"It should have "essential" and "temporary" in it. Back in the real world, anybody who isn't a hermit or Robinson Crusoe gives up some liberty to gain some safety."
As you correctly point out, Franklin (who, by all accounts was a real person living in the real world) condemned sacrificing ESSENTIAL Liberty for the sake of TEMPORARY safety. I'm not sure what you're implying with your Robinson Crusoe example. Are you suggesting that the idea of "liberty" in some absolute form implies anarchy and disregard for the lives and property of others? One of the most fundamental concepts of libertarianism is that one person's liberty stops at the point when pursuing their own self interest infringes on the liberty of someone else. There is absolutely no parallel between accepting the limitations of a system of mutual respect among citizens and accepting a police state.
P.S. to the O.P. If you're going to "quote" someone, at least try to get it right, otherwise make it clear that you're paraphrasing.
"We don't have to get Luddite. Hell, the world ain't black and white. "Using antibiotics with impunity is bad, so let's toss them altogether"?"
You point out a clear and unfortunate problem in U.S. society and particularly in U.S. government policy. Take e.g. DDT. At one time it was "good" so we used it everywhere with reckless abandon. We then discover a few unintended consequences, and it's suddenly "bad" so it has to be 100% banned. More recently with some of our very effective pain relievers like Vioxx, they're "good" because they provide excellent relief to people suffereing chronic joint pain, but then all of a sudden they're "bad" because they increase risk of heart attack and stroke. BAN THEM!
The idea of using things with moderation in applications where they could be extremely beneficial with minimal unintended consequences doesn't fit into our narrow-minded world view.
"As for the crack about big pharma, bullshit. Traditional treatments have attracted a lot of investigation for the last couple of decades. If (if!) you find out that the traditional treatment works, then you can isolated the active compound(s) and patent and sell that."
Try to patent and sell tetrahydrocannabinol, a traditional treatment that works as an effective pain reliever and appetite stimulant for a variety of terrible illnesses.
> "If you dropped the regulations, " >> "If the US had a nickle for every time a businessman said that about regulations..."
Try your hand at operating a small manufacturing business at some point, then come back and provide your revised commentary. That was what my family TRIED to do when I was growing up. On the days you weren't dealing with OSHA and EPA, it was planning and zoning, DOT, dept. of weights and measures, etc. Then let's not forget the bloody IRS. Seemed like there was a full time bureaucrat in the Federal, State and local government for every one of the 8-10 people my family employed, and their job was to make our lives miserable and our business inoperable by enforcing the most obscure and idiotic regulations imaginable. That experience forever shaped MY worldview when it comes to the government and their useless bureaucracts.
"never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
That's a good way of thinking positively in everyday interactions. The driver that pulled out in front of me and forced me to jam on my brakes to avoid a collision was just an idiot, not an arsehole. Fine.
When it comes to observing long term trends, and especially as it applies to corporate and government power structures, you might as well reverse "malice" and "stupidity". I constantly hear people talking about all the "stupid" things that come out of Washington D.C. The fact is, the people in D.C. aren't stupid, they're malicious. It just SEEMS like they're stupid when you base the conclusion on the erroneous assumption that they actually have the best interests of the average citizen in mind.
Using Hanlon's Razor to explain away all of the malice directed at you is the same as using it to cut off your head.
"You do understand that the Democrats wanted to add new privacy protections to the Act, don't you?"
I'm glad that you enjoyed the smoke and mirrors show surrounding renewal of the legislation. Now that the fog has lifted, think about it for a minute. If the Democrats really had any more concern about civil liberties than Bush and the Republicans, they would have just let the bloody things expire! Our hope and change President could have used his veto power as well.
I think it's absurd to believe that you can add "privacy protections" to a piece of legislation that is an inherent violation of privacy, but, for the sake of argument, I'll consider it theoretically possible. IF the Democrats had wanted this, they could have issued an ultimatum to those evil Republicans: Either pass a renewal with our new "privacy protections" included or, use your filibuster to block it, and let the all of the relevant provisions expire.
"National Weather Service, Nasa, Military...all seem to work pretty darned well."
I'm sure you could find a few heavy drinkers that died of natural causes at a ripe old age. By your reasoning, therefore, alcohol must not cause liver disease and other serious health problems.
"Well... I hat[e] to bring up Alex Jones because I consider him a nutter . .."
Well, I hate to bring up the mainstream media, but I consider them perfectly sane... and perfectly willing to engage in the deliberate spreading of false information and misinformation. I consider Alex Jones's animated rantings every bit as credible as the calmly articulate bull$#!t that Wolf Blitzer(e.g.) espouses on a daily basis.
"So this is wrong but the wire taps from the Bush era are okay?"
Criticism of the administration currently in power is not a vindication of the actions of previous policy makers.
That said, if President Obama and his colleagues had any more concern for our pivacy than did the Bush administration, why isn't he exposing and ending all of the Bush era domestic espionage programs? Why isn't he publicly calling for the attorney general and ministry of justice to investigate and prosecute all of the illegal activities perpetrated by Bush administration officials?
Nothing has "changed" this is just another step in the very same direction that we were moving in under Bush.
I'm almost positive that we once had this vague notion about government deriving its powers from the consent of the governed. There was also this idea about government using the money that they steal from us in ways that are directly or indirectly beneficial to the society. For quite a while now, we've had a gangster government running the taxation system like a protection racket where the confiscated wealth is concentrated in the hands of a well connected few.
The private sector gangsters would take the money, but then they would at least leave the person being "taxed" to their own activities, and even provide some valuable services in return.
With the public sector gangsters, they stll take the money, but then they also want to tell us what to do and how to do it and provide few, if any services in return.
They certainly don't govern with MY consent, and it's gotten so bad that I'd be willing to pay the protection money if they would just take it, and leave me the F*&% alone.
Typo-squatters aren't "necessarily" doing anything illegal. Most of the sites I've mistakenly visited are just parking spots for a bunch of ads (Although I did read about a google-typo site that was a malware downloader). I'm also mildly surprised that the domain registrars wouldn't just roll over if the government came knocking, warrant or not.
Suppose a trojan is coded to connect to a set list or domains that are basically drive-by downloaders for keylogging and botnet software. The key-logger grabs CC and bank login info and uploads it to a server. Are you trying to say that the person/people running that operation registered the domains in the original trojan by using a credit card that had their name and a valid billing address? I just find that VERY hard to believe. Spamming is one thing, dealing with stolen CCs and bank account info is serious. Seems illogical that the scammers would leave a trail like that and just HOPE that it wasn't worth the time and effort on behalf of the banks and law enforcement to track them down.
How do you register a domain in such a way that you can't be tracked down if your domains are used as malware servers? How do you pay the registration fee?
Do these guys lie about their name, address, e-mail, etc. then pay the bill by using a stolen credit card or forwarding the money to the registrar via Western Union or something?
"I would rather have my credit card swiped and have the bank cover any fraud charges than carry around a wad of cash. The single most dangerous activity you will do regularly is withdraw cash from an ATM that is slightly hidden or in a dark area."
Is it actually carrying the cash that you think is risky, or is it using the ATM? Are ATM fees typically cheaper than talking to a live teller? I can visit a branch of my bank and withdraw funds with no charge, but there are fees associated with using an ATM. Using an ATM in some obscure area might be risky, but a branch of the bank is probably safe. I don't understand why people feel compelled to use ATMs, and conduct small retail transactions(food, fuel, etc.) with plastic. Is it that scary to have $300 on you? I can only sigh and laugh when I see the people lined up waiting to use the ATM at lunch time, and sigh in frustration when the person ahead of me in the grocery store pulls out a card for $20 worth of stuff.
"Any gas station you go into now . . . has a crazy amount of security cameras all over out there monitoring pumps . .."
That's what I was thinking. How the hell do you pry off the front panel on a gas pump, install some extra hardware, and get it back together without anyone noticing? There's a link to an ABC affiliate site in the main story however(even has a couple of diagrams), and that story claims that they could install one of these devices in 30 friggin seconds! I still don't see how that's possible, but if it can be done in under a minute, it's explains the question of how it could go un-noticed.
Mod points expired yesterday. +1 Insightful to you.
The HACKERS authoring and distributing malware have evolved through a couple of generations and the/. commentary hasn't caught up yet. The typical MS/IE criticisms still apply, but you're right in stating that the latest malware doesn't necessarily rely on the user running an unknown executable or clicking a link to a malicious web site.
"The banking system fiasco is a perfect example of pure Capitalism at work."
It most certainly was not. In a system that even remotely resembles capitalism, businesses that make bad investments lose money and ultimately end up in bankruptcy. Furthermore, the whole Federal Reserve system, where we have a central bank that ARBITRARILY sets interest rates and expands the money supply on a whim is the absolute antithesis of capitalism and the free market.
"Had [the government] not stepped in, we would very likely be in a depression right now, instead of being in an actual state of economic improvement."
We're not in a state of "economic improvement" by any reasonable metric. Debt fueled government stimulus spending, pulled-forward demand and indefinite extensions of unemployment benefits are not indicative of any sort of sustainable "improvement". The banking system has receieved trillions of dollars in aid, but they are still sitting on monumental losses. The bankers' buddies in Government suspended mark-to-market accounting requirements however, thus allowing banks to lie about their assets. We have banks right now that are carrying HELOC loans at full nominal value when the home in question is in foreclosure on the first mortgage. The "cancer" of bad investments is still there. In a capitalist system, these banks would fail, the assets would be sold off at market value (this is the dreadful "catastrophe" that they try to scare us with), bad debt would be expunged from the system, and THEN we would be on a firm footing for economic growth. All these Government programs keeping their banker buddies on taxpayer funded life support are the single biggest obstacle to economic recovery. A significant portion of our banking system (namely the largest banks in the U.S.) DESERVES to be decimated.
The Federal Reserve didn't "slow" the collapse, and they sure as hell aren't "reversing" it now. They're trying to re-inflate a debt-fueled bubble, and it just is not happening, and can't happen. The Fed, and loose monetary policy was the sinlge biggest enabling factor in this whole fiasco. Right now, they're holding things together by a thread. Sooner or later we're going to have to face the consequences of that irresponsible monetary policy (that we should have faced in 2007) or face a full blown currency collapse.
WTF does this have to do with Chinese hackers and government back doors into G-mail?????
Interesting. I'm an EE, but not a microprocessor architecture guy. Is this ECC for on-board cache memory where the processor is implementing an encoding mechanism between the processor and onboard cache read/write? Does it do something similar between onboard cache and DRAM or external cache, or would that be something implemented at the OS level? I'm guessing that the SER for built in cache has to be ridiculously low (a few per year?). If you can say, what type of applications are you doing that requires this level of robustness?
Your assumptions and arguments conveniently ignore the U.S. Constitution. You referred to "Americans" in a collective sense, so I'll assume you're talking about the Federal government.
"...a transparent government whose mandate is to keep you alive?"
We haven't had anything close to a "trasparent" government at the federal level in recent history. Furthermore, the government's madate is NOT to "keep us alive" or "keep us safe". Their mandate is to preserve our individual liberty and carry out a very limited and specifically defined set of functions. Providing healthcare is not one of those functions.
"...why the hell do so many americans defy universal healthcare?"
1. It's un-Constitutional (i.e. illegal) 2. The government can't even be trusted with their existing powers. Why do so many Americans want to give them even more? 3. The government's biggest welfare programs are all insolvent. They've clearly demonstrated their unwillingness and/or inability to actually manage welfare programs.
"socialized universal healthcare is not perfect, its simply BETTER than the current retarded system we have. admit it, and lose your ignorant fear of the scary word "socialism".
See #2 above. I'm sure that you're a well-meaning individual, but what you get out of Washingon D.C. is legislation with a nice cover sheet that reads "Healthcare Reform" placed on top of 2000 pages of corporate welfare, tax increases, and expansion of government power. Do you actually believe these people are going to pass a bill that threatens insurance and pharmaceutical company profits?
"...all they do is wind up killing some of their neighbors and friends, the same as they do when they oppose universal healthcare."
Now you're being as irrational as the people who suggest that the government wants to give grandma a lethal injection.
"...same as the mccarthy era- its not based on logic and reason, but based on fear of the unknown."
There is some opposition to government run healthcare that may be due to fear of the unknown, but there are very logical and reasonable arguments for opposing it. Fear of the "S-word" is a fortunate counter-balance to the blind acceptance of the empty promise that government is going to provide free universal healthcare. A promise that they have no intention or ability to fulfill.
Recall however that in a "protection racket",contrary to popular fiction, there is often an actual service provided, and a profit motive involved. In your analogy, the person stealing cars is financially motivated, and is giving up a share of the profits for protection. This guy's scheme is simple blackmail. "Give me money, or I'll rat you out". If the person had been downloading content for financial gain and the guy had offered to keep the log files clean in exchange for a cut, at least it would have been a business transaction. This guy was just an extortionist, and also a jerk.
"So in the end the people at large get richer and more equal."
Don't be too quick to drink the free trade Kool-Aid. That's a nice theory, but it doesn't work out too well in practice. The OP has a good point. We need to know exactly what we're getting into. Do you think NAFTA was good for the poor and middle class workers in the U.S.? Remember how it was supposed to "create jobs" for U.S. citizens? LOL. Well, the Mexicans must be getting rich then, right? Ask some Mexican farmers (ones not working at Burger King in Arizona) how well they're competing against subsidized agricultural products from the U.S. It's amazing that the globalists have managed to figure out a way to structure a trade agreement so tha the poor and middle class get screwed on both ends.
"The protectionism crap is, well, crap."
Depends what you mean by "protectionism". We've made a few fundamental decisions, many of them good, about how business is to be conducted in the U.S. Our society decided that companies can't spew pollutants into the air and water with reckless abandon. We enacted laws so that people don't have to work long hours at slave wages under hideous and dangerous working conditions. We have child labor laws, etc. It's insane to have unfettered trade with countries which have NONE of these protections in place. We should absolutely be slapping import duties on foreign goods produced in places that don't live up to similar standards. Putting tariffs on coconuts and bananas because growers in North Carolina can't compete is "protectionism". Putting an import duty on a manufactured good produced by child labor using business practices which despoil the environment is more than fair.
"Plan : increase the budget to NASA, and ask for them to purchase rides to space from newly formed private companies."
I think that the free markets are the best mechanism we have for providing the vast bulk of goods and services. However, they're not a universal solution that can be applied to every aspect of economic activity with ideal results.
A corporation isn't going to work for free. Privatization makes sense when the private enterprise's profits and government cost savings could be achieved through efficiency, innovation and economy of scale. In this case however, I believe that any "savings" to the government would be marginal (or negative), and profits would come from doing exactly what you described . . . cutting corners in the areas of quality and safety. If the government's recent track record is any indication, we will end up with a government bureaucracy handing out lucrative (no-bid?) contracts to a bunch of corporations. We will have intentionally obfuscated accounting mechanisms to prevent detection of fraud, and we'll end up with a more expensive and lower quality product. Think KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater and all the other war profiteering contractors, sub-contractors, sub-sub-contractors, etc.
Interesting idea about increasing the danger of manned space flight as a population control mechanism however.
"US public schools still have no common/minimal national curriculum."
We have crap like the "No Child Left Behind" program and other Federal mandates.
"Before you, idiots, will start developing your "educational technologies" you will have to wrestle public school curriculum out of your States' hands."
That would be un-Constitutional, and even if it wasn't, the WORST thing we could do is entrust our education system to the Federal government.
The Federal government has no enumerated power to interfere in the educational system, so we would need a Constituional Amendment to get education "out of the state's hands" Thank $deity that's never going to happen.
Next, I'm not sure where you're from, but the most idiotic approach to education I can think of is having a bunch of highly paid bureaucrats in air conditioned offices making unfunded mandates on thousands of schools that they know nothing about, will never visit, and will never get feedback from. The United States is a diverse place, and educational solutions that might work in the city of Chicago may not be the best fit for rural Idaho. The parents, teachers, students and taxpayers of the local community care about the education of the kids in that community more than anyone in the Federal government. All the Feds do is dream up models of their centrally planned utopia and then use threat and force to bend the real world to fit that model. It creates tension, anger and frustration and lowers the overall quality of education.
Some national collaboration is obviously healthy. I'd like to see representatives from various state governments convene during summer vacations to discuss things like common curricula and to develop and share best practices based on genuine experience. Those sorts of collaborations would be much better and much cheaper than anything that the central planners in the DofE can come up with.
"Could you please explain to me how the federal government researching better educational methods violates the 10th amendment?"
I think that the OP chose poor wording and got the discussion going in the wrong direction. You shouldn't have to explain how a specific law "violates" The Constitution. That whole line of thinking rests upon the FALSE premise that "The government can do anything unless it's prohibited by The Constitution." The question should be "What part of The Constitution authorizes the Federal government to fund research into better educational methods?" If it really is DARPA-like, maybe it would fall under the power to raise and support armies, but then it would have to be renewed every two years.
Almost ALL Federal government involvement in education is un-Constitutional from NCLB, taxpayer grants and the whole bloody D of E itself.
" . ..the notion that having more people pass is more important than actually teaching them something."
Precisely. Idiotic Federal mandates like NCLB enforce a mentality where the "herd" can only move forward at the pace of the slowest member. My anecdotal evidence is the same as yours. Everyone needs to pass. Who knows how many kids are being "held back" to make sure that a few aren't "left behind"? Add in complications like students who come from broken homes or students who speak English as a second language and the philosophy becomes a disaster. The K-12 education system in this country is a glowing example of how government F&^%$ up practically everything it touches.
Slashdot Mirror
"It should have "essential" and "temporary" in it. Back in the real world, anybody who isn't a hermit or Robinson Crusoe gives up some liberty to gain some safety."
As you correctly point out, Franklin (who, by all accounts was a real person living in the real world) condemned sacrificing ESSENTIAL Liberty for the sake of TEMPORARY safety. I'm not sure what you're implying with your Robinson Crusoe example. Are you suggesting that the idea of "liberty" in some absolute form implies anarchy and disregard for the lives and property of others? One of the most fundamental concepts of libertarianism is that one person's liberty stops at the point when pursuing their own self interest infringes on the liberty of someone else. There is absolutely no parallel between accepting the limitations of a system of mutual respect among citizens and accepting a police state.
P.S. to the O.P. If you're going to "quote" someone, at least try to get it right, otherwise make it clear that you're paraphrasing.
"We don't have to get Luddite. Hell, the world ain't black and white. "Using antibiotics with impunity is bad, so let's toss them altogether"?"
You point out a clear and unfortunate problem in U.S. society and particularly in U.S. government policy. Take e.g. DDT. At one time it was "good" so we used it everywhere with reckless abandon. We then discover a few unintended consequences, and it's suddenly "bad" so it has to be 100% banned. More recently with some of our very effective pain relievers like Vioxx, they're "good" because they provide excellent relief to people suffereing chronic joint pain, but then all of a sudden they're "bad" because they increase risk of heart attack and stroke. BAN THEM!
The idea of using things with moderation in applications where they could be extremely beneficial with minimal unintended consequences doesn't fit into our narrow-minded world view.
"As for the crack about big pharma, bullshit. Traditional treatments have attracted a lot of investigation for the last couple of decades. If (if!) you find out that the traditional treatment works, then you can isolated the active compound(s) and patent and sell that."
Try to patent and sell tetrahydrocannabinol, a traditional treatment that works as an effective pain reliever and appetite stimulant for a variety of terrible illnesses.
> "If you dropped the regulations, "
>> "If the US had a nickle for every time a businessman said that about regulations..."
Try your hand at operating a small manufacturing business at some point, then come back and provide your revised commentary. That was what my family TRIED to do when I was growing up. On the days you weren't dealing with OSHA and EPA, it was planning and zoning, DOT, dept. of weights and measures, etc. Then let's not forget the bloody IRS. Seemed like there was a full time bureaucrat in the Federal, State and local government for every one of the 8-10 people my family employed, and their job was to make our lives miserable and our business inoperable by enforcing the most obscure and idiotic regulations imaginable. That experience forever shaped MY worldview when it comes to the government and their useless bureaucracts.
"never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
That's a good way of thinking positively in everyday interactions. The driver that pulled out in front of me and forced me to jam on my brakes to avoid a collision was just an idiot, not an arsehole. Fine.
When it comes to observing long term trends, and especially as it applies to corporate and government power structures, you might as well reverse "malice" and "stupidity". I constantly hear people talking about all the "stupid" things that come out of Washington D.C. The fact is, the people in D.C. aren't stupid, they're malicious. It just SEEMS like they're stupid when you base the conclusion on the erroneous assumption that they actually have the best interests of the average citizen in mind.
Using Hanlon's Razor to explain away all of the malice directed at you is the same as using it to cut off your head.
"You do understand that the Democrats wanted to add new privacy protections to the Act, don't you?"
I'm glad that you enjoyed the smoke and mirrors show surrounding renewal of the legislation. Now that the fog has lifted, think about it for a minute. If the Democrats really had any more concern about civil liberties than Bush and the Republicans, they would have just let the bloody things expire! Our hope and change President could have used his veto power as well.
I think it's absurd to believe that you can add "privacy protections" to a piece of legislation that is an inherent violation of privacy, but, for the sake of argument, I'll consider it theoretically possible. IF the Democrats had wanted this, they could have issued an ultimatum to those evil Republicans: Either pass a renewal with our new "privacy protections" included or, use your filibuster to block it, and let the all of the relevant provisions expire.
"National Weather Service, Nasa, Military...all seem to work pretty darned well."
I'm sure you could find a few heavy drinkers that died of natural causes at a ripe old age. By your reasoning, therefore, alcohol must not cause liver disease and other serious health problems.
"Well... I hat[e] to bring up Alex Jones because I consider him a nutter . . ."
Well, I hate to bring up the mainstream media, but I consider them perfectly sane ... and perfectly willing to engage in the deliberate spreading of false information and misinformation. I consider Alex Jones's animated rantings every bit as credible as the calmly articulate bull$#!t that Wolf Blitzer(e.g.) espouses on a daily basis.
"So this is wrong but the wire taps from the Bush era are okay?"
Criticism of the administration currently in power is not a vindication of the actions of previous policy makers.
That said, if President Obama and his colleagues had any more concern for our pivacy than did the Bush administration, why isn't he exposing and ending all of the Bush era domestic espionage programs? Why isn't he publicly calling for the attorney general and ministry of justice to investigate and prosecute all of the illegal activities perpetrated by Bush administration officials?
Nothing has "changed" this is just another step in the very same direction that we were moving in under Bush.
I'm almost positive that we once had this vague notion about government deriving its powers from the consent of the governed. There was also this idea about government using the money that they steal from us in ways that are directly or indirectly beneficial to the society. For quite a while now, we've had a gangster government running the taxation system like a protection racket where the confiscated wealth is concentrated in the hands of a well connected few.
The private sector gangsters would take the money, but then they would at least leave the person being "taxed" to their own activities, and even provide some valuable services in return.
With the public sector gangsters, they stll take the money, but then they also want to tell us what to do and how to do it and provide few, if any services in return.
They certainly don't govern with MY consent, and it's gotten so bad that I'd be willing to pay the protection money if they would just take it, and leave me the F*&% alone.
Typo-squatters aren't "necessarily" doing anything illegal. Most of the sites I've mistakenly visited are just parking spots for a bunch of ads (Although I did read about a google-typo site that was a malware downloader). I'm also mildly surprised that the domain registrars wouldn't just roll over if the government came knocking, warrant or not.
Suppose a trojan is coded to connect to a set list or domains that are basically drive-by downloaders for keylogging and botnet software. The key-logger grabs CC and bank login info and uploads it to a server. Are you trying to say that the person/people running that operation registered the domains in the original trojan by using a credit card that had their name and a valid billing address? I just find that VERY hard to believe. Spamming is one thing, dealing with stolen CCs and bank account info is serious. Seems illogical that the scammers would leave a trail like that and just HOPE that it wasn't worth the time and effort on behalf of the banks and law enforcement to track them down.
How do you register a domain in such a way that you can't be tracked down if your domains are used as malware servers? How do you pay the registration fee?
Do these guys lie about their name, address, e-mail, etc. then pay the bill by using a stolen credit card or forwarding the money to the registrar via Western Union or something?
"I would rather have my credit card swiped and have the bank cover any fraud charges than carry around a wad of cash. The single most dangerous activity you will do regularly is withdraw cash from an ATM that is slightly hidden or in a dark area."
Is it actually carrying the cash that you think is risky, or is it using the ATM? Are ATM fees typically cheaper than talking to a live teller? I can visit a branch of my bank and withdraw funds with no charge, but there are fees associated with using an ATM. Using an ATM in some obscure area might be risky, but a branch of the bank is probably safe. I don't understand why people feel compelled to use ATMs, and conduct small retail transactions(food, fuel, etc.) with plastic. Is it that scary to have $300 on you? I can only sigh and laugh when I see the people lined up waiting to use the ATM at lunch time, and sigh in frustration when the person ahead of me in the grocery store pulls out a card for $20 worth of stuff.
Carry cash and a firearm or taser or something.
"Any gas station you go into now . . . has a crazy amount of security cameras all over out there monitoring pumps . . ."
That's what I was thinking. How the hell do you pry off the front panel on a gas pump, install some extra hardware, and get it back together without anyone noticing? There's a link to an ABC affiliate site in the main story however(even has a couple of diagrams), and that story claims that they could install one of these devices in 30 friggin seconds! I still don't see how that's possible, but if it can be done in under a minute, it's explains the question of how it could go un-noticed.
My grandfather stole horses...
My father smuggled cigarettes...
My brother stole gas...
I, meanwhile, read Slashdot...
Jeesh, you're an embarrassment to your family's 3 generations of nefarious activities! Get your butt in gear and write some malware or something. :-)
Mod points expired yesterday. +1 Insightful to you.
The HACKERS authoring and distributing malware have evolved through a couple of generations and the /. commentary hasn't caught up yet. The typical MS/IE criticisms still apply, but you're right in stating that the latest malware doesn't necessarily rely on the user running an unknown executable or clicking a link to a malicious web site.
"The banking system fiasco is a perfect example of pure Capitalism at work."
It most certainly was not. In a system that even remotely resembles capitalism, businesses that make bad investments lose money and ultimately end up in bankruptcy. Furthermore, the whole Federal Reserve system, where we have a central bank that ARBITRARILY sets interest rates and expands the money supply on a whim is the absolute antithesis of capitalism and the free market.
"Had [the government] not stepped in, we would very likely be in a depression right now, instead of being in an actual state of economic improvement."
We're not in a state of "economic improvement" by any reasonable metric. Debt fueled government stimulus spending, pulled-forward demand and indefinite extensions of unemployment benefits are not indicative of any sort of sustainable "improvement". The banking system has receieved trillions of dollars in aid, but they are still sitting on monumental losses. The bankers' buddies in Government suspended mark-to-market accounting requirements however, thus allowing banks to lie about their assets. We have banks right now that are carrying HELOC loans at full nominal value when the home in question is in foreclosure on the first mortgage. The "cancer" of bad investments is still there. In a capitalist system, these banks would fail, the assets would be sold off at market value (this is the dreadful "catastrophe" that they try to scare us with), bad debt would be expunged from the system, and THEN we would be on a firm footing for economic growth. All these Government programs keeping their banker buddies on taxpayer funded life support are the single biggest obstacle to economic recovery. A significant portion of our banking system (namely the largest banks in the U.S.) DESERVES to be decimated.
The Federal Reserve didn't "slow" the collapse, and they sure as hell aren't "reversing" it now. They're trying to re-inflate a debt-fueled bubble, and it just is not happening, and can't happen. The Fed, and loose monetary policy was the sinlge biggest enabling factor in this whole fiasco. Right now, they're holding things together by a thread. Sooner or later we're going to have to face the consequences of that irresponsible monetary policy (that we should have faced in 2007) or face a full blown currency collapse.
WTF does this have to do with Chinese hackers and government back doors into G-mail?????
"AMD processors, they have no support for ECC."
Interesting. I'm an EE, but not a microprocessor architecture guy. Is this ECC for on-board cache memory where the processor is implementing an encoding mechanism between the processor and onboard cache read/write? Does it do something similar between onboard cache and DRAM or external cache, or would that be something implemented at the OS level? I'm guessing that the SER for built in cache has to be ridiculously low (a few per year?). If you can say, what type of applications are you doing that requires this level of robustness?
Your assumptions and arguments conveniently ignore the U.S. Constitution. You referred to "Americans" in a collective sense, so I'll assume you're talking about the Federal government.
"...a transparent government whose mandate is to keep you alive?"
We haven't had anything close to a "trasparent" government at the federal level in recent history. Furthermore, the government's madate is NOT to "keep us alive" or "keep us safe". Their mandate is to preserve our individual liberty and carry out a very limited and specifically defined set of functions. Providing healthcare is not one of those functions.
"...why the hell do so many americans defy universal healthcare?"
1. It's un-Constitutional (i.e. illegal)
2. The government can't even be trusted with their existing powers. Why do so many Americans want to give them even more?
3. The government's biggest welfare programs are all insolvent. They've clearly demonstrated their unwillingness and/or inability to actually manage welfare programs.
"socialized universal healthcare is not perfect, its simply BETTER than the current retarded system we have. admit it, and lose your ignorant fear of the scary word "socialism".
See #2 above. I'm sure that you're a well-meaning individual, but what you get out of Washingon D.C. is legislation with a nice cover sheet that reads "Healthcare Reform" placed on top of 2000 pages of corporate welfare, tax increases, and expansion of government power. Do you actually believe these people are going to pass a bill that threatens insurance and pharmaceutical company profits?
"...all they do is wind up killing some of their neighbors and friends, the same as they do when they oppose universal healthcare."
Now you're being as irrational as the people who suggest that the government wants to give grandma a lethal injection.
"...same as the mccarthy era- its not based on logic and reason, but based on fear of the unknown."
There is some opposition to government run healthcare that may be due to fear of the unknown, but there are very logical and reasonable arguments for opposing it. Fear of the "S-word" is a fortunate counter-balance to the blind acceptance of the empty promise that government is going to provide free universal healthcare. A promise that they have no intention or ability to fulfill.
Agreed, the guy's a complete arsehole
Recall however that in a "protection racket" ,contrary to popular fiction, there is often an actual service provided, and a profit motive involved. In your analogy, the person stealing cars is financially motivated, and is giving up a share of the profits for protection. This guy's scheme is simple blackmail. "Give me money, or I'll rat you out". If the person had been downloading content for financial gain and the guy had offered to keep the log files clean in exchange for a cut, at least it would have been a business transaction. This guy was just an extortionist, and also a jerk.
"So in the end the people at large get richer and more equal."
Don't be too quick to drink the free trade Kool-Aid. That's a nice theory, but it doesn't work out too well in practice. The OP has a good point. We need to know exactly what we're getting into. Do you think NAFTA was good for the poor and middle class workers in the U.S.? Remember how it was supposed to "create jobs" for U.S. citizens? LOL. Well, the Mexicans must be getting rich then, right? Ask some Mexican farmers (ones not working at Burger King in Arizona) how well they're competing against subsidized agricultural products from the U.S. It's amazing that the globalists have managed to figure out a way to structure a trade agreement so tha the poor and middle class get screwed on both ends.
"The protectionism crap is, well, crap."
Depends what you mean by "protectionism". We've made a few fundamental decisions, many of them good, about how business is to be conducted in the U.S. Our society decided that companies can't spew pollutants into the air and water with reckless abandon. We enacted laws so that people don't have to work long hours at slave wages under hideous and dangerous working conditions. We have child labor laws, etc. It's insane to have unfettered trade with countries which have NONE of these protections in place. We should absolutely be slapping import duties on foreign goods produced in places that don't live up to similar standards. Putting tariffs on coconuts and bananas because growers in North Carolina can't compete is "protectionism". Putting an import duty on a manufactured good produced by child labor using business practices which despoil the environment is more than fair.
"Plan : increase the budget to NASA, and ask for them to purchase rides to space from newly formed private companies."
I think that the free markets are the best mechanism we have for providing the vast bulk of goods and services. However, they're not a universal solution that can be applied to every aspect of economic activity with ideal results.
A corporation isn't going to work for free. Privatization makes sense when the private enterprise's profits and government cost savings could be achieved through efficiency, innovation and economy of scale. In this case however, I believe that any "savings" to the government would be marginal (or negative), and profits would come from doing exactly what you described . . . cutting corners in the areas of quality and safety. If the government's recent track record is any indication, we will end up with a government bureaucracy handing out lucrative (no-bid?) contracts to a bunch of corporations. We will have intentionally obfuscated accounting mechanisms to prevent detection of fraud, and we'll end up with a more expensive and lower quality product. Think KBR, Halliburton, Blackwater and all the other war profiteering contractors, sub-contractors, sub-sub-contractors, etc.
Interesting idea about increasing the danger of manned space flight as a population control mechanism however.
"US public schools still have no common/minimal national curriculum."
We have crap like the "No Child Left Behind" program and other Federal mandates.
"Before you, idiots, will start developing your "educational technologies" you will have to wrestle public school curriculum out of your States' hands."
That would be un-Constitutional, and even if it wasn't, the WORST thing we could do is entrust our education system to the Federal government.
The Federal government has no enumerated power to interfere in the educational system, so we would need a Constituional Amendment to get education "out of the state's hands" Thank $deity that's never going to happen.
Next, I'm not sure where you're from, but the most idiotic approach to education I can think of is having a bunch of highly paid bureaucrats in air conditioned offices making unfunded mandates on thousands of schools that they know nothing about, will never visit, and will never get feedback from. The United States is a diverse place, and educational solutions that might work in the city of Chicago may not be the best fit for rural Idaho. The parents, teachers, students and taxpayers of the local community care about the education of the kids in that community more than anyone in the Federal government. All the Feds do is dream up models of their centrally planned utopia and then use threat and force to bend the real world to fit that model. It creates tension, anger and frustration and lowers the overall quality of education.
Some national collaboration is obviously healthy. I'd like to see representatives from various state governments convene during summer vacations to discuss things like common curricula and to develop and share best practices based on genuine experience. Those sorts of collaborations would be much better and much cheaper than anything that the central planners in the DofE can come up with.
"Could you please explain to me how the federal government researching better educational methods violates the 10th amendment?"
I think that the OP chose poor wording and got the discussion going in the wrong direction. You shouldn't have to explain how a specific law "violates" The Constitution. That whole line of thinking rests upon the FALSE premise that "The government can do anything unless it's prohibited by The Constitution." The question should be "What part of The Constitution authorizes the Federal government to fund research into better educational methods?" If it really is DARPA-like, maybe it would fall under the power to raise and support armies, but then it would have to be renewed every two years.
Almost ALL Federal government involvement in education is un-Constitutional from NCLB, taxpayer grants and the whole bloody D of E itself.
" . . .the notion that having more people pass is more important than actually teaching them something."
Precisely. Idiotic Federal mandates like NCLB enforce a mentality where the "herd" can only move forward at the pace of the slowest member. My anecdotal evidence is the same as yours. Everyone needs to pass. Who knows how many kids are being "held back" to make sure that a few aren't "left behind"? Add in complications like students who come from broken homes or students who speak English as a second language and the philosophy becomes a disaster. The K-12 education system in this country is a glowing example of how government F&^%$ up practically everything it touches.