Sure, if there were metal detectors situated in every dorm and class building, as well as security cameras everywhere, and mandatory check-in locations, that might have prevented the situation.
I'm all for making folks go through the proper training, checks, and procedures in order to carry, but this is fucking retarded. Basically, here in the Free State, you can't get a gun unless a crime has already been committed against you and you're already a victim. The "logic" involved here is incomprehensible.
Note that, of course, this mindless law has absolutely no affect on curbing the monstrous homocide rate in inner city Baltimore.
The idea of gun registration is about investigating gun crime
No, the idea of gun registration is primarily about revenue generation (like most of what the government does). "Investigating gun crime" is the excuse they use to justify the gun tax.
Maybe we should just make the registry a system that needs to pay for itself, and we can increase the registration fee by $500 per gun owner. Then there will be no operating cost to the average non-gun-owning taxpayer.
That's not a "registration fee," that's a tax. At least call it what it is. It won't work because the vast amount of criminals who commit violent crimes with guns now obtained them illegally and don't register them anyway (and, of course, they don't pay taxes). You'd just be excessively taxing law-abiding citizens.
The other reason these gun laws exist is to score political points under the guide of fighting crime. Here in Maryland, for example, our newly-empowered legislature is trying to ram through an assault weapons ban. If passed, it will be basically meaningless because (you guessed it) nearly zero percent of the violent crime here in Maryland is committed with assault weapons; instead, it's almost committed with unregistered "Saturday Night Specials" and other cheap weapons. The reps are just looking for a soundbite to justify things when they say "we're tough on crime," and potentially some additional revenue coming from revised "registration" processes.
If driving 1000 miles with equipment to kidnap and kill had happened to any other person in any other profession, they would have locked her up and throw away the key
You forgot:
Pro athletes
Politicians
Fortune 500 executives
Movie stars and gangsta rap "artists"
Remember folks, there are two types of justice: those that can afford (or in this case, have provided for them) a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, and the rest of us.
Perhaps you can explain why Maryland's previous Republican governor Robert Ehrlich fought against the Diebold machines tooth and nail, even asking for millions of dollars instead to support a traditional election process, only to have them rammed down his throat by the (Democratic) MD legislature and state board of elections? Our state elections administrator, Democrat Linda H. Lamone is still fighting their removal and even against adding a paper trail! Hell, she doesn't even want printers because she says adding printers to the existing equipment "would disrupt the voting system."
If you think the Republicans are the only ones who want to use Diebold machines to manipulate votes, you're an idiot.
Perhaps tattoos on the forehead and cheeks (both ends) would be appropriate a big L in red to denote a lying lobbyist whose opinions are for sale to the highest bidder.
Damn! I thought that designation was for the liberals.
(hiss of large L-shaped branding iron being quenched)
Actually, they don't have an army in the traditional sense, but have seen military action nonetheless. From TFA:
Although its nation status is disputed, Sealand boasts a military past like any other country, defending its sovereignty from outside threats.
Former British army major, Paddy Roy Bates, began occupying the island with his family in 1967, declared it a state in international waters and gave himself the title "prince".
Britain's Royal Navy attempted to evict him the following year but were unsuccessful.
As they entered territorial waters, Roy of Sealand fired warning shots from the former fort.
Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work.
Sorry, wrong, *buzzz*. Email will continue to be the corporate IT bedrock it's been for the last decade. While IM is great for those young folks with a short attention spam pushing around uber-important stuff like "OMG?!?!? He dumped her? Shes gonna like be sooooo drunk tonite!" -- and I'll admit it even has a place augmenting email in certain areas of the enterprise -- corporate america already has billions in infrastructure built around this more persistant method of communication. I for one have noticed that if I leave "on" an IM client at work I get pestered to the point where I just end up keeping it off, and eventually unstall it.
Perhaps the MySpace people are at least subconsciously reacting in the same way to the growing threats to our privacy--by getting it all out there, so if anyone tries to use it against them they are effectively immunized.
Man, I wish I could agree with you, but I don't. The vast majority of MySpace "tell-all" users are either a) stupid kids who don't know any better and don't realize there are long-term (permanent) rammifications of what they post when they're 13 or b) stupid adults who *should* know better but don't, and get busted after someone finds their near-nekkid weekend party pics etc. MySpace has made having a personal website accessible to the unwashed masses, and the unwashed masses don't even understand the Internet well enough to realize that maybe, well, showing *everything* to *everyone* can be a bad thing sometimes.
If it were up to MS or Apple.. there would probably not be any DRM protection in their products.
Really? You mean like how I can install OS X on any hardware I choose, or how I can easily install and uninstall Windows from PC to PC? Don't kid yourself -- Apple and Microsoft own billions in IP and already control how and where you can use their products. If that's not Digital Rights Management, I don't know what is.
You're arguing semantics -- you can still say whatever you want in an ad that is NOT paid for with soft money. The *source* of the funding is still the real issue. Your minority comparison doesn't fit because McCain - Feingold doesn't target a particular group of people -- just the source of the funding.
Wrong -- it restricts monetary contributions related to such. Again, read the Act's text before screaming about how your rights are being curtailed. The only people who tend to get uptight about this Act are those who don't want a ceiling on pet organization x's contributions. Without limits on campaign finance, elections will be won by the candidate who can out-spend all the others -- and that doesn't sound like democracy to me.
How did this get modded up? Please explain how McCain - Feingold assaults our First Amendment rights. Perhaps you should read up a bit on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (aka McCain - Feingold) before making such an ignorant knee-jerk statement.
What was actually passed was a watered-down version of campaign finance reform of that which McCain and Feingold had originally sought. It is universally hated by all traditional sources of camapign finance on both sides of the political spectrum and they fought against it for years -- particularly the Republican leadership.
Again, please explain how McCain-Feingold infringes on *your* right of freedom of speech, prohibits you from freely exercising your religion, or prevents you from peaceably assembling.
I share others' disappointment with the *appearance* that John McCain isn't the same socially moderate, fiscally conservative politician we thought him to be a few years ago -- the guy who's led the battle against pork and other government waste for years.
However, let's look back to the '00 election (for those of you old enough to remember). I was living in GA at the time and voted for McCain in a Deep South primary where he was absolutely torched by a religious-right charged GWB ticket. A centrist candidate in this country doesn't stand a chance, unfortunately -- they can't raise money from either Republican pockets like conservative Christians or Big Oil, and Democrat money like Hollywood, Jewish interests, etc. won't touch them either. McCain had to pick sides, and he chose a solid Republican route which brings him more in-line with "the base."
I still *want* to believe in the man. I think he's one of a rare handful of people in our government who is (relatively) free from corruption and corporate influence and makes decisions based on his beliefs and responsibilities, not because of who bought plates at his fundraising dinner. I want to believe that he's saying a lot of this stuff to cater to the base, but in reality he doesn't agree with it because time and again he's voted for smaller government. This bill in particular will be almost impossible to pass and even more impossible to implement due to the required resources, but it gives McCain a conservative soundsbite that he's tough on Internet obscenity etc.
Personally, I feel that what may ultimately sink McCain's nomination or (if he wins the nomination) election would be his adamant support for the Iraq debacle. This flies in the face of current voter sentiment and the strong message just sent to D.C. by the American public (yes, US-bashers -- despite your claims that we live in a "police state," we did just send the majority party packing after it abused its power -- and it's not the first time we've done so). If the election were held right now, *any* candidate espousing "stay the course" would be soundly trounced by one advocating "immediately begin drawing down" -- regardless of party affiliation. Whether things are different by '08 is another story (but I doubt it except for a thousand more US deaths).
Everyone knows that 6,000 years ago Australia was created by God as a place where the Hebrews could send "uncooperative" members of the tribe. The fact that this stratergy wasn't follow through with until much later (by a different tribe) doesn't make it any less true.;-)
That's easy . . . there's no Communist-fueled space race to scare the bejeezus out of Washington and make them plug hundreds of billions of dollars into NASA. The threat-du-jour is now Islamic Fundamentalists, and despite rumors of lots of virgins floating around in heaven, as of yet they don't have a space presence.
I sometimes get the idea that data modeling is one of least used methods for building information systems. I wonder why.
I absolutely agree. Data modeling is one of the most fundamental skills out there, but time and again I encounter apps with just an absolutely atrocious data model. Much more time needs to be devoted in school to the fundamentals of data modeling and the why behind data modeling best practices. Think about it -- in a "classic" MVC stack, the controller and GUI are often interchangeable, but if you're stuck with a poor way to persist data, the rest of the app *will* be quite limited no matter what you're using for business logic and / or presentation. Furthermore, none of these "component" vendors will help you . . . you'll just end up with a turd wrapped in Company X's duct tape.
Let's face it . . . there is a MASSIVE business in selling papers to students. Many are lazy and don't feel like doing their own work, hence there's a large, viable market for such a gig. As an example, when I attended a very large state university and lived in off-campus housing, there was a very well-known (in the area) lady whose sole, full-time occupation was selling papers out of her house (we'd first thought she was a drug dealer with the amount of traffic going to / from the house at all hours of day and night).
As for protecting students' IP, why not store a unique hash of the paper (and possibly select excerpts) rather than the paper itself? I'm surprised that no one's yet done this.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, if there were metal detectors situated in every dorm and class building, as well as security cameras everywhere, and mandatory check-in locations, that might have prevented the situation.
Don't count on it.
Last I checked, in the US no one is depriving people of the means to defend themselves (a.k.a. "guns").
Check again. Here in Maryland, I need to provide documentation of several recent threats in order to be issued a concealed carry permit. No "documented evidence of recent threats and / or assaults, supported by police reports and / or notarized statements", no permit.
I'm all for making folks go through the proper training, checks, and procedures in order to carry, but this is fucking retarded. Basically, here in the Free State, you can't get a gun unless a crime has already been committed against you and you're already a victim. The "logic" involved here is incomprehensible.
Note that, of course, this mindless law has absolutely no affect on curbing the monstrous homocide rate in inner city Baltimore.
The US has a city called philidelphia (or something) wich I believe is usually regarded as the most liberal of cities
You misspelled "San Francisco."
The idea of gun registration is about investigating gun crime
No, the idea of gun registration is primarily about revenue generation (like most of what the government does). "Investigating gun crime" is the excuse they use to justify the gun tax.
Maybe we should just make the registry a system that needs to pay for itself, and we can increase the registration fee by $500 per gun owner. Then there will be no operating cost to the average non-gun-owning taxpayer.
That's not a "registration fee," that's a tax. At least call it what it is. It won't work because the vast amount of criminals who commit violent crimes with guns now obtained them illegally and don't register them anyway (and, of course, they don't pay taxes). You'd just be excessively taxing law-abiding citizens.
The other reason these gun laws exist is to score political points under the guide of fighting crime. Here in Maryland, for example, our newly-empowered legislature is trying to ram through an assault weapons ban. If passed, it will be basically meaningless because (you guessed it) nearly zero percent of the violent crime here in Maryland is committed with assault weapons; instead, it's almost committed with unregistered "Saturday Night Specials" and other cheap weapons. The reps are just looking for a soundbite to justify things when they say "we're tough on crime," and potentially some additional revenue coming from revised "registration" processes.
If driving 1000 miles with equipment to kidnap and kill had happened to any other person in any other profession, they would have locked her up and throw away the key
You forgot:
Remember folks, there are two types of justice: those that can afford (or in this case, have provided for them) a "Get Out of Jail Free" card, and the rest of us.
Perhaps you can explain why Maryland's previous Republican governor Robert Ehrlich fought against the Diebold machines tooth and nail, even asking for millions of dollars instead to support a traditional election process, only to have them rammed down his throat by the (Democratic) MD legislature and state board of elections? Our state elections administrator, Democrat Linda H. Lamone is still fighting their removal and even against adding a paper trail! Hell, she doesn't even want printers because she says adding printers to the existing equipment "would disrupt the voting system."
If you think the Republicans are the only ones who want to use Diebold machines to manipulate votes, you're an idiot.
Perhaps tattoos on the forehead and cheeks (both ends) would be appropriate a big L in red to denote a lying lobbyist whose opinions are for sale to the highest bidder.
Damn! I thought that designation was for the liberals.
(hiss of large L-shaped branding iron being quenched)
.
;-)
Herf was on his honeymoon when he did this sleuthing. Now that's dedication.
Come one. This is slashdot. More like "Herf was taking a break from a month-long WoW session in his parents' basement when he did the sleuthing."
Like we'd buy that someone here even *knew* a girl, much less got married or went on a honeymoon!
Actually, they don't have an army in the traditional sense, but have seen military action nonetheless. From TFA:
Although its nation status is disputed, Sealand boasts a military past like any other country, defending its sovereignty from outside threats. Former British army major, Paddy Roy Bates, began occupying the island with his family in 1967, declared it a state in international waters and gave himself the title "prince". Britain's Royal Navy attempted to evict him the following year but were unsuccessful. As they entered territorial waters, Roy of Sealand fired warning shots from the former fort.
Spam Doubles: No-brainer -- but no one cares because we're all using IM, especially at work.
Sorry, wrong, *buzzz*. Email will continue to be the corporate IT bedrock it's been for the last decade. While IM is great for those young folks with a short attention spam pushing around uber-important stuff like "OMG?!?!? He dumped her? Shes gonna like be sooooo drunk tonite!" -- and I'll admit it even has a place augmenting email in certain areas of the enterprise -- corporate america already has billions in infrastructure built around this more persistant method of communication. I for one have noticed that if I leave "on" an IM client at work I get pestered to the point where I just end up keeping it off, and eventually unstall it.
Ahhh . . . that explains the little tire tracks that start and end at my Linksys router. ;-)
Perhaps the MySpace people are at least subconsciously reacting in the same way to the growing threats to our privacy--by getting it all out there, so if anyone tries to use it against them they are effectively immunized.
Man, I wish I could agree with you, but I don't. The vast majority of MySpace "tell-all" users are either a) stupid kids who don't know any better and don't realize there are long-term (permanent) rammifications of what they post when they're 13 or b) stupid adults who *should* know better but don't, and get busted after someone finds their near-nekkid weekend party pics etc. MySpace has made having a personal website accessible to the unwashed masses, and the unwashed masses don't even understand the Internet well enough to realize that maybe, well, showing *everything* to *everyone* can be a bad thing sometimes.
If it were up to MS or Apple.. there would probably not be any DRM protection in their products.
Really? You mean like how I can install OS X on any hardware I choose, or how I can easily install and uninstall Windows from PC to PC? Don't kid yourself -- Apple and Microsoft own billions in IP and already control how and where you can use their products. If that's not Digital Rights Management, I don't know what is.
You're arguing semantics -- you can still say whatever you want in an ad that is NOT paid for with soft money. The *source* of the funding is still the real issue. Your minority comparison doesn't fit because McCain - Feingold doesn't target a particular group of people -- just the source of the funding.
Wrong -- it restricts monetary contributions related to such. Again, read the Act's text before screaming about how your rights are being curtailed. The only people who tend to get uptight about this Act are those who don't want a ceiling on pet organization x's contributions. Without limits on campaign finance, elections will be won by the candidate who can out-spend all the others -- and that doesn't sound like democracy to me.
How did this get modded up? Please explain how McCain - Feingold assaults our First Amendment rights. Perhaps you should read up a bit on the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (aka McCain - Feingold) before making such an ignorant knee-jerk statement.
What was actually passed was a watered-down version of campaign finance reform of that which McCain and Feingold had originally sought. It is universally hated by all traditional sources of camapign finance on both sides of the political spectrum and they fought against it for years -- particularly the Republican leadership.
Again, please explain how McCain-Feingold infringes on *your* right of freedom of speech, prohibits you from freely exercising your religion, or prevents you from peaceably assembling.
I share others' disappointment with the *appearance* that John McCain isn't the same socially moderate, fiscally conservative politician we thought him to be a few years ago -- the guy who's led the battle against pork and other government waste for years.
However, let's look back to the '00 election (for those of you old enough to remember). I was living in GA at the time and voted for McCain in a Deep South primary where he was absolutely torched by a religious-right charged GWB ticket. A centrist candidate in this country doesn't stand a chance, unfortunately -- they can't raise money from either Republican pockets like conservative Christians or Big Oil, and Democrat money like Hollywood, Jewish interests, etc. won't touch them either. McCain had to pick sides, and he chose a solid Republican route which brings him more in-line with "the base."
I still *want* to believe in the man. I think he's one of a rare handful of people in our government who is (relatively) free from corruption and corporate influence and makes decisions based on his beliefs and responsibilities, not because of who bought plates at his fundraising dinner. I want to believe that he's saying a lot of this stuff to cater to the base, but in reality he doesn't agree with it because time and again he's voted for smaller government. This bill in particular will be almost impossible to pass and even more impossible to implement due to the required resources, but it gives McCain a conservative soundsbite that he's tough on Internet obscenity etc.
Personally, I feel that what may ultimately sink McCain's nomination or (if he wins the nomination) election would be his adamant support for the Iraq debacle. This flies in the face of current voter sentiment and the strong message just sent to D.C. by the American public (yes, US-bashers -- despite your claims that we live in a "police state," we did just send the majority party packing after it abused its power -- and it's not the first time we've done so). If the election were held right now, *any* candidate espousing "stay the course" would be soundly trounced by one advocating "immediately begin drawing down" -- regardless of party affiliation. Whether things are different by '08 is another story (but I doubt it except for a thousand more US deaths).
Everyone knows that 6,000 years ago Australia was created by God as a place where the Hebrews could send "uncooperative" members of the tribe. The fact that this stratergy wasn't follow through with until much later (by a different tribe) doesn't make it any less true. ;-)
That's easy . . . there's no Communist-fueled space race to scare the bejeezus out of Washington and make them plug hundreds of billions of dollars into NASA. The threat-du-jour is now Islamic Fundamentalists, and despite rumors of lots of virgins floating around in heaven, as of yet they don't have a space presence.
"Fake Your Space -- A Place For Posers"
Seriously, how is this different than gamers buying virtual goods with real-life money?
I sometimes get the idea that data modeling is one of least used methods for building information systems. I wonder why.
I absolutely agree. Data modeling is one of the most fundamental skills out there, but time and again I encounter apps with just an absolutely atrocious data model. Much more time needs to be devoted in school to the fundamentals of data modeling and the why behind data modeling best practices. Think about it -- in a "classic" MVC stack, the controller and GUI are often interchangeable, but if you're stuck with a poor way to persist data, the rest of the app *will* be quite limited no matter what you're using for business logic and / or presentation. Furthermore, none of these "component" vendors will help you . . . you'll just end up with a turd wrapped in Company X's duct tape.
. . . 'cuz Gartner gets paid by the "component" / middleware / toolkit / etc. vendors to say that.
Let's face it . . . there is a MASSIVE business in selling papers to students. Many are lazy and don't feel like doing their own work, hence there's a large, viable market for such a gig. As an example, when I attended a very large state university and lived in off-campus housing, there was a very well-known (in the area) lady whose sole, full-time occupation was selling papers out of her house (we'd first thought she was a drug dealer with the amount of traffic going to / from the house at all hours of day and night).
As for protecting students' IP, why not store a unique hash of the paper (and possibly select excerpts) rather than the paper itself? I'm surprised that no one's yet done this.
In case of slashdotting: :-o