I don't think so. Any place so crooked as the one described needs a hobbit and a Mt. Doom to enact the kind of change needed to make it a livable place.
As my uncle used to say about Lyndon Johnson "He was so damned crooked that they had to screw him into bed at night."
Sounds like this place could have taught Johnson a thing or two.
And just six short years ago I used to be a republican... Never voted for GWB though. I could see his fascism coming with his campaign speeches "There ought to be limits to freedom" - GWB.
You are very right... A republic just changes the way the managers of the people (i.e. the rich and powerful) have to work. Rather than being friends with the King, they have to bribe and promote and pay off their "legislators". The end result is the same.
"A managed democracy is a wonderful thing, Manuel, for the managers... and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers decide what is 'irresponsible'." - R. Heinlein
I've had the same result... Hence I tend to follow the "defense attorney" strategy...
Never admit to ANYTHING. I don't care if they caught you red-handed in the bank vault, you weren't doing anything wrong and have no idea what they are talking about.
Yes, if you tell the truth to SOME cops they might be nice to you and let you off of a speeding ticket, but most will just use the admission of guilt to write you a ticket and make their quota.
I understand them a lot more than you. I actually read the final report of the 2004 exit poll postmortem. Did YOU? Obviously not.
You realize that after the 2000 election, when the exit polls were called "flawed" by republicans trying to justify GWB's improbable win, the people running the exit poll revamped it and tried to make it as foolproof as possible. No effort was spared. 2004 was to be the best exit poll effort ever.
Despite this, magically the exit polls were wrong AGAIN in 2004. Is it that the people doing the exit polls (who are world class, best in the business at what they do and have done it all over the world in lots of other elections) were incompetent TWICE? Seems pretty unlikely.
Actually, based on the exit polls, these folks calculated the statistical probability that the polls were incorrect and GWB really won. The odds were as high as 16 million to 1 that GWB had won based on the exit polls. In other words, it is almost impossible that GWB actually won the 2004 election. In other countries around the world, this would be enough to decertify the election. Apparently not here in the good ole US of A. Nope, we'd rather cling to our irrational assumptions and hope and ignore all evidence of corruption rather than use data to decide things.
Just publish this merged list of who voted for who and let people see who they were shown as voting for.
If the voting shenanigans that supposedly went on in Ohio (blatant vote changing, computer fraud, etc) and supposedly made it very, very unlikely that GWB actually won the presidency by real votes (based on the very careful and updated exit polls), then it should be easily apparent when these people see who they were counted as voting for vs. who they REALLY voted for. Of course, there will be no way to PROVE it (good job Diebold!) but it will be pretty clear nonetheless.
Darkness flees from the light, so let the light in and see which cockroaches scurry away.
The key thing here though is how do they know whether the traffic they are monitoring is really foreign? The answer appears to be that they DON'T know this until AFTER they listen to it (sniff it, whatever the technical method is)...Matter of fact, I think I might know some rooms at AT&T in Los Angeles and San Francisco and Atlanta, etc., where they are doing these very things.
So in other words, this gives the government CARTE BLANCHE to intercept all US CITIZEN traffic, listen to it, read it, whatever, to determine whether or not it is "FOREIGN". If it is not "FOREIGN" then the government is supposed to ignore it, but are you seriously NAIVE enough to really believe that will happen? Especially if they see something they think might be interesting?
What this REALLY does is give away the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. You might remember it. It said something like "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It might as well not exist now, because the government gets to figure out AFTER the fact if they are violating it, and if they ARE, there are NO CONSEQUENCES whatsoever and you won't even know they violated it. Not only that, but they can use the illegally gathered information to target you for additional information gathering to support a warrant.
I'll say it again. This law has destroyed the 4th Amendment, even though it was already very tattered, this kills it utterly.
I knew it would only be a matter of time before the Brits, conditioned to a life of surveillance by their ever present CCTVs began fully implementing Big Brother.
Government censorship is evil, whatever the reasoning given for its implementation. Since this idiotic law would not apply outside of the "daddy knows best" government of the UK, the next step would be for the UK to implement filtering nationwide to stop these "unbalanced minds" from getting access to these images from other, less "enlightened" countries with more freedom[^H^H^H]access to filth...
Yeah, that MUST be true, because look at all the F-117s that Saddam managed to shoot down... NOT!
BTW, how many stealth aircraft has YOUR country made? Not a damn one, have they?
You can give criticism when your country manages to build their own fighter aircraft... I won't hold my breath.
The US makes the best fighters in the world by the only criteria that matters, the facts of the number of aircraft lost versus victories in the air and damage on the ground. Everything else is just sour grapes from the whiners...
Being at a MLB stadium in person isn't much different than being at an outdoor bar with baseball on TV. People drink and talk to the guy (or gal) next to them and pay almost zero attention to the game until something happens (once an inning) and then they pay attention to the game.
Baseball is the only game more boring to watch on TV than golf, and that is saying something.
I don't "steal" or more correctly, copyright infringe, ANY music. I buy all my music from iTunes. However, since I now can buy ONLY the songs that interest me and am NOT stuck with paying for an entire album of filler just to get the one song I care about, this has undoubted hurt the old RIAA "album" model. Even if EVERYONE bought the songs they wanted from iTunes or similar places, the RIAA companies revenue would STILL go DOWN since they no longer are forced to get the whole CD's worth of mostly useless and crappy music to get the one song they like.
THIS is definitely a change to their business model that they have failed to adapt to.
Please tell me how we can "win" a war against an undeclared and unidentified enemy? How do you define an "end" to such a "war". Answer: You can't.
Face it, the "War on Terror" will NEVER end, just like the "War on Drugs". It is the perfect political tool. Do whatever you want and justify it based on the "war". And since the "war" never ends, you can do this forever.
It seems that is nothing more than the active defense system that David Drake envisioned more than 30 years ago in his Hammer's Slammers book series. Impressive if it works, but notice how they don't really mention what happens to any friendlies near the "system" when it fires... Like all point defense systems, keeping the thing from killing your own guys is a major concern.
, then you ARE bonkers, but it has nothing to do with believing in Christ and everything to do with not having any understanding of history at all.
History certainly shows that war does not require democracy. In fact, war generally requires a LACK of democracy. In almost every war in history I am aware of, democracy was NOT the form of government used by the combatants of at least one side, and usually both. Lets see... 100 years war... nope. WWII? Fascism vs. "democracy"... 30 Years War... nope... Iran v. Iraq war... nope... hmm... see a pattern? Not that it can never happen, the US Civil War is one example, but civil wars are a special case, and in any case, the preponderance of other governments in all those other wars certainly puts paid to any such BS as:
In fact, I believe war requires democracy.
In any case, the rise of warlords and conflict prophesized by this article is less like a "World War" and more like the rise of feudalism again, which is not inconcievable. In fact, defacto feudalism still exists in several countries on this planet, usually in areas with little to no infrastructure and relatively sparse population (i.e. Darfur in the Sudan, big chunks of Afganistan, etc.)
Frankly I don't see how you could BE more wrong on this.
Maybe the reason I didn't, is that the concept of a citizen militia posing a viable threat to the peerless might of the US military is such an anachronism.
Well, I think you underestimate what 80 million small arms can do. If (and this is a giant IF), a substantial portion (say 10% or more) of our citzenry decided that a revolution was necessary and were willing to fight and die to bring it about, I think the US military would lose, even assuming that they would willing fire on the civilian population they are supposed to be protecting instead of supporting the revolution. For examples, see the Red Army in 1991, East German army, etc.
Plus, what fraction of the (non-wacko) gun-owning citizenry is actually outraged at our current slide toward fascism?
This I think hits the heart of the matter. I think if a lot of people educated themselves on what our government does and has done to subvert the rule of the People in favor of the rule of the dollar, a lot of them would be very upset. However, several things are working against this.
1. Most people don't want to hear bad news that they have to do anything about. It's just human nature. They want to rationalize things so they aren't so bad and they do this amazingly well. The republicans have taken advantage of this and made it almost an art form. They don't even bother hiding their lies anymore (although in all fairness, this part they learned from Slick Willie), because they know most people will rationalize it away anyway.
2. The second part is related, but is the most important. As the Romans found out and manipulated to their advantage, the People will never generate enough discontent to rebel if they have their bread and circuses. Keep them fed and entertained and they could care less. Much easier to rationalize their bad government when they are showing off their new plasma TV or Hemi to the neighbors. Our politicians know this well and they use it every day.
Do you honestly believe that the founding fathers encoded violent revolution into the bill of rights?
Yes, that is EXACTLY what they did. Having just fought an oppressive and tyrannical government themselves, they wanted to make it as easy as possible for the citizens to overthrow future tyrannical governments. Their letters on the subject make this absolutely clear.
They knew (as you apparently do not) that as every government grows and ages it gets corrupt and tyrannical and eventually must be overthrown if the people are to retain their rights.
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." (Thomas Jefferson Papers p. 334, 1950)
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Letter to William S. Smith 13 Nov 1787 (Jefferson, On Democracy p. 20, 1939; Padover, editor)
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive" -- Thomas Jefferson
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go around repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence." - Charles A. Beard
"The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers." --Thomas Jefferson, 1825
You might have pre-ordered, but I doubt you paid money for it before it was released. You could have undoubtedly cancelled your order when you realized it was a piece of DRM crap.
In any case, while some folks may have "good" reasons for not knowing that Steam is evil, most of the folks here knew it and bought it anyway, because it was "the greatest game!". Hey, I loved HL too. I would have bought this as well, but I'll be damned if I'll let a game company treat me like a criminal, when I am supposed to be their customer. Won't do it. Now maybe the rest of the idiots who bought this game will think twice next time too...
You idiots who bought this game, KNOWING it couldn't be played even OFFLINE without verifying to Valve that you weren't a fricking criminal are getting what you deserve. DRM is evil. Remember it. If you buy DRM'd things, YOU are also evil.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Or at least of making your ISP talk...
I don't think so. Any place so crooked as the one described needs a hobbit and a Mt. Doom to enact the kind of change needed to make it a livable place.
As my uncle used to say about Lyndon Johnson "He was so damned crooked that they had to screw him into bed at night."
Sounds like this place could have taught Johnson a thing or two.
Where the heck do you live? I want to make damn sure I never move there.
What about Hitachi desktop HDs? I hope they don't do this idiocy.
Anyone know?
And just six short years ago I used to be a republican... Never voted for GWB though. I could see his fascism coming with his campaign speeches "There ought to be limits to freedom" - GWB.
Well, he sure made that one a reality.
Anyone else remember Star Trek IV?
:)
"Computer... Computer?... Computer!"
"Ah, you have to use the keyboard"
"How quaint!"
Anyway, while this material isn't metallic, since it is transparent, sounds like we have our whale transporting material.
You are very right... A republic just changes the way the managers of the people (i.e. the rich and powerful) have to work. Rather than being friends with the King, they have to bribe and promote and pay off their "legislators". The end result is the same.
"A managed democracy is a wonderful thing, Manuel, for the managers... and its greatest strength is a 'free press' when 'free' is defined as 'responsible' and the managers decide what is 'irresponsible'." - R. Heinlein
I've had the same result... Hence I tend to follow the "defense attorney" strategy...
Never admit to ANYTHING. I don't care if they caught you red-handed in the bank vault, you weren't doing anything wrong and have no idea what they are talking about.
Yes, if you tell the truth to SOME cops they might be nice to you and let you off of a speeding ticket, but most will just use the admission of guilt to write you a ticket and make their quota.
I understand them a lot more than you. I actually read the final report of the 2004 exit poll postmortem. Did YOU? Obviously not.
You realize that after the 2000 election, when the exit polls were called "flawed" by republicans trying to justify GWB's improbable win, the people running the exit poll revamped it and tried to make it as foolproof as possible. No effort was spared. 2004 was to be the best exit poll effort ever.
Despite this, magically the exit polls were wrong AGAIN in 2004. Is it that the people doing the exit polls (who are world class, best in the business at what they do and have done it all over the world in lots of other elections) were incompetent TWICE? Seems pretty unlikely.
Actually, based on the exit polls, these folks calculated the statistical probability that the polls were incorrect and GWB really won. The odds were as high as 16 million to 1 that GWB had won based on the exit polls. In other words, it is almost impossible that GWB actually won the 2004 election. In other countries around the world, this would be enough to decertify the election. Apparently not here in the good ole US of A. Nope, we'd rather cling to our irrational assumptions and hope and ignore all evidence of corruption rather than use data to decide things.
Just publish this merged list of who voted for who and let people see who they were shown as voting for.
If the voting shenanigans that supposedly went on in Ohio (blatant vote changing, computer fraud, etc) and supposedly made it very, very unlikely that GWB actually won the presidency by real votes (based on the very careful and updated exit polls), then it should be easily apparent when these people see who they were counted as voting for vs. who they REALLY voted for. Of course, there will be no way to PROVE it (good job Diebold!) but it will be pretty clear nonetheless.
Darkness flees from the light, so let the light in and see which cockroaches scurry away.
The key thing here though is how do they know whether the traffic they are monitoring is really foreign? The answer appears to be that they DON'T know this until AFTER they listen to it (sniff it, whatever the technical method is)...Matter of fact, I think I might know some rooms at AT&T in Los Angeles and San Francisco and Atlanta, etc., where they are doing these very things.
So in other words, this gives the government CARTE BLANCHE to intercept all US CITIZEN traffic, listen to it, read it, whatever, to determine whether or not it is "FOREIGN". If it is not "FOREIGN" then the government is supposed to ignore it, but are you seriously NAIVE enough to really believe that will happen? Especially if they see something they think might be interesting?
What this REALLY does is give away the 4th Amendment to the Constitution. You might remember it. It said something like "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
It might as well not exist now, because the government gets to figure out AFTER the fact if they are violating it, and if they ARE, there are NO CONSEQUENCES whatsoever and you won't even know they violated it. Not only that, but they can use the illegally gathered information to target you for additional information gathering to support a warrant.
I'll say it again. This law has destroyed the 4th Amendment, even though it was already very tattered, this kills it utterly.
Refute this, go ahead, I dare you.
I knew it would only be a matter of time before the Brits, conditioned to a life of surveillance by their ever present CCTVs began fully implementing Big Brother.
Government censorship is evil, whatever the reasoning given for its implementation. Since this idiotic law would not apply outside of the "daddy knows best" government of the UK, the next step would be for the UK to implement filtering nationwide to stop these "unbalanced minds" from getting access to these images from other, less "enlightened" countries with more freedom[^H^H^H]access to filth...
Yeah, that MUST be true, because look at all the F-117s that Saddam managed to shoot down... NOT!
BTW, how many stealth aircraft has YOUR country made? Not a damn one, have they?
You can give criticism when your country manages to build their own fighter aircraft... I won't hold my breath.
The US makes the best fighters in the world by the only criteria that matters, the facts of the number of aircraft lost versus victories in the air and damage on the ground. Everything else is just sour grapes from the whiners...
Being at a MLB stadium in person isn't much different than being at an outdoor bar with baseball on TV. People drink and talk to the guy (or gal) next to them and pay almost zero attention to the game until something happens (once an inning) and then they pay attention to the game.
Baseball is the only game more boring to watch on TV than golf, and that is saying something.
These are now the ONLY reasons I don't run 100% Linux boxes...
Gotta get my game on with BF2, CoH and the like.
We need developers writing games for Linux... Heck we have just as high market penetration as the Mac!!!
I don't "steal" or more correctly, copyright infringe, ANY music. I buy all my music from iTunes. However, since I now can buy ONLY the songs that interest me and am NOT stuck with paying for an entire album of filler just to get the one song I care about, this has undoubted hurt the old RIAA "album" model. Even if EVERYONE bought the songs they wanted from iTunes or similar places, the RIAA companies revenue would STILL go DOWN since they no longer are forced to get the whole CD's worth of mostly useless and crappy music to get the one song they like.
THIS is definitely a change to their business model that they have failed to adapt to.
There's a reason cannibalism is called eating "Long Pig"....
Please tell me how we can "win" a war against an undeclared and unidentified enemy? How do you define an "end" to such a "war". Answer: You can't.
Face it, the "War on Terror" will NEVER end, just like the "War on Drugs". It is the perfect political tool. Do whatever you want and justify it based on the "war". And since the "war" never ends, you can do this forever.
It seems that is nothing more than the active defense system that David Drake envisioned more than 30 years ago in his Hammer's Slammers book series. Impressive if it works, but notice how they don't really mention what happens to any friendlies near the "system" when it fires... Like all point defense systems, keeping the thing from killing your own guys is a major concern.
If you truly believe this statement you put in , then you ARE bonkers, but it has nothing to do with believing in Christ and everything to do with not having any understanding of history at all.
History certainly shows that war does not require democracy. In fact, war generally requires a LACK of democracy. In almost every war in history I am aware of, democracy was NOT the form of government used by the combatants of at least one side, and usually both. Lets see... 100 years war... nope. WWII? Fascism vs. "democracy"... 30 Years War... nope... Iran v. Iraq war... nope... hmm... see a pattern? Not that it can never happen, the US Civil War is one example, but civil wars are a special case, and in any case, the preponderance of other governments in all those other wars certainly puts paid to any such BS as:
In any case, the rise of warlords and conflict prophesized by this article is less like a "World War" and more like the rise of feudalism again, which is not inconcievable. In fact, defacto feudalism still exists in several countries on this planet, usually in areas with little to no infrastructure and relatively sparse population (i.e. Darfur in the Sudan, big chunks of Afganistan, etc.)
Frankly I don't see how you could BE more wrong on this.
Maybe the reason I didn't, is that the concept of a citizen militia posing a viable threat to the peerless might of the US military is such an anachronism.
Well, I think you underestimate what 80 million small arms can do. If (and this is a giant IF), a substantial portion (say 10% or more) of our citzenry decided that a revolution was necessary and were willing to fight and die to bring it about, I think the US military would lose, even assuming that they would willing fire on the civilian population they are supposed to be protecting instead of supporting the revolution. For examples, see the Red Army in 1991, East German army, etc.
Plus, what fraction of the (non-wacko) gun-owning citizenry is actually outraged at our current slide toward fascism?
This I think hits the heart of the matter. I think if a lot of people educated themselves on what our government does and has done to subvert the rule of the People in favor of the rule of the dollar, a lot of them would be very upset. However, several things are working against this.
1. Most people don't want to hear bad news that they have to do anything about. It's just human nature. They want to rationalize things so they aren't so bad and they do this amazingly well. The republicans have taken advantage of this and made it almost an art form. They don't even bother hiding their lies anymore (although in all fairness, this part they learned from Slick Willie), because they know most people will rationalize it away anyway.
2. The second part is related, but is the most important. As the Romans found out and manipulated to their advantage, the People will never generate enough discontent to rebel if they have their bread and circuses. Keep them fed and entertained and they could care less. Much easier to rationalize their bad government when they are showing off their new plasma TV or Hemi to the neighbors. Our politicians know this well and they use it every day.
Yes, that is EXACTLY what they did. Having just fought an oppressive and tyrannical government themselves, they wanted to make it as easy as possible for the citizens to overthrow future tyrannical governments. Their letters on the subject make this absolutely clear.
They knew (as you apparently do not) that as every government grows and ages it gets corrupt and tyrannical and eventually must be overthrown if the people are to retain their rights.
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." (Thomas Jefferson Papers p. 334, 1950)
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Letter to William S. Smith 13 Nov 1787 (Jefferson, On Democracy p. 20, 1939; Padover, editor)
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive" -- Thomas Jefferson
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go around repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in their struggle for independence." - Charles A. Beard
"The greatest calamity which could befall us would be submission to a government of unlimited powers." --Thomas Jefferson, 1825
You might have pre-ordered, but I doubt you paid money for it before it was released. You could have undoubtedly cancelled your order when you realized it was a piece of DRM crap.
In any case, while some folks may have "good" reasons for not knowing that Steam is evil, most of the folks here knew it and bought it anyway, because it was "the greatest game!". Hey, I loved HL too. I would have bought this as well, but I'll be damned if I'll let a game company treat me like a criminal, when I am supposed to be their customer. Won't do it. Now maybe the rest of the idiots who bought this game will think twice next time too...
You idiots who bought this game, KNOWING it couldn't be played even OFFLINE without verifying to Valve that you weren't a fricking criminal are getting what you deserve. DRM is evil. Remember it. If you buy DRM'd things, YOU are also evil. :)
Hope you like it.
Much thanks!!! Yee ha!!!
Sorry for my negative comment before, but this helps bunches!