You are right, that changes 1 and 2 were pretty much all the extra security we needed after 9/11. All the extra TSA theatre is not about making us any more security, it's about making money for various corporations and for the politicians they own.
Seems this is not a cost-effective way to catch some bad guys.
The real goal of this is not to save money. The goal is to make money for the drone companies, and to score political points for the politician that can say they value national security.
Note they were for it until they realized opposing it was political gold.
As the other comment said, supporting SOPA was basically literal gold. So the politicians can choose between literal gold (campaign donations) and figurative political gold (in the form of popular support). I would much rather have my candidate acting based on popular support than potential campaign donations.
This, "Ohmygod! They agree with me on W, X, Y, and Z, but disagree with me on A and B, oh the horror!" attitude that seems prevalent is saddening.
If you take out the "Ohmygod!" and "oh the horror!", this seems perfectly rational. Maybe I'm missing your point, but I think it's valuable to know that the tea party conservatives seem to be making the right decision on this issue. They are more concerned, on this specific issue, about their popular supporters (bloggers, etc) than about their financial/corporate supporters such as MPAA. And I greatly prefer this type of issue based reporting over the horse-race type reporting such as multi-page articles about whether Gingrich can catch up to Romney before the next caucus or whatever.
And I fully know that the Libertarian party can never garner enough support to do anything significant, that is why I am throwing my support on the Republicans
I'm not sure why you say this, it sounds like Dem/Repub propaganda. Even if the Libertarian party (or any third-party) doesn't win the presidency or a federal congressman, every vote helps push their platform. If Libertarians start getting enough share of the vote, then Democrats and Republicans start to notice and think about what they can do to appeal to some of those voters. You may not agree with much the Tea party platform, but the protests did demonstrate that a popular movement (even when they are later co-opted by a major party) and non-mainstream candidates actually can affect the outcome of elections.
When was the last time Iran invaded another country? According to wikipedia it was over 100 years ago. When was the last time the US invaded another country?
If you want to know the actual threat that Iran holds to the United States, Noam Chomsky has a pretty good explanation .
At least as important, in my opinion, is an independent study to determine whether the body scanners and other security changes are effective at reducing terrorism and other criminal activity. If they are not effective at their stated goal, then we should just get rid of them regardless of whether they are safe or not.
...putting public domain items back under copyright is NOT unconstitutional... because it isn't.
Well, at least two justices disagree with you, so it's reasonable to argue that they made the wrong decision here. This is what the consitution has to say regarding copyright:
The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
To me this means that any copyright law which does not promote the progress of science and/or useful Arts is unconstitutional. So you would have to make the case that moving these works out of the public domain accomplishes that.
I'm not saying you are wrong with this information, what I'm saying is that the NY Times wouldn't run this story unless they did due diligence to be completely sure they are 100% right because they are held to journalistic standards.
I was agreeing with you up until this sentence. Unfortunately the NYT and most other mainstream media outlets do not follow good journalistic standards. Sure, there are a few good journalists who actually investigate, but the majority of the NYT is just regurgitated google combined with quotes from anonymous government sources.
You are probably refering to Monsanto v. Schmeiser case. Correct me if I'm wrong but there were no other cases like that.
From Wikipedia "Since the mid-1990s, it has sued 145 individual US farmers for patent infringement in connection with its genetically engineered seed."
Of course, it's not easy to determine whether the farmers planted the seeds intentionally, or if it was more survival of the fittest seeds, and over several seasons, the Monsanto seeds would be a large portion of the crop.
The main point is that it shouldn't be possible to patent a gene sequence at all, since it's unlikely that DNA patents "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
I would expect to be able to delete a picture from my profile just as a good usability practice, without having anything to do with ownership of the picture. However, I would not expect that I would be able to delete all copies of the picture, regardless of who owns it. So if I understand your question correctly, then yes, I would oppose a DRM scheme that would try to force Facebook to comply with a request to delete all copies of the picture.
I certainly agree that both parties are at fault for both the original setup and the continued rollout of the scanners and other counter-productive TSA policies. I thought that was the general point of the earlier post, that whichever party is elected it's unlikely that anything significant will change in the TSA or DHS, unless we somehow manage to elect a Ron Paul or some thirdparty candidate.
If by "these devices" you are referring to the body scanners, they were first installed in a few airports under Bush, and the roll-out has just continued during Obama's term. I'm not sure what you mean by "dem TSA" and "dem DHS" since those are not elected officials and they don't seem to have changed much from Bush to Obama and from Dem to Rep congress.
I agree with your first point that it would be at least difficult, but probably not impossible, to find an impartial judge and jury. There is no reason for this fact alone to prevent a trial because it at least gives the appearance that justice is being served.
Your second point is that having an unfair trial, decreases the value and/or effectiveness of subsequent trials. If this is true, then it is a good reason to avoid a trial in certain cases, however I don't believe this is true. As an example, look at the Nuremberg trials. These trials likely had a biased judge and jury, and it's probably fair to at least call some parts of Nuremberg as show trials. However, overall I believe these trials had a positive overall effect on international justice.
Another more recent example is the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Here is a case which is arguably very similar to Gaddafi. It would have been similarly difficult to find an impartial judge and jury for this trial. Whether or not you believe this was a show trial is irrelevant. The question is do you believe this trial had a negative effect on the international justice system, or the justice system of the US or other country?
He didn't say it is "evil" for companies to hoard wealth, he only said that they did it. The point was simply that people who don't have a lot of money tend to spend it locally when they get it, compared to weathly people who don't spend it and often invest it overseas.
Really? The budget deficit is through the roof, economy is declining, jobs are being lost and the presidents main concern should be legalizing drugs?
This seems to be a popular rationalization/argument among Obama defenders: he really wants to legalize marijuana, it's just that all those more serious issues keep getting in the way. But there is no reason why he can't try to legalize marijuana at the same time as he works on all those other issues. Most progressives would be perfectly happy just to hear him say that he is in favor of legalization, he doesn't even need to put any effort into it. But if he really wanted to work at it (i.e. write a bill and push it through congress), then it could have positive effects on the "very serious issues". We could reduce the budget deficit by cutting spending on the war on drugs and creating a new tax on marijuana. Create jobs and improve the economy by spending some of the marijuana tax on job creating infrastructure projects. And there would be new local business opportunities forr things like marijuana bars/depots in various cities.
In addition, Obama has stated more than once that he is against legalization. I've never heard him even make the argument that he's for legalization but it's not possible due to other priorities.
What I'd like to know, is why he keeps dodging the question of medical marijuana when it's THE most requested question...
From what I've seen he hasn't been dodging the question at all, he's just not giving you the answer you want. He has flat out stated more than once that he is against legalizing marijuana.
What is the exchange rate between dollars and bit coins? How do these exchanges take place, and is there a risk that the value of bitcoins will deflate making them worthless?
How does bitcoin prevent forgery? What's to stop someone from modifying their local database to give themselves lots of money, and how do you verify that money coming to you is real?
I'll bite.. Will I get thrown in jail for saying Obama is a dick? No? Oh, so I suppose I'll get sent to GITMO for saying that the government is crap?
If you are white and/or well connected, probably not. If you are Muslim on the other hand, and travel to certain countries, then yes, there is a fair chance that you will either be thrown in Gitmo, or maybe just assassinated. Ever heard of Anwar al-Awlaki?
Nonsense. Political corruption is the bread and butter of media because it sells. As noted in the first linked article, the LA Times investigated and broke the Bell corruption story.
Nonsense right back at you. Stories about the tweets and love lives of politicians are the bread and butter of media because it sells, and it creates distractions from the real issues. Actual political corruption, such as Obama secretly negotiating with Health care companies, running a covert war in Yemen, and then lying about it, and of course I shouldn't even have to mention all stuff that went on under Bush. Actual corruption gets very little, if any, coverage.
I don't think he's ever claimed to be an "economics expert". He writes/speaks his opinions about various topics just as anyone should have the right to do, even if they are not a so called "expert". I noticed that you didn't actually attack any of his positions, you just say he doesn't have the correct training so we shouldn't listen to him. And you criticize his writing style by linking to Chomskybot? You do realize that chomskybot is a computer program and not the actual writing of Noam Chomsky. I could just as easily say Charles Dickens is a terrible writer because when I randomly assemble phrases from his writing, the sentences don't have any meaning.
I like the idea of reversing the way that most classrooms work today by watching video lectures at home, and then doing homework assignments in the classroom with the teacher available for help (http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html). During school I always had a hard time paying attention to all day lectures which may go too fast or slow for me depending on the topic. Watching the lecture at home would give the chance to pause, rewind, take a break and get a snack, look something up in the book, etc. Then doing the assignment in class you have the teacher there to help if you get stuck or have a question, and you can easily help, or get help from, the other students.
Slashdot Mirror
You are right, that changes 1 and 2 were pretty much all the extra security we needed after 9/11. All the extra TSA theatre is not about making us any more security, it's about making money for various corporations and for the politicians they own.
Here's a recent article, just to back up the claim that this is about making money for special interests, and not about catching bad guys or saving money for the general public.
http://www.republicreport.org/2012/mckeon-drone-lobby-speech/
Seems this is not a cost-effective way to catch some bad guys.
The real goal of this is not to save money. The goal is to make money for the drone companies, and to score political points for the politician that can say they value national security.
Note they were for it until they realized opposing it was political gold.
As the other comment said, supporting SOPA was basically literal gold. So the politicians can choose between literal gold (campaign donations) and figurative political gold (in the form of popular support). I would much rather have my candidate acting based on popular support than potential campaign donations.
This, "Ohmygod! They agree with me on W, X, Y, and Z, but disagree with me on A and B, oh the horror!" attitude that seems prevalent is saddening.
If you take out the "Ohmygod!" and "oh the horror!", this seems perfectly rational. Maybe I'm missing your point, but I think it's valuable to know that the tea party conservatives seem to be making the right decision on this issue. They are more concerned, on this specific issue, about their popular supporters (bloggers, etc) than about their financial/corporate supporters such as MPAA. And I greatly prefer this type of issue based reporting over the horse-race type reporting such as multi-page articles about whether Gingrich can catch up to Romney before the next caucus or whatever.
And I fully know that the Libertarian party can never garner enough support to do anything significant, that is why I am throwing my support on the Republicans
I'm not sure why you say this, it sounds like Dem/Repub propaganda. Even if the Libertarian party (or any third-party) doesn't win the presidency or a federal congressman, every vote helps push their platform. If Libertarians start getting enough share of the vote, then Democrats and Republicans start to notice and think about what they can do to appeal to some of those voters. You may not agree with much the Tea party platform, but the protests did demonstrate that a popular movement (even when they are later co-opted by a major party) and non-mainstream candidates actually can affect the outcome of elections.
When was the last time Iran invaded another country? According to wikipedia it was over 100 years ago. When was the last time the US invaded another country?
If you want to know the actual threat that Iran holds to the United States, Noam Chomsky has a pretty good explanation .
At least as important, in my opinion, is an independent study to determine whether the body scanners and other security changes are effective at reducing terrorism and other criminal activity. If they are not effective at their stated goal, then we should just get rid of them regardless of whether they are safe or not.
...putting public domain items back under copyright is NOT unconstitutional... because it isn't.
Well, at least two justices disagree with you, so it's reasonable to argue that they made the wrong decision here.
This is what the consitution has to say regarding copyright:
The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
To me this means that any copyright law which does not promote the progress of science and/or useful Arts is unconstitutional. So you would have to make the case that moving these works out of the public domain accomplishes that.
I'm not saying you are wrong with this information, what I'm saying is that the NY Times wouldn't run this story unless they did due diligence to be completely sure they are 100% right because they are held to journalistic standards.
I was agreeing with you up until this sentence. Unfortunately the NYT and most other mainstream media outlets do not follow good journalistic standards. Sure, there are a few good journalists who actually investigate, but the majority of the NYT is just regurgitated google combined with quotes from anonymous government sources.
You are probably refering to Monsanto v. Schmeiser case. Correct me if I'm wrong but there were no other cases like that.
From Wikipedia "Since the mid-1990s, it has sued 145 individual US farmers for patent infringement in connection with its genetically engineered seed."
Of course, it's not easy to determine whether the farmers planted the seeds intentionally, or if it was more survival of the fittest seeds, and over several seasons, the Monsanto seeds would be a large portion of the crop.
The main point is that it shouldn't be possible to patent a gene sequence at all, since it's unlikely that DNA patents "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
I would expect to be able to delete a picture from my profile just as a good usability practice, without having anything to do with ownership of the picture. However, I would not expect that I would be able to delete all copies of the picture, regardless of who owns it. So if I understand your question correctly, then yes, I would oppose a DRM scheme that would try to force Facebook to comply with a request to delete all copies of the picture.
I certainly agree that both parties are at fault for both the original setup and the continued rollout of the scanners and other counter-productive TSA policies. I thought that was the general point of the earlier post, that whichever party is elected it's unlikely that anything significant will change in the TSA or DHS, unless we somehow manage to elect a Ron Paul or some thirdparty candidate.
If by "these devices" you are referring to the body scanners, they were first installed in a few airports under Bush, and the roll-out has just continued during Obama's term. I'm not sure what you mean by "dem TSA" and "dem DHS" since those are not elected officials and they don't seem to have changed much from Bush to Obama and from Dem to Rep congress.
I agree with your first point that it would be at least difficult, but probably not impossible, to find an impartial judge and jury. There is no reason for this fact alone to prevent a trial because it at least gives the appearance that justice is being served.
Your second point is that having an unfair trial, decreases the value and/or effectiveness of subsequent trials. If this is true, then it is a good reason to avoid a trial in certain cases, however I don't believe this is true. As an example, look at the Nuremberg trials. These trials likely had a biased judge and jury, and it's probably fair to at least call some parts of Nuremberg as show trials. However, overall I believe these trials had a positive overall effect on international justice.
Another more recent example is the trial of Slobodan Milosevic. Here is a case which is arguably very similar to Gaddafi. It would have been similarly difficult to find an impartial judge and jury for this trial. Whether or not you believe this was a show trial is irrelevant. The question is do you believe this trial had a negative effect on the international justice system, or the justice system of the US or other country?
For your next project/requirements, you might be able to just refer to RFC 2119 to define these terms.
He didn't say it is "evil" for companies to hoard wealth, he only said that they did it. The point was simply that people who don't have a lot of money tend to spend it locally when they get it, compared to weathly people who don't spend it and often invest it overseas.
Really? The budget deficit is through the roof, economy is declining, jobs are being lost and the presidents main concern should be legalizing drugs?
This seems to be a popular rationalization/argument among Obama defenders: he really wants to legalize marijuana, it's just that all those more serious issues keep getting in the way. But there is no reason why he can't try to legalize marijuana at the same time as he works on all those other issues. Most progressives would be perfectly happy just to hear him say that he is in favor of legalization, he doesn't even need to put any effort into it. But if he really wanted to work at it (i.e. write a bill and push it through congress), then it could have positive effects on the "very serious issues". We could reduce the budget deficit by cutting spending on the war on drugs and creating a new tax on marijuana. Create jobs and improve the economy by spending some of the marijuana tax on job creating infrastructure projects. And there would be new local business opportunities forr things like marijuana bars/depots in various cities.
In addition, Obama has stated more than once that he is against legalization. I've never heard him even make the argument that he's for legalization but it's not possible due to other priorities.
What I'd like to know, is why he keeps dodging the question of medical marijuana when it's THE most requested question...
From what I've seen he hasn't been dodging the question at all, he's just not giving you the answer you want. He has flat out stated more than once that he is against legalizing marijuana.
What is the exchange rate between dollars and bit coins? How do these exchanges take place, and is there a risk that the value of bitcoins will deflate making them worthless?
How does bitcoin prevent forgery? What's to stop someone from modifying their local database to give themselves lots of money, and how do you verify that money coming to you is real?
I'll bite.. Will I get thrown in jail for saying Obama is a dick? No? Oh, so I suppose I'll get sent to GITMO for saying that the government is crap?
If you are white and/or well connected, probably not. If you are Muslim on the other hand, and travel to certain countries, then yes, there is a fair chance that you will either be thrown in Gitmo, or maybe just assassinated. Ever heard of Anwar al-Awlaki?
Nonsense. Political corruption is the bread and butter of media because it sells. As noted in the first linked article, the LA Times investigated and broke the Bell corruption story.
Nonsense right back at you. Stories about the tweets and love lives of politicians are the bread and butter of media because it sells, and it creates distractions from the real issues. Actual political corruption, such as Obama secretly negotiating with Health care companies, running a covert war in Yemen, and then lying about it, and of course I shouldn't even have to mention all stuff that went on under Bush. Actual corruption gets very little, if any, coverage.
I don't think he's ever claimed to be an "economics expert". He writes/speaks his opinions about various topics just as anyone should have the right to do, even if they are not a so called "expert". I noticed that you didn't actually attack any of his positions, you just say he doesn't have the correct training so we shouldn't listen to him. And you criticize his writing style by linking to Chomskybot? You do realize that chomskybot is a computer program and not the actual writing of Noam Chomsky. I could just as easily say Charles Dickens is a terrible writer because when I randomly assemble phrases from his writing, the sentences don't have any meaning.
I like the idea of reversing the way that most classrooms work today by watching video lectures at home, and then doing homework assignments in the classroom with the teacher available for help (http://www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html). During school I always had a hard time paying attention to all day lectures which may go too fast or slow for me depending on the topic. Watching the lecture at home would give the chance to pause, rewind, take a break and get a snack, look something up in the book, etc. Then doing the assignment in class you have the teacher there to help if you get stuck or have a question, and you can easily help, or get help from, the other students.