I think you are correct that the tides are turrning as far as I can see. State funding is still meager right now, not nearly enough for such a valuable, life-affirming effort as stem cell research. And in the past five years many many many millions of people have possibly had their terrible fate sealed by the current administration.
About the other point. I'm sure Frist was a wonderful heart-surgeon. But he's not the type of doctor that I want operating on my heart, considering he renders life or death medical decisions with scant evidence and apparently considering only the impact it will have on his preconceived, unscientific, political and religious "pro-life" agenda.
An M.D. doesn't mean much if you can't observe the clear difference between a person clearly in a persistent vegetative state and a person who still has high-level brain function - the Terri Shaivo case being the thing I have in mind.
So while the poster was exaggerating, it appears that there is a systemic problem with thinking, reasoning, and making objecive reasoning based on the facts - all skills that should have been learned in high school.
I agree with you on most points. I just don't think the labels are useless, especially in this country . Just because we have labels doesn't mean those labels are static - they just represent the political discussion in its current form. I don't think that being a member of a party is such a rigid designator of political opinion. It may be perceived that way by some people- but in reality, you are quite right in saying it's not that simple. In reality, being a member of a party is just having a tendency of thought and a tendency to vote for candidates who represent certain kinds of beliefs. That is what the left/right distinction is too. There are definite agreements on the kinds of opinions that people who are on the "left" have - and there are, likewise, agreements about what the kinds of beliefs that the "right" has - it follows a continuum, as you say, and there are lots of variation and therefore lots of different, changing definitions about what constitutes conservatism and liberalism. The important thing is none of these definitions stop changing.
Also it's important to note that the spectrum is not a line - it's more like an ellipse or a circle. In practice at some point beyond communism radical leftist ideology begins to resemble something like fascism, and far far right ideology (in some sense) begins to resemble communism beyond fascism. The diffferences aren't that great - once the national government starts exerting that much control over the means of production and vice versa, it becomes a moot point whether the production is distinct from the government. You may disagree, but that's a different discussion.
I think neoconservatives and the religious right have changed the definition of what a conservative is in this country, but that just means that we have to change our definition of conservative. These labels are only there because it is an effective way of indicating where a person in relation to other people on the spectrum - they are not there to indicate that people have to adopt a specific set of beliefs, although many people, indeed, see it that way.
However, the specific beliefs that they have is a matter of individual choosing. When you say "aligned" I guess you mean a hard alignment - the kind you see when people tow the party line and recite all the talking points that their party leaders give them. This may be how it is. But those talking points change with popular sentiment, and are meant to represent the kind of consensus that occurs in a party when people agree on many issues.
In short, when I say I'm "aligned" with the Democrats I only say that I'm more likely to vote with the Democrats.
I think you are correct that, unfortunately, too many people in our government recite the party platform whenever they are asked to explain their positions on the issues. And too many people fail to think about or learn about the issues simply because they think "liberal" is as far as they have to go in explaining or thinking about their beliefs.
This is why all these false choices are laid out before us - the parties and the pundits are talking past each other, and not to the American people.
It is true that correlation by itself does not necessitate causality. But people too often use that as an excuse to discredit a causal relationship that by every criterion is a reasonable one. You should remember that correlation is still a necessary condition for causality(if not a sufficient one), and it is often one of the first clues we have in deciding what causes some effect. If 99% of people with Semantic dementia have some problem with their temporal lobe, and no other observable factor has such a high correlation with semantic dementia, it is reasonable to assert that the temporal lobe has something very important to do in dealing with conceptual and semantic reasoning, which is all this article says.
We do have strong evidence to conclude that all of the areas of the mind that involve concepts, memory, reasoning, and sensory inputs - all of the mental processes that constitute cognition and access - can be explained by a functional state of the brain. Exactly which functional states humans indeed have still to discover. The physical theories we need to explain these processes are still incomplete, but that doesn't mean that we need to assert the existence of a soul or God. While it may be desirable to do so, there is still a lot more to discover about the brain and mind before we adopt a non-materialist theory of the brain. In fact with every new discovery scientists make about the brain, the dualistic theory of the mind holds less water, and seems more and more to be a myth that people invented to explain the mystery of consciousness and subjectivity.
We do not know the exact mechanism by which the physical, syntax-processing parts of the brain "computer" translate into semantics. Some have suggested that this is impossible if we look at the brain as simply a computer. But this doesn't refute physicalism.
It is true that we can definitely not explain is how the experience of these concepts, memories, reasonings, and sensory perceptions arises - that is, what is responsible for the phenomenal aspect of consciousness, that thing that allows us to know "what is it like to be me?" and makes my experience unique to my person. We cannot account for this possibility yet using pure physical theories.
Therefore, this may very well be a non-physical process. I am reluctant to take a side one way or the other - there are compelling arguments for both dualism and monism.
But there is enoughdata to support the idea that at least the great majority of cognitive functioning takes place somewhere in the brain and is a physical process, not a spiritual one.
I was trying to support bipartisan discussion, not coming out against it.
This of course means exactly what you say, in my book. People with different sets of belief coming together and negotiating the correct course of action for the country, regardless of what branch of ideology they come from. This is how our country is supposed to work.
Maybe you were confusing the word "bipartisan" with the word "partisan"?
I am perfectly aware that the political spectrum is complicated. That's why I accused O'Reilly of being simplistic - It is exactly the Bill O'Reilly types who make it much simpler than it is in reality. Basically, it's the us vs. them attitude, which creates a false choice that all Americans are tricked into making. For instance, you can have both safety and security. For some reason O'Reilly, Hannity, et. al seem to think you can't, and support whatever hare-brained effort the president is making to constrain our freedom. You can allow gay marriage without destroying the institution of marriage. Etc etc. etc. There are lots of these issues that these guys love to trot out to confuse us and to make us believe in one or the other propositions that aren't actually, logically or practically speaking, mutually exclusive. There are good values on both sides of the isle, but the poliitical debate has been clouded so by these pundits that there is no longer any honest discussion over the real issues. That's what I am accusing O'Reilly of. Regardless of whether he is conservative or not, he is still an idiot. I would think he was an idiot if he was a liberal or a centrist too.
They are in no way related in today's definition of "conservatism." There are many definitions of conservatism, however. In addition, I said historically, and I meant in terms of what historically were conservative values.
Moreover, conservationism is an element of traditional Christian morality and social values - preserving God's creation. You are correct that it is not an element of the messianic, Rapture-anticipating values of contemporary Christian evangelism and fundamentalism.
I wasn't clear about the name thing. I mean "conservation" sensibly follows from "conservative" values, not the other way around.
From the Wikipedia article about conservatives:
"In early liberal philosophy 'Nature' and the environment were treated as a resource to be exploited: value derived from their human use, in accordance with the labor theory of value. Most early conservatives, however, saw the value of Nature as inherent. Both strands have influenced conservative politics in many countries, since the 19th century. The etymology emphasises the close correlation between the early conservation movement and conservative ideals."
The Repubican party definitely has a history in conservation. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, lead conservation efforts. While he was a progressive conservative as conservatives go, he still brought nature as an issue to the forefront of American politics.
I take it you make a lot of assumptions about people without actually knowing anything about them and sprinkle smiley faces into your comments to make it seem like what you are saying isn't a thinly-veiled(or not so thinly veiled) invective.
I used to watch the O'Reilly factor with one of my conservative friends. He lost me within the first five minutes. I'm not sure if it has changed since then. I can't stand how the text on the right side of the screen mirrors what he says. I can't stand how he sucks out a lot of the nuances and complexities of issues to make them match his (in my view) simplistic moral world-view. In short, I think he's full of crap most of the time.
He's a bully. He doesn't let people speak if he disagrees with them - even if he says that he's going to give them the last word. He lies, often blatantly("I've been in combat!").
His show is definitely not the no-spin zone it is billed to be and he is definitely not an independent.
You disagree, obviously. You have your O'Reilly world and I have my world, where just telling someone to shut up does not win you an argument, and does not promote a reasoned, bipartisan discussion of the issues. We'll just have to agree not to cross each other.
I'm glad he has said things like this on national television - it can only help the cause.
Occasionally O'Reilly says something reasonable or admits a progressive cause(conservation, actually is historically a conservative cause, hence the name), and we should applaud him for doing so.
Likewise, we should applaud a thousand monkeys with typewriters when they write occasionally write something reasonable.
Exactly. It's a vicious cycle. People are convinced that their vote doesn't matter; therefore, our election administrators can get away with an opaque, shoddy, and potentially corrupt election system. Then, stories like this come out which confirms people's mistrust, cynicism, and resulting apathy, entrenching the popular opinion that the individual vote doesn't matter. Instead of being galvanized, most people(including myself, but not anymore) just sit back and declare that the ideal of popular representation has been dead for many years already or they wait for other people(the government?) to take care of the problem. Or they declare that there is no difference between the platforms; that all politicians are the same nihilistic creatures. Or they just don't feel like worrying about it. Or they don't understand why having a privatized election system administered by political appointees and elected officials, entails a conflict of interest. There are failures of curiosity at every level of public life.
This is not at all to say that stories like this are bad at all. They are very very good. They bring attention to probably the most important issue of our time; if we have no say in our government, then every other political issue is quite literally irrelevant. I applaud black box voting for taking this seriously, and hope that I can justify their efforts by helping to galvanize people to demand transparent voting. It is absurd that our election process is subject to error at all.
As I've said before, it's just counting
Why can't we get it unequivocally right? It is so easy that there has to be some interest behind not making it as transparent and rigorously accurate as humanly possible. We need to draw out these interests and cancel out any undue influence they have over our system.
What you say about potential harm is definitely true. But I think in the same way freedom is compromised in our every day lives by criminals and other ne'er-do-wells who wish us harm. And similarly, in the real world, we (ideally) don't protect ourselves via legislation or regulation or restrictions at the expense of our freedom, even if that means we open ourselves up to potential harm. While some comromises are arguably necessary, wholesale restriction of the internet by one or two institutions in the form of a test is not going to do anyone any good.
As an analogy: some of us live in gated communities, but most of us (who face a realistic threat) have security systems in our houses. Likewise, what you are pointing to are security concerns, and those can and should be dealt with by operating system and security professionals to make sure every machine is secure enough to prevent most threats. Ignoring the fact that those acts are already, Microsoft could do a lot to help out the situation - every exploit you've mentioned is a direct result not just of malicious behavior but of Microsoft's failure to provide a secure operating system to its core group of desktop users.
If there were no means to protect ourselves against such people, I agree, a test or some licensing program would be called for to ensure only people who want to use the internet for constructive purposes will d be given access. But the fact is that we *do* have other recourses to protect ourselves without restricting the freedom of everybody.
In this society, we by and large give people the choice to commit a crime or not to do so, but make sure they are mindful of the consequences of doing so. In this way we are able to make it desirable not to harm people and at the same time preserve the freedoms of everybody. The same thing is already done by existing laws, even if they should be enforced more rigorously. Everything else, as I've said, should be handled by the people who are making operating systems and security systems. A better job can and will be done here.
Not to mention there are enough barriers to entry on hte internet already. ISPs self-select - they are only able to form if they have enough capital for bandwidth, enough of a demand for service, and enough competence to handle the administrative, business, and security responsibilities. They can and do make calls all the time to stop denial of service attacks.
I guess we have to make a decision. Is the worldwide internet going to be unified and borderless or are we going to divvy it up by country or other portions, with certain requirements for becoming a "netizen?" I obviously prefer the former, since for all the reasons I've listed the benefits outweigh the risks.
If we decide for the latter, are we really better than China(to use it as an example again), which has constructed a giant firewall around its portion of the Internet to prevent certain
While slippery slope arguments are annoying, they are effective - if we start regulating access to the internet, where we will stop? Who do we trust with regulation? I say nobody. It's too easy to abuse. A criminal can hurt a few people. Poor or unfair regulation on the government or corporate level can hurt many many more.
And I think this is besides the point, while not necessarily of this discussion but of the sense of the article. We're talking about the technological and legal competence of old people. This is an absurd criterion for discrimination. The real issue is not whether old people understand the internet, it's whether they understand agreements and contracts in general. In this discussion, the issue is whether the user in question intends to do harm. We know how to test for knowledge, which is not a good criterion for refusing access. But how do you test for malicious intent? Where do draw the line of "malice?"
Whether to offer someone a contract or not can be determined in a case by case basis by the person drawing up the contract, and by the
I'm not sure what your point is. The point of the Internet is that it is an open, distributed network that faciliates commerce, productivity(sometimes), communication, and information sharing. Nothing you say on the internet can physically harm anyone. However, guns, various substances, cars, planes, machinery, and even babies in some countries can harm people.
Well, maybe not the babies, usually. Regulating childbirth is not right or necessary in 99% of cases. In those countries where the population is spilling over and resources are being over-consumed, such as China, some nation-wide policies to incentivize a limited amount of begetting actually *do* prevent harm to people by reducing the amount of consumed resources including health care, in the long-term and the short-term. It also reduces crime and other social ills.
So now that we've established that all those things you've listed do harm to people are regulated for just that reason, answer me this: what harm happens on the Internet, solely on the Internet, that can't be regulated by laws already in place? If you make a mistake on the internet, like typing a URL in wrong, or making a stupid web page, nobody dies; it is usally forgotten altogether. If you are harassing little boys and girls on the internet, your crimes are already covered by sex crime laws . If you hack into a corporate computer or disseminate a virus you are already covered by computer-crime laws.
('Why, just the other day, I hit someone in the head with an Internet!")
We need to keep the net neutral. That means minimal regulation as well as a definition of what constitutes service to the internet that can't be altered by any one institution(be it the government, or a private corporation). That also means it should stay open to everybody. The internet is just starting to facilitate and realize the dream of American capitalism and democracy to an extent never before seen. Namely, it treats mega-corporations and small businesses and individuals the same way. It puts power back in the hands of the consumers and stimulates a more perfect instantiation of the supply/demand mechanism(long tail effect.) Because of the internet, we actually have a chance of mass-communication if governments collude to take all other forms of communication away from us(a paranoid thought, but I think true, and comforting), precisely because of its nearly uniform distribution and availibility throughout the US and the world.
It is therefore offensive that some people want to start regulating the internet in favor of skewing the internet against the individual, whether the individual be 70's or their 20's. No test should be required to get on the internet. We wouldn't block access on arbitrary basis to our town centers and shopping malls(aside from terrorists) now would we? So why should we block access based on made-up, discriminatory criteria to the most valuable information resource that has ever existed?
Therefore, I advise astronomers to make Pluto a planet again. Make inquisitive Googlers search for "Pluto+planet" on Google instead of "Pluto+not+planet."
I ask this with the hope of making 2 Skinnee J's commercially successful, therefore making them reunite to entertain me. And we're really just concerned about me here.
Charging just for support and giving away an OS is something Microsoft and Apple can both do in the future to compete on price.
That's not to guarantee that Apple will ever shift from tying its OS to its hardware. Just saying this to keep the other option of licensing their OS open.
Your predictions are appealing, but I'll play the devil's advocate: they are a little premature and discount Microsoft completely as a competitor, which is pretty short-sighted considering competing in market share (many times unfairly) is the thing Microsoft does best.
For one, applications on the desktop are much more mature than their AJAX and Java counterparts - Writely.com and Google Spreadsheets, for instance, don't even pretend to replace Microsoft Word and Excel at this moment. This will of course change, but saying that the migration of applications to the Web will end the OS war anytime soon is a stretch. Someone still has to build the platform to get to the Internet, after all. We're not looking at the end of an OS war - just a new type of OS war, one where the aim isn't to provide the best native operating system but the best bootstraps to get up to the best web platform. I doubt that Microsoft will stop competing once it becomes clear that native desktop applications are an obsolete piece of nostalgia. How about a very-thin-client version of Windows and subscription-based access to an AJAX version of Office, with all the features of the native versions? I mean Vista is coming along slowly, but make no mistake: Microsoft knows what it can afford to do, and losing its desktop operating system and application share isn't something it will suffer gladly. They'll want to enter by brute-force and compete in this new market just like every other - and while they may not dominate completely like they have in the past, they will certainly be a major player.
I don't see how the migration to OS-independent desktop applications entails a migration to Linux either. Competing with "free" is easier than you think: having millions of dollars in marketing, cultural forces behind your products, promises of support, and a near-guarantee of reliability are all something that Linux doesn't have yet for the free LiveCD versions. It's either free or you pay for support. Not both. Charging just for support and giving away an OS is something Microsoft and Apple can both do in the future to compete on price.
Moreover, the "open source" replacements are often inferior to their commercial counterparts. There are plenty of examples of superior open source products, but I can cite many examples of the opposite. I can't even play DVDs on the standard Ubuntu distribution - it requires apt-get install'ing the css and mpeg libraries. Most users don't want to muck around with package formats. Linux has a long way to go before it is an actual competitor against Microsoft and Apple for users other than those in the tech-savvy crowd. A solid, winning desktop distribution and a standardized UI and widget set will definitely help. If I understand consumers correctly, most feel more comfortable relying on something that they paid good money for. This may change, but again, I think it's too early to declare victory for Linux, especially since Apple is gaining on Microsoft especially among laptop users. Maybe in 10 to 20 years. But the OS wars are still healthy, and are actually heating up.
This allows for an insane power concentration and it also solidifies and protects the "old boys club". That's not something we should stand for as people and citizens. If someone is involved in one company, it should be illegal to be involved in another. Any time power concentrates it's bad for the people.
Don't be silly. It's our government that does that, not being on more than one board.
If you want the burgeoning aristocracy to stop forming, elect some officials to the federal government that actually care about people.
Your argument is otherwise absurd - being on a board of directors still means that the performance of the company has to be maintained, and the board of directors still has to work hard to make sure that happens by hiring the right executives, holding them accountable, and deciding what stock and dividends to issue. They also represent their shareholders, who can literally be *anyone* in the case of public companies and is not exclusive. It doesn't mean much else, since directors typically don't own a huge share of the company. It's really just a representative institution (dare I say democratic) - that is way to ensure public(and private) ownership of a company gets its voice heard. So it's a good thing that upholds a democratic ideal of what the economy should be. A far more important question is whether the Senate and the House of Representatives are exclusive playgrounds for the rich.
As far as I can tell, things have been mechanically reproducible, with little overhead, since Gutenberg. What has made book and news publishing a viable business is the quality of the works they publish and the widespread demand for leisure, informational, and research reading. While copies of any work are in limitless supply now that they are in digital form, the supply of *quality* work is definitely limited, and as such the price for good works will remain high even if it can be infinitely reproduced. There will have to be slight changes to the music and movie business model, of course: for instance, one of the reasons why people buy and read books is because of the physical aura of the book. They like to hold it in their hands and rflip through the textured pages. On the internet, this physicality is lost, and so an investors' purchase of an item will have to depend on other things: the comprehensiveness of the inventory, the freshness of the inventory, on what variety of media devices it plays, how easy it is to transfer to those devices, how reliably it plays, and what additional content can be viewed when it gets to those devices. Music companies need to learn to deliver the best product possible, and have to stop depending on an artifical supply limit for their ability to charge premiums.
RIAA companies have been holding this specter of their defenseless, victimized interests over our head. Basically it's just a way for them to lock us into preserving their current business model: sign mediocre artists, over-produce mediocre music, sell it at inflated prices, reap most of the benefits, and screw (by underpaying) the parties responsible for their having any content at all. Now that the barriers to reproduction are gone, they'll have to innovate on their business model as I have already described. It's not rocket science. It's adapting to a new marketplace. All companies have to do it, and rigid DRM restrictions are not going to work forever.
I don't see DRM going away entirely - rightfully, I think, since reproduction is now virtually *free* and media formats are so versatile and transmissible over the Internet. It's the same reason why we have security systems at stores. But security systems aren't as conspicuous and constraining as the ridiculous DRM systems are now. Mostly stores rely on the inherent value of the product they are selling and the integrity of their customers. Likewise, the DRM just needs to be much more flexible. In other words, RIAA companies need to stop treating their customers like theives and more like the reason they stay alive. This, or else things are going to start moving more rapidly toward a long tail model where the independent publishers win(I vote for this, since it allows us to start taking things back from the oligopolies and re-democratize our economy.)
"The Company posted revenue of $4.37 billion and a net quarterly profit of $472 million, or $.54 per diluted share. [...] Apple shipped 1,327,000 Macintosh® computers and 8,111,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 12 percent growth in Macs and 32 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter."
God! $472,000,000! I bet Jobs and his lieutenants feel like huge chumps for making those childish and foolish ads! And filling out that childish and foolish deposit slip with all those childish and foolish zeros.
Hard to believe a caring human being could hold such a morally awful position.
It is counterintuitive and on its face offensive, but the entire point of my post was that setting a precedent for circumvention of our legal and justice system is not justified by catching a few pederasts unlawfully.
Looking at the facts of the case as stated, the result appears to be that two children were saved from sexual servitude or even horrible deaths and that two pederasts were jailed. If what we are told is true, justice was clearly done -- if you wish to refute me, please identify who is being unjustly treated. The childen? The criminals? The police? Please do not claim that you, as a representative of the "people", are experiencing an injustice, because you are not.
I'm not sure where these mentions of sexual servitude or horrible deaths are. The hacker sent a picture of a 6 year old being abused unlawfully - again, as the other poster mentioned, why is it OK for him to possess such pornography and the criminal in question not? This whole case is riddled with questions like th is, and this is exactly why there is court oversight for things like issuing warrants, etc.
Justice may have been done in this case(although any violation of a person's privacy and failure to execute the normal procedures of evidence collection via search warrants is to me an injustice to the criminal, even if that criminal is disgusting.) But this sets a precedent for how to obtain evidence which is entirely unconstitutional and unlawful. If more cases proceed in this same way, suddenly the privacy rights of everybody are being eroded. This would be the whole point of my post.
Now, I support catching pederasts, but the important part is that we don't have to resort to illegal means to catch them. They're pretty much out in the open on these newsgroups anyway, and a substantial amount of data(and probable cause to search) can be obtained(I presume) from whatever posts are in the newsgroups without having to resort to searching a person's private data without a warrant via some hacker's trojan horse. If they want to search his computer they should do so legally based on evidence they gather from the newsgroup.
Do you really believe that police shouldn't be allowed to use evidence gathered by criminals? Why? Exactly how do you think law enforcement works, anyway? Police routinely use informers, stool pigeons and the like -- why is this wrong? There are very specific rules on conduct, on admissability of evidence, and defence attorneys routinely and often successfully challenge the believability of such witnesses because of their poor character, but there's nothing intrinsically "unjust" in having criminals testify against other criminals, it happens every day.
They should be able to use evidence gathered by criminals. That's not what the issue is here. The hacker (according to our laws, which are the ones we are trying to enforce) illegally intruded this downloader's computer and used it to gather evidence, that evidence was given to the FBI, and the FBI used it in court to prosecute the defendant. This is not a legal use of informant in any sense. Most of the time informants are informants because they *witness a crime being done* and happen to be around evidence at the time of the investigation, and they are willfully cooperating with investigators due to this unique position and in part are owners of or have legal access to the evidence involved. This is something altogether different from purposefully intruding a person's computer with the intent of gathering evidence for trial without a warrant. There's nothing unjust about having criminals justify against other criminals, as long as it is done within the law.
In fact, it's not even clear that the hacker is doing anything that is illegal.
It's pretty clear that he is. Even if it wasn't, the FBI *is* doing something illegal by using the e
I agree with you completely except for the first statement:
Obviously, what hacker 1069 is doing is good and aiding the authorities by stopping the exploitation of children. However, his means are questionable as well as those of the authorities.
For all the reasons you've listed 1069 isn't performing performing any good, but a grave injustice. He's providing a means for our government, which must be transparent and subject to the limitations of law, to circumvent the well-placed constraints on governmental power that are there to protect all of us, not just the pedophiles.
He may think he's doing a good thing, and this thought may be what the FBI is using to justify their tacit approval, but he isn't. He is undermining our laws - a fundamental disrespect of our first right to self-determination and sovereignty. If he really cared that much about justice, he would rather see the preservation of a fair justice system than the arrests and prosecution of a few pedophiles. If he doesn't think our justice system is fair the he should work within the law to improve it, not outside the law, not as a replacement for the law.
This also implicates the FBI. If that agency had respect for our law then they would enforce all of them, not just the sex crime statutes but also the ones that are there to guarantee limitations on FBI's own investigative powers. These laws are there for all of us. Pedophiles can hurt a few children gravely, yes. A corrupt justice system can hurt millions.
Moreover, if these pedophiles get off on evidence discovery loopholes or on the basis of law enforcement malfeasance, then it will be harder to prosecute them on legimately obtained evidence in the future due to the double jeopardy restrictions. Even though they are likely to commit separate, prosecutable crimes, prosecuting them incorrectly once makes it harder to prosecute them correctly in the future. This is bad.
If I recall correctly(and I might not), it was the founder of the ACLU, Baldwin, that said something quite right, to this effect(I don't remember the exact quote): in order to defend our rights we are often forced to defend scoundrels, who are usually the first people to lose their liberties.
In this case, even though the pedophiles earn the names of "scoundrels," and "scumbags," I will defend their legal and constitutional rights to privacy because if theirs are at stake, mine are at stake. If theirs are ignored, then any intrusion of my privacy can be justified by the alleged aim of "preserving public good, decency and safety" on the basis of mere suspicion, as you and Ben Franklin aptly affirmed. This is exactly the type of crime in response to which ordinary citizens disarm themselves against the intrusive impulse of the government, and this is exactly the type of situation that the constitution is there to prevent.
Also, why does this (possibly Turkish, possibly American) person take it upon themselves to identify American pedophiles and child pornographers? Isn't that a little strange? Doesn't it remind you of the neurotic character that Robert de Niro played in Taxi Driver - fixating on the pervasive "filth" that he imagines everywhere, to the point of seeking it out and immersing himself in it? This guy is hanging out on child pornography newsgroups. Even if he isn't looking at the porn, he is there uploading trojans and gathering evidence. Isn't that a little creepy and obsessive, not to mention self-righteous and possibly illegal? Doesn't this person have his own country and his own business to worry about?
Enforcing American law is the American law enforcement's job. No exceptions. Period.
Thank you for noticing the point of the post. In fact I'm insulted by the moderation..the whole point was to sprinkle as many euphemisms for pooping as I could remember into a post that could otherwise conceivably be confused for a +1 interesting or insightful.
Of course I forgot the most important one: "Dropping the kids off at the pool."
is the most evolved piece of human machinery, if you measure evolution in the years it has existed in any form at all. Contrary to popular belief, cleansing your colon into a hole is the world's oldest occupation, not prostitution. You might have thought it was prostitution, but you are wrong. It's making cleveland steamers in a ditch.
So I'm confused about this article. On the one hand, I'm pretty sure nobody's made any noticable improvements to bathroom equipment (toilet paper, plungers, sink, soap, etc) for however many years because maybe, dare I say it, it's one of a select few pieces of technology that we have that's done, perfect, finito in a design sense. It's reached a critical point of punctuated equilibrium in its development. All change after this point is slow and arbitrary.
This may of course be shortsighted, but I think this is a good thing. I for one don't like to think about releasing the hostages(although, like anyone, I find it momentarily pleasing when it happens) or even attach all that meaning to it, and so the fact that the current equipment renders the process as unceremonious, functional and utilitarian makes everything in the room just what it should be: perfectly forgettable. I think baking the brownies is gross, and so now that we have mastered our bathroom thrones we can move onto a prettier stage in human evolution: the one where we forget about our logs.
On the other hand, perhaps innovation in the bathroom should continue. I know there are plenty of embarassing things that happen in public bathrooms. Urinal separators could stand some improvement, and toilet paper dispensers need to be more automated and less frustrating when the roll runs out. I know it's really agonizing when you have been sitting there for ten minutes, you are missing a meeting or are in the middle of an exam, you have one sheet of two ply left to split among your cheeks, and you can't get the f-ing next roll to come down so you can squeegee your butt and skidaddle. Perhaps someone can innovate on noise blockers so someone with gastrointestinal stress won't have to wait till everyone who heard their noise pollution(or smelled their olefactory pollution) to leave before exiting stage front out of the stall and washing their hands. Boy those are some awkward moments
But one thing's for sure: whoever comes up with a successful, widely applicable way to improve bathroom technology is a genius. And to that person: please come along soon and making sinking the Bismarck even more enjoyable.
Yes of course. Supply and demand must dictate the prices. But what if supply is being artificially manipulated, or at the very least being deliberately slowed down to inflate prices? We have an example of a British Petroleum oil field in Alaska recently shutting down - everytime something like this happens, the oil prices go up and Exxon-Mobile et. al. make billions of dollars. The temptation to manipulate oil supply is very much there. We have, as other posters have said, a cartel of oil companies and oil exporting nations(who control the supply) which stand to profit immensely from a rise in oil prices. who have every incentive to manipulate the supply of oil. Moreover, we have a United States government that is definitely on the side of those oil companies and is actually willing to wage a war in part so that our access to world oil reserves is increased thirty fold. If we can offer people like the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Iraqis etc etc higher prices for barrel we can beat out countries like China in bidding for oil access, thereby guaranteeing our dependence on oil for the long-term future. There's definitely a conflict of interest going on here.
This is not necessarily a bad thing in any other time frame than the immediate. It might stimulate alternative fuel innovations. I sure hope so. But the fact is that it's going to do damage to our economy because a lot of money tha belongs to the lower and middle class that would have been spent be spread around the economy is now winding up solely in the pockets of rich oil executives and investors, who tend to save money rather than spend.
Anyway, this was stupid of me to bring up in a discussion about record contracts.
Luna, Lunae, f. the moon goddess, identical or related with Diana, and the subject of that sculpture.
Calling the moon Luna isn't that far off at all. I've heard it used in much the same way. Who says we are tethered to the terms astronomy gives us to use?
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"and making objective decisions" was the thing I meant there.
Perhaps I should have paid better attention in English class.
I think you are correct that the tides are turrning as far as I can see. State funding is still meager right now, not nearly enough for such a valuable, life-affirming effort as stem cell research. And in the past five years many many many millions of people have possibly had their terrible fate sealed by the current administration.
About the other point. I'm sure Frist was a wonderful heart-surgeon. But he's not the type of doctor that I want operating on my heart, considering he renders life or death medical decisions with scant evidence and apparently considering only the impact it will have on his preconceived, unscientific, political and religious "pro-life" agenda.
An M.D. doesn't mean much if you can't observe the clear difference between a person clearly in a persistent vegetative state and a person who still has high-level brain function - the Terri Shaivo case being the thing I have in mind.
So while the poster was exaggerating, it appears that there is a systemic problem with thinking, reasoning, and making objecive reasoning based on the facts - all skills that should have been learned in high school.
I agree with you on most points. I just don't think the labels are useless, especially in this country . Just because we have labels doesn't mean those labels are static - they just represent the political discussion in its current form. I don't think that being a member of a party is such a rigid designator of political opinion. It may be perceived that way by some people- but in reality, you are quite right in saying it's not that simple. In reality, being a member of a party is just having a tendency of thought and a tendency to vote for candidates who represent certain kinds of beliefs. That is what the left/right distinction is too. There are definite agreements on the kinds of opinions that people who are on the "left" have - and there are, likewise, agreements about what the kinds of beliefs that the "right" has - it follows a continuum, as you say, and there are lots of variation and therefore lots of different, changing definitions about what constitutes conservatism and liberalism. The important thing is none of these definitions stop changing.
Also it's important to note that the spectrum is not a line - it's more like an ellipse or a circle. In practice at some point beyond communism radical leftist ideology begins to resemble something like fascism, and far far right ideology (in some sense) begins to resemble communism beyond fascism. The diffferences aren't that great - once the national government starts exerting that much control over the means of production and vice versa, it becomes a moot point whether the production is distinct from the government. You may disagree, but that's a different discussion.
I think neoconservatives and the religious right have changed the definition of what a conservative is in this country, but that just means that we have to change our definition of conservative. These labels are only there because it is an effective way of indicating where a person in relation to other people on the spectrum - they are not there to indicate that people have to adopt a specific set of beliefs, although many people, indeed, see it that way.
However, the specific beliefs that they have is a matter of individual choosing. When you say "aligned" I guess you mean a hard alignment - the kind you see when people tow the party line and recite all the talking points that their party leaders give them. This may be how it is. But those talking points change with popular sentiment, and are meant to represent the kind of consensus that occurs in a party when people agree on many issues.
In short, when I say I'm "aligned" with the Democrats I only say that I'm more likely to vote with the Democrats.
I think you are correct that, unfortunately, too many people in our government recite the party platform whenever they are asked to explain their positions on the issues. And too many people fail to think about or learn about the issues simply because they think "liberal" is as far as they have to go in explaining or thinking about their beliefs.
This is why all these false choices are laid out before us - the parties and the pundits are talking past each other, and not to the American people.
It is true that correlation by itself does not necessitate causality. But people too often use that as an excuse to discredit a causal relationship that by every criterion is a reasonable one. You should remember that correlation is still a necessary condition for causality(if not a sufficient one), and it is often one of the first clues we have in deciding what causes some effect. If 99% of people with Semantic dementia have some problem with their temporal lobe, and no other observable factor has such a high correlation with semantic dementia, it is reasonable to assert that the temporal lobe has something very important to do in dealing with conceptual and semantic reasoning, which is all this article says.
We do have strong evidence to conclude that all of the areas of the mind that involve concepts, memory, reasoning, and sensory inputs - all of the mental processes that constitute cognition and access - can be explained by a functional state of the brain. Exactly which functional states humans indeed have still to discover. The physical theories we need to explain these processes are still incomplete, but that doesn't mean that we need to assert the existence of a soul or God. While it may be desirable to do so, there is still a lot more to discover about the brain and mind before we adopt a non-materialist theory of the brain. In fact with every new discovery scientists make about the brain, the dualistic theory of the mind holds less water, and seems more and more to be a myth that people invented to explain the mystery of consciousness and subjectivity.
We do not know the exact mechanism by which the physical, syntax-processing parts of the brain "computer" translate into semantics. Some have suggested that this is impossible if we look at the brain as simply a computer. But this doesn't refute physicalism.
It is true that we can definitely not explain is how the experience of these concepts, memories, reasonings, and sensory perceptions arises - that is, what is responsible for the phenomenal aspect of consciousness, that thing that allows us to know "what is it like to be me?" and makes my experience unique to my person. We cannot account for this possibility yet using pure physical theories.
Therefore, this may very well be a non-physical process. I am reluctant to take a side one way or the other - there are compelling arguments for both dualism and monism.
But there is enoughdata to support the idea that at least the great majority of cognitive functioning takes place somewhere in the brain and is a physical process, not a spiritual one.
I guess I'm confused about what you're saying.
I was trying to support bipartisan discussion, not coming out against it.
This of course means exactly what you say, in my book. People with different sets of belief coming together and negotiating the correct course of action for the country, regardless of what branch of ideology they come from. This is how our country is supposed to work.
Maybe you were confusing the word "bipartisan" with the word "partisan"?
I am perfectly aware that the political spectrum is complicated. That's why I accused O'Reilly of being simplistic - It is exactly the Bill O'Reilly types who make it much simpler than it is in reality. Basically, it's the us vs. them attitude, which creates a false choice that all Americans are tricked into making. For instance, you can have both safety and security. For some reason O'Reilly, Hannity, et. al seem to think you can't, and support whatever hare-brained effort the president is making to constrain our freedom. You can allow gay marriage without destroying the institution of marriage. Etc etc. etc. There are lots of these issues that these guys love to trot out to confuse us and to make us believe in one or the other propositions that aren't actually, logically or practically speaking, mutually exclusive. There are good values on both sides of the isle, but the poliitical debate has been clouded so by these pundits that there is no longer any honest discussion over the real issues. That's what I am accusing O'Reilly of. Regardless of whether he is conservative or not, he is still an idiot. I would think he was an idiot if he was a liberal or a centrist too.
They are in no way related in today's definition of "conservatism." There are many definitions of conservatism, however. In addition, I said historically, and I meant in terms of what historically were conservative values.
Moreover, conservationism is an element of traditional Christian morality and social values - preserving God's creation. You are correct that it is not an element of the messianic, Rapture-anticipating values of contemporary Christian evangelism and fundamentalism.
I wasn't clear about the name thing. I mean "conservation" sensibly follows from "conservative" values, not the other way around.
From the Wikipedia article about conservatives:
"In early liberal philosophy 'Nature' and the environment were treated as a resource to be exploited: value derived from their human use, in accordance with the labor theory of value. Most early conservatives, however, saw the value of Nature as inherent. Both strands have influenced conservative politics in many countries, since the 19th century. The etymology emphasises the close correlation between the early conservation movement and conservative ideals."
The Repubican party definitely has a history in conservation. Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, lead conservation efforts. While he was a progressive conservative as conservatives go, he still brought nature as an issue to the forefront of American politics.
There is an interesting book about environmentally-minded conservatives
I take it you make a lot of assumptions about people without actually knowing anything about them and sprinkle smiley faces into your comments to make it seem like what you are saying isn't a thinly-veiled(or not so thinly veiled) invective.
I used to watch the O'Reilly factor with one of my conservative friends. He lost me within the first five minutes. I'm not sure if it has changed since then. I can't stand how the text on the right side of the screen mirrors what he says. I can't stand how he sucks out a lot of the nuances and complexities of issues to make them match his (in my view) simplistic moral world-view. In short, I think he's full of crap most of the time.
He's a bully. He doesn't let people speak if he disagrees with them - even if he says that he's going to give them the last word. He lies, often blatantly("I've been in combat!").
His show is definitely not the no-spin zone it is billed to be and he is definitely not an independent.
You disagree, obviously. You have your O'Reilly world and I have my world, where just telling someone to shut up does not win you an argument, and does not promote a reasoned, bipartisan discussion of the issues. We'll just have to agree not to cross each other.
I'm glad he has said things like this on national television - it can only help the cause.
Occasionally O'Reilly says something reasonable or admits a progressive cause(conservation, actually is historically a conservative cause, hence the name), and we should applaud him for doing so.
Likewise, we should applaud a thousand monkeys with typewriters when they write occasionally write something reasonable.
Evolution needs positive reinforcement.
Exactly. It's a vicious cycle. People are convinced that their vote doesn't matter; therefore, our election administrators can get away with an opaque, shoddy, and potentially corrupt election system. Then, stories like this come out which confirms people's mistrust, cynicism, and resulting apathy, entrenching the popular opinion that the individual vote doesn't matter. Instead of being galvanized, most people(including myself, but not anymore) just sit back and declare that the ideal of popular representation has been dead for many years already or they wait for other people(the government?) to take care of the problem. Or they declare that there is no difference between the platforms; that all politicians are the same nihilistic creatures. Or they just don't feel like worrying about it. Or they don't understand why having a privatized election system administered by political appointees and elected officials, entails a conflict of interest. There are failures of curiosity at every level of public life.
This is not at all to say that stories like this are bad at all. They are very very good. They bring attention to probably the most important issue of our time; if we have no say in our government, then every other political issue is quite literally irrelevant. I applaud black box voting for taking this seriously, and hope that I can justify their efforts by helping to galvanize people to demand transparent voting. It is absurd that our election process is subject to error at all.
As I've said before, it's just counting
Why can't we get it unequivocally right? It is so easy that there has to be some interest behind not making it as transparent and rigorously accurate as humanly possible. We need to draw out these interests and cancel out any undue influence they have over our system.
What you say about potential harm is definitely true. But I think in the same way freedom is compromised in our every day lives by criminals and other ne'er-do-wells who wish us harm. And similarly, in the real world, we (ideally) don't protect ourselves via legislation or regulation or restrictions at the expense of our freedom, even if that means we open ourselves up to potential harm. While some comromises are arguably necessary, wholesale restriction of the internet by one or two institutions in the form of a test is not going to do anyone any good.
As an analogy: some of us live in gated communities, but most of us (who face a realistic threat) have security systems in our houses. Likewise, what you are pointing to are security concerns, and those can and should be dealt with by operating system and security professionals to make sure every machine is secure enough to prevent most threats. Ignoring the fact that those acts are already, Microsoft could do a lot to help out the situation - every exploit you've mentioned is a direct result not just of malicious behavior but of Microsoft's failure to provide a secure operating system to its core group of desktop users.
If there were no means to protect ourselves against such people, I agree, a test or some licensing program would be called for to ensure only people who want to use the internet for constructive purposes will d be given access. But the fact is that we *do* have other recourses to protect ourselves without restricting the freedom of everybody.
In this society, we by and large give people the choice to commit a crime or not to do so, but make sure they are mindful of the consequences of doing so. In this way we are able to make it desirable not to harm people and at the same time preserve the freedoms of everybody. The same thing is already done by existing laws, even if they should be enforced more rigorously. Everything else, as I've said, should be handled by the people who are making operating systems and security systems. A better job can and will be done here.
Not to mention there are enough barriers to entry on hte internet already. ISPs self-select - they are only able to form if they have enough capital for bandwidth, enough of a demand for service, and enough competence to handle the administrative, business, and security responsibilities. They can and do make calls all the time to stop denial of service attacks.
I guess we have to make a decision. Is the worldwide internet going to be unified and borderless or are we going to divvy it up by country or other portions, with certain requirements for becoming a "netizen?" I obviously prefer the former, since for all the reasons I've listed the benefits outweigh the risks.
If we decide for the latter, are we really better than China(to use it as an example again), which has constructed a giant firewall around its portion of the Internet to prevent certain
While slippery slope arguments are annoying, they are effective - if we start regulating access to the internet, where we will stop? Who do we trust with regulation? I say nobody. It's too easy to abuse. A criminal can hurt a few people. Poor or unfair regulation on the government or corporate level can hurt many many more.
And I think this is besides the point, while not necessarily of this discussion but of the sense of the article. We're talking about the technological and legal competence of old people. This is an absurd criterion for discrimination. The real issue is not whether old people understand the internet, it's whether they understand agreements and contracts in general. In this discussion, the issue is whether the user in question intends to do harm. We know how to test for knowledge, which is not a good criterion for refusing access. But how do you test for malicious intent? Where do draw the line of "malice?"
Whether to offer someone a contract or not can be determined in a case by case basis by the person drawing up the contract, and by the
I'm not sure what your point is. The point of the Internet is that it is an open, distributed network that faciliates commerce, productivity(sometimes), communication, and information sharing. Nothing you say on the internet can physically harm anyone. However, guns, various substances, cars, planes, machinery, and even babies in some countries can harm people.
Well, maybe not the babies, usually. Regulating childbirth is not right or necessary in 99% of cases. In those countries where the population is spilling over and resources are being over-consumed, such as China, some nation-wide policies to incentivize a limited amount of begetting actually *do* prevent harm to people by reducing the amount of consumed resources including health care, in the long-term and the short-term. It also reduces crime and other social ills.
So now that we've established that all those things you've listed do harm to people are regulated for just that reason, answer me this: what harm happens on the Internet, solely on the Internet, that can't be regulated by laws already in place? If you make a mistake on the internet, like typing a URL in wrong, or making a stupid web page, nobody dies; it is usally forgotten altogether. If you are harassing little boys and girls on the internet, your crimes are already covered by sex crime laws . If you hack into a corporate computer or disseminate a virus you are already covered by computer-crime laws.
('Why, just the other day, I hit someone in the head with an Internet!")
We need to keep the net neutral. That means minimal regulation as well as a definition of what constitutes service to the internet that can't be altered by any one institution(be it the government, or a private corporation). That also means it should stay open to everybody. The internet is just starting to facilitate and realize the dream of American capitalism and democracy to an extent never before seen. Namely, it treats mega-corporations and small businesses and individuals the same way. It puts power back in the hands of the consumers and stimulates a more perfect instantiation of the supply/demand mechanism(long tail effect.) Because of the internet, we actually have a chance of mass-communication if governments collude to take all other forms of communication away from us(a paranoid thought, but I think true, and comforting), precisely because of its nearly uniform distribution and availibility throughout the US and the world.
It is therefore offensive that some people want to start regulating the internet in favor of skewing the internet against the individual, whether the individual be 70's or their 20's. No test should be required to get on the internet. We wouldn't block access on arbitrary basis to our town centers and shopping malls(aside from terrorists) now would we? So why should we block access based on made-up, discriminatory criteria to the most valuable information resource that has ever existed?
is that excluding Pluto turns the now defunct, but talented funk/rap/rock duo 2 Skinnee J's excellent song, "Pluto is a Planet", into one giant lie! A lie!
A lie I've believed for just too long.
Therefore, I advise astronomers to make Pluto a planet again. Make inquisitive Googlers search for "Pluto+planet" on Google instead of "Pluto+not+planet."
I ask this with the hope of making 2 Skinnee J's commercially successful, therefore making them reunite to entertain me. And we're really just concerned about me here.
Charging just for support and giving away an OS is something Microsoft and Apple can both do in the future to compete on price.
That's not to guarantee that Apple will ever shift from tying its OS to its hardware. Just saying this to keep the other option of licensing their OS open.
Your predictions are appealing, but I'll play the devil's advocate: they are a little premature and discount Microsoft completely as a competitor, which is pretty short-sighted considering competing in market share (many times unfairly) is the thing Microsoft does best.
For one, applications on the desktop are much more mature than their AJAX and Java counterparts - Writely.com and Google Spreadsheets, for instance, don't even pretend to replace Microsoft Word and Excel at this moment. This will of course change, but saying that the migration of applications to the Web will end the OS war anytime soon is a stretch. Someone still has to build the platform to get to the Internet, after all. We're not looking at the end of an OS war - just a new type of OS war, one where the aim isn't to provide the best native operating system but the best bootstraps to get up to the best web platform. I doubt that Microsoft will stop competing once it becomes clear that native desktop applications are an obsolete piece of nostalgia. How about a very-thin-client version of Windows and subscription-based access to an AJAX version of Office, with all the features of the native versions? I mean Vista is coming along slowly, but make no mistake: Microsoft knows what it can afford to do, and losing its desktop operating system and application share isn't something it will suffer gladly. They'll want to enter by brute-force and compete in this new market just like every other - and while they may not dominate completely like they have in the past, they will certainly be a major player.
I don't see how the migration to OS-independent desktop applications entails a migration to Linux either. Competing with "free" is easier than you think: having millions of dollars in marketing, cultural forces behind your products, promises of support, and a near-guarantee of reliability are all something that Linux doesn't have yet for the free LiveCD versions. It's either free or you pay for support. Not both. Charging just for support and giving away an OS is something Microsoft and Apple can both do in the future to compete on price.
Moreover, the "open source" replacements are often inferior to their commercial counterparts. There are plenty of examples of superior open source products, but I can cite many examples of the opposite. I can't even play DVDs on the standard Ubuntu distribution - it requires apt-get install'ing the css and mpeg libraries. Most users don't want to muck around with package formats. Linux has a long way to go before it is an actual competitor against Microsoft and Apple for users other than those in the tech-savvy crowd. A solid, winning desktop distribution and a standardized UI and widget set will definitely help. If I understand consumers correctly, most feel more comfortable relying on something that they paid good money for. This may change, but again, I think it's too early to declare victory for Linux, especially since Apple is gaining on Microsoft especially among laptop users. Maybe in 10 to 20 years. But the OS wars are still healthy, and are actually heating up.
Don't be silly. It's our government that does that, not being on more than one board.
If you want the burgeoning aristocracy to stop forming, elect some officials to the federal government that actually care about people.
Your argument is otherwise absurd - being on a board of directors still means that the performance of the company has to be maintained, and the board of directors still has to work hard to make sure that happens by hiring the right executives, holding them accountable, and deciding what stock and dividends to issue. They also represent their shareholders, who can literally be *anyone* in the case of public companies and is not exclusive. It doesn't mean much else, since directors typically don't own a huge share of the company. It's really just a representative institution (dare I say democratic) - that is way to ensure public(and private) ownership of a company gets its voice heard. So it's a good thing that upholds a democratic ideal of what the economy should be. A far more important question is whether the Senate and the House of Representatives are exclusive playgrounds for the rich.
As far as I can tell, things have been mechanically reproducible, with little overhead, since Gutenberg. What has made book and news publishing a viable business is the quality of the works they publish and the widespread demand for leisure, informational, and research reading. While copies of any work are in limitless supply now that they are in digital form, the supply of *quality* work is definitely limited, and as such the price for good works will remain high even if it can be infinitely reproduced. There will have to be slight changes to the music and movie business model, of course: for instance, one of the reasons why people buy and read books is because of the physical aura of the book. They like to hold it in their hands and rflip through the textured pages. On the internet, this physicality is lost, and so an investors' purchase of an item will have to depend on other things: the comprehensiveness of the inventory, the freshness of the inventory, on what variety of media devices it plays, how easy it is to transfer to those devices, how reliably it plays, and what additional content can be viewed when it gets to those devices. Music companies need to learn to deliver the best product possible, and have to stop depending on an artifical supply limit for their ability to charge premiums.
RIAA companies have been holding this specter of their defenseless, victimized interests over our head. Basically it's just a way for them to lock us into preserving their current business model: sign mediocre artists, over-produce mediocre music, sell it at inflated prices, reap most of the benefits, and screw (by underpaying) the parties responsible for their having any content at all. Now that the barriers to reproduction are gone, they'll have to innovate on their business model as I have already described. It's not rocket science. It's adapting to a new marketplace. All companies have to do it, and rigid DRM restrictions are not going to work forever.
I don't see DRM going away entirely - rightfully, I think, since reproduction is now virtually *free* and media formats are so versatile and transmissible over the Internet. It's the same reason why we have security systems at stores. But security systems aren't as conspicuous and constraining as the ridiculous DRM systems are now. Mostly stores rely on the inherent value of the product they are selling and the integrity of their customers. Likewise, the DRM just needs to be much more flexible. In other words, RIAA companies need to stop treating their customers like theives and more like the reason they stay alive. This, or else things are going to start moving more rapidly toward a long tail model where the independent publishers win(I vote for this, since it allows us to start taking things back from the oligopolies and re-democratize our economy.)
God! $472,000,000! I bet Jobs and his lieutenants feel like huge chumps for making those childish and foolish ads! And filling out that childish and foolish deposit slip with all those childish and foolish zeros.
and some cardboard collector got $6000 for something that probably costs about 0.2 cents in total cardboard value.
Everyone wins, I say.
It is counterintuitive and on its face offensive, but the entire point of my post was that setting a precedent for circumvention of our legal and justice system is not justified by catching a few pederasts unlawfully.
Looking at the facts of the case as stated, the result appears to be that two children were saved from sexual servitude or even horrible deaths and that two pederasts were jailed. If what we are told is true, justice was clearly done -- if you wish to refute me, please identify who is being unjustly treated. The childen? The criminals? The police? Please do not claim that you, as a representative of the "people", are experiencing an injustice, because you are not.
I'm not sure where these mentions of sexual servitude or horrible deaths are. The hacker sent a picture of a 6 year old being abused unlawfully - again, as the other poster mentioned, why is it OK for him to possess such pornography and the criminal in question not? This whole case is riddled with questions like th is, and this is exactly why there is court oversight for things like issuing warrants, etc.
Justice may have been done in this case(although any violation of a person's privacy and failure to execute the normal procedures of evidence collection via search warrants is to me an injustice to the criminal, even if that criminal is disgusting.) But this sets a precedent for how to obtain evidence which is entirely unconstitutional and unlawful. If more cases proceed in this same way, suddenly the privacy rights of everybody are being eroded. This would be the whole point of my post.
Now, I support catching pederasts, but the important part is that we don't have to resort to illegal means to catch them. They're pretty much out in the open on these newsgroups anyway, and a substantial amount of data(and probable cause to search) can be obtained(I presume) from whatever posts are in the newsgroups without having to resort to searching a person's private data without a warrant via some hacker's trojan horse. If they want to search his computer they should do so legally based on evidence they gather from the newsgroup.
They should be able to use evidence gathered by criminals. That's not what the issue is here. The hacker (according to our laws, which are the ones we are trying to enforce) illegally intruded this downloader's computer and used it to gather evidence, that evidence was given to the FBI, and the FBI used it in court to prosecute the defendant. This is not a legal use of informant in any sense. Most of the time informants are informants because they *witness a crime being done* and happen to be around evidence at the time of the investigation, and they are willfully cooperating with investigators due to this unique position and in part are owners of or have legal access to the evidence involved. This is something altogether different from purposefully intruding a person's computer with the intent of gathering evidence for trial without a warrant. There's nothing unjust about having criminals justify against other criminals, as long as it is done within the law.
It's pretty clear that he is. Even if it wasn't, the FBI *is* doing something illegal by using the e
For all the reasons you've listed 1069 isn't performing performing any good, but a grave injustice. He's providing a means for our government, which must be transparent and subject to the limitations of law, to circumvent the well-placed constraints on governmental power that are there to protect all of us, not just the pedophiles.
He may think he's doing a good thing, and this thought may be what the FBI is using to justify their tacit approval, but he isn't. He is undermining our laws - a fundamental disrespect of our first right to self-determination and sovereignty. If he really cared that much about justice, he would rather see the preservation of a fair justice system than the arrests and prosecution of a few pedophiles. If he doesn't think our justice system is fair the he should work within the law to improve it, not outside the law, not as a replacement for the law.
This also implicates the FBI. If that agency had respect for our law then they would enforce all of them, not just the sex crime statutes but also the ones that are there to guarantee limitations on FBI's own investigative powers. These laws are there for all of us. Pedophiles can hurt a few children gravely, yes. A corrupt justice system can hurt millions.
Moreover, if these pedophiles get off on evidence discovery loopholes or on the basis of law enforcement malfeasance, then it will be harder to prosecute them on legimately obtained evidence in the future due to the double jeopardy restrictions. Even though they are likely to commit separate, prosecutable crimes, prosecuting them incorrectly once makes it harder to prosecute them correctly in the future. This is bad.
If I recall correctly(and I might not), it was the founder of the ACLU, Baldwin, that said something quite right, to this effect(I don't remember the exact quote): in order to defend our rights we are often forced to defend scoundrels, who are usually the first people to lose their liberties.
In this case, even though the pedophiles earn the names of "scoundrels," and "scumbags," I will defend their legal and constitutional rights to privacy because if theirs are at stake, mine are at stake. If theirs are ignored, then any intrusion of my privacy can be justified by the alleged aim of "preserving public good, decency and safety" on the basis of mere suspicion, as you and Ben Franklin aptly affirmed. This is exactly the type of crime in response to which ordinary citizens disarm themselves against the intrusive impulse of the government, and this is exactly the type of situation that the constitution is there to prevent.
Also, why does this (possibly Turkish, possibly American) person take it upon themselves to identify American pedophiles and child pornographers? Isn't that a little strange? Doesn't it remind you of the neurotic character that Robert de Niro played in Taxi Driver - fixating on the pervasive "filth" that he imagines everywhere, to the point of seeking it out and immersing himself in it? This guy is hanging out on child pornography newsgroups. Even if he isn't looking at the porn, he is there uploading trojans and gathering evidence. Isn't that a little creepy and obsessive, not to mention self-righteous and possibly illegal? Doesn't this person have his own country and his own business to worry about?
Enforcing American law is the American law enforcement's job. No exceptions. Period.
Thank you for noticing the point of the post. In fact I'm insulted by the moderation..the whole point was to sprinkle as many euphemisms for pooping as I could remember into a post that could otherwise conceivably be confused for a +1 interesting or insightful.
Of course I forgot the most important one: "Dropping the kids off at the pool."
is the most evolved piece of human machinery, if you measure evolution in the years it has existed in any form at all. Contrary to popular belief, cleansing your colon into a hole is the world's oldest occupation, not prostitution. You might have thought it was prostitution, but you are wrong. It's making cleveland steamers in a ditch.
So I'm confused about this article. On the one hand, I'm pretty sure nobody's made any noticable improvements to bathroom equipment (toilet paper, plungers, sink, soap, etc) for however many years because maybe, dare I say it, it's one of a select few pieces of technology that we have that's done, perfect, finito in a design sense. It's reached a critical point of punctuated equilibrium in its development. All change after this point is slow and arbitrary.
This may of course be shortsighted, but I think this is a good thing. I for one don't like to think about releasing the hostages(although, like anyone, I find it momentarily pleasing when it happens) or even attach all that meaning to it, and so the fact that the current equipment renders the process as unceremonious, functional and utilitarian makes everything in the room just what it should be: perfectly forgettable. I think baking the brownies is gross, and so now that we have mastered our bathroom thrones we can move onto a prettier stage in human evolution: the one where we forget about our logs.
On the other hand, perhaps innovation in the bathroom should continue. I know there are plenty of embarassing things that happen in public bathrooms. Urinal separators could stand some improvement, and toilet paper dispensers need to be more automated and less frustrating when the roll runs out. I know it's really agonizing when you have been sitting there for ten minutes, you are missing a meeting or are in the middle of an exam, you have one sheet of two ply left to split among your cheeks, and you can't get the f-ing next roll to come down so you can squeegee your butt and skidaddle. Perhaps someone can innovate on noise blockers so someone with gastrointestinal stress won't have to wait till everyone who heard their noise pollution(or smelled their olefactory pollution) to leave before exiting stage front out of the stall and washing their hands. Boy those are some awkward moments
But one thing's for sure: whoever comes up with a successful, widely applicable way to improve bathroom technology is a genius. And to that person: please come along soon and making sinking the Bismarck even more enjoyable.
I have to take a crap.
No, no. You have it all wrong. The question Kirk asked was:
Kirk: Excuse me.....but what.... does....IBMneed....with...aspacestation?
Yes of course. Supply and demand must dictate the prices. But what if supply is being artificially manipulated, or at the very least being deliberately slowed down to inflate prices? We have an example of a British Petroleum oil field in Alaska recently shutting down - everytime something like this happens, the oil prices go up and Exxon-Mobile et. al. make billions of dollars. The temptation to manipulate oil supply is very much there. We have, as other posters have said, a cartel of oil companies and oil exporting nations(who control the supply) which stand to profit immensely from a rise in oil prices. who have every incentive to manipulate the supply of oil. Moreover, we have a United States government that is definitely on the side of those oil companies and is actually willing to wage a war in part so that our access to world oil reserves is increased thirty fold. If we can offer people like the Saudis and Kuwaitis and Iraqis etc etc higher prices for barrel we can beat out countries like China in bidding for oil access, thereby guaranteeing our dependence on oil for the long-term future. There's definitely a conflict of interest going on here.
This is not necessarily a bad thing in any other time frame than the immediate. It might stimulate alternative fuel innovations. I sure hope so. But the fact is that it's going to do damage to our economy because a lot of money tha belongs to the lower and middle class that would have been spent be spread around the economy is now winding up solely in the pockets of rich oil executives and investors, who tend to save money rather than spend.
Anyway, this was stupid of me to bring up in a discussion about record contracts.
luna, lunae, f. - moon.
Luna, Lunae, f. the moon goddess, identical or related with Diana, and the subject of that sculpture.
Calling the moon Luna isn't that far off at all. I've heard it used in much the same way. Who says we are tethered to the terms astronomy gives us to use?