That might be the objective from on high, but for the infantryman, eventually it will occur to him that "everyone" includes Mom, Dad, Sis, and his dog.
Will it? What percentage of our military comes from Mexico (illegal or otherwise) at this point? If Mom, Dad Sis and the Chihuahua (and his loyalties) aren't even in the U.S, maybe that grunt won't give a damn when he pulls the trigger.
True enough. Conversely, armed populations are the only ones capable of resisting another otherwise superior force bent on genocide. If you have no arms, you might as well just line up in the street and wait to be shot.
Genocide (or "ethnic cleansing", bah, what a euphemism) is still something that is regularly attempted in many parts of the world (Africa for example.) The lesson learned from the survivors of such conflicts is this: don't give up your guns.
It's not that the Guard or any other force fears (or doesn't) armed civilians...it's that they may think it's easier to just shoot the bastich than worry over constitutionality vs. some platoon leader yelling to fire.
I can't say you're wrong, but the first time that happens, there's gonna be hell to pay.
Because, in law, victories (and losses) are not always absolute. They may not get everything we'd like them to, but they may win some concessions, make some changes, and if nothing else put the Feds on notice that somebody is watching.
If you're complaining because the least part of a large service that you have been using for free, perhaps since the dawn of the commerical internet, has made an unexpected change... well, really, you need to have a long think about whether or not that makes you an ass.
Even if it doesn't, relying on a free service to keep ANY of your data probably makes you one.
I disagree. It doesn't make you an ass, so much as it makes you an idiot.
Will someone help protect me against the free-trade exploit tool (DMCA takedown notice) that I'm told the church would use against me if/when I try to sell my E-meter on Ebay?
The E-meter isn't a fake or an unauthorized copy.
That's probably not all they would use against you.
Yes, but you miss my point. Average Joe, the guy with a good job, and a family, and everything to live for is going to hesitate to throw all that away. More to the point, however, is that going up against armed men requires more than just a knowledge that you're going to die: you have to be willing to die now, and not hope that someone else will be brave enough to do what has to be done. Furthermore, you really should have some idea of how to fight.
As a culture, we've pretty conclusively shown that we'd rather someone else do the dirty work. We'll see: it'll happen again.
I just meant that not all hijackers are trying to make a political statement or kill anyone. Some are just, well... nuts, and some just want to get somewhere.
It's a moot point though: if you hijack a plane with a bunch of Americans on it now, odds are we're going to rip your head off and shit down your throat.
On the other hand, it's a good sign that the Palestinians are recruiting these young Jews as propaganda tools instead of beheading them the moment they can get their hands on them. It's a small step in the direction of coexistence.
Personally, I think it's just a sign that the PLO is running out of people dumb enough to immolate themselves for Allah.
In a way, I think that the cypherpunk ideal fell apart when they built it and nobody came. All sorts of strong crypto are available to everybody, for free, and aren't even all that much trouble to use. Almost nobody bothers, probably so few that those who do just stand out by doing so.
Worse than that, it seems like anyone who knows anything about cryptography is automatically suspect these days. "If you have nothing to hide, then why do you need that"?
Sad but true. Of course, if people actually thought about this, they'd all have strong crypto. If the Feds grab your laptop, for example, they'll look for anything they can nail you on, "terroristic" or not. This confiscatory behavior on the part of the TSA is officially called "intelligence gathering" but what it really is is a widespread fishing expedition.
If any of you carry computers around with you that are used regularly by, say, your co-workers... would you really trust that machine to pass scrutiny by agents highly motivated to get something on you for their trouble? That's the real problem here. As has been discussed many times here on Slashdot, so many things are felonies nowadays that odds are, if they want you, they'll make something stick. Believe me, you don't ever want to be inside the Justice System as an ordinary citizen. You just don't, and forget about whether you're innocent or not. Fortunately, precedent has been set that encryption passphrases are subject to the Fifth Amendment: let's hope that sticks.
So folks, encrypt your stuff. It's easy, it's painless and it's free, and it wouldn't hurt to proselytize a bit, and get your friends and family to try it out as well. The more popular encryption becomes, the harder it will be to outlaw.
It depends. If the hijackers managed to get on board with something a little more deadly than a box-cutter knife, it's hard to say what would happen. Trained soldiers can go up against real firepower and maybe win out, but a mass of average citizens wouldn't know how. It's not enough to just throw your life away: if you're up against an enemy that seriously outguns you, you really have to know what you're doing. It can still be done, but it's not so simple as overcoming a guy with a knife.
No no, it all makes perfect sense. It's all about behavior profiling. You see, any terrorist will take pains to hide his activities. Therefore anyone who looks like a terrorist most certainly isn't one. Anyone who carries guns, bombs, or other contraband openly is by definition safe, and so doesn't need to be searched.
That's a good theory but... what if they know that we know they're trying to hide their activities? And what if we know that they know that we know they're trying to hide... that means that they would have to try and hide... because then we'd know they knew we knew they were trying to hide... so they wouldn't bother. See? It's really simple when you sit down and analyze it.
She failed to communicate her expectations to the students, and then whined when the students did not meet those expectations. Apparently she did this year after year after year, so she learns slowly, to boot.
Doubt all you want... you're a tad off-base. Waaay off-base. Much I hate to defend that woman, I got to read those papers too. Frankly, I was better at creative writing in seventh grade, and had a substantially larger working vocabulary to boot. These were college kids that were incapable of writing even that well. Furthermore, I saw the improvement in their writing over the course of the term they spent in her class: this was not a case of "expectations." This was a case of ignorance and borderline illiteracy, in a significant fraction of incoming freshmen. These kids got that way for a reason, and if there were any failures to communicate, it was in the schools they previously attended.
You can defend the quality of primary and secondary education in this country if you wish, but that would be a mistake. I'm sorry if you happen to be a teacher yourself, and perhaps you're good at what you do... but there are a hell of a lot of others that are not, and they have incompetent or uncaring administrators to back them up.
Boohoo, our parents were undercut in the manufacturing segment by more efficient US technology, we are simply asking the US to play by the same rules.
Well... why should we? No-one else is playing "fair" (whatever that means in the modern world.) In essence, what you're really asking is that one nation allow itself to be decimated by others, just that some arbitrary standard of fairness and equality can be maintained, so that our standard of living can be reduced substantially while yours is improved somewhat.
Really, that's not how the world works, ever has worked, or is ever likely to work. Truth to tell, the U.S. has played fairer than most: we've shared our economic prowess with more foreign aid than any country in the history of the world.
The only reason that third-world countries are able to do to us what they're doing now, is because we were sold out by our own leaders and politicians. Of course, that happens to all major economic and military powers eventually: history is pretty clear on that subject. I just didn't think that our time would come so soon.
Honestly, I think the GP is more accurately describing the effluent of a typical major MBA program. In any field (engineering, medicine, law, you name it) you're going to find people that are unethical and don't care who they hurt. Human nature and that. However, the corporate world demanded (and got) from the big universities a type of business ethic that is fundamentally evil. Yes, there are lawyers (good and bad) who work for such people, but ultimately it's the decision-makers who are to blame.
Is the RIAA's legal staff filled, as one poster put it some time ago, with "evil black nasty goo"? Yeah, probably. But it's the people in charge of the media companies, those who back the likes of the RIAA around the world, who are responsible the thirty-thousand-odd lawsuits in the U.S. The lawyers do the heavy-lifting and take most of the heat, but they weren't the ones who decided to go after their customer base.
Hardly. In the end, being a little more selective in who we let in, and raising the standards at home will save us. The rest of the world is not entitled to a share in our wealth and knowledge (such as it is at this point) not matter how much they think they are.
I got modded troll for expressing a reasonable opinion on how discussions about illegal immigration are handled by those who want it... which, I might add, pretty clearly reinforces my point.
You'd think anybody with half a conscience would move on at this point.
See, you just answered your own question.
This particular batch of attorneys only came preloaded with a fifth of one standard conscience at the factory (50% is the normal setting.) Basically, if you're buying them in quantity, they come a lot cheaper that way: consciences are expensive items, after all. In practice, it's been found that if you install more conscience than that, they start exhibiting undesirable characteristics such as "honesty" and "business ethic". Not a good thing, if you're a soulless, money-grubbing oligopoly. If you don't buy any conscience at all... well, really really bad things happen.
Most people don't know this, but some time ago a group of attorneys was ordered for special-purpose use in Congressional and major banking applications. Unfortunately, while the order specified a 75% conscience load, they were accidentally shipped without any. Company personnel colloquially refer to these jobs as the "Manson line" because they have all the personality traits of a typical advanced sociopath. Corporate hatchetmen are frequently M-series, for example.
If anyone was wondering what caused the recent worldwide financial crisis... well, now you know. It was a simple clerical error, really.
Well, I meant that you'd be unhappy if your name appeared there because of the usual mismanagement of such lists by government officials, although your scenario is also a possibility. Such lists have the power to really screw up lives when mishandled, and given the way the Feds have been managing their little lists so far, I'd say it's not really worth the risk.
But yeah... the story wasn't the most well though out, I agree.
Slashdot Mirror
... or vote one party into the white house and the other into congress in the hopes that they spend more time bickering than doing anything..
Like how it is now? Yeah, that's working out really well at the moment.
Yeah well, he did say "hopes", and as we all know, hope springs eternal.
That might be the objective from on high, but for the infantryman, eventually it will occur to him that "everyone" includes Mom, Dad, Sis, and his dog.
Will it? What percentage of our military comes from Mexico (illegal or otherwise) at this point? If Mom, Dad Sis and the Chihuahua (and his loyalties) aren't even in the U.S, maybe that grunt won't give a damn when he pulls the trigger.
3) Kill everyone
True enough. Conversely, armed populations are the only ones capable of resisting another otherwise superior force bent on genocide. If you have no arms, you might as well just line up in the street and wait to be shot.
Genocide (or "ethnic cleansing", bah, what a euphemism) is still something that is regularly attempted in many parts of the world (Africa for example.) The lesson learned from the survivors of such conflicts is this: don't give up your guns.
It's not that the Guard or any other force fears (or doesn't) armed civilians...it's that they may think it's easier to just shoot the bastich than worry over constitutionality vs. some platoon leader yelling to fire.
I can't say you're wrong, but the first time that happens, there's gonna be hell to pay.
Because, in law, victories (and losses) are not always absolute. They may not get everything we'd like them to, but they may win some concessions, make some changes, and if nothing else put the Feds on notice that somebody is watching.
If you're complaining because the least part of a large service that you have been using for free, perhaps since the dawn of the commerical internet, has made an unexpected change... well, really, you need to have a long think about whether or not that makes you an ass. Even if it doesn't, relying on a free service to keep ANY of your data probably makes you one.
I disagree. It doesn't make you an ass, so much as it makes you an idiot.
Clearly, I cannot drink the wine in front of you!
What's really funny is that I got modded Insightful.
Inconceivable!
You keep using that word.
Will someone help protect me against the free-trade exploit tool (DMCA takedown notice) that I'm told the church would use against me if/when I try to sell my E-meter on Ebay?
The E-meter isn't a fake or an unauthorized copy.
That's probably not all they would use against you.
Yes, but you miss my point. Average Joe, the guy with a good job, and a family, and everything to live for is going to hesitate to throw all that away. More to the point, however, is that going up against armed men requires more than just a knowledge that you're going to die: you have to be willing to die now, and not hope that someone else will be brave enough to do what has to be done. Furthermore, you really should have some idea of how to fight.
As a culture, we've pretty conclusively shown that we'd rather someone else do the dirty work. We'll see: it'll happen again.
I just meant that not all hijackers are trying to make a political statement or kill anyone. Some are just, well ... nuts, and some just want to get somewhere.
It's a moot point though: if you hijack a plane with a bunch of Americans on it now, odds are we're going to rip your head off and shit down your throat.
On the other hand, it's a good sign that the Palestinians are recruiting these young Jews as propaganda tools instead of beheading them the moment they can get their hands on them. It's a small step in the direction of coexistence.
Personally, I think it's just a sign that the PLO is running out of people dumb enough to immolate themselves for Allah.
Worse than that, it seems like anyone who knows anything about cryptography is automatically suspect these days. "If you have nothing to hide, then why do you need that"?
Sad but true. Of course, if people actually thought about this, they'd all have strong crypto. If the Feds grab your laptop, for example, they'll look for anything they can nail you on, "terroristic" or not. This confiscatory behavior on the part of the TSA is officially called "intelligence gathering" but what it really is is a widespread fishing expedition.
... would you really trust that machine to pass scrutiny by agents highly motivated to get something on you for their trouble? That's the real problem here. As has been discussed many times here on Slashdot, so many things are felonies nowadays that odds are, if they want you, they'll make something stick. Believe me, you don't ever want to be inside the Justice System as an ordinary citizen. You just don't, and forget about whether you're innocent or not. Fortunately, precedent has been set that encryption passphrases are subject to the Fifth Amendment: let's hope that sticks.
If any of you carry computers around with you that are used regularly by, say, your co-workers
So folks, encrypt your stuff. It's easy, it's painless and it's free, and it wouldn't hurt to proselytize a bit, and get your friends and family to try it out as well. The more popular encryption becomes, the harder it will be to outlaw.
It depends. If the hijackers managed to get on board with something a little more deadly than a box-cutter knife, it's hard to say what would happen. Trained soldiers can go up against real firepower and maybe win out, but a mass of average citizens wouldn't know how. It's not enough to just throw your life away: if you're up against an enemy that seriously outguns you, you really have to know what you're doing. It can still be done, but it's not so simple as overcoming a guy with a knife.
who will be beating the terrorist to a bloody pulp as the rest of the passengers applaud.
Of course, what you're forgetting is that there's still the occasional hijacker who really does just want to fly to Cuba.
No no, it all makes perfect sense. It's all about behavior profiling. You see, any terrorist will take pains to hide his activities. Therefore anyone who looks like a terrorist most certainly isn't one. Anyone who carries guns, bombs, or other contraband openly is by definition safe, and so doesn't need to be searched.
That's a good theory but ... what if they know that we know they're trying to hide their activities? And what if we know that they know that we know they're trying to hide ... that means that they would have to try and hide ... because then we'd know they knew we knew they were trying to hide ... so they wouldn't bother. See? It's really simple when you sit down and analyze it.
she was a damn good teacher.
I seriously doubt that.
She failed to communicate her expectations to the students, and then whined when the students did not meet those expectations. Apparently she did this year after year after year, so she learns slowly, to boot.
Doubt all you want ... you're a tad off-base. Waaay off-base. Much I hate to defend that woman, I got to read those papers too. Frankly, I was better at creative writing in seventh grade, and had a substantially larger working vocabulary to boot. These were college kids that were incapable of writing even that well. Furthermore, I saw the improvement in their writing over the course of the term they spent in her class: this was not a case of "expectations." This was a case of ignorance and borderline illiteracy, in a significant fraction of incoming freshmen. These kids got that way for a reason, and if there were any failures to communicate, it was in the schools they previously attended.
... but there are a hell of a lot of others that are not, and they have incompetent or uncaring administrators to back them up.
You can defend the quality of primary and secondary education in this country if you wish, but that would be a mistake. I'm sorry if you happen to be a teacher yourself, and perhaps you're good at what you do
Boohoo, our parents were undercut in the manufacturing segment by more efficient US technology, we are simply asking the US to play by the same rules.
Well ... why should we? No-one else is playing "fair" (whatever that means in the modern world.) In essence, what you're really asking is that one nation allow itself to be decimated by others, just that some arbitrary standard of fairness and equality can be maintained, so that our standard of living can be reduced substantially while yours is improved somewhat.
Really, that's not how the world works, ever has worked, or is ever likely to work. Truth to tell, the U.S. has played fairer than most: we've shared our economic prowess with more foreign aid than any country in the history of the world.
The only reason that third-world countries are able to do to us what they're doing now, is because we were sold out by our own leaders and politicians. Of course, that happens to all major economic and military powers eventually: history is pretty clear on that subject. I just didn't think that our time would come so soon.
Honestly, I think the GP is more accurately describing the effluent of a typical major MBA program. In any field (engineering, medicine, law, you name it) you're going to find people that are unethical and don't care who they hurt. Human nature and that. However, the corporate world demanded (and got) from the big universities a type of business ethic that is fundamentally evil. Yes, there are lawyers (good and bad) who work for such people, but ultimately it's the decision-makers who are to blame.
Is the RIAA's legal staff filled, as one poster put it some time ago, with "evil black nasty goo"? Yeah, probably. But it's the people in charge of the media companies, those who back the likes of the RIAA around the world, who are responsible the thirty-thousand-odd lawsuits in the U.S. The lawyers do the heavy-lifting and take most of the heat, but they weren't the ones who decided to go after their customer base.
Hardly. In the end, being a little more selective in who we let in, and raising the standards at home will save us. The rest of the world is not entitled to a share in our wealth and knowledge (such as it is at this point) not matter how much they think they are.
The US pushed Free Trade on the rest of the world.
Yeah. Our bad.
I got modded troll for expressing a reasonable opinion on how discussions about illegal immigration are handled by those who want it ... which, I might add, pretty clearly reinforces my point.
You'd think anybody with half a conscience would move on at this point.
See, you just answered your own question.
... well, really really bad things happen.
... well, now you know. It was a simple clerical error, really.
This particular batch of attorneys only came preloaded with a fifth of one standard conscience at the factory (50% is the normal setting.) Basically, if you're buying them in quantity, they come a lot cheaper that way: consciences are expensive items, after all. In practice, it's been found that if you install more conscience than that, they start exhibiting undesirable characteristics such as "honesty" and "business ethic". Not a good thing, if you're a soulless, money-grubbing oligopoly. If you don't buy any conscience at all
Most people don't know this, but some time ago a group of attorneys was ordered for special-purpose use in Congressional and major banking applications. Unfortunately, while the order specified a 75% conscience load, they were accidentally shipped without any. Company personnel colloquially refer to these jobs as the "Manson line" because they have all the personality traits of a typical advanced sociopath. Corporate hatchetmen are frequently M-series, for example.
If anyone was wondering what caused the recent worldwide financial crisis
You stock up on ammunition if you want to ... as for me, I'm stocking up on soapboxes.
Well, I meant that you'd be unhappy if your name appeared there because of the usual mismanagement of such lists by government officials, although your scenario is also a possibility. Such lists have the power to really screw up lives when mishandled, and given the way the Feds have been managing their little lists so far, I'd say it's not really worth the risk.
... the story wasn't the most well though out, I agree.
But yeah