And just how do you go about doing any of those things to a citizen of another country, living outside of the United States?
Extraordinary Rendition? The rest of the world (Europe and Asia) might put up with the "extra-legal" (meaning outside the law, or simply illegal) abduction and "detainment" of a few dusty Arabs we suspect have killed bunches of our Citizens. But coming into THEIR back-yard and abducting THEIR law abiding and productive citizens, I think will be an entirely different story.
What happened to your belief in the Free Market? Does that only apply when YOU have the deep-pockets? And we should just go and take what we want, when we want it, and civilization be damned?
It had no heroes, only bad guys. Not even anybody to identify with, except for the alien that died, and his son.
Even the oppressed aliens (obviously representing violent gangs and gang-bangers) were stupid, violent, and self-destructive.
The main character was a coward, insanely confident, and a self-centered idiot, either oblivious to, or uncaring about the harm the system he was in did. Blind to the needs and sentience of his charges and quick to believe and use violence as his only tool. ONLY caring about things that directly effected himself and his position, not only at the expense of the aliens in his charge, but also at the expense of his fellow humans. Both individually, and collectively.
Only doing "the right thing" in the end because he needed a 'cure' to his alien transformation. And doing a "right thing" that was likely to start war between planet-locked Humans, and a spacefairing civilization. Very dumb, very self-centered, very myopic, and with absolutely no redeeming characteristics at all. And he's going to be our ambassador to an alien race. A war criminal who had actively participated in, and partially planned, genocide against the aliens in his care.
I both dread, and look forward to a sequel. Mostly out of curiosity about how the aliens will react to the news that their brothers had been ghettoized, and intentualy exterminated because they were inconvenient. I know how we would react if the roles were reversed.
The only agenda I have is to be treated like a human being.
Why? Human beings get treated like crap, as many people (the loud and obnoxious mostly) spend a good part of their time making up excuses for doing so. ^_^
When one sees rather large, suspicious issues crop up without any investigation or repercussion, one wonders what else is going on below the radar. The small fraud alleged earlier in this thread is near trivial compared to what could be* going on and isn't investigated.
*But isn't.
A lack of evidence and prosecutions does not necessarily indicate a lack of investigations. They can also indicate innocence.
There have been investigations, even one's launched and investigated by Republicans, yet they continue to find almost no evidence to indicate voter fraud.
Don't you Remember? Back in 2007 GW Bush even fired a bunch (between 7 and 9) of his own federal prosecutors because:
1) They couldn't find the evidence of Democratic Voter-Fraud that he was sure was there. 2) The only people they COULD find to prosecute for voter-fraud were Republicans.**
Or, are you saying that the Democrats are successfully conspiring to conduct a massive cover-up of another massive conspiracy to commit fraud, and has been going on for decades? And that in all that time, no one involved in these conspiracies has ever had a change of heart, or a change of party, or let slip the secret to anybody. And that the Democrats are so competent and crafty that they've been able to successfully hide all evidence from the world, and that the Republicans are too incompetent and / or stupid to put it together and gather evidence? You know, it's just too bad there are no Republicans who know how to do the kind of police, detective and intelligence work and "aggressive" military / CIA type interrogations that would be able to uncover this type of conspiracy.
If that's what you truly think, if the Democrats are so competent and so intelligent, and the Republican are so incompetent and so stupid. Maybe you should let the Democrats work their magic competence on the government, and get those incompetent Republicans out of the way.
And yet Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, when listing his accomplishments, said "Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: Done,"
There are really hundreds of thousands of legitimate adults registered to vote who don't have an ID?
Yes.
They are called "Your Grandparents", and anyone else who doesn't need an ID for anything anymore. If you're stuck in a nursing-home, or even your own home, and can't drive, don't work, don't cash checks, just deposit them, what you need an ID for?
And the elderly won't take kindly to not being allowed to vote. If you haven't noticed, they are some of the most active and loudest political lobbiests.
Many countries that have directly elected representative systems have more than two parties. That seems to be a peculiarity of the US, and is most evident in the direct presidential elections.
We (in the US) do not have direct presidential elections. If we did, we'd have had several different presidents from the ones we've had. It's widely accepted that Al Gore won the popular vote, yet he did not become President. In fact we've had several Presidents who lost the popular vote. Why?
We have an electoral system where we vote to tell our representatives in the electoral collage how we want them to vote.
THEY are actually under no legal obligation to vote the way we tell them (though that may differ state to state, I don't know), can, and do change votes and coalitions right up till the moment they vote. And whether they decide to cast their votes proportionally with the popular vote, or whether they vote as a 'winner take all' system, is up to States, the parties, and... well... politics.
It's doesn't need to be intentional. Every politician agrees the debt needs to be repaid (or at least kept from growing), but they can't agree on where to save, so it keeps increasing. In fact, that seems to be how the US government acquired its current debt.
Clinton left office with a surplus.
The current debt came about by buying more than we can afford in the following years, not though an inability to reduce a nonexistent debt.
That hopefully he or she would have a more intrinsic knowledge of the needs of the minority.
Remember, we as a nation, have hundreds of years of experience with overt, unashamed, unblinking racism. And we haven't fully left that era yet. Not only are the repercussions still evident, but there are still living ex-slaves and ex-slaveholders, and their children. Long-held opinions and assumptions are hard to let-go, and prejudice beat into you sometimes can't even be beat out.
To ignore the facts and insist that we live and act as if we were in some kind of ideal world where all this is behind us is to be willfully ignorant.
And willful ignorance is the hardest kind to rectify.
nobody can ever know what you need better than you yourself.
Not true. The foolish, ignorant, retarded, inexperienced, naive, and stupid often don't know what they need, or what is in their best interest, and could benefit greatly from the advice of someone wiser, more knowledgeable, experienced, cynical and / or smarter.
This is why we have professionals and experts like architects, doctors, teachers and the others that we turn to for help and advice. And we only turn to them when we realize that we are stumped, and that takes self-knowledge. Which the foolish, ignorant...... are less likely to have than most.
And we're ALL foolish, ignorant, inexperienced, naive and stupid in some areas of life.
Actually, in ALL areas of life, at one time or another.
In the best of all possible worlds everyone would know best what they need.
But one thing I can tell you is that we do not live in the in the best of all possible worlds. Not even close.
Government private contractors... [bring] in few to none of the intended benefits of either.
Not true. The intended benefit of all corporations is profit, and boy, there are TONS of that. Literally. Take Iraq for example. Hundreds or thousands of pallets filled with tons of American currency disappeared into contractors hands, with no tracking and no accountability. So there is no way to discover how most of it was spent / used / lost / stolen.
It seems odd to me that while half of the country will scream it's little heads off about Government waste, fraud, and abuse, they seem quite content to let the private sector to get on with it. And by "get on with it" I mean getting on with the waste, fraud, and abuse.
"Elisabeth Rosenthal writes...'Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury,'... 'But such falls off bikes are rare... [and that]... many researchers say, if you force people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding
You don't wear seat belts because most car-rides end in serious injury, you wear them in order to avoid the extremely unlikely occurrence of a car accident.
You're called DirtyLiar, so probably a troll. I'll make this short.
Ah, I see you are easily distracted by appearances. Not a trait I'd brag about.
And it's not what "I'm called" it's what I call myself in a bit of self-deprecating humor. A trait you seem unacquainted with.
But I also see that YOU call YOURSELF the "Cold hard reality". Which is indicative of low self-worth, and low self-confidence, while at the same time being a bit (not really a bit) of a blow-hard that's trying to fool people into giving himself unearned credibility.
Otherwise, what's with the name?
Computers were invented in WWII.
Ah, you got me. It's true, they had single purpose electronic calculating machines that used thermionic valves and filled entire rooms towards the end of WWII. Even though the ENIAC is considered the first generation of modern computers.
No chance of one ever seeing the inside of a rocket, but nonetheless they existed.
Transistors were invented in 1947.
Transistor, not transistors. The first transistor was invented in 1947, but I will concede your point.
Integrated circuits were invented in 1949, but not used on the Saturn V.
Can you back that up with data? Everything I find says that they were invented in 1958. There is mention on Wikipedia of an "integrated-circuit-like semiconductor amplifying device" from 1949, but that article also points to 1958 as the year they were invented, with a first practical demonstration on September 12th of that year. Besides, I thought you considered Wikipedia to be a bad source of information.
That NASA doesn't use a technology immediately after it's discovery is irrelevant to the question of what prompted their development.
How about the convenience of microwave ovens,
Available since 1947.
To quote you: "Wrong. Just Wrong." In 1945 it was discovered that microwaves could heat food (A melted candy bar in a man's pocket, does not an oven make.) But the first microwave oven wasn't commercially available until 1954.
That discovery is no more a microwave oven than an open fire is an oven. Hardly "Available since 1947".
Besides, the first microwave ovens weighed 750 pounds and stood five feet, six inches. Again not likely usable in space.
or freeze dried food?
WWII tech.
They freeze-dried blood plasma and medications like penicillin. Not food. Too many nutrients were lost in the process to make it attractive in WWII. It wasn't until 1938 that Nestle invented a viable process for Freeze Drying food, specifically for NASA.
'll stop now.
Perhaps you should, your track record (40%) isn't that good.
It is probably best that you do stop here and ignore the other 99 examples I gave. Or is it that you realize that your percentage can only go down from this point?
Let me help you out though: Apparently NASA was unrelated to the development of GPS, though that is not true for IGDG. And I was SURE you were going to nail me for international phone calls, at which time I'd point out that oceanic cables are fragile, difficult to repair, and laid over volcanicly active regions so have a short life span.
Why don't you focus on the part after the But let's see what a little research turns up.... You know, 90% of my examples?
Me, well, you've shown to me that some of the earliest things I learned about NASA are not quite true, and need to be tweaked a bit to be true, and it's time I update my knowledge about it.
Slashdot Mirror
And just how do you go about doing any of those things to a citizen of another country, living outside of the United States?
Extraordinary Rendition? The rest of the world (Europe and Asia) might put up with the "extra-legal" (meaning outside the law, or simply illegal) abduction and "detainment" of a few dusty Arabs we suspect have killed bunches of our Citizens. But coming into THEIR back-yard and abducting THEIR law abiding and productive citizens, I think will be an entirely different story.
What happened to your belief in the Free Market? Does that only apply when YOU have the deep-pockets? And we should just go and take what we want, when we want it, and civilization be damned?
To the moon, Sarah!
But Ralph....!
...sucked.
It had no heroes, only bad guys. Not even anybody to identify with, except for the alien that died, and his son.
Even the oppressed aliens (obviously representing violent gangs and gang-bangers) were stupid, violent, and self-destructive.
The main character was a coward, insanely confident, and a self-centered idiot, either oblivious to, or uncaring about the harm the system he was in did. Blind to the needs and sentience of his charges and quick to believe and use violence as his only tool. ONLY caring about things that directly effected himself and his position, not only at the expense of the aliens in his charge, but also at the expense of his fellow humans. Both individually, and collectively.
Only doing "the right thing" in the end because he needed a 'cure' to his alien transformation. And doing a "right thing" that was likely to start war between planet-locked Humans, and a spacefairing civilization. Very dumb, very self-centered, very myopic, and with absolutely no redeeming characteristics at all. And he's going to be our ambassador to an alien race. A war criminal who had actively participated in, and partially planned, genocide against the aliens in his care.
I both dread, and look forward to a sequel. Mostly out of curiosity about how the aliens will react to the news that their brothers had been ghettoized, and intentualy exterminated because they were inconvenient. I know how we would react if the roles were reversed.
One thing nobody seems to be realizing is that it may very well be ok to decide that this is a risk that's worthwhile.
Maybe.
But what give ME the right to decide that for YOU? [See what I did there? :)]
Most people are complete assholes.
Actually, the assholes are fewer in numbers than you might think.
It's just that they enjoy their assholerry so much, and are so loud and obnoxious about it, that they simply APPEAR to be in the majority.
The only agenda I have is to be treated like a human being.
Why? Human beings get treated like crap, as many people (the loud and obnoxious mostly) spend a good part of their time making up excuses for doing so. ^_^
When one sees rather large, suspicious issues crop up without any investigation or repercussion, one wonders what else is going on below the radar. The small fraud alleged earlier in this thread is near trivial compared to what could be* going on and isn't investigated.
*But isn't.
A lack of evidence and prosecutions does not necessarily indicate a lack of investigations. They can also indicate innocence.
There have been investigations, even one's launched and investigated by Republicans, yet they continue to find almost no evidence to indicate voter fraud.
Don't you Remember? Back in 2007 GW Bush even fired a bunch (between 7 and 9) of his own federal prosecutors because:
1) They couldn't find the evidence of Democratic Voter-Fraud that he was sure was there.
2) The only people they COULD find to prosecute for voter-fraud were Republicans.**
**Scroll Down to: Administration rationale unclear
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy
And here is "An Analysis of Voter Fraud in The United States" from 2006 that I just happened to find while looking for info on the firings.
http://www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/Analysis.pdf
Or, are you saying that the Democrats are successfully conspiring to conduct a massive cover-up of another massive conspiracy to commit fraud, and has been going on for decades? And that in all that time, no one involved in these conspiracies has ever had a change of heart, or a change of party, or let slip the secret to anybody. And that the Democrats are so competent and crafty that they've been able to successfully hide all evidence from the world, and that the Republicans are too incompetent and / or stupid to put it together and gather evidence? You know, it's just too bad there are no Republicans who know how to do the kind of police, detective and intelligence work and "aggressive" military / CIA type interrogations that would be able to uncover this type of conspiracy.
If that's what you truly think, if the Democrats are so competent and so intelligent, and the Republican are so incompetent and so stupid. Maybe you should let the Democrats work their magic competence on the government, and get those incompetent Republicans out of the way.
SNAP is a special debit card that is used for food, and only for food. The amount of their food stamp benefit is irrelevant to the cost of the ID.
You forget, they may not be able to buy a Voter ID with a SNAP card, but they certainlly could have bought food with that $13.50.
And yet Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai, when listing his accomplishments, said "Voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania: Done,"
Sounds like fraud to me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5MwuRwQF6A
My wife does not drive, but she wanted a state photo ID so she could-- get this-- VOTE (because you need one to REGISTER) and GET A BANK ACCOUNT!
Yet, oddly, you don't need one to keep it.
There are really hundreds of thousands of legitimate adults registered to vote who don't have an ID?
Yes.
They are called "Your Grandparents", and anyone else who doesn't need an ID for anything anymore. If you're stuck in a nursing-home, or even your own home, and can't drive, don't work, don't cash checks, just deposit them, what you need an ID for?
And the elderly won't take kindly to not being allowed to vote. If you haven't noticed, they are some of the most active and loudest political lobbiests.
You know your personal insults and name calling just make your argument stronger. O_o
Many countries that have directly elected representative systems have more than two parties. That seems to be a peculiarity of the US, and is most evident in the direct presidential elections.
We (in the US) do not have direct presidential elections. If we did, we'd have had several different presidents from the ones we've had. It's widely accepted that Al Gore won the popular vote, yet he did not become President. In fact we've had several Presidents who lost the popular vote. Why?
We have an electoral system where we vote to tell our representatives in the electoral collage how we want them to vote.
THEY are actually under no legal obligation to vote the way we tell them (though that may differ state to state, I don't know), can, and do change votes and coalitions right up till the moment they vote. And whether they decide to cast their votes proportionally with the popular vote, or whether they vote as a 'winner take all' system, is up to States, the parties, and... well... politics.
It's doesn't need to be intentional. Every politician agrees the debt needs to be repaid (or at least kept from growing), but they can't agree on where to save, so it keeps increasing. In fact, that seems to be how the US government acquired its current debt.
Clinton left office with a surplus.
The current debt came about by buying more than we can afford in the following years, not though an inability to reduce a nonexistent debt.
That hopefully he or she would have a more intrinsic knowledge of the needs of the minority.
Remember, we as a nation, have hundreds of years of experience with overt, unashamed, unblinking racism. And we haven't fully left that era yet. Not only are the repercussions still evident, but there are still living ex-slaves and ex-slaveholders, and their children. Long-held opinions and assumptions are hard to let-go, and prejudice beat into you sometimes can't even be beat out.
To ignore the facts and insist that we live and act as if we were in some kind of ideal world where all this is behind us is to be willfully ignorant.
And willful ignorance is the hardest kind to rectify.
nobody can ever know what you need better than you yourself.
Not true. The foolish, ignorant, retarded, inexperienced, naive, and stupid often don't know what they need, or what is in their best interest, and could benefit greatly from the advice of someone wiser, more knowledgeable, experienced, cynical and / or smarter.
This is why we have professionals and experts like architects, doctors, teachers and the others that we turn to for help and advice. And we only turn to them when we realize that we are stumped, and that takes self-knowledge. Which the foolish, ignorant...... are less likely to have than most.
And we're ALL foolish, ignorant, inexperienced, naive and stupid in some areas of life.
Actually, in ALL areas of life, at one time or another.
In the best of all possible worlds everyone would know best what they need.
But one thing I can tell you is that we do not live in the in the best of all possible worlds. Not even close.
Thar's gold in them thar `phills!
Hee hee.
You said "doo doo".
Government private contractors... [bring] in few to none of the intended benefits of either.
Not true. The intended benefit of all corporations is profit, and boy, there are TONS of that. Literally. Take Iraq for example. Hundreds or thousands of pallets filled with tons of American currency disappeared into contractors hands, with no tracking and no accountability. So there is no way to discover how most of it was spent / used / lost / stolen.
It seems odd to me that while half of the country will scream it's little heads off about Government waste, fraud, and abuse, they seem quite content to let the private sector to get on with it. And by "get on with it" I mean getting on with the waste, fraud, and abuse.
I have a bad feeling that something worse is waiting for us down the line...
With good reason.
And it's closer than you think.
https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
Tell the President how you feel about it.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/Tell-White-House-Ensure-OpennessTPP-IP-Chapter
LOL
The behind-the-scenes "thing" that they're hiding is the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement)
https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
Read and be informed!!!!!!!!
Tell President Obama to stop the TPP Here:
http://www.publicknowledge.org/Tell-White-House-Ensure-OpennessTPP-IP-Chapter
"Elisabeth Rosenthal writes...'Yes, there are studies that show that if you fall off a bicycle at a certain speed and hit your head, a helmet can reduce your risk of serious head injury,'... 'But such falls off bikes are rare... [and that]... many researchers say, if you force people to wear helmets, you discourage them from riding
You don't wear seat belts because most car-rides end in serious injury, you wear them in order to avoid the extremely unlikely occurrence of a car accident.
Exactly. Printers don't kill projects, people do.
I don't know, I was on the project to print out all the porn on the usenet, but then my printer pooped out!
8_(
You're called DirtyLiar, so probably a troll. I'll make this short.
Ah, I see you are easily distracted by appearances. Not a trait I'd brag about.
And it's not what "I'm called" it's what I call myself in a bit of self-deprecating humor. A trait you seem unacquainted with.
But I also see that YOU call YOURSELF the "Cold hard reality". Which is indicative of low self-worth, and low self-confidence, while at the same time being a bit (not really a bit) of a blow-hard that's trying to fool people into giving himself unearned credibility.
Otherwise, what's with the name?
Computers were invented in WWII.
Ah, you got me. It's true, they had single purpose electronic calculating machines that used thermionic valves and filled entire rooms towards the end of WWII. Even though the ENIAC is considered the first generation of modern computers.
No chance of one ever seeing the inside of a rocket, but nonetheless they existed.
Transistors were invented in 1947.
Transistor, not transistors. The first transistor was invented in 1947, but I will concede your point.
Integrated circuits were invented in 1949, but not used on the Saturn V.
Can you back that up with data? Everything I find says that they were invented in 1958.
There is mention on Wikipedia of an "integrated-circuit-like semiconductor amplifying device" from 1949, but that article also points to 1958 as the year they were invented, with a first practical demonstration on September 12th of that year. Besides, I thought you considered Wikipedia to be a bad source of information.
That NASA doesn't use a technology immediately after it's discovery is irrelevant to the question of what prompted their development.
How about the convenience of microwave ovens,
Available since 1947.
To quote you: "Wrong. Just Wrong."
In 1945 it was discovered that microwaves could heat food (A melted candy bar in a man's pocket, does not an oven make.) But the first microwave oven wasn't commercially available until 1954.
That discovery is no more a microwave oven than an open fire is an oven. Hardly "Available since 1947".
Besides, the first microwave ovens weighed 750 pounds and stood five feet, six inches. Again not likely usable in space.
or freeze dried food?
WWII tech.
They freeze-dried blood plasma and medications like penicillin. Not food. Too many nutrients were lost in the process to make it attractive in WWII.
It wasn't until 1938 that Nestle invented a viable process for Freeze Drying food, specifically for NASA.
'll stop now.
Perhaps you should, your track record (40%) isn't that good.
It is probably best that you do stop here and ignore the other 99 examples I gave. Or is it that you realize that your percentage can only go down from this point?
Let me help you out though: Apparently NASA was unrelated to the development of GPS, though that is not true for IGDG. And I was SURE you were going to nail me for international phone calls, at which time I'd point out that oceanic cables are fragile, difficult to repair, and laid over volcanicly active regions so have a short life span.
Why don't you focus on the part after the But let's see what a little research turns up.... You know, 90% of my examples?
Me, well, you've shown to me that some of the earliest things I learned about NASA are not quite true, and need to be tweaked a bit to be true, and it's time I update my knowledge about it.