I agree. I don't have any faith whatsoever in politicians, in businessmen/corporations, capitalism, the justice system, or - in particular - the media. It seems the sentiment of the day is a combination of "the end justifies the means" and "everyone for themselves". North American culture (I live in Canada but we are much the same as the US) has become a celebration of ignorance, shallow interests, self-interest, denial of scientific fact, rabid support of political positions with little or no thought about what they mean, and a major drive to eliminate person privacy from our world. Corporations seemingly give politicians their marching orders and they go enact legislation that benefits the corporations at the expense of the people for whom the government supposedly exists. Companies who fail miserably are bailed out - and pay their CEOs massive severance packages using our money, then ship the majority of their jobs overseas by way of thanks. No one cares about the common man, its all a scrabble to get to the top walking on the bodies of those who get in the way. We fight wars based on lies for the benefit of corporations who supply the wars. I think we have lost any moral compass - and modern religion is not going to provide that moral compass because it is seen as corrupt, power-seeking and backward in its attitudes. I think the world is far too cynical, but then I am trapped in that attitude as well. I can't honestly think of a single politician in office today whom I believe is honest and working for the benefit of their constituents.
Again, its hardly a drop in the bucket. The US Government has a long history of invading other countries for the specific benefit of US Corporations. I would not be surprised to find out that most wars the US has been involved in were to benefit US companies in fact (there were exceptions yes I know. The US eventually got involved in WWI and WWII even if they were late to the table. Vietnam was political, the Korean war was similarly political (fighting communism) etc). Given the amount of money that simply disappeared (millions upon millions, on pallets of wrapped US dollars that just vanished) during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts plus the amount payed out exorbitantly to companies providing support to the US troops, I would argue those two wars were in large part for the benefit of US Oil and other companies (Blackwater and other contractors). This is no disparagement of US military forces - this is a disparagement of the governments that sent them to wherever for the benefit of private business interests.
I am perfectly willing to stop buying music and movies for a 2 year period if everyone else is willing (actually I never buy any music - I don't listen to it - and I *seldom* buy a movie because so few of them are worth watching more than once. Those that are IMHO, I buy). I can see nothing negative about the MPAA and RIAA going bankrupt. People will still want music and movies, they will just cut out the leeches^H^H^H middlemen that serve no real purpose
It would really be nice to think that the majority of/.ers are mature enough to just accept that other OSes exist and that some people prefer them. However, apparently most of us are children when it comes to OS preference and have to take an antagonistic and condescending approach to dealing with anyone who differs from our preference. Sad. My first computer was an Amiga 500. Then I bought an IBM PC clone. I have used MS products for years (DOS 4 -> Windows XP). I didn't particularly like them as they were rather flaky for much of that time, but they got the job done, and my employers used them so I needed to be familiar with them as well. Eventually I bought an iMac and tried OS/X and I like it. I still use Windows XP when I want to play games, but do the majority of my actual computer using on the Mac side of bootcamp. I have used Linux on the desktop and on the server for the past few decades, plus BSD etc. I have an Android smart phone ATM. I try to use the right tool for the job at any point. I *like* OS/X because it works for me quite well and it seems fairly reliable. Other than that I seldom think about the OS. Its a nice form of Unix and it works well, that is about it. OS Wars are so childish, unless you are actively developing an OS yourself and can hold discussions based on merit and not personal opinion/bias...
This in a body of literature that likes to refer to people allegorically as "sheep" of course. I interpret that to mean that he drove the moneylenders and their customers from the temple, not literally that he drove livestock from the temple. To get the true sense of the words you would need to read the original language mind you. Translations ain't in it. As for the whole Christian promotion of ignorance with regards to Abortion/Global Warming etc, sadly the best hope for mankind's future is the death of all the fanatical, fundamentalist religious people out there. Fundamentalist Religion may offer the hope of peace, tranquility, understanding and love to its adherents, but once it gets any sort of hierarchy it is merely a tool for hatred, bigotry, violence and death. I think the fear of the later outweighs the benefit of the former to society. Monotheism is evil itself.
So yes, we have gone more or less as far as we are going to go. It will likely be up to the Chinese, Japanese or Indians to carry on IMHO. Any politician who supports something perceived as expensive, like space exploration won't get elected. Keep in mind most people think money spent on space is somehow being thrown away into space itself and thus lost. Corporations are not going to go there until they can turn a profit doing so, and I doubt we have the tech to make it profitable yet, so without government shouldering the load to develop the required tech, it ain't gonna happen any time soon.
Not an economist here. However, if I am not mistaken, what makes an economy effective, is the exchange of money between its members.
What most businesses, economists and governments seem focused on is growth. If that means more people exchanging money, no problem. But if it refers to expansion of the economy by means of producing increasing amounts of raw materials then surely that is not sustainable in the long term? For instance, there is only a fixed available amount of timber we can harvest before we are denuding the Earth of its forests (the current method it seems). Surely its better to try to build a sustainable economic model so that our resources last us as long as possible no?
The other fallacy I think we see banded about is that if we give the ultra-rich corporations breaks on taxes, or support them via government bailouts, that they will then take that money and use it to create jobs. It seems to me that a lot of businesses accept the bailout gratefully, then put most of it in the bank to hedge their bets on future success. I would like to see some proof of this "trickle-down" concept, because what I see is various businesses being propped up by various governments and then either walking away with the money, or using it to create jobs - overseas, where they can maximize the benefits to them by utilizing cheap labor.
It seems to me that most jobs are being created by the small companies that open up and close regularly all around us. It might only be a job here or there but I bet the net aggregate of all those jobs is far greater than that represented by the occasional mass expansion of a major corporation here or there. Unfortunately all I seem to see of late is small businesses going out of business with nothing to replace them.
Canadian Rising is the cause. Its a linguistic distinction in much of English Canada (and some parts of the northern US) which alters the pronunciation of a few vowels combinations, essentially shortening the time it takes to make them. Most US English speakers do not make the distinction, and thus hear the sound differently, mistaking/au/ for/u/. Its laughable to Canadians who can hear the distinction because the Americans seem clueless for not being able to hear it, but its just a matter of dialect. Most Canadians hear a lot of US pronunciation and it seems distorted in a different manner: "out"/owt/ to a Canadian takes a fraction of a second, but some US English speakers would pronounce it (to a Canadian) as sounding more like/owwwwwwwwt/ taking 2 seconds or more. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_rising
Add in "Big Business" to that mix and I would agree that only the "approved" candidates will be allowed to get to the point where they can be voted into office. I don't believe in a deliberate cooperation between the various camps, just that only those candidates that pass the approval of everyone who has the power to bring them down will manage to get sufficient support. Once in office the same thing applies. Democracy died a long time ago sadly.
As resources get more and more scarce, you can expect the amount of warfare conducted to control them to go UP not down. Most wars are the result of economic pressure after all. I personally predict that the US and China will go to war over Taiwan and the South China sea resources sometime in the next 10 years or so. China is preparing to flex its muscles I think, and while right now its not all that well equipped it will improve drastically in the next decade.
And that right there is why we won't solve the problems we face before any collapse happens. The people making the decisions won't be here in 2030, but they can continue to hold power for many years longer, so they will continue to act and think short term only.
Antennas do you no good up here in Canada. AFAIK they have ceased to broadcast TV signals altogether up here. Its cable or nothing. At any rate, I know of NO ONE who has an antenna these days - although to be fair most of the people I know don't watch TV at all apart from sports in some cases. You can however watch a lot of Canadian TV on the web these days, including sports.
I lied about the $50. Its actually $62 (Cdn, I am with Shaw Cable). Wifi modem: $3.95/mo Shaw Extreme: $62.00/mo (I want the bandwidth cap since I download stuff, play MMOs etc) Wifi Modem Promotional Discount: $3.95 Total: $62.00/month Plus of course: $7.44 Harmonized Sales Tax
So $69.44/mo just to get a fast internet connection with a (I think) 250 Gb/mo bandwidth cap.
You see, up here in Canada our government organ for telecommunications is the CRTC (and organ is such an appropriate word for them). They have let the various ISPs become more or less monopolies in different areas of the country. So my options here in Victoria are either Shaw Cable or Telus (telephone co). Both charge essentially the same rates for about the same service, except Shaw understands the internet management part a bit better (their cable Telephone service is subpar, for that you want Telus). Rogers and Bell also offer internet services but Rogers only operates in areas that Shaw doesn't (they reached an agreement not to compete), and Bell is only for Ontario and the far east from what I understand - but owns almost all the infrastructure AFAIK. There is NO real competition, and thus no lower priced offerings I have ever seen. About the best you can do is sign up with one while they offer you a cheap 6mo deal, then when that expires, switch to the other for their cheap 6mo deal for customers who switch.
Let's see: * Cable TV with the few channels that air shows I want to watch: ~$100/mo. * Cable TV with only basic channels + Internet ~$75/mo. * Internet only: ~$50/mo.
Netflix: $8/mo.
Between stuff available online, stuff downloadable as a torrent and netflix, WHY would I want to watch something that is: * Only available according to the broadcaster's schedule * Chopped up to make room for 15mins of advertising at a minimum * Where the ads are broadcast louder than the shows * The shows worth watching are all scattered on specialty stations each of which costs me extra $$$ to watch, or broadcast in another country but not here and simply not available.
Cable TV and the 5000 channels of shit have priced themselves out of the market, the huge number of (mostly pointless) channels have spread the advertising potential so thin that none of them can make anything that isn't a cheap reality tv show etc.
TV is dead IMHO. The only problem is that the shows I like to watch still cost money to produce, and they need revenue from somewhere. Hopefully the deals with Netflix and other services are sufficient to provide that money. Hopefully this also kills off the shitty programming that isn't worth the time and money it took to make it. Let the viewers decide. I would much rather spend $8 per month than ever see another ad again in my life.
I think in the long run historians will see the Occupy movement as the last (unfortunately unsuccessful) attempt to create a grassroots movement to resist the changes being brought to our society by the amalgamation of big business and the governments they support. It was flashy, it got some newsbites when protestors got stomped on by bullying police, but nothing much was accomplished and media preferred to show the Occupy members as potentially violent troublemakers. The average person saw them not as disadvantaged in any way, but merely lazy and drug addled. After this, our personal rights and freedoms, specifically any hope of a right to privacy, will continue to be eroded until we live in the nicest police state ever devised. All those people who might eject the current conservative government (both parties are conservative these days they just differ in degree) will have been marginalized, objectified, or arrested and imprisoned (and thus unable to vote) for minor offenses - often invented of course - and we will become good consumers who buy what we are told and make the rich people into ultra-rich people. Meanwhile those who have benefited from the abusive economic system will continue to suck up to the rich in hopes of joining them, walking all the way on the backs of the poor as they climb up the hill to "heaven" (being in the 1% who can more or less do whatever the fuck they want to whomever they want). The unions will continue to be eroded, the workplace will continue to descend in quality, and the corporations will continue to either ship jobs overseas, or hire experts from overseas to come work here. The cost of education will continue to rise, the benefits of getting it will continue to cease to matter while the debt incurred will continue to ruin more lives. People will spend more time mesmerized by their smartphones than they do talking to other people around them. Above all, the population will get increasing ignorant as they listen to their political and religious leaders who tell them to ignore the science and believe only whats in the bible (whichever version). Stupidity and Ignorance (as concepts) will be the new "cool". Eventually, since no one has done anything about climate change - having trusted their corporate and elected leaders who told them it didn't matter - millions will die and civilization will collapse, or at least the economy will. Mostly they will die "over there" though so no one will give a fuck. I see little or no hope for humanity with politicians that don't give a shit about anything except retaining power, political systems that let corporate citizens have inordinate power and rights to do whatever the fuck they want, and a mass of the public content to just be consumers and not bother with that voting thing - and if they do bother to just vote for the same damn party no matter what they say.
Yeah I just got off a 12 hour shift and I am really tired and kind of pissed off at the world, why do you ask?:P
And if there is no contraband to be found up your butt - well they can just use the contraband they found up someone else's butt and say it was yours. How are you going to prove otherwise? Do they record all the strip searches? I highly doubt it - and imagine the furor when those got on the 'net if they did. I understand the desire to keep contraband out of the prisons and jails. I understand the issues of safety with regards to the personnel working there and even to the other inmates if someone gets weapons inside a prison etc. However, this seems far too broad a permission to hand out to LEOs, its absolutely guaranteed to be abused.
Sadly I am sure Canada will quickly enact the same legislation given that our PM seems to absolutely worship the Republican Party/Big Business...
Oh that's okay, they are all just figureheads for the corporations that really rule the country after all. Everything is fine, the corporations are in control of things just like your founding fathers intended them to be... oh wait.
In response to both your comment and the one above you. Canada does have written laws and a Constitution. We do have rights of Free Expression, although they differ from those in the US which are far more absolute. Our system is workable IMHO, if applied. Of course the Government and the courts may not be applying it evenly and correctly, but that is what elections and the courts are for in the end. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Canada
If you are thinking of countries that don't have their entire legal system written down, I expect you mean Great Britain - and I am no longer certain that is true.
I *loved* OS/2 for the most part. I got it when I was running a BBS and it allowed me to run the BBS in the background while doing other things in the foreground. Couldn't do that with DOS at the time - and Windows was hopeless. IBM screwed the pooch with OS/2, they could have had a great OS on their hands and been a valid choice. They failed at every opportunity though. My only problem now is that if I wanted to install OS/2 again for some stupid reason, I would have to get a computer that had a floppy drive - it came on 30 or so floppies:P
I sincerely hope this gets challenged that way. I am getting thoroughly sick of the American Empire and its Imperialist ways. Of course, Harper is charge still and the Conservatives believe in sucking up to the US, so even if it was determined this was illegal under Canadian law, nothing would ever be done.
... and now they seem to be gearing up for the War on Hacking. Why is no one talking about the War on Education? It seems to be well under way in the US, every time I check the web I see another instance of Religious Fundamentalists or Politicians doing their utmost to ensure the US population is as ignorant as possible. I think they should take away the tax exempt status for all religious institutions, so there is less money to be had by promoting it. That will eliminate a lot of the tele-evangelist types/scammers and just leave us with the true religious people. If they are busy scrabbling to pay the taxes on all those churches, maybe they won't be so able to foster ignorance in lives of others.
the Russian election to see how it was corrupted, they were likely taking notes...:(
IMHO I think we need a new Federal election in Canada, monitored by outside observers. It might not make any difference to who ends up in charge but perhaps we could have a legitimate government in power instead of our current one.
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I agree. I don't have any faith whatsoever in politicians, in businessmen/corporations, capitalism, the justice system, or - in particular - the media. It seems the sentiment of the day is a combination of "the end justifies the means" and "everyone for themselves".
North American culture (I live in Canada but we are much the same as the US) has become a celebration of ignorance, shallow interests, self-interest, denial of scientific fact, rabid support of political positions with little or no thought about what they mean, and a major drive to eliminate person privacy from our world. Corporations seemingly give politicians their marching orders and they go enact legislation that benefits the corporations at the expense of the people for whom the government supposedly exists. Companies who fail miserably are bailed out - and pay their CEOs massive severance packages using our money, then ship the majority of their jobs overseas by way of thanks. No one cares about the common man, its all a scrabble to get to the top walking on the bodies of those who get in the way. We fight wars based on lies for the benefit of corporations who supply the wars.
I think we have lost any moral compass - and modern religion is not going to provide that moral compass because it is seen as corrupt, power-seeking and backward in its attitudes. I think the world is far too cynical, but then I am trapped in that attitude as well.
I can't honestly think of a single politician in office today whom I believe is honest and working for the benefit of their constituents.
Add the invasion and occupation of the Dominican republic to ensure the dominance of US Sugar companies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dominican_Republic#United_States_occupation
Again, its hardly a drop in the bucket. The US Government has a long history of invading other countries for the specific benefit of US Corporations. I would not be surprised to find out that most wars the US has been involved in were to benefit US companies in fact (there were exceptions yes I know. The US eventually got involved in WWI and WWII even if they were late to the table. Vietnam was political, the Korean war was similarly political (fighting communism) etc). Given the amount of money that simply disappeared (millions upon millions, on pallets of wrapped US dollars that just vanished) during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts plus the amount payed out exorbitantly to companies providing support to the US troops, I would argue those two wars were in large part for the benefit of US Oil and other companies (Blackwater and other contractors).
This is no disparagement of US military forces - this is a disparagement of the governments that sent them to wherever for the benefit of private business interests.
I am perfectly willing to stop buying music and movies for a 2 year period if everyone else is willing (actually I never buy any music - I don't listen to it - and I *seldom* buy a movie because so few of them are worth watching more than once. Those that are IMHO, I buy).
I can see nothing negative about the MPAA and RIAA going bankrupt. People will still want music and movies, they will just cut out the leeches^H^H^H middlemen that serve no real purpose
It would really be nice to think that the majority of /.ers are mature enough to just accept that other OSes exist and that some people prefer them. However, apparently most of us are children when it comes to OS preference and have to take an antagonistic and condescending approach to dealing with anyone who differs from our preference. Sad.
My first computer was an Amiga 500. Then I bought an IBM PC clone. I have used MS products for years (DOS 4 -> Windows XP). I didn't particularly like them as they were rather flaky for much of that time, but they got the job done, and my employers used them so I needed to be familiar with them as well. Eventually I bought an iMac and tried OS/X and I like it. I still use Windows XP when I want to play games, but do the majority of my actual computer using on the Mac side of bootcamp. I have used Linux on the desktop and on the server for the past few decades, plus BSD etc. I have an Android smart phone ATM.
I try to use the right tool for the job at any point. I *like* OS/X because it works for me quite well and it seems fairly reliable. Other than that I seldom think about the OS. Its a nice form of Unix and it works well, that is about it.
OS Wars are so childish, unless you are actively developing an OS yourself and can hold discussions based on merit and not personal opinion/bias...
This in a body of literature that likes to refer to people allegorically as "sheep" of course. I interpret that to mean that he drove the moneylenders and their customers from the temple, not literally that he drove livestock from the temple. To get the true sense of the words you would need to read the original language mind you. Translations ain't in it.
As for the whole Christian promotion of ignorance with regards to Abortion/Global Warming etc, sadly the best hope for mankind's future is the death of all the fanatical, fundamentalist religious people out there.
Fundamentalist Religion may offer the hope of peace, tranquility, understanding and love to its adherents, but once it gets any sort of hierarchy it is merely a tool for hatred, bigotry, violence and death. I think the fear of the later outweighs the benefit of the former to society.
Monotheism is evil itself.
So yes, we have gone more or less as far as we are going to go. It will likely be up to the Chinese, Japanese or Indians to carry on IMHO. Any politician who supports something perceived as expensive, like space exploration won't get elected. Keep in mind most people think money spent on space is somehow being thrown away into space itself and thus lost.
Corporations are not going to go there until they can turn a profit doing so, and I doubt we have the tech to make it profitable yet, so without government shouldering the load to develop the required tech, it ain't gonna happen any time soon.
Not an economist here. However, if I am not mistaken, what makes an economy effective, is the exchange of money between its members.
What most businesses, economists and governments seem focused on is growth. If that means more people exchanging money, no problem. But if it refers to expansion of the economy by means of producing increasing amounts of raw materials then surely that is not sustainable in the long term? For instance, there is only a fixed available amount of timber we can harvest before we are denuding the Earth of its forests (the current method it seems). Surely its better to try to build a sustainable economic model so that our resources last us as long as possible no?
The other fallacy I think we see banded about is that if we give the ultra-rich corporations breaks on taxes, or support them via government bailouts, that they will then take that money and use it to create jobs. It seems to me that a lot of businesses accept the bailout gratefully, then put most of it in the bank to hedge their bets on future success. I would like to see some proof of this "trickle-down" concept, because what I see is various businesses being propped up by various governments and then either walking away with the money, or using it to create jobs - overseas, where they can maximize the benefits to them by utilizing cheap labor.
It seems to me that most jobs are being created by the small companies that open up and close regularly all around us. It might only be a job here or there but I bet the net aggregate of all those jobs is far greater than that represented by the occasional mass expansion of a major corporation here or there. Unfortunately all I seem to see of late is small businesses going out of business with nothing to replace them.
People tried to coin "Doubloon" for the 2 dollar coin but it never caught on.
Canadian Rising is the cause. Its a linguistic distinction in much of English Canada (and some parts of the northern US) which alters the pronunciation of a few vowels combinations, essentially shortening the time it takes to make them. Most US English speakers do not make the distinction, and thus hear the sound differently, mistaking /au/ for /u/. /owt/ to a Canadian takes a fraction of a second, but some US English speakers would pronounce it (to a Canadian) as sounding more like /owwwwwwwwt/ taking 2 seconds or more.
Its laughable to Canadians who can hear the distinction because the Americans seem clueless for not being able to hear it, but its just a matter of dialect. Most Canadians hear a lot of US pronunciation and it seems distorted in a different manner: "out"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_rising
Add in "Big Business" to that mix and I would agree that only the "approved" candidates will be allowed to get to the point where they can be voted into office. I don't believe in a deliberate cooperation between the various camps, just that only those candidates that pass the approval of everyone who has the power to bring them down will manage to get sufficient support. Once in office the same thing applies.
Democracy died a long time ago sadly.
As resources get more and more scarce, you can expect the amount of warfare conducted to control them to go UP not down. Most wars are the result of economic pressure after all.
I personally predict that the US and China will go to war over Taiwan and the South China sea resources sometime in the next 10 years or so. China is preparing to flex its muscles I think, and while right now its not all that well equipped it will improve drastically in the next decade.
And that right there is why we won't solve the problems we face before any collapse happens. The people making the decisions won't be here in 2030, but they can continue to hold power for many years longer, so they will continue to act and think short term only.
Antennas do you no good up here in Canada. AFAIK they have ceased to broadcast TV signals altogether up here. Its cable or nothing. At any rate, I know of NO ONE who has an antenna these days - although to be fair most of the people I know don't watch TV at all apart from sports in some cases. You can however watch a lot of Canadian TV on the web these days, including sports.
I lied about the $50. Its actually $62 (Cdn, I am with Shaw Cable).
Wifi modem: $3.95/mo
Shaw Extreme: $62.00/mo (I want the bandwidth cap since I download stuff, play MMOs etc)
Wifi Modem Promotional Discount: $3.95
Total: $62.00/month
Plus of course: $7.44 Harmonized Sales Tax
So $69.44/mo just to get a fast internet connection with a (I think) 250 Gb/mo bandwidth cap.
You see, up here in Canada our government organ for telecommunications is the CRTC (and organ is such an appropriate word for them). They have let the various ISPs become more or less monopolies in different areas of the country. So my options here in Victoria are either Shaw Cable or Telus (telephone co). Both charge essentially the same rates for about the same service, except Shaw understands the internet management part a bit better (their cable Telephone service is subpar, for that you want Telus). Rogers and Bell also offer internet services but Rogers only operates in areas that Shaw doesn't (they reached an agreement not to compete), and Bell is only for Ontario and the far east from what I understand - but owns almost all the infrastructure AFAIK.
There is NO real competition, and thus no lower priced offerings I have ever seen. About the best you can do is sign up with one while they offer you a cheap 6mo deal, then when that expires, switch to the other for their cheap 6mo deal for customers who switch.
Let's see:
* Cable TV with the few channels that air shows I want to watch: ~$100/mo.
* Cable TV with only basic channels + Internet ~$75/mo.
* Internet only: ~$50/mo.
Netflix: $8/mo.
Between stuff available online, stuff downloadable as a torrent and netflix, WHY would I want to watch something that is:
* Only available according to the broadcaster's schedule
* Chopped up to make room for 15mins of advertising at a minimum
* Where the ads are broadcast louder than the shows
* The shows worth watching are all scattered on specialty stations each of which costs me extra $$$ to watch, or broadcast in another country but not here and simply not available.
Cable TV and the 5000 channels of shit have priced themselves out of the market, the huge number of (mostly pointless) channels have spread the advertising potential so thin that none of them can make anything that isn't a cheap reality tv show etc.
TV is dead IMHO. The only problem is that the shows I like to watch still cost money to produce, and they need revenue from somewhere. Hopefully the deals with Netflix and other services are sufficient to provide that money. Hopefully this also kills off the shitty programming that isn't worth the time and money it took to make it. Let the viewers decide. I would much rather spend $8 per month than ever see another ad again in my life.
I think in the long run historians will see the Occupy movement as the last (unfortunately unsuccessful) attempt to create a grassroots movement to resist the changes being brought to our society by the amalgamation of big business and the governments they support. It was flashy, it got some newsbites when protestors got stomped on by bullying police, but nothing much was accomplished and media preferred to show the Occupy members as potentially violent troublemakers. The average person saw them not as disadvantaged in any way, but merely lazy and drug addled.
After this, our personal rights and freedoms, specifically any hope of a right to privacy, will continue to be eroded until we live in the nicest police state ever devised. All those people who might eject the current conservative government (both parties are conservative these days they just differ in degree) will have been marginalized, objectified, or arrested and imprisoned (and thus unable to vote) for minor offenses - often invented of course - and we will become good consumers who buy what we are told and make the rich people into ultra-rich people. Meanwhile those who have benefited from the abusive economic system will continue to suck up to the rich in hopes of joining them, walking all the way on the backs of the poor as they climb up the hill to "heaven" (being in the 1% who can more or less do whatever the fuck they want to whomever they want). The unions will continue to be eroded, the workplace will continue to descend in quality, and the corporations will continue to either ship jobs overseas, or hire experts from overseas to come work here. The cost of education will continue to rise, the benefits of getting it will continue to cease to matter while the debt incurred will continue to ruin more lives. People will spend more time mesmerized by their smartphones than they do talking to other people around them.
Above all, the population will get increasing ignorant as they listen to their political and religious leaders who tell them to ignore the science and believe only whats in the bible (whichever version). Stupidity and Ignorance (as concepts) will be the new "cool".
Eventually, since no one has done anything about climate change - having trusted their corporate and elected leaders who told them it didn't matter - millions will die and civilization will collapse, or at least the economy will. Mostly they will die "over there" though so no one will give a fuck.
I see little or no hope for humanity with politicians that don't give a shit about anything except retaining power, political systems that let corporate citizens have inordinate power and rights to do whatever the fuck they want, and a mass of the public content to just be consumers and not bother with that voting thing - and if they do bother to just vote for the same damn party no matter what they say.
Yeah I just got off a 12 hour shift and I am really tired and kind of pissed off at the world, why do you ask? :P
And if there is no contraband to be found up your butt - well they can just use the contraband they found up someone else's butt and say it was yours. How are you going to prove otherwise? Do they record all the strip searches? I highly doubt it - and imagine the furor when those got on the 'net if they did.
I understand the desire to keep contraband out of the prisons and jails. I understand the issues of safety with regards to the personnel working there and even to the other inmates if someone gets weapons inside a prison etc. However, this seems far too broad a permission to hand out to LEOs, its absolutely guaranteed to be abused.
Sadly I am sure Canada will quickly enact the same legislation given that our PM seems to absolutely worship the Republican Party/Big Business...
Oh that's okay, they are all just figureheads for the corporations that really rule the country after all. Everything is fine, the corporations are in control of things just like your founding fathers intended them to be... oh wait.
In response to both your comment and the one above you. Canada does have written laws and a Constitution. We do have rights of Free Expression, although they differ from those in the US which are far more absolute. Our system is workable IMHO, if applied.
Of course the Government and the courts may not be applying it evenly and correctly, but that is what elections and the courts are for in the end.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Canada
If you are thinking of countries that don't have their entire legal system written down, I expect you mean Great Britain - and I am no longer certain that is true.
I *loved* OS/2 for the most part. I got it when I was running a BBS and it allowed me to run the BBS in the background while doing other things in the foreground. Couldn't do that with DOS at the time - and Windows was hopeless. :P
IBM screwed the pooch with OS/2, they could have had a great OS on their hands and been a valid choice. They failed at every opportunity though.
My only problem now is that if I wanted to install OS/2 again for some stupid reason, I would have to get a computer that had a floppy drive - it came on 30 or so floppies
I sincerely hope this gets challenged that way. I am getting thoroughly sick of the American Empire and its Imperialist ways.
Of course, Harper is charge still and the Conservatives believe in sucking up to the US, so even if it was determined this was illegal under Canadian law, nothing would ever be done.
Woman (to Churchill): "Sir, you are drunk!"
Churchill: "Madam, you are ugly! And tomorrow morning, I shall be sober!"
... and now they seem to be gearing up for the War on Hacking. Why is no one talking about the War on Education? It seems to be well under way in the US, every time I check the web I see another instance of Religious Fundamentalists or Politicians doing their utmost to ensure the US population is as ignorant as possible.
I think they should take away the tax exempt status for all religious institutions, so there is less money to be had by promoting it. That will eliminate a lot of the tele-evangelist types/scammers and just leave us with the true religious people. If they are busy scrabbling to pay the taxes on all those churches, maybe they won't be so able to foster ignorance in lives of others.
the Russian election to see how it was corrupted, they were likely taking notes... :(
IMHO I think we need a new Federal election in Canada, monitored by outside observers. It might not make any difference to who ends up in charge but perhaps we could have a legitimate government in power instead of our current one.
Your on the internet - there's probably a whole series of websites devoted to that very subject. Check 4Chan or Reddit :P