The first *is* a little hokey. As to the second, they say right there that they're neutral on the matter, and it's not as though the issue is going unaddressed. *Were* this the only problem, I would say the appropriate solution - given your apparent views - would be to join both the ACLU and the NRA.
In some cases, I think that the ACLU taking too extreme a position is valuable. For instance, in the several cases regarding posting of the Ten Commandments, the fact that they brought cases on both sides of reasonable let the Supreme Court speak *much* clearer on the matter, as to what is and isn't acceptable.
I think overall the ACLU is valuable, and the best thing to do is to *be* a member, and when they do stupid things, write an angry letter and lower your donation.
You are not permitted under section 117 to make a backup copy of other material on a computer's hard drive, such as other copyrighted works that have been downloaded (e.g., music, films).
In other words, the position of the U.S. copyright office is that if you've purchased songs on iTunes, you'd better make sure your automated backups don't touch it, or you're breaking the law. Hard disk failure? Purchase it again. Probably shouldn't even store it on a RAID.
... I'm strongly inclined to believe the courts would disagree, though of course IANAL.
Or the specific enumerated powers of the president to be commander in chief in times of war.
On the contrary, it's a fairly vague statement. It assigns a role, but what powers come with that role are left to interpretation. It is ridiculous to assert that this power is unchecked.
Incidentally, the President is always Commander-In-Chief of the Army and the Navy (and by extension the Air Force). The limitation to a time of war applies only to the militias of the various States (which means the National Guard).
But you have to remember, this isn't my argument. This is what I understand the president's to be. I am not prepared to argue the legitimacy of it and I don't wish to.
Wait, what? So your position is that the president *making an argument* is sufficient, regardless of the merit of that argument? Forgive me if I hesitate in jumping on the "good little subject" bandwagon, there. I think it imperative that we argue these points, in pursuit of both the proper solution in the matter at hand and a better understanding of how our government can work, does work, and should work.
So, far, All the opposition to it totally disregards the president's position as if he has never stated it.
That is completely false. Perhaps a case could be made that this is done in situations like Democratic campaign rallies, although I've not followed those so closely as to know one way or the other. The administration's position, however, was listened to and analyzed when Gonzales gave testimony on the matter before the Senate. I have certainly given it consideration.
Ironically, this isn't the first time key elements are forgotten because a point the opposition wants to make depends on it. Now, it the powers of commander in chief, and the declaration to use any force necessary does give the president the powers to do what he claims, everything you brought up, while being a valid point, doesn't apply in that specific situation and set of circumstances.
There is a legal principle which states that a more specific bill takes precedence over a more general bill. Authorization is broadly granted to the President to use "all necessary and appropriate force". When it comes to wiretapping, he is elsewhere rather more explicitly forbidden from engaging in certain activities. Further, I do not think it at all unreasonable to stipulate that uses of force (if that is what wiretapping is) which are expressly prohibited by statute are deemed "inappropriate".
And something to remember, The president's position isn't that he can do whatever he wants. He has stated that it is specific situations were this power or obligation comes into play. I don't think your grasping that with the generalizations in your comments. This isn't a "in general" situation.
It is not the specific claim, but the argument being used. If 1) the President has extraordinary powers in certain situations and 2) the President decides which powers those are and 3) the President determines the situations in which they apply, then effectively we have an unchecked executive, and therefore a recipe for tyranny. This is not to say that we are living under a tyranny presently; this is simply to say that we must mind the precedent we set.
You cannot charge a law as unconstitutional or anything unless it directly effect you in taking a right away. If congress passes a law that says all farmers must become roman catholic, if you are not a farmer, you cannot fight this law in court unless your doing so on the behalf of a farmer. In this same idea, the president can't fight a law the prohibits something he has a right to do if what he says is true, unless he is attempting to violate it. In this same sense, when he said that one the program was ineffective after it was headline news so there wasn't enough advantage in continuing it, he is effected by the law. So he isn't going to fight it.
I do not understand what you are saying here. Please clarify.
I think you are taking it further then the situation requires it. The president claiming he had powers from the constitution under certain circumstances to do something congress has passed a law that restricted this ability is directly a conflict between congress and the president. Congress could pass a law tomorrow saying th president doesn't need a warrant from the FISA court to do the same things as long as he reported it like he was doing and it would still stand constitutional muster. So this is specifically about congress placing restriction on the president.
No, this is not about Congress placing restriction on the President. This is about Congress defining a restriction which is placed on the President by the Fourth Amendment. It's "vague statement in Constitution" in one corner, versus "vague statement in the Constitution" + statute in the other. Should the Fourth amendment really not do it for you, take the executive using funds provided by Congress for things which Congress has forbidden, or the explicitly enumerated power of the congress to make rules governing the armed forces.
Well, I wish this would go to the courts. The problem is, you have to feel to have a right that is protected by the constitution in order to disregard a law, then they prosecute you for this violation and you argue your side in court.
This much is true. An implication you make here, however, is not. The Presidency does *not* convey rights. It conveys powers.
Seeing how the justice department was involved in making the decisions to violate this, they seem to believe the right was there too and won't prosecute.
Bush's new justice department, yes. Those serving at the time reportedly threatened to resign over it.
Now, congress will move in and it might goto the courts, but at this stage, the courts will likely side with the president anyways. And I think they will do this to avoid a crisis like with the New Deal and how congress got a whole new set of powers in regulating interstate commerce.
As to your presumption of the position of the court, I think it better to read the law as it is written, and let the courts prove us wrong if they feel they need to. I think it quite inappropriate to base our interpretation of the law upon our assumptions of political wrangling on the part of the courts.
Following a tangent... Congress has always had the power to regulate interstate commerce. It is explicitly provided in the Constitution. What happened here (and I agree it was ridiculous) was a broadening of the interpretation of that clause to include... just about anything. This is not necessarily any argument for a more powerful executive. There are a number of power relationships in our system, the two key ones here being that between the executive and the legislative, and that between the people and the federal government. How we deal with the first effects the second, and it is the second which I eye with greater concern. This claim of powers by the executive shifts power away from the Congress, 'tis true, but also away from the people. The appropriate remedy is to address the bloat in the role of Congress in ways that reduce the power of the federal government as a whole.
This is a direct action by a government agency to prosecute an elected official. It doesn't seem to be the same scenario of you at your employment. At your employment, most states are at will and then there are a few government protected reasons for dismissal but if they fire you for the wrong reasons, you have recourse with lawsuits and unemployment and all. The president can only be removed from office in one particular way, for a small set of reasons in comparisons. And in order to set those reasons in motion, he has to be accused of violating a law of a serious nature. And for this, I don't think the two are comparable.
I agree, and as I mentioned I think a presumption of innocence is quite reasonable in cases of impeachment. My point (not as c
I'm not so sure I would distinguish between the two so differently. Both are along the same lines of defying an act of congress.
That is because you are drawing the wrong line. In the relationship between Congress and the President, there is little difference between the two. In the relationship between the government and the people, the one constrains the government where the other prevents the government from constraining itself. A lot in the constitution is somewhat open to interpretation. I feel safe in assuming that when it was drafted, its authors weren't thinking that the problem of previous governments had been insufficient power in the hands of the government.
No, it is perfectly relevant. although the scenario was switched to add sort of a straw man to the argument. I really wanted to see if you would buckle under pressure. It seems that why only half doing so, you have separated that half from keeping in the same position on the situation. I think this is good but not necessarily correct. And this distinguishes you from all of the people who say fry bush because they hate him and this is just another excuse to fester that hate.
Well, um, thank you.
You must be confused, that wasn't an attack, that was leading with an explanation into the president's position on why he did it.
It was fairly heavily ad hominem. There were certainly some valid points buried in there, which I thought I'd addressed.
And again that position is that in certain circumstances, certain obligations and powers come to the president by the constitution which is the highest law in the land and any law stopping this from happening under these specific conditions cannot be enforced. So the president is claiming the very same thing that give congress power also stops that power from interfering with his duties under certain circumstances. He also feels those circumstances were meet on this.
And the only way in which our government maintains any protection to our liberties is if "the President feels" is insufficient grounds to strip from us our Constitutionally protected rights.
Right or wrong, he should at least get the same innocent until proved guilty like the rest of the country is supposed to have.
This is false. We are not talking about whether the president goes to prison. We are talking about whether he keeps his job. I have no necessary presumption of innocence in my employment. That said, I don't at all think it an unreasonable thing to grant. Of course, from my reading of it, what he has openly admitted to is in direct violation of the law, and further testimony under oath by several members of his cabinet confirms that these actions were taken. You don't establish, before going to trial, that the law is Constitutional. In criminal proceedings, this is achieved on appeal. In this case, it would have to come as a part of the Impeachment process, but it certainly isn't something that needs to be established before the issue is pursued - it is only through such deliberation that we will come to a conclusion.
And my post was about his claims having some merit.
In that there is something of an argument to be made, I agree. I don't agree that this argument actually has merit.
Certainly you would agree that if congress passed a law saying only it could select the president's advisers or the next supreme court judges, that law wouldn't be enforceable. Why? because the constitution says it is the president's job not congress's. So, what I am saying is, why is it any different on this one issue?
It is different on this issue because the law in question was made to address an ambiguity in the Constitution. The Constitution does not enumerate the powers of the president in his role as Commander In Chief, we are left to infer them from the rest of the text, and doubtless refine our interpretation from experience. The Fourth Amendment to the
What if the law was unjust? I mean what if the law was black have to ride in the back of the bus and can never own property? Would you be just as made for the president violating a law?
Are we talking about the president failing to *enforce* such a law, or *violating* such a law? If the latter, I would certainly not be mad. I would cheer - but I would still say they should be jailed for it. They should not be impeached, however, as it is not a crime of the office, but one any of us could commit with the same effect.
Refusal to enforce a law, it should be clear, is a different matter entirely - roughly equivalent to the pardon. If we wish to digress into when it is and isn't appropriate and legal, this is fine, but is not relevant to the matter at hand. It is something which I haven't come to a clear conclusion on myself.
Now, the president seems to think it has a constitutional obligation and the authority to violate those laws in much the same way he would be able to violate a law that said redheaded jews must have abortions or congress could pass a law with 25 votes and the president doesn't need to sign it anymore.
And it is precisely this interpretation that we need to refute. The President does not have a free hand simply because he shouts "DEFENSE!", which is fundamentally the argument being made by the administration. To allow this is to live in a dictatorship, and it must be rejected in the strongest terms. Note that this *is* a political disagreement, and if that is all then removal from office is appropriate but subsequent charges should not be pressed. If abuses are found, of course, then he should be held responsible for them.
Well, that or you don't even know it. You would be surprised at how many people bash bush and don't even know his first name let along his claimed justifications for whatever actions. But seriously, how much of this disdain is pure party politics instead actually rebellion of the facts. And do you know the facts surrounding this case?
Your post generally raises an issue which needed to be addressed - which I hope I have done satisfactorily. This type of ad hominem attack is unnecessary. I recognize that this is Slashdot, but let's try and elevate the level of discourse so far as we can, shall we?
To take your question at face value, yes, I am quite aware of the facts surrounding the matter, as I've been following it closely from the outset, including watching the relevant testimony - many, many hours of it, along with reading the relevant court cases and bits of statute. All of this is, of course, unimportant - I am not making an argument from authority; my conclusions, I believe, are well founded, and I intend to argue them appropriately. If you've questions or problems with my argument, do raise them.
While this is true, and important, its relevancy is weaker than implied. Conviction on articles of impeachment is a separate process from the filing of criminal charges, and there isn't a pardon for this process.
There is also the limitation that while we can impeach for criminal reasons, we can't impeach based on unworthiness.
This is not quite true.
You can impeach the President and Vice President only for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," which is a subset of criminal offenses. Personally, I interpret this to mean offenses related to the office. If it's a crime that anyone could commit with the same effect, then criminal charges when they leave office are the appropriate remedy, and *not* impeachment. Regardless, you are correct to say that it must, in the first place, be criminal.
You can impeach other members of the administration because they smelled funny one Tuesday afternoon.
You can't pardon for an impeachment. You can only pardon for a criminal offense. You can still be removed from office, even if you are pardoned for the offense itself - it only means you won't be sitting in jail afterward.
And the phrase "President Pelosi" is why we would see Cheney step down and Bush appoint a clean VP - a la Nixon, Agnew, and Ford.
In any event, I am far more worried about the precedent than I am about the damage one crazy old man can do in the time remaining after the impeachment process. The President has knowingly used the machinery of government against American citizens in direct defiance of law. If that is allowed to stand, we are not a nation of laws.... as for the Subject, did I really type that? I must be more tired than I'd thought...
You can buy a dishwasher-safe keyboard, per the suggestion in the original post. Alternatively, you can use one of the three or four other keyboards you have lying around. Should you have no unused keyboards around the house, purchasing another regular keyboard to use until the first dries (and in case of failure in the experiment) would be lots cheaper than purchasing a waterproof keyboard, presently. Another option is to pop the keys off and just wash those.
Now, the requisite jokes...
Clearly you haven't seen my toilet seat.
Hmm... my laptop keyboard is getting pretty grimey...
Of course, releasing the code and getting in line with the license terms *may* be a cheaper way out of that sort of situation, and likely to cause fewer hard feelings.
You missed the point. As my plain English explanation was apparently unclear, let me formalize it a bit.
We have 2 compilers, C1 and C2, and the source to one compiler, call it S (it may or may not be the source to C1 or C2, this is immaterial).
Let us refer to compilation by a compiler with simple function-application notation. That is to say, C1(S) will be the compilation of S by C1.
You point out that C1(S) is not going to be bitwise equivalent to C2(S). I stated this.
C1(S) is, however, going to be *functionally* equivalent to C2(S), presuming they are C1 and C2 are accurate implementations, as they compile the same code. That is to say, a correct compilation of the same code must *do* the same thing, even if it does it in different ways.
C1(S) and C2(S) thus will *output* the same results when fed the same input. This is *quite* distinct from C1 and C2 outputting the same results for the same input.
That is to say, (C1(S))(S) is bitwise equivalent to (C2(S3))(S3) if and only if either C1 and C2 are clean or C1 and C2 have been tampered with in precisely the same way.
The likelihood of tampering being identical will decrease with more disparate histories of the compilers in question, and the technique can also be extended over any number of compiler binaries.
Trusting trust, with respect to compilers, was solved a while ago. Provided you have the source for one compiler, compile it on two unrelated compilers. This gives you two binaries which are very probably bitwise different, but should be functionally identical if no one is doing anything fishy. Compile the original source with each of these. The same source through (functionally) the same compiler should produce bitwise identical results. This is easy to verify. If they are the same, then either *both* original compilers have been tampered with *in the same way*, or the result is a true compilation of the source. If that's not thorough enough for you, pick further unrelated compilers, and more of them. You can get the probability of tampering down vanishingly small. Note that it doesn't matter how old/obscure/slow/pessimizing the compilers in question are, as long as they correctly support the language.
What I would like to see, and it seems that a sufficient refinement of this type of technology could allow it, is a near-zero latency connection between my laptop and my computer. I use my laptop largely as a dumb-terminal anyway, and not having to worry about having a connection/other people's networks, etc sounds lovely, particularly if I've got the bandwidth to do nice things. As an added bonus, we get to free up some amount of the broadcast spectrum for things that are actually broadcasting.
Anyone with more education about the technology know what will get in the way of such?
Consider, if you will, a bill that effectively places *all* software under GPL-like terms.
This means that the author no longer has much in the way of control over his work. The very term "copyright," referring to who has the right to copy the work, is no longer applicable - everyone does.
The article would have us believe that one of two things must be true. Either the above is simply "copyright reform" (which notion seems, to me, absurd), or no one who supports such a bill could support the GPL.
The fact that the GPL uses present tools to accomplish it's work does not mean one has to support those tools if a better solution comes along.
(as a side note, the above is not a position I hold, just an example)
When I said that it is something that evolution can't explain, this is not indicative of flaw in the theory, in the way that it would if, say, human skeletons were found dating from the Jurassic. It is simply outside the scope of the theory. The fact that gravity tells us little about the burning of gunpowder doesn't detract from it's accuracy in predicting the path of a bullet once it's left the gun.
The theory of evolution makes verifiable predictions about what we expect to see in the world around us, both on the micro-level where we can actually do experiments as well as the macro-level where we've on many occasions thought to look for something or question the accepted view because we'd predict evolution to lead to a different outcome - and this is typically borne out (color vision in bees, for example). Saying evolution hasn't been going on for the past many millions of years leaves you with a lot of evidence to explain away. We do not take *evolution* on faith.
Now, given evolution, the question still stands how life came to be.
At this point, I need to add the caveat that I am speaking from my present understanding of the science, and may well be missing recent developments, but it does reflect my own "beliefs" and I would assume those of others. The state of our scientific knowledge of the world is always expanding - that's what science does.
Presently, there is not much in the way of evidence as to *how* life, prior to evolution, came to be. This does not mean, however, that it is a matter of faith to say that life *did* come to be. Look around. We are. There are a number of theories. To choose one would be faith - be it God, or chance, RNA-world type theories, or an interesting notion involving evolution between forms of mud which I recall reading about. There isn't enough evidence to make a determination. What evolution *does* do - in our explanation of life as we know it - is provide a way of getting from any of those starting points to where we are today, and it leaves a lot less explaining to be done.
While 52% is an easy number to arrive at, it's also wrong. That 52% includes those well educated in science who do not have faith, and I expect both camps have some members who are not well educated in science and do not have faith. For that matter, I expect there *are* some who buy into evolution for reasons of faith without understanding it, though we come up to a question on what, precisely, faith means.
All of that, of course, doesn't kill the humor - just a random nitpick.
Slashdot Mirror
The first *is* a little hokey. As to the second, they say right there that they're neutral on the matter, and it's not as though the issue is going unaddressed. *Were* this the only problem, I would say the appropriate solution - given your apparent views - would be to join both the ACLU and the NRA.
In some cases, I think that the ACLU taking too extreme a position is valuable. For instance, in the several cases regarding posting of the Ten Commandments, the fact that they brought cases on both sides of reasonable let the Supreme Court speak *much* clearer on the matter, as to what is and isn't acceptable.
I think overall the ACLU is valuable, and the best thing to do is to *be* a member, and when they do stupid things, write an angry letter and lower your donation.
Lest they be kidnapped by moblins...
...
... I'm strongly inclined to believe the courts would disagree, though of course IANAL.
You are not permitted under section 117 to make a backup copy of other material on a computer's hard drive, such as other copyrighted works that have been downloaded (e.g., music, films).
In other words, the position of the U.S. copyright office is that if you've purchased songs on iTunes, you'd better make sure your automated backups don't touch it, or you're breaking the law. Hard disk failure? Purchase it again. Probably shouldn't even store it on a RAID.
Or the specific enumerated powers of the president to be commander in chief in times of war.
On the contrary, it's a fairly vague statement. It assigns a role, but what powers come with that role are left to interpretation. It is ridiculous to assert that this power is unchecked.
Incidentally, the President is always Commander-In-Chief of the Army and the Navy (and by extension the Air Force). The limitation to a time of war applies only to the militias of the various States (which means the National Guard).
But you have to remember, this isn't my argument. This is what I understand the president's to be. I am not prepared to argue the legitimacy of it and I don't wish to.
Wait, what? So your position is that the president *making an argument* is sufficient, regardless of the merit of that argument? Forgive me if I hesitate in jumping on the "good little subject" bandwagon, there. I think it imperative that we argue these points, in pursuit of both the proper solution in the matter at hand and a better understanding of how our government can work, does work, and should work.
So, far, All the opposition to it totally disregards the president's position as if he has never stated it.
That is completely false. Perhaps a case could be made that this is done in situations like Democratic campaign rallies, although I've not followed those so closely as to know one way or the other. The administration's position, however, was listened to and analyzed when Gonzales gave testimony on the matter before the Senate. I have certainly given it consideration.
Ironically, this isn't the first time key elements are forgotten because a point the opposition wants to make depends on it. Now, it the powers of commander in chief, and the declaration to use any force necessary does give the president the powers to do what he claims, everything you brought up, while being a valid point, doesn't apply in that specific situation and set of circumstances.
There is a legal principle which states that a more specific bill takes precedence over a more general bill. Authorization is broadly granted to the President to use "all necessary and appropriate force". When it comes to wiretapping, he is elsewhere rather more explicitly forbidden from engaging in certain activities. Further, I do not think it at all unreasonable to stipulate that uses of force (if that is what wiretapping is) which are expressly prohibited by statute are deemed "inappropriate".
And something to remember, The president's position isn't that he can do whatever he wants. He has stated that it is specific situations were this power or obligation comes into play. I don't think your grasping that with the generalizations in your comments. This isn't a "in general" situation.
It is not the specific claim, but the argument being used. If 1) the President has extraordinary powers in certain situations and 2) the President decides which powers those are and 3) the President determines the situations in which they apply, then effectively we have an unchecked executive, and therefore a recipe for tyranny. This is not to say that we are living under a tyranny presently; this is simply to say that we must mind the precedent we set.
You cannot charge a law as unconstitutional or anything unless it directly effect you in taking a right away. If congress passes a law that says all farmers must become roman catholic, if you are not a farmer, you cannot fight this law in court unless your doing so on the behalf of a farmer. In this same idea, the president can't fight a law the prohibits something he has a right to do if what he says is true, unless he is attempting to violate it. In this same sense, when he said that one the program was ineffective after it was headline news so there wasn't enough advantage in continuing it, he is effected by the law. So he isn't going to fight it.
I do not understand what you are saying here. Please clarify.
I think you are taking it further then the situation requires it. The president claiming he had powers from the constitution under certain circumstances to do something congress has passed a law that restricted this ability is directly a conflict between congress and the president. Congress could pass a law tomorrow saying th president doesn't need a warrant from the FISA court to do the same things as long as he reported it like he was doing and it would still stand constitutional muster. So this is specifically about congress placing restriction on the president.
No, this is not about Congress placing restriction on the President. This is about Congress defining a restriction which is placed on the President by the Fourth Amendment. It's "vague statement in Constitution" in one corner, versus "vague statement in the Constitution" + statute in the other. Should the Fourth amendment really not do it for you, take the executive using funds provided by Congress for things which Congress has forbidden, or the explicitly enumerated power of the congress to make rules governing the armed forces.
Well, I wish this would go to the courts. The problem is, you have to feel to have a right that is protected by the constitution in order to disregard a law, then they prosecute you for this violation and you argue your side in court.
This much is true. An implication you make here, however, is not. The Presidency does *not* convey rights. It conveys powers.
Seeing how the justice department was involved in making the decisions to violate this, they seem to believe the right was there too and won't prosecute. Bush's new justice department, yes. Those serving at the time reportedly threatened to resign over it. Now, congress will move in and it might goto the courts, but at this stage, the courts will likely side with the president anyways. And I think they will do this to avoid a crisis like with the New Deal and how congress got a whole new set of powers in regulating interstate commerce. As to your presumption of the position of the court, I think it better to read the law as it is written, and let the courts prove us wrong if they feel they need to. I think it quite inappropriate to base our interpretation of the law upon our assumptions of political wrangling on the part of the courts.
Following a tangent... Congress has always had the power to regulate interstate commerce. It is explicitly provided in the Constitution. What happened here (and I agree it was ridiculous) was a broadening of the interpretation of that clause to include... just about anything. This is not necessarily any argument for a more powerful executive. There are a number of power relationships in our system, the two key ones here being that between the executive and the legislative, and that between the people and the federal government. How we deal with the first effects the second, and it is the second which I eye with greater concern. This claim of powers by the executive shifts power away from the Congress, 'tis true, but also away from the people. The appropriate remedy is to address the bloat in the role of Congress in ways that reduce the power of the federal government as a whole.
This is a direct action by a government agency to prosecute an elected official. It doesn't seem to be the same scenario of you at your employment. At your employment, most states are at will and then there are a few government protected reasons for dismissal but if they fire you for the wrong reasons, you have recourse with lawsuits and unemployment and all. The president can only be removed from office in one particular way, for a small set of reasons in comparisons. And in order to set those reasons in motion, he has to be accused of violating a law of a serious nature. And for this, I don't think the two are comparable.
I agree, and as I mentioned I think a presumption of innocence is quite reasonable in cases of impeachment. My point (not as c
That is because you are drawing the wrong line. In the relationship between Congress and the President, there is little difference between the two. In the relationship between the government and the people, the one constrains the government where the other prevents the government from constraining itself. A lot in the constitution is somewhat open to interpretation. I feel safe in assuming that when it was drafted, its authors weren't thinking that the problem of previous governments had been insufficient power in the hands of the government.
No, it is perfectly relevant. although the scenario was switched to add sort of a straw man to the argument. I really wanted to see if you would buckle under pressure. It seems that why only half doing so, you have separated that half from keeping in the same position on the situation. I think this is good but not necessarily correct. And this distinguishes you from all of the people who say fry bush because they hate him and this is just another excuse to fester that hate.
Well, um, thank you.
You must be confused, that wasn't an attack, that was leading with an explanation into the president's position on why he did it.
It was fairly heavily ad hominem. There were certainly some valid points buried in there, which I thought I'd addressed.
And again that position is that in certain circumstances, certain obligations and powers come to the president by the constitution which is the highest law in the land and any law stopping this from happening under these specific conditions cannot be enforced. So the president is claiming the very same thing that give congress power also stops that power from interfering with his duties under certain circumstances. He also feels those circumstances were meet on this.
And the only way in which our government maintains any protection to our liberties is if "the President feels" is insufficient grounds to strip from us our Constitutionally protected rights.
Right or wrong, he should at least get the same innocent until proved guilty like the rest of the country is supposed to have.
This is false. We are not talking about whether the president goes to prison. We are talking about whether he keeps his job. I have no necessary presumption of innocence in my employment. That said, I don't at all think it an unreasonable thing to grant. Of course, from my reading of it, what he has openly admitted to is in direct violation of the law, and further testimony under oath by several members of his cabinet confirms that these actions were taken. You don't establish, before going to trial, that the law is Constitutional. In criminal proceedings, this is achieved on appeal. In this case, it would have to come as a part of the Impeachment process, but it certainly isn't something that needs to be established before the issue is pursued - it is only through such deliberation that we will come to a conclusion.
And my post was about his claims having some merit.
In that there is something of an argument to be made, I agree. I don't agree that this argument actually has merit.
Certainly you would agree that if congress passed a law saying only it could select the president's advisers or the next supreme court judges, that law wouldn't be enforceable. Why? because the constitution says it is the president's job not congress's. So, what I am saying is, why is it any different on this one issue?
It is different on this issue because the law in question was made to address an ambiguity in the Constitution. The Constitution does not enumerate the powers of the president in his role as Commander In Chief, we are left to infer them from the rest of the text, and doubtless refine our interpretation from experience. The Fourth Amendment to the
Are we talking about the president failing to *enforce* such a law, or *violating* such a law? If the latter, I would certainly not be mad. I would cheer - but I would still say they should be jailed for it. They should not be impeached, however, as it is not a crime of the office, but one any of us could commit with the same effect.
Refusal to enforce a law, it should be clear, is a different matter entirely - roughly equivalent to the pardon. If we wish to digress into when it is and isn't appropriate and legal, this is fine, but is not relevant to the matter at hand. It is something which I haven't come to a clear conclusion on myself.
Now, the president seems to think it has a constitutional obligation and the authority to violate those laws in much the same way he would be able to violate a law that said redheaded jews must have abortions or congress could pass a law with 25 votes and the president doesn't need to sign it anymore.
And it is precisely this interpretation that we need to refute. The President does not have a free hand simply because he shouts "DEFENSE!", which is fundamentally the argument being made by the administration. To allow this is to live in a dictatorship, and it must be rejected in the strongest terms. Note that this *is* a political disagreement, and if that is all then removal from office is appropriate but subsequent charges should not be pressed. If abuses are found, of course, then he should be held responsible for them.
Well, that or you don't even know it. You would be surprised at how many people bash bush and don't even know his first name let along his claimed justifications for whatever actions. But seriously, how much of this disdain is pure party politics instead actually rebellion of the facts. And do you know the facts surrounding this case?
Your post generally raises an issue which needed to be addressed - which I hope I have done satisfactorily. This type of ad hominem attack is unnecessary. I recognize that this is Slashdot, but let's try and elevate the level of discourse so far as we can, shall we?
To take your question at face value, yes, I am quite aware of the facts surrounding the matter, as I've been following it closely from the outset, including watching the relevant testimony - many, many hours of it, along with reading the relevant court cases and bits of statute. All of this is, of course, unimportant - I am not making an argument from authority; my conclusions, I believe, are well founded, and I intend to argue them appropriately. If you've questions or problems with my argument, do raise them.
While this is true, and important, its relevancy is weaker than implied. Conviction on articles of impeachment is a separate process from the filing of criminal charges, and there isn't a pardon for this process.
There is also the limitation that while we can impeach for criminal reasons, we can't impeach based on unworthiness.
This is not quite true.
You can impeach the President and Vice President only for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," which is a subset of criminal offenses. Personally, I interpret this to mean offenses related to the office. If it's a crime that anyone could commit with the same effect, then criminal charges when they leave office are the appropriate remedy, and *not* impeachment. Regardless, you are correct to say that it must, in the first place, be criminal.
You can impeach other members of the administration because they smelled funny one Tuesday afternoon.
You can't pardon for an impeachment. You can only pardon for a criminal offense. You can still be removed from office, even if you are pardoned for the offense itself - it only means you won't be sitting in jail afterward.
And the phrase "President Pelosi" is why we would see Cheney step down and Bush appoint a clean VP - a la Nixon, Agnew, and Ford.
... as for the Subject, did I really type that? I must be more tired than I'd thought...
In any event, I am far more worried about the precedent than I am about the damage one crazy old man can do in the time remaining after the impeachment process. The President has knowingly used the machinery of government against American citizens in direct defiance of law. If that is allowed to stand, we are not a nation of laws.
Unfortunately, impeachment starts with the *House* Judiciary Committee... but at least this might get them moving.
You can buy a dishwasher-safe keyboard, per the suggestion in the original post. Alternatively, you can use one of the three or four other keyboards you have lying around. Should you have no unused keyboards around the house, purchasing another regular keyboard to use until the first dries (and in case of failure in the experiment) would be lots cheaper than purchasing a waterproof keyboard, presently. Another option is to pop the keys off and just wash those.
Now, the requisite jokes...
Clearly you haven't seen my toilet seat.
Hmm... my laptop keyboard is getting pretty grimey...
Of course, releasing the code and getting in line with the license terms *may* be a cheaper way out of that sort of situation, and likely to cause fewer hard feelings.
You missed the point. As my plain English explanation was apparently unclear, let me formalize it a bit.
We have 2 compilers, C1 and C2, and the source to one compiler, call it S (it may or may not be the source to C1 or C2, this is immaterial).
Let us refer to compilation by a compiler with simple function-application notation. That is to say, C1(S) will be the compilation of S by C1.
You point out that C1(S) is not going to be bitwise equivalent to C2(S). I stated this.
C1(S) is, however, going to be *functionally* equivalent to C2(S), presuming they are C1 and C2 are accurate implementations, as they compile the same code. That is to say, a correct compilation of the same code must *do* the same thing, even if it does it in different ways.
C1(S) and C2(S) thus will *output* the same results when fed the same input. This is *quite* distinct from C1 and C2 outputting the same results for the same input.
That is to say, (C1(S))(S) is bitwise equivalent to (C2(S3))(S3) if and only if either C1 and C2 are clean or C1 and C2 have been tampered with in precisely the same way.
The likelihood of tampering being identical will decrease with more disparate histories of the compilers in question, and the technique can also be extended over any number of compiler binaries.
I'm sure it would either be interesting or not.
More interesting would be msg.write(diary); Ties into a recent xkcd...
Trusting trust, with respect to compilers, was solved a while ago. Provided you have the source for one compiler, compile it on two unrelated compilers. This gives you two binaries which are very probably bitwise different, but should be functionally identical if no one is doing anything fishy. Compile the original source with each of these. The same source through (functionally) the same compiler should produce bitwise identical results. This is easy to verify. If they are the same, then either *both* original compilers have been tampered with *in the same way*, or the result is a true compilation of the source. If that's not thorough enough for you, pick further unrelated compilers, and more of them. You can get the probability of tampering down vanishingly small. Note that it doesn't matter how old/obscure/slow/pessimizing the compilers in question are, as long as they correctly support the language.
Funny, it's not all that apparent...
(... no actual offense meant, of course)
What I would like to see, and it seems that a sufficient refinement of this type of technology could allow it, is a near-zero latency connection between my laptop and my computer. I use my laptop largely as a dumb-terminal anyway, and not having to worry about having a connection/other people's networks, etc sounds lovely, particularly if I've got the bandwidth to do nice things. As an added bonus, we get to free up some amount of the broadcast spectrum for things that are actually broadcasting. Anyone with more education about the technology know what will get in the way of such?
"It's called highlight/ctrl-c, people!" ... not where I come from.
Consider, if you will, a bill that effectively places *all* software under GPL-like terms. This means that the author no longer has much in the way of control over his work. The very term "copyright," referring to who has the right to copy the work, is no longer applicable - everyone does. The article would have us believe that one of two things must be true. Either the above is simply "copyright reform" (which notion seems, to me, absurd), or no one who supports such a bill could support the GPL. The fact that the GPL uses present tools to accomplish it's work does not mean one has to support those tools if a better solution comes along. (as a side note, the above is not a position I hold, just an example)
Err... copyright doesn't prevent reverse engineering. That's a matter of patents.
When I said that it is something that evolution can't explain, this is not indicative of flaw in the theory, in the way that it would if, say, human skeletons were found dating from the Jurassic. It is simply outside the scope of the theory. The fact that gravity tells us little about the burning of gunpowder doesn't detract from it's accuracy in predicting the path of a bullet once it's left the gun. The theory of evolution makes verifiable predictions about what we expect to see in the world around us, both on the micro-level where we can actually do experiments as well as the macro-level where we've on many occasions thought to look for something or question the accepted view because we'd predict evolution to lead to a different outcome - and this is typically borne out (color vision in bees, for example). Saying evolution hasn't been going on for the past many millions of years leaves you with a lot of evidence to explain away. We do not take *evolution* on faith. Now, given evolution, the question still stands how life came to be. At this point, I need to add the caveat that I am speaking from my present understanding of the science, and may well be missing recent developments, but it does reflect my own "beliefs" and I would assume those of others. The state of our scientific knowledge of the world is always expanding - that's what science does. Presently, there is not much in the way of evidence as to *how* life, prior to evolution, came to be. This does not mean, however, that it is a matter of faith to say that life *did* come to be. Look around. We are. There are a number of theories. To choose one would be faith - be it God, or chance, RNA-world type theories, or an interesting notion involving evolution between forms of mud which I recall reading about. There isn't enough evidence to make a determination. What evolution *does* do - in our explanation of life as we know it - is provide a way of getting from any of those starting points to where we are today, and it leaves a lot less explaining to be done.
While 52% is an easy number to arrive at, it's also wrong. That 52% includes those well educated in science who do not have faith, and I expect both camps have some members who are not well educated in science and do not have faith. For that matter, I expect there *are* some who buy into evolution for reasons of faith without understanding it, though we come up to a question on what, precisely, faith means. All of that, of course, doesn't kill the humor - just a random nitpick.