"Now spend few minutes thinking how you could shape a tightly sealed envelope with liquid around a disk, and leave a hole for cables without using ice-pick to puncture it. Come on, it's not hard."
Well, no, the disk is inside the bag, you can't shape it around the disk after its been tightly sealed. I'm fairly certain its still possible to seal the thing (we have had waterproofing technology for some time now), but its not as simple as shaping a fluid filled bag around the disk.
Its actually not that hard to believe one skilled worker is worth more than 20 unskilled ones (and no, thats not a condemnation of Indian programmers, there are plenty of of unskilled domestic programmers as well, and most of the skilled Indian ones probably either moved to the States to get paid 20 times as much or already have good jobs). Productivity doesn't scale up just by hiring more workers. Look up the mythical man month for more details.
And if a number of them are particularly unskilled (which is what you are in danger of getting if you just outsource your project to the lowest bidder), you will just end up with a mess 20 times worse than if you hired only one.
"And, if an airline permits this, then flyers can choose what risk level they want. People get on public transportation with people who are potentially packing knives, firearms and explosives as well."
Ok, try getting on a train or bus with something that looks like an explosive and see what happens (and whatever you do, don't tell them I told you to do so).
""[...] What, do you think they are trying to prevent Al Queda from filming training videos in the Big Apple?"
Precisely."
That was actually sarcasm. No, they are not trying to stop that.
"Public videography and photography are being banned all over the country, presumably to prevent casing of "sensitive sites" and "police procedures.""
The law doesn't ban public photography, despite the misleading/. headline. I see that despite your claims otherwise, you have yet to RTFA (and remember to read the whole thing, not just the first few paragraphs).
"Yes. It's quite obvious that the two major parties are quite alike, though not always for the same reasons."
So they have polarized opinions regarding the Bush administrations response to 9-11, and that makes them alike? Ok then...
"
(Nice ad hominem.)"
There was no ad hominem. Stop crying.
"The KKK were hailed as heroes among whites everywhere -- ever see Birth of a Nation? Many whites who were against slavery were also very much against miscegenation. The KKK weren't terrorizing anyone who mattered, i.e. the white constituency of policymakers in Washington."
So blacks don't matter? I really don't know how to respond to that...
But trust me, most of the world considers the KKK's actions (and they did a lot more than just star in a crappy turn of the century movie) terrorist in nature. And the result of those actions were that people were unwilling to fight against segregation.
"The Constitution permits suspension of Habeas Corpus in times of civil unrest -- black letter. So I have no problem with Lincoln"
The Supreme Court disagrees.
"
(Nice strawman.)"
There was no strawman. You claimed (and I quote) "AFAIK, no alleged KKK were thrown into a Gitmo-like facility, there was not RealID-like legislation, and no warrantless taps were submitted as evidence in federal civil rights cases". Thats clearly false. The US government did engage in similar and much more extreme actions during and after the civil war before giving up and leaving the South to the Klan at the end of Reconstruction. If you believe otherwise, you are just as dumb as Al Gore when he claimed the government didn't violate anyone's civil rights during World War 2.
" My point is that a $500 billion dollar war has yielded even fewer results."
If you expect equal returns on all investments, I can't do anything to help you.
"And, it would be irrational to spend $500 billion on cancer, while ignoring heart disease altogether."
So you are saying traffic safety has been ignored? I'll have to remember that next time I get pulled over, "You can't give me a ticket officer, the government is ignoring traffic safety and thus you don't exist".
" Governments have killed more of their own people over the course of history than all the wars ever put together. This is why the Bill of Rights exists, and should be defended ardently."
But NOT with paranoia.
" You're authoritarian because you think that abridging rights is a palatable solution to a non-existent problem."
Now thats a strawman. I never said terrorism is non-existent (though if you think that, there isn't anything else I can say), and my statement was rights are not being abridged, despite your paranoid delusions.
"OTOH, I don't think there should be seat belt laws for adults."
I'm assuming because they only protect the people making the choice on whether or not to wear the seatbelt. Well, bringing potential weapons or explosives can effect people other than the ones carrying them on.
" I have, and I agree with the NYCLU's assessment"
So you agree that the law is mostly acceptable?
" the law goes far beyond preventing disturbances and blocked traffic. Why? Because of an irrational fear of terrorism."
Not only have you yet to prove that terrorism influenced these rules (which is going to be difficult considering the rules were even stricter prior to 9-11, which you think is the only terrorist attack that mattered), you have yet to even demonstrate how this could possibly have anything to do with terrorism. What, do you think they are trying to prevent Al Queda from filming training videos in the Big Apple?
" I don't know what that means. In any event, what makes you think I'm liberal, and how does it matter to the correctness of my arguments?"
"Liberal friends in Congress" = members of the Democratic party (who, regardless of your political beliefs, are liberal by definition). They have been arguing for years that the Department of Homeland Security and other protections from terrorist attacks are not adequately funded. Sorry, I assumed you had at least a rudimentary knowledge of politics in America.
"This is disingenuous because 9/11 created a massive shift in public policy and public perception -- no other terrorist attack, including OK city, has done that."
Yeah, its not like the KKK was able to stall civil rights efforts for nearly a century after the conclusion of the civil war through their terrorist actions. What could I have been thinking...
"
According to Wikipedia, ~5000 people died in lynchings from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights legislation of 1968. Interdicting these crimes was far more efficient, and done without abridging rights. AFAIK, no alleged KKK were thrown into a Gitmo-like facility, there was not RealID-like legislation, and no warrantless taps were submitted as evidence in federal civil rights cases."
Wow, you didn't do very well in history class, did you? If you were in the South in the years near the end and following the civil war, you would pray dearly for the rights of detainees in Gitmo. Bush authorized the FBI to get wiretaps for domestic citizens calling suspected terrorists overseas. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus entirely. Bush began two wars against dictatorships using smart weapons that can (for the most part) target individual buildings while leaving nearby others standing. Sherman burned and plundered his way through the south. Bush sent foreign soldiers fighting outside the Geneva convention to a prison in Cuba. Grant sent the US army to the southern states to squash the Klan. The Wikipedia may be good for looking up trivia, but it is not a substitute for an education. But thanks for that number, the total deaths due to terrorism in the US has now doubled to at least 8000 (and remember, many of those who were killed just disappeared and were not found hanging from a tree).
"First, I doubt that driver licensing infrastructure costs $500 billion. "
No, tracking licensed drivers is going to be cheaper than a war. It shouldn't cost half a trillion. And throwing that much money at it won't do shit to help traffic safety. How is that relevant?
"Second, most people fly far more often than go to the DMV."
Oh no, I very much doubt the average American flies more than once a year. And there is no way in hell they fly more than they drive.
"Otherwise, I agree, priorities are ass-backward to bad thinking."
Thats not what I meant. It would be entirely irrational to drop everything we are doing and just concentrate on heart disease because it is the current most common cause of death.
Uh, where? I searched the page for "64" and all I got were a few numbers in the video section. And in the Windows system requirements, all it says is "Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition; or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later". Nothing about 64 bit.
"
* The "whining" is that the gov't is overstepping its bounds. Carry-on size and contents should be up to airlines."
When public safety is in play (as it is in the case of airlines), the government often imposes its own restrictions. Its no different than them requiring your car meet certain safety restrictions before you drive it on public roads.
"Congress has a disturbingly good track record with post-9/11 legislation: Patriot Act, DHS, TSA, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have all been implemented. They require money, and it's been allocated."
Your liberal friends in Congress disagree with you.
"* Stopping police harassment and recovering seized property is a civil tort -- no lawyer provided. This is a real threat to the 1st amendment."
Please just RTFA and then comment on what this law does or does not ban. It is not illegal to snap pictures in public, in fact this law is intended to make that clear (the old rules were a bit more vague). If you are afraid cops are going to knowingly violate the law (btw, that comment I made about the cops getting their information about the law from/. was intended to be sarcastic), then it really doesn't matter what laws they pass, now does it?
"
* 9/11 killed 3000 people. Everything else on US soil has been an order of magnitude less (e.g., OK city), and the total is still less than the Iraq casualties."
Its just very telling that you thought 9-11 was the only terrorist incident in our country's history. And of course if you are going all the way back, you have to account for the many acts committed during the civil and revolutionary wars. None of those attacks killed thousands of people, but there certainly were many of them. The final count will be much more than 3000.
"
Terrorism is much ado about nothing -- more people die every month of auto accidents. And yet, we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on boondoggles, inconvenienced our lives, and chipped away at the Bill of Rights. Does this not matter to you, even as a matter of self-interest?"
Ok, first of all, we have also spent quite a bit of money and gone through many much greater inconveniences (getting a drivers license, obeying the speed limit, waiting in line at the DMV just to get my car registered, etc.) in the name of auto safety, and yet more people still die of cancer. And we spend lots of money and go through many inconveniences in an attempt to fight cancer, while more people still die of heart disease.
Second, you can't judge the effects of something based solely on the number of lives taken. Terrorism isn't about generating a large body count, its about using fear to effect how people behave. That can be either my making the extreme right get paranoid and act out of fear of another terrorist attack, but its just as much making liberals such as yourself get paranoid and think everything the government does (even something as mundane as revising the permit rules for filming in a city) as part of a grand conspiracy to make us into a police state, and that anyone who stands against you must be a neo-Fascist who would take away all your civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.
Ok, I'm going to assume based on the time of that response that the reason that made no sense was that too many drinks had been consumed last night...
Point is, it is illegal to go into someone's house and start taking pictures of them. Its not just that they are free to use force to get rid of you, it is actually illegal to do so. Thus you are limited in how you go about taking pictures of people. If any such restriction (even as minor as these, for the 100th time don't just read the/. headline and assume they are banning all public photography,/. is yellow journalism at its best on issues like this) is a violation of your 1st Amendment rights, then trespassing and privacy laws must also be unconstitutional.
"
* The TSA carry-on policy unjustifiably creates a choice between two inconveniences: playing with your toiletries or checking in luggage. No one has ever demonstrated a mixed fluids bomb. This is hardly in the same class as the choice between not traveling with knives or placing them in checked luggage, as knives are obvious weapons."
Really? Who ever used toenail clippers as a weapon? And McGuyver doesn't count.
We are getting off topic, but stop whining about having to check your non-valuable luggage. Its because of people like you that everyone else on the plane has to sit cramped up with no room. Just to save a few minutes waiting for luggage and the unlikely worry that it might get lost (which of course might happen at any point in your trip).
"
* It takes money and effort to launch a court case. In the meantime, First Amendment rights continue to be abridged by the police.
"
Actually, no it doesn't. The court will provide you with a lawyer, and that is all you need if the cop arrested you because they misread a/. headline.
"* RealID legislation is in fact real, having passed in 2005 as rider to a spending bill. The money for enforcement has been postponed only until 2009, and many states such as California are on board."
Yeah, everything that Congress starts, they finish. I forgot how perfect they were, how silly of me...
"No matter how much it offends your authoritarian sentiments, the lack of outrage is indeed proof that the terrorists have won. "
So the fact that I actually took the time to RTFA and thus know the headline is inaccurate and NYC is not banning public photography means terrorists won? What game did you think they were playing?
"Terrorism has claimed 3000 lives in the entire history of the United States."
Are you under the impression that 9-11 was the only terrorist attack in the history of the United States?
Actually, government agencies can punish you for trespassing on private property as well. Believe it or not, its a crime that the government can prosecute you for.
Sorry if this double posts, something happened to my first one...
"the first ammendment does apply to states through the addition of the 14th. I think you're just looking for a fight."
The First Amendment still doesn't apply. Yes, as I mentioned the 14th does, but please get your constitutional arguments straight before you try to preach what is and is not constitutional.
"we're talking about public places. Please stay on topic."
Where in the constitution (1st Amendment, 14th Amendment, or anywhere else) does it say these freedoms are only valid in public places? Clearly if it doesn't say that and it is unconstitutional to prevent someone from filming out in the street, it is equally unconstitutional to prevent someone from filming in your bathroom. By kicking them out and charging them with trespassing, you are clearly violating their freedom of speech, you fascist pig.
"Obviously and blatantly breaking a law that there could be no doubt they knew all about, because they were MAKING A COMMERCIAL FILM, is not quite the same as "hassling someone for taking a picture"."
I find it amusing how many people are commenting on this story without reading anything but the/. headline. Do you people not know how often stories are misrepresented in/. 'articles'? At least in this case you would suspect you were wrong if you had even read the entire summary (usually they are just as bad as the headline), which means you didn't even get that far. You are starting to remind me of a friend in middle school whom you could tell gullible was written on the ceiling and he would look up, even when we were outside.
For the last time (ok, probably not really the last time, I'm sure I'll be forced to repeat myself over and over here), this law does not make it illegal to snap a picture in public. In fact, it does the exact opposite. The old rules were much more vague, these clarifications are made so that an amateur photographer does not have to worry. Yes, there are some who are worried there are some loopholes which could conceivably still allow the cops to arrest someone under some very specific conditions, and it may be better if they clarify those few aspects of the law, but it is not illegal under these rules to take a picture in a public place.
"When the NSA stops conducting warrantless searches"
They did (well, wiretaps, but I'll forgive you for getting your controversies confused).
"I no longer have to pour my shampoo in cute little bottles to get through airport security"
You don't, just pack them in checked luggage along with your nail clippers and everything else that has been illegal to carry on airlines for years.
"I can peaceably take photos at any public place"
You can, just as long as the cops don't take/. headlines literally without RTFA and think that is really what the law says (and even then, surely the judge will recognize that taking photos in public places is perfectly legal,/. headlines notwithstanding).
"and I'm not toting a National ID with a bar code within 10 years"
I'll discuss that with you 10 years from now if those highly unlikely set of events goes through.
"Before 9/11, security didn't hassle people for taking pictures"
Of course they did. I remember listening to the director's commentary for Pi (filmed in the late 90's if I remember correctly) and they mentioned they had to hide whenever a cop came by because they didn't have a permit to film on the subways.
"nor did we imagine every little thing could be of use to a terr'ist"
Did you never try to fly on a plane with nail clippers prior to 9-11? Paranoia over security at airlines are nothing new. And the restrictions on liquids were not because of 9-11, they were because of a later plot (about a year ago I believe) that was going to use explosives in liquids. The airline restrictions passed in response to 9-11 were that you couldn't bring box-cutters on the plane, which is considered perfectly reasonable by most people. But if you would rather have 9000 people die each year just so you can pack your pair of box cutters in your carry on, well I guess we have vastly different belief systems.
"This has nothing to do with someone walking around and filming or taking pictures in a public area without interfering with anyone else's use of the public space, which is what the government has recently started meddling in under the guise of 'terrorism prevention'."
Under the old guidelines, the activity which you described would need a permit. The new guidelines mentioned by this article are intended to clarify them so the guy you speak of would not need a permit. The controversy is that while the new guidelines are certainly better than the old ones (camcorders or hand held video cameras are fine, small parties (under 5 people) are fine, short recording times (under 10 minutes) are fine, etc), some are concerned there are still a few loopholes (like in any law) that could conceivably allow the cops to charge someone like a member of a large tour group who is filming with a tripod while waiting in line for something.
"You ask, "What does this have to do with terrorism?" If you belive these new rules are for some other reason, please explain."
I already gave you the reason, please RTFP. And you still haven't stated what this could possibly have to do with terrorism, are we supposed to assume every law passed is a knee jerk reaction to terrorism unless proven otherwise?
"
You say the old rules were very vague and the new rules much more specific with even the NYCLU admiting that. The following quote from the linked article seems to disagree with your statement. "Mr. Dunn suggested that the city deliberately kept the language vague, and that as a result police would have broad discretion in enforcing the rules." As interpeted by Mr. Dunn of the NYCLU, the new rules are vague and could "apply to a huge range of casual photography and filming, including tourists taking snapshots and people making short videos for YouTube.""
Please read the whole article. The last paragraph:
Mr. Dunn said most of the new rules were reasonable. Notably, someone using a hand-held video camera, as Mr. Sharma was doing, would no longer have to get a permit.
Yes, he is concerned there are still some loopholes, but he is happy with most of the rules and they are clearly better than the previous guidelines (and Mr. Sharma would clearly agree).
What does this have to do with terrorism? These permits have been required since long before 9-11 (this law is actually just limiting who needs them). They are not intended to prevent terrorists (not sure how you made the connection in the first place, though I am rather curious on that front) but to prevent movie studios from shutting down the city every other day while they make a movie. However the old rules were very vague, so they were forced to revisit them. Now with this new law they are much more specific (as even the NYCLU admits), but there are still one or two passages which they feel could be improved.
Though I'll tell you how terrorism has won. Now liberals like yourself and those who modded you up rush to assume every law is passed as a reaction to terrorism. Federal officers can seek FISA warrants, must be a reaction to terrorists. Movie studios need permits to film movies, must be out of paranoia of terrorists. Hot dog vendors need licenses to set up their stands, must be to stop terrorists. You have become obsessed with the subject, and you have gotten to fear that every law that gets passed is part of a grand conspiracy that assumes all Americans are terrorists.
Ok, first of all, you do realize this is nothing new, right? The requirements that filmmakers need permits have been there for a long time. The purpose of this law is to codify exactly who does and does not a permit, as there had been some controversy over things like whether families taking movies with their camcorder (that is why only tripods are included, btw) could be covered. The NYCLU isn't mad at the law itself, they just feel that it is still too vague in a few aspects. In fact, from TFA, Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU legal director, states that "most of the new rules were reasonable".
"Last I checked, cities cannot override 1st Amendment rights."
When did you last check, prior to the passage of the 1st Amendment? Thats never been the case. The 1st Amendment only applies to laws passed by the federal government, ie congress. Cities do not fall under it. For those of you have forgotten high school government class, here is the text itself:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The reason local and state governments are generally prohibited from passing laws that would violate it had they been passed by congress is that the courts have ruled that the they are prohibited by the 14th Amendment.
"I believe this falls under the freedom of the press."
Really? How so? You can still write or say whatever you want, hell you can still take public pictures of whatever you want (despite the misleading first line of the summary) as long as you don't set up shop for more than a certain amount of time. Even the NYCLU acknowledges that, their concern is that the language is too vague, not the law itself.
And its not like you are already free to take pictures of whatever you want, for instance you can't break into someone's private home and take pictures of them in the shower. Is that a violation of the 1st Amendment? Or do you think trespassing and privacy laws are unconstitutional?
"the thing is the "theory" that "god did it" cannot be tested because god can fake any evidence he wishes. It also cannot make any usefull predictions of future events or discoveries. In other words scientifically it is worthless."
Yes, it cannot be disproven, but it also cannot be proven. Meaning a skeptical investigator would reject it outright. So as long as skepticism is part of science it is safe. The problem is that nowadays science (or rather the science that is being taught in schools) disregards the skepticism and requires the students to accept whatever the scientists of the day tell them.
"the likes of newton and einstein may have been regarded as crackpots by some at the time but theier theories prevailed because they gave solid equations that fitted the facts way better than anything else that existed at the time. Darwins therory of evoloution can't give predictions that accurate but in many cases intermediate stages predicted to exist by evoloutionary theories have been discovered."
Newton and Einstein are actually exceptions, their theories (though strange at the time) were accepted relatively quickly, and it really wasn't the case that they were investigating something that had been thought to have been solved. There were many other scientists whose theories could not be proven so easily (at least not at the time they were initially proposed) or the work went completely against mainstream science. Think about Oswald Avery, prior to his discovery that it was DNA that controlled inheritance it was well accepted that proteins were the true cause. And the scientists who first proposed the necessity of dark matter and dark energy were ignored at first. In fact thats often the case with new theories, first they have to wait for people to accept the possibility that there is something wrong with the current theories, then they have to wait until enough evidence comes about that something can be said about them. Its very rare that a new bombshell theory comes out that can quickly be proven and accepted by the scientific community.
And then you have theories that did not work out in the end. They still have value. For instance Lord Kelvin's theory that atoms were knots of vortices in the cosmic aether. Its been entirely refuted, yet without it, knot theory (which has recently been used by biologists and chemists) would probably have never developed.
That may be true for some employers (read, crappy ones), but not all. I know when I graduated, our recruiters wouldn't usually even consider people below 3.5 unless they had something really good in their resume. Yes grades aren't everything, but as a recent graduate, you really don't have much to show for yourself other than how well you did in school.
Again, you are looking at the wrong industry, and you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. No, Google is not a major player on the desktop software market, no one is arguing that they are. But believe it or not, there are industries out there other than PC software. The danger isn't that Google will have significant control over your PC, its that they will have significant control over the Internet. And its not that you the web surfer can move to a different provider, because you are not the one in danger (at least not directly). Its other businesses that have to go through Google's control over search and advertising in order to reach consumers who are in danger.
And furthermore, how are you going to move to a different provider after Google drives the others go out of business?
"I'd rather have two 800 pound gorillas than just one. Competition is good."
Thats like saying MS doesn't have a monopoly because Exxon sells more gas than them. Two 800 pound gorillas does not equal competition if both are in different industries. MS is the 800 pound gorilla in fields like operating systems and office software, Google is the 800 pound gorilla in search and web advertising.
"If I want to stop using Google tomorrow, I can switch to a competitor without any downsides -- other than the competitor might not be as good."
That depends on your point of view. As a web user, yeah it might be pretty easy to move. But as a business trying to advertise your product, its not that simple. You need to have your product turn up in the top few search results on Google, as it is the dominant search engine out there today, with more hits than the next two search engines (Yahoo and MSN) combined. What people are worried about is that Google basically controls the all important industries of search and web advertising, no one really cares how hard it is for you to move your gmail account.
Slashdot Mirror
"Now spend few minutes thinking how you could shape a tightly sealed envelope with liquid around a disk, and leave a hole for cables without using ice-pick to puncture it. Come on, it's not hard."
Well, no, the disk is inside the bag, you can't shape it around the disk after its been tightly sealed. I'm fairly certain its still possible to seal the thing (we have had waterproofing technology for some time now), but its not as simple as shaping a fluid filled bag around the disk.
I was just thinking that (I actually still have one of those), but according to TFA, there is a lot more to it than the /. summary (as usual).
Its actually not that hard to believe one skilled worker is worth more than 20 unskilled ones (and no, thats not a condemnation of Indian programmers, there are plenty of of unskilled domestic programmers as well, and most of the skilled Indian ones probably either moved to the States to get paid 20 times as much or already have good jobs). Productivity doesn't scale up just by hiring more workers. Look up the mythical man month for more details.
And if a number of them are particularly unskilled (which is what you are in danger of getting if you just outsource your project to the lowest bidder), you will just end up with a mess 20 times worse than if you hired only one.
"And, if an airline permits this, then flyers can choose what risk level they want. People get on public transportation with people who are potentially packing knives, firearms and explosives as well."
Ok, try getting on a train or bus with something that looks like an explosive and see what happens (and whatever you do, don't tell them I told you to do so).
""[...] What, do you think they are trying to prevent Al Queda from filming training videos in the Big Apple?"
Precisely."
That was actually sarcasm. No, they are not trying to stop that.
"Public videography and photography are being banned all over the country, presumably to prevent casing of "sensitive sites" and "police procedures.""
The law doesn't ban public photography, despite the misleading /. headline. I see that despite your claims otherwise, you have yet to RTFA (and remember to read the whole thing, not just the first few paragraphs).
"Yes. It's quite obvious that the two major parties are quite alike, though not always for the same reasons."
So they have polarized opinions regarding the Bush administrations response to 9-11, and that makes them alike? Ok then...
" (Nice ad hominem.)"
There was no ad hominem. Stop crying.
"The KKK were hailed as heroes among whites everywhere -- ever see Birth of a Nation? Many whites who were against slavery were also very much against miscegenation. The KKK weren't terrorizing anyone who mattered, i.e. the white constituency of policymakers in Washington."
So blacks don't matter? I really don't know how to respond to that...
But trust me, most of the world considers the KKK's actions (and they did a lot more than just star in a crappy turn of the century movie) terrorist in nature. And the result of those actions were that people were unwilling to fight against segregation.
"The Constitution permits suspension of Habeas Corpus in times of civil unrest -- black letter. So I have no problem with Lincoln"
The Supreme Court disagrees.
" (Nice strawman.)"
There was no strawman. You claimed (and I quote) "AFAIK, no alleged KKK were thrown into a Gitmo-like facility, there was not RealID-like legislation, and no warrantless taps were submitted as evidence in federal civil rights cases". Thats clearly false. The US government did engage in similar and much more extreme actions during and after the civil war before giving up and leaving the South to the Klan at the end of Reconstruction. If you believe otherwise, you are just as dumb as Al Gore when he claimed the government didn't violate anyone's civil rights during World War 2.
" My point is that a $500 billion dollar war has yielded even fewer results."
If you expect equal returns on all investments, I can't do anything to help you.
"And, it would be irrational to spend $500 billion on cancer, while ignoring heart disease altogether."
So you are saying traffic safety has been ignored? I'll have to remember that next time I get pulled over, "You can't give me a ticket officer, the government is ignoring traffic safety and thus you don't exist".
" Governments have killed more of their own people over the course of history than all the wars ever put together. This is why the Bill of Rights exists, and should be defended ardently."
But NOT with paranoia.
" You're authoritarian because you think that abridging rights is a palatable solution to a non-existent problem."
Now thats a strawman. I never said terrorism is non-existent (though if you think that, there isn't anything else I can say), and my statement was rights are not being abridged, despite your paranoid delusions.
"OTOH, I don't think there should be seat belt laws for adults."
I'm assuming because they only protect the people making the choice on whether or not to wear the seatbelt. Well, bringing potential weapons or explosives can effect people other than the ones carrying them on.
" I have, and I agree with the NYCLU's assessment"
So you agree that the law is mostly acceptable?
" the law goes far beyond preventing disturbances and blocked traffic. Why? Because of an irrational fear of terrorism."
Not only have you yet to prove that terrorism influenced these rules (which is going to be difficult considering the rules were even stricter prior to 9-11, which you think is the only terrorist attack that mattered), you have yet to even demonstrate how this could possibly have anything to do with terrorism. What, do you think they are trying to prevent Al Queda from filming training videos in the Big Apple?
" I don't know what that means. In any event, what makes you think I'm liberal, and how does it matter to the correctness of my arguments?"
"Liberal friends in Congress" = members of the Democratic party (who, regardless of your political beliefs, are liberal by definition). They have been arguing for years that the Department of Homeland Security and other protections from terrorist attacks are not adequately funded. Sorry, I assumed you had at least a rudimentary knowledge of politics in America.
"This is disingenuous because 9/11 created a massive shift in public policy and public perception -- no other terrorist attack, including OK city, has done that."
Yeah, its not like the KKK was able to stall civil rights efforts for nearly a century after the conclusion of the civil war through their terrorist actions. What could I have been thinking...
" According to Wikipedia, ~5000 people died in lynchings from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights legislation of 1968. Interdicting these crimes was far more efficient, and done without abridging rights. AFAIK, no alleged KKK were thrown into a Gitmo-like facility, there was not RealID-like legislation, and no warrantless taps were submitted as evidence in federal civil rights cases."
Wow, you didn't do very well in history class, did you? If you were in the South in the years near the end and following the civil war, you would pray dearly for the rights of detainees in Gitmo. Bush authorized the FBI to get wiretaps for domestic citizens calling suspected terrorists overseas. Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus entirely. Bush began two wars against dictatorships using smart weapons that can (for the most part) target individual buildings while leaving nearby others standing. Sherman burned and plundered his way through the south. Bush sent foreign soldiers fighting outside the Geneva convention to a prison in Cuba. Grant sent the US army to the southern states to squash the Klan. The Wikipedia may be good for looking up trivia, but it is not a substitute for an education. But thanks for that number, the total deaths due to terrorism in the US has now doubled to at least 8000 (and remember, many of those who were killed just disappeared and were not found hanging from a tree).
"First, I doubt that driver licensing infrastructure costs $500 billion. "
No, tracking licensed drivers is going to be cheaper than a war. It shouldn't cost half a trillion. And throwing that much money at it won't do shit to help traffic safety. How is that relevant?
"Second, most people fly far more often than go to the DMV."
Oh no, I very much doubt the average American flies more than once a year. And there is no way in hell they fly more than they drive.
"Otherwise, I agree, priorities are ass-backward to bad thinking."
Thats not what I meant. It would be entirely irrational to drop everything we are doing and just concentrate on heart disease because it is the current most common cause of death.
You aren't very good at deductive logic, are you?
Uh, where? I searched the page for "64" and all I got were a few numbers in the video section. And in the Windows system requirements, all it says is "Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate Edition; or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 2 or later". Nothing about 64 bit.
" * The "whining" is that the gov't is overstepping its bounds. Carry-on size and contents should be up to airlines."
When public safety is in play (as it is in the case of airlines), the government often imposes its own restrictions. Its no different than them requiring your car meet certain safety restrictions before you drive it on public roads.
"Congress has a disturbingly good track record with post-9/11 legislation: Patriot Act, DHS, TSA, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have all been implemented. They require money, and it's been allocated."
Your liberal friends in Congress disagree with you.
"* Stopping police harassment and recovering seized property is a civil tort -- no lawyer provided. This is a real threat to the 1st amendment."
Please just RTFA and then comment on what this law does or does not ban. It is not illegal to snap pictures in public, in fact this law is intended to make that clear (the old rules were a bit more vague). If you are afraid cops are going to knowingly violate the law (btw, that comment I made about the cops getting their information about the law from /. was intended to be sarcastic), then it really doesn't matter what laws they pass, now does it?
" * 9/11 killed 3000 people. Everything else on US soil has been an order of magnitude less (e.g., OK city), and the total is still less than the Iraq casualties."
Its just very telling that you thought 9-11 was the only terrorist incident in our country's history. And of course if you are going all the way back, you have to account for the many acts committed during the civil and revolutionary wars. None of those attacks killed thousands of people, but there certainly were many of them. The final count will be much more than 3000.
" Terrorism is much ado about nothing -- more people die every month of auto accidents. And yet, we've spent hundreds of billions of dollars on boondoggles, inconvenienced our lives, and chipped away at the Bill of Rights. Does this not matter to you, even as a matter of self-interest?"
Ok, first of all, we have also spent quite a bit of money and gone through many much greater inconveniences (getting a drivers license, obeying the speed limit, waiting in line at the DMV just to get my car registered, etc.) in the name of auto safety, and yet more people still die of cancer. And we spend lots of money and go through many inconveniences in an attempt to fight cancer, while more people still die of heart disease.
Second, you can't judge the effects of something based solely on the number of lives taken. Terrorism isn't about generating a large body count, its about using fear to effect how people behave. That can be either my making the extreme right get paranoid and act out of fear of another terrorist attack, but its just as much making liberals such as yourself get paranoid and think everything the government does (even something as mundane as revising the permit rules for filming in a city) as part of a grand conspiracy to make us into a police state, and that anyone who stands against you must be a neo-Fascist who would take away all your civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism.
Ok, I'm going to assume based on the time of that response that the reason that made no sense was that too many drinks had been consumed last night...
Point is, it is illegal to go into someone's house and start taking pictures of them. Its not just that they are free to use force to get rid of you, it is actually illegal to do so. Thus you are limited in how you go about taking pictures of people. If any such restriction (even as minor as these, for the 100th time don't just read the /. headline and assume they are banning all public photography, /. is yellow journalism at its best on issues like this) is a violation of your 1st Amendment rights, then trespassing and privacy laws must also be unconstitutional.
" * The TSA carry-on policy unjustifiably creates a choice between two inconveniences: playing with your toiletries or checking in luggage. No one has ever demonstrated a mixed fluids bomb. This is hardly in the same class as the choice between not traveling with knives or placing them in checked luggage, as knives are obvious weapons."
Really? Who ever used toenail clippers as a weapon? And McGuyver doesn't count.
We are getting off topic, but stop whining about having to check your non-valuable luggage. Its because of people like you that everyone else on the plane has to sit cramped up with no room. Just to save a few minutes waiting for luggage and the unlikely worry that it might get lost (which of course might happen at any point in your trip).
" * It takes money and effort to launch a court case. In the meantime, First Amendment rights continue to be abridged by the police. "
Actually, no it doesn't. The court will provide you with a lawyer, and that is all you need if the cop arrested you because they misread a /. headline.
"* RealID legislation is in fact real, having passed in 2005 as rider to a spending bill. The money for enforcement has been postponed only until 2009, and many states such as California are on board."
Yeah, everything that Congress starts, they finish. I forgot how perfect they were, how silly of me...
"No matter how much it offends your authoritarian sentiments, the lack of outrage is indeed proof that the terrorists have won. "
So the fact that I actually took the time to RTFA and thus know the headline is inaccurate and NYC is not banning public photography means terrorists won? What game did you think they were playing?
"Terrorism has claimed 3000 lives in the entire history of the United States."
Are you under the impression that 9-11 was the only terrorist attack in the history of the United States?
Actually, government agencies can punish you for trespassing on private property as well. Believe it or not, its a crime that the government can prosecute you for.
Sorry if this double posts, something happened to my first one...
"the first ammendment does apply to states through the addition of the 14th. I think you're just looking for a fight."
The First Amendment still doesn't apply. Yes, as I mentioned the 14th does, but please get your constitutional arguments straight before you try to preach what is and is not constitutional.
"we're talking about public places. Please stay on topic."
Where in the constitution (1st Amendment, 14th Amendment, or anywhere else) does it say these freedoms are only valid in public places? Clearly if it doesn't say that and it is unconstitutional to prevent someone from filming out in the street, it is equally unconstitutional to prevent someone from filming in your bathroom. By kicking them out and charging them with trespassing, you are clearly violating their freedom of speech, you fascist pig.
"Obviously and blatantly breaking a law that there could be no doubt they knew all about, because they were MAKING A COMMERCIAL FILM, is not quite the same as "hassling someone for taking a picture"."
I find it amusing how many people are commenting on this story without reading anything but the /. headline. Do you people not know how often stories are misrepresented in /. 'articles'? At least in this case you would suspect you were wrong if you had even read the entire summary (usually they are just as bad as the headline), which means you didn't even get that far. You are starting to remind me of a friend in middle school whom you could tell gullible was written on the ceiling and he would look up, even when we were outside.
For the last time (ok, probably not really the last time, I'm sure I'll be forced to repeat myself over and over here), this law does not make it illegal to snap a picture in public. In fact, it does the exact opposite. The old rules were much more vague, these clarifications are made so that an amateur photographer does not have to worry. Yes, there are some who are worried there are some loopholes which could conceivably still allow the cops to arrest someone under some very specific conditions, and it may be better if they clarify those few aspects of the law, but it is not illegal under these rules to take a picture in a public place.
"When the NSA stops conducting warrantless searches"
They did (well, wiretaps, but I'll forgive you for getting your controversies confused).
"I no longer have to pour my shampoo in cute little bottles to get through airport security"
You don't, just pack them in checked luggage along with your nail clippers and everything else that has been illegal to carry on airlines for years.
"I can peaceably take photos at any public place"
You can, just as long as the cops don't take /. headlines literally without RTFA and think that is really what the law says (and even then, surely the judge will recognize that taking photos in public places is perfectly legal, /. headlines notwithstanding).
"and I'm not toting a National ID with a bar code within 10 years"
I'll discuss that with you 10 years from now if those highly unlikely set of events goes through.
"Before 9/11, security didn't hassle people for taking pictures"
Of course they did. I remember listening to the director's commentary for Pi (filmed in the late 90's if I remember correctly) and they mentioned they had to hide whenever a cop came by because they didn't have a permit to film on the subways.
"nor did we imagine every little thing could be of use to a terr'ist"
Did you never try to fly on a plane with nail clippers prior to 9-11? Paranoia over security at airlines are nothing new. And the restrictions on liquids were not because of 9-11, they were because of a later plot (about a year ago I believe) that was going to use explosives in liquids. The airline restrictions passed in response to 9-11 were that you couldn't bring box-cutters on the plane, which is considered perfectly reasonable by most people. But if you would rather have 9000 people die each year just so you can pack your pair of box cutters in your carry on, well I guess we have vastly different belief systems.
"This has nothing to do with someone walking around and filming or taking pictures in a public area without interfering with anyone else's use of the public space, which is what the government has recently started meddling in under the guise of 'terrorism prevention'."
Under the old guidelines, the activity which you described would need a permit. The new guidelines mentioned by this article are intended to clarify them so the guy you speak of would not need a permit. The controversy is that while the new guidelines are certainly better than the old ones (camcorders or hand held video cameras are fine, small parties (under 5 people) are fine, short recording times (under 10 minutes) are fine, etc), some are concerned there are still a few loopholes (like in any law) that could conceivably allow the cops to charge someone like a member of a large tour group who is filming with a tripod while waiting in line for something.
"You ask, "What does this have to do with terrorism?" If you belive these new rules are for some other reason, please explain."
I already gave you the reason, please RTFP. And you still haven't stated what this could possibly have to do with terrorism, are we supposed to assume every law passed is a knee jerk reaction to terrorism unless proven otherwise?
" You say the old rules were very vague and the new rules much more specific with even the NYCLU admiting that. The following quote from the linked article seems to disagree with your statement. "Mr. Dunn suggested that the city deliberately kept the language vague, and that as a result police would have broad discretion in enforcing the rules." As interpeted by Mr. Dunn of the NYCLU, the new rules are vague and could "apply to a huge range of casual photography and filming, including tourists taking snapshots and people making short videos for YouTube.""
Please read the whole article. The last paragraph:
Yes, he is concerned there are still some loopholes, but he is happy with most of the rules and they are clearly better than the previous guidelines (and Mr. Sharma would clearly agree).
What does this have to do with terrorism? These permits have been required since long before 9-11 (this law is actually just limiting who needs them). They are not intended to prevent terrorists (not sure how you made the connection in the first place, though I am rather curious on that front) but to prevent movie studios from shutting down the city every other day while they make a movie. However the old rules were very vague, so they were forced to revisit them. Now with this new law they are much more specific (as even the NYCLU admits), but there are still one or two passages which they feel could be improved.
Though I'll tell you how terrorism has won. Now liberals like yourself and those who modded you up rush to assume every law is passed as a reaction to terrorism. Federal officers can seek FISA warrants, must be a reaction to terrorists. Movie studios need permits to film movies, must be out of paranoia of terrorists. Hot dog vendors need licenses to set up their stands, must be to stop terrorists. You have become obsessed with the subject, and you have gotten to fear that every law that gets passed is part of a grand conspiracy that assumes all Americans are terrorists.
Ok, first of all, you do realize this is nothing new, right? The requirements that filmmakers need permits have been there for a long time. The purpose of this law is to codify exactly who does and does not a permit, as there had been some controversy over things like whether families taking movies with their camcorder (that is why only tripods are included, btw) could be covered. The NYCLU isn't mad at the law itself, they just feel that it is still too vague in a few aspects. In fact, from TFA, Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU legal director, states that "most of the new rules were reasonable".
"Last I checked, cities cannot override 1st Amendment rights."
When did you last check, prior to the passage of the 1st Amendment? Thats never been the case. The 1st Amendment only applies to laws passed by the federal government, ie congress. Cities do not fall under it. For those of you have forgotten high school government class, here is the text itself:
The reason local and state governments are generally prohibited from passing laws that would violate it had they been passed by congress is that the courts have ruled that the they are prohibited by the 14th Amendment.
"I believe this falls under the freedom of the press."
Really? How so? You can still write or say whatever you want, hell you can still take public pictures of whatever you want (despite the misleading first line of the summary) as long as you don't set up shop for more than a certain amount of time. Even the NYCLU acknowledges that, their concern is that the language is too vague, not the law itself.
And its not like you are already free to take pictures of whatever you want, for instance you can't break into someone's private home and take pictures of them in the shower. Is that a violation of the 1st Amendment? Or do you think trespassing and privacy laws are unconstitutional?
"the thing is the "theory" that "god did it" cannot be tested because god can fake any evidence he wishes. It also cannot make any usefull predictions of future events or discoveries. In other words scientifically it is worthless."
Yes, it cannot be disproven, but it also cannot be proven. Meaning a skeptical investigator would reject it outright. So as long as skepticism is part of science it is safe. The problem is that nowadays science (or rather the science that is being taught in schools) disregards the skepticism and requires the students to accept whatever the scientists of the day tell them.
"the likes of newton and einstein may have been regarded as crackpots by some at the time but theier theories prevailed because they gave solid equations that fitted the facts way better than anything else that existed at the time. Darwins therory of evoloution can't give predictions that accurate but in many cases intermediate stages predicted to exist by evoloutionary theories have been discovered."
Newton and Einstein are actually exceptions, their theories (though strange at the time) were accepted relatively quickly, and it really wasn't the case that they were investigating something that had been thought to have been solved. There were many other scientists whose theories could not be proven so easily (at least not at the time they were initially proposed) or the work went completely against mainstream science. Think about Oswald Avery, prior to his discovery that it was DNA that controlled inheritance it was well accepted that proteins were the true cause. And the scientists who first proposed the necessity of dark matter and dark energy were ignored at first. In fact thats often the case with new theories, first they have to wait for people to accept the possibility that there is something wrong with the current theories, then they have to wait until enough evidence comes about that something can be said about them. Its very rare that a new bombshell theory comes out that can quickly be proven and accepted by the scientific community.
And then you have theories that did not work out in the end. They still have value. For instance Lord Kelvin's theory that atoms were knots of vortices in the cosmic aether. Its been entirely refuted, yet without it, knot theory (which has recently been used by biologists and chemists) would probably have never developed.
That may be true for some employers (read, crappy ones), but not all. I know when I graduated, our recruiters wouldn't usually even consider people below 3.5 unless they had something really good in their resume. Yes grades aren't everything, but as a recent graduate, you really don't have much to show for yourself other than how well you did in school.
Don't forget:
And:
Netcraft confirms that all giant penguins are dead.
And last but not least:
The last one was killed after Steve Ballmer threw a chair at it and swore "I'm going to f***ing kill the giant penguins"
Those were a lot funnier in my mind. And they weren't even very funny there...
Again, you are looking at the wrong industry, and you are looking at it from the wrong perspective. No, Google is not a major player on the desktop software market, no one is arguing that they are. But believe it or not, there are industries out there other than PC software. The danger isn't that Google will have significant control over your PC, its that they will have significant control over the Internet. And its not that you the web surfer can move to a different provider, because you are not the one in danger (at least not directly). Its other businesses that have to go through Google's control over search and advertising in order to reach consumers who are in danger.
And furthermore, how are you going to move to a different provider after Google drives the others go out of business?
"I'd rather have two 800 pound gorillas than just one. Competition is good."
Thats like saying MS doesn't have a monopoly because Exxon sells more gas than them. Two 800 pound gorillas does not equal competition if both are in different industries. MS is the 800 pound gorilla in fields like operating systems and office software, Google is the 800 pound gorilla in search and web advertising.
"If I want to stop using Google tomorrow, I can switch to a competitor without any downsides -- other than the competitor might not be as good."
That depends on your point of view. As a web user, yeah it might be pretty easy to move. But as a business trying to advertise your product, its not that simple. You need to have your product turn up in the top few search results on Google, as it is the dominant search engine out there today, with more hits than the next two search engines (Yahoo and MSN) combined. What people are worried about is that Google basically controls the all important industries of search and web advertising, no one really cares how hard it is for you to move your gmail account.