I didn't say to trust the government, I said we can only go on what information is given to us.
Uh... now who's having comprehension problems? What's the difference between trusting the government and just accepting the information that is "given to us"? Either way it's passive. What about DEMANDING answers?! I guess you don't believe in holding the government accountable. I know that there are true Americans out there who, unlike you, actually take this shit seriously. We can't let the government monitor our every action. That's not the government's purpose (seems an awful lot like a nanny-state, doesn't it?) and it's the first step towards fascism.
I'm sure that when President Hillary Clinton expands this program to include monitoring for instances of "hate speech" you'll still have no problems with it. "Hate speech" will be defined loosely as anything reeking of a conservative ideology. You won't be arrested of course. Just flagged and put into a database for further monitoring. Bitching about the government is basically terrorism, ya know. And terrorists must be stopped at all costs. Including limiting our freedom in exchange for empty promises of security. Right?
Until you have some evidence, though, it's just a conspiracy theory and has nothing to do with this topic.
No, it has everything to do with this topic. And whipping out the "conspiracy theory" canard proves that you have no case. Conspiracies happen all the time in Washington. If you're too naive to understand that then you're just a minnow swimming with the sharks.
If we all took your stance then we could assume the government is kidnapping babies out of hospital maternity wards and turning them into mutant super fighters. How do you know they're not? Because they told you so? You naive fool!
This was modded insightful?!!
Can you please let me know when, throughout all of human history, it was a good idea to blindly trust the government?
Lord knows the government has NEVER lied before, right? What the fuck are you smoking and can I get about 3 pounds of it delivered to my house?
And this doesn't even take into account the well-documented galaxy of lies spun by the Bush administration. The Bush regime is probably the most deceptive, despicable and heinous American presidency ever. So could you please explain to me again why we should blindly trust these people?
I think there's an obvious solution -- no corporations! Economies, both free and bonded, existed for thousands of years before the corporation was invented (by rich men to evade liability for criminal acts). How hard is that to understand? Well, I guess it is hard. Hell, I've never lived in a country without them. I'll admit that it's not easy to find examples, but that proves my point about the incredible pervasiveness of corporations.
As for Soviet-style economics, I think the idea should be to give more freedom/power to the people -- not to the government. Of course, in America the government is supposed to exist at the will of the people. We all know how that turned out. But I like the idea of people-power. In fact, I think we need more of it. I think we should have elections for just about everything, including the leadership positions of major utilities, like the power company, the phone company, etc.
My ideal power structure would look like this: The People > Government > Small Businesses/Utilities
Note the absence of major corporations. Yeah, that was intentional. I think it's fine to have large groups of people operating merchant-oriented enterprises, but would I give corporations "rights?" Hell no. Currently, corporations enjoy personhood status. This travesty must end. Corporations are NOT people! Corporations are immortal (and amoral), limited-liability, supremely-powerful institutions that can spawn offspring at will, influence elections, buy politicians and marshal a team of lawyers to defend their actions the way a king defends his castle. They have become a menace, a many-tentacled being that is virtually indestructible. I think we should hold people personally responsible for their actions. Enough of this limited-liability crap.
Also, I think the current power structure might have corporations on top. Within the international banking system the U.S. Government is just one more corporation (albeit one with a rancorous board of directors) to be controlled. It's worthwhile to note that our primary ideology is not democracy (we are a republic for one thing), but capitalism. And who are the Kings of Capitalism but the Bankers? Ask the Federal Reserve who it's primary shareholders are and then you will have a better idea of who really controls this country.
BTW, it's best not to assume that people are leftist simply because they see problems with the current corporate system. A better description for me might be "Green Libertarian" or "Radical" or "Nonconformist", but not "Democrat." I've never voted for a Democrat in my life.
There's certainly nothing to be concerned about here. Sure, the increasing prevalence of corporate influence in every sector of our lives is astonishing -- astonishingly profitable. That's why the economy is in such great shape -- because we let the corporations do whatever they want. Look how far it's gotten us! We've got highly edumacated students, a brilliant president and a society that values truth... as long as it doesn't get in the way of profit, which is how things should be!
The omnipresence of major corporations is not a bad thing -- it makes things so much better. Imagine if we didn't give corporations the keys to our kingdom. Who would be in charge then? People? Voters?! Pshaw! We need the benevolent hand of Wall Street to guide us to the promised land of low, low prices.
Now, let's all rejoice in Big Oil's concern for the welfare of our children. It's obvious that they know what's best for us, and they obviously have our best interests at heart! After all, they are oil men, and oil men are the most caring, compassionate and kind people ever to walk this green earth (although they actually hover a few inches off the ground).
It is a blessing that corporations care for us so much that they intervene in our daily lives. We can only hope that they will one day bring their bounty to slashdot.
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The video and the actions of the cops are certainly disturbing -- even frightening. But what scares me far more is the reaction of so many regular people (on this board, on YouTube, Digg, etc.), which seems to be that "He was acting like an asshole, therefore he deserved to be tasered multiple times."
What the fuck kind of reasoning is this? Making a scene is not an arrestable offense. Being rude, loud and obnoxious is not an arrestable offense. Bring up the Patriot Act while you're being tortured/arrested is not a taze-able offense. What the hell is wrong with you people?
The cops were clearly out of line. This is NO excuse for tasering a handcuffed person. NONE. All of you authority-worshiping psychopaths who are justifying the cops' actions need to look deep inside yourselves. Is this the kind of country you want to live in? Where people who step out of line (a trivial offense - not having an ID card after hours) deserve to be tasered repeatedly? If that's the kind of law&order country you want to live in, I suggest moving to North Korea where the officers don't have to worry about any pesky civil liberties getting in the way of things. Much more efficient that way.
Personally, I'll take an inefficient democracy over an efficient fascist government any day of the week. We must accept certain limitations when we embrace freedom. One of those is the right of others to behave in a way we don't like. The whole point of freedom is giving others a wide degree of latitude as to how they act.
Please don't respond with any diatribes beginning like this: "but, but, he broke THE LAW!!" No, he violated school policy, which shifted under his feet. He felt he was being racially profiled. Besides, there are so many laws on the books that it's almost impossible not to violate one per day (which is part of the creeping fascism reflected in this video). I bet almost every person here has broken a law today. Did you speed on the way to work? Download a song/movie? Did you make a complete stop at that stop sign? Well, I guess we should all be tasered repeatedly since that's how we're handling problems now.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but what happened to talking to a person (note, I didn't call him a "perp", a "suspect", a "criminal" or a "foreigner"), instead laying hands on him right away? These cops used tasers because their brains weren't up to the task. They used a taser for their convenience, rather than for our safety. This should have been a non-event. Kid makes big stink. Cops ask him to run home and fetch his ID. End of story. Instead, Officer Idiot decides he needs to be a Big Man and manhandle this kid. The kid isn't having it, so Officer Idiot whips out his taser to compensate for his tiny penis. Then he threatens to taser anybody who asks for his badge number. That is ASSAULT.
These fucking cops should be sitting in a jail cell right now. How can you defend these scumbags?
Now stand back and let us get to work. We live for this shit... To some people it's just a job, but not to us, man. It's a passion. When we saved those baby orcas by slashdotting all of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s servers it was like.... wow, man. I've never felt so free.
I don't think of myself as a hero. I'm just doin' my job, ma'am.
If I bothered voting I'd simply turn in a blank ballot, defeating your argument anyway.
Dude, you ARE the problem. If all of the people like you who don't vote actually got off their asses today and you ALL voted for Green or Libertarian candidates we would live in a whole different world tomorrow.
YOU are the one condemning me to this life of despair as I witness democracy die before my eyes. I'm at least voting, no matter how futile it may be. You think I give a fuck that most of my candidates get less than 1% of the vote? You think I care what other people think about my choices? Are you some sort of recent high-school grad who still follows cliques? You're not being rebellious. You're being a fucking coward. You gave up; Fuck you.
There are candidates for change out there. There are people who are just as pissed off at the system as you. They're the ones with a little "G" or "L" by their names. Get a fucking clue and go vote!
Bush has essentially given you a loan which will have to be paid back (with interest) by higher taxes in the future.
Ah, but those tax increases can be blamed on the Democrats who will be stuck cleaning up Bush's mess. Now you see the brilliance of the Republicans' stupidity!
In politics being responsible, rational or trustworthy simply makes you an easy target.
The Seattle WTO riots may have put "globalization" on the table and increased awareness, but it also created the perception that the anti-globalization movement is just a bunch of dirty hippies and bored college students.
Did you ever think that maybe the rest of the anti-globabilization crowd was busy....i dunno.... WORKING? Dirty hippies and a few professional activists are all we have, man. Those of us not in college need to put food on table.
And if you think the media would've covered it on their own, you're dreaming. Seattle 1999 was necessary. I fully support challenging globalization simply because we the people were never asked one way or another. The global elite have avoided this subject from day one and they will continue to do so.
The anti-globalization movement needs to seriously change gears if it wants to have traction with the US general public.
No, the general public will wake up when it always does: When it bites them in ass, right near their wallet. I think we'd be farther along than this by now if it weren't for Bush. He keeps creating new problems to distract us from this one. He has a talent for that.
You do realize, terrorists who live within this country have the same rights as you. Therefore without breaking the rights of those terrorists (which is what this bill does) then they are free to do as they please.
So we should "break the rights" of ALL American citizens instead?
You cowardly piece of shit. People fought and died for our rights and you're ready to chuck them out the window at the first sign of trouble?! If you are so scared of the terr'rists, why don't you go somewhere where the government has utter control over all its citizens. I hear North Korea is nice.
Meanwhile, us true patriots will stay here and fight the REAL terrorists -- the cowards and the fascists who have taken over our country and are busily destroying all our rights and freedoms and everything that made America great over the last 200 years. I refuse to surrender even a single liberty in the face of the fear. If you feel differently: Leave. We won't miss you.
For those who are ready to stay and fight, get ready to walk out of work on October 5th -- The World Can't Wait.
IANACL (I am not a constitutional lawyer), but doesn't it seem that this bill is blatantly and woefully unconstitutional? I don't get how they can think that violating every single American's 4th amendment rights simultaneously and continually could possibly be constitutional. Granted, the Supreme Court has been stacked with Bush with supporters, but I would hope that even those cronies could see this legislation for what it is: A get out of jail free card for Bush and a slap in the face of every single American citizen.
I guess we can look forward to a new amendment (after the one banning gay marriage) that repeals the 4th. Yay for democracy.
If there's going to be a massive left-wing campaign against cigarettes, there should be an even bigger one against the even more damaging alcohol industry.
Are you saying you want to see a million MADD commercials? Ugh. I'm against drunk driving, but those damn commercials are depressing as fuck.
And if there's nothing spoken against smoking marijuana, how can they reconcile that with being against smoking cigarettes?
Waaaaait a minute here. Nothing spoken against cannabis? Haven't you seen all those awful anti-pot ads that claim your life will be ruined forever if you smoke that joint? What about the ones that link illegal drugs to terrorism (which is true, perversely: The CIA smuggles drugs to fund it's black ops) or a hundred other BS ads? I don't even own a TV and I'm aware of these ads. Hell, the guvmint just uploaded a bunch to YouTube.
You may not be aware, but cannabis is illegal. Meanwhile, cigs are not. What about THAT double standard?
I just hate annoying people trying to dictate their beliefs on everyone else.
But isn't that what you are doing if you support the War on Drugs? (don't know if you do, just sayin')
And if you want a HUGE double standard, try this one: Whereas the government is getting free airtime to air it's bullshit propaganda lies about pot and potheads, those of us who want to see drug law reform can't even get ON the air because the big networks refuse to even air them, no matter how much NORML offers to pay. Is that America? Is that freedom? Anti-tobacco groups can put ads on TV. Anti-drug war groups cannot. You wanna be pissed at something? Maybe you should be pissed about that!
But I'm not going to lecture anyone else who exercises their free will and dares commit the ultimage sin against humankind by--horror--lighting a cigarette.
But you don't seem to have a problem with lecturing others.:-)
To be fair, I think the ads are more aimed at the Big Tobacco corporations than present smokers. Also, they're aimed at preventing kids from taking up smoking; surely you're okay with that?
I think the big lesson here is that you watch too much TV.:-)
That may be true *statistically* speaking, but do you actually believe that?!?!?!
Most folks just can't afford to smoke enough ganja to kill them.
That would be a LOT of ganja. As other posters pointed out, the LD50 of cannabis is many times your body weight. It's basically physically impossible. You'd be successful only if you suspended the cannabis from a height and dropped it on your head. Of course, then you'd be dead of blunt force injuries, not pot.
People say the CIA "gave Bob Marley cancer", but isn't a much more probable explanation is that massive ammounts of dope he smoked compromised his immune system?
I don't know anything about the CIA giving Bob cancer, but I wouldn't put it past them. A friend of peace is an enemy of the CIA (our homegrown terrorist organization).
Hey, however you gotta justify it to yourself. I just hope those EVIL college kids will leave you alone.
BTW, you are wrong about alcohol being much worse statistically than smoking. It's actually the reverse. Smoking kills about 400,000 Americans a year. Alcohol kills around 100,000 last I heard. Of course, cannabis kills 0, so... yeah. Can somebody explain that one to me?
Oh, okay, I gotcha. I host my blog on my own server, so I don't run into that limitation. I can see how it would be annoying if you're legitimately hosting images. On the other hand, I can see how they would be concerned about people stealing their images. I just had an image on my site externally linked by someone who posted the image on a discussion board. Then there's a bunch of hits on my server for that image from people who aren't even visiting my site. If the traffic penalty was larger I would've yanked the image. I can see how Blogger would get turned into a de facto image server if they didn't police this type of thing.
A good solution (if you can convince the bloggers you read to do it) would be to put the images on Flickr first and link to them that way. Services like Flickr are practically made for external linking (amongst many other things). I would hope that those images would show up in RSS feed readers.
That said, I think you would be able to see the images just fine if you weren't using Bloglines. There are a bunch of cool RSS readers out there -- software programs, I mean -- that should allow viewing of the images since they don't have to be first funneled through a separate website. I've used Bloglines and it's pretty slick, but you really can't beat a dedicated RSS reader like SharpReader or NetNewsWire unless you can't install software on your work machine.
What the hell are you talking about? Blogger allows images in its feeds just fine. Check out the atom.xml feed of one of your examples: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/atom.xml and you'll notice images. Lots of them. Not only that, I just subscribed to the feed in SharpReader and the images showed up just fine for me.
The problem is on your end. Get a decent feedreader and it should work for you.
Ummm... I don't think anybody was going there because of the website. Napster was technically a program that you downloaded and installed on your computer. It used different ports than good ol' 80 and it was not a website in any recognizable way.
Nothing wrong with Napster, I'm just sayin'!... If we let napster.com in, then why not let microsoft.com in?
Shouldn't we be concerned about the CIA's feelings? How are they supposed to assassinate people and overthrow governments without their black ops slushfund? You know, the one mostly composed of illict drug money from the CIA's drug smuggling activities?
This poor guy. I hope things turn out okay for him. Conversely, I hope the lawyers are eaten alive by a cauldron full of insane, demonic, snow-weasels. Or another group of lawyers. Whichever is more painful.
I would be surprised if the NSA is not intercepting every single call on those disposable cell phones. The free e-mail accounts might take a bit more work to monitor, but surely the NSA could ask their buddies at AT&T and other backbone providers to intercept all of the emails coming out of Iraq and forward them on to the NSA for scanning into their Echelon system. If the insurgents are managing to elude our intelligence gathering efforts with disposable cell phones and hotmail then what does that say about our vaunted intelligence agencies?
I'd bet that those calls are being recorded, too. But so what? How do you know who is calling whom if the phone can't be traced? Perhaps they steal the cell from businessmen, use them for a few days and then abandon them. The NSA could track them back to their legitimate owner, but what about the insurgent that was actually using it?
Without a relational database filled with tons of other personal information, just intercepting a phone call isn't going to do squat. You need voiceprint software, you need street-level info on the caller. Is he a real threat? Where does he hang out? Which faction is he involved with? Simply intercepting a call tells you none of this, usually. And how many Arabic speakers does the NSA employ? If it's anything like the CIA, not nearly enough.
You know, maybe we wouldn't be losing this war so badly if the NSA concentrated on getting intel in Iraq instead of spying on Americans at home. It seems that they are doing a bang-up job of infringing on our rights, but they haven't actually achieved any meaningful successes when it comes to defeating terrorism.
Kinda makes you wonder if fighting terrorism is the real goal....
From the summary: For its part, AT&T is asking a federal judge to keep those documents out of court, and to order the EFF to return them to the company."
Forbes has an article on how the EFF has won the first round by getting the judge to agree that the documents should be released. Of course, AT&T will get a chance to scrub them clean of "trade secrets", a loophole they will no doubt abuse. However, at least the judge is showing a willingness to get down into the nitty-gritty.
It's a widely held misconception. There's not a single shred of evidence that the US trained or paid OBL. Which is why your wikipedia article has to rely on The Guardian to get that 'fact'.
Do you have any links or facts to back that up? I provided links to prove my point. Your argument seems to consist soley of saying, "No. It doesn't. Nope." That's not very convincing.
By the way, you accused me of ignoring information, but you seem to be ignoring info because it comes from The Guardian. Pot and the kettle?
In reality, everybody who would have known about the relationship denies it, even the (now retired) CIA guys that worked in afghanistan at the time. They have confirmed that they didn't want to give money to OBL, and he wouldn't have taken it anyway.
So, the people who would have the most to lose if it was proven that they worked with OBL are denying that they did?! That's amazing! Who would've thought that those extremely-biased (you might even say "compromised" or "accused") people would deny involvement? Do you have any other revelations for me? [/sarcasm]
Bin Laden wasn't funded by the CIA. He wouldn't have taken American money anyway, and didn't need it besides. We did fund some groups that were associated with his Arab mujihadeen, but not his group directly.
"While the charges that the CIA was responsible for the rise of the Afghan Arabs might make good copy, they don't make good history. The truth is more complicated, tinged with varying shades of gray. The United States wanted to be able to deny that the CIA was funding the Afghan war, so its support was funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI). ISI in turn made the decisions about which Afghan factions to arm and train, tending to favor the most Islamist and pro-Pakistan. The Afghan Arabs generally fought alongside those factions, which is how the charge arose that they were creatures of the CIA.
I love how he tells us that the CIA was engaged in a coverup and then expects us to believe everything that comes after that. The CIA was aiming for that deniability for a reason. There wouldn't've been anything to deny unless they were also directly funding the Afghan Arabs, along with funneling funds through ISI. The CIA is the one with the cash after all. You think just because Bin Laden's daddy was rich that he didn't need money? War is expensive, and rich people need money more than the rest of us because they're used to buying their way through life.
Even the Wikipedia article on OBL mentions the CIA connection. It's a widely known fact, but not one that you're supposed to bring up in public because, just like NSA spying, we don't officially acknowledge that it happened, even though everyone knows it has. That's government for you.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh... now who's having comprehension problems? What's the difference between trusting the government and just accepting the information that is "given to us"? Either way it's passive. What about DEMANDING answers?! I guess you don't believe in holding the government accountable. I know that there are true Americans out there who, unlike you, actually take this shit seriously. We can't let the government monitor our every action. That's not the government's purpose (seems an awful lot like a nanny-state, doesn't it?) and it's the first step towards fascism.
I'm sure that when President Hillary Clinton expands this program to include monitoring for instances of "hate speech" you'll still have no problems with it. "Hate speech" will be defined loosely as anything reeking of a conservative ideology. You won't be arrested of course. Just flagged and put into a database for further monitoring. Bitching about the government is basically terrorism, ya know. And terrorists must be stopped at all costs. Including limiting our freedom in exchange for empty promises of security. Right?
Until you have some evidence, though, it's just a conspiracy theory and has nothing to do with this topic.
No, it has everything to do with this topic. And whipping out the "conspiracy theory" canard proves that you have no case. Conspiracies happen all the time in Washington. If you're too naive to understand that then you're just a minnow swimming with the sharks.
As for evidence, we have enough already to demand answers.
Or should we wait until the answers are "given to us"?
This was modded insightful?!!
Can you please let me know when, throughout all of human history, it was a good idea to blindly trust the government?
Lord knows the government has NEVER lied before, right? What the fuck are you smoking and can I get about 3 pounds of it delivered to my house?
And this doesn't even take into account the well-documented galaxy of lies spun by the Bush administration. The Bush regime is probably the most deceptive, despicable and heinous American presidency ever. So could you please explain to me again why we should blindly trust these people?
I guess since you don't know your history you're condemned to repeat it.
As for Soviet-style economics, I think the idea should be to give more freedom/power to the people -- not to the government. Of course, in America the government is supposed to exist at the will of the people. We all know how that turned out. But I like the idea of people-power. In fact, I think we need more of it. I think we should have elections for just about everything, including the leadership positions of major utilities, like the power company, the phone company, etc.
My ideal power structure would look like this: The People > Government > Small Businesses/Utilities
Note the absence of major corporations. Yeah, that was intentional. I think it's fine to have large groups of people operating merchant-oriented enterprises, but would I give corporations "rights?" Hell no. Currently, corporations enjoy personhood status. This travesty must end. Corporations are NOT people! Corporations are immortal (and amoral), limited-liability, supremely-powerful institutions that can spawn offspring at will, influence elections, buy politicians and marshal a team of lawyers to defend their actions the way a king defends his castle. They have become a menace, a many-tentacled being that is virtually indestructible. I think we should hold people personally responsible for their actions. Enough of this limited-liability crap.
Also, I think the current power structure might have corporations on top. Within the international banking system the U.S. Government is just one more corporation (albeit one with a rancorous board of directors) to be controlled. It's worthwhile to note that our primary ideology is not democracy (we are a republic for one thing), but capitalism. And who are the Kings of Capitalism but the Bankers? Ask the Federal Reserve who it's primary shareholders are and then you will have a better idea of who really controls this country.
BTW, it's best not to assume that people are leftist simply because they see problems with the current corporate system. A better description for me might be "Green Libertarian" or "Radical" or "Nonconformist", but not "Democrat." I've never voted for a Democrat in my life.
The omnipresence of major corporations is not a bad thing -- it makes things so much better. Imagine if we didn't give corporations the keys to our kingdom. Who would be in charge then? People? Voters?! Pshaw! We need the benevolent hand of Wall Street to guide us to the promised land of low, low prices.
Now, let's all rejoice in Big Oil's concern for the welfare of our children. It's obvious that they know what's best for us, and they obviously have our best interests at heart! After all, they are oil men, and oil men are the most caring, compassionate and kind people ever to walk this green earth (although they actually hover a few inches off the ground).
It is a blessing that corporations care for us so much that they intervene in our daily lives. We can only hope that they will one day bring their bounty to slashdot.
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What the fuck kind of reasoning is this? Making a scene is not an arrestable offense. Being rude, loud and obnoxious is not an arrestable offense. Bring up the Patriot Act while you're being tortured/arrested is not a taze-able offense. What the hell is wrong with you people?
The cops were clearly out of line. This is NO excuse for tasering a handcuffed person. NONE. All of you authority-worshiping psychopaths who are justifying the cops' actions need to look deep inside yourselves. Is this the kind of country you want to live in? Where people who step out of line (a trivial offense - not having an ID card after hours) deserve to be tasered repeatedly? If that's the kind of law&order country you want to live in, I suggest moving to North Korea where the officers don't have to worry about any pesky civil liberties getting in the way of things. Much more efficient that way.
Personally, I'll take an inefficient democracy over an efficient fascist government any day of the week. We must accept certain limitations when we embrace freedom. One of those is the right of others to behave in a way we don't like. The whole point of freedom is giving others a wide degree of latitude as to how they act.
Please don't respond with any diatribes beginning like this: "but, but, he broke THE LAW!!" No, he violated school policy, which shifted under his feet. He felt he was being racially profiled. Besides, there are so many laws on the books that it's almost impossible not to violate one per day (which is part of the creeping fascism reflected in this video). I bet almost every person here has broken a law today. Did you speed on the way to work? Download a song/movie? Did you make a complete stop at that stop sign? Well, I guess we should all be tasered repeatedly since that's how we're handling problems now.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but what happened to talking to a person (note, I didn't call him a "perp", a "suspect", a "criminal" or a "foreigner"), instead laying hands on him right away? These cops used tasers because their brains weren't up to the task. They used a taser for their convenience, rather than for our safety. This should have been a non-event. Kid makes big stink. Cops ask him to run home and fetch his ID. End of story. Instead, Officer Idiot decides he needs to be a Big Man and manhandle this kid. The kid isn't having it, so Officer Idiot whips out his taser to compensate for his tiny penis. Then he threatens to taser anybody who asks for his badge number. That is ASSAULT.
These fucking cops should be sitting in a jail cell right now. How can you defend these scumbags?
More rantings/info on my blog. Please don't taser me if you disagree with my opinions.
Yes. Yes, we will.
Now stand back and let us get to work. We live for this shit... To some people it's just a job, but not to us, man. It's a passion. When we saved those baby orcas by slashdotting all of S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s servers it was like.... wow, man. I've never felt so free.
I don't think of myself as a hero. I'm just doin' my job, ma'am.
Dude, you ARE the problem. If all of the people like you who don't vote actually got off their asses today and you ALL voted for Green or Libertarian candidates we would live in a whole different world tomorrow.
YOU are the one condemning me to this life of despair as I witness democracy die before my eyes. I'm at least voting, no matter how futile it may be. You think I give a fuck that most of my candidates get less than 1% of the vote? You think I care what other people think about my choices? Are you some sort of recent high-school grad who still follows cliques? You're not being rebellious. You're being a fucking coward. You gave up; Fuck you.
There are candidates for change out there. There are people who are just as pissed off at the system as you. They're the ones with a little "G" or "L" by their names. Get a fucking clue and go vote!
Ah, but those tax increases can be blamed on the Democrats who will be stuck cleaning up Bush's mess. Now you see the brilliance of the Republicans' stupidity!
In politics being responsible, rational or trustworthy simply makes you an easy target.
So, why did you censor the lyrics?
This is the fucking internet, dude.
Did you ever think that maybe the rest of the anti-globabilization crowd was busy....i dunno.... WORKING? Dirty hippies and a few professional activists are all we have, man. Those of us not in college need to put food on table.
And if you think the media would've covered it on their own, you're dreaming. Seattle 1999 was necessary. I fully support challenging globalization simply because we the people were never asked one way or another. The global elite have avoided this subject from day one and they will continue to do so.
The anti-globalization movement needs to seriously change gears if it wants to have traction with the US general public.
No, the general public will wake up when it always does: When it bites them in ass, right near their wallet. I think we'd be farther along than this by now if it weren't for Bush. He keeps creating new problems to distract us from this one. He has a talent for that.
So we should "break the rights" of ALL American citizens instead?
You cowardly piece of shit. People fought and died for our rights and you're ready to chuck them out the window at the first sign of trouble?! If you are so scared of the terr'rists, why don't you go somewhere where the government has utter control over all its citizens. I hear North Korea is nice.
Meanwhile, us true patriots will stay here and fight the REAL terrorists -- the cowards and the fascists who have taken over our country and are busily destroying all our rights and freedoms and everything that made America great over the last 200 years. I refuse to surrender even a single liberty in the face of the fear. If you feel differently: Leave. We won't miss you. For those who are ready to stay and fight, get ready to walk out of work on October 5th -- The World Can't Wait.
I guess we can look forward to a new amendment (after the one banning gay marriage) that repeals the 4th. Yay for democracy.
Same here.
If there's going to be a massive left-wing campaign against cigarettes, there should be an even bigger one against the even more damaging alcohol industry.
Are you saying you want to see a million MADD commercials? Ugh. I'm against drunk driving, but those damn commercials are depressing as fuck.
And if there's nothing spoken against smoking marijuana, how can they reconcile that with being against smoking cigarettes?
Waaaaait a minute here. Nothing spoken against cannabis? Haven't you seen all those awful anti-pot ads that claim your life will be ruined forever if you smoke that joint? What about the ones that link illegal drugs to terrorism (which is true, perversely: The CIA smuggles drugs to fund it's black ops) or a hundred other BS ads? I don't even own a TV and I'm aware of these ads. Hell, the guvmint just uploaded a bunch to YouTube.
You may not be aware, but cannabis is illegal. Meanwhile, cigs are not. What about THAT double standard?
I just hate annoying people trying to dictate their beliefs on everyone else.
But isn't that what you are doing if you support the War on Drugs? (don't know if you do, just sayin')
And if you want a HUGE double standard, try this one: Whereas the government is getting free airtime to air it's bullshit propaganda lies about pot and potheads, those of us who want to see drug law reform can't even get ON the air because the big networks refuse to even air them, no matter how much NORML offers to pay. Is that America? Is that freedom? Anti-tobacco groups can put ads on TV. Anti-drug war groups cannot. You wanna be pissed at something? Maybe you should be pissed about that!
But I'm not going to lecture anyone else who exercises their free will and dares commit the ultimage sin against humankind by--horror--lighting a cigarette.
But you don't seem to have a problem with lecturing others. :-)
To be fair, I think the ads are more aimed at the Big Tobacco corporations than present smokers. Also, they're aimed at preventing kids from taking up smoking; surely you're okay with that?
I think the big lesson here is that you watch too much TV. :-)
That would be a LOT of ganja. As other posters pointed out, the LD50 of cannabis is many times your body weight. It's basically physically impossible. You'd be successful only if you suspended the cannabis from a height and dropped it on your head. Of course, then you'd be dead of blunt force injuries, not pot.
People say the CIA "gave Bob Marley cancer", but isn't a much more probable explanation is that massive ammounts of dope he smoked compromised his immune system?
I don't know anything about the CIA giving Bob cancer, but I wouldn't put it past them. A friend of peace is an enemy of the CIA (our homegrown terrorist organization).
I think the real problem is that Bob brought it on himself when he let his religious beliefs take precedence over his medical health. He actually died from untreated cancer in his big toe (from a soccer injury) that he allowed to spread. As the linked article points out, Bob lived for 8 months after being given less than a month by doctors. Some people say the cannabis helped him eke out some more time.
Uhh... let me guess: You're a smoker.
Hey, however you gotta justify it to yourself. I just hope those EVIL college kids will leave you alone.
BTW, you are wrong about alcohol being much worse statistically than smoking. It's actually the reverse. Smoking kills about 400,000 Americans a year. Alcohol kills around 100,000 last I heard. Of course, cannabis kills 0, so... yeah. Can somebody explain that one to me?
Oh, don't worry; the system is definitely fixed. Very fixed.
A good solution (if you can convince the bloggers you read to do it) would be to put the images on Flickr first and link to them that way. Services like Flickr are practically made for external linking (amongst many other things). I would hope that those images would show up in RSS feed readers.
That said, I think you would be able to see the images just fine if you weren't using Bloglines. There are a bunch of cool RSS readers out there -- software programs, I mean -- that should allow viewing of the images since they don't have to be first funneled through a separate website. I've used Bloglines and it's pretty slick, but you really can't beat a dedicated RSS reader like SharpReader or NetNewsWire unless you can't install software on your work machine.
What the hell are you talking about? Blogger allows images in its feeds just fine. Check out the atom.xml feed of one of your examples: http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/atom.xml and you'll notice images. Lots of them. Not only that, I just subscribed to the feed in SharpReader and the images showed up just fine for me.
The problem is on your end. Get a decent feedreader and it should work for you.
#3 - Napster.com
Ummm... I don't think anybody was going there because of the website. Napster was technically a program that you downloaded and installed on your computer. It used different ports than good ol' 80 and it was not a website in any recognizable way.
Nothing wrong with Napster, I'm just sayin'!... If we let napster.com in, then why not let microsoft.com in?
I'm talking, of course, about the CIA.
Shouldn't we be concerned about the CIA's feelings? How are they supposed to assassinate people and overthrow governments without their black ops slushfund? You know, the one mostly composed of illict drug money from the CIA's drug smuggling activities?
Won't somebody PLEASE think of the CIA??!!!
This poor guy. I hope things turn out okay for him. Conversely, I hope the lawyers are eaten alive by a cauldron full of insane, demonic, snow-weasels. Or another group of lawyers. Whichever is more painful.
I'd bet that those calls are being recorded, too. But so what? How do you know who is calling whom if the phone can't be traced? Perhaps they steal the cell from businessmen, use them for a few days and then abandon them. The NSA could track them back to their legitimate owner, but what about the insurgent that was actually using it?
Without a relational database filled with tons of other personal information, just intercepting a phone call isn't going to do squat. You need voiceprint software, you need street-level info on the caller. Is he a real threat? Where does he hang out? Which faction is he involved with? Simply intercepting a call tells you none of this, usually. And how many Arabic speakers does the NSA employ? If it's anything like the CIA, not nearly enough.
You know, maybe we wouldn't be losing this war so badly if the NSA concentrated on getting intel in Iraq instead of spying on Americans at home. It seems that they are doing a bang-up job of infringing on our rights, but they haven't actually achieved any meaningful successes when it comes to defeating terrorism.
Kinda makes you wonder if fighting terrorism is the real goal....
Forbes has an article on how the EFF has won the first round by getting the judge to agree that the documents should be released. Of course, AT&T will get a chance to scrub them clean of "trade secrets", a loophole they will no doubt abuse. However, at least the judge is showing a willingness to get down into the nitty-gritty.
Do you have any links or facts to back that up? I provided links to prove my point. Your argument seems to consist soley of saying, "No. It doesn't. Nope." That's not very convincing.
By the way, you accused me of ignoring information, but you seem to be ignoring info because it comes from The Guardian. Pot and the kettle?
In reality, everybody who would have known about the relationship denies it, even the (now retired) CIA guys that worked in afghanistan at the time. They have confirmed that they didn't want to give money to OBL, and he wouldn't have taken it anyway.
So, the people who would have the most to lose if it was proven that they worked with OBL are denying that they did?! That's amazing! Who would've thought that those extremely-biased (you might even say "compromised" or "accused") people would deny involvement? Do you have any other revelations for me? [/sarcasm]
The long anwswer is, yes we did.
Bin Laden wasn't funded by the CIA. He wouldn't have taken American money anyway, and didn't need it besides. We did fund some groups that were associated with his Arab mujihadeen, but not his group directly.
Source, please? You're incorrect; Bin Laden was funded by the CIA. Even the Identifying Misinformation page, so helpfully and ironically supplied by the government, admits that:
I love how he tells us that the CIA was engaged in a coverup and then expects us to believe everything that comes after that. The CIA was aiming for that deniability for a reason. There wouldn't've been anything to deny unless they were also directly funding the Afghan Arabs, along with funneling funds through ISI. The CIA is the one with the cash after all. You think just because Bin Laden's daddy was rich that he didn't need money? War is expensive, and rich people need money more than the rest of us because they're used to buying their way through life.
Even the Wikipedia article on OBL mentions the CIA connection. It's a widely known fact, but not one that you're supposed to bring up in public because, just like NSA spying, we don't officially acknowledge that it happened, even though everyone knows it has. That's government for you.