They are both human. Get too generic and you can find a common classification for anything and reduce the statement to pointlessness.
They are not similar. You can split hairs and accept broad meaningless generalities for irrelevant comparisons if you wish. I fail to see any benefit in grouping them as by species (humans) in the discussion is any different than what you say you were doing.
An actual pedophile (not the legal definition) is not even remotely fetish or homosexual (those would be possible side issues; the majority of cases are men with girls so there isn't a need to bring it up all the time.) There is a long history of slandering homosexuals as pedophiles, bestiality and other things - and while it can legitimately come up in a discussion on pedophiles, most the time that prejudicial characterization is the source (actual prejudice is not required because the topics have been linked for so long.)
Objective? You must be kidding. Pedophiles and homosexuals are similar? It is disrespectful that you lower pedophiles down to a level where you can even compare it with homosexuality. I could tell before even reading further you were setting up rationalization for your own thoughts/actions. Not objective, you used your similar experiences as a starting position to rationalize a defense - a position decided from the beginning is hardly objective. sorry.
Crazy is a broad term. To be so mentally ill that you must be locked up from society doesn't require you to be a babbling loon throwing feces at people. Being mentally at risk for mass murder or other dangerous antisocial acts doesn't have to fit the stereotype for a patient at a mental institution. Mental patients differ greatly, despite largely consisting of people with strong outward appearances of insanity. THAT needs to change.
Like every mental condition I'm aware of, there are many variations. Not every pedo is going to fit the whole profile; in addition, some people are probably not even pedophiles but have other conditions which come out along those lines - the criminal system will only see a pedo in a 1 size fits all results approach. Still, the act falls within mental health regardless because the act is CRAZY. If you murder somebody that is one thing, but if you put their head in your fridge - that is crazy and you shouldn't be put in a jail cell next to a sane person.
As far as the legal age limits, that is the primitive legal system we have. Setting age limits at exact numbers is idiotic and anybody with sense knows this but fails to use this fact to question the culture in which they were born which merely evolved the old common law system and then stopped progressing. Another topic. IF you had psychologists deciding what to do when an 18 year old fools around with a 16 year old the common sense would prevail. Think about it. It is really idiotic to have a legal system label you as a sexual deviant when that is the prevue of psychology.
FYI, sex is overrated by ignorant (possibly simple) people who haven't discovered the greater aspects of life. Candy is nice, but a vacation is better.
The 5th is only relevant when self incriminating. If they give you immunity from what is discovered, only then you "lose" the 5th; that is, you never lose the 5th, it just no longer applies.
Doesn't matter if they know, they most PROVE it without forcing you to open it-- then you can be forced to open it; refusing to comply is just a contempt charge. If it can incriminate him more then he still has a 5th amendment right.
Since he is going to get charges already the contempt won't probably mean a whole lot so he shouldn't comply and should fight it -- at least winning defending the 5th would be doing something meaningful in the scumbag's sick life. It shouldn't matter anyhow, he should be declared mentally insane (a kiddie fiddler IS crazy) and locked away and probed like a lab rat for his life. In a reasonable system, you could argue that it would no longer incriminate him because he is crazy and then use it to perhaps find more people in the network.... Which is another aspect not yet explored... in the criminal system he could make a deal to unlock it for doing less time so he can get out and mess with more kids in the future; since this idiotic punishment system lets such people "pay a debt" and lets them back out again. Some people are crazy and will never be fit for society until cures are found (likely never... a cure should be proven scientifically, not by a drug lobbyist...)
How much money you have is not relevant to how much money you WANT or think you need. If anything, it is highly likely somebody who has a lot of money has an ADDICTION to the acquisition of money. Take some away and they'll be extremely upset but their addiction (greed) will not be cured, they'll go right back to trying to make as much as possible - just like smokers, drinkers, and other addicts. If anything, taking the addicted item away motivates them MORE.
Me too! To copy games! Then I realized you could make games so I wanted to know how they worked so I could make games! I got hooked and never made any games in the end.
Calling these twisted entertainers "Journalists" is worse than calling a garbage hauler a "Sanitation Engineer."
The TV faces should be called "news readers" because that is all they really are. These "journalists" are reporters (repeaters) at best.
In the future, address me as "all knowing blog poster" because that is the title I just made up for myself and you should unquestioningly comply with my statement about my credentials; otherwise, I'll post insulting statements about you! (One shouldn't just hand out job titles simply because somebody might throw a sissy fit.)
Less developers. Still required for making anything NEW or for providing support. Also, more secretive development, like what many corporations do today already - the protections were put in place to encourage the publishing of secrets for the benefit of society rather than be forgotten. One could go back to the old model and probably do better than we are today; reverse engineering is pretty advanced. Sure, huge expensive projects will not be worth the risks until they become cheaper - but then is there really that big of a benefit to having something sooner? Today it does more harm than good and is slowing down research.
Lawyers never stop in the invention of new jobs for themselves. They've created so much overhead that progress is nearly impossible.
I mixed in some bait with my comment for fun. But with a post like this... OK. If morality was simple, we'd have an App for it... "iNun" or "Morality Nazi" (catholic school joke)
Manning's leak was not top secret information, it was low-level information - The Pentagon Papers were top-secret, that was a bigger breach - look at that and contrast it with today. FYI, the government at one point during the case admitted the leak did not put American lives at risk. "Potential" is a funny word because it doesn't mean shit; it's worse than a conspiracy theory... The pentagon papers did more "harm" to the war effort.
The oath is to the constitution, not politicians. Past cases in the military have held soldiers accountable for blindly following orders that were contrary to higher authorities. A solider is always "potentially" fucked and most just don't realize the extent of the mess they sign into. They can be punished for following orders or for disobeying them if they find themselves in certain situations without the benefit of a history of military court rulings (as if those were consistent...) Real life is full of catch-22 situations; especially, when dealing with corruption in systems. Only the fanatics on the fringes have the luxury of being uncompromising and they are usually filtered out early on.
Morality is relative by definition. It is immoral to prioritize differently than the chosen standard. Authoritarian leaning people like yourself, will place authority as the higher order. So you will see it as a moral breach. People leaning towards anarchism will place the freedom of information to the public above the authority. To these people, you are advocating immoral positions or at least undermining the principles upon which this society was founded. Both will at some point place the ideals above the lives of small numbers of people so the issue of "potential" collateral deaths is moot.
There is no determinable middle ground, you either lean 1 way or the other on a topic. Whether or not one chooses to apply morality is a separate factor, a 2nd dimension. Things will get heated when two moralists with opposing priorities clash.
People die serving their country in many ways. To manning's side, his suffering and/or death would be a moral sacrifice for the greater good. It is not treason or espionage; we really need to beat down these lawyers who distort reason with technicalities... one could think motive no longer matters in today's legal system.
It was the ACTION not the means by which the act was committed. Sure, sometimes there is only 1 way to do something but that does not logically condemn the means.
You can have free speech while also having crimes that only can be committed thru the use of speech. Since speech rights extend beyond literal vocalization to all forms of communication and money you could take your thinking and claim even more crimes are merely attacks on "free speech."
If somebody kills you using kung fu and claims it was speech because it is an artful dance like expression of their negative emotions (which it would be,) then under your thinking the prosecution of that crime would be an attack on their free speech rights.
He is free to say anything he wants. He is not being punished for his speech but for threats which are conveyed by his speech.
"Give me all your money; I have a concealed weapon" is all one needs to do rob a bank. My example isn't even literally clear cut because there is no literal threat of violence - but most people would call that a crime.
Bradley Manning is being detained for his political views; because holding officials accountable by letting the voters know what they've been doing is too democratic for this authoritarian corporate plutocracy. Transparency is necessary for democracy to function; the "free press" alone is not enough (and our press is captured by the plutocracy as well.) This democracy has been a farce for over a generation; the Palestinians have a better democracy (it is a tool for placating the populace but it at least is more legitimate... and why not? it has no real power so it is allowed to be relatively functional.)
I doubt your state would do well without the federal help. The "rent" we pay for "your" land doesn't include paying people working in your state to run those military bases, research labs and parks. You likely would have next to nothing of an economy without the money coming in to pay for gainful employment.
In addition, national forests belong to the nation not to your state and a majority decided they were too important to leave to the locals who'd probably degrade their own source of tourism over time. History has shown that private ownership is a poor manager and the local government is more likely to foobar it up at some point. Take the grand canyon's uranium deposits, which are too small to destroy any segment of it - the state would have caved to lobbyists while the fed just barely prevented it. Destroying something unique and admired for generations so a few can get rich for an insignificant national benefit.
Yellowstone would end up with a disney themepark in the middle... and a zoo so lazy visitors don't have to go into the nature to "experience" it; no matter how ironic, it often happens.
Remember all the complaints in performance from gamers when they lost all that speed going from a shared memory OS (windows 9x) to a protected memory OS?
Microkernels are a similar problem but without a big corporation to force users kicking and screaming into the modern age. I would like to have Multics like features; my CPUs are mostly idle today. Being able to replace RAM, storage, CPUs without shutdown or even turning off half the computer for most of the day...
It's not like we don't have more CPU power than most users need and a slowing market due to an excess of power... Pros and gamers will complain, but then they don't realize they are losing FPS with today's systems they resisted in the past. Sure reboots are fast, but I hate having a buggy driver or worn out device crashing my system frequently until nail down the source (and if it didn't crash, I could just ignore it and keep the device. I have a LiteOn blueray burner that requires a reboot after moderate use-- plus the pain of digging out an HD with windows just to upgrade the firmware on the hope that they've finally fixed it.)
Today the moron child who didn't die already from plastic bags or running into traffic will not listen or obey his father's "gun talk" and shoot himself with his father's gun. Today, the parent would be prosecuted or the grandparents would sue for "wrongful death" while in the past people would just be sad and politely not mention how stupid the child was (in public.)
How arrogant. You place yourself above nature and think you can do better - nature may not have any guiding intelligence but it has near infinite variety to experiment with and you have next to nothing to experiment with plus as much understanding as a flea does of the world beyond the dog's back.
Procreation is not a right; especially not a natural born right! If you keep the sickly alive you shouldn't let them breed. I would have died as a child. so be it. I want no offspring; despite the fact my death wouldn't have been a result of bad genes, I'm likely to die in my 50s even if I eat healthy and so the responsible thing is to not pass that on.
Nature exists whether or not you believe in it, can define it, or understand it. Just like gravity.
Is it not nature that the unhealthy do not pass on their genes? We evolved too, not just the bacteria... except we stopped. Insensitive? no, realistic - stop living in a dreamworld you can't ever completely win against nature. It is one thing to take precautions by not swimming in your shit pool and quite another to wage an expensive a war against nature.
Wish I had mod points... Escaping from being a target is one thing, waging war is quite another matter. Corrupt and even small organized crime eventually dabbles in drugs (readers do realize Belize is a drug haven??) and that market has a FAR reach not just with money but the employees in that industry are dangerous and some quite desperate. Bring attention to some mild players who may draw attention to some bigger "job creators" who don't want the attention and they can cheaply and easily afford to mark you for death. Hell, too much sunlight might bring up CIA connections causing even more troubles... it's McAfee... who will be thinking beyond just reasonable theories.
He is right about the $25 to some nobody to burn down a house. Could be somebody who just thought he was a crazy prick paid somebody to do it. Hell, if he could get insurance or publicity, he could wire somebody down there to do it to himself with little chance of it tracking back to him.
I don't find his story that crazy - clueless nerds living on the computer without much exposure to corruption, having hardly left the basement or cubical... Many people will sound a bit nuts when in a new unknown situation in a panic; it would be normal to be extra paranoid until adjusting to the reality. People who are odd or eccentric or a little crazy are often easily dismissed like a retard eyewitness. What they say could be completely correct and it is foolish to completely dismiss their word. I bet a lot of nerds on here would be hard pressed to win public support if they were accused of molesting children... the introverted nerd types who are not well known and popular are easy targets for people's imaginations... You don't even have to have any flaws to be mischaracterized.
"I wonder how this could ever be implemented in FOSS"
Ask the W3C how they are going to pull of DRM in FOSS. Different problems but they have a lot of issues in common and neither will solve enough of them.
Abrams didn't like Star Trek, he never got it and even said so - he liked Star Wars. He managed to even blow up a whole planet with a super large ship and I was waiting for some kind of "Kirk, I'm your father" moment... He'd have used light sabers in his sword fighting scene except that wouldn't have gotten permission from Lucas.
The movie was not Star Trek and despite being a Trek fan, I was not suckered into the typical remake formula that even the most poorly made movies use today. Cameos and geeky back references don't fool me. I guess I'm not much of a Trekkie because I'm not so emotionally desperate that I shutdown my brain at a Spock cameo. Hell, Disney could put Spock into the next Star Wars movie and bill it as both a Trek film and Star Wars film and I bet people would buy it! Sheep.
There are actual recorded interviews with Gene Roddenberry about how Trek was never "dark" and "edgy" and that completely missed the point of it; he had to fight to keep it away from people trying to drag it into that direction. It had the 60's moon landing optimism about the future and how we could aspire to evolve beyond such things; he primarily used aliens to illustrate those things. Today's modern anti-heroes have no place in the world he created. Like religion, the qualities that bring people in are often forgotten and the dogma takes over; having the superficial Trek branding doesn't define what is Star Trek. I wonder why anybody bothers to study or think at deeper levels on literature, because apparently not even the authors do; anymore. I dare not imagine how Candide, ou l'Optimisme would turn out as a movie.
Yes, the last Trek movies sucked because they don't care once they make money and know they can sucker people back for a few sequels - then they bring in somebody to try something drastic so they can continue to beat a dead horse... as if the "franchise" was worn out when in fact it is 100% the studio's fault every time. They make their money because people will settle for back references with a bland thoughtless dream-like state of mind (which is why huge plot holes are commonplace; once you suspend all reasoning... see the "How it should have ended" series) All this stuff is making people more stupid while wasting their time. Entertainment doesn't have to lower your IQ.
In video games, this would be like making a Mario themed FPS. It wouldn't be a Mario game. In OS, this is like Linux running the Qvwm window manager. In cars, this is like calling a motorcycle a school bus after painting it yellow and adding stop sign. In politics, this would be Romney - ah, making him Democrat or Republican... he wouldn't really be either.
Slashdot Mirror
They are both human. Get too generic and you can find a common classification for anything and reduce the statement to pointlessness.
They are not similar. You can split hairs and accept broad meaningless generalities for irrelevant comparisons if you wish. I fail to see any benefit in grouping them as by species (humans) in the discussion is any different than what you say you were doing.
An actual pedophile (not the legal definition) is not even remotely fetish or homosexual (those would be possible side issues; the majority of cases are men with girls so there isn't a need to bring it up all the time.) There is a long history of slandering homosexuals as pedophiles, bestiality and other things - and while it can legitimately come up in a discussion on pedophiles, most the time that prejudicial characterization is the source (actual prejudice is not required because the topics have been linked for so long.)
I'm not gay. I don't like false stereotypes.
There is no monopoly like microsoft and that is progress not an ideal.
Objective? You must be kidding. Pedophiles and homosexuals are similar?
It is disrespectful that you lower pedophiles down to a level where you can even compare it with homosexuality. I could tell before even reading further you were setting up rationalization for your own thoughts/actions. Not objective, you used your similar experiences as a starting position to rationalize a defense - a position decided from the beginning is hardly objective. sorry.
Crazy is a broad term. To be so mentally ill that you must be locked up from society doesn't require you to be a babbling loon throwing feces at people. Being mentally at risk for mass murder or other dangerous antisocial acts doesn't have to fit the stereotype for a patient at a mental institution. Mental patients differ greatly, despite largely consisting of people with strong outward appearances of insanity. THAT needs to change.
Like every mental condition I'm aware of, there are many variations. Not every pedo is going to fit the whole profile; in addition, some people are probably not even pedophiles but have other conditions which come out along those lines - the criminal system will only see a pedo in a 1 size fits all results approach. Still, the act falls within mental health regardless because the act is CRAZY. If you murder somebody that is one thing, but if you put their head in your fridge - that is crazy and you shouldn't be put in a jail cell next to a sane person.
As far as the legal age limits, that is the primitive legal system we have. Setting age limits at exact numbers is idiotic and anybody with sense knows this but fails to use this fact to question the culture in which they were born which merely evolved the old common law system and then stopped progressing. Another topic. IF you had psychologists deciding what to do when an 18 year old fools around with a 16 year old the common sense would prevail. Think about it. It is really idiotic to have a legal system label you as a sexual deviant when that is the prevue of psychology.
FYI, sex is overrated by ignorant (possibly simple) people who haven't discovered the greater aspects of life. Candy is nice, but a vacation is better.
The 5th is only relevant when self incriminating. If they give you immunity from what is discovered, only then you "lose" the 5th; that is, you never lose the 5th, it just no longer applies.
Doesn't matter if they know, they most PROVE it without forcing you to open it-- then you can be forced to open it; refusing to comply is just a contempt charge. If it can incriminate him more then he still has a 5th amendment right.
Since he is going to get charges already the contempt won't probably mean a whole lot so he shouldn't comply and should fight it -- at least winning defending the 5th would be doing something meaningful in the scumbag's sick life. It shouldn't matter anyhow, he should be declared mentally insane (a kiddie fiddler IS crazy) and locked away and probed like a lab rat for his life. In a reasonable system, you could argue that it would no longer incriminate him because he is crazy and then use it to perhaps find more people in the network.... Which is another aspect not yet explored... in the criminal system he could make a deal to unlock it for doing less time so he can get out and mess with more kids in the future; since this idiotic punishment system lets such people "pay a debt" and lets them back out again. Some people are crazy and will never be fit for society until cures are found (likely never... a cure should be proven scientifically, not by a drug lobbyist...)
I am not a lawyer; I'm human.
How much money you have is not relevant to how much money you WANT or think you need. If anything, it is highly likely somebody who has a lot of money has an ADDICTION to the acquisition of money. Take some away and they'll be extremely upset but their addiction (greed) will not be cured, they'll go right back to trying to make as much as possible - just like smokers, drinkers, and other addicts. If anything, taking the addicted item away motivates them MORE.
Me too! To copy games! Then I realized you could make games so I wanted to know how they worked so I could make games! I got hooked and never made any games in the end.
][+ LOGO was my favorite, but it was not the 1st.
Calling these twisted entertainers "Journalists" is worse than calling a garbage hauler a "Sanitation Engineer."
The TV faces should be called "news readers" because that is all they really are. These "journalists" are reporters (repeaters) at best.
In the future, address me as "all knowing blog poster" because that is the title I just made up for myself and you should unquestioningly comply with my statement about my credentials; otherwise, I'll post insulting statements about you!
(One shouldn't just hand out job titles simply because somebody might throw a sissy fit.)
Less developers. Still required for making anything NEW or for providing support.
Also, more secretive development, like what many corporations do today already - the protections were put in place to encourage the publishing of secrets for the benefit of society rather than be forgotten. One could go back to the old model and probably do better than we are today; reverse engineering is pretty advanced. Sure, huge expensive projects will not be worth the risks until they become cheaper - but then is there really that big of a benefit to having something sooner? Today it does more harm than good and is slowing down research.
Lawyers never stop in the invention of new jobs for themselves. They've created so much overhead that progress is nearly impossible.
The industry already made deals with major ISPs in the USA to monitor your internet use.
I mixed in some bait with my comment for fun. But with a post like this...
OK.
If morality was simple, we'd have an App for it... "iNun" or "Morality Nazi" (catholic school joke)
Manning's leak was not top secret information, it was low-level information - The Pentagon Papers were top-secret, that was a bigger breach - look at that and contrast it with today. FYI, the government at one point during the case admitted the leak did not put American lives at risk. "Potential" is a funny word because it doesn't mean shit; it's worse than a conspiracy theory... The pentagon papers did more "harm" to the war effort.
The oath is to the constitution, not politicians. Past cases in the military have held soldiers accountable for blindly following orders that were contrary to higher authorities. A solider is always "potentially" fucked and most just don't realize the extent of the mess they sign into. They can be punished for following orders or for disobeying them if they find themselves in certain situations without the benefit of a history of military court rulings (as if those were consistent...) Real life is full of catch-22 situations; especially, when dealing with corruption in systems. Only the fanatics on the fringes have the luxury of being uncompromising and they are usually filtered out early on.
Morality is relative by definition. It is immoral to prioritize differently than the chosen standard.
Authoritarian leaning people like yourself, will place authority as the higher order. So you will see it as a moral breach. People leaning towards anarchism will place the freedom of information to the public above the authority. To these people, you are advocating immoral positions or at least undermining the principles upon which this society was founded. Both will at some point place the ideals above the lives of small numbers of people so the issue of "potential" collateral deaths is moot.
There is no determinable middle ground, you either lean 1 way or the other on a topic. Whether or not one chooses to apply morality is a separate factor, a 2nd dimension. Things will get heated when two moralists with opposing priorities clash.
People die serving their country in many ways. To manning's side, his suffering and/or death would be a moral sacrifice for the greater good. It is not treason or espionage; we really need to beat down these lawyers who distort reason with technicalities... one could think motive no longer matters in today's legal system.
It was the ACTION not the means by which the act was committed. Sure, sometimes there is only 1 way to do something but that does not logically condemn the means.
You can have free speech while also having crimes that only can be committed thru the use of speech. Since speech rights extend beyond literal vocalization to all forms of communication and money you could take your thinking and claim even more crimes are merely attacks on "free speech."
If somebody kills you using kung fu and claims it was speech because it is an artful dance like expression of their negative emotions (which it would be,) then under your thinking the prosecution of that crime would be an attack on their free speech rights.
Is the distinction I was making more clear now?
He is free to say anything he wants. He is not being punished for his speech but for threats which are conveyed by his speech.
"Give me all your money; I have a concealed weapon" is all one needs to do rob a bank. My example isn't even literally clear cut because there is no literal threat of violence - but most people would call that a crime.
Bradley Manning is being detained for his political views; because holding officials accountable by letting the voters know what they've been doing is too democratic for this authoritarian corporate plutocracy. Transparency is necessary for democracy to function; the "free press" alone is not enough (and our press is captured by the plutocracy as well.) This democracy has been a farce for over a generation; the Palestinians have a better democracy (it is a tool for placating the populace but it at least is more legitimate... and why not? it has no real power so it is allowed to be relatively functional.)
I doubt your state would do well without the federal help. The "rent" we pay for "your" land doesn't include paying people working in your state to run those military bases, research labs and parks. You likely would have next to nothing of an economy without the money coming in to pay for gainful employment.
In addition, national forests belong to the nation not to your state and a majority decided they were too important to leave to the locals who'd probably degrade their own source of tourism over time. History has shown that private ownership is a poor manager and the local government is more likely to foobar it up at some point. Take the grand canyon's uranium deposits, which are too small to destroy any segment of it - the state would have caved to lobbyists while the fed just barely prevented it. Destroying something unique and admired for generations so a few can get rich for an insignificant national benefit.
Yellowstone would end up with a disney themepark in the middle... and a zoo so lazy visitors don't have to go into the nature to "experience" it; no matter how ironic, it often happens.
mod up
Remember all the complaints in performance from gamers when they lost all that speed going from a shared memory OS (windows 9x) to a protected memory OS?
Microkernels are a similar problem but without a big corporation to force users kicking and screaming into the modern age. I would like to have Multics like features; my CPUs are mostly idle today. Being able to replace RAM, storage, CPUs without shutdown or even turning off half the computer for most of the day...
It's not like we don't have more CPU power than most users need and a slowing market due to an excess of power... Pros and gamers will complain, but then they don't realize they are losing FPS with today's systems they resisted in the past. Sure reboots are fast, but I hate having a buggy driver or worn out device crashing my system frequently until nail down the source (and if it didn't crash, I could just ignore it and keep the device. I have a LiteOn blueray burner that requires a reboot after moderate use-- plus the pain of digging out an HD with windows just to upgrade the firmware on the hope that they've finally fixed it.)
Today the moron child who didn't die already from plastic bags or running into traffic will not listen or obey his father's "gun talk" and shoot himself with his father's gun. Today, the parent would be prosecuted or the grandparents would sue for "wrongful death" while in the past people would just be sad and politely not mention how stupid the child was (in public.)
In other news, Microsoft found a way to turn all those unsold Zune and windows phones into "environmentally friendly" servers.
I should have used the word "rite" instead of right.
How arrogant. You place yourself above nature and think you can do better - nature may not have any guiding intelligence but it has near infinite variety to experiment with and you have next to nothing to experiment with plus as much understanding as a flea does of the world beyond the dog's back.
Procreation is not a right; especially not a natural born right! If you keep the sickly alive you shouldn't let them breed. I would have died as a child. so be it. I want no offspring; despite the fact my death wouldn't have been a result of bad genes, I'm likely to die in my 50s even if I eat healthy and so the responsible thing is to not pass that on.
Nature exists whether or not you believe in it, can define it, or understand it. Just like gravity.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Utah is a welfare state! They already get too much money from the federal government! They now want to take more of our money? WTF?
We should stop subsidizing Utah... and all the other loser states.
Is it not nature that the unhealthy do not pass on their genes? We evolved too, not just the bacteria... except we stopped. Insensitive? no, realistic - stop living in a dreamworld you can't ever completely win against nature. It is one thing to take precautions by not swimming in your shit pool and quite another to wage an expensive a war against nature.
Wish I had mod points... Escaping from being a target is one thing, waging war is quite another matter. Corrupt and even small organized crime eventually dabbles in drugs (readers do realize Belize is a drug haven??) and that market has a FAR reach not just with money but the employees in that industry are dangerous and some quite desperate. Bring attention to some mild players who may draw attention to some bigger "job creators" who don't want the attention and they can cheaply and easily afford to mark you for death. Hell, too much sunlight might bring up CIA connections causing even more troubles... it's McAfee... who will be thinking beyond just reasonable theories.
He is right about the $25 to some nobody to burn down a house. Could be somebody who just thought he was a crazy prick paid somebody to do it. Hell, if he could get insurance or publicity, he could wire somebody down there to do it to himself with little chance of it tracking back to him.
I don't find his story that crazy - clueless nerds living on the computer without much exposure to corruption, having hardly left the basement or cubical... Many people will sound a bit nuts when in a new unknown situation in a panic; it would be normal to be extra paranoid until adjusting to the reality. People who are odd or eccentric or a little crazy are often easily dismissed like a retard eyewitness. What they say could be completely correct and it is foolish to completely dismiss their word. I bet a lot of nerds on here would be hard pressed to win public support if they were accused of molesting children... the introverted nerd types who are not well known and popular are easy targets for people's imaginations... You don't even have to have any flaws to be mischaracterized.
"I wonder how this could ever be implemented in FOSS"
Ask the W3C how they are going to pull of DRM in FOSS. Different problems but they have a lot of issues in common and neither will solve enough of them.
Abrams didn't like Star Trek, he never got it and even said so - he liked Star Wars. He managed to even blow up a whole planet with a super large ship and I was waiting for some kind of "Kirk, I'm your father" moment... He'd have used light sabers in his sword fighting scene except that wouldn't have gotten permission from Lucas.
The movie was not Star Trek and despite being a Trek fan, I was not suckered into the typical remake formula that even the most poorly made movies use today. Cameos and geeky back references don't fool me. I guess I'm not much of a Trekkie because I'm not so emotionally desperate that I shutdown my brain at a Spock cameo. Hell, Disney could put Spock into the next Star Wars movie and bill it as both a Trek film and Star Wars film and I bet people would buy it! Sheep.
There are actual recorded interviews with Gene Roddenberry about how Trek was never "dark" and "edgy" and that completely missed the point of it; he had to fight to keep it away from people trying to drag it into that direction. It had the 60's moon landing optimism about the future and how we could aspire to evolve beyond such things; he primarily used aliens to illustrate those things. Today's modern anti-heroes have no place in the world he created. Like religion, the qualities that bring people in are often forgotten and the dogma takes over; having the superficial Trek branding doesn't define what is Star Trek. I wonder why anybody bothers to study or think at deeper levels on literature, because apparently not even the authors do; anymore. I dare not imagine how Candide, ou l'Optimisme would turn out as a movie.
Yes, the last Trek movies sucked because they don't care once they make money and know they can sucker people back for a few sequels - then they bring in somebody to try something drastic so they can continue to beat a dead horse... as if the "franchise" was worn out when in fact it is 100% the studio's fault every time. They make their money because people will settle for back references with a bland thoughtless dream-like state of mind (which is why huge plot holes are commonplace; once you suspend all reasoning... see the "How it should have ended" series) All this stuff is making people more stupid while wasting their time. Entertainment doesn't have to lower your IQ.
In video games, this would be like making a Mario themed FPS. It wouldn't be a Mario game.
In OS, this is like Linux running the Qvwm window manager.
In cars, this is like calling a motorcycle a school bus after painting it yellow and adding stop sign.
In politics, this would be Romney - ah, making him Democrat or Republican... he wouldn't really be either.