I figured it out faster than it would have taken to google it, but that five seconds is orders of magnitude longer than the few milliseconds that it would have taken had 'Veterans Administration' just been written in the body of the text. Readability is not improved by having to spend 5 seconds parsing just 2 letters because someone couldn't be bothered to follow the conventional rules of writing things with acronyms. The point still stands.
A quick google does bring up the "US Department of Veterans Affairs" as the first result. It brings up the Wikipedia article on Virginia as the second result. With little useful context to go on, you still can't be very sure as to what the summary is talking about. The point of a summary is to be able to scan down the page and see what you want to read more about, not to be forced to read more just to find out what the summary actually means.
Further, even if the number is only a billion connected, rather than 6 billion, still some 75% to 80% of those people will still fall in the category 'not American'.
and if I, as a Brit, referred to the RBL would you pick up what that expanded to straight away? No, I didn't think so. *
While I understand that/. is America-centric, which explains why we're even seeing this story, it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for peculiarly American acronyms to be written out in full for the benefit of the other 5.75 billion people in the world, particularly if a small grammatical error could have resulted in the given acronym actually expanding out to any one of 3 American-centric phrases. There's far too many unknowns in 'the VA' to be able to confidently figure out what's being referred to.
Even on reading that whole summary, it could still be about a screw up with medical records in Virginia and just submitted with really badly constructed sentences - it also doesn't help that most of the other English-speaking nations have socialised healthcare systems so we won't immediately latch onto the idea of a Veteran's Administration being a major provider of healthcare, and so won't associate it with a story about healthcare provision, even if the acronym is the same.
The first rule of writing acronyms is to expand each acronym in brackets after the first place where it appears.
*Royal British Legion
no no, why would you think that the people in the UK government would be that incompetent? The files were no doubt secured with a 30 character password, with no dictionary words or contiguous number sequences, a mixture of capitals and lower-case, numbers & other characters with not a single person's mother's maiden name in sight. Obviously, with such a complicated password, it would have to be included on a post-it note with the disc so that the audit office could actually use them.
why is everyone shouting 'threat this...', 'contempt that...' as what congress should do to gett eh answers that it wants? What congress needs to do is guarantee immunity from prosecution under whatever probably-invalid-anyway national security rules AT&T says makes it illegal for them to release the information. If they really are a dumb functionary simply complying with the law in all of this, then, once they have that guarantee, it's in their best interests to hand the information over.
They will co-operate with congress when the threat from congress is greater than the threat from the executive. The way to achieve this is not to increase the threat from congress in absolute terms, it's to reduce the threat from the executive by taking its teeth away, thus increasing the threat from congress in relative terms only.
Don't you have congressional privilege?
well, yes, I'd agree that it's an internal matter and that your government should deal with the US on your behalf. Unfortunately, we see that the US has got most of the governments of the civilised world into a situation where, far from protecting their citizen's rights, they deliberately sell them out. We also have a situation where any government that did stand up for its citizens would find itself trying to deal with a US government that doesn't listen to reason, or obey international law when it doesn't suit them to do so. Further, we find ourselves in a world where no other single government (or workable coalition) is in a position to defend its citizens rights by force should the government of the US decide to violate them.
The only option available is to try to get the US to keep it's own ship in order, because no-one else can.
Nobody said anything about using the US military to defend foreigners right, simply requiring the US military to exercise enough self control that it doesn't violate those rights itself. What's so hard to understand about that?
We're not asking for US Marines to start busting people out of prison who are being held without charge by other governments, we're asking that the US military doesn't hold people without charge itself.
he wasn't 'using their microphone', it was off, you said it yourself. So you have the right to free speech, but most move on when exercising it if asked by the police. What if they move you on every other word until you're up a mountain? Still enjoying that free speech?
"The first amendment prevents the government from censoring you; it does not prevent them from removing you from a peaceful assembly when you're disturbing it."
Since when does removing you from an assembly because you're speaking NOT constitute censorship. In this case peace should not be confused with quiet, disturb should not be confused with hijack (in a verbal sense).
You're right, if you don't want to provide someone with an audience, you can leave, or stay and ignore them. You do not legitimately accomplish the non-provision of an audience by preventing someone from speaking. You don't like someone or what they're saying? YOU keep away form them, don't expect them to be taken away from you.
Something leading to serious injury for yourself is your own problem, it does not entitle the police to use a less-lethal-than-a-gun-but-still-pretty-dangerous weapon on you to get you to stop. If they want to put people in handcuffs, they can take the minor risk to their own health that a person MAY, against all the odds, get a very hard kick in on their temple or gut.
And if threatening to cut a limb off WAS in the police guidlines, would it then be ok? There has to be a line drawn somewhere and tasers are already over it.
I'm aware that standard training in tasers involves being tasered for a shorter period, in a gym, surrounded by colleagues, standing up, over a mat and with people to catch you. I'm also aware that the training for the use of CS gas involves being sprayed with a 3% solution, which entitles the police to carry a 5% solution to fire at the public. Why do you cling to this bizarre idea that if unnecssary brutality is a 'well established proceedure' it's ok?
And you're sympathetic to the police becaue they act without consideration of right and wrong, and only in consideration of what someone has told them that they may do. If being 'in the wrong by law' means that you're fair game for this sort of treatment, then the law is wrong. I will not support brutalisation supported solely by a wrong law.
Did Meyer use aggresive force first? No. Then my point is proved.
"The Military Commissions Act does not apply to US citizens, permanent residents, or persons with a valid legal status within the United States." That covers the entire spectrum of people who US laws can apply to, so, in effect, the Military Commissions Act applies to no-one and the current actions of the US government are being done on an entirely arbitrary basis. Anyone or anywhere to which the power of congress applies, the constitution should apply also - otherwise, what else is there to prevent areas or people subject to unchecked government power? Or do you think that the US government should be allowed to define certain areas or people over which/whom it has unchecked power?
"It's simple, really: he was disturbing the peace by refusing the relinquish the microphone after a question" Simple solution, shut the microphone off at the amplifier. After that it's his ABSOLUTE RIGHT to continue to speak. That's what the first ammendment is for. (public university, university cops/real cops, counts as government)
"which justified his removal from the auditorium" If anyone who speak out of turn from the chairman can be removed, then there's no discussion, only a generous opportunity to agree with the chairman
"by refusing to comply with the removal, he justified the use of force to remove him" This is moot, since removing him was not justified
"by struggling for two fucking full minutes against the use of force to remove him, he was resisting arrest" Being removed is not being arrested, resisting being removed (if the removal was legitimate, which it wasn't) may constitute trespassing, but he would have to be then arrested for that and resist that actual arrest.
"Once he was physically subdued, he continued to struggle" Struggling with no chance of sucess is not a threat. No threat, no further use of force necessary.
"and was clearly told to stop struggling or he'd get tased" So they may threaten anyone with anything, and be held completely blameless if they carry it out. What if they got an axe and threatened to cut off a limb, would it still be ok for them to do it, so long as they told him first?
"as if cops in the performance of their duties should listen to the guy telling them to stop performing their duties on him." It is not their duty to use excessive force.
Every single escalation was the result of those 'in authority' exceeding their authority, and then being too pig-headed to back down. He could have complied and walked out, but then what would his right to free speech be worth? (You have the right to free speech, but if you don't shut up, we're going to escalate this situation until we get to taser you). This video is a demonstration of the fact that most public disorder is caused by the police. These officers should recieve the harshest punishment available.
you cant reserve a right that you never had in the first place.
And now, an appropriate quote from Yes Prime Minister:
[Jim Hacker wants a government-paid cook/housekeeper to be appointed to cook for him]
Hacker: "You mean I have the power to blow up the world, but not to ask for scrambled eggs?"
Sir Humphrey: "You have the power to ask for them"
That's my idea! I posted it anonymously a few weeks ago, I'm going to sue!
It's buried somewhere in the original post announcing SCO's losing - go and get me all the comments and I'll show you it in there somewhere. Obviously, it's just a couple of lines...
that depends on wether the Netherlands has the balls to stand up to the US, like the UK doesn't. And whether the owners of TS are smart enough to stay out of the US (and well away from it too, since they have no problem with underhanded tactics like arresting people when they make an unscheduled stop on US territory).
yes, my original point accepted (without saying it) that you WOULD end up dead. But if you're a decent enough shot that you make a kill with your first bullet, you'll have been martyred defending your property and the person you kill will look like a jack-booted thug trying to forcibly steal your property over something as petty as copyright infringement getting what they deserved. Just depends on how you want to die (and how the newspapers spin it). People take actions that will get them killed, just to prove a point.
Note, I'm not saying that people SHOULD start shooting, just that some small percentage of them inevitably will, and that those that do aren't entirely stupid.
"Then you just pick what you're going to have uniformed Marshall's deputies go out and seize, at gunpoint if necessary, to sell off."
Which works only if the person who actually owns it doesn't decide to stop it getting seized, at bullet point if necessary. When you resort to thuggery to get the job done, someone is bound to get hurt. Whilst the RIAA are undeniably scumbags who should cough up; if this were a judgement in the opposite direction and the RIAA were sending out jackbooted thugs to start taking things from vulnerable people to collect on bizarre and excessive judgements, we'd be condemning it to a man!
The problem lies in the fact that ultimate force (potentially) is being used to enforce a balance-of-probability judgement, since without the threat of ultimate force nothing could be enforced, the only solution is to not have any balance-of-probability judgements, i.e. the abolition of the civil justice system. Without which, she'd never have had to spend $68,000 defending the case in the first place, incidentally. Tell me, what do the civil courts do that's of any worth to society?
Seems perfectly straight-forward to me - the intruder was taking a power nap before carrying on with his nefarious work, it's hard work intruding on people, especially if you've had to climb 20 floors to get there.
the same argument could be made to put down the suggestion of charging more to higher risks - yeah, in a flat-rate system the lower risks pay proportionately more, insurance isn't made to be totally fair.
Eventually the system will break down into the higher risks paying absolutely oodles and the lower risks paying a pittance to the point that it would be just the same if they paid for the damage caused in their car crashes themselves. We're already seeing this in the UK with 5-years no-claims only insurers, or women-only insurers; eventually all the people who can fit in those categories will do so and get a pretty much flat rate and all the rest will be lumped together into a few insurers who won't have any other low risk customers and will be charging everyone a very high rate. At which point THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF INSURANCE BREAKS DOWN!
Therefore, since the system will only reach it's stable point, if left to its own devices, when the insurance market is fragmented to the point that each company will only do business with a person of a certain level of risk and then charge them all a flat fee, someone has to step in and stop it from getting that far. Most, but not all government regulation is bad, this is a case where it's both good and vital.
in civilised societies the judge decides the punishment without reference to the wishes of the prosecutor. Those are the same societies where plea bargains don't exist.
By pleading guilty in exchange for the prosecutor seeking a lighter punishment:
Justice is not seen to be done
Innocent defendants can be bullied into pleading guilty without seeing the case against them, simply on the promise that it's formidable
No-one else has the opportunity to scrutinise if the defendant is being bullied into admitting guilt when they're not guilty
Different people can get wildly different sentences for the same crime, dependant on what the prosecutor offers them, rather than the judge deciding, and being able to appeal it based upon it being wildly different from what other people got for the same crime.
The National Association of Theater Owners supports Regal's 'zero-tolerance' prosecution standard: 'We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable. Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing.'"
If they can't tell the difference between good copying and bad copying then they should have a 'complete-tolerance' policy. 'Better to let 10 guilty men walk free than punish 1 innocent one' and all that.
Because they've already done the crime and its magnitude is a fixed value. The sentence meted out should be mostly based on the magnitude of the crime, and only slightly modified for wether someone pleaded guilty or not (this has the side effect of not keeping actually innocent people inside for twice as long because they continue to protest their innocence).
Most civilised justice systems are based on the principle of due process. By giving someone a reward for letting you skip the due process, you're implying that somehow the due process is an inconvenient chore that we should try to do away with.
Slashdot Mirror
I figured it out faster than it would have taken to google it, but that five seconds is orders of magnitude longer than the few milliseconds that it would have taken had 'Veterans Administration' just been written in the body of the text. Readability is not improved by having to spend 5 seconds parsing just 2 letters because someone couldn't be bothered to follow the conventional rules of writing things with acronyms. The point still stands.
A quick google does bring up the "US Department of Veterans Affairs" as the first result. It brings up the Wikipedia article on Virginia as the second result. With little useful context to go on, you still can't be very sure as to what the summary is talking about. The point of a summary is to be able to scan down the page and see what you want to read more about, not to be forced to read more just to find out what the summary actually means.
Further, even if the number is only a billion connected, rather than 6 billion, still some 75% to 80% of those people will still fall in the category 'not American'.
and if I, as a Brit, referred to the RBL would you pick up what that expanded to straight away? No, I didn't think so. * /. is America-centric, which explains why we're even seeing this story, it doesn't seem unreasonable to ask for peculiarly American acronyms to be written out in full for the benefit of the other 5.75 billion people in the world, particularly if a small grammatical error could have resulted in the given acronym actually expanding out to any one of 3 American-centric phrases. There's far too many unknowns in 'the VA' to be able to confidently figure out what's being referred to.
While I understand that
Even on reading that whole summary, it could still be about a screw up with medical records in Virginia and just submitted with really badly constructed sentences - it also doesn't help that most of the other English-speaking nations have socialised healthcare systems so we won't immediately latch onto the idea of a Veteran's Administration being a major provider of healthcare, and so won't associate it with a story about healthcare provision, even if the acronym is the same.
The first rule of writing acronyms is to expand each acronym in brackets after the first place where it appears.
*Royal British Legion
no no, why would you think that the people in the UK government would be that incompetent? The files were no doubt secured with a 30 character password, with no dictionary words or contiguous number sequences, a mixture of capitals and lower-case, numbers & other characters with not a single person's mother's maiden name in sight. Obviously, with such a complicated password, it would have to be included on a post-it note with the disc so that the audit office could actually use them.
why is everyone shouting 'threat this...', 'contempt that...' as what congress should do to gett eh answers that it wants? What congress needs to do is guarantee immunity from prosecution under whatever probably-invalid-anyway national security rules AT&T says makes it illegal for them to release the information. If they really are a dumb functionary simply complying with the law in all of this, then, once they have that guarantee, it's in their best interests to hand the information over.
They will co-operate with congress when the threat from congress is greater than the threat from the executive. The way to achieve this is not to increase the threat from congress in absolute terms, it's to reduce the threat from the executive by taking its teeth away, thus increasing the threat from congress in relative terms only.
Don't you have congressional privilege?
well, yes, I'd agree that it's an internal matter and that your government should deal with the US on your behalf. Unfortunately, we see that the US has got most of the governments of the civilised world into a situation where, far from protecting their citizen's rights, they deliberately sell them out. We also have a situation where any government that did stand up for its citizens would find itself trying to deal with a US government that doesn't listen to reason, or obey international law when it doesn't suit them to do so. Further, we find ourselves in a world where no other single government (or workable coalition) is in a position to defend its citizens rights by force should the government of the US decide to violate them.
The only option available is to try to get the US to keep it's own ship in order, because no-one else can.
Nobody said anything about using the US military to defend foreigners right, simply requiring the US military to exercise enough self control that it doesn't violate those rights itself. What's so hard to understand about that? We're not asking for US Marines to start busting people out of prison who are being held without charge by other governments, we're asking that the US military doesn't hold people without charge itself.
he wasn't 'using their microphone', it was off, you said it yourself. So you have the right to free speech, but most move on when exercising it if asked by the police. What if they move you on every other word until you're up a mountain? Still enjoying that free speech? "The first amendment prevents the government from censoring you; it does not prevent them from removing you from a peaceful assembly when you're disturbing it." Since when does removing you from an assembly because you're speaking NOT constitute censorship. In this case peace should not be confused with quiet, disturb should not be confused with hijack (in a verbal sense). You're right, if you don't want to provide someone with an audience, you can leave, or stay and ignore them. You do not legitimately accomplish the non-provision of an audience by preventing someone from speaking. You don't like someone or what they're saying? YOU keep away form them, don't expect them to be taken away from you. Something leading to serious injury for yourself is your own problem, it does not entitle the police to use a less-lethal-than-a-gun-but-still-pretty-dangerous weapon on you to get you to stop. If they want to put people in handcuffs, they can take the minor risk to their own health that a person MAY, against all the odds, get a very hard kick in on their temple or gut. And if threatening to cut a limb off WAS in the police guidlines, would it then be ok? There has to be a line drawn somewhere and tasers are already over it. I'm aware that standard training in tasers involves being tasered for a shorter period, in a gym, surrounded by colleagues, standing up, over a mat and with people to catch you. I'm also aware that the training for the use of CS gas involves being sprayed with a 3% solution, which entitles the police to carry a 5% solution to fire at the public. Why do you cling to this bizarre idea that if unnecssary brutality is a 'well established proceedure' it's ok? And you're sympathetic to the police becaue they act without consideration of right and wrong, and only in consideration of what someone has told them that they may do. If being 'in the wrong by law' means that you're fair game for this sort of treatment, then the law is wrong. I will not support brutalisation supported solely by a wrong law. Did Meyer use aggresive force first? No. Then my point is proved.
"The Military Commissions Act does not apply to US citizens, permanent residents, or persons with a valid legal status within the United States."
That covers the entire spectrum of people who US laws can apply to, so, in effect, the Military Commissions Act applies to no-one and the current actions of the US government are being done on an entirely arbitrary basis.
Anyone or anywhere to which the power of congress applies, the constitution should apply also - otherwise, what else is there to prevent areas or people subject to unchecked government power? Or do you think that the US government should be allowed to define certain areas or people over which/whom it has unchecked power?
"It's simple, really: he was disturbing the peace by refusing the relinquish the microphone after a question"
Simple solution, shut the microphone off at the amplifier. After that it's his ABSOLUTE RIGHT to continue to speak. That's what the first ammendment is for. (public university, university cops/real cops, counts as government)
"which justified his removal from the auditorium"
If anyone who speak out of turn from the chairman can be removed, then there's no discussion, only a generous opportunity to agree with the chairman
"by refusing to comply with the removal, he justified the use of force to remove him"
This is moot, since removing him was not justified
"by struggling for two fucking full minutes against the use of force to remove him, he was resisting arrest"
Being removed is not being arrested, resisting being removed (if the removal was legitimate, which it wasn't) may constitute trespassing, but he would have to be then arrested for that and resist that actual arrest.
"Once he was physically subdued, he continued to struggle"
Struggling with no chance of sucess is not a threat. No threat, no further use of force necessary.
"and was clearly told to stop struggling or he'd get tased"
So they may threaten anyone with anything, and be held completely blameless if they carry it out. What if they got an axe and threatened to cut off a limb, would it still be ok for them to do it, so long as they told him first?
"as if cops in the performance of their duties should listen to the guy telling them to stop performing their duties on him."
It is not their duty to use excessive force.
Every single escalation was the result of those 'in authority' exceeding their authority, and then being too pig-headed to back down. He could have complied and walked out, but then what would his right to free speech be worth? (You have the right to free speech, but if you don't shut up, we're going to escalate this situation until we get to taser you). This video is a demonstration of the fact that most public disorder is caused by the police. These officers should recieve the harshest punishment available.
I think someone has been watching just a little too much Harry Potter
you cant reserve a right that you never had in the first place.
And now, an appropriate quote from Yes Prime Minister:
[Jim Hacker wants a government-paid cook/housekeeper to be appointed to cook for him]
Hacker: "You mean I have the power to blow up the world, but not to ask for scrambled eggs?"
Sir Humphrey: "You have the power to ask for them"
That's my idea! I posted it anonymously a few weeks ago, I'm going to sue!
It's buried somewhere in the original post announcing SCO's losing - go and get me all the comments and I'll show you it in there somewhere. Obviously, it's just a couple of lines...
that depends on wether the Netherlands has the balls to stand up to the US, like the UK doesn't. And whether the owners of TS are smart enough to stay out of the US (and well away from it too, since they have no problem with underhanded tactics like arresting people when they make an unscheduled stop on US territory).
Your loaded language makes it clear that you are, by your nature, a moral vacuum. Have a nice life.
yes, my original point accepted (without saying it) that you WOULD end up dead. But if you're a decent enough shot that you make a kill with your first bullet, you'll have been martyred defending your property and the person you kill will look like a jack-booted thug trying to forcibly steal your property over something as petty as copyright infringement getting what they deserved. Just depends on how you want to die (and how the newspapers spin it). People take actions that will get them killed, just to prove a point.
Note, I'm not saying that people SHOULD start shooting, just that some small percentage of them inevitably will, and that those that do aren't entirely stupid.
you have to pay for a license if you operate any device which can recieve a TV signal: a TV, a VCR, a cable box, a TV card in a computer, etc.,.
"Then you just pick what you're going to have uniformed Marshall's deputies go out and seize, at gunpoint if necessary, to sell off."
Which works only if the person who actually owns it doesn't decide to stop it getting seized, at bullet point if necessary. When you resort to thuggery to get the job done, someone is bound to get hurt. Whilst the RIAA are undeniably scumbags who should cough up; if this were a judgement in the opposite direction and the RIAA were sending out jackbooted thugs to start taking things from vulnerable people to collect on bizarre and excessive judgements, we'd be condemning it to a man!
The problem lies in the fact that ultimate force (potentially) is being used to enforce a balance-of-probability judgement, since without the threat of ultimate force nothing could be enforced, the only solution is to not have any balance-of-probability judgements, i.e. the abolition of the civil justice system. Without which, she'd never have had to spend $68,000 defending the case in the first place, incidentally. Tell me, what do the civil courts do that's of any worth to society?
thats -73.3 C to 148.8 C.
<\karma whore>
Seems perfectly straight-forward to me - the intruder was taking a power nap before carrying on with his nefarious work, it's hard work intruding on people, especially if you've had to climb 20 floors to get there.
the same argument could be made to put down the suggestion of charging more to higher risks - yeah, in a flat-rate system the lower risks pay proportionately more, insurance isn't made to be totally fair.
Eventually the system will break down into the higher risks paying absolutely oodles and the lower risks paying a pittance to the point that it would be just the same if they paid for the damage caused in their car crashes themselves. We're already seeing this in the UK with 5-years no-claims only insurers, or women-only insurers; eventually all the people who can fit in those categories will do so and get a pretty much flat rate and all the rest will be lumped together into a few insurers who won't have any other low risk customers and will be charging everyone a very high rate. At which point THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF INSURANCE BREAKS DOWN!
Therefore, since the system will only reach it's stable point, if left to its own devices, when the insurance market is fragmented to the point that each company will only do business with a person of a certain level of risk and then charge them all a flat fee, someone has to step in and stop it from getting that far. Most, but not all government regulation is bad, this is a case where it's both good and vital.
"does not believe this is cause for concern because marine bacteria and viruses are typically far less harmful to human health"
uuuuuh no. He clearly needs a far more up-to-date source of information. Such as the X-files.
The National Association of Theater Owners supports Regal's 'zero-tolerance' prosecution standard: 'We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable. Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing.'"
If they can't tell the difference between good copying and bad copying then they should have a 'complete-tolerance' policy. 'Better to let 10 guilty men walk free than punish 1 innocent one' and all that.
Because they've already done the crime and its magnitude is a fixed value. The sentence meted out should be mostly based on the magnitude of the crime, and only slightly modified for wether someone pleaded guilty or not (this has the side effect of not keeping actually innocent people inside for twice as long because they continue to protest their innocence). Most civilised justice systems are based on the principle of due process. By giving someone a reward for letting you skip the due process, you're implying that somehow the due process is an inconvenient chore that we should try to do away with.
- Ignoring the notice
- Being taken to court
- Losing by default when they run out of money
- And getting massive damages because they were warned on the disc/tape and chose to ignore the warnings
- Being bankrupt for the rest of their life
? Because if that's what the law says then the law needs to change.