Do you think you would have ever heard about these protesters if they weren't wearing hazmat suits?
Nope, I don't. But I also know that they're only impressing (in that, "yeah, you go girl" sort of way) the people who already agree with them. Those that are neutral are by definition uninformed on the matter, and will roll their eyes as they now do at all theatrical protest silliness, And those that disagree with them simply have their existing notions about "those people" completely confirmed.
I would add, "making your cash, and removing it entirely from the state's economy."
That's only if the company you're working for (in NY) doesn't itself make any money off of the work you're doing. That NY company pays corporate taxes, and is by its proximity to thousands of other NY businesses, participating plenty in the state economy. You've got to look at it from the other perspective: if the NJ telecommuter wasn't there to help produce what that NY company's customers are looking to buy, that cash (only a part of which goes to the NJ-based employee) might not change hands at all without his participation.
You are also, arguably, taking a job away from a New York resident.
Why, because NY residents aren't as able to do the work? Or because the NJ residents (who are paying more taxes, currently) are willing to work for less? There's a lot of competition out there. If the NY economy is so intent on making everything about itself sky-high expensive, then they simply can't be shocked when local businesses competing with firms in other parts of the country and the world choose their staff based on hitting a financial and professional sweet spot. If they can't make money doing that, they'll be out of business, including out any local jobs they provide. If they do make money, NY takes a nice big chunk in corporate taxes, not to mention taxes off of the other companies that serve that company (by renting them office space, and so on).
Because nothing says, "Let me explain the complex ramifications of this very, very complicated issue..." like a shrill, costume-oriented protest by people who clearly don't have a job to be doing. Honestly, I wonder sometimes what professional protesters really think about who they're reaching with stuff like this. It completely trivializes the discussion to trot out the amateur theatrics. Now, if they started smashing their iPods with Open Source Sledgehammers, that would be fun. But, like, dude, we'd have no tunes to listen to inside our bunny suits... and plus, I'd have to go back to my day job to afford another one.
If you live e.g. in New Jersey, how can New York expect you to pay taxes, since you don't vote for anyone in New York?
I'm guessing the reasoning goes like this: you have the choice to do your business in another state if you don't like what happens when you go out of your current state of residence and earn money in that otherstate (NY). For example, you could telecommute and occasionally make a trip to Delaware, and have none of that tax liability. Or Nevada. But you're choosing to make money in NY, and this is the price the people of NY want to charge you for playing host to the place where you're making your cash.
This only works as long as the representatives see their interests to be the same as ours. Because we are slowly creating a hereditary ruling class, this is not going to be the case much longer.
When there is a sufficient shock to the conscience, voting does change things. Think of the PA school board that got completely tossed out after their attempt at propping up religion in the classroom (a la "evolution is just a theory, blah blah"). But no question that we can't have elections that are so easily monopolized by the sitting elected officials... another reason why the McCain-Feingold mess is so unfortunate. It leaves much of the campaign-season communication up to the main stream media, which spends more time covering sitting representatives, senators, etc., than it does challengers. When enough of us get to together and decide we want to put forth some very different candidate or issue, we're now facing considerable restrictions on our freedom to talk about it (or pay for airtime to educate other people if we want to).
Isn't this the basis for open sourcing, think tanks, and such?
It is for those that want it to be. Those that prefer their ideas to be presented in context, or under circumstances they think are essential to their continued success in producing such stuff in the first place may have other thoughts on the matter. So, just plain walking away with the material, more or less in full, in order to flesh out your own web site and attract more people (and collect a few more advertising pennies) is transparently predictable in certain circles. Better to just link to the original material, if indeed it was published in a manner that encourages such things. Otherwise, you're afoul of copyright issues, and the article in question sure isn't talking about people that have asked for permission to reproduce others' work.
I never want a judge or a federal official telling me what I can and can't say. Ever.
OK, just be prepared to wear the consequences, that's all.
I don't care what people think their right is in a fair trial, but my right to speak my conscience or reveal information about others should be protected from government infringement.
It's not what "people" think, it's what the judge thinks. If you're in the middle of a court fight (or the steps leading up to one) over some bit of contention with another party, and they think it's appropriate to, say, spread around your ripe-for-identity-theft personal finance info, are you OK with that? Or if someone spuriously sues you just as a way to wear down your finances while you try to compete with them in some shared marketspace, is anything they choose to say, disclose, or trot out OK with you? Are you OK with fighting back in court by, say, putting up a web site that shows where your opponent's kids go to school and posting pictures of them at a ballet recital? Those examples might fade back and forth between illegal/not, unethical/not, but some things are just objectively wrong, and some things are gagged by a judge for very good reasons. Those reasons look a lot better depending on who's suing who.
Do people not see that the worst terrorists are those with the worst weapons?
First, not quite sure how this follows the rest of your message. But more to the (unrelated) point, the "worst" weapons is something of a judgement call, don't you think? Is France or the US the "worst" terrorist (since we each have enough nukes to make it pointless to worry about which of us is the worst, should we actually use them). Is a professional, paid rape gang in Darfur better, or worse than the DBA that pre-indexes telco records for crossreferencing with calls from Syria to New York?
Where's a (-1 Disingenuous) mod when you need one?
The point is that the GP thinks the government should carry on without the ability to keep any secrets, or operate any program that isn't freely viewed, discussed, and poked/prodded-at in the press. That is, on the face of it, absurd.
And how, precisely, are the voters supposed to do that when they don't even know that the secret exists?
Because a good number of your elected representatives are briefed on them, and write the checks to operate the programs that depend on such covert activities. What you want to do is to elect people that, going in to their jobs on the committees that appropriate funds for everything that the government does say they will do so with a particular orientation around secret-ish stuff. For example, don't like the fact that every congress for the past dozen decades has seen fit to seat committees that hear from defense/intel-types about the need to fund this or that secret program, and then vote largely along the lines of those committee's findings? Elect different people.
Note that I was responding to the GP who said, essentially, that the government should not be allowed to have any secrets. My response is: then persuade the voters to elect people who promise to get rid of all operations that revolve around secrecy. Yes, that's a straw man, because that's not going to happen and shouldn't. Plan B: elect people who, sitting on select intelligence committees that steer the checkbook, do the right thing and generally support such covet programs as make sense, and generally shut down those that don't. We elect people to make decisions based on their character, not to run every decision past us all, one at a time. We're not running the PTA, here - it's a Republic of 300,000,000 people with a lot at stake. You can't run it, and defend it, like a homeowners association.
I don't see any exception for the state to keep secrets from the electorate. Bring the prosecutions and watch them fall one by one.
Every couple or four years the electorate gets to elect new people in the house, senate, or executive branch. Those people, in doing their jobs (or funding others to do so), have a couple hundred years worth of history of using non-public information, or conducting some activities (especially those that revolve around defense) covertly, lest the work at hand be rendered completely useless. If you don't like the fact that, say, keeping an eye on North Korea, or stinging an organized crime ring in Florida, or stopping the smuggling of old Soviet shoulder-fired AA missles in from Central America require the government to not talk out loud about things that it has to do, then rationally persuade enough voters to elect people that say they will not engage in those activities as they carry out their constitutionally described roles. Good luck with that.
Don't like a particular secret, activity, or program? Elect people with different priorities. Don't think the government should be able to do anything that the Chinese or Iranian governments can't see as easily as you can? Grow up.
There is the possibility that legal ownership of such weapons, even by only a few, makes it easier for someone to get their hands on one (by stealing). Whether true or not, I have no idea.
The overwhelming majority of perceived-as-more-dangerous-because-they-look-that -way guns that fall into the wrong hands do so because of deliberate, overtly "straw" purchases or outright illegal importation. Stolen guns, per se, aren't nearly as much of an issue as the lack of really, truly punishing incarceration of those that set out to traffic in them as a business. Needless to say, we (in the US) have a much bigger problem with stolen cars used in crimes (and a vastly, vastly higher number of people killed by criminally negligant drivers). People fret about guns entirely out of scale with the real threats in their lives... like, eating fatty meat. Which bring us to:
Last time I tried rabbit, I was unimpressed. Same with pheasant, I think.
With rabbit, the diet of the animal is crucial to the flavor (or lack of), and the meat is pretty lean, so it actually needs the same sort of care as game bird meat (lest it become dry and tough). From that same web site, here's how to deal with that pheasant meat. It's all about not over-cooking. It's counter-intuitive, but even when the meat's in a soupy marinade, too much cooking can still make it dry, flavorless, and annoying. Which, of course, leads to bans on repeating shotguns authored by people that only eat steroid-pumped, farm-nasty chicken. See how it all comes together? My goal is to preserve my right to own my firearms by pointing people to web sites about juicier bird meat preparation. Of course, a lot of people wouldn't follow my reasoning, there.:-)
Sure, you can predict evolution if you control all of the life-or-death variables that influence the viability of the bacteria species you're watching. I mean, for fun, I go to Drudge for headlines like that because, well, it's amusing to see the twisted contexts... but isn't this audience/editorial team just a skosh more thoughtful about this sort of thing? Given the traditional dialog and debate here about all thinge evolution-related, throwing that word in the headline in that way drags all of that baggage in with it. Come on, there, Zonk! How about a headline like "Unnatural Selection Works Too" or something similar.
Now why would you use an automatic weapon for such things, though?
I think you're confusing "automatic" with "auto-loading" or "semi-automatic." In order to actually own a true, automatic weapon in the US, you have to pass extremely invasive federal inspection, demonstrate secure storage, remain open to surprise inspection from the feds, and renew your license on a regular basis. Essentially, it's serious military collectors, clubs, etc. I believe the records still show that no crimes involving an actual automatic weapon in the US have been committed by a person who legally obtained and owns such pieces.
A semi-automatic, though, is different. It's a means by which to repeat your fire with relative, but deliberate speed. A double action revolver, for example, can do this (typically) six times - as fast as you can pull the trigger. The problem with that revolver is that pulling the trigger in quick succession usually messes up your aim because it's a fair amount of forearm/finger work unless you've got really big hands. A semi-auto pistol (say, a good old 1911-style.45 with a nine round magazine) allows the same repeating action, but with considerably more control because the gun is doing more of the work. In a long gun, it's the same story. Repeating rifles, for example, have been around a long, long time. Bolt-action, pump-action, lever-action (some of which can be operated with amazing speed if you practice)... and, gas/recoil-operated semi-autos.
The most common real use for a repeating gun, for most hunters, is in bird hunting. I'm guessing, based on your handle, that you're from the UK. Folks in your area have made some of the finest side-by-side shotguns ever made. That's a two-shot repeating gun, which can get off those two shots in an instant. Unfortunately, when hunting, say, larger rooster pheasants in the Great Plains, two shots doesn't do the job when you flush up four birds in high winds. A repeating gun helps a lot, and a semi-auto one helps even more. My freezer is full of pheasant and partridge meat that fell to both my gun and my wife's (she's fond of Italian shotguns - and shoes). There isn't a moment of gratuitousness in using a semi-auto shotgun to stop the game you're after. Also very appropriate on rabbits (yum, hasenpfeffer) and other high-speed targets that zig, zag, and don't politely hold still just because you want to eat them.
No, it doesn't do anything. Only I do something, or nothing happens at all.
And if not used for that, it is used, at times, with the threat of killing or crippling to gain something else.
Except, in my case, I've never used it to "gain" something else, unless you include dinner. Oh, and my family's safety. I've used a gun to dissuade a truly dangerous person from continuing to try to beat down our door in the middle of the night. So, I "gained" (re-gained, really) some household peace of mind, without having to fire a shot. Yes, "intentionally" (though I had no intention of having that person choose our door to start beating on and ranting at).
Legal, maybe. Sensible, probably not. A handgun isn't designed for hunting. It's designed for killing. The difference may be quite subtle.
Careful, your complete ignorance is showing.
First, hunting is killing. A 120-pound whitetail deer destined for the dinner table, for example, requires exactly the same sort of killing as a 120-pound attacking human. In my area, many deer are hunted in very close, densely wooded areas. Many hunters hunt from tree stands, waiting only for animals that are only a few meters away. Packing and mounting a climbing tree stand requires a lot of work, and if you're equipped with the right handgun (personally, a 7-1/2" Ruger Redhawk in.44 magnum with a Leupold scope), you can climb the tree with your weapon nicely stowed in a shoulder holster. Much, much easier (and safer) for that type of hunting than hiking in and climbing with a long gun.
Works great, and drops a deer stone cold dead right where it's standing. Mmmm, venison. Best red meat money can't easily buy.
The punishment for theft should not be instant execution without a trial or jury.
Except, that's not what we're talking about, and you know it. When you hear a sound in your house in the middle of the night, do you phone up a jury to determine what the intentions are of the person that's creeping in through the window? If you know that people in your neighborhood have been accosted by someone breaking into houses at night, do you just err on the side of assuming that person (who also knows that) is hoping for a sandwich?
The point is that when someone deliberately chooses to act in a way that leaves other people unable to ascertain their intentions, and they do so while invading their home, they waive any right to their own well being. And no jury should find someone guilty for taking into account what they know can happen (and has) under similar circumstances.
And then there's actually being overtly, directly threatened. Have you ever had some drug-addled 300-pound guy beating on your door with a pipe at 2:00AM? I have. Yes, my wife called the police, and they were almost 20 minutes arriving. The only thing that kept that person from breaking down the door (and, presumably carrying out the threats he was shouting) was that some part of his brain recognized the large-frame revolver that I pointed his way. That was a classic case of "brandishing," and it did what it almost always does: it dissuades all but the totally crazy from advancing any closer to the person they're threatening. For the truly crazy, it can be used in its full capacity and to disable, physically, the threatening person. And when that's in my house, with my family being threatened, I'm not in the mood to wait for a jury's deliberations on just how dangerous this person - who has already demonstrated complete disregard for civility, privacy, perceptions of safety - is or is not.
Bad analogy, guns don't have a non-killing function.
Ever use a gun to prevent harm from coming to someone? I have. Ever use a gun to remove a diseased, predatory threat from a farm? I have. Ever filled you freezer with lean, chemical-free meat while playing a role in controlling the exploding population of whitetail deer in the suburban US... using a gun? I have. You need to get out of your tiny, scared little world a little more often.
So if Clinton did it (which he didn't, but still) that makes it ok? Now that is a bad argument. The "appeal to Clinton" fallacy.
Heh... you said "Clinton" and "fallacy." Never mind. Beavis and Butthead are getting old, now. Anyway...
which he didn't, but still
Heh? Surely you're not saying that during Janet Reno's tenure at Justice that no one in the FBI made a routine telco records scan, which doesn't need a warrant? That's the most common investigative tool in use! Of course it happened on his watch... without it, countless federal cases wouldn't have been prosecuted.
Still, I do understand how you might construe my comment for citing Clinton as a good example. My apologies. My point was that it's busines as usual (relating call records in a cross reference). That's not the same as warrantless domestic-domestic tapping, which wasn't happening then, or now.
Um, Blue Security (the target of the attacks) is an Isreali company. The best guess as to their attackers is that they were Russian mafia.
All right then, screw THEM, instead! I'm actually NOT surprised that the Israelis' own security apparatus would leave this in a hands-off mode, since the last thing they want is more people harboring conspiracy theories about them wanting to take over the internet, blah blah. The (sub) thread was really about the US inte/counter-terror types trotting out (or not) countermeasures against people like the Russians you mention... and whether that would "feel" right or not when the target is a particular company versus, say, public infrastructure.
These domestic warrantless spying programs were instituted by the Bush administration AFTER 9/11 and AFTER Pelosi left the Select Committee.
Except, the NSA came to the committee, on which she was the ranking democrat at the time, and said "we're expanding our programs to accomplish these goals..." and they said so, immediately after 9/11, in the wake of the attacks and in the light of the obvious presence of people inside the US using, among other things, telecommunications to coordinate the type of activities that had just killed thousands of people. The NSA said they'd be adjusting their programs to track those calls. That exact change in posture - bringing that agencies enormous capabilities around to focus on the reality of terrorists operating within our borders (and our telecomm systems) was the entire point of those biefings, and is indeed the exact thing that she was made aware of, years ago and many times after that. Of course they didn't have every detail worked out in three weeks. Which is why the senior committee members have been getting regular briefings for years since. But you trying to pretend that she is shocked, just shocked! - is disengenuous at best. Ask her if she wants the programs disbanded: her answer, and that of the rest of her party's leadership is a resounding "no." All they're doing is mining for media-friendly, political point-scoring friction without actually saying they think the programs are, in and of themselves, bad. This is because many of their leftier constituents are so rabidly opposed to anything the administration does (regardless of merit) that they (and she) have to somehow both back the program (which they're doing, repeatedly) and at the same time appear to be suffering great offense, lest they lose the love of their less-informed voters back home. Hillary Clinton has already decided to say "screw it" and not worry about the wingnuts, because even she knows the reality scoop.
First, announcement of a Congressional inquiry does not a Conressiopnal briefing make
What are you talking about? I'm responding to your earlier, completely factually incorrect assertion that Pelosi wasn't on the select committee during the very first, and the ongoing briefings by the NSA and the routine business of funding their operations. She was, and you're pretending you weren't simply wrong about that by acting like I said something else. You know I cited the announcement in question specifically because of the date on it, to show you that your "she wasn't there at that point" notion is just plain wrong, and you're trying to pretend I'm talking about something else. Just admit you were wrong about the facts, and focus instead on the merits of the actual programs at hand.
Second, for you to expect anyone to believe that immediately after 9/11 that the Bush administration briefed Congress on their plans to conduct warrantless wiretaps and to collect every single phone record of every single American (and God knows what else) is absurd.
Hardly. The NSA briefed Congress on their plans to expand their abilities and methods in tracking foreign calls that included US destinations/origins, when they had a reason to think that the foreign end of that call was meaningful from an intel perspective. That's still the case, just like it was then.
"Ever single phone record of every single American" was already a matter of record, and could be requested at any time by law enforcement agencies from the feds all the way down to your local county sheriff. Without a warrant. For decades. That's not to be confused with "tapping" domestic-domestic calls, which always has, and still does require a warrant, and which is not what the NSA is doing. They're taking existing records and pre-indexing them so that digging through them for patterns when new intel says to follow up on some particular call (say, a disposable cell phone in Syria calling a disposable cell phone in New York with a number that matches something turned up in Madrid following a terrorist arrest there, etc) with the actual speed necessary to catch someone who's on the fly or continually shifting numbers. If that turns into the need for an actual domestic wire tap, they have to get a court order, as they always have to. Period. And if you think that people like Harry Reid in the senate, who know how this works, and have repeatedly said they do not want to stop the programs aren't up to speed, then you're just deliberately keeping yourself in a half-informed state so that you don't have to feel the same discomfort with the opponents of the party you already don't like.
Excuse me but your sense of time and my sense of time appear to be different. These domestic warrantless spying programs were instituted by the Bush administration AFTER 9/11 and AFTER Pelosi left the Select Committee
Ok, let's try again. here is another bit for you. In February of 2002, the senate announced their joint inquiry into the intel shortcomings prior to 9/11. The inquiry was announced by the members of the select committe, including the ranking democrat on that committee, Nancy Pelosi, who was still a member at that time, just as she was during the NSA briefings earlier in the fall. Wishing that a senior democrat wasn't tuned into this doesn't make it so. She was right in the thick of it, and was one of the eight people that the administration designated as those that would be briefed on the realigned intel work right after 9/11.
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For some real signs of life, try a little moonshine.
Do you think you would have ever heard about these protesters if they weren't wearing hazmat suits?
Nope, I don't. But I also know that they're only impressing (in that, "yeah, you go girl" sort of way) the people who already agree with them. Those that are neutral are by definition uninformed on the matter, and will roll their eyes as they now do at all theatrical protest silliness, And those that disagree with them simply have their existing notions about "those people" completely confirmed.
I would add, "making your cash, and removing it entirely from the state's economy."
That's only if the company you're working for (in NY) doesn't itself make any money off of the work you're doing. That NY company pays corporate taxes, and is by its proximity to thousands of other NY businesses, participating plenty in the state economy. You've got to look at it from the other perspective: if the NJ telecommuter wasn't there to help produce what that NY company's customers are looking to buy, that cash (only a part of which goes to the NJ-based employee) might not change hands at all without his participation.
You are also, arguably, taking a job away from a New York resident.
Why, because NY residents aren't as able to do the work? Or because the NJ residents (who are paying more taxes, currently) are willing to work for less? There's a lot of competition out there. If the NY economy is so intent on making everything about itself sky-high expensive, then they simply can't be shocked when local businesses competing with firms in other parts of the country and the world choose their staff based on hitting a financial and professional sweet spot. If they can't make money doing that, they'll be out of business, including out any local jobs they provide. If they do make money, NY takes a nice big chunk in corporate taxes, not to mention taxes off of the other companies that serve that company (by renting them office space, and so on).
Because nothing says, "Let me explain the complex ramifications of this very, very complicated issue..." like a shrill, costume-oriented protest by people who clearly don't have a job to be doing. Honestly, I wonder sometimes what professional protesters really think about who they're reaching with stuff like this. It completely trivializes the discussion to trot out the amateur theatrics. Now, if they started smashing their iPods with Open Source Sledgehammers, that would be fun. But, like, dude, we'd have no tunes to listen to inside our bunny suits... and plus, I'd have to go back to my day job to afford another one.
If you live e.g. in New Jersey, how can New York expect you to pay taxes, since you don't vote for anyone in New York?
I'm guessing the reasoning goes like this: you have the choice to do your business in another state if you don't like what happens when you go out of your current state of residence and earn money in that otherstate (NY). For example, you could telecommute and occasionally make a trip to Delaware, and have none of that tax liability. Or Nevada. But you're choosing to make money in NY, and this is the price the people of NY want to charge you for playing host to the place where you're making your cash.
This only works as long as the representatives see their interests to be the same as ours. Because we are slowly creating a hereditary ruling class, this is not going to be the case much longer.
When there is a sufficient shock to the conscience, voting does change things. Think of the PA school board that got completely tossed out after their attempt at propping up religion in the classroom (a la "evolution is just a theory, blah blah"). But no question that we can't have elections that are so easily monopolized by the sitting elected officials... another reason why the McCain-Feingold mess is so unfortunate. It leaves much of the campaign-season communication up to the main stream media, which spends more time covering sitting representatives, senators, etc., than it does challengers. When enough of us get to together and decide we want to put forth some very different candidate or issue, we're now facing considerable restrictions on our freedom to talk about it (or pay for airtime to educate other people if we want to).
Isn't this the basis for open sourcing, think tanks, and such?
It is for those that want it to be. Those that prefer their ideas to be presented in context, or under circumstances they think are essential to their continued success in producing such stuff in the first place may have other thoughts on the matter. So, just plain walking away with the material, more or less in full, in order to flesh out your own web site and attract more people (and collect a few more advertising pennies) is transparently predictable in certain circles. Better to just link to the original material, if indeed it was published in a manner that encourages such things. Otherwise, you're afoul of copyright issues, and the article in question sure isn't talking about people that have asked for permission to reproduce others' work.
I never want a judge or a federal official telling me what I can and can't say. Ever.
OK, just be prepared to wear the consequences, that's all.
I don't care what people think their right is in a fair trial, but my right to speak my conscience or reveal information about others should be protected from government infringement.
It's not what "people" think, it's what the judge thinks. If you're in the middle of a court fight (or the steps leading up to one) over some bit of contention with another party, and they think it's appropriate to, say, spread around your ripe-for-identity-theft personal finance info, are you OK with that? Or if someone spuriously sues you just as a way to wear down your finances while you try to compete with them in some shared marketspace, is anything they choose to say, disclose, or trot out OK with you? Are you OK with fighting back in court by, say, putting up a web site that shows where your opponent's kids go to school and posting pictures of them at a ballet recital? Those examples might fade back and forth between illegal/not, unethical/not, but some things are just objectively wrong, and some things are gagged by a judge for very good reasons. Those reasons look a lot better depending on who's suing who.
Do people not see that the worst terrorists are those with the worst weapons?
First, not quite sure how this follows the rest of your message. But more to the (unrelated) point, the "worst" weapons is something of a judgement call, don't you think? Is France or the US the "worst" terrorist (since we each have enough nukes to make it pointless to worry about which of us is the worst, should we actually use them). Is a professional, paid rape gang in Darfur better, or worse than the DBA that pre-indexes telco records for crossreferencing with calls from Syria to New York?
Where's a (-1 Disingenuous) mod when you need one?
The point is that the GP thinks the government should carry on without the ability to keep any secrets, or operate any program that isn't freely viewed, discussed, and poked/prodded-at in the press. That is, on the face of it, absurd.
And how, precisely, are the voters supposed to do that when they don't even know that the secret exists?
Because a good number of your elected representatives are briefed on them, and write the checks to operate the programs that depend on such covert activities. What you want to do is to elect people that, going in to their jobs on the committees that appropriate funds for everything that the government does say they will do so with a particular orientation around secret-ish stuff. For example, don't like the fact that every congress for the past dozen decades has seen fit to seat committees that hear from defense/intel-types about the need to fund this or that secret program, and then vote largely along the lines of those committee's findings? Elect different people.
Note that I was responding to the GP who said, essentially, that the government should not be allowed to have any secrets. My response is: then persuade the voters to elect people who promise to get rid of all operations that revolve around secrecy. Yes, that's a straw man, because that's not going to happen and shouldn't. Plan B: elect people who, sitting on select intelligence committees that steer the checkbook, do the right thing and generally support such covet programs as make sense, and generally shut down those that don't. We elect people to make decisions based on their character, not to run every decision past us all, one at a time. We're not running the PTA, here - it's a Republic of 300,000,000 people with a lot at stake. You can't run it, and defend it, like a homeowners association.
I don't see any exception for the state to keep secrets from the electorate. Bring the prosecutions and watch them fall one by one.
Every couple or four years the electorate gets to elect new people in the house, senate, or executive branch. Those people, in doing their jobs (or funding others to do so), have a couple hundred years worth of history of using non-public information, or conducting some activities (especially those that revolve around defense) covertly, lest the work at hand be rendered completely useless. If you don't like the fact that, say, keeping an eye on North Korea, or stinging an organized crime ring in Florida, or stopping the smuggling of old Soviet shoulder-fired AA missles in from Central America require the government to not talk out loud about things that it has to do, then rationally persuade enough voters to elect people that say they will not engage in those activities as they carry out their constitutionally described roles. Good luck with that.
Don't like a particular secret, activity, or program? Elect people with different priorities. Don't think the government should be able to do anything that the Chinese or Iranian governments can't see as easily as you can? Grow up.
There is the possibility that legal ownership of such weapons, even by only a few, makes it easier for someone to get their hands on one (by stealing). Whether true or not, I have no idea.
t -way guns that fall into the wrong hands do so because of deliberate, overtly "straw" purchases or outright illegal importation. Stolen guns, per se, aren't nearly as much of an issue as the lack of really, truly punishing incarceration of those that set out to traffic in them as a business. Needless to say, we (in the US) have a much bigger problem with stolen cars used in crimes (and a vastly, vastly higher number of people killed by criminally negligant drivers). People fret about guns entirely out of scale with the real threats in their lives... like, eating fatty meat. Which bring us to:
:-)
The overwhelming majority of perceived-as-more-dangerous-because-they-look-tha
Last time I tried rabbit, I was unimpressed. Same with pheasant, I think.
With rabbit, the diet of the animal is crucial to the flavor (or lack of), and the meat is pretty lean, so it actually needs the same sort of care as game bird meat (lest it become dry and tough). From that same web site, here's how to deal with that pheasant meat. It's all about not over-cooking. It's counter-intuitive, but even when the meat's in a soupy marinade, too much cooking can still make it dry, flavorless, and annoying. Which, of course, leads to bans on repeating shotguns authored by people that only eat steroid-pumped, farm-nasty chicken. See how it all comes together? My goal is to preserve my right to own my firearms by pointing people to web sites about juicier bird meat preparation. Of course, a lot of people wouldn't follow my reasoning, there.
Sure, you can predict evolution if you control all of the life-or-death variables that influence the viability of the bacteria species you're watching. I mean, for fun, I go to Drudge for headlines like that because, well, it's amusing to see the twisted contexts... but isn't this audience/editorial team just a skosh more thoughtful about this sort of thing? Given the traditional dialog and debate here about all thinge evolution-related, throwing that word in the headline in that way drags all of that baggage in with it. Come on, there, Zonk! How about a headline like "Unnatural Selection Works Too" or something similar.
Now why would you use an automatic weapon for such things, though?
.45 with a nine round magazine) allows the same repeating action, but with considerably more control because the gun is doing more of the work. In a long gun, it's the same story. Repeating rifles, for example, have been around a long, long time. Bolt-action, pump-action, lever-action (some of which can be operated with amazing speed if you practice)... and, gas/recoil-operated semi-autos.
I think you're confusing "automatic" with "auto-loading" or "semi-automatic." In order to actually own a true, automatic weapon in the US, you have to pass extremely invasive federal inspection, demonstrate secure storage, remain open to surprise inspection from the feds, and renew your license on a regular basis. Essentially, it's serious military collectors, clubs, etc. I believe the records still show that no crimes involving an actual automatic weapon in the US have been committed by a person who legally obtained and owns such pieces.
A semi-automatic, though, is different. It's a means by which to repeat your fire with relative, but deliberate speed. A double action revolver, for example, can do this (typically) six times - as fast as you can pull the trigger. The problem with that revolver is that pulling the trigger in quick succession usually messes up your aim because it's a fair amount of forearm/finger work unless you've got really big hands. A semi-auto pistol (say, a good old 1911-style
The most common real use for a repeating gun, for most hunters, is in bird hunting. I'm guessing, based on your handle, that you're from the UK. Folks in your area have made some of the finest side-by-side shotguns ever made. That's a two-shot repeating gun, which can get off those two shots in an instant. Unfortunately, when hunting, say, larger rooster pheasants in the Great Plains, two shots doesn't do the job when you flush up four birds in high winds. A repeating gun helps a lot, and a semi-auto one helps even more. My freezer is full of pheasant and partridge meat that fell to both my gun and my wife's (she's fond of Italian shotguns - and shoes). There isn't a moment of gratuitousness in using a semi-auto shotgun to stop the game you're after. Also very appropriate on rabbits (yum, hasenpfeffer) and other high-speed targets that zig, zag, and don't politely hold still just because you want to eat them.
Still, it *intentionally* kills, correct?
No, it doesn't do anything. Only I do something, or nothing happens at all.
And if not used for that, it is used, at times, with the threat of killing or crippling to gain something else.
Except, in my case, I've never used it to "gain" something else, unless you include dinner. Oh, and my family's safety. I've used a gun to dissuade a truly dangerous person from continuing to try to beat down our door in the middle of the night. So, I "gained" (re-gained, really) some household peace of mind, without having to fire a shot. Yes, "intentionally" (though I had no intention of having that person choose our door to start beating on and ranting at).
Legal, maybe. Sensible, probably not. A handgun isn't designed for hunting. It's designed for killing. The difference may be quite subtle.
.44 magnum with a Leupold scope), you can climb the tree with your weapon nicely stowed in a shoulder holster. Much, much easier (and safer) for that type of hunting than hiking in and climbing with a long gun.
Careful, your complete ignorance is showing.
First, hunting is killing. A 120-pound whitetail deer destined for the dinner table, for example, requires exactly the same sort of killing as a 120-pound attacking human. In my area, many deer are hunted in very close, densely wooded areas. Many hunters hunt from tree stands, waiting only for animals that are only a few meters away. Packing and mounting a climbing tree stand requires a lot of work, and if you're equipped with the right handgun (personally, a 7-1/2" Ruger Redhawk in
Works great, and drops a deer stone cold dead right where it's standing. Mmmm, venison. Best red meat money can't easily buy.
The punishment for theft should not be instant execution without a trial or jury.
Except, that's not what we're talking about, and you know it. When you hear a sound in your house in the middle of the night, do you phone up a jury to determine what the intentions are of the person that's creeping in through the window? If you know that people in your neighborhood have been accosted by someone breaking into houses at night, do you just err on the side of assuming that person (who also knows that) is hoping for a sandwich?
The point is that when someone deliberately chooses to act in a way that leaves other people unable to ascertain their intentions, and they do so while invading their home, they waive any right to their own well being. And no jury should find someone guilty for taking into account what they know can happen (and has) under similar circumstances.
And then there's actually being overtly, directly threatened. Have you ever had some drug-addled 300-pound guy beating on your door with a pipe at 2:00AM? I have. Yes, my wife called the police, and they were almost 20 minutes arriving. The only thing that kept that person from breaking down the door (and, presumably carrying out the threats he was shouting) was that some part of his brain recognized the large-frame revolver that I pointed his way. That was a classic case of "brandishing," and it did what it almost always does: it dissuades all but the totally crazy from advancing any closer to the person they're threatening. For the truly crazy, it can be used in its full capacity and to disable, physically, the threatening person. And when that's in my house, with my family being threatened, I'm not in the mood to wait for a jury's deliberations on just how dangerous this person - who has already demonstrated complete disregard for civility, privacy, perceptions of safety - is or is not.
Sweet irony, isn't it.
Like Tupelo honey. (apologies to Van Morrison). I just love this sort of thing when it comes back around in interesting rhetorical ways.
Bad analogy, guns don't have a non-killing function.
Ever use a gun to prevent harm from coming to someone? I have. Ever use a gun to remove a diseased, predatory threat from a farm? I have. Ever filled you freezer with lean, chemical-free meat while playing a role in controlling the exploding population of whitetail deer in the suburban US... using a gun? I have. You need to get out of your tiny, scared little world a little more often.
I've never understood the idea that because a tool can be used to commit a crime, that it inherantly makes the tool evil.
Welcome, fellow NRA member.
So if Clinton did it (which he didn't, but still) that makes it ok? Now that is a bad argument. The "appeal to Clinton" fallacy.
Heh... you said "Clinton" and "fallacy." Never mind. Beavis and Butthead are getting old, now. Anyway...
which he didn't, but still
Heh? Surely you're not saying that during Janet Reno's tenure at Justice that no one in the FBI made a routine telco records scan, which doesn't need a warrant? That's the most common investigative tool in use! Of course it happened on his watch... without it, countless federal cases wouldn't have been prosecuted.
Still, I do understand how you might construe my comment for citing Clinton as a good example. My apologies. My point was that it's busines as usual (relating call records in a cross reference). That's not the same as warrantless domestic-domestic tapping, which wasn't happening then, or now.
Um, Blue Security (the target of the attacks) is an Isreali company. The best guess as to their attackers is that they were Russian mafia.
All right then, screw THEM, instead! I'm actually NOT surprised that the Israelis' own security apparatus would leave this in a hands-off mode, since the last thing they want is more people harboring conspiracy theories about them wanting to take over the internet, blah blah. The (sub) thread was really about the US inte/counter-terror types trotting out (or not) countermeasures against people like the Russians you mention... and whether that would "feel" right or not when the target is a particular company versus, say, public infrastructure.
You said:
These domestic warrantless spying programs were instituted by the Bush administration AFTER 9/11 and AFTER Pelosi left the Select Committee.
Except, the NSA came to the committee, on which she was the ranking democrat at the time, and said "we're expanding our programs to accomplish these goals..." and they said so, immediately after 9/11, in the wake of the attacks and in the light of the obvious presence of people inside the US using, among other things, telecommunications to coordinate the type of activities that had just killed thousands of people. The NSA said they'd be adjusting their programs to track those calls. That exact change in posture - bringing that agencies enormous capabilities around to focus on the reality of terrorists operating within our borders (and our telecomm systems) was the entire point of those biefings, and is indeed the exact thing that she was made aware of, years ago and many times after that. Of course they didn't have every detail worked out in three weeks. Which is why the senior committee members have been getting regular briefings for years since. But you trying to pretend that she is shocked, just shocked! - is disengenuous at best. Ask her if she wants the programs disbanded: her answer, and that of the rest of her party's leadership is a resounding "no." All they're doing is mining for media-friendly, political point-scoring friction without actually saying they think the programs are, in and of themselves, bad. This is because many of their leftier constituents are so rabidly opposed to anything the administration does (regardless of merit) that they (and she) have to somehow both back the program (which they're doing, repeatedly) and at the same time appear to be suffering great offense, lest they lose the love of their less-informed voters back home. Hillary Clinton has already decided to say "screw it" and not worry about the wingnuts, because even she knows the reality scoop.
First, announcement of a Congressional inquiry does not a Conressiopnal briefing make
What are you talking about? I'm responding to your earlier, completely factually incorrect assertion that Pelosi wasn't on the select committee during the very first, and the ongoing briefings by the NSA and the routine business of funding their operations. She was, and you're pretending you weren't simply wrong about that by acting like I said something else. You know I cited the announcement in question specifically because of the date on it, to show you that your "she wasn't there at that point" notion is just plain wrong, and you're trying to pretend I'm talking about something else. Just admit you were wrong about the facts, and focus instead on the merits of the actual programs at hand.
Second, for you to expect anyone to believe that immediately after 9/11 that the Bush administration briefed Congress on their plans to conduct warrantless wiretaps and to collect every single phone record of every single American (and God knows what else) is absurd.
Hardly. The NSA briefed Congress on their plans to expand their abilities and methods in tracking foreign calls that included US destinations/origins, when they had a reason to think that the foreign end of that call was meaningful from an intel perspective. That's still the case, just like it was then.
"Ever single phone record of every single American" was already a matter of record, and could be requested at any time by law enforcement agencies from the feds all the way down to your local county sheriff. Without a warrant. For decades. That's not to be confused with "tapping" domestic-domestic calls, which always has, and still does require a warrant, and which is not what the NSA is doing. They're taking existing records and pre-indexing them so that digging through them for patterns when new intel says to follow up on some particular call (say, a disposable cell phone in Syria calling a disposable cell phone in New York with a number that matches something turned up in Madrid following a terrorist arrest there, etc) with the actual speed necessary to catch someone who's on the fly or continually shifting numbers. If that turns into the need for an actual domestic wire tap, they have to get a court order, as they always have to. Period. And if you think that people like Harry Reid in the senate, who know how this works, and have repeatedly said they do not want to stop the programs aren't up to speed, then you're just deliberately keeping yourself in a half-informed state so that you don't have to feel the same discomfort with the opponents of the party you already don't like.
Excuse me but your sense of time and my sense of time appear to be different. These domestic warrantless spying programs were instituted by the Bush administration AFTER 9/11 and AFTER Pelosi left the Select Committee
Ok, let's try again. here is another bit for you. In February of 2002, the senate announced their joint inquiry into the intel shortcomings prior to 9/11. The inquiry was announced by the members of the select committe, including the ranking democrat on that committee, Nancy Pelosi, who was still a member at that time, just as she was during the NSA briefings earlier in the fall. Wishing that a senior democrat wasn't tuned into this doesn't make it so. She was right in the thick of it, and was one of the eight people that the administration designated as those that would be briefed on the realigned intel work right after 9/11.