Yes they should pick and choose. That is what responsible journalistic discretion is about.
Responsible newspapers don't publish every rumor or sensitive piece of information. They realize that that would have terrible consequences.
If you want to position yourself in the manner Wikileaks has, you need to accept the burden of journalistic integrity and discretion. It might not be the easiest deal, but no is forcing them to take this job.
And, just to make another point, if real journalists had been doing their goddamn jobs these past few decades, there might be less need for a Wikileaks.
Yes they should pick and choose. That is what responsible journalistic discretion is about.
Responsible newspapers don't publish every rumor or sensitive piece of information. They realize that that would have terrible consequences.
If you want to position yourself in the manner Wikileaks has, you need to accept the burden of journalistic integrity and discretion. It might not be the easiest deal, but no is forcing them to take this job.
Do you have any idea what Wikileaks is? Well, I'll give you a hint. They're not journalists.
whilst giving the same option of garaging the vehicle overnight to charge when the electric company thinks it can send power to that charging station.
You want to know the big problem with that scenario, i.e. home charging of electric vehicles?
Most people don't have garages.
They depend upon the network of gas stations to keep their cars running. Ultimately, I think that widespread acceptance of electric cars will have to revolve around that same model. That means rapid-charging technology and batteries that can take it. Maybe we have to replace the underground tanks at service stations with sodium-sulfur battery banks that charge at night when power is cheaper, and disburse it to vehicles during the day.
I don't know what the ultimate solution will be, or even if a large-scale move to electric cars will prove possible to a nation that has thrown away it's ability to create wealth, and can't really afford to maintain its existing infrastructure much less build out what's needed for millions of electric vehicles. In any event, I do think that residential charging is going to be a problem.
Hell, for a pure electric vehicle... what do you do when you "run out of gas?" You'll need a tow to the nearest place you can charge up. You won't be able to walk to a gas station and bring back a gallon of gas, or call up AAA for the same service.
Personally, I want a car with an engine-generator for backup. That could even be a standardized, modular option, if the government grows a pair and mandates it. Just need the car for buzzing around town, taking the kids to school? Don't bother with a generator. Are you someone that commutes to work on the highway, day after day, and occasionally gets stuck in traffic? Are you going on a car trip, and really don't feel comfortable with the limited range of your batteries? Well, maybe you will be a candidate for a drop-in power block that fits in your battery compartment.
If they're properly standardized, you could even rent one for that car trip. They could use any of a number of heat-engine technologies, and multi-fuel would be pretty straightforward. The rental company could be made responsible for emissions testing and maintenance on the engines, which would theoretically improve compliance with environmental regulation.
I really struggle to believe that any collection of even moderately intelligent people could be that stupid.
I doubt they care. The consequences to them are nil, so win or lose it costs them nothing. Although, it will be interesting to see if they (or the RIAA, or some other "trade representatives") decide to go after defense attorneys.
Well, I gotta hand it to the guy for having some serious huevos. It's almost like they're all afraid to bump him off. Maybe they think he'll come back to haunt them by releasing his own death warrant on Wikileaks.
Leaking 70,000 documents is not "exposing it." It's essentially vomiting information, some of which might be related to wrongdoing, the vast majority of which is not.
Depends upon how you look at it. Should Wikileaks take the responsibility for deciding what information is related to "wrongdoing" and which is not? What if they make a mistake and some "wrongdoing" is thus unintentionally suppressed? Wikileaks is not an intelligence-gathering organization, and making connections between the information in those documents and other sources is not what they do. They just get it out there, and let the cards fall where they may.
Besides, it's hilarious to me that so so-called "intelligence community" can't keep a few secrets from the rest of us. Makes me wonder about their competence in general.
So naturally I overindulged for a week or two and then... kinda lost interest in pictures
I know what you mean. I'm so jaded I can't get off with just pictures anymore, either. Fortunately, there's lots of video out there! I'll never get tired of that!
Well, if estimates of Internet bandwidth consumption being largely for porno are anywhere near correct, you'll not have to worry about running out.
Not only that, but if you sound like an ignorant clod then people are less likely to believe what you say.
It's just marketing, in a way. If you want your ideas to even be considered, much less accepted, you need to package them properly. If your target audience is literate, then you will have a better chance of achieving understanding if your communications skills are at least equal to theirs. That's pretty basic, but some people won't accept that, and will claim "my ideas are good, so you should ignore my inability to express them effectively." Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way: if you make it hard for someone to understand what you are saying, odds are they'll just ignore you. After all, they probably have better things to do.
Of course, if your audience is composed primarily of ignorant clods, I don't suppose it matters all that much. As an American, I have to say that seems to be the approach which works best for most of our politicians. Often I wonder how they can mouth their particular brand of verbal rubbish without laughing out loud.
That's because they have money & they've painted Mediasentry to be some sort of 'cyberdetective' service, never mind the fact that they're idiots.
Not too mention crooks. They admit to instigating DOS attacks, have even bragged about how much bandwidth they have at their disposal. They should be up on Federal charges by now: of course, with RIAA lawyers at the Justice Department that probably won't ever happen.
Their problem is that by costing them money, Syfert hasn't actually done anything wrong. It is perfectly legal for Syfert to sell these self-help booklets; even if it is not legal, they have no standing to sue....
Maybe they're hoping he'll just fold, not want to spend the time and money to defend himself (you know, like all the other victims.) Can it be that they believe they are that scary? To an attorney?
Basically, they're hoping he went to a crappy law school. Anyone who went to a decent law school will know that they will win dismissal for lack of standing (or alternatively, failure to state a claim) right off the bat, and will file a motion to dismiss (which takes very little time and money, it's only the very first stage of a lawsuit) and stick to their guns. So they're hoping not only that he will be intimidated, but that he will be ignorant enough to still be intimidated even though he is in a stronger position.
The trouble is, you can no more prove that a web site going down cost a sale (or caused some other form of damage to a non-commercial site) than you can prove that giving someone an illegal copy of some music/movie/software did.
Sure you can! You show your sales receipts before the site went down, and you show your (lack of) sales receipts after the site went down. Furthermore, in the age of Google advertising nobody is non-commercial anymore: the money to run a site has to come from somewhere.
This is not rocket science. And the simple fact of the matter is that you cannot make a clean division between legal and illegal, in spite of MPAA/RIAA rhetoric to the contrary. Most Web sites are hosted by third-parties: they lose revenue when a site is deactivated. Not much, yet, but you know very well it's not going to stop here. This is not a simple matter, and we must err on the conservative side in order to avoid hurting innocent people and organizations. Federal law enforcement in the United States has a common theme running throughout: it inevitably abuses whatever powers it arrogates to itself. Every damn time, and this particular power extends far beyond our shores, and is a little too tempting. They will use it, and they will abuse it.
Besides, when you get right down to it, why does it matter whether you are a commercial site or not? Let the complainant make his case in court. If he doesn't feel he can win a court case, he shouldn't go about having Web sites shut down. For that matter, unless there is serious criminal activity going on, the Feds shouldn't even be involved. The fact that they are involving themselves in civil crimes like copyright infringement without profit (i.e. not piracy) indicates corruption at the highest levels. Of course, we all know that: our President has appointed a number of ex-RIAA attorneys to top positions at the Justice Department. That gives me a very cynical take on the entire affair.
This is all about cost effectiveness, not legitimate redress of grievance. Successfully suing Web site owners is an expensive process (note to RIAA: you and the rest of your kind made it that way, deal with it) and the big copyright holders would rather not have to do that. Hell, just having to cruise the major download sites like Youtube looking for copyright violations is such a pain in the ass. So they think they see a cheap way out by just having the Feds screw with DNS. Now, those are dangerous waters: the international ramifications alone should be sufficient to keep the Justice Department's grubby little RIAA-controlled mitts out of it. But it won't, not until one of the countries where we located the other root servers decides to physically take it over. Think that can't happen? Just wait: we are abusing our authority here, and there will be consequences for that.
In truth, this is more an issue with the Federal Government being conscripted to serve as a private police force than anything whatsoever to do with law, or justice. Really it has to do with bypassing due process in order to lessen or eliminate legal costs. Yes, the Internet permits large-scale copyright infringement. No, it is not the government's responsibility to deal with that, nor that of the taxpayer: it is the copyright holder's! Period. End of statement. Personally, I don't want a single penny of my income taxes going for copyright enforcement, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most of my fellow Americans would think we have better uses for that money as well.
Look, if these bloodsuckers are losing money to new technology, let them figure out a way to make money in spite of that, or go under, just like every other obsolete business model has done throughout history. Funny though: I'm no fan of Apple Computer or its imperious leader, but if it weren't for the rather inventive approach that Jobs & Co. took to selling music, the studios would probably have gone under alr
Agree totally. Since most people didn't know of the availability of this $20 package it's great that more know of it now. I think it should go a step further. I would love to see the guy (with the help of donations if need be) run a full page ad in USA Today so it spreads all over. They'll of course be follow ups on TV and other newspapers, etc.
Gee, maybe he could start his own blog, like this guy
No, that would be ludicrous. The USCG is suing Syfert for costing them money which is not criminal but a civil matter. Unfortunately, you can sue for anything. The USCG has shown that they are a litigious group. Really this doesn't surprise me at all.
Their problem is that by costing them money, Syfert hasn't actually done anything wrong. It is perfectly legal for Syfert to sell these self-help booklets; even if it is not legal, they have no standing to sue. Only a buyer who let's say paid $20 and got rubbish advice would have standing to sue for that. The cost to them is not caused by Syfert, it is caused by the defendants defending themselves, and that is just what you have to expect when you sue someone; they will try to defend themselves. Perfectly legal and expected.
Maybe they're hoping he'll just fold, not want to spend the time and money to defend himself (you know, like all the other victims.) Can it be that they believe they are that scary? To an attorney?
Why cant they simply impound the corporate assets, imprison/publicly execute the execs under some made up law and sell off all the impounded corporate property incl. IP and know-how to the highest bidder? Methinks that would be profitable for the state AND show multinationals who _really_ has the power. Or is the irish government afraid to exercise their sovereign rights?
Likely because most of those assets aren't even in the country. Japan, for example, makes a lot of cars in the U.S., but doesn't share the knowledge of how to make many critical assemblies: those are still Made in Japan. Not that I blame them for that at all: I wish more of our corporations would take that same approach when dealing with our own foreign competition. But I suspect that trying to "nationalize" a chip foundry or a Google server farm wouldn't actually net them all that much, and would cause an international incident that Ireland probably doesn't want.
Look, the U.S. is facing a similar crisis on many levels (and, because we're a much bigger economy, when our crash comes it's going to be Biblical) but the key takehome from all of this is simple: build your own domestic industries. Take care of your own, and don't depend upon foreigners to do it for you, because they are going to have their own agenda. Now that's okay because they don't owe you any loyalty. Furthermore, soon as your interests are no longer aligned, they will leave you high and dry. Face it: expecting otherwise from any multinational is naive at best. There's a reason for that: their loyalty is to their stockholders (if, indeed, they are loyal to anything at all) and most of them are in other countries as well.
Yeah, in the USA we bailed out the banks. Could have bailed out the homeowners and thereby saved both them *and* the banks, But no, we only look after the big boys here.
When lobbyists have more power than voters, that's exactly what you would expect to happen.
It's almost like these anti-porn movements think children are fragile molds of clay who with no imagination, and context and purpose are concepts which went out with the phonograph.
Well, that's true, and it's also true that children, while resilient in many ways, can still be damaged. My belief is that children who are taught to be afraid of their sexuality, indeed to be neurotic about it, have suffered more harm than those who have not.
We're flesh-based eating/sleeping/fucking machines, and no amount of prudish social conditioning is ever going to overcome that, and those who rail against it (consciously or otherwise) almost inevitably end up entirely fubar in the head.
It's like trying to turn a left-handed individual into a rightie. The kids that had that happen to them (through misguided parental social-engineering) generally ended up pretty fucked in the head.
In any event, if you want to be more than you are, be better than your nature, you first have to acknowledge who and what you are. Then you can begin to work on upgrades.
just because the government flipped a few bits that also did not harm anyone's personal property, put anyone in jail, or otherwise cause any actual, demonstrable harm to anyone.
As a U.S. citizen who lives here, I'm going to disagree with you, primarily because you comparing apples to... well, to something that isn't even a fruit.
Many, many business owners depend for their livelihood upon a functioning Web site. So don't try to tell me that a potential sale lost due to a copyright infringer's making an illegal copy is in any way the same as closing the doors on someone's business. Because, for a Web-based operation, shutting down DNS for their site is just what you've done. Put them out of business: hell, you might as well have just pulled their license and been done with it. Understand, that's actual, provable harm, and the Feds had best have a goddamn good reason for why they did it.
This is one of the complaints about ICE and DHS.. they tend to exempt themselves from silly things like courts and constitutional amendments because they claim things that cross the boarder are not protected. This is why they can do things like search your laptop without cause even though normal police can not do this.
The Supreme Court has generally backed them up on this, so it's not hard to understand why. The real question is this: since the disease of unaccountability has a one hundred percent infection rate of organizations that suffer from it... why do we continue to allow it? I do not care who you are, I do not care how honorable you may think you are, if you have power over me you require effective oversight, and you must be held accountable for whatever actions (or inactions) you perform in my name, and the name of my fellow citizens. That is so goddamn basic to civilized society (human nature being what it is) that any law, or ruling, that successfully eliminates such protections should be enough to have a lawmaker or a judge removed from office
Period. Governance by Patriot Act does not work, not if you want to live in anything resembling a free society, not if you want to live unafraid of your own leaders. Let's face a few facts here: Americans are more at risk from amoral or criminal acts on the part of their various governments (local, State and Federal) than they are of terrorism or outright war. That's not how the Founders intended us to live.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes they should pick and choose. That is what responsible journalistic discretion is about.
Responsible newspapers don't publish every rumor or sensitive piece of information. They realize that that would have terrible consequences.
If you want to position yourself in the manner Wikileaks has, you need to accept the burden of journalistic integrity and discretion. It might not be the easiest deal, but no is forcing them to take this job.
And, just to make another point, if real journalists had been doing their goddamn jobs these past few decades, there might be less need for a Wikileaks.
Yes they should pick and choose. That is what responsible journalistic discretion is about.
Responsible newspapers don't publish every rumor or sensitive piece of information. They realize that that would have terrible consequences.
If you want to position yourself in the manner Wikileaks has, you need to accept the burden of journalistic integrity and discretion. It might not be the easiest deal, but no is forcing them to take this job.
Do you have any idea what Wikileaks is? Well, I'll give you a hint. They're not journalists.
I feel the us's choice to use 110 volt service is going to be problematic in the coming years.
Also, a house using gas and /or oil for heat and hotwater is likely to have 100 amps. This makes your 15 amp 1/3 of the houses capacit.
Most circuits are 15 amp, but it's less than half the watts here.
Well, pretty much everyone in the U.S. has 220 volt service, split into two 110/120 volt phases.
whilst giving the same option of garaging the vehicle overnight to charge when the electric company thinks it can send power to that charging station.
You want to know the big problem with that scenario, i.e. home charging of electric vehicles?
... what do you do when you "run out of gas?" You'll need a tow to the nearest place you can charge up. You won't be able to walk to a gas station and bring back a gallon of gas, or call up AAA for the same service.
Most people don't have garages.
They depend upon the network of gas stations to keep their cars running. Ultimately, I think that widespread acceptance of electric cars will have to revolve around that same model. That means rapid-charging technology and batteries that can take it. Maybe we have to replace the underground tanks at service stations with sodium-sulfur battery banks that charge at night when power is cheaper, and disburse it to vehicles during the day.
I don't know what the ultimate solution will be, or even if a large-scale move to electric cars will prove possible to a nation that has thrown away it's ability to create wealth, and can't really afford to maintain its existing infrastructure much less build out what's needed for millions of electric vehicles. In any event, I do think that residential charging is going to be a problem.
Hell, for a pure electric vehicle
Personally, I want a car with an engine-generator for backup. That could even be a standardized, modular option, if the government grows a pair and mandates it. Just need the car for buzzing around town, taking the kids to school? Don't bother with a generator. Are you someone that commutes to work on the highway, day after day, and occasionally gets stuck in traffic? Are you going on a car trip, and really don't feel comfortable with the limited range of your batteries? Well, maybe you will be a candidate for a drop-in power block that fits in your battery compartment.
If they're properly standardized, you could even rent one for that car trip. They could use any of a number of heat-engine technologies, and multi-fuel would be pretty straightforward. The rental company could be made responsible for emissions testing and maintenance on the engines, which would theoretically improve compliance with environmental regulation.
I really struggle to believe that any collection of even moderately intelligent people could be that stupid.
I doubt they care. The consequences to them are nil, so win or lose it costs them nothing. Although, it will be interesting to see if they (or the RIAA, or some other "trade representatives") decide to go after defense attorneys.
I'm very surprised Julian Assange is still alive.
Well, I gotta hand it to the guy for having some serious huevos. It's almost like they're all afraid to bump him off. Maybe they think he'll come back to haunt them by releasing his own death warrant on Wikileaks.
Leaking 70,000 documents is not "exposing it." It's essentially vomiting information, some of which might be related to wrongdoing, the vast majority of which is not.
Depends upon how you look at it. Should Wikileaks take the responsibility for deciding what information is related to "wrongdoing" and which is not? What if they make a mistake and some "wrongdoing" is thus unintentionally suppressed? Wikileaks is not an intelligence-gathering organization, and making connections between the information in those documents and other sources is not what they do. They just get it out there, and let the cards fall where they may.
Besides, it's hilarious to me that so so-called "intelligence community" can't keep a few secrets from the rest of us. Makes me wonder about their competence in general.
Dumbest. Post. Ever.
Only because you missed his point. Besides, I thought it was hilarious.
I know what you mean. I'm so jaded I can't get off with just pictures anymore, either. Fortunately, there's lots of video out there! I'll never get tired of that!
Well, if estimates of Internet bandwidth consumption being largely for porno are anywhere near correct, you'll not have to worry about running out.
Not only that, but if you sound like an ignorant clod then people are less likely to believe what you say.
It's just marketing, in a way. If you want your ideas to even be considered, much less accepted, you need to package them properly. If your target audience is literate, then you will have a better chance of achieving understanding if your communications skills are at least equal to theirs. That's pretty basic, but some people won't accept that, and will claim "my ideas are good, so you should ignore my inability to express them effectively." Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way: if you make it hard for someone to understand what you are saying, odds are they'll just ignore you. After all, they probably have better things to do.
Of course, if your audience is composed primarily of ignorant clods, I don't suppose it matters all that much. As an American, I have to say that seems to be the approach which works best for most of our politicians. Often I wonder how they can mouth their particular brand of verbal rubbish without laughing out loud.
I personally would prefer we just stop using grammar. If the intention is clear then does it really matter?
Yes, yes it does. Intent is not sufficient to assure good communication. The Devil is in the details.
But as the gerat Msater Ydoa wuold say, "spllenig Mttaers not."
Od, or od nto. Three si on tyr.
Godwin's Law The U.S. is somewhat hated because of its dietary choices and its warmongering, empire-building, genocidal mania!
How can you be "somewhat hated"? Is that like sort of having cancer, or being partly pregnant?
That's because they have money & they've painted Mediasentry to be some sort of 'cyberdetective' service, never mind the fact that they're idiots.
Not too mention crooks. They admit to instigating DOS attacks, have even bragged about how much bandwidth they have at their disposal. They should be up on Federal charges by now: of course, with RIAA lawyers at the Justice Department that probably won't ever happen.
Their problem is that by costing them money, Syfert hasn't actually done anything wrong. It is perfectly legal for Syfert to sell these self-help booklets; even if it is not legal, they have no standing to sue....
Maybe they're hoping he'll just fold, not want to spend the time and money to defend himself (you know, like all the other victims.) Can it be that they believe they are that scary? To an attorney?
Basically, they're hoping he went to a crappy law school. Anyone who went to a decent law school will know that they will win dismissal for lack of standing (or alternatively, failure to state a claim) right off the bat, and will file a motion to dismiss (which takes very little time and money, it's only the very first stage of a lawsuit) and stick to their guns. So they're hoping not only that he will be intimidated, but that he will be ignorant enough to still be intimidated even though he is in a stronger position.
Well ... let's hope he reads Slashdot then.
Throughout human history, the greatest threat to life and liberty has been not terrorism but the power of the state.
You might want to rethink your position in terms of your own sig. I happen to agree with it, by the way.
They've successfully turned themselves into a global liability, one that none of us, American or not, can afford.
Oops.
The trouble is, you can no more prove that a web site going down cost a sale (or caused some other form of damage to a non-commercial site) than you can prove that giving someone an illegal copy of some music/movie/software did.
Sure you can! You show your sales receipts before the site went down, and you show your (lack of) sales receipts after the site went down. Furthermore, in the age of Google advertising nobody is non-commercial anymore: the money to run a site has to come from somewhere.
This is not rocket science. And the simple fact of the matter is that you cannot make a clean division between legal and illegal, in spite of MPAA/RIAA rhetoric to the contrary. Most Web sites are hosted by third-parties: they lose revenue when a site is deactivated. Not much, yet, but you know very well it's not going to stop here. This is not a simple matter, and we must err on the conservative side in order to avoid hurting innocent people and organizations. Federal law enforcement in the United States has a common theme running throughout: it inevitably abuses whatever powers it arrogates to itself. Every damn time, and this particular power extends far beyond our shores, and is a little too tempting. They will use it, and they will abuse it.
Besides, when you get right down to it, why does it matter whether you are a commercial site or not? Let the complainant make his case in court. If he doesn't feel he can win a court case, he shouldn't go about having Web sites shut down. For that matter, unless there is serious criminal activity going on, the Feds shouldn't even be involved. The fact that they are involving themselves in civil crimes like copyright infringement without profit (i.e. not piracy) indicates corruption at the highest levels. Of course, we all know that: our President has appointed a number of ex-RIAA attorneys to top positions at the Justice Department. That gives me a very cynical take on the entire affair.
This is all about cost effectiveness, not legitimate redress of grievance. Successfully suing Web site owners is an expensive process (note to RIAA: you and the rest of your kind made it that way, deal with it) and the big copyright holders would rather not have to do that. Hell, just having to cruise the major download sites like Youtube looking for copyright violations is such a pain in the ass. So they think they see a cheap way out by just having the Feds screw with DNS. Now, those are dangerous waters: the international ramifications alone should be sufficient to keep the Justice Department's grubby little RIAA-controlled mitts out of it. But it won't, not until one of the countries where we located the other root servers decides to physically take it over. Think that can't happen? Just wait: we are abusing our authority here, and there will be consequences for that.
In truth, this is more an issue with the Federal Government being conscripted to serve as a private police force than anything whatsoever to do with law, or justice. Really it has to do with bypassing due process in order to lessen or eliminate legal costs. Yes, the Internet permits large-scale copyright infringement. No, it is not the government's responsibility to deal with that, nor that of the taxpayer: it is the copyright holder's! Period. End of statement. Personally, I don't want a single penny of my income taxes going for copyright enforcement, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that most of my fellow Americans would think we have better uses for that money as well.
Look, if these bloodsuckers are losing money to new technology, let them figure out a way to make money in spite of that, or go under, just like every other obsolete business model has done throughout history. Funny though: I'm no fan of Apple Computer or its imperious leader, but if it weren't for the rather inventive approach that Jobs & Co. took to selling music, the studios would probably have gone under alr
Agree totally. Since most people didn't know of the availability of this $20 package it's great that more know of it now. I think it should go a step further. I would love to see the guy (with the help of donations if need be) run a full page ad in USA Today so it spreads all over. They'll of course be follow ups on TV and other newspapers, etc.
Gee, maybe he could start his own blog, like this guy
No, that would be ludicrous. The USCG is suing Syfert for costing them money which is not criminal but a civil matter. Unfortunately, you can sue for anything. The USCG has shown that they are a litigious group. Really this doesn't surprise me at all.
Their problem is that by costing them money, Syfert hasn't actually done anything wrong. It is perfectly legal for Syfert to sell these self-help booklets; even if it is not legal, they have no standing to sue. Only a buyer who let's say paid $20 and got rubbish advice would have standing to sue for that. The cost to them is not caused by Syfert, it is caused by the defendants defending themselves, and that is just what you have to expect when you sue someone; they will try to defend themselves. Perfectly legal and expected.
Maybe they're hoping he'll just fold, not want to spend the time and money to defend himself (you know, like all the other victims.) Can it be that they believe they are that scary? To an attorney?
Why cant they simply impound the corporate assets, imprison/publicly execute the execs under some made up law and sell off all the impounded corporate property incl. IP and know-how to the highest bidder? Methinks that would be profitable for the state AND show multinationals who _really_ has the power. Or is the irish government afraid to exercise their sovereign rights?
Likely because most of those assets aren't even in the country. Japan, for example, makes a lot of cars in the U.S., but doesn't share the knowledge of how to make many critical assemblies: those are still Made in Japan. Not that I blame them for that at all: I wish more of our corporations would take that same approach when dealing with our own foreign competition. But I suspect that trying to "nationalize" a chip foundry or a Google server farm wouldn't actually net them all that much, and would cause an international incident that Ireland probably doesn't want.
Look, the U.S. is facing a similar crisis on many levels (and, because we're a much bigger economy, when our crash comes it's going to be Biblical) but the key takehome from all of this is simple: build your own domestic industries. Take care of your own, and don't depend upon foreigners to do it for you, because they are going to have their own agenda. Now that's okay because they don't owe you any loyalty. Furthermore, soon as your interests are no longer aligned, they will leave you high and dry. Face it: expecting otherwise from any multinational is naive at best. There's a reason for that: their loyalty is to their stockholders (if, indeed, they are loyal to anything at all) and most of them are in other countries as well.
Should be the more appropriate headline here.
Yeah, in the USA we bailed out the banks. Could have bailed out the homeowners and thereby saved both them *and* the banks, But no, we only look after the big boys here.
When lobbyists have more power than voters, that's exactly what you would expect to happen.
It's almost like these anti-porn movements think children are fragile molds of clay who with no imagination, and context and purpose are concepts which went out with the phonograph.
Well, that's true, and it's also true that children, while resilient in many ways, can still be damaged. My belief is that children who are taught to be afraid of their sexuality, indeed to be neurotic about it, have suffered more harm than those who have not.
We're flesh-based eating/sleeping/fucking machines, and no amount of prudish social conditioning is ever going to overcome that, and those who rail against it (consciously or otherwise) almost inevitably end up entirely fubar in the head.
It's like trying to turn a left-handed individual into a rightie. The kids that had that happen to them (through misguided parental social-engineering) generally ended up pretty fucked in the head.
In any event, if you want to be more than you are, be better than your nature, you first have to acknowledge who and what you are. Then you can begin to work on upgrades.
just because the government flipped a few bits that also did not harm anyone's personal property, put anyone in jail, or otherwise cause any actual, demonstrable harm to anyone.
As a U.S. citizen who lives here, I'm going to disagree with you, primarily because you comparing apples to ... well, to something that isn't even a fruit.
... heads should roll.
Many, many business owners depend for their livelihood upon a functioning Web site. So don't try to tell me that a potential sale lost due to a copyright infringer's making an illegal copy is in any way the same as closing the doors on someone's business. Because, for a Web-based operation, shutting down DNS for their site is just what you've done. Put them out of business: hell, you might as well have just pulled their license and been done with it. Understand, that's actual, provable harm, and the Feds had best have a goddamn good reason for why they did it.
And if they do not
This is one of the complaints about ICE and DHS.. they tend to exempt themselves from silly things like courts and constitutional amendments because they claim things that cross the boarder are not protected. This is why they can do things like search your laptop without cause even though normal police can not do this.
The Supreme Court has generally backed them up on this, so it's not hard to understand why. The real question is this: since the disease of unaccountability has a one hundred percent infection rate of organizations that suffer from it ... why do we continue to allow it? I do not care who you are, I do not care how honorable you may think you are, if you have power over me you require effective oversight, and you must be held accountable for whatever actions (or inactions) you perform in my name, and the name of my fellow citizens. That is so goddamn basic to civilized society (human nature being what it is) that any law, or ruling, that successfully eliminates such protections should be enough to have a lawmaker or a judge removed from office
Period. Governance by Patriot Act does not work, not if you want to live in anything resembling a free society, not if you want to live unafraid of your own leaders. Let's face a few facts here: Americans are more at risk from amoral or criminal acts on the part of their various governments (local, State and Federal) than they are of terrorism or outright war. That's not how the Founders intended us to live.