But then racism was always OK as long as it's anti-white.
Umm, if anything, this is anti-Asian-American, since it holds Asian-American kids to the highest standards solely because other Asian-American kids have performed well on tests.
Good catch: Bill Clinton sent in 10,000 troops to Somalia, on what was intended to be a UN humanitarian mission. For comparison's sake, George H.W. Bush had approximately 900,000 US troops involved in the Gulf War.
If AGW is a correct theory, it can withstand the light of day.
It has withstood the light of day. Repeatedly. For approximately 20 years. To the point where the vast majority of scientists who study this stuff agree that it's the best available explanation of numerous observed changes in the climate.
The only place there's a serious debate is in the public imagination, and that's largely due to a very well-funded PR campaign funded by the oil and coal industries.
I don't think Joe Biden qualifies as an assassination insurance VP. I mean, he has about 45% approval (with 14% undecided), and during the VP debate he appeared to be at least reasonably sane and mentally capable.
Dan Quayle, on the other hand, had, at the same time in his tenure, 33% approval, and by all appearances was a moron.
Clinton was the most warlike president of all since Johnson. At least until Bush Jr went crazy.
Definitely not:
Richard Nixon: Elected on a secret plan to end the Vietnam War in 1968, he expanded it into Laos and Cambodia, two countries who's only crime was being next to Vietnam.
Gerald Ford: Actually made peace in Vietnam. He's not a contender for the "most warlike".
Jimmy Carter: A few minor things, such as trying to rescue the hostages. Also not a contender.
Ronald Reagan: Invaded Grenada, Honduras, ordered various operations against Libya, was on the outskirts of the Iran-Iraq War (supplying weapons to both sides and using US ships to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers).
George H.W. Bush: First Gulf War. Several smaller operations in Panama, Hondurus, and Liberia.
Bill Clinton: Enforcing the no-fly zone in Iraq, air operations in former Yugoslavia, missile strikes on Al Qaida.
So you understand the language in 1861 properly: When secessionists talked about states' rights, the rights they were concerned about were the rights to own slaves, not, say, issues of taxation. They were quite explicit about that, and any other interpretation is Southern whitewashing.
Yes, I'm aware the rest of the speech lays out policy ideas. My point is that the standard of demanding policy doesn't really make sense either: there are a lot of useful political expressions that don't create an immediate policy response.
For example, a sign that says "Goldman Sachs Sucks!" doesn't present any kind of policy or fact. But that doesn't make it an invalid political expression: If a lot of people agree that Goldman Sachs sucks, then that sign gets those people who agree talking to each other about exactly how Goldman Sachs sucks and what could be done about it. When they start, they probably don't have policy proposals or research studies, just some bad experiences. But by expressing the opinion, they may spark the effort to create those policy proposals and research studies.
$15 million a year? That amounts to a department with something like 100 techies and 15 managers plus some equipment and facilities. Which in the realm of federal spending, qualifies as chump change.
The best way to figure out large spending numbers like that, I've found, is to figure that 1 white-collar employee costs about $100K (salary, benefits, HR, office space, etc). So if you make the conversion from dollars to employees, you can get a much better sense of how big an effort really is.
So what about what is clearly political speech that is not particularly analytical or informative? For example, here's a portion of a significant political speech from a little over 40 years ago:
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
This section of the speech, technically, says nothing except "Yay, freedom!", which isn't really a policy proposal, just the expression of a political value. Should it be legal to send someone to jail for saying that?
Here's my take on the Benghazi thing: 1. Somebody screwed up, big time. Hardly the first time that's happened. 2. Anyone who actually knows something for certain about it is either part of a terrorist group, or is not allowed to talk. 3. That leaves a certain news organization with the ability to say anything they like about the incident with absolute impunity. With absolutely no evidence to back up any of it, but because there's no contradictory evidence available. 4. Those who are predisposed to believe that Barack Obama is some sort of secret Muslim trying to undermine the US thus believe that there's some sort of giant conspiracy that both caused this to happen and keep the details secret from the US public. This is largely the same crowd that is firmly convinced that Bill Clinton arranged the murder of Vince Foster. 5. When the official report of what happened comes out months if not years from now, those who are in group 4 won't believe it unless it blames everything on Barack Obama.
I mean, I didn't vote for Obama, I don't approve of much of his Middle East policy, but those who keep harping on the Benghazi attack are making a mountain out of a comparative molehill. What I'm guessing happened was about 10 parts bad luck and 3 parts a really stupid mistake by some mid-level State Department bureaucrat, and the Obama political appointees (and Obama himself) only became aware of it because of the successful attack. You fix the mistake, you put whoever was responsible in charge of embassy security for Denmark (or some other relatively safe place) rather than Libya, you move on.
One might wonder what would have happened if the Romney campaign had had an experienced business manager with an MBA from a prestigious university leading them.
The correct question to ask regarding that sort of thing is "Are you legally eligible to work in the United States?" That covers both the "under 16 / 18" (depending on the state) as well as citizen versus legal immigrant (which you're also not allowed to discriminate against).
David Brooks gave an interesting response, he said that the electoral system forces the candidates to make an effort to play somewhat to the middle.
David Brooks is completely wrong about this. For instance, I'm in Ohio, the swing state that everyone was focused on for months. Here are some of the appeals I got in my mailbox and on billboards: - Obama is actually the son of a convicted drug dealer and a porn actress, not a Kenyan. And he's been lying about his name the whole time. - Voter fraud is a felony (but only in neighborhoods that are mostly poor and black). - Any kind of increase in taxes will cause the economy to collapse. - Social Security should be abolished.
Tell me exactly how that forces candidates to appeal to the center.
My usual advice when it comes to avoiding discrimination suits: Never ever ask demographic classification questions during an interview. If it doesn't affect someone's ability to do the job, it shouldn't affect your interview. An applicant can of course mention these, but you shouldn't ask about: - Age - Religion - Marital and/or parental status - Military service (except for some government agencies that have programs that try to hire veterans) - Gender identity - Sexual orientation - Racial identity - Ethnic background - Class identity
Not only is asking any of that asking for a giant lawsuit, it also means you might pass on a fantastic applicant for no good reason. Instead, have them show what they can do for you, whoever they are, and decide based on that.
Once companies get large, of course the CEO doesn't spend his time coding, no matter how good a coder he is. For instance, I'd highly doubt that Larry and Sergei spend any significant time coding right now, even though they're both very capable programmers (according to a guy who was studying with them at Stanford). Steve Jobs was no slouch at technical work back when he was at Atari (although he definitely knew that Woz was better). And Bill Gates is by all accounts a good developer and even better architect.
Did Julian Assange then publish these secrets, knowing that he has zero way of predicting the consequences? Yes: he's guilty.
There are 2 big reasons why what Assange did is not a crime: 1. Given that Julian Assange is not and has never been a US citizen or resident of the US, why is US law applicable to any action he takes? For example, if a Iranian spy working in Afghanistan uncovers classified information about the US military, the US can't demand that spy's extradition and expect to get anything out of that.
2. Pentagon Papers case. The US Supreme Court has stated quite clearly that First Amendment protections apply to those who publish classified information, provided they weren't the ones leaking the information. And as you've stated, Manning was the one who provided the information to Assange, just like Ellsberg provided the information to the New York Times.
So (a) US law doesn't have jurisdiction, and (b) even if it did, it's still not illegal.
I said it's not the business of a private to determine when and when not to disseminate classified information.
If I'm not mistaken, it is the business of anyone in the military to refuse to follow illegal orders, report those orders to superior officers, and go around superior officers to report the misconduct to another authority (e.g. the Inspector General) if the superior officers refuse to do something about it. Not everything Manning released falls under this, but a lot of it was classified not because it would compromise national security (which is supposed to be the standard) but because it is embarrassing and/or incriminating to those who decided to classify it. Which means it was illegally classified. Which means that a private is not supposed to respect that classification.
And yes, by this argument, there's probably huge amounts of material that are routinely illegally classified within the US military and intelligence agencies. A lot of the US military (particularly officers) firmly believe that the only reason the US lost in Vietnam is that the public got wind of what was going on over there and "stabbed them in the back". Their solution to this problem is attempting to hide almost everything US troops are doing from the US public, only sending back clips that make good PR, and helpfully guiding reporters around so they see only what they're supposed to see.
Good luck getting anyone in power to agree to that, though.
How about this strategy: 1. Get major tech companies losing big bucks to patent cases. 2. Major tech companies bribe^H lobby congress to change the law so they won't lose big bucks again.
The effect of the trolls has been that there are now organizations with lots to lose, previously kept in check by Mutually Assured Destruction, that now have to actually deal with the patent concept that had previously been used only to smack down start-ups that refused to play nice with them.
Slashdot Mirror
But then racism was always OK as long as it's anti-white.
Umm, if anything, this is anti-Asian-American, since it holds Asian-American kids to the highest standards solely because other Asian-American kids have performed well on tests.
Good catch: Bill Clinton sent in 10,000 troops to Somalia, on what was intended to be a UN humanitarian mission. For comparison's sake, George H.W. Bush had approximately 900,000 US troops involved in the Gulf War.
If AGW is a correct theory, it can withstand the light of day.
It has withstood the light of day. Repeatedly. For approximately 20 years. To the point where the vast majority of scientists who study this stuff agree that it's the best available explanation of numerous observed changes in the climate.
The only place there's a serious debate is in the public imagination, and that's largely due to a very well-funded PR campaign funded by the oil and coal industries.
I don't think Joe Biden qualifies as an assassination insurance VP. I mean, he has about 45% approval (with 14% undecided), and during the VP debate he appeared to be at least reasonably sane and mentally capable.
Dan Quayle, on the other hand, had, at the same time in his tenure, 33% approval, and by all appearances was a moron.
Clinton was the most warlike president of all since Johnson. At least until Bush Jr went crazy.
Definitely not:
Richard Nixon: Elected on a secret plan to end the Vietnam War in 1968, he expanded it into Laos and Cambodia, two countries who's only crime was being next to Vietnam.
Gerald Ford: Actually made peace in Vietnam. He's not a contender for the "most warlike".
Jimmy Carter: A few minor things, such as trying to rescue the hostages. Also not a contender.
Ronald Reagan: Invaded Grenada, Honduras, ordered various operations against Libya, was on the outskirts of the Iran-Iraq War (supplying weapons to both sides and using US ships to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers).
George H.W. Bush: First Gulf War. Several smaller operations in Panama, Hondurus, and Liberia.
Bill Clinton: Enforcing the no-fly zone in Iraq, air operations in former Yugoslavia, missile strikes on Al Qaida.
Sorry, broken link. Correct cite:
NYTimes Disunion series
So you understand the language in 1861 properly: When secessionists talked about states' rights, the rights they were concerned about were the rights to own slaves, not, say, issues of taxation. They were quite explicit about that, and any other interpretation is Southern whitewashing.
cite
Yes, I'm aware the rest of the speech lays out policy ideas. My point is that the standard of demanding policy doesn't really make sense either: there are a lot of useful political expressions that don't create an immediate policy response.
For example, a sign that says "Goldman Sachs Sucks!" doesn't present any kind of policy or fact. But that doesn't make it an invalid political expression: If a lot of people agree that Goldman Sachs sucks, then that sign gets those people who agree talking to each other about exactly how Goldman Sachs sucks and what could be done about it. When they start, they probably don't have policy proposals or research studies, just some bad experiences. But by expressing the opinion, they may spark the effort to create those policy proposals and research studies.
$15 million a year? That amounts to a department with something like 100 techies and 15 managers plus some equipment and facilities. Which in the realm of federal spending, qualifies as chump change.
The best way to figure out large spending numbers like that, I've found, is to figure that 1 white-collar employee costs about $100K (salary, benefits, HR, office space, etc). So if you make the conversion from dollars to employees, you can get a much better sense of how big an effort really is.
So what about what is clearly political speech that is not particularly analytical or informative? For example, here's a portion of a significant political speech from a little over 40 years ago:
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania! Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California! But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia! Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee! Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
This section of the speech, technically, says nothing except "Yay, freedom!", which isn't really a policy proposal, just the expression of a political value. Should it be legal to send someone to jail for saying that?
We applied the carbon fiber electrodes, but were unable to get a neural response from either patient.
Here's my take on the Benghazi thing:
1. Somebody screwed up, big time. Hardly the first time that's happened.
2. Anyone who actually knows something for certain about it is either part of a terrorist group, or is not allowed to talk.
3. That leaves a certain news organization with the ability to say anything they like about the incident with absolute impunity. With absolutely no evidence to back up any of it, but because there's no contradictory evidence available.
4. Those who are predisposed to believe that Barack Obama is some sort of secret Muslim trying to undermine the US thus believe that there's some sort of giant conspiracy that both caused this to happen and keep the details secret from the US public. This is largely the same crowd that is firmly convinced that Bill Clinton arranged the murder of Vince Foster.
5. When the official report of what happened comes out months if not years from now, those who are in group 4 won't believe it unless it blames everything on Barack Obama.
I mean, I didn't vote for Obama, I don't approve of much of his Middle East policy, but those who keep harping on the Benghazi attack are making a mountain out of a comparative molehill. What I'm guessing happened was about 10 parts bad luck and 3 parts a really stupid mistake by some mid-level State Department bureaucrat, and the Obama political appointees (and Obama himself) only became aware of it because of the successful attack. You fix the mistake, you put whoever was responsible in charge of embassy security for Denmark (or some other relatively safe place) rather than Libya, you move on.
One might wonder what would have happened if the Romney campaign had had an experienced business manager with an MBA from a prestigious university leading them.
Another way of putting it: Your slides are not your presentation. Your slides are what's going on behind you while you give your presentation.
In effect, you'll be trading one bad overlord for another.
You completely ignore you vote on your union leadership. Whereas you don't vote on management.
Mao was a Maoist.
You don't say! Next thing you know, you're going to be claiming that Marx was a Marxist and Lenin was a Leninist!
Did they send you the professionally produced DVD that "proves" it like they did in Florida?
Yes, that's it exactly. It was by a guy in California who specializes in conspiracy theory films.
The correct question to ask regarding that sort of thing is "Are you legally eligible to work in the United States?" That covers both the "under 16 / 18" (depending on the state) as well as citizen versus legal immigrant (which you're also not allowed to discriminate against).
David Brooks gave an interesting response, he said that the electoral system forces the candidates to make an effort to play somewhat to the middle.
David Brooks is completely wrong about this. For instance, I'm in Ohio, the swing state that everyone was focused on for months. Here are some of the appeals I got in my mailbox and on billboards:
- Obama is actually the son of a convicted drug dealer and a porn actress, not a Kenyan. And he's been lying about his name the whole time.
- Voter fraud is a felony (but only in neighborhoods that are mostly poor and black).
- Any kind of increase in taxes will cause the economy to collapse.
- Social Security should be abolished.
Tell me exactly how that forces candidates to appeal to the center.
My usual advice when it comes to avoiding discrimination suits: Never ever ask demographic classification questions during an interview. If it doesn't affect someone's ability to do the job, it shouldn't affect your interview. An applicant can of course mention these, but you shouldn't ask about:
- Age
- Religion
- Marital and/or parental status
- Military service (except for some government agencies that have programs that try to hire veterans)
- Gender identity
- Sexual orientation
- Racial identity
- Ethnic background
- Class identity
Not only is asking any of that asking for a giant lawsuit, it also means you might pass on a fantastic applicant for no good reason. Instead, have them show what they can do for you, whoever they are, and decide based on that.
Once companies get large, of course the CEO doesn't spend his time coding, no matter how good a coder he is. For instance, I'd highly doubt that Larry and Sergei spend any significant time coding right now, even though they're both very capable programmers (according to a guy who was studying with them at Stanford). Steve Jobs was no slouch at technical work back when he was at Atari (although he definitely knew that Woz was better). And Bill Gates is by all accounts a good developer and even better architect.
Did Julian Assange then publish these secrets, knowing that he has zero way of predicting the consequences? Yes: he's guilty.
There are 2 big reasons why what Assange did is not a crime:
1. Given that Julian Assange is not and has never been a US citizen or resident of the US, why is US law applicable to any action he takes? For example, if a Iranian spy working in Afghanistan uncovers classified information about the US military, the US can't demand that spy's extradition and expect to get anything out of that.
2. Pentagon Papers case. The US Supreme Court has stated quite clearly that First Amendment protections apply to those who publish classified information, provided they weren't the ones leaking the information. And as you've stated, Manning was the one who provided the information to Assange, just like Ellsberg provided the information to the New York Times.
So (a) US law doesn't have jurisdiction, and (b) even if it did, it's still not illegal.
I said it's not the business of a private to determine when and when not to disseminate classified information.
If I'm not mistaken, it is the business of anyone in the military to refuse to follow illegal orders, report those orders to superior officers, and go around superior officers to report the misconduct to another authority (e.g. the Inspector General) if the superior officers refuse to do something about it. Not everything Manning released falls under this, but a lot of it was classified not because it would compromise national security (which is supposed to be the standard) but because it is embarrassing and/or incriminating to those who decided to classify it. Which means it was illegally classified. Which means that a private is not supposed to respect that classification.
And yes, by this argument, there's probably huge amounts of material that are routinely illegally classified within the US military and intelligence agencies. A lot of the US military (particularly officers) firmly believe that the only reason the US lost in Vietnam is that the public got wind of what was going on over there and "stabbed them in the back". Their solution to this problem is attempting to hide almost everything US troops are doing from the US public, only sending back clips that make good PR, and helpfully guiding reporters around so they see only what they're supposed to see.
Good luck getting anyone in power to agree to that, though.
How about this strategy:
1. Get major tech companies losing big bucks to patent cases.
2. Major tech companies bribe^H lobby congress to change the law so they won't lose big bucks again.
The effect of the trolls has been that there are now organizations with lots to lose, previously kept in check by Mutually Assured Destruction, that now have to actually deal with the patent concept that had previously been used only to smack down start-ups that refused to play nice with them.
Even better, they should have used I'm a Medieval Man as her campaign song.