Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't this suppose to add some level of trust?
Sure. You're supposed to trust that your connection between you and the other end of a conversation using that cert will be encrypted.
That's all certs have ever provided; the rest is 100% marketing myth on the part of the CAs, and misunderstood excuses on the part of conspirators like the Mozilla foundation, Microsoft and so on. The fact is that any cert can be compromised within seconds after it is issued, and so can browsers, hosts lists, and a long list of other target; therefore, certs provide NO assurance you're connected to who the URL indicates you are. The idea that doubtful protection against "man in the middle" attacks are worth the cost of the CA infrastructure is ludicrous. But as long as browser manufacturers continue to collude with the CAs, there's no way out for any site that doesn't want their visitors smashed over the head with entirely bogus errors and warnings.
As far as Firefox is concerned, it's open source. Someone should take it and fix it so that it stops with all the consumer warnings and just says "encrypted connection established." Just go AROUND the CAs; they're total scams anyway. You don't need an "open" CA, you need to tell them to take along walk off a short pier.
While they're fooling with FF, maybe they could fix more of the darned memory leaks. After running FF 3 for about 24 hours, it's consuming an obscene 200+ MB here; and it *starts* at about 40 or so, which is also absolutely ridiculous.
C'mon mods. Parent put the finger right on it. Just because it's short doesn't mean it isn't 100% insightful, informative, *and* interesting.
You know no one with any power or position is going to take a stand against this; it is the ultimate leverage — and those who stoop low enough to use it know that perfectly well.
You need to look into the easily available raw materials there; your orderly presumption above is mostly imaginary. A small integrated system could bootstrap a much larger one; likewise, a small reactor could bootstrap a solar cell manufacturing plant. The problem is definitely a hard one, but it isn't the one you think it is. It is well worth doing in any case.
I think you're looking at it backwards. When (not if... it'll definitely be when) an asteroid or comet hits us, presuming we don't get into an all-out nuclear conflict beforehand, if we've not colonized mars, etc., or at least gotten into space so well that we can be absolutely certain we can deflect anything, anywhere, that might hit the planet, then we're done. I don't think that's in our best interests, nor those of our various co-species here. We need to do this. That old saw about having all your eggs in one basket? The basket is the earth; we're the eggs.
A base with some sort of nontrivial manufacturing ability. You've glossed over where you're going to get those raw materials as well,
I suggested that they would come from the moon via mass driver in this part of the thread. The energy for the mass driver can be solar, nuclear, or both. The materials are there, barring refined fissionables, but those are compact and not heavy for what needs to be done. One earth to moon shot could bring more than enough.
if you're doing it from an asteroid you capture then you have to have a refining capacity on the station as well
You'd want refining to be done on the moon, regardless of where the raw materials were obtained from. Once refined, again, up by mass driver. Refining is messy, power hungry, and space-consuming, but essentially simple, such that it doesn't require a lot of sophisticated support. Just large structures and large material moving machines. What you want on the space station is manufacturing, not refining.
a telescope probe alone would require the ability to manufacture high precision lenses, propellants, batteries, computer parts, not to mention the frame itself). Chances are you wouldn't be able to do all of that realistically and you'd have to ship most of the raw materials up from Earth, but if you're doing that you might as well just manufacture the thing on Earth and launch it from there.
I don't think batteries in the classic sense have much of a future. You're looking at little fission reactors, solar accumulators, ultracaps, that sort of thing. No reason to think this stuff can't be manufactured in a hollow shell. There are *many* reasons to do this, not the least of which is the elimination of the gravity wells, but others include ease of handling large components in a low-G environment, unlimited storage space, zero environmental concerns, unlimited energy supplies, zero weather concerns, ease of shielding in a hollow rock, the ability to have loose and flowing water, agriculture, trivial flying machines... it's really quite a list. Also, making lenses in space has many advantages, likewise in lower gravity. Also (sorry), in space, one can take advantage of many (relatively) small lens designs which have huge advantages over single large lenses. Same thing for radio telescopes. There's a lot to be said for a design that can take advantage of dispersion over a few million square miles without getting in anyone's way.
Maybe if you had some sort of big mass driver to reduce the amount of propellant needed to get the satellites started on their journey, but you could put that in Earth orbit
Well, mass drivers need something to push against. You put one in orbit, it sends a payload one way, it'll go the other way; you'd have to shoot in alternate directions or you'd be in deep trouble pretty fast. You also need a *huge* power supply, something much easier to put together on the lunar surface where the raw materials abound.
Just a slight correction, of the 16 Saturn V rockets built for the Apollo program, 5 Stage 4 components are now in a solar orbit and another 5 made it all the way to the lunar surface.
'Stage 4 components' are payloads; Saturn V's are three-stage+instrument unit vehicles. The first stage bought about 61 kilometers, the second took the rest into the upper atmosphere, and the third was used both for orbital insertion and trans-lunar burns -- but by which time it was mostly empty, and hence of not great use... just a little more thrust and you had an empty shell. The instrument unit went along for the whole ride, being on top of stage three.
The mass of the Saturn V was 6,699,000 lbs; almost all of which was fuel. The result of all that fuel was the delivery of 100,000 lb to lunar orbit, or 260,000 lb to LEO.
This is why I said that the idea of putting unused boosters into orbit wasn't practical. It takes 25x the mass to *get* to LEO, and 67x the mass to get to the moon. Say you had an unused 100,000 lb booster; you ready to commit 6.7 million pounds of lift machinery and fuel to get it up there?
Build these things on the moon and the math gets a lot better. And I mean a *lot* better. Use a mass driver to get the raw materials into lunar orbit from the lunar surface and build the spacecraft there, and the math gets *crazy* better.
I'm not sure you're legally able to do any such thing — isn't Antarctica a wholly parceled out, protected region? I mean, suppose you decided to go live, homestead if you will, in Antarctica. Do you think it would be allowed by any of the parties that have claimed the land?
The thing about a moon base, as compared to an orbital lunar station, is that it is of most benefit to the moon, and not anything elsewhere, because in order to supply from there, the vehicle has to go down into the lunar gravity well. This limits resupply to vehicles that are landers, or in other words, not pre-constructed space stations, which would really be a shame -- you'd have to have lifters from the moon's surface bring them anything they needed in ready form; a space station can do the manufacturing from raw materials, which can be mass-driven off the surface without regard for stress or breakage. A space station can also launch various small probes at almost no cost, on almost a continuous basis. Anything from network switches to remote telescopes; we need some kind of base outside of a major gravity well because the advantages such a base offers simply cannot be duplicated down any such well.
I don't think a lunar space station could exist for long without a moon base; but I think a moon base without a lunar space station is very nearly pointless.
Because old booster rockets are heavy, and the energy to get them into orbit has to come from somewhere. When we shot a big Apollo, for instance, most of it didn't reach orbit, much less the moon — just fell back to earth. And even then, they were light, empty of fuel. In the end, there was just enough energy available to send a tiny, tiny capsule to the moon.
What you want to do is put heavy rockets in order with fuel. They have to get there somehow, and contrary to Robinson's optimism, we don't have a viable space elevator anywhere in sight. We'd have to do it the (very) hard way.
My old friend Tony Splendora likes to say, with regard to physics and fast vehicles, "There are some laws you just can't break." That applies here as well; getting something heavy into orbit is hard.
I like this idea on he face of it, but we are talking about a lot of work. The ISS, as presently configured, is in no way designed to stand on its own without regular re-supply... and we are a very long way from the moon in the sense of the energy it takes to keep punting supplies out to a lunar orbit.
Right now, in LEO, getting a new toilet up there is still an effort that can take quite a bit of time and co-ordination. Food and other sundries depend upon lifting resources that cannot be generalized into getting a lot further out of our gravity well; we'd need a new generation of lifters to get that done (and, I suspect, more efficient and hopefully at least somewhat less polluting and poisonous propulsion methods.)
Think over the ISS-related news of the last few years. The oxygen generator failure. The toilet failure. The bad elbow joint on the arm. The computer failures. Solar panel problems. All of these, and more, would have been that much more serious at lunar distances and energy requirements.
Honestly, I get the very strong impression that the ISS is a piecemeal effort, not up to the quality required to exist at a significant distance from resupply and service; more than once there has been talk of having to abandon it. And that doesn't even factor in the dithering support at the political level — at lunar distances, we're talking huge increases in costs, and that will tend to amplify the politician's waffling in support, if indeed one could gain it in the first place.
I would much rather see a serious effort put into a large enough work that it would have some chance at self-sustaining operation; a large hollow globe with cultivation, running water, and a manufacturing base. It'd be hugely expensive, but the vast majority of that would come up front, thus reducing the vulnerability to failed re-supply or loss of political support to kill it outright.
Sadly, I don't see us doing that. We're a lot more likely to commit a trillion dollars or two (of our descendant;s money and interest) to reducing Iran to rubble than we are to seriously attempt to create a viable lunar space station.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see us actually get the heck off this planet and start populating the solar system, but the realities aren't just daunting, they're outright Godzilla-like.
Yep; as long as you remain (cough) 'rational', you'll keep electing these sleazebags. Until you and the other brainwashed folks stop doing the same thing and expecting different results, you'll keep experiencing the same problems.
I'm already voting correctly. Perhaps you'll get around to it someday, or perhaps you'll keep buying that 'any non 2-party vote is a wasted vote' propaganda and continue to ACTUALLY waste your vote on one of two completely dysfunctional choices.
Insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." That's you, pal.
For decades they've been advocating large expansions of government power unsupported by the Constitution, and when they bother to justify it at all they come up with ridiculous pretexts like "interstate commerce".
I'm not so sure that was "left" so much as it was the "Nine Blithering Idiots.":-)
It is best for all of you. Sad that you're too brainwashed to do what's good for you on your own. I suppose it'll take a few more administrations chewing up your rights and selling the law to those behind the PACs before you figure it out.
do you have to pass a 'no fly list' (no drink list?) to get the water company to turn on your water?
Yes; it's called the list of people with money. You'd better stay on that list, too.
do they withhold basic utilities based on criminal background checks?
They certainly do; they adjust the deposit based on your credit report, which in turn depends on a criminal background check. The more trouble you've had, the higher the required deposit is. I don't need a deposit; my SO's brother had to come up with $500 cash before they would turn the water on at all. And of course, I can afford $500, and he cannot -- you know how his water got turned on? One guess. No idea? I paid his deposit, that's how. Sure as heck wasn't going to get any assistance from the town's water department.
I fail to see why you'd care about WHO is on the other end of the phone or net wire - you sell a service and you should not care who or or how they use the service. no questions are asked about selling you water - you pay your bill and they continue to send it.
If only that were true. Water is not free, as was asserted; I rather expect that should air quality become a serious issue such that fresh air is more difficult to get, that we'll be paying for that as well. One way or another; it could be argued that we already are. Corn prices, carbon credits, the ethanol scam, etc.
Just a tip: It is not a good idea to use the ACLU's scoring as a metric. Their mechanism is broken. For instance, they rate Ron Paul at 40%; and while he's got some problems, particularly with immigration and his outright admission that his religious crackpottery influences his political choices [shades of Brother Bush], his general approach to liberty is very, very constitutional, certainly far more so than Obama ever has been.
Personally, once a candidate demonstrates they aren't going to (or are unable to) honor their oath, as Obama has, I'm no longer interested in them. This oath-breaking vote for FISA is exactly the kind of thing I cannot, in good conscience, cast a vote for. I mean, look: Either the man is a complete idiot because he really doesn't understand the constitution (constitutional law professor, what do you think?) or he does, in which case he's a traitor to his oath. So voting for him is either a vote for a traitor or an idiot. We have no need for yet another traitor to the constitution, and we certainly don't need another idiot - Bush has given us a full dose of that, thank you.
In the one area where the president really has free reign, that of foreign policy, can we trust an idiot or a traitor, a known flip-flopper on issues absolutely critical to the country, to do the right thing? I say we cannot. McCain, the other mainstream candidate, is also completely untrustworthy, as well as constitutionally dangerous. That means the only honorable choices remaining are 3rd party candidates or write-ins.
They're both politicians, in the pejorative sense. They have no positions except those that are convenient. Those, they can, and do, change in a heartbeat. Obama was so against FISA he was going to filibuster it. Then he votes AYE. What does that tell you about the man's commitment with regard to any other issue? This was a constitutional issue, arguably one of the most important issues he could face, and one where he'd like us to think he knows what he's doing ("constitutional law professor", remember) and what does he do? He not only flips on it, he votes against the constitution, me, and you. thus demonstrating he is a complete and utter jackass.
McCain is no better.
Now, you may THINK that Obama is better, and I'll certainly grant you that if he was the guy he wants you to think he is, he would be. But he just demonstrated explicitly and in detail that HE IS NOT THAT GUY. What you need to do is PAY ATTENTION.
You should also pay attention to the fact that for a "constitutional law" professor, he can't parse the 2nd amendment correctly. That's his JOB, and I don't mean elected, I'll-do-what-I-please kind of job, I mean educate-the-citizens job.
You think he'll give you some form of healthcare. I think he'll flip, and due to "unfortunate realities", it'll be same-old, same old, or worse, some new empowerment of the insurance companies, which together with lawyers (and Obama's a lawyer...) represent the major part of the problem with healthcare in the first place.
You think he'll get us out of Iraq. I think he'll flip. Etc. You've seen his true colors. The only question remaining is, will you admit to it?
But by all means vote for the man. I'm not going to. I'm one of that pitiful group who will vote for a third part candidate because it's actually the right thing to do.
Yes, in fact, it is, as far as the government is concerned. Go read the constitution. Pay particular attention to the words "shall not infringe." Those take care of the feds. Then read the 14th. That takes care of the states. "shall not infringe." "SHALL NOT." What part of "SHALL NOT" do you and Obama not understand? Obama is flat out wrong, and so are you.
Actually, it'll make a hell of a difference to those of us who aren't libertarian fundamentalists. Claiming both candidates are the same because they favor "big government" is like claiming they're the same because they're both men:
I support a constitutional republic, not this anointed, all-powerful junta of 545. The constituting documentation for my government does not endow them with any authority. I really don't know what they're doing running the country by their own ideas. I didn't authorize that; I know the people who wrote the constitution didn't. If you want such authorization, the only legitimate path you have to create a government of that form is by exercising article V. Have you done that? No, you bloody well have not. So while you are welcome to your opinion, you are not welcome to this infection of an unauthorized government we have caught, courtesy of a legislature who can't be bothered, and a high court who can't even parse English.
...the fact is laws passed by Congress and policies set by the Executive branch have to pass Constitutional muster
The problem is, the definition of "constitutional muster" is presently "wreck the citizen's lives until (if indeed they can) drum up the money, time, and evidence of being screwed by said law and force it through multiple layers of courts until 9 politically filtered individuals can use logic like 'shall not infringe' means 'infringe all you want' and 'regulate commerce between the states' means 'regulate commerce WITHIN the states' and 'shall make no law' means 'make all the laws you want' and 'no law... shall be passed' means 'lets pass those laws!'"
There's no check at ALL upon congress creating unconstitutional laws. That's a severe flaw in the system. Such a check would require punishment for violating their oaths, at the VERY LEAST, and it would also require a FUNCTIONING supreme court, which we absolutely do not have.
Which is the only way for the Constitution to remain viable, since the human beings who authored the Constitution had no idea what the world would be like in the 21st century.
That's why section V was put in there; it completely destroys your argument. Go read it.
Thomas Jefferson did not write a missive on whether email traveling through servers in the US requires a judicially issued warrant.
I did, though. Why not see if you can poke any holes in it?
Additionally, this bill grants retroactive immunity, which goes against Section 9 of the Constitution:
"No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
No. Here is the legal definition of ex post facto from Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]):
1st. Every law that makes an action done before the passing of the law, and which was innocent when done, criminal; and punishes such action.
2d. Every law that aggravates a crime, or makes it greater than it was, when committed.
3d. Every law that changes the punishment, and inflicts a greater punishment, than the law annexed to the crime, when committed.
4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives less, or different, testimony, than the law required at the time of the commission of the offense, in order to convict the offender.
None of those apply to retroactive immunity. Those provisions, while certainly distasteful and a slap against the blindfolded lady's presumed consideration of all being equal in her (lack of) sight, are not ex post facto.
However, if you'd like to contemplate actual ex post facto laws inflicted upon us by the 546 enemies of the constitution, consider the laws that allow felons to be stripped of the right of owning weapons by a law that was passed after they were sentenced.
Likewise, consider the laws that allow sexual offenders to be "publicly registered" by laws that were passed after their sentencing and convictions.
Those laws blatantly ignore the ex post facto provisions, and the citizens are deliriously happy with them, because the citizens are really, really ignorant of constitutional issues. The USSC, at least in the case of the latter statutes, have done their constitutionally erosive thing by defining these state-mandated increases in dangerous and unavoidable consequences as (ready?) "not punishment." See 3d.
Ex post facto law is alive and well. Just not in the case of FISA. Here, the constitutional problem is simply that of loss of security without warrant and prerequisites.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure. You're supposed to trust that your connection between you and the other end of a conversation using that cert will be encrypted.
That's all certs have ever provided; the rest is 100% marketing myth on the part of the CAs, and misunderstood excuses on the part of conspirators like the Mozilla foundation, Microsoft and so on. The fact is that any cert can be compromised within seconds after it is issued, and so can browsers, hosts lists, and a long list of other target; therefore, certs provide NO assurance you're connected to who the URL indicates you are. The idea that doubtful protection against "man in the middle" attacks are worth the cost of the CA infrastructure is ludicrous. But as long as browser manufacturers continue to collude with the CAs, there's no way out for any site that doesn't want their visitors smashed over the head with entirely bogus errors and warnings.
As far as Firefox is concerned, it's open source. Someone should take it and fix it so that it stops with all the consumer warnings and just says "encrypted connection established." Just go AROUND the CAs; they're total scams anyway. You don't need an "open" CA, you need to tell them to take along walk off a short pier.
While they're fooling with FF, maybe they could fix more of the darned memory leaks. After running FF 3 for about 24 hours, it's consuming an obscene 200+ MB here; and it *starts* at about 40 or so, which is also absolutely ridiculous.
C'mon mods. Parent put the finger right on it. Just because it's short doesn't mean it isn't 100% insightful, informative, *and* interesting.
You know no one with any power or position is going to take a stand against this; it is the ultimate leverage — and those who stoop low enough to use it know that perfectly well.
Welcome to the United States of For The Children.
You need to look into the easily available raw materials there; your orderly presumption above is mostly imaginary. A small integrated system could bootstrap a much larger one; likewise, a small reactor could bootstrap a solar cell manufacturing plant. The problem is definitely a hard one, but it isn't the one you think it is. It is well worth doing in any case.
That's a little larger than I had in mind. :-)
I think you're looking at it backwards. When (not if... it'll definitely be when) an asteroid or comet hits us, presuming we don't get into an all-out nuclear conflict beforehand, if we've not colonized mars, etc., or at least gotten into space so well that we can be absolutely certain we can deflect anything, anywhere, that might hit the planet, then we're done. I don't think that's in our best interests, nor those of our various co-species here. We need to do this. That old saw about having all your eggs in one basket? The basket is the earth; we're the eggs.
I suggested that they would come from the moon via mass driver in this part of the thread. The energy for the mass driver can be solar, nuclear, or both. The materials are there, barring refined fissionables, but those are compact and not heavy for what needs to be done. One earth to moon shot could bring more than enough.
You'd want refining to be done on the moon, regardless of where the raw materials were obtained from. Once refined, again, up by mass driver. Refining is messy, power hungry, and space-consuming, but essentially simple, such that it doesn't require a lot of sophisticated support. Just large structures and large material moving machines. What you want on the space station is manufacturing, not refining.
I don't think batteries in the classic sense have much of a future. You're looking at little fission reactors, solar accumulators, ultracaps, that sort of thing. No reason to think this stuff can't be manufactured in a hollow shell. There are *many* reasons to do this, not the least of which is the elimination of the gravity wells, but others include ease of handling large components in a low-G environment, unlimited storage space, zero environmental concerns, unlimited energy supplies, zero weather concerns, ease of shielding in a hollow rock, the ability to have loose and flowing water, agriculture, trivial flying machines... it's really quite a list. Also, making lenses in space has many advantages, likewise in lower gravity. Also (sorry), in space, one can take advantage of many (relatively) small lens designs which have huge advantages over single large lenses. Same thing for radio telescopes. There's a lot to be said for a design that can take advantage of dispersion over a few million square miles without getting in anyone's way.
Well, mass drivers need something to push against. You put one in orbit, it sends a payload one way, it'll go the other way; you'd have to shoot in alternate directions or you'd be in deep trouble pretty fast. You also need a *huge* power supply, something much easier to put together on the lunar surface where the raw materials abound.
'Stage 4 components' are payloads; Saturn V's are three-stage+instrument unit vehicles. The first stage bought about 61 kilometers, the second took the rest into the upper atmosphere, and the third was used both for orbital insertion and trans-lunar burns -- but by which time it was mostly empty, and hence of not great use... just a little more thrust and you had an empty shell. The instrument unit went along for the whole ride, being on top of stage three.
The mass of the Saturn V was 6,699,000 lbs; almost all of which was fuel. The result of all that fuel was the delivery of 100,000 lb to lunar orbit, or 260,000 lb to LEO.
This is why I said that the idea of putting unused boosters into orbit wasn't practical. It takes 25x the mass to *get* to LEO, and 67x the mass to get to the moon. Say you had an unused 100,000 lb booster; you ready to commit 6.7 million pounds of lift machinery and fuel to get it up there?
Build these things on the moon and the math gets a lot better. And I mean a *lot* better. Use a mass driver to get the raw materials into lunar orbit from the lunar surface and build the spacecraft there, and the math gets *crazy* better.
I'm not sure you're legally able to do any such thing — isn't Antarctica a wholly parceled out, protected region? I mean, suppose you decided to go live, homestead if you will, in Antarctica. Do you think it would be allowed by any of the parties that have claimed the land?
The thing about a moon base, as compared to an orbital lunar station, is that it is of most benefit to the moon, and not anything elsewhere, because in order to supply from there, the vehicle has to go down into the lunar gravity well. This limits resupply to vehicles that are landers, or in other words, not pre-constructed space stations, which would really be a shame -- you'd have to have lifters from the moon's surface bring them anything they needed in ready form; a space station can do the manufacturing from raw materials, which can be mass-driven off the surface without regard for stress or breakage. A space station can also launch various small probes at almost no cost, on almost a continuous basis. Anything from network switches to remote telescopes; we need some kind of base outside of a major gravity well because the advantages such a base offers simply cannot be duplicated down any such well.
I don't think a lunar space station could exist for long without a moon base; but I think a moon base without a lunar space station is very nearly pointless.
Because old booster rockets are heavy, and the energy to get them into orbit has to come from somewhere. When we shot a big Apollo, for instance, most of it didn't reach orbit, much less the moon — just fell back to earth. And even then, they were light, empty of fuel. In the end, there was just enough energy available to send a tiny, tiny capsule to the moon.
What you want to do is put heavy rockets in order with fuel. They have to get there somehow, and contrary to Robinson's optimism, we don't have a viable space elevator anywhere in sight. We'd have to do it the (very) hard way.
My old friend Tony Splendora likes to say, with regard to physics and fast vehicles, "There are some laws you just can't break." That applies here as well; getting something heavy into orbit is hard.
I like this idea on he face of it, but we are talking about a lot of work. The ISS, as presently configured, is in no way designed to stand on its own without regular re-supply... and we are a very long way from the moon in the sense of the energy it takes to keep punting supplies out to a lunar orbit.
Right now, in LEO, getting a new toilet up there is still an effort that can take quite a bit of time and co-ordination. Food and other sundries depend upon lifting resources that cannot be generalized into getting a lot further out of our gravity well; we'd need a new generation of lifters to get that done (and, I suspect, more efficient and hopefully at least somewhat less polluting and poisonous propulsion methods.)
Think over the ISS-related news of the last few years. The oxygen generator failure. The toilet failure. The bad elbow joint on the arm. The computer failures. Solar panel problems. All of these, and more, would have been that much more serious at lunar distances and energy requirements.
Honestly, I get the very strong impression that the ISS is a piecemeal effort, not up to the quality required to exist at a significant distance from resupply and service; more than once there has been talk of having to abandon it. And that doesn't even factor in the dithering support at the political level — at lunar distances, we're talking huge increases in costs, and that will tend to amplify the politician's waffling in support, if indeed one could gain it in the first place.
I would much rather see a serious effort put into a large enough work that it would have some chance at self-sustaining operation; a large hollow globe with cultivation, running water, and a manufacturing base. It'd be hugely expensive, but the vast majority of that would come up front, thus reducing the vulnerability to failed re-supply or loss of political support to kill it outright.
Sadly, I don't see us doing that. We're a lot more likely to commit a trillion dollars or two (of our descendant;s money and interest) to reducing Iran to rubble than we are to seriously attempt to create a viable lunar space station.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see us actually get the heck off this planet and start populating the solar system, but the realities aren't just daunting, they're outright Godzilla-like.
Yep; as long as you remain (cough) 'rational', you'll keep electing these sleazebags. Until you and the other brainwashed folks stop doing the same thing and expecting different results, you'll keep experiencing the same problems.
I'm already voting correctly. Perhaps you'll get around to it someday, or perhaps you'll keep buying that 'any non 2-party vote is a wasted vote' propaganda and continue to ACTUALLY waste your vote on one of two completely dysfunctional choices.
Insanity: "Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." That's you, pal.
I'm not so sure that was "left" so much as it was the "Nine Blithering Idiots." :-)
Life, n: A 100% terminal STD.
It is best for all of you. Sad that you're too brainwashed to do what's good for you on your own. I suppose it'll take a few more administrations chewing up your rights and selling the law to those behind the PACs before you figure it out.
You don't compromise on the constitution. It's not an "issue"; it isn't on the table.
If you think the constitution is on the table, politics, as you say, are indeed nothing.
Yes; it's called the list of people with money. You'd better stay on that list, too.
They certainly do; they adjust the deposit based on your credit report, which in turn depends on a criminal background check. The more trouble you've had, the higher the required deposit is. I don't need a deposit; my SO's brother had to come up with $500 cash before they would turn the water on at all. And of course, I can afford $500, and he cannot -- you know how his water got turned on? One guess. No idea? I paid his deposit, that's how. Sure as heck wasn't going to get any assistance from the town's water department.
If only that were true. Water is not free, as was asserted; I rather expect that should air quality become a serious issue such that fresh air is more difficult to get, that we'll be paying for that as well. One way or another; it could be argued that we already are. Corn prices, carbon credits, the ethanol scam, etc.
Just a tip: It is not a good idea to use the ACLU's scoring as a metric. Their mechanism is broken. For instance, they rate Ron Paul at 40%; and while he's got some problems, particularly with immigration and his outright admission that his religious crackpottery influences his political choices [shades of Brother Bush], his general approach to liberty is very, very constitutional, certainly far more so than Obama ever has been.
Personally, once a candidate demonstrates they aren't going to (or are unable to) honor their oath, as Obama has, I'm no longer interested in them. This oath-breaking vote for FISA is exactly the kind of thing I cannot, in good conscience, cast a vote for. I mean, look: Either the man is a complete idiot because he really doesn't understand the constitution (constitutional law professor, what do you think?) or he does, in which case he's a traitor to his oath. So voting for him is either a vote for a traitor or an idiot. We have no need for yet another traitor to the constitution, and we certainly don't need another idiot - Bush has given us a full dose of that, thank you.
In the one area where the president really has free reign, that of foreign policy, can we trust an idiot or a traitor, a known flip-flopper on issues absolutely critical to the country, to do the right thing? I say we cannot. McCain, the other mainstream candidate, is also completely untrustworthy, as well as constitutionally dangerous. That means the only honorable choices remaining are 3rd party candidates or write-ins.
They're both politicians, in the pejorative sense. They have no positions except those that are convenient. Those, they can, and do, change in a heartbeat. Obama was so against FISA he was going to filibuster it. Then he votes AYE. What does that tell you about the man's commitment with regard to any other issue? This was a constitutional issue, arguably one of the most important issues he could face, and one where he'd like us to think he knows what he's doing ("constitutional law professor", remember) and what does he do? He not only flips on it, he votes against the constitution, me, and you. thus demonstrating he is a complete and utter jackass.
McCain is no better.
Now, you may THINK that Obama is better, and I'll certainly grant you that if he was the guy he wants you to think he is, he would be. But he just demonstrated explicitly and in detail that HE IS NOT THAT GUY. What you need to do is PAY ATTENTION.
You should also pay attention to the fact that for a "constitutional law" professor, he can't parse the 2nd amendment correctly. That's his JOB, and I don't mean elected, I'll-do-what-I-please kind of job, I mean educate-the-citizens job.
You think he'll give you some form of healthcare. I think he'll flip, and due to "unfortunate realities", it'll be same-old, same old, or worse, some new empowerment of the insurance companies, which together with lawyers (and Obama's a lawyer...) represent the major part of the problem with healthcare in the first place.
You think he'll get us out of Iraq. I think he'll flip. Etc. You've seen his true colors. The only question remaining is, will you admit to it?
But by all means vote for the man. I'm not going to. I'm one of that pitiful group who will vote for a third part candidate because it's actually the right thing to do.
Ok. Gimme a donut, damn it. :(
Yes, in fact, it is, as far as the government is concerned. Go read the constitution. Pay particular attention to the words "shall not infringe." Those take care of the feds. Then read the 14th. That takes care of the states. "shall not infringe." "SHALL NOT." What part of "SHALL NOT" do you and Obama not understand? Obama is flat out wrong, and so are you.
I support a constitutional republic, not this anointed, all-powerful junta of 545. The constituting documentation for my government does not endow them with any authority. I really don't know what they're doing running the country by their own ideas. I didn't authorize that; I know the people who wrote the constitution didn't. If you want such authorization, the only legitimate path you have to create a government of that form is by exercising article V. Have you done that? No, you bloody well have not. So while you are welcome to your opinion, you are not welcome to this infection of an unauthorized government we have caught, courtesy of a legislature who can't be bothered, and a high court who can't even parse English.
Doesn't matter what Obama can remember. They're exactly the same. They'd both burn the constitution to roast a marshmallow. Don't kid yourself.
The problem is, the definition of "constitutional muster" is presently "wreck the citizen's lives until (if indeed they can) drum up the money, time, and evidence of being screwed by said law and force it through multiple layers of courts until 9 politically filtered individuals can use logic like 'shall not infringe' means 'infringe all you want' and 'regulate commerce between the states' means 'regulate commerce WITHIN the states' and 'shall make no law' means 'make all the laws you want' and 'no law... shall be passed' means 'lets pass those laws!'"
There's no check at ALL upon congress creating unconstitutional laws. That's a severe flaw in the system. Such a check would require punishment for violating their oaths, at the VERY LEAST, and it would also require a FUNCTIONING supreme court, which we absolutely do not have.
That's why section V was put in there; it completely destroys your argument. Go read it.
I did, though. Why not see if you can poke any holes in it?
No. Here is the legal definition of ex post facto from Calder v Bull (3 US 386 [1798]):
None of those apply to retroactive immunity. Those provisions, while certainly distasteful and a slap against the blindfolded lady's presumed consideration of all being equal in her (lack of) sight, are not ex post facto.
However, if you'd like to contemplate actual ex post facto laws inflicted upon us by the 546 enemies of the constitution, consider the laws that allow felons to be stripped of the right of owning weapons by a law that was passed after they were sentenced.
Likewise, consider the laws that allow sexual offenders to be "publicly registered" by laws that were passed after their sentencing and convictions.
Those laws blatantly ignore the ex post facto provisions, and the citizens are deliriously happy with them, because the citizens are really, really ignorant of constitutional issues. The USSC, at least in the case of the latter statutes, have done their constitutionally erosive thing by defining these state-mandated increases in dangerous and unavoidable consequences as (ready?) "not punishment." See 3d.
Ex post facto law is alive and well. Just not in the case of FISA. Here, the constitutional problem is simply that of loss of security without warrant and prerequisites.