That's why in the USA women are forced to cover their breasts while men are free to remove their shirt on a hot day
Actually, in my state (New York) women can go topless anywhere that men can.
Likewise, broadcasters can put murder and violence on TV where children can see it but a bare female breast is strictly forbidden. There is no practical difference between that and forcing women to cover their hair
There's no practical difference between what we allow on TV and forcing women to completely cover themselves before leaving the house? Do women in the United States require the permission of a husband or male relative before they venture out in public? Are women in the United States forbidden from driving? Are they subject to beatings from the religious police if they refuse to comply with any of these laws?
In other words, hatred for Islam mostly sprouts from intolerance for cultural differences.
That's a valid point but trying to say that there is no difference between the United States and certain states engage in sexual apartheid is completely insane. If you can't see that then you've been completely assimilated by the political correctness crowd.
Look at how little natural enviroment is left in places such as western europe and the USA
Do you have any idea of the scale of the United States? How much open undeveloped space there is out West? Hell, how much open undeveloped space there is in parts of the East for that matter? And that's not even counting state and national parks.
Dropping a small scale nuclear weapon in a population center would render that space unusable for how long, again?
Not for very long, given the fact that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain as populated thriving cities.
Taking out wall street is a big victory symbolically, let's say, and making sure you no one can come within a mile of it for 2000 years is a bigger victory still.
You are thinking about 'gun-type' bomb there a slug of uranium is shot at uranium target. This kind of bombs is not produced now (the only known gun-type bomb was used in Hiroshima bombing) - they are too heavy and unreliable.
They aren't "unreliable". The design of the Hiroshima bomb wasn't even tested in advance -- that's how confident the Manhattan Project guys were that it would be successful.
The design has several limitations -- it can't (easily) be used with plutonium because of the risk of pre-denotation (caused by spontaneous fissioning of the nuclear material), which limits the design to using U-235. The design requires a large amount of uranium and has such a low efficiency that most of it is wasted. The design is also prone to pre-denotation even when sued with U-235 -- making the weapon riskier to handle than implosion weapons and more likely to fizzle.
It's not without advantages though. Gun-type weapons are fairly simple to design (contrasted with implosion weapons) and some have voiced concern that it would be possible for a rouge state or even stateless actors to adopt it to make a crude weapon. The major stumbling blocks are the difficulty of obtaining/producing uranium-235 and the risk of pre-denotation/fizzles.
The problem with VC capital is that you some need to get it AND maintain control of your company/process. Most VC offers read like "well, we're putting up all the capital, and all you bring is a bit IP/knowledge.
I know they usually get some control and a seat at the table but control of the whole company? Isn't that the exception rather than the rule?
Google didn't wind up selling 80% of their shares to the VC partners they had, IIRC.
i know it's "bad" but racial profiling really is a pretty efficient way for security to filter through so many people. i'm not advocating wanton racism or any nonsense like that, but the fact of the matter is that most peoples who practice islam are ethnic groups that caucasians would consider "non-whites." Given that our perceived "enemy" are radical muslims, we can ignore pretty much all white people whilst screening for baddies at the airport.
Yeah, cuz we all know that no white person would ever fall for radial Islam or do something stupid like travel to Afghanistan and meet Osama Bin Ladin.
ou didn't see them look up when you went thru the detector, but I'd wager they'd looked already, saw him, and that's why they exhibited no reaction *that you could detect* to an alarm going off.
I'd be surprised if they bothered. Like I said, one of them was sleeping. The other two were reading. Granted, it's probably a pretty boring job at a small airport with no ongoing arrivals or departures, but sleeping on duty? I'd be fired for that and my job is a lot less critical than a TSA screener.
and likely lax attitudes at your local airport, but what does (fill in name of terrorist organization here) care about blowing up a little airport?
I don't think they care about blowing it up but I could point out that some of the 9/11 hijackers gained access to the air transport system from a small regional airport (Portland, Maine as I recall). It's usually been my experience that once you get into the secured area of an airport you don't have to go through security at subsequent airports for most transfers -- so in theory you could buy off some underpaid guy at a regional airport and smuggle something bad into almost any airport in the United States.
It just seems stupid that someone can bypass all of that security and go into the secured area without being checked yet we can't bring a fucking bottle of water or breast milk onto the plane with us. At best it's security theater -- at worst the Government actually thinks they are doing a good job and isn't pursuing useful changes in their procedures or technology.
This isn't some sneaky handshake deal here -- you're in the company of the airport's operations manager, an officially sanctioned and trusted person. He's vouching for you, and it sounds like you're not some dude he met two days ago. A sleeper agent? That's a plot device, not a real threat.
And airport operations managers can't be bought off?
That's the biggest security threat there is, IMHO. The threat of terrorists or foreign Governments buying off our people. If a foreign Government can buy off an FBI agents, CIA agents or military personnel what makes you think a terrorist network with access to millions of dollars couldn't buy off an airport operations manager?
I wasn't surprised that they let me go into secured areas -- I was surprised that they didn't even bother to look up when the metal detector went off. Two of them were reading and the third guy was sleeping. Granted, there were no flights arriving or departing at that time but sleeping on duty? My job is a lot less critical than airport security but I'd still be fired for sleeping on duty.
All it takes is a buddy in the luggage handling section.
Airports are so leaky it isn't even funny
This is frighteningly accurate. Quick story:
Coming back from Florence about a year ago. Post 9/11 world. American Airlines loses my luggage. Takes four weeks for them to locate it. They claim to have finally found it and say it will be on a flight heading into the local airport the next day.
I head up to the airport to see if they actually found it. A buddy of mine works as an operations manager at the local airport. Of course my luggage doesn't show up -- but he takes me on a behind the scenes tour of the airport while we wait. We walk right past the TSA guys (one of whom is sleeping -- it's a small regional airport and there were no arrivals or departures going on at this time), right through the metal detector -- setting it off in the process -- yet none of them stopped us or even looked up! They've never seen me before and have only the word of my friend that I have no ill intentions.
So you can walk right out onto the tarmac with the planes if you happen to know the right person -- no security/background check required -- but you can't bring more than 3oz of breast milk onto your flight. Does anybody else see how stupid that is?
I wouldn't assume that this experience is solely related to what I may have been writing in comments. I lurked on the Great Orange Satan (great name, btw) for about 14 months before I even bothered to get an account and start rating and commenting. Before I was ever posting I was seeing examples of what I cited above.
Beyond anything that may or may not exist in the comments, I am extremely troubled when I see a front page story discussing the color of John McCain's teeth. Yes, I realize the point that kos was attempting to make about having competent campaign/marketing staff. But I still think it was out of line. And his 'that's just gross!' remarks belied any neutral intent and suggested to me that he had meant to attack him all along.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions about Dailykos or any other blog for that matter. My ultimate conclusion was that I wasn't real encouraged by the slant and the anger that I saw there. I'm not rooting for the Democrats to win Washington and run the country like the next GWB administration by railroading the opposition and silencing dissent.
That's a valid point though I'm not convinced that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, specifically the fact that most European Governments seem to be a lot less stable then ours -- Italy comes to mind.
Anyway, there's nothing specifically stopping the United States from becoming a multi-party state. It would be interesting to see how that would work under our republican system of Government as opposed to the more centralized ones of Europe.
Congratulations, you just gamed the system and made the carrier pay for replacement of your subsidized cellphone
And that's a bad thing, why?
The replacement cost was $120, which is most likely the cost T-Mobile had to actually pay to Motorola for the phone
Is that why the exact same phone was available on Motorola's website for $70? Would it be logical to assume that T-Mobile gets at least as good of a price seeing as how they are buying thousands of them at a time?
The prepaid model was only $30 because it's subsidized by T-Mobile, and they're hoping you buy enough minutes through them to pay back their carrier subsidy. Since you just popped your SIM card in it and used it, you forced them to eat the replacement costs of the phone you lost.
Again, I'll ask why this is a bad thing? If I can talk a car dealership into selling me an automobile at a loss for the dealership should I really refrain myself from doing so? Or should I seek out the best deal available for me as a consumer?
but you're an even dumber consumer if you can't understand that these cellphones are not free to make. It costs something to churn out all those cheap chinese electronics
And you are even dumber if you think that the cost of cell phones wouldn't come down dramatically if we had an actual market for them instead of being forced to buy them through the carriers so they can preserve their walled garden revenue model.
But that is the very essence of being in a political party, at least in the USA
I agree, but you should have left off the "at least in the USA" part. The system in place right now is comparative freedom if you look at some of the European multi-party states with parliamentary systems.
Overall though I agree with the content and tone of your post. I also seem to remember Washington warning us about this.... people didn't even wait until he was dead to disregard his advice either as I recall.
What would the point of that have been? They wanted to secede so they could keep slavery, if they can't keep it, they might as well have stayed in the Union.
Some people buy the "lost cause" argument that says that the war wasn't really about slavery -- it was solely about tariffs and economic policy. I was attempting to point out the folly of this argument by pointing out a way that the South could have won the war (indeed, the only way given how outclassed they were by the North) if they had been willing to abandon slavery.
The right thing to have done is to let the South secede
Well, like I said, all that was a moot point once the South fired on Union troops. The die was cast after that. You can fault Lincoln somewhat for refusing to concede on the issue of Federal property but it was Jefferson Davis and his cabinet that gave the order to seize Fort Sumter by force.
A war probably would have happened anyway between the two powers -- ever read the Timeline-191 series by Turtledove? I doubt it would have gone down exactly like he wrote but sooner or later the two nations would have had competing interests somewhere and would have gone to war with each other.
What about his accomplishments in the IL legislature? Do those not count either?
I honestly don't care if you vote for him or not but don't go spreading this crap that he has no track record and no experience. That's just a cop-out and a way to dodge a real debate about the issues and challenges we face.
I don't know if you are referring to a specific bill, but troops already get plenty of benefits
Yeah, I hear if you lose a limb they send you to an overstaffed and underfunded VA hospital. If your lucky you might even get one without rats, cockroaches and mold. Sounds like a pretty compelling benefits package to me -- where do I sign up?
The only thing that sounds like third term to me is the power he wants
Keeping us in Iraq when 70% of the country wants out isn't continuing the Bush legacy?
I see your point but I still think you are splitting hairs.
The concern that our own soldiers may be placed at higher risk in future conflicts due to our actions in this current conflict is perfectly valid and can't be dismissed that easily. I'll grant you that Al-Quada types are going to torture us anyway but I think the United States set a horrible precedent by flaunting international (and American!) law and engaging in torture.
I disagree, but regardless the Rubicon was crossed the minute that the South fired on Federal troops. There was no going back after that point.
Given the disparities between the North and the South in terms of population, GDP, industrial base, arms manufacturing and naval resources I'd say that was a pretty stupid decision on the part of Jefferson Davis.
Personally I would have stalled for time and tried to get the UK and/or France involved. I guess that was always a tough sell for the South given the fact that the European countries were opposed to slavery. The South probably could have won recognition (maybe even intervention) from both powers if it had been willing to give up slavery -- the fact that they weren't is pretty telling in my mind and dispels the "lost cause" argument that claims slavery had nothing to do with secession or the war.
I disagree. How can we bring pressure to bear on those that would torture our soldiers and citizens if we are engaging in the process ourselves? How can we speak out forcefully against a practice that we ourselves are employing?
If that's not enough then I would offer up the following arguments:
1) It's illegal under American and International law.
2) It has destroyed our creditability with the global community and hampered efforts to get our allies on board with our plans to fight terrorism
3) Information obtained from torture is unreliable at best.
4) Images of Americans torturing Muslims is the most effective recruiting tool Osama could ever have hoped for.
5) It places the United States of America on the same level as Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.
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No, we were told that he COULD go into Saudi Arabia. I was looking for a citation that he actually intended to do so.
Actually, in my state (New York) women can go topless anywhere that men can.
Likewise, broadcasters can put murder and violence on TV where children can see it but a bare female breast is strictly forbidden. There is no practical difference between that and forcing women to cover their hairThere's no practical difference between what we allow on TV and forcing women to completely cover themselves before leaving the house? Do women in the United States require the permission of a husband or male relative before they venture out in public? Are women in the United States forbidden from driving? Are they subject to beatings from the religious police if they refuse to comply with any of these laws?
In other words, hatred for Islam mostly sprouts from intolerance for cultural differences.That's a valid point but trying to say that there is no difference between the United States and certain states engage in sexual apartheid is completely insane. If you can't see that then you've been completely assimilated by the political correctness crowd.
Do you have any idea of the scale of the United States? How much open undeveloped space there is out West? Hell, how much open undeveloped space there is in parts of the East for that matter? And that's not even counting state and national parks.
Yes, believe it or not I can. Two cities come to mind......
Not for very long, given the fact that both Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain as populated thriving cities.
Taking out wall street is a big victory symbolically, let's say, and making sure you no one can come within a mile of it for 2000 years is a bigger victory still.Where did you get 2,000 years from?
They aren't "unreliable". The design of the Hiroshima bomb wasn't even tested in advance -- that's how confident the Manhattan Project guys were that it would be successful.
The design has several limitations -- it can't (easily) be used with plutonium because of the risk of pre-denotation (caused by spontaneous fissioning of the nuclear material), which limits the design to using U-235. The design requires a large amount of uranium and has such a low efficiency that most of it is wasted. The design is also prone to pre-denotation even when sued with U-235 -- making the weapon riskier to handle than implosion weapons and more likely to fizzle.
It's not without advantages though. Gun-type weapons are fairly simple to design (contrasted with implosion weapons) and some have voiced concern that it would be possible for a rouge state or even stateless actors to adopt it to make a crude weapon. The major stumbling blocks are the difficulty of obtaining/producing uranium-235 and the risk of pre-denotation/fizzles.
I know they usually get some control and a seat at the table but control of the whole company? Isn't that the exception rather than the rule?
Google didn't wind up selling 80% of their shares to the VC partners they had, IIRC.
Citation?
Yeah, cuz we all know that no white person would ever fall for radial Islam or do something stupid like travel to Afghanistan and meet Osama Bin Ladin.
I'd be surprised if they bothered. Like I said, one of them was sleeping. The other two were reading. Granted, it's probably a pretty boring job at a small airport with no ongoing arrivals or departures, but sleeping on duty? I'd be fired for that and my job is a lot less critical than a TSA screener.
and likely lax attitudes at your local airport, but what does (fill in name of terrorist organization here) care about blowing up a little airport?I don't think they care about blowing it up but I could point out that some of the 9/11 hijackers gained access to the air transport system from a small regional airport (Portland, Maine as I recall). It's usually been my experience that once you get into the secured area of an airport you don't have to go through security at subsequent airports for most transfers -- so in theory you could buy off some underpaid guy at a regional airport and smuggle something bad into almost any airport in the United States.
It just seems stupid that someone can bypass all of that security and go into the secured area without being checked yet we can't bring a fucking bottle of water or breast milk onto the plane with us. At best it's security theater -- at worst the Government actually thinks they are doing a good job and isn't pursuing useful changes in their procedures or technology.
And airport operations managers can't be bought off?
That's the biggest security threat there is, IMHO. The threat of terrorists or foreign Governments buying off our people. If a foreign Government can buy off an FBI agents, CIA agents or military personnel what makes you think a terrorist network with access to millions of dollars couldn't buy off an airport operations manager?
I wasn't surprised that they let me go into secured areas -- I was surprised that they didn't even bother to look up when the metal detector went off. Two of them were reading and the third guy was sleeping. Granted, there were no flights arriving or departing at that time but sleeping on duty? My job is a lot less critical than airport security but I'd still be fired for sleeping on duty.
This is frighteningly accurate. Quick story:
Coming back from Florence about a year ago. Post 9/11 world. American Airlines loses my luggage. Takes four weeks for them to locate it. They claim to have finally found it and say it will be on a flight heading into the local airport the next day.
I head up to the airport to see if they actually found it. A buddy of mine works as an operations manager at the local airport. Of course my luggage doesn't show up -- but he takes me on a behind the scenes tour of the airport while we wait. We walk right past the TSA guys (one of whom is sleeping -- it's a small regional airport and there were no arrivals or departures going on at this time), right through the metal detector -- setting it off in the process -- yet none of them stopped us or even looked up! They've never seen me before and have only the word of my friend that I have no ill intentions.
So you can walk right out onto the tarmac with the planes if you happen to know the right person -- no security/background check required -- but you can't bring more than 3oz of breast milk onto your flight. Does anybody else see how stupid that is?
Verizon doesn't shape traffic on FiOS or DSL. They don't block any p2p service that I'm aware of either.
and censorshipBlame Andrew Cuomo. I've already written his office a letter and informed him that I will no longer be voting for him for any statewide office.
I wouldn't assume that this experience is solely related to what I may have been writing in comments. I lurked on the Great Orange Satan (great name, btw) for about 14 months before I even bothered to get an account and start rating and commenting. Before I was ever posting I was seeing examples of what I cited above.
Beyond anything that may or may not exist in the comments, I am extremely troubled when I see a front page story discussing the color of John McCain's teeth. Yes, I realize the point that kos was attempting to make about having competent campaign/marketing staff. But I still think it was out of line. And his 'that's just gross!' remarks belied any neutral intent and suggested to me that he had meant to attack him all along.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions about Dailykos or any other blog for that matter. My ultimate conclusion was that I wasn't real encouraged by the slant and the anger that I saw there. I'm not rooting for the Democrats to win Washington and run the country like the next GWB administration by railroading the opposition and silencing dissent.
That's a valid point though I'm not convinced that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, specifically the fact that most European Governments seem to be a lot less stable then ours -- Italy comes to mind.
Anyway, there's nothing specifically stopping the United States from becoming a multi-party state. It would be interesting to see how that would work under our republican system of Government as opposed to the more centralized ones of Europe.
And that's a bad thing, why?
The replacement cost was $120, which is most likely the cost T-Mobile had to actually pay to Motorola for the phoneIs that why the exact same phone was available on Motorola's website for $70? Would it be logical to assume that T-Mobile gets at least as good of a price seeing as how they are buying thousands of them at a time?
The prepaid model was only $30 because it's subsidized by T-Mobile, and they're hoping you buy enough minutes through them to pay back their carrier subsidy. Since you just popped your SIM card in it and used it, you forced them to eat the replacement costs of the phone you lost.Again, I'll ask why this is a bad thing? If I can talk a car dealership into selling me an automobile at a loss for the dealership should I really refrain myself from doing so? Or should I seek out the best deal available for me as a consumer?
but you're an even dumber consumer if you can't understand that these cellphones are not free to make. It costs something to churn out all those cheap chinese electronicsAnd you are even dumber if you think that the cost of cell phones wouldn't come down dramatically if we had an actual market for them instead of being forced to buy them through the carriers so they can preserve their walled garden revenue model.
Please tell me that you aren't seriously comparing a training regimen that someone has to volunteer for with torturing someone against their will?
I agree, but you should have left off the "at least in the USA" part. The system in place right now is comparative freedom if you look at some of the European multi-party states with parliamentary systems.
Overall though I agree with the content and tone of your post. I also seem to remember Washington warning us about this.... people didn't even wait until he was dead to disregard his advice either as I recall.
Some people buy the "lost cause" argument that says that the war wasn't really about slavery -- it was solely about tariffs and economic policy. I was attempting to point out the folly of this argument by pointing out a way that the South could have won the war (indeed, the only way given how outclassed they were by the North) if they had been willing to abandon slavery.
The right thing to have done is to let the South secedeWell, like I said, all that was a moot point once the South fired on Union troops. The die was cast after that. You can fault Lincoln somewhat for refusing to concede on the issue of Federal property but it was Jefferson Davis and his cabinet that gave the order to seize Fort Sumter by force.
A war probably would have happened anyway between the two powers -- ever read the Timeline-191 series by Turtledove? I doubt it would have gone down exactly like he wrote but sooner or later the two nations would have had competing interests somewhere and would have gone to war with each other.
Passing legislation to create a website for the people to track Federal spending isn't something to brag about?
Passing legislation to keep weapons out of the hands of terrorists is not something to brag about?
Getting lobbying and ethics reform passed is nothing to brag about?
What about his accomplishments in the IL legislature? Do those not count either?
I honestly don't care if you vote for him or not but don't go spreading this crap that he has no track record and no experience. That's just a cop-out and a way to dodge a real debate about the issues and challenges we face.
There's no reason to mock someone merely because they professed different political views than your own.
Yeah, I hear if you lose a limb they send you to an overstaffed and underfunded VA hospital. If your lucky you might even get one without rats, cockroaches and mold. Sounds like a pretty compelling benefits package to me -- where do I sign up?
The only thing that sounds like third term to me is the power he wantsKeeping us in Iraq when 70% of the country wants out isn't continuing the Bush legacy?
I see your point but I still think you are splitting hairs.
The concern that our own soldiers may be placed at higher risk in future conflicts due to our actions in this current conflict is perfectly valid and can't be dismissed that easily. I'll grant you that Al-Quada types are going to torture us anyway but I think the United States set a horrible precedent by flaunting international (and American!) law and engaging in torture.
I disagree, but regardless the Rubicon was crossed the minute that the South fired on Federal troops. There was no going back after that point.
Given the disparities between the North and the South in terms of population, GDP, industrial base, arms manufacturing and naval resources I'd say that was a pretty stupid decision on the part of Jefferson Davis.
Personally I would have stalled for time and tried to get the UK and/or France involved. I guess that was always a tough sell for the South given the fact that the European countries were opposed to slavery. The South probably could have won recognition (maybe even intervention) from both powers if it had been willing to give up slavery -- the fact that they weren't is pretty telling in my mind and dispels the "lost cause" argument that claims slavery had nothing to do with secession or the war.
I disagree. How can we bring pressure to bear on those that would torture our soldiers and citizens if we are engaging in the process ourselves? How can we speak out forcefully against a practice that we ourselves are employing?
If that's not enough then I would offer up the following arguments:
1) It's illegal under American and International law.
2) It has destroyed our creditability with the global community and hampered efforts to get our allies on board with our plans to fight terrorism
3) Information obtained from torture is unreliable at best.
4) Images of Americans torturing Muslims is the most effective recruiting tool Osama could ever have hoped for.
5) It places the United States of America on the same level as Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.