Bjorn Lomborg [wikipedia.org] has done an interesting analysis [project-syndicate.org] and his conclusion is that fighting climate change is, economically, a terrible idea. Essentially the costs of treating the results is much lower than trying to stop the effects in the first place, if you factor in the benefits from readily available, low cost energy.
Unfortunately, that strategy does not provide a sufficient amount of alarmism for politicians to use to gain more power and wealth and appear tp ride to the rescue like 'Captain Save-A-Ho' while demonizing their political opponents and others who may disagree.
"Never let a good crisis go to waste" as a prominent Democrat once quipped, even when it is sometimes necessary to create an illusion of crisis to further agendas and advance ideologies.
It's how opposing voices are to be swept from public view & dissemination. Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al are all working along the same path to de-platform views conflicting with Leftist/Progressive dogma and silence them. It's not too far down this path where we get to the pogroms, camps, and ovens part.
Line ticket democrats will never, ever admit that a Republican is doing a good job. They will admit grudgingly to Republicans that might have done a good job in the past so long as there is a greater Republican evil in the present.
The people nor the country matter. It's all about that Blue Tribe.
What's happening today including foreign collusion by political parties, corruption, and the bitter division among people, was foretold with shocking accuracy and precision over 200 years ago.
A portion of a quote on the subject of the dangers of political parties:
"...It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another...." -- George Washington
I don't think Washington could have written more of a spot-on description of the current state of the US body-politic, unless it had a line at the bottom; "sent from my damned iPhone"!
I have never in my many years of living in different cities ever heard of, or encountered such a set up with the city acting as middleman between power company and citizens.
It's a way for the city to make profit on the margin between what the city pays and what they charge residents. It's a stealth tax.
This city saw it's profits being affected, and possibly eventually threatening to disrupt their entire setup as unnecessary percentage-taking middleman between electrical utilities and customers.
I wonder how they'll deal with the installation of electric vehicle charging stations coming in the very near future. Hell, I wonder how the US electrical grid as a whole is hoing to deal with the additional energy demand equivalent to the energy consumed as fossil-fuel powering current vehicles. That's a hell of a lot of energy. US generation capacity is already stretched to serve current demand with little to no reserve capacity.
Hopefully it will spur a resurgence in nuclear power generation and reworking of nuclear regulatory policies to something approaching the universe in which relatively-sane national nuclear regulatory policy resides.
He is not a hero. He had a duty to safeguard that information due to its classification. He is a traitor.
He is most definitely not a traitor, as the data he released was evidence of,massive and intentional criminal wrongdoing. The government cannot shift guilt by making the evidence of their crimes classified/secret and any such attempt is null & void. There can be no legal duty to assist in the concealment of illegal and unconstitutional acts.
The US government is teetering n the edge of becoming a wholly-illegitimate authoritarian oligarchy. Snowden is a hero for taking such a huge risk in order to alert the citizens of the US to their government's criminal activities.
Read up on the Pentagon Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... AC. Publication and later discussion is not a problem in the USA as freedoms are fully protected.
In theory you are correct. However, in practice it's quite a different story as Wikileaks/Assange and the US's vendetta against them for merely publishing what was leaked to them demonstrates. The NYT could not be punished for printing the so-called "Pentagon Papers" and there is even less legal, jurisdictional, and Constitutional standing to go after Wikileaks/Assange.
Snowden is a whistle-blower on the US Government's widespread, blatant, ongoing, illegal, and unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs. He is a hero who will eventually be written about as such in future works on US history. These US domestic surveillance programs are one of, if not *the* top threats to a relatively free and open society and if not stopped, a certain path to an authoritarian police state the likes of which would make the former East German rulers green with envy.
Operation Choke-point is another example of blatantly unconstitutional censorship and extrajudicial interference and punishment for involvement in legal activities and commerce that those in power want to harass, intimidate, and/or force out of business and/or into silence/out of publication/off the 'net/etc, depending.
From now on, anyone blaming another side in a politics debate, I'm just going to ignore them. They are pushing an agenda. Both the OP and the parent are throwing mud at each others parties. This is what it has come to.
The king is dead. Long live the king.
Indeed. There are many problems in the US, but I fear constructively solving any of them will be next to impossible under the current dual-party co-tyranny system of two, for all practical purposes exclusive, parties in control.
John Adams and George Washington had some relevant insights about precisely this type of dysfunction in governance under a two-party oligarchy.
"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." -- John Adams
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. -- George Washington
ANAL, but my understanding is that courts have found that searches at borders or airports are reasonable.
This is not about people traveling on international flights. This is about US citizens traveling on domestic flights within the continental US and never leaving US airspace.
Neither the TSA nor Customs/Border authorities have the authority to perform any search of domestic travelers, demand ID/papers, or demand that you answer their questions.
It is quite likely that these searches are ordered quite deliberately only as verbal orders so as not to leave a paper trail for when FOIA requests start rolling in like now. Likely, they just get a phone call from some department, agency, or agent/officer/official requesting they search some person of interest, follow through, and report back by phone without creating any documents revealing the practice of performing unconstitutional searches without a warrant. Stonewalling or otherwise stymieing legitimate FOIA requests and other legitimate requests for documents, even subpoenas from Congress, seems to be quite in vogue for the US government.
That's what happens when governments get too big and powerful; they start breaking their own laws with impunity while using those same laws as a weapon against opposition and those who would hold them accountable for their crimes.
The TSA very likely has not provided any responsive documents in response to the ACLU's FOIA request because the policies in question are not of the written variety so they cannot provide that which they deliberately chose not to create.
None of which should surprise anyone. The federal government has trampled on every one of the 10 rights in the BoR, I'd contend even the 3rd Amendment which forbids the quartering of soldiers. The reason the Third was created was the King would send soldiers to "quarter" in the homes of colonists they suspected of rebellion so the soldiers could search everything and watch everything they did.
I contend the US government is quartering *digital soldiers* in our devices in the form of the tools and vulnerabilities created or kept quiet in order to perform the same task as the King's soldiers did in spying on the colonists.
Our freedoms are disappearing quickly. Better wake up and make some noise, as it may already be too late to stop it.
The complaint [aclunc.org] seems to conflate TSA and CBP searches, and alleges TSA is searching the contents of electronic devices held by domestic travelers flying through SFO, but provides no evidence to support this claim.
A complaint is not the document where evidence is provided. The complainant may well be holding their cards close so that the TSA hasn't the chance to alter, conceal, or destroy additional corroborating evidence they might be currently unaware they possess.
Not providing evidence in a court complaint filing is normal and not indicative of anything.
Or a picture of a steaming pile of fresh human feces.
It's the one thing we all have in common and, adjusting for local diet, it all looks pretty much the same no matter the race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or wealth.
Shit is the one thing and the one symbol that binds the human race together and describes with one image the results of our existence thus far and likely the legacy we leave behind, and the universe could not have chosen more appropriately. It's so uncanny, in fact, that it might even be an argument for intelligent design!:D
Elon said as much at the post FH launch interview. Just because it happens at SXSW doesn't make it news.
Well it may have first been announced in an interview, but SXSW gives it that hipster-poseur beads-and-pyramids flavor that just screams "News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters".
They don't want to stop drug trafficking and end cartels, they just want to stop drug trafficking and cartels that they do not control and profit from.
Bingo.
Additionally, what made this company a target was not that they sold secure phones to drug cartels. The US government works to prop up drug prices for the cartels and protect their markets. US leaders receive kickbacks through offshore accounts while simultaneously creating a drug-addicted and violent society too focused on surviving in the chaos and getting the next fix to be politically-active and push back against expanding government authoritarianism. If that CEO and his company would have stuck exclusively and quietly to selling to cartels only, he/they would most likely still be in business and free of charges.
He/they had the bad judgement to sell cartel-worthy secure phones to regular law-abiding people. It was the part of his quote "...we sell to them (the cartels) too " which got him in hot water, but not for the cartel sales, that's just the justification being used to take down this company. The US government didn't spend the billions on that Utah data center and all those locked government rooms at the major network backbones just to see it all made almost useless by the widespread use of strong encryption by the public.
The US is dangerously close to the tipping point of falling into full-blown fascism.
I don't feel that Christians are really being forced to participate in activities supporting same-sex marriage. The only case that I'm familiar with that could be described that way is the gay wedding cake case, but that one is a complicated enough case that it has been taken on by the supreme court.
In that wedding cake case, the lesbian couple had frequented the bakery several times, letting it be known to the owners that they were lesbian, the couple were served normally like everyone else. The problem was when the couple decided that they wanted the Christian bakery to make them a custom wedding cake with text celebrating same-sex marriage. That's when the Christian owner balked, but did recommend some nearby bakeries he knew that did good work and would be willing. The couple was having none of it, and so here we are.
If a Christian baker must if asked bake a cake celebrating that to which he fundamentally objects, where does it end? Will Muslim bakeries be equally compelled to produce cakes with messages supporting same-sex marriage? Will LGBTQ bakeries be compelled to produce cakes celebrating traditional marriage?
You cannot compel people to actively create messages that promote that which they fundamentally object to as part of their beliefs.
I would also strongly encourage you to find a bit of time to read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. It sounds like a lot of reading, but it's actually much less reading than you might expect. They're also fascinating, as these guys were real world-class geniuses and true Statesmen in the best meaning of the word, totally unlike the corrupt-clown-posse we have in D.C. these days.
One must have at least a passing familiarity with the ideas and principles on which one's nation is founded if one expects to be able to form any sort of cogent, worthwhile opinions on that nation's running.
I hope I've answered at least some of your questions and satisfied some of your curiosity. Please don't hesitate in future to post a reply to something I post and ask a question or state your opinion, as I value and respect the thoughts of those who will take the time to learn before forming conclusions.
You can get all the gun control you want - you just have to alter the constitution. There's perfectly well-described process for that, but you know for certain that it will fail, so you are trying to do it with an administrative end run, like so many other illegal things you want done.
It makes me wonder about what their actual agenda might be.
By creating methods of 'end-running' the 2nd Amendment, they've also created methods for 'end-running' all the rest. You cannot weaken one Amendment without also weakening all the rest. I refuse to believe that the overwhelming majority of those attempting to create an 'end-run' around the 2ndA do not understand this. If they valued the other amendments, would they not refrain from attempting to weaken just the one amendment knowing it will weaken the rest equally?
Either they are so totally ignorant and clueless that they don't understand they weaken all the amendments, or they know full well and using controversy over guns to start the Rights-weakening with the 2ndA since unthinking anger is easy to incite and inflame over guns. Once precedents are set for 'end-running' one Amendment, they can then be used to weaken or nullify others.
If enough people agree then the 2ndA can be amended or abolished with another amendment like Prohibition was.
I don't care if somebody opposes the 2ndA, just go about opposing it above-board the right way. If not enough people agree, then, sorry. You don't get to overrule or 'end-run' the majority decision because you think they're 'stupid-heads' because they don't agree with your views, have a funny accent, live in 'those places', practice weird social customs, and have religious beliefs. The means do not justify the ends. Not even if you think you're really, really, *really* right and believe you're the smartest one in the room.
Second, I feel similarly about intrusion into people's personal lives, but from the other side. I think that you are mistakenly targeting progressives/liberals because conservatives are just as apt to intrude into peoples lives, just for different reasons (sexuality, drugs, abortion, etc).
I'm more small-"L" libertarian and so those sorts of attempts at legislating morality (War on Some Drugs, for example) I have strong objections to and part ways with many mainstream US "conservative" views. On the other side, O'm against forcing Christians to participate in activities supporting same-sex marriage. Why try to usurp the Christian religion and try to force it to change? Found your own church and practice whatever religion or no religion you want and marry trees or rose bushes for all I care. Leave others be.
Finally, I do have to disagree about government. Yes, there have been some terrible examples, but there have also been great examples. The thing is that there is no viable alternative to government and there never will be.
Government is a necessary evil and should be treated like fire or nuclear fission/fusion. Use only the very minimum one needs while taking extreme precautions against it growing out of control and constantly monitoring it's operations. The original vision for the US was for it to be a collection near-mini-nations in the form of the sovereign States, much like the EU, with a weak central government that had just enough power for treaty-making, foreign trade agreements/tariffs, national military, currency, and just a few other responsibilities. It has since become central control and command government over a group of provinces with only very limited power over their own affairs under laws and regulations created thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C.
I look at the US Founders as the first network security experts. Government is a network for political power as the 'net is for data. A network comprised of a central mainframe and dumb terminals are easier to be suborned that a network of stand-alone machines with different OSs, security appliances, etc and that cross-check each other and if needed perform a system re-imaging on the central server if compromised or corrupted, That's why the US was designed to not have a strong central government and why I view expansion of Federal power and scope as a very dangerous thing.
I would suggest, if you've never taken the time, to devote some time to reading through the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers to gain a deeper understanding of the theories and reasoning behind the US Constitution and the dangers of allowing too much government power.
Ok, I'm a leftist and thus feel a bit put off by your signature (although not entirely since I criticize "liberals" from the left - I would really need to understand what exactly you mean before passing judgement).
Even if we end up not agreeing, let me start out by thanking you for being civil and open enough to ask. I'll do my best to help you understand.
It's actually Progressivism and Progressives I have issues with, not classic Liberals which are libertarian. I tried to hint at the distinction, but there's only so many characters allowed in the sig.
The other part is simply the fact that as you create more and more laws that intrude ever deeper into individual behaviors, thoughts, beliefs, health choices, etc etc ad nauseam, the more intrusive the monitoring and more authoritarian the enforcement need to become in order to insure a high enough level of compliance from the population. The more control you wish a government to have the more control it must exert, and the only tools besides propaganda a government has to exert control are surveillance/monitoring, imprisonment, and death.
The number one killer of all time even outpacing plagues and wars are people's own government killing them. Government is the deadliest weapon ever invented by Man and it's first victim is always liberty.
So they plan to become the worlds biggest taxi company and monopolise the world's markets without using full time labour? I see your opinions often and it's amazing how frequently they parrot the company line.
As to Uber/Lyft and whatever their future plans are, I have no idea and don't really care as it's not relevant to this discussion.
As to "parroting the company line", maybe it seems that way because logic and facts are universal and do not require agreement, collusion, or any cooperation with anyone or anything else to be found to be true and sound and those findings shared by anyone who investigates? It does not require any sort of Machiavellian plotting and subterfuge for two people thousands of miles apart to both accurately opine that the sky is blue, water is wet, and that fire will burn.
They aren't driving against their will because they haven't quit yet. Only 4% of Uber drivers stay with the program over a year. Mostly they quit as they realize the pay isn't enough.
Or maybe because of the entire premise of driving for Uber/Lyft being that it's a temporary at-will job specifically designed for those who do not want, need, or cannot currently find full time employment. It was never meant to be a full-time job capable of supporting a family or even a single individual. It's a way to make some extra cash if you've got a decent car and spare time.
The preteen paperboy on his part-time Sunday bike route doesn't get employee benefits, full medical, 401k, or full time union wages either. Should we demonize and attack newspapers like is being done with Uber/Lyft?
Rather than impose laws and fees on the new model that is working, why not LIFT the laws and fees on regular taxis, and allow them to compete and see who wins?
Instead of dragging down a model that seems to be working and is superior....why not allow the others to build themselves UP?
That's a win for everyone.
Except for those in power who control the laws, regulations, ordinances, etc, and who are the ones that enacted the present status quo to benefit themselves and their cronies in the private sector in the taxi business and in businesses & groups like labor unions associated with it. Just look at larger cities that have the 'medallion' system for examples. It's a racket worthy of '20s-era Chicago gangsters.
There's a lot of money and power at stake here. These people will fight tooth and nail, spend bucket-loads of cash, even kill people if they think it worth the risk, to keep that corruption gravy train on the rails, on schedule, and at full steam.
For them, that means ride-sharing must die as a practical alternative.
I doubt they'll get billed, since the thing did explode, they didn't just crash it.
That's what will be the exculpatory fact if born out by the evidence. If a reasonable person would not normally expect or anticipate some device or appliance to behave in an extremely dangerous manner (i.e. sudden spontaneous battery explosion and fire) the prosecutors and courts will generally allow someone not otherwise criminally/legally entangled off the hook.
A short time ago, if some poor slob's Galaxy Note 7 had spontaneously exploded and caused a fire in the same place I don't see authorities holding him liable. If the drone and battery etc are all the normal commercial variety and/or had not been dangerously and recklessly modified and the battery just spontaneously went thermal because RNG, I would expect the drone owner in this case would not be held liable. Oblig. IANADL and this is not legal drone advice.
Slashdot Mirror
Bjorn Lomborg [wikipedia.org] has done an interesting analysis [project-syndicate.org] and his conclusion is that fighting climate change is, economically, a terrible idea. Essentially the costs of treating the results is much lower than trying to stop the effects in the first place, if you factor in the benefits from readily available, low cost energy.
Unfortunately, that strategy does not provide a sufficient amount of alarmism for politicians to use to gain more power and wealth and appear tp ride to the rescue like 'Captain Save-A-Ho' while demonizing their political opponents and others who may disagree.
"Never let a good crisis go to waste" as a prominent Democrat once quipped, even when it is sometimes necessary to create an illusion of crisis to further agendas and advance ideologies.
Strat
It's how opposing voices are to be swept from public view & dissemination. Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al are all working along the same path to de-platform views conflicting with Leftist/Progressive dogma and silence them. It's not too far down this path where we get to the pogroms, camps, and ovens part.
Strat
Line ticket democrats will never, ever admit that a Republican is doing a good job. They will admit grudgingly to Republicans that might have done a good job in the past so long as there is a greater Republican evil in the present.
The people nor the country matter.
It's all about that Blue Tribe.
What's happening today including foreign collusion by political parties, corruption, and the bitter division among people, was foretold with shocking accuracy and precision over 200 years ago.
A portion of a quote on the subject of the dangers of political parties:
"...It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another. ..." -- George Washington
I don't think Washington could have written more of a spot-on description of the current state of the US body-politic, unless it had a line at the bottom; "sent from my damned iPhone"!
Strat
I have never in my many years of living in different cities ever heard of, or encountered such a set up with the city acting as middleman between power company and citizens.
It's a way for the city to make profit on the margin between what the city pays and what they charge residents. It's a stealth tax.
This city saw it's profits being affected, and possibly eventually threatening to disrupt their entire setup as unnecessary percentage-taking middleman between electrical utilities and customers.
I wonder how they'll deal with the installation of electric vehicle charging stations coming in the very near future. Hell, I wonder how the US electrical grid as a whole is hoing to deal with the additional energy demand equivalent to the energy consumed as fossil-fuel powering current vehicles. That's a hell of a lot of energy. US generation capacity is already stretched to serve current demand with little to no reserve capacity.
Hopefully it will spur a resurgence in nuclear power generation and reworking of nuclear regulatory policies to something approaching the universe in which relatively-sane national nuclear regulatory policy resides.
Strat
He is not a hero. He had a duty to safeguard that information due to its classification. He is a traitor.
He is most definitely not a traitor, as the data he released was evidence of ,massive and intentional criminal wrongdoing. The government cannot shift guilt by making the evidence of their crimes classified/secret and any such attempt is null & void. There can be no legal duty to assist in the concealment of illegal and unconstitutional acts.
The US government is teetering n the edge of becoming a wholly-illegitimate authoritarian oligarchy. Snowden is a hero for taking such a huge risk in order to alert the citizens of the US to their government's criminal activities.
Strat
In theory you are correct. However, in practice it's quite a different story as Wikileaks/Assange and the US's vendetta against them for merely publishing what was leaked to them demonstrates. The NYT could not be punished for printing the so-called "Pentagon Papers" and there is even less legal, jurisdictional, and Constitutional standing to go after Wikileaks/Assange.
Snowden is a whistle-blower on the US Government's widespread, blatant, ongoing, illegal, and unconstitutional domestic surveillance programs. He is a hero who will eventually be written about as such in future works on US history. These US domestic surveillance programs are one of, if not *the* top threats to a relatively free and open society and if not stopped, a certain path to an authoritarian police state the likes of which would make the former East German rulers green with envy.
Operation Choke-point is another example of blatantly unconstitutional censorship and extrajudicial interference and punishment for involvement in legal activities and commerce that those in power want to harass, intimidate, and/or force out of business and/or into silence/out of publication/off the 'net/etc, depending.
Strat
The US encourages free speech...so it can illegally monitor it, surveil it, wiretap it, store it in a datacenter, catalog it, and index it.
Free speech? Yes, keep speaking please.
Indeed, because:
"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu
Strat
From now on, anyone blaming another side in a politics debate, I'm just going to ignore them. They are pushing an agenda. Both the OP and the parent are throwing mud at each others parties. This is what it has come to.
The king is dead. Long live the king.
Indeed. There are many problems in the US, but I fear constructively solving any of them will be next to impossible under the current dual-party co-tyranny system of two, for all practical purposes exclusive, parties in control.
John Adams and George Washington had some relevant insights about precisely this type of dysfunction in governance under a two-party oligarchy.
"There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution." -- John Adams
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume. -- George Washington
Strat
Click on TFA to see comments and none are visible.
TLAs putting our tax dollars to use?
Strat
Where does it stopM/quote>
History teaches us that such things never stop until they are forcibly stopped.
what is he limiting criteria to stop it?
Again, history teaches us that it devolves down almost exclusively to the people's willingness and ability to pick up a rifle and kill the bastages.
Strat
ANAL, but my understanding is that courts have found that searches at borders or airports are reasonable.
This is not about people traveling on international flights. This is about US citizens traveling on domestic flights within the continental US and never leaving US airspace.
Neither the TSA nor Customs/Border authorities have the authority to perform any search of domestic travelers, demand ID/papers, or demand that you answer their questions.
It is quite likely that these searches are ordered quite deliberately only as verbal orders so as not to leave a paper trail for when FOIA requests start rolling in like now. Likely, they just get a phone call from some department, agency, or agent/officer/official requesting they search some person of interest, follow through, and report back by phone without creating any documents revealing the practice of performing unconstitutional searches without a warrant. Stonewalling or otherwise stymieing legitimate FOIA requests and other legitimate requests for documents, even subpoenas from Congress, seems to be quite in vogue for the US government.
That's what happens when governments get too big and powerful; they start breaking their own laws with impunity while using those same laws as a weapon against opposition and those who would hold them accountable for their crimes.
The TSA very likely has not provided any responsive documents in response to the ACLU's FOIA request because the policies in question are not of the written variety so they cannot provide that which they deliberately chose not to create.
None of which should surprise anyone. The federal government has trampled on every one of the 10 rights in the BoR, I'd contend even the 3rd Amendment which forbids the quartering of soldiers. The reason the Third was created was the King would send soldiers to "quarter" in the homes of colonists they suspected of rebellion so the soldiers could search everything and watch everything they did.
I contend the US government is quartering *digital soldiers* in our devices in the form of the tools and vulnerabilities created or kept quiet in order to perform the same task as the King's soldiers did in spying on the colonists.
Our freedoms are disappearing quickly. Better wake up and make some noise, as it may already be too late to stop it.
Strat
The complaint [aclunc.org] seems to conflate TSA and CBP searches, and alleges TSA is searching the contents of electronic devices held by domestic travelers flying through SFO, but provides no evidence to support this claim.
A complaint is not the document where evidence is provided. The complainant may well be holding their cards close so that the TSA hasn't the chance to alter, conceal, or destroy additional corroborating evidence they might be currently unaware they possess.
Not providing evidence in a court complaint filing is normal and not indicative of anything.
Strat
There goes corporate security.
Strat
Or a picture of a steaming pile of fresh human feces.
It's the one thing we all have in common and, adjusting for local diet, it all looks pretty much the same no matter the race, ethnicity, religion, ideology, or wealth.
Shit is the one thing and the one symbol that binds the human race together and describes with one image the results of our existence thus far and likely the legacy we leave behind, and the universe could not have chosen more appropriately. It's so uncanny, in fact, that it might even be an argument for intelligent design! :D
Strat
Elon said as much at the post FH launch interview. Just because it happens at SXSW doesn't make it news.
Well it may have first been announced in an interview, but SXSW gives it that hipster-poseur beads-and-pyramids flavor that just screams "News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters".
Strat
They don't want to stop drug trafficking and end cartels, they just want to stop drug trafficking and cartels that they do not control and profit from.
Bingo.
Additionally, what made this company a target was not that they sold secure phones to drug cartels. The US government works to prop up drug prices for the cartels and protect their markets. US leaders receive kickbacks through offshore accounts while simultaneously creating a drug-addicted and violent society too focused on surviving in the chaos and getting the next fix to be politically-active and push back against expanding government authoritarianism. If that CEO and his company would have stuck exclusively and quietly to selling to cartels only, he/they would most likely still be in business and free of charges.
He/they had the bad judgement to sell cartel-worthy secure phones to regular law-abiding people. It was the part of his quote "...we sell to them (the cartels) too " which got him in hot water, but not for the cartel sales, that's just the justification being used to take down this company. The US government didn't spend the billions on that Utah data center and all those locked government rooms at the major network backbones just to see it all made almost useless by the widespread use of strong encryption by the public.
The US is dangerously close to the tipping point of falling into full-blown fascism.
Strat
I don't feel that Christians are really being forced to participate in activities supporting same-sex marriage. The only case that I'm familiar with that could be described that way is the gay wedding cake case, but that one is a complicated enough case that it has been taken on by the supreme court.
In that wedding cake case, the lesbian couple had frequented the bakery several times, letting it be known to the owners that they were lesbian, the couple were served normally like everyone else. The problem was when the couple decided that they wanted the Christian bakery to make them a custom wedding cake with text celebrating same-sex marriage. That's when the Christian owner balked, but did recommend some nearby bakeries he knew that did good work and would be willing. The couple was having none of it, and so here we are.
If a Christian baker must if asked bake a cake celebrating that to which he fundamentally objects, where does it end? Will Muslim bakeries be equally compelled to produce cakes with messages supporting same-sex marriage? Will LGBTQ bakeries be compelled to produce cakes celebrating traditional marriage?
You cannot compel people to actively create messages that promote that which they fundamentally object to as part of their beliefs.
I would also strongly encourage you to find a bit of time to read the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. It sounds like a lot of reading, but it's actually much less reading than you might expect. They're also fascinating, as these guys were real world-class geniuses and true Statesmen in the best meaning of the word, totally unlike the corrupt-clown-posse we have in D.C. these days.
One must have at least a passing familiarity with the ideas and principles on which one's nation is founded if one expects to be able to form any sort of cogent, worthwhile opinions on that nation's running.
I hope I've answered at least some of your questions and satisfied some of your curiosity. Please don't hesitate in future to post a reply to something I post and ask a question or state your opinion, as I value and respect the thoughts of those who will take the time to learn before forming conclusions.
Thanks again and good luck!
Strat
You can get all the gun control you want - you just have to alter the constitution. There's perfectly well-described process for that, but you know for certain that it will fail, so you are trying to do it with an administrative end run, like so many other illegal things you want done.
It makes me wonder about what their actual agenda might be.
By creating methods of 'end-running' the 2nd Amendment, they've also created methods for 'end-running' all the rest. You cannot weaken one Amendment without also weakening all the rest. I refuse to believe that the overwhelming majority of those attempting to create an 'end-run' around the 2ndA do not understand this. If they valued the other amendments, would they not refrain from attempting to weaken just the one amendment knowing it will weaken the rest equally?
Either they are so totally ignorant and clueless that they don't understand they weaken all the amendments, or they know full well and using controversy over guns to start the Rights-weakening with the 2ndA since unthinking anger is easy to incite and inflame over guns. Once precedents are set for 'end-running' one Amendment, they can then be used to weaken or nullify others.
If enough people agree then the 2ndA can be amended or abolished with another amendment like Prohibition was.
I don't care if somebody opposes the 2ndA, just go about opposing it above-board the right way. If not enough people agree, then, sorry. You don't get to overrule or 'end-run' the majority decision because you think they're 'stupid-heads' because they don't agree with your views, have a funny accent, live in 'those places', practice weird social customs, and have religious beliefs. The means do not justify the ends. Not even if you think you're really, really, *really* right and believe you're the smartest one in the room.
Strat
Second, I feel similarly about intrusion into people's personal lives, but from the other side. I think that you are mistakenly targeting progressives/liberals because conservatives are just as apt to intrude into peoples lives, just for different reasons (sexuality, drugs, abortion, etc).
I'm more small-"L" libertarian and so those sorts of attempts at legislating morality (War on Some Drugs, for example) I have strong objections to and part ways with many mainstream US "conservative" views. On the other side, O'm against forcing Christians to participate in activities supporting same-sex marriage. Why try to usurp the Christian religion and try to force it to change? Found your own church and practice whatever religion or no religion you want and marry trees or rose bushes for all I care. Leave others be.
Finally, I do have to disagree about government. Yes, there have been some terrible examples, but there have also been great examples. The thing is that there is no viable alternative to government and there never will be.
Government is a necessary evil and should be treated like fire or nuclear fission/fusion. Use only the very minimum one needs while taking extreme precautions against it growing out of control and constantly monitoring it's operations. The original vision for the US was for it to be a collection near-mini-nations in the form of the sovereign States, much like the EU, with a weak central government that had just enough power for treaty-making, foreign trade agreements/tariffs, national military, currency, and just a few other responsibilities. It has since become central control and command government over a group of provinces with only very limited power over their own affairs under laws and regulations created thousands of miles away in Washington, D.C.
I look at the US Founders as the first network security experts. Government is a network for political power as the 'net is for data. A network comprised of a central mainframe and dumb terminals are easier to be suborned that a network of stand-alone machines with different OSs, security appliances, etc and that cross-check each other and if needed perform a system re-imaging on the central server if compromised or corrupted, That's why the US was designed to not have a strong central government and why I view expansion of Federal power and scope as a very dangerous thing.
I would suggest, if you've never taken the time, to devote some time to reading through the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers to gain a deeper understanding of the theories and reasoning behind the US Constitution and the dangers of allowing too much government power.
Strat
*Shrug*
Tell that to Kim Dotcom, a German born New Zealand citizen and resident, about the US copyright.
Anger the Oligarchs of The Hegemony and you will pay the price.
Strat
Ok, I'm a leftist and thus feel a bit put off by your signature (although not entirely since I criticize "liberals" from the left - I would really need to understand what exactly you mean before passing judgement).
Even if we end up not agreeing, let me start out by thanking you for being civil and open enough to ask. I'll do my best to help you understand.
It's actually Progressivism and Progressives I have issues with, not classic Liberals which are libertarian. I tried to hint at the distinction, but there's only so many characters allowed in the sig.
The other part is simply the fact that as you create more and more laws that intrude ever deeper into individual behaviors, thoughts, beliefs, health choices, etc etc ad nauseam, the more intrusive the monitoring and more authoritarian the enforcement need to become in order to insure a high enough level of compliance from the population. The more control you wish a government to have the more control it must exert, and the only tools besides propaganda a government has to exert control are surveillance/monitoring, imprisonment, and death.
The number one killer of all time even outpacing plagues and wars are people's own government killing them. Government is the deadliest weapon ever invented by Man and it's first victim is always liberty.
Strat
So they plan to become the worlds biggest taxi company and monopolise the world's markets without using full time labour? I see your opinions often and it's amazing how frequently they parrot the company line.
As to Uber/Lyft and whatever their future plans are, I have no idea and don't really care as it's not relevant to this discussion.
As to "parroting the company line", maybe it seems that way because logic and facts are universal and do not require agreement, collusion, or any cooperation with anyone or anything else to be found to be true and sound and those findings shared by anyone who investigates? It does not require any sort of Machiavellian plotting and subterfuge for two people thousands of miles apart to both accurately opine that the sky is blue, water is wet, and that fire will burn.
Strat
They aren't driving against their will because they haven't quit yet. Only 4% of Uber drivers stay with the program over a year. Mostly they quit as they realize the pay isn't enough.
Or maybe because of the entire premise of driving for Uber/Lyft being that it's a temporary at-will job specifically designed for those who do not want, need, or cannot currently find full time employment. It was never meant to be a full-time job capable of supporting a family or even a single individual. It's a way to make some extra cash if you've got a decent car and spare time.
The preteen paperboy on his part-time Sunday bike route doesn't get employee benefits, full medical, 401k, or full time union wages either. Should we demonize and attack newspapers like is being done with Uber/Lyft?
Strat
Rather than impose laws and fees on the new model that is working, why not LIFT the laws and fees on regular taxis, and allow them to compete and see who wins?
Instead of dragging down a model that seems to be working and is superior....why not allow the others to build themselves UP?
That's a win for everyone.
Except for those in power who control the laws, regulations, ordinances, etc, and who are the ones that enacted the present status quo to benefit themselves and their cronies in the private sector in the taxi business and in businesses & groups like labor unions associated with it. Just look at larger cities that have the 'medallion' system for examples. It's a racket worthy of '20s-era Chicago gangsters.
There's a lot of money and power at stake here. These people will fight tooth and nail, spend bucket-loads of cash, even kill people if they think it worth the risk, to keep that corruption gravy train on the rails, on schedule, and at full steam.
For them, that means ride-sharing must die as a practical alternative.
I doubt they'll get billed, since the thing did explode, they didn't just crash it.
That's what will be the exculpatory fact if born out by the evidence. If a reasonable person would not normally expect or anticipate some device or appliance to behave in an extremely dangerous manner (i.e. sudden spontaneous battery explosion and fire) the prosecutors and courts will generally allow someone not otherwise criminally/legally entangled off the hook.
A short time ago, if some poor slob's Galaxy Note 7 had spontaneously exploded and caused a fire in the same place I don't see authorities holding him liable. If the drone and battery etc are all the normal commercial variety and/or had not been dangerously and recklessly modified and the battery just spontaneously went thermal because RNG, I would expect the drone owner in this case would not be held liable. Oblig. IANADL and this is not legal drone advice.
Strat