So given a big enough contraption to hold enough salt with a large enough surface area, a way to move enough air over it(fan), and a way to get the water out and stored(pump), could you
collect 600 gallons of a water a day in a desert?
Sure, and give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world (Archimedes). The question is whether the size is manageable.
The humidity is so low they don't use standard air conditioners there; they have "swamp coolers" which work by evaporating a stream of water.
Almost everyone here has a standard air conditioner, or (like my house) both a standard ac and an evaporative cooler, for two reasons:
Under the best of conditions, a typical household evap cooler can only cool the air about 15-20 degrees. The physics of the cooling process prevents recycling the already cooled indoor air to make it even cooler, like regular ac does. Going from 110 to the low 90's doesn't help that much, although from about October to April they work pretty good and are a lot cheaper to run.
The grandparent poster was right. Our humidity does average 50% or so, but it only feels humid during what we call the monsoon season in July and August. Usually it's hot enough for your most of your perspiration to evaporate before you can see it, so even though there is some humidity in the air, you don't get that sticky sweaty feeling most people associate with humidity. That being said, 50% is still pretty dry compared to the rest of the country.
Of course, that's at 100% efficiency and if there is no back pressure caused by airflow through the device itself.
There's also the problem of fitting a 44 meter entrance onto a 6 meter long machine. So, since the 1 kph wind speed was made up anyway, we simply increase it to 7.3 kph and we're good to go. Isn't slashdot math fun?
how could the attack of al Qaeda in Iraq against the "democratic" government of Iraq
I was referring to the opression of Saddam Hussein of the Iraqi people, from whose authority the current government of Iraq is drawn, and whose authority the Hussein regime did not possess. All arguments of WMD and terrorism aside, the people of Iraq were still a valid ally who were oppressed by a dictator, even if the formal structure of their government was not allowed to exist at the time. That government may not have formally invited us at the time of the invasion, but they have since formally invited us to stay several times.
the French did not invade the Colonies in 1775 - they waited for an invitation from the original government
I'll have to check my history books, but I'm pretty sure the French were not invited by King George to fight on our side. France did indeed invade the British empire when they helped us win our independence.
Sorry, I had to stop laughing because I mispronounced "doings" in my head with the oi as in "oil" (I've been reading a lot of Russian lately), transforming it into a pseudo-slang word that changes the meaning of the sentence a lot.
I agree with what you said, with one addition. I'm not narcissistic enough to believe that the government cares at all about what I do, not to mention cares enough to devote enough resources to piece together my electronic footprints. On the contrary, I believe they expend a great amount of effort to filter my useless data out.
Mark Foley is not the victim in this case. If the republican party is a victim of anything, it is the victim of Foley's misbehavior. Republicans have this crazy idea called taking responsibility for one's actions, which is why Foley resigned instead of whining about being a victim of a political witch hunt. It sounds absurd, but we actually like it when terrorists or paedophiles are held to account, even if they're republicans.
All that being said, I had no idea that the IMs in question were international communications intercepted by the NSA.
going to war only when attacked and only against the people who directly attacked us or our allies
I consider the democratic government of Iraq to be one of our most important allies, and the acts of an oppressive dictator to be a form of attack, but then again I'm one of those crazy conservatives who apparently need no other motive for war than a thirst for blood and the political popularity it obviously brings.
It wasn't too long ago that the 13 colonies were Iraq, King George was Saddam Hussein, France was the United States, and Rochambeau was Donald Rumsfeld. I visited Yorktown a couple of weeks ago, saw for myself the enormous amount of help we got from the French, and came away thinking that there was a good chance we wouldn't be the United States of America if France felt the same way about the 13 colonies as so many Americans feel about Iraq today.
I consider myself to be well-educated on politics. For the bulk of my federal political news, I read the Congressional Daily Digest every day Congress is in session and subscribe to the White House and C-SPAN rss feeds. I regularly consult similar resources for my local and state political news. I'm also a strong conservative.
That being said, The Daily Show is the only TV "news" show I watch regularly, for the following reasons:
He gets great interviews. Former Pres. Clinton and current Pakistani Pres. Musharraf are just two pretty impressive examples from the last couple of weeks. And guests seem to open up to him more because of the element of humor involved.
Jon Stewart is one of the few TV personalities that doesn't let his personal politics show. Sure, he is often critical of republicans and the Bush administration, but I can respect that because he is just as mocking of democrats when the occasions arise. There are shows I agree with more that I don't watch because they don't present as much perspective. If there is a liberal slant to the show, it's only because republicans are in power and anti-war sentiment is popular right now.
My wife, who avoids news and politics as much as possible, will sit down and watch The Daily Show with me and engage in discussion about the topics discussed.
He covers all the major stories without beating them to death like network news does.
I was all ready with a scathing reply about checking your sources before presenting a post as fact. My logical reasoning skills, which can be verified by my SAT scores, told me that surely an academically renowned institution like The College Board would not call an examination the Scholastic Aptitude Test Reasoning Test when the acronymn is expanded. Fortunately, I took my own advice, checked the source, and found out you were right.
National Merit Scholarship is awarded to students with good scores on the PSAT.
No, National Merit Scholarships are awarded to students with good scores on the PSAT and (from their website):
the Finalist's academic record, information about the school's curricula and grading system, two sets of test scores, school official's written recommendation, information about the student's activities and leadership, and the Finalist's own essay.
I was a semi-finalist, and knew a winner who had a lower PSAT score than me, but obviously scored better in the other criteria. Your PSAT score only puts you in the running.
The government can ethically regulate commerce (i.e. what you can do with your money) because the founding fathers explicitly gave up that particular right to the government in Article I, section 8 of the constitution. Of course, you made the excellent point that neither you nor anyone else alive ratified the constitution, thereby rendering the constitution democratically invalid and the government illegitimate. What right does someone's great^8 grandfather have to speak for me? To be fair though, I think if there were enough votes to defeat a ratification today, we would probably know about it.
Why would the founding fathers do something "stupid" like giving the government authority to regulate commerce shortly after overthrowing a government that abused that authority? On reason is that a neutral third party is needed to make sure both parties are getting a fair deal.
Another reason is when money changes hands, the effects of that transaction are not limited to the two parties involved. There is an aggregate effect on the entire economy. Your $100 gambling loss may not be significant by itself, but many millions of dollars leaving a state or country is.
As to gambling in particular, it is addictive, meaning there is a high probability that people will continue to engage in it despite their own financial detriment. While many people are able to control their gambling, difficulty in debt collection is disproportionately high among gamblers.
Requiring others to absorb the cost of uncollected debts due to gambling addiction can definitely be described as "hurting another citizen." And the gambling industry does not exactly have a history of being scrupulous and putting the needs of the customer first. Not being physically present only increases the odds of being cheated by either side.
As to this particular restriction on gambling, it pretty much retains the pre-internet status quo of giving the states full control over the issue. You'll still be able to gamble online if the website complies with all state laws, and no financial transactions or site traffic crosses state lines.
have a conversation about the dangers of random contacts through IM. Most of them are talking with the friends they already know (from school or wherever)
Good advice, but incomplete. Rep. Foley was someone in a position of authority at the kid's work, not a random contact. Strangers aren't the only dangers.
Condorcet is a different concept from proportional representation, but I agree with your advocacy of preferential voting systems. One often overlooked bonus is that people would be able to run against candidates with similar but not identical views without running the risk of getting their last choice elected instead of their second choice.
2 parties simply cannot encompass the entire spectrum of political views.
There is a lot of party polarization during election season, but still there is a wider spectrum of political views than most people realize. Otherwise, every vote in Congress would split exactly down party lines. Think of John McCain versus George Bush, or Hillary Clinton versus Bill Clinton, or "pro-choice, pro-environment" Republican Lincoln Chafee.
Remember the line, "You're either with us, or against us" ?
I think you are referring to this quote from the president's speech to a joint session of congress 9 days after the September 11th attacks:
And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.
To be fair about Bush's attitude towards "those who didn't vote for [him]," I don't think members of the Taliban were allowed to vote in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Otherwise, Gore would probably have won.
And let's not forget that fewer than 3,000 Americans died from the 9/11 attacks.
Ah, the old "9/11 wasn't that bad" argument. The attacks disrupted way more than 3000 lives. And the threat of regular attacks would do a lot more damage. Middle Eastern countries that face frequent terrorist attacks are not exactly bastions of civil liberties and economic strength.
I find it ironic that the people who bemoan the latest "erosion of the constitution" are the same people who seem to have the least faith in it. The founding fathers knew that human nature is to overreact to events and sometimes lose sight of what is in the entire nation's best interest. The articles of confederation failed because they didn't take that into account.
Our constitution is not a guarantee that every group of politicians will never overstep its bounds; it is a guarantee that the imbalance will eventually correct itself. Don't forget that this whole round of legislation was prompted by a supreme court decision. I happen to think the process works pretty well, despite being a little slow, and I fully trust that in time any current constitutional crisis will be resolved, just like it has on every previous occasion.
Another "act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity" in which a president overstepped his constitutional authority for what he deemed a worthy cause was the emancipation proclamation (read it). Later, the legislative and judicial branches got involved to make it absolutely clear that the abolishment of slavery was constitutional. I have no doubt that we will eventually reach a similar acceptable balance in the fight against terrorism.
Although this example may not be as dangerous as those involving forgery, it sure could provide an advantage to an unscrupulous business competitor.
That's what's so amusing about conspiracy theories: common sense not required. You get hold of your enemy's passport, and what do you use it for? Inconveniencing him at the airport one time.
Any RFID chip that broadcasts a particular signal is indistinguishable from any other RFID chip that broadcasts the same signal.
This is not a chip that broadcasts the exact same signal over and over. Under this type of authentication, at least part of the signal changes every time in a way that appears completely random. You'd require physical access to the passport, some pretty sophisticated equipment, and (depending on the implementation) possibly quite a bit of time in order to clone it -- eavesdropping on a couple transmissions would not be enough.
am I to belive that this guy is not sleeping at all? How does he know that his kid is in trouble if he does?
Disabled people sleep too, you know, and don't face as wide a range of risks while they are safely in bed. He probably has a portable heart/apnea monitor if that is a risk. Those emit a fire alarm style noise when breathing or heart rate falls outside certain preset limits. My daughter had one for the first few months after she came home from the hospital. We actually slept better with it than after she didn't need it any more.
And don't confuse the need for constant care with the need for care to always be readily available. If his daughter is healthy enough to be at home instead of at the hospital, she probably has relatively normal days, but needs someone close by who can quickly respond to the occasional exceptional medical condition.
Line item vetoes are generally limited to striking appropriations items in appropriations bills. In other words, the executive can't increase spending or change policy with a line item veto. Since the executive branch makes the initial budget proposal, that means the threat of a line item veto causes a higher tendency for spending to be cut from the proposed budget rather than added. Most people think that is a good thing. And in practice, line item vetoes have proven to be very difficult to abuse effectively (43 state governors have that authority).
Congress, whose power is supposedly being taken away by the line item veto, overwhelmingly supported line item veto legislation in 1995, passing the house by unanimous consent and the senate with a 69-29 vote. Mind you, that's a republican congress during a democrat president's administration.
Ideally, Congress people would be prohibited from attaching amendments to bills that are not directly related to the main subject matter of that bill, but I don't see that happening any time soon.
That prohibition is called requiring amendments to be germane to the bill. It is already a restriction on all house bills on the floor. In the senate, it is a restriction on appropriations bills, bills after cloture has been invoked (agreeing to finish debate to get ready for a final vote), and a lot of bills where the senators agree to make it a rule for that bill.
When you hear about "riders" on a bill, that almost always happens while the bill is in committee. By the time it gets to the floor, non-germane amendments don't get very far, even though they are sometimes used to force some debate on an issue, and there is plenty of time to correct egregious riders that were added in committee. By the time the bill gets to the president's desk, irrelevant attachments to bills are actually pretty rare.
For the budget just browse through the thousands of bills passed each session
There are more like 13 appropriations bills. They are pretty long, but not intractable. The problem is that they are very high level allocations. For example, you won't see the name "Boeing" anywhere. You can look at individual departments to get a little more detail, but nowhere near the level of detail the database should provide. I'll be happy if it is anywhere near as good as the FEC's campaign finance disclosure database.
I wonder how many riders were attached to the bill authorizing this database
If you really wanted to find out, you could always do something radical like read the bill.
I wouldn't have been so harsh had I known you weren't a U.S. citizen, but I was responding to the comments as a whole more than to you directly anyway. I'll be the first to admit I only have a cursory knowledge of UK and Mexican politics, although I believe I am better versed than most Americans.
The framers of the constitution recognized that individuals and groups have a tendency to work for their own self-interest rather than for the good of the union. The original articles of confederation made no allowance for that, and it was one of the main reasons they failed.
In other words, there was never an expectation that the constitution would ensure our leaders always made constitutional decisions, but only that our "flavor of democracy" would have a checking and balancing effect that eventually guarantees the deficiencies are corrected. I have no doubt that any unconstitutional decisions the legislature may make will get corrected one way or the other, as they always have in the past. We have to keep the Supreme Court in business, you know.
From the article: "Specter has moved to have his bill voted upon next week by voice vote, called a unanimous consent motion, according to the ACLU's Graves. Such a procedure would leave no record of who voted for or against the bill." It sure gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that "freedom-loving Americans" are spreading their open and accountable flavour of democracy arould the world - not!
You quoted an intentionally inflammatory paragraph that counts on your ignorance of Senate procedure to trick you into thinking senators are ashamed to put their support of the bill on record. Congratulations, you fell for it. Most bills are passed by voice vote, because it is a lot faster on routine bills. However, if a single senator wants to go on record as voting against (or for) the bill, he can demand a roll call vote.
What the author wrote is strictly true, but deliberately omits information that would contradict the false assumption the paragraph implies. The article not only implies that the voice vote would be the only option, but also ignores the fact that high profile bills like these almost always get a roll call vote anyway.
Don't believe everything you read, especially during election season. When you come across a paragraph like that, the loss of "warm fuzzy feeling" clues you in that something is not right. The "something" is either a lack of a senate procedure to officially record an objection on any bill, or the speaker manipulating you into thinking there isn't such a procedure. It is easy enough to independently verify which is right. Once you do, you should ask yourself why the author resorts to tricks instead of allowing the rest of his argument to stand on its merits. You then know to subject the rest of the article to closer scrutiny, read an article with an opposing viewpoint, or maybe even do something radical like read the unabridged text of the bills and make up your own mind.
Now is the time to start helping the ACLU and EFF to bring this unconstitutional fascism before a federal court ASAP!
Maybe someone will create a bill to subject the NSA surveillance program to frequent approval by the federal FISA court, like S. 2453. Maybe if some slashdotters actually read it, they might find out it is something they could actually support. After all, everyone wants the terrorists to be surveilled, they just want the courts to make sure it is done constitutionally.
Another bill I support that was reported at the same time is S. 3001, which adds personnel and takes other measures to streamline the process of requesting FISA warrants, so that needing a high volume of warrant requests is no longer an excuse. This bill is cosponsored by Democrat Senator Feinstein.
The bill that slashdotters should be up in arms about is S. 2455, which essentially authorizes the current program in statute, with a little congressional and attorney general oversight thrown in for fun.
But don't take my word for it. Please read the bills for yourself and make up your own mind.
Since there is someone making "excessive bad postings" among the thousands of people behind my corporate proxy, we've all been banned from posting from work for the last month and a half or so. I can definitely say that my productivity has gone up so much that I have started to entertain the conspiracy theory that my company is paying slashdot to maintain the ban.
Slashdot Mirror
Almost everyone here has a standard air conditioner, or (like my house) both a standard ac and an evaporative cooler, for two reasons:
I was referring to the opression of Saddam Hussein of the Iraqi people, from whose authority the current government of Iraq is drawn, and whose authority the Hussein regime did not possess. All arguments of WMD and terrorism aside, the people of Iraq were still a valid ally who were oppressed by a dictator, even if the formal structure of their government was not allowed to exist at the time. That government may not have formally invited us at the time of the invasion, but they have since formally invited us to stay several times.
I'll have to check my history books, but I'm pretty sure the French were not invited by King George to fight on our side. France did indeed invade the British empire when they helped us win our independence.
Sorry, I had to stop laughing because I mispronounced "doings" in my head with the oi as in "oil" (I've been reading a lot of Russian lately), transforming it into a pseudo-slang word that changes the meaning of the sentence a lot.
I agree with what you said, with one addition. I'm not narcissistic enough to believe that the government cares at all about what I do, not to mention cares enough to devote enough resources to piece together my electronic footprints. On the contrary, I believe they expend a great amount of effort to filter my useless data out.
Mark Foley is not the victim in this case. If the republican party is a victim of anything, it is the victim of Foley's misbehavior. Republicans have this crazy idea called taking responsibility for one's actions, which is why Foley resigned instead of whining about being a victim of a political witch hunt. It sounds absurd, but we actually like it when terrorists or paedophiles are held to account, even if they're republicans.
All that being said, I had no idea that the IMs in question were international communications intercepted by the NSA.
Nice reductio ad hitlerum argument. Too bad it's fallacious.
I consider the democratic government of Iraq to be one of our most important allies, and the acts of an oppressive dictator to be a form of attack, but then again I'm one of those crazy conservatives who apparently need no other motive for war than a thirst for blood and the political popularity it obviously brings.
It wasn't too long ago that the 13 colonies were Iraq, King George was Saddam Hussein, France was the United States, and Rochambeau was Donald Rumsfeld. I visited Yorktown a couple of weeks ago, saw for myself the enormous amount of help we got from the French, and came away thinking that there was a good chance we wouldn't be the United States of America if France felt the same way about the 13 colonies as so many Americans feel about Iraq today.
I consider myself to be well-educated on politics. For the bulk of my federal political news, I read the Congressional Daily Digest every day Congress is in session and subscribe to the White House and C-SPAN rss feeds. I regularly consult similar resources for my local and state political news. I'm also a strong conservative.
That being said, The Daily Show is the only TV "news" show I watch regularly, for the following reasons:
Goniometry is not a common term in the U.S. The gon root had me thinking your girlfriend was studying the science of measuring ... something else.
I was all ready with a scathing reply about checking your sources before presenting a post as fact. My logical reasoning skills, which can be verified by my SAT scores, told me that surely an academically renowned institution like The College Board would not call an examination the Scholastic Aptitude Test Reasoning Test when the acronymn is expanded. Fortunately, I took my own advice, checked the source, and found out you were right.
The government can ethically regulate commerce (i.e. what you can do with your money) because the founding fathers explicitly gave up that particular right to the government in Article I, section 8 of the constitution. Of course, you made the excellent point that neither you nor anyone else alive ratified the constitution, thereby rendering the constitution democratically invalid and the government illegitimate. What right does someone's great^8 grandfather have to speak for me? To be fair though, I think if there were enough votes to defeat a ratification today, we would probably know about it.
Why would the founding fathers do something "stupid" like giving the government authority to regulate commerce shortly after overthrowing a government that abused that authority? On reason is that a neutral third party is needed to make sure both parties are getting a fair deal.
Another reason is when money changes hands, the effects of that transaction are not limited to the two parties involved. There is an aggregate effect on the entire economy. Your $100 gambling loss may not be significant by itself, but many millions of dollars leaving a state or country is.
As to gambling in particular, it is addictive, meaning there is a high probability that people will continue to engage in it despite their own financial detriment. While many people are able to control their gambling, difficulty in debt collection is disproportionately high among gamblers.
Requiring others to absorb the cost of uncollected debts due to gambling addiction can definitely be described as "hurting another citizen." And the gambling industry does not exactly have a history of being scrupulous and putting the needs of the customer first. Not being physically present only increases the odds of being cheated by either side.
As to this particular restriction on gambling, it pretty much retains the pre-internet status quo of giving the states full control over the issue. You'll still be able to gamble online if the website complies with all state laws, and no financial transactions or site traffic crosses state lines.
Good advice, but incomplete. Rep. Foley was someone in a position of authority at the kid's work, not a random contact. Strangers aren't the only dangers.
Condorcet is a different concept from proportional representation, but I agree with your advocacy of preferential voting systems. One often overlooked bonus is that people would be able to run against candidates with similar but not identical views without running the risk of getting their last choice elected instead of their second choice.
There is a lot of party polarization during election season, but still there is a wider spectrum of political views than most people realize. Otherwise, every vote in Congress would split exactly down party lines. Think of John McCain versus George Bush, or Hillary Clinton versus Bill Clinton, or "pro-choice, pro-environment" Republican Lincoln Chafee.
I think you are referring to this quote from the president's speech to a joint session of congress 9 days after the September 11th attacks:
To be fair about Bush's attitude towards "those who didn't vote for [him]," I don't think members of the Taliban were allowed to vote in the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Otherwise, Gore would probably have won.
Ah, the old "9/11 wasn't that bad" argument. The attacks disrupted way more than 3000 lives. And the threat of regular attacks would do a lot more damage. Middle Eastern countries that face frequent terrorist attacks are not exactly bastions of civil liberties and economic strength.
I find it ironic that the people who bemoan the latest "erosion of the constitution" are the same people who seem to have the least faith in it. The founding fathers knew that human nature is to overreact to events and sometimes lose sight of what is in the entire nation's best interest. The articles of confederation failed because they didn't take that into account.
Our constitution is not a guarantee that every group of politicians will never overstep its bounds; it is a guarantee that the imbalance will eventually correct itself. Don't forget that this whole round of legislation was prompted by a supreme court decision. I happen to think the process works pretty well, despite being a little slow, and I fully trust that in time any current constitutional crisis will be resolved, just like it has on every previous occasion.
Another "act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity" in which a president overstepped his constitutional authority for what he deemed a worthy cause was the emancipation proclamation (read it). Later, the legislative and judicial branches got involved to make it absolutely clear that the abolishment of slavery was constitutional. I have no doubt that we will eventually reach a similar acceptable balance in the fight against terrorism.
That's what's so amusing about conspiracy theories: common sense not required. You get hold of your enemy's passport, and what do you use it for? Inconveniencing him at the airport one time.
This is not a chip that broadcasts the exact same signal over and over. Under this type of authentication, at least part of the signal changes every time in a way that appears completely random. You'd require physical access to the passport, some pretty sophisticated equipment, and (depending on the implementation) possibly quite a bit of time in order to clone it -- eavesdropping on a couple transmissions would not be enough.
Disabled people sleep too, you know, and don't face as wide a range of risks while they are safely in bed. He probably has a portable heart/apnea monitor if that is a risk. Those emit a fire alarm style noise when breathing or heart rate falls outside certain preset limits. My daughter had one for the first few months after she came home from the hospital. We actually slept better with it than after she didn't need it any more.
And don't confuse the need for constant care with the need for care to always be readily available. If his daughter is healthy enough to be at home instead of at the hospital, she probably has relatively normal days, but needs someone close by who can quickly respond to the occasional exceptional medical condition.
Line item vetoes are generally limited to striking appropriations items in appropriations bills. In other words, the executive can't increase spending or change policy with a line item veto. Since the executive branch makes the initial budget proposal, that means the threat of a line item veto causes a higher tendency for spending to be cut from the proposed budget rather than added. Most people think that is a good thing. And in practice, line item vetoes have proven to be very difficult to abuse effectively (43 state governors have that authority).
Congress, whose power is supposedly being taken away by the line item veto, overwhelmingly supported line item veto legislation in 1995, passing the house by unanimous consent and the senate with a 69-29 vote. Mind you, that's a republican congress during a democrat president's administration.
That prohibition is called requiring amendments to be germane to the bill. It is already a restriction on all house bills on the floor. In the senate, it is a restriction on appropriations bills, bills after cloture has been invoked (agreeing to finish debate to get ready for a final vote), and a lot of bills where the senators agree to make it a rule for that bill.
When you hear about "riders" on a bill, that almost always happens while the bill is in committee. By the time it gets to the floor, non-germane amendments don't get very far, even though they are sometimes used to force some debate on an issue, and there is plenty of time to correct egregious riders that were added in committee. By the time the bill gets to the president's desk, irrelevant attachments to bills are actually pretty rare.
I think you have your political parties mixed up. Here is a list of programs cut or reduced this year.
There are more like 13 appropriations bills. They are pretty long, but not intractable. The problem is that they are very high level allocations. For example, you won't see the name "Boeing" anywhere. You can look at individual departments to get a little more detail, but nowhere near the level of detail the database should provide. I'll be happy if it is anywhere near as good as the FEC's campaign finance disclosure database.
If you really wanted to find out, you could always do something radical like read the bill.
I wouldn't have been so harsh had I known you weren't a U.S. citizen, but I was responding to the comments as a whole more than to you directly anyway. I'll be the first to admit I only have a cursory knowledge of UK and Mexican politics, although I believe I am better versed than most Americans.
The framers of the constitution recognized that individuals and groups have a tendency to work for their own self-interest rather than for the good of the union. The original articles of confederation made no allowance for that, and it was one of the main reasons they failed.
In other words, there was never an expectation that the constitution would ensure our leaders always made constitutional decisions, but only that our "flavor of democracy" would have a checking and balancing effect that eventually guarantees the deficiencies are corrected. I have no doubt that any unconstitutional decisions the legislature may make will get corrected one way or the other, as they always have in the past. We have to keep the Supreme Court in business, you know.
You quoted an intentionally inflammatory paragraph that counts on your ignorance of Senate procedure to trick you into thinking senators are ashamed to put their support of the bill on record. Congratulations, you fell for it. Most bills are passed by voice vote, because it is a lot faster on routine bills. However, if a single senator wants to go on record as voting against (or for) the bill, he can demand a roll call vote.
What the author wrote is strictly true, but deliberately omits information that would contradict the false assumption the paragraph implies. The article not only implies that the voice vote would be the only option, but also ignores the fact that high profile bills like these almost always get a roll call vote anyway.
Don't believe everything you read, especially during election season. When you come across a paragraph like that, the loss of "warm fuzzy feeling" clues you in that something is not right. The "something" is either a lack of a senate procedure to officially record an objection on any bill, or the speaker manipulating you into thinking there isn't such a procedure. It is easy enough to independently verify which is right. Once you do, you should ask yourself why the author resorts to tricks instead of allowing the rest of his argument to stand on its merits. You then know to subject the rest of the article to closer scrutiny, read an article with an opposing viewpoint, or maybe even do something radical like read the unabridged text of the bills and make up your own mind.
Maybe someone will create a bill to subject the NSA surveillance program to frequent approval by the federal FISA court, like S. 2453. Maybe if some slashdotters actually read it, they might find out it is something they could actually support. After all, everyone wants the terrorists to be surveilled, they just want the courts to make sure it is done constitutionally.
Another bill I support that was reported at the same time is S. 3001, which adds personnel and takes other measures to streamline the process of requesting FISA warrants, so that needing a high volume of warrant requests is no longer an excuse. This bill is cosponsored by Democrat Senator Feinstein.
The bill that slashdotters should be up in arms about is S. 2455, which essentially authorizes the current program in statute, with a little congressional and attorney general oversight thrown in for fun.
But don't take my word for it. Please read the bills for yourself and make up your own mind.
Since there is someone making "excessive bad postings" among the thousands of people behind my corporate proxy, we've all been banned from posting from work for the last month and a half or so. I can definitely say that my productivity has gone up so much that I have started to entertain the conspiracy theory that my company is paying slashdot to maintain the ban.