The military is it's own animal. But in 38 states (the blue and yellow ones on the map) you can easily obtain a concealed carry permit as a civilian, provided that you aren't a felon or mental case. In some of the remaining states you can also obtain one, though you may have to jump through additional hoops. The only two states where you absolutely can't get one are Illinois and Wisconsin.
It's probable that in a few years that you will be able to obtain one in all 50 states. SCOTUS is on the verge of incorporating the 2nd amendment against the states. Once that happens we can begin to dismantle the unconstitutional restrictions placed on our right to keep and bear arms by some of the more urban states.
Point being, that you have whatever chance you are willing to give yourself. Personally I carry everywhere that it's legal to do so. I hope and pray that I never have to use it. Should the day come though I won't be cowering under a desk waiting to be murdered by some mental case or Mumbai copy-cat.
The pirates aren't tough. Most of them are teenagers on the verge of starvation. The only reason they are as successful as they are is because they have AK-47s and their victims have fists. Give the victims their own firearms and I think you'll see that the problem solves itself in short order.
Of course in this politically correct day and age that isn't an option because someone might get hurt.
Interesting way of looking at it. If you are going for the five nines that means that the power grid is only allowed about three hours of downtime every 38 years.
If you look at the politically correct response to the Somali pirates, you see why the west has to develop an effective and cheap response to this kind of crap.
Give the guys on our merchant ships guns and train them how to use them. There's your effective and cheap response. Arming merchant vessels halted piracy a few hundred years ago. Why wouldn't it do the same today?
I'm having more and more difficulty determining which is worse, this new American flavor of capitalism - where monopolies are legislatively created and protected - or terrorists.
I'm gonna go with option A. I can shoot terrorists. If I shoot the CEO of my local cable monopoly I'm probably going to go to jail......
Actually, by "you" I meant "pieces of shit Republican bootlickers like you".
Fail. I'm not a Republican. I've never voted for a Republican for any office higher than the county level. Good to know that you stereotype people to make it easier to dismiss them though:)
Would nuclear generation of power be useful? Yes, save we haven't figured out how to deal with the waste products, contamination, and safety issues.
You lost me at "safety issues". The worst accident in the history of American nuclear power resulted in zero fatalities. You'll forgive me if I don't see safety issues as a reason to abandon nuclear power.
The waste issue is a real one, but one that can be mitigated by nuclear reprocessing. In any case, if global warming is actually being driven by mankind's emissions of CO2 then I should think that the choice between a few thousand tons of low-level nuclear waste (the only kind that requires long term storage, high-level waste decays on much shorter timescales) and a few billion tons of CO2 should be an obvious one.
Thanks for demonstrating my original point though. As an environmentalist you find every single option that's currently on the table to be unacceptable. That makes for great politicking but horrible engineering.
So now we've moved up to personal insults, have we? Funny how I'm the one getting the troll mods.
You seem to think a few greens and their tame puppets in DC are responsible for most of the mess we're in
No, I seem to think that a few greens and their tame puppets are responsible for preventing us from exploiting domestic energy sources. I never claimed that they are wholly responsible for the "mess" that we're in. Thanks for putting words in my mouth though. Goes good with the side dish of insults that you've served up:)
upon which your reply is to accuse me of being an unrealistic daydreamer?
Where did I use the word "daydream"? I challenged your notion that oil isn't "expensive" enough to justify exploiting domestic resources. You've yet to respond to that challenge. Instead you've opted for insults. Perhaps you've learned all of your debate techniques from Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann? Why respond to the point when you can attack the messenger.....
Ah yes. The "corporations". It's all their fault. If only the "corporations" would go away we could all love each other and live in a commune somewhere......
You do realize that the bulk of the cost of your gasoline is paid to the countries that the crude comes from and that "big oil" is only a middle man, right?
You say "environmental extremeists" as though it's one word.
You are reading things into my post that aren't there. I consider myself a conservationist. My problem is (as already mentioned) with the extremists of the environmentalist movement that aren't happy with ANY solution to our current problems. The anti-nuclear lobby is a pretty good example of environmentalists shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine how much CO2 wouldn't have been released into the atmosphere if we had continued building new nuclear power plants rather than caving to the FUD back in the 80s?
The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
What soot? Modern automobiles have catalytic converters and emit mostly CO2 and H2O. The CO2 may prove to be a problem in the long term but the "soot" issue was solved a long time ago.
So under your economic reality it's better for the House of Saud to employ labor under conditions that resemble slavery while pocketing the bulk of the profits (using some of them to finance Islamic extremism) than it would be for American companies to employ American workers for a honest wage while returning their profits to American shareholders?
That's an interesting conclusion that you've reached.
Hopefully big oil's addiction to their own criminal profiteering will lead them to cleaner(more profitable by a factor of 100) alternatives, unless they figure they are rich enough already, and decide to take a "moral" stand to us mere mortals.
You mean the "mere mortals" that own shares in "big oil" and thereby receive some benefit from what you deem to be "criminal" profiteering?
Got a 401(k) or other retirement account? Have any mutual funds? If the answer is yes then you are the proud owner of "big oil". Will you be turning yourself into the authorities for your "criminal" profiteering or are you going to take the easy way out and blow your brains out?
then every person in the US that was so hell bent on fighting public transportation then shits a brick because it costs twice as much to get to work then there will be panic and rioting.
Nobody is "hell bent" on fighting public transport ion. People are hell bent on fighting attempts to force the rest of us to use public transportion, i.e: by artificially raising the cost of keeping an automobile, taxing those who don't use mass transit to make it more affordable for those that do, etc, etc.
I have no problem with mass transit. I do have a problem when my taxes are raised to fund a mass transit system that I'll never use. I reside in Upstate New York and saw my state government bail out the MTA (New York City's mass transit authority) even though at least half of this state doesn't reside in the NYC metro area. God forbid they raise fares to a price point where the strap-hangers would actually be paying for the service they receive.....
Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*
Employing Americans and keeping money at home instead of sending it to countries that finance extremism is a "marginal gain"?
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
You really ought to learn what Godwin's Law is before you start citing it:
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
I don't recall making any comparisons. I used a tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe environmental extremists that won't be happy until mankind reverts to a hunter-gatherer culture or dies out entirely.
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington. Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
Don't worry though, I'm sure our overlords in the Federal Government will come up with a solution. All we need is more energy conservation and investment in key primary states^W^W^Wethanol to save the day.
For example, T-Mobile users get zero coverage for 15-20 miles of highway west of Vestal, NY, including where I live and work (Owego).
Hey, I'm from Endicott:) Another Slashdotter in my area? Who would have thought it.
I used to have T-Mobile before I moved out of their coverage area. They have no native coverage in the area that you refer to, but you are able to roam on AT&T's network in that area. The biggest problem with T-Mobile around these parts is the "in-between" areas -- in areas near where they have coverage they won't let you roam on AT&T (presumably to keep people from using AT&T's network when the native network is available) so you wind up with no coverage until you reach the area where roaming is allowed.
The FCC would probably give the carriers provisions that allow them to check the legality of the data on their networks. Try to sue your carrier for breaking a state law and the carrier will just have the "federal law trumps state law" defense.
The FCC can't pass laws, only Congress can do that. And again, how do they check the legality of my data without violating my right to privacy?
is it really an agreement if it gets shoved down your throat?
Yes, because unless you were dealing with Vito Corleone, nobody forced you to accept it. There's a difference between "take this or leave it, we don't care" and "either your brains or your signature will appear on this contract"
More important: Who checks the content for "lawful" or "not lawful"?
No one, unless they want to go to jail for violating state and federal wiretapping laws. If it's illegal for me to monitor my neighbor's phone calls to determine whether or not he's breaking the law it ought to be illegal for my ISP to monitor my traffic to determine it's legality.
At least in NYS, this may already be the case:
250.05 Eavesdropping: A person is guilty of eavesdropping when he unlawfully engages in wiretapping, mechanical overhearing of a conversation, or intercepting or accessing of an electronic communication.
Eavesdropping is a class E felony.
From another section: "Unlawfully" means not specifically authorized pursuant to article seven hundred or seven hundred five of the criminal procedure law for the purposes of this section and sections 250.05, 250.10, 250.15, 250.20, 250.25, 250.30 and 250.35 of this article.
Looks like they can't do it in NYS without a court order. So how exactly does my ISP determine whether or not my traffic is "lawful"?
Slashdot Mirror
The military is it's own animal. But in 38 states (the blue and yellow ones on the map) you can easily obtain a concealed carry permit as a civilian, provided that you aren't a felon or mental case. In some of the remaining states you can also obtain one, though you may have to jump through additional hoops. The only two states where you absolutely can't get one are Illinois and Wisconsin.
It's probable that in a few years that you will be able to obtain one in all 50 states. SCOTUS is on the verge of incorporating the 2nd amendment against the states. Once that happens we can begin to dismantle the unconstitutional restrictions placed on our right to keep and bear arms by some of the more urban states.
Point being, that you have whatever chance you are willing to give yourself. Personally I carry everywhere that it's legal to do so. I hope and pray that I never have to use it. Should the day come though I won't be cowering under a desk waiting to be murdered by some mental case or Mumbai copy-cat.
The pirates aren't tough. Most of them are teenagers on the verge of starvation. The only reason they are as successful as they are is because they have AK-47s and their victims have fists. Give the victims their own firearms and I think you'll see that the problem solves itself in short order.
Of course in this politically correct day and age that isn't an option because someone might get hurt.
Interesting way of looking at it. If you are going for the five nines that means that the power grid is only allowed about three hours of downtime every 38 years.
If you believe in gun rights then you support terrorism in the US
Go fuck yourself.
If you look at the politically correct response to the Somali pirates, you see why the west has to develop an effective and cheap response to this kind of crap.
Give the guys on our merchant ships guns and train them how to use them. There's your effective and cheap response. Arming merchant vessels halted piracy a few hundred years ago. Why wouldn't it do the same today?
I'm having more and more difficulty determining which is worse, this new American flavor of capitalism - where monopolies are legislatively created and protected - or terrorists.
I'm gonna go with option A. I can shoot terrorists. If I shoot the CEO of my local cable monopoly I'm probably going to go to jail......
Actually, by "you" I meant "pieces of shit Republican bootlickers like you".
Fail. I'm not a Republican. I've never voted for a Republican for any office higher than the county level. Good to know that you stereotype people to make it easier to dismiss them though :)
Would nuclear generation of power be useful? Yes, save we haven't figured out how to deal with the waste products, contamination, and safety issues.
You lost me at "safety issues". The worst accident in the history of American nuclear power resulted in zero fatalities. You'll forgive me if I don't see safety issues as a reason to abandon nuclear power.
The waste issue is a real one, but one that can be mitigated by nuclear reprocessing. In any case, if global warming is actually being driven by mankind's emissions of CO2 then I should think that the choice between a few thousand tons of low-level nuclear waste (the only kind that requires long term storage, high-level waste decays on much shorter timescales) and a few billion tons of CO2 should be an obvious one.
Thanks for demonstrating my original point though. As an environmentalist you find every single option that's currently on the table to be unacceptable. That makes for great politicking but horrible engineering.
No me, you retard, that's the way it is
So now we've moved up to personal insults, have we? Funny how I'm the one getting the troll mods.
You seem to think a few greens and their tame puppets in DC are responsible for most of the mess we're in
No, I seem to think that a few greens and their tame puppets are responsible for preventing us from exploiting domestic energy sources. I never claimed that they are wholly responsible for the "mess" that we're in. Thanks for putting words in my mouth though. Goes good with the side dish of insults that you've served up :)
upon which your reply is to accuse me of being an unrealistic daydreamer?
Where did I use the word "daydream"? I challenged your notion that oil isn't "expensive" enough to justify exploiting domestic resources. You've yet to respond to that challenge. Instead you've opted for insults. Perhaps you've learned all of your debate techniques from Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann? Why respond to the point when you can attack the messenger.....
And you say renewable energy is a scam.
I said nothing of the sort. Please link to the comment where I said that or STFU and apologize for putting words in my mouth.
On the other hand it's possible the EU and China might get mad, and decide to just declare war and take the oil by force.
How exactly do you invade a country with thousands of nuclear warheads and enough firearms to arm every adult citizen, should the need arise?
To the corporations in charge? Yes.
Ah yes. The "corporations". It's all their fault. If only the "corporations" would go away we could all love each other and live in a commune somewhere......
You do realize that the bulk of the cost of your gasoline is paid to the countries that the crude comes from and that "big oil" is only a middle man, right?
That's actually a good thing. The Midwest is closer than Iraq, so it will be easy to invade. The locals might even welcome us as liberators!
Don't most of those locals have guns and NRA memberships? ;)
You say "environmental extremeists" as though it's one word.
You are reading things into my post that aren't there. I consider myself a conservationist. My problem is (as already mentioned) with the extremists of the environmentalist movement that aren't happy with ANY solution to our current problems. The anti-nuclear lobby is a pretty good example of environmentalists shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine how much CO2 wouldn't have been released into the atmosphere if we had continued building new nuclear power plants rather than caving to the FUD back in the 80s?
The problem is that burning it blows carbon-oxygen atoms out tailpipes, where they pollute, and ultimately cause atmospheric damage. You can't tell me all of that soot is a good thing.
What soot? Modern automobiles have catalytic converters and emit mostly CO2 and H2O. The CO2 may prove to be a problem in the long term but the "soot" issue was solved a long time ago.
At current oil prices, yes.
So under your economic reality it's better for the House of Saud to employ labor under conditions that resemble slavery while pocketing the bulk of the profits (using some of them to finance Islamic extremism) than it would be for American companies to employ American workers for a honest wage while returning their profits to American shareholders?
That's an interesting conclusion that you've reached.
Hopefully big oil's addiction to their own criminal profiteering will lead them to cleaner(more profitable by a factor of 100) alternatives, unless they figure they are rich enough already, and decide to take a "moral" stand to us mere mortals.
You mean the "mere mortals" that own shares in "big oil" and thereby receive some benefit from what you deem to be "criminal" profiteering?
Got a 401(k) or other retirement account? Have any mutual funds? If the answer is yes then you are the proud owner of "big oil". Will you be turning yourself into the authorities for your "criminal" profiteering or are you going to take the easy way out and blow your brains out?
then every person in the US that was so hell bent on fighting public transportation then shits a brick because it costs twice as much to get to work then there will be panic and rioting.
Nobody is "hell bent" on fighting public transport ion. People are hell bent on fighting attempts to force the rest of us to use public transportion, i.e: by artificially raising the cost of keeping an automobile, taxing those who don't use mass transit to make it more affordable for those that do, etc, etc.
I have no problem with mass transit. I do have a problem when my taxes are raised to fund a mass transit system that I'll never use. I reside in Upstate New York and saw my state government bail out the MTA (New York City's mass transit authority) even though at least half of this state doesn't reside in the NYC metro area. God forbid they raise fares to a price point where the strap-hangers would actually be paying for the service they receive.....
Oil is cheap, so no one wants to pollute for marginal gains*
Employing Americans and keeping money at home instead of sending it to countries that finance extremism is a "marginal gain"?
Hopefully, by that point, you'll have learned how not to Godwin yourself.
You really ought to learn what Godwin's Law is before you start citing it:
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."
I don't recall making any comparisons. I used a tongue-in-cheek phrase to describe environmental extremists that won't be happy until mankind reverts to a hunter-gatherer culture or dies out entirely.
By the time that happens we won't have any money left to exploit them with and it will be the Saudi's pumping oil out of the Midwest.....
Yeah, but we aren't allowed to exploit domestic energy supplies. The NIMBY crowd and enviro-nazi's will see to that, aided by the current political overlords in Washington. Apparently it's better that we keep sending hundreds of billions of dollars overseas than it would be to exploit our own resources and keep some of that money within our borders.
Don't worry though, I'm sure our overlords in the Federal Government will come up with a solution. All we need is more energy conservation and investment in key primary states^W^W^Wethanol to save the day.
For example, T-Mobile users get zero coverage for 15-20 miles of highway west of Vestal, NY, including where I live and work (Owego).
Hey, I'm from Endicott :) Another Slashdotter in my area? Who would have thought it.
I used to have T-Mobile before I moved out of their coverage area. They have no native coverage in the area that you refer to, but you are able to roam on AT&T's network in that area. The biggest problem with T-Mobile around these parts is the "in-between" areas -- in areas near where they have coverage they won't let you roam on AT&T (presumably to keep people from using AT&T's network when the native network is available) so you wind up with no coverage until you reach the area where roaming is allowed.
I think his point was more along the lines of: The ToS of many ISPs is a violation of the proposed net neutrality regulations
Fixed that for you. The FCC doesn't pass laws, only Congress can do that.
The FCC would probably give the carriers provisions that allow them to check the legality of the data on their networks. Try to sue your carrier for breaking a state law and the carrier will just have the "federal law trumps state law" defense.
The FCC can't pass laws, only Congress can do that. And again, how do they check the legality of my data without violating my right to privacy?
is it really an agreement if it gets shoved down your throat?
Yes, because unless you were dealing with Vito Corleone, nobody forced you to accept it. There's a difference between "take this or leave it, we don't care" and "either your brains or your signature will appear on this contract"
More important: Who checks the content for "lawful" or "not lawful"?
No one, unless they want to go to jail for violating state and federal wiretapping laws. If it's illegal for me to monitor my neighbor's phone calls to determine whether or not he's breaking the law it ought to be illegal for my ISP to monitor my traffic to determine it's legality.
At least in NYS, this may already be the case:
250.05 Eavesdropping: A person is guilty of eavesdropping when he unlawfully engages in wiretapping, mechanical overhearing of a conversation, or intercepting or accessing of an electronic communication.
Eavesdropping is a class E felony.
From another section: "Unlawfully" means not specifically authorized pursuant to article seven hundred or seven hundred five of the criminal procedure law for the purposes of this section and sections 250.05, 250.10, 250.15, 250.20, 250.25, 250.30 and 250.35 of this article.
Looks like they can't do it in NYS without a court order. So how exactly does my ISP determine whether or not my traffic is "lawful"?