and you're drawing moral strength from the fact that someone was caught on film complaining about an MRE?
No, you're saying I am. I'm pointing out that all we're seeing on TV are reporters looking everywhere they can for people who are willing to say that they're getting no help at all, even as help is obviously pouring in. And the degree of misery would have been hugely, hugely reduced by the people of that city (that didn't) spending literally a few minutes and a few dollars being better prepared with enough Tuesday-through-Thursday food and water so that the people that weren't able-bodied could get all of the attention from the emergency services.
Why you feel the need to apologize for our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT when we're being bombarded with pictures and videos of tens of thousands of people NOT getting help is beyond me
Who's apologizing? I'm not - I think think it's shame that despite everything they're doing there are people who, for whatever reason, insist on saying they're doing nothing. They're spending $500 million per day, and have been since Monday to help out the people in all three states that were impacted. It's the least that someone sitting in New Orleans watching that storm approach could have done to personally help by not making matters worse, given the opportunity. That opportunity was completely squandered by thousands of people that are now bitching at the thousands of people that are trying to help.
But it's still not enough
Which is why thousands more people, and endless shipments have already been enroute and continue to flow in. If all you do is listen to the people that are crowding around reporters, all you're going to get is their perspective - and not see the huge efforts that are under way.
We should have seen trains running by yesterday, not explosions in the train yard.
Really? You think that a swamped rail yard with no power and wrecked switching equipment should be working just over 48 hours after a broken levee dumped a whole lake on it? Even when all of the people that work those yards and maintain the equipment - even if they had power - are subject to a mandatory evacuation? Do you really think that every place those rail lines go could have been evaluated by engineers for soundness and safety within hours of that mess? You seem to think that the government is magic - but I'd be curious how much more influence over local affairs, and command of more taxes you'd be willing to cede to the feds so that they could always deliver what you're talking about everywhere in the country where it might happen.
We should have seen airdrops by now
You mean, like the ones that started on Tuesday, and have been going non-stop ever since? I'm wondering where you're getting your coverage. Can a million homeless people over 90,000 square miles be all helped in a matter of three short days? Simply not possible. Would it have been easier if more of the people in New Orleans had actually prepared, and not ignored the evac orders? At least in part. Would some of those hospitals have had an easier go of it if the people trying to land there to drop of supplies and pick up sick people weren't getting shot at be punks looking to corner the market on stolen pharmaceuticals? Probably. Just a few people making the process in any way harder have been costing time, supplies, and savable lives.
It's shouldn't be FEMA's job to make sure, in the wake of an enormous storm, to make sure that everyone has diapers and warm meals (rather than cold) meals within hours. Readiness to do that, and the provision of a family's immediate food and water, is at best a local responsibility when it's not within the individual's ability. Longer term relief from a disabled infrastructure and shattered local economy is where FEMA should be focused.
Every member of my family, from Seattle (storms? volcanos?), to San Fransisco (earthquakes?), to
But, it does leave it as an open question whether or not the school district will every try something like this again.
I think the question is, will the school system and the police department (which pressed the charges - not the school) continue to have the option of using the heavier ammo when they need to? The kids involved installed unauthorized communications software on machines that were used on the school system's network. Next time it could be packet sniffers, or any number of things that could cause storms, spam the routers, or just basically hose up the systems that all of the students are expecting to have at their disposal, and for which taxpayers are paying.
There will be more of this sort of thing, and some of the cracks may be like what has happened on other school networks (kids cracking grade databases to make changes, kids hitting the servers in the offices to get payroll and fincancial/personal info about teachers, etc). The school system and cops have to reserve the ability to lean hard on the kids that do indeed maliciously abuse the systems that the school depends upon.
True. And they are definitely impacted by whether or not their parents provide them with enough backbone to realize that they can live 20 or 30 miles away from where they were born... and not below sea level in a habitually poor, corrupt city that roles dice with hurricanes every year.
If you've watched much of the coverage most of those left behind are poor and black.
Yup, just like much of the population that was also devestated in Mississippi and Alabama. That is the main demographic in the urban south, no question.
As a matter of fact more than a few of those interviewed said they couldn't even afford a tank of gas to get out, let alone the price of lodging and food.
No question that if you're on public assistance, etc., you're not likely to be able to afford a hotel room somewhere. But so much of the misery we're watching could have been avoided if more (just some more!) of the people who didn't get out under the mandatory evacuation, had put aside $5 worth of water and $15 worth of food in a $5 duffle bag as they watched that huge storm approach for days. There is no one, no matter how poor, that has grown up on the gulf coast without understanding the consequences of a hurricane on their power, water, and food supplies. If just some of that complacency had been avoided by the city and its long-term residents, the emergency folks would have been able to concentrate much more effectively on the people who were not physically capable of carrying a few gallons' water supply and four days' worth of snack bars and canned beans.
Every year? When was the last time a hurricane hit New Orleans? When was the last time ANYTHING like this happened?
The Gulf Coast is hit by hurricanes every year. It's like throwing darts at that whole area, and New Orleans isn't a bit different than Galveston (remember when that was totally removed from the map?) or any of the towns that were devastated by Camille, which caused incredible destruction. If San Fransisco gets the same earthquake again that it did 100 years ago, you'll see similar horror - though not the sort of swampiness. The difference is that the people choosing to live in New Orleans have picked a spot that's below sea level and about which phrases like "dodged a bullet this time" and "next time we won't be so lucky" are routinely used whenever a storm twitches a hair to the east or west of it.
But fuck, keep blaming the victims. Don't you feel better about yourself now?
Are you even following the context of this thread? The whole point is that the comment I responded to said that there was "no sign" of any relief, no food, no water, nothing being done. My entire point is that even as that guy was writing that comment, thousands of people were getting showers and a meal in Texas, dozens of military and private helicopters had been flying supplies in and people out non-stop, 24x7, and there were thousands of people flowing in to help.
The worst of the misery that we're seeing now would have been greatly alleviated if more people - instead of blaming the government - had actually listened to the countless warnings for days before this happened. I can't believe that I'm seeing ablebodied people who walked away from their homes, able to pull jammed suitcases with them, but who are yelling that the government hasn't given them any water since Monday. How can you not have $5 worth of bottled water ready in a backpack or that same rolling suitcase when you've been watching that storm on your TV for days before hand?
People are being RAPED
So, you've got thousands of New Orleans citizens gathered together in the spots where the supplies are coming in, and the buses are pulling people out. Thousands. How does someone, standing amid thousands of their fellow citizens, just stand by while someone rapes someone else? That is the government's fault?
People are DEAD. Yes, it was a horribly deadly storm, just as predicted.
are infants dying in the fucking streets and your focus is on blaming them, their parents.
No, my focus, in the context of this thread, is to point out the nonsense in the comment to which I replied, which stated that no one was doing anything to help. It is up to each of use to do what we can to not burden emergency services (who should be focusing on the babies the elderly, and so on) with BS like not carrying some drinking water in the face of a well advertised, monster storm approaching an area where the local culture is very familiar with seasonal storms, flooding, and tropical heat.
Their houses are now under nine feet of water.
That water did not rise so fast that at least a majority of them couldn't have a few liters of drinking water in a damn shopping bag, if nothing else. Not everyone can be expected to, but more people sure should have. Of course we're not hearing from (or about) the people that absolutely did prepare, and throw what they'd need in a couple of book bags - because that's not as horrific to watch or hear about.
It is the government's JOB to maintain law and order, and they.. have.. FAILED
And it's the citizens' job to not loot electronics stores in the middle of a crisis, to not shoot at boats and helicopters, and to not hang out in a crowd of their stressed-out neighbors deciding it's a fine time to rape someone. The reason there was a mandatory evacuation order in advance of this, on top of the non-stop news reports of exactly how
News flash: Many, many people have young children. With 48 hours notice, walking is not an option.
Then, why, WHY have they chosen to give birth to, and raise kids while living below sea level in the path of recurring hurricanes that happen every year like clockwork? This storm was inevitable, and the entire gulf coast culture knows the history and probability of hurricane damage. That is an inherently risky place to live, and if you don't have the means to live there and also provide that buffer you might need in case you see a giant hurricane paste Florida days earlier and head your way... well, perhaps it would be better simply to move to Tennessee, or someplace that your kids are less likely to be displaced by a cat5 storm. And of course, displacement or not, what kind of parent would have multiple kids in the house, and not have a least a week's drinking water and canned beans (perhaps a $50 investment, liberally?) available, especially in a zone like New Orleans?
The elderly and infirm would have so many more resources aimed at helping them out if the authorities weren't so busy fishing out the people who were still in bars ordering up Hurricane cocktails an hour before the storm made landfall, or dodging jackasses that feel some urge to take shots at emergency personnel.
It's anger. Those people were left there with no way to get out and no way to get help.
No way, that is, once they blew their ample opportunity before the storm, or even after the storm but before the water had risen so far. No way to get help? You mean, other than the constant stream of evacutation flights, inbound food and water, and roaming rescue operations that continue (despite being shot at)? Those people weren't left there, they stayed there. In fact, they make the ongoing decision to live below sea level, directly in the path of an every-year hurricane season.
why was the evacuation order given only 24 hours in advance?
Recommendations to get out of town started days before that. Not that it should have mattered - the people that live their entire lives below sea level on a coast that is regularly scheduled to have hurricanes hit every year - they've got no excuses not to know that water flows downhill. But the voluntary evac announcement came before that, and the mandatory one (ignored by tens of thousands) still came in plenty of time for people to even walk out of the low lying areas if they cared to.
why aren't there airlifts of food and water to people literally starving and dying of thirst?
There are. There have been since the first day, and tons of food and water have been being driven and flow in every day. They are running into problems, though. In one place, they couldn't even put the the helicopter because people were too dumb not to crowd directly under a descending aircraft. After several attempts, they had to just heave the supplies out to people from 10 feet in the air. Other people are getting huge piles of military rations (and actually complaining to TV reporters that the food is no good because it's "cold" - the same way that thousands of military personnel eat it every day). And, of course, the 10,000+ that are now sleeping in cots in Texas, with showers, hot food, water, communications - they'd probably disagree that they're not getting supplies. They've been brought to the supplies, and it's continuing non-stop, 24x7.
why did Bush wait two days to curtail his cozy vacation to respond to the crisis?
Are you really so desperate to score political points in the middle of this that you're willing to pretend you don't know what a presidential "vacation" is like? Everything - everything - that a president can and has to do follow him wherever he goes. Complete communications, briefings throughout the day, reports to read, findings to authorize, press briefings, and C-in-C duties that occupy much of every day. Just as true of Bill Clinton while he wiled away his time in the Hamptons with his show-biz buddies as it was for Jimmy Carter, or for Bush today. "Curtailing" his vacation just means changing the location where his teleconferences take place - the job is full time, 365 days a year.
why weren't buses used before the storm to bus out those without cars, the elderly, and the sick?
That would be a question for the local government in the city. Many civic organizations, churches, families, and companies did bus their people out of town.
why are the police looting and deserting their posts?
Because you're choosing to call it that. Lacking communications gear in many areas, the city police have no "posts" - they are tasked with using their own professional judgement about how they can be the most useful. In many cases, that's proving to be responding to bogus reports of conflicts, or having to report to real conflicts, such as where people are carjacking ambulances or taking pot shots at rescuers in boats and choppers. As for "looting," they are deliberately removing guns and ammo from sporting goods stores and other repositories, and arranging to haul out the safes that pharmacists use to store narcotics. In order for the cops to continue to function at all, they are comandeering vehicles, fuel, and other tools they need. They wouldn't have so much to do if some residents of the city weren't using this opportunity to roam the streets in gangs causing incredible distractions from the work of saving vulnerable people.
government has a role and a government that can't protect its citizens on basic issues of physical security and competence in the face of disaster is a government that doesn't deserve the consent of the governed.
So, when your neighbor's house burns down, or your whole block is destroyed by a tornado... has your government failed y
It's 90+ degrees. No one is going to freeze to death camping out in any area just like the bridges, overpasses, and rooftops they're spending their days on now. Even just a few miles inland, the impact of the storm was greatly reduced. Believe me, I wouldn't have wanted to spend the day out in that storm, or hanging out in some parking garage outside of town... but the storm damage, per se, in town on Monday was pretty negligible. The mess we're seeing now (the stranding results of the rising water, and resulting difficulting in getting people connected with transportation, food, and water) took another 24+ hours to really manifest itself. How far uphill can you walk in 24 hours? In 8 hours? On pavement, most people can make it an easy 15 miles. That would get you well past the standing water area, and immediately able to get picked up by evac busses.
At the very least, the people who seem to be having the energy to hijack ambulances to steal narcotics, or to rape women in corners of the Superdome, or to carry looted merchandise through blocks of waist-deep water - there's enough energy there to just freakin' hoof it out of town. And that's before you get hungry because you were too shortsighted to set aside a few $0.59 cans of beans.
no food, no water, no communication, and no signs of help are heartbreaking and a true tragedy
That would be "no food or water" other than the tons and tons that are being flown and driven in every hour? I'm watching an interview right now with people sitting on top of an overpass eating military MREs (meals-ready-to-eat, as consumed in the thousands by our troops every day) that were just dropped off by a Navy chopper. Their response? That the food is "impossible to eat" since it's cold. Incredible.
No communication or signs of help? They've been flying people out for days now, and bussing thousands to Texas and elsewhere. There are thousands and thousands more to go, and it's not helping that people near hospitals are shooting at and near helicopters and convoys as they try to come in. What the hell sort of wanting help is that?
our government has failed us
By which you mean the City Of New Orleans? They are the ones that have zoned that city so that all of those thousands of people are living below sea level in an area that is guaranteed to be periodically hit by hurricanes. And you make it sound like New Orleans is the only place needing help... 90,000 square miles have been clobbered by this storm, and whole towns in Mississippi and Alabama are completely wrecked, too.
Why the city government in New Orleans has never recommended to people living there, as they watch - for days - a giant hurricane approaching, to do things like put aside drinkable water and several days worth of food... amazing. Or, is it that that advice has been shouted continually, and even louder every hurricane season, and that tens of thousands of people decided they didn't need to be personally accountable for their own food and water for a few days? "The government" didn't fail, here - they're spending $500 million per day scrambling to respond to a multi-state calamity. The failure was at the local level, where individual people weren't prepared.
I don't mean to trivialize the rapid rise of water that led to a lot of people losing their residences. But that's exactly what was predicted in advance, and even at a slow walk, thousands of the able-bodied people that I'm seeing trash stores and mill around shouting at the people trying to help - they could have strolled all the way out of town before the weather and water even hit. If the only people that needed rescue were those that couldn't physically take care of themselves, and didn't have the ability to fill water jugs or put aside some canned food while watching the news all weekend - then there wouldn't be nearly so much trouble right now.
Further more, the dike enhancements the COE were planning (well, hoping for some money to spend on), would not even have involved the areas where the dikes failed. Wouldn't have helped anyway, even if they had started the work and finished it years early (inconceivable).
You cannot "fend off looters" unless you have reasonable belief that you are in mortal danger.
OK, so you're sitting on the second floor of your house in New Orleans right this minute, and some of the people that have been capriciously - by all reports - looting and even killing/raping stranded pepople, come wandering through what's left of your neighborhood to see what they can liberate from whatever you put aside to eat or drink. There isn't a jury in the world that would blame you for shooting a single one of them that started rumaging through your house. Now, that being said, I don't actually know if Louisiana is one of these states that would let you do that even under normal circumstances - though there are plenty of states that do.
Labelling me a pirate and ignoring my point, or lumping me with pirates and ignoring my point, does not make me wrong, does not invalidate my point.
But I didn't mean, or try to address your "point." Rather, I answered your actual, rather loaded (and insinuation-filled) question about why DRM "advocates" don't seem to visiting the link you're pointing to, or answering your question. Your tone (which was also veering towards an ad hominem tilt, and hence my response), implied that DRM advocates know they're wrong and are afraid to address the issue. I'm suggesting that they're world-weary of countless lame defenses for pirating, and are pretty jaded, at this point, about any claim that if they just visit a web site they'll understand why they're so wrong. Likewise as to any claim that if they just support a particular venture, innocent people will be all set, and only bad people will get in trouble. It just sounds too glib, and that, on the surface of it, is what I was observing.
I'm maintaining that the reason is that your message, or the context in which you're delivering it, is pretty hard to separate from those people that think infringement shouldn't be illegal, or those that know it is, but feel comfortable taking their chances for some free entertainment. Only because too many of those people attempt to frame defense of those positions in almost exactly the same language.
Each drop should not come with its own EULA inside it excusing itself for any contaminants that should be inside, claiming that it is provided "as is" and not suitable for any purpose, but requiring you must accept each drop individually before you can drink it.
Except, as in the example of the municipal water utility that flow from my tap, use of the service specifically means accepting the terms of their service (mentioned, and frequently amended in paperwork that comes with their quarterly invoice) - which governs everything from your invoice dispute rights, within what bounds the water will be provided (pressure/availability, quality), and whether/how you can re-sell the water (not, typically). Pretty much exactly a EULA, for very similar reasons.
I expect my home power to come in from the grid at 120V and 60Hz
So, if your preference is to use Euro-based stuff, you're "locked out" by long-time standards that aren't going to change, ever, to fit your personal taste. You'll have to roll your own, in that case.
If a small part of the system doesn't work, I shouldn't have to send the whole thing to a landfill just because the hardware configuration has changed
Which we sure used to have to do a lot more often. Things tend to require a lot less junking, now, than they used to. And if most manufacturers make poor choices about what some (more adventurous) percentage portion of their market wants in their hardware, then they will lose every one of your dollars to a manufacturer that "gets" what you want. Market economy.
No, but they can be used fend off looters, kill rabid animals invading your farmyard, fetch a tasty pheasant or deer for dinner, and provide all sorts of challenging sports.
why would you assume it's the "artist's decision" to DRM the work? It's not the artist's decision, it's the decision of the record label/film studio/etc.
No, it's the artist's decision. Artists can publish their works in any of a number of formats, with and without DRM supported. The artist can also decide that they'd rather just pay attention to their music, and let another entity (say, a label - which might be one guy in an apartment, or a thousand people in a huge operation) take care of the business end of things. It's a choice, and plenty of indy artists and small labels are starting to use a variety of mechanisms. Some will, and some will not allow those artists to earn their keep through publishing - but they do have a choice.
No artist is forced to join up with any business partner. If they want what that partner has to offer, they can decide if the cost (to them) is a good trade off. Or not.
I have asked that exact question of at least a dozen DRM advocates... and funny thing... not a single one has ever answered it.
I think the reason you're not getting any responses would be because your question is so rhetorically loaded that it pretty much completely discourages anyone from bothering to follow the link. The way you're framing it sounds like a some sort of semantic trick, and thus typical enough of the whole "information wants to be free" crowd as to cause people simply to want to tune out.
You're suggesting that our current law says that innocent people are going to prison. I think most people are probably finding that to be not the case. Rather, they're finding that millions of people who do gratuitously infringe (the too-cheap-to-pay-the-artist crowd) are slowly convincing themselves that that's the new normal - only chumps pay artists for their work, blah blah. I don't know of any credible anecdote that relates the story of an innocent person - obviously not infringing on anyone's copyright - going to jail for infringing on someone's copyright. Since probably the vast majority of your average audience here feels exactly the same way, you're not going to get much traction on your request that people show support for a zealous-sounding movement that seems to be addressing a non-issue, even as first-run movies are being bittorrented all over the 'net from ripped of critical release DVDs before the films even hit the theatre.
So, it's not odd you haven't had a response. Most DRM "advocates" (who, in my experience, are "artist/novelist/film maker advocates") don't respond to you - it's that they've stated their position for years, and still see massive infringement going on, accelerating wildly as broadband proliferates. A movement that seems, rhetorically, to suggest that all of that is of no consequence. Whether or not that is what you mean, that doesn't come across in your tone, and doesn't seem to be acknowleged in your comment. That's probably going to run off most of the people you'd like to convince.
The Chinese and Romans had civilization thousands of years before any real technology took hold (although they were both had quite a few nifty technologies at the time, it wasn't required for them to create and administer codes of law).
Sure it was. Without their agro/aqua-technologies, etc., they would never have had the surpluses necessary to provide for the stabilizing influence of the military and long-range trade.
No it's not. That's all technology. You can theoretically live in anarcy and still have electricity and pump your own water. (Though you need to be very technically inclined and have access to tools that don't break)
But those technologies don't arise in a vacuum, and you need the career/trade specialization that comes from an established civilization in order to produce those tools in the first place. Absent maintenance-free technologies (in practical terms, non-existent), an anarchy-type environment may let you have some electricity, but nothing even approaching a current standard of living (readily available anti-biotics, refined fuels, metallurgical resources, communications networks, workable roads and transport, weather-independent food supplies, and so on). You indicate the technological orientation required of someone living with better gear in an anarchist environment... the problem that technologist will have is that the other 99 out of 100 people will just kill him and take his stuff (see New Orleans as an increasingly painful recent example).
People need to be credited for their creations and should be allowed to sell their creations for a profit, but this does not entail you crippling others rights to their own ideas just because you think you deserve to be paid by society regardless of if they even wanted to ignore your creation all together.
How does an artist's decision to publish via a DRMed medium force you to compensate them for their work, if you don't want to buy it? How does that dimish your rights to your own ideas and work? If you want to ignore their creation altogether, just ignore it! It's the countries with the insane tax-the-blank-media rules that reflect what you're saying, not the more correctly market-driven model where people do, or don't, enter into a transaction as (and when, and if, and how) they mutually see fit. As in: if you don't want the CD, don't buy it. And the corollary: if you don't want to pay for the work, you don't get it (unless it's being honestly given away by the artist - always a possibility, depending on the circumstances).
They would love to see the eventual loss of all unsigned network connectivity as well as software that wasn't pre-approved
I'm glad you're not one of the nitwits (of which there are large numbers, so sorry if I tend to shoot from the hip when it comes to the "all DRM is bad" flavored comments). However, I'm really not sold on the notion that "they" want to see the eventual loss of anything, per se. It's avoiding loss that's driving all of this.
Think of how funny it would have been to you 20 years ago if someone told you that you wouldn't be able to open a document or run a program on your computer because Microsoft didn't give you a code to do so.
You're right! It would have been really funny, compared to those other software vendors' dongles and whatnot that we had to use back then. Funny then in that "less annoyinng" sense of the word, anyway. Funny now in that "I don't have to use it if I don't want to," and "funny, I wasn't planning on P2Ping disk 6 of Lord Of The Rings to a thousand unknown 'best friends' anyway."
If I produce something that I'd just as soon everyone picked up for free, I'd simply leave off any DRM in the source. If I'm feeling lazy and just want to spend $3.95 to enjoy the experience of a movie, including being able to pause it when I go to the bathroom to pass off the latte that cost more than that, then I'll use any of the choices I've already got to deliver that entertainment to me, and even take it with me on the road, or pipe it to another room in the house.
It's really fucking sad that people are willing to put control of everything into someone else's hands.
It's called civilization. Do you pump and process your own drinking water? Produce your own electricity? Make the hardware you're using to read this comment right now? Spend a few million to produce a really good film so you can watch it once?
To the extent that you don't want to put the control of "everything" in someone else's hands, persuade some artists that they don't really need to worry about whether they're collecting revenue from their work. Persuade an author that depsite the years spent on that great American novel, that it's silly to want to sell it to readers. When enough creative people can be convinced that either they don't need prickly protection for their work, or that they don't need to earn money anyway, then you're all set. In the meantime, you can take "control" away from those creators and the businesses they've chosen to represent them in one simple step: do not buy their works. But if that's your way of communicating to them, have the intellectual integrity to not also run off and pirate that same material.
The state no longer represents the will of the people.
So, the people that work for the RIAA, and the musicians that choose member labels to handle their business for them... those are not part of "the people?"
There was a time when a majority of "the people" thought slavery was cool, too. The "will of the people" at any given moment does not, and absolutely should not, translate into what the people should be legally able to do. That's what the Constitution is all about - allowing people, even the minority of the people (say, musicians) to preserve their rights despite what the majority would find convenient. Ownership of your own efforts is fundamental to our culture, even if a lazy, cheap, and larger portion of that culture would rather have pet musicians working for them for free.
The president, through veto power alone, has at least as much power as congress (if they don't like it, they veto, and congressional supermajorities are very rare). However, it doesn't end there: the administration sets their party's political agenda in congress
But the whole point is that if the majority of the country doesn't like the way that, say, congress is doing things (along partisan lines), the administration will only be able to set the agenda for the minority in the house. That leaves the president unable to do much of anything, other than (as you say) work within what they've been handed and spend accordingly.
Yes, the cabinet officials direct the operations of their departments, but huge swaths of their budgets are legislatively directed towards specific programs, certain ratios of this vs. that, and other limitations/obligations that don't really give them much wiggle room.
One might be inclined to think that, say, the DOD would be the biggest as-they-see-fit spender, but when it comes to big ticket items, like opening or closing bases, or adopting/discarding weapons programs, peacekeeping in Bosnia, or rebuilding in Iraq, the funds always have to be approved by congress. In both of those conflict examples, by the way, we are talking about veto-proof appropriations, by congress.
We do indeed have a strongly configured executive branch - and it's a good thing, too. If congress had to oversee daily operations, we'd be completely stagnant on every front, and sure as hell unable to nimbly respond to things like what just happened on the Gulf Coast.
It's hit it's halfway point? It hasn't even launched yet! The headline is rather deceptive. Lot of thinks can happen, particularly with a President spending us into poverty and certain to be replaced in a couple of years.
Well, at least some of what we're spending is on educational measures that hopefully will make sure you can't get a high school degree without knowing how to use "it's" vs. "its" (perhaps you can apply for a grant and learn it anyway).
Lot of thinks can happen
But not a lot of "thinks" about your post, or your understanding of the way NASA funds are allocated, apparently. You do know who your congressional representative is, don't you?
... certain to be replaced...
Congratulations! All wasted grammar class time aside, you're at least aware that presidents can only serve two terms.
Now, with the new president that you're choosing to succeed him, what's your preference? More taxes for more NASA funding, or less spending on where most of our tax dollars go (social programs and personal entitlements). Doesn't matter, of course, what you think about the president, because the budget has to be approved by congress, and only congress can change the tax law and appropriate more money from you and any businesses with which you do business as a customer or employee.
I agree that the headline in the post is deceptive, but not nearly so much your notion that we're "spending us into poverty." We have the single most productive, efficient economy in the world. "Us" is the private sector. Taxes and federal budgets are a subset of that, and it's up to the congress to spend what they take in, and no more. The president, with few exceptions, and regardless of political party, can only work within the bounds that congress establishes.
The author of the article raises an interesting point, will this 'slippery slope' prove too difficult to walk?
At least the author didn't "beg the question."
Because, someone would have to finally lose their editorial rights. But ScuttleMonkey can live to edit another day, as long as he can fix the grammar in that sentence.
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and you're drawing moral strength from the fact that someone was caught on film complaining about an MRE?
No, you're saying I am. I'm pointing out that all we're seeing on TV are reporters looking everywhere they can for people who are willing to say that they're getting no help at all, even as help is obviously pouring in. And the degree of misery would have been hugely, hugely reduced by the people of that city (that didn't) spending literally a few minutes and a few dollars being better prepared with enough Tuesday-through-Thursday food and water so that the people that weren't able-bodied could get all of the attention from the emergency services.
Why you feel the need to apologize for our FEDERAL GOVERNMENT when we're being bombarded with pictures and videos of tens of thousands of people NOT getting help is beyond me
Who's apologizing? I'm not - I think think it's shame that despite everything they're doing there are people who, for whatever reason, insist on saying they're doing nothing. They're spending $500 million per day, and have been since Monday to help out the people in all three states that were impacted. It's the least that someone sitting in New Orleans watching that storm approach could have done to personally help by not making matters worse, given the opportunity. That opportunity was completely squandered by thousands of people that are now bitching at the thousands of people that are trying to help.
But it's still not enough
Which is why thousands more people, and endless shipments have already been enroute and continue to flow in. If all you do is listen to the people that are crowding around reporters, all you're going to get is their perspective - and not see the huge efforts that are under way.
We should have seen trains running by yesterday, not explosions in the train yard.
Really? You think that a swamped rail yard with no power and wrecked switching equipment should be working just over 48 hours after a broken levee dumped a whole lake on it? Even when all of the people that work those yards and maintain the equipment - even if they had power - are subject to a mandatory evacuation? Do you really think that every place those rail lines go could have been evaluated by engineers for soundness and safety within hours of that mess? You seem to think that the government is magic - but I'd be curious how much more influence over local affairs, and command of more taxes you'd be willing to cede to the feds so that they could always deliver what you're talking about everywhere in the country where it might happen.
We should have seen airdrops by now
You mean, like the ones that started on Tuesday, and have been going non-stop ever since? I'm wondering where you're getting your coverage. Can a million homeless people over 90,000 square miles be all helped in a matter of three short days? Simply not possible. Would it have been easier if more of the people in New Orleans had actually prepared, and not ignored the evac orders? At least in part. Would some of those hospitals have had an easier go of it if the people trying to land there to drop of supplies and pick up sick people weren't getting shot at be punks looking to corner the market on stolen pharmaceuticals? Probably. Just a few people making the process in any way harder have been costing time, supplies, and savable lives.
It's shouldn't be FEMA's job to make sure, in the wake of an enormous storm, to make sure that everyone has diapers and warm meals (rather than cold) meals within hours. Readiness to do that, and the provision of a family's immediate food and water, is at best a local responsibility when it's not within the individual's ability. Longer term relief from a disabled infrastructure and shattered local economy is where FEMA should be focused.
Every member of my family, from Seattle (storms? volcanos?), to San Fransisco (earthquakes?), to
But, it does leave it as an open question whether or not the school district will every try something like this again.
I think the question is, will the school system and the police department (which pressed the charges - not the school) continue to have the option of using the heavier ammo when they need to? The kids involved installed unauthorized communications software on machines that were used on the school system's network. Next time it could be packet sniffers, or any number of things that could cause storms, spam the routers, or just basically hose up the systems that all of the students are expecting to have at their disposal, and for which taxpayers are paying.
There will be more of this sort of thing, and some of the cracks may be like what has happened on other school networks (kids cracking grade databases to make changes, kids hitting the servers in the offices to get payroll and fincancial/personal info about teachers, etc). The school system and cops have to reserve the ability to lean hard on the kids that do indeed maliciously abuse the systems that the school depends upon.
People are born where they are born.
True. And they are definitely impacted by whether or not their parents provide them with enough backbone to realize that they can live 20 or 30 miles away from where they were born... and not below sea level in a habitually poor, corrupt city that roles dice with hurricanes every year.
If you've watched much of the coverage most of those left behind are poor and black.
Yup, just like much of the population that was also devestated in Mississippi and Alabama. That is the main demographic in the urban south, no question.
As a matter of fact more than a few of those interviewed said they couldn't even afford a tank of gas to get out, let alone the price of lodging and food.
No question that if you're on public assistance, etc., you're not likely to be able to afford a hotel room somewhere. But so much of the misery we're watching could have been avoided if more (just some more!) of the people who didn't get out under the mandatory evacuation, had put aside $5 worth of water and $15 worth of food in a $5 duffle bag as they watched that huge storm approach for days. There is no one, no matter how poor, that has grown up on the gulf coast without understanding the consequences of a hurricane on their power, water, and food supplies. If just some of that complacency had been avoided by the city and its long-term residents, the emergency folks would have been able to concentrate much more effectively on the people who were not physically capable of carrying a few gallons' water supply and four days' worth of snack bars and canned beans.
Every year? When was the last time a hurricane hit New Orleans? When was the last time ANYTHING like this happened?
The Gulf Coast is hit by hurricanes every year. It's like throwing darts at that whole area, and New Orleans isn't a bit different than Galveston (remember when that was totally removed from the map?) or any of the towns that were devastated by Camille, which caused incredible destruction. If San Fransisco gets the same earthquake again that it did 100 years ago, you'll see similar horror - though not the sort of swampiness. The difference is that the people choosing to live in New Orleans have picked a spot that's below sea level and about which phrases like "dodged a bullet this time" and "next time we won't be so lucky" are routinely used whenever a storm twitches a hair to the east or west of it.
But fuck, keep blaming the victims. Don't you feel better about yourself now?
Are you even following the context of this thread? The whole point is that the comment I responded to said that there was "no sign" of any relief, no food, no water, nothing being done. My entire point is that even as that guy was writing that comment, thousands of people were getting showers and a meal in Texas, dozens of military and private helicopters had been flying supplies in and people out non-stop, 24x7, and there were thousands of people flowing in to help.
The worst of the misery that we're seeing now would have been greatly alleviated if more people - instead of blaming the government - had actually listened to the countless warnings for days before this happened. I can't believe that I'm seeing ablebodied people who walked away from their homes, able to pull jammed suitcases with them, but who are yelling that the government hasn't given them any water since Monday. How can you not have $5 worth of bottled water ready in a backpack or that same rolling suitcase when you've been watching that storm on your TV for days before hand?
People are being RAPED
So, you've got thousands of New Orleans citizens gathered together in the spots where the supplies are coming in, and the buses are pulling people out. Thousands. How does someone, standing amid thousands of their fellow citizens, just stand by while someone rapes someone else? That is the government's fault?
People are DEAD. Yes, it was a horribly deadly storm, just as predicted.
are infants dying in the fucking streets and your focus is on blaming them, their parents.
No, my focus, in the context of this thread, is to point out the nonsense in the comment to which I replied, which stated that no one was doing anything to help. It is up to each of use to do what we can to not burden emergency services (who should be focusing on the babies the elderly, and so on) with BS like not carrying some drinking water in the face of a well advertised, monster storm approaching an area where the local culture is very familiar with seasonal storms, flooding, and tropical heat.
Their houses are now under nine feet of water.
That water did not rise so fast that at least a majority of them couldn't have a few liters of drinking water in a damn shopping bag, if nothing else. Not everyone can be expected to, but more people sure should have. Of course we're not hearing from (or about) the people that absolutely did prepare, and throw what they'd need in a couple of book bags - because that's not as horrific to watch or hear about.
It is the government's JOB to maintain law and order, and they.. have.. FAILED
And it's the citizens' job to not loot electronics stores in the middle of a crisis, to not shoot at boats and helicopters, and to not hang out in a crowd of their stressed-out neighbors deciding it's a fine time to rape someone. The reason there was a mandatory evacuation order in advance of this, on top of the non-stop news reports of exactly how
News flash: Many, many people have young children. With 48 hours notice, walking is not an option.
Then, why, WHY have they chosen to give birth to, and raise kids while living below sea level in the path of recurring hurricanes that happen every year like clockwork? This storm was inevitable, and the entire gulf coast culture knows the history and probability of hurricane damage. That is an inherently risky place to live, and if you don't have the means to live there and also provide that buffer you might need in case you see a giant hurricane paste Florida days earlier and head your way... well, perhaps it would be better simply to move to Tennessee, or someplace that your kids are less likely to be displaced by a cat5 storm. And of course, displacement or not, what kind of parent would have multiple kids in the house, and not have a least a week's drinking water and canned beans (perhaps a $50 investment, liberally?) available, especially in a zone like New Orleans?
The elderly and infirm would have so many more resources aimed at helping them out if the authorities weren't so busy fishing out the people who were still in bars ordering up Hurricane cocktails an hour before the storm made landfall, or dodging jackasses that feel some urge to take shots at emergency personnel.
It's anger. Those people were left there with no way to get out and no way to get help.
No way, that is, once they blew their ample opportunity before the storm, or even after the storm but before the water had risen so far. No way to get help? You mean, other than the constant stream of evacutation flights, inbound food and water, and roaming rescue operations that continue (despite being shot at)? Those people weren't left there, they stayed there. In fact, they make the ongoing decision to live below sea level, directly in the path of an every-year hurricane season.
why was the evacuation order given only 24 hours in advance?
Recommendations to get out of town started days before that. Not that it should have mattered - the people that live their entire lives below sea level on a coast that is regularly scheduled to have hurricanes hit every year - they've got no excuses not to know that water flows downhill. But the voluntary evac announcement came before that, and the mandatory one (ignored by tens of thousands) still came in plenty of time for people to even walk out of the low lying areas if they cared to.
why aren't there airlifts of food and water to people literally starving and dying of thirst?
There are. There have been since the first day, and tons of food and water have been being driven and flow in every day. They are running into problems, though. In one place, they couldn't even put the the helicopter because people were too dumb not to crowd directly under a descending aircraft. After several attempts, they had to just heave the supplies out to people from 10 feet in the air. Other people are getting huge piles of military rations (and actually complaining to TV reporters that the food is no good because it's "cold" - the same way that thousands of military personnel eat it every day). And, of course, the 10,000+ that are now sleeping in cots in Texas, with showers, hot food, water, communications - they'd probably disagree that they're not getting supplies. They've been brought to the supplies, and it's continuing non-stop, 24x7.
why did Bush wait two days to curtail his cozy vacation to respond to the crisis?
Are you really so desperate to score political points in the middle of this that you're willing to pretend you don't know what a presidential "vacation" is like? Everything - everything - that a president can and has to do follow him wherever he goes. Complete communications, briefings throughout the day, reports to read, findings to authorize, press briefings, and C-in-C duties that occupy much of every day. Just as true of Bill Clinton while he wiled away his time in the Hamptons with his show-biz buddies as it was for Jimmy Carter, or for Bush today. "Curtailing" his vacation just means changing the location where his teleconferences take place - the job is full time, 365 days a year.
why weren't buses used before the storm to bus out those without cars, the elderly, and the sick?
That would be a question for the local government in the city. Many civic organizations, churches, families, and companies did bus their people out of town.
why are the police looting and deserting their posts?
Because you're choosing to call it that. Lacking communications gear in many areas, the city police have no "posts" - they are tasked with using their own professional judgement about how they can be the most useful. In many cases, that's proving to be responding to bogus reports of conflicts, or having to report to real conflicts, such as where people are carjacking ambulances or taking pot shots at rescuers in boats and choppers. As for "looting," they are deliberately removing guns and ammo from sporting goods stores and other repositories, and arranging to haul out the safes that pharmacists use to store narcotics. In order for the cops to continue to function at all, they are comandeering vehicles, fuel, and other tools they need. They wouldn't have so much to do if some residents of the city weren't using this opportunity to roam the streets in gangs causing incredible distractions from the work of saving vulnerable people.
government has a role and a government that can't protect its citizens on basic issues of physical security and competence in the face of disaster is a government that doesn't deserve the consent of the governed.
So, when your neighbor's house burns down, or your whole block is destroyed by a tornado... has your government failed y
To where?
It's 90+ degrees. No one is going to freeze to death camping out in any area just like the bridges, overpasses, and rooftops they're spending their days on now. Even just a few miles inland, the impact of the storm was greatly reduced. Believe me, I wouldn't have wanted to spend the day out in that storm, or hanging out in some parking garage outside of town... but the storm damage, per se, in town on Monday was pretty negligible. The mess we're seeing now (the stranding results of the rising water, and resulting difficulting in getting people connected with transportation, food, and water) took another 24+ hours to really manifest itself. How far uphill can you walk in 24 hours? In 8 hours? On pavement, most people can make it an easy 15 miles. That would get you well past the standing water area, and immediately able to get picked up by evac busses.
At the very least, the people who seem to be having the energy to hijack ambulances to steal narcotics, or to rape women in corners of the Superdome, or to carry looted merchandise through blocks of waist-deep water - there's enough energy there to just freakin' hoof it out of town. And that's before you get hungry because you were too shortsighted to set aside a few $0.59 cans of beans.
no food, no water, no communication, and no signs of help are heartbreaking and a true tragedy
That would be "no food or water" other than the tons and tons that are being flown and driven in every hour? I'm watching an interview right now with people sitting on top of an overpass eating military MREs (meals-ready-to-eat, as consumed in the thousands by our troops every day) that were just dropped off by a Navy chopper. Their response? That the food is "impossible to eat" since it's cold. Incredible.
No communication or signs of help? They've been flying people out for days now, and bussing thousands to Texas and elsewhere. There are thousands and thousands more to go, and it's not helping that people near hospitals are shooting at and near helicopters and convoys as they try to come in. What the hell sort of wanting help is that?
our government has failed us
By which you mean the City Of New Orleans? They are the ones that have zoned that city so that all of those thousands of people are living below sea level in an area that is guaranteed to be periodically hit by hurricanes. And you make it sound like New Orleans is the only place needing help... 90,000 square miles have been clobbered by this storm, and whole towns in Mississippi and Alabama are completely wrecked, too.
Why the city government in New Orleans has never recommended to people living there, as they watch - for days - a giant hurricane approaching, to do things like put aside drinkable water and several days worth of food... amazing. Or, is it that that advice has been shouted continually, and even louder every hurricane season, and that tens of thousands of people decided they didn't need to be personally accountable for their own food and water for a few days? "The government" didn't fail, here - they're spending $500 million per day scrambling to respond to a multi-state calamity. The failure was at the local level, where individual people weren't prepared.
I don't mean to trivialize the rapid rise of water that led to a lot of people losing their residences. But that's exactly what was predicted in advance, and even at a slow walk, thousands of the able-bodied people that I'm seeing trash stores and mill around shouting at the people trying to help - they could have strolled all the way out of town before the weather and water even hit. If the only people that needed rescue were those that couldn't physically take care of themselves, and didn't have the ability to fill water jugs or put aside some canned food while watching the news all weekend - then there wouldn't be nearly so much trouble right now.
Further more, the dike enhancements the COE were planning (well, hoping for some money to spend on), would not even have involved the areas where the dikes failed. Wouldn't have helped anyway, even if they had started the work and finished it years early (inconceivable).
You cannot "fend off looters" unless you have reasonable belief that you are in mortal danger.
OK, so you're sitting on the second floor of your house in New Orleans right this minute, and some of the people that have been capriciously - by all reports - looting and even killing/raping stranded pepople, come wandering through what's left of your neighborhood to see what they can liberate from whatever you put aside to eat or drink. There isn't a jury in the world that would blame you for shooting a single one of them that started rumaging through your house. Now, that being said, I don't actually know if Louisiana is one of these states that would let you do that even under normal circumstances - though there are plenty of states that do.
Or maybe they just didn't fuck like rabbits and decimate their natural environment and keep moving on like an uncontrollable scourge?
Well, it's nice to know that out of concern, you won't be reproducing.
Labelling me a pirate and ignoring my point, or lumping me with pirates and ignoring my point, does not make me wrong, does not invalidate my point.
But I didn't mean, or try to address your "point." Rather, I answered your actual, rather loaded (and insinuation-filled) question about why DRM "advocates" don't seem to visiting the link you're pointing to, or answering your question. Your tone (which was also veering towards an ad hominem tilt, and hence my response), implied that DRM advocates know they're wrong and are afraid to address the issue. I'm suggesting that they're world-weary of countless lame defenses for pirating, and are pretty jaded, at this point, about any claim that if they just visit a web site they'll understand why they're so wrong. Likewise as to any claim that if they just support a particular venture, innocent people will be all set, and only bad people will get in trouble. It just sounds too glib, and that, on the surface of it, is what I was observing.
I'm maintaining that the reason is that your message, or the context in which you're delivering it, is pretty hard to separate from those people that think infringement shouldn't be illegal, or those that know it is, but feel comfortable taking their chances for some free entertainment. Only because too many of those people attempt to frame defense of those positions in almost exactly the same language.
Each drop should not come with its own EULA inside it excusing itself for any contaminants that should be inside, claiming that it is provided "as is" and not suitable for any purpose, but requiring you must accept each drop individually before you can drink it.
Except, as in the example of the municipal water utility that flow from my tap, use of the service specifically means accepting the terms of their service (mentioned, and frequently amended in paperwork that comes with their quarterly invoice) - which governs everything from your invoice dispute rights, within what bounds the water will be provided (pressure/availability, quality), and whether/how you can re-sell the water (not, typically). Pretty much exactly a EULA, for very similar reasons.
I expect my home power to come in from the grid at 120V and 60Hz
So, if your preference is to use Euro-based stuff, you're "locked out" by long-time standards that aren't going to change, ever, to fit your personal taste. You'll have to roll your own, in that case.
If a small part of the system doesn't work, I shouldn't have to send the whole thing to a landfill just because the hardware configuration has changed
Which we sure used to have to do a lot more often. Things tend to require a lot less junking, now, than they used to. And if most manufacturers make poor choices about what some (more adventurous) percentage portion of their market wants in their hardware, then they will lose every one of your dollars to a manufacturer that "gets" what you want. Market economy.
Guns don't peel fruit or cut rope.
No, but they can be used fend off looters, kill rabid animals invading your farmyard, fetch a tasty pheasant or deer for dinner, and provide all sorts of challenging sports.
why would you assume it's the "artist's decision" to DRM the work? It's not the artist's decision, it's the decision of the record label/film studio/etc.
No, it's the artist's decision. Artists can publish their works in any of a number of formats, with and without DRM supported. The artist can also decide that they'd rather just pay attention to their music, and let another entity (say, a label - which might be one guy in an apartment, or a thousand people in a huge operation) take care of the business end of things. It's a choice, and plenty of indy artists and small labels are starting to use a variety of mechanisms. Some will, and some will not allow those artists to earn their keep through publishing - but they do have a choice.
No artist is forced to join up with any business partner. If they want what that partner has to offer, they can decide if the cost (to them) is a good trade off. Or not.
I have asked that exact question of at least a dozen DRM advocates... and funny thing... not a single one has ever answered it.
I think the reason you're not getting any responses would be because your question is so rhetorically loaded that it pretty much completely discourages anyone from bothering to follow the link. The way you're framing it sounds like a some sort of semantic trick, and thus typical enough of the whole "information wants to be free" crowd as to cause people simply to want to tune out.
You're suggesting that our current law says that innocent people are going to prison. I think most people are probably finding that to be not the case. Rather, they're finding that millions of people who do gratuitously infringe (the too-cheap-to-pay-the-artist crowd) are slowly convincing themselves that that's the new normal - only chumps pay artists for their work, blah blah. I don't know of any credible anecdote that relates the story of an innocent person - obviously not infringing on anyone's copyright - going to jail for infringing on someone's copyright. Since probably the vast majority of your average audience here feels exactly the same way, you're not going to get much traction on your request that people show support for a zealous-sounding movement that seems to be addressing a non-issue, even as first-run movies are being bittorrented all over the 'net from ripped of critical release DVDs before the films even hit the theatre.
So, it's not odd you haven't had a response. Most DRM "advocates" (who, in my experience, are "artist/novelist/film maker advocates") don't respond to you - it's that they've stated their position for years, and still see massive infringement going on, accelerating wildly as broadband proliferates. A movement that seems, rhetorically, to suggest that all of that is of no consequence. Whether or not that is what you mean, that doesn't come across in your tone, and doesn't seem to be acknowleged in your comment. That's probably going to run off most of the people you'd like to convince.
The Chinese and Romans had civilization thousands of years before any real technology took hold (although they were both had quite a few nifty technologies at the time, it wasn't required for them to create and administer codes of law).
Sure it was. Without their agro/aqua-technologies, etc., they would never have had the surpluses necessary to provide for the stabilizing influence of the military and long-range trade.
No it's not. That's all technology. You can theoretically live in anarcy and still have electricity and pump your own water. (Though you need to be very technically inclined and have access to tools that don't break)
But those technologies don't arise in a vacuum, and you need the career/trade specialization that comes from an established civilization in order to produce those tools in the first place. Absent maintenance-free technologies (in practical terms, non-existent), an anarchy-type environment may let you have some electricity, but nothing even approaching a current standard of living (readily available anti-biotics, refined fuels, metallurgical resources, communications networks, workable roads and transport, weather-independent food supplies, and so on). You indicate the technological orientation required of someone living with better gear in an anarchist environment... the problem that technologist will have is that the other 99 out of 100 people will just kill him and take his stuff (see New Orleans as an increasingly painful recent example).
People need to be credited for their creations and should be allowed to sell their creations for a profit, but this does not entail you crippling others rights to their own ideas just because you think you deserve to be paid by society regardless of if they even wanted to ignore your creation all together.
How does an artist's decision to publish via a DRMed medium force you to compensate them for their work, if you don't want to buy it? How does that dimish your rights to your own ideas and work? If you want to ignore their creation altogether, just ignore it! It's the countries with the insane tax-the-blank-media rules that reflect what you're saying, not the more correctly market-driven model where people do, or don't, enter into a transaction as (and when, and if, and how) they mutually see fit. As in: if you don't want the CD, don't buy it. And the corollary: if you don't want to pay for the work, you don't get it (unless it's being honestly given away by the artist - always a possibility, depending on the circumstances).
They would love to see the eventual loss of all unsigned network connectivity as well as software that wasn't pre-approved
I'm glad you're not one of the nitwits (of which there are large numbers, so sorry if I tend to shoot from the hip when it comes to the "all DRM is bad" flavored comments). However, I'm really not sold on the notion that "they" want to see the eventual loss of anything, per se. It's avoiding loss that's driving all of this.
Think of how funny it would have been to you 20 years ago if someone told you that you wouldn't be able to open a document or run a program on your computer because Microsoft didn't give you a code to do so.
You're right! It would have been really funny, compared to those other software vendors' dongles and whatnot that we had to use back then. Funny then in that "less annoyinng" sense of the word, anyway. Funny now in that "I don't have to use it if I don't want to," and "funny, I wasn't planning on P2Ping disk 6 of Lord Of The Rings to a thousand unknown 'best friends' anyway."
If I produce something that I'd just as soon everyone picked up for free, I'd simply leave off any DRM in the source. If I'm feeling lazy and just want to spend $3.95 to enjoy the experience of a movie, including being able to pause it when I go to the bathroom to pass off the latte that cost more than that, then I'll use any of the choices I've already got to deliver that entertainment to me, and even take it with me on the road, or pipe it to another room in the house.
It's really fucking sad that people are willing to put control of everything into someone else's hands.
It's called civilization. Do you pump and process your own drinking water? Produce your own electricity? Make the hardware you're using to read this comment right now? Spend a few million to produce a really good film so you can watch it once?
To the extent that you don't want to put the control of "everything" in someone else's hands, persuade some artists that they don't really need to worry about whether they're collecting revenue from their work. Persuade an author that depsite the years spent on that great American novel, that it's silly to want to sell it to readers. When enough creative people can be convinced that either they don't need prickly protection for their work, or that they don't need to earn money anyway, then you're all set. In the meantime, you can take "control" away from those creators and the businesses they've chosen to represent them in one simple step: do not buy their works. But if that's your way of communicating to them, have the intellectual integrity to not also run off and pirate that same material.
The state no longer represents the will of the people.
So, the people that work for the RIAA, and the musicians that choose member labels to handle their business for them... those are not part of "the people?"
There was a time when a majority of "the people" thought slavery was cool, too. The "will of the people" at any given moment does not, and absolutely should not, translate into what the people should be legally able to do. That's what the Constitution is all about - allowing people, even the minority of the people (say, musicians) to preserve their rights despite what the majority would find convenient. Ownership of your own efforts is fundamental to our culture, even if a lazy, cheap, and larger portion of that culture would rather have pet musicians working for them for free.
The president, through veto power alone, has at least as much power as congress (if they don't like it, they veto, and congressional supermajorities are very rare). However, it doesn't end there: the administration sets their party's political agenda in congress
But the whole point is that if the majority of the country doesn't like the way that, say, congress is doing things (along partisan lines), the administration will only be able to set the agenda for the minority in the house. That leaves the president unable to do much of anything, other than (as you say) work within what they've been handed and spend accordingly.
Yes, the cabinet officials direct the operations of their departments, but huge swaths of their budgets are legislatively directed towards specific programs, certain ratios of this vs. that, and other limitations/obligations that don't really give them much wiggle room.
One might be inclined to think that, say, the DOD would be the biggest as-they-see-fit spender, but when it comes to big ticket items, like opening or closing bases, or adopting/discarding weapons programs, peacekeeping in Bosnia, or rebuilding in Iraq, the funds always have to be approved by congress. In both of those conflict examples, by the way, we are talking about veto-proof appropriations, by congress.
We do indeed have a strongly configured executive branch - and it's a good thing, too. If congress had to oversee daily operations, we'd be completely stagnant on every front, and sure as hell unable to nimbly respond to things like what just happened on the Gulf Coast.
It should be fairly easy to detect snoozy Wally-types, based on their immobile desk chair profiles.
It's hit it's halfway point? It hasn't even launched yet! The headline is rather deceptive. Lot of thinks can happen, particularly with a President spending us into poverty and certain to be replaced in a couple of years.
... certain to be replaced ...
Well, at least some of what we're spending is on educational measures that hopefully will make sure you can't get a high school degree without knowing how to use "it's" vs. "its" (perhaps you can apply for a grant and learn it anyway).
Lot of thinks can happen
But not a lot of "thinks" about your post, or your understanding of the way NASA funds are allocated, apparently. You do know who your congressional representative is, don't you?
Congratulations! All wasted grammar class time aside, you're at least aware that presidents can only serve two terms.
Now, with the new president that you're choosing to succeed him, what's your preference? More taxes for more NASA funding, or less spending on where most of our tax dollars go (social programs and personal entitlements). Doesn't matter, of course, what you think about the president, because the budget has to be approved by congress, and only congress can change the tax law and appropriate more money from you and any businesses with which you do business as a customer or employee.
I agree that the headline in the post is deceptive, but not nearly so much your notion that we're "spending us into poverty." We have the single most productive, efficient economy in the world. "Us" is the private sector. Taxes and federal budgets are a subset of that, and it's up to the congress to spend what they take in, and no more. The president, with few exceptions, and regardless of political party, can only work within the bounds that congress establishes.
The author of the article raises an interesting point, will this 'slippery slope' prove too difficult to walk?
At least the author didn't "beg the question."
Because, someone would have to finally lose their editorial rights. But ScuttleMonkey can live to edit another day, as long as he can fix the grammar in that sentence.