I won't support people who are part of the corruption -- they could Jesus/Ghandi/Portman rolled into one, and I wouldn't care for a couple reasons:
1) supporting the good people in the corrupt org gives that organization some credence. 2) even good people cannot avoid being tainted. 3) supporting the org perpetuates its ability to be corrupt.
What you don't get, is that you can't have an impact by voting major parties. They are totally fungible.
Secondly, the parties are immutable -- the notion that you can change them from within is belied by all the evidence that you can't. Look at the 2008 election -- Obama lied (to get elected) and people died. Again, it is a form of insanity to say "I hate what you are doing, but I'll vote for you anyway" and expect change.
Third parties bring topics that the GOP and DNC won't touch due to the bipartisan consensus on so many issues. Supporting third parties is the only way to get those issues debated. Of course, what has been a real problem since Ross Perot, is that the parties simply won't allow others into the debates.
Finally, Obama is the poster child of New Boss Same as the Old Boss. One can only hope that eventually, enough people will get it. And when that happens, change will occur. But by working inside the DNC? That's useless and will just continue our slow rightward slide with every "you suck, but I still vote for you" decision.
At least in Dubai, they don't murder people with drones for posting videos on youtube like Obama did with Al Awlaki.
And before people say he was involved in plots, remember that there is no evidence of that at all. There are merely self-serving statements made by the Obama administration that are unproven and unsubstantiated and certainly not subjected to the scrutiny of trial.
How am I reading too much? GWB did evil shit. Obama does the same evil shit and more. I don't care _why_ the parties do what they do, I only care _that_ they do it.
To put this in a bad slashdot car analogy, I wouldn't care why a driver totally blitzed on vodka and blow plowed into a crosswalk full of people, I'd only care that he did, and I'd want to see him punished -- even if his mother died the night before, that would be completely beside the point.
We've already suffered a soft coup by the Executive branch, I don't know why you think a different coup would make things better. One of the Unique things about the revolutionary period in 1700s and early 1800s, was the focus on liberty and democratic institutions of various varieties, but most coups are just about a different group of power hungry dicks taking power from an established group of dicks.
What we need is a judicial and legislative branch willing to step up to the role created for them in the Constitution -- to jealously guard their powers against Executive abuse rather than cede it, and to thereby ensure that no side gets too powerful. The mistake the founders made was in believing that politicians would consider it in their self-interest to protect their power areas and that this conflict would prevent the rise of one all powerful branch.
Over time, however, the branches got wise to this. For example, Congress figured out is was politically expedient to let the President "declare" war, or the Courts decided to defer to the Executive on anything labeled "State Secrets" and exercise no oversight -- now we have ideas such as the Unitary Executive, signing statements, extra-judicial everything. If the other branches got off their collective asses and protected their turf, a lot of these problems would go away. And note, this turf protecting presumes that they're all sociopaths -- it is the process of turf protection that was designed to protects us, not reliance that the people in the dirty fight would be good people. Our problem is that the politicians have figured out how to go beyond that level in furthering their self-interest and no longer engage in that internal war the founders envisioned, to our deep detriment.
I vote third party and if no third party candidate is available, for my cat. There is no other way to lodge a protest vote because we don't have a "none of the above" and not voting simply lumps you in with the apathetic.
I'm not so focused on picking a victor, because when the choice of Victor A (R) v. Victor B (D) results in exactly the same policies, I don't care which one wins and won't let my vote be seen as comprising some mandate for the asshole. Secondly, you simply cannot create change in a party by saying "I disagree with you, but I'll vote for you anyway." That's a sort of insanity. And as for creating some change within a party, look at how that worked out for the Kucinich people in the DNC or the Ron Paul people in the GOP. It simply doesn't work.
The deepest rot in American politics, is the voters' reluctance to vote their conscience and instead, feel like they need to be on a winning side. This is the sure fire way to lose in the end.
If Edward Snowden comes back to the US to face trial, he likely will not be able to tell a jury why he did what he did, and what happened because of his actions. Contrary to common sense, there is no public interest exception to the Espionage Act. Prosecutors in recent cases have convinced courts that the intent of the leaker, the value of leaks to the public, and the lack of harm caused by the leaks are irrelevant -- and are therefore inadmissible in court.
This drove me so crazy. The most perfect example of how rotten Democrats are, is Marty Lederman, who excoriated the Bush administration for using secret legal memos to authorize due process free detention, but who upon admittance to the Obama team, began writing the secret legal memos to justify due process free execution.
This is why I'm not a Democrat anymore --- evil is evil no matter who does it. The Democratic party's silence on the fact that Obama has embraced and extended every GWB policy they once complained about, has made me understand that GOP and DNC are purely tribal organizations with absolutely no basis in rationality, morality, or even a consistent kind of crazy. They're just teams working toward the same neo-con goals. I will never vote for anyone who is a member of either party.
And, while I agree that the ATF has badly bungled the whole Waco fiasco, I have zero compassion for religious nuts.
I'm an atheist and I shake my head at the incredulity of religious belief. But being a religious nut should not rule out people from being treated with compassion, even if only out of sense of enlightened self-interest.
The Feds killed a bunch of innocent people at Waco, including kids. The direct blowback from this was Timothy McVeigh who had no qualms blowing up a building including a day care center under the notion that anyone who worked for the Federal Government, including their families, was complicit in the Waco atrocity/debacle/fuckup/whatever. And while I'm also intentionally child-free, and particularly immune from "think of the children" arguments, the bombing of the Murrah Building should give both sides reason to think that there are consequences for being vicious thugs, because some people take kids pretty seriously, and that has repercussions.
I feel bad for the people who died at Waco at the hand of an overbearing government agency, for those who died in the Murrah Building bombing at the hands of some vengeful idiots, and for those vengeful idiots who were executed as a result their misplaced sense of justified retribution. All of the people caught in the crossfire died tragically, and all that death and destruction could have been easily avoided if the government hadn't been so arrogant and if the Murrah Building bombers hadn't likewise been so arrogant. And that starts with treating people as something more than meat to slaughter, even if they are religious.
Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but civil forfeiture turns that principle on its head. With civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.
Don't forget the chilling effect, the self-censorship, the brain cycles wasted considering whether doing some harmless innocent thing will get you in trouble with the authorities, the money and time invested in complicated techniques to protect your privacy --- surveillance is a drain on society, culture, and wealth.
Without Snowden, there would be no reform. Hating Snowden and being critical of the NSA are mutually exclusive -- there literally was no other option. Look at how things turned out for Drake, Biney, and Tice and look at how much legislative/judicial change their actions brought about by going through correct channels (hint: zilch although AT&T did get immunity).
The Executive branch is so fundamentally corrupt, it is incapable of policing itself and the only way change can occur, is from without -- that change can only come when the public actually knows with certainty what is going on. Critics of the NSA have always been subject to being labeled foil-hatters... but when the assertions are documented, that doesn't work. To get to this point, we needed a Snowden.
So, a big thank you to Snowden and if you can't figure that out, a big fuck you to you.
Well, there's a Federal Judge who just ruled that they engaged in unconstitutional actions and there was a panel of hand-picked sympathizers who just came out with a report that they're breaking the law (nobody expected anything but whitewash -- when the totally owned lackeys still criticize the NSA, you know there's serious shit going on).
The real meat starts at page 43, heading i. What is really wonderful to see, is how J. Leon eviscerates the Smith v. Maryland case, the case upon which all the NSA's masspionage is based. He distinguishes it and limits it to its facts -- it will be great to see that pillar of the Third Party Doctrine die like it deserves.
What they don't have their shit together on is being Americans. They're violating the Constitution, breaking the highest law in the land. That makes the NSA one of the largest traitor organizations in the world.
I wish every non-whistleblowing NSA employee, terminal cancer in the new year. And for bootlickers like you, syphilis.
Why don't you and Cold Fjord go fuck each other in the NSA parking lot, after which you can track down Clapper, prostrate yourself before him, and suck up his lies. Maybe if you absorb enough jizz, you'll grow another neuron.
What's particularly shocking about this report, is that everyone presumed that a bunch of hand picked insiders would come back with an "it's all good" report. That even the most NSA friendly review group possible is criticizing the NSA, actually is pretty surprising. Things must be really really bad.
The thing is, everyone makes their phones as thin and dense as possible. Which means they sink like a stone. A couple months ago, I watched a person pull a stocking hat out of his coat pocket... the same pocket his iPhone was in... a fraction of a second later, there's a sickening little splash sound and a short time after that, the realization that his phone had become lodged in marina muck under 15 ft of saltwater. Unless the phone floats, accidental plunges only protects against toilets and mud puddles.
Your's is an annoying attitude for a couple reasons. First, if a person is going to have a really deep technological sophistication, it will be limited to a very narrow area -- each discrete component in a computer probably requires intense all consuming years long study -- that's why you end up with people who focus on one single thing and the person who is fully expert on video drivers may be really inept regarding hard drive technology. Honestly, I think anyone who believes they fully understand every aspect of a laptop is just setting himself up to get totally hosed.
Secondly, it is not a sign if being unintelligent for a person to have a vague understanding of computers. If everyone had a deep understanding of computers, nobody would have the time to become dentists, mechanics, veterinarians, etc. etc. Seriously, pick some random difficult topic about which you know nothing -- does your lack of knowledge in that area make you stupid? Of course not. Because it is not possible to know everything there is to know.
When I first learned about this, I was totally shocked. It's really kind of sickening.
This video, "The History of Money" is pretty interesting without being yet another return to gold standard video. There some interesting ideas for modernizing money creation at the end (in part 4).
except without French money guns and ships, there would not likely be a USA at all. Under your logic, you might as well say Washington, Jefferson, etc., are totally irrelevant to America too.
Slashdot Mirror
Eight months in jail with trial v. death without trial
Fuck you.
I won't support people who are part of the corruption -- they could Jesus/Ghandi/Portman rolled into one, and I wouldn't care for a couple reasons:
1) supporting the good people in the corrupt org gives that organization some credence.
2) even good people cannot avoid being tainted.
3) supporting the org perpetuates its ability to be corrupt.
What you don't get, is that you can't have an impact by voting major parties. They are totally fungible.
Secondly, the parties are immutable -- the notion that you can change them from within is belied by all the evidence that you can't. Look at the 2008 election -- Obama lied (to get elected) and people died. Again, it is a form of insanity to say "I hate what you are doing, but I'll vote for you anyway" and expect change.
Third parties bring topics that the GOP and DNC won't touch due to the bipartisan consensus on so many issues. Supporting third parties is the only way to get those issues debated. Of course, what has been a real problem since Ross Perot, is that the parties simply won't allow others into the debates.
Finally, Obama is the poster child of New Boss Same as the Old Boss. One can only hope that eventually, enough people will get it. And when that happens, change will occur. But by working inside the DNC? That's useless and will just continue our slow rightward slide with every "you suck, but I still vote for you" decision.
At least in Dubai, they don't murder people with drones for posting videos on youtube like Obama did with Al Awlaki.
And before people say he was involved in plots, remember that there is no evidence of that at all. There are merely self-serving statements made by the Obama administration that are unproven and unsubstantiated and certainly not subjected to the scrutiny of trial.
How am I reading too much? GWB did evil shit. Obama does the same evil shit and more. I don't care _why_ the parties do what they do, I only care _that_ they do it.
To put this in a bad slashdot car analogy, I wouldn't care why a driver totally blitzed on vodka and blow plowed into a crosswalk full of people, I'd only care that he did, and I'd want to see him punished -- even if his mother died the night before, that would be completely beside the point.
We've already suffered a soft coup by the Executive branch, I don't know why you think a different coup would make things better. One of the Unique things about the revolutionary period in 1700s and early 1800s, was the focus on liberty and democratic institutions of various varieties, but most coups are just about a different group of power hungry dicks taking power from an established group of dicks.
What we need is a judicial and legislative branch willing to step up to the role created for them in the Constitution -- to jealously guard their powers against Executive abuse rather than cede it, and to thereby ensure that no side gets too powerful. The mistake the founders made was in believing that politicians would consider it in their self-interest to protect their power areas and that this conflict would prevent the rise of one all powerful branch.
Over time, however, the branches got wise to this. For example, Congress figured out is was politically expedient to let the President "declare" war, or the Courts decided to defer to the Executive on anything labeled "State Secrets" and exercise no oversight -- now we have ideas such as the Unitary Executive, signing statements, extra-judicial everything. If the other branches got off their collective asses and protected their turf, a lot of these problems would go away. And note, this turf protecting presumes that they're all sociopaths -- it is the process of turf protection that was designed to protects us, not reliance that the people in the dirty fight would be good people. Our problem is that the politicians have figured out how to go beyond that level in furthering their self-interest and no longer engage in that internal war the founders envisioned, to our deep detriment.
I vote third party and if no third party candidate is available, for my cat. There is no other way to lodge a protest vote because we don't have a "none of the above" and not voting simply lumps you in with the apathetic.
I'm not so focused on picking a victor, because when the choice of Victor A (R) v. Victor B (D) results in exactly the same policies, I don't care which one wins and won't let my vote be seen as comprising some mandate for the asshole. Secondly, you simply cannot create change in a party by saying "I disagree with you, but I'll vote for you anyway." That's a sort of insanity. And as for creating some change within a party, look at how that worked out for the Kucinich people in the DNC or the Ron Paul people in the GOP. It simply doesn't work.
The deepest rot in American politics, is the voters' reluctance to vote their conscience and instead, feel like they need to be on a winning side. This is the sure fire way to lose in the end.
You are correct -- in Snowden's case, it is actually impossible for him to mount a defense at trial:
https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2013/12/if-snowden-returned-us-trial-all-whistleblower-evidence-would-likely-be-inadmissible
This drove me so crazy. The most perfect example of how rotten Democrats are, is Marty Lederman, who excoriated the Bush administration for using secret legal memos to authorize due process free detention, but who upon admittance to the Obama team, began writing the secret legal memos to justify due process free execution.
This is why I'm not a Democrat anymore --- evil is evil no matter who does it. The Democratic party's silence on the fact that Obama has embraced and extended every GWB policy they once complained about, has made me understand that GOP and DNC are purely tribal organizations with absolutely no basis in rationality, morality, or even a consistent kind of crazy. They're just teams working toward the same neo-con goals. I will never vote for anyone who is a member of either party.
Actually, there aren't any ways to address government abuse of power, except whistleblowing.
Kiriakou: torture whistleblower, only person person to go to prison over torture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kiriakou
Binney: Going to the DOJ about waste in the NSA will fuck up your life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Binney_(U.S._intelligence_official)
Drake: Going through the legal processes within the NSA got him prosecuted: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Andrews_Drake
I'm an atheist and I shake my head at the incredulity of religious belief. But being a religious nut should not rule out people from being treated with compassion, even if only out of sense of enlightened self-interest.
The Feds killed a bunch of innocent people at Waco, including kids. The direct blowback from this was Timothy McVeigh who had no qualms blowing up a building including a day care center under the notion that anyone who worked for the Federal Government, including their families, was complicit in the Waco atrocity/debacle/fuckup/whatever. And while I'm also intentionally child-free, and particularly immune from "think of the children" arguments, the bombing of the Murrah Building should give both sides reason to think that there are consequences for being vicious thugs, because some people take kids pretty seriously, and that has repercussions.
I feel bad for the people who died at Waco at the hand of an overbearing government agency, for those who died in the Murrah Building bombing at the hands of some vengeful idiots, and for those vengeful idiots who were executed as a result their misplaced sense of justified retribution. All of the people caught in the crossfire died tragically, and all that death and destruction could have been easily avoided if the government hadn't been so arrogant and if the Murrah Building bombers hadn't likewise been so arrogant. And that starts with treating people as something more than meat to slaughter, even if they are religious.
There is no crown. In the US, the Feds seize first, worry about proof later. Civil forfeiture is big business, "policing for profit":
http://www.ij.org/policing-for-profit-the-abuse-of-civil-asset-forfeiture-4
The foolish arrogance of geeks is sometimes astounding.
Don't forget the chilling effect, the self-censorship, the brain cycles wasted considering whether doing some harmless innocent thing will get you in trouble with the authorities, the money and time invested in complicated techniques to protect your privacy --- surveillance is a drain on society, culture, and wealth.
Without Snowden, there would be no reform. Hating Snowden and being critical of the NSA are mutually exclusive -- there literally was no other option. Look at how things turned out for Drake, Biney, and Tice and look at how much legislative/judicial change their actions brought about by going through correct channels (hint: zilch although AT&T did get immunity).
The Executive branch is so fundamentally corrupt, it is incapable of policing itself and the only way change can occur, is from without -- that change can only come when the public actually knows with certainty what is going on. Critics of the NSA have always been subject to being labeled foil-hatters ... but when the assertions are documented, that doesn't work. To get to this point, we needed a Snowden.
So, a big thank you to Snowden and if you can't figure that out, a big fuck you to you.
Well, there's a Federal Judge who just ruled that they engaged in unconstitutional actions and there was a panel of hand-picked sympathizers who just came out with a report that they're breaking the law (nobody expected anything but whitewash -- when the totally owned lackeys still criticize the NSA, you know there's serious shit going on).
Here's Judge Leon's decision:
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2013cv0851-48
The real meat starts at page 43, heading i. What is really wonderful to see, is how J. Leon eviscerates the Smith v. Maryland case, the case upon which all the NSA's masspionage is based. He distinguishes it and limits it to its facts -- it will be great to see that pillar of the Third Party Doctrine die like it deserves.
What they don't have their shit together on is being Americans. They're violating the Constitution, breaking the highest law in the land. That makes the NSA one of the largest traitor organizations in the world.
I wish every non-whistleblowing NSA employee, terminal cancer in the new year. And for bootlickers like you, syphilis.
Why don't you and Cold Fjord go fuck each other in the NSA parking lot, after which you can track down Clapper, prostrate yourself before him, and suck up his lies. Maybe if you absorb enough jizz, you'll grow another neuron.
What's particularly shocking about this report, is that everyone presumed that a bunch of hand picked insiders would come back with an "it's all good" report. That even the most NSA friendly review group possible is criticizing the NSA, actually is pretty surprising. Things must be really really bad.
The thing is, everyone makes their phones as thin and dense as possible. Which means they sink like a stone. A couple months ago, I watched a person pull a stocking hat out of his coat pocket ... the same pocket his iPhone was in ... a fraction of a second later, there's a sickening little splash sound and a short time after that, the realization that his phone had become lodged in marina muck under 15 ft of saltwater. Unless the phone floats, accidental plunges only protects against toilets and mud puddles.
Exactly how many bars of service do you get under any significant depth of water? How garbled is the voice stream?
Randomly googling, check out the third response:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-290525.html
Your's is an annoying attitude for a couple reasons. First, if a person is going to have a really deep technological sophistication, it will be limited to a very narrow area -- each discrete component in a computer probably requires intense all consuming years long study -- that's why you end up with people who focus on one single thing and the person who is fully expert on video drivers may be really inept regarding hard drive technology. Honestly, I think anyone who believes they fully understand every aspect of a laptop is just setting himself up to get totally hosed.
Secondly, it is not a sign if being unintelligent for a person to have a vague understanding of computers. If everyone had a deep understanding of computers, nobody would have the time to become dentists, mechanics, veterinarians, etc. etc. Seriously, pick some random difficult topic about which you know nothing -- does your lack of knowledge in that area make you stupid? Of course not. Because it is not possible to know everything there is to know.
When I first learned about this, I was totally shocked. It's really kind of sickening.
This video, "The History of Money" is pretty interesting without being yet another return to gold standard video. There some interesting ideas for modernizing money creation at the end (in part 4).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0IJCGuNtqk
These price fluctuations are not the mark of money -- bitcoin seems more likely a wildly volatile commodity.
except without French money guns and ships, there would not likely be a USA at all. Under your logic, you might as well say Washington, Jefferson, etc., are totally irrelevant to America too.