it's time the franchise moved on to someone better.
You'd like to THINK that's the reason. They're actually shooting this one as a documentary, as produced/directed by Moore's brother, Michael Moore, who has specific information that there actually is a government plot that involves aliens.
This sort of nonsense will continue in retail jobs (and everywhere else) until workers UNITE.
Amen, comrade! Sing it!
In fact, the Fat Cat managers should be lined up and shot! We should nationalize electronics retailing, now that it doesn't really require the sort of expertise that it used to, and everyone can learn what they need to online anyway. Yes, a sort of People's Army Of Monster Cable Sales Reps would be ideal, and no one will get their feelings hurt if it dawns on them that their business model simply isn't viable any more. And even if they DO figure that out, it's OK, because your union will have some sort of legal stranglehold on the business and would rather wreck the business that's providing them income than see the business survive to keep anyone employed. Yes, yes, that's worked so well in the past. It's why GM and Ford are now basically swirling the toilet, but if it makes you feel good, march in the streets, brother! I'm sure you can get some Union Break Time, as long as you're protesting in line with their wishes. Probably on some other guy's dues, too. You know, the guy who may not agree with you, but has no control over where his union dues go as they feed political movements, candidates, and wealthy union bosses. *sigh*
Why would Walmart worry? Apparently, Walmart can strong-arm their suppliers to do whatever they want.
Because it isn't about what Wal-Mart pays for the goods, or what the fixed price would be if the legal issue at hand went another way... no, for Wal-Mart it's all about being able to sell things for substantially less than pretty much everybody else. If Sony, or Tupperware, or DeLonghi, or any of a jillion other manufacturers were able to fix a price on everything sold through their legitimate dealers, Wal-Mart would lose the main thing that separates them from most other normal retailers. They may also do what Costco does, and just house-brand pretty much everything. That wouldn't surprise me a bit (just like Costco's "Kirkland" brand).
You'd see a vastly improved rebate industry ramp up, and more importantly, you'd see retailers "bundling" things that they would then instantly take back for a substantial credit/refund. Anyone who's worked retail (especially IT supporting retail!) knows how creative someone can get while competing with someone else two doors down in the strip mall. Where this would get ugly is the little stuff... like, toothbrushes.
Another solution? Retailers who thrive on competitve pricing all become like Costco, and sell things "wholesale" to their member customers. It's sort of like those bars where you have to become a "member of the club" (for $0.01) in order to have a drink poured.
This effort will flop, or there will be a legislative cure anyway. Wal-Mart alone would lobby that one right into the stratosphere.
Actually, it's usually tinted for use in different systems so that you can tell which system is leaking. That's why your car's transmisstion fluid is tinted red - so that you can tell right away that you're in Deep Doo-Doo when you have a leak!
Also, more viscous fluids (like various hydraulic goos) have very different-looking spectral reflections... I mean, they just seem to catch the light (especially colored light) differently than other fluids (dark oil, or coolant, or water). I would imagine that those same aircraft mechanics might also really like being able to differentiate the various colors of cable and hose claddings, too. Not my area of expertise, obviously. But I can imagine lots of people in supporting roles, though, that would really benefit from a wider visible spectrum in the dark.
There are some non-gun-toting people who need to operate in a stealthy or semi-stealthy manner that would make use of this sort of thing. Think of the National Geographic-types that are setting up a pre-dawn shoot and trying to remain less visible, or the guys working on a forward helicopter refueling station who definitely prefer to be harder to see and definitely want to know the difference between stepping in a puddle of water and a puddle of hydraulic fluid.
It's worth mentioning that this isn't exactly a consumer purchase, here. This is a government contract. All SORTS of government contracts are written up with the understanding that there will be a built-in window of time following the award of the contract during which the other bidders will be able to challenge the award (say, if they think the people who DID get the award got it by promising something they know they can't deliver, or left out information about how they hosed up a previous contract, whatever).
It's VERY common for state and federal purchases, when put into a bidding process, to rather quickly wind up in an awarded contract, but then to drag on forever once with procurement people realize that there are points of contention over the suitability of the winner, or the little details of the product or service that will be delivered. This is exactly why a lot of emergency purchases are done with merely familiar vendors rather than a traditional, wide-open, and usually much more expensive procurement process that can take literally years to play out before anything is delivered or paid for. It's not usually very hard to see when the purchase of a 1000 widgets in an open bid might save you $10 per widget over the normal price from a familiar vendor, but cost you $20,000 in overall procurement costs and delays/negotiations because of all the damn paperwork and loopholes. This stuff is never as simple as the soundbites make it seem, and the very processes that are supposed to ensure that taxpayer money is spent as well as possible often ends up being very penny-wise and extremely pound-foolish. And some needs need to be met quicker than the procurement cycle can traditionally accommodate. Suffice it to say that contract award protestations (in one form or another) are very common. If Diebold had gotten the contract, somebody else probably would have stamped their feet just as loudly, and perhaps appeared just as shrill for the opposite reasons.
Your First Amendment rights do not include any guarantee that you will be heard, or that anyone will be interested in listening to you, just that you have the opportunity to speak and assemble. If drum-beating loons with giant puppets are drowning you out, maybe you should get some drums and puppets. Or maybe your ideas aren't as popular...another thing not guaranteed.
We're not talking about you and me standing on a street corner, and me whining because you're louder or have more friends with your point of view. We're talking about me renting out a convention center for my private event, and whether or not it's reasonable for you to block the public streets that allow the attendees to actually get into the paid-for facility, or whether or not emergency services will be able to get an ambulance down the street when somebody's giant puppet tips over and squashes a little old lady walking to the event.
Your first amendment rights don't include the right to shut down public streets. Groups that want that right usually strike a deal with the municipality that controls the street, and get a permit to assemble in that particular, singularly disruptive way... and such groups usually end up, at least in part, footing the bill for the extra police that are then needed to deal with the traffic problems and everything else that results. Your first amendment rights DO include, of course, complete protection for you to ALSO rent out the same convention center, and shoulder the same costs that your opponents do when they are brining 30,000 people into such an event. None of this has any bearing on traditional stand-around-and-chant clutches of people as seen every day in cities all over the country (well, certainly in big cities, anyway). And if the stand-around-and-chant-on-a-normal-day people happened to walk into the middle of the street to block traffic, they'd be just as arrested on a day there isn't a political convention in town as they would be when there is one. Why should they get special traffic-disruption rights on a particular day just because they don't like who booked the convention center for the week? It isn't a first amendment issue at all, it's a basic don't-block-the-frackin'-street (which I'm paying for, too) issue.
Seen any of the info about improper inquiries into Congresspeople inquirinig about ongoing investigations?
The ONLY thing I've heard so far (and considering the hay the dems are trying to make, I think it's very telling that they haven't floated anything else) is that a legislator (very much NOT a member of the administration) called one of the attorneys in a huff and hung up when he didn't hear what he wanted to hear. No implication of any change in the nature, urgency, or progress of ANY activity that said attorney was or would have been doing. That's it. That's the oiliest thing they can come up with. We COULD, I suppose, compare that to the US attorney that Jimmy Carter fires at the request of a congress member that was being investigated by that US attorney!. The dems did not complain about that any more than they did when they when one of their members actually had sex with an underage page AND had his DC residence mixed up in prostitution (said rep continued on with his career, unmolested by the dem-controlled congressional ethics committee, to say nothing of the District police). Mark Foley's an idiot, but at least he instantly resigned over what amounts to his trail of witless IMs. Are you sensing a pattern of double standards here? There is nothing, nada, zip but politics here - at its absolutely most callow.
I think you're missing the possibility that firings were done in retribution for failed attempts to influence the midterm elections and/or Congressional interference in ongoing legislation. This would be a clear violation of law, and is the reason for the brouhahah.
Well, it's also possible that they were fired because all U.S. attorneys are actually space aliens, and the recent release of UFO-related info by the French government was going to cause some problems. Of course, there isn't so much as a scrap of evidence for either of those scenarios, and if there was, it would be a criminal matter, not a matter for politicized polemic in congress. They could (and should) say all they want if there actually were more than just wishful thinking re: electioneering... but there isn't, of course. No more than the wishful thinking that that it was Dick Cheney that personall outed Plame to Novak turned out to be rather the opposite (Armitage, of course - no Bush fan at all - did it).
It is very problable that he deliberately telling partial truths in order to support an untenable position.
No, it is very certain that all US attorneys are political appointees. Their hiring and firing, however abruptly or delayed, is completely within the administration's rights at any time. You don't like the way that one of your political appointees runs their office, sets their priorities, or spins something? Great! They're yours to fire, at will. In the case of the 8 in question, it's as simple as they weren't wanted any more. It doesn't matter if they were appointed by the same guy originally. Plenty of at-will employees in all sorts of settings get let go after the same manager that hired them has had a while to get to know them or decide if what they do fits within the strategy and priorities their boss has in mind. I'm at a complete loss as to why this seems mysterious to people, or what part of "at will" is so confusing, here. Of course, it's NOT a mystery: this is a manufactured "scandal" that the administration was clumsy enough to act defensive about, which just turned into something it wasn't.
It's actually a tremendous breath of fresh air to know that there is such a thing as a federal employee that can under- or mis-perform a job and actually be let go. That's the difference between political appointees and career beaurocrats, congressional cafeteria workers, etc.
The whole war metaphor is fundamentally flawed. Prosecution is essential in law enforcement activity.
That's the entire problem, here. Neither is a good metaphor. We're not dealing with a specific nation-state (though there certainly ARE specific nation-states that overtly support international terrorism... Iran, for example). A person sitting in a house in Syria, using money and expertise from Iran, talking to a student in Germany who's IM-ing with someone in Detroit who chats with people in Boston using disposable phones while planning something big is NOT a traditional law enforcement problem, either. You can't even start using the tools of law enforcement until you've got good evidence of a conspiracy under way, and the only way that happens is via intelligence gathering and processing. And when that involves intel that can only (or largely) be gathered through the sort of tools that the DoD deploys and operates overseas, you're in uncharted waters as it relates to preventing something from happening. That's exactly the sort of thing that had to change, post-9/11. That was only a few years ago. It takes time for a completely new threat, and a completely altered technological landscape, to find its way into useful policy, law, and administrative structures. In the meantime, you have to actually DO something.
terrorism is about evidence, facts and the rule of law
And the problem is that a boat full of LNG and some dirty radioactive-ness being blown up on its way into a US harbor or other facility as it approaches from international waters isn't, and can't be the before-hand problem of law enforcement. That's not their mission or area of expertise, though they'd certainly have something to contribute if there's a domestic element to the panning, etc. It's just not a situation we've really covered before, not even taking into account German saboteurs during WWII - they were still agents of a nation, and there wasn't really a lot of concern about them blowing up tankers full of chlorine outside police stations, and like that.
Can you show me where the Clinton administration pressured US attorneys to selective prosecute cases that served Democratic political ends? Or how when the US attorneys failed to comply they were fired? That would be news - which is why it is news now and wasn't then.
Why bother? The Clinton administration pre-emptively fired ALL of them, and put in their own political (and thus polically beholden) appointees. The current administration came right out and said that the vast majority of them were doing fine and that it would be disruptive to fire them. Further: can you show where there was any indication of the administration pressuring any of these attorneys at all? So far we've heard one anecdote of a legislator calling one up and bitching about something. Anything else would be news, indeed, but it isn't because: it isn't.
Which gets back to your ridiculous framing. I'd love for you to talk about all the terrorist activity the PATRIOT Act has enabled the U.S. government to prosecute.
The entire point of counter terrorism isn't prosecution (though that can be a nice sidebar), it's prevention. You don't want another Madrid, or London, or Manhatten with lots of nice prosecutable evidence trails, you want to stop it from happening in the first place. It's like any other war, at least in that regard: the idea isn't to punish the people who attack and harm you, it's to stop it, deter it, and eventually not have to worry so much about it.
Where is the accountability after the fact - information on what provisions were used, how it was effective, etc.
Ask anyone who works as an undercover cop busting organized crime operations, or anyone who pounces on the international finance and logistics types who empower the Khalid Sheik Mohammed-types. You don't get on the news and explain the details of the operation until years later. Otherwise, the rest of the people operating the same way get to adapt around the techniques. To say, "we just caught KSM, in part because we had some excellent people monitoring and tracking down his communcations" is pretty much the extent of what you can (and should hear). I'm intensely curious about the logistics of that sort of thing, but I don't want the details on a Discovery Channel show because I don't want his apprentices to see it either. But this is exactly why the congressional and senate oversight committees get briefed on this sort of stuff, and is exactly why the members of those committes from both parties routinely say they don't want to gut the PATRIOT act - because they know how important it is. The dems are now in charge of those committees. You seem to be suggesting that their current orientation is towards abolishing the act or its practical applications in this area. It's awfully quiet out there on that front, don't you think? There's a reason for that.
I think when you look at the facts you will find that the Patriot Act is being used in ways it was never intended on cases that have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism and that is a gross misuse of state power. All we have now is people - like yourself - stating it is very important.
So, why aren't people like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama out there campaigning, right now, talking about pressing the need to change the act, or pointing out specific cases where the abuse you're talking about is obvious? It's not just "people - like myself" that consider it important. It's the political opponents of the current administration, and the party currently controlling both houses of congress, that are NOT willing to tear it down. For obvious reasons.
You can speak freely any time you want. But if you want to tie up a local facility and require a city or county or other entity to dedicate untold thousands of dollars worth of their people and equipment to the event, it's reasonable to expect the group that's mandating that need to go through some channels. Likewise, how do you think a large public space like the national mall should be allocated for events... first people to show up each day get to put up tents and pavillions and call it theirs? For how long - the week? The month? Until lunch time? Welcome to actual practical reality, dude. You can put up your soap box and talk all you want. But when you're going to hold the Million Metrosexual March (or whatever), or have a major national political convention that ties up a city for tens of square blocks, someone has to pay for all of the public man hours, materials, fuel, and everything else that goes into being ready for such events. Otherwise, you're telling me and other taxpayers that they have to support your cause, whether we want to or not. Don't pretend like you don't get this just so you can put on your Cloak O' Oppression and rant. It's BS, and you know it.
Given that GWB is the master of the signing statement a.k.a "I won't veto it, I'll just ignore it", and based on the current admin's stance that "the C-in-C can do anything in time of war", what would stop the new C-in-C from issuing an executive order abolishing the Patriot Act?
A signing statement is nothing more than an opinion stated at the time the bill is signed. Clinton issued them, Carter issued them, etc. A president making a signing statement is simply going on record about the context in which they're signing the bill, and actually saving everyone a lot of time and trouble when said law (or the way in which it's used or ignored) winds up in court. Would you rather that a president decide, personally, that he thinks a law is BS and makes a decision about if/how he'll apply it at a policy level within his areas of authority, but doesn't say so out loud? At least this way (when a signing statement does accompany the occasional new law) you know exactly where the administration stands on its use or lack thereof. Rather than wait a year to find out, in practice, what the administration thinks, you can get right back to congress, or right to court, and deal with it more head-on. I think presidents are doing us all a favor when they characterize their administration's take on a new law and how they'll approach its use or enforcement (or let it rot). I'm not talking about any particular president, or any particular law - just the whole evolving habit. I think this is more in the "better the devil you know... " category.
As for the new C-in-C abolishing the act? It doesn't work that way. He can only offer up new legislation that counters it or modifies it, and congress has to run with it, or modify that, or let it rot. Executive orders apply to things that are within the executive branch's area of responsibility/authority. If they stray from that, that's what the legislative and judicial branches are for. If the legislators (from both parties) who put forth and passed the PATRIOT act and its slightly modified later version don't want the executive branch to use it, or want it to be used differently, all they have to do is change it. All YOU have to do is convince enough people to elect congressional representatives that SAY they want to change it. Of course, you won't actually find more than a tiny minority of congress-people who say they think that the CIA and NSA and FBI shouldn't be able to share intel in the middle of a terror investigation, or that being able to establish the pattern of a bad guy's flurry of phone calls to the local Hamas franchise office while using half a dozen disposable TRAC phones bought for cash at a bordertown 7-11 is a bad thing.
Why is that all you have to say? You're hoping that the executive branch is then run by the opposing party? But, the opposing party's majority supported the PATRIOT act, and supported renewing it because they saw the need to do so. Have you heard a single person (a plausibly electable C-in-C) that has actually said that despite the fact that congress voted on and passed (more than once) the legal framework for a change in how counter-terrorism intel is gathered/processed/shared that they would ignore that legislation? They (your presumptive opposing-party-president-elect) doesn't have any power or authority to change the legislation. That's for your congress to do. And the opposing party is already in control of congress. And guess what: all they can do is talk about non-binding resolutions that stamp their feet in disapproval over the conduct of the conflict in Iraq, and get in a lather over how a handful of US attorneys (ALL of whom work entirely at the whim of every president and are political appointees, and ALL of whom the previous administration fired without so much as a minor hissy fit out of congress) were dismissed.
If you don't like the PATRIOT act, talk to you congress creatures. They're the ones that passed it, they're the ones that renewed it, and they're the ones that could kill it off any time they want. So: specifically ask John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama if they would ask congress to kill it off (since that's all they can do), and see what they say. Your date in 2009 won't change the fact that important changes the PATRIOT act brought forth are still going to be necessary. People can't bitch about the poor intelligence sharing/processing lapses leading up to 9/11, and also bitch about the piece of legislation that fixes the problem. I think there are some aspects of the act that should be changed - but only if another provision is put in place: we need a LOT more judges. Ones with the security clearances and training required to be a part of real-time counter-terrorism investigations/activities. These problems are not like normal criminal investigations, to say the least. If we all want judges to weigh in on when an IT shop should be, in the middle of security issue, asked to cough up some sort of information - well, we need a hell of a lot more judges who are able to constructively weigh in on that issue on a moment's notice, and with the IT-savvy skills to grasp the issues at stake. And those judges will all need infrastructure, staff, communications and all of the other high costs that go with making them available to the intel people that are trying to get the actual work done. There's a little more to it than Teh Evil Bush Wants To Document My Pr0n Habits So I'll Go To Gitmo.
I think that freedom means the ability to cause problems, but being held responsible for trouble you cause. Freedom necessarily includes the freedom to break the law. You want an orderly society where we have no freedom, but laws are always obeyed. That isn't freedom. I'm not saying anyone should ever break the law. I'm saying they should have the choice. Choice. That's what freedom is about. Not just the freedom for others to do what you would have them do.
Then by your definition, everyone still has the freedom you're talking about, since they can climb a fence or walk out in front of traffic anyway. They'll get busted that much more quickly, of course. You seem to be glossing over the practical reality here... we're not talking about you standing on the streetcorner preaching your thoughts to me as I walk by. You're talking about groups that plan in advance, organize specifically in order to, and gather in numbers expressly to disrupt someone else's legititmate, permit-approved, rental-paid gathering. You can cite concerns about prior restraint all you want, but then you should also be railing against highway dividers - since, shouldn't you have the freedom to drive headlong into my lane of traffic, killing me? Sure, there will be consequences afterwards, but it's all about choice, right?
This is not about the general public, in general spaces, under general circumstances, and you know it. You're looking at the type of event that happens very rarely, in the scheme of things. Just this week crowds of pink-wearing, Pelosi-hating activists stood in the hallway outside her private office shouting inanities. Not exactly free speech being banned. When she no doubt plays a big role, however, in the next DNC convention next year, it will be an event where simply putting an officer on someone who steps out of line isn't enough. One person's actions (to say nothing of those of an organized group) can turn that sort of event into the sort of debacle that happened in Seattle or a few decades ago in Chicago. So, instead, they still get all the camera time they want and get to hold up huge blood-dripping-Pelosi puppets, and they even get to do it where the media knows they'll be.
Which is what they want, right? Or, do they think that their legitimate political discourse is actually improved by throwing themselves in front of the entrance to a rented convention center? How is allowing a crowd to throng the entrance to a facility beneficial? Do you presume that no physical crowd control of any kind is warranted until someone actually does something stupid? I've worked in that setting before (college stadiums, etc) and there's one thing you learn: it's always too late to keep people from getting hurt once some jerk starts something - and all the more so when a group of people who showed up specifically to start something do it with a purpose.
If, as you say, freedom means letting everyone cause all the trouble they want, but holding them accountable, how do you reconcile the demonstrated readiness of some people to not care about what happens to themselves while they "cause trouble" with holding public events that involve national figures and serious security risks? And I'm not talking about a misdemeanor protest arrest, I'm talking about people who are willing to die in front of a crowd to score political points.
You can speak freely all you like, just not near me.
*sigh*
Until YOU rent out the same convention center, and enjoy exactly the same protection from having the entrances and exits to the facility, and the roads to and from it (which need to be clear for emergency vehicles, and at a major political convention, the travel of people who need security) hosed up by screaming idiots who have the opposite point of view. How exactly is your speech banned? You can do EXACTLY what the people holding the event do. And THEY cannot, while you're using that facility, block the streets, get in your way, give your celebrity/politician visitors/members a hard time on their way in and out of the facility, etc. These people choose these facilities (just like you could if you wanted to) specifically so that their bit of theatre can go on the way they want. Greenpeace can do it. The Republicans, or Democrats, or Libertarians, or the Greens can do it. Your local Moose Club can do it. And they can talk all they want, flexing that first amendment muscle all they want, to their heart's content. The enforcement you're complaining about is to allow those people, any people to do exactly that.
I think that what you're looking for is an opportunity to deny freedom of assembly to the people that are actually holding the event. Doesn't matter if it's the Dems, or the GOP, or CAIR, or the Boy Scouts, or MoveOn.org that you don't want to be able to assemble and talk and have their event... you're looking to provide the means by which to allow someone who didn't rent the space or pay for the police that ensure the entrances and exits are safe and workable to break up the event. Further, you know that only certain types of people tend to be the ones that like to routinely resort to those disruptive tactics, and what that means is that you're looking for special treatment to break up only certain events to which you're opposed. You're quite some defender of the 1st Amendment, there.
Here's an idea: rent out a convention center and have a big summit on that very subject. For the very reasons that you're complaining about, you won't have that event disrupted, won't have your keynote speaker's car trashed in traffic on the way in to the venue's parking, etc. Because you get the same treatment that any group does... as in, 'Equal Protection.' Remember that?
Wow! You sure have an interesting mind-reading capability, there, or think you do. Too bad it's off-line at the moment.
I would shoot him in the leg or arm or both if possible.
Gotcha! That's some awesome shooting skills you have there. So, some large, lumbering, drug-addled, assault-minded guy is crashing through your living room. It's fairly dark. He's swinging a chair at you and perhaps some screaming member of your family. I realize that you're busy trying to explain the error of his ways and everything, as the chair is zooming at your head... or that you're carefully drawing a bead on one of his not-holding-still arms or legs as he's rushing across the room at you... so, my hat's off to you on the once-in-the-leg and once-in-the-arm shots you're going to execute under the circumstances.
Has it ever occurred to you that the primary use of a gun under those circumstances is as a deterrent? I've used one in exactly that way: to stop violence aimed at myself and my wife without firing a shot. Why did it work? Because the person (busy - despite seeing us through a window - trying to bash through our back door with a pipe in the middle of the night, who did in fact turn out to be way messed up on a witch's brew of pcp+meth+etc at the time) saw the gun aimed at his face, and finally stopped what he was doing. Took the police (who were called the moment we heard the noise) over 15 more minutes to arrive. If he had made his way into the house, there is absolutely no way that I could guarantee a leg-hit or an arm-hit, etc. (and I'm an excellent shot), given his flailing about and general crazyness. But some lower-level part of his operating system saw the gun and understood the life-threatening prospects. Did he stop because he was worried about an injury to his legs or arms? No. He processed a risk to his life. That's the very basic stuff that the brain still processes while under that sort of adrenaline rush and other altered brain chemistry. I'm not sure why you think it would have been "braver" to let someone like that finish what he was starting, but to suggest that being unwilling to brandish and, if necessary, use a gun when you have that option, rather than letting harm come to you family, is somehow 'cowardly' is rather mysterious.
You think mentioning 'family' is some easy dodge? All of the same applies when it's only yourself, too. Or your property. Someone willing to hurt you or risk your life has waived their rights to their own safety, period. I could have shot the assaulting clown through my back door, but I chose to give him a second to see if the visual language of the gun would work where the words used had already failed. You would have me, though, wait until he got through the door, and see what damage he could do in the 15 minutes we waited for the police? I think there's a different sort of cowardice involved here: you are afraid to confront the moral issues at stake in taking action because they require you to have a solid sense of self, and to operate without mixed premises. It is indeed a very absolute thing to decide you're willing to use lethal force when you have no other choice. It's intellectually cowardly of you to fall back, then, on the notion that once someone has committed to being willing to do so, that they will do nothing but that. Cowardly because that's a cheap and empty way to try to paint people you don't like as the stereotypes you wish they were (because then it's so easy to hate them and ridicule them). Sorry it's more complicated than that, and that it requires a little moral courage to digest that reality and work it into your cartoonish world view.
The question is why are you for eliminating free speech?
I'm not. The numbers of people on either side of the issue are irrelevent. 50,000 at an event wiht 50 protesters, or 50 people at an event, with 50,000 protesters. The people who are protesting at the facility where the event holders have booked the place and require access to and from it in order to use it in the legal way in which they've arranged can just as easily book the place themselves if they've got something so riveting to say or do. If I want to rent out a convention facility, I have every right. Just like the person protesting me has every right. The protesters, though, do not have the right to block the public streets in front of such a place, or obstruct the legal users of the facility from coming and going... and when they, in turn, want to rent out a facility or reserve a public space for their own event, they should certainly expect that the streets in the are won't be blocked off by permitless protesters looking to disrupt their event, either. I don't see why that's so complicated to understand. This isn't about preventing free speech, it's about supporting it.
Nice sophomoric false dichotomy you've got going on there. Of course you know that, and you're just trolling.
Even so... do you really find it brave to stand there while the thug you're lecturing does something irrational, like not listening to your well considered logic about how his life has gone astray and how much happier he'd be if he didn't actually, just now, rape your wife? Is your wife being brave, or cowardly, if she just lies there and takes it while the police take their 15-20 minutes to respond to your 911 call? Um, that's assuming the thug you're lecturing has allowed you to place such a call, and that you haven't frozen in your tracks trying to decide whether the police you're summoning will be either brave or cowardly if they're forced to use force to deal with someone who is irrational and dangerous. Wouldn't want to call the police if they're just going to show up and, cowards that they are, actually threaten the person raping your wife with harm if he doesn't stop what he's doing. Maybe you can talk your local PD into a brave new policy of only doing Greco-Roman wrestling when confronting murderous people?
Suggesting that it's all just some either-other situation so that you can childishly demonize anyone who would actually defend themselves and their family is pretty embarassing, and suggests that you've not really ever had to face such a situation. Talk to some people who have, and then get back to us.
...and my favorite, "Free Speech Areas" at political conventions.
Um, just out of curiosity... if you and, say, 500 of your idealogical or cultural fellows applied for and got a permit to occupy a public street or use a facility of some sort, and held such an event... and then someone else gathered 1000 drum-banging loons you can't stand to march in and shout down the communication you're trying to have between yourself and your 500 friends, would you consider the complete inability to hold the event for which you obtained the permits, paid the fees, etc., to be an example of your first amendment rights being protected? Or would you consider the 1000 people without the permits, who are specifically stepping in to disrupt your activity, to be the ones at fault? Should every peaceful demonstration or political rally really just be a complete shouting and shoving and size-of-signs contest to see who can drown out who? Why is it that some people think that only disruptive and sometimes destructive street antics are valid discourse in a public space, and don't get the irony because their typical idealogical opponents don't consider such amateur theatrics to be actually persuasive, and as such they don't "retaliate" with the same when the roles are reversed?
If your protesting or demonstration group - or, a much larger political organization to which you belong and which holds events that you attend - goes through the right steps to spend a day holding an event on the mall in DC (or wherever), would you consider your rights well looked after if your speeches or performances or other messages were simply disrupted/ended by idiots with giant puppets while the police, who are there to enforce the conditions of the permit that you properly obtained, just stand by and watch your event - and your use of the space you arranged to use - become worthless to you? You can't have it both ways.
Still, it's interesting to see a psychic's claim being backed by scientific observations.
Or, you could say that it's not at ALL interesting to see a scam artist selling his crap based on his dramafying of something that actual scientists have regularly pointed out. They're not backing HIM up, he's scamming intellectually stunted people out of money by vaguely pointing to something on the calendar that they can properly use as a fear focus. It's the oldest trick in the book... take a scrap of truthy info, wrap a bit of hokum around it, and propose a saving solution. When clowns like this are selling DVDs for $25, but don't take up Randi on his million-dollar offer, you know they're full of crap.
Only if you ignore the rabid MS fanboyism (astroturfing?) that infests sites like this. Including your own contributions.
Um, you DO understand that my comment was in response to someone was referring to the article as troll, right? He specificallly mentions the notion of "winning" users as if it's a concept that Linux and other F/OSS camps don't ever use or articulate. Which is nonsense, and hence my post. Methinks you dost protest too much.
Slashdot Mirror
it's time the franchise moved on to someone better.
You'd like to THINK that's the reason. They're actually shooting this one as a documentary, as produced/directed by Moore's brother, Michael Moore, who has specific information that there actually is a government plot that involves aliens.
This sort of nonsense will continue in retail jobs (and everywhere else) until workers UNITE.
Amen, comrade! Sing it!
In fact, the Fat Cat managers should be lined up and shot! We should nationalize electronics retailing, now that it doesn't really require the sort of expertise that it used to, and everyone can learn what they need to online anyway. Yes, a sort of People's Army Of Monster Cable Sales Reps would be ideal, and no one will get their feelings hurt if it dawns on them that their business model simply isn't viable any more. And even if they DO figure that out, it's OK, because your union will have some sort of legal stranglehold on the business and would rather wreck the business that's providing them income than see the business survive to keep anyone employed. Yes, yes, that's worked so well in the past. It's why GM and Ford are now basically swirling the toilet, but if it makes you feel good, march in the streets, brother! I'm sure you can get some Union Break Time, as long as you're protesting in line with their wishes. Probably on some other guy's dues, too. You know, the guy who may not agree with you, but has no control over where his union dues go as they feed political movements, candidates, and wealthy union bosses. *sigh*
These will be great for when I'm driving my flying car.
Why would Walmart worry? Apparently, Walmart can strong-arm their suppliers to do whatever they want.
Because it isn't about what Wal-Mart pays for the goods, or what the fixed price would be if the legal issue at hand went another way... no, for Wal-Mart it's all about being able to sell things for substantially less than pretty much everybody else. If Sony, or Tupperware, or DeLonghi, or any of a jillion other manufacturers were able to fix a price on everything sold through their legitimate dealers, Wal-Mart would lose the main thing that separates them from most other normal retailers. They may also do what Costco does, and just house-brand pretty much everything. That wouldn't surprise me a bit (just like Costco's "Kirkland" brand).
You'd see a vastly improved rebate industry ramp up, and more importantly, you'd see retailers "bundling" things that they would then instantly take back for a substantial credit/refund. Anyone who's worked retail (especially IT supporting retail!) knows how creative someone can get while competing with someone else two doors down in the strip mall. Where this would get ugly is the little stuff... like, toothbrushes.
Another solution? Retailers who thrive on competitve pricing all become like Costco, and sell things "wholesale" to their member customers. It's sort of like those bars where you have to become a "member of the club" (for $0.01) in order to have a drink poured.
This effort will flop, or there will be a legislative cure anyway. Wal-Mart alone would lobby that one right into the stratosphere.
Hydraulic fluid tends to be clear like water.
Actually, it's usually tinted for use in different systems so that you can tell which system is leaking. That's why your car's transmisstion fluid is tinted red - so that you can tell right away that you're in Deep Doo-Doo when you have a leak!
Also, more viscous fluids (like various hydraulic goos) have very different-looking spectral reflections... I mean, they just seem to catch the light (especially colored light) differently than other fluids (dark oil, or coolant, or water). I would imagine that those same aircraft mechanics might also really like being able to differentiate the various colors of cable and hose claddings, too. Not my area of expertise, obviously. But I can imagine lots of people in supporting roles, though, that would really benefit from a wider visible spectrum in the dark.
There are some non-gun-toting people who need to operate in a stealthy or semi-stealthy manner that would make use of this sort of thing. Think of the National Geographic-types that are setting up a pre-dawn shoot and trying to remain less visible, or the guys working on a forward helicopter refueling station who definitely prefer to be harder to see and definitely want to know the difference between stepping in a puddle of water and a puddle of hydraulic fluid.
It's worth mentioning that this isn't exactly a consumer purchase, here. This is a government contract. All SORTS of government contracts are written up with the understanding that there will be a built-in window of time following the award of the contract during which the other bidders will be able to challenge the award (say, if they think the people who DID get the award got it by promising something they know they can't deliver, or left out information about how they hosed up a previous contract, whatever).
It's VERY common for state and federal purchases, when put into a bidding process, to rather quickly wind up in an awarded contract, but then to drag on forever once with procurement people realize that there are points of contention over the suitability of the winner, or the little details of the product or service that will be delivered. This is exactly why a lot of emergency purchases are done with merely familiar vendors rather than a traditional, wide-open, and usually much more expensive procurement process that can take literally years to play out before anything is delivered or paid for. It's not usually very hard to see when the purchase of a 1000 widgets in an open bid might save you $10 per widget over the normal price from a familiar vendor, but cost you $20,000 in overall procurement costs and delays/negotiations because of all the damn paperwork and loopholes. This stuff is never as simple as the soundbites make it seem, and the very processes that are supposed to ensure that taxpayer money is spent as well as possible often ends up being very penny-wise and extremely pound-foolish. And some needs need to be met quicker than the procurement cycle can traditionally accommodate. Suffice it to say that contract award protestations (in one form or another) are very common. If Diebold had gotten the contract, somebody else probably would have stamped their feet just as loudly, and perhaps appeared just as shrill for the opposite reasons.
Your First Amendment rights do not include any guarantee that you will be heard, or that anyone will be interested in listening to you, just that you have the opportunity to speak and assemble. If drum-beating loons with giant puppets are drowning you out, maybe you should get some drums and puppets. Or maybe your ideas aren't as popular...another thing not guaranteed.
We're not talking about you and me standing on a street corner, and me whining because you're louder or have more friends with your point of view. We're talking about me renting out a convention center for my private event, and whether or not it's reasonable for you to block the public streets that allow the attendees to actually get into the paid-for facility, or whether or not emergency services will be able to get an ambulance down the street when somebody's giant puppet tips over and squashes a little old lady walking to the event.
Your first amendment rights don't include the right to shut down public streets. Groups that want that right usually strike a deal with the municipality that controls the street, and get a permit to assemble in that particular, singularly disruptive way... and such groups usually end up, at least in part, footing the bill for the extra police that are then needed to deal with the traffic problems and everything else that results. Your first amendment rights DO include, of course, complete protection for you to ALSO rent out the same convention center, and shoulder the same costs that your opponents do when they are brining 30,000 people into such an event. None of this has any bearing on traditional stand-around-and-chant clutches of people as seen every day in cities all over the country (well, certainly in big cities, anyway). And if the stand-around-and-chant-on-a-normal-day people happened to walk into the middle of the street to block traffic, they'd be just as arrested on a day there isn't a political convention in town as they would be when there is one. Why should they get special traffic-disruption rights on a particular day just because they don't like who booked the convention center for the week? It isn't a first amendment issue at all, it's a basic don't-block-the-frackin'-street (which I'm paying for, too) issue.
Seen any of the info about improper inquiries into Congresspeople inquirinig about ongoing investigations?
The ONLY thing I've heard so far (and considering the hay the dems are trying to make, I think it's very telling that they haven't floated anything else) is that a legislator (very much NOT a member of the administration) called one of the attorneys in a huff and hung up when he didn't hear what he wanted to hear. No implication of any change in the nature, urgency, or progress of ANY activity that said attorney was or would have been doing. That's it. That's the oiliest thing they can come up with. We COULD, I suppose, compare that to the US attorney that Jimmy Carter fires at the request of a congress member that was being investigated by that US attorney!. The dems did not complain about that any more than they did when they when one of their members actually had sex with an underage page AND had his DC residence mixed up in prostitution (said rep continued on with his career, unmolested by the dem-controlled congressional ethics committee, to say nothing of the District police). Mark Foley's an idiot, but at least he instantly resigned over what amounts to his trail of witless IMs. Are you sensing a pattern of double standards here? There is nothing, nada, zip but politics here - at its absolutely most callow.
I think you're missing the possibility that firings were done in retribution for failed attempts to influence the midterm elections and/or Congressional interference in ongoing legislation. This would be a clear violation of law, and is the reason for the brouhahah.
Well, it's also possible that they were fired because all U.S. attorneys are actually space aliens, and the recent release of UFO-related info by the French government was going to cause some problems. Of course, there isn't so much as a scrap of evidence for either of those scenarios, and if there was, it would be a criminal matter, not a matter for politicized polemic in congress. They could (and should) say all they want if there actually were more than just wishful thinking re: electioneering... but there isn't, of course. No more than the wishful thinking that that it was Dick Cheney that personall outed Plame to Novak turned out to be rather the opposite (Armitage, of course - no Bush fan at all - did it).
It is very problable that he deliberately telling partial truths in order to support an untenable position.
No, it is very certain that all US attorneys are political appointees. Their hiring and firing, however abruptly or delayed, is completely within the administration's rights at any time. You don't like the way that one of your political appointees runs their office, sets their priorities, or spins something? Great! They're yours to fire, at will. In the case of the 8 in question, it's as simple as they weren't wanted any more. It doesn't matter if they were appointed by the same guy originally. Plenty of at-will employees in all sorts of settings get let go after the same manager that hired them has had a while to get to know them or decide if what they do fits within the strategy and priorities their boss has in mind. I'm at a complete loss as to why this seems mysterious to people, or what part of "at will" is so confusing, here. Of course, it's NOT a mystery: this is a manufactured "scandal" that the administration was clumsy enough to act defensive about, which just turned into something it wasn't.
It's actually a tremendous breath of fresh air to know that there is such a thing as a federal employee that can under- or mis-perform a job and actually be let go. That's the difference between political appointees and career beaurocrats, congressional cafeteria workers, etc.
The whole war metaphor is fundamentally flawed. Prosecution is essential in law enforcement activity.
That's the entire problem, here. Neither is a good metaphor. We're not dealing with a specific nation-state (though there certainly ARE specific nation-states that overtly support international terrorism... Iran, for example). A person sitting in a house in Syria, using money and expertise from Iran, talking to a student in Germany who's IM-ing with someone in Detroit who chats with people in Boston using disposable phones while planning something big is NOT a traditional law enforcement problem, either. You can't even start using the tools of law enforcement until you've got good evidence of a conspiracy under way, and the only way that happens is via intelligence gathering and processing. And when that involves intel that can only (or largely) be gathered through the sort of tools that the DoD deploys and operates overseas, you're in uncharted waters as it relates to preventing something from happening. That's exactly the sort of thing that had to change, post-9/11. That was only a few years ago. It takes time for a completely new threat, and a completely altered technological landscape, to find its way into useful policy, law, and administrative structures. In the meantime, you have to actually DO something.
terrorism is about evidence, facts and the rule of law
And the problem is that a boat full of LNG and some dirty radioactive-ness being blown up on its way into a US harbor or other facility as it approaches from international waters isn't, and can't be the before-hand problem of law enforcement. That's not their mission or area of expertise, though they'd certainly have something to contribute if there's a domestic element to the panning, etc. It's just not a situation we've really covered before, not even taking into account German saboteurs during WWII - they were still agents of a nation, and there wasn't really a lot of concern about them blowing up tankers full of chlorine outside police stations, and like that.
Can you show me where the Clinton administration pressured US attorneys to selective prosecute cases that served Democratic political ends? Or how when the US attorneys failed to comply they were fired? That would be news - which is why it is news now and wasn't then.
Why bother? The Clinton administration pre-emptively fired ALL of them, and put in their own political (and thus polically beholden) appointees. The current administration came right out and said that the vast majority of them were doing fine and that it would be disruptive to fire them. Further: can you show where there was any indication of the administration pressuring any of these attorneys at all? So far we've heard one anecdote of a legislator calling one up and bitching about something. Anything else would be news, indeed, but it isn't because: it isn't.
Which gets back to your ridiculous framing. I'd love for you to talk about all the terrorist activity the PATRIOT Act has enabled the U.S. government to prosecute.
The entire point of counter terrorism isn't prosecution (though that can be a nice sidebar), it's prevention. You don't want another Madrid, or London, or Manhatten with lots of nice prosecutable evidence trails, you want to stop it from happening in the first place. It's like any other war, at least in that regard: the idea isn't to punish the people who attack and harm you, it's to stop it, deter it, and eventually not have to worry so much about it.
Where is the accountability after the fact - information on what provisions were used, how it was effective, etc.
Ask anyone who works as an undercover cop busting organized crime operations, or anyone who pounces on the international finance and logistics types who empower the Khalid Sheik Mohammed-types. You don't get on the news and explain the details of the operation until years later. Otherwise, the rest of the people operating the same way get to adapt around the techniques. To say, "we just caught KSM, in part because we had some excellent people monitoring and tracking down his communcations" is pretty much the extent of what you can (and should hear). I'm intensely curious about the logistics of that sort of thing, but I don't want the details on a Discovery Channel show because I don't want his apprentices to see it either. But this is exactly why the congressional and senate oversight committees get briefed on this sort of stuff, and is exactly why the members of those committes from both parties routinely say they don't want to gut the PATRIOT act - because they know how important it is. The dems are now in charge of those committees. You seem to be suggesting that their current orientation is towards abolishing the act or its practical applications in this area. It's awfully quiet out there on that front, don't you think? There's a reason for that.
I think when you look at the facts you will find that the Patriot Act is being used in ways it was never intended on cases that have absolutely nothing to do with terrorism and that is a gross misuse of state power. All we have now is people - like yourself - stating it is very important.
So, why aren't people like Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama out there campaigning, right now, talking about pressing the need to change the act, or pointing out specific cases where the abuse you're talking about is obvious? It's not just "people - like myself" that consider it important. It's the political opponents of the current administration, and the party currently controlling both houses of congress, that are NOT willing to tear it down. For obvious reasons.
Free Speech, heh.
You can speak freely any time you want. But if you want to tie up a local facility and require a city or county or other entity to dedicate untold thousands of dollars worth of their people and equipment to the event, it's reasonable to expect the group that's mandating that need to go through some channels. Likewise, how do you think a large public space like the national mall should be allocated for events... first people to show up each day get to put up tents and pavillions and call it theirs? For how long - the week? The month? Until lunch time? Welcome to actual practical reality, dude. You can put up your soap box and talk all you want. But when you're going to hold the Million Metrosexual March (or whatever), or have a major national political convention that ties up a city for tens of square blocks, someone has to pay for all of the public man hours, materials, fuel, and everything else that goes into being ready for such events. Otherwise, you're telling me and other taxpayers that they have to support your cause, whether we want to or not. Don't pretend like you don't get this just so you can put on your Cloak O' Oppression and rant. It's BS, and you know it.
Given that GWB is the master of the signing statement a.k.a "I won't veto it, I'll just ignore it", and based on the current admin's stance that "the C-in-C can do anything in time of war", what would stop the new C-in-C from issuing an executive order abolishing the Patriot Act?
A signing statement is nothing more than an opinion stated at the time the bill is signed. Clinton issued them, Carter issued them, etc. A president making a signing statement is simply going on record about the context in which they're signing the bill, and actually saving everyone a lot of time and trouble when said law (or the way in which it's used or ignored) winds up in court. Would you rather that a president decide, personally, that he thinks a law is BS and makes a decision about if/how he'll apply it at a policy level within his areas of authority, but doesn't say so out loud? At least this way (when a signing statement does accompany the occasional new law) you know exactly where the administration stands on its use or lack thereof. Rather than wait a year to find out, in practice, what the administration thinks, you can get right back to congress, or right to court, and deal with it more head-on. I think presidents are doing us all a favor when they characterize their administration's take on a new law and how they'll approach its use or enforcement (or let it rot). I'm not talking about any particular president, or any particular law - just the whole evolving habit. I think this is more in the "better the devil you know... " category.
As for the new C-in-C abolishing the act? It doesn't work that way. He can only offer up new legislation that counters it or modifies it, and congress has to run with it, or modify that, or let it rot. Executive orders apply to things that are within the executive branch's area of responsibility/authority. If they stray from that, that's what the legislative and judicial branches are for. If the legislators (from both parties) who put forth and passed the PATRIOT act and its slightly modified later version don't want the executive branch to use it, or want it to be used differently, all they have to do is change it. All YOU have to do is convince enough people to elect congressional representatives that SAY they want to change it. Of course, you won't actually find more than a tiny minority of congress-people who say they think that the CIA and NSA and FBI shouldn't be able to share intel in the middle of a terror investigation, or that being able to establish the pattern of a bad guy's flurry of phone calls to the local Hamas franchise office while using half a dozen disposable TRAC phones bought for cash at a bordertown 7-11 is a bad thing.
...1/20/2009 - That's all I have to say.
Why is that all you have to say? You're hoping that the executive branch is then run by the opposing party? But, the opposing party's majority supported the PATRIOT act, and supported renewing it because they saw the need to do so. Have you heard a single person (a plausibly electable C-in-C) that has actually said that despite the fact that congress voted on and passed (more than once) the legal framework for a change in how counter-terrorism intel is gathered/processed/shared that they would ignore that legislation? They (your presumptive opposing-party-president-elect) doesn't have any power or authority to change the legislation. That's for your congress to do. And the opposing party is already in control of congress. And guess what: all they can do is talk about non-binding resolutions that stamp their feet in disapproval over the conduct of the conflict in Iraq, and get in a lather over how a handful of US attorneys (ALL of whom work entirely at the whim of every president and are political appointees, and ALL of whom the previous administration fired without so much as a minor hissy fit out of congress) were dismissed.
If you don't like the PATRIOT act, talk to you congress creatures. They're the ones that passed it, they're the ones that renewed it, and they're the ones that could kill it off any time they want. So: specifically ask John Edwards, or Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama if they would ask congress to kill it off (since that's all they can do), and see what they say. Your date in 2009 won't change the fact that important changes the PATRIOT act brought forth are still going to be necessary. People can't bitch about the poor intelligence sharing/processing lapses leading up to 9/11, and also bitch about the piece of legislation that fixes the problem. I think there are some aspects of the act that should be changed - but only if another provision is put in place: we need a LOT more judges. Ones with the security clearances and training required to be a part of real-time counter-terrorism investigations/activities. These problems are not like normal criminal investigations, to say the least. If we all want judges to weigh in on when an IT shop should be, in the middle of security issue, asked to cough up some sort of information - well, we need a hell of a lot more judges who are able to constructively weigh in on that issue on a moment's notice, and with the IT-savvy skills to grasp the issues at stake. And those judges will all need infrastructure, staff, communications and all of the other high costs that go with making them available to the intel people that are trying to get the actual work done. There's a little more to it than Teh Evil Bush Wants To Document My Pr0n Habits So I'll Go To Gitmo.
I think that freedom means the ability to cause problems, but being held responsible for trouble you cause. Freedom necessarily includes the freedom to break the law. You want an orderly society where we have no freedom, but laws are always obeyed. That isn't freedom. I'm not saying anyone should ever break the law. I'm saying they should have the choice. Choice. That's what freedom is about. Not just the freedom for others to do what you would have them do.
Then by your definition, everyone still has the freedom you're talking about, since they can climb a fence or walk out in front of traffic anyway. They'll get busted that much more quickly, of course. You seem to be glossing over the practical reality here... we're not talking about you standing on the streetcorner preaching your thoughts to me as I walk by. You're talking about groups that plan in advance, organize specifically in order to, and gather in numbers expressly to disrupt someone else's legititmate, permit-approved, rental-paid gathering. You can cite concerns about prior restraint all you want, but then you should also be railing against highway dividers - since, shouldn't you have the freedom to drive headlong into my lane of traffic, killing me? Sure, there will be consequences afterwards, but it's all about choice, right?
This is not about the general public, in general spaces, under general circumstances, and you know it. You're looking at the type of event that happens very rarely, in the scheme of things. Just this week crowds of pink-wearing, Pelosi-hating activists stood in the hallway outside her private office shouting inanities. Not exactly free speech being banned. When she no doubt plays a big role, however, in the next DNC convention next year, it will be an event where simply putting an officer on someone who steps out of line isn't enough. One person's actions (to say nothing of those of an organized group) can turn that sort of event into the sort of debacle that happened in Seattle or a few decades ago in Chicago. So, instead, they still get all the camera time they want and get to hold up huge blood-dripping-Pelosi puppets, and they even get to do it where the media knows they'll be.
Which is what they want, right? Or, do they think that their legitimate political discourse is actually improved by throwing themselves in front of the entrance to a rented convention center? How is allowing a crowd to throng the entrance to a facility beneficial? Do you presume that no physical crowd control of any kind is warranted until someone actually does something stupid? I've worked in that setting before (college stadiums, etc) and there's one thing you learn: it's always too late to keep people from getting hurt once some jerk starts something - and all the more so when a group of people who showed up specifically to start something do it with a purpose.
If, as you say, freedom means letting everyone cause all the trouble they want, but holding them accountable, how do you reconcile the demonstrated readiness of some people to not care about what happens to themselves while they "cause trouble" with holding public events that involve national figures and serious security risks? And I'm not talking about a misdemeanor protest arrest, I'm talking about people who are willing to die in front of a crowd to score political points.
You can speak freely all you like, just not near me.
*sigh*
Until YOU rent out the same convention center, and enjoy exactly the same protection from having the entrances and exits to the facility, and the roads to and from it (which need to be clear for emergency vehicles, and at a major political convention, the travel of people who need security) hosed up by screaming idiots who have the opposite point of view. How exactly is your speech banned? You can do EXACTLY what the people holding the event do. And THEY cannot, while you're using that facility, block the streets, get in your way, give your celebrity/politician visitors/members a hard time on their way in and out of the facility, etc. These people choose these facilities (just like you could if you wanted to) specifically so that their bit of theatre can go on the way they want. Greenpeace can do it. The Republicans, or Democrats, or Libertarians, or the Greens can do it. Your local Moose Club can do it. And they can talk all they want, flexing that first amendment muscle all they want, to their heart's content. The enforcement you're complaining about is to allow those people, any people to do exactly that.
I think that what you're looking for is an opportunity to deny freedom of assembly to the people that are actually holding the event. Doesn't matter if it's the Dems, or the GOP, or CAIR, or the Boy Scouts, or MoveOn.org that you don't want to be able to assemble and talk and have their event... you're looking to provide the means by which to allow someone who didn't rent the space or pay for the police that ensure the entrances and exits are safe and workable to break up the event. Further, you know that only certain types of people tend to be the ones that like to routinely resort to those disruptive tactics, and what that means is that you're looking for special treatment to break up only certain events to which you're opposed. You're quite some defender of the 1st Amendment, there.
Here's an idea: rent out a convention center and have a big summit on that very subject. For the very reasons that you're complaining about, you won't have that event disrupted, won't have your keynote speaker's car trashed in traffic on the way in to the venue's parking, etc. Because you get the same treatment that any group does... as in, 'Equal Protection.' Remember that?
You would shoot him in the head if possible.
Wow! You sure have an interesting mind-reading capability, there, or think you do. Too bad it's off-line at the moment.
I would shoot him in the leg or arm or both if possible.
Gotcha! That's some awesome shooting skills you have there. So, some large, lumbering, drug-addled, assault-minded guy is crashing through your living room. It's fairly dark. He's swinging a chair at you and perhaps some screaming member of your family. I realize that you're busy trying to explain the error of his ways and everything, as the chair is zooming at your head... or that you're carefully drawing a bead on one of his not-holding-still arms or legs as he's rushing across the room at you... so, my hat's off to you on the once-in-the-leg and once-in-the-arm shots you're going to execute under the circumstances.
Has it ever occurred to you that the primary use of a gun under those circumstances is as a deterrent? I've used one in exactly that way: to stop violence aimed at myself and my wife without firing a shot. Why did it work? Because the person (busy - despite seeing us through a window - trying to bash through our back door with a pipe in the middle of the night, who did in fact turn out to be way messed up on a witch's brew of pcp+meth+etc at the time) saw the gun aimed at his face, and finally stopped what he was doing. Took the police (who were called the moment we heard the noise) over 15 more minutes to arrive. If he had made his way into the house, there is absolutely no way that I could guarantee a leg-hit or an arm-hit, etc. (and I'm an excellent shot), given his flailing about and general crazyness. But some lower-level part of his operating system saw the gun and understood the life-threatening prospects. Did he stop because he was worried about an injury to his legs or arms? No. He processed a risk to his life. That's the very basic stuff that the brain still processes while under that sort of adrenaline rush and other altered brain chemistry. I'm not sure why you think it would have been "braver" to let someone like that finish what he was starting, but to suggest that being unwilling to brandish and, if necessary, use a gun when you have that option, rather than letting harm come to you family, is somehow 'cowardly' is rather mysterious.
You think mentioning 'family' is some easy dodge? All of the same applies when it's only yourself, too. Or your property. Someone willing to hurt you or risk your life has waived their rights to their own safety, period. I could have shot the assaulting clown through my back door, but I chose to give him a second to see if the visual language of the gun would work where the words used had already failed. You would have me, though, wait until he got through the door, and see what damage he could do in the 15 minutes we waited for the police? I think there's a different sort of cowardice involved here: you are afraid to confront the moral issues at stake in taking action because they require you to have a solid sense of self, and to operate without mixed premises. It is indeed a very absolute thing to decide you're willing to use lethal force when you have no other choice. It's intellectually cowardly of you to fall back, then, on the notion that once someone has committed to being willing to do so, that they will do nothing but that. Cowardly because that's a cheap and empty way to try to paint people you don't like as the stereotypes you wish they were (because then it's so easy to hate them and ridicule them). Sorry it's more complicated than that, and that it requires a little moral courage to digest that reality and work it into your cartoonish world view.
The question is why are you for eliminating free speech?
I'm not. The numbers of people on either side of the issue are irrelevent. 50,000 at an event wiht 50 protesters, or 50 people at an event, with 50,000 protesters. The people who are protesting at the facility where the event holders have booked the place and require access to and from it in order to use it in the legal way in which they've arranged can just as easily book the place themselves if they've got something so riveting to say or do. If I want to rent out a convention facility, I have every right. Just like the person protesting me has every right. The protesters, though, do not have the right to block the public streets in front of such a place, or obstruct the legal users of the facility from coming and going... and when they, in turn, want to rent out a facility or reserve a public space for their own event, they should certainly expect that the streets in the are won't be blocked off by permitless protesters looking to disrupt their event, either. I don't see why that's so complicated to understand. This isn't about preventing free speech, it's about supporting it.
Bravery != Killing People
Bravery == Saving Lives
Nice sophomoric false dichotomy you've got going on there. Of course you know that, and you're just trolling.
Even so... do you really find it brave to stand there while the thug you're lecturing does something irrational, like not listening to your well considered logic about how his life has gone astray and how much happier he'd be if he didn't actually, just now, rape your wife? Is your wife being brave, or cowardly, if she just lies there and takes it while the police take their 15-20 minutes to respond to your 911 call? Um, that's assuming the thug you're lecturing has allowed you to place such a call, and that you haven't frozen in your tracks trying to decide whether the police you're summoning will be either brave or cowardly if they're forced to use force to deal with someone who is irrational and dangerous. Wouldn't want to call the police if they're just going to show up and, cowards that they are, actually threaten the person raping your wife with harm if he doesn't stop what he's doing. Maybe you can talk your local PD into a brave new policy of only doing Greco-Roman wrestling when confronting murderous people?
Suggesting that it's all just some either-other situation so that you can childishly demonize anyone who would actually defend themselves and their family is pretty embarassing, and suggests that you've not really ever had to face such a situation. Talk to some people who have, and then get back to us.
...and my favorite, "Free Speech Areas" at political conventions.
Um, just out of curiosity... if you and, say, 500 of your idealogical or cultural fellows applied for and got a permit to occupy a public street or use a facility of some sort, and held such an event... and then someone else gathered 1000 drum-banging loons you can't stand to march in and shout down the communication you're trying to have between yourself and your 500 friends, would you consider the complete inability to hold the event for which you obtained the permits, paid the fees, etc., to be an example of your first amendment rights being protected? Or would you consider the 1000 people without the permits, who are specifically stepping in to disrupt your activity, to be the ones at fault? Should every peaceful demonstration or political rally really just be a complete shouting and shoving and size-of-signs contest to see who can drown out who? Why is it that some people think that only disruptive and sometimes destructive street antics are valid discourse in a public space, and don't get the irony because their typical idealogical opponents don't consider such amateur theatrics to be actually persuasive, and as such they don't "retaliate" with the same when the roles are reversed?
If your protesting or demonstration group - or, a much larger political organization to which you belong and which holds events that you attend - goes through the right steps to spend a day holding an event on the mall in DC (or wherever), would you consider your rights well looked after if your speeches or performances or other messages were simply disrupted/ended by idiots with giant puppets while the police, who are there to enforce the conditions of the permit that you properly obtained, just stand by and watch your event - and your use of the space you arranged to use - become worthless to you? You can't have it both ways.
Still, it's interesting to see a psychic's claim being backed by scientific observations.
Or, you could say that it's not at ALL interesting to see a scam artist selling his crap based on his dramafying of something that actual scientists have regularly pointed out. They're not backing HIM up, he's scamming intellectually stunted people out of money by vaguely pointing to something on the calendar that they can properly use as a fear focus. It's the oldest trick in the book... take a scrap of truthy info, wrap a bit of hokum around it, and propose a saving solution. When clowns like this are selling DVDs for $25, but don't take up Randi on his million-dollar offer, you know they're full of crap.
Only if you ignore the rabid MS fanboyism (astroturfing?) that infests sites like this. Including your own contributions.
Um, you DO understand that my comment was in response to someone was referring to the article as troll, right? He specificallly mentions the notion of "winning" users as if it's a concept that Linux and other F/OSS camps don't ever use or articulate. Which is nonsense, and hence my post. Methinks you dost protest too much.