sometimes to get a gain we also have to suffer a loss
I'm a big supporter of standing up for your beliefs, but at the same time I realize there are times when you have to pick your battles, and as you say, suffer a loss to get the gain. The question then is, what did we gain by passing this law? FISA already made it a cakewalk to get warrants. So what did we gain while pissing on rule of law?
I really dislike people like you. Grow a pair, cowboy up, get a spine, or whatever your local saying is for standing up for your beliefs. If some one doesn't like McCain, then they shouldn't vote for him. If some one doesn't like Obama, then they shouldn't for for him. If some one doesn't like either of them, then they shouldn't for them. The only people you can complain about after McCain wins in November are people that voted for McCain.
Elections should not be about who doesn't win, but who does win. If the GP wants to vote for someone else, even if he does a write-in for himself, then he at least voted for who he believes should win. And when the whole world goes to hell in a hand basket, at least he can say that he stood for his convictions. On the other hand, you -- and people like you -- can only revel in knowing the other guy didn't win while you wallow in the mire you helped to create.
Does it mean I end up driving in crazy rain (like Seattle is known for)?
I thought Seattle was known for constant drizzling rain. That's not crazy. Houston has crazy rain. Nothing for forever and then 4 inches of it in a couple of hours.
Disclaimer: I lived in Houston for a couple of years (was there for the flood of summer 2001), but have only visited Seattle once (and it only sprinkled a few minutes for the 3 days I was there).
Yes, because when you see a million of your fellow citizen's blown up with a cruise missile launched by your own government and that it destroys the White House and Senate buildings, you can expect to see the rest of the population complain that American Idol has been delayed to show that lousy news coverage.
What I'm saying is that there is a critical mass of rebels at which point the government will be overthrown* no matter how powerful the military is. That critical mass is much smaller for rebels with guns than for rebels without.
*That, or the government will be the only people left to rule, which would make them so weak they'd probably be overrun by another country a few days later.
It all depends on how you define "a bunch." A hundred guys in a bunker in Montana? Not a chance. A million people storming up the steps of the White House or Senate building equals an overthrow of the government. Also, it's not like the military is brain-washed. A lot of those people they'd have to shoot just very well might be family, friends, neighbors, or other acquaintances. If the government got so bad that a significant portion of the populace decided to overthrow it, there's probably a good number of people who would have access to military supplies that would be part of that "bunch."
But even if you do one gun against a platoon of well armed and armoured stormtroopers is ineffectual at best
Are you kidding? Have you seen how bad a shot those idiots are? The Death Star had a troop capacity of over 600,000 and not one of them could get a single shot even near Han and Chewbacca. And if the Indiana Jones documentaries are to be believed, entire legions Nazis and Russians couldn't hit a group of people from 20 feet away with fully automatic machine guns. These people are not to be feared. Especially if you have Harrison Ford's anti-bullet shield around you.
The 2nd amendment, and the rest of those rights on the Bill of Rights, are just examples of the inalienable rights that human beings have. There are others, not explicitly noted in the Bill of Rights. But all of them are inalienable rights that the government ought to be protecting. The government ought to be protecting those rights for its citizens. But that doesn't mean that they should infringe upon those rights of foreigners.
It can be debated endlessly whether or not the US government should get involved in protecting those rights for others. But it's a far cry different to protect the inalienable rights of human beings who happen to hold a foreign citizenship than to actively infringe upon their rights. One could argue that the US has an obligation to invade countries that don't protect that country's citizens' rights and one could argue that we should let them be. But one cannot argue that the US (or any country) should actively impinge upon the inalienable rights of foreigners.
we've had SETI running for a long time and no indication at all that there's anybody out there.
I'm all for SETI, but the amount of time that we've been using SETI is ridiculously small considering the size of the universe, the time we have to deal with, and the fact that we're searching only limited bands of spectrum.
To offer a horrible analogy, SETI is like a team or researchers looking for an unknown bacteria up in the Himalayas by standing in a basement in Wichita, Kansas and shouting one time "Where are you?"
Re:The explanation is obvious
on
Terminal Chaos
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· Score: 1
I'm on the TSA watch list (still, even after filling out the form two months ago)
I don't know how long the TSA claims to go through those forms, but it doesn't surprise me that a government bureaucracy takes a stupidly long time to do anything. My wife lost her Permanent Resident card and had to get a replacement. We got a notice in the mail from INS saying it would take something like 400+ days for them to process it. Long story short, she was a US citizen just a few months later. I honestly don't know how it can take less time to become a citizen than to reprint a stupid card.
I can think of one way. I don't claim that this way makes sense, but I could see some dumb PHB/MBA type thinking it would be smart. Say my family decides we want to go on a trip from LA to NY. We buy all the tickets but then something comes up where we can't go. Most (if not all) airlines make it difficult (if possible at all) to get a refund. So they made their money and we're out. One way we could get over that is to sell our tickets to somebody else. But since they are non-transferable, those people have to buy tickets from the airlines instead of from people who weren't going to use ours. Since airlines overbook, this isn't a problem.
Even I think the above is somewhat contrived, but when you consider that all airlines overbook so much, and then consider how many times a flight is full, you have to figure that there are probably a few people for each flight that don't use the ticket they bought (and couldn't get a refund for) so the airline just made their money. If the tickets were transferable, then those people could scalp their tickets at the airport.
Hell, when Teddy Roosevelt was president, he didn't think something was constitutional, said so and was responded to with "what's the Constitution between friends?"
Actually, it was Timothy J. Campbell who said it to Grover Cleveland after Cleveland refused to support a bill because it was unconstitutional.
Why can't the latter be dismissed as an honest mistake?
From my house I can discover upwards of 5 different wireless APs. My wife and I are technically competent enough to connect to our wireless AP. However, a lot of our friends are not. They just start their laptops and connect to the first one they can.
Judging by the distance a wireless AP can serve, the distance between homes, and knowing the kind of people my neighbors are (that is, many are technically competent people) I would guess without asking any of them that at least one of those APs was intentionally left open. In fact I know at least one is, because mine is.
So how then can you chalk up the Starbucks example as an honest mistake, but not a friend of mine who thinks he is connecting to my AP?
My brother bought a onesie for my daughter that says "Version 2.0: Now dongle free!" However, that is not her name, and I've never even remotely referred to her as "v2.0." That's just wrong.
I agree with you in principal and had the same thoughts when I first heard this story. However, another poster above you mentioned that perhaps they aren't trying to stop you (especially as you shouldn't be stopped) but maybe they are trying to stop your boss, or your insurance agent, or what have you. Put into that perspective, it makes more sense.
I just wanted to give a shout out. I have a Honda Fit as well. That thing continuously amazes me how much stuff I can comfortably fit in it and still have room for more(including passengers).
I'm more of a fan of converting cars to run off E-85 and getting it from switchgrass
While this will solve lots of problems, even switchgrass causes other problems. The only way to really make a difference is electric cars. The biggest advantage electric cars offer is the centralized power generation and thus centralized pollution. It is much easier to reduce pollution in one place than it is to do so at a million different places along the road. E-85 still has that problem. And since electric cars would all take electricity to recharge, then it is totally irrelevant how they get that electricity. Today the power company might be using coal, but they could switch to nuclear, fusion, solar, geothermal, wind, hydro, or a million gerbils in spinning wheels and you wouldn't care or even have to know.
Right now we have petroleum and its hard to switch off because of the infrastructure in place. Few want to go to E-85 or Natural Gas because you can't find stations that sell those on every corner like you can with gas. If we're going to make an infrastructure change, let's do it once, and let's do it so that no matter what change for our energy source comes in the future, all cars can handle it right away. Right now, whenever we find a fuel that is more efficient, we can't do that simply because of inertia. E-85, natural gas, and fuel cells don't solve that problem. They just change which fuel source is going to be used in the infrastructure. Again, if you're going to change it, change it once.
This also opens up new revenue streams for all sorts of businesses. You can go to a restaurant or a movie or the grocery store or anywhere that has a parking lot and they can offer to charge up your vehicle while you are inside and charge some amount of money per kilowatt hour. In fact, this could be an additional revenue stream for places that really are just parking lots. They could charge $10 to park or offer a parking discount if you also choose to charge your car while its parked.
Electric cars also offer much better torque than gasoline engines. I don't know about the other alternative fuels, but my guess is that it beats those as well. If my Honda Fit were electric I bet I could tow a boat with it, whereas now the manual tells me that towing anything will void my warranty. With that greater towing capacity, no one needs to worry about making sure they have a car for in-town trips and a separate car for taking camping/boating/cycling/anything-with-a-trailer trips. That means fewer cars are made and that reduces pollution.
The only disadvantage I've ever heard about electric cars is that they charge slowly so a trip longer than the car's capacity makes it inconvenient. I can understand this. I'd hate to be stuck in the middle of nowhere for 6 hours while my car fully recharged. However, there is a solution to this. For long trips, you could easily buy/rent a trailer whose sole purpose is to generate mobile power. Again, since the car is electric, the generator could be making energy from E-85, gasoline, fuel-cells, natural gas, or gerbils running on treadmills. Also, since the car is electric, no worries about the torque needed to tow the trailer.
I think I have all of the problems worked out, so if you see any other disadvantage to electric cars that I haven't pointed out, please let me know.
I've seen something similar to this. I had a guy give me a handout that listed all of the toxins found in cigarettes. I don't smoke but I looked at it anyway. One that jumped out at me of the 60 or so on his list was potassium. I have never eaten a banana since.
In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure it was listed only to make the list longer and thus look even worse at first glance.
Oh wow, I was way off. I meant to say every 4 weeks. While not technically correct (except for February) a lot of people consider a month to be 4 weeks long. So every 4 weeks would be once a month, but you would end up with 13 in a year.
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I'm a big supporter of standing up for your beliefs, but at the same time I realize there are times when you have to pick your battles, and as you say, suffer a loss to get the gain. The question then is, what did we gain by passing this law? FISA already made it a cakewalk to get warrants. So what did we gain while pissing on rule of law?
I really dislike people like you. Grow a pair, cowboy up, get a spine, or whatever your local saying is for standing up for your beliefs. If some one doesn't like McCain, then they shouldn't vote for him. If some one doesn't like Obama, then they shouldn't for for him. If some one doesn't like either of them, then they shouldn't for them. The only people you can complain about after McCain wins in November are people that voted for McCain.
Elections should not be about who doesn't win, but who does win. If the GP wants to vote for someone else, even if he does a write-in for himself, then he at least voted for who he believes should win. And when the whole world goes to hell in a hand basket, at least he can say that he stood for his convictions. On the other hand, you -- and people like you -- can only revel in knowing the other guy didn't win while you wallow in the mire you helped to create.
I thought Seattle was known for constant drizzling rain. That's not crazy. Houston has crazy rain. Nothing for forever and then 4 inches of it in a couple of hours.
Disclaimer: I lived in Houston for a couple of years (was there for the flood of summer 2001), but have only visited Seattle once (and it only sprinkled a few minutes for the 3 days I was there).
Yes but that's in Florida, which will be completely submerged, so it balances out.
Yes, because when you see a million of your fellow citizen's blown up with a cruise missile launched by your own government and that it destroys the White House and Senate buildings, you can expect to see the rest of the population complain that American Idol has been delayed to show that lousy news coverage.
What I'm saying is that there is a critical mass of rebels at which point the government will be overthrown* no matter how powerful the military is. That critical mass is much smaller for rebels with guns than for rebels without.
*That, or the government will be the only people left to rule, which would make them so weak they'd probably be overrun by another country a few days later.
It all depends on how you define "a bunch." A hundred guys in a bunker in Montana? Not a chance. A million people storming up the steps of the White House or Senate building equals an overthrow of the government. Also, it's not like the military is brain-washed. A lot of those people they'd have to shoot just very well might be family, friends, neighbors, or other acquaintances. If the government got so bad that a significant portion of the populace decided to overthrow it, there's probably a good number of people who would have access to military supplies that would be part of that "bunch."
The 2nd amendment, and the rest of those rights on the Bill of Rights, are just examples of the inalienable rights that human beings have. There are others, not explicitly noted in the Bill of Rights. But all of them are inalienable rights that the government ought to be protecting. The government ought to be protecting those rights for its citizens. But that doesn't mean that they should infringe upon those rights of foreigners.
It can be debated endlessly whether or not the US government should get involved in protecting those rights for others. But it's a far cry different to protect the inalienable rights of human beings who happen to hold a foreign citizenship than to actively infringe upon their rights. One could argue that the US has an obligation to invade countries that don't protect that country's citizens' rights and one could argue that we should let them be. But one cannot argue that the US (or any country) should actively impinge upon the inalienable rights of foreigners.
To offer a horrible analogy, SETI is like a team or researchers looking for an unknown bacteria up in the Himalayas by standing in a basement in Wichita, Kansas and shouting one time "Where are you?"
I can think of one way. I don't claim that this way makes sense, but I could see some dumb PHB/MBA type thinking it would be smart. Say my family decides we want to go on a trip from LA to NY. We buy all the tickets but then something comes up where we can't go. Most (if not all) airlines make it difficult (if possible at all) to get a refund. So they made their money and we're out. One way we could get over that is to sell our tickets to somebody else. But since they are non-transferable, those people have to buy tickets from the airlines instead of from people who weren't going to use ours. Since airlines overbook, this isn't a problem.
Even I think the above is somewhat contrived, but when you consider that all airlines overbook so much, and then consider how many times a flight is full, you have to figure that there are probably a few people for each flight that don't use the ticket they bought (and couldn't get a refund for) so the airline just made their money. If the tickets were transferable, then those people could scalp their tickets at the airport.
Your references have been served:
New York Times (PDF warning)
Wikipedia
Why can't the latter be dismissed as an honest mistake?
From my house I can discover upwards of 5 different wireless APs. My wife and I are technically competent enough to connect to our wireless AP. However, a lot of our friends are not. They just start their laptops and connect to the first one they can.
Judging by the distance a wireless AP can serve, the distance between homes, and knowing the kind of people my neighbors are (that is, many are technically competent people) I would guess without asking any of them that at least one of those APs was intentionally left open. In fact I know at least one is, because mine is.
So how then can you chalk up the Starbucks example as an honest mistake, but not a friend of mine who thinks he is connecting to my AP?
My brother bought a onesie for my daughter that says "Version 2.0: Now dongle free!" However, that is not her name, and I've never even remotely referred to her as "v2.0." That's just wrong.
I agree with you in principal and had the same thoughts when I first heard this story. However, another poster above you mentioned that perhaps they aren't trying to stop you (especially as you shouldn't be stopped) but maybe they are trying to stop your boss, or your insurance agent, or what have you. Put into that perspective, it makes more sense.
I just wanted to give a shout out. I have a Honda Fit as well. That thing continuously amazes me how much stuff I can comfortably fit in it and still have room for more(including passengers).
Right now we have petroleum and its hard to switch off because of the infrastructure in place. Few want to go to E-85 or Natural Gas because you can't find stations that sell those on every corner like you can with gas. If we're going to make an infrastructure change, let's do it once, and let's do it so that no matter what change for our energy source comes in the future, all cars can handle it right away. Right now, whenever we find a fuel that is more efficient, we can't do that simply because of inertia. E-85, natural gas, and fuel cells don't solve that problem. They just change which fuel source is going to be used in the infrastructure. Again, if you're going to change it, change it once.
This also opens up new revenue streams for all sorts of businesses. You can go to a restaurant or a movie or the grocery store or anywhere that has a parking lot and they can offer to charge up your vehicle while you are inside and charge some amount of money per kilowatt hour. In fact, this could be an additional revenue stream for places that really are just parking lots. They could charge $10 to park or offer a parking discount if you also choose to charge your car while its parked.
Electric cars also offer much better torque than gasoline engines. I don't know about the other alternative fuels, but my guess is that it beats those as well. If my Honda Fit were electric I bet I could tow a boat with it, whereas now the manual tells me that towing anything will void my warranty. With that greater towing capacity, no one needs to worry about making sure they have a car for in-town trips and a separate car for taking camping/boating/cycling/anything-with-a-trailer trips. That means fewer cars are made and that reduces pollution.
The only disadvantage I've ever heard about electric cars is that they charge slowly so a trip longer than the car's capacity makes it inconvenient. I can understand this. I'd hate to be stuck in the middle of nowhere for 6 hours while my car fully recharged. However, there is a solution to this. For long trips, you could easily buy/rent a trailer whose sole purpose is to generate mobile power. Again, since the car is electric, the generator could be making energy from E-85, gasoline, fuel-cells, natural gas, or gerbils running on treadmills. Also, since the car is electric, no worries about the torque needed to tow the trailer.
I think I have all of the problems worked out, so if you see any other disadvantage to electric cars that I haven't pointed out, please let me know.
Or my personal favorite: "Vous bum. Il est un poisson dans votre bibliothÃque."
Thank you Dave Barry. Now I always have an appropriate chant for baseball games.
I've seen something similar to this. I had a guy give me a handout that listed all of the toxins found in cigarettes. I don't smoke but I looked at it anyway. One that jumped out at me of the 60 or so on his list was potassium. I have never eaten a banana since.
In all seriousness, I'm pretty sure it was listed only to make the list longer and thus look even worse at first glance.
How about $45?
I say keep the guns for humane reasons. If people are murdering people with spoons, it's only because it's dull, so it hurts more.
Oh wow, I was way off. I meant to say every 4 weeks. While not technically correct (except for February) a lot of people consider a month to be 4 weeks long. So every 4 weeks would be once a month, but you would end up with 13 in a year.
Or maybe it comes out every two weeks (52 weeks in a year).