Seriously, I can think of no national emergency that would require the entire Web going off line
Where are you alarmist paranoids getting this? Where does anything talk about disconnecting the entire web? Or the entire US? Or the entire anything? Look:
I just talked to Jena Longo, deputy communications director for the Senate Commerce committee, on the phone. She sent me e-mail with this statement:
The president of the United States has always had the constitutional authority, and duty, to protect the American people and direct the national response to any emergency that threatens the security and safety of the United States. The Rockefeller-Snowe Cybersecurity bill makes it clear that the president's authority includes securing our national cyber infrastructure from attack. The section of the bill that addresses this issue, applies specifically to the national response to a severe attack or natural disaster. This particular legislative language is based on longstanding statutory authorities for wartime use of communications networks. To be very clear, the Rockefeller-Snowe bill will not empower a "government shutdown or takeover of the Internet" and any suggestion otherwise is misleading and false. The purpose of this language is to clarify how the president directs the public-private response to a crisis, secure our economy and safeguard our financial networks, protect the American people, their privacy and civil liberties, and coordinate the government's response.
What part of this comes anywhere near shutting people down because they criticized something or argued for something or anything political? Anyway, how would something like that even be possible? Someone criticizes the president...time passes...and now that the criticism is in the Google cache (and linked by a hundred other blogs), the Big Bad Gummint notices, comes in, and crushes the poor blogger under its iron boot? Have you ever heard of the Streisand Effect? Can you think of a more egregious textbook example? If you think they want to "stifle dissent" by shutting Internet connections down, you must think they're pretty damned stupid.
Whenever Obama indulges in his (far too frequent) vice of endorsing Bush policies, only more eloquent, the howls go up from the hordes who were shouting down opponents of the very same policies, back when the were Bush's.
I have free will because as far as I can tell I exercise it.
Or, put another way, you are not capable of perceiving the phenomena that constitute your deterministic behavior ahead of time. This should come as no surprise, since doing so would no doubt interact with that very behavior. Not to mention that we're all caught up in a Sensitive Dependence On Initial Conditions maelstrom on every level imaginable.
so why is it that the "liberal" state of California can't provide their own state run healthcare to their own citizens?
As you so unintentionally point out with your scare quotes, California's conservative policies include such idiocy as Prop 13 and the two-thirds supermajority requirement for approval of taxes or a yearly budget. Hand-tying obstructionist crap like this regularly screws us over, thanks very much to asinine Republicans.
There's very little point in arguing with people blinded by faith, so I doubt merely pointing out raw empirical facts will convince you of anything. But hopefully other people reading will discount your delusional--but mysteriously common--view a little bit more.
This view's dismaying commonness in the US stems, I believe, from the burst of refreshingly fact-free "I hates teh gummint" sentiment stirred up, and given actorly backing, by B-movie denizen Ronald Reagan. The delusion has been pressed for about two generations now, and so has managed to infect an alarming number of people.
But Photoshop is not "a tricked out" Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Elements is a crippled Photoshop. They already have Photoshop developed; they flip a switch and hey presto, lots of features are hidden. Pay up the extortionate fee, and we'll flip that switch back again.
This is not acceptable practice. That they have you not only suckered into believing that you deserve this treatment, but actually going out of your way to defend it publicly when you have nothing to gain by it (right?), is a testament to the ongoing corporatization of our society, and it's sickening.
FOX News definitely isn't balanced, but it's more balanced than the "we need more government control and bigger Congress-controlled programs"-biased CNN or MSNBC or ABC or CBS.
You must be joking. The myth of the "Librul Media", still?
The media in this country are vast corporations, more often than not owned by even vaster corporations, all thanks to the scourge of deregulation. Fox Noise is merely the most blunt in its editorializing for corporate causes. That the moronic Tea-Birthers have been given all the airtime they want should be evidence enough that this imaginary media-bias for liberal causes you speak of doesn't exist.
"In any health care proposal, how important do you feel it is to give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance--extremely important, quite important, not that important, or not at all important?"
Extremely Important: 58% Quite Important: 19%
That's 77% in favor. (Put that in your.sig and smoke it.)
As government grows, individual liberty wanes.
What codswallop. Situation A: you're paying through the nose to a profiteering private health insurance company that will do its best to avoid helping you. Situation B: you have better coverage, provided for less money, through a program run by your government, that is legally required to help you. Now, which situation gives you more liberty? I don't know about you, but I'll gladly trade in my "liberty" to get raped by a corporation for the liberty to live my life without worrying about being financially ruined for the rest of it because I got sideswiped in an intersection.
So in your eyes, "certain high output firearms (which inevitably means ALL firearms)" are equivalent to weapons of mass destruction. Have you every considered therapy?
Listen, if you want a firearm like the kind the Founding Fathers used, hey, knock yourself out. But multiply that sustained firing rate by a couple orders of magnitude, and you have a whole different category of weapon. If you can't see that, then there's no helping you.
So is that why they come to the U.S. to get their surgeries done
Listen, our unbridled profits lead to the lion's share of world's medical advances
[Citation needed]. Also, you're not allowed to count as "medical advances" things like irrelevant tweaks to a drug so its patent window can be started again -- there's those wonderful, productive profit motives again.
have you ever asked your mom: "But Bobby's mom let him do X, why can't I?" and gotten "I am not Bobby's mom" in response? Well, it's kind of like that
So what you're saying is, the vast majority of Americans, who want government-provided health care, can't have it because you said so?
shouldn't you be telling the Swiss that the fact that they keep their M-16s (read: high-output firearms) at home after their military service is negatively affecting their domestic tranquility, low crime-rate and all?
Tell you what, you get the US to institute an official national policy of neutrality in all conflicts, as well as universal mandatory conscription, and then we'll talk.
"Republic" and "democracy" are orthogonal. That a nation is a republic simply means the head of state is not a monarch. Whether or not it's also a democracy is a completely separate issue. In addition, if you're calling Teddy Roosevelt a commie pinko librul socialist Marxist Leninist, you might want to step back and reevaluate your outlook.
Now that we have that civics lesson out of the way, you can continue to spew your irrelevant rightist nonsense.
Ah yes, terrorism. The new boogieman that replaced drunk driving and child molesters.
Oh, believe me, they weren't replaced. Child molesters are for when you find others' sexuality uncomfortable and need to pass a law against it; drunk drivers are for being able to arrest anyone who drinks or drives (covers lots of cases, and magically allows you to set up police checkpoints wherever and whenever you want); and terrorists are for Dirty Foreign Brown People who have sneakily avoided the other two.
It seems you're ignoring the "PURPOSE" of the whole Constitution, which is defined by:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility[1], provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare[2], and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
[1] Not a lot of domestic tranquility follows when any idiot can brandish any powerful weapon he wants (thus, the liberty-crushing principles that grenades, fuel-air bombs, land mines, tanks, missiles, nukes, and certain high-output firearms should probably not be floating around the general public).
[2] I don't know about you, but most people's general Welfare pretty strongly hinges on having health care without worrying about becoming an indentured servant by taking it (thus, the socialist bogeyman of universal health care enjoyed by every other developed nation in the world (and some pretty undeveloped ones too)).
I'm having trouble finding any justification in there for border laptop searches, but of course I could be biased.
Yes, I'm sure Flickr has a full-time staff of people whose job it is to sift through random photos all day long, looking for ones that fall under several categories of things to get politically upset about, e.g.:
mocking Our One True Savior, Barack Hussein Obama
failing to properly glorify the Soviet paradise
showing Rush Limbaugh without requisite swastika, "666", or other evil identifier branded on forehead
So what? Are people seeing a Microsoft ad in Poland supposed to believe that Microsoft is not an American (or, dare I say, hugenormous transnational) company? Are they supposed to be duped into thinking this "Microsoft" company they're suddenly hearing about is some local Polish outfit? Seems like that would not be giving Poles much credit.
Slashdot Mirror
If they didn't have to worry about getting reelected, what incentive would they have to do what their constituents want?
[Citation needed], big time. It's the insurance-industry lobbyists and Tea-Birthers who are doing this.
Where are you alarmist paranoids getting this? Where does anything talk about disconnecting the entire web? Or the entire US? Or the entire anything? Look:
What part of this comes anywhere near shutting people down because they criticized something or argued for something or anything political? Anyway, how would something like that even be possible? Someone criticizes the president...time passes...and now that the criticism is in the Google cache (and linked by a hundred other blogs), the Big Bad Gummint notices, comes in, and crushes the poor blogger under its iron boot? Have you ever heard of the Streisand Effect? Can you think of a more egregious textbook example? If you think they want to "stifle dissent" by shutting Internet connections down, you must think they're pretty damned stupid.
Seriously, people, get a grip.
[Citation needed], seriously. Name five.
The Department Of Redundancy Department called, and they're demanding to see your license.
Or, put another way, you are not capable of perceiving the phenomena that constitute your deterministic behavior ahead of time. This should come as no surprise, since doing so would no doubt interact with that very behavior. Not to mention that we're all caught up in a Sensitive Dependence On Initial Conditions maelstrom on every level imaginable.
I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it, and more thoroughly than I would have. Kudos.
Well, seventh, but don't let real numbers stop you (why start now?): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_nominal_GDP#2008
This view's dismaying commonness in the US stems, I believe, from the burst of refreshingly fact-free "I hates teh gummint" sentiment stirred up, and given actorly backing, by B-movie denizen Ronald Reagan. The delusion has been pressed for about two generations now, and so has managed to infect an alarming number of people.
Pity us poor Americans.
Doctors?
So you're suggesting that doctors like it when people get injured?
Welcome to cynicism, terminal stage. It won't be long now till you're finished.
It's cute because it's homophobic.
How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care
I'll not go through the rest of your FUD point-by-point, but I'll just pick on this one:
What do you think your private insurance does? Just pay whatever is asked? Does the phrase "negotiated rate" ring a bell?
How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care
How Veterans' Hospitals Became the Best in Health Care
But Photoshop is not "a tricked out" Photoshop Elements. Photoshop Elements is a crippled Photoshop. They already have Photoshop developed; they flip a switch and hey presto, lots of features are hidden. Pay up the extortionate fee, and we'll flip that switch back again.
This is not acceptable practice. That they have you not only suckered into believing that you deserve this treatment, but actually going out of your way to defend it publicly when you have nothing to gain by it (right?), is a testament to the ongoing corporatization of our society, and it's sickening.
You must be joking. The myth of the "Librul Media", still?
The media in this country are vast corporations, more often than not owned by even vaster corporations, all thanks to the scourge of deregulation. Fox Noise is merely the most blunt in its editorializing for corporate causes. That the moronic Tea-Birthers have been given all the airtime they want should be evidence enough that this imaginary media-bias for liberal causes you speak of doesn't exist.
Now if you want people who are definitely biased in favor of, say, a strong public option for health care, you might want to point your neocon finger at the American public, who are clearly biased toward it -- by 3-to-1.
That's 77% in favor. (Put that in your .sig and smoke it.)
What codswallop. Situation A: you're paying through the nose to a profiteering private health insurance company that will do its best to avoid helping you. Situation B: you have better coverage, provided for less money, through a program run by your government, that is legally required to help you. Now, which situation gives you more liberty? I don't know about you, but I'll gladly trade in my "liberty" to get raped by a corporation for the liberty to live my life without worrying about being financially ruined for the rest of it because I got sideswiped in an intersection.
Listen, if you want a firearm like the kind the Founding Fathers used, hey, knock yourself out. But multiply that sustained firing rate by a couple orders of magnitude, and you have a whole different category of weapon. If you can't see that, then there's no helping you.
Where "they" means "an insignificant handful of cases"? http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/entry/study_debunks_myth_of_desperate_canadians_seeking_us_health_care/
[Citation needed]. Also, you're not allowed to count as "medical advances" things like irrelevant tweaks to a drug so its patent window can be started again -- there's those wonderful, productive profit motives again.
So what you're saying is, the vast majority of Americans, who want government-provided health care, can't have it because you said so?
Tell you what, you get the US to institute an official national policy of neutrality in all conflicts, as well as universal mandatory conscription, and then we'll talk.
"Republic" and "democracy" are orthogonal. That a nation is a republic simply means the head of state is not a monarch. Whether or not it's also a democracy is a completely separate issue. In addition, if you're calling Teddy Roosevelt a commie pinko librul socialist Marxist Leninist, you might want to step back and reevaluate your outlook.
Now that we have that civics lesson out of the way, you can continue to spew your irrelevant rightist nonsense.
This has not been established.
Because no one DMCAed the Bush ones?
Well, to be fair, you might throw them at Bush's head.
Oh, believe me, they weren't replaced. Child molesters are for when you find others' sexuality uncomfortable and need to pass a law against it; drunk drivers are for being able to arrest anyone who drinks or drives (covers lots of cases, and magically allows you to set up police checkpoints wherever and whenever you want); and terrorists are for Dirty Foreign Brown People who have sneakily avoided the other two.
It seems you're ignoring the "PURPOSE" of the whole Constitution, which is defined by:
[1] Not a lot of domestic tranquility follows when any idiot can brandish any powerful weapon he wants (thus, the liberty-crushing principles that grenades, fuel-air bombs, land mines, tanks, missiles, nukes, and certain high-output firearms should probably not be floating around the general public).
[2] I don't know about you, but most people's general Welfare pretty strongly hinges on having health care without worrying about becoming an indentured servant by taking it (thus, the socialist bogeyman of universal health care enjoyed by every other developed nation in the world (and some pretty undeveloped ones too)).
I'm having trouble finding any justification in there for border laptop searches, but of course I could be biased.
I like how you just admitted you're a troll.
Yes, I'm sure Flickr has a full-time staff of people whose job it is to sift through random photos all day long, looking for ones that fall under several categories of things to get politically upset about, e.g.:
After all, they are out to get you. BOO!
So what? Are people seeing a Microsoft ad in Poland supposed to believe that Microsoft is not an American (or, dare I say, hugenormous transnational) company? Are they supposed to be duped into thinking this "Microsoft" company they're suddenly hearing about is some local Polish outfit? Seems like that would not be giving Poles much credit.