delay there. Going through the Rockies and Great Plains is again very little problem because there's not that much freight traffic out there. But where you will definitely run into trouble is between Chicago (Amtrak's largest hub) and the east coast. This is somewhat mitigated by a rules change that was put in place about 5 years ago to allow Amtrak to sue freight companies when they delay passengers too much.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The US Patent Office is, like most of the US government these days, simply a tool of control by the major megacorps. I'd give them a nice big 'up yours' gesture, but I might be violating a patent if I do that.
Communist alert! Communist alert! Smith, wiretap ThunderBird89's phone and internet connection immediately! Jones, make sure that he gets fired! Johnson, send out his name to the newspapers! Williams, make sure that the rest of his industry knows that he shouldn't be hired! Michaels, start investigating all his friends! And you, put the kettle on!
The general rule, as I understand it, is that nothing generally hurts your career like being productive.
Consider this hypothetical - let's say you're a really good front-line admin. You're also pretty good at managing people, so you're promoted to manage your team of admins. You put together a good and productive team, but occasionally get back in the saddle to help 'em out and show 'em how it's done (and show 'em that the boss might actually know what he's doing).
And now you have just gotten your last promotion, because the company will think that they can't afford to lose your great technical skills to upper management. It doesn't matter that your senior admin who you've groomed to replace you could do the job, they're used to "there's a problem, that guy can fix it", and they don't want to put you in a position where you can't go fix it.
Don't forget the Treaty of Tripoli, signed and supported by John Adams, which stated: "As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion..."
The other part of that story is that Revere and William Dawes (the guy who actually made it) were just one piece of a system which had been carefully planned and organized for months. Basically, once they got out of Boston, they alerted other riders, who alerted other riders, so that by the time the British infantry were in Lexington there were militia heading to the area from 50 miles away.
That's why the rebellion won: there was a lot of planning and organization before the first shot had been fired.
Both (D) and (R) are toxic brands: According to recent polling, the public is about 55%-37% against each major party. From that polling data, the breakdown appears to be around 33% who like Democrats, 33% who like Republicans, 20% who like neither of 'em (count me in this category), and the remainder who aren't paying attention or forming an opinion.
Web hosts will still not support ipv6 because there aren't enough customers for it to be worth it. ISPs will not support ipv6 because there aren't enough web hosts to be worth it. Everyone sits around waiting for somebody else to move first, in a classic deadlock pattern.
If you look up the history of slavery in the US, you'll find that the first real slave-owner was a black Angolan who was himself once an indentured-servant.
Citation needed, sir / ma'am.
The first enslaved people in the Americas were American Indians. Specifically, there were some societies that enslaved each other. The first to experience European-style slavery were the Arawaks, who had the misfortune to meet Christopher Columbus. Columbus promptly enslaved many of them and captured several to be taken back to Europe.
As far as the first slaves of Europeans in the present-day US, in 1526 the Spanish created the colony of San Miguel de Guadalupe, with African slaves as their primary workforce. The Africans mostly escaped and joined the nearby American Indians, and the Spanish promptly abandoned their colony.
For those curious about the shooting parent refers to, the woodcarver was John T Williams, and the police officer in question was Ian Burke of the Seattle Police Department. Here's the video of some of what happened, from Burke's car dashcam. And that's why I'm in favor of absolutely everything officer's do being filmed: in this case, Burke managed to (intentionally I'm guessing) walk off camera to commit his crime.
There are numerous news articles and videos about this one, mostly in the Seattle area.
Slashdot Mirror
That's easy: A nickel.
All presidential records will become public no more than 12 years after the president in question leaves office, according to the Presidential Records Act. So whether "the media" ever looks at Obama's emails, you'll be able to to your heart's content.
When he's claiming the right to summarily execute and/or imprison without trial American citizens, yes, I'd say he's riding roughshod over the Constitution. Now, George W Bush was a bit different, in that he just claimed the right to lock up and possibly torture US citizens without trial, and a lot of people howled that he was riding roughshod over the Constitution, but it's safe to say that right now riding roughshod over the Constitution is bipartisan.
How about using real actual statistics rather than anecdotes?
Motor vehicle accidents are the #1 leading cause of accidental death in the US, and the #7 leading cause of all death. (citation) About 1/3 of those are alcohol-related (a href="http://www.co.larimer.co.us/compass/fatalities_h_aod.htm">citation). So attempting to put a stop to drunk driving is in fact a perfectly rational societal goal.
Now, one could reasonably argue that sobriety checkpoints aren't the most effective way of reaching that goal, or that the tradeoffs are more important than that goal.
You're in the United States, so the Bill of Rights always has bearing. For instance, there is Fourth Amendment case law that makes it quite clear that cars on public streets do fall into "houses, persons, papers and effects".
Actually, the basic problem with the security of payment systems is that there's money involved. If there's money involved, there will be fraud and theft.
There was fraud when the standard money was gold or silver coin (as minters would substitute in other metals). There's fraud with cash by counterfeiters today. There's fraud with checks. There's fraud at ATMs. There's fraud with credit cards and electronic check payments. There's rampant fraud with PayPal.
So there's no reason to think that cell phone payments (which wouldn't even be available to large segments of the world population) would be immune to fraud.
Democracy is a dangerous, and deeply flawed idea. It is suitable in conjunction with other systems but by itself it is a path to a very dark place, albeit rarely, but those places are very dark. The challenge the world faces is building systems which both represent the best interests of the people, including taking their opinion into account, and resolving when those two things (best interests and desires) do not align. But if people will vote for less taxes, more spending, conquest at the expense of others and so on, then democracy is unsustainable, and must be balanced by control from people who actually have some sense. The people who are in control, are, in turn, hopefully balanced against being nuts and can be removed if they fail that test. But democracy has a tendency to form a feedback loop of corruption and incompetence. I'm sure there's ways to deal with that, but not in a /. post.
The short version appears to be: Sir_Sri believes the majority of people at large are too stupid to be trusted to manage the government, but there's the possibility of some enlightened despots who are less stupid than the masses. That's been the excuse of every not-so-enlightened despot in history.
The reference wasn't the US Civil War, but the period shortly after the US Civil War. Some of the stuff that was going on in that period included a lot of idealistic former slaves getting elected to public office, while a fair number of idealistic white folks were getting involved in teaching the newly freed slaves to read and write. There was a lot of anti-racism efforts going on, and a lot of folks were calling on the government to help them in those efforts. You also have the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments: the 14th in particular applied the Bill of Rights to the states.
And that's also completely ignoring 2 other major issues with ebooks:
1. The fact that they can and will take your merchandise back without compensation. The equivalent in the world of real actual books would be if the publisher could, whenever they wanted, send some guy to break into your house and make off with the book they published without any legal repercussions whatsoever.
2. The First Sale Doctrine, which would normally make it legal for the owner to sell their copy to somebody else, but in eBooks is generally prohibited.
Once, government was once seen as a protector of freedoms of the general public, and not just the bailer-out of large, well-connected banks and car companies/union.
Err, when was that? About the only times I can really think of where a truly free country threatened to form in the US were (a) during the 1870's, but Ulysses Grant put a quick end to that idea, and (b) the 1780's, where a few of the states were experimenting with really going forward with that Bill of Rights business.
Global Thermonuclear Stress Test sounds like potentially a lot of fun. A very strange game though, the only winning move is to play very very carefully.
Actually, they're next model will be known as the Eff U
Ben and Jerry's had that kind of rule for a while too. They got rid of it when both Ben and Jerry quit the company and they had to look for an outside CEO.
The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics actually keeps track of these things. It looks like ridership peaked in July of 2007 and has been dropping off slightly since. But that suggests that it's more tied to the fact that people aren't flying for leisure as much, probably because they're broke than due to any TSA stupidity.
Airlines are also really getting burned by the speculation in the crude oil markets that have been driving gas and other fuel prices through the roof.
I've done a lot of extended trips via Amtrak. It's quite pleasant so long as you just don't worry so much about the "gotta get there" feeling and just enjoy the view, the conversation, and the generally relaxed atmosphere.
As far as the freight problem, it varies a lot depending on which area of the rail network you're in. Northeast Corridor - no problem, that's track dedicated to passenger rail, so there's not much delay there. Going through the Rockies and Great Plains is again very little problem because there's not that much freight traffic out there. But where you will definitely run into trouble is between Chicago (Amtrak's largest hub) and the east coast. This is somewhat mitigated by a rules change that was put in place about 5 years ago to allow Amtrak to sue freight companies when they delay passengers too much.
The is inconceivable.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
The US Patent Office is, like most of the US government these days, simply a tool of control by the major megacorps. I'd give them a nice big 'up yours' gesture, but I might be violating a patent if I do that.
Communist alert! Communist alert! Smith, wiretap ThunderBird89's phone and internet connection immediately! Jones, make sure that he gets fired! Johnson, send out his name to the newspapers! Williams, make sure that the rest of his industry knows that he shouldn't be hired! Michaels, start investigating all his friends! And you, put the kettle on!
The general rule, as I understand it, is that nothing generally hurts your career like being productive.
Consider this hypothetical - let's say you're a really good front-line admin. You're also pretty good at managing people, so you're promoted to manage your team of admins. You put together a good and productive team, but occasionally get back in the saddle to help 'em out and show 'em how it's done (and show 'em that the boss might actually know what he's doing).
And now you have just gotten your last promotion, because the company will think that they can't afford to lose your great technical skills to upper management. It doesn't matter that your senior admin who you've groomed to replace you could do the job, they're used to "there's a problem, that guy can fix it", and they don't want to put you in a position where you can't go fix it.
The Dilbert Principle has its roots in reality.
Don't forget the Treaty of Tripoli, signed and supported by John Adams, which stated: "As the government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian Religion..."
The other part of that story is that Revere and William Dawes (the guy who actually made it) were just one piece of a system which had been carefully planned and organized for months. Basically, once they got out of Boston, they alerted other riders, who alerted other riders, so that by the time the British infantry were in Lexington there were militia heading to the area from 50 miles away.
That's why the rebellion won: there was a lot of planning and organization before the first shot had been fired.
Both (D) and (R) are toxic brands: According to recent polling, the public is about 55%-37% against each major party. From that polling data, the breakdown appears to be around 33% who like Democrats, 33% who like Republicans, 20% who like neither of 'em (count me in this category), and the remainder who aren't paying attention or forming an opinion.
Instead of the big war he predicted would start in 2004, he was actually was saying it would start in 2034.
However, the world's now supposed to come to an end this coming October, and again in December 2012, so I'm not sure how this fits into the schedule.
Web hosts will still not support ipv6 because there aren't enough customers for it to be worth it. ISPs will not support ipv6 because there aren't enough web hosts to be worth it. Everyone sits around waiting for somebody else to move first, in a classic deadlock pattern.
If you look up the history of slavery in the US, you'll find that the first real slave-owner was a black Angolan who was himself once an indentured-servant.
Citation needed, sir / ma'am.
The first enslaved people in the Americas were American Indians. Specifically, there were some societies that enslaved each other. The first to experience European-style slavery were the Arawaks, who had the misfortune to meet Christopher Columbus. Columbus promptly enslaved many of them and captured several to be taken back to Europe.
As far as the first slaves of Europeans in the present-day US, in 1526 the Spanish created the colony of San Miguel de Guadalupe, with African slaves as their primary workforce. The Africans mostly escaped and joined the nearby American Indians, and the Spanish promptly abandoned their colony.
For those curious about the shooting parent refers to, the woodcarver was John T Williams, and the police officer in question was Ian Burke of the Seattle Police Department. Here's the video of some of what happened, from Burke's car dashcam. And that's why I'm in favor of absolutely everything officer's do being filmed: in this case, Burke managed to (intentionally I'm guessing) walk off camera to commit his crime.
There are numerous news articles and videos about this one, mostly in the Seattle area.