When you work for a company you understand that all your emails may be read by your employer. In the case of a government worker, the people are the employers.
ArcherB, are you suggesting that government employees deserve more privacy then private citizens?
Does your employer have the right to read your private email accounts? Of course not! Then why should we, as the "employer" of government employees be allowed to read the private accounts of our employees?
I do think that Bidens and all other congressional emails (through GOV accounts) should be available/read by 3rd party. And when corruption is found like in palins case...
Uh, nothing was found. You can keep saying that, but there was nothing there. Sorry.
If a congress person (palin)...
Palin is not in Congress. She is the governor. That is an executive position.
...corruptly fires safety commission over a personal argument...
She fired the Chief because he was going after funding after Palin denied it. He was trying to go over the Governor's head to get things done. Governor's don't like that much. What would your boss do if you went to his boss, or more accurately, the head of a different department to request funding after your boss had denied it? I suspect you would end up in the same place as this particular chief.
...then she should have her logs checked. Seems pretty simple... citizen emails would not need to be public because we don't make billion dollar decisions.
Government officials are still citizens. They deserve privacy just like you or I do. If they are not above the law, then they have the same rights as you or I. Otherwise, we would be allowed to see into the private lives of the old lady at the DPS office. She is just as much a government employee as the governor.
But, hey! Don't let the facts cloud your judgment.
When this whole thing came out, I learned that Sarah Palin was illegally using personal email accounts for business email, supposedly to avoid leaving the electronic trail.
THAT was eye opening.
I've heard the same thing too, yet I have not yet seen any evidence whatsoever that she was using personal email for government work. The only emails I saw was stuff that I wouldn't want on tax-payer-funded servers anyway.
Can you provide links that show the emails that were concerning state business? If you can, I would like to see them. If you can't, then you really shouldn't be making such charges. And yes, I saw THIS page. The closest thing I have found that fits what you describe is the subject only. Without the body of the email, it means nothing.
People used to say "IBM PC-compatible" or more simply "IBM PC" in casual chatting. I don't know why that went out of style, because it does differentiate the difference between IBM PC-compatible, IBM PC, or Macintosh PC, or Amiga PC, or Commodore PC, or Atari PC, or......
A better way would be to use the processor type to set Apple hardware and OS apart from the others. You could say Apple vs. x86 machines or even Intel based machi....
There's no way to see how someone drives over the Internet, so I can see how you might make that judgment, but I more often get criticism from passengers from driving *too* cautiously: stopping at lights that I could have made it through, not passing people when I could have, leaving large amounts of following distance, and so on.
You would have had to see this guy to believe how badly he was driving. I do many thousands of miles on the interstate every year, and this guy is the worst (non-drunk) driver I have ever seen. Most people on the road (and I've seen a lot of them) are courteous and don't warrant extreme measures to get around; this fellow was the exception.
If you are a safe driver and the "other" guy isn't, you are better off behind them. If you are behind them and you are driving safely, you can stop if need be. If you are ahead of him and need to slow down for whatever reason, then you are dependent on HIM to be able to stop. If he is that bad of a driver, he may not be able to. In this case it would have been better to let him go ahead and maintain a following distance that not only allows you to slow down in the event of an emergency, but allows you to do so in a way that gives those BEHIND you time to react as well without rear-ending you.
Unless the dangerous driver is driving backwards, you are almost always better off being behind him/her.
However, you are correct that there are times when speed is safe. Every morning, I get on HW35, which goes from Mexico northward. With NAFTA in full swing, this road is filled with trucks hauling whatever Mexican goods (and workers). These guys are usually moving pretty good at 6:00am. When you enter the freeway, you better match their speed or risk getting run off the road.
>>>driving it on roads that I help provide, even if I don't own a car!
Bzzz.
Roads are funded by gasoline taxes, therefore if you don't own a car, you don't fund the roads. Roads are funded strictly by the people who use them, and people don't use them, don't add anything to the Highway Treasury. (Same applies to U.S. Mail.)
Fine... I mow my yard and use a gas powered trimmer, yet I've never taken my mower onto the Interstate. Good enough? Either way, the point stands. I don't use homeless shelters, yet my tax dollars fund them. My house has never burned down, yet I pay for the fire department. I don't shoot arrows, yet part of that $700 billion dollar bail-out package that was just passed had a rider that gives millions to arrow manufacturers. I don't have a vagina, yet my tax dollars go to fund various "women's" free clinics in my state.
Do you need more examples or do you see the point now?
No, you're asking me to help you pay for it. Nobody is stopping you from buying a TV that blocks programming, but I shouldn't have to help you pay for it. IMO a Rolls Royce would make my life better, but if I want one I'm going to have to pay for it myself, without forcing you to help me.
And where are you going to drive that Rolls? Unless you have a personal track in your back yard, you are probably going to be driving it on roads that I help provide, even if I don't own a car! It's how things work. Get used to it.
Wow, nice attitude. "If you don't want to give me free money to raise my kids, you can GTFO." Maybe it's a good thing you're having other people raise your kids.
How I raise my kids in none of your business. Isn't that your whole point? From TFA:
But the law does focus on empowering parents to take control of new media technologies to deal with undesired content, rather than handing the job over to the government.
Do you not think that's a good thing? This law allows parents to block questionable content. That means that more "questionable" content can be broadcast without parents being able to bitch about it. I've never bitched to any TV station about content, but I understand the concern that many parents have.
So rather than mandating censorship across the board, this takes the decision out of Washington and puts it in the hands of the people to decide what they want shown in their homes. It not only gives control to these families, but it also gives control to YOU as well. This frees up networks to show more, not less. It gives me the option of deciding when and if I want adult material in my home. I would love the option of having "adult" content broadcast for free, but as long as my child has access to it, me and many other parents will resist it. With more tools at my disposal, WE can all have MORE options with our remotes. If it were not for tools like this, we'd all be stuck watching "Leave it to Beaver" all day, because, like it or not, parents are on the side of the majority here.
You're the one who's life sucks bad enough that you want to take other people's money to help make it better. Maybe *you* should move?
I'm in the majority here (this passed UNANIMOUSLY). I don't have to move. My side won.
Also there was nothing in TFA concerning funding. If this is an option, I'd gladly pay for it myself.
Sucks to be you. Maybe you should have thought about how difficult and time consuming parenting is before you had kids. But hey, why bother when the rest of us can do it for you, right?
I'm not asking you to do anything except to stay out of my way and stop trying to take tools away from me that make my life better. Not every government dollar spent benefits everyone. Take the Internet for example. Not everyone uses it, but it started as a government funded program. Why aren't you bitching about that?
Funny how you're too busy to be a responsible parent, yet you have enough time to whine about how hard it is on Slashdot.
I'm able to post on slash because I'm at work. I don't post from home because I'm too busy spending quality time with my child.
Because "Turn that shit off" just doesn't waste enough tax money.
Neither does "Don't buy a TV or pay for cable". If this requires funding, that is where the money will come from.
If you don't like it, may I suggest you move to a country that has no children. I think I heard of a place once, but their population went to zero after a single generation.
As for tax-payer money and personal responsibility, there are many examples I could use. I don't like speed limits. I'm perfectly capable of safely driving at a speed that exceeds the limits that government has set. Yet, because some people can't handle it, I have to drive at posted speeds! Also, by law, my car has to have child seat restraints placed in them. I drove for years before I had children. Why did I have to pay for such restraints when I didn't have kids? For that matter, no one ever rides in my back seats. Why must I have to pay for seatbelts to be installed back there? I never watch CBS. Why should I have to pay for the government to set aside a broadcast range for CBS to use? Why can't I use that broadcast range myself? I don't care about global warming or smog. Why should I have to spend money on fuel blends that reduce pollution? I think the homeless should get a job. Why does my tax payer money have to go towards homeless shelters?
There are many more examples of our tax dollars going to things that not everyone benefits from. Deal with it. Don't like it? Move.
Must be nice to not have to work and be able to spend 24 hrs a day with your kids, watching their every move. Unfortunately, many of us don't have that much free time. We work, sometimes two jobs to help make ends meet, and have to rely on baby-sitters and family to help out with our parental duties. This is a tool to help us.
You say, "If you don't like whats on TV, DON'T WATCH IT." How's this, If you don't like these censoring tools, DON'T USE THEM!
This is probably not news to most people here, but far too many Americans are quick to call for government censorship of TV/radio/internet/videogames/etc, rather than simply investing their OWN TIME into raising their kids.
First, this is not government censoring TV. This is a tool that allows PARENTS to sensor TV. Each household can make the decision, not government. If anything, this allows for MORE objectionable content on TV. Say, if a network wants to show "CSI: Strip Club", or "Dancing with the Whores", they now can. Any parents that object can be told to get bent because they have the power to block such shows.
The problem some have this is that the fertilized eggs are put in a culture and manipulated to divide, thus becoming an embryo and no longer a "zygote".
And yet, it still doesn't have a functioning brain, so I fail to see where the problem is. An embryo is every bit as braindead as a car-crash victim on a respirator, and yet strangely enough, people have no trouble with the idea of pulling the plug on the latter, while it's somehow "murder" if the same is done to the former.
Of course, one might claim that the former has "potential" to be a living person, while the latter does not. But if that's the case, what difference does it make if the cell divides or not? If you subscribe to this view, the murder was performed when the fertilized egg wasn't allowed to implant in the uterine wall.
If you don't see the difference between a comatose car crash victim and an embryo, you need help.
First, would you be so quick to pull the plug on a comatose car crash victim if there was a good chance he/she would wake up and be fine? If so, that definitely is murder. I certainly wouldn't want you anywhere near the plug if I'm ever in a car wreck!
Next, sure, any zygote (single cell) has the chance to become a human. For that matter, so do your toenail clippings with enough coaxing, but let's get real here! What the main question here is, "when does a human become human and deserve protection?" This gets sticky. The Nazis legally made Jews not human, which opened the door to all kinds of terrible acts. Many felt that blacks were not human, which led to things like slavery and the Tuskegee experiments. Throughout history, every single time men, women and children have been deemed "not human", truly horrible things have happened. Why not err on the side of caution? Why take a chance, play God, and try to guess, based on whatever your opinion is as to when human life begins? Imagine how terrible the consequences if you were to ever find out, no matter how unlikely, that you were wrong and human life began earlier than you thought.
Personally, I believe that once it divides, it's human and it is alive. I would say that a single cell would deserve protection, but you can't exactly have the government forcing fertility clinics to keep millions of fertilized eggs forever. However, I think it should be common sense that they not harvest them for spare parts and experimentation either. Therefor, I feel that once you coax it to divide, it is human life and your responsibility. But that's just my $0.02.
Nobody is aborting foetuses simply to get stem cells. They're taking cells from foetuses who are *already* aborted and whose usefulness is otherwise to merely be thrown in the trash.
Your 'main question' is a complete strawman - we don't even harvest organs from executed prisoners even though that would save a lot of lives, because that question was asked and answered year ago.
Uh, no. They are taking embryo's from fertility clinics, not abortiong clinics. You see, when a couple goes to a fertility clinic, the clinic will fertilize multiple eggs. This is because it is so expensive, may as well do several per shot. When the couple conceives, divorces or whatever, the remaining embryos are discarded. These are the embryos that are donated for science research.
The problem some have this is that the fertilized eggs are put in a culture and manipulated to divide, thus becoming an embryo and no longer a "zygote". Stem cells are extracted from this embryo, killing it in the process.
The Bin Laden family has disowned Osama Bin Laden. They have even assisted the US intelligence in finding him. And if Obama had ties with the Ayers family, and the Ayers family had denounced what William Ayers had done, it wouldn't be a big deal.
Typical. You choose to ignore the truth. Palin lied about using email for government business. It is not only lying it's a violation of the law and the only reason to use email that way is to avoid disclosure. She's already acting and thinking like a crooked politician.
I saw the screenshots before they were scrubbed and saw nothing that was illegal. Care to provide a link that I may have missed that shows "illegal" activity? There is none. That's why this is such a joke.
And what are these "ties to a known terrorist". Did you get that from Fox News?
No, Google. Search for "Obama William ayers" HERE if you are too lazy to do your own research.
Either way, you're willing to accept a lying crooked politician in Palin. Why is that? Rather than choosing a candidate who is honest and honorable you're choosing between different levels of crap (assuming your argument about terrorists is real, which I doubt). Instead why don't you pick a good candidate instead of the lesser of two shitty ones. Seems like common sense, but common sense goes out the door with politics, doesn't it:? . . . Typical indeed!
You have not shown that Palin is a lying cooked politician. But you do have a point, we need a third party candidate. Unfortunately, we won't until we pass some sort of legislation that states that a President must receive so many electoral votes (or percentage) in order to win. If they don't, there is a run off between the top two candidates. Louisiana does this with their local elections and it works pretty well.
Remember that Opportunity and Spirit are on their 5th year on the Martian surface. Their mission were initially planned to last no more than 3 months. Bravo!
So either the rovers are overachievers or we just set their goals WAY too low!
I guess they are taking a page from Scotty's manual.
KIRK: Mr. Scott. Have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?
SCOTTY: Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?
Check your reading comprehension. I was accusing the Iraqis for incompetence, by burying their arms and losing them for 15 years, rather than rushedly burying them to hide them from weapons inspectors in the months just before we invaded so that they could be easily readied to attack us.
We were taken to war on the premise that Saddam could attack the US, Europe or Israel with weapons of mass destruction in short order, and that he had active weapons development programs in order to add nukes to the mix. Neither of these statements were true.
Granted, but we did not KNOW that those statements were not true. Even Russia, who did not want us going into Iraq, thought that an attack on the US was imminent.
(BTW, who sold him the weapons he used on the Kurds? We did.)
Wikipedia has a good writeup on this:
"The United States exported $500 million of dual use exports to Iraq that were approved by the Commerce department. Among them were advanced computers, some of which were used in Iraqâ(TM)s nuclear program. The non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples to Iraq under Saddam Hussein up until 1989, which Iraq claimed it needed for medical research. These materials included anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism, as well as Brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. Some of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development.[18]
The United Kingdom paid for a chlorine factory that was intended to be used for manufacturing mustard gas.[19] The government secretly gave the arms company Matrix Churchill permission to supply parts for the Iraqi supergun, precipitating the Arms-to-Iraq affair when it became known."
Many other countries contributed as well; since Iraq's nuclear program in the early 1980s was officially viewed internationally as for power production, not weapons, there were no UN prohibitions against it. An Austrian company gave Iraq calutrons for enriching uranium. The nation also provided heat exchangers, tanks, condensers, and columns for the Iraqi chemical weapons infrastructure, 16% of the international sales. Singapore gave 4,515 tons of precursors for VX, sarin, tabun, and mustard gasses to Iraq. The Dutch gave 4,261 tons of precursors for sarin, tabun, mustard, and tear gasses to Iraq. Egypt gave 2,400 tons of tabun and sarin precursors to Iraq and 28,500 tons of weapons designed for carrying chemical munitions. India gave 2,343 tons of precursors to VX, tabun, Sarin, and mustard gasses. Luxembourg gave Iraq 650 tons of mustard gas precursors. Spain gave Iraq 57,500 munitions designed for carrying chemical weapons. In addition, they provided reactors, condensers, columns and tanks for Iraqâ(TM)s chemical warfare program, 4.4% of the international sales. China provided 45,000 munitions designed for chemical warfare. Portugal provided yellowcake between 1980 and 1982. Niger provided yellowcake in 1981.[20]
So, it wasn't just us. We sent samples of biological agents, not ready the ready to use chemical agents used against the Kurds.
Anyway, yes, the world could end up better off without Saddam, although the way things have gone since we've shown up, that certainly wasn't true in the short run. The real question is, why Iraq? It's not like Saddam had a global monopoly on brutal dictatorship, genocide, and so on.
Oh, wait, Iraq has oil.
DING-DING-DING!!! Oil! That is the reason we went into Iraq. Not because we wanted to take the oil, we haven't, but because the funds from oil sales in the hands of a dictator with a record like like Saddam Hussein's would be very dangerous.
I was talking about William Ayers. You should be careful and make sure you know all the facts before you start trying to insult people's intelligence. Either way, it's a good think you posted as AC.
Uhm. No, they weren't WMDs, because they were inert. They could not cause Mass Destruction, which is the "MD" part of "WMD". They were just big hunks of steel.
Besides, chemical weapons were not the "mushroom cloud" Bush was talking about to scare us, nor was it the "Yellow cake" or "aluminum centrifuge tubes" they were screaming about. Bush was talking very specifically about Saddam building nukes.
THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND IN IRAQ. PERIOD.
I think there's some quote relevant here....something about forgetting history and repeating it....
Uh, didn't a whole bunch of yellow cake just end up in Canada from Iraq? Why YES, yes it did.
And again, when you say that there were NO WMD's found... um, my links prove otherwise. I said they were not in the quantities expected, but they were there. And to say they were inert.... well, I guess that inert YellowCake is going to power those inert Canadian homes this winter. Besides, would you like the inside of one of those shells?
THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND IN IRAQ. PERIOD.
So did THESE guys gas themselves? Well, they must have if there were no WMD's in Iraq. Unless, of course, you are wrong, or maybe even lying.
Last night, intelligence officials reaffirmed that the shells were old and were not the suspected weapons of mass destruction sought in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
From your Fox News link:
Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.
"This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991," the official said, adding the munitions "are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war."
Hmmm. Way to support your own argument there.
So yeah, sure, he had some rotting leftovers, but not the massive "set to attack the US" stockpiles they beat their drums about leading up to our 2003 invasion. Yeah, not everything got dismantled. But, was that malice or incompetence? Looking back at that Washington post article:
The lawmakers pointed to an unclassified summary from a report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that had been buried near the Iranian border, and then long forgotten, by Iraqi troops during their eight-year war with Iran, which ended in 1988.
Sounds like malice to me. Oh wait, no, that's incompetence.
Incompetence? Wait, I thought it was lying. So was it an intelligence failure (incompetence) or a malicious lie? It can't be both. Bush can not be an incompetent boob and Dr. Evil at the same time.
I'll gladly admit that US intel screwed the pooch on Iraq. That's a given. However, I will not have someone say that NO WMD's were found. That is simply not true (AKA, a lie). Kurdish villages full of women and children don't gas themselves. Nor will I sit idly by when someone calls someone a liar because they were wrong. You can be wrong and honest at the same time. In this case, it would be impossible for Bush to be both a liar and wrong about WMD's.
Seriously though, do you think the world would be a better place if Saddam got away with gassing men, women and children? I know you don't think that the end justifies the means, but you shouldn't protest so loudly unless you don't like the result.
And don't pretend that you wouldn't be using that to skewer Obama if the shoe was on the other foot.
Let's see. Let's put shoes on both feet. Secessionist or terrorist. I think I'll vote for the secessionist. Which would YOU prefer? Remember, your answer will say a lot about your character.
"As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care."
You have just summed up politics perfectly. You're hanging on to some propaganda about terrorists and yet you're perfectly happy to forgive lying for YOUR candidate. Feel free to vote for 4 more years of constitutional erosion and government by deception. Common sense has left the room.
LP.org "For those who aren't sheep"
Typical. You took my comment completely out of context. Read the rest of it to find out WHY I don't care. Let me spell it out for you again:
Let's say Palin lied about using personal email for government business. Yeah, that would be pretty bad. Now, consider the FACT that Obama lied about having ties to a known terrorist. Hmmm. I think I'll take the lady who lied about email. Oh, and the emails turned up nothing! So that should make the decision even easier for you.
Sorry, but NO! There was no government business on her Yahoo account, so no law was broken.
Sorry, that's just not true.
Palin's Yahoo account contained emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax". Check the wikileaks site, it's all laid out for anyone to see.
Palin's account does contain emails that relate to government business. Saying "there was no government business on her account" over, and over, and over, as people seem to be doing in this forum, doesn't change the facts. Although that seems to be a common tactic for their campaign these days: repeat the lie so many times that it starts to sound true, like Palin's "I told them thanks but no thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere.
What did the emails say? Why were they not released? Come on! If you had hacked into Palin's email, what would you release screenshots of first? Would you release a friend saying, "you have my prayers" or one that said "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax?"
Seriously, it's not that hard to fake a screenshot that put whatever subject line you want, ESPECIALLY if you have a good excuse for NOT releasing the email. I could easily fake a screengrab and have it say "I am a weenie!" from FlyingSquid.
Also, the "hacker" ( or whatever you wish to call him) said that he found nothing incriminating in there. You'd think that with all his research to find out where she met her husband, he would have come across that using personal email for government business was illegal. Double that when you consider that he is a state senators son himself!
As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care. When she does something that is worse than hanging out with a known and unashamed terrorist, let me know. And the fact that you care about her support or not for a friggin bridge, but that you don't give a damn about starting a political career at a guy's house that who said his only regret was that he couldn't have "done more" when speaking of his bombings, tells me that you more concerned about her having an (R) after her name than anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
When you work for a company you understand that all your emails may be read by your employer. In the case of a government worker, the people are the employers.
ArcherB, are you suggesting that government employees deserve more privacy then private citizens?
Does your employer have the right to read your private email accounts? Of course not! Then why should we, as the "employer" of government employees be allowed to read the private accounts of our employees?
Yes, so people are 1 pixel.
HEY! That pixel just flipped me off!
All she has to do is show the content of the emails to the court.
If she's destroyed evidence, then the evidence of break in is also unsuportable.
Right. In other words, if she has nothing hide, why should she worry about privacy?
I do think that Bidens and all other congressional emails (through GOV accounts) should be available/read by 3rd party. And when corruption is found like in palins case...
Uh, nothing was found. You can keep saying that, but there was nothing there. Sorry.
If a congress person (palin)...
Palin is not in Congress. She is the governor. That is an executive position.
She fired the Chief because he was going after funding after Palin denied it. He was trying to go over the Governor's head to get things done. Governor's don't like that much. What would your boss do if you went to his boss, or more accurately, the head of a different department to request funding after your boss had denied it? I suspect you would end up in the same place as this particular chief.
...then she should have her logs checked. Seems pretty simple... citizen emails would not need to be public because we don't make billion dollar decisions.
Government officials are still citizens. They deserve privacy just like you or I do. If they are not above the law, then they have the same rights as you or I. Otherwise, we would be allowed to see into the private lives of the old lady at the DPS office. She is just as much a government employee as the governor.
But, hey! Don't let the facts cloud your judgment.
When this whole thing came out, I learned that Sarah Palin was illegally using personal email accounts for business email, supposedly to avoid leaving the electronic trail.
THAT was eye opening.
I've heard the same thing too, yet I have not yet seen any evidence whatsoever that she was using personal email for government work. The only emails I saw was stuff that I wouldn't want on tax-payer-funded servers anyway.
Can you provide links that show the emails that were concerning state business? If you can, I would like to see them. If you can't, then you really shouldn't be making such charges. And yes, I saw THIS page. The closest thing I have found that fits what you describe is the subject only. Without the body of the email, it means nothing.
People used to say "IBM PC-compatible" or more simply "IBM PC" in casual chatting. I don't know why that went out of style, because it does differentiate the difference between IBM PC-compatible, IBM PC, or Macintosh PC, or Amiga PC, or Commodore PC, or Atari PC, or......
A better way would be to use the processor type to set Apple hardware and OS apart from the others. You could say Apple vs. x86 machines or even Intel based machi....
Oh wait. Nevermind.
There's no way to see how someone drives over the Internet, so I can see how you might make that judgment, but I more often get criticism from passengers from driving *too* cautiously: stopping at lights that I could have made it through, not passing people when I could have, leaving large amounts of following distance, and so on.
You would have had to see this guy to believe how badly he was driving. I do many thousands of miles on the interstate every year, and this guy is the worst (non-drunk) driver I have ever seen. Most people on the road (and I've seen a lot of them) are courteous and don't warrant extreme measures to get around; this fellow was the exception.
If you are a safe driver and the "other" guy isn't, you are better off behind them. If you are behind them and you are driving safely, you can stop if need be. If you are ahead of him and need to slow down for whatever reason, then you are dependent on HIM to be able to stop. If he is that bad of a driver, he may not be able to. In this case it would have been better to let him go ahead and maintain a following distance that not only allows you to slow down in the event of an emergency, but allows you to do so in a way that gives those BEHIND you time to react as well without rear-ending you.
Unless the dangerous driver is driving backwards, you are almost always better off being behind him/her.
However, you are correct that there are times when speed is safe. Every morning, I get on HW35, which goes from Mexico northward. With NAFTA in full swing, this road is filled with trucks hauling whatever Mexican goods (and workers). These guys are usually moving pretty good at 6:00am. When you enter the freeway, you better match their speed or risk getting run off the road.
>>>driving it on roads that I help provide, even if I don't own a car!
Bzzz.
Roads are funded by gasoline taxes, therefore if you don't own a car, you don't fund the roads. Roads are funded strictly by the people who use them, and people don't use them, don't add anything to the Highway Treasury. (Same applies to U.S. Mail.)
Fine... I mow my yard and use a gas powered trimmer, yet I've never taken my mower onto the Interstate. Good enough? Either way, the point stands. I don't use homeless shelters, yet my tax dollars fund them. My house has never burned down, yet I pay for the fire department. I don't shoot arrows, yet part of that $700 billion dollar bail-out package that was just passed had a rider that gives millions to arrow manufacturers. I don't have a vagina, yet my tax dollars go to fund various "women's" free clinics in my state.
Do you need more examples or do you see the point now?
No, you're asking me to help you pay for it. Nobody is stopping you from buying a TV that blocks programming, but I shouldn't have to help you pay for it. IMO a Rolls Royce would make my life better, but if I want one I'm going to have to pay for it myself, without forcing you to help me.
And where are you going to drive that Rolls? Unless you have a personal track in your back yard, you are probably going to be driving it on roads that I help provide, even if I don't own a car! It's how things work. Get used to it.
Wow, nice attitude. "If you don't want to give me free money to raise my kids, you can GTFO." Maybe it's a good thing you're having other people raise your kids.
How I raise my kids in none of your business. Isn't that your whole point? From TFA:
But the law does focus on empowering parents to take control of new media technologies to deal with undesired content, rather than handing the job over to the government.
Do you not think that's a good thing? This law allows parents to block questionable content. That means that more "questionable" content can be broadcast without parents being able to bitch about it. I've never bitched to any TV station about content, but I understand the concern that many parents have.
So rather than mandating censorship across the board, this takes the decision out of Washington and puts it in the hands of the people to decide what they want shown in their homes. It not only gives control to these families, but it also gives control to YOU as well. This frees up networks to show more, not less. It gives me the option of deciding when and if I want adult material in my home. I would love the option of having "adult" content broadcast for free, but as long as my child has access to it, me and many other parents will resist it. With more tools at my disposal, WE can all have MORE options with our remotes. If it were not for tools like this, we'd all be stuck watching "Leave it to Beaver" all day, because, like it or not, parents are on the side of the majority here.
You're the one who's life sucks bad enough that you want to take other people's money to help make it better. Maybe *you* should move?
I'm in the majority here (this passed UNANIMOUSLY). I don't have to move. My side won.
Also there was nothing in TFA concerning funding. If this is an option, I'd gladly pay for it myself.
Sucks to be you. Maybe you should have thought about how difficult and time consuming parenting is before you had kids. But hey, why bother when the rest of us can do it for you, right?
I'm not asking you to do anything except to stay out of my way and stop trying to take tools away from me that make my life better. Not every government dollar spent benefits everyone. Take the Internet for example. Not everyone uses it, but it started as a government funded program. Why aren't you bitching about that?
Funny how you're too busy to be a responsible parent, yet you have enough time to whine about how hard it is on Slashdot.
I'm able to post on slash because I'm at work. I don't post from home because I'm too busy spending quality time with my child.
Because "Turn that shit off" just doesn't waste enough tax money.
Neither does "Don't buy a TV or pay for cable". If this requires funding, that is where the money will come from.
If you don't like it, may I suggest you move to a country that has no children. I think I heard of a place once, but their population went to zero after a single generation.
As for tax-payer money and personal responsibility, there are many examples I could use. I don't like speed limits. I'm perfectly capable of safely driving at a speed that exceeds the limits that government has set. Yet, because some people can't handle it, I have to drive at posted speeds! Also, by law, my car has to have child seat restraints placed in them. I drove for years before I had children. Why did I have to pay for such restraints when I didn't have kids? For that matter, no one ever rides in my back seats. Why must I have to pay for seatbelts to be installed back there? I never watch CBS. Why should I have to pay for the government to set aside a broadcast range for CBS to use? Why can't I use that broadcast range myself? I don't care about global warming or smog. Why should I have to spend money on fuel blends that reduce pollution? I think the homeless should get a job. Why does my tax payer money have to go towards homeless shelters?
There are many more examples of our tax dollars going to things that not everyone benefits from. Deal with it. Don't like it? Move.
Must be nice to not have to work and be able to spend 24 hrs a day with your kids, watching their every move. Unfortunately, many of us don't have that much free time. We work, sometimes two jobs to help make ends meet, and have to rely on baby-sitters and family to help out with our parental duties. This is a tool to help us.
You say, "If you don't like whats on TV, DON'T WATCH IT." How's this, If you don't like these censoring tools, DON'T USE THEM!
This is probably not news to most people here, but far too many Americans are quick to call for government censorship of TV/radio/internet/videogames/etc, rather than simply investing their OWN TIME into raising their kids.
First, this is not government censoring TV. This is a tool that allows PARENTS to sensor TV. Each household can make the decision, not government. If anything, this allows for MORE objectionable content on TV. Say, if a network wants to show "CSI: Strip Club", or "Dancing with the Whores", they now can. Any parents that object can be told to get bent because they have the power to block such shows.
The problem some have this is that the fertilized eggs are put in a culture and manipulated to divide, thus becoming an embryo and no longer a "zygote".
And yet, it still doesn't have a functioning brain, so I fail to see where the problem is. An embryo is every bit as braindead as a car-crash victim on a respirator, and yet strangely enough, people have no trouble with the idea of pulling the plug on the latter, while it's somehow "murder" if the same is done to the former.
Of course, one might claim that the former has "potential" to be a living person, while the latter does not. But if that's the case, what difference does it make if the cell divides or not? If you subscribe to this view, the murder was performed when the fertilized egg wasn't allowed to implant in the uterine wall.
If you don't see the difference between a comatose car crash victim and an embryo, you need help.
First, would you be so quick to pull the plug on a comatose car crash victim if there was a good chance he/she would wake up and be fine? If so, that definitely is murder. I certainly wouldn't want you anywhere near the plug if I'm ever in a car wreck!
Next, sure, any zygote (single cell) has the chance to become a human. For that matter, so do your toenail clippings with enough coaxing, but let's get real here! What the main question here is, "when does a human become human and deserve protection?" This gets sticky. The Nazis legally made Jews not human, which opened the door to all kinds of terrible acts. Many felt that blacks were not human, which led to things like slavery and the Tuskegee experiments. Throughout history, every single time men, women and children have been deemed "not human", truly horrible things have happened. Why not err on the side of caution? Why take a chance, play God, and try to guess, based on whatever your opinion is as to when human life begins? Imagine how terrible the consequences if you were to ever find out, no matter how unlikely, that you were wrong and human life began earlier than you thought.
Personally, I believe that once it divides, it's human and it is alive. I would say that a single cell would deserve protection, but you can't exactly have the government forcing fertility clinics to keep millions of fertilized eggs forever. However, I think it should be common sense that they not harvest them for spare parts and experimentation either. Therefor, I feel that once you coax it to divide, it is human life and your responsibility. But that's just my $0.02.
Nobody is aborting foetuses simply to get stem cells. They're taking cells from foetuses who are *already* aborted and whose usefulness is otherwise to merely be thrown in the trash.
Your 'main question' is a complete strawman - we don't even harvest organs from executed prisoners even though that would save a lot of lives, because that question was asked and answered year ago.
Uh, no. They are taking embryo's from fertility clinics, not abortiong clinics. You see, when a couple goes to a fertility clinic, the clinic will fertilize multiple eggs. This is because it is so expensive, may as well do several per shot. When the couple conceives, divorces or whatever, the remaining embryos are discarded. These are the embryos that are donated for science research.
The problem some have this is that the fertilized eggs are put in a culture and manipulated to divide, thus becoming an embryo and no longer a "zygote". Stem cells are extracted from this embryo, killing it in the process.
Ties to terrorists? You mean like the Bush family ties to the Bin Laden family?
The Bin Laden family has disowned Osama Bin Laden. They have even assisted the US intelligence in finding him. And if Obama had ties with the Ayers family, and the Ayers family had denounced what William Ayers had done, it wouldn't be a big deal.
Besides, Bush is not running for reelection.
Now, consider the FACT that Obama lied about having ties to a known terrorist.
Err... [Citation needed]
Please.
Google is your friend. May I suggest "obama ties to terrorist" as a good starting point. If you don't have access to Google, let me help you out:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0208/8630.html
http://www.usnews.com/blogs/barone/2008/8/22/obama-needs-to-explain-his-ties-to-william-ayers.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers
Need more?
Typical. You choose to ignore the truth. Palin lied about using email for government business. It is not only lying it's a violation of the law and the only reason to use email that way is to avoid disclosure. She's already acting and thinking like a crooked politician.
I saw the screenshots before they were scrubbed and saw nothing that was illegal. Care to provide a link that I may have missed that shows "illegal" activity? There is none. That's why this is such a joke.
And what are these "ties to a known terrorist". Did you get that from Fox News?
No, Google. Search for "Obama William ayers" HERE if you are too lazy to do your own research.
Either way, you're willing to accept a lying crooked politician in Palin. Why is that? Rather than choosing a candidate who is honest and honorable you're choosing between different levels of crap (assuming your argument about terrorists is real, which I doubt). Instead why don't you pick a good candidate instead of the lesser of two shitty ones. Seems like common sense, but common sense goes out the door with politics, doesn't it:? . . . Typical indeed!
You have not shown that Palin is a lying cooked politician. But you do have a point, we need a third party candidate. Unfortunately, we won't until we pass some sort of legislation that states that a President must receive so many electoral votes (or percentage) in order to win. If they don't, there is a run off between the top two candidates. Louisiana does this with their local elections and it works pretty well.
studying ... rocks!
ok, maybe only studying ... rocks ... rocks.
If you get an ... opportunity.
Allright I stop, I'm killing myself.
That's the Spirit
Godspeed, Opportunity!
Remember that Opportunity and Spirit are on their 5th year on the Martian surface. Their mission were initially planned to last no more than 3 months. Bravo!
So either the rovers are overachievers or we just set their goals WAY too low!
I guess they are taking a page from Scotty's manual.
KIRK: Mr. Scott. Have you always multiplied your repair estimates by a factor of four?
SCOTTY: Certainly, sir. How else can I keep my reputation as a miracle worker?
Check your reading comprehension. I was accusing the Iraqis for incompetence, by burying their arms and losing them for 15 years, rather than rushedly burying them to hide them from weapons inspectors in the months just before we invaded so that they could be easily readied to attack us.
We were taken to war on the premise that Saddam could attack the US, Europe or Israel with weapons of mass destruction in short order, and that he had active weapons development programs in order to add nukes to the mix. Neither of these statements were true.
Granted, but we did not KNOW that those statements were not true. Even Russia, who did not want us going into Iraq, thought that an attack on the US was imminent.
(BTW, who sold him the weapons he used on the Kurds? We did.)
Wikipedia has a good writeup on this:
"The United States exported $500 million of dual use exports to Iraq that were approved by the Commerce department. Among them were advanced computers, some of which were used in Iraqâ(TM)s nuclear program. The non-profit American Type Culture Collection and the Centers for Disease Control sold or sent biological samples to Iraq under Saddam Hussein up until 1989, which Iraq claimed it needed for medical research. These materials included anthrax, West Nile virus and botulism, as well as Brucella melitensis, which damages major organs, and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene. Some of these materials were used for Iraq's biological weapons research program, while others were used for vaccine development.[18]
The United Kingdom paid for a chlorine factory that was intended to be used for manufacturing mustard gas.[19] The government secretly gave the arms company Matrix Churchill permission to supply parts for the Iraqi supergun, precipitating the Arms-to-Iraq affair when it became known."
Many other countries contributed as well; since Iraq's nuclear program in the early 1980s was officially viewed internationally as for power production, not weapons, there were no UN prohibitions against it. An Austrian company gave Iraq calutrons for enriching uranium. The nation also provided heat exchangers, tanks, condensers, and columns for the Iraqi chemical weapons infrastructure, 16% of the international sales. Singapore gave 4,515 tons of precursors for VX, sarin, tabun, and mustard gasses to Iraq. The Dutch gave 4,261 tons of precursors for sarin, tabun, mustard, and tear gasses to Iraq. Egypt gave 2,400 tons of tabun and sarin precursors to Iraq and 28,500 tons of weapons designed for carrying chemical munitions. India gave 2,343 tons of precursors to VX, tabun, Sarin, and mustard gasses. Luxembourg gave Iraq 650 tons of mustard gas precursors. Spain gave Iraq 57,500 munitions designed for carrying chemical weapons. In addition, they provided reactors, condensers, columns and tanks for Iraqâ(TM)s chemical warfare program, 4.4% of the international sales. China provided 45,000 munitions designed for chemical warfare. Portugal provided yellowcake between 1980 and 1982. Niger provided yellowcake in 1981.[20]
So, it wasn't just us. We sent samples of biological agents, not ready the ready to use chemical agents used against the Kurds.
Anyway, yes, the world could end up better off without Saddam, although the way things have gone since we've shown up, that certainly wasn't true in the short run. The real question is, why Iraq? It's not like Saddam had a global monopoly on brutal dictatorship, genocide, and so on.
Oh, wait, Iraq has oil.
DING-DING-DING!!! Oil! That is the reason we went into Iraq. Not because we wanted to take the oil, we haven't, but because the funds from oil sales in the hands of a dictator with a record like like Saddam Hussein's would be very dangerous.
I was talking about William Ayers. You should be careful and make sure you know all the facts before you start trying to insult people's intelligence. Either way, it's a good think you posted as AC.
Uhm. No, they weren't WMDs, because they were inert. They could not cause Mass Destruction, which is the "MD" part of "WMD". They were just big hunks of steel.
Besides, chemical weapons were not the "mushroom cloud" Bush was talking about to scare us, nor was it the "Yellow cake" or "aluminum centrifuge tubes" they were screaming about. Bush was talking very specifically about Saddam building nukes.
THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND IN IRAQ. PERIOD.
I think there's some quote relevant here....something about forgetting history and repeating it....
Uh, didn't a whole bunch of yellow cake just end up in Canada from Iraq? Why YES, yes it did.
And again, when you say that there were NO WMD's found... um, my links prove otherwise. I said they were not in the quantities expected, but they were there. And to say they were inert.... well, I guess that inert YellowCake is going to power those inert Canadian homes this winter. Besides, would you like the inside of one of those shells?
THERE WERE NO WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION FOUND IN IRAQ. PERIOD.
So did THESE guys gas themselves? Well, they must have if there were no WMD's in Iraq. Unless, of course, you are wrong, or maybe even lying.
Men's News Daily? World Net Daily? Buh?
From your Washington Post link:
From your Fox News link:
Hmmm. Way to support your own argument there.
So yeah, sure, he had some rotting leftovers, but not the massive "set to attack the US" stockpiles they beat their drums about leading up to our 2003 invasion. Yeah, not everything got dismantled. But, was that malice or incompetence? Looking back at that Washington post article:
Sounds like malice to me. Oh wait, no, that's incompetence.
Incompetence? Wait, I thought it was lying. So was it an intelligence failure (incompetence) or a malicious lie? It can't be both. Bush can not be an incompetent boob and Dr. Evil at the same time.
I'll gladly admit that US intel screwed the pooch on Iraq. That's a given. However, I will not have someone say that NO WMD's were found. That is simply not true (AKA, a lie). Kurdish villages full of women and children don't gas themselves. Nor will I sit idly by when someone calls someone a liar because they were wrong. You can be wrong and honest at the same time. In this case, it would be impossible for Bush to be both a liar and wrong about WMD's.
Seriously though, do you think the world would be a better place if Saddam got away with gassing men, women and children? I know you don't think that the end justifies the means, but you shouldn't protest so loudly unless you don't like the result.
As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care.
I guess that says a lot about your character.
When she does something that is worse than hanging out with a known and unashamed terrorist, let me know.
I don't know, how about marrying a secessionist?
And don't pretend that you wouldn't be using that to skewer Obama if the shoe was on the other foot.
Let's see. Let's put shoes on both feet. Secessionist or terrorist. I think I'll vote for the secessionist. Which would YOU prefer? Remember, your answer will say a lot about your character.
"As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care."
You have just summed up politics perfectly. You're hanging on to some propaganda about terrorists and yet you're perfectly happy to forgive lying for YOUR candidate. Feel free to vote for 4 more years of constitutional erosion and government by deception. Common sense has left the room.
LP.org
"For those who aren't sheep"
Typical. You took my comment completely out of context. Read the rest of it to find out WHY I don't care. Let me spell it out for you again:
Let's say Palin lied about using personal email for government business. Yeah, that would be pretty bad. Now, consider the FACT that Obama lied about having ties to a known terrorist. Hmmm. I think I'll take the lady who lied about email.
Oh, and the emails turned up nothing! So that should make the decision even easier for you.
Sorry, that's just not true.
Palin's Yahoo account contained emails with subject lines like "Court of Appeals / Executive Director Parole Board / Boards and Commissions", and "FW: DPS Personnel and Budget Issues", and "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax". Check the wikileaks site, it's all laid out for anyone to see.
Palin's account does contain emails that relate to government business. Saying "there was no government business on her account" over, and over, and over, as people seem to be doing in this forum, doesn't change the facts. Although that seems to be a common tactic for their campaign these days: repeat the lie so many times that it starts to sound true, like Palin's "I told them thanks but no thanks" lie about the Bridge to Nowhere.
What did the emails say? Why were they not released? Come on! If you had hacked into Palin's email, what would you release screenshots of first? Would you release a friend saying, "you have my prayers" or one that said "Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger / Container Tax?"
Seriously, it's not that hard to fake a screenshot that put whatever subject line you want, ESPECIALLY if you have a good excuse for NOT releasing the email. I could easily fake a screengrab and have it say "I am a weenie!" from FlyingSquid.
Also, the "hacker" ( or whatever you wish to call him) said that he found nothing incriminating in there. You'd think that with all his research to find out where she met her husband, he would have come across that using personal email for government business was illegal. Double that when you consider that he is a state senators son himself!
As for Palin lying... even if she did lie, I don't care. When she does something that is worse than hanging out with a known and unashamed terrorist, let me know. And the fact that you care about her support or not for a friggin bridge, but that you don't give a damn about starting a political career at a guy's house that who said his only regret was that he couldn't have "done more" when speaking of his bombings, tells me that you more concerned about her having an (R) after her name than anything else.