That's a logical, clearly reasoned and well thought out response to a hypothetical situation.
Which is why it will never be done.
9/11 was a far, FAR less traumatic event than a nuclear blast. And look at the fear-based trigger response that had, and the innocent people who took the brunt of that American fear response.
Governments are made of people. And people are stupid.
Yeah, I'm afraid there are a few chicken-little types who almost seem to get off on their fear. I've met a few in real life and more on-line. I remember talking to one woman in Australia who was working herself up into a panic over a terrorist attack in Oz. I told her it was never gonna happen, or at least unlikely in the extreme, and she reacted very badly to being told there was nothing to worry about.
I think some people want to be afraid. Maybe they're addicted to the adrenaline rush. Maybe they just think that it will make their lives more important somehow. Either way, they seem utterly immune to reason, and incapable of objectively looking at trigger-issues such as internet-porn, guns in school, pedophiles and terrorism.
I think politicians know a lot about these sorts of people, and have become experts at giving them what they want (something to be afraid of) in return for their vote, and the belief that the politicians take their unreasonable fears just as seriously as they do.
"And there again is where the liberal reading of the Constitution has failed us. The liberal reading of the Constitution is generally the reading that finds things within it that don't exist"
No sir. The fact is that governments (and indeed anyone with power) can read what ever they want in to the Constitution so long as it furthers their agenda. This is not a liberal reading of the Constitution. This is simply a reading that you don't agree with, and since you don't like "liberals" you can equate the two.
This is a logical fallacy.
Government of any stripe, whether liberal or democrat, or conservative or even neo-conservative like the Bush Administration, will always strain at the chains that bind it, in this case, the Constitution.
Sometimes those chains are stretched to breaking point, and the only difference isn't whether the government calls itself liberal or conservative. The only difference is whether the liberal members of the population, or the conservative members of the population, will agree with the change, or find it abhorrent. e.g. The Feds warrantless wiretapping OR The Feds regulating that states cannot make abortion illegal.
"I don't think a right to privacy is a bad concept, I just think we should actually amend it into the Constitution and not decree that it exists....."
Well, you're just blatantly wrong. The Constitution of the United States sets out and limits the powers of government. You cannot assume that if it isn't explicitly forbidden, then the Government has the right to do it.
Rather the opposite is true. If it isn't explicitly allowed, then the government does not have the right to do it.
Any basic reading of the text will show this, and studying the text more deeply will only confirm it.
The fact that a right to privacy isn't explicit in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, cannot be evidence prima facie that a right to privacy does not exist. It takes a particular type of right-wing nuttery to get to that assumption.
[B]Cartman[/B]: Hello. Is this the University of Colorado Biology Department? Great, uh I understand you're currently doing research on stem cells? Cool, because I'm currently in possession of some aborted fetuses that I'm looking to unload? Uh, how much do you pay? No, no, come on, I got a guy who's gonna give me eighty dollars a pound right now. How about a hundred? Oh you're breaking my balls! I'll think about it.
[B]Cartman[/B]: Bosnod Medical Group? Yeah, I called earlier about the stem cells and the fetuses? Okay, hi Randy, yeah. Oh yes, they've been kept in a cool temperature, yeah. They're supremo fetuses, Randy, I wouldn't jerk you around. So what can your company give me for 'em? Oh Randy, you're breaking my balls here.
[B]Cartman[/B]: Oh please! Okay, you tell me where you can get aborted fetuses for seventy cents on the dollar? You tell me, Chuck? Yeah, I didn't think so! You know, I'm just like the fetuses, Chuck. I wasn't born yesterday, either.
[B]Cartman[/B]: I gotta unload these fetuses, you wanna do some research. Are we talking here or what? You're breaking my balls. I'm telling you, if you let this deal pass you by, you're making a fetal mistake....A hundred ten. Alright, alright, we got a deal. Good bye.
The other day, my new thai girlfriend was tested for testicular cancer! And I think the doc *knew* he was being ridiculous, because he kept grinning at me.
I mean, yeah, she has larger hands than most women. And a prominent Adam's apple...
Next, he'll find the only five or six sites on the web that depict bestiality!
Exactly! There's so much bestiality on the net now, that if you google for "People having sex with goats on fire", google responds with "Too many results. Please specify type of goat."
The very idea that there are more word processors than MS Word still blows the mind of people like, say, my grandmother.
Use the pencil/pen/paintbrush analogy.
She needs to write a letter, on a piece of paper. She can choose a pen, a pencil or even a paintbrush to put her words down on the page. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.
OS/X is like the pencil. It's easy to use, but you can't change the lead. Linux is like the pen. It's easy to use, and you could, if you're careful and really want to, change the ink filling in the tube.
Windows is like slicing your arm open and dipping a paint brush into the wound. The you try to write your letter before passing out (program crashes). And you may get an infection (virus) too.
I remember people predicting this, mostly the scientists. They were told it was a bad idea. The gist of the flameage was "You are playing God!"
Ok, now it's happened. And as a society we lack the religious fear of god to say it is a bad idea. Let's make an actual decision based on facts and ignoring the religious folks who are already declaring it "immoral" or "wrong". They can't even agree it is a good idea and fearful religious types will almost certainly predict bad consequences.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember we Uh-Mericans can do anything!
Or, hire Mexicans/Poles/Indians to do it.
That's a logical, clearly reasoned and well thought out response to a hypothetical situation.
Which is why it will never be done.
9/11 was a far, FAR less traumatic event than a nuclear blast. And look at the fear-based trigger response that had, and the innocent people who took the brunt of that American fear response.
Governments are made of people. And people are stupid.
They haven't broken the law in their own country, despite what you or industry lawyers might like to believe.
legislated that pi be exactly equal to 3 or 22/7 or something.
Why can't we introduce the death penalty for stupidity?
"Is anyone anyone really afraid of terrorists?"
Yeah, I'm afraid there are a few chicken-little types who almost seem to get off on their fear. I've met a few in real life and more on-line. I remember talking to one woman in Australia who was working herself up into a panic over a terrorist attack in Oz. I told her it was never gonna happen, or at least unlikely in the extreme, and she reacted very badly to being told there was nothing to worry about.
I think some people want to be afraid. Maybe they're addicted to the adrenaline rush. Maybe they just think that it will make their lives more important somehow. Either way, they seem utterly immune to reason, and incapable of objectively looking at trigger-issues such as internet-porn, guns in school, pedophiles and terrorism.
I think politicians know a lot about these sorts of people, and have become experts at giving them what they want (something to be afraid of) in return for their vote, and the belief that the politicians take their unreasonable fears just as seriously as they do.
"And there again is where the liberal reading of the Constitution has failed us. The liberal reading of the Constitution is generally the reading that finds things within it that don't exist"
No sir. The fact is that governments (and indeed anyone with power) can read what ever they want in to the Constitution so long as it furthers their agenda. This is not a liberal reading of the Constitution. This is simply a reading that you don't agree with, and since you don't like "liberals" you can equate the two.
This is a logical fallacy.
Government of any stripe, whether liberal or democrat, or conservative or even neo-conservative like the Bush Administration, will always strain at the chains that bind it, in this case, the Constitution.
Sometimes those chains are stretched to breaking point, and the only difference isn't whether the government calls itself liberal or conservative. The only difference is whether the liberal members of the population, or the conservative members of the population, will agree with the change, or find it abhorrent. e.g. The Feds warrantless wiretapping OR The Feds regulating that states cannot make abortion illegal.
Clearly someone has neglected to emphasise the point that it should be a jury of ones *peers*.
And their showering frequency.
Why every morning, the average Trek geek steps into his shower, hums the Trek theme loudly for 60 seconds, and calls that a sonic shower.
Water hardly ever comes into it.
"I don't think a right to privacy is a bad concept, I just think we should actually amend it into the Constitution and not decree that it exists....."
Well, you're just blatantly wrong.
The Constitution of the United States sets out and limits the powers of government. You cannot assume that if it isn't explicitly forbidden, then the Government has the right to do it.
Rather the opposite is true. If it isn't explicitly allowed, then the government does not have the right to do it.
Any basic reading of the text will show this, and studying the text more deeply will only confirm it.
The fact that a right to privacy isn't explicit in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, cannot be evidence prima facie that a right to privacy does not exist. It takes a particular type of right-wing nuttery to get to that assumption.
Oblig Southpark :
[B]Cartman[/B]: Hello. Is this the University of Colorado Biology Department? Great, uh I understand you're currently doing research on stem cells? Cool, because I'm currently in possession of some aborted fetuses that I'm looking to unload? Uh, how much do you pay? No, no, come on, I got a guy who's gonna give me eighty dollars a pound right now. How about a hundred? Oh you're breaking my balls! I'll think about it.
[B]Cartman[/B]: Bosnod Medical Group? Yeah, I called earlier about the stem cells and the fetuses? Okay, hi Randy, yeah. Oh yes, they've been kept in a cool temperature, yeah. They're supremo fetuses, Randy, I wouldn't jerk you around. So what can your company give me for 'em? Oh Randy, you're breaking my balls here.
[B]Cartman[/B]: Oh please! Okay, you tell me where you can get aborted fetuses for seventy cents on the dollar? You tell me, Chuck? Yeah, I didn't think so! You know, I'm just like the fetuses, Chuck. I wasn't born yesterday, either.
[B]Cartman[/B]: I gotta unload these fetuses, you wanna do some research. Are we talking here or what? You're breaking my balls. I'm telling you, if you let this deal pass you by, you're making a fetal mistake. ...A hundred ten. Alright, alright, we got a deal. Good bye.
[B]Cartman[/B]: Damn I'm good.
The other day, my new thai girlfriend was tested for testicular cancer!
And I think the doc *knew* he was being ridiculous, because he kept grinning at me.
I mean, yeah, she has larger hands than most women. And a prominent Adam's apple...
Oh no.
Next, he'll find the only five or six sites on the web that depict bestiality!
Exactly! There's so much bestiality on the net now, that if you google for "People having sex with goats on fire", google responds with "Too many results. Please specify type of goat."
and you know they'll try for a mile.
This is why those types of idiots have to be resisted at every single step of the way.
anyone with a clue about the internet will know -why- it was chosen.
For the same reason that Hank the Angry Dwarf won the People magazine poll for most Beautiful Person of the Year?
"We want [country A] to change their laws, so that if a person in [country A] breaks our [country B] laws , we can prosecute them."
If [country A] != America and [country B] = American then GOOD
If [country A] = America and [country B] = !American then BAD
Well, I hardly ever see the Google main page. The search engine is embedded quite nicely into my Firefox UI.
I stand by my point though. On the web, JPG and PNG far outweigh the number of GIF files.
it does tie in nicely with the other two names, Unity and Harmony.
In fact, coupled with those two names, there won't be anything to indicate that Serenity has anything to do with Firefly.
If you're very good, I'll send you that laptop just before I max out your card.
So don't report it as stolen just yet, okay? Let the insurance suckers pay for the whole thing!
The very idea that there are more word processors than MS Word still blows the mind of people like, say, my grandmother.
Use the pencil/pen/paintbrush analogy.
She needs to write a letter, on a piece of paper. She can choose a pen, a pencil or even a paintbrush to put her words down on the page. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.
OS/X is like the pencil. It's easy to use, but you can't change the lead.
Linux is like the pen. It's easy to use, and you could, if you're careful and really want to, change the ink filling in the tube.
Windows is like slicing your arm open and dipping a paint brush into the wound. The you try to write your letter before passing out (program crashes). And you may get an infection (virus) too.
I think Dick van Dyke probably has more problems.
And just about everyone from Scunthorpe.
Remember back when GIF was the number one image type on the internet? And then there was a licensing issue?
Almost killed the use of GIF as a filetype. Gave rise to the predominance of JPG and the growth of the PNG format.
I can't remember the last time I saw a gif that wasn't animated (Which seems to the be preferred small moving animatic format. For now.)
I remember people predicting this, mostly the scientists. They were told it was a bad idea. The gist of the flameage was "You are playing God!"
Ok, now it's happened. And as a society we lack the religious fear of god to say it is a bad idea. Let's make an actual decision based on facts and ignoring the religious folks who are already declaring it "immoral" or "wrong". They can't even agree it is a good idea and fearful religious types will almost certainly predict bad consequences.
Fixed that for you.
I wouldn't mind too much if Futurama ran for 20 years. So long as after 9 - 12 years of mediocre crap, they had a slight return to form.
Bottom line is, if you mess with the British, they are going to shoot you a lot.
Speaking as an Irish man, you don't even have to mess with them. Just being in their general vicinity can be enough.
I know you were saying that for humour value, but honestly, I can see this being done.
We already have misleading headlines and misleading synopses on a slashdot front page, just so some tool can get his page hit count to go higher.
Pay-for-news stories will lead to a rash of headlines like :
"Brittney Spears naked (after the click through) admission of guilt, as she wonders if she's a good mother."
"Life on Mars (after the click through) as we talk to Harvey Keitel about his role as TV's Gene Hunt"
etc...