They're not talking about scanning random people on the street and taking their guns.
They're not talking about that, no. But are they planning it?
If you're getting frisked, we're no longer talking about "law abiding citizens".
It's interesting how you've done away with the whole arrest, indictment, trial, and conviction parts of the justice system and gone straight from "police officer's suspicion" to "guilty."
You're right, I don't like it. I don't think "piracy" is a real problem, and people who use that word for anything that doesn't involve actual ships tend to be on the wrong side of the copyright debate.
When they come up with a text for their proposed Amendment, I might take them more seriously.
What did you do, stop reading after 10 words? They have a link to the full text of the amendment on the front page in bold red type. It's right above the map.
If that's true then the EFF is being misleading in their One-Page Guide to SOPA, which says in part:
Under SOPA, corporations could send notice to a site's payment providers, requiring those partners to cut the site off...
So perhaps I'm misinterpreting the EFF's guide but it looks like this is similar to the take-down notice, direct from copyright holder to payment provider without passing through a court and due process and all that.
Could you give a reference to what in SOPA requires a court order? I'd like to read it.
By "engage" I didn't mean run for office. I meant first and foremost to cast an informed vote; to write to one's representatives, perhaps to join advocacy groups like, for this issue, the EFF or EPIC; maybe march in protests, that sort of thing. Those do require some time and commitment but they certainly don't require wealth.
Proponents of SOPA have a 10-word sound byte saying why SOPA is "great:" "this bill will stop online piracy." What we need is a 10-word statement of why the whole idea of SOPA, PIPA, and the like is disastrous. How about:
This bill gives law-enforcement powers to Big Media.
I am sure someone can improve on that. Please, do.
As others have said, there is one major presidential candidate who is against SOPA: Ron Paul. I don't personally support Mr. Paul because of unrelated issues, but it's a fact he is opposed to SOPA, to the point of joining the blackout.
Slightly off-topic but if you are asking "what can I do" and you want to get at the root cause, not the symptom, you might want to check out the Move to Amend.
The only actual power you have is your vote. However your senator and U.S. representative (and president, or presidential wannabe) need your vote. Do not forget this: money in politics is only a means to secure your vote, and your vote is what decides elections. So what you can do is write to your elected representative and/or opposition candidate(s). Tell them that your support is contingent on their promotion of Internet freedom. If enough people say that, succinctly, they will listen. If you can get ten or fifty or a hundred friends who live in the same district to sign the letter, so much the better.
And much did it cost in salary plus overhead to pay TSA employees to count that change by hand? I doubt they broke even on it much less came out ahead. Let's see, 450 airports x 365 work days x 2 shift changes per year x $20/hour loaded labor rate x 0.1 hours (estimated) to count, record, and process the change = $657K / year. So by my estimate the TSA had a net waste of $157K counting this change.
Now granted, MAD works better when your enemy is a large country who values their lives - it gets a bit iffy when your enemy is a small band of religious wackos who don't much care whether they're dead or alive, as long as they've made their point.
Just to recap, "MAD" stands for "Mutually Assured Destruction." If the enemy is a small band of religious wackos they can't get enough nukes to destroy a major country. One city, sure; ten cities, maybe; destroy the country, no way. So they can do some damage but not destroy their target. Likewise they are hard to locate and easy to disperse. You'd be surprised how useless nukes are against a moving enemy whom you can't locate to within a few miles' radius. So the whole MAD strategy becomes irrelevant. Neither side can destroy the other but they can nuke each other... maybe multiple times. This is why nuclear proliferation is scary: it changes the stable MAD scenario to an unstable one where there is no deterrent to small-scale nuclear exchange.
The best way to deal with the TSA is to contribute money to a civil-liberties organization such as EPIC. I would say "the ACLU" but these days they are only picking battles they think they can win. The ACLU is focused on gay high school kids being able to take a same-sex date to the prom instead of bigger issues such as two American citizens being assassinated, thousands detained without cause, and hundreds of millions being shaken down every time they try to travel within their own country.
I have found, the hard way, that one's choice of words matter a lot when the moderators are handing out points. But it's not just liberals who are opposed to tracking -- it's any parent whose kid is not in the "A" track.
OK. Thanks for illuminating my ignorance. I guess when you think of it as a right to pursue property it's pretty easy to agree with, unless your definition of "property" is overly broad.
It's not just math scores, but in every area. The school system concentrates on bringing everyone up to average in everything, instead of nurturing talents and enabling a child so soar in some specialized area. With one exception: sports.
Interesting you mention that. My stepmother was director of the gifted-children's program in a middle school. She had to defend herself against charges of elitism on a daily basis, and the phrase she came up with to describe her program was "varsity academics."
Opportunities for gifted education in the public schools vary wildly from one state to another. But I think even my stepmother's state gutted the program when the mandates of "No Child Left Behind" came along -- they couldn't afford to do both, and one was required by law.
Sounds like your daughter got the short end of that deal. Maybe she should think about taking advantage of the opportunities the school system has to offer, and play varsity sports. (I known that sounds ironic but I'm serious). It sounds like you have got the academics covered at home -- though she will probably surpass your teaching at the rate she is going.
Depends on how you sell it. A nationwide effort to find and cultivate bright students could go over very well with the liberal crowd, as long as you make sure to find the talent among the poor and minorities as well as the rich white kids.
If you actually think about how much effort it would take to fix the American education system to produce better students, versus the effort it would take to increase immigration for knowledge workers, it totally makes sense to argue for immigration. So really, America is still the land of opportunity -- for people who went to school somewhere else and got a decent education.
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This is the most impressively rational thing I have read in relation to public policy in a long time.
They're not talking about that, no. But are they planning it?
It's interesting how you've done away with the whole arrest, indictment, trial, and conviction parts of the justice system and gone straight from "police officer's suspicion" to "guilty."
Who said you have to vote for the powerful parties?
You're right, I don't like it. I don't think "piracy" is a real problem, and people who use that word for anything that doesn't involve actual ships tend to be on the wrong side of the copyright debate.
I prefer Kitten BBQ = bad!.
Man, that gives us a lot of targets!
What did you do, stop reading after 10 words? They have a link to the full text of the amendment on the front page in bold red type. It's right above the map.
If that's true then the EFF is being misleading in their One-Page Guide to SOPA, which says in part:
So perhaps I'm misinterpreting the EFF's guide but it looks like this is similar to the take-down notice, direct from copyright holder to payment provider without passing through a court and due process and all that.
Could you give a reference to what in SOPA requires a court order? I'd like to read it.
By "engage" I didn't mean run for office. I meant first and foremost to cast an informed vote; to write to one's representatives, perhaps to join advocacy groups like, for this issue, the EFF or EPIC; maybe march in protests, that sort of thing. Those do require some time and commitment but they certainly don't require wealth.
Proponents of SOPA have a 10-word sound byte saying why SOPA is "great:" "this bill will stop online piracy." What we need is a 10-word statement of why the whole idea of SOPA, PIPA, and the like is disastrous. How about:
This bill gives law-enforcement powers to Big Media.
I am sure someone can improve on that. Please, do.
As others have said, there is one major presidential candidate who is against SOPA: Ron Paul. I don't personally support Mr. Paul because of unrelated issues, but it's a fact he is opposed to SOPA, to the point of joining the blackout.
Slightly off-topic but if you are asking "what can I do" and you want to get at the root cause, not the symptom, you might want to check out the Move to Amend.
Or you could, you know, grow a set of balls and engage with the political system to make the country better.
The only actual power you have is your vote. However your senator and U.S. representative (and president, or presidential wannabe) need your vote. Do not forget this: money in politics is only a means to secure your vote, and your vote is what decides elections. So what you can do is write to your elected representative and/or opposition candidate(s). Tell them that your support is contingent on their promotion of Internet freedom. If enough people say that, succinctly, they will listen. If you can get ten or fifty or a hundred friends who live in the same district to sign the letter, so much the better.
He's assuming his colleagues will read it before voting on it. He should know better.
Yes, in fact the copyright lobby is working on new legislation to have the copyright duration clock upgraded to 64-bit.
No, if you play the money game against the "content industry" you will lose. What we need to do is take back our republic from the 1%.
And much did it cost in salary plus overhead to pay TSA employees to count that change by hand? I doubt they broke even on it much less came out ahead. Let's see, 450 airports x 365 work days x 2 shift changes per year x $20/hour loaded labor rate x 0.1 hours (estimated) to count, record, and process the change = $657K / year. So by my estimate the TSA had a net waste of $157K counting this change.
Just to recap, "MAD" stands for "Mutually Assured Destruction." If the enemy is a small band of religious wackos they can't get enough nukes to destroy a major country. One city, sure; ten cities, maybe; destroy the country, no way. So they can do some damage but not destroy their target. Likewise they are hard to locate and easy to disperse. You'd be surprised how useless nukes are against a moving enemy whom you can't locate to within a few miles' radius. So the whole MAD strategy becomes irrelevant. Neither side can destroy the other but they can nuke each other ... maybe multiple times. This is why nuclear proliferation is scary: it changes the stable MAD scenario to an unstable one where there is no deterrent to small-scale nuclear exchange.
The best way to deal with the TSA is to contribute money to a civil-liberties organization such as EPIC. I would say "the ACLU" but these days they are only picking battles they think they can win. The ACLU is focused on gay high school kids being able to take a same-sex date to the prom instead of bigger issues such as two American citizens being assassinated, thousands detained without cause, and hundreds of millions being shaken down every time they try to travel within their own country.
If it's a common cause then how come neither party is supporting civil liberties? It's not a left vs. right thing, it's a 1% vs. 99% thing.
And the fact that no one has ever attacked a security checkpoint inside the U.S. says a lot about the real scope of the risk of terrorist attack.
I have found, the hard way, that one's choice of words matter a lot when the moderators are handing out points. But it's not just liberals who are opposed to tracking -- it's any parent whose kid is not in the "A" track.
OK. Thanks for illuminating my ignorance. I guess when you think of it as a right to pursue property it's pretty easy to agree with, unless your definition of "property" is overly broad.
Interesting you mention that. My stepmother was director of the gifted-children's program in a middle school. She had to defend herself against charges of elitism on a daily basis, and the phrase she came up with to describe her program was "varsity academics."
Opportunities for gifted education in the public schools vary wildly from one state to another. But I think even my stepmother's state gutted the program when the mandates of "No Child Left Behind" came along -- they couldn't afford to do both, and one was required by law.
Sounds like your daughter got the short end of that deal. Maybe she should think about taking advantage of the opportunities the school system has to offer, and play varsity sports. (I known that sounds ironic but I'm serious). It sounds like you have got the academics covered at home -- though she will probably surpass your teaching at the rate she is going.
Depends on how you sell it. A nationwide effort to find and cultivate bright students could go over very well with the liberal crowd, as long as you make sure to find the talent among the poor and minorities as well as the rich white kids.
If you actually think about how much effort it would take to fix the American education system to produce better students, versus the effort it would take to increase immigration for knowledge workers, it totally makes sense to argue for immigration. So really, America is still the land of opportunity -- for people who went to school somewhere else and got a decent education.