...while the low polluters (such as the Africans) should be forced not to raise theirs too much.
So you want to prevent Third World populations from advancing to 20th-century (never mind 21st-century) levels of technology/industry/medicine and living standards by force?
Government-mandated "altruism" is simply confiscation at gunpoint and redistribution.
The planet has (geologically) just come out of an ice-age and is still climbing the warming slope before once again descending to another ice-age. Human contribution to the warming trend amounts to a rounding error in this meta-trend.
Global warming alarmism is simply a propaganda tool being used by those seeking ideological/political power and control, and who desire global wealth and political power redistribution.
The climate will change regardless of any actions we take or don't take and humans will do what humans do best and have always done.
Clearly all of the manufacturers used similar tricks, that's why they didn't point the finger at VW earlier.
The reason why those standards for diesels are so high is because US auto makers could not market a decent enough quality diesel passenger car at a sufficiently-low price with the performance Americans demand, and so these standards were put in place to attempt to prevent foreign companies from competing in the US diesel passenger car market.
You hear US auto companies scream about CAFE standards for gasoline vehicles anytime talk of raising those standards comes up, but were and are strangely silent about diesel passenger car standards.
This is mainly why. It's more to do with limiting competition than anything else.
All donations are recorded and EFF donors are on a watchlist. You might find out to your -and your family's - chagrin just how difficult life can be for a "person of interest".
Pfft!
If you aren't already on several "government watchlists" you have no life, no friends or family, have never used electronic communications, never used any modern transportation or financial/banking/commerce systems, and hold/voice no opinions.
News flash, Bunky. *Everybody* is a "person of interest" these days. That's the whole point!
What lies have been exposed by video/film/audio recording? How much more effective would having the capability to have the recording performed from an airborne platform without the need for an immediately-identifiable (and arrest-able) person to be holding the recording device(s) be?
I'm astonished that anyone would even need to ask such a question, especially here.
Enter the carbon tax. Price emissions for their actual costs they incur. You know, the free market solution.
A couple things.
First, government-imposed "social engineering" taxes such as a carbon tax are anything *but* "free market" and are nearly polar opposites.
Second, such a tax would impact lower-income people hugely more than wealthier people both directly and through increases in their cost of living. The "1-percenters" won't hardly notice, but lower income people will pay a much larger percentage of their income, drastically affecting their ability to house, clothe, feed, and prevent themselves from freezing to death in winter and dying from heat in summer.
Why do you hate lower-income people struggling to survive?
Christopher Soghoian said, "FBI Director Comey has created a "warrant-proof webcam" that will thwart lawful surveillance should he ever be investigated.
That is some high-quality satire right there. Too bad it will be lost on pretty much everyone outside our community. It is rare to see something so concise and on-point - thanks for including that quote!
And if it were Joe Sixpack the FBI were investigating and his taping-over of the webcam annoyed the FBI, he'd be looking at a raft of charges like various (and possibly multiple) flavors of 'obstruction', interference in an investigation, evidence tampering, etc etc. An imaginative prosecutor/DA could likely come up with many more.
Even if found innocent of all charges, poor Joe S. would be broke from legal expenses and out a significant amount of time, some even possibly behind bars, lost job, maybe lose his family's house/land.
If you're one of the elite, however, these types of things are simply wiped clean, like with a cloth or something.
One world government does not automatically mean global authoritarian nightmare.
Yes, it actually does. It also means that there would be no place to escape from such tyranny.
But when people flee from tyranny, numbnuts like you don't want them in your country.
smh
Yes, because nearly-open borders have worked out so well recently in Belgium and France and other places in the EU.
Only an irresponsible fool allows any random stranger off the street to enter their home with all their loved ones' lives and all their possessions at risk.
That tired old document? No one pays any attention to that thing.
Besides, the COTUS was written by a bunch of violent terrorists and traitors.
Fortunately all the current front-runner candidates; King Trump, People's Democratic Leader Sanders, and Queen Hillary, will see to it that any remaining vestiges of this terrorist document are finally laid to rest once and for all once (s)elected.
What China is pursuing is the same thing the USA has pursued since 9/11 which is looking at where people travel, who they hang out with, and what they say to try to stop mass casualty events^W^W^W^W changes to the political, financial, and societal status quo before they happen.
It died in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve but few were willing to accept the fact until '64, when we enjoyed a coup and had our coinage debased.
Indeed.
For those who do not understand, try reading "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
How you can read "authorities historically abuse powers and we are observing it happen once again right now" and interpret it as "authorities are entirely untrustworthy and the people should just police themselves in anarchy" is absolutely beyond my comprehension. Your level of interpretation is legitimately baffling, so I will attempt to explain...
No implication was made that authority and law should be ignored. Law enforcement is essential for society to operate as it does. A better analogy, based on your metaphor, would be that in these circumstances the authorities judge every ticket / warrant ever issued to be valid simply because it has been issued in the first place. That is just wrong. If you can't see why then consider this: when the people are subject to one set of laws and the authorities are subject to a different, in this case far less strict set of laws, then you are living in a dictatorship. You are living in a system where the powers that be get to behave however they choose and they write laws to validate their actions. They then will not afford you the same liberties and write different laws that stop you behaving in ways that they behave themselves. It is basically the definition of tyranny.
The only authority that is worth respect is the authority that is granted power willingly by the people it represents and allows itself to be fully responsible to the people for its actions. Any other authority is little more than acquisition of power over people through the threat of menaces, violence, imprisonment or worse for the purpose of maintaining the ruling elite class at the expense of the freedom of those being ruled. Any system of governance that can be described in that fashion earns my immediate contempt. Unsurprisingly I'm not alone in that sentiment.
Thank you.
Yours is one of very few rational posts I see on/. or heck, just about anyplace anymore on the interwebs.
Governments share much in common with computer networks and their design.
Governments are networks of power to compel with a monopoly on the legitimate use of deadly force.
Like a computer network design composed of many stand-alone machines each with it's own attack-detection & mitigation mechanisms is harder to compromise than a single central server and 'dumb clients', it follows that government power must be mostly local in nature with as little dependence on a central authority as possible.
I heartily accept the motto - "That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, - "That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. - Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Why any doctor would want to use a system which can forge his signature on medical records is beyond me.
Simple. Because any other method gets them fined and possibly imprisoned, or even killed by one of the government's enforcers who are known for their big guns, bad attitudes, institutionalized corruption, and small brains & penises.
[s] But never mind that! Did you hear the latest insane Trump rant and the latest lottery jackpot amount!? [/s]
[Understandable, given]...that California is infamously-corrupt, that those in government want to curtail the public's ability to observe their actions, so that when questions from the public about government actions/policies/procedures/etc arise, what they tell us does not have to match what they do.
Of course, very few of those in government have a problem with government using the same technology to enable them to observe anybody they wish as long as "Department 'A'" (FISA courts, etc) gives permission to "Department 'B'" (TLAs and other government security/intelligence/law-enforcement departments & agencies).
It's all about keeping as many people as possible from thinking about the fact that the *only* use the surveillance web they have already built and continue to expand domestically is suited for is political/societal control through blackmail and/or planting fabricated evidence of a crime.
Can anyone remember when laws were made by elected officials?
It seems like nowadays some federal agency steps in and declares that they're the governing authority on something, that their decisions are law, and everyone should obey.
That doesn't seem to mesh with what we were taught in school.
Aren't our lawmakers elected?
What you're referring to is known as the Doctrine of Nondelegability.
The SCOTUS has gradually all but destroyed any restrictions on the Congressional delegation of it's regulatory/lawmaking powers.
The rationale was that delegability was necessary in order to produce enough Federal laws & regulations quickly enough to be able to control through laws and regulations all the existing and emerging new areas of the economy and society at large that government felt itself entitled to control. A trend which shows no sign of halting or even slowing as there always seems to be more areas of life government feels entitled to control.
The SCOTUS has never to date denied Congress an act of delegation of it's powers.
This has lead to the creation of the Regulatory State, basically rule by unelected bureaucrats in unaccountable, non-transparent agencies, departments, bureaus, commissions, and the like.
The tossing aside of the Doctrine of Nondelegability is one of the biggest methods through which the Federal government has increased in size, scope, power, cost, intrusiveness, corruptness, oppressiveness, and divisiveness.
The Doctrine of Nondelegability was precisely designed and intended to limit the Congress' ability to be able to expand it's ability to create massive amounts of laws and regulations through delegation of Congress' lawmaking and regulatory powers, and prevent unelected bureaucrats from ruling over citizens without accountability directly to the electorate.
The vast majority of drone operators do not belong to the AMA and are not following their safety guidelines.
What about all those who *are* AMA members in good standing and who follow the community standards set forth in AMA rules? "Sorry you were dumb enough to believe the government would follow it's own laws"?
If the government ignores and violates it's own laws whenever it likes why should citizens pay the law any mind? If it's simply a matter of using the threat of deadly force then the government is no better than a criminal gang.
That way leads to the collapse of civil society and rule of law.
It's not just "drones". It's every flying R/C model that weighs more than 250 grams or more. Which is basically every R/C model out there.
The US Congress passed into Federal law the Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 which states in part;
"The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft."
The FAA has no authority under Federal law, and is in fact prohibited by Federal law, to promulgate rules or regulations of this nature & scope.
... it is yet another example of Federal overreach into jurisdictions the Constitution simply does not allow.
Never mind any Constitutional issues, Congress passed the Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, a set of legal directives in Federal law to the FAA, which state in part;
"The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft."
Therefor this drone registration program is in direct violation of Federal law.
Until the law is changed or abolished by an act of Congress the FAA can go pound sand.
Drones are a menace. Imagine a sport pilot coming in low for a landing at a local airstrip, going about 110mph, and hitting a drone head-on. It would probably smash through the windscreen and kill the pilot, and crash the plane and thus kill everyone else. Get those drones out of the air!!!!!!!!!!
Except that the NTSB & FAA requires aircraft windscreens to be tested for resistance to bird-strikes using dead chickens and/or equivalent substitutes weighing from 2.2 to 8 pounds, far heavier than the vast majority of consumer/entertainment style drones like DJI Phantoms.
The ban in D.C. is based on fear on the part of the government revolving around two main concerns, first of which is politicians and officials being video recorded breaking the laws (like partaking in Saudi sex parties using human-trafficked underage sex-slaves) and secondly (and probably to a much lesser degree) also possible use as a weapons platform for assassinations.
Those in government want to use UAVs/UASs/drones to watch and take out whomever they want but are violently opposed to civilians having even a small portion of the same capability. Heck, it's a safe bet that quite a few politicians and government officials would prefer to be assassinated as opposed to having their worst misdeeds exposed and be forced to face the consequences.
I'm sure glad I have you and the government to help me decide what my hobbies should be and where I should spend my money.
Have you properly registered your intention to exercise First Amendment privileges, checked the map for 1-A exclusion zones, and paid the licensing fees for that comment, comrade?
Slashdot Mirror
...while the low polluters (such as the Africans) should be forced not to raise theirs too much.
So you want to prevent Third World populations from advancing to 20th-century (never mind 21st-century) levels of technology/industry/medicine and living standards by force?
Strange definition of "altruism" you have there.
Strat
It's called altruism.
Altruism is voluntary.
Government-mandated "altruism" is simply confiscation at gunpoint and redistribution.
The planet has (geologically) just come out of an ice-age and is still climbing the warming slope before once again descending to another ice-age. Human contribution to the warming trend amounts to a rounding error in this meta-trend.
Global warming alarmism is simply a propaganda tool being used by those seeking ideological/political power and control, and who desire global wealth and political power redistribution.
The climate will change regardless of any actions we take or don't take and humans will do what humans do best and have always done.
Adapt and prosper.
Strat
Clearly all of the manufacturers used similar tricks, that's why they didn't point the finger at VW earlier.
The reason why those standards for diesels are so high is because US auto makers could not market a decent enough quality diesel passenger car at a sufficiently-low price with the performance Americans demand, and so these standards were put in place to attempt to prevent foreign companies from competing in the US diesel passenger car market.
You hear US auto companies scream about CAFE standards for gasoline vehicles anytime talk of raising those standards comes up, but were and are strangely silent about diesel passenger car standards.
This is mainly why. It's more to do with limiting competition than anything else.
Strat
All donations are recorded and EFF donors are on a watchlist. You might find out to your -and your family's - chagrin just how difficult life can be for a "person of interest".
Pfft!
If you aren't already on several "government watchlists" you have no life, no friends or family, have never used electronic communications, never used any modern transportation or financial/banking/commerce systems, and hold/voice no opinions.
News flash, Bunky. *Everybody* is a "person of interest" these days. That's the whole point!
Strat
What "lies" are going to be exposed by drones?
What lies have been exposed by video/film/audio recording? How much more effective would having the capability to have the recording performed from an airborne platform without the need for an immediately-identifiable (and arrest-able) person to be holding the recording device(s) be?
I'm astonished that anyone would even need to ask such a question, especially here.
Strat
It seems more they are in search of finding a reason to regulate than addressing any current problem.
This.
If some random drone owner hadn't caused this to happen Western governments would do it themselves (or pay off/blackmail someone to do it).
Western governments are scared spitless over civilian use of drones exposing their lies to the public.
It's also about putting individual politicians at personal risk.
Think about a swarm of micro-drones with ricin-coated needles.
Strat
Enter the carbon tax. Price emissions for their actual costs they incur. You know, the free market solution.
A couple things.
First, government-imposed "social engineering" taxes such as a carbon tax are anything *but* "free market" and are nearly polar opposites.
Second, such a tax would impact lower-income people hugely more than wealthier people both directly and through increases in their cost of living. The "1-percenters" won't hardly notice, but lower income people will pay a much larger percentage of their income, drastically affecting their ability to house, clothe, feed, and prevent themselves from freezing to death in winter and dying from heat in summer.
Why do you hate lower-income people struggling to survive?
Strat
-1 Troll? I see SPD has mod points!
Strat
Presuming they don't have the remote access, maybe they use the opportunity to install some spy/otherware on all these nodes they are 'checking'...
Sue SPD/City of Seattle for hardware replacement costs.
That's one way to dis-incentivize these sorts of harassment/fishing expedition raids by SPD. Make it cost them money.
Strat
And if it were Joe Sixpack the FBI were investigating and his taping-over of the webcam annoyed the FBI, he'd be looking at a raft of charges like various (and possibly multiple) flavors of 'obstruction', interference in an investigation, evidence tampering, etc etc. An imaginative prosecutor/DA could likely come up with many more.
Even if found innocent of all charges, poor Joe S. would be broke from legal expenses and out a significant amount of time, some even possibly behind bars, lost job, maybe lose his family's house/land.
If you're one of the elite, however, these types of things are simply wiped clean, like with a cloth or something.
Some animals are more equal than others.
Strat
Yes, because nearly-open borders have worked out so well recently in Belgium and France and other places in the EU.
Only an irresponsible fool allows any random stranger off the street to enter their home with all their loved ones' lives and all their possessions at risk.
smi (so many idiots)
Strat
That tired old document? No one pays any attention to that thing.
Besides, the COTUS was written by a bunch of violent terrorists and traitors.
Fortunately all the current front-runner candidates; King Trump, People's Democratic Leader Sanders, and Queen Hillary, will see to it that any remaining vestiges of this terrorist document are finally laid to rest once and for all once (s)elected.
Strat
The primary goal of the government is to create a safe, stable environment.
No.
The only legitimate role of government is to protect & safeguard the rights and freedoms of its' citizens.
Strat
What China is pursuing is the same thing the USA has pursued since 9/11 which is looking at where people travel, who they hang out with, and what they say to try to stop mass casualty events^W^W^W^W changes to the political, financial, and societal status quo before they happen.
FTFY
Strat
It died in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve but few were willing to accept the fact until '64, when we enjoyed a coup and had our coinage debased.
Indeed.
For those who do not understand, try reading "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin.
https://archive.org/details/Cr...
Strat
The fbi is willing to let APL control everything in this particular case:
Wrong.
Look up the actual court order.
The text of the court order instructs APL to place the tool on a hard drive and give it to the FBI to use.
Are you stupid or are you a shill?
Of course the two are not mutually exclusive, and as often as not, correlate strongly. Particularly when the shills work for government.
Strat
How you can read "authorities historically abuse powers and we are observing it happen once again right now" and interpret it as "authorities are entirely untrustworthy and the people should just police themselves in anarchy" is absolutely beyond my comprehension. Your level of interpretation is legitimately baffling, so I will attempt to explain...
No implication was made that authority and law should be ignored. Law enforcement is essential for society to operate as it does. A better analogy, based on your metaphor, would be that in these circumstances the authorities judge every ticket / warrant ever issued to be valid simply because it has been issued in the first place. That is just wrong. If you can't see why then consider this: when the people are subject to one set of laws and the authorities are subject to a different, in this case far less strict set of laws, then you are living in a dictatorship. You are living in a system where the powers that be get to behave however they choose and they write laws to validate their actions. They then will not afford you the same liberties and write different laws that stop you behaving in ways that they behave themselves. It is basically the definition of tyranny.
The only authority that is worth respect is the authority that is granted power willingly by the people it represents and allows itself to be fully responsible to the people for its actions. Any other authority is little more than acquisition of power over people through the threat of menaces, violence, imprisonment or worse for the purpose of maintaining the ruling elite class at the expense of the freedom of those being ruled. Any system of governance that can be described in that fashion earns my immediate contempt. Unsurprisingly I'm not alone in that sentiment.
Thank you.
Yours is one of very few rational posts I see on /. or heck, just about anyplace anymore on the interwebs.
Governments share much in common with computer networks and their design.
Governments are networks of power to compel with a monopoly on the legitimate use of deadly force.
Like a computer network design composed of many stand-alone machines each with it's own attack-detection & mitigation mechanisms is harder to compromise than a single central server and 'dumb clients', it follows that government power must be mostly local in nature with as little dependence on a central authority as possible.
I heartily accept the motto - "That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, - "That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.
- Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Strat
Why any doctor would want to use a system which can forge his signature on medical records is beyond me.
Simple. Because any other method gets them fined and possibly imprisoned, or even killed by one of the government's enforcers who are known for their big guns, bad attitudes, institutionalized corruption, and small brains & penises.
[s] But never mind that! Did you hear the latest insane Trump rant and the latest lottery jackpot amount!? [/s]
Strat
[Understandable, given]...that California is infamously-corrupt, that those in government want to curtail the public's ability to observe their actions, so that when questions from the public about government actions/policies/procedures/etc arise, what they tell us does not have to match what they do.
Of course, very few of those in government have a problem with government using the same technology to enable them to observe anybody they wish as long as "Department 'A'" (FISA courts, etc) gives permission to "Department 'B'" (TLAs and other government security/intelligence/law-enforcement departments & agencies).
It's all about keeping as many people as possible from thinking about the fact that the *only* use the surveillance web they have already built and continue to expand domestically is suited for is political/societal control through blackmail and/or planting fabricated evidence of a crime.
A horrific 'Weapon of Mass Oppression".
Strat
Can anyone remember when laws were made by elected officials?
It seems like nowadays some federal agency steps in and declares that they're the governing authority on something, that their decisions are law, and everyone should obey.
That doesn't seem to mesh with what we were taught in school.
Aren't our lawmakers elected?
What you're referring to is known as the Doctrine of Nondelegability.
http://constitution.findlaw.co...
The SCOTUS has gradually all but destroyed any restrictions on the Congressional delegation of it's regulatory/lawmaking powers.
The rationale was that delegability was necessary in order to produce enough Federal laws & regulations quickly enough to be able to control through laws and regulations all the existing and emerging new areas of the economy and society at large that government felt itself entitled to control. A trend which shows no sign of halting or even slowing as there always seems to be more areas of life government feels entitled to control.
The SCOTUS has never to date denied Congress an act of delegation of it's powers.
This has lead to the creation of the Regulatory State, basically rule by unelected bureaucrats in unaccountable, non-transparent agencies, departments, bureaus, commissions, and the like.
The tossing aside of the Doctrine of Nondelegability is one of the biggest methods through which the Federal government has increased in size, scope, power, cost, intrusiveness, corruptness, oppressiveness, and divisiveness.
The Doctrine of Nondelegability was precisely designed and intended to limit the Congress' ability to be able to expand it's ability to create massive amounts of laws and regulations through delegation of Congress' lawmaking and regulatory powers, and prevent unelected bureaucrats from ruling over citizens without accountability directly to the electorate.
Strat
The vast majority of drone operators do not belong to the AMA and are not following their safety guidelines.
What about all those who *are* AMA members in good standing and who follow the community standards set forth in AMA rules? "Sorry you were dumb enough to believe the government would follow it's own laws"?
If the government ignores and violates it's own laws whenever it likes why should citizens pay the law any mind? If it's simply a matter of using the threat of deadly force then the government is no better than a criminal gang.
That way leads to the collapse of civil society and rule of law.
Strat
It's not just "drones". It's every flying R/C model that weighs more than 250 grams or more. Which is basically every R/C model out there.
The US Congress passed into Federal law the Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 which states in part;
"The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft."
The FAA has no authority under Federal law, and is in fact prohibited by Federal law, to promulgate rules or regulations of this nature & scope.
FAA can go pound sand.
Strat
... it is yet another example of Federal overreach into jurisdictions the Constitution simply does not allow.
Never mind any Constitutional issues, Congress passed the Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, a set of legal directives in Federal law to the FAA, which state in part;
"The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft."
Therefor this drone registration program is in direct violation of Federal law.
Until the law is changed or abolished by an act of Congress the FAA can go pound sand.
Strat
Drones are a menace. Imagine a sport pilot coming in low for a landing at a local airstrip, going about 110mph, and hitting a drone head-on. It would probably smash through the windscreen and kill the pilot, and crash the plane and thus kill everyone else. Get those drones out of the air!!!!!!!!!!
Except that the NTSB & FAA requires aircraft windscreens to be tested for resistance to bird-strikes using dead chickens and/or equivalent substitutes weighing from 2.2 to 8 pounds, far heavier than the vast majority of consumer/entertainment style drones like DJI Phantoms.
https://youtu.be/lp7uLTNiGrQ
The ban in D.C. is based on fear on the part of the government revolving around two main concerns, first of which is politicians and officials being video recorded breaking the laws (like partaking in Saudi sex parties using human-trafficked underage sex-slaves) and secondly (and probably to a much lesser degree) also possible use as a weapons platform for assassinations.
Those in government want to use UAVs/UASs/drones to watch and take out whomever they want but are violently opposed to civilians having even a small portion of the same capability. Heck, it's a safe bet that quite a few politicians and government officials would prefer to be assassinated as opposed to having their worst misdeeds exposed and be forced to face the consequences.
Strat
I'm sure glad I have you and the government to help me decide what my hobbies should be and where I should spend my money.
Have you properly registered your intention to exercise First Amendment privileges, checked the map for 1-A exclusion zones, and paid the licensing fees for that comment, comrade?
No?
Gulag for you!
Strat