Find me an example of such a country that does the stuff you mentioned. Go on, just one. Iran? Syria? Afghanistan? Come on, those are backwaters. Yeah, some of them may have wealth (oil wealth in the hands of the few for the most part), but that isn't a good barometer for civil liberty.
FYI PRNewsWire is exactly what it sounds like - a clearing house for press releases. Anyone get an "article" published on PRNewsWire by simply paying the appropriate fee. I think there was even an exploit of that fact a few years back when someone paid for a forged press release from a big-name company in order to manipulate the stock market.
... but seriously when is porn going to get into the streaming scene? (insert joke)
There are a ton of for-pay webcam services. They seem to be intermediaries between 'independent contractors' in mostly 3rd world countries and customers in the west. They often take the lion's share of the money (usually $1/minute and up), paying the contractors 25% or less, although I've heard of one place advertising for contractors and claiming to pay 50%.
Sorry, I don't know any URLs off-hand, but you can probably find them easily enough even with a brain-dead google search since that's kind of their client base.
The researchers weren't quite sure where the wreck was on the ocean floor, but the Navy suggested that they have special-purpose sonar that's really, really good at finding lengths of cable, and would that help?
"Arabs getting flight training and bringing boxcutters onto commercial airplanes" != "Reasonable cause to suspect terrorism"
If it did, then there would be about a million other equally "reasonable causes to suspect terrorism" and all the overhead of dealing with them would pretty much assure that no plane would ever make it to the runway.
on September 11, 2001 there wasn't a specific law against a bunch of strange Arabs getting flight training and bringing boxcutters onto commercial airplanes. That doesn't mean someone shouldn't have stopped them and asked them what the hell they were doing.
In a free society, that is precisely what it means. Nobody said freedom was free.
Did you hear that sound as the OP's point went flying over your head? In your failure to get his sarcasm, you helped make his point. If you think having your car stolen is a PITA, imagine how inconvenient it would be to find yourself dead.
Oh, so in fact his point was that people who are suicidal think suicide is a bad idea because it results in their death. Totally missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
Since I have insurance I have every motivation to leave the keys in the ignition of my car when I go into a supermarket shopping, right?
Terrible analogy, for these reasons: 1) You have a deductible - that's money out of your pocket 2) Your car insurance is for "fair market value" not "replacement value" - if your car is not average - i.e. it is a beater or it is modified or it is just extremely well cared for - the insurance check may not be enough to cover the cost of an equivalent-to-you replacement 3) Having your car stolen is a PITA - lots of hassle and rigmarole before you are made whole, that's time and money wasted
So, no you do not have every motivation to leave the keys in the car, in fact you have plenty of incentives to take reasonable steps to prevent its theft.
I can agree to that. A suspects name should be confidential until convicted. So many lives are ruined over false accusations or mistaken identity.
If suspects are arrested and tried in secret, that makes it really, really easy to become a police state where people can be "disappeared." Public knowledge of arrest is essential for habeas corpus.
The problem is not the public disclosure of suspects' identities. The problem is the lesser exposure if and when a suspect is exonerated. Rather than risk habeas corpus, I would prefer the much smaller imposition on freedom of expression of requiring local newspapers to publish - in large print and simple language on a weekly or monthly basis - a full list of arrests, charges made, charges dropped and trial results.
Oh, and if by "Jesus was a liberal" you mean "Jesus supported the government taking property from people by force in order to give it to other people," then, no, Jesus was no liberal. He did believe in people giving of themselves to help others -- as opposed to forcing other people to do so -- which conservatives also believe in.
Many christians believe that Jesus preached in support of tithing. You might try to argue that tithes are voluntary due to religion being voluntary while government and secular taxes are not. But that would be stretching things quite a bit as the threat of eternal damnation is probably a little bit stronger than the threat of detention.
I should have posted this the first time - the Dixie Chicks actually reaped great economic returns from that so-called "boycott"
Despite the controversy -- or perhaps because of it -- the Chicks continued to prove their commercial viability, selling almost six million copies of Home and mounting the top-grossing country tour of 2003. Now, as they prepare to reenter the spotlight, some speculate that the group might be poised to shun the industry that shunned them. Rolling Stone
It would seem pretty strange for them to complain about a boycott hurting their careers when in fact they were the most successful act in Country that year, now wouldn't it?
And then they get upset if those political views cause others to decide to not do business with them and it affects their careers.
Can you name one example where said star was publicly upset that their business was impacted as a result of their political statements?
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon and the Baseball Hall of Fame / Bull Durham tempest-in-a-teapot.
More bull. Here is what Robbins said:
Reached Wednesday night, Robbins said he was "dismayed" by the decision, He responded with a letter he planned to send to Petroskey, telling him: "You belong with the cowards and ideologues in a hall of infamy and shame."
Robbins and Sarandon, his longtime partner, have been active in peace rallies to protest the war in Iraq. In his letter, Robbins said he remained "skeptical" of the war plans and told Petroskey he did not realize baseball was "a Republican sport."
"To suggest that my criticism of the President put the troops in danger is absurd.... I wish you had, in your letter, saved me the rhetoric and talked honestly about your ties to the Bush and Reagan administrations.
"You invoke patriotism and use words like 'freedom' in an attempt to intimidate and bully. In doing so, you dishonour the words 'patriotism' and 'freedom' and dishonour the men and women who have fought wars to keep this nation a place where one can freely express their opinions without fear of reprisal or punishment." Catholic New Times, May 4, 2003
There is not a word in there even remotely hinting at dismay over loss of business or impact on their careers. Not a single word.
See my response to the other poster regarding the Dixie Chicks. Nothing from them complaining about losing business, not a word complaining about damage to their careers. But plenty of words stating that the people doing the boycotting are doing it because they are essentially "wrong thinkers."
Can you name one example where said star was publicly upset that their business was impacted as a result of their political statements?
Two words: Dixie Chicks.
Bull!
The Dixie Chicks that I remember went off and produced their most creative and confrontational album to date after the boycotting and not once did I ever hear any of them complain that their business was unfairly impacted. In fact, the first single off that album was titled, "Not Ready to Make Nice" the lyrics of which specifically addressed the hate of the responses they got, not the business impact.
You are quite welcome to prove me wrong by linking to a citation of such a complaint. I spent about 15 minutes looking for one before posting this. Earn that +5 informative.
It reminds me of stars that use their name recognition to draw an audience to give political speeches. And then they get upset if those political views cause others to decide to not do business with them and it affects their careers.
When has that happened? Can you name one example where said star was publicly upset that their business was impacted as a result of their political statements? Not a case where said star thought someone was in the wrong because of their contrary beliefs, but actually thought someone was wrong for boycotting them in response to the star's statements.
I sincerely doubt you can name even one case of that happening.
Personally, the closest thing I've seen to that has been the Mormon church whining about being singled out and unfairly criticized for "simply using their freedom of speech" (all $20M+ of it) to advocate for California's Proposition 8.
Centralized or not, I don't think it makes all that much of a difference - it just requires a different set of tactics.
With a decentralized net, you go with astroturfers to support your goals and you drown out the other voices with innuendo, appeals to emotion, out right lies, etc.
On the net there is no truth, only words and fully editable media. Just look at how the obama birth certificate meme refuses to die, despite many news reports debunking it and actual high resolution photos being posted since at least summer.
I'm pretty pro-nuke, but the last place I think should be looking at nukes is a bunch of small islands in the middle of the ocean. Even fast-breeder plants still have waste that takes a few hundred years to cool down, and we have very little experience building them (the one in Japan has had an accident or two and never seems to get any closer to going online at full production capacity and the one in France wasn't operational either the last time I checked).
Every island in Hawaii sits on a giant fresh water aquifer - if waste makes it deep into the ground, it has the potential to contaminate the drinking water for an entire island. If waste makes it into the ocean, it has the potential to seriously damage the wildlife of the reefs and spread out across vast areas of the ocean too, albeit in a diluted form.
That said, Hawaii has long been an area where alternative energy research flourishes - OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion), Geothermal and Wind have all had some serious development done in Hawaii. In fact, Lockheed is on board for build a 10MW+ OTEC plant on Oahu over the next couple of years and it appears that "Sea Solar Power" is negotiating to build a 100MW OTEC plant on Oahu too.
The other thing to remember is that Hawaii has the most expensive electricity (and gasoline) of any US state (I remember a litre of gasoline in Hawaii costing more than a gallon of gasoline on the mainland). Thus what may not be cost-effective in Arizona or California may still be cost-effective in Hawaii.
The only "bad" lawyers (a) work for corporations or (b) are suing you.
You've been fortunate.
Here's one anecdote in contradiction with your anecdotes: A friend of mine had a divorce lawyer that dropped him 6 months in and 1 week before court because they discovered that his wife had done one of those "free first appointments" with them 7 months prior (she apparently did that with all of the local divorce attorneys so that he would have a hard time finding representation). They kept his money and because of the "old boys club" of lawyers in his town he had to go out of town to even find an attorney who was willing to sue the first for his money back.
Which leads to the real problem with lawyers - the bar. Lawyers are "self-regulating" which we should all know by now is an inherent conflict of interest that inevitably leads to corruption, regardless of what industry does it.
In an auto accident here, you get 3x the medical costs for "pain and suffering". If you have $10k in medical bills, the doctor(s) get(s) $10k, your lawyer gets $10k, and you get $10k. Without a lawyer you'll be lucky to get your bills paid.
Your last sentence is telling. How much of that is because of the way the system works? The system that was setup by, is run by, and is regulated by lawyers?
Do you have any realistic suggestions on how to stop them? Not just on this, on everything. Voting, protesting and petitioning have failed on major issues. What options are there now?
Nanomachines that rewrite your DNA just enough to through off the tests.
One of the core protections in the US legal system is that you cannot be made to testify against a close relative.
I am pretty sure that is not true.
IANAL (and IORAL, but that's another subject) but my lay understanding is that a spouse can not be forced to testify because legally husband and wife are the same entity and thus it would be a violation of the 5th amendment, the right to refuse to be a witness against oneself.
Slashdot Mirror
More likely your browser was pre-fetching search results and one of your search results was on a dhs.gov web page.
Find me an example of such a country that does the stuff you mentioned. Go on, just one. Iran? Syria? Afghanistan? Come on, those are backwaters. Yeah, some of them may have wealth (oil wealth in the hands of the few for the most part), but that isn't a good barometer for civil liberty.
Take that one step further - religion has nothing to do with it, being a "backwater country" is the common theme, not religion. For example Rwanda - 90+% christian or to a lesser extent Sri Lanka - 85%+ Buddhist and Hindu and Burma - 89% Buddhist.
Don't be so arrogant as to propose 'whoosh - what a jerk. he missed the joke.' I got the joke...found it wasn't funny.
So, every time someone makes an obvious joke that you find unfunny your response is to take it literally?
Bet that makes you the life of the party.
From PRNewsWire:
FYI PRNewsWire is exactly what it sounds like - a clearing house for press releases. Anyone get an "article" published on PRNewsWire by simply paying the appropriate fee. I think there was even an exploit of that fact a few years back when someone paid for a forged press release from a big-name company in order to manipulate the stock market.
Where's the article?
Second link in the summary:
http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2008/11/the_case_of_m_s_el_naschie.html
... but seriously when is porn going to get into the streaming scene? (insert joke)
There are a ton of for-pay webcam services. They seem to be intermediaries between 'independent contractors' in mostly 3rd world countries and customers in the west. They often take the lion's share of the money (usually $1/minute and up), paying the contractors 25% or less, although I've heard of one place advertising for contractors and claiming to pay 50%.
Sorry, I don't know any URLs off-hand, but you can probably find them easily enough even with a brain-dead google search since that's kind of their client base.
let me see you get away with that in a western country.
In the dark, on the beach, after midnight?
Done it many times, but I sure won't invite you to watch.
Half of me says these guys need a reality check, the other half wants to go there.
Why bother going to Dubai anyhow? It is too hot, they only have sand and some fake islands
Plus, they have a really bad attitude about the most fun thing to do on a beach in the middle of the night.
The researchers weren't quite sure where the wreck was on the ocean floor, but the Navy suggested that they have special-purpose sonar that's really, really good at finding lengths of cable, and would that help?
What they should have been asking was why was the navy volunteering in the first place?
"Arabs getting flight training and bringing boxcutters onto commercial airplanes" != "Reasonable cause to suspect terrorism"
If it did, then there would be about a million other equally "reasonable causes to suspect terrorism" and all the overhead of dealing with them would pretty much assure that no plane would ever make it to the runway.
on September 11, 2001 there wasn't a specific law against a bunch of strange Arabs getting flight training and bringing boxcutters onto commercial airplanes. That doesn't mean someone shouldn't have stopped them and asked them what the hell they were doing.
In a free society, that is precisely what it means.
Nobody said freedom was free.
Did you hear that sound as the OP's point went flying over your head? In your failure to get his sarcasm, you helped make his point. If you think having your car stolen is a PITA, imagine how inconvenient it would be to find yourself dead.
Oh, so in fact his point was that people who are suicidal think suicide is a bad idea because it results in their death. Totally missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
lol.
In other words, had the 'Kyle' alias been real, there wouldn't have been a case.
No, myspace's terms of service forbid harassment - pseudonymously or not.
Since I have insurance I have every motivation to leave the keys in the ignition of my car when I go into a supermarket shopping, right?
Terrible analogy, for these reasons:
1) You have a deductible - that's money out of your pocket
2) Your car insurance is for "fair market value" not "replacement value" - if your car is not average - i.e. it is a beater or it is modified or it is just extremely well cared for - the insurance check may not be enough to cover the cost of an equivalent-to-you replacement
3) Having your car stolen is a PITA - lots of hassle and rigmarole before you are made whole, that's time and money wasted
So, no you do not have every motivation to leave the keys in the car, in fact you have plenty of incentives to take reasonable steps to prevent its theft.
I can agree to that. A suspects name should be confidential until convicted. So many lives are ruined over false accusations or mistaken identity.
If suspects are arrested and tried in secret, that makes it really, really easy to become a police state where people can be "disappeared." Public knowledge of arrest is essential for habeas corpus.
The problem is not the public disclosure of suspects' identities. The problem is the lesser exposure if and when a suspect is exonerated. Rather than risk habeas corpus, I would prefer the much smaller imposition on freedom of expression of requiring local newspapers to publish - in large print and simple language on a weekly or monthly basis - a full list of arrests, charges made, charges dropped and trial results.
Oh, and if by "Jesus was a liberal" you mean "Jesus supported the government taking property from people by force in order to give it to other people," then, no, Jesus was no liberal. He did believe in people giving of themselves to help others -- as opposed to forcing other people to do so -- which conservatives also believe in.
Many christians believe that Jesus preached in support of tithing. You might try to argue that tithes are voluntary due to religion being voluntary while government and secular taxes are not. But that would be stretching things quite a bit as the threat of eternal damnation is probably a little bit stronger than the threat of detention.
I should have posted this the first time - the Dixie Chicks actually reaped great economic returns from that so-called "boycott"
Despite the controversy -- or perhaps because of it -- the Chicks continued to prove their commercial viability, selling almost six million copies of Home and mounting the top-grossing country tour of 2003. Now, as they prepare to reenter the spotlight, some speculate that the group might be poised to shun the industry that shunned them.
Rolling Stone
It would seem pretty strange for them to complain about a boycott hurting their careers when in fact they were the most successful act in Country that year, now wouldn't it?
And then they get upset if those political views cause others to decide to not do business with them and it affects their careers.
Can you name one example where said star was publicly upset that their business was impacted as a result of their political statements?
Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon and the Baseball Hall of Fame / Bull Durham tempest-in-a-teapot.
More bull. Here is what Robbins said:
Reached Wednesday night, Robbins said he was "dismayed" by the decision, He responded with a letter he planned to send to Petroskey, telling him: "You belong with the cowards and ideologues in a hall of infamy and shame."
Robbins and Sarandon, his longtime partner, have been active in peace rallies to protest the war in Iraq. In his letter, Robbins said he remained "skeptical" of the war plans and told Petroskey he did not realize baseball was "a Republican sport."
"To suggest that my criticism of the President put the troops in danger is absurd.... I wish you had, in your letter, saved me the rhetoric and talked honestly about your ties to the Bush and Reagan administrations.
"You invoke patriotism and use words like 'freedom' in an attempt to intimidate and bully. In doing so, you dishonour the words 'patriotism' and 'freedom' and dishonour the men and women who have fought wars to keep this nation a place where one can freely express their opinions without fear of reprisal or punishment."
Catholic New Times, May 4, 2003
There is not a word in there even remotely hinting at dismay over loss of business or impact on their careers. Not a single word.
See my response to the other poster regarding the Dixie Chicks. Nothing from them complaining about losing business, not a word complaining about damage to their careers. But plenty of words stating that the people doing the boycotting are doing it because they are essentially "wrong thinkers."
Can you name one example where said star was publicly upset that their business was impacted as a result of their political statements?
Two words: Dixie Chicks.
Bull!
The Dixie Chicks that I remember went off and produced their most creative and confrontational album to date after the boycotting and not once did I ever hear any of them complain that their business was unfairly impacted. In fact, the first single off that album was titled, "Not Ready to Make Nice" the lyrics of which specifically addressed the hate of the responses they got, not the business impact.
You are quite welcome to prove me wrong by linking to a citation of such a complaint. I spent about 15 minutes looking for one before posting this. Earn that +5 informative.
It reminds me of stars that use their name recognition to draw an audience to give political speeches. And then they get upset if those political views cause others to decide to not do business with them and it affects their careers.
When has that happened? Can you name one example where said star was publicly upset that their business was impacted as a result of their political statements? Not a case where said star thought someone was in the wrong because of their contrary beliefs, but actually thought someone was wrong for boycotting them in response to the star's statements.
I sincerely doubt you can name even one case of that happening.
Personally, the closest thing I've seen to that has been the Mormon church whining about being singled out and unfairly criticized for "simply using their freedom of speech" (all $20M+ of it) to advocate for California's Proposition 8.
Centralized or not, I don't think it makes all that much of a difference - it just requires a different set of tactics.
With a decentralized net, you go with astroturfers to support your goals and you drown out the other voices with innuendo, appeals to emotion, out right lies, etc.
On the net there is no truth, only words and fully editable media. Just look at how the obama birth certificate meme refuses to die, despite many news reports debunking it and actual high resolution photos being posted since at least summer.
Perhaps they could consider a nuke plant instead.
I'm pretty pro-nuke, but the last place I think should be looking at nukes is a bunch of small islands in the middle of the ocean. Even fast-breeder plants still have waste that takes a few hundred years to cool down, and we have very little experience building them (the one in Japan has had an accident or two and never seems to get any closer to going online at full production capacity and the one in France wasn't operational either the last time I checked).
Every island in Hawaii sits on a giant fresh water aquifer - if waste makes it deep into the ground, it has the potential to contaminate the drinking water for an entire island. If waste makes it into the ocean, it has the potential to seriously damage the wildlife of the reefs and spread out across vast areas of the ocean too, albeit in a diluted form.
That said, Hawaii has long been an area where alternative energy research flourishes - OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion), Geothermal and Wind have all had some serious development done in Hawaii. In fact, Lockheed is on board for build a 10MW+ OTEC plant on Oahu over the next couple of years and it appears that "Sea Solar Power" is negotiating to build a 100MW OTEC plant on Oahu too.
http://www.otecnews.org/
The other thing to remember is that Hawaii has the most expensive electricity (and gasoline) of any US state (I remember a litre of gasoline in Hawaii costing more than a gallon of gasoline on the mainland). Thus what may not be cost-effective in Arizona or California may still be cost-effective in Hawaii.
The only "bad" lawyers (a) work for corporations or (b) are suing you.
You've been fortunate.
Here's one anecdote in contradiction with your anecdotes: A friend of mine had a divorce lawyer that dropped him 6 months in and 1 week before court because they discovered that his wife had done one of those "free first appointments" with them 7 months prior (she apparently did that with all of the local divorce attorneys so that he would have a hard time finding representation). They kept his money and because of the "old boys club" of lawyers in his town he had to go out of town to even find an attorney who was willing to sue the first for his money back.
Which leads to the real problem with lawyers - the bar. Lawyers are "self-regulating" which we should all know by now is an inherent conflict of interest that inevitably leads to corruption, regardless of what industry does it.
In an auto accident here, you get 3x the medical costs for "pain and suffering". If you have $10k in medical bills, the doctor(s) get(s) $10k, your lawyer gets $10k, and you get $10k. Without a lawyer you'll be lucky to get your bills paid.
Your last sentence is telling. How much of that is because of the way the system works? The system that was setup by, is run by, and is regulated by lawyers?
Do you have any realistic suggestions on how to stop them? Not just on this, on everything. Voting, protesting and petitioning have failed on major issues. What options are there now?
Nanomachines that rewrite your DNA just enough to through off the tests.
One of the core protections in the US legal system is that you cannot be made to testify against a close relative.
I am pretty sure that is not true.
IANAL (and IORAL, but that's another subject) but my lay understanding is that a spouse can not be forced to testify because legally husband and wife are the same entity and thus it would be a violation of the 5th amendment, the right to refuse to be a witness against oneself.