Really. Isn't it about time we paid attention to who introduces this kind of legislation, and tossed them out on their ears?
I don't know anyone who's lining up to live in a police state. If they're our democratically elected officials, surely we can get rid of them once they demonstrate their intention to push this kind of thing.
I remember a time when getting slashdotted was quite an accomplishment. Today, it's some drunkard spilling beer all over his music collection, and playing the CD's b4 rinsing them off. =)
What is the U.S. protecting, in the Western Hemisphere? Here are two classic examples suggesting the U.S. has merely been protecting corporate interests, and has little or no concern for the people of the countries it "protects."
If we take the example of Cuba (from the 60's), Fidel Castro led a revolt against inhumanly oppressive conditions. He earnestly expected the "land of the free" to rally to his cause. Instead he was villified, and his country was been branded a "U.S. enemy."
http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ratb/cuba/cuba_ re v.htm
In 1954 the U.S. overthrew the first freely elected governemnt in Guatemala, because that government forced United Fruit (A U.S. backed corporation), to relinquish some of its land to the country's poor (so they could farm).
http://www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm
There are many more examples than this.. they are just two Carribean/Central American examples that spring to mind fastest. If you're thinking: "Yes, but that was so long ago." Has it changed? Why did the U.S. reinstall a king/dictator in oil-rich Kuwait, after "liberating" it?
Implicit in your question is the assumption that the U.S. is somehow passively protecting someone, or something, in Costa Rica. Personally, I can't answer that. Its neighbors are Nicaragua and Panama. Do either of them sound like a threat?:)
I do remember a thing or two about central American History. The U.S. has "meddled" with BOTH of Costa Rica's neighbors, recently: Panama and Nicaragua.
The U.S. invaded Panama in the 80's. If memory serves, the Panama war was unjustified, illegal and arbitrary. Somehow, U.S. criminal law was used to justify the war, and capture Noriega (for smuggling drugs). (?-jurisdiction-!?)
Also in the 80's, this time using communism as the justification, the US secretly backed a guerilla war in Nicaragua. In that war, the U.S. backed the Contras, who, it turns out, were funded by profits from cocaine sales.
My point? The U.S. is not always RIGHT. I've watched our military stomp around the world fighting non-UN wars, while media-agitated Americans at home wave their flags (or protest).
I'd rather sit a few "urgent crises" out, rather than watch another war. I don't think a half-cocked military makes anyone feel safer. If the U.S. had recently invaded BOTH of my neighboring countries, neither of which was doing any harm, I'd be REALLY happy if it demilitarized.
I tend to agree that the capacity to detect biological weapons looks beneficial. Who can deny that the military has developed some things which have helped us.
On the other hand, a person could ask: If our military is undeterred by a foreign country's weapons of mass destruction, does that remove an obstacle which would otherwise lesson the likelihood of war?
The U.S. never attacked the Soviet Union because the USSR had nuclear weapons, and the U.S. had no answer to that. Both countries would have been destroyed by nuclear conflict. (the MAD doctrine =) Both countries acknowledged the effectiveness of the arrangement, and signed the ABM treaty (anti ballistic missile treaty) - a treaty which banned development of things like SDI "star wars" missile defense.
Well, "star wars" sounded good. On paper, it would have stopped incoming missiles. Who would have denied its usefulness? It sounded beneficial.
However, when examined more closely, "star wars" would only have caught second strike nuclear weapons. Second strikes were the weapons to be launched AFTER your enemy had nuked your FIRST STRIKE nuclear weapons. In essence, this "peaceful missile defense shield" would have given the U.S. the capacity to initiate nuclear war without suffering retaliation.
The implementation of "star wars" would have destabilized an otherwise stable military / diplomatic arrangement by giving the U.S. the capacity to initiate nuclear war without fear of nuclear retaliation.
In conclusion, I think that the ability to detect the presence of biological weapons (and to respond defensively) sounds positive. On the other hand, if R&D in this area were upsetting a balance, and making war more likely / tempting, I would still question it.
That's right. Since 1948 Costa Rica has had no military. That was 55 years ago, and Costa Rica has not been invaded.
"...that the U.S. is facing dangerous foes."
Maybe the U.S. wouldn't be facing dangerous foes if it stopped BRANDING foreign countries as foes... meanwhile, if the U.S. military confined itself to U.S. borders, and respected the sovereignty of foreign countries, that should work like a charm.
I'd like to see the U.S. safe, too. In particular, safe from military-influenced policy.
By that rationale, we should restrict access to TV, books, magazines, CD's, DVD's, VCR tapes, handwritten notes, drawings, all internet file transfers, art, imagination, speech, and the eyes in our own heads.
After all, there's just no telling what could be distributed via these media.
But, first and foremost, lets restrict RIAA music CD's, given that we have no idea what might be stored on them. Here's an article which suggests that their net harm is potentially worse than anything shared on a p2p network:
http://www.aap.org/policy/01219.html
It would be a nice show of support from the industry [that's wasting our government's time, our money, and challenging our freedom] if they would kindly restrict themselves.
PS - The congress link off the main article was broken. Here's a working one - just choose the first item in the list:
Does this mean wealthy plantation owners can indulge in luxury while their 100 robot slaves toil, underoiled, living in squalid shacks?..and how about the robot sweatshops..?
It looks to me like the struggle of the labor movement, all over again.
Nothing against that model, but wouldn't it be better if they could only call your number if you'd opted in? Freedom of speech shouldn't apply to corporations.
The first ammendment was written to protect individual's free speech and political expression. It was not written to protect corporations, which did not even exist back then.
This system would need to have redundant vote counting, specifically by third parties, so that no single central vote counting location could mess things up, by accident or otherwise.
Basically, anyone with sufficient bandwidth should be allowed to register as a VOTE COUNTER, to double check the government's count. (thanks for the warning, florida)
If we have an indefinitely large number of neutral third party vote counting servers to verify that gw's cousin isn't corrupting the results, voter confidence might be improved.
red hat 7 shipped with the RPC port OPEN. ("mmm! hackers love noodles!") at least red hat gave me the capacity to close the port. so i rapidly learned admin basics, and locked my system down.
MS ships with DCOM (=RPC) open. windows DOESN'T allow me to close the port. instead it forces me to (1) wait a day for their server to be not bogged down (2) download a service pack, and spend 2 hours installing that. (3) download their patch. (4) hope that all this bullshit doesn't break my functional machine. (5) trust that they fixed the hole, but the port's still open (i just portscanned my patched machine-it's wide open).
so is MS chronically stupid, or is it leaving a deliberate backdoor on my system? how many users WANT a remote procedure call port open to any/every user on the whole friggin internet?
what did ms discuss with the "justice department," back in the day?
with Microsoft DCOM, port 135, your zipper's always down, and you have to trust bill gates that you're wearing underpants.
i appreciate the libertarian ideal, but once you're on the street, how are you going to pull yourself up by the bootstraps?
let's say you decide to do so.. you want to interview for a job. are you going use your word processor to get a resume ready? are you going to use your internet connection to search and email applications? going to use whose address / phone number on the resume? fax? interview clothes? insider connections who think you can hack it? shower?
or..are you just worried about your next meal, wondering if your campsite's gonna get raided, and how to hide your backpack?
there are a few programs to help people who've gotten into these circumstances, and i don't see much point in stickling the beneficiaries by forcing them to lose privacy to get help. it's HUMANITARIAN AID. so can't it be administered in a humanitarian way?
if you're worried about the money, target CORPORATE WELFARE. that's where it's bleeding.
somebody once told me that possession of 1000 hits of acid was prosecutable as "attempt to overthrow the government." personally, i think backroom corporate lobbyists (and the politicians who deal with them) should be prosecutable under that offense.
if you're worried about where the money goes, look there, rather than the pittance that makes its way to the homeless.
so do you mean the scan is.. need or maybe old age? or is it retirement? or is it getting beat by life?
old folks need to be cared for. and, regardless of your income & motivation, today, don't count on things being the same when you're at retirement age.
things can change a person's life, and make them not up to working a structured job. that doesn't make them crooks, and it doesn't lessen their need to for care.
work is what you do when you're: healthy, happy, energetic, optimistic, able to find employment, living in a good economy, able to buckle under to a supervisor, able to justify paying taxes to the New World Order, educated, racially and linguistically employable, not an addict, etc, etc, etc. just pick one of these, tweek it, and, for whatever reason, you might have an "unemployable person."
that's not a crook. it's a person without a job.
why don't you talk to some homeless, sometime? see if they look/sound, face to face, like people who should be denied toothpaste, a shower, laundry, food and a doctor once they hit age 55 on the street. or who should submit to databasing just to get help?
the u.s. defense budget for 2003 was $379 billion. over $1000 per american. for weapons that would SCAR YOU FOR LIFE, if you saw them used on another human being (communist or not).
and there's a bum on the street who needs some money. maybe a beer, b/c life kicked the shit out of him. which one's the SCAM?
i hope you don't have to find this out the hard way, but our system doesn't always produce "happy little worker machines who go out and shop all weekend." there are some folks out there who can't cope in that world.
what's the point of touting a new excuse to chop down trees?
how about biomass consumption of hemp? or grass / lawn clippings? leaves? or seaweed? or cornstalks, or wheatstalks? (NOT COBBS, which need to come off your damn dinner plate, and find their way BACK to the biomass center)
you know, the whole OCEAN lives on SEAWEED!
to be helpful, this biomass thing would have to consume a waste product which couldn't be used in any better way.
so. does the gassifier FART after wasting 60 lbs of tree?
Slashdot Mirror
find that in the real books. (i.e. the movie strayed considerably - and the shield maiden of rohan wasn't AT helm's deep for aragorn to lust after...)
so i've stopped expecting to be delighted by the accuracy of the movies. but maybe they'll still be fun to watch.
And what the hell is the point of such a scourge? As if the world needed a noncurable disease.. even for mice.
Yes, i'm here to apply for the "circus clown on 30 foot stilts job."
Really. Isn't it about time we paid attention to who introduces this kind of legislation, and tossed them out on their ears?
I don't know anyone who's lining up to live in a police state. If they're our democratically elected officials, surely we can get rid of them once they demonstrate their intention to push this kind of thing.
At least I think so. Wait. Do I have a license to think that?
I remember a time when getting slashdotted was quite an accomplishment. Today, it's some drunkard spilling beer all over his music collection, and playing the CD's b4 rinsing them off. =)
>oo -hic- oo
sorry that cuba link was broken - here it is: cuba
What is the U.S. protecting, in the Western Hemisphere? Here are two classic examples suggesting the U.S. has merely been protecting corporate interests, and has little or no concern for the people of the countries it "protects."
_ re v.htm
If we take the example of Cuba (from the 60's), Fidel Castro led a revolt against inhumanly oppressive conditions. He earnestly expected the "land of the free" to rally to his cause. Instead he was villified, and his country was been branded a "U.S. enemy."
http://www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/ratb/cuba/cuba
In 1954 the U.S. overthrew the first freely elected governemnt in Guatemala, because that government forced United Fruit (A U.S. backed corporation), to relinquish some of its land to the country's poor (so they could farm).
http://www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm
There are many more examples than this.. they are just two Carribean/Central American examples that spring to mind fastest. If you're thinking: "Yes, but that was so long ago." Has it changed? Why did the U.S. reinstall a king/dictator in oil-rich Kuwait, after "liberating" it?
I'd really like to see it change.
All this shows is that the country maintains its borders and police force.
Dire Circumstances? Like What? Spider monkeys? =)
Implicit in your question is the assumption that the U.S. is somehow passively protecting someone, or something, in Costa Rica. Personally, I can't answer that. Its neighbors are Nicaragua and Panama. Do either of them sound like a threat? :)
I do remember a thing or two about central American History. The U.S. has "meddled" with BOTH of Costa Rica's neighbors, recently: Panama and Nicaragua.
The U.S. invaded Panama in the 80's. If memory serves, the Panama war was unjustified, illegal and arbitrary. Somehow, U.S. criminal law was used to justify the war, and capture Noriega (for smuggling drugs). (?-jurisdiction-!?)
Also in the 80's, this time using communism as the justification, the US secretly backed a guerilla war in Nicaragua. In that war, the U.S. backed the Contras, who, it turns out, were funded by profits from cocaine sales.
My point? The U.S. is not always RIGHT. I've watched our military stomp around the world fighting non-UN wars, while media-agitated Americans at home wave their flags (or protest).
I'd rather sit a few "urgent crises" out, rather than watch another war. I don't think a half-cocked military makes anyone feel safer. If the U.S. had recently invaded BOTH of my neighboring countries, neither of which was doing any harm, I'd be REALLY happy if it demilitarized.
Costa Rica does have one thing I want: absence of idiots like yourself. =)
I tend to agree that the capacity to detect biological weapons looks beneficial. Who can deny that the military has developed some things which have helped us.
On the other hand, a person could ask: If our military is undeterred by a foreign country's weapons of mass destruction, does that remove an obstacle which would otherwise lesson the likelihood of war?
The U.S. never attacked the Soviet Union because the USSR had nuclear weapons, and the U.S. had no answer to that. Both countries would have been destroyed by nuclear conflict. (the MAD doctrine =) Both countries acknowledged the effectiveness of the arrangement, and signed the ABM treaty (anti ballistic missile treaty) - a treaty which banned development of things like SDI "star wars" missile defense.
Well, "star wars" sounded good. On paper, it would have stopped incoming missiles. Who would have denied its usefulness? It sounded beneficial.
However, when examined more closely, "star wars" would only have caught second strike nuclear weapons. Second strikes were the weapons to be launched AFTER your enemy had nuked your FIRST STRIKE nuclear weapons. In essence, this "peaceful missile defense shield" would have given the U.S. the capacity to initiate nuclear war without suffering retaliation.
The implementation of "star wars" would have destabilized an otherwise stable military / diplomatic arrangement by giving the U.S. the capacity to initiate nuclear war without fear of nuclear retaliation.
In conclusion, I think that the ability to detect the presence of biological weapons (and to respond defensively) sounds positive. On the other hand, if R&D in this area were upsetting a balance, and making war more likely / tempting, I would still question it.
-Sam
That's right. Since 1948 Costa Rica has had no military. That was 55 years ago, and Costa Rica has not been invaded.
"...that the U.S. is facing dangerous foes."
Maybe the U.S. wouldn't be facing dangerous foes if it stopped BRANDING foreign countries as foes... meanwhile, if the U.S. military confined itself to U.S. borders, and respected the sovereignty of foreign countries, that should work like a charm.
I'd like to see the U.S. safe, too. In particular, safe from military-influenced policy.
By the way, I own the brooklyn bridge. For a modest price, I'll sell you the right to cross it 24-7!
=)
It sounds to me like the car's what did them in.
=)
By that rationale, we should restrict access to TV, books, magazines, CD's, DVD's, VCR tapes, handwritten notes, drawings, all internet file transfers, art, imagination, speech, and the eyes in our own heads.
After all, there's just no telling what could be distributed via these media.
But, first and foremost, lets restrict RIAA music CD's, given that we have no idea what might be stored on them. Here's an article which suggests that their net harm is potentially worse than anything shared on a p2p network:
http://www.aap.org/policy/01219.html
It would be a nice show of support from the industry [that's wasting our government's time, our money, and challenging our freedom] if they would kindly restrict themselves.
PS - The congress link off the main article was broken. Here's a working one - just choose the first item in the list:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query
Does this mean wealthy plantation owners can indulge in luxury while their 100 robot slaves toil, underoiled, living in squalid shacks?
It looks to me like the struggle of the labor movement, all over again.
I cry for our robot brothers.
Nothing against that model, but wouldn't it be better if they could only call your number if you'd opted in? Freedom of speech shouldn't apply to corporations.
The first ammendment was written to protect individual's free speech and political expression. It was not written to protect corporations, which did not even exist back then.
i filtered all incoming tcp connections, but, from a port scan on that same machine, the port is still open.
whether it would look like that from the outside, i'm not sure.
This system would need to have redundant vote counting, specifically by third parties, so that no single central vote counting location could mess things up, by accident or otherwise.
Basically, anyone with sufficient bandwidth should be allowed to register as a VOTE COUNTER, to double check the government's count. (thanks for the warning, florida)
If we have an indefinitely large number of neutral third party vote counting servers to verify that gw's cousin isn't corrupting the results, voter confidence might be improved.
interesting. thanks, i'll play around with it. still got to wonder why it defaults to wide open.
red hat 7 shipped with the RPC port OPEN. ("mmm! hackers love noodles!") at least red hat gave me the capacity to close the port. so i rapidly learned admin basics, and locked my system down.
MS ships with DCOM (=RPC) open. windows DOESN'T allow me to close the port. instead it forces me to (1) wait a day for their server to be not bogged down (2) download a service pack, and spend 2 hours installing that. (3) download their patch. (4) hope that all this bullshit doesn't break my functional machine. (5) trust that they fixed the hole, but the port's still open (i just portscanned my patched machine-it's wide open).
so is MS chronically stupid, or is it leaving a deliberate backdoor on my system? how many users WANT a remote procedure call port open to any/every user on the whole friggin internet?
what did ms discuss with the "justice department," back in the day?
with Microsoft DCOM, port 135, your zipper's always down, and you have to trust bill gates that you're wearing underpants.
concerned? why not send him a letter?:
"DEAR BILL GATES,
AM I WEARING UNDERPANTS?
-SINCERELY YOURS,
A CONCERNED WINDOWS USER."
i appreciate the libertarian ideal, but once you're on the street, how are you going to pull yourself up by the bootstraps?
let's say you decide to do so
or..are you just worried about your next meal, wondering if your campsite's gonna get raided, and how to hide your backpack?
there are a few programs to help people who've gotten into these circumstances, and i don't see much point in stickling the beneficiaries by forcing them to lose privacy to get help. it's HUMANITARIAN AID. so can't it be administered in a humanitarian way?
if you're worried about the money, target CORPORATE WELFARE. that's where it's bleeding.
somebody once told me that possession of 1000 hits of acid was prosecutable as "attempt to overthrow the government." personally, i think backroom corporate lobbyists (and the politicians who deal with them) should be prosecutable under that offense.
if you're worried about where the money goes, look there, rather than the pittance that makes its way to the homeless.
so do you mean the scan is.. need or maybe old age? or is it retirement? or is it getting beat by life?
old folks need to be cared for. and, regardless of your income & motivation, today, don't count on things being the same when you're at retirement age.
things can change a person's life, and make them not up to working a structured job. that doesn't make them crooks, and it doesn't lessen their need to for care.
work is what you do when you're: healthy, happy, energetic, optimistic, able to find employment, living in a good economy, able to buckle under to a supervisor, able to justify paying taxes to the New World Order, educated, racially and linguistically employable, not an addict, etc, etc, etc. just pick one of these, tweek it, and, for whatever reason, you might have an "unemployable person."
that's not a crook. it's a person without a job.
why don't you talk to some homeless, sometime? see if they look/sound, face to face, like people who should be denied toothpaste, a shower, laundry, food and a doctor once they hit age 55 on the street. or who should submit to databasing just to get help?
the u.s. defense budget for 2003 was $379 billion. over $1000 per american. for weapons that would SCAR YOU FOR LIFE, if you saw them used on another human being (communist or not).
and there's a bum on the street who needs some money. maybe a beer, b/c life kicked the shit out of him. which one's the SCAM?
i hope you don't have to find this out the hard way, but our system doesn't always produce "happy little worker machines who go out and shop all weekend." there are some folks out there who can't cope in that world.
what's the point of touting a new excuse to chop down trees?
how about biomass consumption of hemp? or grass / lawn clippings? leaves? or seaweed? or cornstalks, or wheatstalks? (NOT COBBS, which need to come off your damn dinner plate, and find their way BACK to the biomass center)
you know, the whole OCEAN lives on SEAWEED!
to be helpful, this biomass thing would have to consume a waste product which couldn't be used in any better way.
so. does the gassifier FART after wasting 60 lbs of tree?