The only way that you would have a prison on the Moon is if the cost of spaceflight drops significantly. If the value of a liter of water on the Moon is literally more valuable than a refined and processed bar of pure gold, nobody is going to be going to the Moon much less a hardened criminal. The economics of doing that simply aren't available.
I'll also note that it has been almost 30 years since somebody even went to the Moon, and it would take something substantial in terms of a major policy change to even see anybody go back to the Moon in the next 50 years, much less see a penal colony. I certainly wouldn't plan on anything like that happening, as 50 years is far too short of a time frame to even suggest such a notion.
Slavery started in "the south" (and the "north" of the British colonies like New York and Massachusetts.... which both had slavery in 1776) in part because the indentured servant program was deemed as ineffective. Poor people from Ireland and London's south end would move to America, and by the time their seven to ten years of servitude were done they finally had the skills necessary to be effective.... but their term of service was up. Several of these "servants" would also simply disappear into the American wilderness and set up farms or homesteads of their own where law enforcement to make sure these indentured servants would finish their terms of service was largely ineffective.
People of African descent stuck out as much more obvious and had a much harder time being able to disappear in a similar fashion. Yes, it was also utterly racist and some of the first people from Africa were also indentured servants, but the general process of indentured servitude wasn't really the problem. It was the more permanent status of general slavery and the fact that such a status could be inherited that caused the problems. I'll admit indentured servitude can lead to general slavery as well, but it doesn't have to be seen as something so ugly either. Strong limits simply need to be set on how it is implemented with a recognition that civil rights do apply to those "servants" as well.
That is not certain. If NASA is allowed to get private space going, then it is a certainty that by 2020, that NASA via private space will be on the moon. And likewise, within 5 years later, private space will go to Mars.
NASA doesn't need to "get private space going". What NASA needs to do is get out of the way and let the FAA Office of Commercial Spaceflight set the standards and do its job, and for NASA to assume more of a role like the NACA did back in the early part of the 20th Century towards aviation... but applied toward spaceflight too. If there is money to be made in space, the U.S. Federal government also needs to quit doing stuff like ITAR that deliberately undermines private space initiatives.
If the U.S. Federal government wanted to so something really impressive in terms of encouraging private spaceflight, Congress would pass legislation that would allow all companies and private individuals for the next 50 years to be able to avoid paying any federal taxes for any activities that primarily are conducted in space. Make it long enough for whatever laws get into place to be predictable and for some serious long-term planning to take place. It wouldn't be a huge loss for the U.S. government at the moment, because the amount of commercial activity in space is nearly zero, or at least so small that the loss of revenue wouldn't even be missed in terms of balancing the federal budget. That would also cut out that list of senators who are in effect damaging the American spaceflight efforts as their pork barrel projects really wouldn't matter and be seen as the irrelevant projects that they are.
There was a plan put forward a number of years ago to try and have a manned Soviet presence on Mars by 2017 (and the centennial of the October Revolution as a general goal). That would have been an amazing project if it had ever been pulled off so far as a really impressive and fitting accomplishment in terms of propaganda and publicity that certainly would have fit the old Soviet bureaucratic mentality. Unfortunately such plans ended with not just the death of Sergei Korolev, but also with the general collapse of the USSR, not to mention how the N1 rocket was shelved and officially disavowed that could have developed the technology necessary to pull off such an endeavor.
I certainly don't see anything that the Chinese are doing which could pull off anything close to that.
As much as this is suggested, I highly doubt it... at least not without somebody else going there first and developing the technologies independent of China.
While I will admit that China may be a major player in the future of spaceflight, their culture is one that does not encourage technological innovation, and their governmental system is also one that does not encourage innovation other than trying to figure out how to make stuff cheaper by cutting quality.
I am also not really impressed with the progress that they are making in terms of spaceflight. They are doing stuff, but it is very slow (especially compared to what the good old USSR did back in the 1950's and 1960's.... and don't even get me started with a comparison to NASA in the 1950's and 1960's) and their operational tempo is absolutely pathetic. By operational tempo, they are setting themselves up to a whole bunch of problems in the future because their ground crews and engineers simply aren't gaining any experience in actually putting people into space. It has been a couple of years since the last manned spaceflight by China, and people do forget how to do simple things if you don't practice those skills. For example, would you trust an aircraft mechanic who only repaired an engine once every 3-5 years? Why would you trust a rocket engine built by a team of technicians who only built one set of engines every 3-5 years?
On top of that, the operational tempo they have right now isn't even sufficient for maintaining a LEO space station, much less trying to establish any sort of outpost/base somewhere beyond LEO. They simply don't have the personnel who are trained with the experience necessary to get much done in space. Both Roscosmos and NASA have those people, and a number of private companies in both Russia and America have veterans of those programs to get private astronaut corps of their own going. This could change, but it would take a substantial increase in the Chinese space budget and a real commitment on the part of the Chinese government to really get stuff done in space. The European Union (either through the ESA or some other similar organization) might also get into the game, and to me they are the one other potential rival in terms of getting a substantial manned presence in space. The Europeans have the technology and the wealth necessary to pull it off, what they lack is the political will to accomplish much.
If the CGI was bad and the characters were bad, what was good about the movie?
It was politically correct to watch the movie due to the portrayal of a disadvantaged minority as the focus of the story.
That said, I think the Tuskegee Airmen certainly deserve any sort of kudos or honors accorded to them for their service, but the point of the movie was to be politically correct. That isn't a great way to start writing a script.
My local public library now allows me to login and access content electronically, including downloading PDF files and yes, even MP3s. It is technically a "checkin/checkout" system but the content is now handled completely electronically instead of through a physical medium and done over the internet. What MP3 files you can download are restricted and you can't upload files (at least not without some substantial intervention by the head librarian), but it is being done.
About the only thing that restricts this library from being literally available to everybody in the world is that you still need to physically show up at the library to get a patron card in order to access the service.
But it is legal to take a book home from the public library for 24 hours to review it and then return that book only to get another book from that library. Book publishers haven't been too happy about the situation, but the U.S. Copyright Office tends to be sympathetic to libraries (especially sense that office falls under the jurisdiction of the Librarian of Congress).
A really odd thing is how some public libraries are now "loaning" content electronically. How that works out is sort of weird from a legal standpoint.
There are a number of similarities between crafting legislation and writing software. The difference is that software eventually does have to pass through a machine in order to be useful and a machine is unforgiving if there are contradictory instructions in terms of what that machine should be doing. Legislation just passes those kind of instructions through and expects judges to figure out how to resolve those conflicts instead.
The problem with "fixing to a permanent medium" is something very tricky with computers and electronic technology. For very legitimate reasons web pages are stored on hard drives even if only for temporary storage. Even storing something just in RAM can be considered in the legal context as being in "a permanent medium".
All of this has been argued, not just on Slashdot but in legal briefs and even judicial rulings, so it is rehashing stuff that has been said in the past but it is a useful to note that laws written for printed works don't really go smoothly for content on computers.
BTW, there is the concept of personal fair use that is often ignored by folks like the RIAA. If you have somehow obtained copyrighted content through legal channels (viewed a web page, purchased a CD/DVD/flash card, or even a piece of sheet music) you can copy that content for "personal use" as much or as often as you want. There is even a legitimate need so far as doing that for archival purposes. Such "personal fair use" is even explicitly noted in US copyright law. The only thing you can't do is to redistribute that content without permission.
The problem with downloading from a known purveyor of illegal content is more along the lines of participation in a conspiracy to commit a crime as your are indirectly (or perhaps more directly if you sent money to support the server) supporting the illegal redistribution of that content. It is the person or company that is redistributing the content that is breaking the law.
Again, the problem of electronic devices gets nasty, because an ISP is treated as a "common carrier" that has specific laws that exempt them from being prosecuted for copyright infringement, and a similar kind of law applies to operators of generic websites that otherwise merely allow you to host content... such as YouTube or even DropBox. Anyway, that is where it gets real ugly and the law gets extremely confusing because contradictory laws get applied arbitrarily and inconsistently.
The problem for services like Napster, Freenet, BitTorrent, or even Wikipedia (more exactly for this purpose... the Wikimedia Commons) is the nature of the content being generally used with the service. Napster got into trouble because about the only thing it was really being used for was the illegal redistribution of copyrighted content.... not because very legitimate "open source" works could also be redistributed in that channel. On the other hand, the Wikimedia Commons generally doesn't have a problem with folks like the RIAA explicitly because the typical use of that service is for content to support Wikipedia (and the Wikimedia Commons goes out of their way to cull content that doesn't have explicit redistribution licenses). I quit using Freenet in part because a substantial portion of the bandwidth was being used for child pornography... if other more legitimate content was being carried on that network I'd be much more supportive. It is on this issue that the "free content distribution" projects wander from strictly legal issues and turn more political, and where law enforcement gets selective if most of what that project is doing is unsavory. Just because it can be used for legitimate purposes is often not sufficient for legal protection.
My original point was that it took legislative action to make the civil rights illegal. The only part of the constitution that is explicit in terms of a penalty for violating that provision of the U.S. Constitution is counterfeiting currency and coins. The rest depends mainly upon a legislative body (like Congress) to step forward and pass a law making violations of civil rights something which is actionable.... just as 42 USC 1983 (hint... a law passed by Congress well after the Constitution was ratified) is an example of that kind of action. Several state governments have passed similar laws, but it took explicit action to make that happen.
I didn't say that violating civil rights wasn't illegal, just that the enforcement of those rights is not in the Constitution. Provisions to stiffen penalties or to relax them to a mere hand slap are also possible by a mere majority voice vote in one of those legislative bodies (so you may not even find out who voted to overturn those protections). Your argument also doesn't deal with the issue of sovereign immunity.... which is real sticky situation in and of itself too.
officers (or anybody else) don't get arrested for violating rights, but instead for violating laws.
Are you saying that violating the civil rights of another citizen is not against the law?
Absolutely! Unless there is a specific law which has been passed by a legislative body to enforce civil rights and to exact penalties in the form of criminal charges, it isn't against the law. Sucks, doesn't it? If you think there ought to be penalties for violating civil rights, contact your elected representatives and get them to put such penalties into law. You might be able to file civil charges against a government agency who violates your civil rights, but then again there is sovereign immunity that can get in the way of even trying that approach (aka the government won't "permit" you to sue them). At best your only recourse is the ballot box or worse yet the ammo box. I wouldn't try the ammo box unless you were convinced you had support of your fellow citizens and you've tried other approaches first.
Second, police officers are arrested for violating laws, sometimes quite serious laws that have been broken.
Never meant to imply they didn't, was merely refuting parent's contention that I was alone in hyperbolic rhetoric.
It sure seemed like you implied that it never happened. I'll accept your refutation though that officers are arrested from time to time for breaking the law.
This isn't to say that sometimes the "blue wall" exists where a fellow officer will sometimes give a pass on something that us ordinary folk won't be forgiven for, but you don't need to be so cynical to say that they all get away with anything.
Again, I never said they "all get away with anything." Of course, a lot of crooked cops get away with a lot of crime, but I've met enough good cops (say, 1 out of every 50) to know the aren't all crooked... just most of the one's I've encountered.
You must have a whole lot of bad luck. "A lot of cops" could mean a dozen in a city near you, but such a non-scientific sampling is meaningless. There have been some municipalities noted for their corruption, including mayorial campaigns dedicated to cleaning up police departments along with some chiefs of police who have fired over half of their department's police force because of such corruption, so I'm sure you can point to some localities where it is a huge problem. I also happen to have a judge as an uncle and personally know through independent social means several police and law enforcement officers (a couple are neighbors literally in the next house next to mine). Otherwise decent people who raise families and go through other problems of everyday life. I don't think corruption is nearly as rampant as you are suggesting. It does depend on where you live though.
As a matter of public policy it is important to insist upon professional behavior from law enforcement officers... which usually takes care of these problems through internal reviews. Professional behavior also includes ratting on fellow officers, rather than being a gang of thugs that just happens to be in the employ of the government.
This is where I disagree; from an outsider standpoint, it appears that Internal Affairs is less focused on ensuring justice is properly meted, and more about protecting that "blue wall" and those who stand behind it.
Another way to look at it, how many non-LEOs do you know who have wrongly ended the life of another human, and been given 2 weeks paid vacation as punishment?
As a matter of fact there is somebody who lives in a nearby town that shot and killed a would-be burglar in a home-invasion robbery where they are going to be given essentially 2 weeks paid vacation (or a rough equivalent). They are not a law-enforcement officer either. I might
Which is why you need to make a judgement call on the issue. If it is something worth standing up for, something that will make life better for your children and grandchildren, perhaps it is wise to "take it on the chin" and take the arrest in protest against the action of that officer as a form of civil disobedience.
Failure to follow unlawful orders can also result in personal consequences in the military. It can also result in the end of your military career, so you need to know when to make that judgement call... if it ever comes up. It isn't an easy thing to decide.
If you don't want to be a coward, stand up and take the arrest. That has been done by numerous people, starting with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. (and others in the past as well). Civil disobedience has a proud tradition, and it has resulted in new laws being passed and/or disciplinary action taken against officers who screw up in arresting folks like these guys.
If you wish to claim your rights, you need to stand up for them.... but don't be an ass about it either. That implies you sit down and take the arrest rather than throw rocks or pull a gun on the officer and hope that the court system straightens things out.
If an officer orders you to disperse and you disagree with them, it is up to you to fight it out in the judicial system. Hopefully if the arrest was improper you get your record expunged along with an apology by either the town mayor or chief of police (at least the judge), but that is what you need to face. Otherwise, the guy with the gun is who you need to obey unless you want to face the wrath of getting that gun used against you in some fashion.
Where I disagree is when the officer takes active steps to destroy the video or "tamper with evidence" without a judicial order to do so. It should be made illegal to perform such actions.
Conceding to the actions of an officer of the law, regardless of how stupid or even flagrantly illegal they might be, is almost always the proper thing to do. You can politely inform the officer they are wrong and that their job in on the line if they act out of line, but otherwise it is best to treat them the same as some terrorist or armed thug with a gun and simply comply with whatever it is they are asking you to do. The hope with a society of laws is that if the officer is acting inappropriately they will be dealt with by their superiors and that the judicial system will give a damn about you as an ordinary person. Otherwise, you aren't even living in a society of laws so it doesn't really matter what you do at that point.
If the lie was something that materially impacted the cast, it become perjury... something that a police officer really doesn't want to deal with. Being convicted of perjury essentially ends that career as an officer as well, as every time that officer is called to testify in any future case the perjury charge can be brought up to discredit his testimony in the future.
The trick in this situation is to both prove that the lie materially impacted the result of your case (hard to prove) and to provide convincing evidence that the officer gave false testimony. Making stuff up out of his behind is not the same as a lie which will materially impact your case.
BTW, I have seen officers get caught red-handed with perjury. It isn't pretty what judges do to them afterward either.
Orson Wells was famous for using Ambulances as a taxi service, because he could get around mid-town Manhattan much faster with an Ambulance than with a conventional taxi service.
Such acts are currently illegal in most jurisdictions because of abuse like this in the past, where the only time you can turn on the sirens and/or lights is to respond to a bona fide emergency. None the less, a server crash might fit the technical scope of an "emergency" when it does involve official police business.
The only way that a constitutional amendment could be declared unconstitutional is if the process through which it became a part of that constitution was done in an unconstitutional manner. That is a very small loophole, and usually is something that is almost never tried (and has thus far always failed so far as amendments recognized by the U.S. Secretary of State and/or the National Archives).
That said, there are some rather vague parts of the U.S. Constitution that are open to interpretation, such as the Interstate Commerce Clause and finding "new rights" not explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights (such as what Roe v. Wade attempted to do in terms of a "right to an abortion").
The main thing that happens in terms of constitutional review though is that statutory law can be "set aside" because it conflicts with the constitution. New law isn't created, but instead the law is treated as if that law never existed in the first place.
Where American courts do create "new law" is with case law and "common law", when a legal question comes up that statutory law and constitutional law simply don't cover the situation. Most states also recognized earlier English "Common Law" precedence, at least the "Common Law" that existed prior to July 4th, 1776. It is rare that somebody cites legal precedence from the 15th Century to win a legal argument any more, but it is still a possibility in 49 of the 50 American states (Louisiana excepted.... because they use the Napoleonic Code instead and follow French/Spanish/Roman precedence instead of English).
Beg pardon, but what proof or evidence have you provided which would indicate that the Office of Internal Affairs (a group of fellow police officers, or "peers" as stated by parent) actually arrests other police officers for violating rights?
Two thing:
First, officers (or anybody else) don't get arrested for violating rights, but instead for violating laws. If your "rights" are violated you can sue to have those rights restored or for damages, which usually is enough to convince police departments to think twice about letting their officers do stupid things.
Second, police officers are arrested for violating laws, sometimes quite serious laws that have been broken. One officer near where I live has just been prosecuted for rape and sexual molestation for pulling over people and when a good-looking woman has been pulled over he would require certain sexual favors. Other officers are routinely arrested for violating the law, and "internal affairs" sections do perform their duties. It isn't pretty, and cleaning up a corrupt police department isn't easy, but just because you are a law enforcement officer doesn't exempt you from following the law. Google search for arrested law enforcement officers if you don't believe me.... it is too numerous for me to even bother citing specific instances.
This isn't to say that sometimes the "blue wall" exists where a fellow officer will sometimes give a pass on something that us ordinary folk won't be forgiven for, but you don't need to be so cynical to say that they all get away with anything. As a matter of public policy it is important to insist upon professional behavior from law enforcement officers... which usually takes care of these problems through internal reviews. Professional behavior also includes ratting on fellow officers, rather than being a gang of thugs that just happens to be in the employ of the government.
I think the prisoners in an American prison are treated much better than prisoners in a Soviet-era gulag in the middle of Siberia. The number of differences between a small town in Iowa and even 1970's Russia (heck, make that even 1970's Iowa if you want a comparison, but I presume you think the "police state" is more recent in America) is still quite substantial and personal freedoms still are substantially better in Iowa than in that Soviet-era small town you are presumably trying to compare.
At the moment, guns are not pointed at the borders preventing Americans from leaving, and it is still possible to stand on any street corner of America, holding a sign which proclaims "The President of this country is an ass and needs to leave office!" Blatant election fraud is not happening on a widespread scale, and when a clear majority of the citizens want somebody different in office it usually happens. If you think otherwise, that is fine, but please spare me the conspiracy theories on that topic.
So far, there haven't been millions of Americans forced out of their homes at gunpoint left to starve to death and die due to exposure simply because they are political dissidents. That did happen in Stalin's USSR. One reason he didn't have so many prisoners is in part because he killed those he considered very dangerous, so they didn't remain in prison all that long. In that sense, prison was merely something for torture.
I'm not disagreeing with you that there are some very disturbing trends in terms of increased authority for police officers in America, and I also would agree that the "war on drugs" is something that has filled up the prisons with people that really don't belong in them and would do much to reduce that notion that America has "a bigger prison population than Stalin". I am also concerned that America may get to that point, and that this intrusion of the government into our lives is something that needs to not only be stopped but reversed. Then again, I think that the whole of the government needs to be cut down substantially in America at all levels, and not just the military and police.
Members of congress usually are "on camera" at least when performing their official duties, such as when they are casting votes on various measures or in committee meetings. Those videos are not only live streamed to even watch your "congresscritter" as they are performing those duties, but archives exist to watch what they've been up to in those situations for several years including any speeches they've given or arguments they've offered for or against any measures and amendments that have been offered.
What they are doing when they meet in private with a lobbyist is another story, but even then there is no reason to assume privacy even in those situations.
I personally think your suggestion stinks, particularly as I don't care to see what a congressman may or may not be doing with their spouse and/or mistress. Besides, I also think there are times when somebody should simply have some private conversations or even some peace and quiet, even if they are an elected representative "of the public". What matters is what votes they cast on our behalf, and perhaps to a lesser extent to identify what may be motivating them to cast those votes (aka financial disclosure of campaign funds certainly is legitimate). You don't need a camera on that candidate 24/7 to get that information.
One huge difference though between a typical pre-order from a start-up vs. what these guys are doing is that the actual devices have been manufactured and physically exist at least somewhere on the planet. A typical start-up pre-order is based upon a device that is still "under development" and where the schematics haven't even been sent to a manufacturer, or even that a manufacturing facility hasn't even been decided upon yet.
In other words, this isn't a vaporware pre-order, but something that is merely in pre-order because the distribution chain is merely lagging a little bit until you can get a copy of your own. That is an important distinction.
I don't why people always decide to scan the originals sometimes the copies are in much better shape. If you ever seen the remastering of the original series then you know what i am talking about.
I would have to agree that you need to consider that some copies are likely in better shape than the originals, but in the case of TNG, I don't think that is the case due to the production system that was used when it was produced.
Star Trek: TNG was originally filmed with 35mm film stock and then transferred to a conventional videotape editing system before broadcast. The original negatives were barely touched and mostly left in their original archived state, where Star Trek was already considered a very lucrative franchise and something worth preserving as well (so it wasn't treated like yesterday's trash heap either).
The largest problem I would see is syncing the audio with the video and getting the correct scenes matching with the stuff that was put into the production version of each episode. That shouldn't be too difficult as such information was recorded when the films were originally edited, but it would take some effort to organize everything, and certainly take time to remaster each episode in this manner.
Slashdot Mirror
The only way that you would have a prison on the Moon is if the cost of spaceflight drops significantly. If the value of a liter of water on the Moon is literally more valuable than a refined and processed bar of pure gold, nobody is going to be going to the Moon much less a hardened criminal. The economics of doing that simply aren't available.
I'll also note that it has been almost 30 years since somebody even went to the Moon, and it would take something substantial in terms of a major policy change to even see anybody go back to the Moon in the next 50 years, much less see a penal colony. I certainly wouldn't plan on anything like that happening, as 50 years is far too short of a time frame to even suggest such a notion.
Slavery started in "the south" (and the "north" of the British colonies like New York and Massachusetts.... which both had slavery in 1776) in part because the indentured servant program was deemed as ineffective. Poor people from Ireland and London's south end would move to America, and by the time their seven to ten years of servitude were done they finally had the skills necessary to be effective.... but their term of service was up. Several of these "servants" would also simply disappear into the American wilderness and set up farms or homesteads of their own where law enforcement to make sure these indentured servants would finish their terms of service was largely ineffective.
People of African descent stuck out as much more obvious and had a much harder time being able to disappear in a similar fashion. Yes, it was also utterly racist and some of the first people from Africa were also indentured servants, but the general process of indentured servitude wasn't really the problem. It was the more permanent status of general slavery and the fact that such a status could be inherited that caused the problems. I'll admit indentured servitude can lead to general slavery as well, but it doesn't have to be seen as something so ugly either. Strong limits simply need to be set on how it is implemented with a recognition that civil rights do apply to those "servants" as well.
That is not certain. If NASA is allowed to get private space going, then it is a certainty that by 2020, that NASA via private space will be on the moon. And likewise, within 5 years later, private space will go to Mars.
NASA doesn't need to "get private space going". What NASA needs to do is get out of the way and let the FAA Office of Commercial Spaceflight set the standards and do its job, and for NASA to assume more of a role like the NACA did back in the early part of the 20th Century towards aviation... but applied toward spaceflight too. If there is money to be made in space, the U.S. Federal government also needs to quit doing stuff like ITAR that deliberately undermines private space initiatives.
If the U.S. Federal government wanted to so something really impressive in terms of encouraging private spaceflight, Congress would pass legislation that would allow all companies and private individuals for the next 50 years to be able to avoid paying any federal taxes for any activities that primarily are conducted in space. Make it long enough for whatever laws get into place to be predictable and for some serious long-term planning to take place. It wouldn't be a huge loss for the U.S. government at the moment, because the amount of commercial activity in space is nearly zero, or at least so small that the loss of revenue wouldn't even be missed in terms of balancing the federal budget. That would also cut out that list of senators who are in effect damaging the American spaceflight efforts as their pork barrel projects really wouldn't matter and be seen as the irrelevant projects that they are.
There was a plan put forward a number of years ago to try and have a manned Soviet presence on Mars by 2017 (and the centennial of the October Revolution as a general goal). That would have been an amazing project if it had ever been pulled off so far as a really impressive and fitting accomplishment in terms of propaganda and publicity that certainly would have fit the old Soviet bureaucratic mentality. Unfortunately such plans ended with not just the death of Sergei Korolev, but also with the general collapse of the USSR, not to mention how the N1 rocket was shelved and officially disavowed that could have developed the technology necessary to pull off such an endeavor.
I certainly don't see anything that the Chinese are doing which could pull off anything close to that.
As much as this is suggested, I highly doubt it... at least not without somebody else going there first and developing the technologies independent of China.
While I will admit that China may be a major player in the future of spaceflight, their culture is one that does not encourage technological innovation, and their governmental system is also one that does not encourage innovation other than trying to figure out how to make stuff cheaper by cutting quality.
I am also not really impressed with the progress that they are making in terms of spaceflight. They are doing stuff, but it is very slow (especially compared to what the good old USSR did back in the 1950's and 1960's.... and don't even get me started with a comparison to NASA in the 1950's and 1960's) and their operational tempo is absolutely pathetic. By operational tempo, they are setting themselves up to a whole bunch of problems in the future because their ground crews and engineers simply aren't gaining any experience in actually putting people into space. It has been a couple of years since the last manned spaceflight by China, and people do forget how to do simple things if you don't practice those skills. For example, would you trust an aircraft mechanic who only repaired an engine once every 3-5 years? Why would you trust a rocket engine built by a team of technicians who only built one set of engines every 3-5 years?
On top of that, the operational tempo they have right now isn't even sufficient for maintaining a LEO space station, much less trying to establish any sort of outpost/base somewhere beyond LEO. They simply don't have the personnel who are trained with the experience necessary to get much done in space. Both Roscosmos and NASA have those people, and a number of private companies in both Russia and America have veterans of those programs to get private astronaut corps of their own going. This could change, but it would take a substantial increase in the Chinese space budget and a real commitment on the part of the Chinese government to really get stuff done in space. The European Union (either through the ESA or some other similar organization) might also get into the game, and to me they are the one other potential rival in terms of getting a substantial manned presence in space. The Europeans have the technology and the wealth necessary to pull it off, what they lack is the political will to accomplish much.
If the CGI was bad and the characters were bad, what was good about the movie?
It was politically correct to watch the movie due to the portrayal of a disadvantaged minority as the focus of the story.
That said, I think the Tuskegee Airmen certainly deserve any sort of kudos or honors accorded to them for their service, but the point of the movie was to be politically correct. That isn't a great way to start writing a script.
My local public library now allows me to login and access content electronically, including downloading PDF files and yes, even MP3s. It is technically a "checkin/checkout" system but the content is now handled completely electronically instead of through a physical medium and done over the internet. What MP3 files you can download are restricted and you can't upload files (at least not without some substantial intervention by the head librarian), but it is being done.
About the only thing that restricts this library from being literally available to everybody in the world is that you still need to physically show up at the library to get a patron card in order to access the service.
But it is legal to take a book home from the public library for 24 hours to review it and then return that book only to get another book from that library. Book publishers haven't been too happy about the situation, but the U.S. Copyright Office tends to be sympathetic to libraries (especially sense that office falls under the jurisdiction of the Librarian of Congress).
A really odd thing is how some public libraries are now "loaning" content electronically. How that works out is sort of weird from a legal standpoint.
There are a number of similarities between crafting legislation and writing software. The difference is that software eventually does have to pass through a machine in order to be useful and a machine is unforgiving if there are contradictory instructions in terms of what that machine should be doing. Legislation just passes those kind of instructions through and expects judges to figure out how to resolve those conflicts instead.
The problem with "fixing to a permanent medium" is something very tricky with computers and electronic technology. For very legitimate reasons web pages are stored on hard drives even if only for temporary storage. Even storing something just in RAM can be considered in the legal context as being in "a permanent medium".
All of this has been argued, not just on Slashdot but in legal briefs and even judicial rulings, so it is rehashing stuff that has been said in the past but it is a useful to note that laws written for printed works don't really go smoothly for content on computers.
BTW, there is the concept of personal fair use that is often ignored by folks like the RIAA. If you have somehow obtained copyrighted content through legal channels (viewed a web page, purchased a CD/DVD/flash card, or even a piece of sheet music) you can copy that content for "personal use" as much or as often as you want. There is even a legitimate need so far as doing that for archival purposes. Such "personal fair use" is even explicitly noted in US copyright law. The only thing you can't do is to redistribute that content without permission.
The problem with downloading from a known purveyor of illegal content is more along the lines of participation in a conspiracy to commit a crime as your are indirectly (or perhaps more directly if you sent money to support the server) supporting the illegal redistribution of that content. It is the person or company that is redistributing the content that is breaking the law.
Again, the problem of electronic devices gets nasty, because an ISP is treated as a "common carrier" that has specific laws that exempt them from being prosecuted for copyright infringement, and a similar kind of law applies to operators of generic websites that otherwise merely allow you to host content... such as YouTube or even DropBox. Anyway, that is where it gets real ugly and the law gets extremely confusing because contradictory laws get applied arbitrarily and inconsistently.
The problem for services like Napster, Freenet, BitTorrent, or even Wikipedia (more exactly for this purpose... the Wikimedia Commons) is the nature of the content being generally used with the service. Napster got into trouble because about the only thing it was really being used for was the illegal redistribution of copyrighted content.... not because very legitimate "open source" works could also be redistributed in that channel. On the other hand, the Wikimedia Commons generally doesn't have a problem with folks like the RIAA explicitly because the typical use of that service is for content to support Wikipedia (and the Wikimedia Commons goes out of their way to cull content that doesn't have explicit redistribution licenses). I quit using Freenet in part because a substantial portion of the bandwidth was being used for child pornography... if other more legitimate content was being carried on that network I'd be much more supportive. It is on this issue that the "free content distribution" projects wander from strictly legal issues and turn more political, and where law enforcement gets selective if most of what that project is doing is unsavory. Just because it can be used for legitimate purposes is often not sufficient for legal protection.
My original point was that it took legislative action to make the civil rights illegal. The only part of the constitution that is explicit in terms of a penalty for violating that provision of the U.S. Constitution is counterfeiting currency and coins. The rest depends mainly upon a legislative body (like Congress) to step forward and pass a law making violations of civil rights something which is actionable.... just as 42 USC 1983 (hint... a law passed by Congress well after the Constitution was ratified) is an example of that kind of action. Several state governments have passed similar laws, but it took explicit action to make that happen.
I didn't say that violating civil rights wasn't illegal, just that the enforcement of those rights is not in the Constitution. Provisions to stiffen penalties or to relax them to a mere hand slap are also possible by a mere majority voice vote in one of those legislative bodies (so you may not even find out who voted to overturn those protections). Your argument also doesn't deal with the issue of sovereign immunity.... which is real sticky situation in and of itself too.
officers (or anybody else) don't get arrested for violating rights, but instead for violating laws.
Are you saying that violating the civil rights of another citizen is not against the law?
Absolutely! Unless there is a specific law which has been passed by a legislative body to enforce civil rights and to exact penalties in the form of criminal charges, it isn't against the law. Sucks, doesn't it? If you think there ought to be penalties for violating civil rights, contact your elected representatives and get them to put such penalties into law. You might be able to file civil charges against a government agency who violates your civil rights, but then again there is sovereign immunity that can get in the way of even trying that approach (aka the government won't "permit" you to sue them). At best your only recourse is the ballot box or worse yet the ammo box. I wouldn't try the ammo box unless you were convinced you had support of your fellow citizens and you've tried other approaches first.
Second, police officers are arrested for violating laws, sometimes quite serious laws that have been broken.
Never meant to imply they didn't, was merely refuting parent's contention that I was alone in hyperbolic rhetoric.
It sure seemed like you implied that it never happened. I'll accept your refutation though that officers are arrested from time to time for breaking the law.
This isn't to say that sometimes the "blue wall" exists where a fellow officer will sometimes give a pass on something that us ordinary folk won't be forgiven for, but you don't need to be so cynical to say that they all get away with anything.
Again, I never said they "all get away with anything." Of course, a lot of crooked cops get away with a lot of crime, but I've met enough good cops (say, 1 out of every 50) to know the aren't all crooked... just most of the one's I've encountered.
You must have a whole lot of bad luck. "A lot of cops" could mean a dozen in a city near you, but such a non-scientific sampling is meaningless. There have been some municipalities noted for their corruption, including mayorial campaigns dedicated to cleaning up police departments along with some chiefs of police who have fired over half of their department's police force because of such corruption, so I'm sure you can point to some localities where it is a huge problem. I also happen to have a judge as an uncle and personally know through independent social means several police and law enforcement officers (a couple are neighbors literally in the next house next to mine). Otherwise decent people who raise families and go through other problems of everyday life. I don't think corruption is nearly as rampant as you are suggesting. It does depend on where you live though.
As a matter of public policy it is important to insist upon professional behavior from law enforcement officers... which usually takes care of these problems through internal reviews. Professional behavior also includes ratting on fellow officers, rather than being a gang of thugs that just happens to be in the employ of the government.
This is where I disagree; from an outsider standpoint, it appears that Internal Affairs is less focused on ensuring justice is properly meted, and more about protecting that "blue wall" and those who stand behind it.
Another way to look at it, how many non-LEOs do you know who have wrongly ended the life of another human, and been given 2 weeks paid vacation as punishment?
As a matter of fact there is somebody who lives in a nearby town that shot and killed a would-be burglar in a home-invasion robbery where they are going to be given essentially 2 weeks paid vacation (or a rough equivalent). They are not a law-enforcement officer either. I might
Which is why you need to make a judgement call on the issue. If it is something worth standing up for, something that will make life better for your children and grandchildren, perhaps it is wise to "take it on the chin" and take the arrest in protest against the action of that officer as a form of civil disobedience.
Failure to follow unlawful orders can also result in personal consequences in the military. It can also result in the end of your military career, so you need to know when to make that judgement call... if it ever comes up. It isn't an easy thing to decide.
If you don't want to be a coward, stand up and take the arrest. That has been done by numerous people, starting with Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. (and others in the past as well). Civil disobedience has a proud tradition, and it has resulted in new laws being passed and/or disciplinary action taken against officers who screw up in arresting folks like these guys.
If you wish to claim your rights, you need to stand up for them.... but don't be an ass about it either. That implies you sit down and take the arrest rather than throw rocks or pull a gun on the officer and hope that the court system straightens things out.
If an officer orders you to disperse and you disagree with them, it is up to you to fight it out in the judicial system. Hopefully if the arrest was improper you get your record expunged along with an apology by either the town mayor or chief of police (at least the judge), but that is what you need to face. Otherwise, the guy with the gun is who you need to obey unless you want to face the wrath of getting that gun used against you in some fashion.
Where I disagree is when the officer takes active steps to destroy the video or "tamper with evidence" without a judicial order to do so. It should be made illegal to perform such actions.
Conceding to the actions of an officer of the law, regardless of how stupid or even flagrantly illegal they might be, is almost always the proper thing to do. You can politely inform the officer they are wrong and that their job in on the line if they act out of line, but otherwise it is best to treat them the same as some terrorist or armed thug with a gun and simply comply with whatever it is they are asking you to do. The hope with a society of laws is that if the officer is acting inappropriately they will be dealt with by their superiors and that the judicial system will give a damn about you as an ordinary person. Otherwise, you aren't even living in a society of laws so it doesn't really matter what you do at that point.
If the lie was something that materially impacted the cast, it become perjury... something that a police officer really doesn't want to deal with. Being convicted of perjury essentially ends that career as an officer as well, as every time that officer is called to testify in any future case the perjury charge can be brought up to discredit his testimony in the future.
The trick in this situation is to both prove that the lie materially impacted the result of your case (hard to prove) and to provide convincing evidence that the officer gave false testimony. Making stuff up out of his behind is not the same as a lie which will materially impact your case.
BTW, I have seen officers get caught red-handed with perjury. It isn't pretty what judges do to them afterward either.
Orson Wells was famous for using Ambulances as a taxi service, because he could get around mid-town Manhattan much faster with an Ambulance than with a conventional taxi service.
Such acts are currently illegal in most jurisdictions because of abuse like this in the past, where the only time you can turn on the sirens and/or lights is to respond to a bona fide emergency. None the less, a server crash might fit the technical scope of an "emergency" when it does involve official police business.
The only way that a constitutional amendment could be declared unconstitutional is if the process through which it became a part of that constitution was done in an unconstitutional manner. That is a very small loophole, and usually is something that is almost never tried (and has thus far always failed so far as amendments recognized by the U.S. Secretary of State and/or the National Archives).
That said, there are some rather vague parts of the U.S. Constitution that are open to interpretation, such as the Interstate Commerce Clause and finding "new rights" not explicitly mentioned in the Bill of Rights (such as what Roe v. Wade attempted to do in terms of a "right to an abortion").
The main thing that happens in terms of constitutional review though is that statutory law can be "set aside" because it conflicts with the constitution. New law isn't created, but instead the law is treated as if that law never existed in the first place.
Where American courts do create "new law" is with case law and "common law", when a legal question comes up that statutory law and constitutional law simply don't cover the situation. Most states also recognized earlier English "Common Law" precedence, at least the "Common Law" that existed prior to July 4th, 1776. It is rare that somebody cites legal precedence from the 15th Century to win a legal argument any more, but it is still a possibility in 49 of the 50 American states (Louisiana excepted.... because they use the Napoleonic Code instead and follow French/Spanish/Roman precedence instead of English).
Beg pardon, but what proof or evidence have you provided which would indicate that the Office of Internal Affairs (a group of fellow police officers, or "peers" as stated by parent) actually arrests other police officers for violating rights?
Two thing:
First, officers (or anybody else) don't get arrested for violating rights, but instead for violating laws. If your "rights" are violated you can sue to have those rights restored or for damages, which usually is enough to convince police departments to think twice about letting their officers do stupid things.
Second, police officers are arrested for violating laws, sometimes quite serious laws that have been broken. One officer near where I live has just been prosecuted for rape and sexual molestation for pulling over people and when a good-looking woman has been pulled over he would require certain sexual favors. Other officers are routinely arrested for violating the law, and "internal affairs" sections do perform their duties. It isn't pretty, and cleaning up a corrupt police department isn't easy, but just because you are a law enforcement officer doesn't exempt you from following the law. Google search for arrested law enforcement officers if you don't believe me.... it is too numerous for me to even bother citing specific instances.
This isn't to say that sometimes the "blue wall" exists where a fellow officer will sometimes give a pass on something that us ordinary folk won't be forgiven for, but you don't need to be so cynical to say that they all get away with anything. As a matter of public policy it is important to insist upon professional behavior from law enforcement officers... which usually takes care of these problems through internal reviews. Professional behavior also includes ratting on fellow officers, rather than being a gang of thugs that just happens to be in the employ of the government.
I think the prisoners in an American prison are treated much better than prisoners in a Soviet-era gulag in the middle of Siberia. The number of differences between a small town in Iowa and even 1970's Russia (heck, make that even 1970's Iowa if you want a comparison, but I presume you think the "police state" is more recent in America) is still quite substantial and personal freedoms still are substantially better in Iowa than in that Soviet-era small town you are presumably trying to compare.
At the moment, guns are not pointed at the borders preventing Americans from leaving, and it is still possible to stand on any street corner of America, holding a sign which proclaims "The President of this country is an ass and needs to leave office!" Blatant election fraud is not happening on a widespread scale, and when a clear majority of the citizens want somebody different in office it usually happens. If you think otherwise, that is fine, but please spare me the conspiracy theories on that topic.
So far, there haven't been millions of Americans forced out of their homes at gunpoint left to starve to death and die due to exposure simply because they are political dissidents. That did happen in Stalin's USSR. One reason he didn't have so many prisoners is in part because he killed those he considered very dangerous, so they didn't remain in prison all that long. In that sense, prison was merely something for torture.
I'm not disagreeing with you that there are some very disturbing trends in terms of increased authority for police officers in America, and I also would agree that the "war on drugs" is something that has filled up the prisons with people that really don't belong in them and would do much to reduce that notion that America has "a bigger prison population than Stalin". I am also concerned that America may get to that point, and that this intrusion of the government into our lives is something that needs to not only be stopped but reversed. Then again, I think that the whole of the government needs to be cut down substantially in America at all levels, and not just the military and police.
Members of congress usually are "on camera" at least when performing their official duties, such as when they are casting votes on various measures or in committee meetings. Those videos are not only live streamed to even watch your "congresscritter" as they are performing those duties, but archives exist to watch what they've been up to in those situations for several years including any speeches they've given or arguments they've offered for or against any measures and amendments that have been offered.
What they are doing when they meet in private with a lobbyist is another story, but even then there is no reason to assume privacy even in those situations.
I personally think your suggestion stinks, particularly as I don't care to see what a congressman may or may not be doing with their spouse and/or mistress. Besides, I also think there are times when somebody should simply have some private conversations or even some peace and quiet, even if they are an elected representative "of the public". What matters is what votes they cast on our behalf, and perhaps to a lesser extent to identify what may be motivating them to cast those votes (aka financial disclosure of campaign funds certainly is legitimate). You don't need a camera on that candidate 24/7 to get that information.
One huge difference though between a typical pre-order from a start-up vs. what these guys are doing is that the actual devices have been manufactured and physically exist at least somewhere on the planet. A typical start-up pre-order is based upon a device that is still "under development" and where the schematics haven't even been sent to a manufacturer, or even that a manufacturing facility hasn't even been decided upon yet.
In other words, this isn't a vaporware pre-order, but something that is merely in pre-order because the distribution chain is merely lagging a little bit until you can get a copy of your own. That is an important distinction.
I don't why people always decide to scan the originals sometimes the copies are in much better shape. If you ever seen the remastering of the original series then you know what i am talking about.
I would have to agree that you need to consider that some copies are likely in better shape than the originals, but in the case of TNG, I don't think that is the case due to the production system that was used when it was produced.
Star Trek: TNG was originally filmed with 35mm film stock and then transferred to a conventional videotape editing system before broadcast. The original negatives were barely touched and mostly left in their original archived state, where Star Trek was already considered a very lucrative franchise and something worth preserving as well (so it wasn't treated like yesterday's trash heap either).
The largest problem I would see is syncing the audio with the video and getting the correct scenes matching with the stuff that was put into the production version of each episode. That shouldn't be too difficult as such information was recorded when the films were originally edited, but it would take some effort to organize everything, and certainly take time to remaster each episode in this manner.
Admit what? That they have a real battery pack in their vehicles? I had no idea that anybody doubted that the Roadster was an electric vehicle.