The difference is that Democrats will get more votes from young people who think that only chumps (and old people like McCain) should have to pay for movies, and who capable of compartmentalizing their "respect" for their favorite musicians separately from their willingness to happily rip them off.
The hypocrisy is stunning. They don't want to be told what they can and can't do online (including burning a huge portion of the available bandwidth while ripping off entertainment), but they want the ability to tell a business that builds and sustains a network how they should operate it.
I love it when Baby Boomers get on generational tirades like this. It has genuine comedic quality about it, particularly given how ridiculous and hypocritical it is.
But since you seem to be a true-believer, let me clear it up for you, old timer. "Young people" are, knowingly or not, rejecting the flawed assumptions and unjust laws that have effectively attempted to privatize human culture for the benefit of a greedy few at the very top of content distribution companies who are better at bribing the legislature than serving their own customers. What you describe as pathological compartmentalization is, in actuality, the very natural returning shift in public values to a more balanced, modern view of copyright protections. In short, the pendulum is finally swinging back towards the social-contract view of government-granted, temporary monopolies described in Article I section 8 of the constitution, which references not the "rights" of companies or starving artists but the "progress of science and useful arts".
I appreciate the candor and honesty of your response. I promise I wasn't trying to turn this into a question of your personal faith or a debate about the existence of God.
I claim that the Bible is divine not simply because of its existance, but because of its existance in conjunction with its claims (including prophecies that have been fulfilled), the specific historical accuracy of its accounts (the biblical record has not once been contradicted by any archaelogical evidence), and the honesty of its narrative (the persons in the Scriptures are presented with all their flaws).
The Bible need not be divine to be true. I don't think you're giving our ancestors enough credit here. Though the Bible is exceptional in this regard, other ancient texts are historically accurate without the help of God. And as far as prophesies go, much of their accuracy lies within the eye of the beholder.
It just bothers me how many Christians (particularly Protestants) accept the fallibility of man and institutions of men (For instance, the Catholic Church) yet fail to see how this easily applies to what is, ultimately, a product (from authoring, to canonization, propagation, and translation) of the work of men: the Bible. I do not know if this stems from general ignorance of the origins and history of the Bible, hesitancy of religious leaders to address such issues, or cognitive dissonance, but I do know that it often leads to a false sense of righteousness and abuse.
Humility was often a theme to the teachings of Jesus. I just think that we people of faith are in need of a certain amount of humility. It is a humble person who admits that he might be wrong and acknowledges the limitations of his own knowledge.
I often have people cite how Scripture is contradictory. Would you be so kind as to provide some specific examples that I may review and address?
I suspect that such a discourse would devolve into a meaningless test of your ability to rationalize versus my recollection of the Bible. I'm not really interested in that as such an argument would become tiresome and honestly beside my original point. If you are truly interested in some of these specific contradictions, however, there are plenty of websites and books which document them.
If you examine my quote, I do not claim that the "modern, accepted form" of the Bible is a "perfect, divine work".
Sorry if I wasn't clear on this, I wasn't trying to put words into your mouth. The way I see it, there can be two logical rationales for believing that canonization was divine:
The modern, accepted form of the bible is, as a work, perfect and clearly divine in its content.
The human institutions which were responsible for canonization demonstrated infallibility at other times.
The purpose of my first paragraph was to dispute (1). In my view, the content of the Bible as work of literature fails to demonstrate its divinity in its content. In short, it does not transcend the primitive people and culture of the time periods in which it was written in either knowledge or moral philosophy. Take the morally indefensible institution of slavery, for example. Why is it that the Bible does not clearly condemn it? One could resort to a "God works in mysterious ways" brand of argument but the most reasonable explanation is that the Bible is a reflection of the people which produced it and that those people saw nothing wrong with slavery.
Furthermore the internal contradictions aside, the Bible is also very unclear on many important aspects of both its meaning and message to the point where it lends itself to limitless interpretations on what should be fundamentally basic points of the human experience. The sheer number of denominations and divisions that are included under the banner of "Christianity" and the extremes which encompass their views demonstrate the Bible's lack of clarity, which would, otherwise, be expected of a perfect, divine work.
I don't think you believe (2), so I won't address it any more than I did in my previous post.
I simply state that I believe God preserved the writings he intended to preserve--writings that may help us understand his character, and his plan of salvation. Had he not wanted the teaching of the cross to go forth, he could have allowed for the teaching to be diluted, for the early manuscripts to have been lost, or that the early sect of the Christians had been eliminated.
This is self-justifying, circular logic. You're suggesting that the Bible is a divine work simply by the nature of its existence. Similar arguments could be made for any ancient (or even modern) text.
I believe God used canonization to preserve those writings that were passed on to this day...
Why do you choose to jump to this conclusion? The Bible in its modern, accepted form is far from a perfect, divine work. There are many sections which are contradictory or simply wrong as written (eg. the value of pi). In other cases, the Bible is very unclear to the point where massive departures from the written word are required in order for it to make sense. (e.g. the Holy Trinity, the existence of Hell, or, more generally, simply how to live a good life.)
But, more than that, why would canonization be any different than any other act of the Church? Most modern Christians admit that the church and religious institutions in general, are bodies of man and are thus, fallible. If the church can, on the one hand, mistakenly condone the extermination of the Native Americans and the slaughters of the crusades, inquisition, and witch trials, what makes you think that it would be above making mistakes during canonization?
This bill has nothing to do with terrorism. It has everything to do with saying whether or not the USA can spy on people in other countries who may be talking to people in ours.
Nope. The previous FISA laws gave them that exact same power but they just had to go through a secret court up to three days after the surveillance began. There can't be an argument that such an arrangement interfered with the process because it, literally granted 99% of the cases that ever came to it (IIRC, only two requests were ever rejected.) This whole Terror Surveillance Program (which we should never forget began BEFORE 9/11) was an unconstitutional, illegitimate executive powergrab, pure an simple. This new law effectively sanctioned the TSP and broadened the FISA powers even further. And the reason it passed now is because the hypocritical democratic leadership believes they're going to win the presidency in the Fall.
And what about our citizens' rights? Since when do you stop being an American citizen, with constitutionally-protected rights, just because you make an international phone call? Has it ever occurred to you that if people like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were around today that such justifications could be used to wiretap their phones? We're in dire straits if the bar on human and civil rights is now being set by China.
If was was going to do something illegal that required your cooperation and I already had a vehicle to enable my activities in that by a law, you could do something for me that helped, I wouldn't risk that by telling your I'm breaking the law. Instead, I would keep you in the dark and keep you participating on your own free will according to the law. I think the telecoms are in the same boat and no amount of evidence to this date has shown otherwise
Ignorance is not a defense. If one unknowingly commits a crime, that fact might play a role in the sentencing but it does NOT affect the verdict of the appropriate charge.
You really need to read that law again. section d says "a complete defense against any civil or criminal action brought under this chapter or any other law" That means they can't be held over those event for any law, even laws providing recourse for TOS violations.
Again, IANAL, but as I understand it, contract law is completely separate from criminal law and, in most cases, isn't codified by any legislative body and thus any formal "laws" but rather established through precedent and English Common Law standards. Furthermore, drawing the line between actions directly resultant from the wiretap request and unrelated ones isn't necessarily a simple matter. Imagine for a second if wiretapped lines were less-reliable resulting in serious injury or death (a la the OnStar wiretapping case) or if the Telecom companies started falsely billing the affected customers to cover the unpaid expenses of wiretapping. Would such actions be covered by this complete defense? Probably not. But the effective blank check that is this new "updated" FISA bill basically ignores any of these ambiguities and potential abuses which might have actually happened (nobody knows--"national secrets", of course) and lets them off the hook.
Actually, this statement shows that you simply aren't paying attention to the situation or even what I wrote nor have you examined the immunity bill. The government classified the documents as state secretes. The telecoms can't bring them up without facing jail time and damaging national security.
Did you read it? Are you paying attention? Or are you just unthinkingly repeating the Republican party's public justification verbatim? The actual text of the bill says nothing about establishing the government's role in their civil defense. It merely grants the Telecommunications companies complete immunity so long as the Attorney General verifies that it is related to the TSP and that everything is kosher, according to the Administration (because we all know, they don't have a stake in this...).
But more than that, the notion that bombshell, vitally important national security information was potentially going to be released from these cases is patently absurd. Many of these litigants know for a fact that they were under surveillance and exactly to what extent. There was a case where the wiretap transcripts were accidentally mailed to the person under surveillance. Another litigant put two and two together when dumbass FBI agents started referencing specifics of the content of phone conversations during interviews. What exactly is the argument here? What, specifically, is the worst that could happen? You think Al Qaeda operatives don't already know their phonecalls are probably being monitored?
I also think your fine with this premise but don't like it because you can't find more out about the TSP which is wrong in and of itself. This law is not retroactive immunity. It is a vehicle that allows the existing immunity to take place while protecting national security secrets. Look at the situation as a whole. Look at the law and what it does, it is very clear in that respect and I support that intent.
The primary attack Obama faces from the right is that he won't be "tough on terrorism." He needed to vote "tough" to beef up his security credentials.
I'm not apologizing for Obama here, but yes, if he wants to get elected this is political reality
The problem with this type of thinking is that it only concerns itself with winning elections and winning them in a very orthodox, cowardly way, NOT what actually matters--justice, rule of law, effective governance, leadership, the precedent being set, etc. This bill wasn't about Barack Obama, but by voting for it he just proved that he has let the campaign advisers take control and showed that, when push comes to shove, he ISN'T any different than any other politician.
"Change We Can Believe In" is akin to a robotic "We Come in Peace" from an alien conqueror in science fiction. It's an amalgamation of random syllables scientifically arranged so as to shrewdly give us a false sense of inspiration and security.
It's quite simple. Section 2520 of Title 18 part d give the telecoms a complete defense if they were given an authorization from the government that was statutory or legislatively applicable. I believe this happened independent of the government's illegal activity which is specifically what the immunity bill addresses.
It seems pretty clear that the wording of the U.S. code was in reference to individual wiretaps rather than an entire program for spying on (possibly) anyone and everyone. What's more, section D is has a "good faith" requirement, which seems rather relevant given the obvious unconstitutionality of the nature of the request.
And, even still, the Telecom companies were not off the hook, because even if what you said is true, that they aren't liable for damages resulting from their actions, they would have still had to answer for the breach of contract and terms of service.
IINAL, but do I really have to be? All of this boils down to a simple logical statement: If the Telecom companies were so clearly innocent, why did they so badly need retroactive legal immunity? Because it might cost some money to defend their "legal" actions? Those are rather weak excuses and could be arguments for retroactive legal immunity for anyone accused of criminal or civil wrongdoing.
In fact, why even have courts? Congress just effectively ruled the Telecom companies innocent when they know little more about the "Terrorist Surveillence Program" than we do (on account of "National" Security). Where exactly do they draw the line between this civil litigation they know little about and any other? I rather think they should have just passed a law that gave retro-active legal immunity to any individual or company who has donated more than $X amount in total to both major parties. At least it would have been more consistent and honest....
Revolutions are only successful when the people fighting for them have little to nothing to lose. We know this in America, it is why the majority of people can survive even if in uncomfortable situations. As long as a majority are fed, housed, and clothed reasonably well you will not see revolution.
I agree, but don't think that simply because a generalized, economic or security crisis hasn't happened yet that revolution impossible. Our system of governance is so dysfunctional that a disaster is entirely possible. Nobody is at the wheel.
That being said, most revolutions only really end up with a lot of good people dying. We'd be likely to end up with either anarchy or the exact same thing only maybe less hypocritical and self-righteous as we have now.
Even so, it's a lot less work to start new political parties than it is to start a revolution.
Is it?
With winner-take-all, gerrymandered districts, a massive amount (a plurality, even) of third party votes can effectively be entirely ignored. Then there's the media, which thrives off of simplicity of the point-counterpoint format that a two party system provides. If you think that the same people who whenever Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich were talking always made sure to show camera angles of the other candidates smirking are going to give any third party candidate a chance, you're crazy. And that's just the national media. Do you really think that Channel 6 ACTION news is going to be willing or able to actually inform you about third party local and state candidates? And let's not forget the lazy, apathetic public who often even ignorantly self-identify with the major parties who, nevertheless, constantly shit on them.
No, I'm not entirely convinced that a revolution would be harder than overcoming the political and institutional inertia of the two-party system, but here's to hoping we never have to find out...
The Democratic House and Senate leadership is spineless, no doubt about it, but please don't confuse that with the entire party.
What's the point of an opposition party if they don't--you know--OPPOSE utter bullshit like this?
The Democratic party has a majority in both the house and the senate. Now, the Republicans might be able to stop them from passing something of their own, but it's numerically impossible for them to force legislation over the Democratic party without their consent.
It's FAR past time for liberals to stop making excuses for the Democratic party and recognize that, rather than being the lesser of two evils, the Democratic party is completely dysfunctional and is, in actuality, opposing progress.
the truth is, if the government tells a business to do something, and tells the business that they have legal authorization to do it, and in fact threaten the company if they don't comply, the business is going to be off the hook in court.
No... the truth is that we now we will NEVER know now whether they were guilty or not, because this bill has prevented the courts from making an actual legal decision.
But let's just examine this for a second:
If the Telecommunications companies were really so threatened, why was Quest able to say no? And why did they charge a fee? Bullies don't usually pay their victims for services rendered...
If the Telecommunications companies were being patriotic and truly serving the American people, why did they keep their surveillance so secret? Didn't they at least owe their subscribers an update to the contract/terms of service that reflected the actual change in service?
If the Telecommunications companies were innocent, why do they need Congress to give them retro-active immunity?
What transpired today was indefensible and no amount of trolling is going to change that, Valar.
Being a pansy is hardly an excuse for breaking the law on a massive scale.
The biggest mis-conception is that Telecom companies were victims in all this; that the big mean government threatened them and they caved in out of fear. This just isn't true. It's not like they did the wiretapping for free, they charged and profited from it. Furthermore, by playing ball they received other sweetheart billion-dollar government deals, while companies like Quest were specifically denied. In fact, one of the lesser publicized but even uglier aspects of this bill is that it actually pays some unpaid bills for the wiretapping project.
The really crazy thing about all this is that, in civil court, the telecom companies are claiming they didn't illegally wiretap their customers, whilst they simultaneously ask Congress for compensation AND retro-active legal immunity... for acts they supposedly didn't commit.
This whole thing is outrageous and an affront to justice on all counts. If this bill passes unamended, I fear for the future of our nation. (If we, the people, can even call it that any more.)
But when his anecdotal, emotional story fits the well-known (and even referenced in this thread) statistical trend of gun violence increasing in D.C. despite the ban, what exactly is your point?
According to wikipedia, the military's shift from larger rifle calibers to smaller ones like the.223 had to do with the results of a study called project SALVO:
"The conclusion was that most combat takes place at short range. In a highly mobile war, combat teams ran into each other largely by surprise; and the team with the higher firepower tended to win. They also found that the chance of being hit in combat was essentially random -- that is, accurate "aiming" made little difference because the targets no longer sat still. The number one predictor of casualties was the total number of bullets fired. Other studies of behavior in battle revealed that many U.S. infantrymen (as many as 2/3) never actually fired their rifles in combat. By contrast, soldiers armed with rapid fire weapons (such as submachine guns) were much more likely to have fired their weapons in battle. These conclusions suggested that infantry should be equipped with a fully-automatic rifle of some sort in order to increase the actual firepower of regular soldiers. It was also clear, however, that such weapons dramatically increased ammunition use and in order for a rifleman to be able to carry enough ammunition for a firefight they would have to carry something much lighter.
Existing rifles were poorly suited to real-world combat for both of these reasons. Although it appeared the new 7.62 mm T44 (precursor to the M14) would increase the rate of fire, its heavy 7.62 mm NATO cartridge made carrying significant quantities of ammunition difficult. Moreover, the length and weight of the weapon made it unsuitable for short range combat situations often found in jungle and urban combat or mechanized warfare, where a smaller and lighter weapon could be brought to bear faster.
These efforts were noticed by Colonel René Studler, U.S. Army Ordnance's Chief of Small Arms Research and Development. Col. Studler asked the Aberdeen Proving Ground to submit a report on the smaller caliber weapons. A team led by Donald Hall, director of program development at Aberdeen, reported that a.22 inch (5.59 mm) round would have performance equal to larger rounds in most combat. With the higher rate of fire possible due to lower recoil it was likely such a weapon would inflict more casualties on the enemy.
Revolutions generally are one-sided, or asymmetric conflicts, to be technical. But don't mistake that as meaning that they are, as a result, impossible. Wars are never won based upon who has the bigger guns. It's never so simple.
Think about it. Nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons would be impossible to employ. Overkill tactics like aerial bombing, destroying infrastructure, and ethnic cleansing would carry with them a huge political backlash (both domestic and internationally). Morale would be extremely low. Political/military leadership would be difficult--if not impossible--to keep safe. Factions of the military might even mutiny or provide material aide to the insurgents. Domestic uncertainty would lead to economic instability which would affect military expenditures and make many of the expensive munitions you suggest cost prohibitive. Other countries might seek to take advantage of the situation and also become involved. For every advantage a conventional military has in stand up fight, it has just as many dis-advantages when the enemy decides not to "play fair" and just lie down and die as expected. In fact, a large-scale internal domestic conflict would, in all likelihood, bring even the mighty U.S. military to its knees because this is not the fight that it is equipped or trained to wage.
Of course, all this is beside the point. Things are not this bad, and anybody who expects them to be in the near future is delusional.
You still need a detonator though, which it would detect. You can just ask the C4 very nicely to explode.
Easy. Bring along (or buy once you get at the gate) a disposable camera. When the leads to the flash are removed, it can deliver quite a shock. I would assume it is strong enough to set off an unstable material like C4.
I think the truth of the matter is that if somebody wants to sneak something on board, at some point you're not going to stop them. Why is it that some people are constitutionally unable to accept that remote possibility?
If I go outside every night wearing overalls covered in blood stains, dig holes in my front yard, and bury body sized bundles wrapped in garbage bags every night for a couple of weeks, I'll probably be investigated for murder. If I build a large enclosure in my backyard, and fill it with heating lamps which use a prodigious amount of electricity and generate a lot of heat, and I sit on my front porch smoking a leafy substance wrapped in paper, I'll probably be investigated for running a grow-op. If I show up at school carrying a fake, but real-looking machine gun, it will probably draw the attention of the authorities.
In fact, isn't it a crime to try to fool the police into thinking you're committing a crime? Usually it gets a disorderly conduct charge or something like that.
As much as the "copyright police" may like to pretend that they're law enforcement (complete with little.jpg images of copper badges--lol), they are not the police. Copyright infringement is a civil charge. As such, the content industries should not get any special treatment when it comes to these cases. If it can be shown that the content industry's methods of obtaining evidence is fundamentally flawed, it calls into question if the DMCA takedown notices and C&D letters are truly filed with good faith as to the validity of their contents. Without those, none of their lawsuits could go forth because they would not be able to request ISPs to release account records.
If I as an individual can't sue random individuals on spurious grounds and demand legal-ransom (err.. "settlement"), why should the industries be able to?
If 20% voting against Obama because of his race constitutes racism... I think we can safely assume that blacks are ultra-racists given their astonishing 90% support for Obama.
The black community is complex. You didn't see this kind of support for Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. If they were voting simply on skin color, you would have expected them to blindly support those candidates, and yet they didn't. Furthermore, you would have expected pre-primary polling data among blacks to have been completely for Obama. It was not. Clearly, something happened to cause a shift of the black community to overwhelmingly support Obama. We'll never know how much of that shift is fallout from the Clintons' racially insensitive campaign rhetoric or a reaction to the media's xenophobic attacks on Obama.
All of the above is, of course, completely incomparable to the bigots who voted against Obama because of his skin color or, to use the politically correct euphemism, "voters who were dumb enough to admit 'race to be a factor' and--oh yeah--voted against the black guy." That is pure racism at its most ugly.
If you are a lender and you loan a high risk person almost a million you deserve to go out of business. Also if you don't understand what you are signing when sign your mortgage thats YOUR fault. Why should the rest of America pay for your ignorance?
Oh, I agree. At least, in the cases where fraud on the part of the broker (which was widespread) was not a factor. The fact that the federal government has a policy that effectively subsidizes questionable, high-risk investment strategies under the euphemism of "too big to fail" is fucking ridiculous and should not be tolerated, particularly by anyone who would try and profess the virtues of the "free" market.
Rich business owners own businesses. Businesses employ people. If there is a market for nice boats what's wrong with employing people to build the nice boats and compensating them for there work?
I have nothing against yachts and the people that buy or produce them. My beef lies with economic policies which falsely posit that the rich are somehow more connected to the domestic economy than other demographic groups and, so, should receive tax-cuts and exemptions first. I consider such policies pure pandering as the rich are arguably less connected to the domestic economy because of their overseas investments and bank accounts. What's worse is that it strikes me as a cheap short-term political trick that artificially increases the stock market prices because of increased investment without actually improving market conditions, which ultimately leads to larger fluctuations in the market which, in the long-term, helps nobody.
How do you lower the food prices? Stop subsidizing the ethanol plants. Thats why the food prices are so high. It takes 26 lbs or corn to make ONE gallon of ethanol. How many days would 26 lbs of corn feed someone? Stop the ethanol stop the high food prices.
This whole "environmentally-friendly corn-based ethanol causes starvation" canard needs to stop. Domestic ethanol fuel production was not the only reason why worldwide food prices have gone up in recent years. One reason is that the price of oil has gone up, because it is oil which produces the nitrogen fertilizer, runs the agricultural equipment, and powers the ships and trucks that deliver the food to its ultimate destination. Food prices are very sensitive to the price of oil which has spiked dramatically in recent years. Another reason is that countries like China and India have been consuming far more meat than they ever did in the past. This indirectly causes the price of grain to rise because cattle eat grain which would have, otherwise, gone to people. The original article in The Economist that prompted this discussion made sure to preface its analysis with at least the second fact. Subsequent popular news articles did not and painted the food-shortages abroad as solely result of navel-gazing environmentalists here in the States.
That being said, corn-based ethanol is a dumb idea and a great example our dysfunctional political system. Corn-based ethanol is inefficient, exacerbates the increased price of food, and, ironically, is bad for the environment. The only reason it gained traction in the legislature is because it is politically expedite. The agricultural lobby is very well organized and highly funded spending tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions in this year alone. Furthermore, Iowa (the Corn-capital of the U.S., or world even) has a disproportionate amount of political power (particularly in a presidential election year) because of its early, bell-weather primary. Corn-based ethanol initiatives gave politicians a great way to pander to special interests while capitalizing on the growing public support of the environmentalism movement--all without actually listening to any serious environmental scientists or experts.
If people think the economy is bad now wait until this guy takes office. Higher taxes and higher energy costs is the only thing he's gonna bring to this country. That is not how you stimulate the economy.
Yeah! Everybody knows that $600 checks courtesy of our Chinese lenders is how you really stimulate the economy! Who cares about the long-term consequences? If we focus on short-term thinking that increases stock prices every quarter, what could possibly go wrong? By my calculations, such a strategy will yield infinite growth!
In that vein, I suggest we make permanent policies like banking deregulation that allows near-million dollar home loans to be given without regard to the applicant's assets or even income. Similarly, we should also make permanent the tax breaks for the ultra-rich. After all, every economist knows that a millionaire buying another yacht is the single most important factor driving the economy. Products and services that people actually need like food, gas, and baby-formula are apparently acquired through some alternate currency other than money. Besides, a federal deficit is over-rated. There's no need to pay attention to that now. After all, if we can get away with waging the longest, most expensive war in modern U.S. history without the usual, obligatory war tax, clearly we can be as irresponsible as we please. What could possibly go wrong?
That's the reality of the marketplace. Unless it's a cure for cancer, or the like, you have to advertise to make people aware that your product exists and why they should prescribe/buy it.
Do you? The United States is one of two countries (the other being New Zealand) in the entire world that allows direct-to-consumer advertising. If such advertising is truly required to stay afloat, why aren't we seeing pharmaceutical companies in the rest of the world all going belly-up?
Sure it is. Unless you're both more reputable than Rolling Stone, and conducting your own independent research to validate RS's claims, your opinion is worthless. But hey, pray to your glossy magazines, if that's what lets you sleep at night.
What news sources and/or publications would you suggest to stay informed?
So can this be adapted with some work to control real limbs of quadraplegics and paraplegics? Seems like something that could be done with some kind of muscle or nerve stimulation. One could imagine a direct stimulation of nerves in the arm based on this kind of signals. A person could actually "teach" the system to get some kind of use of limbs - even if there is no feeling.
It's not that simple. In the case of a quadriplegic with complete spinal transection, for instance, the spinal reflexes would still be intact and likely over-reactive. So, even if external stimulation were applied to cause appropriate muscular contraction, without the proper modulation and inhibition from the upper motor neurons in the brain, any resulting movement would be very jerky and unreliable. Plus, there's the whole issues of muscular tone and posture which are themselves complex and would need to be addressed before these individuals could actually do anything functional.
But, more importantly, sensation is not a luxury. It is absolutely required for proper movement of our extremities. Without access to touch, pain, or proprioceptive (joint-position/vibration) information, the controlling system would have no idea how to properly modulate its stimulation for even basic tasks. Even more troubling, such a system would very easily lead to broken bones, dislocated joints, and torn muscles and blood vessels without the patient even knowing it. All of these could be life-threatening if not found and treated in time.
I'm going to go out on a limb (no pun intended) and predict that it's unlikely that this technology will ever be applied beyond prosthetics. For quadriplegics and paraplegics, the most promising developments will probably be nerve-regeneration techniques, as this leverages the already exquisite circuitry in our bodies devoted to movement.
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I love it when Baby Boomers get on generational tirades like this. It has genuine comedic quality about it, particularly given how ridiculous and hypocritical it is.
But since you seem to be a true-believer, let me clear it up for you, old timer. "Young people" are, knowingly or not, rejecting the flawed assumptions and unjust laws that have effectively attempted to privatize human culture for the benefit of a greedy few at the very top of content distribution companies who are better at bribing the legislature than serving their own customers. What you describe as pathological compartmentalization is, in actuality, the very natural returning shift in public values to a more balanced, modern view of copyright protections. In short, the pendulum is finally swinging back towards the social-contract view of government-granted, temporary monopolies described in Article I section 8 of the constitution, which references not the "rights" of companies or starving artists but the "progress of science and useful arts".
-Grym
I appreciate the candor and honesty of your response. I promise I wasn't trying to turn this into a question of your personal faith or a debate about the existence of God.
The Bible need not be divine to be true. I don't think you're giving our ancestors enough credit here. Though the Bible is exceptional in this regard, other ancient texts are historically accurate without the help of God. And as far as prophesies go, much of their accuracy lies within the eye of the beholder.
It just bothers me how many Christians (particularly Protestants) accept the fallibility of man and institutions of men (For instance, the Catholic Church) yet fail to see how this easily applies to what is, ultimately, a product (from authoring, to canonization, propagation, and translation) of the work of men: the Bible. I do not know if this stems from general ignorance of the origins and history of the Bible, hesitancy of religious leaders to address such issues, or cognitive dissonance, but I do know that it often leads to a false sense of righteousness and abuse.
Humility was often a theme to the teachings of Jesus. I just think that we people of faith are in need of a certain amount of humility. It is a humble person who admits that he might be wrong and acknowledges the limitations of his own knowledge.
-Grym
I suspect that such a discourse would devolve into a meaningless test of your ability to rationalize versus my recollection of the Bible. I'm not really interested in that as such an argument would become tiresome and honestly beside my original point. If you are truly interested in some of these specific contradictions, however, there are plenty of websites and books which document them.
Sorry if I wasn't clear on this, I wasn't trying to put words into your mouth. The way I see it, there can be two logical rationales for believing that canonization was divine:
The purpose of my first paragraph was to dispute (1). In my view, the content of the Bible as work of literature fails to demonstrate its divinity in its content. In short, it does not transcend the primitive people and culture of the time periods in which it was written in either knowledge or moral philosophy. Take the morally indefensible institution of slavery, for example. Why is it that the Bible does not clearly condemn it? One could resort to a "God works in mysterious ways" brand of argument but the most reasonable explanation is that the Bible is a reflection of the people which produced it and that those people saw nothing wrong with slavery.
Furthermore the internal contradictions aside, the Bible is also very unclear on many important aspects of both its meaning and message to the point where it lends itself to limitless interpretations on what should be fundamentally basic points of the human experience. The sheer number of denominations and divisions that are included under the banner of "Christianity" and the extremes which encompass their views demonstrate the Bible's lack of clarity, which would, otherwise, be expected of a perfect, divine work.
I don't think you believe (2), so I won't address it any more than I did in my previous post.
This is self-justifying, circular logic. You're suggesting that the Bible is a divine work simply by the nature of its existence. Similar arguments could be made for any ancient (or even modern) text.
-Grym
Why do you choose to jump to this conclusion? The Bible in its modern, accepted form is far from a perfect, divine work. There are many sections which are contradictory or simply wrong as written (eg. the value of pi). In other cases, the Bible is very unclear to the point where massive departures from the written word are required in order for it to make sense. (e.g. the Holy Trinity, the existence of Hell, or, more generally, simply how to live a good life.)
But, more than that, why would canonization be any different than any other act of the Church? Most modern Christians admit that the church and religious institutions in general, are bodies of man and are thus, fallible. If the church can, on the one hand, mistakenly condone the extermination of the Native Americans and the slaughters of the crusades, inquisition, and witch trials, what makes you think that it would be above making mistakes during canonization?
-Grym
Nope. The previous FISA laws gave them that exact same power but they just had to go through a secret court up to three days after the surveillance began. There can't be an argument that such an arrangement interfered with the process because it, literally granted 99% of the cases that ever came to it (IIRC, only two requests were ever rejected.) This whole Terror Surveillance Program (which we should never forget began BEFORE 9/11) was an unconstitutional, illegitimate executive powergrab, pure an simple. This new law effectively sanctioned the TSP and broadened the FISA powers even further. And the reason it passed now is because the hypocritical democratic leadership believes they're going to win the presidency in the Fall.
And what about our citizens' rights? Since when do you stop being an American citizen, with constitutionally-protected rights, just because you make an international phone call? Has it ever occurred to you that if people like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were around today that such justifications could be used to wiretap their phones? We're in dire straits if the bar on human and civil rights is now being set by China.
-Grym
Ignorance is not a defense. If one unknowingly commits a crime, that fact might play a role in the sentencing but it does NOT affect the verdict of the appropriate charge.
Again, IANAL, but as I understand it, contract law is completely separate from criminal law and, in most cases, isn't codified by any legislative body and thus any formal "laws" but rather established through precedent and English Common Law standards. Furthermore, drawing the line between actions directly resultant from the wiretap request and unrelated ones isn't necessarily a simple matter. Imagine for a second if wiretapped lines were less-reliable resulting in serious injury or death (a la the OnStar wiretapping case) or if the Telecom companies started falsely billing the affected customers to cover the unpaid expenses of wiretapping. Would such actions be covered by this complete defense? Probably not. But the effective blank check that is this new "updated" FISA bill basically ignores any of these ambiguities and potential abuses which might have actually happened (nobody knows--"national secrets", of course) and lets them off the hook.
Did you read it? Are you paying attention? Or are you just unthinkingly repeating the Republican party's public justification verbatim? The actual text of the bill says nothing about establishing the government's role in their civil defense. It merely grants the Telecommunications companies complete immunity so long as the Attorney General verifies that it is related to the TSP and that everything is kosher, according to the Administration (because we all know, they don't have a stake in this...).
But more than that, the notion that bombshell, vitally important national security information was potentially going to be released from these cases is patently absurd. Many of these litigants know for a fact that they were under surveillance and exactly to what extent. There was a case where the wiretap transcripts were accidentally mailed to the person under surveillance. Another litigant put two and two together when dumbass FBI agents started referencing specifics of the content of phone conversations during interviews. What exactly is the argument here? What, specifically, is the worst that could happen? You think Al Qaeda operatives don't already know their phonecalls are probably being monitored?
The problem with this type of thinking is that it only concerns itself with winning elections and winning them in a very orthodox, cowardly way, NOT what actually matters--justice, rule of law, effective governance, leadership, the precedent being set, etc. This bill wasn't about Barack Obama, but by voting for it he just proved that he has let the campaign advisers take control and showed that, when push comes to shove, he ISN'T any different than any other politician.
"Change We Can Believe In" is akin to a robotic "We Come in Peace" from an alien conqueror in science fiction. It's an amalgamation of random syllables scientifically arranged so as to shrewdly give us a false sense of inspiration and security.
-Grym
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_18/Part_I/Chapter_119/Section_2520"
It seems pretty clear that the wording of the U.S. code was in reference to individual wiretaps rather than an entire program for spying on (possibly) anyone and everyone. What's more, section D is has a "good faith" requirement, which seems rather relevant given the obvious unconstitutionality of the nature of the request.
And, even still, the Telecom companies were not off the hook, because even if what you said is true, that they aren't liable for damages resulting from their actions, they would have still had to answer for the breach of contract and terms of service.
IINAL, but do I really have to be? All of this boils down to a simple logical statement: If the Telecom companies were so clearly innocent, why did they so badly need retroactive legal immunity? Because it might cost some money to defend their "legal" actions? Those are rather weak excuses and could be arguments for retroactive legal immunity for anyone accused of criminal or civil wrongdoing.
In fact, why even have courts? Congress just effectively ruled the Telecom companies innocent when they know little more about the "Terrorist Surveillence Program" than we do (on account of "National" Security). Where exactly do they draw the line between this civil litigation they know little about and any other? I rather think they should have just passed a law that gave retro-active legal immunity to any individual or company who has donated more than $X amount in total to both major parties. At least it would have been more consistent and honest....
-Grym
I agree, but don't think that simply because a generalized, economic or security crisis hasn't happened yet that revolution impossible. Our system of governance is so dysfunctional that a disaster is entirely possible. Nobody is at the wheel.
That being said, most revolutions only really end up with a lot of good people dying. We'd be likely to end up with either anarchy or the exact same thing only maybe less hypocritical and self-righteous as we have now.
-Grym
Is it?
With winner-take-all, gerrymandered districts, a massive amount (a plurality, even) of third party votes can effectively be entirely ignored. Then there's the media, which thrives off of simplicity of the point-counterpoint format that a two party system provides. If you think that the same people who whenever Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich were talking always made sure to show camera angles of the other candidates smirking are going to give any third party candidate a chance, you're crazy. And that's just the national media. Do you really think that Channel 6 ACTION news is going to be willing or able to actually inform you about third party local and state candidates? And let's not forget the lazy, apathetic public who often even ignorantly self-identify with the major parties who, nevertheless, constantly shit on them.
No, I'm not entirely convinced that a revolution would be harder than overcoming the political and institutional inertia of the two-party system, but here's to hoping we never have to find out...
-Grym
What's the point of an opposition party if they don't--you know--OPPOSE utter bullshit like this?
The Democratic party has a majority in both the house and the senate. Now, the Republicans might be able to stop them from passing something of their own, but it's numerically impossible for them to force legislation over the Democratic party without their consent.
It's FAR past time for liberals to stop making excuses for the Democratic party and recognize that, rather than being the lesser of two evils, the Democratic party is completely dysfunctional and is, in actuality, opposing progress.
-Grym
No... the truth is that we now we will NEVER know now whether they were guilty or not, because this bill has prevented the courts from making an actual legal decision.
But let's just examine this for a second:
What transpired today was indefensible and no amount of trolling is going to change that, Valar.
-Grym
The biggest mis-conception is that Telecom companies were victims in all this; that the big mean government threatened them and they caved in out of fear. This just isn't true. It's not like they did the wiretapping for free, they charged and profited from it. Furthermore, by playing ball they received other sweetheart billion-dollar government deals, while companies like Quest were specifically denied. In fact, one of the lesser publicized but even uglier aspects of this bill is that it actually pays some unpaid bills for the wiretapping project.
The really crazy thing about all this is that, in civil court, the telecom companies are claiming they didn't illegally wiretap their customers, whilst they simultaneously ask Congress for compensation AND retro-active legal immunity... for acts they supposedly didn't commit.
This whole thing is outrageous and an affront to justice on all counts. If this bill passes unamended, I fear for the future of our nation. (If we, the people, can even call it that any more.)
-Grym
You, sir, are not only not an expert but also mis-informed or ignorant of the facts.
What you are describing is an automatic weapon, which is not an assault weapon as defined by the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.
Don't be ashamed. You aren't alone.
-Grym
But when his anecdotal, emotional story fits the well-known (and even referenced in this thread) statistical trend of gun violence increasing in D.C. despite the ban, what exactly is your point?
-Grym
According to wikipedia, the military's shift from larger rifle calibers to smaller ones like the .223 had to do with the results of a study called project SALVO:
-Grym
Revolutions generally are one-sided, or asymmetric conflicts, to be technical. But don't mistake that as meaning that they are, as a result, impossible. Wars are never won based upon who has the bigger guns. It's never so simple.
Think about it. Nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons would be impossible to employ. Overkill tactics like aerial bombing, destroying infrastructure, and ethnic cleansing would carry with them a huge political backlash (both domestic and internationally). Morale would be extremely low. Political/military leadership would be difficult--if not impossible--to keep safe. Factions of the military might even mutiny or provide material aide to the insurgents. Domestic uncertainty would lead to economic instability which would affect military expenditures and make many of the expensive munitions you suggest cost prohibitive. Other countries might seek to take advantage of the situation and also become involved. For every advantage a conventional military has in stand up fight, it has just as many dis-advantages when the enemy decides not to "play fair" and just lie down and die as expected. In fact, a large-scale internal domestic conflict would, in all likelihood, bring even the mighty U.S. military to its knees because this is not the fight that it is equipped or trained to wage.
Of course, all this is beside the point. Things are not this bad, and anybody who expects them to be in the near future is delusional.
-Grym
Easy. Bring along (or buy once you get at the gate) a disposable camera. When the leads to the flash are removed, it can deliver quite a shock. I would assume it is strong enough to set off an unstable material like C4.
I think the truth of the matter is that if somebody wants to sneak something on board, at some point you're not going to stop them. Why is it that some people are constitutionally unable to accept that remote possibility?
-Grym
As much as the "copyright police" may like to pretend that they're law enforcement (complete with little .jpg images of copper badges--lol), they are not the police. Copyright infringement is a civil charge. As such, the content industries should not get any special treatment when it comes to these cases. If it can be shown that the content industry's methods of obtaining evidence is fundamentally flawed, it calls into question if the DMCA takedown notices and C&D letters are truly filed with good faith as to the validity of their contents. Without those, none of their lawsuits could go forth because they would not be able to request ISPs to release account records.
If I as an individual can't sue random individuals on spurious grounds and demand legal-ransom (err.. "settlement"), why should the industries be able to?
-Grym
The black community is complex. You didn't see this kind of support for Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. If they were voting simply on skin color, you would have expected them to blindly support those candidates, and yet they didn't. Furthermore, you would have expected pre-primary polling data among blacks to have been completely for Obama. It was not. Clearly, something happened to cause a shift of the black community to overwhelmingly support Obama. We'll never know how much of that shift is fallout from the Clintons' racially insensitive campaign rhetoric or a reaction to the media's xenophobic attacks on Obama.
All of the above is, of course, completely incomparable to the bigots who voted against Obama because of his skin color or, to use the politically correct euphemism, "voters who were dumb enough to admit 'race to be a factor' and--oh yeah--voted against the black guy." That is pure racism at its most ugly.
-Grym
Oh, I agree. At least, in the cases where fraud on the part of the broker (which was widespread) was not a factor. The fact that the federal government has a policy that effectively subsidizes questionable, high-risk investment strategies under the euphemism of "too big to fail" is fucking ridiculous and should not be tolerated, particularly by anyone who would try and profess the virtues of the "free" market.
I have nothing against yachts and the people that buy or produce them. My beef lies with economic policies which falsely posit that the rich are somehow more connected to the domestic economy than other demographic groups and, so, should receive tax-cuts and exemptions first. I consider such policies pure pandering as the rich are arguably less connected to the domestic economy because of their overseas investments and bank accounts. What's worse is that it strikes me as a cheap short-term political trick that artificially increases the stock market prices because of increased investment without actually improving market conditions, which ultimately leads to larger fluctuations in the market which, in the long-term, helps nobody.
This whole "environmentally-friendly corn-based ethanol causes starvation" canard needs to stop. Domestic ethanol fuel production was not the only reason why worldwide food prices have gone up in recent years. One reason is that the price of oil has gone up, because it is oil which produces the nitrogen fertilizer, runs the agricultural equipment, and powers the ships and trucks that deliver the food to its ultimate destination. Food prices are very sensitive to the price of oil which has spiked dramatically in recent years. Another reason is that countries like China and India have been consuming far more meat than they ever did in the past. This indirectly causes the price of grain to rise because cattle eat grain which would have, otherwise, gone to people. The original article in The Economist that prompted this discussion made sure to preface its analysis with at least the second fact. Subsequent popular news articles did not and painted the food-shortages abroad as solely result of navel-gazing environmentalists here in the States.
That being said, corn-based ethanol is a dumb idea and a great example our dysfunctional political system. Corn-based ethanol is inefficient, exacerbates the increased price of food, and, ironically, is bad for the environment. The only reason it gained traction in the legislature is because it is politically expedite. The agricultural lobby is very well organized and highly funded spending tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions in this year alone. Furthermore, Iowa (the Corn-capital of the U.S., or world even) has a disproportionate amount of political power (particularly in a presidential election year) because of its early, bell-weather primary. Corn-based ethanol initiatives gave politicians a great way to pander to special interests while capitalizing on the growing public support of the environmentalism movement--all without actually listening to any serious environmental scientists or experts.
Yeah! Everybody knows that $600 checks courtesy of our Chinese lenders is how you really stimulate the economy! Who cares about the long-term consequences? If we focus on short-term thinking that increases stock prices every quarter, what could possibly go wrong? By my calculations, such a strategy will yield infinite growth!
In that vein, I suggest we make permanent policies like banking deregulation that allows near-million dollar home loans to be given without regard to the applicant's assets or even income. Similarly, we should also make permanent the tax breaks for the ultra-rich. After all, every economist knows that a millionaire buying another yacht is the single most important factor driving the economy. Products and services that people actually need like food, gas, and baby-formula are apparently acquired through some alternate currency other than money. Besides, a federal deficit is over-rated. There's no need to pay attention to that now. After all, if we can get away with waging the longest, most expensive war in modern U.S. history without the usual, obligatory war tax, clearly we can be as irresponsible as we please. What could possibly go wrong?
-Grym
Do you? The United States is one of two countries (the other being New Zealand) in the entire world that allows direct-to-consumer advertising. If such advertising is truly required to stay afloat, why aren't we seeing pharmaceutical companies in the rest of the world all going belly-up?
-Grym
What news sources and/or publications would you suggest to stay informed?
-Grym
It's not that simple. In the case of a quadriplegic with complete spinal transection, for instance, the spinal reflexes would still be intact and likely over-reactive. So, even if external stimulation were applied to cause appropriate muscular contraction, without the proper modulation and inhibition from the upper motor neurons in the brain, any resulting movement would be very jerky and unreliable. Plus, there's the whole issues of muscular tone and posture which are themselves complex and would need to be addressed before these individuals could actually do anything functional.
But, more importantly, sensation is not a luxury. It is absolutely required for proper movement of our extremities. Without access to touch, pain, or proprioceptive (joint-position/vibration) information, the controlling system would have no idea how to properly modulate its stimulation for even basic tasks. Even more troubling, such a system would very easily lead to broken bones, dislocated joints, and torn muscles and blood vessels without the patient even knowing it. All of these could be life-threatening if not found and treated in time.
I'm going to go out on a limb (no pun intended) and predict that it's unlikely that this technology will ever be applied beyond prosthetics. For quadriplegics and paraplegics, the most promising developments will probably be nerve-regeneration techniques, as this leverages the already exquisite circuitry in our bodies devoted to movement.
-Grym