I read a comment on one of the other sites carrying this story that the test itself was of minor interest to the TSA - instead the goal is to talk to more passengers in order to gain "human intelligence." To these cynical ears, that sounds like exactly the kind of half-baked plan the TSA would come up with. Somebody thought it would be a clever way for their "behaviour profilers" to have an excuse to "profile" people without obviously creeping them out.
My personal experience is that I've flown once in the last 8 years, and the one time I did fly one of those TSA guys tried to talk me up while I was in line. It was uber-creepy - I spent the next hour trying to figure out if the guy was just naturally creepy or if he been trying "profile" me. Either way I did my best to say as little as possible to the guy and just get on past the checkpoint as quickly as possible. Talking up someone while you both wait a minute or two for the "test strip" to change color is probably going to be less obviously creepy. Still assinine and utterly ineffective, but less creepy.
He specifically decried any possibility that they were actually smarter or harder working than other people who were less successful.
Really? You can actually quote him saying that? That doesn't pass the laugh test because if he specifically said that the GOP would be making hay with THAT quote and not half-assing it with the questionable parsing of "you didn't build that." I think it's far more likely that you, like that other guy, are projecting your own biases onto him.
What about the people of OTHER RELIGION? Don't they deserve any attention from NASA?
Why that specific religion and not other religion?
Is that your definition of a "zoo" now? Really? As if focusing outreach programs on a third of the world's population is really "turning NASA into a zoo."
But to answer your question, how about the fact they are probably the largest group of people with which the USA could really use an improvement in relations with? Kind of like how we had terrible relations with a certain other group of people during the 80s, you know the entire freaking soviet bloc.
Well, at least you are consistent - you only want people to take your own words literally too - ignoring all context.
So when you said that he antecedent for "that" is not "a business," but rather "roads and bridges" and other infrastructure is "actual contortion" clearly you meant that Neon Crossing was performing yoga while typing but you don't dispute what he wrote. If you had, you would have literally said he was wrong.
Or are you saying that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is a liar ?
I'm saying that in the context of the interview it was clear Bolden was only talking about outreach programs. Listen to what he says in the link YOU provided.
1) Re-inspire children to get into science and math 2) He wanted to expand our international relationships 3) Third and perhaps foremost he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the muslim world.
None of those items are about going to space, they are all directions for outreach programs.
That's all he's talking about -- none of this bullshit about "turning NASA into a zoo." Just direction for outreach programs, the kind of thing NASA has been doing practically from day one.
What is it with this fauxbama shit? There's tons of real policy issues to critize the guy on, why do so many people like you insist on going after fairy tales?
1. Nice try with the strawman. I've asserted that Obama views government as the great provider. I did not call him a nutjob.
The view that businesses are not built by their owners is absolute nutjobbery. You can try to walk back your literal read of the words he used but you can't have it both ways. Either "you didn't build that" refers to a business or to public infrastructure, there is no inbetween interpretion.
"The government is the only thing we all belong to.
You are off in the weeds with that one, its irrelevant to the question of who builds a business.
You're making the assumption that you stand on the veritable high ground with your interpretation and application of context.
Occam's razor at work - your interpretation is that obama is a complete nutjob or my interpretation is that he recognizes the obvious - public works infrastructure supports much of american commerce.
I saw Lessig make it in an interview on the daily show - check comedy central's website I believe they have a full archive of all shows, it was the second part of the show, the part that didn't air due to time constraints. It sounded like he referenced it in his book on the topic.
I was initially scolded that "he didn't say that." I proved that he did say it, and was then accused of taking his words out of context. I acknowledged context, but as consistent with my view of his meaning. Now, I'm told my view is wrong, based on... something.
Pedancy doesn't make a persuasive argument.
Arguing that the narrowest literal meaning is the intended meaning and that the context which makes it clear to any critical reader is a "contortion" is a sign that you aren't interested in seeking truth, only rationalizing preconceptions.
I'm quite comfortable with my interpretation of his words. It's consistent with his view of government as the great provider.
I think it is more accurate to say that your interpretation of his words is consistent with your beliefs about obama - its all pretty ironic since you started off lamenting the careless use of words to belittle the opposition.
That doesn't mean all living things should kill themselves.
Uh, so who said anything about that? My point is that saying tyranny is ipso facto unstable and "free societies" are ipso facto stable is not supported by the evidence.
How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?
Because he didn't. The idea of using NASA as form of interntaional outreach has been there for decades - NASA is a "halo" program for th US and is thus one of our best forms of PR. Reagan even made a speech where he said:
"We can find there's yet undiscovered avenues where American and Soviet citizens can cooperate fruitfully for the benefit of mankind. In science and technology we can launch new joint space ventures."
And BTW, that shit worked too. NASA's outreach programs have paid handsome dividends for America. We would never have had the Ansari X-Prize if Anousheh Ansari hadn't been inspired by NASA as a child in Iran.
I think that idea is misguided populism. The problem isn't that "corporrations are people too" or that "money is speech" - the problem is the corrupting influence that money brings with it (which, is something I think applies everywhere not just politics, but that's a discussion for another time and place).
I like Lawrence Lessig's idea that we might as well embrace these concepts since they are so popular with the people with influence and they at least give us a framework to build on. His idea is to use these concepts in a form of judo - let people and corps donate all the money they want to politicians, but make them do it anonymously. In short, put all the donated money into a "black box" and then (a) let donors secretly rescind their donations if they want and (b) require the politicians to take all of the donations out of the black box in one big chunk after some period of time.
The idea is to disconnect the money from the influence - you can promise a politician that you are giving a million dollars, but you can't prove it. There is no restriction on speech at all - you can "say" all you want with words or money. You just can't tie the two together in a provable fashion.
Apparently something like this system was tried in an election for judges in south florida - the result was that none of the candidates got a single dime.
Somebody who looks and sounds a hell of a lot like Obama said it on July 13, 2012.
Wow, you actually linked to a video that included the context of the quote but completely failed to notice that context. I can kind of understand those people who were too incurious to find out the context, but that's not you. You found the context and you pretended it wasn't there.
I am genuinely curious - what is going on in your head that lets you do that and not feel like an outright liar? Is it just blinding partisanship? Or do you do the same thing with the context of Romeny quotes such as, "I like being able to fire people?"
Net Neutrality is a guise to control the Internet.
The most obvious problem with that analysis is that net neutrality was the law of the land until 2005 when NCTA vs Brand X validated the FCC stripping the net neutrality requirement from ISPs via (the bizzaro-world) reclassification to content providers instead of service providers. Furthermore, net neutrality remains the law of the land for telephone operators as it has for more than half a century. Yet in neither case have we seen this insidious scope creep you describe.
It seems like all that stuff you warn about has really gained traction since net neutrality was struck down. Coincidence? Maybe, but I think it is just as likely that the lack of neutrality regulation is what enabled such things. Do you think the telephone companies could get away with a back-room 6-six strikes rule the way the MAFIAA and the major ISPs seem to have?
You seem interested in making a political point because you've:
a) compared defense spending to the completely unrelated health-care spending b) cited a cherry-picked number for defense spending from a heavily partisan source that is way out of sync with what the CBO reports
The CBO's numbers for 2010 show defense and medicare/medicaid being roughly equal at 20% and 23% of the budget respectively.
someone who misrepresents someone else's position is what in your dictionary?
In my dictionary, that is YOU.
Your go-to style of argumentation is EXACTLY THAT. All you do is put words into other people's mouths. Hell you are such a solipsist you even quoted yourself not realizing that you did exactly that in your own quote from someone other discussion with someone else -- "this is where someone says we pushed them to that." Same shit you pulled on me when you wrote, "this is where you lecture me on how these are peace loving harmless countries."
Furthremore you keep insisting on your own set of facts. All the sabre-rattling in the world doesn't add up to what you claim to be baseline knowledge about those countries. Like I said, I know a hell of a lot more about North Korea than you do. So far all the knowledge you've demonstrated is nothing more than the headlines from chickenhawk press releases.
Oh, and one last thing: What part of "They should be opposed with a level of effort equal to their level of threat - not their level of venom." is "thinking these nations represent no threat?"
Oh yeah, more misrepresentation of someone else's position. What a surprise.
to say this requires no citation for anyone with the slightest inclination to know the remotest facts of this subject matter
Hallmark of the fool - claiming something is so obvious it doesn't need to be proven in the face of "reason." You are the one advocating bellicosity and hypermilitizing here - after years of seeing you do it on slashdot I think it is time we took your advocacy to heart and launched a pre-emptive cyberattack on you.
Lolz. Such obvious points of discussion that you can't even name one much less provide a citation, huh?
if you don't know that, why are you talking about this subject and registering an uninformed opinion?
I'm confident you are the one with an uninformed opinion in this debate, vastly uninformed. The last couple of taepodong launches kept me pretty busy.
the point is, they are building and launching these missiles and bombs and constantly engage in bellicose talk! it means nothing to you?
they've been doing this for decades
Like you just wrote, they've been doing it for decades and the actual results have been what? A couple of south korean boats getting sunk. A couple of kidnappings of south koreans and japanese. Obviously we need to spend billions combating the clear and present 'cyberthreat' from these fiends.
if a neighbor constantly stockpiled guns, and constantly threatened to shoot his neighbors, do you call the cops? or dismiss him as a harmless kook?
Neither of these countries are our neighbors. It is amazing how well you parrot the non-sequiturs of the war pigs.
what is the magic exactly whereby you are convinced of the harmlessness of these countriesdespite the evidence of statements of intent and actions to obtain Capacity to fulfill intent?
Statements? There you go again with the same baloney as "venom." Utterly meaningless when assesing risk.
As for actual capacity - your hand waving at google is not a citation. The best north korea has been able to do is launch missiles that fall apart long before they reach japan. Iran isn't much better, their missiles could probably hit Athens on a good day.
Oh wait, this about "malware" well, there is ZERO evidence of either country producing malware of any significant threat. Nada. Zip.
Hysterical. This time in the you-made-a-laughingstock-out-of-yourself way.
The fact is that every empire and every dictatorship which became decadent and tyrannical (that is, all of them) has collapsed. It is an inherently unstable form. It is self-defeating. No free nation would ever collapse. It has to become tyrannical first. Then and only then can it collapse.
The process you describe could just as easily be that tyranny is the end stage of all free societies. After all, the same point could be made that all free societies eventually end in collapse too. Just because some haven't collapsed yet doesn't disprove that claim. Look at North Korea or Ethopia - that later considered an authoritarian regime with the rulers claiming lineage back to king solomon, not-withstanding temporary bouts of turmoil in the interim though.
Your word choice is a nice compact version of how the "cyberwar" threat has been sold. I've been watching the PR on this stuff for years, and you do a fantastic job of mirroring the worst of it, non-sequitors and all. I criticize your word choice because it is the unpolished version of the script the vested interests use.
I also question your judgment of what constitutes a threat.
You are hysterical, not haha hysterical, but completely irrational-evalution-of-the-threat hysterical. All black and white thinking about how any threat is too big of a threat.
we're just talking about malware here
Yeah, that's all we are talking about here. Just a little virus, deletes some mp3s, spies on your bank account, no biggee. Just ask Japan, right? I guess you did add a new non-sequitur to the standard narrative after all.
Slashdot Mirror
I read a comment on one of the other sites carrying this story that the test itself was of minor interest to the TSA - instead the goal is to talk to more passengers in order to gain "human intelligence." To these cynical ears, that sounds like exactly the kind of half-baked plan the TSA would come up with. Somebody thought it would be a clever way for their "behaviour profilers" to have an excuse to "profile" people without obviously creeping them out.
My personal experience is that I've flown once in the last 8 years, and the one time I did fly one of those TSA guys tried to talk me up while I was in line. It was uber-creepy - I spent the next hour trying to figure out if the guy was just naturally creepy or if he been trying "profile" me. Either way I did my best to say as little as possible to the guy and just get on past the checkpoint as quickly as possible. Talking up someone while you both wait a minute or two for the "test strip" to change color is probably going to be less obviously creepy. Still assinine and utterly ineffective, but less creepy.
He specifically decried any possibility that they were actually smarter or harder working than other people who were less successful.
Really? You can actually quote him saying that? That doesn't pass the laugh test because if he specifically said that the GOP would be making hay with THAT quote and not half-assing it with the questionable parsing of "you didn't build that." I think it's far more likely that you, like that other guy, are projecting your own biases onto him.
My description of Lessig's proposal was necessarily just an overview. If you want to critique the plan, go read it first.
I am responding to the "fauxbama shit", not the "zoo" thing
Can't you read?
Ok, so you are saying that your original point is now indefensible.
What about the people of OTHER RELIGION? Don't they deserve any attention from NASA?
Why that specific religion and not other religion?
Is that your definition of a "zoo" now? Really? As if focusing outreach programs on a third of the world's population is really "turning NASA into a zoo."
But to answer your question, how about the fact they are probably the largest group of people with which the USA could really use an improvement in relations with? Kind of like how we had terrible relations with a certain other group of people during the 80s, you know the entire freaking soviet bloc.
Well, at least you are consistent - you only want people to take your own words literally too - ignoring all context.
So when you said that he antecedent for "that" is not "a business," but rather "roads and bridges" and other infrastructure is "actual contortion" clearly you meant that Neon Crossing was performing yoga while typing but you don't dispute what he wrote. If you had, you would have literally said he was wrong.
Or are you saying that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden is a liar ?
I'm saying that in the context of the interview it was clear Bolden was only talking about outreach programs. Listen to what he says in the link YOU provided.
1) Re-inspire children to get into science and math
2) He wanted to expand our international relationships
3) Third and perhaps foremost he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the muslim world.
None of those items are about going to space, they are all directions for outreach programs.
That's all he's talking about -- none of this bullshit about "turning NASA into a zoo." Just direction for outreach programs, the kind of thing NASA has been doing practically from day one.
What is it with this fauxbama shit? There's tons of real policy issues to critize the guy on, why do so many people like you insist on going after fairy tales?
1. Nice try with the strawman. I've asserted that Obama views government as the great provider. I did not call him a nutjob.
The view that businesses are not built by their owners is absolute nutjobbery. You can try to walk back your literal read of the words he used but you can't have it both ways. Either "you didn't build that" refers to a business or to public infrastructure, there is no inbetween interpretion.
"The government is the only thing we all belong to.
You are off in the weeds with that one, its irrelevant to the question of who builds a business.
You're making the assumption that you stand on the veritable high ground with your interpretation and application of context.
Occam's razor at work - your interpretation is that obama is a complete nutjob or my interpretation is that he recognizes the obvious - public works infrastructure supports much of american commerce.
I saw Lessig make it in an interview on the daily show - check comedy central's website I believe they have a full archive of all shows, it was the second part of the show, the part that didn't air due to time constraints. It sounded like he referenced it in his book on the topic.
I was initially scolded that "he didn't say that." I proved that he did say it, and was then accused of taking his words out of context. I acknowledged context, but as consistent with my view of his meaning. Now, I'm told my view is wrong, based on... something.
Pedancy doesn't make a persuasive argument.
Arguing that the narrowest literal meaning is the intended meaning and that the context which makes it clear to any critical reader is a "contortion" is a sign that you aren't interested in seeking truth, only rationalizing preconceptions.
I'm quite comfortable with my interpretation of his words. It's consistent with his view of government as the great provider.
I think it is more accurate to say that your interpretation of his words is consistent with your beliefs about obama - its all pretty ironic since you started off lamenting the careless use of words to belittle the opposition.
That doesn't mean all living things should kill themselves.
Uh, so who said anything about that? My point is that saying tyranny is ipso facto unstable and "free societies" are ipso facto stable is not supported by the evidence.
How come we never heard from the so-called "Space Frontier Foundation" when Obama wanted to turn NASA into a zoo ?
Because he didn't. The idea of using NASA as form of interntaional outreach has been there for decades - NASA is a "halo" program for th US and is thus one of our best forms of PR. Reagan even made a speech where he said:
"We can find there's yet undiscovered avenues where American and Soviet citizens can cooperate fruitfully for the benefit of mankind. In science and technology we can launch new joint space ventures."
And BTW, that shit worked too. NASA's outreach programs have paid handsome dividends for America. We would never have had the Ansari X-Prize if Anousheh Ansari hadn't been inspired by NASA as a child in Iran.
Might well be a good place to drop this link...
I think that idea is misguided populism. The problem isn't that "corporrations are people too" or that "money is speech" - the problem is the corrupting influence that money brings with it (which, is something I think applies everywhere not just politics, but that's a discussion for another time and place).
I like Lawrence Lessig's idea that we might as well embrace these concepts since they are so popular with the people with influence and they at least give us a framework to build on. His idea is to use these concepts in a form of judo - let people and corps donate all the money they want to politicians, but make them do it anonymously. In short, put all the donated money into a "black box" and then (a) let donors secretly rescind their donations if they want and (b) require the politicians to take all of the donations out of the black box in one big chunk after some period of time.
The idea is to disconnect the money from the influence - you can promise a politician that you are giving a million dollars, but you can't prove it. There is no restriction on speech at all - you can "say" all you want with words or money. You just can't tie the two together in a provable fashion.
Apparently something like this system was tried in an election for judges in south florida - the result was that none of the candidates got a single dime.
Somebody who looks and sounds a hell of a lot like Obama said it on July 13, 2012.
Wow, you actually linked to a video that included the context of the quote but completely failed to notice that context. I can kind of understand those people who were too incurious to find out the context, but that's not you. You found the context and you pretended it wasn't there.
I am genuinely curious - what is going on in your head that lets you do that and not feel like an outright liar? Is it just blinding partisanship? Or do you do the same thing with the context of Romeny quotes such as, "I like being able to fire people?"
When you measure his position, his momentum becomes uncertain. When you measure his momentum, his position becomes uncertain.
Either that or he's just trying to sell you some of the highest-grade blue meth ever made.
Net Neutrality is a guise to control the Internet.
The most obvious problem with that analysis is that net neutrality was the law of the land until 2005 when NCTA vs Brand X validated the FCC stripping the net neutrality requirement from ISPs via (the bizzaro-world) reclassification to content providers instead of service providers. Furthermore, net neutrality remains the law of the land for telephone operators as it has for more than half a century. Yet in neither case have we seen this insidious scope creep you describe.
It seems like all that stuff you warn about has really gained traction since net neutrality was struck down. Coincidence? Maybe, but I think it is just as likely that the lack of neutrality regulation is what enabled such things. Do you think the telephone companies could get away with a back-room 6-six strikes rule the way the MAFIAA and the major ISPs seem to have?
You seem interested in making a political point because you've:
a) compared defense spending to the completely unrelated health-care spending
b) cited a cherry-picked number for defense spending from a heavily partisan source that is way out of sync with what the CBO reports
The CBO's numbers for 2010 show defense and medicare/medicaid being roughly equal at 20% and 23% of the budget respectively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2010.svg
ok, I read that
Hypocrite.
someone who misrepresents someone else's position is what in your dictionary?
In my dictionary, that is YOU.
Your go-to style of argumentation is EXACTLY THAT. All you do is put words into other people's mouths. Hell you are such a solipsist you even quoted yourself not realizing that you did exactly that in your own quote from someone other discussion with someone else -- "this is where someone says we pushed them to that." Same shit you pulled on me when you wrote, "this is where you lecture me on how these are peace loving harmless countries."
Furthremore you keep insisting on your own set of facts. All the sabre-rattling in the world doesn't add up to what you claim to be baseline knowledge about those countries. Like I said, I know a hell of a lot more about North Korea than you do. So far all the knowledge you've demonstrated is nothing more than the headlines from chickenhawk press releases.
Oh, and one last thing: What part of "They should be opposed with a level of effort equal to their level of threat - not their level of venom." is "thinking these nations represent no threat?"
Oh yeah, more misrepresentation of someone else's position. What a surprise.
to say this requires no citation for anyone with the slightest inclination to know the remotest facts of this subject matter
Hallmark of the fool - claiming something is so obvious it doesn't need to be proven in the face of "reason." You are the one advocating bellicosity and hypermilitizing here - after years of seeing you do it on slashdot I think it is time we took your advocacy to heart and launched a pre-emptive cyberattack on you.
i'm not going to cite anything.
Lolz. Such obvious points of discussion that you can't even name one much less provide a citation, huh?
if you don't know that, why are you talking about this subject and registering an uninformed opinion?
I'm confident you are the one with an uninformed opinion in this debate, vastly uninformed. The last couple of taepodong launches kept me pretty busy.
the point is, they are building and launching these missiles and bombs and constantly engage in bellicose talk! it means nothing to you?
they've been doing this for decades
Like you just wrote, they've been doing it for decades and the actual results have been what? A couple of south korean boats getting sunk. A couple of kidnappings of south koreans and japanese. Obviously we need to spend billions combating the clear and present 'cyberthreat' from these fiends.
if a neighbor constantly stockpiled guns, and constantly threatened to shoot his neighbors, do you call the cops? or dismiss him as a harmless kook?
Neither of these countries are our neighbors. It is amazing how well you parrot the non-sequiturs of the war pigs.
what is the magic exactly whereby you are convinced of the harmlessness of these countriesdespite the evidence of statements of intent and actions to obtain Capacity to fulfill intent?
Statements? There you go again with the same baloney as "venom." Utterly meaningless when assesing risk.
As for actual capacity - your hand waving at google is not a citation. The best north korea has been able to do is launch missiles that fall apart long before they reach japan. Iran isn't much better, their missiles could probably hit Athens on a good day.
Oh wait, this about "malware" well, there is ZERO evidence of either country producing malware of any significant threat. Nada. Zip.
Hysterical. This time in the you-made-a-laughingstock-out-of-yourself way.
The fact is that every empire and every dictatorship which became decadent and tyrannical (that is, all of them) has collapsed. It is an inherently unstable form. It is self-defeating. No free nation would ever collapse. It has to become tyrannical first. Then and only then can it collapse.
The process you describe could just as easily be that tyranny is the end stage of all free societies. After all, the same point could be made that all free societies eventually end in collapse too. Just because some haven't collapsed yet doesn't disprove that claim. Look at North Korea or Ethopia - that later considered an authoritarian regime with the rulers claiming lineage back to king solomon, not-withstanding temporary bouts of turmoil in the interim though.
You seem hung up on my word choice.
Your word choice is a nice compact version of how the "cyberwar" threat has been sold. I've been watching the PR on this stuff for years, and you do a fantastic job of mirroring the worst of it, non-sequitors and all. I criticize your word choice because it is the unpolished version of the script the vested interests use.
I also question your judgment of what constitutes a threat.
You are hysterical, not haha hysterical, but completely irrational-evalution-of-the-threat hysterical. All black and white thinking about how any threat is too big of a threat.
we're just talking about malware here
Yeah, that's all we are talking about here. Just a little virus, deletes some mp3s, spies on your bank account, no biggee. Just ask Japan, right? I guess you did add a new non-sequitur to the standard narrative after all.