Hamas and most of the rest of the Arab nations do not want peace despite any talk to the contrary, they want all Jews dead and Israel wiped off the face of the Earth
Who could blame them?
Anyone that knows and understands a little history and isn't totally biased against Jews and Israel from the start?
You are comparing Israel to the worst example of how to deal with this sort of thing. A better comparison might be the UK and the IRA. Ultimately we sat down and negotiated peace which has lasted and which works for both sides.
Israel's problem is that Hamas and most of the rest of the Arab nations do not want peace despite any talk to the contrary, they want all Jews dead and Israel wiped off the face of the Earth (the US next as the "Big Satan"), and they will lie, cheat, and use every trick including intentionally causing the death of Palestinians and others including other Muslims to fulfill those goals, while laughing at stupid, gullible Western infidels helping to cut their own throats.
Massive unemployment and the looming economic collapse and the mass starvation that follows are quite effective in reducing a populations' carbon footprint. By that metric, we're well on the way to huge reductions in US CO2 output.
Considering the average level of network security that exists in most public school system IT departments (ie pwn-able by a savvy 12-yo), this looks like "Easy Internet Shopping For Pedophiles" as they can confirm their targets' location and schedule.
Given that a child is more likely to die getting to school than getting kidnapped by a pedo (by multiple orders of magnitude), I think that such considerations are insane to consider. There are more reports of people kidnapped by aliens and sexually assaulted than children kidnapped by pedos. Stastically, it just doesn't happen. You are more than 10,000 times more likely to be molested by a family member or kidnapped by a family member or killed by a family member than a stranger kidnapping by a pedo.
Yes, I understand this as well, but when it's shown that this system just adds to the time, work, and expense, as there's nothing to stop students swapping cards and attempting other shenanigans (and you know they will) that a manual attendance will have to be taken anyway, the very next justification for this student RFID card system will be "OMG pedos and rapists and kidnappers, oh my!!".
I was destroying that excuse/justification by showing that if that was one of the goals, it fails miserably, and in fact it makes things worse.
Heck, what if someone in the school with access to this system uses it to cover the tracks of abuse of students? And by "abuse", I mean anything from sexual abuse to things like locking a student in a service closet or punishing a class by forcing them to sit in a study hall through lunch (the very last being an actual incident from my school days). Hard to prove any wrongdoing if altered/compromised data is showing students being where/when expected.
This system very likely is networked with the entire school district so as to collect total attendance numbers for the district.
Considering the average level of network security that exists in most public school system IT departments (ie pwn-able by a savvy 12-yo), this looks like "Easy Internet Shopping For Pedophiles" as they can confirm their targets' location and schedule. And/or, they can snatch a kid, then just insert fake card-swipe data events to mimic the kid being at school and not chained to a wall somewhere. "Little Suzy has perfect school attendance, although nobody has seen her for months..."
If the bill is to become law, it will need to, you know, pass both houses.
Need to pass both houses? Have you been asleep? That was the OLD US government.
Obama: "if Congress fails to act, I will."
Congress? We don' need no steenking Congress!
The US Congress has, mostly of it's own volition, relegated itself to the status of the Roman Senate under Julius Caesar: A distraction, rubber-stamp, and sideshow, meant to keep citizens pacified and continuing to send Rome...err...Washington D.C....taxes and tributes.
We already have a new national anthem. It goes like this:
"AMERICA!.... F*** Yeah! "
2nd verse: ????? 3rd verse Profit
No, no.
It goes "Second verse, same as the first
I'm "enery the eighth I am, 'enery the eighth I am I am..."
And I'm sue that if King Henry VIII were to see this, he would be proud of Sen Leahy, the Democrats, and the Republicans for their heroic efforts to keep the serfs and other rabble that might oppose the Crown...err...US administration...in line and remind them that they only have the rights the government decides to allow any particular person at any given time.
But never mind all that boring stuff and men behind curtains pulling levers, did you hear about the latest juicy political sex scandal?? OMG!! And abortion!...gay marriage!...racism!...terrorism!...Evil rich!...pedophiles!...GEORGE BUSH!! Oh my!
What makes you think the shooters would need anything more than birdshot for a flying bit of ABS plastic, nylon, and a lithium battery and a couple of PCB boards? If you could hit it, a single BB or pellet from a decent-quality air rifle or a "wrist-rocket"-type slingshot could take one of those quad-rotor R/C models out.
If the hunters were smart, they'd get themselves a net-gun and capture these things mostly intact, then sell them on Ebay to finance more live pigeon shoots while loudly and publicly crediting this animal rights group for helping sponsor them.
When the current crop of American wireless carriers look like a group of mustache-twirling Bond villains, it won't be hard for Google to come off as the better choice. At least they'll have an incentive to give you unlimited high speed data.
Too bad the coverage area will probably be tiny.
You might get slightly better deals with Google, but the additional privacy/tracking data that Google (and the US government) will have on people...internet and phone/voice history, voice call recordings and internet browsing history, all that data from one convenient source...scares me.
I wish someone would write a credibly-strong voice/data encryption/scrambling smartphone app. They would probably have to develop/release/distribute it outside the US in a country unfriendly to the US, however, to avoid the long reach of the US government.
They wouldn't be happy that a large chunk of the domestic civilian signals surveillance data they planned to store in that mega-sized (and a mega-sized price tag) government data storage center they're building in Colorado became all but useless to them before they even cut the opening-day ribbon. That's one very large chunk of taxpayer money I wouldn't mind seeing turned into waste.
...since the Republicans bent over backwards to let Bush do whatever the fuck he wanted, they didn't have a leg to stand on to stop him.
Oh, no you don't.
You don't get to dump this one off.
Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR...all Progressives...were the ones that started the US government down the path of, and set precedent for future administrations and congresses, for the government to grant itself new and expanded powers far beyond the limits set by the constitution.
You can thank 100 years of the Progressive movement in the US for government treating the constitution like "just a goddamned piece of paper". That's what "Progressive" refers to, and is the Progressive movements' key point; That government power should "progress past" the limits on it's powers set forth in the constitution. It's not like it's something I pulled from my ass...go read up on the history of the Progressive movement in the 20th century.
Now people who voted-in Progressives...in both parties (Bush is a Progressive, as is McCain, btw)...are surprised and upset when the government grabs powers and uses them in a way they don't like or didn't think about? Sorry. You wanted it, you got it Toyota. Enjoy the police state you helped build.
...it won't matter if the body scanners disintegrate passengers like one of the "Mars Attacks!" rayguns.
TSA monkey at airport scanner station: "Next!"
Passenger: "Hey, why does the whole terminal smell like bac..."
[~ZAP~]
TSA monkey: "Next!"
Sounds almost like another step in the Agenda 21 "Sustainable Development" vision, only I guess they'd actually use some of the millions and millions of.40 caliber hollow-point semi-auto pistol & submachine gun ammo that nearly every Federal agency including the Social Security Agency (wtf?) has purchased over the last year or two, rather than an actual disintegration ray.
Rapiscan could face fines, prison terms and a ban on government contracting, according to a former head of federal procurement."
Yeah, right. That'll happen.
Good luck getting Eric Holder to prosecute.
The only thing Holder is "busting" these days are the very laws and constitution he's supposed to uphold and defend. Heck, all Rapiscan needs to do is put a NBPP member in as the new CEO. They'll be "teflon" and it won't matter if the body scanners disintegrate passengers like one of the "Mars Attacks!" rayguns.
But you're trying to distract from the point I made.
No, I'm trying to explain to you how your point is only tangentially relevant.
That two bad guys fighting are still two bad guys fighting. And the fact that they are fighting each other, does not miraculously turn one of them into a good guy we should root for.
Ok, bad analogy time. Even worse, it's not even a bad car analogy.
Say for example you have two mortal enemies.
One is a big, dangerous, bruiser and the other one is weaker, but still a serious threat. Having the two of them fight, while lending just enough help secretly to your scrawnier enemy to prevent their defeat without providing enough for their victory, keeps both of your enemies occupied and wasting resources fighting each other so that when conflict eventually comes between yourself and either of your enemies, they are already weakened while you've remained relatively unaffected.
If you've never taken the time or are unfamiliar, I'd highly recommend reading one of the better translations of Sun Tzu's "Art of War". It explains this strategy and much more that you see happening on the news every day. Forget what the talking-heads are blabbering about. Look at the events and actions occurring every day in the news from the viewpoint of the principles and strategies outlined in "Art of War". This includes domestic politics as well as international/regional relations and actions. You'll be much closer to the truth of things than by listening to anything being said publicly/officially.
No thanks! A robot does not feel their life is on the line.
...And will therefore not panic when something goes wrong.
...And will also fail to react correctly to stimuli it is either unequipped to sense (strange vibration indicating a problem, landing gear lock didn't 'sound' right, indicating another possible problem, strange smell, etc etc) or not programmed ahead of time to handle correctly. Sensors and actuators fail. Software glitches.
It also has no intuition or learned experience. It cannot make a leap of logic and intuition and perform actions "outside the envelope" to save a desperate and logically hopeless situation. If you want to know what I mean, go read up on some of the stories about how many WW2 pilots managed to bring their aircraft home after severe damage when they should not have logically been able to stay in the air. Many private, charter, and airline pilots can tell you about similar seemingly-doomed mid-air situations, especially in places like Alaska, where it was an experienced and intuitive move counter to normal logic on the human pilot's part that saved the day.
If some military drone goes down, oh well, just another item on the next supply req form. When it's a plane full of passengers, people get all excited for some reason.
You'd really need something close to a true human-level AI, IMHO. We ain't there yet.
They can just form a voting bloc that can reap the benefits from the achievers. And REALLY sock it to Overachievers - it all balances out.
Wow, you've just explained in one short sentence the actual, unspoken political battle that's been raging in the US for the last few decades. It isn't (R) vs (D), Liberal vs Conservative, it's simply the ever-expanding group of "takers" attempting to grab ever-larger slices from the steadily-shrinking group of "makers".
Yes, because one guy running an upload website is exactly like a population of violent, oppressive, religious fanatics.
No, you fool. Because two bad guys fighting each other does not miraculously turn one of them into a good guy. Doesn't matter if it's career criminals vs. copyright mafia or russians vs. taliban.
I'll ignore the "fool" crack, as I remember a truism about those who call others fools, so therefor I'll just consider the source.
Making someone a criminal is also the first move of an authoritarian regime to suppress the speech of opponents/dissidents, justify imprisonment, and destroy the legitimacy of opponents/dissidents and their actions to oppose the regime. Just saying. I don't think much of some of the things he's done, but still.
As to your black-and-white view of foreign relations and international power games, sorry. The world is not that simple and nobody, including the US, is strong and independent enough not to have to resort to dealing with unsavory regimes, leaders, and people. Failure to do so would shortly result in worldwide conflict, chaos, and death. Think if the US and Britain had refused to ally with Russia in WW2 because Russia was socialist and generally not very nice, to say the least. Many French criminals and criminal gangs became part of the French Resistance in WW2 as well.
I would much rather Kim...with his wealth, resources, and connections...throw himself under the US govt. bus in defense of everybody's freedoms, rather than sacrificing many, many more innocent average people inside and outside the US that are much less able to defend themselves from an out-of-control US government.
VC's feed the hopes of the greedy few investors, for hope and greed spring eternal and have nothing to do with providing value to society.
Not quite.
Here, let me help. No, no. I insist.
VC's feed the hopes of the small inventors who have invested their life and their own wealth into their innovation, mom-and-pop businesses whose customers clamor for more locations, and many, many others that have a dream and a plan to provide something of value in order to better their, their families, and their communities lives, for hope and the desire to do well for oneself and one's family and community spring eternal and provide a huge value to society.
See, Kim is just presenting it (Mega service) all wrong.
He should have told the US govt. he was simply offering "digital burqas" for user's data.
He might have even secured aid from the State Dept.
Or NASA, since now "Muslim outreach" is a major goal for NASA according to Charlie Bolden, NASA chief administrator.
To function/exist/succeed under repressive regimes, any product/service/etc must be presented from the viewpoint of how that product/service/etc glorifies and serves the ideological tenants and dogma of the regime and the regime's leaders. A product/service/etc that openly mocks the regime and/or the leaders and ideological/legal tenants and dogma, especially by showing how ridiculous, impractical, and harmful they are, will be met by efforts to suppress and eliminate it and those behind it that will not be limited on the regime's behalf to any imagined or pretended "limits" on it's powers written on some old piece of parchment, because there will be no consequences as the citizens have become domesticated, pacified/controlled by a militarized police force and domestic intelligence/covert ops, and indoctrinated from kindergarten up.
Because Kimble was a famous pirate in the early/mid 90s (Romkids), who narced on BBS when he got caught carding. He then ran a bunch of investment scams, got busted in Germany and Hong Kong. Moved onto New Zealand after burning those bridges, ran a site that gave rewards and turned a blind eye to piracy of everything under the sun. No idea what his next venture is going to be, but the man is a pirate by reputation.
When battling against a cabal of scoundrels (US govt/copyright cartel), another scoundrel is the perfect weapon, or at least one of the only effective weapons, since the cabal controls the legitimate channels already.
Gotham police would jail Batman in a heartbeat too if they could.
Investors may have to make their returns by the companies they invest in making successful products that people want to buy. Disaster.
Stupid, you can't read, can you? They aren't investing in anything. The investors are sitting on their money because the economy is so fucked they think they'll lose it on any risk. This causes the economy to stagnate with no jobs created and no revenue to enable the government to pay it's debts or even to meet it's obligations meaning it borrows even more money. Right now we're going down the hole at 100 billion dollars a month and no sign it's going to get better in the near term. It may not be a disaster but it is misery.
I agree with everything you've stated and I understand your frustration at such ignorance, but you're almost certainly wasting your breath. AC is likely a product of the US public school and university system which hasn't taught students how to think for decades, instead simply teaching what to think. They are simply unequipped to comprehend what you are saying.
Sadly, this means that your efforts to inform and enlighten many here are much akin to trying to teach a dog to solve advanced differential equations; A frustrating waste of time for you, and annoying as hell for the dog.
I do love the schadenfreude in that many here who are being negatively affected voted to reelect the guy who promised as part of his campaign and who just announced he would not sign any budget or tax legislation that doesn't raise taxes on businesses and "the rich", which just throws gasoline on the economic Dresden.
Slashdot Mirror
Anyone that knows and understands a little history and isn't totally biased against Jews and Israel from the start?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b3dLc8V21c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZY8m0cm1oY
And finally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zxtck39wcc
Educate yourself, young padawan.
Strat
You are comparing Israel to the worst example of how to deal with this sort of thing. A better comparison might be the UK and the IRA. Ultimately we sat down and negotiated peace which has lasted and which works for both sides.
Israel's problem is that Hamas and most of the rest of the Arab nations do not want peace despite any talk to the contrary, they want all Jews dead and Israel wiped off the face of the Earth (the US next as the "Big Satan"), and they will lie, cheat, and use every trick including intentionally causing the death of Palestinians and others including other Muslims to fulfill those goals, while laughing at stupid, gullible Western infidels helping to cut their own throats.
FTFY
Strat
Which will also lower emissions.
Massive unemployment and the looming economic collapse and the mass starvation that follows are quite effective in reducing a populations' carbon footprint. By that metric, we're well on the way to huge reductions in US CO2 output.
Strat
Did you even bother to read what I wrote?
Yes, I understand this as well, but when it's shown that this system just adds to the time, work, and expense, as there's nothing to stop students swapping cards and attempting other shenanigans (and you know they will) that a manual attendance will have to be taken anyway, the very next justification for this student RFID card system will be "OMG pedos and rapists and kidnappers, oh my!!".
I was destroying that excuse/justification by showing that if that was one of the goals, it fails miserably, and in fact it makes things worse.
Heck, what if someone in the school with access to this system uses it to cover the tracks of abuse of students? And by "abuse", I mean anything from sexual abuse to things like locking a student in a service closet or punishing a class by forcing them to sit in a study hall through lunch (the very last being an actual incident from my school days). Hard to prove any wrongdoing if altered/compromised data is showing students being where/when expected.
Strat
No, and you're an idiot.
Thanks for your input Principal Skinner.
Strat
This system very likely is networked with the entire school district so as to collect total attendance numbers for the district.
Considering the average level of network security that exists in most public school system IT departments (ie pwn-able by a savvy 12-yo), this looks like "Easy Internet Shopping For Pedophiles" as they can confirm their targets' location and schedule. And/or, they can snatch a kid, then just insert fake card-swipe data events to mimic the kid being at school and not chained to a wall somewhere. "Little Suzy has perfect school attendance, although nobody has seen her for months..."
Strat
Either your white guilt or racist sense of entitlement are showing.
But I'm sure you're aware of this, as you posted your PC-drivel anon.
Strat
If the bill is to become law, it will need to, you know, pass both houses.
Need to pass both houses? Have you been asleep? That was the OLD US government.
Obama: "if Congress fails to act, I will."
Congress? We don' need no steenking Congress!
The US Congress has, mostly of it's own volition, relegated itself to the status of the Roman Senate under Julius Caesar: A distraction, rubber-stamp, and sideshow, meant to keep citizens pacified and continuing to send Rome...err...Washington D.C....taxes and tributes.
Strat
No, no.
It goes "Second verse, same as the first
I'm "enery the eighth I am, 'enery the eighth I am I am..."
And I'm sue that if King Henry VIII were to see this, he would be proud of Sen Leahy, the Democrats, and the Republicans for their heroic efforts to keep the serfs and other rabble that might oppose the Crown...err...US administration...in line and remind them that they only have the rights the government decides to allow any particular person at any given time.
But never mind all that boring stuff and men behind curtains pulling levers, did you hear about the latest juicy political sex scandal?? OMG!! And abortion!...gay marriage!...racism!...terrorism!...Evil rich!...pedophiles!...GEORGE BUSH!! Oh my!
Strat
Were standard rounds shot into the sky?
What makes you think the shooters would need anything more than birdshot for a flying bit of ABS plastic, nylon, and a lithium battery and a couple of PCB boards? If you could hit it, a single BB or pellet from a decent-quality air rifle or a "wrist-rocket"-type slingshot could take one of those quad-rotor R/C models out.
If the hunters were smart, they'd get themselves a net-gun and capture these things mostly intact, then sell them on Ebay to finance more live pigeon shoots while loudly and publicly crediting this animal rights group for helping sponsor them.
Strat
When the current crop of American wireless carriers look like a group of mustache-twirling Bond villains, it won't be hard for Google to come off as the better choice. At least they'll have an incentive to give you unlimited high speed data.
Too bad the coverage area will probably be tiny.
You might get slightly better deals with Google, but the additional privacy/tracking data that Google (and the US government) will have on people...internet and phone/voice history, voice call recordings and internet browsing history, all that data from one convenient source...scares me.
I wish someone would write a credibly-strong voice/data encryption/scrambling smartphone app. They would probably have to develop/release/distribute it outside the US in a country unfriendly to the US, however, to avoid the long reach of the US government.
They wouldn't be happy that a large chunk of the domestic civilian signals surveillance data they planned to store in that mega-sized (and a mega-sized price tag) government data storage center they're building in Colorado became all but useless to them before they even cut the opening-day ribbon. That's one very large chunk of taxpayer money I wouldn't mind seeing turned into waste.
Strat
...since the Republicans bent over backwards to let Bush do whatever the fuck he wanted, they didn't have a leg to stand on to stop him.
Oh, no you don't.
You don't get to dump this one off.
Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR...all Progressives...were the ones that started the US government down the path of, and set precedent for future administrations and congresses, for the government to grant itself new and expanded powers far beyond the limits set by the constitution.
You can thank 100 years of the Progressive movement in the US for government treating the constitution like "just a goddamned piece of paper". That's what "Progressive" refers to, and is the Progressive movements' key point; That government power should "progress past" the limits on it's powers set forth in the constitution. It's not like it's something I pulled from my ass...go read up on the history of the Progressive movement in the 20th century.
Now people who voted-in Progressives...in both parties (Bush is a Progressive, as is McCain, btw)...are surprised and upset when the government grabs powers and uses them in a way they don't like or didn't think about? Sorry. You wanted it, you got it Toyota. Enjoy the police state you helped build.
Strat
Sounds almost like another step in the Agenda 21 "Sustainable Development" vision, only I guess they'd actually use some of the millions and millions of .40 caliber hollow-point semi-auto pistol & submachine gun ammo that nearly every Federal agency including the Social Security Agency (wtf?) has purchased over the last year or two, rather than an actual disintegration ray.
Strat
Rapiscan could face fines, prison terms and a ban on government contracting, according to a former head of federal procurement."
Yeah, right. That'll happen.
Good luck getting Eric Holder to prosecute.
The only thing Holder is "busting" these days are the very laws and constitution he's supposed to uphold and defend. Heck, all Rapiscan needs to do is put a NBPP member in as the new CEO. They'll be "teflon" and it won't matter if the body scanners disintegrate passengers like one of the "Mars Attacks!" rayguns.
Strat
But you're trying to distract from the point I made.
No, I'm trying to explain to you how your point is only tangentially relevant.
That two bad guys fighting are still two bad guys fighting. And the fact that they are fighting each other, does not miraculously turn one of them into a good guy we should root for.
Ok, bad analogy time. Even worse, it's not even a bad car analogy.
Say for example you have two mortal enemies.
One is a big, dangerous, bruiser and the other one is weaker, but still a serious threat. Having the two of them fight, while lending just enough help secretly to your scrawnier enemy to prevent their defeat without providing enough for their victory, keeps both of your enemies occupied and wasting resources fighting each other so that when conflict eventually comes between yourself and either of your enemies, they are already weakened while you've remained relatively unaffected.
If you've never taken the time or are unfamiliar, I'd highly recommend reading one of the better translations of Sun Tzu's "Art of War". It explains this strategy and much more that you see happening on the news every day. Forget what the talking-heads are blabbering about. Look at the events and actions occurring every day in the news from the viewpoint of the principles and strategies outlined in "Art of War". This includes domestic politics as well as international/regional relations and actions. You'll be much closer to the truth of things than by listening to anything being said publicly/officially.
Strat
It also has no intuition or learned experience. It cannot make a leap of logic and intuition and perform actions "outside the envelope" to save a desperate and logically hopeless situation. If you want to know what I mean, go read up on some of the stories about how many WW2 pilots managed to bring their aircraft home after severe damage when they should not have logically been able to stay in the air. Many private, charter, and airline pilots can tell you about similar seemingly-doomed mid-air situations, especially in places like Alaska, where it was an experienced and intuitive move counter to normal logic on the human pilot's part that saved the day.
If some military drone goes down, oh well, just another item on the next supply req form. When it's a plane full of passengers, people get all excited for some reason.
You'd really need something close to a true human-level AI, IMHO. We ain't there yet.
Strat
They can just form a voting bloc that can reap the benefits from the achievers. And REALLY sock it to Overachievers - it all balances out.
Wow, you've just explained in one short sentence the actual, unspoken political battle that's been raging in the US for the last few decades. It isn't (R) vs (D), Liberal vs Conservative, it's simply the ever-expanding group of "takers" attempting to grab ever-larger slices from the steadily-shrinking group of "makers".
Strat
I'll ignore the "fool" crack, as I remember a truism about those who call others fools, so therefor I'll just consider the source.
Making someone a criminal is also the first move of an authoritarian regime to suppress the speech of opponents/dissidents, justify imprisonment, and destroy the legitimacy of opponents/dissidents and their actions to oppose the regime. Just saying. I don't think much of some of the things he's done, but still.
As to your black-and-white view of foreign relations and international power games, sorry. The world is not that simple and nobody, including the US, is strong and independent enough not to have to resort to dealing with unsavory regimes, leaders, and people. Failure to do so would shortly result in worldwide conflict, chaos, and death. Think if the US and Britain had refused to ally with Russia in WW2 because Russia was socialist and generally not very nice, to say the least. Many French criminals and criminal gangs became part of the French Resistance in WW2 as well.
I would much rather Kim...with his wealth, resources, and connections...throw himself under the US govt. bus in defense of everybody's freedoms, rather than sacrificing many, many more innocent average people inside and outside the US that are much less able to defend themselves from an out-of-control US government.
Strat
VC's feed the hopes of the greedy few investors, for hope and greed spring eternal and have nothing to do with providing value to society.
Not quite.
Here, let me help. No, no. I insist.
VC's feed the hopes of the small inventors who have invested their life and their own wealth into their innovation, mom-and-pop businesses whose customers clamor for more locations, and many, many others that have a dream and a plan to provide something of value in order to better their, their families, and their communities lives, for hope and the desire to do well for oneself and one's family and community spring eternal and provide a huge value to society.
See? Much more accurate now.
No need to thank me. I'm a "giver" that way.
Strat
See, Kim is just presenting it (Mega service) all wrong.
He should have told the US govt. he was simply offering "digital burqas" for user's data.
He might have even secured aid from the State Dept.
Or NASA, since now "Muslim outreach" is a major goal for NASA according to Charlie Bolden, NASA chief administrator.
To function/exist/succeed under repressive regimes, any product/service/etc must be presented from the viewpoint of how that product/service/etc glorifies and serves the ideological tenants and dogma of the regime and the regime's leaders. A product/service/etc that openly mocks the regime and/or the leaders and ideological/legal tenants and dogma, especially by showing how ridiculous, impractical, and harmful they are, will be met by efforts to suppress and eliminate it and those behind it that will not be limited on the regime's behalf to any imagined or pretended "limits" on it's powers written on some old piece of parchment, because there will be no consequences as the citizens have become domesticated, pacified/controlled by a militarized police force and domestic intelligence/covert ops, and indoctrinated from kindergarten up.
Strat
Yes, because one guy running an upload website is exactly like a population of violent, oppressive, religious fanatics.
Well, except that Kim plans on providing uploaders with an encrypted "burqa" for their data. :)
Strat
Because Kimble was a famous pirate in the early/mid 90s (Romkids), who narced on BBS when he got caught carding. He then ran a bunch of investment scams, got busted in Germany and Hong Kong. Moved onto New Zealand after burning those bridges, ran a site that gave rewards and turned a blind eye to piracy of everything under the sun. No idea what his next venture is going to be, but the man is a pirate by reputation.
When battling against a cabal of scoundrels (US govt/copyright cartel), another scoundrel is the perfect weapon, or at least one of the only effective weapons, since the cabal controls the legitimate channels already.
Gotham police would jail Batman in a heartbeat too if they could.
Strat
I agree with everything you've stated and I understand your frustration at such ignorance, but you're almost certainly wasting your breath. AC is likely a product of the US public school and university system which hasn't taught students how to think for decades, instead simply teaching what to think. They are simply unequipped to comprehend what you are saying.
Sadly, this means that your efforts to inform and enlighten many here are much akin to trying to teach a dog to solve advanced differential equations; A frustrating waste of time for you, and annoying as hell for the dog.
I do love the schadenfreude in that many here who are being negatively affected voted to reelect the guy who promised as part of his campaign and who just announced he would not sign any budget or tax legislation that doesn't raise taxes on businesses and "the rich", which just throws gasoline on the economic Dresden.
Strat
If you sell cheaper than everyone else, you're accused of dumping.
If you sell at the same price as everyone else, you're accused of price fixing.
If you sell more expensively than everyone else, you're price gouging.
It's how the Socialists condemn Capitalism no matter what Capitalists do.
Don't forget, even if you don't sell or buy anything at all, you're still engaging in interstate trade and may be penalized/taxed.
Strat