I have this theory that almost all the female characters in WoW are men. Most women I know that play usually pick guys so they don't get hit on all the time.
Yeah, the women don't want to be bothered, and the men would rather look at a female avatar's behind for endless hours than a male one.
At least, the normal self-confident men. The ones who get all wrapped up in their character's sexual identity really crack me up. Like the guy you talked about freaking out that a man was playing a female character, obviously has some issues. Probably went to bed in a cold sweat, worrying if trying to cyber with a man-playing-female-character meant he was gay.
Yeah, and it would also prevent anyone of meagre means from bringing a legitimate suit against a wealthy defendent, lest they be forced to pay astronomical court fees. "Legitimate" is not the same thing as "guaranteed to win", especially since the latter doesn't exist.
Would you risk paying Sony's legal fees? No matter how legitimate your beef may be, can you be sure you can beat their high-priced lawyers? And can you risk having to pay for those high-priced lawyers? Especially when we've just given them every incentive to spend as much on those lawyers as possible (because if they win the lawyers are free)? Or would the very fact that they have a million-dollar legal team prevent you from filing in the first place?
"Loser pays" is a bad idea. Always has been, always will be.
If it makes you feel better, I thought of that scene in Ice Pirates where the good guys get captured and made into "eunuch" servants, only they aren't actually castrated but merely threatened with a terrible-looking steel jaw castrator machine and told to behave (by the buxom villainess who had her own reasons for not wanting them snipped).
Exactly. The system as it is set up creates and enforces a two-party dichotomy.
The easiest way to see how the system is broken is by looking at what happens when two strong parties are ideologically aligned. In sane forms of government, having two aligned parties makes them stronger. But in our system, having another aligned party makes both parties weaker. The Green Party drew votes away from the Dems, and thus hurt the liberal ideology. Whereas in a Parliamentary system, you can say have the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats party join forces and create a stronger block than they would have otherwise. But in our system, having choice makes you weaker.
Another real-world example that illustrates how broken our system is: in 1992, Ross Perot received 19% of the popular vote. In any sane political system, a party whose candidate received 1/5th of the vote would be a major political force in the future. But because of our insane system, Ross Perot despite receiving 1/5th the popular vote received zero electoral votes. It was direct proof that even a popular 3rd party candidate has zero chance of winning, or of even making a good showing. Instead all the conservatives who supported Perot fled because they realized the only effect of Perot was to weaken the Republicans and strengthen the Democrats.
The same thing happened to me -- voted Nader in 2000, but do you think there was any chance in hell I'd repeat that mistake in 2004?
Honestly, you're lucky the democrats even bothered trying to pass a bill with a timetable for withdrawal in it -- I think that's about the best you could hope for.
Yes, that's the best I hoped for from the Democrats, but that's not the best they could have done.
What we had here was a standoff. The Dems can't beat Bush's veto, but Bush can't get any bill to sign that isn't crafted by the Dems. For a minute, it looked like they might try to go the distance. But the Dems completely collapsed in the face of Bush's "You are endangering the troops. The trooooooops!" rhetoric. They were so worried that people were think they were unpatriotic -- which people, I ask, since as far as I can tell that was exactly what the people who actually voted for them wanted -- that they caved in and gave Bush exactly what he wanted with nothing more than a "and gee, it sure would be nice if the war would end some day" note at the end.
What the Dems needed to do is match Bush's rhetoric with their own. Stand up and make it clear that they believe they are "supporting the troops" by bringing them home safetly. Make it clear that it is Bush who has put the troops in very literal danger, who has failed our troops by failing to manage the war properly. They need to hit him where he is ultimately the most vulnerable: the utter failure of his Iraq policy, and the fact that this has directly resulted in our soldiers being killed needlessly.
Yet for some reasons the Democrats are afraid to call him on it. What should be Bush's greatest weakness is an inexplicable source of strength. They're afraid to come right out and say "you're getting our troops killed because you failed to plan for any of this, we need to end the pointless bloodshed". So by their silence they implicitly hand Bush the title of "troop supporter", boosting his rhetoric and ultimately dooming their own pathetic attempts to do what they were voted in to do.
I didn't really hope for much. But I did hope that the Democrats would realize that they didn't get voted in for them, they got voted in because we wanted things to change, for the war to stop, and that would not happen with a Republican majority. They're so worried about what we think of them, they don't notice that we want them to do something even if politically dangerous. But by playing it safe, they've killed the support they had.
Regular email is like a snail-mail in an envelope -- it is trivial to read it, but it requires conscious effort to do so. A postcard could fall on the ground text-up and be read by random passers by who just happened to glance at it. Unless there is something serious going wrong, someone else's email is not going to just pop up on your screen. You have to make a conscious effort to read someone else's email, and yes I'm including using a packet sniffer.
Encryption is like shipping your letter in a box with a combination lock on it. That may be a really good idea if the contents of the letter are extremely important, but 100% absolutely NOT required for you to have an expectation of privacy vis a vis the 4th Ammendment.
People keep confusing "expectation of privacy" with "practical feasibility of someone violating their privacy if they want to". They are not the same thing. As a techie you might think it has something to do with how difficult it is to read email, but that's really irrelevent, which is obvious if you look at every other method of communication.
I have an expectation of privacy when conversing in my home, even though just putting your ear to my window would allow you to hear. I have an expectation of privacy when using a cordless phone, even though especially the old ones were trivial to listen in on. I have an expectation of privacy when sending a letter, even though a light shone through the envelope can reveal its secrets.
Now, if you are worried about people who don't care about your expectations of privacy or the law, and your data is important, then yes you should be aware of the practical reality and take extra precautions, eg encryption, or a sound-proof booth in your home, or whatever. That is not the same as an expectation of privacy.
Expectation of privacy means you expect you will be granted privacy, not that you expect that nobody can breach your privacy.
Not anymore. Your landline is only analog to the phone station, and if you use a modern cell phone it's never analog at all.
Telephone: Real time instantaneous communication
Real-time yes, instantaneous no. Not necessarily any faster than email.
Telephone: Audio only
Not since the first modem. We use bits to represent audio, and audio to represent bits.
Telephone: Switched communication no copies saved even temporarily
Not anymore. They use a "virtual circuit" to make it look like an old-school switched network, but it is not anymore. And the packets that make up your phone conversation absolutely have temporary copies made.
and the list goes on.
Does it eventually get to something that is actually relevent? Nothing here changes the 4th Ammendment implications one iota. I don't really care which one you analogize email to as long as you make it clear what that means for privacy, and how the analogy is incomplete relative to privacy and the 4th Ammendment.
The only thing that affects the telegraph is the necessity of two people reading your message. Analogize email to telegraphs all you want as long as you make it clear that particular aspect does not apply to any other technology. None of phones, email, nor regular snail-mail have such a requirement, and all are protected under the 4th Ammendment.
Besides, the GP was assuming the 4th Ammendment didn't apply to telegraphs, which I find highly dubious. But we know it applies to mail and telephone, and email is basically the combination of those two technologies.
Well remember that the courts can only decide issues that are placed before them. If this issue hasn't come up before, then there would have been no chance for them to explicitly state that email also falls under the 4th Ammendment. I'm not sure that's true, but in my memory most of the cases involving email as evidence those emails were obtained through a warrant and thus in those cases at least no 4th Ammendment issue arose to be ruled on.
You could call it a problem with the system that technically it is the Judiciary that decides what the law actually means, but they are only able to make that decision after a conflict has arisen and been brought before the court, and in the meantime you're basically guessing. Yet based on the precedents of postal service and telephone it should be fairly obvious that the 4th Ammendment applies to email. Also based on the fact that law enforcement generally gets warrants to recover email, I'd say they generally assume the 4th applies as well.
So when someone decides the opposite, and the issue comes before the court, the court rules on it and now we have a clear precedent of what before was merely assumed: Email is protected under the 4th Ammendment.
I assume there was no expectation of privacy in a telegraph and there should be none in an email. It would be nice, but it ain't how it works.
Why do you assume that?
Granted, by the nature of the telegraph, you had to have an operator on each end to transmit/transcribe your message. With the exception of that pair of people, why would anyone expect that their message is not private? Certainly with regards to law enforcement -- I would assume there was an expectation that the telegraph operator would not hand your missive directly over to a law enforcement officer unless that officer had a warrant, and similarly an expectation that the nobody including the police would tap the transmission line and listen in on your message.
If there was a version of the telegraph which required no operators, then there would be no reason not to expect complete privacy.
But why pick the telegraph which has an obvious privacy-related flaw when we also have the example of the telephone? This is more apt because it does not have the same flaw as the telegraph, and because these days the machinery for transmitting voice data and email data is the same. Also it serves a similar function in that it's intended as a person-to-person form of communication. Do we have an expectation of privacy in phone calls as a matter of law? Yes! So should we with e-mail? Yes!
And you have that same "expectation of privacy" even if you are using an old-school easy-as-piss to overhear cordless phone. Just because it's easy to violate your privacy does not mean it is okay for people to do so. Just like when you send a postcard you have the same expectation. Sure, someone might read it, that's a practical reality. But as a legal reality neither police officers nor private detectives are allowed to pluck postcards from your mailbox and read them.
Mail and phone both have expectations of privacy, why should not email?
Paladin: "Here it is. The Brainhew. +14 to Minimum Damage, +4 Light Radius, 10-14% Mana stolen per hit, and 15-35 fire damage. The legends were true..."
Sorceress: What-ever. Mephisto didn't drop my Orb, again, the bastard. Let's restart so we can kill him again.
Seriously, they should do it up sort of like Ground Hogs Day, only the "heroes" are more or less in control of the replays.
Mephisto: You're too late! Ha ha... Wait... I feel like I've said this before.
Party: Yeah, you have. We've killed you like 5,000 times already, cus we're gearing up for Act IV.
The only way the "villains" would be able to break the cycle of being repeatedly killed every day by the heroes is to learn the true meaning of love...
Growing up, I graduated highschool in 1992. I was fed a whole bunch of crap about how the 'bad soviets spy on their people' and the 'bad soviets imprison people with no chance of trial' and 'bad soviets take their peoples' rights and tell them it's for security'/
Exactly. When I was a kid the USSR was bad because of all those things they did, and the USA was great because we didn't do any of those things.
At some point, I'm not sure when, it no longer became about what we did The USA was just magically the best no matter what simply because it's the USA. I think maybe it happened around the same time you started seeing those bumper stickers with the flag and "The Power of Pride". Because apparently if you just believe that your country is super-awesome, it will do great things. Via magic.
How are pride and wishful thinking working out for us in Iraq? Maybe if I just have more pride we'll win...
BTW, someone needs to mod the OP up some more, because that was hilarious.
Yeah, and like most police state tactics, it completely fails to address the actual problem they claim they are solving. Which is ultimately good for them, because the continuation of the problem justifies them taking even more power (that also won't solve the problem).
In case anyone dosen't remember, all of the 9/11 hijackers travelled with valid ID.
So now the hijackers will register their names two days in advance. BFD. They aren't going to use anyone on our known list of terrorists, they aren't going to use anyone who our pointless profiling picks up. They will be completely legal, record-free, and unknown to any law enforcement or intelligence agency. They will walk right through the security checkpoint, grumbling just as loud as the guy behind them about the inconvenience.
This shit is useful for catching Cat Stevens, providing a false sense of security, more power to the police state, and not a damn thing else.
You can not approve of their cultural traditions, you can want them to be illegal. You can not however decide for them whether or not that tradition is part of their culture or whether or not they are practicing that tradition "correctly". You were arguing the latter. If you were arguing the latter so as to support the former, then that was simply a mistaken line of reasoning.
And... if I don't believe hunting a whale is inherently wrong? That's not moral relativism then, is it?
I mean, we accept murder as wrong and thus illegal irrespective of what culture you bring here because it's necessary for a stable, safe society. But whales are not part of our society. They have their own societies, which often are not without violence against other intelligent species.
I am not against the hunting of any animal, so long as it is done sustainably, their habitats and ecosystems are not destroyed in the process, the killing is done as humanely as possible, and generally we allow those species to live in peace. From this standpoint, to me the use of exploding harpoon tips is a vast improvement to their cultural tradition as it means it's easier for them to kill the whale, both so it doesn't suffer a lingering death and so that the whale is counted in the quotas.
What I am deeply bothered by: 1) The unsustainable whaling by Western and Asian countries that put whales on the endangered species list in the first place. 2) The Japanese' continued flouting of the whaling ban, and continued use of non sustainable practices, not just in whaling but in fishing in general causing incredible drops in the quantity and quality of the ocean's stock. 3) Massive and ongoing pollution of the oceans, destruction of coral reefs and other natural habitats.
These things don't just affect the lives of a few whales, but the entire oceanic ecosystem and eventually the whole planet. Compared to that 255 whales over 5 years is way, way down my list of things to be concerned about. And as long as it continues in a small scale sustainable fashion, I'm not concerned at all.
If you're going to tell me that killing a whale is inherently wrong, then you should be railing against the recently adopted Western cultural tradition of polluting and habitat destroying industry.
You've... never even seen a picture of northern alaska, have you?
And they are not finishing off the last of the whales. They are pursuing sustainable hunting methods. Non-sustainable methods is what everyone else was pursuing up until the 80s. So don't act like you care when you don't know what they're doing, nor what your own culture has done.
So the community as a whole decides what is acceptable, not outsiders, correct?
No, the community decides what defines their cultural heritage, not outsiders.
As in, you don't get to say that Inuits are not being true to their cultural heritage because they use exploding harpoons, which is what you were suggesting. You don't know nearly enough about their culture to even form an opinion, much less dictate your decision to them.
That is a separate question from "acceptable".
So... then you would have no problem with allowing non-consentual female genital mutilation among African immigrant communities in the US, as long as the community is ok with it?
Of course not, and by the same token, you don't get to declare that it is no longer part of the culture.
On your second point, there is a long tradition (which you would know if you were a hunter or fisherman) in this country of managing small, sustainable harvesting of species to seek population balance. For quite a few species, there is a lottery to obtain a permit, with preference given to in-state residents. That is the fair way to do it.
That is one fair way to do it, not the only way. I'm glad you recognize a tradition of sustainable hunting and harvesting, because that is exactly what is being practiced in Alaska.
In particular, one fair way to do it would be to identify which communities have long-standing (and I mean long standing in the global, not American, sense) traditions of whaling, and which communities depend on whaling for their food. The answer in both cases is "Eskimos".
Giving lottery tickets to people who have absolutely zero stake in sustainable whaling at the expense of people who depend on it for cultural identity and food is not in any way "fair".
Of course, I kind of doubt that there would be many non-indigenous applicants, because western society generally regards the killing of intelligent, long-lived endangered mammals as horrifying, an opinion I share.
You mean Western society since the early 80s is against whale killing, but before that played a major role in the whales becoming endangered in the first place. You should be horrified at the actions of your own culture, and while you're free to be horrified by any further killing, it would be appropriate if you at least kept in mind that perspective of scale, and how they both were and are pursuing sustainable practices, unlike your own culture until extremely recently.
Personally, I have no problem with a few whales being killed by Inuits, nor a few monkeys being killed by Brazilian natives, nor, if their populations hadn't been so heavily damaged by commercial poaching would I have a problem with African natives killing a few lowland gorrillas if that was a traditional food source. I do not want to see it done again in large scale commercial ventures, an important difference of scale.
Race-based quotas seem horribly backwards.
Only because you couch it in those terms with no respect for the connection between their culture and the whales, or their need for food. NEED-based quotas doesn't sound as unfair; but because it happens to line up with race it can be couched in terms of affirmative action or something.
People used to think that there were only a tiny amount of Giant squid--maybe in the thousands--worldwide.
When whales eat giant squid, the squid beaks are indigestible and remain in the whales stomach for its entire life (they are relatively tiny).
One day, a rather large whale washed up on a beach (I believe in cali). An autopsy and examination of the stomach revealed not hundreds but thousands of beaks. Magically, oceanographers reversed their view and decided that there are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of giant squid.
Yeah, because they didn't want to admit that this one whale had just eaten all the giant squid in the world!
Should we simply ignore all best-guesses and estimates and wait until we have 100% rock solid proof, at which point it might very well be too late to do anything at all?
No, but it would be rather prudent to note that based on our current best estimates, the amount of whaling the Eskimos are allowed to do is sustainable. It is the unrestricted commercial whaling of the past century (and which Japan continues to do) that are a danger to the whales if anything is.
I know his grammar was bad, but Bush clearly meant "can't allow yourself to get speared again". This poor whale simply failed to follow Bush's sage advice.
Their particular heritage did not invent the explosive harpoon or the outboard motor. That's like saying that Native American culture involved hunting buffalo with a Henry Rifle. So that's where I'd draw the line - once you start using stuff other cultures invented, you're going for convenience, not heritage. If your main purpose is protecting and remembering your specific heritage, then it should not be tainted by outside influences. Traditional eskimo canoes were not powered by Honda outboards.
And a particular tribe may not have invented the stone spear, but learned it from another tribe. Again, unless "refusal to learn from other peoples" is a cultural tradition, I'm not seeing the problem.
Native Americans did not domesticate the horse, they aquired it from European settlers. I ask again: are you saying that they sacrificed any right to their bison hunting heritage by riding horses? That heritage is far deeper than the mere method by which they do it, the cultural significance is not based upon the weapon or mode of transportation. But from your outsiders point of view, that's all you are able to see and you are declaring that unless their methods stay the same, then the culture is lost.
Let me be blunt: You do not get to decide what represents a faithful continuation of Eskimo heritage.
Also, before you compare the Alaskan villages to the Japanese you need to be aware of the huge difference in scale. "The loss of the whales" is the result of the unrestrained commercial whaling that took place last century, and has nothing to do with the Inuit. While there is apparently debate about what level of whaling is sustainable for certain whale species, the actual quota for the Eskimos is tiny compared to what Japanese whalers have brought in. Since they are complying with the law and whaling in a sustainable fashion, unlike the Japanese, your comparison is completely unfair and your fear that they will cause the "loss of the whales" is unfounded.
There is a lot of argument over the sustainability numbers...So much so that it would be my preference to err on the side of caution, especially given the over all population problem they're having over what used to be their range.
Yes, I would err on the side of caution especially since I don't know. But at the same time I can't help but feeling like I'm focusing on the smoldering match in the otherwise empty waste bin while the kitchen stove is up in flames, what with the Japanese still out there. In regards to the bowheads specifically, are they caught by Japanese whalers?
I agree that maintaining cultural identity is important, but where do we draw the line?
To put it succinctly, you don't decide what constitutes a faithful continuation of their cultural identity.
Double standards are racist and backwards. If killing whales is acceptable to our society, then make it legal. If it is unacceptable, make it illegal.
It's not as simple as "acceptable" or "unacceptable" to kill in general. There is the issue of sustainability. Whale populations were annihilated by commercial whaling last couple centuries (and this had nothing to do with the Inuit btw!). Large scale whaling is unnacceptable. Small-scale whaling that will not endanger the whole population is acceptable. Allowing everyone to whale is not small scale. We cannot allow everyone to whale. We can allow a small number of people to kill a handful of whales.
So the question then is: If only a small number of people can whale, which people will we allow? That's where the cultural ties to whaling are significant. It's not a double standard -- the standard is small-scale limited whaling, period. But under that standard we by necessity give preference to someone and the Inuit are the obvious choice.
Not all whales no, but there is argument on whether 50 dead per year out of 7800 known living bowhead whales who have a lifespan of 100+ years is sustainable in the long term.
Well that's the argument that is important. I don't know enough to participate in it (though am I mistaken in thinking they hunt several types of whales? perhaps the quotas could be altered?), but it is the sustainability argument that is going to determine whether this practice is actually okay or not.
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I have this theory that almost all the female characters in WoW are men. Most women I know that play usually pick guys so they don't get hit on all the time.
Yeah, the women don't want to be bothered, and the men would rather look at a female avatar's behind for endless hours than a male one.
At least, the normal self-confident men. The ones who get all wrapped up in their character's sexual identity really crack me up. Like the guy you talked about freaking out that a man was playing a female character, obviously has some issues. Probably went to bed in a cold sweat, worrying if trying to cyber with a man-playing-female-character meant he was gay.
Yeah, and it would also prevent anyone of meagre means from bringing a legitimate suit against a wealthy defendent, lest they be forced to pay astronomical court fees. "Legitimate" is not the same thing as "guaranteed to win", especially since the latter doesn't exist.
Would you risk paying Sony's legal fees? No matter how legitimate your beef may be, can you be sure you can beat their high-priced lawyers? And can you risk having to pay for those high-priced lawyers? Especially when we've just given them every incentive to spend as much on those lawyers as possible (because if they win the lawyers are free)? Or would the very fact that they have a million-dollar legal team prevent you from filing in the first place?
"Loser pays" is a bad idea. Always has been, always will be.
If it makes you feel better, I thought of that scene in Ice Pirates where the good guys get captured and made into "eunuch" servants, only they aren't actually castrated but merely threatened with a terrible-looking steel jaw castrator machine and told to behave (by the buxom villainess who had her own reasons for not wanting them snipped).
Exactly. The system as it is set up creates and enforces a two-party dichotomy.
The easiest way to see how the system is broken is by looking at what happens when two strong parties are ideologically aligned. In sane forms of government, having two aligned parties makes them stronger. But in our system, having another aligned party makes both parties weaker. The Green Party drew votes away from the Dems, and thus hurt the liberal ideology. Whereas in a Parliamentary system, you can say have the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats party join forces and create a stronger block than they would have otherwise. But in our system, having choice makes you weaker.
Another real-world example that illustrates how broken our system is: in 1992, Ross Perot received 19% of the popular vote. In any sane political system, a party whose candidate received 1/5th of the vote would be a major political force in the future. But because of our insane system, Ross Perot despite receiving 1/5th the popular vote received zero electoral votes. It was direct proof that even a popular 3rd party candidate has zero chance of winning, or of even making a good showing. Instead all the conservatives who supported Perot fled because they realized the only effect of Perot was to weaken the Republicans and strengthen the Democrats.
The same thing happened to me -- voted Nader in 2000, but do you think there was any chance in hell I'd repeat that mistake in 2004?
Honestly, you're lucky the democrats even bothered trying to pass a bill with a timetable for withdrawal in it -- I think that's about the best you could hope for.
Yes, that's the best I hoped for from the Democrats, but that's not the best they could have done.
What we had here was a standoff. The Dems can't beat Bush's veto, but Bush can't get any bill to sign that isn't crafted by the Dems. For a minute, it looked like they might try to go the distance. But the Dems completely collapsed in the face of Bush's "You are endangering the troops. The trooooooops!" rhetoric. They were so worried that people were think they were unpatriotic -- which people, I ask, since as far as I can tell that was exactly what the people who actually voted for them wanted -- that they caved in and gave Bush exactly what he wanted with nothing more than a "and gee, it sure would be nice if the war would end some day" note at the end.
What the Dems needed to do is match Bush's rhetoric with their own. Stand up and make it clear that they believe they are "supporting the troops" by bringing them home safetly. Make it clear that it is Bush who has put the troops in very literal danger, who has failed our troops by failing to manage the war properly. They need to hit him where he is ultimately the most vulnerable: the utter failure of his Iraq policy, and the fact that this has directly resulted in our soldiers being killed needlessly.
Yet for some reasons the Democrats are afraid to call him on it. What should be Bush's greatest weakness is an inexplicable source of strength. They're afraid to come right out and say "you're getting our troops killed because you failed to plan for any of this, we need to end the pointless bloodshed". So by their silence they implicitly hand Bush the title of "troop supporter", boosting his rhetoric and ultimately dooming their own pathetic attempts to do what they were voted in to do.
I didn't really hope for much. But I did hope that the Democrats would realize that they didn't get voted in for them, they got voted in because we wanted things to change, for the war to stop, and that would not happen with a Republican majority. They're so worried about what we think of them, they don't notice that we want them to do something even if politically dangerous. But by playing it safe, they've killed the support they had.
Regular email is like a snail-mail in an envelope -- it is trivial to read it, but it requires conscious effort to do so. A postcard could fall on the ground text-up and be read by random passers by who just happened to glance at it. Unless there is something serious going wrong, someone else's email is not going to just pop up on your screen. You have to make a conscious effort to read someone else's email, and yes I'm including using a packet sniffer.
Encryption is like shipping your letter in a box with a combination lock on it. That may be a really good idea if the contents of the letter are extremely important, but 100% absolutely NOT required for you to have an expectation of privacy vis a vis the 4th Ammendment.
People keep confusing "expectation of privacy" with "practical feasibility of someone violating their privacy if they want to". They are not the same thing. As a techie you might think it has something to do with how difficult it is to read email, but that's really irrelevent, which is obvious if you look at every other method of communication.
I have an expectation of privacy when conversing in my home, even though just putting your ear to my window would allow you to hear.
I have an expectation of privacy when using a cordless phone, even though especially the old ones were trivial to listen in on.
I have an expectation of privacy when sending a letter, even though a light shone through the envelope can reveal its secrets.
Now, if you are worried about people who don't care about your expectations of privacy or the law, and your data is important, then yes you should be aware of the practical reality and take extra precautions, eg encryption, or a sound-proof booth in your home, or whatever. That is not the same as an expectation of privacy.
Expectation of privacy means you expect you will be granted privacy, not that you expect that nobody can breach your privacy.
Telephone: Analog
Not anymore. Your landline is only analog to the phone station, and if you use a modern cell phone it's never analog at all.
Telephone: Real time instantaneous communication
Real-time yes, instantaneous no. Not necessarily any faster than email.
Telephone: Audio only
Not since the first modem. We use bits to represent audio, and audio to represent bits.
Telephone: Switched communication no copies saved even temporarily
Not anymore. They use a "virtual circuit" to make it look like an old-school switched network, but it is not anymore. And the packets that make up your phone conversation absolutely have temporary copies made.
and the list goes on.
Does it eventually get to something that is actually relevent? Nothing here changes the 4th Ammendment implications one iota. I don't really care which one you analogize email to as long as you make it clear what that means for privacy, and how the analogy is incomplete relative to privacy and the 4th Ammendment.
The only thing that affects the telegraph is the necessity of two people reading your message. Analogize email to telegraphs all you want as long as you make it clear that particular aspect does not apply to any other technology. None of phones, email, nor regular snail-mail have such a requirement, and all are protected under the 4th Ammendment.
Besides, the GP was assuming the 4th Ammendment didn't apply to telegraphs, which I find highly dubious. But we know it applies to mail and telephone, and email is basically the combination of those two technologies.
Well remember that the courts can only decide issues that are placed before them. If this issue hasn't come up before, then there would have been no chance for them to explicitly state that email also falls under the 4th Ammendment. I'm not sure that's true, but in my memory most of the cases involving email as evidence those emails were obtained through a warrant and thus in those cases at least no 4th Ammendment issue arose to be ruled on.
You could call it a problem with the system that technically it is the Judiciary that decides what the law actually means, but they are only able to make that decision after a conflict has arisen and been brought before the court, and in the meantime you're basically guessing. Yet based on the precedents of postal service and telephone it should be fairly obvious that the 4th Ammendment applies to email. Also based on the fact that law enforcement generally gets warrants to recover email, I'd say they generally assume the 4th applies as well.
So when someone decides the opposite, and the issue comes before the court, the court rules on it and now we have a clear precedent of what before was merely assumed: Email is protected under the 4th Ammendment.
I assume there was no expectation of privacy in a telegraph and there should be none in an email. It would be nice, but it ain't how it works.
Why do you assume that?
Granted, by the nature of the telegraph, you had to have an operator on each end to transmit/transcribe your message. With the exception of that pair of people, why would anyone expect that their message is not private? Certainly with regards to law enforcement -- I would assume there was an expectation that the telegraph operator would not hand your missive directly over to a law enforcement officer unless that officer had a warrant, and similarly an expectation that the nobody including the police would tap the transmission line and listen in on your message.
If there was a version of the telegraph which required no operators, then there would be no reason not to expect complete privacy.
But why pick the telegraph which has an obvious privacy-related flaw when we also have the example of the telephone? This is more apt because it does not have the same flaw as the telegraph, and because these days the machinery for transmitting voice data and email data is the same. Also it serves a similar function in that it's intended as a person-to-person form of communication. Do we have an expectation of privacy in phone calls as a matter of law? Yes! So should we with e-mail? Yes!
And you have that same "expectation of privacy" even if you are using an old-school easy-as-piss to overhear cordless phone. Just because it's easy to violate your privacy does not mean it is okay for people to do so. Just like when you send a postcard you have the same expectation. Sure, someone might read it, that's a practical reality. But as a legal reality neither police officers nor private detectives are allowed to pluck postcards from your mailbox and read them.
Mail and phone both have expectations of privacy, why should not email?
Paladin: "Here it is. The Brainhew. +14 to Minimum Damage, +4 Light Radius, 10-14% Mana stolen per hit, and 15-35 fire damage. The legends were true..."
... Wait... I feel like I've said this before.
Sorceress: What-ever. Mephisto didn't drop my Orb, again, the bastard. Let's restart so we can kill him again.
Seriously, they should do it up sort of like Ground Hogs Day, only the "heroes" are more or less in control of the replays.
Mephisto: You're too late! Ha ha
Party: Yeah, you have. We've killed you like 5,000 times already, cus we're gearing up for Act IV.
The only way the "villains" would be able to break the cycle of being repeatedly killed every day by the heroes is to learn the true meaning of love...
Splendid! Now all I have to do is feed this into our generators, reverse the polarity of our schields, and our enemies are history. Muahahahah!
I had no idea there were Yiddish starships...
Growing up, I graduated highschool in 1992. I was fed a whole bunch of crap about how the 'bad soviets spy on their people' and the 'bad soviets imprison people with no chance of trial' and 'bad soviets take their peoples' rights and tell them it's for security'/
Exactly. When I was a kid the USSR was bad because of all those things they did, and the USA was great because we didn't do any of those things.
At some point, I'm not sure when, it no longer became about what we did The USA was just magically the best no matter what simply because it's the USA. I think maybe it happened around the same time you started seeing those bumper stickers with the flag and "The Power of Pride". Because apparently if you just believe that your country is super-awesome, it will do great things. Via magic.
How are pride and wishful thinking working out for us in Iraq? Maybe if I just have more pride we'll win...
BTW, someone needs to mod the OP up some more, because that was hilarious.
It's really a 21st-century police state.
Yeah, and like most police state tactics, it completely fails to address the actual problem they claim they are solving. Which is ultimately good for them, because the continuation of the problem justifies them taking even more power (that also won't solve the problem).
In case anyone dosen't remember, all of the 9/11 hijackers travelled with valid ID.
So now the hijackers will register their names two days in advance. BFD. They aren't going to use anyone on our known list of terrorists, they aren't going to use anyone who our pointless profiling picks up. They will be completely legal, record-free, and unknown to any law enforcement or intelligence agency. They will walk right through the security checkpoint, grumbling just as loud as the guy behind them about the inconvenience.
This shit is useful for catching Cat Stevens, providing a false sense of security, more power to the police state, and not a damn thing else.
Fair enough. We have attained equilibrium!
No... not possible... can't agree... on... slashdot! And by so saying, I've disagreed, and all is well with the universe...
I am, and I do.
Well then let's at least clean up our culture before we go imposing our morality on theirs.
You can not approve of their cultural traditions, you can want them to be illegal. You can not however decide for them whether or not that tradition is part of their culture or whether or not they are practicing that tradition "correctly". You were arguing the latter. If you were arguing the latter so as to support the former, then that was simply a mistaken line of reasoning.
And... if I don't believe hunting a whale is inherently wrong? That's not moral relativism then, is it?
I mean, we accept murder as wrong and thus illegal irrespective of what culture you bring here because it's necessary for a stable, safe society. But whales are not part of our society. They have their own societies, which often are not without violence against other intelligent species.
I am not against the hunting of any animal, so long as it is done sustainably, their habitats and ecosystems are not destroyed in the process, the killing is done as humanely as possible, and generally we allow those species to live in peace. From this standpoint, to me the use of exploding harpoon tips is a vast improvement to their cultural tradition as it means it's easier for them to kill the whale, both so it doesn't suffer a lingering death and so that the whale is counted in the quotas.
What I am deeply bothered by:
1) The unsustainable whaling by Western and Asian countries that put whales on the endangered species list in the first place.
2) The Japanese' continued flouting of the whaling ban, and continued use of non sustainable practices, not just in whaling but in fishing in general causing incredible drops in the quantity and quality of the ocean's stock.
3) Massive and ongoing pollution of the oceans, destruction of coral reefs and other natural habitats.
These things don't just affect the lives of a few whales, but the entire oceanic ecosystem and eventually the whole planet. Compared to that 255 whales over 5 years is way, way down my list of things to be concerned about. And as long as it continues in a small scale sustainable fashion, I'm not concerned at all.
If you're going to tell me that killing a whale is inherently wrong, then you should be railing against the recently adopted Western cultural tradition of polluting and habitat destroying industry.
You've... never even seen a picture of northern alaska, have you?
And they are not finishing off the last of the whales. They are pursuing sustainable hunting methods. Non-sustainable methods is what everyone else was pursuing up until the 80s. So don't act like you care when you don't know what they're doing, nor what your own culture has done.
So the community as a whole decides what is acceptable, not outsiders, correct?
No, the community decides what defines their cultural heritage, not outsiders.
As in, you don't get to say that Inuits are not being true to their cultural heritage because they use exploding harpoons, which is what you were suggesting. You don't know nearly enough about their culture to even form an opinion, much less dictate your decision to them.
That is a separate question from "acceptable".
So... then you would have no problem with allowing non-consentual female genital mutilation among African immigrant communities in the US, as long as the community is ok with it?
Of course not, and by the same token, you don't get to declare that it is no longer part of the culture.
On your second point, there is a long tradition (which you would know if you were a hunter or fisherman) in this country of managing small, sustainable harvesting of species to seek population balance. For quite a few species, there is a lottery to obtain a permit, with preference given to in-state residents. That is the fair way to do it.
That is one fair way to do it, not the only way. I'm glad you recognize a tradition of sustainable hunting and harvesting, because that is exactly what is being practiced in Alaska.
In particular, one fair way to do it would be to identify which communities have long-standing (and I mean long standing in the global, not American, sense) traditions of whaling, and which communities depend on whaling for their food. The answer in both cases is "Eskimos".
Giving lottery tickets to people who have absolutely zero stake in sustainable whaling at the expense of people who depend on it for cultural identity and food is not in any way "fair".
Of course, I kind of doubt that there would be many non-indigenous applicants, because western society generally regards the killing of intelligent, long-lived endangered mammals as horrifying, an opinion I share.
You mean Western society since the early 80s is against whale killing, but before that played a major role in the whales becoming endangered in the first place. You should be horrified at the actions of your own culture, and while you're free to be horrified by any further killing, it would be appropriate if you at least kept in mind that perspective of scale, and how they both were and are pursuing sustainable practices, unlike your own culture until extremely recently.
Personally, I have no problem with a few whales being killed by Inuits, nor a few monkeys being killed by Brazilian natives, nor, if their populations hadn't been so heavily damaged by commercial poaching would I have a problem with African natives killing a few lowland gorrillas if that was a traditional food source. I do not want to see it done again in large scale commercial ventures, an important difference of scale.
Race-based quotas seem horribly backwards.
Only because you couch it in those terms with no respect for the connection between their culture and the whales, or their need for food. NEED-based quotas doesn't sound as unfair; but because it happens to line up with race it can be couched in terms of affirmative action or something.
Re-emphasis mine:
People used to think that there were only a tiny amount of Giant squid--maybe in the thousands--worldwide.
When whales eat giant squid, the squid beaks are indigestible and remain in the whales stomach for its entire life (they are relatively tiny).
One day, a rather large whale washed up on a beach (I believe in cali). An autopsy and examination of the stomach revealed not hundreds but thousands of beaks. Magically, oceanographers reversed their view and decided that there are probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of giant squid.
Yeah, because they didn't want to admit that this one whale had just eaten all the giant squid in the world!
Should we simply ignore all best-guesses and estimates and wait until we have 100% rock solid proof, at which point it might very well be too late to do anything at all?
No, but it would be rather prudent to note that based on our current best estimates, the amount of whaling the Eskimos are allowed to do is sustainable. It is the unrestricted commercial whaling of the past century (and which Japan continues to do) that are a danger to the whales if anything is.
I know his grammar was bad, but Bush clearly meant "can't allow yourself to get speared again". This poor whale simply failed to follow Bush's sage advice.
Their particular heritage did not invent the explosive harpoon or the outboard motor. That's like saying that Native American culture involved hunting buffalo with a Henry Rifle. So that's where I'd draw the line - once you start using stuff other cultures invented, you're going for convenience, not heritage. If your main purpose is protecting and remembering your specific heritage, then it should not be tainted by outside influences. Traditional eskimo canoes were not powered by Honda outboards.
And a particular tribe may not have invented the stone spear, but learned it from another tribe. Again, unless "refusal to learn from other peoples" is a cultural tradition, I'm not seeing the problem.
Native Americans did not domesticate the horse, they aquired it from European settlers. I ask again: are you saying that they sacrificed any right to their bison hunting heritage by riding horses? That heritage is far deeper than the mere method by which they do it, the cultural significance is not based upon the weapon or mode of transportation. But from your outsiders point of view, that's all you are able to see and you are declaring that unless their methods stay the same, then the culture is lost.
Let me be blunt: You do not get to decide what represents a faithful continuation of Eskimo heritage.
Also, before you compare the Alaskan villages to the Japanese you need to be aware of the huge difference in scale. "The loss of the whales" is the result of the unrestrained commercial whaling that took place last century, and has nothing to do with the Inuit. While there is apparently debate about what level of whaling is sustainable for certain whale species, the actual quota for the Eskimos is tiny compared to what Japanese whalers have brought in. Since they are complying with the law and whaling in a sustainable fashion, unlike the Japanese, your comparison is completely unfair and your fear that they will cause the "loss of the whales" is unfounded.
seems like that would work until we run out of dead-guys. we'd have to keep making more dead-guys.
:)
That has never been a problem for mankind throughout history, so I think we won't have any problems now.
There is a lot of argument over the sustainability numbers...So much so that it would be my preference to err on the side of caution, especially given the over all population problem they're having over what used to be their range.
Yes, I would err on the side of caution especially since I don't know. But at the same time I can't help but feeling like I'm focusing on the smoldering match in the otherwise empty waste bin while the kitchen stove is up in flames, what with the Japanese still out there. In regards to the bowheads specifically, are they caught by Japanese whalers?
I agree that maintaining cultural identity is important, but where do we draw the line?
To put it succinctly, you don't decide what constitutes a faithful continuation of their cultural identity.
Double standards are racist and backwards. If killing whales is acceptable to our society, then make it legal. If it is unacceptable, make it illegal.
It's not as simple as "acceptable" or "unacceptable" to kill in general. There is the issue of sustainability. Whale populations were annihilated by commercial whaling last couple centuries (and this had nothing to do with the Inuit btw!). Large scale whaling is unnacceptable. Small-scale whaling that will not endanger the whole population is acceptable. Allowing everyone to whale is not small scale. We cannot allow everyone to whale. We can allow a small number of people to kill a handful of whales.
So the question then is: If only a small number of people can whale, which people will we allow? That's where the cultural ties to whaling are significant. It's not a double standard -- the standard is small-scale limited whaling, period. But under that standard we by necessity give preference to someone and the Inuit are the obvious choice.
Not all whales no, but there is argument on whether 50 dead per year out of 7800 known living bowhead whales who have a lifespan of 100+ years is sustainable in the long term.
Well that's the argument that is important. I don't know enough to participate in it (though am I mistaken in thinking they hunt several types of whales? perhaps the quotas could be altered?), but it is the sustainability argument that is going to determine whether this practice is actually okay or not.