Actually, electric cars already have the edge. Despite there being more energy conversion steps in the EV, the overall energy efficiency is still greater than the gasoline car.
I know this is a naughty, but I am really curious. Do you have any references on this? Do you mean that electric cars are more energy efficient (total energy cycle) than equivalent gasoline powered cars?
Re; A/C - You live in San Diego - a mild climate. I live in Phoenix. In the summer you need about 5 kW to cool a car here.
As far as solar, again it depends on a lot of things. And, the cost per kw (if you ignore unreasonable subsidies, such as California and Arizona laws that force the power companies to buy your unreliable power back at your whim by running your meter backards) is much, much higher.
Finally, you seem to not use much energy. My home, in the summer, runs about 15kW for about 18 hours a day! That's a heck of a lot of solar cells, and part of that time it is dark out.
I would also be interested in the 2 year energy cost payback on cells in the southwest. Not that I disbelieve you, but I would love a source.
Finally, as one who frequently attacks environmental policies here, it might surprise folks to know that I would *love* to have an electric car if they could solve the battery problem. Electric cars are very low maintenance, quietnon-polluting (at the car... the non-nuclear power plant is a different issue), have excellent performance, and in general are just cool. But the caveat.... the battery problem.
Re:Just to argue with one point...
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The biggest problem with campaign finance reform is its limitations on using money to buy ads on behalf of candidates. But notice that in terms of influence and corruption, buying ads on behalf of candidates is no different from giving money TO candidates. Either way, the candidates know whom they are beholden to.
The system actually worked better in the past, and the politicians spent more time working on policy and much less on raising money, *before* campaign reform. Current campaign laws force them to be in continual campaign mode in order to get enough money to run for reelection.
As far as government funds given to candidates, as you say, there are a lot of problems with it. And we already have the system you propose - in the presidential elections splinter candidates now qualify for lots of money - with the result making a mess out of every presidential election since 1988: Perot, Buchanan, and Nader were enough to pull votes from the candidates closest to their own political views, allowing the opposition to win. This is IMHO a very dumb way for things to turn out! Gore would have won in 2002 without Nader. Clinton never came close to an electoral majority because of votes pulled off by third party candidates (Bush-II had a much higher percentage of voters than Clinton ever got). Bush-I lost due to Ross Perot. Elections with spoilers just don't work right. And government funding leads to this sort of sillinness.
But back to the issue of First Amendment. I don't think it protects giving money to candidates (but there are lots of things, such as pr0n, that I don't think it protects either). I am sure it protects anyone spending as much money as they can to say anything (non slanderous) in any media they want about any political issue. And it is *that* right which McCain-Feingold finance reform has trampled.
As far as corporations go, legally they are indeed people in many ways (they can be fined or convicted, they can hold bank accounts, etc, etc). They do not enjoy all the rights of people, but the people that comprise them *do* have those rights. Prohibiting those people from buying political speech just because they do it through a corporation is IMHO a violation of either their free speech rights or their freedom of association rights - take you pick! And there is no reason at all that the Sierra Club should be allowed to do anything politically that Exxon is prohibited from! Both have their own political agendas and both should have equal rights in advancing them.
As far as twisting your arguments... thanks for the complement:-) Actually, I did indeed think you were for the whole nine yards of campaign reform, not just prohibitions on giving money to candidates. This colored my response... so consider my previous post a response to that position. I think I showed pretty well that the overall campaign reform we just put in place is a serious violation of the meaning and intent of the first amendment.
As far as giving money to politicians, I think this post shows pretty well that unless you prohibit "in kind" contributions, it doesn't do any good; and those in kind contributions include your and my free speech rights.
The logical issue is that anything I do on behalf of a candidate can help his reelection and make him endebted to me. Whether that is working on his staff, flying him around on my private airplane, or just buying my own personal advertising space and publishing views that aid his campaign and hurt his opponents. So if you block the giving of money and the flying around on jets, those who wnat influence will just start buying ads instead. And if you block those, as McCain-Feingold does, you are censoring political speech.
In other words, for practical reasons, you cannot put on more restrictions ("reforms") of the sort you and others propose without either violating constitutional rights or failing to curb influence buying. It comes down to that stark choice!
The best campaign reform IMHO would be the following (and they have done this in the state of Virginia):
1) remove all restrictions on campaign financing, in-kind campaign help, etc, except 2) require all contributions to be posted on the internet within (say) 24 hours, with the amount and who gave the contribution listed.
If we cannot trust the citizenry to use the best information available (which consists of all the ads, the news, and the information about who gave what to whom), why trust them to vote at all!
Re:Just to argue with one point...
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This is only valid if you make the specious argument that money == speech
No, it is only valid if I make the valid argument that money is often necessary in order to make effective speech. You can babble all you want to those you can buttonhole, but that isn't going to change many minds.
You can post on the internet, but... hey... usually that takes at least some money. I suppose you wouldn't mind if we, say, prevented anyone from paying money for posting comments related to political candidates in the 60 days prior to an election, would you? After all, money != speech according to you!
But wait... maybe you just want to remove free speech from corporations... What *is* a corporation? It is a voluntary association of people (shareholders and employees). You are going to prevent these people from spending *their* money to make political speech? Does this apply to Greenpeace, the NRA or the ACLU? Do they have to shut up also?
Or maybe you object only to profit making corporations spending money on politics. Okay, so lets ban that... of course, what if they give *charitable* donations to groups that advertise political positions (like,say, the Sierra Club or the US Chamber of Commerce)? Oops... looks like a big loophole to me!
Oh... you object that they have more money than you to spend? Well, I object to the fact that the newspapers and network television shows have more audience than I do when *they* present their own political views. So I guess we should issue rules to prevent them from expressing political views also. Hey... it's all about evening out the power so the little guy is okay, right? Of course, freedom of the press can be interpreted to mean freedom to do anything other than use your power to influence politics, right?
Could it be that you just don't like the outcome of what our constitution protects, so you want to remove those protections? But only from those you dislike? Welcome to fascism!
There are several things wrong with this view - The previous post is self contradictory First it criticizes electric cars for requiring that the electricity be generated somehow, and then it advocate hydrogens, which has exactly the same problem
Both systems are energy inefficient (although I suppose electric cars are worse).
Electric cars are energy inefficient because you must generate electricity, then lossily transport it, then lossily convert it into chemical energy in a battery, then convert it back into electrical energy, then convert it into mechanical energy.
Electric cars are not unpopular because of some vast conspiracy, but because they are a lousy technology. The main problem is a result of the energy storage technology; it is extremely poor compared to storing the energy in gsaoline. Electric car batteries are very expensive, only last a few years, and have such a low energy density that they greatly constrain the size and power of automobiles. And in climates like here in Arizona, the power load of the required air conditioning (5 kW) reduces the range even more.
As a result, electric cars are a fine choice for a few people who are willing to pay too much (or extort the money from us via government subsidies), who have driving requirements/habits that can deal with the short mileage, and who don't mind small cars (read: more collision danger to the occupants) with limited air condition and storage capabilities.
OTOH, hydrogen cars require the liberation of hydrogen from a bound state in some existing compound. Electrolysis is inefficient, and still leaves you with power plants to deal with. Storage of significant amounts of hydrogen is also a problem. The biggest problem IMHO with hydrogen powered cars is the investment required to distribute the hydrogen. Retooling the civilized world to dispense hydrogen along with gas (I am not a fan of slash-cuts!) will cost many trillions of dollars, and hydrogen doesn't offer those advantages.
Fuel cells may be a better approach, depending on the fuel and cost. The car makers and the govmint are counting on them. Of course, there is the issue of what to do with the waste from fuel cells also. If you use a hydrogen fuel cell, you pick up all the problems of hydrogen mentioned above! If you use a fuel cell with something that reforms a hydrocarbon, you have to deal with whatever is left of the hydrocarbon. Hopefully you can put it into a tank and bring it back... but who knows.
BTW... anyone who wants to use electricity as either a primary (electric cars) or secondary (hydrogen cars) had better be an advocate of nuclear power. You can put all the nuke plants you want here in Arizona, and its fine with me. But don't put any more hydrocarbon plants here and screw up our visibility.
Oh, and solar.... fuggetabout it. It takes too much land area, produces unreliable power which must be stored somehow (probably inefficiently, even more reducing the energy efficiency of the system), and most solar cells take more energy just to produce and install than they will deliver in their lifetime!
The First Amendment has been used as an excuse for many things not originally intended. The free speech clause was put into the constitution as a check against dangerous accretion of power by the government, while the religion clause was to prevent government control or imposition of religion.
The most important speech it protects is political and religious. There is no reason to believe that it was meant to protect pr0n, for example, or many other forms of non-political expression (regardless of whether one favors outlawing some of these forms of expression or not).
Amazingly, many of those who make the most fuss about how we should enforce the first amendment are also fans of campaign finance "reform." And yet those very reforms IMHO violate the specific intent and wording of the First Amendment. They also tend to be the same people who support the rulings preventing demonstrations in front of abortion clinics (the only peacful demonstrations prohibited in the US) - a ruling which has likewise ignited a backlash.
Put another way, the First Amendment, like so many issues these days, has come to mean radically different things to different people. And the abuses of the first amendment (such as protecting simulated child pr0n) are the reasons there has been a backlash against it.
Another area of abuse that has incited backlash is the twisting of the First Amendment to mean a complete elimination of religious expression from government and even government property. It is clear from the customs and history of the US that this was never the intent. The religious separation clause was to prevent government imposed selection of religion (a state religion as in Great Britain at the time), not a suppression of all religious expression in any way related to government. The fact that it is in an amendment protecting free speech should be a clue to those who want to ban religious speech by government officials or on government property. They have taken a slippery slope approach to its extreme.
Regarding the publishing of classified secrets... I believe the first amendment *does* protect this, as there is otherwise no mechanism to avoid government suppression of information critical to our liberties. However, the fact that is is allowed in no way excuses certain of the recent publications which give away intelligence means and capabilities without adding to any significant public debate. Those reporters are, IMHO, traitors - constitutionally protected traitors, but traitors none-the-less! Just because something is classified doesn't make it wrong to print, but just because a reporter has information from any source doesn't make it right to print!
For those who fear loss of liberty due to loss of first protection protection... well, the only folks who have lost any liberty that way recently have been anyone who wants to buy issue advertising, and anti-abortion protestors. Everyone else has a surfeit of free speech liberty!
Geee... I thought UML was created to make money selling Rational-Rose and UML books!
I find it to be overly tricky as a graphical tool - at least if you use a lot of it. If you don't build big class hierarchies (and usually you shouldn't), javadoc lets you find the hierarchical information just fine, and it stays up to date as the code changes.
My favorite graphical device, as another poster stated, is the Entity Relationship Diagram, which captures the data heart of the sorts of projects I do.
OTOH I have a friend who works for a company that uses UML from one end of a project to another and thinks it is wonderful and produces a very efficient development environment.
Health insurance related transactions are not terribly complicated. But HIPAA has managed to create a foot thick pile of documentation JUST ON THE MESSAGE FORMATS. They are unbelievable complex, and of course, they are not XML!
Oh, and if you don't use them, you can get in big, big trouble and go to jail.
Errr... I already did some warstorming this year... but not what you think.
Every year we drive out to the midwest and chase tornados ("storm chasing"). We use a laptop and GPS to get weather over the internet (often over slow, unreliable voice over analog cell phone links).
This year I put in netstumbler while we were driving around. Logged lots of AP's. Unfortunately, the GPS was tied to Delorme Maps, so netstumbler didn't get to use it (insert Linux plug vs Windows here... then find me good maps on Linux:-).
We did hit one AP on I-40 about the New Mexico/Texas line - out in the middle of friggin nowhere!
Yes. There was NO fallout from Hiroshima - in the sense of local, deadly fallout. There was dispersed, low level worldwide fallout.
All of the radiation deaths in Hiroshima were a result of what is called "prompt radiation." This is the radiation dose delivered in the first minute of a blast. It includes the immediate radiation released by the fission reaction, and exposure to radiation from the very short lived elements in the fireball before they rise high enough and decay enough that the radiation flux is negligible.
I say aain. There was NO localized fallout from Hiroshima. In fact, the first time fallout was recognized as a serious problem was after a south pacific test, when fallout, in the form of white flakes falling from the sky, fell on people outdoors on a relatively nearby island. They reported skin burns from the fallout, but there were no significant injuries.
Ground bursts produce fallout because the radioactive elements (which are all vapor after the blast) are mixed with large amounts of particulate matter, condense on it, and fall from the sky from ground zero outwards downwind.
Note also that there is controversy over whether low levels of radiation, such as what you get with distributed world-wide fallout (from stratsopheric transport of long lived radioactive elements from a fireball), is even harmful. There is little evidence that low doses are harmful, and there is some evidence that they are not (for example, on a county by county basis in the US, lung cancer rates are INVERSELY proportional to household radon levels). Almost all radiation dosage standards (such as the EPA 4picoCuries/liter - or is it m^2... oh well) are a result of extreme extrapolation from high dosage exposures. BTW... the same is also true of some toxic chemicals, although most toxic chemical recommendations come from extrapolating downward from lethal-dose 50% levels in animals - an even more fragile exercise.
Genetic algorithms are interesting and useful in some cases. But attempting to recreate evolution in a useful amount of time using these techniques.
Let's see.... assume we start with single celled organisms in the ocean.
We have 3 billion years - that.s 9x10^16 seconds.
And how many organisms... well, assume the biological part of the ocean is a foot deep and that the ocean covers 2/3rds of the earth's surface... that is about 1*10^15 cubic meters or 10^21 cubic centimeters. And lets say there are a billion cells per CC (not unreasonable)...
That's 10^24 cells for about 10^16 seconds or 10^40 cell-seconds. Lets assume an evolutionary event (cell fission, DNA absorption, whatever) takes place once an hour per cell. That's about 3*10^37 evolutionary events. And that's just to get to the first multicellular creature!
I think it would take a lot faster computers to get 10^37 events in a genetic algorithm!
Of course, one can guide and tweak and limit... but I don't think a dragon is going to be forthcoming!!
And these other activities may have been selected for after they had arisen out of random mutation
Also keep in mind that one of the most important factors in evolution is DNA exchange. Without the tremendous advantages this produces, the high individual costs and low odds of sexual reproduction would have prevented the evolution of sexual reproduction.
Not also that bacteria engage in DNA exchange... this is one way that antibiotic resistance spreads. They have both a formal sort of DNA exchange... conjugating and exchanging DNA... and informal means (often used also in genetic engineering) of picking up DNA fragments, especially plasmids, from their environment.
(sigh... and now come the responses... okay... yes... the "cost and odds of sex" rule applies most to males of the geek species)
So a more apt question would be "Should we explore further, just because we can?"
No, the more apt question is how much of our resources should we spend on exploration (meaning science). Of course, I think it should be more than we spend now.
Also very important is, of that amount, how much do we put into big science projects, and which ones... do we put it into big telescopes, massive accelerators, fusion devices, proteonomic surveys, earth observing satellites, or which? Since there isn't an infinite amount to spend, unfortunately choices have to be made. Even more unfortunately, too many these days are made by politicians.
The proper place of politicians in this issue is how much of our finite government resources should be spent on public science projects, not which projects.
Legally, a grant of patent by the PTO gives a presumption that the patent is valid. We know that this is dumb, given PTO actions, but it *is* the law.
The Linux problem is only the tip of the iceberg. It is true what you say that you can hardly write a single line of code without violating a patent. This is going to have much bigger impact on most slashdotters than all the stupid DMCA and other anticopying things put together!
As a software professional, I know that my it won't be long before I will have to either work for a big company (that can cross license patents) or quit. Fortunately, by then I will probably be able to retire, as I am an OF.
The headline was "A group of PC owners filed a lawsui..."
It should be "A pair of lawyers engaged in extortion...: Of course, that is so common that it doesn't need a headline.
No, this isn't meant to be a troll. Most people don't realize that "a class action suit filed on behalf of X million..." usually results in tiny rewards for those million (or no reward) while it results in vast sums for the lawyers who file the suit. Furthermore, because of the absurd state of US tort law - especially in some tort friendly states - Texas and Louisiana.
Note that the complaint claims that the total aware will be no more than $75,000. Of course, this does not include lawyers fees! My guess is that the lawyers put this in so that a court will find it easier to give them a win, or so that the companies will settle.
Once that is done, the real fun will begin. Having already either lost one of these cases, or settled one, the companies will then be attacked in Texas or Louisiana or another state where the tort lawyers routine win obscene settlements. They will cite the previous attack, and pocket zillions of bucks in the resulting easy win.
What will PC owners get? Probably discount certificates allowing them to buy a new processor from the defendant at a lower cost. This is how a typical american class action consumer lawsuit works!
Note that none of this has anything to do with the merits of the case. Personally, I think the case has no merit. The companies didn't lie(although AMD *does* act in a more deceptive matter - did you know that an AMD Athlon 1700+ does NOT have a clock speed near 1700 Mhz?). The consumers weren't deceived, unless they fooled themselves!
I used to be a registered Libertarian. But I rarely vote Libertarian.
See below for why the two party system is a good thing (and why I no longer vote Libertarian except for Arizona State Mine Inspector (to keep the party on the ballot).
The Libertarians are utopian idealists. Their ideas are no more likely to produce a working society than the ideas of the Marxists. They *do* contribute positively to the debate. However, the best of the libertarian ideas have been taken up by the libertarian wing of the Republican Party. It is significantly more Libertarian than even a decade ago. And this is what happens in the two party system - third party ideas, if significant, move into the one or both of the major parties.
The Libertarians have no chance of winning any significant race in most states. They are too far from the mainstream. As I stated, the two party system leads to parties of compromise, which is ultimately what is needed in a democratic system
The Republicans and Democrats are dramatically different in areas that are important to me: taxation, the role of government, income transfer, states rights, gun control, constitutional strict constructionism, the race issue (quotas vs race blind policies), defense, globalism, environmentalism, abortion, education. I mostly agree with the Republicans on *every one* of these issues. I disagree with them on health insurance (although the Democrat approach would be just as bad), drug legalization (although the most influential conservative publication, National Review, is *for* drug legalization), and a few other minor issues.
Those who argue that the two parties are alike and use the term "Republicrat" are either over-focused on one or two issues where they offer little difference, or missing the point. In other words, in most very important areas, the two parties offer real differences and a real choice.
I believe that a two party system is reasonable. Nobody imposed it - it evolved. It provides Americans with a choice among the two primary philosophies of western democracy: progressivism or classical liberalism. Both sides are supported by big business, but which businesses support whom is a different story.
For example, the trial lawyers association almost owns the democratic party with their huge contributions. Wonder why we don't have tort reform? Wonder why there are huge class action lawsuits, where the plaintiffs typically win a right to purchase a product from the defendant at a discount, or some other trinket, while the lawyers take home hundreds of millions? Thank the Democrats. Oh, the other organization that owns the democrat party (and forms a significant part of its organization and votes at the convention) is the teachers' union - that organization that has turned our educational system inot the mess that it is, even though we spend more per pupil than most far more successful countries. And, of course, large corporations frequently contribute to democrats. For example, a good way that a big company can keep little companies from rising to challenge it is to have lots of government regulation in the industry. Only the big guys can afford to deal with it, and since they all face the same issue, they still can compete with each other. So, they tend to contribute to pro-regulation democrats!
In modern history, third parties have done nothing other than skew the presidential elections in bizarre ways. Ross Perot brought us Clinton (remember, Clinton got only 43% of the vote - in fact Bush, in 2000, got a much higher percentage of the vote than Clinton ever did).
I doubt if many Perotistas were closer to Clinton than Bush-I in their views! I was working with Perot Systems at the time and knew Perot and his closest friends. His friends were basically conservative Republicans! Perot was tilting at windmills (I personally think his motivation was getting even with Bush-I for a case where Bush, as head of CIA, refused a spurious Perot adventure in a proposed POW/MIA rescue).
Ralph Nader brought us Bush-II. How many Greenies prefer Bush to a potential Gore? Personally, I thank Ralph Nader for what he did, because *I* think Bush is vastly better than Gore would have been.
Finally, I urge everyone to vote for the Green Party in every election. Please, slashdotters - VOTE GREEN! Please!
Actually, the two party system has worked pretty well IMHO. It forces political compromise across the spectrum. It means, of course, that there is no party that any one person completely agrees with, but I don't think that is a negative. Having two parties provides a well understood framework for political action. It also prevents the sort of absurd coalitions that occur in multiparty democracies. For example, in Israel one has extreme ideological enemies forming coalition governments. The result is a government which is very ineffective - even in the face of an extreme threat - a threat to its very existence. Our two-party system tends to prevent that sort of absurd deadlock.
To me, the biggest problem with our political process is the media. Our media do a much worse job of informing our public than the UK media, simply because they lack ideological diversity. We tend to have a *one party* media - the large newspapers and all of the TV networks (except Fox - thank you Australia!) are significantly biased towards a particular world view"progressive"; anti-business except for farming and, of course, media; pro-abortion; anti-religion; emotional instead of rational - but of course emotional programming sells; pro-censorship of all but their ideas - also known as political correctness; pro-discrimination on the basis of race; pro-democrat.
I don't have a problem with some of the media having those views. I have a big problem with entire forms of media having the same opinion, and I especially dislike their strong assertions that they are, by their training, objective and reporting news, not opinion. This homogenous media is what led, in the US, to the strange phenomenon of conservative talk radio - for a long time the only place that people with different viewpoints could hear anything they agreed with, and the only place that they could hear certain information at all!
This, combined with the dumbing down of news, is why campaign financing is such an issue. Without a reasonable media, people are either uninformed or misinformed about the political process.
Of course, our educational system has been taken over by idiots for the most part, and those idiots are also generally of the same viewpoint as the media.
Thus we are left without an informed citizenry, which the founders of our country recognized as critical for a democracy.
The US was afraid of communist totalitarianism, whether it was imposed by the Soviets or anyone else. And history has proven that communist totalitarianism was indeed something to be very afraid of. Read "The Black Book of Communist" - written by a bunch of current and former *leftist* French intellectuals if you want to see how *every* communist government ever created was evil. Yes - evil. Not just because of their denial of economic rights, but because of their denial of *all rights.*
The western elite cared plenty about methods. And, the methods of the western "elite" in general did not use methods as evil as the Soviets. Certainly the western "elite" didn't use evil methods against their own people!
And the paranoid fantasy that our leaders are *nothing* more than a ruthless aristocracy is one that is surprisingly attractive to people. I guess it is just the nature of some people to imagine that those who have more power than themselves are naturally evil or ruthless or an aristocracy or whatever. It is indeed sad that people are so misinformed or deluded, because it provides fertile ground for those who would indeed cause trouble. Hitler used people with these sorts of fantasies, as an example.
There are ruthless people among our leaders - probably in greater percentage than among non leaders, but there are also honorable people - lots of them. Believe me, if we were lead by a "ruthless elite" you would feel that ruthlessness just by posting on this board the way you did!
Oh, and those in charge want to stay there. Duh! Could it be that achieving something that takes years of hard work might lead one to want ot continue to achieve that? I don't think it is good that our congress (as opposed to presidents) is almost immune from reelection defeat. But it is not a result of "aristocracy" and the effects of inherent ruthlessness is limited by the countervailing systems we have (the press, the courts, opposing parties, conservative talk radio, etc).
Freedom fighting means violent action for one's rights. Whether it is terrorism depends on the means, not the goals.
For example, Palestinians who attack Israeli military may be freedom fighters. Those who intentionally attack women and children may be freedom fighters, but they are using terrorism, and hence are the lowest form of scum.
Another example: the attack against the US marine barracks in Beirut, 1983?, was an act of war, not an act of terrorism. Likewise the attack against the USS Cole. However, the latter at least was probably a *war crime* - but again, not terrorism.
The attack against US Embassies, the destruction of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, the IRA bombs in England, the NLF bombs in Saigon, the NLF killings of village chieftans and their families, and Sept 11th were acts of terrorism.
You do not have to show any ID to an oficer. Your drivers' license is not national ID, but proof that you are certified to operate a motor vehicle, and you are only required to show it while operating one. You never have to show an officer your optional, non-driving state ID.
So, what makes you think you would have to show a national ID to an officer any more than a state one? BTW, what database is a nationally comprehensive compilation of driver's licenses? National Criminal Information System - NCIC. If you are ever stopped while driving and give you "state" ID, the officer can, and will, run what in most states is called a "10-27" which is a drivers license check. That will go against NCIC if it is an out of state license.
A national ID in itself isn't a problem, just like technology isn't a problem. But the existence of a uniform national ID is an enabler to abuse, and it is worth fighting because it has no value
If it had no value, I would agree that the government shouldn't issue it. But it does have value, done right. Oh, and because of the current existence of NCIC, it doesn't make you *any easier to track* than a state drivers licence.
The key to avoiding totalitarianism is to value individuality over national conformity, freedom over jingoism, and privacy over bureocracy. I strongly disagree. The key to avoiding totalitarianism is citizen participation in an open government. Whether those citizens are individualists or not is immaterial.
If the nation is right, then national conformity is okay (not that it would ever happen). "Individualism" is a modern cult that started with the humanistic psychology revolution of the 20th century. Many posters on Slashdot seem to think it is individualism is a sacrament, but it is not. Freedom is the real political sacrament, and that includes the freedom to conform.
I suspect you confuse patriotism iwth jingoism, btw. And there is nothing wrong with patriotism - as long as the patriotic citizen is willing to disagree with political leaders and work, within the law, against those who they disagree with. It is true that dictators use real or imagined threats in order to consolidate their power, but that does not mean that every additional security measure is totalitarian. Nor does it mean that every threat is imagined.
And privacy, like any right (BTW, privacy is one right NOT specified in the constitution, except as imagined in "pneumbras"), is not absolute.
With regard to all rights, a nation must first be able to defend itself against external enemies, or it cannot defend your rights. And even those strongest libertarian would agree that protecting you against depradations of others is the first reason to have a government at all.
You are so worried about privacy, and yet I was once subject to the draft. Don't you think having yourself drafted into the military is a bit more severe than being spied upon? And I agreed with the draft, because I felt it was then (and might again be at some point) necessary to defend the rights of all of us. And, btw, I voluntarily joined the military and served my time - with no privacy or freedom of individuality or anything else, and considerable danger. So people whining about tiny losses of freedom in the name of national security seem pretty trivial to me! It is important to be vigilant but not to waste your time on the small stuff.
If I wanted to be a dictator I would do all sorts of minor stuff to get the privacy fanatics, etc, all discredited (and exposed). But more importantly, I would work to remove the people's respect for each other and their respect for democracy (which is *not* the same as freedom, btw).
The FBI has tracked innocent people without just cause in the past. There is no way to know if their purposes were "nefarious".
Yes, and Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. And innocent people have been executed. Guess what! Life isn't perfect. But National ID's are not the problem, nor do they make it significantly easier for the FBI to track you, but they make make it easier for them to track Mohammed Atta!
If you were offered dictatorship of the United States of America, would you refuse?
Yes. Dictatorship is wrong. I'd rather you didn't have the opportunity, I don't want to find out.
And duh... I suppose you think I want anyone to have the opportunity.
Likewise, I'd rather not promote a national ID and any abuses it might engender. To prevent totalitarianism, preserve preedom; know your rights, and assert them fervently.
Just out of curiosity, do you seriously oppose environmental takings of private land? How about federal controls on public schools? How about gun control? How about laws preventing doctors from informing parents about the abortions of their thirteen year old children? How about laws which force children and governments to discriminate in favor of specific races? How about speech codes at federal schools that make it illegal for you to use derogatory or racist language?
Are you really for freedom?
Do you support the protection of the american people from terrorists? Which is more likely to lead to totalitarianism: open security measures such as national ID cards, or the reaction of the public after some bad guys get in and kill, through WMD, a few million americans?
What *is* the purpose of a government in your mind? In mine, the primary reason to give the authority to use lethal force to a common organization is so that they can protect me from others! Why else should I let them have atomic bombs, tanks, FBI, etc? And if I am to give them that force, why should I hobble them at the same time?
And that was an absurd comment. To compare the US to the USSR is like comparing a goldfish to a shark! There are major qualitative and quantitative differences.
And the what brainwashing are you talking about with "duck and cover?"
The only brainwashing I have seen about that is from people who have convinced you and others that the whole idea was silly.
The american public WAS brainwashed. We were brainwashed by a media with an agenda - and the brainwashing was that nuclear was was not survivable, so duck and cover is silly. This tied in to the agenda of nuclear weapons ban movements, and the purpose for the disinformation was to exagerrate the (admittedly terrible) effects of nuclear war.
Duck and cover made sense. It would have saved many lives and prevent even more injuries in the vent of a nuclear war against US cities - especially with the quantity of weapons that would have been used in the '50s and '60s.
I lived through the cuban missile crises. My father had been a nuclear weapons designer, and we lived in the city that had (and still has, apparently) the largest stored number of nuclear weapons in the united states - Albuquerque, New Mexico (check out the mountain with the bunkers and the fences just as you leave town to the east on I-40). And my father one day showed the family *how* and *where* to duck and cover to maximize our chances of surviving the weapons he was an expert on. For some info on how deadly and not deadly the are, check out my site.
Likewise, civil defense and fallout shelters made sense also, but they were also killed by the ban-the-nukes people. OF course, nukes haven't been banned, but rather have proliferated. Oh well...
The problem is... having a national ID does not lead to the other effects that you mentioned!
What happens when you have to show it everyplace? What happened was that *something else* changed, not the existence of a national ID, but a more significant survillance.
In other words, you take what *may* be a perfectly reasonable measure for *personal security* (it might greatly reduce identity theft) and conflate it with police state behavior and then use that to condemn the technological measure.
Besides, we already have a national ID card in the US. It is called your drivers' license. Oops... it isn't national. BUT... that problem IMHO hurts the citizenry more than having a national one! It allows all sorts of fraud, because of its lack of standardization. And... it doesn't protect you one bit unless you are a criminal... because all of those drivers licenses are in the same database (or accessible through the same switch) just like a national ID owuld be.
Let's not get too knee-jerk about security measures. Some are important. Furthermore, we are in a new age - where a single individual, through technology, may be more dangerous than an entire military fleet or division was in the past. In a world like we now live in, we may need different security measures than we have had in the past.
The key to avoiding totalitarianism is not simply attacking every change in policing and security techniques. It is in fighting those which have no value, and more importantly, it is in fighting those who would actually engage in totalitarian practices.
The ID isn't the problem. Someone who would track innocent people for nefarious purposes is the problem. Prevent the latter, not the former. P
What you are proposing is not terrorism. It is somehwere between civil disobedience and conspiracy to commit badness.
Terrorism involves attacking *people* and scaring large numbers of them. Don't water down a perfectly useful word.
Furthermore, IMHO terrorism is *never* justified. Civil disobedience sometimes is. What you are recommended, IMHO, is not - but that's just my opinion and that of the law.
Sigh. The predictible Bush bashing comes along, regardless of whether it is right or not.
Guess what! The Democrats entire campaign was also built on huge contributions. Furthermore, they Democrats are the partly closest to Hollywood and the entertainment industry. The biggest pusher of digital rights management (read: restrictuions on what you can do with media) are Democrat congressmen.
But wait... the truth...
That wouldn't stop you from a baseless troll against Bush!
Corporations do what corporations will do.
The real problem here is that congress passes bills extending ownership "rights." A copyright is *not* a natural right. It is granted as a result of the authority given in the US Constituiton. However, that grant also includes a phrase about public interest.
If you elect politicians who vote for judges who actually read the constitution (i.e. "original intent"), you might get judges who would find many of these copyright abuses to be unconstitutional - not supported by the copyrights and patens clause in the US Constitution.
But guess what? THOSE politicians are republican conservatives. Oops...
Oh well, that won't stop the Bush bashing...
Too many people have been brainwashed into believing that Republicans are the tools of corporations, while Democrats are somehow the saviors of the people. Wake up! Corporations give to whoever they think will support their business. And Hollywood gives to DEMOCRATS.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, electric cars already have the edge. Despite there being more energy conversion steps in the EV, the overall energy efficiency is still greater than the gasoline car.
I know this is a naughty, but I am really curious. Do you have any references on this? Do you mean that electric cars are more energy efficient (total energy cycle) than equivalent gasoline powered cars?
Re; A/C - You live in San Diego - a mild climate. I live in Phoenix. In the summer you need about 5 kW to cool a car here.
As far as solar, again it depends on a lot of things. And, the cost per kw (if you ignore unreasonable subsidies, such as California and Arizona laws that force the power companies to buy your unreliable power back at your whim by running your meter backards) is much, much higher.
Finally, you seem to not use much energy. My home, in the summer, runs about 15kW for about 18 hours a day! That's a heck of a lot of solar cells, and part of that time it is dark out.
I would also be interested in the 2 year energy cost payback on cells in the southwest. Not that I disbelieve you, but I would love a source.
Finally, as one who frequently attacks environmental policies here, it might surprise folks to know that I would *love* to have an electric car if they could solve the battery problem. Electric cars are very low maintenance, quietnon-polluting (at the car... the non-nuclear power plant is a different issue), have excellent performance, and in general are just cool. But the caveat.... the battery problem.
The biggest problem with campaign finance reform is its limitations on using money to buy ads on behalf of candidates. But notice that in terms of influence and corruption, buying ads on behalf of candidates is no different from giving money TO candidates. Either way, the candidates know whom they are beholden to.
:-) Actually, I did indeed think you were for the whole nine yards of campaign reform, not just prohibitions on giving money to candidates. This colored my response... so consider my previous post a response to that position. I think I showed pretty well that the overall campaign reform we just put in place is a serious violation of the meaning and intent of the first amendment.
The system actually worked better in the past, and the politicians spent more time working on policy and much less on raising money, *before* campaign reform. Current campaign laws force them to be in continual campaign mode in order to get enough money to run for reelection.
As far as government funds given to candidates, as you say, there are a lot of problems with it. And we already have the system you propose - in the presidential elections splinter candidates now qualify for lots of money - with the result making a mess out of every presidential election since 1988: Perot, Buchanan, and Nader were enough to pull votes from the candidates closest to their own political views, allowing the opposition to win. This is IMHO a very dumb way for things to turn out! Gore would have won in 2002 without Nader. Clinton never came close to an electoral majority because of votes pulled off by third party candidates (Bush-II had a much higher percentage of voters than Clinton ever got). Bush-I lost due to Ross Perot. Elections with spoilers just don't work right. And government funding leads to this sort of sillinness.
But back to the issue of First Amendment. I don't think it protects giving money to candidates (but there are lots of things, such as pr0n, that I don't think it protects either). I am sure it protects anyone spending as much money as they can to say anything (non slanderous) in any media they want about any political issue. And it is *that* right which McCain-Feingold finance reform has trampled.
As far as corporations go, legally they are indeed people in many ways (they can be fined or convicted, they can hold bank accounts, etc, etc). They do not enjoy all the rights of people, but the people that comprise them *do* have those rights. Prohibiting those people from buying political speech just because they do it through a corporation is IMHO a violation of either their free speech rights or their freedom of association rights - take you pick! And there is no reason at all that the Sierra Club should be allowed to do anything politically that Exxon is prohibited from! Both have their own political agendas and both should have equal rights in advancing them.
As far as twisting your arguments... thanks for the complement
As far as giving money to politicians, I think this post shows pretty well that unless you prohibit "in kind" contributions, it doesn't do any good; and those in kind contributions include your and my free speech rights.
The logical issue is that anything I do on behalf of a candidate can help his reelection and make him endebted to me. Whether that is working on his staff, flying him around on my private airplane, or just buying my own personal advertising space and publishing views that aid his campaign and hurt his opponents. So if you block the giving of money and the flying around on jets, those who wnat influence will just start buying ads instead. And if you block those, as McCain-Feingold does, you are censoring political speech.
In other words, for practical reasons, you cannot put on more restrictions ("reforms") of the sort you and others propose without either violating constitutional rights or failing to curb influence buying. It comes down to that stark choice!
The best campaign reform IMHO would be the following (and they have done this in the state of Virginia):
1) remove all restrictions on campaign financing, in-kind campaign help, etc, except
2) require all contributions to be posted on the internet within (say) 24 hours, with the amount and who gave the contribution listed.
If we cannot trust the citizenry to use the best information available (which consists of all the ads, the news, and the information about who gave what to whom), why trust them to vote at all!
This is only valid if you make the specious argument that money == speech
No, it is only valid if I make the valid argument that money is often necessary in order to make effective speech. You can babble all you want to those you can buttonhole, but that isn't going to change many minds.
You can post on the internet, but... hey... usually that takes at least some money. I suppose you wouldn't mind if we, say, prevented anyone from paying money for posting comments related to political candidates in the 60 days prior to an election, would you? After all, money != speech according to you!
But wait... maybe you just want to remove free speech from corporations... What *is* a corporation? It is a voluntary association of people (shareholders and employees). You are going to prevent these people from spending *their* money to make political speech? Does this apply to Greenpeace, the NRA or the ACLU? Do they have to shut up also?
Or maybe you object only to profit making corporations spending money on politics. Okay, so lets ban that... of course, what if they give *charitable* donations to groups that advertise political positions (like,say, the Sierra Club or the US Chamber of Commerce)? Oops... looks like a big loophole to me!
Oh... you object that they have more money than you to spend? Well, I object to the fact that the newspapers and network television shows have more audience than I do when *they* present their own political views. So I guess we should issue rules to prevent them from expressing political views also. Hey... it's all about evening out the power so the little guy is okay, right? Of course, freedom of the press can be interpreted to mean freedom to do anything other than use your power to influence politics, right?
Could it be that you just don't like the outcome of what our constitution protects, so you want to remove those protections? But only from those you dislike? Welcome to fascism!
There are several things wrong with this view - The previous post is self contradictory First it criticizes electric cars for requiring that the electricity be generated somehow, and then it advocate hydrogens, which has exactly the same problem
Both systems are energy inefficient (although I suppose electric cars are worse).
Electric cars are energy inefficient because you must generate electricity, then lossily transport it, then lossily convert it into chemical energy in a battery, then convert it back into electrical energy, then convert it into mechanical energy.
Electric cars are not unpopular because of some vast conspiracy, but because they are a lousy technology. The main problem is a result of the energy storage technology; it is extremely poor compared to storing the energy in gsaoline. Electric car batteries are very expensive, only last a few years, and have such a low energy density that they greatly constrain the size and power of automobiles. And in climates like here in Arizona, the power load of the required air conditioning (5 kW) reduces the range even more.
As a result, electric cars are a fine choice for a few people who are willing to pay too much (or extort the money from us via government subsidies), who have driving requirements/habits that can deal with the short mileage, and who don't mind small cars (read: more collision danger to the occupants) with limited air condition and storage capabilities.
OTOH, hydrogen cars require the liberation of hydrogen from a bound state in some existing compound. Electrolysis is inefficient, and still leaves you with power plants to deal with. Storage of significant amounts of hydrogen is also a problem. The biggest problem IMHO with hydrogen powered cars is the investment required to distribute the hydrogen. Retooling the civilized world to dispense hydrogen along with gas (I am not a fan of slash-cuts!) will cost many trillions of dollars, and hydrogen doesn't offer those advantages.
Fuel cells may be a better approach, depending on the fuel and cost. The car makers and the govmint are counting on them. Of course, there is the issue of what to do with the waste from fuel cells also. If you use a hydrogen fuel cell, you pick up all the problems of hydrogen mentioned above! If you use a fuel cell with something that reforms a hydrocarbon, you have to deal with whatever is left of the hydrocarbon. Hopefully you can put it into a tank and bring it back... but who knows.
BTW... anyone who wants to use electricity as either a primary (electric cars) or secondary (hydrogen cars) had better be an advocate of nuclear power. You can put all the nuke plants you want here in Arizona, and its fine with me. But don't put any more hydrocarbon plants here and screw up our visibility.
Oh, and solar.... fuggetabout it. It takes too much land area, produces unreliable power which must be stored somehow (probably inefficiently, even more reducing the energy efficiency of the system), and most solar cells take more energy just to produce and install than they will deliver in their lifetime!
The First Amendment has been used as an excuse for many things not originally intended. The free speech clause was put into the constitution as a check against dangerous accretion of power by the government, while the religion clause was to prevent government control or imposition of religion.
The most important speech it protects is political and religious. There is no reason to believe that it was meant to protect pr0n, for example, or many other forms of non-political expression (regardless of whether one favors outlawing some of these forms of expression or not).
Amazingly, many of those who make the most fuss about how we should enforce the first amendment are also fans of campaign finance "reform." And yet those very reforms IMHO violate the specific intent and wording of the First Amendment. They also tend to be the same people who support the rulings preventing demonstrations in front of abortion clinics (the only peacful demonstrations prohibited in the US) - a ruling which has likewise ignited a backlash.
Put another way, the First Amendment, like so many issues these days, has come to mean radically different things to different people. And the abuses of the first amendment (such as protecting simulated child pr0n) are the reasons there has been a backlash against it.
Another area of abuse that has incited backlash is the twisting of the First Amendment to mean a complete elimination of religious expression from government and even government property. It is clear from the customs and history of the US that this was never the intent. The religious separation clause was to prevent government imposed selection of religion (a state religion as in Great Britain at the time), not a suppression of all religious expression in any way related to government. The fact that it is in an amendment protecting free speech should be a clue to those who want to ban religious speech by government officials or on government property. They have taken a slippery slope approach to its extreme.
Regarding the publishing of classified secrets... I believe the first amendment *does* protect this, as there is otherwise no mechanism to avoid government suppression of information critical to our liberties. However, the fact that is is allowed in no way excuses certain of the recent publications which give away intelligence means and capabilities without adding to any significant public debate. Those reporters are, IMHO, traitors - constitutionally protected traitors, but traitors none-the-less! Just because something is classified doesn't make it wrong to print, but just because a reporter has information from any source doesn't make it right to print!
For those who fear loss of liberty due to loss of first protection protection... well, the only folks who have lost any liberty that way recently have been anyone who wants to buy issue advertising, and anti-abortion protestors. Everyone else has a surfeit of free speech liberty!
Geee... I thought UML was created to make money selling Rational-Rose and UML books!
I find it to be overly tricky as a graphical tool - at least if you use a lot of it. If you don't build big class hierarchies (and usually you shouldn't), javadoc lets you find the hierarchical information just fine, and it stays up to date as the code changes.
My favorite graphical device, as another poster stated, is the Entity Relationship Diagram, which captures the data heart of the sorts of projects I do.
OTOH I have a friend who works for a company that uses UML from one end of a project to another and thinks it is wonderful and produces a very efficient development environment.
Oh well...
And then there are the HIPAA message formats.
Health insurance related transactions are not terribly complicated. But HIPAA has managed to create a foot thick pile of documentation JUST ON THE MESSAGE FORMATS. They are unbelievable complex, and of course, they are not XML!
Oh, and if you don't use them, you can get in big, big trouble and go to jail.
Sigh.
Errr... I already did some warstorming this year... but not what you think.
:-).
Every year we drive out to the midwest and chase tornados ("storm chasing"). We use a laptop and GPS to get weather over the internet (often over slow, unreliable voice over analog cell phone links).
This year I put in netstumbler while we were driving around. Logged lots of AP's. Unfortunately, the GPS was tied to Delorme Maps, so netstumbler didn't get to use it (insert Linux plug vs Windows here... then find me good maps on Linux
We did hit one AP on I-40 about the New Mexico/Texas line - out in the middle of friggin nowhere!
Anyway, I claim that WE were warstorming!
Yes. There was NO fallout from Hiroshima - in the sense of local, deadly fallout. There was dispersed, low level worldwide fallout.
All of the radiation deaths in Hiroshima were a result of what is called "prompt radiation." This is the radiation dose delivered in the first minute of a blast. It includes the immediate radiation released by the fission reaction, and exposure to radiation from the very short lived elements in the fireball before they rise high enough and decay enough that the radiation flux is negligible.
I say aain. There was NO localized fallout from Hiroshima. In fact, the first time fallout was recognized as a serious problem was after a south pacific test, when fallout, in the form of white flakes falling from the sky, fell on people outdoors on a relatively nearby island. They reported skin burns from the fallout, but there were no significant injuries.
Ground bursts produce fallout because the radioactive elements (which are all vapor after the blast) are mixed with large amounts of particulate matter, condense on it, and fall from the sky from ground zero outwards downwind.
Note also that there is controversy over whether low levels of radiation, such as what you get with distributed world-wide fallout (from stratsopheric transport of long lived radioactive elements from a fireball), is even harmful. There is little evidence that low doses are harmful, and there is some evidence that they are not (for example, on a county by county basis in the US, lung cancer rates are INVERSELY proportional to household radon levels). Almost all radiation dosage standards (such as the EPA 4picoCuries/liter - or is it m^2... oh well) are a result of extreme extrapolation from high dosage exposures. BTW... the same is also true of some toxic chemicals, although most toxic chemical recommendations come from extrapolating downward from lethal-dose 50% levels in animals - an even more fragile exercise.
Genetic algorithms are interesting and useful in some cases. But attempting to recreate evolution in a useful amount of time using these techniques.
Let's see.... assume we start with single celled organisms in the ocean.
We have 3 billion years - that.s 9x10^16 seconds.
And how many organisms... well, assume the biological part of the ocean is a foot deep and that the ocean covers 2/3rds of the earth's surface... that is about 1*10^15 cubic meters or 10^21 cubic centimeters. And lets say there are a billion cells per CC (not unreasonable)...
That's 10^24 cells for about 10^16 seconds or
10^40 cell-seconds. Lets assume an evolutionary event (cell fission, DNA absorption, whatever) takes place once an hour per cell. That's about 3*10^37 evolutionary events. And that's just to get to the first multicellular creature!
I think it would take a lot faster computers to get 10^37 events in a genetic algorithm!
Of course, one can guide and tweak and limit... but I don't think a dragon is going to be forthcoming!!
And these other activities may have been selected for after they had arisen out of random mutation
Also keep in mind that one of the most important factors in evolution is DNA exchange. Without the tremendous advantages this produces, the high individual costs and low odds of sexual reproduction would have prevented the evolution of sexual reproduction.
Not also that bacteria engage in DNA exchange... this is one way that antibiotic resistance spreads. They have both a formal sort of DNA exchange... conjugating and exchanging DNA... and informal means (often used also in genetic engineering) of picking up DNA fragments, especially plasmids, from their environment.
(sigh... and now come the responses... okay... yes... the "cost and odds of sex" rule applies most to males of the geek species)
No, the more apt question is how much of our resources should we spend on exploration (meaning science). Of course, I think it should be more than we spend now.
Also very important is, of that amount, how much do we put into big science projects, and which ones... do we put it into big telescopes, massive accelerators, fusion devices, proteonomic surveys, earth observing satellites, or which? Since there isn't an infinite amount to spend, unfortunately choices have to be made. Even more unfortunately, too many these days are made by politicians.
The proper place of politicians in this issue is how much of our finite government resources should be spent on public science projects, not which projects.
even when what you are doing is reasonable!
Legally, a grant of patent by the PTO gives a presumption that the patent is valid. We know that this is dumb, given PTO actions, but it *is* the law.
The Linux problem is only the tip of the iceberg. It is true what you say that you can hardly write a single line of code without violating a patent. This is going to have much bigger impact on most slashdotters than all the stupid DMCA and other anticopying things put together!
As a software professional, I know that my it won't be long before I will have to either work for a big company (that can cross license patents) or quit. Fortunately, by then I will probably be able to retire, as I am an OF.
The headline was "A group of PC owners filed a lawsui..."
It should be "A pair of lawyers engaged in extortion...: Of course, that is so common that it doesn't need a headline.
No, this isn't meant to be a troll. Most people don't realize that "a class action suit filed on behalf of X million..." usually results in tiny rewards for those million (or no reward) while it results in vast sums for the lawyers who file the suit. Furthermore, because of the absurd state of US tort law - especially in some tort friendly states - Texas and Louisiana.
Note that the complaint claims that the total aware will be no more than $75,000. Of course, this does not include lawyers fees! My guess is that the lawyers put this in so that a court will find it easier to give them a win, or so that the companies will settle.
Once that is done, the real fun will begin. Having already either lost one of these cases, or settled one, the companies will then be attacked in Texas or Louisiana or another state where the tort lawyers routine win obscene settlements. They will cite the previous attack, and pocket zillions of bucks in the resulting easy win.
What will PC owners get? Probably discount certificates allowing them to buy a new processor from the defendant at a lower cost. This is how a typical american class action consumer lawsuit works!
Note that none of this has anything to do with the merits of the case. Personally, I think the case has no merit. The companies didn't lie(although AMD *does* act in a more deceptive matter - did you know that an AMD Athlon 1700+ does NOT have a clock speed near 1700 Mhz?). The consumers weren't deceived, unless they fooled themselves!
See below for why the two party system is a good thing (and why I no longer vote Libertarian except for Arizona State Mine Inspector (to keep the party on the ballot).
Those who argue that the two parties are alike and use the term "Republicrat" are either over-focused on one or two issues where they offer little difference, or missing the point. In other words, in most very important areas, the two parties offer real differences and a real choice.
For example, the trial lawyers association almost owns the democratic party with their huge contributions. Wonder why we don't have tort reform? Wonder why there are huge class action lawsuits, where the plaintiffs typically win a right to purchase a product from the defendant at a discount, or some other trinket, while the lawyers take home hundreds of millions? Thank the Democrats. Oh, the other organization that owns the democrat party (and forms a significant part of its organization and votes at the convention) is the teachers' union - that organization that has turned our educational system inot the mess that it is, even though we spend more per pupil than most far more successful countries. And, of course, large corporations frequently contribute to democrats. For example, a good way that a big company can keep little companies from rising to challenge it is to have lots of government regulation in the industry. Only the big guys can afford to deal with it, and since they all face the same issue, they still can compete with each other. So, they tend to contribute to pro-regulation democrats!
I doubt if many Perotistas were closer to Clinton than Bush-I in their views! I was working with Perot Systems at the time and knew Perot and his closest friends. His friends were basically conservative Republicans! Perot was tilting at windmills (I personally think his motivation was getting even with Bush-I for a case where Bush, as head of CIA, refused a spurious Perot adventure in a proposed POW/MIA rescue).
Ralph Nader brought us Bush-II. How many Greenies prefer Bush to a potential Gore? Personally, I thank Ralph Nader for what he did, because *I* think Bush is vastly better than Gore would have been.
Finally, I urge everyone to vote for the Green Party in every election. Please, slashdotters - VOTE GREEN! Please!
Actually, the two party system has worked pretty well IMHO. It forces political compromise across the spectrum. It means, of course, that there is no party that any one person completely agrees with, but I don't think that is a negative. Having two parties provides a well understood framework for political action. It also prevents the sort of absurd coalitions that occur in multiparty democracies. For example, in Israel one has extreme ideological enemies forming coalition governments. The result is a government which is very ineffective - even in the face of an extreme threat - a threat to its very existence. Our two-party system tends to prevent that sort of absurd deadlock.
To me, the biggest problem with our political process is the media. Our media do a much worse job of informing our public than the UK media, simply because they lack ideological diversity. We tend to have a *one party* media - the large newspapers and all of the TV networks (except Fox - thank you Australia!) are significantly biased towards a particular world view"progressive"; anti-business except for farming and, of course, media; pro-abortion; anti-religion; emotional instead of rational - but of course emotional programming sells; pro-censorship of all but their ideas - also known as political correctness; pro-discrimination on the basis of race; pro-democrat.
I don't have a problem with some of the media having those views. I have a big problem with entire forms of media having the same opinion, and I especially dislike their strong assertions that they are, by their training, objective and reporting news, not opinion. This homogenous media is what led, in the US, to the strange phenomenon of conservative talk radio - for a long time the only place that people with different viewpoints could hear anything they agreed with, and the only place that they could hear certain information at all!
This, combined with the dumbing down of news, is why campaign financing is such an issue. Without a reasonable media, people are either uninformed or misinformed about the political process.
Of course, our educational system has been taken over by idiots for the most part, and those idiots are also generally of the same viewpoint as the media.
Thus we are left without an informed citizenry, which the founders of our country recognized as critical for a democracy.
Written like a true communist.
The US was afraid of communist totalitarianism, whether it was imposed by the Soviets or anyone else. And history has proven that communist totalitarianism was indeed something to be very afraid of. Read "The Black Book of Communist" - written by a bunch of current and former *leftist* French intellectuals if you want to see how *every* communist government ever created was evil. Yes - evil. Not just because of their denial of economic rights, but because of their denial of *all rights.*
The western elite cared plenty about methods. And, the methods of the western "elite" in general did not use methods as evil as the Soviets. Certainly the western "elite" didn't use evil methods against their own people!
And the paranoid fantasy that our leaders are *nothing* more than a ruthless aristocracy is one that is surprisingly attractive to people. I guess it is just the nature of some people to imagine that those who have more power than themselves are naturally evil or ruthless or an aristocracy or whatever. It is indeed sad that people are so misinformed or deluded, because it provides fertile ground for those who would indeed cause trouble. Hitler used people with these sorts of fantasies, as an example.
There are ruthless people among our leaders - probably in greater percentage than among non leaders, but there are also honorable people - lots of them. Believe me, if we were lead by a "ruthless elite" you would feel that ruthlessness just by posting on this board the way you did!
Oh, and those in charge want to stay there. Duh! Could it be that achieving something that takes years of hard work might lead one to want ot continue to achieve that? I don't think it is good that our congress (as opposed to presidents) is almost immune from reelection defeat. But it is not a result of "aristocracy" and the effects of inherent ruthlessness is limited by the countervailing systems we have (the press, the courts, opposing parties, conservative talk radio, etc).
Freedom fighting means violent action for one's rights. Whether it is terrorism depends on the means, not the goals.
For example, Palestinians who attack Israeli military may be freedom fighters. Those who intentionally attack women and children may be freedom fighters, but they are using terrorism, and hence are the lowest form of scum.
Another example: the attack against the US marine barracks in Beirut, 1983?, was an act of war, not an act of terrorism. Likewise the attack against the USS Cole. However, the latter at least was probably a *war crime* - but again, not terrorism.
The attack against US Embassies, the destruction of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, the IRA bombs in England, the NLF bombs in Saigon, the NLF killings of village chieftans and their families, and Sept 11th were acts of terrorism.
Terrorists are scum, regardless of their cause.
You do not have to show any ID to an oficer. Your drivers' license is not national ID, but proof that you are certified to operate a motor vehicle, and you are only required to show it while operating one. You never have to show an officer your optional, non-driving state ID.
So, what makes you think you would have to show a national ID to an officer any more than a state one?
BTW, what database is a nationally comprehensive compilation of driver's licenses?
National Criminal Information System - NCIC. If you are ever stopped while driving and give you "state" ID, the officer can, and will, run what in most states is called a "10-27" which is a drivers license check. That will go against NCIC if it is an out of state license.
A national ID in itself isn't a problem, just like technology isn't a problem. But the existence of a uniform national ID is an enabler to abuse, and it is worth fighting because it has no value
If it had no value, I would agree that the government shouldn't issue it. But it does have value, done right. Oh, and because of the current existence of NCIC, it doesn't make you *any easier to track* than a state drivers licence.
The key to avoiding totalitarianism is to value individuality over national conformity, freedom over jingoism, and privacy over bureocracy.
I strongly disagree. The key to avoiding totalitarianism is citizen participation in an open government. Whether those citizens are individualists or not is immaterial.
If the nation is right, then national conformity is okay (not that it would ever happen). "Individualism" is a modern cult that started with the humanistic psychology revolution of the 20th century. Many posters on Slashdot seem to think it is individualism is a sacrament, but it is not. Freedom is the real political sacrament, and that includes the freedom to conform.
I suspect you confuse patriotism iwth jingoism, btw. And there is nothing wrong with patriotism - as long as the patriotic citizen is willing to disagree with political leaders and work, within the law, against those who they disagree with. It is true that dictators use real or imagined threats in order to consolidate their power, but that does not mean that every additional security measure is totalitarian. Nor does it mean that every threat is imagined.
And privacy, like any right (BTW, privacy is one right NOT specified in the constitution, except as imagined in "pneumbras"), is not absolute.
With regard to all rights, a nation must first be able to defend itself against external enemies, or it cannot defend your rights. And even those strongest libertarian would agree that protecting you against depradations of others is the first reason to have a government at all.
You are so worried about privacy, and yet I was once subject to the draft. Don't you think having yourself drafted into the military is a bit more severe than being spied upon? And I agreed with the draft, because I felt it was then (and might again be at some point) necessary to defend the rights of all of us. And, btw, I voluntarily joined the military and served my time - with no privacy or freedom of individuality or anything else, and considerable danger. So people whining about tiny losses of freedom in the name of national security seem pretty trivial to me! It is important to be vigilant but not to waste your time on the small stuff.
If I wanted to be a dictator I would do all sorts of minor stuff to get the privacy fanatics, etc, all discredited (and exposed). But more importantly, I would work to remove the people's respect for each other and their respect for democracy (which is *not* the same as freedom, btw).
The FBI has tracked innocent people without just cause in the past. There is no way to know if their purposes were "nefarious".
Yes, and Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. And innocent people have been executed. Guess what! Life isn't perfect. But National ID's are not the problem, nor do they make it significantly easier for the FBI to track you, but they make make it easier for them to track Mohammed Atta!
If you were offered dictatorship of the United States of America, would you refuse?
Yes. Dictatorship is wrong.
I'd rather you didn't have the opportunity, I don't want to find out.
And duh... I suppose you think I want anyone to have the opportunity.
Likewise, I'd rather not promote a national ID and any abuses it might engender. To prevent totalitarianism, preserve preedom; know your rights, and assert them fervently.
Just out of curiosity, do you seriously oppose environmental takings of private land? How about federal controls on public schools? How about gun control? How about laws preventing doctors from informing parents about the abortions of their thirteen year old children? How about laws which force children and governments to discriminate in favor of specific races? How about speech codes at federal schools that make it illegal for you to use derogatory or racist language?
Are you really for freedom?
Do you support the protection of the american people from terrorists? Which is more likely to lead to totalitarianism: open security measures such as national ID cards, or the reaction of the public after some bad guys get in and kill, through WMD, a few million americans?
What *is* the purpose of a government in your mind? In mine, the primary reason to give the authority to use lethal force to a common organization is so that they can protect me from others! Why else should I let them have atomic bombs, tanks, FBI, etc? And if I am to give them that force, why should I hobble them at the same time?
Well, the Russians (or the Soviets anyway) certainly WERE evil, so I think you were getting information, not propaganda.
And that was an absurd comment. To compare the US to the USSR is like comparing a goldfish to a shark! There are major qualitative and quantitative differences.
And the what brainwashing are you talking about with "duck and cover?"
The only brainwashing I have seen about that is from people who have convinced you and others that the whole idea was silly.
The american public WAS brainwashed. We were brainwashed by a media with an agenda - and the brainwashing was that nuclear was was not survivable, so duck and cover is silly. This tied in to the agenda of nuclear weapons ban movements, and the purpose for the disinformation was to exagerrate the (admittedly terrible) effects of nuclear war.
Duck and cover made sense. It would have saved many lives and prevent even more injuries in the vent of a nuclear war against US cities - especially with the quantity of weapons that would have been used in the '50s and '60s.
I lived through the cuban missile crises. My father had been a nuclear weapons designer, and we lived in the city that had (and still has, apparently) the largest stored number of nuclear weapons in the united states - Albuquerque, New Mexico (check out the mountain with the bunkers and the fences just as you leave town to the east on I-40). And my father one day showed the family *how* and *where* to duck and cover to maximize our chances of surviving the weapons he was an expert on. For some info on how deadly and not deadly the are, check out my site.
Likewise, civil defense and fallout shelters made sense also, but they were also killed by the ban-the-nukes people. OF course, nukes haven't been banned, but rather have proliferated. Oh well...
The problem is... having a national ID does not lead to the other effects that you mentioned!
What happens when you have to show it everyplace? What happened was that *something else* changed, not the existence of a national ID, but a more significant survillance.
In other words, you take what *may* be a perfectly reasonable measure for *personal security* (it might greatly reduce identity theft) and conflate it with police state behavior and then use that to condemn the technological measure.
Besides, we already have a national ID card in the US. It is called your drivers' license. Oops... it isn't national. BUT... that problem IMHO hurts the citizenry more than having a national one! It allows all sorts of fraud, because of its lack of standardization. And... it doesn't protect you one bit unless you are a criminal... because all of those drivers licenses are in the same database (or accessible through the same switch) just like a national ID owuld be.
Let's not get too knee-jerk about security measures. Some are important. Furthermore, we are in a new age - where a single individual, through technology, may be more dangerous than an entire military fleet or division was in the past. In a world like we now live in, we may need different security measures than we have had in the past.
The key to avoiding totalitarianism is not simply attacking every change in policing and security techniques. It is in fighting those which have no value, and more importantly, it is in fighting those who would actually engage in totalitarian practices.
The ID isn't the problem. Someone who would track innocent people for nefarious purposes is the problem. Prevent the latter, not the former. P
What you are proposing is not terrorism. It is somehwere between civil disobedience and conspiracy to commit badness.
Terrorism involves attacking *people* and scaring large numbers of them. Don't water down a perfectly useful word.
Furthermore, IMHO terrorism is *never* justified. Civil disobedience sometimes is. What you are recommended, IMHO, is not - but that's just my opinion and that of the law.
Sigh. The predictible Bush bashing comes along, regardless of whether it is right or not.
Guess what! The Democrats entire campaign was also built on huge contributions. Furthermore, they Democrats are the partly closest to Hollywood and the entertainment industry. The biggest pusher of digital rights management (read: restrictuions on what you can do with media) are Democrat congressmen.
But wait... the truth...
That wouldn't stop you from a baseless troll against Bush!
Corporations do what corporations will do.
The real problem here is that congress passes bills extending ownership "rights." A copyright is *not* a natural right. It is granted as a result of the authority given in the US Constituiton. However, that grant also includes a phrase about public interest.
If you elect politicians who vote for judges who actually read the constitution (i.e. "original intent"), you might get judges who would find many of these copyright abuses to be unconstitutional - not supported by the copyrights and patens clause in the US Constitution.
But guess what? THOSE politicians are republican conservatives. Oops...
Oh well, that won't stop the Bush bashing...
Too many people have been brainwashed into believing that Republicans are the tools of corporations, while Democrats are somehow the saviors of the people. Wake up! Corporations give to whoever they think will support their business. And Hollywood gives to DEMOCRATS.