I'm glad somebody remembered the First, but after Roberts' appointment it may be otiose grandiloquence.
It is a little late to be watching out for the First, since the Fifth, Sixth and Thirteenth, as well as Article VI of the Constitution, have now become moot. The Chief Justice believes the President, by his say so alone, can supercede the Supreme Law of the Land.
Read it and Weep. The Dreamtime America may now be lost. And this fetishist for black satin moo moos was pitched to the citizen rubes as a "strict constitutionalist".
"I've seen evidence that Diebold are a bunch of fat, incompetent bastards milking a Government contract for everything they can"
Am I to feel more trusting in the veracity of a paperless electronic vote because of this? Crony Capitalism is just another example of politics gone awry.
If one wants a high degree of confidence in the honesty of an electronic vote, they should seek out entities that have extensive experience in forcing electronic devices to show documented trails; the electronic services division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The Nevada election in '04 had very few problems from their voting machines with a mandated paper trail. Certainly fewer problems that other machines have caused in the past.
The problem isn't necessarily the dishonesty of Diebold, but is instead, exactly how you described it, "fat, incompetent bastards milking a government contract". Cronyism will never lead to innovative solutions.
Once upon a time, in a Vegas two+decades ago, there was a group of South Asian engineers who came to the city with technology never before seen. It consisted of a keyboard inside of a shoe and eyeglasses with a tiny spreaker in it connected to a small radio tranmit/receive device. The person attired in this gear would play blackjack and enter every card as it was played using the shoe keyboard, which would be transmitted it to his partners in the hotel room.
The hotel room had a computer system set up running software to crunch the card data and when the count became favourable enough, they would transmit the data to their man at the table.
Over the next several weeks, the engineers proceeded to win a substantial amount of money from many of the larger hotels, and they had built up a bit of a reputation amongst the Vegas Gambling Executives.
The engineers ended up making another substantial sum of money by having the casino executives pay to view their system. The next time that Nevada's State Legislature met, the gaming lobbyists made sure that they enacted new legislation making it a felony to use any electronic calculating device to aid a gambler while playing.
...specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment, in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers 'in any house' in time of peace without the consent of the owner, is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the 'right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' The Fifth Amendment, in its Self-Incrimination Clause, enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'
NO! That is a recipe for continuation of the status quo. They BOTH need to feel the heat NOW. Otherwise the Dems will take over and think their social agenda of increasing the loss of our freedoms for different reasons was the cause of their "success" at the polls. You wind up in a perpetual seesaw resulting in the steady elimination of all rights equally between the two. You repeatedly trade bully one for bully two, then reverse and repeat.
There is nothing you or I can do to stop the pendulum of the bi-polar polity, other than convince enough people who will vote to actually change it. There was a chance at a third party with clout, but Buchanan, the Republican loyalist to the end, took the FEC money and trashed them in 2000. Demcorats still blame Nader, the fools, they should be blaming Buchanan, Perot and Ventura.
In the current circumstances, the best that can be achieved is an evenness of parties, and the abrasion that comes with it. I think that a large part of the economic boom in the 90's was due to the great friction between the parties. Neither side had enough power to suck their vigorish off of the top, and the free market that could, did. The equities traders screwed it up, but equity traders should be dealt with. If they didn't venture for capitalisation of the business, they are leeches, sucking from the valuation of the compensation provided to the producers of the product.
An Abridged Listing Why I Beat Upon Republicans Presently
The republicans have gained the upper hand in large part by betraying both their core ideology and the Dreamtime America.
NeoConservatism's maturation can be traced from marxism to trotskyite CIA stooges to Scoop Jackson DemoHawks to Reagan to the Son of Bush.
They have never given up the marxist trait of spewing rhetoric, the truth notwithstanding.
The self-confessed American traitor,
David Horrowitz calls Kerry and Fonda traitors, and is given stature within the Right.
The putrescence of moral relevancy oozing from the partisan defense of a president who
fixed the intelligence and the facts
around his policy of familial vengence, and took America into an unrighteous conflict without contemplating the aftermath.
a president who sings sweet songs of liberty and democracy, yet gives aid to dictatorial destroyers of democracy, has liasons with leaders loathsome of liberty, and goes out on ManDates with Saudi Princes who come to the USA laden with extra baggage.
When did conservatives begin to support due process of law applied inequally to humans? That is a high crime against America, yet they still repeatedly remind us that a stained blue dress is impeachable? Why not decry Blood-Stained Iraq Sands?
Bush's SCOTUS nomimee Roberts is a dangerous and activist judge who DOES NOT adjudicate using original intent, and all the country can think about is which way he'll decide on abortion cases. His assent in the Hamdi v Rumsfeld appeal is frightful. It posits that a president is above the very law that legitimises his power, stating this is a function of war power, in a war upon unstated enemies, of an indeterminate duration. Why hasn't anyone asked Roberts just what the hell he was doing during that ongoing criminal enterprise: The Reagan Administration? This is ano
It doesn't lie within the representatives, it lie within the people.
It is our fault.
That democrats would be in favor of a bigger government, should come as no surprise. Hasn't the republican party told us this for many decades?
It is the main reason why democrats should not be trusted.
The republicans have shown why they should not be trusted also. They placed themselves upon a pedestal of honest gvernment that strives to decrease its grasp upon the people, and then almost to a person, have defended one of theirs whose morality comes up wanting in comparison to a crack whore's, Tom Delay. The republican house whip, Roy Blunt, excuses Delay with "we all do it". Why is Blunt not under investigation? Isn't this an admission of his own criminal acts? They rally around the president's acts of creating big government that has its hands down our zippers.
They have sold their conservatism to the highest bidder. No real conservative would ever justify their acts with a reference to FDR.
It is the republicans whose promises have been shown to be machiavellian lies intended to secure power. It is the republicans who hold the reigns. Thanks to republicans, we know that democrats tax and spend. Thanks to recent republican acts, we know that republicans spend irresponsibly without end, as they reward their financial backers with tax cuts and foist the costs of their governing today upon the shoulders of the governments of the future.
This is self-reliance? This is self-responsibility? It is the republicans who need to be put into their place, and when the dems regain the top slot, it becomes their turn to feel the heat.
Still you make excuses for the acts of the lying morally relativistic republicans by saying the dems woulda if they coulda?
what did ole Ashy do after 9/11? Changed his tune, that's what.
By the time 911 had rolled around, Ashcroft was no longer a dim senator from Missouri, he had been a loser to a dead guy in the "show-me" state, and subsequently appointed to be AG, by a president elected on less than a plurality, who was trying his damndest to give his base of contemporary conservatives a reason to have hope, by proving the Peter Principle untrue. Bush was successful in this goal, evidenced after his reelection with the promotions of Wolfowitz, Rice and Zoellar. People can and do get promoted past their levels of incompetence. (how's that for evil spin?)
Look, I am not saying Clinton didn't want the power; anyone who actually becomes president is someone who dangerously lusts for power. I don't even like Clinton. I am saying that the republicans are to blame for the majority of rights stripped from humans after 911. They control the
executive, the legislative, and many claim the judiciary as well. What has come into being since taking control is theirs alone to shoulder the blame for. (at least until the bi-polar polity gets evened out a bit, and then renew an attack upon the dems and the reps evenly)
In politics, it's all about the spin, there is no truth to be found. The best that can be hoped for is an evenly divided by party and hamstrung government that is forced to enact legislation through a true bipartisan process.
Never trust any politician farther than you can swing a rope from the city square's old oak tree.
"I am not a federalist, because I never submitted the whole system of my-opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in polities or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction, is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all."
--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, 1789.
--"The Writings of Thomas Jefferson"
Memorial Edition (Lipscomb and Bergh, editors)
20 Vols., Washington, D.C., 1903-04.
Vol.7:pg 300
much of it online, (ascii only)
and here's a direct slap at BuShills, from a godless founder of America:
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
-- Thomas Paine
It is doubtful that Clinton would have received all that was given in the Patriot Bill. His attack using cruise missles upon a camp in Afghanistan, when he had intelligence that bin Laden was there was often referred to as "wagging the dog". Ashcroft, as a Senator, helped to shoot down lawful roving wiretaps being inserted into crime omnibus bills, voting no to amendments on multiple ocassions. It is also doubful that the Clinton Administration would have had the audacity to claim they needed these extreme methods right after they had miserbly failed to perform their duty of defending America.
And even if my analysis is wrong, there is still no justifiable reason for the government enabling themselves with these extra powers.
It would be a shame if our elected politicians had to actually honor their oaths to protect and uphold the Constitution, wouldn't it? It seems that anyone who reads the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution would have a difficult time justifying the legitimacy of this action by the FCC:
Article IV. The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Our Congresspersons are, after all, a class of known liars who haven't even a small amount of honor within them; politicians.
The "terrorism" rationale just does not hold muster here. It is nothing more that a tool being used by politicians in a quest for power not rightfully theirs. The Rights of Humans are being eroded away, a byte at a time. The wellspring from which all legitimacy for the actions of our government flows is the Constitution. To act in a manner contrary to it, is to engage in tyranny. Each time our politicians make an exception to the Constitution, for any reason whatsoever, they have weakened all, and have made it easier for the future's politicians by giving them precedents to cite when they too tear away at the limitations rationally placed upon power, one thread at a time.
The Dreamtime America is fading away.
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." --James Madison
What utter garbage. America walked away, and Vietnam did fall to communism, 30 years ago. So much for the dominos.
Nixon made up his mind to walk away only to bleed American GIs and Vietnamese from the South and North out an extra two years for pure political utilitarianism. The Nixon Realism was a Real Bitch.
Here's a gem from the the Nixon aide Hadleman in 1970, scraped from the University of Virginia's, Miller Center of Public Affairs. Scripps Library and Multimedia Archive's Nixon Presidency online exhibit called: Seeking a 'Decent Interval' Exit from Vietnam.
H. R. "Bob" Haldeman Diary Entry on Vietnam, December 21, 1970 December 21, 1970
Henry was in for a while and the President discussed a possible trip for next year. He's thinking about going to Vietnam in April [1971] or whenever we decide to make the basic end-of-the-war announcement. His idea would be to tour around the country, build up [South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van] Thieu and so forth, and then make the announcement right afterwards.
Henry argues against a commitment that early to withdraw all combat troops because he feels that if we pull them out by the end of '71, trouble can start mounting in '72 that we won't be able to deal with, and which we'll have to answer for at the elections.
He prefers instead a commitment to have them all out by the end of '72 so that we won't have to deliver finally until after the [US presidential] elections [in November 1972] and therefore can keep our flanks protected. This would certainly seem to make more sense, and the President seemed to agree in general, but he wants Henry to work up plans on it.
How many Enemies has the Government Fed this week would be the question, if this country was actually based on Christianity.
There is nothing Christianly about fixing facts and evidence around a predetermined policy of Waging War Upon Iraq, the Truth Notwithstanding.
There is nothing Christianlike or Constitutional in Mr. Bush's self-determination to strip the right of humans to due process of law, lock them up for three years, and then quietly repatriate them.
Here, have some words from Paul:
Romans 12:17-21
Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Want to try and foist off the Unchristian concept of an eye for an eye as a rationale for Bush Heresy?
Matthew 5:38-48
Ye have heard that it hath been said,An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.
Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
This country is filled with poseurs, carrying their corked crosses over their shoulders, pretending to follow a religion they have no personal understanding of.
The hateful words of the tubby televanglist fatwads has nothing to do with what is taught in the New Testament.
Ratings are not in place as an inpenetratble bar to the young tykes, they are there as advisories to aid parents. It is not the government's place to censor, nor is it Rockstar's responsibility to be a mom to the throngs of unlucky kids with incompetent parents.
Why should some have access taken away from them, because of people who irresponsibly have thrown their DNA into the winds of the future?
Focus on your own damn family, and don't Prey on me, OK?
Contracts are law. If you violate a contract, you've broken the law. Maybe the EULA is not a lawful contract though, but the mongrel enactment, The DMCA growls angrily.
...The mod's author - Patrick Wildenborg of Deventer, Netherlands - told The Associated Press Friday that his code merely unlocks content that is already included in the code of each off-the-shelf game, the latest edition of the top-selling "Grand Theft Auto" series.
...Wildenborg, 36, wrote in an e-mail. "My mod does not introduce anything to the game. All the content that is shown was already present on the DVD."
[. ..]
"Lock me in a room with a computer, an original San Andreas DVD and a binary-file editor, and I will be able to unlock the stuff in a matter of minutes," he said defiantly.
Sec. 1201. Circumvention of copyright protection systems
(a) VIOLATIONS REGARDING CIRCUMVENTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL MEASURES-
(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.
Wildenborg hacked the code blocking scenes not released as a part of the software. He circumvented a "technological measure that effectively controls access" to these scenes.
Anyone who uses the mod is also violating the DMCA, and probably the EULA.
You bet it's trivial and pansey-assed, but consider the source of the law.
Gratuitous Violence, Talking Heads, Slothful Media, the War Upon Iraq.
Question: does hacking the DVD constitute a violation of the EULA? If so, then here's someone else's kid, whose parents are allowing to play a game rated Mature +17. The rating is clearly marked on the box, on the cartridge and the start-up screen. Then the kid illegally hacks the DVD, and the parents are mad at the gamemaker?
Give me a break.
Besides, what's a bit of gratuitous sex; in between Texas Chainsaw Styled Contract Hit Massacres, multiple acts of deadly assault with the intent to carjack and, players looking really Soldier of Fortune GQ in high fashion body-armor, difficult to obtain in the Iraq Theater, while they engage in heavy artillery firefights with police? Sex puts the game over the top? What the hell is wrong with America anyway? The country is still hung up over the decade past Clinton's lies under oath about consensual sex with a willing and adult partner, but presently, a president led this country dishonestly into a war upon Iraq, and it is okey dokey Dubya, you tried...wink and a nod?
Priorities please. They are not my children, nor my responsibilities. I am sorry if this places a burden on parents. I freely chose NOT to have children, and have carefully entered into and participated in relationships with this in mind. Isn't it enough that I am required by law to cover some of the tax burden that Congress has chosen to foist upon me, in an effort to shield parents from the fair market costs of procreation? Now, there are cries to censor too, because a pernicious preponderance of piss poor parenting prevails in our society?
Listen, off in the distance; is that the Urologist I hear gleefully snipping away in his outpatient clinic's operating theater?
To top it off, Corporate Media Outlets expose their lazily negligent practises again with their willingness to accept copy from any policy breeder org without researching the source. Why has nobody questioned the overtly commercial nature of the National Institute on the Media and the Family's website, dripping saturated advertisements for their services and products throughout. Is it because the org's title itself exudes the aroma of predictable reports fattened up after feeding on Adobe's bloat enabling Acrobat software? Their statements and public releases spew commercialisations. Their National Parental Warning Press Release regarding GTA last week began with an introductory sentence that was a blatant pitch expressing speaking engagement availability for the Chairman:
"Hidden Pornography Easily Accessible; David Walsh Ph.D. Available for Comment".
Within the meat of the release, a hook was incorporated into the warning, reeling the fish back to one of the National Institute on the Media and the Family's register trademarked product lines. It's an unseen below the belt subliminal sucker punch. From the release:
"Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" never belonged in the hands of kids," said psychologist Dr. Walsh. "We are taking the unusual step of alerting parents to the pornography available through this game to any child or teen who is Internet savvy. This gives greater urgency to our message to parents: Become MediaWise: Watch What Your Kids Watch."
It is self-evident that any game with a Mature rating doesn't belong "in the hands of kids". Why is Dr. Walsh restating the obvious? Could it have anything to do with the fact that upon visiting their website, one discovers that MediaWise has morphed into MediaWise® a product-line for sale on the Institute's website with a price tag of $250 for the MediaWise® parent education kit, $995 for the
If you are in need of an electronic device that can count accurately, and provide solid record keeping, why not follow the example of the State light years ahead of the rest in experience, Nevada.
If it can count the coins in and out, it can count your votes. In the 2004 election, Nevada tried a new electronic voting machine, and refused the Diebold version, because it had no means to keep a paper trail.
LAS VEGAS, Nevada (CNN) -- Whether it's a casual tourist putting a few dollars in a slot machine, or a high-roller risking tens of thousands at the poker table, most Las Vegas gamblers have one thing in common: They believe they can win.
Dean Heller, Nevada's secretary of state, wants to instill that same degree of confidence in the state's electronic voting machines. So he asked the state experts who test slot machines for fairness and reliability to weigh in on the voting variety.
"Gambling is a billion-dollar industry, they can't afford to make a mistake, they can't afford to have these machines manipulated," he says. "So I said, 'I know this isn't within your responsibility, but could you determine, in your best estimation, which are the most secure machines available today to use electronically?'"
It was an unusual request but an interesting challenge for the engineers who spend their time testing, dismantling, and figuring out how a cheater might compromise any of the thousands of loud, dizzying, dazzling slot machines licensed in the state.
It was a breeze, a touch screen machine that had a glass panel on the left-side. When the touch-screen vote selection was completed, the voter looked over at the panel, and a print-out of the vote on a continuos paper tape spool was viewed.
If the voter was satisfied, a button finalised the vote, and the paper tape advanced into a lock box.
Quick, efficient and a permanent record of each vote. The election went off smooth.
<p>A good way to increase the value of All Domestic Workers (IT included) is to apply the <a href="http://www.h1bresources.com/html/whatish1vis a.shtml">H1B Visa</a> to <b>ALL</b> Public Corporations' Executive Positions whose official title begins with a "C". <p>Then we begin Insourcing MBA's from India to run these corporations at a much lower level of compensation telling them that they will receive permanent residence status if they can successfully operate their corporations at profitable enough levels to satisfy the equities traders without exporting jobs. <p>The valuations of Domestic Workers would skyrocket overnight.
The Area 51 talk is ok as long as it doesn't get too heavy into the black choppers that don't go whup, whup whup... in the night.
First, since he US Government controls vast areas of Nevada's innards, attributing any Sci/Tech weirdness in Nevada directly to Area 51 adds fuel to the disingenuousness which obfuscates rational UFO discussions.
As a near lifer Vegas resident who has been on extensive adventures in Nevada, I've seen many an unusual light in the sky which defied easy explanation, and several contrails in the air that were extraordinary,
but it is wise to allow Occam's Razor to rule the day.
Simply, the government tests new and secret projects extensively out in dem dere hills pardner. Get used to it, don't go overboard with alien absurdities.
from the RJ Article (hyperlinks added):
Friday's cloudy weather made Bill O'Donnell (M.S., UNLV, 1995. Electrical Engineering Electrical gizmo builder for the Physics Dept) doubt the theory of static interference...
"Solar flares can produce and eject large numbers of charge particles, and usually the Earth's magnetic field deflects them before they enter the atmosphere," said chemistry and physics Professor Malcolm Nicol (Visiting Professor of Physics and Chemistry, Executive Director, UNLV High Pressure Sciences and Engineering Center)..."But if they are very large, they have been known to destroy the electronics systems in satellites and cause other problems down here."
This sort of rules out known natural causes, but the dense cloud cover may have been reflecting electronic game playing up and over the intervening mountains and down into the Las Vegas valley.
from the RJ Article (hyperlinks added):
Paul Oei, an electronics engineer with the Los Angeles office of the
FCC, said keyless entry systems operate on unlicensed frequencies. The
devices can fail when they are near an antenna emitting high radio
frequency energy...
he recalled hearing about an incident years ago in which
garage-door openers stopped working in an area when Air Force One was
nearby.
"Who knows what the military could be using at any given time?" he said.
John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org...said military technology could easily be responsible for Friday's
phenomenon. One such operation is jamming, which involves the release of
electromagnetic energy to interfere with an enemy's radar detection
capability...
Pike noted that particularly in Nevada, the military has a number of
unacknowledged programs in jamming and radar and high-powered microwave
weapons...
"The military is certainly capable of fibbing about these things," Pike
said. "But, for the military to have done it, they would have to have
seriously miscalculated the effects of some test."
Pike makes it sound like the chances of the government seriousl
Slashdot Mirror
I'm glad somebody remembered the First, but after Roberts' appointment it may be otiose grandiloquence.
It is a little late to be watching out for the First, since the Fifth, Sixth and Thirteenth, as well as Article VI of the Constitution, have now become moot. The Chief Justice believes the President, by his say so alone, can supercede the Supreme Law of the Land.
Read it and Weep. The Dreamtime America may now be lost. And this fetishist for black satin moo moos was pitched to the citizen rubes as a "strict constitutionalist".
Am I to feel more trusting in the veracity of a paperless electronic vote because of this? Crony Capitalism is just another example of politics gone awry.
If one wants a high degree of confidence in the honesty of an electronic vote, they should seek out entities that have extensive experience in forcing electronic devices to show documented trails; the electronic services division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board. The Nevada election in '04 had very few problems from their voting machines with a mandated paper trail. Certainly fewer problems that other machines have caused in the past.
The problem isn't necessarily the dishonesty of Diebold, but is instead, exactly how you described it, "fat, incompetent bastards milking a government contract". Cronyism will never lead to innovative solutions.
Once upon a time, in a Vegas two+decades ago, there was a group of South Asian engineers who came to the city with technology never before seen. It consisted of a keyboard inside of a shoe and eyeglasses with a tiny spreaker in it connected to a small radio tranmit/receive device. The person attired in this gear would play blackjack and enter every card as it was played using the shoe keyboard, which would be transmitted it to his partners in the hotel room.
The hotel room had a computer system set up running software to crunch the card data and when the count became favourable enough, they would transmit the data to their man at the table.
Over the next several weeks, the engineers proceeded to win a substantial amount of money from many of the larger hotels, and they had built up a bit of a reputation amongst the Vegas Gambling Executives.
The engineers ended up making another substantial sum of money by having the casino executives pay to view their system. The next time that Nevada's State Legislature met, the gaming lobbyists made sure that they enacted new legislation making it a felony to use any electronic calculating device to aid a gambler while playing.
["
...specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment, in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers 'in any house' in time of peace without the consent of the owner, is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the 'right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.' The Fifth Amendment, in its Self-Incrimination Clause, enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: 'The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'
"]
There is nothing you or I can do to stop the pendulum of the bi-polar polity, other than convince enough people who will vote to actually change it. There was a chance at a third party with clout, but Buchanan, the Republican loyalist to the end, took the FEC money and trashed them in 2000. Demcorats still blame Nader, the fools, they should be blaming Buchanan, Perot and Ventura.
In the current circumstances, the best that can be achieved is an evenness of parties, and the abrasion that comes with it. I think that a large part of the economic boom in the 90's was due to the great friction between the parties. Neither side had enough power to suck their vigorish off of the top, and the free market that could, did. The equities traders screwed it up, but equity traders should be dealt with. If they didn't venture for capitalisation of the business, they are leeches, sucking from the valuation of the compensation provided to the producers of the product.
An Abridged Listing Why I Beat Upon Republicans Presently
The republicans have gained the upper hand in large part by betraying both their core ideology and the Dreamtime America. NeoConservatism's maturation can be traced from marxism to trotskyite CIA stooges to Scoop Jackson DemoHawks to Reagan to the Son of Bush. They have never given up the marxist trait of spewing rhetoric, the truth notwithstanding. The self-confessed American traitor, David Horrowitz calls Kerry and Fonda traitors, and is given stature within the Right. The putrescence of moral relevancy oozing from the partisan defense of a president who fixed the intelligence and the facts around his policy of familial vengence, and took America into an unrighteous conflict without contemplating the aftermath. a president who sings sweet songs of liberty and democracy, yet gives aid to dictatorial destroyers of democracy, has liasons with leaders loathsome of liberty, and goes out on ManDates with Saudi Princes who come to the USA laden with extra baggage.
When did conservatives begin to support due process of law applied inequally to humans? That is a high crime against America, yet they still repeatedly remind us that a stained blue dress is impeachable? Why not decry Blood-Stained Iraq Sands?
Bush's SCOTUS nomimee Roberts is a dangerous and activist judge who DOES NOT adjudicate using original intent, and all the country can think about is which way he'll decide on abortion cases. His assent in the Hamdi v Rumsfeld appeal is frightful. It posits that a president is above the very law that legitimises his power, stating this is a function of war power, in a war upon unstated enemies, of an indeterminate duration. Why hasn't anyone asked Roberts just what the hell he was doing during that ongoing criminal enterprise: The Reagan Administration? This is ano
It doesn't lie within the representatives, it lie within the people.
It is our fault.
That democrats would be in favor of a bigger government, should come as no surprise. Hasn't the republican party told us this for many decades?
It is the main reason why democrats should not be trusted.
The republicans have shown why they should not be trusted also. They placed themselves upon a pedestal of honest gvernment that strives to decrease its grasp upon the people, and then almost to a person, have defended one of theirs whose morality comes up wanting in comparison to a crack whore's, Tom Delay. The republican house whip, Roy Blunt, excuses Delay with "we all do it". Why is Blunt not under investigation? Isn't this an admission of his own criminal acts? They rally around the president's acts of creating big government that has its hands down our zippers.
They have sold their conservatism to the highest bidder. No real conservative would ever justify their acts with a reference to FDR.
It is the republicans whose promises have been shown to be machiavellian lies intended to secure power. It is the republicans who hold the reigns. Thanks to republicans, we know that democrats tax and spend. Thanks to recent republican acts, we know that republicans spend irresponsibly without end, as they reward their financial backers with tax cuts and foist the costs of their governing today upon the shoulders of the governments of the future.
This is self-reliance? This is self-responsibility? It is the republicans who need to be put into their place, and when the dems regain the top slot, it becomes their turn to feel the heat.
Still you make excuses for the acts of the lying morally relativistic republicans by saying the dems woulda if they coulda?
why?
By the time 911 had rolled around, Ashcroft was no longer a dim senator from Missouri, he had been a loser to a dead guy in the "show-me" state, and subsequently appointed to be AG, by a president elected on less than a plurality, who was trying his damndest to give his base of contemporary conservatives a reason to have hope, by proving the Peter Principle untrue. Bush was successful in this goal, evidenced after his reelection with the promotions of Wolfowitz, Rice and Zoellar. People can and do get promoted past their levels of incompetence. (how's that for evil spin?)
Look, I am not saying Clinton didn't want the power; anyone who actually becomes president is someone who dangerously lusts for power. I don't even like Clinton. I am saying that the republicans are to blame for the majority of rights stripped from humans after 911. They control the executive, the legislative, and many claim the judiciary as well. What has come into being since taking control is theirs alone to shoulder the blame for. (at least until the bi-polar polity gets evened out a bit, and then renew an attack upon the dems and the reps evenly)
In politics, it's all about the spin, there is no truth to be found. The best that can be hoped for is an evenly divided by party and hamstrung government that is forced to enact legislation through a true bipartisan process.
Never trust any politician farther than you can swing a rope from the city square's old oak tree.
and here's a direct slap at BuShills, from a godless founder of America:
Guantanamo is Guano upon America
It is doubtful that Clinton would have received all that was given in the Patriot Bill. His attack using cruise missles upon a camp in Afghanistan, when he had intelligence that bin Laden was there was often referred to as "wagging the dog". Ashcroft, as a Senator, helped to shoot down lawful roving wiretaps being inserted into crime omnibus bills, voting no to amendments on multiple ocassions. It is also doubful that the Clinton Administration would have had the audacity to claim they needed these extreme methods right after they had miserbly failed to perform their duty of defending America.
And even if my analysis is wrong, there is still no justifiable reason for the government enabling themselves with these extra powers.
It would be a shame if our elected politicians had to actually honor their oaths to protect and uphold the Constitution, wouldn't it? It seems that anyone who reads the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution would have a difficult time justifying the legitimacy of this action by the FCC:
Our Congresspersons are, after all, a class of known liars who haven't even a small amount of honor within them; politicians.
The "terrorism" rationale just does not hold muster here. It is nothing more that a tool being used by politicians in a quest for power not rightfully theirs. The Rights of Humans are being eroded away, a byte at a time. The wellspring from which all legitimacy for the actions of our government flows is the Constitution. To act in a manner contrary to it, is to engage in tyranny. Each time our politicians make an exception to the Constitution, for any reason whatsoever, they have weakened all, and have made it easier for the future's politicians by giving them precedents to cite when they too tear away at the limitations rationally placed upon power, one thread at a time.
The Dreamtime America is fading away.
What utter garbage. America walked away, and Vietnam did fall to communism, 30 years ago. So much for the dominos.
Nixon made up his mind to walk away only to bleed American GIs and Vietnamese from the South and North out an extra two years for pure political utilitarianism. The Nixon Realism was a Real Bitch.
Here's a gem from the the Nixon aide Hadleman in 1970, scraped from the University of Virginia's, Miller Center of Public Affairs. Scripps Library and Multimedia Archive's Nixon Presidency online exhibit called: Seeking a 'Decent Interval' Exit from Vietnam.
Keep the memory of the Nixon DarkEvil alive.
How many Enemies has the Government Fed this week would be the question, if this country was actually based on Christianity.
There is nothing Christianly about fixing facts and evidence around a predetermined policy of Waging War Upon Iraq, the Truth Notwithstanding.
There is nothing Christianlike or Constitutional in Mr. Bush's self-determination to strip the right of humans to due process of law, lock them up for three years, and then quietly repatriate them.
Here, have some words from Paul:
Want to try and foist off the Unchristian concept of an eye for an eye as a rationale for Bush Heresy?
This country is filled with poseurs, carrying their corked crosses over their shoulders, pretending to follow a religion they have no personal understanding of.
The hateful words of the tubby televanglist fatwads has nothing to do with what is taught in the New Testament.
Ratings are not in place as an inpenetratble bar to the young tykes, they are there as advisories to aid parents. It is not the government's place to censor, nor is it Rockstar's responsibility to be a mom to the throngs of unlucky kids with incompetent parents.
Why should some have access taken away from them, because of people who irresponsibly have thrown their DNA into the winds of the future?
Focus on your own damn family, and don't Prey on me, OK?
Wildenborg hacked the code blocking scenes not released as a part of the software. He circumvented a "technological measure that effectively controls access" to these scenes.
Anyone who uses the mod is also violating the DMCA, and probably the EULA.
You bet it's trivial and pansey-assed, but consider the source of the law.
Gratuitous Violence, Talking Heads, Slothful Media, the War Upon Iraq.
Question: does hacking the DVD constitute a violation of the EULA? If so, then here's someone else's kid, whose parents are allowing to play a game rated Mature +17. The rating is clearly marked on the box, on the cartridge and the start-up screen. Then the kid illegally hacks the DVD, and the parents are mad at the gamemaker?
Give me a break.
Besides, what's a bit of gratuitous sex; in between Texas Chainsaw Styled Contract Hit Massacres, multiple acts of deadly assault with the intent to carjack and, players looking really Soldier of Fortune GQ in high fashion body-armor, difficult to obtain in the Iraq Theater, while they engage in heavy artillery firefights with police? Sex puts the game over the top? What the hell is wrong with America anyway? The country is still hung up over the decade past Clinton's lies under oath about consensual sex with a willing and adult partner, but presently, a president led this country dishonestly into a war upon Iraq, and it is okey dokey Dubya, you tried...wink and a nod?
Priorities please. They are not my children, nor my responsibilities. I am sorry if this places a burden on parents. I freely chose NOT to have children, and have carefully entered into and participated in relationships with this in mind. Isn't it enough that I am required by law to cover some of the tax burden that Congress has chosen to foist upon me, in an effort to shield parents from the fair market costs of procreation? Now, there are cries to censor too, because a pernicious preponderance of piss poor parenting prevails in our society?
Listen, off in the distance; is that the Urologist I hear gleefully snipping away in his outpatient clinic's operating theater?
To top it off, Corporate Media Outlets expose their lazily negligent practises again with their willingness to accept copy from any policy breeder org without researching the source. Why has nobody questioned the overtly commercial nature of the National Institute on the Media and the Family's website, dripping saturated advertisements for their services and products throughout. Is it because the org's title itself exudes the aroma of predictable reports fattened up after feeding on Adobe's bloat enabling Acrobat software? Their statements and public releases spew commercialisations. Their National Parental Warning Press Release regarding GTA last week began with an introductory sentence that was a blatant pitch expressing speaking engagement availability for the Chairman:
Within the meat of the release, a hook was incorporated into the warning, reeling the fish back to one of the National Institute on the Media and the Family's register trademarked product lines. It's an unseen below the belt subliminal sucker punch. From the release:
It is self-evident that any game with a Mature rating doesn't belong "in the hands of kids". Why is Dr. Walsh restating the obvious? Could it have anything to do with the fact that upon visiting their website, one discovers that MediaWise has morphed into MediaWise® a product-line for sale on the Institute's website with a price tag of $250 for the MediaWise® parent education kit, $995 for the
If you are in need of an electronic device that can count accurately, and provide solid record keeping, why not follow the example of the State light years ahead of the rest in experience, Nevada.
If it can count the coins in and out, it can count your votes. In the 2004 election, Nevada tried a new electronic voting machine, and refused the Diebold version, because it had no means to keep a paper trail.
It was a breeze, a touch screen machine that had a glass panel on the left-side. When the touch-screen vote selection was completed, the voter looked over at the panel, and a print-out of the vote on a continuos paper tape spool was viewed.
If the voter was satisfied, a button finalised the vote, and the paper tape advanced into a lock box.
Quick, efficient and a permanent record of each vote. The election went off smooth.
"All we ask;
is that you use the same amount of effort
the United States will
to win this war against freedom."
-- G.W. Bush, Sept. 27, 2001
at O'Hare International Airport
<p>A good way to increase the value of All Domestic Workers (IT included) is to apply the <a href="http://www.h1bresources.com/html/whatish1vis a.shtml">H1B Visa</a> to <b>ALL</b> Public Corporations' Executive Positions whose official title begins with a "C".
<p>Then we begin Insourcing MBA's from India to run these corporations at a much lower level of compensation telling them that they will receive permanent residence status if they can successfully operate their corporations at profitable enough levels to satisfy the equities traders without exporting jobs.
<p>The valuations of Domestic Workers would skyrocket overnight.
The Area 51 talk is ok as long as it doesn't get too heavy into the black choppers that don't go whup, whup whup... in the night.
First, since he US Government controls vast areas of Nevada's innards, attributing any Sci/Tech weirdness in Nevada directly to Area 51 adds fuel to the disingenuousness which obfuscates rational UFO discussions.
As a near lifer Vegas resident who has been on extensive adventures in Nevada, I've seen many an unusual light in the sky which defied easy explanation, and several contrails in the air that were extraordinary, but it is wise to allow Occam's Razor to rule the day. Simply, the government tests new and secret projects extensively out in dem dere hills pardner. Get used to it, don't go overboard with alien absurdities.
This sort of rules out known natural causes, but the dense cloud cover may have been reflecting electronic game playing up and over the intervening mountains and down into the Las Vegas valley.
Yes, who knows...but Mr. Bush's millstone in the War on Terrorism's hypocrisy as he stumbles into complexity, Pervez Musharraf, may have stymied an assasination attempt with a device similar to this.
Pike makes it sound like the chances of the government seriousl