Govt's job is to provide services to its citizens.
That is just plain untrue on the face of it. The government's job is to provide some services to its citizens. You know... the ensure the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The founders, very wisely, didn't get into "quality" of life issues. What if enough people decided to elect a legislature that decided that one of government's services should be that it puts all people shorter than 6 feet tall to work on behalf of everyone else, all of whom should get the service of having a government-maintained Ferrari in their driveway? Isn't it easier just to focus on having the federal government defending its citizens from "all enemies, foreign and domestic," just as they're called upon to do?
If you want to live in a state where the local legislature and tax base is oriented around making your life more comfortable at someone else's expense, then please do. And if enough people in that state can't stand bearing the burden for you, they'll leave, and either the people that remain will have to do even more to prop up the service-providing governemt you want, or those that remain will have to lower their expectations of nanny-state-ness. But the federal government shouldn't be looking out for your personal comfort, unless of course you're uncomfortable because you just retired wounded from the military job you volunteered to do, etc.
like helping the poorest members of society
Well, even though that's not called for in the constitution, it's called: free public schools. And it's something that state governments provide, using money collected from the people who live in that state and create those children.
The federal government exists to preserve and protect the union of states. The executive branch of the government is tasked primarily with that job. All the rest is just socialist crap that's been tacked on, mostly by (and since) FDR.
Like pumping money into cancer/heart disease/AIDS research
Whose money? Yours? Why don't YOU pump your money into cancer research. Perhaps I want to pump my money into research that more directly impacts the health concerns that tend to impact my family. Your implication is that spending money on research is a good thing, but that since you're not persuasive enough to get people to write checks to the foundations, schools, and other entities doing the research, that you'll use confiscatory force to take money from everyone, and spend only part of what's left (since you now have to fund the bureaucracy that enforces collection of that money and picks and chooses who gets it) to researchers.
When you say "government's role is" you're not saying what it should be, constitutionally (and rationally). You're just saying that you wish the country was founded more like, say, contemporary France or Sweden. But it wasn't.
We need to thank the NY Times for doing this. They might be unpopular here at slashdot for their 'evil' online registration, but they've stood up for the public's right to know what their government is doing many times before.
In fact, I think they should also ask for a list of all of the people that are working for our intel community - especially overseas in places like North Korea and Iran. And since a lot of Chinese businesses read the NYT, they'd certainly have an audience for a list of the names of all of the people in Taiwan that have close ties with US intel people. I mean, what is our government doing? How can we tell, unless everything that they're doing is completely transparent? Sure, doing so will completely undermine security, but people who value security aren't deserving of liberty, blah blah, right?
Also, there are probably some domestic organized crime types that are under investigation, though perhaps not yet the target of a warrant. Since we're spending tax dollars trying to decide if we should use warranted taps on those guys, the NYT should be able to get a list of everyone considered connected to organized crime in the US. I'm sure they'll be good and not tip off Brooklyn's own Franky "TracPhone" Carpaccio that the feds are planning a wiretap as they look into his human trafficking from Carjackistan or whatnot. Go NYT! Print it all. Every last bit. Why not! There would be so much of it that the bad guys would need armies of intel analysts to sort through it and figure out what's relevent. Maybe even their own giant agency with the most sophisticated tech in the world to look for patterns that would point to the need for the warrant... oh, wait.
Exactly. But it was mostly Arabs that were funding, and to a large extent running, the Taliban. They were a very out-of-town crowd, to be sure. And to the extent that they've moved south a bit into Pakistan, they're still an influence, and still very Arab.
You are misinformed my friend. The Arab world consists of around 21 countries. The only one of them in which women are not allowed to drive is Saudi Arabia. And even in Saudi Arabia, that is probably not true anymore (not %100 sure though).
Let's not forget that until recently, Afghanistan was being run by the (mostly foreigner-managed) Taliban, who would pubicly murder women for working at all, never mind how they commuted. Women who went uncovered by a burka, or who dared to teach their daughters to read and write ended up dead. Playing music: illegal. Kite flying: illegal. Etc.
It's worth remembering why Afghanistan is no longer centrally run by people who think like that (post 9/11 invasion, in case no one has been taking notes). But to suggest that the cultural urge to carry on like that is only found in Saudi Arabia is completely wrong. There are plenty of provincial areas in Pakistan, for example, where total subjugation of women is common... to the point of "honor" killings of daughters, by fathers, when those daughters have been raped by someone else (who usually goes free). The point is: there are lumps and bumps, culturally, throughout the middle east - and driving habits are way down the list of things that prevent women from thriving in IT in many areas.
It's all fun and games...
on
Golf in Space
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· Score: 1
...until someone's solar array is clobbered by one more little piece of pointless space junk.
Still, just about anything that might get, say, your average golfer to remember (even for a moment, once a day) that we have stuff, that we put there orbiting around the planet... that's worth it. I wonder sometimes if the occasional golfer who found his way to the new course using the GPS-enabled nav system on his new Lexus is even aware that a bunch of orbiting hardware and thousands of people working on the ground are required to make his car "know" which exit to take a half a mile from now. Of course, people don't know how potable water is made either - or what the internet actually is, what makes sunblock work, why termites want to eat their floor joists, why antibiotics won't cure their common cold, or that their beer is yeast pee, either. So, I say: more orbital golf shots, why the hell not.
actually, unless you think everyone leases their car
No, I don't think everybody does anything. My point is that unwise things of significantly more financial consequence are done by way more people than buy music from iTunes. But buying from iTunes doesn't lock down anything. You're a few mouseclicks from dumping to simple MP3s or a redbook CD-burn. Then you can smash your 'pod to pieces, cancel your deal with Apple, and, if you want... hand that CD over to your buddy with a hearty, "you touched it last." He can even play it in the CD player in the car you just sold him.
Although I didn't author this article, your assumptions hold no merit.
Oh, come on. You know exactly who I'm talking about. The world is full of people making far sillier (and short-termed) use of way more money than most people will ever spend on iTunes. Never mind that TFA is full of crap in the first place (MP3's, which you can produce directly from what you purchase at iTunes, are not going to be portable to other players, formats, or uses? BS!), the point is that if you're going to rant about people foolishly spending their tech/entertainment dollars, just look at how they're paying for their mobile telecomms, how much they're spending to be an early adopter of a very expensive video board just so they can frag at 1FPS faster, and so on. There are plenty of suckers, but people deciding to use iTunes don't even come close, by comparison.
I always find it amusing to hear people use the word "sucker" when talking about a person paying $0.99 for a bit of portable entertainment they like from a musician they respect... as they drive in their car - which they'll never fully own, on which they'll pay thousnds in interest - to a friend's house, where they'll talk about how smart they are ("Ogg Vorbis, dude!") while they drink $2.00 imported beers that will only be in their collection for about an hour.
I'm always a little perplexed by this sentiment. It only makes sense if everyone working as admins on their own piece(s) of an operation are utterly trustworthy, completely competant, always farsighted, never snarky, always productive, and not ever inclined to go home at the end of the day having left something in a condition that only they can figure out, just in case of an HBAB (Hit By A Bus) event.
A well-tuned shop assumes that all of that's in place and being embraced by everyone with sysadmin rights and responsibilities... but the truth is that it never works that way. You say "don't enforce," but I say that when you don't keep the admin folks' work tuned in to what you need it to be (in case of an HBAB), you're failing to provide for the end users and the business that depends on everything actually working (and the success of which pays the sysadmin crew's paychecks).
Now, that doesn't mean that managing sysadmin staff doesn't include fighting to provide them with what they need (and sometimes, even what they want), but pretending that there shouldn't be an expectation of things going the way you need them to (and some holding of feet to the fire when someone decides to do it their own special, inscrutable way) is the way to make sure you never work on anything other than low-rent, marginal systems supporting frail, mediocre organizations. "Enforcement" is a real part of running a network that's secure enough, important enough to the business, and solid enough to earn the budget that lets you have the cooler toys, better sysadmin people, and even some time off once in a while.
Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative government.
You do realize you're talking about Belgium and Switzerland, right? This has nothing to do with the US, unless indirectly, in the sense that some pirates that just happen to be in the US have just one less tool to aid in p2p-powered infringement.
Give those lefties an inch and they'll run this god-fearing nation right into the ground.
Not that it has anything to do with TFA, but you do know that some of the loudest voices bitching about having their copyrighted works ripped off are people who generally back lefty causes and politicians. Right?
To lay the blame solely on the CIA, or any one source, is foolish. Furthermore, if you seriously expect that the CIA will get intelligence that "conveys the means, timing and people involved" then you've been watching way too many movies. It just isn't that easy.
Look, I know people in that line of work. I know it's not that straightforward. My comments are in the context of the earlier loon's post about the CIA being a completely un-accountable, all-powerful, secret-super-duper black government X-files type entity that's doing the bidding of Evil Masters, blah blah blah, and how nothing can dislodge them from their powerful position running our lives, etc. I'm trying to point out that it's an agency made up of people (many brilliant, some mediocre, most honorable, some sleazy) who do not work in a vacuum. The agency's management is a mix of career and appointee people, and things there, philosophically and loyalty-wise change with the times and with the administration from which they take direction.
Some aspects of what they did (or did not) put together before 9/11 are only clear with perfect hindsight, and some should have been clear before-hand. I do not envy anyone the responsibility of having to do what their covert, analytical, and even administrative people have to contend with. But I also know that they operate within a framework that has some inertia. They're just now recovering from having been largely gutted in years past, and they have a hell of a time hanging onto decent employees because of how little the jobs pay. A changing of the guard there, along with the new security czar's office, and a public (and legislature) that understands that the missions is actually important... that all adds up to a very different scenario than, say, 6 or 8 years ago.
Doesn't matter though. For as many bad guys as they (in cooperation with their counterparts at NSA, NRO, FBI, DIA and the rest) identify and act against, we'll all still be bitching when the next group of jihaddis, already here in the states, blows something up or shoots up a school like that one in Russia. As much as people here bitch about the perceived loss of liberties, it is the liberty in this country that makes us so vulnerable to that sort of thing, and we're just going to have to roll with those punches as they come. Happily, we've actually stopped some stuff like that in its tracks - not that the intel people ever get to really have public credit for most of what they do.
Umm, you mean the CIA that put together a brief that said "Bin Laden determined to strike in US"?
Right, that's the one. Please quote the part where they actually were able to convey the means, timing, and people involved in what actually eventually happened, with enough solid, specific detail to actually do something about it. You know, like an indication that cheap razor blades allowed on airplanes would result in the deaths of thousands, that sort of thing.
It's not really Tenet's fault that he was hamstrung by policies that got in the way of sharing intel with the FBI, etc., but the guy in the seat at the time usually loses.
The burning of buildings and protests in Pakistan are supposedly against their president/dictator Musharaf. Since the western media does not want to openly state this, they have been attributing this to the protest over Danish Cartoons.
Nice troll, you transparently agenda-driven nitwit. I suppose there most be something very subtle and culturally opaque that I (and all of "western media") don't get, since those "anti-Musharaf" protests you're describing were hightlighted by the burning of the Danish flag and the burning, in effigy, of Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister. Of course, Rasmussen and Musharif do look a lot alike...
No, it was not. Though I'm still feeling a little bit like you didn't get my point. You obviously thought it was appropriate to include the concept of "peace be upon him" in your comment, but didn't think it was offensive to abbreviate it. I'm just wondering how prevalent that is, and whether anyone else finds it to be an odd intersection between feeling obligated to use a dogmatic phrase, but saving time while using a high-tech communications medium.
And, it's too early for beer where I'm sitting, but please enjoy yours. Pilsner be upon you.:-)
This would not be considered offensive in Islam the same way the depiction of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) would...
Please take this comment constructively, as it's an honest question seeking to gain some insight into a way of thinking that millions of people embrace. Specifically, I noticed that you used "PBUH" as an acronym, presumably, for "Peace Be Upon Him." Now, if I understand correctly, it's considered bad form to mention Muhammed (the original guy, not his millions of namesakes), without uttering that suffix.
If so, isn't abbreviating it something of a bit of heresy? I mean, personally I can see how it would greatly speed up typing, especially when he's the subject of a lengthy bit of discourse, but I would think that abbreviating it would be tacit acknowledgement that it's simply a clumsy thing to have to continually say. And, if "PBUH" is OK, why not "P"? And, if that's OK, why not simply think it, instead, and know that appropriately devout readers are going to be thinking it anyway, and those that aren't already thinking like that aren't going to be converted by having to read it (or an acronyum of it) anyway?
This is a larger discussion, of course, about the many oddities of formalized religious habits/doctrines/dogma of all sorts that I find equally puzzling, but I thought that since you used the acronym you could comment on it specifically. From my very non-religious perspective, I find it intriguing, and see it as an indication that some of the more burdensome conversational traditions are showing their age. Perhaps this illustrates the contrast between the more zealous, conservative Muslims, and the more secularized cultural Muslims that find themselves, for example, using slashdot? Thanks for indulging.
Here we go again, Good thing Yahoo doesn't have embassies to torch.:)
Well, that won't really help. You know, since unhappiness over cartoons from Denmark somehow translated into burning down a KFC in Pakistan. You know, that famous Danish outfit, "Kentucky Fried Chicken."
the fact is, the establishment of a secret intelligence agency without public oversight (and there is *zero* with the CIA) is a grand trojan horse designed to introduce a hidden control mechanism into a society
No, the fact is that you've watched too many cheesy shows on TV. The people that run the CIA are appointed. By elected officials. You'll recall the recent tossing-out of the guy that was put in there by the last president, primarily because he did such a lousy job stewarding the agency's prediction of events like 9/11. So he does a crappy job, and he and his crew get the boot. He's replaced by a new guy (with a new team) that are in line with the currently elected administration. The current administration doesn't set the agency's budget, either. That's done by congress. The members of the intelligence oversight committees are very aware of the cash flow and the programs they fund.
But everything they do can't be publicly chewed on, any more than everything your local police department does to catch bands of car theives, church arsonists, or kiddie porn shops is discussed openly in the press... because doing so undermines the ability to accomplish the tasks. If you don't like the tasks, then you put forth a lucid, compelling case that causes enough people to think like you and elect representatives and executives that put the agency to more/different/fewer missions.
'national security' in this case, being, the desire of the American public to revolt against its politicians and create conditions ripe for civil war.. you do know that 99% of the time, when a politicians says 'national security' he means "we can't tell the public about this because we believe it might cause another civil war..."
Wow! 99%, huh? You, sir, are a BS-ing, twaddle-headed, paranoic, twit with a rudderless, nonsensical agenda. At least I don't have to worry about you actually being persuasive enough with enough voters to see your vision of things displace a more rational, however imperfect, one that takes reality into account.
This concept... Could explain this:
"... humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence..."
I think this goes back way before advanced primate-ness, and into deeper mammal-ness. All you have to do is note a domestic dog's (or his ancestor, the wolf's) incredible ability to instantly identify threatening unknowns or familiar rivals by any number of signals/patterns (appearance, body language, etc). And, if you've ever seen dogs actually form groups and pick fights strictly for social reasons, you'll know the "capacity for violence" part runs a lot deeper than our recent bit o' evoltion. Of course, we've got opposable thumbs, so we do it a little more flamboyantly.
Damn, that was... well, lucid. Waking up to a rational, articulate, informed slashdot comment is just completely unsettling in a bracing sort of way. Thanks! Must... get... bad... coffee... to... counter... effects.
The link is an example (first Google hit I got, recalling the issue). Talk to anyone in law enforcement or intel - this happens constantly, but usually larger collections of phones are created by purchases of one or two at a time by mules that hit every convenience store for 20 miles along a stretch of highway. Drug runners use them constantly, they're a hit with illegal immigrants, and they often get carried overseas where they are frequently re-sold, cloned, etc. But the use of them domestically, as one-shot disposable phones, is a well established feature of both domestic and international bad guys. They're also popular as timers for bombs, of course - as seen in London and Madrid.
The fundamental issue: people sitting in other countries have acted to kill a substantial number of people in the US and abroad. They loudly proclaim that they want to do more, and work to that end. Part of that includes placing calls (regarding funding and operational coordination) to supporters and collaborators. When people make those calls, it's not only legal to follow the trail, it's an obligation to. The constitution not only permits it, but empowers the CinC to perform, in his role of defense against just such attacks, to act. So, if you're a known Al Queda franchise operator in Lahore, phoning your US-based finance guy on a disposable phone from overseas, get over feeling like your privacy isn't what it used to be.
I'm sorry, but this strikes me as a horribly insensitive comment. While there may be lots of people in the world, and economic growth may be the best engine for improving overall welfare, this borderline victim-blaming crosses the line. If only we could have fewer of those poor, inefficient people, the world would be a happier place?
Oh, please. It was survivors of the mudslide who said that the logging in the hills above their village is what caused the mudslide. That's not victim-blaming, that's quoting the people who said that they knew exactly what happened, and why. And yes, fewer poor, inefficient people does make the world a happier place. And you don't get that by stringing up 70-watt light bulbs (one per house! hoooo-wee!)... you get those by helping those people get themselves out of that condition - and it's all economics.
was a time when more text messages were being exchanged in the Philippines than anywhere else in the world.
Are you seriously suggesting that the 1500 people now buried under that mud are all buried with their cellphones? Just because downtown Manila is very well wired (and wireless) doesn't mean that the outlying islands are all up to speed. I cited that example, today, because the disaster in Leyte is an up-to-the-moment example of the consequences of really inefficient land use in a poor rural area. Portable power and water treatment are probably going to be a lot more appreciated in parts of the subcontinent and in Africa... but again, it's just a tiny symptom treatment.
This kind of comment makes me angry. No matter what people try to do there is something wrong with it.
Well, that's a bit of a generalization. I don't have a problem with anything, let alone "no matter what" is tried to improve situations like rural poverty in the third world. What I do have a problem with are "solutions" that merely treat the symptoms and actually perpetuate the underlying problem: too many people too inefficiently using too much land. Vast tracts of Africa and Asia (hell, and Central and South America) are being positively destroyed by cheesy farming techniques that don't scale up well from tiny tribal populations. And you can't inject high-tech, high-efficiency farming (and the supporting businesses and investments) into those places as long as they are politcally corrupt and completely unstable. That is the problem, and when you do something about that, you're really working to improve the lives of people in those regions and reduce the clumsy, permanent damage to the environment in which they live.
A 70-watt light bulb illuminating a large, poor, rural family's hut in the middle of the night is just lighting up a large, poor, rural family. When the sun comes up, they'll still be deforesting land to poorly graze cattle and use up topsoil with one lousy crop. Why? Because the science and technology that they could be using (thus better using the land, and reducing the pressure to have 10 kids to work that land) cannot take root in places where shipments are hijacked by local gangs and the locals have been told (by twits) that the engineered crops that use less water and resist pests are the work of Satan, etc. Democracy, a flexible market, and rule of law, once established and maintained, attract investment, equipment, and positive change faster than any 1-kilowatt cowdung generator will ever do.
Just look at countries like Cameroon. Booming cities, high tech farms, cell phones and newer-tech vehicles in wide use... why? Because the thugs that keep things primitive were finally put out of business. And doing that elsewhere takes a lot more work (and courage) than distributing 70-watt lightbulbs throughout a village, but it makes true, real, long-lasting changes that impact everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
Govt's job is to provide services to its citizens.
That is just plain untrue on the face of it. The government's job is to provide some services to its citizens. You know... the ensure the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The founders, very wisely, didn't get into "quality" of life issues. What if enough people decided to elect a legislature that decided that one of government's services should be that it puts all people shorter than 6 feet tall to work on behalf of everyone else, all of whom should get the service of having a government-maintained Ferrari in their driveway? Isn't it easier just to focus on having the federal government defending its citizens from "all enemies, foreign and domestic," just as they're called upon to do?
If you want to live in a state where the local legislature and tax base is oriented around making your life more comfortable at someone else's expense, then please do. And if enough people in that state can't stand bearing the burden for you, they'll leave, and either the people that remain will have to do even more to prop up the service-providing governemt you want, or those that remain will have to lower their expectations of nanny-state-ness. But the federal government shouldn't be looking out for your personal comfort, unless of course you're uncomfortable because you just retired wounded from the military job you volunteered to do, etc.
like helping the poorest members of society
Well, even though that's not called for in the constitution, it's called: free public schools. And it's something that state governments provide, using money collected from the people who live in that state and create those children.
The federal government exists to preserve and protect the union of states. The executive branch of the government is tasked primarily with that job. All the rest is just socialist crap that's been tacked on, mostly by (and since) FDR.
Like pumping money into cancer/heart disease/AIDS research
Whose money? Yours? Why don't YOU pump your money into cancer research. Perhaps I want to pump my money into research that more directly impacts the health concerns that tend to impact my family. Your implication is that spending money on research is a good thing, but that since you're not persuasive enough to get people to write checks to the foundations, schools, and other entities doing the research, that you'll use confiscatory force to take money from everyone, and spend only part of what's left (since you now have to fund the bureaucracy that enforces collection of that money and picks and chooses who gets it) to researchers.
When you say "government's role is" you're not saying what it should be, constitutionally (and rationally). You're just saying that you wish the country was founded more like, say, contemporary France or Sweden. But it wasn't.
We need to thank the NY Times for doing this. They might be unpopular here at slashdot for their 'evil' online registration, but they've stood up for the public's right to know what their government is doing many times before.
In fact, I think they should also ask for a list of all of the people that are working for our intel community - especially overseas in places like North Korea and Iran. And since a lot of Chinese businesses read the NYT, they'd certainly have an audience for a list of the names of all of the people in Taiwan that have close ties with US intel people. I mean, what is our government doing? How can we tell, unless everything that they're doing is completely transparent? Sure, doing so will completely undermine security, but people who value security aren't deserving of liberty, blah blah, right?
Also, there are probably some domestic organized crime types that are under investigation, though perhaps not yet the target of a warrant. Since we're spending tax dollars trying to decide if we should use warranted taps on those guys, the NYT should be able to get a list of everyone considered connected to organized crime in the US. I'm sure they'll be good and not tip off Brooklyn's own Franky "TracPhone" Carpaccio that the feds are planning a wiretap as they look into his human trafficking from Carjackistan or whatnot. Go NYT! Print it all. Every last bit. Why not! There would be so much of it that the bad guys would need armies of intel analysts to sort through it and figure out what's relevent. Maybe even their own giant agency with the most sophisticated tech in the world to look for patterns that would point to the need for the warrant... oh, wait.
Afghanistan is NOT an Arabic country.
Exactly. But it was mostly Arabs that were funding, and to a large extent running, the Taliban. They were a very out-of-town crowd, to be sure. And to the extent that they've moved south a bit into Pakistan, they're still an influence, and still very Arab.
You are misinformed my friend. The Arab world consists of around 21 countries. The only one of them in which women are not allowed to drive is Saudi Arabia. And even in Saudi Arabia, that is probably not true anymore (not %100 sure though).
Let's not forget that until recently, Afghanistan was being run by the (mostly foreigner-managed) Taliban, who would pubicly murder women for working at all, never mind how they commuted. Women who went uncovered by a burka, or who dared to teach their daughters to read and write ended up dead. Playing music: illegal. Kite flying: illegal. Etc.
It's worth remembering why Afghanistan is no longer centrally run by people who think like that (post 9/11 invasion, in case no one has been taking notes). But to suggest that the cultural urge to carry on like that is only found in Saudi Arabia is completely wrong. There are plenty of provincial areas in Pakistan, for example, where total subjugation of women is common... to the point of "honor" killings of daughters, by fathers, when those daughters have been raped by someone else (who usually goes free). The point is: there are lumps and bumps, culturally, throughout the middle east - and driving habits are way down the list of things that prevent women from thriving in IT in many areas.
...until someone's solar array is clobbered by one more little piece of pointless space junk.
Still, just about anything that might get, say, your average golfer to remember (even for a moment, once a day) that we have stuff, that we put there orbiting around the planet... that's worth it. I wonder sometimes if the occasional golfer who found his way to the new course using the GPS-enabled nav system on his new Lexus is even aware that a bunch of orbiting hardware and thousands of people working on the ground are required to make his car "know" which exit to take a half a mile from now. Of course, people don't know how potable water is made either - or what the internet actually is, what makes sunblock work, why termites want to eat their floor joists, why antibiotics won't cure their common cold, or that their beer is yeast pee, either. So, I say: more orbital golf shots, why the hell not.
actually, unless you think everyone leases their car
No, I don't think everybody does anything. My point is that unwise things of significantly more financial consequence are done by way more people than buy music from iTunes. But buying from iTunes doesn't lock down anything. You're a few mouseclicks from dumping to simple MP3s or a redbook CD-burn. Then you can smash your 'pod to pieces, cancel your deal with Apple, and, if you want... hand that CD over to your buddy with a hearty, "you touched it last." He can even play it in the CD player in the car you just sold him.
Although I didn't author this article, your assumptions hold no merit.
Oh, come on. You know exactly who I'm talking about. The world is full of people making far sillier (and short-termed) use of way more money than most people will ever spend on iTunes. Never mind that TFA is full of crap in the first place (MP3's, which you can produce directly from what you purchase at iTunes, are not going to be portable to other players, formats, or uses? BS!), the point is that if you're going to rant about people foolishly spending their tech/entertainment dollars, just look at how they're paying for their mobile telecomms, how much they're spending to be an early adopter of a very expensive video board just so they can frag at 1FPS faster, and so on. There are plenty of suckers, but people deciding to use iTunes don't even come close, by comparison.
I always find it amusing to hear people use the word "sucker" when talking about a person paying $0.99 for a bit of portable entertainment they like from a musician they respect... as they drive in their car - which they'll never fully own, on which they'll pay thousnds in interest - to a friend's house, where they'll talk about how smart they are ("Ogg Vorbis, dude!") while they drink $2.00 imported beers that will only be in their collection for about an hour.
Don't enforce; Provide
I'm always a little perplexed by this sentiment. It only makes sense if everyone working as admins on their own piece(s) of an operation are utterly trustworthy, completely competant, always farsighted, never snarky, always productive, and not ever inclined to go home at the end of the day having left something in a condition that only they can figure out, just in case of an HBAB (Hit By A Bus) event.
A well-tuned shop assumes that all of that's in place and being embraced by everyone with sysadmin rights and responsibilities... but the truth is that it never works that way. You say "don't enforce," but I say that when you don't keep the admin folks' work tuned in to what you need it to be (in case of an HBAB), you're failing to provide for the end users and the business that depends on everything actually working (and the success of which pays the sysadmin crew's paychecks).
Now, that doesn't mean that managing sysadmin staff doesn't include fighting to provide them with what they need (and sometimes, even what they want), but pretending that there shouldn't be an expectation of things going the way you need them to (and some holding of feet to the fire when someone decides to do it their own special, inscrutable way) is the way to make sure you never work on anything other than low-rent, marginal systems supporting frail, mediocre organizations. "Enforcement" is a real part of running a network that's secure enough, important enough to the business, and solid enough to earn the budget that lets you have the cooler toys, better sysadmin people, and even some time off once in a while.
Next you'll be spouting some dribble about voting in honest elections and representative government.
You do realize you're talking about Belgium and Switzerland, right? This has nothing to do with the US, unless indirectly, in the sense that some pirates that just happen to be in the US have just one less tool to aid in p2p-powered infringement.
Give those lefties an inch and they'll run this god-fearing nation right into the ground.
Not that it has anything to do with TFA, but you do know that some of the loudest voices bitching about having their copyrighted works ripped off are people who generally back lefty causes and politicians. Right?
To lay the blame solely on the CIA, or any one source, is foolish. Furthermore, if you seriously expect that the CIA will get intelligence that "conveys the means, timing and people involved" then you've been watching way too many movies. It just isn't that easy.
Look, I know people in that line of work. I know it's not that straightforward. My comments are in the context of the earlier loon's post about the CIA being a completely un-accountable, all-powerful, secret-super-duper black government X-files type entity that's doing the bidding of Evil Masters, blah blah blah, and how nothing can dislodge them from their powerful position running our lives, etc. I'm trying to point out that it's an agency made up of people (many brilliant, some mediocre, most honorable, some sleazy) who do not work in a vacuum. The agency's management is a mix of career and appointee people, and things there, philosophically and loyalty-wise change with the times and with the administration from which they take direction.
Some aspects of what they did (or did not) put together before 9/11 are only clear with perfect hindsight, and some should have been clear before-hand. I do not envy anyone the responsibility of having to do what their covert, analytical, and even administrative people have to contend with. But I also know that they operate within a framework that has some inertia. They're just now recovering from having been largely gutted in years past, and they have a hell of a time hanging onto decent employees because of how little the jobs pay. A changing of the guard there, along with the new security czar's office, and a public (and legislature) that understands that the missions is actually important... that all adds up to a very different scenario than, say, 6 or 8 years ago.
Doesn't matter though. For as many bad guys as they (in cooperation with their counterparts at NSA, NRO, FBI, DIA and the rest) identify and act against, we'll all still be bitching when the next group of jihaddis, already here in the states, blows something up or shoots up a school like that one in Russia. As much as people here bitch about the perceived loss of liberties, it is the liberty in this country that makes us so vulnerable to that sort of thing, and we're just going to have to roll with those punches as they come. Happily, we've actually stopped some stuff like that in its tracks - not that the intel people ever get to really have public credit for most of what they do.
Umm, you mean the CIA that put together a brief that said "Bin Laden determined to strike in US"?
Right, that's the one. Please quote the part where they actually were able to convey the means, timing, and people involved in what actually eventually happened, with enough solid, specific detail to actually do something about it. You know, like an indication that cheap razor blades allowed on airplanes would result in the deaths of thousands, that sort of thing.
It's not really Tenet's fault that he was hamstrung by policies that got in the way of sharing intel with the FBI, etc., but the guy in the seat at the time usually loses.
The burning of buildings and protests in Pakistan are supposedly against their president/dictator Musharaf. Since the western media does not want to openly state this, they have been attributing this to the protest over Danish Cartoons.
Nice troll, you transparently agenda-driven nitwit. I suppose there most be something very subtle and culturally opaque that I (and all of "western media") don't get, since those "anti-Musharaf" protests you're describing were hightlighted by the burning of the Danish flag and the burning, in effigy, of Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister. Of course, Rasmussen and Musharif do look a lot alike...
I assume your post was not a troll...
:-)
No, it was not. Though I'm still feeling a little bit like you didn't get my point. You obviously thought it was appropriate to include the concept of "peace be upon him" in your comment, but didn't think it was offensive to abbreviate it. I'm just wondering how prevalent that is, and whether anyone else finds it to be an odd intersection between feeling obligated to use a dogmatic phrase, but saving time while using a high-tech communications medium.
And, it's too early for beer where I'm sitting, but please enjoy yours. Pilsner be upon you.
Muslims have no sense of humor
Maybe not all of them, but some probably won't manage to see the pleasant, relaxing joviality found in a simple depiction of friendly Snowhammad.
This would not be considered offensive in Islam the same way the depiction of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) would...
Please take this comment constructively, as it's an honest question seeking to gain some insight into a way of thinking that millions of people embrace. Specifically, I noticed that you used "PBUH" as an acronym, presumably, for "Peace Be Upon Him." Now, if I understand correctly, it's considered bad form to mention Muhammed (the original guy, not his millions of namesakes), without uttering that suffix.
If so, isn't abbreviating it something of a bit of heresy? I mean, personally I can see how it would greatly speed up typing, especially when he's the subject of a lengthy bit of discourse, but I would think that abbreviating it would be tacit acknowledgement that it's simply a clumsy thing to have to continually say. And, if "PBUH" is OK, why not "P"? And, if that's OK, why not simply think it, instead, and know that appropriately devout readers are going to be thinking it anyway, and those that aren't already thinking like that aren't going to be converted by having to read it (or an acronyum of it) anyway?
This is a larger discussion, of course, about the many oddities of formalized religious habits/doctrines/dogma of all sorts that I find equally puzzling, but I thought that since you used the acronym you could comment on it specifically. From my very non-religious perspective, I find it intriguing, and see it as an indication that some of the more burdensome conversational traditions are showing their age. Perhaps this illustrates the contrast between the more zealous, conservative Muslims, and the more secularized cultural Muslims that find themselves, for example, using slashdot? Thanks for indulging.
Here we go again, Good thing Yahoo doesn't have embassies to torch. :)
Well, that won't really help. You know, since unhappiness over cartoons from Denmark somehow translated into burning down a KFC in Pakistan. You know, that famous Danish outfit, "Kentucky Fried Chicken."
the fact is, the establishment of a secret intelligence agency without public oversight (and there is *zero* with the CIA) is a grand trojan horse designed to introduce a hidden control mechanism into a society
No, the fact is that you've watched too many cheesy shows on TV. The people that run the CIA are appointed. By elected officials. You'll recall the recent tossing-out of the guy that was put in there by the last president, primarily because he did such a lousy job stewarding the agency's prediction of events like 9/11. So he does a crappy job, and he and his crew get the boot. He's replaced by a new guy (with a new team) that are in line with the currently elected administration. The current administration doesn't set the agency's budget, either. That's done by congress. The members of the intelligence oversight committees are very aware of the cash flow and the programs they fund.
But everything they do can't be publicly chewed on, any more than everything your local police department does to catch bands of car theives, church arsonists, or kiddie porn shops is discussed openly in the press... because doing so undermines the ability to accomplish the tasks. If you don't like the tasks, then you put forth a lucid, compelling case that causes enough people to think like you and elect representatives and executives that put the agency to more/different/fewer missions.
'national security' in this case, being, the desire of the American public to revolt against its politicians and create conditions ripe for civil war.. you do know that 99% of the time, when a politicians says 'national security' he means "we can't tell the public about this because we believe it might cause another civil war..."
Wow! 99%, huh? You, sir, are a BS-ing, twaddle-headed, paranoic, twit with a rudderless, nonsensical agenda. At least I don't have to worry about you actually being persuasive enough with enough voters to see your vision of things displace a more rational, however imperfect, one that takes reality into account.
This concept ... Could explain this:
"... humankind's considerable capacity for war and violence..."
I think this goes back way before advanced primate-ness, and into deeper mammal-ness. All you have to do is note a domestic dog's (or his ancestor, the wolf's) incredible ability to instantly identify threatening unknowns or familiar rivals by any number of signals/patterns (appearance, body language, etc). And, if you've ever seen dogs actually form groups and pick fights strictly for social reasons, you'll know the "capacity for violence" part runs a lot deeper than our recent bit o' evoltion. Of course, we've got opposable thumbs, so we do it a little more flamboyantly.
Damn, that was... well, lucid. Waking up to a rational, articulate, informed slashdot comment is just completely unsettling in a bracing sort of way. Thanks! Must... get... bad... coffee... to... counter... effects.
Mind referring to some sources to backup your accusations?
Here, for example.
The link is an example (first Google hit I got, recalling the issue). Talk to anyone in law enforcement or intel - this happens constantly, but usually larger collections of phones are created by purchases of one or two at a time by mules that hit every convenience store for 20 miles along a stretch of highway. Drug runners use them constantly, they're a hit with illegal immigrants, and they often get carried overseas where they are frequently re-sold, cloned, etc. But the use of them domestically, as one-shot disposable phones, is a well established feature of both domestic and international bad guys. They're also popular as timers for bombs, of course - as seen in London and Madrid.
Nothing you said addresses that fundamental issue
The fundamental issue: people sitting in other countries have acted to kill a substantial number of people in the US and abroad. They loudly proclaim that they want to do more, and work to that end. Part of that includes placing calls (regarding funding and operational coordination) to supporters and collaborators. When people make those calls, it's not only legal to follow the trail, it's an obligation to. The constitution not only permits it, but empowers the CinC to perform, in his role of defense against just such attacks, to act. So, if you're a known Al Queda franchise operator in Lahore, phoning your US-based finance guy on a disposable phone from overseas, get over feeling like your privacy isn't what it used to be.
I'm sorry, but this strikes me as a horribly insensitive comment. While there may be lots of people in the world, and economic growth may be the best engine for improving overall welfare, this borderline victim-blaming crosses the line. If only we could have fewer of those poor, inefficient people, the world would be a happier place?
Oh, please. It was survivors of the mudslide who said that the logging in the hills above their village is what caused the mudslide. That's not victim-blaming, that's quoting the people who said that they knew exactly what happened, and why. And yes, fewer poor, inefficient people does make the world a happier place. And you don't get that by stringing up 70-watt light bulbs (one per house! hoooo-wee!)... you get those by helping those people get themselves out of that condition - and it's all economics.
was a time when more text messages were being exchanged in the Philippines than anywhere else in the world.
Are you seriously suggesting that the 1500 people now buried under that mud are all buried with their cellphones? Just because downtown Manila is very well wired (and wireless) doesn't mean that the outlying islands are all up to speed. I cited that example, today, because the disaster in Leyte is an up-to-the-moment example of the consequences of really inefficient land use in a poor rural area. Portable power and water treatment are probably going to be a lot more appreciated in parts of the subcontinent and in Africa... but again, it's just a tiny symptom treatment.
This kind of comment makes me angry. No matter what people try to do there is something wrong with it.
Well, that's a bit of a generalization. I don't have a problem with anything, let alone "no matter what" is tried to improve situations like rural poverty in the third world. What I do have a problem with are "solutions" that merely treat the symptoms and actually perpetuate the underlying problem: too many people too inefficiently using too much land. Vast tracts of Africa and Asia (hell, and Central and South America) are being positively destroyed by cheesy farming techniques that don't scale up well from tiny tribal populations. And you can't inject high-tech, high-efficiency farming (and the supporting businesses and investments) into those places as long as they are politcally corrupt and completely unstable. That is the problem, and when you do something about that, you're really working to improve the lives of people in those regions and reduce the clumsy, permanent damage to the environment in which they live.
A 70-watt light bulb illuminating a large, poor, rural family's hut in the middle of the night is just lighting up a large, poor, rural family. When the sun comes up, they'll still be deforesting land to poorly graze cattle and use up topsoil with one lousy crop. Why? Because the science and technology that they could be using (thus better using the land, and reducing the pressure to have 10 kids to work that land) cannot take root in places where shipments are hijacked by local gangs and the locals have been told (by twits) that the engineered crops that use less water and resist pests are the work of Satan, etc. Democracy, a flexible market, and rule of law, once established and maintained, attract investment, equipment, and positive change faster than any 1-kilowatt cowdung generator will ever do.
Just look at countries like Cameroon. Booming cities, high tech farms, cell phones and newer-tech vehicles in wide use... why? Because the thugs that keep things primitive were finally put out of business. And doing that elsewhere takes a lot more work (and courage) than distributing 70-watt lightbulbs throughout a village, but it makes true, real, long-lasting changes that impact everyone.