It is absurd on its face to suggest that a policeman should be able to take you into custody without being able to tell you what law you broke (because it doesn't exist). To suggest otherwise allows any policeman anywhere in the US to take anyone into custody for any reason ("I didn't know that sitting on your porch drinking lemonade was not a crime, my bad").
I agree with you that we have too many laws and that no one (no matter what legal experience they may have) can know them all. However, in a JUST system, the outcome of this is that the police do not enforce laws they are ignorant of, or that they do not understand, rather than enforcing "laws" that do not exist.
The cops enforce the law selectively, incorrectly, or in ways they know to be blatantly false.
Your rant is dead on, but the above portion of it is accurate in even more ways than you might suspect--for example, the Supreme Court recently said that it;s OK for a police officer to arrest you, because of something that he THINKS is illegal, even if it isn't, because (and to quote Dave Barry here, "I am not making this up") it is unreasonable to expect a police officer to know all the laws they are enforcing.
So if you, Joe Citizen who has no training in law or any intersection with it, do something illegal that you did not know it was illegal, you can be charged, because "ignorance of the law is no excuse." If Joe Policeofficer arrests you for sitting on your lawn when that activity was perfectly legal, that's ok, because police can't be expected the know the law.
Honestly, the US today is like Franz Kafka, Joseph Heller, and George Orwell all got together and wrote a manual called "How to Fuck Up Democracy" and some assholes in government made it required reading.
This is not something new at all, and not at all at odds with the 4th amendment. The 4th amendment protects you from "unreasonable searches" - not *all* searches, and they can't issue the warrant in the first place without probable cause (as determined by a judge who signs the warrant). Lastly, the place to be searched (Facebook) and the things to be seized (photos and comments) are well specified. Where is the 4th amendment violation?
In the situation we are discussing, Facebook cannot argue that the search is unreasonable, because they lack standing. I agree completely that the government has the power to search (when properly sanctioned by the courts) but when an argument hinges on what is, or is not, reasonable, how you can say this protection is not violated by the prevention of the argument? The government has further ensured a situation where there is no one to argue the point, since the target of the warrant is not informed, either.
The thought experiment below ("someone else stolen a fictional pig) is quite similar to something I had started to write in my post above, but abandoned because my construct was not clear and muddied my argument. Thanks to the AC for making the argument for me.
Rights must be read broadly, and powers narrowly, lest the state (which has effectively unlimited resources) run roughshod over the people.
I'm sorry. I have a bonnet full of beans this morning because I have a stomach ache.
I had a doctors appointment this morning, and he did things to me that customarily involve at least dinner and a movie under normal circumstances, so I, too, feel the need to be technically correct (the best kind of correct!)
The idiom you're looking for is "bees in your bonnet" not "beans." The reference is to having a head full of ideas, though I believe you are using the more modern usage relating to irritation (which I believe comes from a time when women might wear floral arrangements in their headgear, which quite probably would attract pollinating insects. Having a bee in your bonnet would be quite distressing if it were literal. I do not, however, have any sourcing for this, it is merely an inference on my part).
The abuse of information obtained by secret warrants is a known fact and not up for discussion just because you're a government shill.
I agree wholeheartedly with your general points, but the above is simply unhelpful. People can have legitimate differences of opinion on a topic--or be ignorant of certain facts--and not be a "shill" for either side. Simply claiming that anyone you disagree with is involved in some conspiracy on the other side is not the way to win an argument.
2) Even if the warrant was improper, Facebook isn't the defendant here and isn't the right person to challenge it anyways. Let's say the prosecutors suspect that you used rat poison bought at the local mom & pop general store to poison somebody. And the mom & pop store doesn't have any computers - you paid cash and they just took an old fashioned carbon copy imprint of your credit card. So they get a warrant to go through all those paper receipts to prove that you bought the rat poison. The mom & pop store isn't in the position to challenge that warrant, only you are. This case with Facebook is the same thing just "on a computer"
This might be case law, but is entirely at odds with the plain language of the 4th amendment. You might be searching for information about the suspects, but you are searching the papers and effects of the mom & pop to do so! What about THEIR legal protections? Coupled with wonderful things like the good faith doctrine, and the above is, frankly, terrifying since the police could use anything they find against Mom & Pop, because they weren't searching for it when they found it.
It is apparent that the US is, if not already a police state, fast becoming one. Allowing the government even more power in criminal justice matters is a very bad idea, and we should weigh VERY heavily what we believe is acceptable.
5. Don't you wish you had a solar panel now? That will keep working, even in cloud cover. Enough for a fridge and microwave.
FWIW, grid tie solar is typically designed in a way that it doesn't work during local outages (with the intent of preventing your solar energy from backfeeding into the grid and potentially killing or injuring line workers). That's not to say that it MUST be designed in such a manner (transfer switches can solve the problem) but that it typically is.
It's not that hard a concept to grasp. You are changing the meaning of the word by robbing it of it's power to offend. If you change "nigger", or "faggot", or "gook", or what have you, into a casual greeting or display of affection, then if ceases to be offensive. People aren't calling you names, they are greeting you.
Except that as long as a white dude who says, "what's up my niggahz!" is seen as an insensitive, racist asshole, you're actually NOT doing the above. If you want to dilute the word to where it has no power, I think that's great, and wish all involved the best of success. If you want to ensure you can still use that word as a weapon against someone of the wrong color who says it, then I begin to wonder about your motives, and who the real racist is.
For example, there's been attempts at reclaiming the word, which is why you hear it in rap lyrics sometimes. [...] Meanwhile, there's also been a push to reclaim these kinds of words, which is why you sometimes hear it used in friendly conversation and song lyrics.
How the hell do you reclaim that particular word, and what kind of use would the reclaimed word be put to? My helicopter might go "wop wop wop," there might be a "chink in my armor," and when my wife throws a cup of ice water at me, I might end up with a "wet back" but I sure as hell cannot conceive of a non-insulting everyday use of "nigger." Also, your suggestion that, say, hip hop artists are using that particular word in an attempt to mainstream it (again, to what purpose?) is just absurd and smacks of grasping at any straw imaginable to justify your position that it's ok for some people to use it, but not okay for others.
The word in question belongs in the dustbin of history. People who get bent out of shape when they hear it should probably put pressure on their own communities, because other than a few backwoods idiots running around in sheets, the only thing keeping that word alive is popular culture which originates from the very people who should be most offended by its use.
FWIW, I sympathize with your plight. The "I have rich parents, but they disowned me, so now I can't afford education" situation really does suck, and there appears to be no desire by anyone to fix it. I assume this is to prevent people who don't need aid from structuring their lives to get it anyway, but that's cold comfort to someone in your situation.
Have you considered trying somewhere like Western Governor's University? It's not a diploma mill, and if you can self educate on top of what you're learning, you can seriously cut your costs down by accelerating your program.
If your household income is lower than $80k (IIRC), tuition is waived. Live at home and go to a local school rather than going to UC Berkeley when you're from San Diego, and you can have minimal living expenses (unless your parents charge you rent).
I'm by no means claiming things are easy, or would be utopic, but if someone were to focus on how to go to school on a budget, then doing so is certainly achievable. You can absolutely argue that someone who has the academic potential to attend a top tier school but cannot do so due to financial reasons is a tragedy (and I would agree), but as someone else noted, life isn't always fair.
The majority of people on this world either lack critical thinking and reasoning skills (not totally their fault they are conditioned since early childhood), or have the ability to ignore/go against it since they are more concerned with their own well being and daily troubles than worry about the issues troubling humanity as a whole.
I'll agree that the majority of people lack well developed critical thinking and reasoning skills, but I do wonder why you equate "being more concerned with your own well being and daily issues [than with some nebulously defined future state]" with a lack of critical thought? All things being equal, I wish our species as a whole nothing but the best now, and tomorrow, but if you tell me that, say, putting a bullet in my head right now is going to make the world a better place for "future generations," my well developed critical thinking skills are most certainly going to be more concerned with my own well being.
Does anyone know how much airport security there is for a small private plane or jet at the same airport they frisk your gran?
None. At all. Typically, they will cheerfully wave you through the door (often offering you fresh baked cookies first, at one of the larger FBOs) to where the aircraft are waiting.
Congratulations: you've refuted part of my argument, but, by doing so, have made my point. The story you're linking to is about a centuries old argument against the practice. How is this not an example of a religion changing?
The American Public has rights, an individual citizen has no rights.
Take note of the above, folks.
The next time you scream about the NRA and claim that the 2nd amendment is some sort of "collective" right instead of an individual right, remember that this is what we've been arguing against for the last couple of decades. Becasue once you redefine "the people" in the 2nd amendment, the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th are next on the list.
hell, name ANY religion that has changed even one bit since its creation.
I'm going to ignore the rest of your post (sorry, not jumping into THAT quagmire) and nitpick the above. The answer is "pretty much all of them." In fact, it's especially odd that you said this in a post about islam, which claims that their god is the same god ("of abraham and isaac") worshiped by both the christians and the jews. If that's not enough example of a change for you, when's the last time you saw a bunch of orthodox jews sacrifice an animal to yahweh? I won't even go into the changes that roman catholicism has seen over the last two millennia, but suffice to say that the current pope would probably be burned for heresy by his predecessors of just a century or two ago.
Religions, like everything, change over time. Changes can be small, or large, but they're always there.
Really? I've still got people that won't let go of XP, and even the keenest MS users in the place are planning to wait a bit to see if it's going to be another Vista or Win8. That's only one place but it may represent a trend.
You do raise an excellent point, but MS has never put "free" behind one of their upgrade efforts before, and Win 7 is already out of mainstream support. NOBODY wants to go through another migration at this point (XP-32 -> 7-64 was a massive effort, and many of us are still recovering from the hangover) but I think this is really a "get on the bus, or get left behind" moment.
People with the buying power will probably beat on Microsoft to give them more time and delay, but in the SMB space, it's going to happen.
Says the guy that won't even put a pseudonym behind what he has to say.
I've got some news for you, AC: just because someone expresses a viewpoint you happen to disagree with doesn't make them a shill. I've been a UNIX user since the 80s, a Linux user since 94 or so, a postfix and sendmail admin for over fifteen years, and helped run a dozen MMOs back when they had text interface and were called MUDs. GPL beats BSD, vi beats Emacs, and my windows desktop runs Xming so I can do real work from time to time.
What I said was not marketing, and is not even an endorsement. I was not claiming that win 10 is the best thing since sliced bread, but rather simply stating that the economics are impossible to ignore. Win 10 adoption is GOING to happen fast, and it's going to be driven by the "free upgrade, but only if you do it right now" bandwagon. That was my only point, and wishing it were otherwise isn't going to change what's going to happen.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have users be the testers? The ones who use the products all freakin' day long? What do IT people know about how the product is used by the masses?
Oh wait. Microsoft. They don't care what the consumers really want. They want to look cool. Double fail.
Do you point your desktop Linux users (okay, so I'm kidding) toward the bleeding edge/preview yum repos? No? Then why harp on MS for aiming their previews at IT people rather than end users?
Feedback is only good if it's listened to. As we have already seen with the demise of Visual Basic 6, the ribbon of Office 2007, the colors of Office 2013, and the not-desktop-or-start-menu of Windows 8.0, Microsoft does not listen to feedback.
Who the hell was screaming to keep VB6 around? Even the VB programmers I know almost universally hate it.
No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.
I believe that's going to change, drastically. Microsoft's path with Windows 10 (free updates from Windows => 7, as long as you do it within a year of release) is going to drive the fastest corporate OS migrations ever--for better, or for worse.
I know we're planning for it. It scares the hell out of us, but the incentive to move forward is so powerful there really isn't any other viable path.
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It is absurd on its face to suggest that a policeman should be able to take you into custody without being able to tell you what law you broke (because it doesn't exist). To suggest otherwise allows any policeman anywhere in the US to take anyone into custody for any reason ("I didn't know that sitting on your porch drinking lemonade was not a crime, my bad").
I agree with you that we have too many laws and that no one (no matter what legal experience they may have) can know them all. However, in a JUST system, the outcome of this is that the police do not enforce laws they are ignorant of, or that they do not understand, rather than enforcing "laws" that do not exist.
The cops enforce the law selectively, incorrectly, or in ways they know to be blatantly false.
Your rant is dead on, but the above portion of it is accurate in even more ways than you might suspect--for example, the Supreme Court recently said that it;s OK for a police officer to arrest you, because of something that he THINKS is illegal, even if it isn't, because (and to quote Dave Barry here, "I am not making this up") it is unreasonable to expect a police officer to know all the laws they are enforcing.
So if you, Joe Citizen who has no training in law or any intersection with it, do something illegal that you did not know it was illegal, you can be charged, because "ignorance of the law is no excuse." If Joe Policeofficer arrests you for sitting on your lawn when that activity was perfectly legal, that's ok, because police can't be expected the know the law.
Honestly, the US today is like Franz Kafka, Joseph Heller, and George Orwell all got together and wrote a manual called "How to Fuck Up Democracy" and some assholes in government made it required reading.
This is not something new at all, and not at all at odds with the 4th amendment. The 4th amendment protects you from "unreasonable searches" - not *all* searches, and they can't issue the warrant in the first place without probable cause (as determined by a judge who signs the warrant). Lastly, the place to be searched (Facebook) and the things to be seized (photos and comments) are well specified. Where is the 4th amendment violation?
In the situation we are discussing, Facebook cannot argue that the search is unreasonable, because they lack standing. I agree completely that the government has the power to search (when properly sanctioned by the courts) but when an argument hinges on what is, or is not, reasonable, how you can say this protection is not violated by the prevention of the argument? The government has further ensured a situation where there is no one to argue the point, since the target of the warrant is not informed, either.
The thought experiment below ("someone else stolen a fictional pig) is quite similar to something I had started to write in my post above, but abandoned because my construct was not clear and muddied my argument. Thanks to the AC for making the argument for me.
Rights must be read broadly, and powers narrowly, lest the state (which has effectively unlimited resources) run roughshod over the people.
I'm sorry. I have a bonnet full of beans this morning because I have a stomach ache.
I had a doctors appointment this morning, and he did things to me that customarily involve at least dinner and a movie under normal circumstances, so I, too, feel the need to be technically correct (the best kind of correct!)
The idiom you're looking for is "bees in your bonnet" not "beans." The reference is to having a head full of ideas, though I believe you are using the more modern usage relating to irritation (which I believe comes from a time when women might wear floral arrangements in their headgear, which quite probably would attract pollinating insects. Having a bee in your bonnet would be quite distressing if it were literal. I do not, however, have any sourcing for this, it is merely an inference on my part).
The abuse of information obtained by secret warrants is a known fact and not up for discussion just because you're a government shill.
I agree wholeheartedly with your general points, but the above is simply unhelpful. People can have legitimate differences of opinion on a topic--or be ignorant of certain facts--and not be a "shill" for either side. Simply claiming that anyone you disagree with is involved in some conspiracy on the other side is not the way to win an argument.
2) Even if the warrant was improper, Facebook isn't the defendant here and isn't the right person to challenge it anyways. Let's say the prosecutors suspect that you used rat poison bought at the local mom & pop general store to poison somebody. And the mom & pop store doesn't have any computers - you paid cash and they just took an old fashioned carbon copy imprint of your credit card. So they get a warrant to go through all those paper receipts to prove that you bought the rat poison. The mom & pop store isn't in the position to challenge that warrant, only you are. This case with Facebook is the same thing just "on a computer"
This might be case law, but is entirely at odds with the plain language of the 4th amendment. You might be searching for information about the suspects, but you are searching the papers and effects of the mom & pop to do so! What about THEIR legal protections? Coupled with wonderful things like the good faith doctrine, and the above is, frankly, terrifying since the police could use anything they find against Mom & Pop, because they weren't searching for it when they found it.
It is apparent that the US is, if not already a police state, fast becoming one. Allowing the government even more power in criminal justice matters is a very bad idea, and we should weigh VERY heavily what we believe is acceptable.
It's awesome that a judge apparently created a new crime because he deicided that the legislature was wrong.
5. Don't you wish you had a solar panel now? That will keep working, even in cloud cover. Enough for a fridge and microwave.
FWIW, grid tie solar is typically designed in a way that it doesn't work during local outages (with the intent of preventing your solar energy from backfeeding into the grid and potentially killing or injuring line workers). That's not to say that it MUST be designed in such a manner (transfer switches can solve the problem) but that it typically is.
The phrase "they hate us for our freedom" is finally true.
It's not that hard a concept to grasp. You are changing the meaning of the word by robbing it of it's power to offend. If you change "nigger", or "faggot", or "gook", or what have you, into a casual greeting or display of affection, then if ceases to be offensive. People aren't calling you names, they are greeting you.
Except that as long as a white dude who says, "what's up my niggahz!" is seen as an insensitive, racist asshole, you're actually NOT doing the above. If you want to dilute the word to where it has no power, I think that's great, and wish all involved the best of success. If you want to ensure you can still use that word as a weapon against someone of the wrong color who says it, then I begin to wonder about your motives, and who the real racist is.
For example, there's been attempts at reclaiming the word, which is why you hear it in rap lyrics sometimes.
[...]
Meanwhile, there's also been a push to reclaim these kinds of words, which is why you sometimes hear it used in friendly conversation and song lyrics.
How the hell do you reclaim that particular word, and what kind of use would the reclaimed word be put to? My helicopter might go "wop wop wop," there might be a "chink in my armor," and when my wife throws a cup of ice water at me, I might end up with a "wet back" but I sure as hell cannot conceive of a non-insulting everyday use of "nigger." Also, your suggestion that, say, hip hop artists are using that particular word in an attempt to mainstream it (again, to what purpose?) is just absurd and smacks of grasping at any straw imaginable to justify your position that it's ok for some people to use it, but not okay for others.
The word in question belongs in the dustbin of history. People who get bent out of shape when they hear it should probably put pressure on their own communities, because other than a few backwoods idiots running around in sheets, the only thing keeping that word alive is popular culture which originates from the very people who should be most offended by its use.
FWIW, I sympathize with your plight. The "I have rich parents, but they disowned me, so now I can't afford education" situation really does suck, and there appears to be no desire by anyone to fix it. I assume this is to prevent people who don't need aid from structuring their lives to get it anyway, but that's cold comfort to someone in your situation.
Have you considered trying somewhere like Western Governor's University? It's not a diploma mill, and if you can self educate on top of what you're learning, you can seriously cut your costs down by accelerating your program.
If your household income is lower than $80k (IIRC), tuition is waived. Live at home and go to a local school rather than going to UC Berkeley when you're from San Diego, and you can have minimal living expenses (unless your parents charge you rent).
I'm by no means claiming things are easy, or would be utopic, but if someone were to focus on how to go to school on a budget, then doing so is certainly achievable. You can absolutely argue that someone who has the academic potential to attend a top tier school but cannot do so due to financial reasons is a tragedy (and I would agree), but as someone else noted, life isn't always fair.
The majority of people on this world either lack critical thinking and reasoning skills (not totally their fault they are conditioned since early childhood), or have the ability to ignore/go against it since they are more concerned with their own well being and daily troubles than worry about the issues troubling humanity as a whole.
I'll agree that the majority of people lack well developed critical thinking and reasoning skills, but I do wonder why you equate "being more concerned with your own well being and daily issues [than with some nebulously defined future state]" with a lack of critical thought? All things being equal, I wish our species as a whole nothing but the best now, and tomorrow, but if you tell me that, say, putting a bullet in my head right now is going to make the world a better place for "future generations," my well developed critical thinking skills are most certainly going to be more concerned with my own well being.
Does anyone know how much airport security there is for a small private plane or jet at the same airport they frisk your gran?
None. At all. Typically, they will cheerfully wave you through the door (often offering you fresh baked cookies first, at one of the larger FBOs) to where the aircraft are waiting.
Not problems like 'what is beauty?' Because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems.
You beat me to it, dammit.
Congratulations: you've refuted part of my argument, but, by doing so, have made my point. The story you're linking to is about a centuries old argument against the practice. How is this not an example of a religion changing?
The American Public has rights, an individual citizen has no rights.
Take note of the above, folks.
The next time you scream about the NRA and claim that the 2nd amendment is some sort of "collective" right instead of an individual right, remember that this is what we've been arguing against for the last couple of decades. Becasue once you redefine "the people" in the 2nd amendment, the 1st, 4th, 9th, and 10th are next on the list.
The UN is great for what it's supposed to do -- prevent WWIII. It has been 100% effective at it.
Correlation is not causality.
hell, name ANY religion that has changed even one bit since its creation.
I'm going to ignore the rest of your post (sorry, not jumping into THAT quagmire) and nitpick the above. The answer is "pretty much all of them." In fact, it's especially odd that you said this in a post about islam, which claims that their god is the same god ("of abraham and isaac") worshiped by both the christians and the jews. If that's not enough example of a change for you, when's the last time you saw a bunch of orthodox jews sacrifice an animal to yahweh? I won't even go into the changes that roman catholicism has seen over the last two millennia, but suffice to say that the current pope would probably be burned for heresy by his predecessors of just a century or two ago.
Religions, like everything, change over time. Changes can be small, or large, but they're always there.
Really? I've still got people that won't let go of XP, and even the keenest MS users in the place are planning to wait a bit to see if it's going to be another Vista or Win8. That's only one place but it may represent a trend.
You do raise an excellent point, but MS has never put "free" behind one of their upgrade efforts before, and Win 7 is already out of mainstream support. NOBODY wants to go through another migration at this point (XP-32 -> 7-64 was a massive effort, and many of us are still recovering from the hangover) but I think this is really a "get on the bus, or get left behind" moment.
People with the buying power will probably beat on Microsoft to give them more time and delay, but in the SMB space, it's going to happen.
Says the guy that won't even put a pseudonym behind what he has to say.
I've got some news for you, AC: just because someone expresses a viewpoint you happen to disagree with doesn't make them a shill. I've been a UNIX user since the 80s, a Linux user since 94 or so, a postfix and sendmail admin for over fifteen years, and helped run a dozen MMOs back when they had text interface and were called MUDs. GPL beats BSD, vi beats Emacs, and my windows desktop runs Xming so I can do real work from time to time.
What I said was not marketing, and is not even an endorsement. I was not claiming that win 10 is the best thing since sliced bread, but rather simply stating that the economics are impossible to ignore. Win 10 adoption is GOING to happen fast, and it's going to be driven by the "free upgrade, but only if you do it right now" bandwagon. That was my only point, and wishing it were otherwise isn't going to change what's going to happen.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have users be the testers? The ones who use the products all freakin' day long? What do IT people know about how the product is used by the masses?
Oh wait. Microsoft. They don't care what the consumers really want. They want to look cool. Double fail.
Do you point your desktop Linux users (okay, so I'm kidding) toward the bleeding edge/preview yum repos? No? Then why harp on MS for aiming their previews at IT people rather than end users?
Feedback is only good if it's listened to. As we have already seen with the demise of Visual Basic 6, the ribbon of Office 2007, the colors of Office 2013, and the not-desktop-or-start-menu of Windows 8.0, Microsoft does not listen to feedback.
Who the hell was screaming to keep VB6 around? Even the VB programmers I know almost universally hate it.
No, it's apparently compatible with Windows 7 or later. Remember, Office is targeted at business, and most businesses are still using Windows 7, and will be for a considerable time to come.
I believe that's going to change, drastically. Microsoft's path with Windows 10 (free updates from Windows => 7, as long as you do it within a year of release) is going to drive the fastest corporate OS migrations ever--for better, or for worse.
I know we're planning for it. It scares the hell out of us, but the incentive to move forward is so powerful there really isn't any other viable path.