Because only in the freest country on earth are prison rape, gang beatings, and physical torture at the hands of sadistic miscreants NOT considered cruel and unusual! I have a hard time believing my fellow Americans are any more decent than the prisoners they say they hate when they talk about how so and so deserves to be raped in the showers. People are fucking disgusting.
Yeah, she was Mayor of Magacawaka Falls (or something equally rustic), Alaska; population 9000. My roots are in a city of equal size, which you may have seen on CNN when our Mayor was arrested for driving drunk on his tractor. (I'm not kidding.) For the record, I wouldn't want him to be Vice President either.
So let's be honest and say she only really has 2 years of executive experience. How long was Obama a community organizer in Chicago? I give that more weight than being mayor of Bumfuck.
You could do what you know is right and what is right for a place that is supposed to be about customers (readers).
The poor kid overestimates his place in the world. Those who stick around here and comment are the product. Slashdot always does right by their customers-- the advertisers they're selling us to.
I mean how many military soldiers have travelled to a foreign land to commit violence or threaten violence and yet consider themselves "christians" completely ignoring such a major and clear theme of Jesus's teachings?
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
The excellent, classic film Sergeant York goes into this issue at length.
Conspiracy is when two or more parties form an agreement (implied or expressed) to perform a criminal (or tortious, in the case of civil conspiracy) act. Remind me what this has to do with one guy ripping a CD to a directory that may have been shared in a file sharing program? Are we going to legislate what directories we can and can't store files in?
You can't possibly be breaking the law until you actually do something illegal, with all the requisite burden of proof that any sane legal system demands. If I walk into a store, and I pick up an item of merchandise and put it in my pocket, it's still not shoplifting until I leave the effing store. If no one downloaded the files, nothing illegal happened. Prove that it happened and make your case, but don't pull all this thoughtcrime bullshit about what his intent was, or what he thought about doing.
I thought about not paying taxes this year. How about you?
A regular user could potentially tell the difference in speed of onset as well. Methamphetamine "comes on" much faster than dexamp does; however, if the use is recreational they're most probably going to be insufflated, injected, or smoked, all of which pretty much destroy the distinction in onset time. It's worth noting that methamphetamine is more unpredictable and more toxic than its non-methylated cousin. Dexamp and meth also have different pathways to toxicity. I have read studies where drugs such as haloperidol, phentolamine, etc., used to treat toxic side effects of amphetamines are less effective on meth than dexamp, which implies meth has higher toxicity and does damage in different ways.
Mental side effects of methamphetamine are going to be more pronounced than dexamphetamine as well. Methamphetamine is the same initial chemical as dexamphetamine, with the addition of a methyl group. Methylation increases metabolic uptake, which will account for the faster speed of onset, but another important note is that it increases a substance's ability to absorb in fatty tissues ("lipophilicity"). This means that it's going to more readily cross the blood-brain barrier, and cause mental side effects. This will happen with dexamp as well, and I'm not saying dexamp is a perfect stimulant by any means (that title is hopefully going to go to one of the non-narcotic, non-dopaminergic stimulants that are currently in very exciting stages of research), but the higher lipophilicity of methamphetamine is undeniable, and that's going to lead to faster onset of mental issues. If you combine this with the euphoria, increased sexual impulse, long duration, rapid onset, etc. etc. etc. that make methamphetamine an ideal drug of abuse, then you're left with very very bleak prospects for people using this drug.
I'm not an organic chemist, but I'm in training to be a pharmacist. I have a solid, but still lay, understanding of pharmacology and related subjects, so if someone else sees me going wrong here, please correct me. My posts shouldn't be taken as any sort of indicator of my personal lifestyle, but should rather be seen as coming from someone with an interest in a pharmaceutical career who is a believer in harm reduction rather than prohibition. I figure after this many posts in a public forum showing knowledge of scheduled drugs, it might be prudent to give a little disclaimer and explain myself; especially since I don't believe in going AC for these kinds of posts. The fact that I feel like I need to do this is depressing.
Every new drug is promoted as non-harmful. A few other drugs like "meth" are promoted as the downfall of civilization.
Methamphetamine and d-amphetamine are not new drugs. They have a long history of usage and study. They've both been around in a pharmaceutical capacity (ie: they were synthed much earlier, but not really used for anything) since the 30s, and they both saw use in World War II. The US military used dexamphetamine, and the Japanese and Germans used methamphetamine (with Hitler famously getting a daily IV injection of methamphetamine). We've got a handle on these drugs by now.
Duration and speed of onset are key in identifying drugs of abuse, and you can then figure out how much damage they're doing by their toxicity. Methamphetamine has a faster onset (which is kind of a moot point now that people are smoking it, and onset is like 30 seconds), as well as a longer duration than dexamphetamine. Dexamphetamine is primarily a stimulant, while methamphetamine has a variety of side effects like euphoria and sexual stimulation, which, combined with methamphetamine's long duration (10ish hours or longer with redosing) make it tailor made to be abused.
I'm not making any predictions about the downfall of society, or saying the drug is inherently evil or anything, but I am saying it's more toxic than dexamp, and is more attractive as a drug of abuse.
^^ I had a note in the original version of that post after the bit about heroin saying: "Note: This is a bit of an oversimplification, but I needed to make a point." but it got lost somewhere in revision.
A lot of what I've read suggests that heroin is actually a much better better pain killer than morphine, due to higher bioavailability, but that the drug was scheduled as having no medical use out of fear. This happens waaaaaay too often. LSD shows extreme potential in the treatment of everything from social anxiety to alcoholism. MDMA was very promising in therapy sessions, and MAPS (which is an excellent organization, for anyone looking to support people doing real, meaningful medical research with psychedelic drugs) is trying to resurrect its use in the medical community. LSD, as well as psilocybin mushrooms, have shown potential as some of the only meaningful treatments for a condition called cluster headaches. One of the major prescriptions right now for migraine avoidance is ergotamine tartrate, which is a direct precursor of LSD production. Prohibition has gotten to the point where we're ignoring therapeutic uses for these substances.
I didn't mean to imply that methamphetamine and heroin are ONLY street drugs, but it was a quick and dirty description for the sake of making a point about the fact that d-amphetamine and methamphetamine are different chemicals. Thanks for the reply!
The amphetamine in the "Go Pills" used by the USAF is dextro-amphetamine. This is NOT a derivative of methamphetamine. They are both derivatives of phenethylamine, and belong to that class of drugs. Amphetamine is an acronym of Alpha-Methyl-PHenEThylAMINE (ie: it's a phenethylamine molecule with a methyl group attached at the alpha position). Amphetamine is chiral, meaning that it has a stereocenter: because the molecule exists in 3D space there are two "versions" of it (called "isomers") that have the same atomic makeup, but are turned in different directions, and are thus non-superimposable. Dextroamphetamine is the dextrorotary isomer of regular ol' amphetamine. (The other isomer is called levo-amphetamine.)
This is NOT even remotely the same thing as methamphetamine. Do you know anyone on Adderall for ADHD? They are on dexamphetamine. Adderall is a mixture of both isomers of the amphetamine molecule (called a "racemic mixture"). Remember that seemingly minor changes in structure can cause a drug to have vastly different effects. The fact that the amphetamines are stimulants is something of an anomaly, since they're part of the larger class of Phenethylamines, and most PEAs are actually psychedelics (including drugs like MDMA, mescaline, MDMCat, MDA, and the 2C and DOx classes of "research" psychedelics).
I just want to counter any assumption people might take from this post that Air Force pilots are flying around jacked up to the gills on meth, fiending for a hit from the pipe, and screaming about the spiders crawling underneath their skin. Methamphetamine is the scary, back alley, black sheep cousin of the amphetamine family; similar to how heroin (diacetylmorphine) is the scary, back alley, black sheep cousin of morphine or fentanyl (80 times stronger than morphine, and not uncommonly used in epidurals during childbirth). As the parent suggests, there isn't anything dangerous in an expertly trained pilot taking dexamphetamine at a reasonable dose under medical supervision. If there is, there are thousands of college students out there popping Adderall illegally to study for exams because it intensifies concentration who would probably like to know about it! Methamphetamine, however, as I'm sure you've all seen on the news, is an entirely different animal...
This isn't so much a reply to the parent as a clarification of a lot of the "USAF pilots are taking meth!" posts I've seen in this thread. It's just not the same thing.
I expect that many spare batteries will simply be seized and tossed in the trash.
Try sold on eBay instead. Seized property is typically sold by the states in Surplus Property auctions, where it can be bid on by the public at large, or in some cases the airports themselves sell the stuff in lots on eBay. The government is making a buck on the battery it confiscates from you.
There are two possible explanations for why middle eastern nations might want nuclear technology. One is that they want to blow us up. The other is that there are vast areas of their counties that don't have electricity.
I like how you then go on to totally ignore the first part of your (false) dichotomy.:P Helping poor, rural Iranians get cheap electricity is very noble, but what about the "blowing us up" part? What about leaking nuclear material to dubious third parties? Iran is already a KNOWN state sponsor of Hizbollah. When Tel Aviv is a smoking crater will you assuage your guilt by saying, "At least Iranians have cheap, clean energy?"
Also, consider the geopolitical factors. Iran shares a border with Pakistan, who is nuclear. In my opinion, the closest the modern world has come to a nuclear war was the 2002 Indo-Pakistani Border Conflict wherein America's oh-so-good friend, military dictator Pervez Musharraf, said he would not rule out a nuclear first strike against India. Adding another nuclear power in that region, especially one with leaders as unstable as those in Iran, seems like suicide, especially when they have stated time and again that Israel and the West must be destroyed.
Your justification can't even hold water. What do you suppose is worse for the environment: Iran burning oil for power, or Hizbollah detonating a nuke? Assume a nuclear strike draws nuclear retaliation. Where will Iran's cheap power be when Israel drops a hydrogen bomb on Tehran?
There is more at stake here than simplistic environmental evangelism.
I can see the directions for different difficulty modes. "Go to the North Woods to play Easy mode. For Normal mode, please play in a suburban residential area. For Hard mode play on the New York subway. To experience Nightmare mode, play the game in downtown Beirut wearing a t-shirt that says 'I Hate Arabs'. Are you a bad enough dude to slay orcs while dodging incoming mortars?"
Likewise an ex-employee (store #349 in Lexington, KY). I definitely feel the same about the place going. They treated me, and all the other employees-- up to and including "back end" people like HR and low-level managers (front end, inventory)-- like complete trash. About a year after I was laid off (because the store was losing money) I heard that the then-General Manager had been embezzling money from the store and had finally been caught and fired. No clue if they ever pressed criminal charges.
We actually had a lot of good experiences with their warranty, especially the full replacement. They followed it well enough that salesmen weren't unknown to use it to close a sale (ie: "accidentally" break your shiny new PDA two days before your 2 year warranty runs out, and get the dollar value toward the purchase of a new one).
The restocking fee always came down to how much we didn't like a particular customer's attitude. There was a lot of stuff that went on to basically screw the customer (like fast-talking old people into spending 100 dollars on getting a tech to "set up" their computer before they took it home, for which the techs just held the computer for 30 minutes before bringing it up front).
Given shit like this, and the way the stores were managed, it's no surprise to me they're going out of business. At my store we had probably 6-8 sales people and 4 cashiers working at any given time, and we had 8(!) managers-- General, Sales, Asst. Sales, Front End, Operations, Inventory, Business Sales, and Tech. No wonder they couldn't afford employees!
I'm not the least bit sad to see it go.
So here is a question. How does it effect younger people?
It could only "effect" younger people if watching violent makes people get pregnant and have babies. The word you're looking for here is "affect." For what it's worth you got it right in your second question though.
They're the Middle Kingdom. They frankly believe it's their right to do whatever the hell they want to. Compare this to the attitude of Imperial Japan in WWII. Contrast it with countries like Taiwan and India.
Not going to address the rest of your post, but the phrase "Wilsonian realpolitik" is so wrong. Realpolitik is the essence of Realist politics, encompassing guys like Metternich, Bismarck, Clausewitz, and, more recently, Hans Morgenthau. Wilson was firmly of the idealistic political school, which is the complete opposite of political realism and realpolitik.
Also, I have one other point of contention. We did not "give Land we didn't own to the Jews." The British owned Palestine in every way that mattered after the downfall of the Ottoman Empire (vide: The Sykes-Picot Agreement, The Treaty of Sevres, The League of Nations Mandate For Palestine), and it was the British who went about creating the Israeli state under the auspices of the United Nations Partition Plan, which owed its ideological roots to a British internal policy memo from 30 years before known as The Balfour Declaration. When the Partition Plan fell apart due to squabbling between Arabs and Jews, the Brits pulled out. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq declared war on the Israelis and proceeded to invade them. The Israelis fought like hell using surplus World War II weaponry, and took their country for themselves. The United States didn't give them anything, although individual sympathizers within the country contributed money.
Hope this clears up a few points of, er, factual weakness.:)
It's only a false Appeal to Authority if you claim that it's right because the person says it is, or that you're right because a person who is an authority said something that appears to agree with you on the surface. A: "Who's this Bruce Schneier guy? He must be clueless!" B: "Actually he's considered by tons of people with a clue as being eminent on the topic. Maybe you just misunderstood?" does not constitute an appeal to authority.
Cheers. I thought the same thing when I read the summary. How can it claim to let you feel a hit exactly where it hit you, and then turn around and say that it only uses 8 contact points? By what rape of English does that mean "exactly?"
Since being inconspicuous is the very definition of steganography, something tells me Mr. Schneier doesn't have a firm handle on the concept
Considering that Bruce Schneier has been around the block for a loooong time and has written several good books on cryptography and computer security, including the seminal "Applied Cryptography" (which needs a new edition! Hint hint if you're out there, Bruce!), I think it's far more likely that you have no idea who Bruce Schneier is. I'm sure that by "conspicuous" he's referring to the fact that steganography can be detected through statistical analysis, and the fact that most steganography software is crap.
Being inconspicuous isn't the definition of steganography any more than being secure is the definition of cryptography (Ceasar Ciphers, ROT-13, DES). They're both just important traits that make their respective -graphies more effective. Bruce's statement is referring to the sad state of pretty much all of the steganographic software out there right now, because it's pretty much all the security equivalent to sticking your super secret files in a hidden directory and hoping the secret police just overlook it.
>> And if you're truly a straight guy, isn't that the most important part?
No. I've read several of your posts on this topic, and you seem to have issues. Guys that play female avatars in games are not closeted homosexuals. The "most important part" is to have fun playing the game, not to use FFXI as your personal Adult Friend Finder.
This is obviously a "get off my lawn" post, but I'll rise to the bait. I'm going from the 80s onward, since that's my generation.
U2, Metallica, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Dream Theater, The Prodigy, The Police and then Sting's solo work, Depeche Mode, The Cure, David Bowie's "rock" era, Nine Inch Nails, The Misfits, the majority of all punk (excepting, most notably, New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols who had broken up by 1980), Tool, etc.
I wouldn't classify any of these acts as throwaways, no matter what you think of Metallica's latest albums. There are a few on the list who started in the late 70s (U2, Sting & The Police), but didn't hit the height of their fame until the 80s and 90s. All of these are bands that are well respected in their genres and viewed as inspirations to other musicians who came after. I'm also irked that you wrote off the entirety of electronic music at the stroke of a pen-- er-- keyboard, and in the same sentence refer to it as music that shows up on MTV. MTV had a brief affair with Big Beat and Chemical Breaks style techno, and ended up bringing The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital to the masses, and they quickly abandoned it when it was clear they didn't "get" electronic music at all. Meanwhile; The Orb, Shpongle, Infected Mushroom, and others are (and have been) revolutionary in the genre, and have done amazing things with it.
That fact that you don't personally like or listen to this music doesn't mean it's not powerful, original, and impactful. I happen to think everything from the Beatles prior to their "experimental, post-record label whore" period is crap. I don't think that my opinion is the reality for all people though. There are plenty of young people listening to throwaway crap like Nickelback or Panic At The Disco who no one will remember in ten years, just like there were plenty of people in my parents' generation who were listening to throwaway one-hit wonder crap that no one remembers now. Let's not try to say that there's nothing in modern music that stands out, or is original, just because you don't like it, don't get it, or haven't heard of it.
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Because only in the freest country on earth are prison rape, gang beatings, and physical torture at the hands of sadistic miscreants NOT considered cruel and unusual! I have a hard time believing my fellow Americans are any more decent than the prisoners they say they hate when they talk about how so and so deserves to be raped in the showers. People are fucking disgusting.
Yeah, she was Mayor of Magacawaka Falls (or something equally rustic), Alaska; population 9000. My roots are in a city of equal size, which you may have seen on CNN when our Mayor was arrested for driving drunk on his tractor. (I'm not kidding.) For the record, I wouldn't want him to be Vice President either.
So let's be honest and say she only really has 2 years of executive experience. How long was Obama a community organizer in Chicago? I give that more weight than being mayor of Bumfuck.
You could do what you know is right and what is right for a place that is supposed to be about customers (readers).
The poor kid overestimates his place in the world. Those who stick around here and comment are the product. Slashdot always does right by their customers-- the advertisers they're selling us to.
We the People keep reelecting them. Blame California, North Carolina, and Utah. (and blame Canada)
I mean how many military soldiers have travelled to a foreign land to commit violence or threaten violence and yet consider themselves "christians" completely ignoring such a major and clear theme of Jesus's teachings?
Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's.
The excellent, classic film Sergeant York goes into this issue at length.
Conspiracy is when two or more parties form an agreement (implied or expressed) to perform a criminal (or tortious, in the case of civil conspiracy) act. Remind me what this has to do with one guy ripping a CD to a directory that may have been shared in a file sharing program? Are we going to legislate what directories we can and can't store files in?
You can't possibly be breaking the law until you actually do something illegal, with all the requisite burden of proof that any sane legal system demands. If I walk into a store, and I pick up an item of merchandise and put it in my pocket, it's still not shoplifting until I leave the effing store. If no one downloaded the files, nothing illegal happened. Prove that it happened and make your case, but don't pull all this thoughtcrime bullshit about what his intent was, or what he thought about doing.
I thought about not paying taxes this year. How about you?
A regular user could potentially tell the difference in speed of onset as well. Methamphetamine "comes on" much faster than dexamp does; however, if the use is recreational they're most probably going to be insufflated, injected, or smoked, all of which pretty much destroy the distinction in onset time. It's worth noting that methamphetamine is more unpredictable and more toxic than its non-methylated cousin. Dexamp and meth also have different pathways to toxicity. I have read studies where drugs such as haloperidol, phentolamine, etc., used to treat toxic side effects of amphetamines are less effective on meth than dexamp, which implies meth has higher toxicity and does damage in different ways.
Mental side effects of methamphetamine are going to be more pronounced than dexamphetamine as well. Methamphetamine is the same initial chemical as dexamphetamine, with the addition of a methyl group. Methylation increases metabolic uptake, which will account for the faster speed of onset, but another important note is that it increases a substance's ability to absorb in fatty tissues ("lipophilicity"). This means that it's going to more readily cross the blood-brain barrier, and cause mental side effects. This will happen with dexamp as well, and I'm not saying dexamp is a perfect stimulant by any means (that title is hopefully going to go to one of the non-narcotic, non-dopaminergic stimulants that are currently in very exciting stages of research), but the higher lipophilicity of methamphetamine is undeniable, and that's going to lead to faster onset of mental issues. If you combine this with the euphoria, increased sexual impulse, long duration, rapid onset, etc. etc. etc. that make methamphetamine an ideal drug of abuse, then you're left with very very bleak prospects for people using this drug.
I'm not an organic chemist, but I'm in training to be a pharmacist. I have a solid, but still lay, understanding of pharmacology and related subjects, so if someone else sees me going wrong here, please correct me. My posts shouldn't be taken as any sort of indicator of my personal lifestyle, but should rather be seen as coming from someone with an interest in a pharmaceutical career who is a believer in harm reduction rather than prohibition. I figure after this many posts in a public forum showing knowledge of scheduled drugs, it might be prudent to give a little disclaimer and explain myself; especially since I don't believe in going AC for these kinds of posts. The fact that I feel like I need to do this is depressing.
I agree with a lot of your points, except:
Every new drug is promoted as non-harmful. A few other drugs like "meth" are promoted as the downfall of civilization.
Methamphetamine and d-amphetamine are not new drugs. They have a long history of usage and study. They've both been around in a pharmaceutical capacity (ie: they were synthed much earlier, but not really used for anything) since the 30s, and they both saw use in World War II. The US military used dexamphetamine, and the Japanese and Germans used methamphetamine (with Hitler famously getting a daily IV injection of methamphetamine). We've got a handle on these drugs by now.
Duration and speed of onset are key in identifying drugs of abuse, and you can then figure out how much damage they're doing by their toxicity. Methamphetamine has a faster onset (which is kind of a moot point now that people are smoking it, and onset is like 30 seconds), as well as a longer duration than dexamphetamine. Dexamphetamine is primarily a stimulant, while methamphetamine has a variety of side effects like euphoria and sexual stimulation, which, combined with methamphetamine's long duration (10ish hours or longer with redosing) make it tailor made to be abused.
I'm not making any predictions about the downfall of society, or saying the drug is inherently evil or anything, but I am saying it's more toxic than dexamp, and is more attractive as a drug of abuse.
^^ I had a note in the original version of that post after the bit about heroin saying: "Note: This is a bit of an oversimplification, but I needed to make a point." but it got lost somewhere in revision.
A lot of what I've read suggests that heroin is actually a much better better pain killer than morphine, due to higher bioavailability, but that the drug was scheduled as having no medical use out of fear. This happens waaaaaay too often. LSD shows extreme potential in the treatment of everything from social anxiety to alcoholism. MDMA was very promising in therapy sessions, and MAPS (which is an excellent organization, for anyone looking to support people doing real, meaningful medical research with psychedelic drugs) is trying to resurrect its use in the medical community. LSD, as well as psilocybin mushrooms, have shown potential as some of the only meaningful treatments for a condition called cluster headaches. One of the major prescriptions right now for migraine avoidance is ergotamine tartrate, which is a direct precursor of LSD production. Prohibition has gotten to the point where we're ignoring therapeutic uses for these substances.
I didn't mean to imply that methamphetamine and heroin are ONLY street drugs, but it was a quick and dirty description for the sake of making a point about the fact that d-amphetamine and methamphetamine are different chemicals. Thanks for the reply!
Sorry, but I'm a drug/organic chem geek.
The amphetamine in the "Go Pills" used by the USAF is dextro-amphetamine. This is NOT a derivative of methamphetamine. They are both derivatives of phenethylamine, and belong to that class of drugs. Amphetamine is an acronym of Alpha-Methyl-PHenEThylAMINE (ie: it's a phenethylamine molecule with a methyl group attached at the alpha position). Amphetamine is chiral, meaning that it has a stereocenter: because the molecule exists in 3D space there are two "versions" of it (called "isomers") that have the same atomic makeup, but are turned in different directions, and are thus non-superimposable. Dextroamphetamine is the dextrorotary isomer of regular ol' amphetamine. (The other isomer is called levo-amphetamine.)
This is NOT even remotely the same thing as methamphetamine. Do you know anyone on Adderall for ADHD? They are on dexamphetamine. Adderall is a mixture of both isomers of the amphetamine molecule (called a "racemic mixture"). Remember that seemingly minor changes in structure can cause a drug to have vastly different effects. The fact that the amphetamines are stimulants is something of an anomaly, since they're part of the larger class of Phenethylamines, and most PEAs are actually psychedelics (including drugs like MDMA, mescaline, MDMCat, MDA, and the 2C and DOx classes of "research" psychedelics).
I just want to counter any assumption people might take from this post that Air Force pilots are flying around jacked up to the gills on meth, fiending for a hit from the pipe, and screaming about the spiders crawling underneath their skin. Methamphetamine is the scary, back alley, black sheep cousin of the amphetamine family; similar to how heroin (diacetylmorphine) is the scary, back alley, black sheep cousin of morphine or fentanyl (80 times stronger than morphine, and not uncommonly used in epidurals during childbirth). As the parent suggests, there isn't anything dangerous in an expertly trained pilot taking dexamphetamine at a reasonable dose under medical supervision. If there is, there are thousands of college students out there popping Adderall illegally to study for exams because it intensifies concentration who would probably like to know about it! Methamphetamine, however, as I'm sure you've all seen on the news, is an entirely different animal...
This isn't so much a reply to the parent as a clarification of a lot of the "USAF pilots are taking meth!" posts I've seen in this thread. It's just not the same thing.
I expect that many spare batteries will simply be seized and tossed in the trash.
Try sold on eBay instead. Seized property is typically sold by the states in Surplus Property auctions, where it can be bid on by the public at large, or in some cases the airports themselves sell the stuff in lots on eBay. The government is making a buck on the battery it confiscates from you.
There are two possible explanations for why middle eastern nations might want nuclear technology. One is that they want to blow us up. The other is that there are vast areas of their counties that don't have electricity.
:P Helping poor, rural Iranians get cheap electricity is very noble, but what about the "blowing us up" part? What about leaking nuclear material to dubious third parties? Iran is already a KNOWN state sponsor of Hizbollah. When Tel Aviv is a smoking crater will you assuage your guilt by saying, "At least Iranians have cheap, clean energy?"
I like how you then go on to totally ignore the first part of your (false) dichotomy.
Also, consider the geopolitical factors. Iran shares a border with Pakistan, who is nuclear. In my opinion, the closest the modern world has come to a nuclear war was the 2002 Indo-Pakistani Border Conflict wherein America's oh-so-good friend, military dictator Pervez Musharraf, said he would not rule out a nuclear first strike against India. Adding another nuclear power in that region, especially one with leaders as unstable as those in Iran, seems like suicide, especially when they have stated time and again that Israel and the West must be destroyed.
Your justification can't even hold water. What do you suppose is worse for the environment: Iran burning oil for power, or Hizbollah detonating a nuke? Assume a nuclear strike draws nuclear retaliation. Where will Iran's cheap power be when Israel drops a hydrogen bomb on Tehran?
There is more at stake here than simplistic environmental evangelism.
In my state at least, you may be jailed indefinitely for civil contempt.
I can see the directions for different difficulty modes. "Go to the North Woods to play Easy mode. For Normal mode, please play in a suburban residential area. For Hard mode play on the New York subway. To experience Nightmare mode, play the game in downtown Beirut wearing a t-shirt that says 'I Hate Arabs'. Are you a bad enough dude to slay orcs while dodging incoming mortars?"
Likewise an ex-employee (store #349 in Lexington, KY). I definitely feel the same about the place going. They treated me, and all the other employees-- up to and including "back end" people like HR and low-level managers (front end, inventory)-- like complete trash. About a year after I was laid off (because the store was losing money) I heard that the then-General Manager had been embezzling money from the store and had finally been caught and fired. No clue if they ever pressed criminal charges. We actually had a lot of good experiences with their warranty, especially the full replacement. They followed it well enough that salesmen weren't unknown to use it to close a sale (ie: "accidentally" break your shiny new PDA two days before your 2 year warranty runs out, and get the dollar value toward the purchase of a new one). The restocking fee always came down to how much we didn't like a particular customer's attitude. There was a lot of stuff that went on to basically screw the customer (like fast-talking old people into spending 100 dollars on getting a tech to "set up" their computer before they took it home, for which the techs just held the computer for 30 minutes before bringing it up front). Given shit like this, and the way the stores were managed, it's no surprise to me they're going out of business. At my store we had probably 6-8 sales people and 4 cashiers working at any given time, and we had 8(!) managers-- General, Sales, Asst. Sales, Front End, Operations, Inventory, Business Sales, and Tech. No wonder they couldn't afford employees! I'm not the least bit sad to see it go.
So here is a question. How does it effect younger people?
It could only "effect" younger people if watching violent makes people get pregnant and have babies. The word you're looking for here is "affect." For what it's worth you got it right in your second question though.
They're the Middle Kingdom. They frankly believe it's their right to do whatever the hell they want to. Compare this to the attitude of Imperial Japan in WWII. Contrast it with countries like Taiwan and India.
Not going to address the rest of your post, but the phrase "Wilsonian realpolitik" is so wrong. Realpolitik is the essence of Realist politics, encompassing guys like Metternich, Bismarck, Clausewitz, and, more recently, Hans Morgenthau. Wilson was firmly of the idealistic political school, which is the complete opposite of political realism and realpolitik.
:)
Also, I have one other point of contention. We did not "give Land we didn't own to the Jews." The British owned Palestine in every way that mattered after the downfall of the Ottoman Empire (vide: The Sykes-Picot Agreement, The Treaty of Sevres, The League of Nations Mandate For Palestine), and it was the British who went about creating the Israeli state under the auspices of the United Nations Partition Plan, which owed its ideological roots to a British internal policy memo from 30 years before known as The Balfour Declaration. When the Partition Plan fell apart due to squabbling between Arabs and Jews, the Brits pulled out. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq declared war on the Israelis and proceeded to invade them. The Israelis fought like hell using surplus World War II weaponry, and took their country for themselves. The United States didn't give them anything, although individual sympathizers within the country contributed money.
Hope this clears up a few points of, er, factual weakness.
It's only a false Appeal to Authority if you claim that it's right because the person says it is, or that you're right because a person who is an authority said something that appears to agree with you on the surface. A: "Who's this Bruce Schneier guy? He must be clueless!" B: "Actually he's considered by tons of people with a clue as being eminent on the topic. Maybe you just misunderstood?" does not constitute an appeal to authority.
Or maybe I should also read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29?
Cheers. I thought the same thing when I read the summary. How can it claim to let you feel a hit exactly where it hit you, and then turn around and say that it only uses 8 contact points? By what rape of English does that mean "exactly?"
Since being inconspicuous is the very definition of steganography, something tells me Mr. Schneier doesn't have a firm handle on the concept
Considering that Bruce Schneier has been around the block for a loooong time and has written several good books on cryptography and computer security, including the seminal "Applied Cryptography" (which needs a new edition! Hint hint if you're out there, Bruce!), I think it's far more likely that you have no idea who Bruce Schneier is. I'm sure that by "conspicuous" he's referring to the fact that steganography can be detected through statistical analysis, and the fact that most steganography software is crap.
Being inconspicuous isn't the definition of steganography any more than being secure is the definition of cryptography (Ceasar Ciphers, ROT-13, DES). They're both just important traits that make their respective -graphies more effective. Bruce's statement is referring to the sad state of pretty much all of the steganographic software out there right now, because it's pretty much all the security equivalent to sticking your super secret files in a hidden directory and hoping the secret police just overlook it.
Heh. There are. From the same source. You can even get it on a t-shirt.
Good response; cheers. I'm on the same page now.
>> And if you're truly a straight guy, isn't that the most important part?
No. I've read several of your posts on this topic, and you seem to have issues. Guys that play female avatars in games are not closeted homosexuals. The "most important part" is to have fun playing the game, not to use FFXI as your personal Adult Friend Finder.
This is obviously a "get off my lawn" post, but I'll rise to the bait. I'm going from the 80s onward, since that's my generation.
U2, Metallica, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Dream Theater, The Prodigy, The Police and then Sting's solo work, Depeche Mode, The Cure, David Bowie's "rock" era, Nine Inch Nails, The Misfits, the majority of all punk (excepting, most notably, New York Dolls and The Sex Pistols who had broken up by 1980), Tool, etc.
I wouldn't classify any of these acts as throwaways, no matter what you think of Metallica's latest albums. There are a few on the list who started in the late 70s (U2, Sting & The Police), but didn't hit the height of their fame until the 80s and 90s. All of these are bands that are well respected in their genres and viewed as inspirations to other musicians who came after. I'm also irked that you wrote off the entirety of electronic music at the stroke of a pen-- er-- keyboard, and in the same sentence refer to it as music that shows up on MTV. MTV had a brief affair with Big Beat and Chemical Breaks style techno, and ended up bringing The Prodigy, The Chemical Brothers, and Orbital to the masses, and they quickly abandoned it when it was clear they didn't "get" electronic music at all. Meanwhile; The Orb, Shpongle, Infected Mushroom, and others are (and have been) revolutionary in the genre, and have done amazing things with it.
That fact that you don't personally like or listen to this music doesn't mean it's not powerful, original, and impactful. I happen to think everything from the Beatles prior to their "experimental, post-record label whore" period is crap. I don't think that my opinion is the reality for all people though. There are plenty of young people listening to throwaway crap like Nickelback or Panic At The Disco who no one will remember in ten years, just like there were plenty of people in my parents' generation who were listening to throwaway one-hit wonder crap that no one remembers now. Let's not try to say that there's nothing in modern music that stands out, or is original, just because you don't like it, don't get it, or haven't heard of it.