If we know MSN and Yahoo complied with this type of subpoena, that means the statute in the Patriot Act banning the acknowledgment of the existence of such a subpoena did not apply in this case, most likely because the authority for this order did not fall under the Patriot Act but, instead, some "save the kids," anti-porn cover. Could there be other web-search subpoenas whose authority is granted by the Patriot Act, orders not only with which we would not know who complied, but whose very existence would be unknown by us?
Your very ignorance is what presents my opportunity. It is true that there is little inherent value in gold. It is heavy, malleable, conductive, shiny, stable, and scarce. But what of those dollars you so tout? Their value stems from the demand for American goods and services and their scarcity. America's manufacturing capacity has been declining (e.g. GM) and the supply of dollars expands approximately at a 7% annual rate, doubling roughly every ten years. When our future obligations come due--when American baby boomers demand Social Security and healthcare payments and foreign lenders demand interest payments--the government will need to make some undesirable choices: (1) increase taxes on working Americans, (2) decrease other federal expenditures, and/or (3) print more dollars in an act of partial default. In any case, the assured scarcity of gold presents a great way to maintain purchasing power, a goal the wise investor will not underestimate. In the long term, gold is useful because it stores value, with very little risk. Buying it will not make you rich, unless others ignore this value, trusting their government will not erode their money's value. Nor will it make you poor, unless you overestimate this value, unnecessarily distrusting government. But gold is a very simple investment, for its only real value is that it is a store of value. You completely neglect gold's primary value, focusing solely on its technological uses. As your neglect is common to most people I meet, it is no surprise that gold's current value exceeds its current price. Nevertheless, there are other ways to not only maintain purchasing power but increase it, by investing in something productive, like stocks. This requires risk, although in the long term, it would be more risky not to take this risk. In any case, do not put all your eggs in one basket, as we men are fallible, and hold as few dollars as possible.
Is that you Georgie? Taking advantage of the opportunity to boost voluntary tax compliance amongst your fellow citizens: "File taxes, it's FREEEEE!" Helluva job, Shrub. Helluva job.
That's what I said when Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway was at $400. I checked the quote today:
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) $88,800
Google may be overvalued, but it's not due to the magnitude of its share price per se. What if GOOG's profits were $100/sh and rising? How much would you pay? Or would you rather buy penny stocks with negative earnings?
1 : in a literal sense or manner : ACTUALLY (took the remark literally) (was literally insane)
2 : in effect : VIRTUALLY (will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice -- Norman Cousins)
usage Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.
I don't remember Kerry repeatedly tripping over himself, just the media repeatedly showing a single instance of it (i.e. the "i voted against the 85 billion before i voted for it" fiasco) and misconstruing other consitent stands as wavering due to their inability/unwillingness to portray a complex thought (e.g. kerry voted for giving bush the authority to go to war under certain circumstances, but he never voted for war per se). And I guess Mr Bush would be pretty cool to have a beer with, if you didn't have the slightest interest in political, economic, or foreign affairs, as most Americans don't. But the idea that one would vote for the devil known over the devil unknown is BS; certainly bush is a devil known, devil incarnate if you ask me, but kerry may have been an angel unknown. I am convinced that those who voted for bush are either non/mis-informed or themselves on the side of the devil.
Finally, the excuse I've been looking for!!
on
Obesity Contagious?
·
· Score: 1
I'm sorry, I can't date you. It's not your behemoth size, per se, which repels mel; it is its transmissible nature. Let me persue my quest for that 36-24-36, whose IQ>140, for I want an autistic child; go Renaissance.
I call your bluff; no Slashdotter could have a g/f.
Just kidding. But perhaps your g/f may have learned a lesson more important than those measured by grade: that either her teacher sucked or sociology is inherently flawed (or both). If I took a class which taught religion as truth, I'd conclude either the teacher or subject doltish. But this conclusion is positive knowledge. It may not show up as an "A", but grades are an imperfect measure of knowledge gained--they may even measure anti-knowledge.
This is not meant as criticism of the parent, who seems like a reasonable fellow, but is instead merely a comment his post proked. Statistical theory shows that when more members of a set lie on one side of the mean, it is because of fewer, but more extreme members on the other. But I suppose the mean that you take as center is external to the set in question. Nevertheless, how is this center defined and why is it important. All this talk about "left" and "right" and "center"! I wish we could get past this one-dimensional premise of politics; it seems that liberty doth lie on another axis.
But if people had half a wit about them, they'd realize that it is not the amount of taxes you pay on April 15 that matters, it's the amount the government spends. The former is an incomplete measure of your total tax burden. Yeah, you may pay less in visible taxes on April 15 now under King George II, but his huge deficits erode all your dollar-denominated savings via inflation. Inflation is an insidious hidden tax (on wealth, not just income).
So, while I cannot technically disagree with your statement that "no one is quite sure what the Republican party stands for...except lower taxes," the technicality being that this misperception is near-universal, I do wish to expose this annoying ubiquitious mistake.
Evolution in the etiquette of constructive discourse.
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." Uh, I mean, I'm right and you're wrong. There is no need to follow truth to see where it may lead, for I already know all truth. And, uh, if you're wrong I'm gonna obliterate you.
--
What, students have the right for any education they buy to intersect perfectly with their previous political views? If you disagree with your professor, be not afraid of a "B". Let your reason outshine your professor's argument. However, should you refuse to tolerate what you think is error, you show faith not in the light of reason but in the righteousness of yourself.
Another example of private corporations doing the government bidding is the monitoring of web searches. I know I won't be typing in anything on Yahoo! or MSN unless I want to have a one-sided discussion with the NSA.
While Firefox certainly does compete strongly with Opera, its popularity is not only a negative for Opera. For one, Opera is itself a high-quality product, in some ways better than the godlike Firefox. Firefox sometimes places a heavy footprint on my computer's memory; Opera's code seems more streamlined. The Opera interface has some interesting plusses, as well. Healithy competition will ensure more useful features in Opera. Also, the popularity of ANY alternative to IE is a boon for ALL alternatives, for without such Microsoft could de-commodotize the market, killing off all competition.
Firefox provides only competition for Opera. Not only does it compete itself, however, but it also allows for any competition in the first place.
de-commoditiz[ing] protocols & applications....
OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.
Nor is MS the only company to use this strategy. The record companies with their SACD and DVD-audio formats (as if 24-bit audio weren't trivial to implement! O yeah, they're charging us customers for those despised copy protection methods.). Creative uses this strategy with their high-quality Audigy SoundBlaster ZS2 cards. The internal audio pin-header is not compatible with the standard format. Thus, I cannot connect the card to my case's front-panel audio inputs/outputs. If I want easy headphone access, I have to pay extra for a huge Creative-made bay & special connector. Creative will not succeed in their efforts, I surmise, despite their persistence; they don't have a strong enough hold on the sound-card market. I wouldn't buy from them again, unless the re-commoditize this protocol. As for MS & the record companies, they may be able to shove these formats down our throats. It certainly doesn't help that the mass of Americans are ignorant of these problems. And you can bet the MPAA can't wait for HD-DVD.
You do not find the idea of giving omniscience to an omnipotent, potentially malevolent force scary? I do.
Here are some possible negative effects:
GPS data could be forged by ruling power to 'prove' crimes against political enemies.
GPS data could be selectively filtered to expose crimes committed by out-of-party voters and not those by in-party voters, to, hence, define the people's will.
GPS data could be analyzed to detect gatherings of political protest. The government would thus have a database of dissidents whom they could 'reform' a la 1984.
Imagine the Soviet system with this technology.
If you don't break the law, chances are they won't even want to bother watching you. And if you do break the law, you can't really complain.
If you don't break the law...Maybe the odds are for you, if you are a well-conformed cog in their machine (as we most are), but sometimes those out-of-place cogs (i.e. law-abiding political enemies) are good for society.
If you do break the law...Ever think a law was wrong? Better hope not in this brave new world.
Also, there's a big difference between tracking you when you're in a public space (like a road) and installing a camera into your home so policemen can watch you jack off.
What's to stop the government from seizing all space as theirs, via their recently expanded eminent domain powers? Couldn't they make the case that it's in the public welfare to monitor all the space all the time? They could even 'lease' it right back to us so that everything would be as before, except the government could legally monitor you 'jacking off'.
'Given that definition, what activity could possibly be considered as NOT a "legitimate exercise of federal power"?'
None, as you suggest. The late Rehnquist wrote, in his dissent of the CA-marijuana case, that even quilts made as a hobby by little old ladies would be, by the majority's opinion, regulate-able. Certainly one of those quilts could be given to one of the ladies's grandsons, who would then be out of the market for commercial quilts, diminishing overall demand, & hence affecting the interstate-commerce of quilts. It is not even necessary for the grandson to be out of state, or even for the lady to give it away. By merely increasing the supply of quilts in the world, and as long as quilts are sold legally or illegally across state lines, the little old lady's hobby is federally regulate-able. If this is not reductio ad absurdum, I know not what is.
"...from someone who actually knows what he's talking about?"
I.e.,...from someone who agrees with you.
The logic which extends the commerce clause to home-grown, home-consumed marijuana would equally extend it to anything, even, as the late Rehnquist wrote in his recent dissent regarding CA-marijuana, quilts made as a hobby by little old ladies. And if the commerce clause is unbounded in its scope, why would its authors have included it in its present form. Would it not have been simpler, and certainly less ambiguous, to grant authority over everything to the Federal gov't? Or perhaps, that "someone who actually knows what he's talking about" doesn't really know what he's talking about, but is just a reciter of facts. Sure anyone can say, "The current interpretation of the commerce clause is that it extends to everything," just as their teachers taught them, and be deemed "right" by his conforming peers. But there was once a time when the commerce clause was limiting of the Federal gov't. Unfortunately, if we abide by the generally accepted principle of stare decisis, we will be stuck with this unconstitutional garbage forever.
I agree with the grandparent. Action taken in line with current generally-accepted interpretation of the commerce clause is a violation of our constitution, & violation of our constitution is treason.
Come on. Give W credit. If Bush didn't sign-off on the creation of the Income Tax & the Federal Reserve, liberty-suffocating instruments which would allow the federal gov't to rob the people of their property & spend it on whatever the it pleased (like WWI a year later, as well as the sequal(s?)), you can't say that he's therefore better than that guy who did. Bush didn't have the chance. He, moreover, seems to love the power they give him & is probably glad they exist. At least Wilson regretted his decisions*, if without effect. Neither man understood the Constitution. Neither understood liberty. I don't know what the ranking is, but they're both pretty damn bad. Scary thought though--that there might be something lower than Bush.
* "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." -Woodrow Wilson
I would say that their campaigns themselves rely on tax money for funding. They just do a little quid pro quo first with their buddy corporations as a laundering exercise.
"Here, Halliburton, I give you this no-bid contract. Damn pity we have a war & all, but the intelligence, to Mr. Cheney's great chagrin, says without doubt* that Iraq is quickly amassing nucular [sic] capabilities, & with Al Qaida & 9-11 & all, we have no choice. P.S. You might want to hold on to those shares. I'm buyin' some myself!!".
"Okay, Mister Bush, would you like your campaign contribution in cash or check? And I'll get all my employees to donate the max too! P.S. You're so cool! Also put in a good word for me with God." (A little Harriet-ness never hurts with this gnarly Commander in Chief.)
So Bush hides behind his responsibility of national security, & Halliburton hides behind the First Amendment; so that we can devote our labor to financing Mr. Bush's campaign & padding Halliburton's profits.
*We make no claim that the intelligence on which our conclusion is based is full. Perusing all the intelligence may have led us to different conclusions which, in our opinion, might endanger national security. As a reminder, Executive Order #123535: Whoever should ask, "Which came first, the intelligence or the conclusion?" with any suspicion that it was, or even might have been, the latter is deemed a terrorist. Please see Executive Order #120334, Extraordinary Rendition, or the Loophole by which to Remove Inalienable Rights from Terrorist-U.S. Citizens & Get Back at Them Big-Time , for recourse should this matter arise.
Slashdot Mirror
If we know MSN and Yahoo complied with this type of subpoena, that means the statute in the Patriot Act banning the acknowledgment of the existence of such a subpoena did not apply in this case, most likely because the authority for this order did not fall under the Patriot Act but, instead, some "save the kids," anti-porn cover. Could there be other web-search subpoenas whose authority is granted by the Patriot Act, orders not only with which we would not know who complied, but whose very existence would be unknown by us?
Your very ignorance is what presents my opportunity. It is true that there is little inherent value in gold. It is heavy, malleable, conductive, shiny, stable, and scarce. But what of those dollars you so tout? Their value stems from the demand for American goods and services and their scarcity. America's manufacturing capacity has been declining (e.g. GM) and the supply of dollars expands approximately at a 7% annual rate, doubling roughly every ten years. When our future obligations come due--when American baby boomers demand Social Security and healthcare payments and foreign lenders demand interest payments--the government will need to make some undesirable choices: (1) increase taxes on working Americans, (2) decrease other federal expenditures, and/or (3) print more dollars in an act of partial default. In any case, the assured scarcity of gold presents a great way to maintain purchasing power, a goal the wise investor will not underestimate. In the long term, gold is useful because it stores value, with very little risk. Buying it will not make you rich, unless others ignore this value, trusting their government will not erode their money's value. Nor will it make you poor, unless you overestimate this value, unnecessarily distrusting government. But gold is a very simple investment, for its only real value is that it is a store of value. You completely neglect gold's primary value, focusing solely on its technological uses. As your neglect is common to most people I meet, it is no surprise that gold's current value exceeds its current price. Nevertheless, there are other ways to not only maintain purchasing power but increase it, by investing in something productive, like stocks. This requires risk, although in the long term, it would be more risky not to take this risk. In any case, do not put all your eggs in one basket, as we men are fallible, and hold as few dollars as possible.
If you merge the little 'g' and 'l' in Google, and disregard the g's lower loop you get Goode: Google-->>Goode.
Is that you Georgie? Taking advantage of the opportunity to boost voluntary tax compliance amongst your fellow citizens: "File taxes, it's FREEEEE!" Helluva job, Shrub. Helluva job.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK-A) $88,800
Google may be overvalued, but it's not due to the magnitude of its share price per se. What if GOOG's profits were $100/sh and rising? How much would you pay? Or would you rather buy penny stocks with negative earnings?
1 : in a literal sense or manner : ACTUALLY (took the remark literally) (was literally insane)
2 : in effect : VIRTUALLY (will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice -- Norman Cousins)
usage Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.
I don't remember Kerry repeatedly tripping over himself, just the media repeatedly showing a single instance of it (i.e. the "i voted against the 85 billion before i voted for it" fiasco) and misconstruing other consitent stands as wavering due to their inability/unwillingness to portray a complex thought (e.g. kerry voted for giving bush the authority to go to war under certain circumstances, but he never voted for war per se). And I guess Mr Bush would be pretty cool to have a beer with, if you didn't have the slightest interest in political, economic, or foreign affairs, as most Americans don't. But the idea that one would vote for the devil known over the devil unknown is BS; certainly bush is a devil known, devil incarnate if you ask me, but kerry may have been an angel unknown. I am convinced that those who voted for bush are either non/mis-informed or themselves on the side of the devil.
I'm sorry, I can't date you. It's not your behemoth size, per se, which repels mel; it is its transmissible nature. Let me persue my quest for that 36-24-36, whose IQ>140, for I want an autistic child; go Renaissance.
Just kidding. But perhaps your g/f may have learned a lesson more important than those measured by grade: that either her teacher sucked or sociology is inherently flawed (or both). If I took a class which taught religion as truth, I'd conclude either the teacher or subject doltish. But this conclusion is positive knowledge. It may not show up as an "A", but grades are an imperfect measure of knowledge gained--they may even measure anti-knowledge.
This is not meant as criticism of the parent, who seems like a reasonable fellow, but is instead merely a comment his post proked. Statistical theory shows that when more members of a set lie on one side of the mean, it is because of fewer, but more extreme members on the other. But I suppose the mean that you take as center is external to the set in question. Nevertheless, how is this center defined and why is it important. All this talk about "left" and "right" and "center"! I wish we could get past this one-dimensional premise of politics; it seems that liberty doth lie on another axis.
So, while I cannot technically disagree with your statement that "no one is quite sure what the Republican party stands for...except lower taxes," the technicality being that this misperception is near-universal, I do wish to expose this annoying ubiquitious mistake.
"We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it." Uh, I mean, I'm right and you're wrong. There is no need to follow truth to see where it may lead, for I already know all truth. And, uh, if you're wrong I'm gonna obliterate you.
--
What, students have the right for any education they buy to intersect perfectly with their previous political views? If you disagree with your professor, be not afraid of a "B". Let your reason outshine your professor's argument. However, should you refuse to tolerate what you think is error, you show faith not in the light of reason but in the righteousness of yourself.
Yahoo!: ___fuck_Bush_you_on-liberty_pissing_freaks___ |SEARCH|
I didn't bother to RTFA, but I am positive that, since I cringed at the site's appearance, its content is utter hogwash.
Firefox provides only competition for Opera. Not only does it compete itself, however, but it also allows for any competition in the first place.
Or you could just change the semantics of the language. (commerce clause, eminent domain, ...)
Repeal 22 now, with a rush.
Long live our king, the dumb King Bush!
de-commoditiz[ing] protocols & applications.... OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.
Nor is MS the only company to use this strategy. The record companies with their SACD and DVD-audio formats (as if 24-bit audio weren't trivial to implement! O yeah, they're charging us customers for those despised copy protection methods.). Creative uses this strategy with their high-quality Audigy SoundBlaster ZS2 cards. The internal audio pin-header is not compatible with the standard format. Thus, I cannot connect the card to my case's front-panel audio inputs/outputs. If I want easy headphone access, I have to pay extra for a huge Creative-made bay & special connector. Creative will not succeed in their efforts, I surmise, despite their persistence; they don't have a strong enough hold on the sound-card market. I wouldn't buy from them again, unless the re-commoditize this protocol. As for MS & the record companies, they may be able to shove these formats down our throats. It certainly doesn't help that the mass of Americans are ignorant of these problems. And you can bet the MPAA can't wait for HD-DVD.
Here are some possible negative effects:
If you don't break the law, chances are they won't even want to bother watching you. And if you do break the law, you can't really complain.
What's to stop the government from seizing all space as theirs, via their recently expanded eminent domain powers? Couldn't they make the case that it's in the public welfare to monitor all the space all the time? They could even 'lease' it right back to us so that everything would be as before, except the government could legally monitor you 'jacking off'.
None, as you suggest. The late Rehnquist wrote, in his dissent of the CA-marijuana case, that even quilts made as a hobby by little old ladies would be, by the majority's opinion, regulate-able. Certainly one of those quilts could be given to one of the ladies's grandsons, who would then be out of the market for commercial quilts, diminishing overall demand, & hence affecting the interstate-commerce of quilts. It is not even necessary for the grandson to be out of state, or even for the lady to give it away. By merely increasing the supply of quilts in the world, and as long as quilts are sold legally or illegally across state lines, the little old lady's hobby is federally regulate-able. If this is not reductio ad absurdum, I know not what is.
I.e., ...from someone who agrees with you.
The logic which extends the commerce clause to home-grown, home-consumed marijuana would equally extend it to anything, even, as the late Rehnquist wrote in his recent dissent regarding CA-marijuana, quilts made as a hobby by little old ladies. And if the commerce clause is unbounded in its scope, why would its authors have included it in its present form. Would it not have been simpler, and certainly less ambiguous, to grant authority over everything to the Federal gov't? Or perhaps, that "someone who actually knows what he's talking about" doesn't really know what he's talking about, but is just a reciter of facts. Sure anyone can say, "The current interpretation of the commerce clause is that it extends to everything," just as their teachers taught them, and be deemed "right" by his conforming peers. But there was once a time when the commerce clause was limiting of the Federal gov't. Unfortunately, if we abide by the generally accepted principle of stare decisis, we will be stuck with this unconstitutional garbage forever.
I agree with the grandparent. Action taken in line with current generally-accepted interpretation of the commerce clause is a violation of our constitution, & violation of our constitution is treason.
* "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." -Woodrow Wilson
"Here, Halliburton, I give you this no-bid contract. Damn pity we have a war & all, but the intelligence, to Mr. Cheney's great chagrin, says without doubt* that Iraq is quickly amassing nucular [sic] capabilities, & with Al Qaida & 9-11 & all, we have no choice. P.S. You might want to hold on to those shares. I'm buyin' some myself!!".
"Okay, Mister Bush, would you like your campaign contribution in cash or check? And I'll get all my employees to donate the max too! P.S. You're so cool! Also put in a good word for me with God." (A little Harriet-ness never hurts with this gnarly Commander in Chief.)
So Bush hides behind his responsibility of national security, & Halliburton hides behind the First Amendment; so that we can devote our labor to financing Mr. Bush's campaign & padding Halliburton's profits.
*We make no claim that the intelligence on which our conclusion is based is full. Perusing all the intelligence may have led us to different conclusions which, in our opinion, might endanger national security. As a reminder, Executive Order #123535: Whoever should ask, "Which came first, the intelligence or the conclusion?" with any suspicion that it was, or even might have been, the latter is deemed a terrorist. Please see Executive Order #120334, Extraordinary Rendition, or the Loophole by which to Remove Inalienable Rights from Terrorist-U.S. Citizens & Get Back at Them Big-Time , for recourse should this matter arise.
Damn, them gonna be some expensive coasters.