I see. So the fact that the Federal "assistance" systems are failing doesn't matter?
That's a vast over simplification and may not even be true taken in the naive way you mean it. For example, the standard of living of the poor in the USA is significantly higher than the standard of living of the poor in any country without such programs.
When "poor" is defined by a sliding scale there will always be poor and therefore such programs will always be "failures." But of all of the countries that work the way you appear to be proposing, i.e. minimal government assistance, none of them have a smaller gap in the relative standard of living between middle-class and lower-class than the US. never mind absolutes like housing, indoor plumbing, electricity, etc.
So when you say "a system that works, even if it doesn't work great" it sure sounds like you are talking about the current system here in the US.
Like someone else mentioned, the Fox that airs Family Guy, The Simpsons and formerly Married with Children is not the same as FoxNews that airs Bill O'reilly, Sean Hannity and formerly Glenn Beck.
There is some leakage between the channels. For example, remember when Paris Hilton was trying to "break in" to the big leagues of celebritism? She had that show, "The Simple Life" and it aired on the Fox Network. One day before the premiere episode, O'Reilly, in his "no spin zone" 'broke the news' of her sex tape.
So, when it comes down to making mo money, the two channels don't have quite so much editorial independence.
Anything which reduces spending or even just slows the growth of government, with the possible exception of defense, annoys those on the left because it weakens the bonds of the average person's dependency on the state and by extension their (i.e. the politicos) power over them.
Pithy, but not particularly insightful.
I find that I agree with many of the principles espoused by the republicans, even some of the extremists. Unfortunately, whenever it comes down to the nitty-gritty, it's pretty much universal that they are all for volunteering those least capable of coping with such changes to go first, usually all out of proportion to effecting any real systemic change anyway.
Let's cut government spending... and start with planned parenthood and after school programs. Let's get government out of our private lives... and start by denying marriage contracts to gays.
It seems like, more often than not republican plans just happen to affect the weakest and most vulnerable. It's kind of like that saying by Anatole France, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
I'm not saying the risks don't exist, but given that hundreds of millions of people do provide all that information to social networking sites without having their identities stolen should give you one clue.
The reason the vast majority of people don't have particularly obvious problems is because they aren't interesting.
The thing about being interesting is that you never know when it might happen to you. Once you become a person of interest is so much easier to be screwed over because all the information has been out there for so long that you can never bottle it back up.
What's particularly bad is that some people who become persons of interest are vitally important to maintaining a healthy society. The anonymous whistle-blower who gets their identity reverse-engineered in the same way that the "anonymized" netflix data was deanonymized when combined with IMDB data. Or the up-start politician seeking to overturn the status-quo who's budding career is killed by exposure of stupid facebook photos of his college years. When those sorts of people get thoroughly screwed we all get screwed.
You curse, you can be kicked off and you can't get back on because you have to use your real name.
And, as I thought was obvious from my response, cursing is not a serious risk to children.
As for the stranger, if people have to use the real name then the stranger leaves a record, enabling them to EASILY be caught.
Sorry, you really haven't thought this through. That "real name" thing isn't an impediment to Danger Stranger, but it is the key that lets him open up all the other databases that help him do his dirty deeds.
Danger Stranger sees the kid's actions online - like photos and talking about school and such. Danger Stranger then consults other databases using the kid's real last name to figure out where the kid lives (property records are public and almost all are online now) and parent's names (on the deed for their house). Danger Stranger waits on route between nearest school and kid's house, intercepts kid, social engineers kid into car using information from kid's own public facebook profile and other public databases and a day later kid is dead
All that without leaving much of record to get himself caught and that's assuming he has not figured out a way to spoof the real-name thing in the first place- after all, none of the verification methods are a problem for anyone willing to put in a little bit of work forging an ID.
Frankly, if you want to make a forum safe for kids, then yes, real names would be appropriate
Huh? I say it is the very reverse of that. Unless you think having your kid read a bunch of swear words that they probably hear at school everyday is a greater risk than some malicious stranger figuring out how to make contact with your kid in real life.
Having my real name on fb/g+ only means one thing: people who don't know me can see my profile picture. Thats all.
Or anyone that runs a facebook add-on/game/etc that any of your "friends" have signed up for. Or anyone with a friend working at facebook. Or anyone working for a government agency that facebook has given privileged access. I'm sure there are more people than just those groups, that's just all I could up with in 30 seconds.
Google is not obligated to join you on whatever your crusade is, no matter how worthy.
But we do have every right to publicly criticise them in order to influence their actions.
Billion dollar corps like Google and Facebook speak with voices that are a million times louder than ours, so for you to even suggest that we don't have the right to call them out for socially destructive policies is like blaming the ant for protesting that the 800lb gorilla is sitting on him.
I thought the rebuttal was obvious enough that it didn't need stating - same terms, same situation, same response. The thing is, "macs4all" has a history of hundreds of posts of apple apologia to the point of irony in that in his opinion if Apple does something, its always good and righteous even while he condemns another manufacturer for doing practically the same thing.
You don't get to work at the NSA (or any infosec govt. job) with access to classified information and power without a very thorough full-scope background check including polygraph. You're quite mistaken if you think otherwise.
However, it is a truism that every single traitor in those agencies was cleared, some very extensively.
Meanwhile "secret" clearance is really nothing more than a credit and criminal records check, no poly required. "Top Secret" is the level at which they go around and talk to your neighbors and friends from college and that usually has only a basic poly. Plenty of SCI/SAP projects only need "secret" level clearance too.
Makes total sense to me, many of my neighbors have $10-30k backup generators installed that have never been used as of yet. Granted the backup generators are natural gas and will run indefinitely,
I'm putting a grid-tie solar panel system on my house and am over-speccing it so as to use the excess to partially charge an electric car. A system like this would be great for me because with the solar power it would be able to run indefinitely as well, but without the duplication of dedicating batteries to the solar system.
If you think that "an official acknowledgement of a God" is an "establishment" of a state religion,
Except that I don't and never said I did.. I think you returned to that strawman because you had no response for what I actually wrote about the meaning of "respect."
You admit that the court rulings don't favor your position and continue to claim that you are right. How novel.
I know, right?! Who would have ever thought that the courts get things wrong sometimes!?
What I meant to say is that "In God We Trust" reflects popular sentiment.
I still disagree. I think it reflects popular apathy. Most people don't give a damn because they've got more pressing issues to worry about, nothing more, nothing less. Back in ~1950 when they made it official it was because they cared a whole lot more.
Need I remind you the average IQ is 100? not everybody realizes nor accepts the points you just made.
My favourite quote from George Washington:
"Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." - Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
In other words, religion is useful for keeping the idiots in line.
On the other hand, Kotiya is correct in pointing out that the less religious countries tend to be more cultured, educated, constructive, and happy over all. So maybe Washington was wrong.
They don't define their identity through not collecting stamps.
Nor do atheists define their identity through not believing a god. Just because some atheists actively disbelieve doesn't make that a requirement of atheism.
On what basis do you claim either your creator or your existence endows you with rights? The only entity that has ever actually lifted a finger to back any of them is We the People.
I think you just answered your own question there. "We the people" define those rights, because that's all there is.
I've found that when people resort to "it's obvious" or "clearly", they are arguing a losing side. Nobody wakes up one morning, notices the motto on the dollar bill, and runs to church
I've found that when people resort to specious arguments they are arguing the losing side. If the bar for showing religious endorsement is set that high then thousands of rulings about state establishments of religion should be over-turned.
Why, obviously, they decided in those thirteen years that the Church of England was a Bad Thing and decided that such an abomination cannot be allowed to continue.
Again with the specious arguments. Expecting people to religiously follow a law that wasn't to be written yet for over a decade is ridiculous.
simply claiming "separation of church and state"
Yeah, good thing then that I haven't made a single argument here based on that phrase.
You might notice that at no time in history has the former interpretation been valid, even the day after the amendment was adopted by the very people who wrote it.
Well, except for the fact they explicitly left out any mention of God in the constitution itself.
I'll take it even further and point out that "God" was added to the pledge of allegiance and the national motto "In God We Trust" was adopted in response to the "godless communists" making the intent as an endorsement of religion pretty straight-foward.
I'm not interested in debating global warming with you. That's pointless. You don't know shit and I don't know shit because neither of us has the time to become an expert in the field.
I just think its really odd that the exact phrases you think indicate a religious mindset are pretty straightforward expressions of science-based conclusions.
Organizations representing Hindus in the United States claim that Hinduism is inherently monotheist and the proliferation of deities is only a colourful embellishment on that ultimate truth of divine unity. Look to the California textbook scandal, for example, where American Hindus insisted that the religion be presented as monotheist.
Eh,that's a pretty common interpretation of hindu philosophy but not all branches believe that explicitly.
Either way, that's just missing the forest for the trees. The point is that tax payer dollars are explicitly endorsing monotheistic religions regardless of religious beliefs of the tax payer.
And, BTW - there is nothing monotheistic about that phrase at all. The Romans, the Greeks, the Partheons, the Carthaginians, the Incas, ANY person from ANY time might have said those very words.
That's funny. I mean seriously you cracked me up with that. I guess that's why I friended you in the past you are a riot!
Slashdot Mirror
I see. So the fact that the Federal "assistance" systems are failing doesn't matter?
That's a vast over simplification and may not even be true taken in the naive way you mean it. For example, the standard of living of the poor in the USA is significantly higher than the standard of living of the poor in any country without such programs.
When "poor" is defined by a sliding scale there will always be poor and therefore such programs will always be "failures." But of all of the countries that work the way you appear to be proposing, i.e. minimal government assistance, none of them have a smaller gap in the relative standard of living between middle-class and lower-class than the US. never mind absolutes like housing, indoor plumbing, electricity, etc.
So when you say "a system that works, even if it doesn't work great" it sure sounds like you are talking about the current system here in the US.
If he enjoyed doing it, why is he looking for the most efficient method possible ?
So he can do his neighbour's too.
Like someone else mentioned, the Fox that airs Family Guy, The Simpsons and formerly Married with Children is not the same as FoxNews that airs Bill O'reilly, Sean Hannity and formerly Glenn Beck.
There is some leakage between the channels. For example, remember when Paris Hilton was trying to "break in" to the big leagues of celebritism? She had that show, "The Simple Life" and it aired on the Fox Network. One day before the premiere episode, O'Reilly, in his "no spin zone" 'broke the news' of her sex tape.
So, when it comes down to making mo money, the two channels don't have quite so much editorial independence.
Anything which reduces spending or even just slows the growth of government, with the possible exception of defense, annoys those on the left because it weakens the bonds of the average person's dependency on the state and by extension their (i.e. the politicos) power over them.
Pithy, but not particularly insightful.
I find that I agree with many of the principles espoused by the republicans, even some of the extremists. Unfortunately, whenever it comes down to the nitty-gritty, it's pretty much universal that they are all for volunteering those least capable of coping with such changes to go first, usually all out of proportion to effecting any real systemic change anyway.
Let's cut government spending ... and start with planned parenthood and after school programs. Let's get government out of our private lives ... and start by denying marriage contracts to gays.
It seems like, more often than not republican plans just happen to affect the weakest and most vulnerable. It's kind of like that saying by Anatole France, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
I'd like to see a similar chart graphing debt versus control of the house and the senate. Know where I can find one?
It would also be interesting to see debt as % of GDP plotted along with taxes as % of GDP.
I'm not saying the risks don't exist, but given that hundreds of millions of people do provide all that information to social networking sites without having their identities stolen should give you one clue.
The reason the vast majority of people don't have particularly obvious problems is because they aren't interesting.
The thing about being interesting is that you never know when it might happen to you. Once you become a person of interest is so much easier to be screwed over because all the information has been out there for so long that you can never bottle it back up.
What's particularly bad is that some people who become persons of interest are vitally important to maintaining a healthy society. The anonymous whistle-blower who gets their identity reverse-engineered in the same way that the "anonymized" netflix data was deanonymized when combined with IMDB data. Or the up-start politician seeking to overturn the status-quo who's budding career is killed by exposure of stupid facebook photos of his college years. When those sorts of people get thoroughly screwed we all get screwed.
A pretty good example is having a checking account.
Try finding a payphone nowadays. Except for specific very high-traffic locations, they've been decimated by cellphones.
You curse, you can be kicked off and you can't get back on because you have to use your real name.
And, as I thought was obvious from my response, cursing is not a serious risk to children.
As for the stranger, if people have to use the real name then the stranger leaves a record, enabling them to EASILY be caught.
Sorry, you really haven't thought this through. That "real name" thing isn't an impediment to Danger Stranger, but it is the key that lets him open up all the other databases that help him do his dirty deeds.
Danger Stranger sees the kid's actions online - like photos and talking about school and such. Danger Stranger then consults other databases using the kid's real last name to figure out where the kid lives (property records are public and almost all are online now) and parent's names (on the deed for their house). Danger Stranger waits on route between nearest school and kid's house, intercepts kid, social engineers kid into car using information from kid's own public facebook profile and other public databases and a day later kid is dead
All that without leaving much of record to get himself caught and that's assuming he has not figured out a way to spoof the real-name thing in the first place- after all, none of the verification methods are a problem for anyone willing to put in a little bit of work forging an ID.
Frankly, if you want to make a forum safe for kids, then yes, real names would be appropriate
Huh? I say it is the very reverse of that. Unless you think having your kid read a bunch of swear words that they probably hear at school everyday is a greater risk than some malicious stranger figuring out how to make contact with your kid in real life.
Having my real name on fb/g+ only means one thing: people who don't know me can see my profile picture. Thats all.
Or anyone that runs a facebook add-on/game/etc that any of your "friends" have signed up for. Or anyone with a friend working at facebook. Or anyone working for a government agency that facebook has given privileged access. I'm sure there are more people than just those groups, that's just all I could up with in 30 seconds.
Google is not obligated to join you on whatever your crusade is, no matter how worthy.
But we do have every right to publicly criticise them in order to influence their actions.
Billion dollar corps like Google and Facebook speak with voices that are a million times louder than ours, so for you to even suggest that we don't have the right to call them out for socially destructive policies is like blaming the ant for protesting that the 800lb gorilla is sitting on him.
I thought the rebuttal was obvious enough that it didn't need stating - same terms, same situation, same response. The thing is, "macs4all" has a history of hundreds of posts of apple apologia to the point of irony in that in his opinion if Apple does something, its always good and righteous even while he condemns another manufacturer for doing practically the same thing.
What would be saying if it was Apple that did this?
Really? What are you, president of Apple SVU - Apple Special Victims Unit?
You don't get to work at the NSA (or any infosec govt. job) with access to classified information and power without a very thorough full-scope background check including polygraph. You're quite mistaken if you think otherwise.
However, it is a truism that every single traitor in those agencies was cleared, some very extensively.
Meanwhile "secret" clearance is really nothing more than a credit and criminal records check, no poly required. "Top Secret" is the level at which they go around and talk to your neighbors and friends from college and that usually has only a basic poly. Plenty of SCI/SAP projects only need "secret" level clearance too.
Makes total sense to me, many of my neighbors have $10-30k backup generators installed that have never been used as of yet. Granted the backup generators are natural gas and will run indefinitely,
I'm putting a grid-tie solar panel system on my house and am over-speccing it so as to use the excess to partially charge an electric car. A system like this would be great for me because with the solar power it would be able to run indefinitely as well, but without the duplication of dedicating batteries to the solar system.
If you think that "an official acknowledgement of a God" is an "establishment" of a state religion,
Except that I don't and never said I did.. I think you returned to that strawman because you had no response for what I actually wrote about the meaning of "respect."
You admit that the court rulings don't favor your position and continue to claim that you are right. How novel.
I know, right?! Who would have ever thought that the courts get things wrong sometimes!?
What I meant to say is that "In God We Trust" reflects popular sentiment.
I still disagree. I think it reflects popular apathy. Most people don't give a damn because they've got more pressing issues to worry about, nothing more, nothing less. Back in ~1950 when they made it official it was because they cared a whole lot more.
Need I remind you the average IQ is 100? not everybody realizes nor accepts the points you just made.
My favourite quote from George Washington:
"Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
- Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
In other words, religion is useful for keeping the idiots in line.
On the other hand, Kotiya is correct in pointing out that the less religious countries tend to be more cultured, educated, constructive, and happy over all. So maybe Washington was wrong.
They don't define their identity through not collecting stamps.
Nor do atheists define their identity through not believing a god. Just because some atheists actively disbelieve doesn't make that a requirement of atheism.
On what basis do you claim either your creator or your existence endows you with rights? The only entity that has ever actually lifted a finger to back any of them is We the People.
I think you just answered your own question there. "We the people" define those rights, because that's all there is.
I've found that when people resort to "it's obvious" or "clearly", they are arguing a losing side. Nobody wakes up one morning, notices the motto on the dollar bill, and runs to church
I've found that when people resort to specious arguments they are arguing the losing side. If the bar for showing religious endorsement is set that high then thousands of rulings about state establishments of religion should be over-turned.
Why, obviously, they decided in those thirteen years that the Church of England was a Bad Thing and decided that such an abomination cannot be allowed to continue.
Again with the specious arguments. Expecting people to religiously follow a law that wasn't to be written yet for over a decade is ridiculous.
simply claiming "separation of church and state"
Yeah, good thing then that I haven't made a single argument here based on that phrase.
You might notice that at no time in history has the former interpretation been valid, even the day after the amendment was adopted by the very people who wrote it.
Well, except for the fact they explicitly left out any mention of God in the constitution itself.
I'll take it even further and point out that "God" was added to the pledge of allegiance and the national motto "In God We Trust" was adopted in response to the "godless communists" making the intent as an endorsement of religion pretty straight-foward.
Atheism is a belief. You believe that there is no God, and no gods.
No. While some athiests actively believe that it is not a baseline requirement.
And, "vacuum is a gas" is a totally irrelevant non sequitur.
Exactly! You got it dude. "Atheism is a belief" is a non sequitur.
I'm not interested in debating global warming with you. That's pointless. You don't know shit and I don't know shit because neither of us has the time to become an expert in the field.
I just think its really odd that the exact phrases you think indicate a religious mindset are pretty straightforward expressions of science-based conclusions.
Well, it's been said that as their numbers decrease the voices of those that remain increase.
Organizations representing Hindus in the United States claim that Hinduism is inherently monotheist and the proliferation of deities is only a colourful embellishment on that ultimate truth of divine unity. Look to the California textbook scandal, for example, where American Hindus insisted that the religion be presented as monotheist.
Eh,that's a pretty common interpretation of hindu philosophy but not all branches believe that explicitly.
Either way, that's just missing the forest for the trees. The point is that tax payer dollars are explicitly endorsing monotheistic religions regardless of religious beliefs of the tax payer.
And, BTW - there is nothing monotheistic about that phrase at all. The Romans, the Greeks, the Partheons, the Carthaginians, the Incas, ANY person from ANY time might have said those very words.
That's funny. I mean seriously you cracked me up with that. I guess that's why I friended you in the past you are a riot!