The shocking thing is not that religion is political, but that you can fully recognize its nature as a creation of man, be familiar with the history of the major religions, reject the parts of yours that are explicitly disproved, and yet somehow continue to subscribe to the rest.
If you're going to claim that you don't really believe in the Norse (I assume) gods, you just find the ritual compelling or something, then I would argue (like the GP) that it isn't really "your religion" in any meaningful sense: you're really an atheist in denial.
If you are a theist...why? You decry blind faith, but what other kind of religious faith exists, faith where you admit that it all might very well be complete bullshit? Who would make important decisions based on something for which there is no evidence, in the absence of faith? Okay...everyone. But if you are willing to revise any part of your religion when specific evidence becomes available, how is it more than a political philosophy? Is positing the existence of particular deities useful to you somehow, even contrary to fact? Once you throw out divine inspiration as a source of authority, why not make up your own religion (metaphysics) entirely?
I'd really like to know; I undid my moderation on this article because I want to know how you, as a modern, scientifically and historically literate, technologically savvy, slashdotter, can "look at [religion] for what it is" and still claim to be "quite religious."
It has been shown that mandatory minimums for crack dealing had no effect on deterring criminals. If that didn't work, how can this possibly deter criminals (who will not even have heard of this law until they are slapped with the charges). At most, this would cause them to undertake rudimentary efforts to disguise their research (using a computer they don't own).
Criminals who commit petty crimes for money are already not operating on a basis of ROI or a rational examination of probabilities; they assume they won't get caught, and that petty crime pays more than McDonald's.
The more charges the prosecutor can throw at a defendant, the more likely one is to stick. And this one has a mandatory minimum penalty, which much be served consecutively! This bill is less a war on technology (or rational basis lawmaking) than a war on judicial discretion. If judges feel that there is an extraordinary level of planning or professionalism in a burglary, they can already hand out a harsher sentence (up to the maximum). This law just arbitrarily punishes thieves who used Google (and may well result in lighter sentences for the actual burglary charges to compensate). An attempt to legislate on every possible crime scenario will inevitably fail (and result in inequity), which is why judges control sentencing in the first place.
To me technology is a privilege, not a right and abusing a privilege should be punished.
What the fuck. I think you are abusing your "privilege" to promote your retarded un-American (un-Enlightenment) opinions.
In City of Ontario v. Quon, the oral arguments give no reason to believe that the justices don't know the difference between a pager and an email. They were just trying to determine if there was a difference in terms of expectation of privacy, and in terms of the police department's policy.
The only techno-illiterate statement in there is when Justice Roberts says that he didn't know that his text messages went through intermediate companies, he thought they went directly to the recipient (just like Nikola Tesla would have had it, apparently).
MR. DAMMEIER: Well, they -- they expect that some company, I'm sure, is going to have to be processing the delivery of this message. And --
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, I didn't -- I wouldn't think that. I thought, you know, you push a button; it goes right to the other thing.
(Laughter.)
MR. DAMMEIER: Well --
JUSTICE SCALIA: You mean it doesn't go right to the other thing?
I also get the impression from reading it that Justice Sotomayor is the most tech-savvy judge, which isn't too surprising. Justice Alito, the second youngest, also appeared to have a decent grasp of telecommunications realities (despite the fact that he was a W. appointee).
When they get down to writing the opinions, they are all going to have clerks who are in their twenties writing drafts and doing the research. I wouldn't worry too much--about the Supreme Court.
As others have pointed out, there is no encrypted autocomplete, so I decided to make a separate Google search entry without it. Oddly enough Google SSL was redirecting to non-SSL (for me, at least) between about 11AM-12:30PM EST. Since it is back now, however, you may find this xml useful; you might find it a lot more useful if I just put in a link, but alas my domain is my real name...
You might also have to convert the image to ico again (or just choose your own). If you copy [opensearch.xml] into some local xml file, and then link to it with [addsearch.html] (replacing the path, obviously), it is very easy to add to Firefox (or IE, I guess) without mucking around with json files. An option to add it will appear at the bottom of the provider dropdown menu.
One of the Nautilus men gave me a simple gun, the butt end of which, made of steel, hollow in the centre, was rather large. It served as a reservoir of compressed air, which a valve, worked by a spring, allowed to escape into a metal tube. A box of projectiles in a groove in the thickness of the butt end contained about twenty of these electric balls, which, by means of a spring, were forced into the barrel of the gun. As soon as one shot was fired, another was ready.
We've been waiting for it much longer than flying cars, but Captain Nemo's pulse rifle is finally coming to market (well, probably).
Nemtyshkin's next project, the Leyden Gun, will deliver a short shock with lasting effects. The Leyden Gun is the size of a paintball rifle, with a magazine of thirty rounds. The projectiles are simple needles rather than elaborate barbed darts, as they do not stick to the target but administer a single jolt from a high-voltage capacitor.
On the other hand...
[A]nd finally, it was he who had killed the convicts with the electric balls, of which he possessed the secret, and which he had employed in the chase of submarine creatures.
Admittedly, some of the precedents are a bit ominous.
I tried the Gender/Career test (because it was the first on the list), and am unsure how it could reveal implicit associations, rather than my (in-)ability to keep up with which side each category was on. I wondered if they were trying to trick me into taking a working memory test.
Apparently only 17% of takers scored neutral, however...
Sure, I've read the story about the TSA guy beating the other down in the parking lot because of continuous harassment concerning his (alleged) small dick. A hilarious taste of things yet to come. I didn't mean to imply that you couldn't (legitimately) oppose this, just that it might not be the best idea to do so based on a fear of RF.
Actually, being "sexually dangerous" is considered a mental illness for the purposes of these confinements. The only evidence the government needs of "sexual dangerousness" is a conviction for the possession of child pornography (obtained while the defendant was still competent, apparently). The grandparent's assertion that the ruling is "narrow" is absurd. The opinion greatly expanded the interpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause. The court "assumed" that the detentions themselves were constitutional, and only considered whether such confinement (previously the province of the states alone) could be undertaken by the federal government. State lines are no longer an obstacle to the feds (except insofar as they use the violation of other federal laws as evidence)--they can confine anyone for mental health reasons in a federal penitentiary.
Using the new interpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause, basically any power which was not explicitly unconstitutional (an issue left here for another day; I'm not holding my breath) might now be held to be the province of the federal government. The tenth Amendment was pretty unpopular already, but I think calling its potential repeal a narrow decision is hugely disingenuous.
As for due process...that question was not addressed by this decision. However, a hearing before a federal judge using a new and extremely broad standard for incompetence is nowhere near the standard for criminal due process which the Court has held to be required in the past. The plaintiffs' other challenges based on the Sixth Amendment may yet be heard. In the best case scenario, the majority just wanted to take this opportunity to greatly expand the permissible scope of federal law, though they intend to give back sixth amendment rights at a later date.
Notably, most of the five plaintiffs in this case were not "horrible child molesters" but rather men who had been convicted of possession ("receipt") of child pornography. There is no evidence that they have committed or will commit any violent crime. The Attorney General could just as easily use this doctrine to lock up a man who urinated against a building, if his stream crossed over state lines.
His statements to the FBI on his (allegedly) good-faith interpretation of the murky law on obscenity, though. All he really did was request that they investigate...
I agree that there is hardly anything more defaming than his blatant implications, but that's more of a problem with societal perceptions than the First Amendment.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the incident was a single act by a sole individual, who appeared to be targeting the federal building. He refused to classify it as terrorism.
"I call it a cowardly, criminal act and there was no excuse for it," Acevedo said at a news conference.
Oh. I guess it's only a "criminal act" when non-Muslim people do it. I don't guess we'll be passing any absurd, reactionary anti-teabagger legislation either...
If everyone loses their shit about millimeter-wave radar, you are going to be a very unhappy camper when they come to take away your automatic parking Lexus! You can just forget about fully autonomous cars, too.
I would prefer to oppose this on the basis that it is an insane invasion of privacy and reduction of liberty.
Well, there was a sign in the Syracuse (NY) airport a year ago that said removing your shoes was optional (if you thought they wouldn't set off the metal detector), but when I pointed it out to the TSA goons, they were unimpressed. Granted, Syracuse is not exactly metropolitan, and perhaps cannot live up to national TSA literacy rates, but I think more likely outcomes to your scenario will be either that in fact none of them can read, or else that they will merely assert "the sign is wrong."
You make a good point. If future terrorists are dead-set on blowing up planes (because terrorists these days just lack the imagination, apparently), they can secret more explosives in their rectums/stomachs, GI tracts, etc. than they can in their underwear anyway. If someone is going to (attempt to) blow up a plane while still on it anyway, there should be no problem with even detonating explosives before removing them. As seasoned internet denizens, veterans of years of trolling, we should know better than anyone just how cavernous the human rectum and anus can be.
(In-) effectiveness aside, TSA goons scrutinizing my naked body is not an acceptable tradeoff for some theoretical infinitesimal increase in safety. The entire threat of airplane terrorism cannot justify such a step. Besides, this reactionary bullshit has only become popular because of an incident on an international flight that had not yet touched at a U.S. airport. Unless every other country with airplane traffic to the United States embraces identically draconian policies, these scanners would not even have prevented the very incident that has prompted their deployment!
The only dilemma here is whether one can legitimately oppose airport body scanners through exploitation of the public's irrational fear of ionizing radiation. Anything that finally turns opinion firmly against expansion of TSA power is good, but the irrational fear of ionizing radiation is a double-edged sword (remember nuclear power).
He didn't say anything that was necessarily outright factually incorrect, so it would be tough to prove libel against him in the U.K., much less the U.S.
You don't blame Sanger for being an unmitigated FUD-slinging asshole who is ostensibly using the law as his personal weapon, but who really knows that it doesn't matter that his charges have no legal merit as long as it gets him enough press?
I doubt even Sanger himself would embrace such audacious apologism (in private).
Incidentally, exactly who was holding a gun to his head, forcing him to attempt to find every last bit of nudity-related material on Wikipedia? By his own account, he was unaware that Wikipedia was such a den of iniquity until he started scouring it for anything he could call porn while promoting his new (children's) website. Even if what you said about the law were true (it isn't that bad in the U.S., yet), how could you possibly defend him for throwing fuel on the fire? It is taking all of my willpower not to Godwin myself here. That's the sort of argument you are making.
I blame you for excusing Sanger's self-serving assault on free speech just because assaults on freedom are popular in the current political climate. It would be one thing to say that his actions are "understandable" (though I would still say it is complete bullshit to claim good faith on Sanger's part), but to claim that they are actually reasonable or even ethical? Your arguments themselves constitute an assault on free speech.
That isn't the case in the United States, home of the Wikimedia foundation. Wikimedia's statement about this matter implies that there will be no policy (or content) change.
On the topic of allegedly illegal materials on Wikipedia and our projects: The Wikimedia Foundation obeys the law. In the weeks since Sanger’s published allegations, the Wikimedia Foundation has not been contacted by the FBI or any other law-enforcement agency with regard to allegedly illegal content on any Wikimedia projects. Our community of volunteer editors takes action to remove illegal material when such material is brought to its attention. The Wikimedia Foundation is proud of the Wikimedia editors who zealously work to keep the projects free of illegal material. If and when we are informed by law enforcement agencies of illegal content that has not already been removed through self-policing, we will take quick action to delete it.
Any other position would be giving in to Sanger's terrorism, so this is a relief.
This sounds like a pretty tremendous advance, though it may apply just to the heart, which is unique among commonly transplanted organs in being a muscle. TFA is (predictably) not very clear on that issue.
For my part, we will be "as close to [reanimation] as anyone would want" when we have advanced far beyond "reconstructing hot chicks from only part of their arm." That would only be cloning; screw that, we will certainly be there within a few decades. If we could reanimate (recently) brain-dead people and actually recover their full neurological function, that would be something to brag about. Right now, if your heart stops beating for five minutes, you're toast. We may be able to get your heart working again, but that isn't going to help anyone but the people your organs are donated to.
Hogan, Warner and Chen are all morons who didn't consult lawyers when it would have been overwhelmingly advisable. They should have all determined whether their actions could be construed as illegal before they took them, but (as the Parent points out) Hogan, Warner and their associates further engaged in a pointless orgy of voluntary mutual incrimination.
Hogan and his friend Thomas Warner attempted to conceal evidence in front of witnesses, then Hogan's father allowed a warrantless entry into the house (thanks a lot, Dad!), Hogan implicated Warner and himself, Warner implicated Hogan and himself, and there was Miranda-waiving all around. Need a lawyer? Naaaaah. "Everything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law." "Officer, I waive those rights, and I'd like to implicate myself spontaneously, because I'm using some fucked up logic known only to other suspected petty criminals."
Perhaps we should contemplate a change to grade/high school civics curricula? I think I have good grounds for believing I am both more intelligent and more educated than the average American, but I also once implicated myself. Some years ago, the first time I was pulled over by the police (for speeding), in an (incredibly inadvisable) attempt to be clever I put myself on the hook for another $50 violation and additional $85 mandatory surcharge (thank you, New York). Since then, I have not been charged with or interrogated in connection with any misdemeanor or felony, but I have been pulled over for more traffic infractions. Severely chastened and deeply humiliated by my past spontaneous admission of guilt (unexpected contact with the police turned me into a drooling moron), I never made such a mistake again (and never paid such a fine again), and instead acquainted myself much more deeply with the laws of various states, and with criminal procedure. That is the only reliable antidote to drooling idiocy.
The Supreme Court wasn't just making things up when they decided that custodial interrogation was de facto compulsion. That was the legal expression of the drooling idiot principle. It is a rare person to whom the principle does not apply. Hell, one of my relatives, who is substantially older than I, to whom the same intelligence/education disclaimer applies, and who had never received worse than a speeding ticket, once was pulled over for driving straight through a left turn signal (it was dark, he wasn't wearing glasses, and he was quite surprised at being pulled over until I mentioned the signal). He then unaccountably went out of his way to establish reasonable suspicion for DWI, which was a misdemeanor, not a violation. He was eventually and reluctantly released (from the traffic stop) after blowing a.02 (something he wouldn't have had to do if he didn't incriminate himself in the first place), having been cited only for failure to obey a traffic signal. I was in the passenger seat, so I know firsthand exactly what a colossal fuckup it was (I even attempted to subtly communicate this during the event, but was unsuccessful). It also occurred to me (from my comparatively uninvolved vantage) that bullshit like telling people to say the alphabet backwards (I don't know about you, but I can't do that sober) is merely a tactic to fluster suspects and get them to feel trapped into making more explicitly incriminating statements. A police officer appears in the night, shines a flashlight into your face, starts bemoaning the lawlessness of society and demanding that you comply, and somehow an otherwise intelligent person believes that some legal obligation exists to answer his questions, even to the extent of self-incrimination (which in that situation is pretty much everything). A traffic stop may not be (legally) a custodial interrogation, but it seems pretty fucking coercive in practice.
I would agree that you have to design to be an engineer, but if you think that the Star Trek engineers don't design...you obviously haven't watched much Star Trek. Their skills are frequently called upon to design MacGuffins virtually from scratch that violate the laws of physics in innumerable ways. Not only are they engineers, they are cutting-edge theoretical (imaginary?) physicists.
When I read this article, I immediately thought, what if he edited wikipedia (with a sockpuppet) to coincide with his bill before he introduced it? He can't be said to plagiarize his own text, after all.
The revision history of the article reveals that the current first three paragraphs were written on 19 April 2010 by Andreasmperu, who has been a prolific spanish wikipedia user for some years, is certainly not a sock puppet, is probably a woman, and may be from Peru.
Since I have disposed with the sock puppet theory, I feel comfortable embracing the much more humorous prevailing theory (pleasantly reinforcing my preconceptions about politicians) that Gerónimo Vargas Aignasse did in fact plagiarize the text of his plagiarism bill.
I agree completely with the parent, the underground economies can cause violence and undermine discipline efforts among prisoner populations.
Banning of candy and other contraband is typically done in lower grade levels to a) limit bullying, food trading, etc, and typically more important, b) using exceptions to the rule as positive reinforcement ("you can have this piece of candy because you...")
Wait, we're not discussing penal policy? I would think that seeing incarceration arguments applied to grade-school policy would give any reader pause.
Slashdot Mirror
The shocking thing is not that religion is political, but that you can fully recognize its nature as a creation of man, be familiar with the history of the major religions, reject the parts of yours that are explicitly disproved, and yet somehow continue to subscribe to the rest.
If you're going to claim that you don't really believe in the Norse (I assume) gods, you just find the ritual compelling or something, then I would argue (like the GP) that it isn't really "your religion" in any meaningful sense: you're really an atheist in denial.
If you are a theist...why? You decry blind faith, but what other kind of religious faith exists, faith where you admit that it all might very well be complete bullshit? Who would make important decisions based on something for which there is no evidence, in the absence of faith? Okay...everyone. But if you are willing to revise any part of your religion when specific evidence becomes available, how is it more than a political philosophy? Is positing the existence of particular deities useful to you somehow, even contrary to fact? Once you throw out divine inspiration as a source of authority, why not make up your own religion (metaphysics) entirely?
I'd really like to know; I undid my moderation on this article because I want to know how you, as a modern, scientifically and historically literate, technologically savvy, slashdotter, can "look at [religion] for what it is" and still claim to be "quite religious."
Criminals who commit petty crimes for money are already not operating on a basis of ROI or a rational examination of probabilities; they assume they won't get caught, and that petty crime pays more than McDonald's.
The more charges the prosecutor can throw at a defendant, the more likely one is to stick. And this one has a mandatory minimum penalty, which much be served consecutively! This bill is less a war on technology (or rational basis lawmaking) than a war on judicial discretion. If judges feel that there is an extraordinary level of planning or professionalism in a burglary, they can already hand out a harsher sentence (up to the maximum). This law just arbitrarily punishes thieves who used Google (and may well result in lighter sentences for the actual burglary charges to compensate). An attempt to legislate on every possible crime scenario will inevitably fail (and result in inequity), which is why judges control sentencing in the first place.
To me technology is a privilege, not a right and abusing a privilege should be punished.
What the fuck. I think you are abusing your "privilege" to promote your retarded un-American (un-Enlightenment) opinions.
If the front door is open, it's not burglary, just theft.
The only techno-illiterate statement in there is when Justice Roberts says that he didn't know that his text messages went through intermediate companies, he thought they went directly to the recipient (just like Nikola Tesla would have had it, apparently).
MR. DAMMEIER: Well, they -- they expect that some company, I'm sure, is going to have to be processing the delivery of this message. And --
CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, I didn't -- I wouldn't think that. I thought, you know, you push a button; it goes right to the other thing.
(Laughter.)
MR. DAMMEIER: Well --
JUSTICE SCALIA: You mean it doesn't go right to the other thing?
I also get the impression from reading it that Justice Sotomayor is the most tech-savvy judge, which isn't too surprising. Justice Alito, the second youngest, also appeared to have a decent grasp of telecommunications realities (despite the fact that he was a W. appointee).
When they get down to writing the opinions, they are all going to have clerks who are in their twenties writing drafts and doing the research. I wouldn't worry too much--about the Supreme Court.
As others have pointed out, there is no encrypted autocomplete, so I decided to make a separate Google search entry without it. Oddly enough Google SSL was redirecting to non-SSL (for me, at least) between about 11AM-12:30PM EST. Since it is back now, however, you may find this xml useful; you might find it a lot more useful if I just put in a link, but alas my domain is my real name...
/>
You might also have to convert the image to ico again (or just choose your own). If you copy [opensearch.xml] into some local xml file, and then link to it with [addsearch.html] (replacing the path, obviously), it is very easy to add to Firefox (or IE, I guess) without mucking around with json files. An option to add it will appear at the bottom of the provider dropdown menu.
[addsearch.html]
<html><head>
<link rel="search" type="application/opensearchdescription+xml" href="[opensearch.xml]" title="Google SSL"/>
</head></html>
[opensearch.xml]
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns="http://www.opensearch.org/Specifications/OpenSearch/1.1">
<ShortName>Google SSL</ShortName>
<LongName>Google SSL Web Search</LongName>
<Description>Search Google using SSL Encryption (no suggestions)</Description>
<Url type="text/html" method="GET" template="https://www.google.com/search?q={searchTerms}&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t"
<Image height="16" width="16" type="image/png">http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/827/lockicon.png</Image>
<Language>en-us</Language>
<Language>*</Language>
<InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>
<OutputEncoding>UTF-8</OutputEncoding>
</OpenSearchDescription>
One of the Nautilus men gave me a simple gun, the butt end of which, made of steel, hollow in the centre, was rather large. It served as a reservoir of compressed air, which a valve, worked by a spring, allowed to escape into a metal tube. A box of projectiles in a groove in the thickness of the butt end contained about twenty of these electric balls, which, by means of a spring, were forced into the barrel of the gun. As soon as one shot was fired, another was ready.
We've been waiting for it much longer than flying cars, but Captain Nemo's pulse rifle is finally coming to market (well, probably).
Nemtyshkin's next project, the Leyden Gun, will deliver a short shock with lasting effects. The Leyden Gun is the size of a paintball rifle, with a magazine of thirty rounds. The projectiles are simple needles rather than elaborate barbed darts, as they do not stick to the target but administer a single jolt from a high-voltage capacitor.
On the other hand...
[A]nd finally, it was he who had killed the convicts with the electric balls, of which he possessed the secret, and which he had employed in the chase of submarine creatures.
Admittedly, some of the precedents are a bit ominous.
So, where can I preorder one of these?
I tried the Gender/Career test (because it was the first on the list), and am unsure how it could reveal implicit associations, rather than my (in-)ability to keep up with which side each category was on. I wondered if they were trying to trick me into taking a working memory test.
Apparently only 17% of takers scored neutral, however...
Sure, I've read the story about the TSA guy beating the other down in the parking lot because of continuous harassment concerning his (alleged) small dick. A hilarious taste of things yet to come. I didn't mean to imply that you couldn't (legitimately) oppose this, just that it might not be the best idea to do so based on a fear of RF.
Actually, being "sexually dangerous" is considered a mental illness for the purposes of these confinements. The only evidence the government needs of "sexual dangerousness" is a conviction for the possession of child pornography (obtained while the defendant was still competent, apparently). The grandparent's assertion that the ruling is "narrow" is absurd. The opinion greatly expanded the interpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause. The court "assumed" that the detentions themselves were constitutional, and only considered whether such confinement (previously the province of the states alone) could be undertaken by the federal government. State lines are no longer an obstacle to the feds (except insofar as they use the violation of other federal laws as evidence)--they can confine anyone for mental health reasons in a federal penitentiary.
Using the new interpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause, basically any power which was not explicitly unconstitutional (an issue left here for another day; I'm not holding my breath) might now be held to be the province of the federal government. The tenth Amendment was pretty unpopular already, but I think calling its potential repeal a narrow decision is hugely disingenuous.
As for due process...that question was not addressed by this decision. However, a hearing before a federal judge using a new and extremely broad standard for incompetence is nowhere near the standard for criminal due process which the Court has held to be required in the past. The plaintiffs' other challenges based on the Sixth Amendment may yet be heard. In the best case scenario, the majority just wanted to take this opportunity to greatly expand the permissible scope of federal law, though they intend to give back sixth amendment rights at a later date.
Notably, most of the five plaintiffs in this case were not "horrible child molesters" but rather men who had been convicted of possession ("receipt") of child pornography. There is no evidence that they have committed or will commit any violent crime. The Attorney General could just as easily use this doctrine to lock up a man who urinated against a building, if his stream crossed over state lines.
Help! I've dropped my copula and I can't get up...
His statements to the FBI on his (allegedly) good-faith interpretation of the murky law on obscenity, though. All he really did was request that they investigate...
I agree that there is hardly anything more defaming than his blatant implications, but that's more of a problem with societal perceptions than the First Amendment.
Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the incident was a single act by a sole individual, who appeared to be targeting the federal building. He refused to classify it as terrorism.
"I call it a cowardly, criminal act and there was no excuse for it," Acevedo said at a news conference.
Oh. I guess it's only a "criminal act" when non-Muslim people do it. I don't guess we'll be passing any absurd, reactionary anti-teabagger legislation either...
If everyone loses their shit about millimeter-wave radar, you are going to be a very unhappy camper when they come to take away your automatic parking Lexus! You can just forget about fully autonomous cars, too.
I would prefer to oppose this on the basis that it is an insane invasion of privacy and reduction of liberty.
Well, there was a sign in the Syracuse (NY) airport a year ago that said removing your shoes was optional (if you thought they wouldn't set off the metal detector), but when I pointed it out to the TSA goons, they were unimpressed. Granted, Syracuse is not exactly metropolitan, and perhaps cannot live up to national TSA literacy rates, but I think more likely outcomes to your scenario will be either that in fact none of them can read, or else that they will merely assert "the sign is wrong."
I think that Tom Clancy's Debt of Honor is the canonical example of anticipating that method.
You make a good point. If future terrorists are dead-set on blowing up planes (because terrorists these days just lack the imagination, apparently), they can secret more explosives in their rectums/stomachs, GI tracts, etc. than they can in their underwear anyway. If someone is going to (attempt to) blow up a plane while still on it anyway, there should be no problem with even detonating explosives before removing them. As seasoned internet denizens, veterans of years of trolling, we should know better than anyone just how cavernous the human rectum and anus can be.
(In-) effectiveness aside, TSA goons scrutinizing my naked body is not an acceptable tradeoff for some theoretical infinitesimal increase in safety. The entire threat of airplane terrorism cannot justify such a step. Besides, this reactionary bullshit has only become popular because of an incident on an international flight that had not yet touched at a U.S. airport. Unless every other country with airplane traffic to the United States embraces identically draconian policies, these scanners would not even have prevented the very incident that has prompted their deployment!
The only dilemma here is whether one can legitimately oppose airport body scanners through exploitation of the public's irrational fear of ionizing radiation. Anything that finally turns opinion firmly against expansion of TSA power is good, but the irrational fear of ionizing radiation is a double-edged sword (remember nuclear power).
He didn't say anything that was necessarily outright factually incorrect, so it would be tough to prove libel against him in the U.K., much less the U.S.
You don't blame Sanger for being an unmitigated FUD-slinging asshole who is ostensibly using the law as his personal weapon, but who really knows that it doesn't matter that his charges have no legal merit as long as it gets him enough press?
I doubt even Sanger himself would embrace such audacious apologism (in private).
Incidentally, exactly who was holding a gun to his head, forcing him to attempt to find every last bit of nudity-related material on Wikipedia? By his own account, he was unaware that Wikipedia was such a den of iniquity until he started scouring it for anything he could call porn while promoting his new (children's) website. Even if what you said about the law were true (it isn't that bad in the U.S., yet), how could you possibly defend him for throwing fuel on the fire? It is taking all of my willpower not to Godwin myself here. That's the sort of argument you are making.
I blame you for excusing Sanger's self-serving assault on free speech just because assaults on freedom are popular in the current political climate. It would be one thing to say that his actions are "understandable" (though I would still say it is complete bullshit to claim good faith on Sanger's part), but to claim that they are actually reasonable or even ethical? Your arguments themselves constitute an assault on free speech.
On the topic of allegedly illegal materials on Wikipedia and our projects: The Wikimedia Foundation obeys the law. In the weeks since Sanger’s published allegations, the Wikimedia Foundation has not been contacted by the FBI or any other law-enforcement agency with regard to allegedly illegal content on any Wikimedia projects. Our community of volunteer editors takes action to remove illegal material when such material is brought to its attention. The Wikimedia Foundation is proud of the Wikimedia editors who zealously work to keep the projects free of illegal material. If and when we are informed by law enforcement agencies of illegal content that has not already been removed through self-policing, we will take quick action to delete it.
Any other position would be giving in to Sanger's terrorism, so this is a relief.
This sounds like a pretty tremendous advance, though it may apply just to the heart, which is unique among commonly transplanted organs in being a muscle. TFA is (predictably) not very clear on that issue.
For my part, we will be "as close to [reanimation] as anyone would want" when we have advanced far beyond "reconstructing hot chicks from only part of their arm." That would only be cloning; screw that, we will certainly be there within a few decades. If we could reanimate (recently) brain-dead people and actually recover their full neurological function, that would be something to brag about. Right now, if your heart stops beating for five minutes, you're toast. We may be able to get your heart working again, but that isn't going to help anyone but the people your organs are donated to.
Hogan, Warner and Chen are all morons who didn't consult lawyers when it would have been overwhelmingly advisable. They should have all determined whether their actions could be construed as illegal before they took them, but (as the Parent points out) Hogan, Warner and their associates further engaged in a pointless orgy of voluntary mutual incrimination.
.02 (something he wouldn't have had to do if he didn't incriminate himself in the first place), having been cited only for failure to obey a traffic signal. I was in the passenger seat, so I know firsthand exactly what a colossal fuckup it was (I even attempted to subtly communicate this during the event, but was unsuccessful). It also occurred to me (from my comparatively uninvolved vantage) that bullshit like telling people to say the alphabet backwards (I don't know about you, but I can't do that sober) is merely a tactic to fluster suspects and get them to feel trapped into making more explicitly incriminating statements. A police officer appears in the night, shines a flashlight into your face, starts bemoaning the lawlessness of society and demanding that you comply, and somehow an otherwise intelligent person believes that some legal obligation exists to answer his questions, even to the extent of self-incrimination (which in that situation is pretty much everything). A traffic stop may not be (legally) a custodial interrogation, but it seems pretty fucking coercive in practice.
Hogan and his friend Thomas Warner attempted to conceal evidence in front of witnesses, then Hogan's father allowed a warrantless entry into the house (thanks a lot, Dad!), Hogan implicated Warner and himself, Warner implicated Hogan and himself, and there was Miranda-waiving all around. Need a lawyer? Naaaaah. "Everything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law." "Officer, I waive those rights, and I'd like to implicate myself spontaneously, because I'm using some fucked up logic known only to other suspected petty criminals."
Perhaps we should contemplate a change to grade/high school civics curricula? I think I have good grounds for believing I am both more intelligent and more educated than the average American, but I also once implicated myself. Some years ago, the first time I was pulled over by the police (for speeding), in an (incredibly inadvisable) attempt to be clever I put myself on the hook for another $50 violation and additional $85 mandatory surcharge (thank you, New York). Since then, I have not been charged with or interrogated in connection with any misdemeanor or felony, but I have been pulled over for more traffic infractions. Severely chastened and deeply humiliated by my past spontaneous admission of guilt (unexpected contact with the police turned me into a drooling moron), I never made such a mistake again (and never paid such a fine again), and instead acquainted myself much more deeply with the laws of various states, and with criminal procedure. That is the only reliable antidote to drooling idiocy.
The Supreme Court wasn't just making things up when they decided that custodial interrogation was de facto compulsion. That was the legal expression of the drooling idiot principle. It is a rare person to whom the principle does not apply. Hell, one of my relatives, who is substantially older than I, to whom the same intelligence/education disclaimer applies, and who had never received worse than a speeding ticket, once was pulled over for driving straight through a left turn signal (it was dark, he wasn't wearing glasses, and he was quite surprised at being pulled over until I mentioned the signal). He then unaccountably went out of his way to establish reasonable suspicion for DWI, which was a misdemeanor, not a violation. He was eventually and reluctantly released (from the traffic stop) after blowing a
I would agree that you have to design to be an engineer, but if you think that the Star Trek engineers don't design...you obviously haven't watched much Star Trek. Their skills are frequently called upon to design MacGuffins virtually from scratch that violate the laws of physics in innumerable ways. Not only are they engineers, they are cutting-edge theoretical (imaginary?) physicists.
And you want to call LaForge a technician? Ouch.
When I read this article, I immediately thought, what if he edited wikipedia (with a sockpuppet) to coincide with his bill before he introduced it? He can't be said to plagiarize his own text, after all.
The revision history of the article reveals that the current first three paragraphs were written on 19 April 2010 by Andreasmperu, who has been a prolific spanish wikipedia user for some years, is certainly not a sock puppet, is probably a woman, and may be from Peru.
Since I have disposed with the sock puppet theory, I feel comfortable embracing the much more humorous prevailing theory (pleasantly reinforcing my preconceptions about politicians) that Gerónimo Vargas Aignasse did in fact plagiarize the text of his plagiarism bill.
Banning of candy and other contraband is typically done in lower grade levels to a) limit bullying, food trading, etc, and typically more important, b) using exceptions to the rule as positive reinforcement ("you can have this piece of candy because you...")
Wait, we're not discussing penal policy? I would think that seeing incarceration arguments applied to grade-school policy would give any reader pause.