The P5 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council) each have veto power in the U.N. Security Council, but not elsewhere. Witness the recent recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a non-voting member nation.
I think there are a lot of reasons why "the U.S." opposes it; the one you gave is certainly an example. I'm sure that numerous congresscritters voted against it for just the reason you've stated. I'm sure others voted against it for other reasons.
One good reason? The ITU's *first* document out of the current meeting—the one they considered *most* important—was a HOWTO on deep packet inspection for repressive and privacy-violating governments. I'm bracing myself for the encore...
It's nice to have strong opinions, but you are being a bit hysterical here. OP is right—touchscreens make a great compliment to mice. Sometimes you want fine pointing, and then a mouse is a big win. Sometimes you want to say "that!" Then the touchscreen is a win. Personally, I'd rather have an eyeball tracker and a microphone, but that is probably patented by some troll.
Those members of the 46% who work pay no tax because their income is so low. Why is it so low? Because taxes are so low on extremely high incomes that there's none left for people who actually work for a living. So yeah, we do need to tax those of the 46% that you mention who actually have jobs. But in order to do so, they have to earn a living wage.
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, click on the author link. I wouldn't normally know whether to trust a review, but a steganographic kitten photo placement service? I think we can safely assume that the author of the review is a legitimate geek whose opinion can be trusted.
I read your earlier post. I was responding to the attitude of hysteria. Yes, if we do nothing, Social Security and Medicare are d00med. So let's do something about it.
And I don't think the CBO has pointed out that the _cause_ of our budget woes is Social Security and Medicaid. What they've pointed out are the facts that you gave, not the conclusion you drew from it. The _cause_ of our budget woes is that taxes are too low and that we went to war when we needn't have, at extraordinary expense. And that instead of spending on infrastructure and education, we spend on destruction and incarceration.
We are an insanely productive, wealthy society. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to keep the elderly out of poverty and provide medical care for all our citizens. The reason we fail to do so is because we budget and spend badly, not because we can't afford it.
Yes, our military spending is a huge jobs program. But in fact a great deal of that money does go into the pockets of wealthy people. So it's an insanely inefficient jobs program. We could just take all that money and give everybody a guaranteed minimum income, and we'd probably save money.
Right, he has very limited authority. But it is within his power to prevent the tax cut from being extended, if he so chooses, unless the Senate manages to override his veto. Which, if you had actually read what I wrote instead of getting offended that I didn't agree with you, would have been pretty obviously what I meant by "authority."
Huh, I read that blog post. It states that the debt is $200 trillion, and does some hand-waving to justify that position, but no actual details. Just fear mongering. Who knows, maybe they are right, but they made no effort at all to prove to anyone except an innumerate conspiracy theorist that they are right.
You keep saying that, but you are wrong. He can veto any extension of the Bush tax cuts. Taxes will automatically go up. He doesn't have the authority to _arbitrarily_ raise taxes, but he most definitely has the authority to raise taxes.
Straw man. 100% of tax revenue _doesn't_ go to Social Security. A lot of tax revenue goes to paying the national debt, a significant portion of which is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund. But a lot of it goes elsewhere, like to the defense budget, which is essentially welfare for the rich. Oh, and the deficit has dropped in the past three years...
But let's not talk about that. Let's just foam at the mouth hysterically and give the bankers our retirement savings.
Perhaps a better way to have expressed that point is that copper is not something that random people routinely recycle. Sure, there's a market for it—it's valuable. But it should be no problem for someone who legitimately got the copper to provide ID and say where they got it, and it should be no problem for the recycler to retain this information.
You're not getting the point. If someone is organized enough to steal copper, they are organized enough to do a real job. The only reason they are stealing copper is that they can't get a real job.
It's illegal to receive stolen goods. Stolen copper is stolen goods. Copper is not something that's routinely recycled. Requiring identification and a paper trail to sell copper is really not my definition of onerous regulation.
But the real lesson here is that the economy is so bad for people at the bottom that they are willing to go to the effort of stealing copper to make their monthly nut. Stealing copper is _hard_. People don't do it if they have a better alternative. Furthermore, copper theft has a _huge_ amplification value—the cost of replacing stolen copper is way more than the copper is worth.
What's the real fix for this? Not 7000-volt fences. Social justice. Decent pay for a day's work. Desperation is what leads to copper theft.
Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. This is pretty clearly unreasonable. Normally when you have a situation like this, you go to a computer forensics company and get them to sift through the dataset for data that is relevant. They get a copy of the data, not access to the original data. This way, the worst that can happen is that they violate your privacy. The search is done according to instructions given by the judge, and only matches are provided to the opposing council.
Letting opposing council, or even a forensics company, have the password to your personal accounts is very, very different. If they are corrupt, they can modify the evidence. Additionally, if sexual harassment was in fact occurring, the harasser may well use the access to perpetrate further harassment once the case is decided.
So no, sorry, the judge is way, way wrong here. The subpoena should have gone to Facebook, not to the plaintiff.
It's impossible to know the truth of the matter. Clearly _someone_ floated a trial balloon, which got shot down. Whether that someone was Leahy is unknowable, and we shouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about it, because it's just time wasted. The fact that he's disavowing it so strongly means either that he didn't float the balloon (he's telling the truth) or that he gets the message. Either result is fine.
Slashdot Mirror
This would be a more compelling argument if the EU hadn't voted for the same thing, despite the fact that they do not have the same control.
Okay, so you want change. Cool. What change do you want? Okay, now is that change that the ITU is going to make happen?
The P5 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council) each have veto power in the U.N. Security Council, but not elsewhere. Witness the recent recognition of the Palestinian Authority as a non-voting member nation.
*cough*CERN*cough*
With all due respect, this argument is just a tiny bit circular! :)
I think there are a lot of reasons why "the U.S." opposes it; the one you gave is certainly an example. I'm sure that numerous congresscritters voted against it for just the reason you've stated. I'm sure others voted against it for other reasons.
One good reason? The ITU's *first* document out of the current meeting—the one they considered *most* important—was a HOWTO on deep packet inspection for repressive and privacy-violating governments. I'm bracing myself for the encore...
It's nice to have strong opinions, but you are being a bit hysterical here. OP is right—touchscreens make a great compliment to mice. Sometimes you want fine pointing, and then a mouse is a big win. Sometimes you want to say "that!" Then the touchscreen is a win. Personally, I'd rather have an eyeball tracker and a microphone, but that is probably patented by some troll.
Good luck with that. :)
I use linode.com. They have IPv6 (and have for quite some time). Now if only voip.ms (and oh, say, /.) would support it...
Those members of the 46% who work pay no tax because their income is so low. Why is it so low? Because taxes are so low on extremely high incomes that there's none left for people who actually work for a living. So yeah, we do need to tax those of the 46% that you mention who actually have jobs. But in order to do so, they have to earn a living wage.
That's just what they _want_ you to think!
For those who don't know what I'm talking about, click on the author link. I wouldn't normally know whether to trust a review, but a steganographic kitten photo placement service? I think we can safely assume that the author of the review is a legitimate geek whose opinion can be trusted.
I read your earlier post. I was responding to the attitude of hysteria. Yes, if we do nothing, Social Security and Medicare are d00med. So let's do something about it.
And I don't think the CBO has pointed out that the _cause_ of our budget woes is Social Security and Medicaid. What they've pointed out are the facts that you gave, not the conclusion you drew from it. The _cause_ of our budget woes is that taxes are too low and that we went to war when we needn't have, at extraordinary expense. And that instead of spending on infrastructure and education, we spend on destruction and incarceration.
We are an insanely productive, wealthy society. There is no reason why we shouldn't be able to keep the elderly out of poverty and provide medical care for all our citizens. The reason we fail to do so is because we budget and spend badly, not because we can't afford it.
Yes, our military spending is a huge jobs program. But in fact a great deal of that money does go into the pockets of wealthy people. So it's an insanely inefficient jobs program. We could just take all that money and give everybody a guaranteed minimum income, and we'd probably save money.
Right, he has very limited authority. But it is within his power to prevent the tax cut from being extended, if he so chooses, unless the Senate manages to override his veto. Which, if you had actually read what I wrote instead of getting offended that I didn't agree with you, would have been pretty obviously what I meant by "authority."
Yeah, sorry, I don't know what in your message I was replying to. Possibly I replied to the wrong message.
Huh, I read that blog post. It states that the debt is $200 trillion, and does some hand-waving to justify that position, but no actual details. Just fear mongering. Who knows, maybe they are right, but they made no effort at all to prove to anyone except an innumerate conspiracy theorist that they are right.
Do you really think that once the fiscal speed bump hits the Republicans won't try to make deals to save their precious military budget increases?
You keep saying that, but you are wrong. He can veto any extension of the Bush tax cuts. Taxes will automatically go up. He doesn't have the authority to _arbitrarily_ raise taxes, but he most definitely has the authority to raise taxes.
Straw man. 100% of tax revenue _doesn't_ go to Social Security. A lot of tax revenue goes to paying the national debt, a significant portion of which is owed to the Social Security Trust Fund. But a lot of it goes elsewhere, like to the defense budget, which is essentially welfare for the rich. Oh, and the deficit has dropped in the past three years...
But let's not talk about that. Let's just foam at the mouth hysterically and give the bankers our retirement savings.
Perhaps a better way to have expressed that point is that copper is not something that random people routinely recycle. Sure, there's a market for it—it's valuable. But it should be no problem for someone who legitimately got the copper to provide ID and say where they got it, and it should be no problem for the recycler to retain this information.
You're not getting the point. If someone is organized enough to steal copper, they are organized enough to do a real job. The only reason they are stealing copper is that they can't get a real job.
It's illegal to receive stolen goods. Stolen copper is stolen goods. Copper is not something that's routinely recycled. Requiring identification and a paper trail to sell copper is really not my definition of onerous regulation.
But the real lesson here is that the economy is so bad for people at the bottom that they are willing to go to the effort of stealing copper to make their monthly nut. Stealing copper is _hard_. People don't do it if they have a better alternative. Furthermore, copper theft has a _huge_ amplification value—the cost of replacing stolen copper is way more than the copper is worth.
What's the real fix for this? Not 7000-volt fences. Social justice. Decent pay for a day's work. Desperation is what leads to copper theft.
Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. This is pretty clearly unreasonable. Normally when you have a situation like this, you go to a computer forensics company and get them to sift through the dataset for data that is relevant. They get a copy of the data, not access to the original data. This way, the worst that can happen is that they violate your privacy. The search is done according to instructions given by the judge, and only matches are provided to the opposing council.
Letting opposing council, or even a forensics company, have the password to your personal accounts is very, very different. If they are corrupt, they can modify the evidence. Additionally, if sexual harassment was in fact occurring, the harasser may well use the access to perpetrate further harassment once the case is decided.
So no, sorry, the judge is way, way wrong here. The subpoena should have gone to Facebook, not to the plaintiff.
It's impossible to know the truth of the matter. Clearly _someone_ floated a trial balloon, which got shot down. Whether that someone was Leahy is unknowable, and we shouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about it, because it's just time wasted. The fact that he's disavowing it so strongly means either that he didn't float the balloon (he's telling the truth) or that he gets the message. Either result is fine.