The law is in place, she was justified in her technicalities, but she violated the spirit of law enforcement.
What the hell is "the spirit of law enforcement"? "Law enforcement" first and foremost requires the agents in charge of executing that duty to *follow the law*, right? The separation of powers spelled out in the Constitution isn't some 200+ year old idea implemented just to inconvenience the police, you know.
You should probably read up on cases such as Warren v. D.C. and Castle Rock v. Gonzales that clearly establish that the police have no duty to help or protect anyone. If they have no legal duty to help anyone, exactly how is anyone obligated to break the law to help them? Often, the police aren't even aware what the law is. I don't say that to belittle them, just that it's a fact - just this week, I spent about half an hour talking with a local cop about state concealed weapons permits. He was a nice enough guy, but he had absolutely no clue as to what the state requirements for obtaining one were, where weapons are and aren't allowed, which weapons are and aren't legal, etc.
This is the kind of opinion that is killing us. Flat out, no it isn't. Your "rights" don't include the right to molest, rape, murder, or terrorize.
Perhaps you didn't read the article, in which the police chief clearly stated that the suspect did not molest the girl. Now, exactly *who* in this case do you believe should forfeit their right to privacy?
I'd much rather deal with crime than a police state, thanks.
If she hadn't forced them to follow the letter of the law, whoever this person was that broke the law initially could have turned around and used the illegal obtaining of his records in court to get the case thrown out.
I don't think that would have been a problem. From TFA:
The suspect, who has been identified as a 23-year-old Hackensack man, did not molest the girl, said borough Police Chief Michael Colaneri. The investigation is ongoing through the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, Colaneri said.
Doesn't look like the guy broke the law at all, which then begs the question - why is the investigation ongoing if they've already determined the guy didn't do it?
He may even hang up midway on you, knowing it won't hurt him any worse and will especially frustrate you.
Meh, it won't frustrate me in the least. It's not going to stop the letter from going out, and having that on the recording goes a long way towards showing that they were not willing to act in good faith when I asked for a cancellation.
And for God's sake, if you're in the US at least gain a passing familiarity with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act so you know what your legal rights and responsibilities are. Don't take some scumbag collection agency's word for it. Tell them you're disputing the debt and nail them to the wall if they continue to harass you afterwards. And of course, follow through and actually dispute the debt.
I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but IMHO it's a damn good idea.
When John started pulling the BS about "you are going to listen to me if you want this turned off", I'd have immediately told him four things:
This call has outlived its usefulness, and is effectively over. You have failed to respond to my needs as a valued (?) customer, so please listen to what I have to say regarding the current status of our business relationship.
I am sending a letter (return receipt) to AOL's corporate address indicating that I am cancelling the service and my dissatisfaction with the customer service I've received. I will be naming you specifically. AOL will have a difficult time at best trying to justify further charges when given written notice of cancellation, regardless of what their policy says is the "proper" way to cancel.
Any further attempts to charge my card will be at the very least disputed. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Chargebacks.
Both of us have been aware during the entire time of this call that it was being recorded - I was explicitly told at the beginning of the call, and you are already aware that you're always being recorded. What *you* were not aware of is that it was not just the call center that was making a recording. When we're done, this call and a narrative of my experience are going up onto the Internet and into the court of public opinion, as well as in my file for later use if needed. (This should perk up some ears right away if a supervisor is monitoring the call.) Oh, you're no longer giving your permission for the call to be recorded? Okay, I'll end the call right now, but everything said previously was still recorded legally as per the laws of my state, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
I just have no patience for companies that do business like this, and I really could not care less if it causes problems for the CSRs. It's not my job to be understanding and to make life easier for them. If I ask for an account to be cancelled, I neither expect nor want to be argued with. I understand the CSR will ask for a reason for the cancellation. I may give one, or I may not. I'm under no obligation to do so, and the CSR really needs to understand that - I personally look at such information as valuable business data that I'm not being paid to provide. His retention stats are not my problem. I will be polite until such time as the CSR begins to get uncooperative to my needs as a customer. Once that happens, I have no further obligation to be a decent human being and my generally cheery disposition will begin to degrade very quickly and not in a very graceful manner.
It's not technically difficult for a blacklist provider to actually maintain a list of specific known IP addresses as opposed to wholesale blocking of entire Class Bs based on nothing more than a mere suspicion that a spammer might at some point be given an IP somewhere in that subnet.
I should clarify that a bit. It's certainly reasonable to block ranges of IPs that should not *ever* have port 25 traffic coming from them (i.e., dynamic IP ranges for general consumer use), and I would further say that any ISP offering general Internet service to the general public should be doing egress filtering to enforce their ToS. No one should *have* to be filtering dynamic IP ranges, but it obviously has to be done because a lot of ISPs are irresponsible in that regard. The quoted statement above was made in the context of subnets consisting of static IPs that are dedicated for business customers and as such can reasonably be expected to be sourcing e-mail.
Spammers don't have legitimate servers: they use the profits from spam to cut their prices across the board, driving out their ethical competitors.
Agreed, but just because a spammer may have been hosted on a single address within a/16 block should not automatically invalidate the entire block, particularly when it's a large nationwide business-class service that is likely to have thousands of legitimate small business customers in a variety of industries.
It's not technically difficult for a blacklist provider to actually maintain a list of specific known IP addresses as opposed to wholesale blocking of entire Class Bs based on nothing more than a mere suspicion that a spammer might at some point be given an IP somewhere in that subnet. This was the essence of AHBL's argument. Sure, it requires more resources to do blocking on a per-IP basis, but that's the difference between doing it correctly and doing it in a half-assed manner that blocks legitimate servers as well.
Certainly there are organizations that do make a best-effort attempt to help control the spam problem with their blacklisting services, but there are also others that don't. I personally consider failing to receive legitimate mail a much more serious problem with a bigger dollar amount associated with it than spam.
I would say that you've never had the pleasure of having to deal with being blacklisted by an unreasonable asshole.
I host my own mail and that of a friend. My friend was getting messages back from a couple of servers indicating that delivery of his mail was being denied because his (i.e. my) server was on the Abusive Hosts Blocking List (AHBL). Now, given that I have a very locked-down and tested qmail install and I'm providing valid SPF records from my DNS, I was a little perplexed. I got in touch with AHBL and was told that my entire IP range was on their blacklist simply because they had a beef with a particular spammer that operated from Time-Warner's network. I pointed out that this was a problem that concerned a completely different geographical area in TW's IP range, and that my IP was a static address within TW's business-class ranges. They basically said they didn't care, as my IP address belonged to TW, not to me, and because of that they absolutely were not going to unblock my IP address. It seems to me they consider their little infantile vigilante crusade against TW to be more important than anything else, even when it's pointed out to them that they are recommending the blocking of legitimate servers.
Spam is certainly an annoyance to me (close to 1K every day), but I can't afford the possibility of losing valid e-mail because some idiot spam list admin has some kind of ideological problem with an ISP, so I don't use blacklists. I can't say that Spamhaus is any better or worse, but as far as I'm concerned, the staff at the AHBL (and Andrew Kirch in particular) can go fuck themselves with a large, jagged, rough-surfaced object.
So, England is England, and nothing else. Scotland is Scotland, and Northern Ireland is Northern Ireland (not withstanding Unionist and Republican disagreements).
I've had this discussion with my wife a few times already as we'll be spending a few days in Edinburgh in a couple of months. I have to keep explaining to her that our Scottish hosts are *not* going to be happy if she refers to them as "English". I've threatened her with haggis if she continues.:-)
That's what it looked like to me also. Towns is getting worked up about a perceived control issue from SPI, but if SPI is the one that is going have to foot the bill for defending Debian's actions, it's quite understandable for them to be concerned about the licensing issues brought about by including a package in a distribution.
From the thread: "...if SPI are not willing to endorse the standard methods by which Debian operates -- having the archive administrators review licenses of new packages -- and the
standard methods by which Debian reviews decisions -- public discussion
with the original decision makers empowered to change their minds, and
overview by the technical committee and the developers as a whole by
general resolution, then we need to change Debian's relationship with
SPI so that is not an issue."
This sounds to me like a fairly dangerous way to operate, unless the archive admins or others in the chain are qualified attorneys, and if Debian is effectively committing SPI to questionable legal obligations without consulting with them first, then SPI would be fools for not trying to get a handle on that. Resolving things technically is one thing, but playing fast and loose with licensing is a good way to find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit. Towns is coming off looking like a petulant child, IMHO.
Please don't consider this a continuation of the initial debate, since I basically said before I feel it'd be a waste of time to try to actually reason with you, and I still believe that. However, you really do need to be straightened out on a couple of things:
The subject started with me talking about impeaching bush.
No, it didn't, and nowhere in the responses to this article have you mentioned it except to try to tell me that you did. If you think you have, please provide a URL. Never mind, I'll save you a bit of trouble and provide a link for your most recent post mentioning impeachment. Please note that this was posted under an entirely different article from the one we're currently discussing, ergo, the subject at hand did not start with you talking about impeaching Bush. This is what is often known as "revisionist history", where the individual or group changes their version of history to better fit their worldview or to prevent themselves from being cast in a poor light. Either that, or you've just got a really poor memory.
I'll also spell this out for you in very small words, since you didn't catch it the first two times: I am neither a Democrat nor a liberal. I am neither a Republican nor a conservative. I do not subscribe to the platforms of either party. I do not believe that either party has the best interests of the country at heart. I believe Kerry would have made a poor president. I believe Bush *is* a poor president. We probably agree on more subjects than you're willing to consider, if you'd bother to look past your political prejudices and assumptions that everyone who disagrees with the Democrats is a Republican.
I said Bush should be impeached and that impeachement will be a deterrent to others who would do the same thing.
You never said any such thing. This little gem of a thread started when you replied to a poster that suggested that a Democratic administration would have done the same thing as the Republicans have done given the opportunity. You replied with, "There were periods in history where the dems ran the govt. They controlled both houses and the presidency. They never did anything like this." Remember saying that? I gave you concrete examples where they did, and you went off on your little rant and personally attacked me without even the courtesy of addressing the points I made. You still continue to attack me, and still don't have an answer. You're either unable or unwilling to support your position, and therefore it's pointless to continue any debate.
In the future, try to stay on topic, get a dictionary and look up big words like "non sequitur" before using them incorrectly, and don't put quite so much faith in your ability to divine others' political beliefs or critical thinking skills, because you're provably not very good at it.
Right so you want to go back to WWII and make a comparison to what is happening today. Right.
I was actually talking more about the attempts to stack the Supreme Court, shoving the Emergency Banking Relief Act through Congress without a *single* member actually having read the legislation (gee, sounds kinda like another piece of more recent legislation), instituting a peacetime draft more than a year prior to Pearl Harbor that lasted until Nixon's presidency in 1973 (what was that about standing armies the Constitution said again?), and circumventions of due process that had nothing to do with the war.
Denying third party candidates access to a televised debate is as bad as rigging elections...
It's not "just as bad", it *is* a form of rigging elections.
...waging an illegal and unjust war, curbing freedom of all americans, torturing people, and killing tens of thousands of innocent civillians.
Yeah, Vietnam began and really got rolling under Johnson too. An undeclared war with no clear benefit to the U.S. was wrong then under Johnson, and it's wrong now under Bush. What's your point? You think someone's political affiliation magically makes them immune from abusing their office?
aah yes, back to ruby ridge. The last shelter of the republitard.
Ah, ad hominem attacks - the last shelter of those who can't think critically or argue their position successfully. I note that you had nothing of substance to offer regarding the point I made there. I also note that apparently while you read enough of the last paragraph of my post to quote me and get off what I'm sure you felt was a stinging rebuke, you apparently didn't grasp the content, which was to say that I think *both* parties are crooked, neither can be trusted and I don't care to associate myself with either one.
I just find it rather funny that you don't actually address *any* of the points I brought up, refer to me as a "republitard", and then have the unmitigated fucking gall to tell ME I only see the world in black and white? Whatever... [rolls eyes]
many people, including my mother, insist that there's nothing wrong. We're not criminals, so why worry? There's nothing to hide really. Only the terrorists need to hide something.
There were periods in history where the dems ran the govt. They controlled both houses and the presidency. They never did anything like this.
Perhaps you should read about FDR's presidency. Perhaps you should read about how the Democrats actively conspired with the Republicans to sharply curb access to Presidential debates for other-party participants. Perhaps you could read about how they provided federal protection for a FBI sharpshooter after he murdered a woman holding a baby, and actively prevented the state of Idaho from prosecuting him under their criminal statutes because "he was just doing his job".
This isn't a slam on Democrats. For every awful thing I could say about any given Democratic administration or Congress in the last 60 years, I could say something equally awful about any Republican administration/Congress. The point is that government is not now, has never been, and will never be something that can be relied on to generally act altruistically in the governed's best interests. Governments are mostly made up of men that tend to gravitate toward power, and power-hungry individuals simply are not to be trusted.
You seriously think a couple of goddamn psychopaths with boxcutters can destroy the United States?
Considering the way things are going, they may have already done it. Of course it won't have happened by their direct actions, but if the executive branch continues down the path it's taking, we're either looking at a totalitarian state, or if enough people get pissed off about it, a civil war that will make the 1860's look like a frat party, leaving the country extremely vulnerable to outside attack. Either possibility represents infinitely more harm to the U.S. than any terrorist organization could hope to do on its own - they're smart enough to know that they can't accomplish their goals without our government's assistance, and the idiots in D.C. are only too happy to help.
Practically speaking, he could probably be charged now for his involvement in the domestic wiretapping situation if anyone in the government had some moral fortitude. There are any number of government officials right now that *could* be charged with a lot of crimes, but they won't be, because that's just not how it works. We have now an executive branch that feels it has carte blanche to completely circumvent the protections designed into our system of government, and a legislature and judiciary that appear to be quite content to go along with it.
When are the other two branches of government going to wake up and understand that this flagrant abuse of power by the executive branch represents a much greater threat to our national security than confirming that which everyone knows already?
3) Artificially limits their potential customer base to people that have POTS lines.
I don't have POTS, and I'm not paying a monthly fee to get it on top of $200 for the player just so that I can watch movies for $2-4 a pop. I don't think Netflix, etc. has any reason to be quaking in their boots just yet, and it sounds to me like this product is going to go the way of Circuit City's Divx.
Actually it's more to allow the owners of said corporation to avoid liability. Corporations have been around for centuries, but the idea of "corporate personhood" has only really been around since 1886, and I personally believe it is a blight on our society resulting from a court reporter's screw-up and the willful failure of the court system to acknowledge that.
Probably, but if an IP blacklist had quietly been put into place as part of the registration process, the guy might have been able to show that he was attempting to screen his readers, and thus might have won his case.
I still think the court's ruling is questionable. If this were a corporate or government entity that through accident or carelessness had left a private site easily accessible to the public, I fully believe the courts would say something to the effect of "you should have known it was not public, therefore you accessed it illegally" to the average person were they in a position comparable to DirectTV's in this case.
Pardon my cynicism regarding the justice system, but I live in an area where we have a local judge that has drawn a handgun unnecessarily in his courtroom, put 11 people in jail because they were told the wrong courtroom in which to appear (after the bailiffs and other judges had advised him of the mistake), and yet somehow there is still question about whether he *might* be removed from the bench. Oh, and best of all - he's blaming ADD for his behavior.
You might actually be connecting to a DSLAM in a remote terminal if you're getting good performance at that distance. When I wanted to get DSL a few years back, I originally didn't qualify because I was 23,000 feet from my CO, and only got service after someone determined that I was actually less than a quarter-mile from the nearest RT.
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The law is in place, she was justified in her technicalities, but she violated the spirit of law enforcement.
What the hell is "the spirit of law enforcement"? "Law enforcement" first and foremost requires the agents in charge of executing that duty to *follow the law*, right? The separation of powers spelled out in the Constitution isn't some 200+ year old idea implemented just to inconvenience the police, you know.
You should probably read up on cases such as Warren v. D.C. and Castle Rock v. Gonzales that clearly establish that the police have no duty to help or protect anyone. If they have no legal duty to help anyone, exactly how is anyone obligated to break the law to help them? Often, the police aren't even aware what the law is. I don't say that to belittle them, just that it's a fact - just this week, I spent about half an hour talking with a local cop about state concealed weapons permits. He was a nice enough guy, but he had absolutely no clue as to what the state requirements for obtaining one were, where weapons are and aren't allowed, which weapons are and aren't legal, etc.
This is the kind of opinion that is killing us. Flat out, no it isn't. Your "rights" don't include the right to molest, rape, murder, or terrorize.
Perhaps you didn't read the article, in which the police chief clearly stated that the suspect did not molest the girl. Now, exactly *who* in this case do you believe should forfeit their right to privacy?
I'd much rather deal with crime than a police state, thanks.
If she hadn't forced them to follow the letter of the law, whoever this person was that broke the law initially could have turned around and used the illegal obtaining of his records in court to get the case thrown out.
I don't think that would have been a problem. From TFA:
The suspect, who has been identified as a 23-year-old Hackensack man, did not molest the girl, said borough Police Chief Michael Colaneri. The investigation is ongoing through the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, Colaneri said.
Doesn't look like the guy broke the law at all, which then begs the question - why is the investigation ongoing if they've already determined the guy didn't do it?
He may even hang up midway on you, knowing it won't hurt him any worse and will especially frustrate you.
Meh, it won't frustrate me in the least. It's not going to stop the letter from going out, and having that on the recording goes a long way towards showing that they were not willing to act in good faith when I asked for a cancellation.
who'd have guessed that Goatse Guy and TubGirl could be used for good as well as evil?
And for God's sake, if you're in the US at least gain a passing familiarity with the Fair Credit Reporting Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act so you know what your legal rights and responsibilities are. Don't take some scumbag collection agency's word for it. Tell them you're disputing the debt and nail them to the wall if they continue to harass you afterwards. And of course, follow through and actually dispute the debt. I'm not a lawyer and this isn't legal advice, but IMHO it's a damn good idea.
- This call has outlived its usefulness, and is effectively over. You have failed to respond to my needs as a valued (?) customer, so please listen to what I have to say regarding the current status of our business relationship.
- I am sending a letter (return receipt) to AOL's corporate address indicating that I am cancelling the service and my dissatisfaction with the customer service I've received. I will be naming you specifically. AOL will have a difficult time at best trying to justify further charges when given written notice of cancellation, regardless of what their policy says is the "proper" way to cancel.
- Any further attempts to charge my card will be at the very least disputed. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Chargebacks.
- Both of us have been aware during the entire time of this call that it was being recorded - I was explicitly told at the beginning of the call, and you are already aware that you're always being recorded. What *you* were not aware of is that it was not just the call center that was making a recording. When we're done, this call and a narrative of my experience are going up onto the Internet and into the court of public opinion, as well as in my file for later use if needed. (This should perk up some ears right away if a supervisor is monitoring the call.) Oh, you're no longer giving your permission for the call to be recorded? Okay, I'll end the call right now, but everything said previously was still recorded legally as per the laws of my state, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it.
I just have no patience for companies that do business like this, and I really could not care less if it causes problems for the CSRs. It's not my job to be understanding and to make life easier for them. If I ask for an account to be cancelled, I neither expect nor want to be argued with. I understand the CSR will ask for a reason for the cancellation. I may give one, or I may not. I'm under no obligation to do so, and the CSR really needs to understand that - I personally look at such information as valuable business data that I'm not being paid to provide. His retention stats are not my problem. I will be polite until such time as the CSR begins to get uncooperative to my needs as a customer. Once that happens, I have no further obligation to be a decent human being and my generally cheery disposition will begin to degrade very quickly and not in a very graceful manner.It's not technically difficult for a blacklist provider to actually maintain a list of specific known IP addresses as opposed to wholesale blocking of entire Class Bs based on nothing more than a mere suspicion that a spammer might at some point be given an IP somewhere in that subnet.
I should clarify that a bit. It's certainly reasonable to block ranges of IPs that should not *ever* have port 25 traffic coming from them (i.e., dynamic IP ranges for general consumer use), and I would further say that any ISP offering general Internet service to the general public should be doing egress filtering to enforce their ToS. No one should *have* to be filtering dynamic IP ranges, but it obviously has to be done because a lot of ISPs are irresponsible in that regard. The quoted statement above was made in the context of subnets consisting of static IPs that are dedicated for business customers and as such can reasonably be expected to be sourcing e-mail.
Spammers don't have legitimate servers: they use the profits from spam to cut their prices across the board, driving out their ethical competitors.
/16 block should not automatically invalidate the entire block, particularly when it's a large nationwide business-class service that is likely to have thousands of legitimate small business customers in a variety of industries.
Agreed, but just because a spammer may have been hosted on a single address within a
It's not technically difficult for a blacklist provider to actually maintain a list of specific known IP addresses as opposed to wholesale blocking of entire Class Bs based on nothing more than a mere suspicion that a spammer might at some point be given an IP somewhere in that subnet. This was the essence of AHBL's argument. Sure, it requires more resources to do blocking on a per-IP basis, but that's the difference between doing it correctly and doing it in a half-assed manner that blocks legitimate servers as well.
Certainly there are organizations that do make a best-effort attempt to help control the spam problem with their blacklisting services, but there are also others that don't. I personally consider failing to receive legitimate mail a much more serious problem with a bigger dollar amount associated with it than spam.
I would say that you've never had the pleasure of having to deal with being blacklisted by an unreasonable asshole.
I host my own mail and that of a friend. My friend was getting messages back from a couple of servers indicating that delivery of his mail was being denied because his (i.e. my) server was on the Abusive Hosts Blocking List (AHBL). Now, given that I have a very locked-down and tested qmail install and I'm providing valid SPF records from my DNS, I was a little perplexed. I got in touch with AHBL and was told that my entire IP range was on their blacklist simply because they had a beef with a particular spammer that operated from Time-Warner's network. I pointed out that this was a problem that concerned a completely different geographical area in TW's IP range, and that my IP was a static address within TW's business-class ranges. They basically said they didn't care, as my IP address belonged to TW, not to me, and because of that they absolutely were not going to unblock my IP address. It seems to me they consider their little infantile vigilante crusade against TW to be more important than anything else, even when it's pointed out to them that they are recommending the blocking of legitimate servers.
Spam is certainly an annoyance to me (close to 1K every day), but I can't afford the possibility of losing valid e-mail because some idiot spam list admin has some kind of ideological problem with an ISP, so I don't use blacklists. I can't say that Spamhaus is any better or worse, but as far as I'm concerned, the staff at the AHBL (and Andrew Kirch in particular) can go fuck themselves with a large, jagged, rough-surfaced object.
So, England is England, and nothing else. Scotland is Scotland, and Northern Ireland is Northern Ireland (not withstanding Unionist and Republican disagreements).
:-)
I've had this discussion with my wife a few times already as we'll be spending a few days in Edinburgh in a couple of months. I have to keep explaining to her that our Scottish hosts are *not* going to be happy if she refers to them as "English". I've threatened her with haggis if she continues.
The better solution is the half-life batteries
"Look for the lambda symbol at a store near you! Each battery is Vortigaunt tested!"
That's what it looked like to me also. Towns is getting worked up about a perceived control issue from SPI, but if SPI is the one that is going have to foot the bill for defending Debian's actions, it's quite understandable for them to be concerned about the licensing issues brought about by including a package in a distribution.
From the thread: "...if SPI are not willing to endorse the standard methods by which Debian operates -- having the archive administrators review licenses of new packages -- and the standard methods by which Debian reviews decisions -- public discussion with the original decision makers empowered to change their minds, and overview by the technical committee and the developers as a whole by general resolution, then we need to change Debian's relationship with SPI so that is not an issue."
This sounds to me like a fairly dangerous way to operate, unless the archive admins or others in the chain are qualified attorneys, and if Debian is effectively committing SPI to questionable legal obligations without consulting with them first, then SPI would be fools for not trying to get a handle on that. Resolving things technically is one thing, but playing fast and loose with licensing is a good way to find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit. Towns is coming off looking like a petulant child, IMHO.
Settle down there, Gordon...
Please don't consider this a continuation of the initial debate, since I basically said before I feel it'd be a waste of time to try to actually reason with you, and I still believe that. However, you really do need to be straightened out on a couple of things:
The subject started with me talking about impeaching bush.
No, it didn't, and nowhere in the responses to this article have you mentioned it except to try to tell me that you did. If you think you have, please provide a URL. Never mind, I'll save you a bit of trouble and provide a link for your most recent post mentioning impeachment. Please note that this was posted under an entirely different article from the one we're currently discussing, ergo, the subject at hand did not start with you talking about impeaching Bush. This is what is often known as "revisionist history", where the individual or group changes their version of history to better fit their worldview or to prevent themselves from being cast in a poor light. Either that, or you've just got a really poor memory.
I'll also spell this out for you in very small words, since you didn't catch it the first two times: I am neither a Democrat nor a liberal. I am neither a Republican nor a conservative. I do not subscribe to the platforms of either party. I do not believe that either party has the best interests of the country at heart. I believe Kerry would have made a poor president. I believe Bush *is* a poor president. We probably agree on more subjects than you're willing to consider, if you'd bother to look past your political prejudices and assumptions that everyone who disagrees with the Democrats is a Republican.
I said Bush should be impeached and that impeachement will be a deterrent to others who would do the same thing.
You never said any such thing. This little gem of a thread started when you replied to a poster that suggested that a Democratic administration would have done the same thing as the Republicans have done given the opportunity. You replied with, "There were periods in history where the dems ran the govt. They controlled both houses and the presidency. They never did anything like this." Remember saying that? I gave you concrete examples where they did, and you went off on your little rant and personally attacked me without even the courtesy of addressing the points I made. You still continue to attack me, and still don't have an answer. You're either unable or unwilling to support your position, and therefore it's pointless to continue any debate.
In the future, try to stay on topic, get a dictionary and look up big words like "non sequitur" before using them incorrectly, and don't put quite so much faith in your ability to divine others' political beliefs or critical thinking skills, because you're provably not very good at it.
I'm done with you.
Right so you want to go back to WWII and make a comparison to what is happening today. Right.
...waging an illegal and unjust war, curbing freedom of all americans, torturing people, and killing tens of thousands of innocent civillians.
I was actually talking more about the attempts to stack the Supreme Court, shoving the Emergency Banking Relief Act through Congress without a *single* member actually having read the legislation (gee, sounds kinda like another piece of more recent legislation), instituting a peacetime draft more than a year prior to Pearl Harbor that lasted until Nixon's presidency in 1973 (what was that about standing armies the Constitution said again?), and circumventions of due process that had nothing to do with the war.
Denying third party candidates access to a televised debate is as bad as rigging elections...
It's not "just as bad", it *is* a form of rigging elections.
Yeah, Vietnam began and really got rolling under Johnson too. An undeclared war with no clear benefit to the U.S. was wrong then under Johnson, and it's wrong now under Bush. What's your point? You think someone's political affiliation magically makes them immune from abusing their office?
aah yes, back to ruby ridge. The last shelter of the republitard.
Ah, ad hominem attacks - the last shelter of those who can't think critically or argue their position successfully. I note that you had nothing of substance to offer regarding the point I made there. I also note that apparently while you read enough of the last paragraph of my post to quote me and get off what I'm sure you felt was a stinging rebuke, you apparently didn't grasp the content, which was to say that I think *both* parties are crooked, neither can be trusted and I don't care to associate myself with either one.
I just find it rather funny that you don't actually address *any* of the points I brought up, refer to me as a "republitard", and then have the unmitigated fucking gall to tell ME I only see the world in black and white? Whatever... [rolls eyes]
many people, including my mother, insist that there's nothing wrong. We're not criminals, so why worry? There's nothing to hide really. Only the terrorists need to hide something.
Oh, and the government too.
There were periods in history where the dems ran the govt. They controlled both houses and the presidency. They never did anything like this.
Perhaps you should read about FDR's presidency. Perhaps you should read about how the Democrats actively conspired with the Republicans to sharply curb access to Presidential debates for other-party participants. Perhaps you could read about how they provided federal protection for a FBI sharpshooter after he murdered a woman holding a baby, and actively prevented the state of Idaho from prosecuting him under their criminal statutes because "he was just doing his job".
This isn't a slam on Democrats. For every awful thing I could say about any given Democratic administration or Congress in the last 60 years, I could say something equally awful about any Republican administration/Congress. The point is that government is not now, has never been, and will never be something that can be relied on to generally act altruistically in the governed's best interests. Governments are mostly made up of men that tend to gravitate toward power, and power-hungry individuals simply are not to be trusted.
You seriously think a couple of goddamn psychopaths with boxcutters can destroy the United States?
Considering the way things are going, they may have already done it. Of course it won't have happened by their direct actions, but if the executive branch continues down the path it's taking, we're either looking at a totalitarian state, or if enough people get pissed off about it, a civil war that will make the 1860's look like a frat party, leaving the country extremely vulnerable to outside attack. Either possibility represents infinitely more harm to the U.S. than any terrorist organization could hope to do on its own - they're smart enough to know that they can't accomplish their goals without our government's assistance, and the idiots in D.C. are only too happy to help.
Practically speaking, he could probably be charged now for his involvement in the domestic wiretapping situation if anyone in the government had some moral fortitude. There are any number of government officials right now that *could* be charged with a lot of crimes, but they won't be, because that's just not how it works. We have now an executive branch that feels it has carte blanche to completely circumvent the protections designed into our system of government, and a legislature and judiciary that appear to be quite content to go along with it.
When are the other two branches of government going to wake up and understand that this flagrant abuse of power by the executive branch represents a much greater threat to our national security than confirming that which everyone knows already?
Forgot one:
3) Artificially limits their potential customer base to people that have POTS lines.
I don't have POTS, and I'm not paying a monthly fee to get it on top of $200 for the player just so that I can watch movies for $2-4 a pop. I don't think Netflix, etc. has any reason to be quaking in their boots just yet, and it sounds to me like this product is going to go the way of Circuit City's Divx.
Actually it's more to allow the owners of said corporation to avoid liability. Corporations have been around for centuries, but the idea of "corporate personhood" has only really been around since 1886, and I personally believe it is a blight on our society resulting from a court reporter's screw-up and the willful failure of the court system to acknowledge that.
I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, etc.
Probably, but if an IP blacklist had quietly been put into place as part of the registration process, the guy might have been able to show that he was attempting to screen his readers, and thus might have won his case.
I still think the court's ruling is questionable. If this were a corporate or government entity that through accident or carelessness had left a private site easily accessible to the public, I fully believe the courts would say something to the effect of "you should have known it was not public, therefore you accessed it illegally" to the average person were they in a position comparable to DirectTV's in this case.
Pardon my cynicism regarding the justice system, but I live in an area where we have a local judge that has drawn a handgun unnecessarily in his courtroom, put 11 people in jail because they were told the wrong courtroom in which to appear (after the bailiffs and other judges had advised him of the mistake), and yet somehow there is still question about whether he *might* be removed from the bench. Oh, and best of all - he's blaming ADD for his behavior.
And I'm supposedly ~14,000 feet from the CO.
You might actually be connecting to a DSLAM in a remote terminal if you're getting good performance at that distance. When I wanted to get DSL a few years back, I originally didn't qualify because I was 23,000 feet from my CO, and only got service after someone determined that I was actually less than a quarter-mile from the nearest RT.