This is exactly the thing I try to point out to people who play the lottery and insist that their numbers are far more likely to come up than the 1 2 3 4 5 I suggest they play.
Actually, it's funny how you knee-jerk reacted to assume there was any support of modern liberals in anything in my post.
In reality, most of the founding fathers would have been died in the wool Libertarians, by today's standards. But not the pseudo-anarchists that Libertarians tend to get painted as around here. The founding fathers, in everythnig they did and wrote, were completely about recognizing that there are certain things that only a government can do, and other things that only a government should do, but for everything else the government should keep their bloody hands out of it.
You might think that they would be more Constitutional Party, but from what I've seen of the Constitionalists they seem even further to the fundie Xtian right than the Republicans.
Actually, most of the 'founding fathers' who formed our original government and signed the Constitution were Deists. Even the ones who were Protestant would have vilified the current group that calls themselves conservatives. You can point your outrage at much more recent revisionism.
But what do you do when voting is mandatory, and everyone who actually makes it to the ballot turns your stomach?
The trite answers of 'run for office yourself' or 'get active trying to get someone you want elected' don't cut it. I make a very good living doing a job I love. I don't want to have to give that up for a job in politics, which doesn't pay much more than what I make anyway, and which I would hate. I have supported candidates, both through donations and 'walking the neighborhood', but either they don't even make the ballot, or get so few votes in the general election it is heartbreaking. The only benefit to having voted libertarian in the last presidential election is that so few of us voted that way that even if all of us had voted democrat, it wouldn't have changed the outcome.
Maybe you are right, maybe I'm apathetic for not caring enough to sacrifice more of my life in trying to get people I approve of elected. But at the same time, I deeply resent having to mess up my life, just to keep from having my life messed up. It's like the whole give up all your freedoms to keep your freedom, fight terrorism mantra. It's turned into a lose-lose situation.
* We fight the endless war on terror, so that we have peace at home...(War is Peace)
* You don't need to speak out, we have it taken care of. Trust our news, anyone saying something else is a traitor. You don't need guns to protect yourself, that's what the police are for. (Freedom is Slavery)
*Now go take your ritalin, valium, and viagra and everything will be fine.
While I see your point, as a fresh Ubuntu user, totally new to Linux, the visceral feel of Synaptic makes it feel limiting. For decades as a Commodore then MS user, I have hunted around BBS's and software sites, found programs I liked, then downloaded them off the site and run the excutable to install. Believing, in my gut, that everything I want and can install is all in Synaptic is a surprisingly tough transition.
Right now, to install the drivers for my new ASUS motherboard, I went to the ASUS website, clicked on the Windows download, saved the file to disk, ran the executable, and boom, it was all installed. Not only drivers, but a pretty decent motherboard health and diagnostic suite, although the programs I found for monitoring and overclocking on some of the freeware sites seem to be as good or better.
I rebooted into Ubuntu, and there are no drivers for ASUS in Synaptic. I go to the ASUS website, and download the.tar.gz linux install, save to disk. Then I extract the files and find subdirectories labelled for several versions of Red Hat, SuSE, and Fedora... all.rpm. I do the research that tells me if it's not in Synaptic, to look for a.deb and how to point Synaptic to that... well, there are no.deb in the distribution. Now I need to do the research to figure out if I can do an rpm install in Ubuntu, or do I need to figure out how to do an install from the included source code, if that's even possible. Throw in the fact that it looks suspiciously like all that is included in the rpm packages is drivers, and my ability to find only one program that lets me monitor motherboard temp sensors, and even it won't let me monitor the chip temp sensor, although that might be because I can't get the mb drivers installed...*sigh*
I really, really want to love linux...but
* And this is not a noobish plea for help installing the drivers or pointers to motherboard software. If I decide I need to ask, rather than finding it through research, I will ask in the appropriate support forum, not/. This is merely a view from the perspective of a technically literate new linux convert, and the obstacles I seem to have encountered.
Have you, or anyone you know, needed a kidney transplant in the US? Did that person not have any insurance? Were they a drinker, smoker, occasional drug user, or any other group with a potentially higher risk of rejection or re-damaging of a new kidney? Were they deemed "too old" by the national list so put at a lower priority and longer wait time?
With the average US wait timie for a kidney transplant being three years, and with many who need a new kidney having risk factors that either keep them from being allowed on the list, or bump them so far down the list that realistically they will not get a transplant before their condition kills them, it makes huge sense in many cases to fly to a foreign land and get a transplant. Usually the cost of the transplant will be recovered in less than the three year average wait time just in savings from dialysis.
You are so naive. Don't call Al Qaeda? Sooo...drop all my suppliers for my business that are based anywhere outside the country, or maybe even inside the country. How the heck am I supposed to know that the guy selling me left handed widgets is or is not under investigation? And if the guy I ordered flowers from for my mom might also be muslim. Maybe I ate at a middle eastern restaurant and it shows up on my credit card...
Or just suck it up and accept that anything I do or say, domestic and foreign, will be monitored and recorded for later correlation and data mining. And just hope that no Israelicompany goes into competition with me.
I always wonder when one of Bush's apologists trots out this arguement, just how far are you willing to take it?
Your statement, "The President is tasked in times of war to protect the country as he/she sees fit," is a tremendously broad interpretation of the actual wording of the Constitution. Before we get into those facts however, taking you at your word, since obviously to Mr. Bush he is the only person with the ability and vision to press this "war" to a conclusion, would you support his suspending free elections until the conflict is over? After all, one of those cowardly, treasonous Democrats might win a popular election, and obviously that would bad for the country. Why letting that happen, when Bush could stop it, might even be treasonous in itself by your, and his, arguement. Are you willing to take it that far?
Now to burst your tiny little neocon bubble (inflated with the blustering breath of Limbaugh and Hannity), the Constitution, Article II only grants and requires the Exective to perform the following actions related to this discussion. Section 1 - "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: 'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'" Also, Section 2 - "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;" Now, where in those words do you see the authorization for the President to "do as he/she sees fit"?
BTW, since you are obviously so sincere in your respect for the Constitution, Article II - Section 8 makes it very clear that only Congress can declare war, to enable the Executive to exercise any extraordinary powers possibly granted in any other portion of the laws of this country. Congress has not done so, despite the rhetoric of the far right, and therefor your entire arguement about this being legal for the President is absurd.
It's called checks and balances. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
On the other hand, if this kind of targeted marketing becomes ubiquitous and everyone knows that the person walking by is being specifically targeted for that ad, if you do happen to test positive for an STD, do you want everyone around to wonder (or know) why you keep getting bombarded with Herpes ads? Talk about invasion of privacy. Or say it's tied to a database that tracks your spending, and all of a sudden every sign you pass is advertising casinos, or massage parlors, or gay lifestyle magazines. Or even worse, in my case nothing but ads for ASUS, Gigabyte, Intel, AMD, OCZ, and Corsair. Ususally on a date I can restrain my geeky side and actually have an interesting conversation with the girl, but if together we are constantly being bombarded by geek ads... Or worse yet, you're out on a date and your girl starts getting flustered because every sign you pass is targeting her, advertising feminine hygien products, or K-Y, or anti-depressants, etc.
Or doing the only thing that they can under the circumstances?
As long as we're coming up with and condoning police actions that are 1)useless in accomplishing their stated goal, 2)harassing innocent citizens that have broken no laws, and 3)designed to imtimidate society and quell anything that might reduce police power and control... well, they could have gone in and shot the guys operating these TOR nodes. Would have been just as effective as confiscating their computers in finding out who the kiddie porn people were, and as an added bonus, those dirty anonymizers would never do that again.
Uh, sorry, yes. Five pennies per day buys a hell of a lot more in their part of the world than it would have 100 years ago. Those on subsitence farms in the third world today, have essentially the same quality of life as their ancestors 100 years ago. The difference is 1) better seeds and fertilizers, most gov't subsidised, to grow more food for the same effort, 2) better transportation to get any surpluses to market before spoilage, 3) better medication and training to reduce disease and child mortality, etc... the list goes on and on. But even if those advances aren't available to them, they are still no worse off than their ancestors, who had to provide everything for themselves from the land to begin with.
Are there still areas of the world that are under crushing poverty and subsistance conditions? Of course, but the amount of area of the world under those conditions gets reduced year on year. If that's so, why do the numbers of people in those conditions keep increase... because they and their children aren't dying at nearly as young an age as before... due to advances. Besides, if conditions aren't improving on a percentage basis then why are there now more fat people in the world than starving people?
If you really believe that there has been no real progress in the human condition in the last 10,000 years, or even the last 100 years, you need to get off/. and read some real history. The reality is that even 100 years ago in the most advanced societies on earth life for the vast majority was dirty, brutish, and short. Have we eliminated those conditions across the world? Not yet, but things are much, much better over large portions of the world than ever before. Most of the rest can be put down to oppressive and corrupt governments deliberately keeping their populations in starvation conditions (North Korea) to prevent rebellion, or on regional rebellions (Darfur) destroying crops and people. If we could get stable, even moderately non-corrupt governments installed around the world, we could end subsitence level living for almost everyone.
But just because we can't provide it to everyone right now, doesn't mean we should get rid of everything we have acheived. If you really think that going back to pre-industrial times would give you better life, then turn off your PC right now and start walking. Sitting in your parents air conditioned basement, in front of a LCD, with a high-speed connection to slashdot, it's easy for you to whiine about how much better the 'good old days' were.
And in response to this cotton, corn, chicken, and possibly soon beef, becomes ubiquitous and cheap for the consumer and a huge majority of the population has a noticable increase in quality of life at the same (inflation adjusted) cost.
Yes, it is very sad that the traditional (highly inefficient) family farm is going away to be replaced by giant corporate mega farms which pay low salaries for what is basically minimally skilled labor. However, the result that I had to find another occupation rather than staying on the farm my mother grew up on, meant that my labor is used more productively than my grandfather's was, and I would be able to have a much higher standard of living than he was ever able to acheive even if I only made the amount he made in his lifetime. In reality, I am now making much higher relative income and able to provide myself and my children with a much better quality of life than any of my ancestors ever dreamed of.
It is also very sad that buggy whip makers, coopers (barrel makers), blacksmiths, and the guys that put 8-track tapes together have all lost their jobs to more efficient operations. But I don't want to go to back to life in the 1860's just to provide low efficiency jobs to people.
Progress happens and the majority of people's lives get better and better in very real terms. If you are in an industry that is highly inefficient and modernization starts to come to it, whine all you want, but if you don't change you will get left behind.
To paraphrase one of my favorite movies... I could trust a government, as long as its interest didn't run too contrary to my own.
In reality, we should be able to trust a governemt more because it changes every four to eight years. This should reduce the incentive to vest too much power in the position. After all, it might not be your rascals in there next time around. This is precisely why George Washington turned down the offer to make him King of the Colonies. However, now that the corporations are in complete control of both parties, and it makes no difference who gets elected, we see both parties vying to increase central control. Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. The same people in the background profit in the end. The difference only matters to some very shallow surface families, i.e. Kennedy, Bush, not to the real money and power, i.e. Hunt, and others kept even more out of the public eye. Do research on what families own most of the media outlets, then do a search for those family names... amazing how little info gets published about family members.
As for the rest of your idea, I would think it would be great for the government and media to be shouting about mixing Hydrogen Peroxide and nail polish to make bombs on planes. This gives the idiot copycats a quick target to use, that is in reality pretty harmless. Makes em easy to catch, while keeping them from doing any real harm. Anyone who is serious about this would do more research, find out that that combo doesn't work, and find the multitude of other things that does work, and that cannot be screened for, either because of complex organics, or ubiquity making false positives too numerous. But those people would have done their homework anyway. A simple Google on 'bleach ammonia' or 'dangerous mix cleaners', give all the necessary info in the first few links to create all sorts of nasty problems on a plane. Moreover, this is information that we desperately need people to know, because it is dangerous to mix these two common household cleaners. The fact that so many other posters choose to dispute what I learned in a basic chemistry class, and what my mother learned in a homemaking class for gods sake, just goes to show what the average comparable IQ is on/.
Personally I would like to see real information about real threats, and what can and cannot be done about them. then let me make my own realistic assement of the threat and my reaction to it. I would like to see the majority apply some common sense to problems and their solutions, and to risk assesment and cost-benefit analysis. While I'm asking for it, I'd like a pony too.
What is amazing is that people actually expect the military/police to come out and say, "OK, this is how to make an undetectable explosive that will kill all your neighbors... fix take A and..."
Yes, they lied. I'm glad they lied!
Oh. And so, you prefer that they tell everyone everything's OK, nothing to see here, move along? That they continue to lie to people and let them believe that there is ANYTHING they can do to make flying 100% safe from terrorists? Because we all know how wonderful and perfect security through obscurity works.
The fact is that anyone with the will, and even a 90 IQ, can quickly and easily find a dozen ways to get lethal/dangerous stuff past any security system that is loose enough to still allow the volume and convenience necessary to keep commercial aviation viable.
The entire thought process of the system needs to be changed. Is this likely to happen? Not in my lifetime. The fact that we have not seen a plane taken down tells me more that the terrorists realize how little effect such an act really has on the economy vs. the retaliatory reaction, rather than inspires me with the superhuman crime fighting ability of our secret police. The fact that we continually see stories like this in the media, especially at politically opportune times, tells me that the powers that be are using every shred of possible nutcase they can get their hands on, or manufacture, to keep the sheeple in a constant state of fear and alarm to 1) maintain and extend their power, and 2) reduce the impact and reaction when the next person does actually come along and accomplishes a terror act in a country anyone cares about. 9/11 came as such a shock because "the public" thought they were safe and terrorism was completely off their radar. With the constant harping about it, when the next attack occurs people will be in a state of shock much less longer, and the effect on the economy will be much more temporary. The effect on advancing the police state, however, will get a big boost from it. Win-Win for an in-power political regime that can pull it off.
Is this a conspiracy theory that the current regime is going to create a terror incident? Not at all. All they have to do is make it look to the public like they are going to extraordinary efforts (x-ray everyone's shoes, arrest discontents with no real ability to carry out plans) while still leaving glaring holes in the security infrastructure and keep pushing policies and actions to inspire anger and hatred. Eventually the low hanging fruit is just going to be too attractive, and some shmuck will actually kill some people on a large scale, and boom instant justification for increased "control and investigation" by the government of the entire populace.
If you want a 100% safe world, the only way is full surveillance of every individual all the time. The closer you come to this ideal, the more regulated and obedient everyone must be. I for one have no desire to live in that world. Anyone else who doesn't like the 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, or even Aeon Flux future will have to accept that there are bad people in the world that will have all the rights and freedoms you are given. The only way to take those freedoms from them is to give them up yourself. The reality is that a middle ground must be maintained, but we live in a society that idealizes and preaches extremes. We can not have complete freedom, but at the same time we must constantly fight against complete tyranny, because, just as there are anarchists who would like to see the destruction of all goverment and control, there are despots who want to wield and maintain complete power.
Now in three sentences, that is far-fetching, but if it was released day after day in news report, I am confident you could turn the majority of US opinion against any country in the world.
Too late. The majority of US opinion is already against every country in the world, "Freedom" fries anyone? The only exceptions to this are a few countries like England and Australia, which most Americans think of a funny sidekicks to Uncle Sam, as long as they know their place and don't start getting uppity. Or countries like Sweden, Norway, etc. who most Americans never think of at all, and would never remember if asked to name all the countries in the world.
There is one exception that does prove your rule though... the US itself. Just look at the idiocy, promoted day-after-day in the media, being perpetrated by the American govt. and all you get is angry comments, from the general public, to the effect of "why does the NYT hate America?"
No, actually droughts are not the most common cause of famine in Africa. If the social and political climate were stable, and modern farming methods and seeds could be imported and grown, there would be no famine in Africa. With the antiquated farming techniques, and instability in the region, the local farmers need perfect conditions just to feed themselves, so it gets blamed on drought.
Yes, only the Sahara, which, as I said, if you bothered to read my post, is mainly contained in the countries of Algeria, Libya, and Egypt. All countries much more closely aligned in any manner you choose to investigate, with the "middle-east" than with any other ideological or political block. So, you might as well include those as part of the "middle-east". And if you bother to look it up in World Fact Book, you'll find that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the smaller countries such as Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, etc. have far more land area than even the largest estimate of the Sahara. If you then include the additional three I mentioned and move their area from "Saharan Africa" to be included in "middle-east" there is no comparison.
As I said, the next largest area even comparable to Middle-east or Sahara is China's deserts. Every place else is far smaller.
So we are back to my original contention. The "middle-east" (including the three Saharan countries) are far better poised to rule any new solar based energy economy than any other area of the world. Coincidentally, these countries, including the three Saharan countries, also control the world oil based economy.
Do your same safe-search-off GIS for Barbie. In the first ten pages of results there are no innappropriate results. 10 NSFW results, 1 pig, and 2 horses, but all of them appropriate as they depicted objects or people named Barbie, or doll based porn.
In what kind of messed up, burn the first amendment country are we living in, when you can't even use the word Barbie to describe risque pictures of the doll manufatured by Mattel?
Actually most of Africa is good arable land, perfect for farming. If you could get the neighbors to stop killing each other, Africa would be the breadbasket of the world. The famines there have nothing at all to do with poor climate or soil. In addition, Africa is still a major source of biodiversity and the target of western environmental protectionism. Once again, the only reason more enviro-nuts aren't protesting and putting a stop to uranium mining, diamond mining, and other polluting and destructive practices is because the locals are likely to kill them when they show up. The locals are too undereducated, underfed, and poor to have time or knowledge to do anything about the poor conditions. If the lifestyle was upgraded, you would find NIMBYism very strong through most of the region. Throw in the fact, that because it really is pretty easy to survive (find minimal food, water, shelter necessary for the climate), there really are a lot of people scattered throughout Africa.
Aside from the Sahara region, Africa has much less to offer for massive solar installations than the middle-east. And I personally tend to loosely define "middle-east" to include Egypt, Libya, and Algeria, all major oil producing nations. Those three are much more closely aligned, culturally, religiously, environmentally, and economically to the rest of the "middle-east" than they are with any other African nations.
Actually, the area other than the middle east that is well suited for this type of installation is western China, but it is so isolated with so little infrastructure and transportation that it would be way behind in developing these kinds of facilities in a cost effective manner. One of the nice benefits of most of the middle eastern region is that it is very accessable by road and sea.
And how, great guru, do you exactly propose to accomplish this?
Both major parties are filled with lawyers who have a strong self interest in keeping the system as complex as possible. The mindless sheep refuse to vote for anyone or any way different from what they've always known, (even when what they've always known they hate) because that would be "throwing away their vote".
The only ways I can see things changing are:
1) Armed insurrection,
2) double or tripling of average intelligence, combined with widespread increase in the understanding and use of deductive logic,
3) complete breakdown of society and order until the new dark ages end.
Unfortunately, I don't see 1 as being successful and 2 as being any kind of likely. 3 seems to be where we're headed.
Scary part of this, if you read TFA, is that it isn't cops the article is talking about. At least the cops have some sort of oversight and repercussions if they violate the public trust. The article is talking about this tech becoming cheap and easy enough for businesses and the general public to get their hands on.
1) Offer subscription service to businesses to scan customer license plates for "loyalty" rewards program.
2) Tie all cameras installed back to a central database.
3) With enough businesses paying you to collect the data, you can now track the movements of a significant chunk of people.
4) Start selling tracking information to anyone who is willing to pay.
So much profit involved in almost every step, that I can't imagine no one will actually do it.
Yeah, this is great. Now I'll be able to track down the information on that little mf'r that cut me off on the freeway this morning and key his car. Hey, and how about that hot blonde number I saw at the red light? I'm sure she wouldn't mind me showing up at her home or job and hitting on her. And if she turns me down, well, I know where she lives. I know, let's reverse this and make it real time! Then I can track where the owners of a house are while I "browse" through their belongings, and get warning when they get within 5 miles.
Isn't this fun? I bet I could come up with great uses for this tech all day long.
Slashdot Mirror
This is exactly the thing I try to point out to people who play the lottery and insist that their numbers are far more likely to come up than the 1 2 3 4 5 I suggest they play.
Since Murdoch owns and controls big chunks of all three, I would say the answer is..
Yes
Actually, it's funny how you knee-jerk reacted to assume there was any support of modern liberals in anything in my post.
In reality, most of the founding fathers would have been died in the wool Libertarians, by today's standards. But not the pseudo-anarchists that Libertarians tend to get painted as around here. The founding fathers, in everythnig they did and wrote, were completely about recognizing that there are certain things that only a government can do, and other things that only a government should do, but for everything else the government should keep their bloody hands out of it.
You might think that they would be more Constitutional Party, but from what I've seen of the Constitionalists they seem even further to the fundie Xtian right than the Republicans.
Actually, most of the 'founding fathers' who formed our original government and signed the Constitution were Deists. Even the ones who were Protestant would have vilified the current group that calls themselves conservatives. You can point your outrage at much more recent revisionism.
But what do you do when voting is mandatory, and everyone who actually makes it to the ballot turns your stomach?
The trite answers of 'run for office yourself' or 'get active trying to get someone you want elected' don't cut it. I make a very good living doing a job I love. I don't want to have to give that up for a job in politics, which doesn't pay much more than what I make anyway, and which I would hate. I have supported candidates, both through donations and 'walking the neighborhood', but either they don't even make the ballot, or get so few votes in the general election it is heartbreaking. The only benefit to having voted libertarian in the last presidential election is that so few of us voted that way that even if all of us had voted democrat, it wouldn't have changed the outcome.
Maybe you are right, maybe I'm apathetic for not caring enough to sacrifice more of my life in trying to get people I approve of elected. But at the same time, I deeply resent having to mess up my life, just to keep from having my life messed up. It's like the whole give up all your freedoms to keep your freedom, fight terrorism mantra. It's turned into a lose-lose situation.
* We fight the endless war on terror, so that we have peace at home...(War is Peace)
* You don't need to speak out, we have it taken care of. Trust our news, anyone saying something else is a traitor. You don't need guns to protect yourself, that's what the police are for. (Freedom is Slavery)
*Now go take your ritalin, valium, and viagra and everything will be fine.
While I see your point, as a fresh Ubuntu user, totally new to Linux, the visceral feel of Synaptic makes it feel limiting. For decades as a Commodore then MS user, I have hunted around BBS's and software sites, found programs I liked, then downloaded them off the site and run the excutable to install. Believing, in my gut, that everything I want and can install is all in Synaptic is a surprisingly tough transition.
Right now, to install the drivers for my new ASUS motherboard, I went to the ASUS website, clicked on the Windows download, saved the file to disk, ran the executable, and boom, it was all installed. Not only drivers, but a pretty decent motherboard health and diagnostic suite, although the programs I found for monitoring and overclocking on some of the freeware sites seem to be as good or better.
I rebooted into Ubuntu, and there are no drivers for ASUS in Synaptic. I go to the ASUS website, and download the
I really, really want to love linux...but
* And this is not a noobish plea for help installing the drivers or pointers to motherboard software. If I decide I need to ask, rather than finding it through research, I will ask in the appropriate support forum, not
In what way is he lying through his teeth?
Have you, or anyone you know, needed a kidney transplant in the US? Did that person not have any insurance? Were they a drinker, smoker, occasional drug user, or any other group with a potentially higher risk of rejection or re-damaging of a new kidney? Were they deemed "too old" by the national list so put at a lower priority and longer wait time?
With the average US wait timie for a kidney transplant being three years, and with many who need a new kidney having risk factors that either keep them from being allowed on the list, or bump them so far down the list that realistically they will not get a transplant before their condition kills them, it makes huge sense in many cases to fly to a foreign land and get a transplant. Usually the cost of the transplant will be recovered in less than the three year average wait time just in savings from dialysis.
You are so naive. Don't call Al Qaeda? Sooo...drop all my suppliers for my business that are based anywhere outside the country, or maybe even inside the country. How the heck am I supposed to know that the guy selling me left handed widgets is or is not under investigation? And if the guy I ordered flowers from for my mom might also be muslim. Maybe I ate at a middle eastern restaurant and it shows up on my credit card...
Or just suck it up and accept that anything I do or say, domestic and foreign, will be monitored and recorded for later correlation and data mining. And just hope that no Israeli company goes into competition with me.
I always wonder when one of Bush's apologists trots out this arguement, just how far are you willing to take it?
Your statement, "The President is tasked in times of war to protect the country as he/she sees fit," is a tremendously broad interpretation of the actual wording of the Constitution. Before we get into those facts however, taking you at your word, since obviously to Mr. Bush he is the only person with the ability and vision to press this "war" to a conclusion, would you support his suspending free elections until the conflict is over? After all, one of those cowardly, treasonous Democrats might win a popular election, and obviously that would bad for the country. Why letting that happen, when Bush could stop it, might even be treasonous in itself by your, and his, arguement. Are you willing to take it that far?
Now to burst your tiny little neocon bubble (inflated with the blustering breath of Limbaugh and Hannity), the Constitution, Article II only grants and requires the Exective to perform the following actions related to this discussion. Section 1 - "Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: 'I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.'" Also, Section 2 - "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;" Now, where in those words do you see the authorization for the President to "do as he/she sees fit"? BTW, since you are obviously so sincere in your respect for the Constitution, Article II - Section 8 makes it very clear that only Congress can declare war, to enable the Executive to exercise any extraordinary powers possibly granted in any other portion of the laws of this country. Congress has not done so, despite the rhetoric of the far right, and therefor your entire arguement about this being legal for the President is absurd.
It's called checks and balances. Learn it. Love it. Live it.
On the other hand, if this kind of targeted marketing becomes ubiquitous and everyone knows that the person walking by is being specifically targeted for that ad, if you do happen to test positive for an STD, do you want everyone around to wonder (or know) why you keep getting bombarded with Herpes ads? Talk about invasion of privacy. Or say it's tied to a database that tracks your spending, and all of a sudden every sign you pass is advertising casinos, or massage parlors, or gay lifestyle magazines. Or even worse, in my case nothing but ads for ASUS, Gigabyte, Intel, AMD, OCZ, and Corsair. Ususally on a date I can restrain my geeky side and actually have an interesting conversation with the girl, but if together we are constantly being bombarded by geek ads... Or worse yet, you're out on a date and your girl starts getting flustered because every sign you pass is targeting her, advertising feminine hygien products, or K-Y, or anti-depressants, etc.
As long as we're coming up with and condoning police actions that are 1)useless in accomplishing their stated goal, 2)harassing innocent citizens that have broken no laws, and 3)designed to imtimidate society and quell anything that might reduce police power and control... well, they could have gone in and shot the guys operating these TOR nodes. Would have been just as effective as confiscating their computers in finding out who the kiddie porn people were, and as an added bonus, those dirty anonymizers would never do that again.
Uh, sorry, yes. Five pennies per day buys a hell of a lot more in their part of the world than it would have 100 years ago. Those on subsitence farms in the third world today, have essentially the same quality of life as their ancestors 100 years ago. The difference is 1) better seeds and fertilizers, most gov't subsidised, to grow more food for the same effort, 2) better transportation to get any surpluses to market before spoilage, 3) better medication and training to reduce disease and child mortality, etc... the list goes on and on. But even if those advances aren't available to them, they are still no worse off than their ancestors, who had to provide everything for themselves from the land to begin with.
Are there still areas of the world that are under crushing poverty and subsistance conditions? Of course, but the amount of area of the world under those conditions gets reduced year on year. If that's so, why do the numbers of people in those conditions keep increase... because they and their children aren't dying at nearly as young an age as before... due to advances. Besides, if conditions aren't improving on a percentage basis then why are there now more fat people in the world than starving people?
If you really believe that there has been no real progress in the human condition in the last 10,000 years, or even the last 100 years, you need to get off
But just because we can't provide it to everyone right now, doesn't mean we should get rid of everything we have acheived. If you really think that going back to pre-industrial times would give you better life, then turn off your PC right now and start walking. Sitting in your parents air conditioned basement, in front of a LCD, with a high-speed connection to slashdot, it's easy for you to whiine about how much better the 'good old days' were.
And in response to this cotton, corn, chicken, and possibly soon beef, becomes ubiquitous and cheap for the consumer and a huge majority of the population has a noticable increase in quality of life at the same (inflation adjusted) cost.
Yes, it is very sad that the traditional (highly inefficient) family farm is going away to be replaced by giant corporate mega farms which pay low salaries for what is basically minimally skilled labor. However, the result that I had to find another occupation rather than staying on the farm my mother grew up on, meant that my labor is used more productively than my grandfather's was, and I would be able to have a much higher standard of living than he was ever able to acheive even if I only made the amount he made in his lifetime. In reality, I am now making much higher relative income and able to provide myself and my children with a much better quality of life than any of my ancestors ever dreamed of.
It is also very sad that buggy whip makers, coopers (barrel makers), blacksmiths, and the guys that put 8-track tapes together have all lost their jobs to more efficient operations. But I don't want to go to back to life in the 1860's just to provide low efficiency jobs to people.
Progress happens and the majority of people's lives get better and better in very real terms. If you are in an industry that is highly inefficient and modernization starts to come to it, whine all you want, but if you don't change you will get left behind.
To paraphrase one of my favorite movies... I could trust a government, as long as its interest didn't run too contrary to my own.
In reality, we should be able to trust a governemt more because it changes every four to eight years. This should reduce the incentive to vest too much power in the position. After all, it might not be your rascals in there next time around. This is precisely why George Washington turned down the offer to make him King of the Colonies. However, now that the corporations are in complete control of both parties, and it makes no difference who gets elected, we see both parties vying to increase central control. Democrat, Republican, doesn't matter. The same people in the background profit in the end. The difference only matters to some very shallow surface families, i.e. Kennedy, Bush, not to the real money and power, i.e. Hunt, and others kept even more out of the public eye. Do research on what families own most of the media outlets, then do a search for those family names... amazing how little info gets published about family members.
As for the rest of your idea, I would think it would be great for the government and media to be shouting about mixing Hydrogen Peroxide and nail polish to make bombs on planes. This gives the idiot copycats a quick target to use, that is in reality pretty harmless. Makes em easy to catch, while keeping them from doing any real harm. Anyone who is serious about this would do more research, find out that that combo doesn't work, and find the multitude of other things that does work, and that cannot be screened for, either because of complex organics, or ubiquity making false positives too numerous. But those people would have done their homework anyway. A simple Google on 'bleach ammonia' or 'dangerous mix cleaners', give all the necessary info in the first few links to create all sorts of nasty problems on a plane. Moreover, this is information that we desperately need people to know, because it is dangerous to mix these two common household cleaners. The fact that so many other posters choose to dispute what I learned in a basic chemistry class, and what my mother learned in a homemaking class for gods sake, just goes to show what the average comparable IQ is on
Personally I would like to see real information about real threats, and what can and cannot be done about them. then let me make my own realistic assement of the threat and my reaction to it. I would like to see the majority apply some common sense to problems and their solutions, and to risk assesment and cost-benefit analysis. While I'm asking for it, I'd like a pony too.
Oh. And so, you prefer that they tell everyone everything's OK, nothing to see here, move along? That they continue to lie to people and let them believe that there is ANYTHING they can do to make flying 100% safe from terrorists? Because we all know how wonderful and perfect security through obscurity works.
The fact is that anyone with the will, and even a 90 IQ, can quickly and easily find a dozen ways to get lethal/dangerous stuff past any security system that is loose enough to still allow the volume and convenience necessary to keep commercial aviation viable.
The entire thought process of the system needs to be changed. Is this likely to happen? Not in my lifetime. The fact that we have not seen a plane taken down tells me more that the terrorists realize how little effect such an act really has on the economy vs. the retaliatory reaction, rather than inspires me with the superhuman crime fighting ability of our secret police. The fact that we continually see stories like this in the media, especially at politically opportune times, tells me that the powers that be are using every shred of possible nutcase they can get their hands on, or manufacture, to keep the sheeple in a constant state of fear and alarm to 1) maintain and extend their power, and 2) reduce the impact and reaction when the next person does actually come along and accomplishes a terror act in a country anyone cares about. 9/11 came as such a shock because "the public" thought they were safe and terrorism was completely off their radar. With the constant harping about it, when the next attack occurs people will be in a state of shock much less longer, and the effect on the economy will be much more temporary. The effect on advancing the police state, however, will get a big boost from it. Win-Win for an in-power political regime that can pull it off.
Is this a conspiracy theory that the current regime is going to create a terror incident? Not at all. All they have to do is make it look to the public like they are going to extraordinary efforts (x-ray everyone's shoes, arrest discontents with no real ability to carry out plans) while still leaving glaring holes in the security infrastructure and keep pushing policies and actions to inspire anger and hatred. Eventually the low hanging fruit is just going to be too attractive, and some shmuck will actually kill some people on a large scale, and boom instant justification for increased "control and investigation" by the government of the entire populace.
If you want a 100% safe world, the only way is full surveillance of every individual all the time. The closer you come to this ideal, the more regulated and obedient everyone must be. I for one have no desire to live in that world. Anyone else who doesn't like the 1984, Brave New World, Brazil, or even Aeon Flux future will have to accept that there are bad people in the world that will have all the rights and freedoms you are given. The only way to take those freedoms from them is to give them up yourself. The reality is that a middle ground must be maintained, but we live in a society that idealizes and preaches extremes. We can not have complete freedom, but at the same time we must constantly fight against complete tyranny, because, just as there are anarchists who would like to see the destruction of all goverment and control, there are despots who want to wield and maintain complete power.
I've never been pro bono. I want to get paid for the work I do.
Too late. The majority of US opinion is already against every country in the world, "Freedom" fries anyone? The only exceptions to this are a few countries like England and Australia, which most Americans think of a funny sidekicks to Uncle Sam, as long as they know their place and don't start getting uppity. Or countries like Sweden, Norway, etc. who most Americans never think of at all, and would never remember if asked to name all the countries in the world.
There is one exception that does prove your rule though... the US itself. Just look at the idiocy, promoted day-after-day in the media, being perpetrated by the American govt. and all you get is angry comments, from the general public, to the effect of "why does the NYT hate America?"
No, actually droughts are not the most common cause of famine in Africa. If the social and political climate were stable, and modern farming methods and seeds could be imported and grown, there would be no famine in Africa. With the antiquated farming techniques, and instability in the region, the local farmers need perfect conditions just to feed themselves, so it gets blamed on drought.
Yes, only the Sahara, which, as I said, if you bothered to read my post, is mainly contained in the countries of Algeria, Libya, and Egypt. All countries much more closely aligned in any manner you choose to investigate, with the "middle-east" than with any other ideological or political block. So, you might as well include those as part of the "middle-east". And if you bother to look it up in World Fact Book, you'll find that Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the smaller countries such as Kuwait, Syria, Lebanon, Oman, Yemen, etc. have far more land area than even the largest estimate of the Sahara. If you then include the additional three I mentioned and move their area from "Saharan Africa" to be included in "middle-east" there is no comparison.
As I said, the next largest area even comparable to Middle-east or Sahara is China's deserts. Every place else is far smaller.
So we are back to my original contention. The "middle-east" (including the three Saharan countries) are far better poised to rule any new solar based energy economy than any other area of the world. Coincidentally, these countries, including the three Saharan countries, also control the world oil based economy.
Do your same safe-search-off GIS for Barbie. In the first ten pages of results there are no innappropriate results. 10 NSFW results, 1 pig, and 2 horses, but all of them appropriate as they depicted objects or people named Barbie, or doll based porn.
In what kind of messed up, burn the first amendment country are we living in, when you can't even use the word Barbie to describe risque pictures of the doll manufatured by Mattel?
Actually most of Africa is good arable land, perfect for farming. If you could get the neighbors to stop killing each other, Africa would be the breadbasket of the world. The famines there have nothing at all to do with poor climate or soil. In addition, Africa is still a major source of biodiversity and the target of western environmental protectionism. Once again, the only reason more enviro-nuts aren't protesting and putting a stop to uranium mining, diamond mining, and other polluting and destructive practices is because the locals are likely to kill them when they show up. The locals are too undereducated, underfed, and poor to have time or knowledge to do anything about the poor conditions. If the lifestyle was upgraded, you would find NIMBYism very strong through most of the region. Throw in the fact, that because it really is pretty easy to survive (find minimal food, water, shelter necessary for the climate), there really are a lot of people scattered throughout Africa.
Aside from the Sahara region, Africa has much less to offer for massive solar installations than the middle-east. And I personally tend to loosely define "middle-east" to include Egypt, Libya, and Algeria, all major oil producing nations. Those three are much more closely aligned, culturally, religiously, environmentally, and economically to the rest of the "middle-east" than they are with any other African nations.
Actually, the area other than the middle east that is well suited for this type of installation is western China, but it is so isolated with so little infrastructure and transportation that it would be way behind in developing these kinds of facilities in a cost effective manner. One of the nice benefits of most of the middle eastern region is that it is very accessable by road and sea.
Read SydShamino's post above. He states the case far more completely and eloquently than I care to take the time for.
And how, great guru, do you exactly propose to accomplish this?
Both major parties are filled with lawyers who have a strong self interest in keeping the system as complex as possible. The mindless sheep refuse to vote for anyone or any way different from what they've always known, (even when what they've always known they hate) because that would be "throwing away their vote".
The only ways I can see things changing are:
1) Armed insurrection,
2) double or tripling of average intelligence, combined with widespread increase in the understanding and use of deductive logic,
3) complete breakdown of society and order until the new dark ages end.
Unfortunately, I don't see 1 as being successful and 2 as being any kind of likely. 3 seems to be where we're headed.
Scary part of this, if you read TFA, is that it isn't cops the article is talking about. At least the cops have some sort of oversight and repercussions if they violate the public trust. The article is talking about this tech becoming cheap and easy enough for businesses and the general public to get their hands on.
To use a too tired cliche:
1) Offer subscription service to businesses to scan customer license plates for "loyalty" rewards program.
2) Tie all cameras installed back to a central database.
3) With enough businesses paying you to collect the data, you can now track the movements of a significant chunk of people.
4) Start selling tracking information to anyone who is willing to pay.
So much profit involved in almost every step, that I can't imagine no one will actually do it.
Yeah, this is great. Now I'll be able to track down the information on that little mf'r that cut me off on the freeway this morning and key his car. Hey, and how about that hot blonde number I saw at the red light? I'm sure she wouldn't mind me showing up at her home or job and hitting on her. And if she turns me down, well, I know where she lives. I know, let's reverse this and make it real time! Then I can track where the owners of a house are while I "browse" through their belongings, and get warning when they get within 5 miles.
Isn't this fun? I bet I could come up with great uses for this tech all day long.