I have no problem with the evictions, only with the methods used in some of the cities.
The use of tear gas against peaceful protesters?
Agreed that tear gas is out of bounds. It's not deadly force however.
The mass arrests of hundreds of peaceful protesters?
They got away with violating local laws for months before they were arrested. I'd say people were extremely lenient for the most part with the Occupy xxx protesters, only breaking it up when it had lost any semblance of momentum or purpose.
The many acts of police brutality against peaceful protesters?
Many is a weasel word. Document the brutality. I can count the really outrageous stuff on one hand, though the Oakland reaction in general was very disproportionate.
The use of mounted police against peaceful protesters?
It rather depends on what the mounties were doing, doesn't it?
The protesters were, you know, protesting. Not establishing residency.
All I can say is, holy shit. You're still debating my use of the term "squatters", even after I took it out of the argument. I told you I would be wasting my time. They may have been protesting, but they were also living in the parks. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Care to back up from that lazy straw man? It didn't work the first time with the couch.
You seem to be even less familiar with constitutional law than I am, which is amazing since mine is perhaps on an 8th grade level. The government may place restrictions on the right to assemble that will maintain law and order, facilitate traffic, protect private property and reduce noise congestion. It does not guarantee freedom of assembly wherever and whenever you want to assemble. It also does not guarantee total free speech - yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and all that. Do some very basic reading before you lecture me on the first amendment. But I'm the lazy one.
Now you're claiming that the only OWS crackdowns were in NYC or that the NYPD receives no equipment or support from other law enforcement agencies?
Let me read my post again... nope. That's not what I said. I said the NYPD does not even have tear gas. They don't use it, it's not in their doctrine. If you'd done even a cursory Google check of that particular OWS claim, you will see that they had to retract it. Tear gas was most certainly used in Oakland, where it is part of their standard crowd control techniques. If I lived in Oakland, I'd probably want to work on rethinking that policy.
Was anyone prevented from traveling through or using Zuccotti or any other space used by any other OWS protest? No. So try explaining how you get around
Huh? Do you really think that when the people of NYC demanded open spaces between office buildings, the intent was so that other people could live there? They have specific rules on their use, including being closed at sundown. Further, the parks are privately owned and maintained but open to the public. Despite all of this, NYC was remarkably tolerant of the OWS protestors - they only kicked them out after several weeks, and only after the movement was largely stagnant. Most people were sympathetic to their cause - if they were Nazis, they'd have had a lot less time to illegally make their point.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
If I direct you to a Supreme Court ruling about peaceful assembly, will you actually read it? Cox v. New Hampshire (1941): the government may require permits for pa
A person occupying a public place is engaged a civil act.
Why is trespassing peacefully on your coach a crime, but disobeying some local ordinance not? What if they just camped out on the little strip of municipal property between the street and your lawn?
"more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income, bank reform, and a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics."
Who the hell would argue with those goals? They had absolutely no demand as to how to accomplish those things. More and better jobs! Great! Let's get started! There was no way to satisfy the protests, because they had no concrete endgame. Did they have some unemployment number that would end the protest? No.
Did they know what the distribution of income should look like? Flatter. Great... big help. How to flatten it? Just take some assets from the "1%" and redistribute? Free education for the bottom 50%? What?
Bank reform. Great! What specific reforms would you like?
Corporate meddling in politics. Not exactly an easy problem to solve, is it? The same 1st Amendment that you cite as grounds to live in a public square also lets the New York Times publish whatever they want in a newspaper. I agree with the goal of reducing corporate influence, but I also recognize that it is VERY hard to restrict what a generic corporation can say without also restricting what the NY Times can say. In any case, there was no specific demand from the Occupy protestors.
So they went on like this for a couple of months. People gave them a lot of latitude. But eventually, they wanted their public spaces back.
You twist your own words. You don't support intentional harm... but you do. Because... reasons.
I say: I support kicking people out. I recognize that this will set up conflict and inevitably lead to injury. You say: You support hurting people.
How is that not twisting words? I say: I support allowing people to own dogs. I recognize that some people will abuse the dogs. You say: You support hurting dogs.
It's total bullshit and I'm not giving you a pass.
We shouldn't, perhaps, expand the dialogue to question *why and how* those laws exist and begin working toward changing them into laws which support and affirm our rights.
I'm all for discussion of how our public spaces should be administered. Even though there are laws against sleeping outside City Hall, I was supportive of Philly not arresting everyone who did. But after a few months of it, it became clear that nothing was going to come of the movement and it hardly seemed appropriate to let them hold up the long-planned improvements to the park. It is possible that the residents of Philly disagree with me - and that is fine. The decision should be democratic.
Do not move someone simply because they are uncooperative. Is it inconvenient? It's supposed to be.
I'm sorry, but you propose anarchy. I could lay in a highway with a few good friends and completely destroy the local economy.
7000 arrests [http://stpeteforpeace.org/occupyarrests.sources.html], numerous (too numerous to readily quantify) injuries, many instances of abuse of power by law enforcement
There were far more "criminals" than there were arrests - I think the reaction to the protests was quite tolerant. There were indeed more injuries than I would have liked, and I hope those responsible eventually are punished (though I don't hold out much hope there). By the way, zero deaths.
Tahrir Square (the movement, not the single square): over 800 killed. Over 6000 wounded. Over 12,000 arrested. The only firm demand was the resignation of the President, which did in fact occur.
One was a bunch of dissatisfied people camping out in public parks for a few months before eventually getting booted out, with a few examples of law enforcement excess - though no evidenc
Arguing with someone who thinks that the Occupy xxx protests and the Tahrir Square protests were similar beyond being a bunch of dissatisfied people seems like a waste of time, and in that regard yes I'm being lazy.
What unoccupied dwellings were they located in for the purpose of residency?
Tents aren't "dwellings"? How about you discuss the gist of my argument instead of arguing about whether my use of the word "squatter" is appropriate? They were living in the park(s), not simply "protesting" - that is the important distinction I was trying to make.
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble
Care to point to the part of the amendment where it says they can assemble wherever and whenever they want?
Mass use of tear gas
Now you are just making shit up (or you are only reading Occupy-biased blogs). NYPD doesn't even have tear gas.
I do agree that they shouldn't have pepper sprayed those girls that were blocking traffic.
I mentioned Oakland, so I'm not sure why you say I omitted the guy getting hit with the tear gas canister. That was in Oakland, unless I missed another incident.
I forgot about the UC Davis incident - again, I agree that the police were wrong to use pepper spray.
How about...you try to come up with an analogy that doesn't insult the listener as well as your own intelligence... As if a couch in your house is a remotely relevant comparison to public parks and squares.
Public property is nothing but communal property. Just because it has the word "public" in it does not mean that anyone can hijack it for their own purposes. It is perfectly reasonable for rules and regulations to be set through a democratic process. The rules and regulations should not infringe on inalienable rights, nor should they infringe upon our constitutional or other legal rights - but that's about it as far as limits go. The alternative is anarchy, which is fine if you are an anarchist. I am not. I don't want people living in our parks. I'd rather not have the public space if that were the case. I was willing to give the Occupy movement a chance, but nothing ever came out of it so it was time for them to go and give us our public space back.
I'll come right out and suggest that this is because it would lead you to an uncomfortable conclusion.
How about your own couch. There's a guy on your own couch. He refuses to leave. Yes, someone living on your own couch is different from someone living in your community's park - but really the two situations lie on the same continuum. I think a community has a right to set rules in their own park just as you have a right to set rules on your own couch. Obviously, these rules must be limited - you cannot say "anyone on my couch gets shot" and the same should be true on community property. It's neither a simple problem, nor is their any obvious right and wrong, but it is not absurd to ask you what should happen when people need to be moved from an area, no matter how peaceful they are.
The only outcome desired by those who would "start forcing" Peaceful people from gathering is to silence the message those Peaceful people are struggling to convey.
The only? I think you are not being fair. I initially got excited about the "Occupy" movement, just as I was initially excited by the "Tea Party" movement. Both looked like they had a real promise of shaking things up. But the Tea Party quickly dissolved into the regular old Republican political party and the Occupy movement exhausted everyone's patience and never issued any kind of goal or agenda. It ended up being a bunch of people just living in places where communities didn't want people living. In Philly (where I live), they let them stay for months - only ejecting them when the area they occupied was due for long-scheduled construction. But what came of those months? Nothing. No change. No pressure.
The people of Philly didn't boot them out "to silence them"... in fact, they weren't really even saying anything. They weren't a threat to anyone, physically, politically, or otherwise. The people of Philly booted them out because they were in the way of an improvement to the public space.
Any person who willingly harms, or supports those who would harm, a Peaceful demonstrator is a monster.
Now you are twisting my words. I don't support the intentional harm of a peaceful demonstrator. I do support the forced removal of people in certain situations, with the full understanding that physical conflict often results in flared tempers and injury.
If Peaceful People have committed a crime, cite them, arrest them... That's what laws are for and what cops are for.
Arresting someone and forcibly removing them from the scene will result in some injuries. I'd rather not take the step of arresting people for silly crimes like staying in a park overnight, but it is a crime depending on the locality. The occupy protestors were violating many local ordinances but were given a lot of leeway for several months. I think most of us were hoping the movement would coalesce around something if given some time - and they weren't harming anyone other than some local businesses and traffic, so it seemed reasonable to give them some room to see what happened. I think they had a good deal of public support initially.
That's just sick and stupid.
You keep saying things like that, without suggesting how you would move someone who is uncooperative without the risk of injury.
I am ashamed of law enforcement is empowered to inject violence into a peaceful gathering.
In some cities the law enforcement got out of hand. In others the clearing operations went off without a hitch. I think the Philly cops did a good job, and in fact the only real incidents that stand out are Oakland and the one early incident in NYC when the protestors were in traffic.
The existence of an unelected despot is an abusive cop's best defense? Buh?
Not what I said. A cop that busts a peaceful man's head open has no defense.
Occupy xxx (which one are you talking about anyway?) were not simply "peaceful protesters", they were also squatters. In NYC, there were a few incidents where cops used disproportionate force. In Egypt, meanwhile, there were running battles between agents of the state and protesters. Not only are these events different, they are on polar ends of a scale.
Let me ask you something: when it comes time to remove people from a place where they need to be removed from, do you think it is possible to do it without the use of force if they do not cooperate? Once you start forcing people out, don't you think some amount of injury is unavoidable?
The fact of something being less harmful that that which is far worse, doesn't lessen the fact that it's harmful.
So, to your moral compass, the actions of a single cop (or even group of cops) working for a single local government represents the same thing as a state system of coordinated violence directed by an unelected despot?
Finally, take the Occupy Wall Street movement, also put down violently.
In what world do you get your news? How can you possibly compare the scale of violence that occurred in Tahrir Square to the removal of protestors in any of the Occupy camps?
It's actually a shame, because your post was making some decent (if IMHO flawed) points up to this point, and then you go and completely blow your credibility.
(Like installing application simply by drag-droping an icon from an archive into a system folder. With no privilege asked).
Excuse me, Stewardess, I speak Windows.
An EXE can be installed in Windows by dragging and dropping the EXE onto the "C:\Program Files" folder. You have to do this when installing programs that come without installers. Most people never do this because program makers learned early on that people are too retarded to make their own Start Menu shortcuts, and it also lets them install other crap that people don't really need. Macintosh also has an installer, but it's not usually necessary unless the application requires system folders to be touched.
Hey, you know what they say: see a broad to get dat booty yak 'em......leg 'er down a smack 'em yak 'em! COL' got to be! Y'know? Shiiiiit.
That may be true, but a talented engineer/scientist could probably do pretty well if he/she (ha, ha, she!) could consistently deliver results to the oppressive controller of the country's economy.
And what about Iran's "regime" is any worse than recent American regimes?
Seriously? I hope you were paid to say that. Otherwise, you are incredibly ignorant and need to read up on the situation in the respective countries. When is the last time you saw people sneaking into Canada and Mexico from the US to flee oppression?
And those who DO emigrate are more likely to go to China than the US, because of China's good relations, treatment, and trade with Iran relative to the west's.
Never said they were all in the US - only that they weren't in Iran.
Hellfire is a tiny little thing... only about 100lbs. Mavericks are at least 5-6 times that massive and significantly longer. I don't think it would be easy to get a small drone to fire them, and if you did it would still be able to carry 5 or 6 hellfires for every 1 maverick. Also, there's a huge gap in technology - the Maverick is a product of the 60s and the Hellfire (well, the II) is a product of the 90s.
Why, because only Americans are ingenious enough to be engineers?
I've met some very smart and capable "Persian" engineers. They don't live in Iran, though:)
Seriously, a lot of the smartest and best-educated Iranians no longer live in the country, and probably won't unless the place changes politically.
Think about it - if your home country had a regime like Iran's and you had the means to live just about anywhere else, would you stick around? And if you did, would you work for that regime? There are selfish smart people (duh), but a significant portion of smart people want nothing to do with such a regime.
Until very recently, I had a 3g and had the same problem. However, I quickly rolled back to the 3.x series when I saw how nasty the 4.x series was. A lot of new stuff did not work, but my old apps still did - I never "lost" functionality and Cydia gave me some of the newer functions.
But yeah, I agree that the whole system is geared toward "progress", and that was a real pain for those of us who wanted to stay behind.
Landfills these days decompose most of the organic materials. They repeatedly pour the water collected at the base of the landfill back over the top until it starts coming out relatively clean. This significantly extends the useful life of the landfills, and reduces the long-term costs of maintaining it. They even produce enough methane to run on-site generators and such (better for air quality and global warming than releasing it).
So there is no reason, other than carelessness or the desire to "keep up with the joneses" to replace your devices annually.
Annually? Is there any evidence that this is the mean lifetime of these toys? I have an e-ink Kindle rather than a "tablet", but most of the people I know who have tablets have only replaced them because they dropped them or gave them to their kid and got the newer model for themselves.
My cell phones have always performed admirably, really only dying when I drop them repeatedly or get them damp repeatedly. Before my newest phone, I replaced the screen on my old iPhone twice before giving it up because the WiFi went out. Now I have a considerably cheaper Android phone, so I guess I'll see how it holds up.
I don't understand... gold doesn't hold a sharp point at all. Terrible material for that.
You people are crazy - first this talk of using golden parachutes, which would likely kill the poor bankers.
Then you talk of making gold into points... not only would it cost way too much and add undue weight to the front of your projectile, but if the banker has any kind of body armor on it certainly couldn't pierce it.
Slashdot Mirror
Guess why Google doesn't use it or create their own? Because that would be much more work to do.
1) What's wrong with saving yourself work?
2) Isn't that the whole point of OSS?
The mass evictions under laughable pretenses?
I have no problem with the evictions, only with the methods used in some of the cities.
The use of tear gas against peaceful protesters?
Agreed that tear gas is out of bounds. It's not deadly force however.
The mass arrests of hundreds of peaceful protesters?
They got away with violating local laws for months before they were arrested. I'd say people were extremely lenient for the most part with the Occupy xxx protesters, only breaking it up when it had lost any semblance of momentum or purpose.
The many acts of police brutality against peaceful protesters?
Many is a weasel word. Document the brutality. I can count the really outrageous stuff on one hand, though the Oakland reaction in general was very disproportionate.
The use of mounted police against peaceful protesters?
It rather depends on what the mounties were doing, doesn't it?
The protesters were, you know, protesting. Not establishing residency.
All I can say is, holy shit. You're still debating my use of the term "squatters", even after I took it out of the argument. I told you I would be wasting my time. They may have been protesting, but they were also living in the parks. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Care to back up from that lazy straw man? It didn't work the first time with the couch.
You seem to be even less familiar with constitutional law than I am, which is amazing since mine is perhaps on an 8th grade level. The government may place restrictions on the right to assemble that will maintain law and order, facilitate traffic, protect private property and reduce noise congestion. It does not guarantee freedom of assembly wherever and whenever you want to assemble. It also does not guarantee total free speech - yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and all that. Do some very basic reading before you lecture me on the first amendment. But I'm the lazy one.
Now you're claiming that the only OWS crackdowns were in NYC or that the NYPD receives no equipment or support from other law enforcement agencies?
Let me read my post again... nope. That's not what I said. I said the NYPD does not even have tear gas. They don't use it, it's not in their doctrine. If you'd done even a cursory Google check of that particular OWS claim, you will see that they had to retract it. Tear gas was most certainly used in Oakland, where it is part of their standard crowd control techniques. If I lived in Oakland, I'd probably want to work on rethinking that policy.
Was anyone prevented from traveling through or using Zuccotti or any other space used by any other OWS protest? No. So try explaining how you get around
Huh? Do you really think that when the people of NYC demanded open spaces between office buildings, the intent was so that other people could live there? They have specific rules on their use, including being closed at sundown. Further, the parks are privately owned and maintained but open to the public. Despite all of this, NYC was remarkably tolerant of the OWS protestors - they only kicked them out after several weeks, and only after the movement was largely stagnant. Most people were sympathetic to their cause - if they were Nazis, they'd have had a lot less time to illegally make their point.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
If I direct you to a Supreme Court ruling about peaceful assembly, will you actually read it?
Cox v. New Hampshire (1941): the government may require permits for pa
A person occupying a public place is engaged a civil act.
Why is trespassing peacefully on your coach a crime, but disobeying some local ordinance not? What if they just camped out on the little strip of municipal property between the street and your lawn?
"more and better jobs, more equal distribution of income, bank reform, and a reduction of the influence of corporations on politics."
Who the hell would argue with those goals? They had absolutely no demand as to how to accomplish those things. More and better jobs! Great! Let's get started! There was no way to satisfy the protests, because they had no concrete endgame. Did they have some unemployment number that would end the protest? No.
Did they know what the distribution of income should look like? Flatter. Great... big help. How to flatten it? Just take some assets from the "1%" and redistribute? Free education for the bottom 50%? What?
Bank reform. Great! What specific reforms would you like?
Corporate meddling in politics. Not exactly an easy problem to solve, is it? The same 1st Amendment that you cite as grounds to live in a public square also lets the New York Times publish whatever they want in a newspaper. I agree with the goal of reducing corporate influence, but I also recognize that it is VERY hard to restrict what a generic corporation can say without also restricting what the NY Times can say. In any case, there was no specific demand from the Occupy protestors.
So they went on like this for a couple of months. People gave them a lot of latitude. But eventually, they wanted their public spaces back.
You twist your own words. You don't support intentional harm... but you do. Because... reasons.
I say: I support kicking people out. I recognize that this will set up conflict and inevitably lead to injury.
You say: You support hurting people.
How is that not twisting words?
I say: I support allowing people to own dogs. I recognize that some people will abuse the dogs.
You say: You support hurting dogs.
It's total bullshit and I'm not giving you a pass.
We shouldn't, perhaps, expand the dialogue to question *why and how* those laws exist and begin working toward changing them into laws which support and affirm our rights.
I'm all for discussion of how our public spaces should be administered. Even though there are laws against sleeping outside City Hall, I was supportive of Philly not arresting everyone who did. But after a few months of it, it became clear that nothing was going to come of the movement and it hardly seemed appropriate to let them hold up the long-planned improvements to the park. It is possible that the residents of Philly disagree with me - and that is fine. The decision should be democratic.
Do not move someone simply because they are uncooperative. Is it inconvenient? It's supposed to be.
I'm sorry, but you propose anarchy. I could lay in a highway with a few good friends and completely destroy the local economy.
7000 arrests [http://stpeteforpeace.org/occupyarrests.sources.html], numerous (too numerous to readily quantify) injuries, many instances of abuse of power by law enforcement
There were far more "criminals" than there were arrests - I think the reaction to the protests was quite tolerant. There were indeed more injuries than I would have liked, and I hope those responsible eventually are punished (though I don't hold out much hope there). By the way, zero deaths.
Tahrir Square (the movement, not the single square): over 800 killed. Over 6000 wounded. Over 12,000 arrested. The only firm demand was the resignation of the President, which did in fact occur.
One was a bunch of dissatisfied people camping out in public parks for a few months before eventually getting booted out, with a few examples of law enforcement excess - though no evidenc
You're really this intellectually lazy?
Arguing with someone who thinks that the Occupy xxx protests and the Tahrir Square protests were similar beyond being a bunch of dissatisfied people seems like a waste of time, and in that regard yes I'm being lazy.
What unoccupied dwellings were they located in for the purpose of residency?
Tents aren't "dwellings"? How about you discuss the gist of my argument instead of arguing about whether my use of the word "squatter" is appropriate? They were living in the park(s), not simply "protesting" - that is the important distinction I was trying to make.
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble
Care to point to the part of the amendment where it says they can assemble wherever and whenever they want?
Mass use of tear gas
Now you are just making shit up (or you are only reading Occupy-biased blogs). NYPD doesn't even have tear gas.
I do agree that they shouldn't have pepper sprayed those girls that were blocking traffic.
I mentioned Oakland, so I'm not sure why you say I omitted the guy getting hit with the tear gas canister. That was in Oakland, unless I missed another incident.
I forgot about the UC Davis incident - again, I agree that the police were wrong to use pepper spray.
How about...you try to come up with an analogy that doesn't insult the listener as well as your own intelligence... As if a couch in your house is a remotely relevant comparison to public parks and squares.
Public property is nothing but communal property. Just because it has the word "public" in it does not mean that anyone can hijack it for their own purposes. It is perfectly reasonable for rules and regulations to be set through a democratic process. The rules and regulations should not infringe on inalienable rights, nor should they infringe upon our constitutional or other legal rights - but that's about it as far as limits go. The alternative is anarchy, which is fine if you are an anarchist. I am not. I don't want people living in our parks. I'd rather not have the public space if that were the case. I was willing to give the Occupy movement a chance, but nothing ever came out of it so it was time for them to go and give us our public space back.
I refuse to accept the premise you present.
I'll come right out and suggest that this is because it would lead you to an uncomfortable conclusion.
How about your own couch. There's a guy on your own couch. He refuses to leave. Yes, someone living on your own couch is different from someone living in your community's park - but really the two situations lie on the same continuum. I think a community has a right to set rules in their own park just as you have a right to set rules on your own couch. Obviously, these rules must be limited - you cannot say "anyone on my couch gets shot" and the same should be true on community property. It's neither a simple problem, nor is their any obvious right and wrong, but it is not absurd to ask you what should happen when people need to be moved from an area, no matter how peaceful they are.
The only outcome desired by those who would "start forcing" Peaceful people from gathering is to silence the message those Peaceful people are struggling to convey.
The only? I think you are not being fair. I initially got excited about the "Occupy" movement, just as I was initially excited by the "Tea Party" movement. Both looked like they had a real promise of shaking things up. But the Tea Party quickly dissolved into the regular old Republican political party and the Occupy movement exhausted everyone's patience and never issued any kind of goal or agenda. It ended up being a bunch of people just living in places where communities didn't want people living. In Philly (where I live), they let them stay for months - only ejecting them when the area they occupied was due for long-scheduled construction. But what came of those months? Nothing. No change. No pressure.
The people of Philly didn't boot them out "to silence them"... in fact, they weren't really even saying anything. They weren't a threat to anyone, physically, politically, or otherwise. The people of Philly booted them out because they were in the way of an improvement to the public space.
Any person who willingly harms, or supports those who would harm, a Peaceful demonstrator is a monster.
Now you are twisting my words. I don't support the intentional harm of a peaceful demonstrator. I do support the forced removal of people in certain situations, with the full understanding that physical conflict often results in flared tempers and injury.
If Peaceful People have committed a crime, cite them, arrest them... That's what laws are for and what cops are for.
Arresting someone and forcibly removing them from the scene will result in some injuries. I'd rather not take the step of arresting people for silly crimes like staying in a park overnight, but it is a crime depending on the locality. The occupy protestors were violating many local ordinances but were given a lot of leeway for several months. I think most of us were hoping the movement would coalesce around something if given some time - and they weren't harming anyone other than some local businesses and traffic, so it seemed reasonable to give them some room to see what happened. I think they had a good deal of public support initially.
That's just sick and stupid.
You keep saying things like that, without suggesting how you would move someone who is uncooperative without the risk of injury.
I am ashamed of law enforcement is empowered to inject violence into a peaceful gathering.
In some cities the law enforcement got out of hand. In others the clearing operations went off without a hitch. I think the Philly cops did a good job, and in fact the only real incidents that stand out are Oakland and the one early incident in NYC when the protestors were in traffic.
The existence of an unelected despot is an abusive cop's best defense? Buh?
Not what I said. A cop that busts a peaceful man's head open has no defense.
Occupy xxx (which one are you talking about anyway?) were not simply "peaceful protesters", they were also squatters. In NYC, there were a few incidents where cops used disproportionate force. In Egypt, meanwhile, there were running battles between agents of the state and protesters. Not only are these events different, they are on polar ends of a scale.
Let me ask you something: when it comes time to remove people from a place where they need to be removed from, do you think it is possible to do it without the use of force if they do not cooperate? Once you start forcing people out, don't you think some amount of injury is unavoidable?
You also have no sense of context.
The fact of something being less harmful that that which is far worse, doesn't lessen the fact that it's harmful.
So, to your moral compass, the actions of a single cop (or even group of cops) working for a single local government represents the same thing as a state system of coordinated violence directed by an unelected despot?
You have no sense of scale.
Finally, take the Occupy Wall Street movement, also put down violently.
In what world do you get your news? How can you possibly compare the scale of violence that occurred in Tahrir Square to the removal of protestors in any of the Occupy camps?
It's actually a shame, because your post was making some decent (if IMHO flawed) points up to this point, and then you go and completely blow your credibility.
The difference being the executable format.
That's certainly true, but what impact does that have on security?
(Like installing application simply by drag-droping an icon from an archive into a system folder. With no privilege asked).
Excuse me, Stewardess, I speak Windows.
An EXE can be installed in Windows by dragging and dropping the EXE onto the "C:\Program Files" folder. You have to do this when installing programs that come without installers. Most people never do this because program makers learned early on that people are too retarded to make their own Start Menu shortcuts, and it also lets them install other crap that people don't really need. Macintosh also has an installer, but it's not usually necessary unless the application requires system folders to be touched.
Hey, you know what they say: see a broad to get dat booty yak 'em... ...leg 'er down a smack 'em yak 'em!
COL' got to be! Y'know? Shiiiiit.
Golly!
That may be true, but a talented engineer/scientist could probably do pretty well if he/she (ha, ha, she!) could consistently deliver results to the oppressive controller of the country's economy.
I hate our immigration laws.
Don't get me wrong. The place appears to be run by self serving nut cases. But to be honest is that really much different from most other countries?
Sadly, no. But it is markedly different from the western democracies.
And what about Iran's "regime" is any worse than recent American regimes?
Seriously? I hope you were paid to say that. Otherwise, you are incredibly ignorant and need to read up on the situation in the respective countries. When is the last time you saw people sneaking into Canada and Mexico from the US to flee oppression?
And those who DO emigrate are more likely to go to China than the US, because of China's good relations, treatment, and trade with Iran relative to the west's.
Never said they were all in the US - only that they weren't in Iran.
Huh? There are some nuclear physicists in Iran, just not as many as there would be if their country wasn't run by a bunch of criminals.
Fair's fair, right?
Who the hell wants fair except the people without the advantage?
Hellfire is a tiny little thing... only about 100lbs. Mavericks are at least 5-6 times that massive and significantly longer. I don't think it would be easy to get a small drone to fire them, and if you did it would still be able to carry 5 or 6 hellfires for every 1 maverick. Also, there's a huge gap in technology - the Maverick is a product of the 60s and the Hellfire (well, the II) is a product of the 90s.
Why, because only Americans are ingenious enough to be engineers?
I've met some very smart and capable "Persian" engineers. They don't live in Iran, though :)
Seriously, a lot of the smartest and best-educated Iranians no longer live in the country, and probably won't unless the place changes politically.
Think about it - if your home country had a regime like Iran's and you had the means to live just about anywhere else, would you stick around? And if you did, would you work for that regime? There are selfish smart people (duh), but a significant portion of smart people want nothing to do with such a regime.
Until very recently, I had a 3g and had the same problem. However, I quickly rolled back to the 3.x series when I saw how nasty the 4.x series was. A lot of new stuff did not work, but my old apps still did - I never "lost" functionality and Cydia gave me some of the newer functions.
But yeah, I agree that the whole system is geared toward "progress", and that was a real pain for those of us who wanted to stay behind.
Landfills these days decompose most of the organic materials. They repeatedly pour the water collected at the base of the landfill back over the top until it starts coming out relatively clean. This significantly extends the useful life of the landfills, and reduces the long-term costs of maintaining it. They even produce enough methane to run on-site generators and such (better for air quality and global warming than releasing it).
So there is no reason, other than carelessness or the desire to "keep up with the joneses" to replace your devices annually.
Annually? Is there any evidence that this is the mean lifetime of these toys? I have an e-ink Kindle rather than a "tablet", but most of the people I know who have tablets have only replaced them because they dropped them or gave them to their kid and got the newer model for themselves.
My cell phones have always performed admirably, really only dying when I drop them repeatedly or get them damp repeatedly. Before my newest phone, I replaced the screen on my old iPhone twice before giving it up because the WiFi went out. Now I have a considerably cheaper Android phone, so I guess I'll see how it holds up.
I think people must assume that all the rowhomes in the northeastern cities are made from brick because it is quaint or charming :)
I don't understand... gold doesn't hold a sharp point at all. Terrible material for that.
You people are crazy - first this talk of using golden parachutes, which would likely kill the poor bankers.
Then you talk of making gold into points... not only would it cost way too much and add undue weight to the front of your projectile, but if the banker has any kind of body armor on it certainly couldn't pierce it.