I was gonna mod you "flamebait" because there is no "FUCKING RETARD" option. Instead however, I'll respond to this:
The book will still be publicly available after things like specific names and other sensitive bits of information get sanitized. By not doing so, lives and missions are placed in jeopardy with little real benefit for society.
Our current state secrets regime is based on a Supreme Court case, United States v. Reynolds, which protected Boeing from revealing information regarding the deaths of three engineers in a plane crash because it would endanger national security. From the blurb for Claim of Privilege:
But the Air Force, at the dawn of the Cold War, refused to hand over the accident reports and witness statements, claiming the documents contained classified information that would threaten national security. The case made its way up to the Supreme Court, which in 1953 sided with the Air Force in United States v. Reynolds. This landmark decision formally recognized the "state secrets" privilege, a legal precedent that has since been used to conceal conduct, withhold documents, block troublesome litigation, and, most recently, detain terror suspects without due-process protections.
Even with the case closed, the families of those who died in the crash never stopped wondering what had happened in that B-29. They finally had their answer a half century later: In 2000 they learned that the government was now making available the top-secret information the families had sought long ago, in vain. The documents, it turned out, contained no national security secrets but rather a shocking chronicle of negligence.
In other words, the very case that gave us the state secrets BS that Obama is latching on to harder than Bush II, was based on a COVERUP of NEGLIGENCE, not for any actual national security reasons. Boeing and the Air Force killed these smart geeks, and then LIED to protect their ass. That's what the state secrets doctrine is about -- it isn't about protecting anyone but the fuckwads ruining our country. Wake up already.
You can also listen to the TAL report, it is the second story.
The nominal price may have doubled, but that doesn't really tell the whole tale. One simple way to do this is to think about minimum wage. I was in HS in the mid 80s, had a job making pizza that paid $3.35/hr (or thereabouts). Gas was up to $1.20/gal sometimes, but call it a buck/gal -- roughly 18 minutes for a gallon of gas. Currently min. wage in my area is $8.55/hr, and gas is $3.20, or about 23 minutes for a gallon. So, in the last 20 years, the time-cost of gas for the bottom earners has risen maybe 28%.
A dollar in 1986 is worth $1.93 in 2009. With gas at $3.20, gas is 65% more expensive on an inflation adjusted basis.
10 cents in 1950 is worth 79 cents in 2009. Gas is 4x its 1950s price on an inflation adjusted basis. The 1955 minimum wage was 75c/hr, meaning it took about 8 minutes of labor per gallon. I guess this is the difference between being the world's biggest exporter, and our current status as the biggest importer.
Dot-com bust, telco meltdown, 911... They all lead to a horrible job market in 2001, and in interview after interview, I heard "Well... we like your experience, but frankly, we cannot justify this level of pay for somebody with no college degree".
Sure, I remained employed, but not at the level of pay I was accustomed to. So, I started working on a BS in 2002 and completed an MBA in 2007.
Compare your assumption ("You mean he couldn't get a job that paid 90k, because he gave up his job that paid 90k, and couldn't find another opening available where he could be paid that rate.") to what he said.
Sounds like he lost (not resigned from) the high paying job, was able to remain employed but only in jobs that paid less. Because he couldn't earn what he had been getting, he decided to go to school. Aside from unusual outliers, most people with a HS diploma don't make 90k. He made the right choice -- he gave up the incredibly unlikely chance he was going to make 90k w/o an education, for the good chance he would make a similar salary with. His lost opportunity was more like a lost snowball's chance.
Nonsense the so called "bust" would not necessarily mean that he wouldn't still be making 90k...
I guess you missed the part where he said that after the bust, he couldn't get a job that paid 90k. Because 90k wasn't an option for him, his opportunity costs are less than you suppose.
Then you aren't $10k in the hole -- you are positive an amount equal to $87 minus whatever you making after the bust, an amount you indicate was less than the $90k you were used to getting. You should feel good about your dedication and foresight to do what you needed in order to stay at a high earning status once the artificially high earnings you were lucky enough to get with a HS diploma popped with the bubble. It may seem that you've gone down, but really, you just had the bad fortune of hitting a jackpot for a short time. I say "bad fortune" because while you were lucky to get paid a lot, those jackpots aren't the normal state of affairs and it tainted your perceptions of your situation.
The law isn't like some permissive instructor who hands out retakes at the first hint of a whine. Unless there is some really good reason for not presenting evidence when it is due, and "I forgot" is definitely not one, there is no do-over. As for an appeal, that would have been pointless because in the situation where "A" and "B" must be true to win, there is no win if one or the other element is absent. One might get a do-over in the situation where, for example, I intentionally withheld key evidence and the other side had no other way to find it out except through me, but when the missing evidence is simply due to a party's own fault, that's it. Game over.
(even if Med school and Law school are really just post-graduate vocational training).
This is an interesting portion of your comment. I'm a lawyer, and while law school was less nuts&bolts than you might think, the law school experience was quite a bit different than college. When I look back on it, law school isn't exactly hard, it's just grueling, kind of like walking across Texas in the summer would be. College was a whole lot more fun because the volume of information required to get through was so much smaller. Another interesting thing about law school was the number of unhappy people who were used to sliding easily into A grades, endlessly whining about their C- grades at the end of the first semester.
Back on topic, I wonder what law school would have been like without finals. Nice profs would give a midterm and final. Most simply gave a final exam at the end of the semester. Talk about performance anxiety -- blow the one test and blow the class. On the other hand, you literally can blow a case with one forgotten question to a key witness (*) so being put on the spot like that was sort of primer for real life.
(*) It doesn't usually happen, but I cruised to an easy win once after a plaintiff rested (I didn't even have to present my case) because opposing counsel forgot to ask a doctor whether his opinion was expressed on a "more probable than not probable" certainty level. Had he asked just one more question, there would have been an issue for the jury to decide, but because he forgot, my motion to dismiss was granted and the jury sent home. Miss a key magic phrase and you lose. Now that's some serious testing.
Because what she did was wrong. Granted, only the stupid will be caught, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a wrong thing to do. If she had murdered someone and buried the body, and was only found out because she was bragging in a bar, would you say, "hey, at least the body was found and the family gets some kind of closure, something that wouldn't have happened if she didn't open her mouth."
She's not being punished for expressing what she thinks. She is being punished for violating a sworn oath and thus making it impossible for the defendant to have a fair trial. I realize we live in a world where American citizens can be executed without any due process, but that policy is under attack because it violates due process. This story just adds to my worry about the constant attack on our rights at seemingly every level, from smart nefarious pricks in office, to retards on juries.
As for the punishment, $250 is an utterly insufficient fine. Even at minimum wage, it's only a week's labor at most. She should be taxed with the costs associated with the trial. To put this into a bad car analogy, it's like she intentionally smashed into another car with her own, totaling the other car, but is only being required to cover the cost of the left taillight on the victims auto.
The thing is, you can't just refuse to give a hungry child food...
Why not?
If you decide you must give a hungry child food, then shouldn't you give food to all hungry children worldwide or are children in some countries more deserving or less? And if you decide that you should feed every hungry mouth, does that mean I should have my resources forcibly taken from me even if I have no such interest or belief? This guy basically wanted to forcibly take or control resources from the Discovery Channel to make the world better in his view. But this is really nothing new, our government does it all the time with the threat of jail for evading taxes, and bullets if you try to escape jail. So the few who force me to feed hungry children (and adults), are just as crazy as Lee.
You and I are using "sugar" differently. People certainly can survive without SUGAR (capped to distinguish), i.e., the dehydrated sap of sugar cane. Many things have sugars or are converted to sugars with chewing or digestion and I get that. But we don't need SUGAR specifically because we can survive on all kinds of sugars contained in fruits, berries, roots, or grains. I was specifically trying to give up SUGAR, and things similarly close like honey or maple syrup. I didn't stop eating fruits, sweet potatoes, or bread (without added SUGAR). I'm just saying, eat all the sugars you want, and you will still crave SUGAR. It hits a biological sweet spot like nothing else.
I once quit eating sugar or anything with sugar in it for 13 days (didn't take honey or maple syrup or some other sweet substitute -- that would be cheating in my experiement). I don't know how long it would take to get over sugar, but my cravings never diminished, rather they only got worse. Toward the end, thoughts of sweet things basically intruded on every minute, and it was an incredible struggle to refrain. I even had to start cheating, chewing sugar-free gum, but it wouldn't even touch the constant, obsessive thoughts about sugar. I finally broke down, ate a Reeses Peanut Butter cup, and it was probably the most joyful moment of my life.
Compare that to coffee (I was 4-5 cup a day drinker) -- first day a little dizzy and headache. Second day: headache but more mild than day 1. Third day: headache from time to time. Fourth day: all done, no cravings, no headache, nothing. Totally easy. Sugar is much different.
Sure -- different tastes. Just like with rentals, some people will see them as an advantage (no need to worry about backups, upgrading HDs, or schlepping DVDs to the post office), and others will see them as a rip (you don't get to keep anything, can't watch again without paying, ultimately more expensive in certain circumstance). There's probably enough in both camps to keep DVDs alive and keep a rental model alive.
Can you do it for $75? For a person who might pick three shows to watch during a season, renting is a better deal. For a person who watches 20 shows, a DVR might be better.
Cost of DVR + cost of cable = how much? This solution might be a better situation for a TV junkie, but for someone who watches a few shows per year, it just won't make sense. As for the GP, I got the impression though he didn't explicitly say it, that he is in a remote area. Perhaps it is the odd situation where he has good network access and no cable access -- I know, not terribly likely but within the realm of possibility. In that case, the DVR will just be a brick. An expensive brick.
Buying ends up being cheaper if something is really good. I paid for Firefly, Buffy, Angel, Farscape and I've totally gotten my money's worth through multiple viewings. With a show like House however, which is interesting enough to watch once, I wouldn't ever get the value of buying the boxed set out of it, because it would get used one time, and collect dust for the rest of my life.
I get objectively, that with the current scheme I can keep my shows, but somehow, I would prefer to rent. I've already replaced the HD in my ATV with a 360gb drive -- I probably spent $100 doing that. It will fill up, and then I have to squeeze a PATA to SATA converter in there so I can put in a bigger drive again -- probably another $100. Then I have to worry about backups, which costs even more. Add in that most shows are a "watch once" thing, and I really wouldn't mind renting them for buck and not having to worry about the expense of backups and upgrades.
The "watch this but don't keep a copy" model has been ad-supported on aerial TV for decades
In 1990 I watched as my mom died, and in her weakened state basically able to do nothing but watch TV, her precious seconds being used up watching ads for Wisk or whatnot. By 1993 I had stopped watching television completely (kept the VCR for movies though), because the fact is, advertising is a waste of life. Sure, the shows might be somewhat interesting, but just how much is your life worth? I decided mine was worth way more than I got from the annoyance of marketing.
Then came Netflix and TNG, DS9, and even Voyager on DVD. I thoroughly enjoyed catching up on these shows without commercials. Later, I picked up an ATV and I've enjoyed commercial free seasons of Dexter and True Blood and a few other things. The whole point of a device like the ATV, is to avoid commercials and let the marketers hit the unemployment line and languish there as could only happen in a truly just world.
Finally, I just can't believe how cheap people are. What does 99c get you anymore? A Snickers? A box of Tic Tacs? You know, even if you earn minimum wage (and who really thinks their life is only worth 8-something an hour), 15 minutes of commercials is worth $2. Why would you spend $2 of life, when you can get the show for a buck? It makes absolutely no sense to me at all. If you make $60/hr, those 15 minutes cost $15 -- a season would cost you roughly $360.
And one last finally -- if we can get away from the whole advertising model, then direct user supported shows would be possible. For example, Firefly couldn't cut it in the ratings game, but how many direct subscribers would it have taken to make it worth doing?
He'll get creamed as a pro se. I'm sure the defense is already hand selecting a psychiatrist or two to evaluate him and I have no doubt they'll find that he has some kind of obsessive personality disorder, which is probably true. My wife plays farmville obsessively, but before that, she hassled me constantly about some irrational dirt or germ issue till I said I was moving out, and before that she collected podcasts she never listened to till her 500gb HD died, before that it was playing spider solitaire, and before that it was something I forget. Anyway, my point it, the problem is the person with the obsessive disorder, not the object of their obsession.
Secondly, this trial is about to become this guy's obsession, and one of the absolutely certain ways to scare of attorneys, is to come across as an extremely needy, obsessed client who will extravagantly abuse the lawyer's time, which is OK if you get paid by the hour I suppose, but in a contingent situation, it means losing money. So there are probably two reasons why he may have a hard time getting a lawyer: one, he IS crazy (intervening cause); and two, he's crazy (super annoying).
Idiots like you are a perfect example of what happens to people after years of living under administrations (past and current) which have been and are, hell-bent on destroying civil liberties and due process. The remaining people who fail to fall in line will simply be arrested, and that will take care of any questions.
Slashdot Mirror
2nd edition is redacted. RTFA.
Our current state secrets regime is based on a Supreme Court case, United States v. Reynolds, which protected Boeing from revealing information regarding the deaths of three engineers in a plane crash because it would endanger national security. From the blurb for Claim of Privilege:
In other words, the very case that gave us the state secrets BS that Obama is latching on to harder than Bush II, was based on a COVERUP of NEGLIGENCE, not for any actual national security reasons. Boeing and the Air Force killed these smart geeks, and then LIED to protect their ass. That's what the state secrets doctrine is about -- it isn't about protecting anyone but the fuckwads ruining our country. Wake up already.
You can also listen to the TAL report, it is the second story.
The nominal price may have doubled, but that doesn't really tell the whole tale. One simple way to do this is to think about minimum wage. I was in HS in the mid 80s, had a job making pizza that paid $3.35/hr (or thereabouts). Gas was up to $1.20/gal sometimes, but call it a buck/gal -- roughly 18 minutes for a gallon of gas. Currently min. wage in my area is $8.55/hr, and gas is $3.20, or about 23 minutes for a gallon. So, in the last 20 years, the time-cost of gas for the bottom earners has risen maybe 28%.
It's worth looking at an inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/
A dollar in 1986 is worth $1.93 in 2009. With gas at $3.20, gas is 65% more expensive on an inflation adjusted basis.
10 cents in 1950 is worth 79 cents in 2009. Gas is 4x its 1950s price on an inflation adjusted basis. The 1955 minimum wage was 75c/hr, meaning it took about 8 minutes of labor per gallon. I guess this is the difference between being the world's biggest exporter, and our current status as the biggest importer.
Compare your assumption ("You mean he couldn't get a job that paid 90k, because he gave up his job that paid 90k, and couldn't find another opening available where he could be paid that rate.") to what he said.
Sounds like he lost (not resigned from) the high paying job, was able to remain employed but only in jobs that paid less. Because he couldn't earn what he had been getting, he decided to go to school. Aside from unusual outliers, most people with a HS diploma don't make 90k. He made the right choice -- he gave up the incredibly unlikely chance he was going to make 90k w/o an education, for the good chance he would make a similar salary with. His lost opportunity was more like a lost snowball's chance.
I guess you missed the part where he said that after the bust, he couldn't get a job that paid 90k. Because 90k wasn't an option for him, his opportunity costs are less than you suppose.
Then you aren't $10k in the hole -- you are positive an amount equal to $87 minus whatever you making after the bust, an amount you indicate was less than the $90k you were used to getting. You should feel good about your dedication and foresight to do what you needed in order to stay at a high earning status once the artificially high earnings you were lucky enough to get with a HS diploma popped with the bubble. It may seem that you've gone down, but really, you just had the bad fortune of hitting a jackpot for a short time. I say "bad fortune" because while you were lucky to get paid a lot, those jackpots aren't the normal state of affairs and it tainted your perceptions of your situation.
The law isn't like some permissive instructor who hands out retakes at the first hint of a whine. Unless there is some really good reason for not presenting evidence when it is due, and "I forgot" is definitely not one, there is no do-over. As for an appeal, that would have been pointless because in the situation where "A" and "B" must be true to win, there is no win if one or the other element is absent. One might get a do-over in the situation where, for example, I intentionally withheld key evidence and the other side had no other way to find it out except through me, but when the missing evidence is simply due to a party's own fault, that's it. Game over.
This is an interesting portion of your comment. I'm a lawyer, and while law school was less nuts&bolts than you might think, the law school experience was quite a bit different than college. When I look back on it, law school isn't exactly hard, it's just grueling, kind of like walking across Texas in the summer would be. College was a whole lot more fun because the volume of information required to get through was so much smaller. Another interesting thing about law school was the number of unhappy people who were used to sliding easily into A grades, endlessly whining about their C- grades at the end of the first semester.
Back on topic, I wonder what law school would have been like without finals. Nice profs would give a midterm and final. Most simply gave a final exam at the end of the semester. Talk about performance anxiety -- blow the one test and blow the class. On the other hand, you literally can blow a case with one forgotten question to a key witness (*) so being put on the spot like that was sort of primer for real life.
(*) It doesn't usually happen, but I cruised to an easy win once after a plaintiff rested (I didn't even have to present my case) because opposing counsel forgot to ask a doctor whether his opinion was expressed on a "more probable than not probable" certainty level. Had he asked just one more question, there would have been an issue for the jury to decide, but because he forgot, my motion to dismiss was granted and the jury sent home. Miss a key magic phrase and you lose. Now that's some serious testing.
Because what she did was wrong. Granted, only the stupid will be caught, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a wrong thing to do. If she had murdered someone and buried the body, and was only found out because she was bragging in a bar, would you say, "hey, at least the body was found and the family gets some kind of closure, something that wouldn't have happened if she didn't open her mouth."
She's not being punished for expressing what she thinks. She is being punished for violating a sworn oath and thus making it impossible for the defendant to have a fair trial. I realize we live in a world where American citizens can be executed without any due process, but that policy is under attack because it violates due process. This story just adds to my worry about the constant attack on our rights at seemingly every level, from smart nefarious pricks in office, to retards on juries.
As for the punishment, $250 is an utterly insufficient fine. Even at minimum wage, it's only a week's labor at most. She should be taxed with the costs associated with the trial. To put this into a bad car analogy, it's like she intentionally smashed into another car with her own, totaling the other car, but is only being required to cover the cost of the left taillight on the victims auto.
Why not?
If you decide you must give a hungry child food, then shouldn't you give food to all hungry children worldwide or are children in some countries more deserving or less? And if you decide that you should feed every hungry mouth, does that mean I should have my resources forcibly taken from me even if I have no such interest or belief? This guy basically wanted to forcibly take or control resources from the Discovery Channel to make the world better in his view. But this is really nothing new, our government does it all the time with the threat of jail for evading taxes, and bullets if you try to escape jail. So the few who force me to feed hungry children (and adults), are just as crazy as Lee.
And so what -- you've made fantasy your religion?
You and I are using "sugar" differently. People certainly can survive without SUGAR (capped to distinguish), i.e., the dehydrated sap of sugar cane. Many things have sugars or are converted to sugars with chewing or digestion and I get that. But we don't need SUGAR specifically because we can survive on all kinds of sugars contained in fruits, berries, roots, or grains. I was specifically trying to give up SUGAR, and things similarly close like honey or maple syrup. I didn't stop eating fruits, sweet potatoes, or bread (without added SUGAR). I'm just saying, eat all the sugars you want, and you will still crave SUGAR. It hits a biological sweet spot like nothing else.
I once quit eating sugar or anything with sugar in it for 13 days (didn't take honey or maple syrup or some other sweet substitute -- that would be cheating in my experiement). I don't know how long it would take to get over sugar, but my cravings never diminished, rather they only got worse. Toward the end, thoughts of sweet things basically intruded on every minute, and it was an incredible struggle to refrain. I even had to start cheating, chewing sugar-free gum, but it wouldn't even touch the constant, obsessive thoughts about sugar. I finally broke down, ate a Reeses Peanut Butter cup, and it was probably the most joyful moment of my life.
Compare that to coffee (I was 4-5 cup a day drinker) -- first day a little dizzy and headache. Second day: headache but more mild than day 1. Third day: headache from time to time. Fourth day: all done, no cravings, no headache, nothing. Totally easy. Sugar is much different.
If sledding won't work out, throw on some sides for a coracle and then take it floating downriver.
Sure -- different tastes. Just like with rentals, some people will see them as an advantage (no need to worry about backups, upgrading HDs, or schlepping DVDs to the post office), and others will see them as a rip (you don't get to keep anything, can't watch again without paying, ultimately more expensive in certain circumstance). There's probably enough in both camps to keep DVDs alive and keep a rental model alive.
Obviously, you "listen to reason", and thus should be aware that ATV can have more than two meanings. At least these guys think so:
http://code.google.com/p/atv-bootloader/
http://code.google.com/p/atvusb-creator/
Can you do it for $75? For a person who might pick three shows to watch during a season, renting is a better deal. For a person who watches 20 shows, a DVR might be better.
Cost of DVR + cost of cable = how much? This solution might be a better situation for a TV junkie, but for someone who watches a few shows per year, it just won't make sense. As for the GP, I got the impression though he didn't explicitly say it, that he is in a remote area. Perhaps it is the odd situation where he has good network access and no cable access -- I know, not terribly likely but within the realm of possibility. In that case, the DVR will just be a brick. An expensive brick.
Buying ends up being cheaper if something is really good. I paid for Firefly, Buffy, Angel, Farscape and I've totally gotten my money's worth through multiple viewings. With a show like House however, which is interesting enough to watch once, I wouldn't ever get the value of buying the boxed set out of it, because it would get used one time, and collect dust for the rest of my life.
I get objectively, that with the current scheme I can keep my shows, but somehow, I would prefer to rent. I've already replaced the HD in my ATV with a 360gb drive -- I probably spent $100 doing that. It will fill up, and then I have to squeeze a PATA to SATA converter in there so I can put in a bigger drive again -- probably another $100. Then I have to worry about backups, which costs even more. Add in that most shows are a "watch once" thing, and I really wouldn't mind renting them for buck and not having to worry about the expense of backups and upgrades.
In 1990 I watched as my mom died, and in her weakened state basically able to do nothing but watch TV, her precious seconds being used up watching ads for Wisk or whatnot. By 1993 I had stopped watching television completely (kept the VCR for movies though), because the fact is, advertising is a waste of life. Sure, the shows might be somewhat interesting, but just how much is your life worth? I decided mine was worth way more than I got from the annoyance of marketing.
Then came Netflix and TNG, DS9, and even Voyager on DVD. I thoroughly enjoyed catching up on these shows without commercials. Later, I picked up an ATV and I've enjoyed commercial free seasons of Dexter and True Blood and a few other things. The whole point of a device like the ATV, is to avoid commercials and let the marketers hit the unemployment line and languish there as could only happen in a truly just world.
Finally, I just can't believe how cheap people are. What does 99c get you anymore? A Snickers? A box of Tic Tacs? You know, even if you earn minimum wage (and who really thinks their life is only worth 8-something an hour), 15 minutes of commercials is worth $2. Why would you spend $2 of life, when you can get the show for a buck? It makes absolutely no sense to me at all. If you make $60/hr, those 15 minutes cost $15 -- a season would cost you roughly $360.
And one last finally -- if we can get away from the whole advertising model, then direct user supported shows would be possible. For example, Firefly couldn't cut it in the ratings game, but how many direct subscribers would it have taken to make it worth doing?
He'll get creamed as a pro se. I'm sure the defense is already hand selecting a psychiatrist or two to evaluate him and I have no doubt they'll find that he has some kind of obsessive personality disorder, which is probably true. My wife plays farmville obsessively, but before that, she hassled me constantly about some irrational dirt or germ issue till I said I was moving out, and before that she collected podcasts she never listened to till her 500gb HD died, before that it was playing spider solitaire, and before that it was something I forget. Anyway, my point it, the problem is the person with the obsessive disorder, not the object of their obsession.
Secondly, this trial is about to become this guy's obsession, and one of the absolutely certain ways to scare of attorneys, is to come across as an extremely needy, obsessed client who will extravagantly abuse the lawyer's time, which is OK if you get paid by the hour I suppose, but in a contingent situation, it means losing money. So there are probably two reasons why he may have a hard time getting a lawyer: one, he IS crazy (intervening cause); and two, he's crazy (super annoying).
Idiots like you are a perfect example of what happens to people after years of living under administrations (past and current) which have been and are, hell-bent on destroying civil liberties and due process. The remaining people who fail to fall in line will simply be arrested, and that will take care of any questions.