I think one big reason is the sheer number of elections held in the US. Here in California each voter has several dozen elections to vote in every year.
I've worked in elections in Sweden, and we used a very secure, verifiable, triple checked hand counting system. But then again we only have three elections every four years. With 50 times as many, I can see how you'd start looking for more efficient methods.
Sure, being tall has some social advantages, unless you're a woman. But there are other factors.
Healthy people are in general, on average, somewhat better at all things, physical and mental, than others. They are also taller. For example, under nourished kids grow up to be shorter than well fed ones. And their brains, like the rest of their organisms, also develop less well than they had potential for.
So it's no surprise if tall people tend to perform better at most things, even where physical height is not an immediate advantage for the task.
This is in line with the finding that beautiful people are snarter than others. Seriously, research shows!
As your potential (185cm/6'1") coworker I have to say that I care. I will not work with smelly, rude or otherwise obnoxious people if I can at all avoid it. Neither will most people worth hiring.
Testing methods are always a step behind doping methods. It takes 5-10 years after a new trick is available until it can be detected.
I don't know why they don't take samples and keep them around for a few decades until tests have improved. It may take a decade or two, but it would be pretty certain that the cheaters get caught.
The prominent building was the parliament ("Reichstag"). I suppose you could draw parallells to the 9/11 events if you were so inclined. Both events were followed by harsher laws to stop such horrible events.
It was generally assumed that the Nazis lit that fire themselves, but I hear that the latest historical findings are that the Dutch Communist punished for the fire actually did it.
I don't know how you get the impression that Kerry and Lieberman are implying that they know these things are happening. The possibly deceptive message you can get is that they, just like the American public, don't know how it's being used. And you could argue that that is the way they're supposed to handle classified information, to act as if they didn't have it.
What would be an acceptable way for Kerry and Lieberman to argue against this law by your standards? I gave it some thought and couldn't come up with any. If they had hinted at that it's not being used, they would no doubt have been labeled traitors and security risks.
It's very hard to make sense of Ashcrofts argument here. It seems to boil down to that the law should not be abolished since he has never used it and has no intention to.
The important thing is what laws are on the books, and their potential for abuse. The argument "But I trust the current administration" is completely invalid, since there will be many new administrations coming after it, manned with people of very varying level of moral integrity, if history is any guide.
Now, terrorists know the FBI is too scared to use this new capability, which can only be a bad thing.
1. How exactly do you imagine terrorists will exploit this information to kill Americans? I have as vivid an imagination as anyone, and I can't even come up with a bizzarre scenarion for this to happen. Which is the other part of the argument against this law apart from the potential for abuse, namely the low potential for use.
2. What's your basis for thinking that the FBI is too scared to use it? The Great Truthsayer John Ashcroft claims that it is because they "just don't care" about library records.
BTW, you clamor for transparency from Ashcroft, but then when the Justice Department does exactly that, you don't trust him?
Well, the selective release of one isolated fact to score political points against Kerry and Lieberman doesn't impress me, even though it is welcome in itself, and I think it is probably true.
As for the Justice Department's classification of the accusations against itself, I haven't seen their documents, but it doesn't sound like they're giving any real information, only that they've looked into the accusations against themeselves, and found them to be mostly groundless.
I read the articles. The first one has these arguments.
1. The PATRIOT act part that gives Ashcroft the right to view library, business, medical, or other records has never been used, so when John Edwards said that "The notion that they are going to libraries to find out what books people are checking out, going to book stores to find out what books are being purchased...runs contrary to everything we believe in this country." he was being deceptive since he knew it had never been used.
That's of course bullshit. Edwards didn't claim it had been used, just that the law was wrong. Look up "notion" if you're confused.
2. Joseph Lieberman is accused of similar deception for this quote: "Is the government snooping through people's library records? Inappropriately searching people's belongings? George W. Bush isn't answering these questions. As usual, he's keeping secrets and fueling suspicions. This administration's 'Don't ask, don't tell' approach to governance should make every American leery of handing over new authority to John Ashcroft before we know how he is using the power he already has.".
In the very sentence before the article itself says "Lawmakers would not have been allowed to reveal the classified information publicly". Just like Lieberman said, Bush was keeping these secrets from the American people at the time of Liebermans speech.
3. And at the end of the article the author pretends to not understand a simple, if somewhat abstract, argument from an ACLU representative.
The second article is a long rant on how bad FDR and other Democrats have been throughout history, and only at its end contains some vague and unverifiable complaints about the numbers in a NYT article from July 21. Maybe that was a bad article. But I note that the basis for the argument is that the Justice Department doesn't think many of the accusations of the Justice Department are valid. If the Justice Department were massively violating people's rights, wouldn't it be naive to expect them to send out a press release about it? I can't imagime conservative columnists treating information from a Democrat AG with such blind trust.
You say "It seems the seperation between rich and poor is getting far wider. ", but then you also say "Now, it seems many on this list managed to go from zero to super rich in a matter of a few years. Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody."
It seems to me that if it's getting more common to go from poor to rich (or perhaps more typically poor to middle class and middle class to rich), the separation between poor and rich is getting smaller, not wider.
That's pretty convincing, but you'd still need a 6 mile radius area where there is a neglible chance to hit a boat, bridge or other valuable object sensitive to being hit with a few ton from above. And that describes no area in or near the SF Bay!
There should be plenty of remote areas to choose from though, especially in the open sea.
You know, if you're not willing to put in any effort or do anything that's not immediately pleasant, you're not going to reach any long term goals, social or otherwise.
Refuse to change if you want to. It's your choice. But don't be surprised at the predictable consequences.
but then what's the point of overloaded operators?
Well, I think the obvious answer is: NONE
I'm sorry, but operator overloading is one of the most gratuitous and depraved features to make it into the language. And it's not just needlessly pretty, but causes all kinds of subtle errors. From not being able to be sure what "a + b" actually does, to disabling the guaranteed evaluation order in boolean expressions.
Yeah, but I think the number one thing that Java did right was to start over. Most of the problems of C++ comes from the decision to be C compatible.
So if C++ wants to learn from Java, it should start over. But then it wouldn't be C++ anymore. Actually, you might as well use Java... Except that the focus of the new language should be performance, since that's really the one substantial advantage C++ has over Java.
That's very interesting, but I don't see how it is a rebuttal. You describe a completely insane, wasteful and dysfunctional system where your opinion counts for nothing. You don't have to take it personally, it's obviously not your fault, and you seem like a smart and competent guy. Sadly, smart people in a dysfunctional system will produce crappy results.
I find your trust in the political system touchingly naive, but that's a whole other rant.
Then again, it would only take one fraudster to falsly claim their vote had been miscounted.
Also, any system that lets the voter check their vote also lets someone forcing them to vote one way or another to verify that they've done as commanded.
How much does the extra computation involved in en- & decrypting everything affect network performance? Is there a tradeoff between performance and privacy that may make some people willingly not encrypt?
An example of an 'external' view of the choice is the view of it from later in time. From my vantage point of this moment in time, I know that you chose to write the post I'm replying to here. Seen from here, it is a certainty.
But does that mean that you didn't have a free choice when you did this? I personally don't think so.
The Bali bomb was set in a disco frequented by western tourists, in order to kill Americans. As it turned out mostly Australians got killed, but that was not the intended target.
There is bad stuff happening in the Phillipines, but that's much more of of a local civil war between moslems and christians than anything else.
Meanwhile, the entire continent of Europe, with twice the Christian population of the US, and much closer to the Middle East, is free from attacks. With the exception of Chechnia, which is also a civil war and is fueled by the Russian governments near genocidal treatment of the Chechnians.
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I think one big reason is the sheer number of elections held in the US. Here in California each voter has several dozen elections to vote in every year.
I've worked in elections in Sweden, and we used a very secure, verifiable, triple checked hand counting system. But then again we only have three elections every four years. With 50 times as many, I can see how you'd start looking for more efficient methods.
Sure, being tall has some social advantages, unless you're a woman. But there are other factors.
Healthy people are in general, on average, somewhat better at all things, physical and mental, than others. They are also taller. For example, under nourished kids grow up to be shorter than well fed ones. And their brains, like the rest of their organisms, also develop less well than they had potential for.
So it's no surprise if tall people tend to perform better at most things, even where physical height is not an immediate advantage for the task.
This is in line with the finding that beautiful people are snarter than others. Seriously, research shows!
As your potential (185cm/6'1") coworker I have to say that I care. I will not work with smelly, rude or otherwise obnoxious people if I can at all avoid it. Neither will most people worth hiring.
Testing methods are always a step behind doping methods. It takes 5-10 years after a new trick is available until it can be detected.
I don't know why they don't take samples and keep them around for a few decades until tests have improved. It may take a decade or two, but it would be pretty certain that the cheaters get caught.
Two reasons.
1. It is very inefficient.
2. There is nowhere to beam it from. You need line of sight.
It's a bit of a nit pick, but the Patriot act does grant law enforcement access to our library records.
The prominent building was the parliament ("Reichstag"). I suppose you could draw parallells to the 9/11 events if you were so inclined. Both events were followed by harsher laws to stop such horrible events.
It was generally assumed that the Nazis lit that fire themselves, but I hear that the latest historical findings are that the Dutch Communist punished for the fire actually did it.
A law must be challenged in court to get it thrown out.
Actually, the normal way for it to be thrown out is for the legislature to do it. Which they will if enough citizens pressure them to.
I don't know how you get the impression that Kerry and Lieberman are implying that they know these things are happening. The possibly deceptive message you can get is that they, just like the American public, don't know how it's being used. And you could argue that that is the way they're supposed to handle classified information, to act as if they didn't have it.
What would be an acceptable way for Kerry and Lieberman to argue against this law by your standards? I gave it some thought and couldn't come up with any. If they had hinted at that it's not being used, they would no doubt have been labeled traitors and security risks.
It's very hard to make sense of Ashcrofts argument here. It seems to boil down to that the law should not be abolished since he has never used it and has no intention to.
The important thing is what laws are on the books, and their potential for abuse. The argument "But I trust the current administration" is completely invalid, since there will be many new administrations coming after it, manned with people of very varying level of moral integrity, if history is any guide.
Now, terrorists know the FBI is too scared to use this new capability, which can only be a bad thing.
1. How exactly do you imagine terrorists will exploit this information to kill Americans? I have as vivid an imagination as anyone, and I can't even come up with a bizzarre scenarion for this to happen. Which is the other part of the argument against this law apart from the potential for abuse, namely the low potential for use.
2. What's your basis for thinking that the FBI is too scared to use it? The Great Truthsayer John Ashcroft claims that it is because they "just don't care" about library records.
BTW, you clamor for transparency from Ashcroft, but then when the Justice Department does exactly that, you don't trust him?
Well, the selective release of one isolated fact to score political points against Kerry and Lieberman doesn't impress me, even though it is welcome in itself, and I think it is probably true.
As for the Justice Department's classification of the accusations against itself, I haven't seen their documents, but it doesn't sound like they're giving any real information, only that they've looked into the accusations against themeselves, and found them to be mostly groundless.
I read the articles. The first one has these arguments.
1. The PATRIOT act part that gives Ashcroft the right to view library, business, medical, or other records has never been used, so when John Edwards said that "The notion that they are going to libraries to find out what books people are checking out, going to book stores to find out what books are being purchased...runs contrary to everything we believe in this country." he was being deceptive since he knew it had never been used.
That's of course bullshit. Edwards didn't claim it had been used, just that the law was wrong. Look up "notion" if you're confused.
2. Joseph Lieberman is accused of similar deception for this quote: "Is the government snooping through people's library records? Inappropriately searching people's belongings? George W. Bush isn't answering these questions. As usual, he's keeping secrets and fueling suspicions. This administration's 'Don't ask, don't tell' approach to governance should make every American leery of handing over new authority to John Ashcroft before we know how he is using the power he already has.".
In the very sentence before the article itself says "Lawmakers would not have been allowed to reveal the classified information publicly". Just like Lieberman said, Bush was keeping these secrets from the American people at the time of Liebermans speech.
3. And at the end of the article the author pretends to not understand a simple, if somewhat abstract, argument from an ACLU representative.
The second article is a long rant on how bad FDR and other Democrats have been throughout history, and only at its end contains some vague and unverifiable complaints about the numbers in a NYT article from July 21. Maybe that was a bad article. But I note that the basis for the argument is that the Justice Department doesn't think many of the accusations of the Justice Department are valid. If the Justice Department were massively violating people's rights, wouldn't it be naive to expect them to send out a press release about it? I can't imagime conservative columnists treating information from a Democrat AG with such blind trust.
You say "It seems the seperation between rich and poor is getting far wider. ", but then you also say "Now, it seems many on this list managed to go from zero to super rich in a matter of a few years. Look at Bill Gates. He hasn't always been rich, now he has more money than anybody."
It seems to me that if it's getting more common to go from poor to rich (or perhaps more typically poor to middle class and middle class to rich), the separation between poor and rich is getting smaller, not wider.
I'm not sure exactly when it was changed, but the current slogan is "land of the fee, home of the slave"
That's pretty convincing, but you'd still need a 6 mile radius area where there is a neglible chance to hit a boat, bridge or other valuable object sensitive to being hit with a few ton from above. And that describes no area in or near the SF Bay!
There should be plenty of remote areas to choose from though, especially in the open sea.
You know, if you're not willing to put in any effort or do anything that's not immediately pleasant, you're not going to reach any long term goals, social or otherwise.
Refuse to change if you want to. It's your choice. But don't be surprised at the predictable consequences.
As always it is hard to know what direction casuality travels.
It could be that only the brightest geniuses realize that marriage is a bad idea!
The FBI has ALWAYS been able to listen in on your conversation, with a court order. This has not changed.
They no longer need a court order. The previous system turned out to be unpatriotic.
but then what's the point of overloaded operators?
Well, I think the obvious answer is: NONE
I'm sorry, but operator overloading is one of the most gratuitous and depraved features to make it into the language. And it's not just needlessly pretty, but causes all kinds of subtle errors. From not being able to be sure what "a + b" actually does, to disabling the guaranteed evaluation order in boolean expressions.
Yeah, but I think the number one thing that Java did right was to start over. Most of the problems of C++ comes from the decision to be C compatible.
So if C++ wants to learn from Java, it should start over. But then it wouldn't be C++ anymore. Actually, you might as well use Java... Except that the focus of the new language should be performance, since that's really the one substantial advantage C++ has over Java.
Could you maybe rephrase that in terms I'm more familiar with?
That's very interesting, but I don't see how it is a rebuttal. You describe a completely insane, wasteful and dysfunctional system where your opinion counts for nothing. You don't have to take it personally, it's obviously not your fault, and you seem like a smart and competent guy. Sadly, smart people in a dysfunctional system will produce crappy results.
I find your trust in the political system touchingly naive, but that's a whole other rant.
Then again, it would only take one fraudster to falsly claim their vote had been miscounted.
Also, any system that lets the voter check their vote also lets someone forcing them to vote one way or another to verify that they've done as commanded.
How much does the extra computation involved in en- & decrypting everything affect network performance? Is there a tradeoff between performance and privacy that may make some people willingly not encrypt?
An example of an 'external' view of the choice is the view of it from later in time. From my vantage point of this moment in time, I know that you chose to write the post I'm replying to here. Seen from here, it is a certainty.
But does that mean that you didn't have a free choice when you did this? I personally don't think so.
That tells you more about the price of bottling than anything else.
Compare bottled water to bottled gasoline, or pumped water to pumped gasoline to get a fair comparision.
The Bali bomb was set in a disco frequented by western tourists, in order to kill Americans. As it turned out mostly Australians got killed, but that was not the intended target.
There is bad stuff happening in the Phillipines, but that's much more of of a local civil war between moslems and christians than anything else.
Meanwhile, the entire continent of Europe, with twice the Christian population of the US, and much closer to the Middle East, is free from attacks. With the exception of Chechnia, which is also a civil war and is fueled by the Russian governments near genocidal treatment of the Chechnians.