Chavez is the typical Latin American dictator incarnate. The consolidation of power under Chavez in the Executive branch of the Venezuelan government can't hold a candle to anything that has occurred in the U.S. in the past 6 years. If you hate Bush for much of what he's done, I imagine you'd hold a special dislike for Chavez.
Put down the Chomsky, and educate yourself. I hate citing Wikipedia as a source, but this particular article has so many primary sources listed at the bottom that it works.
2. "He broke a law, he should go to jail." The court system should be mandated to tell the jurors in all trials about their right to nullify terrible laws. Jury nullifaction is more than a priviledge, it is a right even greater than serving on a jury.
Jury nullification in this case serves no long-term purpose. Sure, it could get this kid off the hook, but that's about it. The possibility remains that a future jury will convict rather than let someone off.
On the other hand, strict application of the law and an appeal to higher courts could, however, result in it being thrown out through the principle of Judicial Review - causing this kid a whole lot of headaches in the short term, but helping others in the long term.
The best way to overturn harmful laws is often by strictly applying them.
As to this:
I find it outrageous that people are arrested for inciting violence -- the gun doesn't kill, the inciter doesn't kill, it is the person who physically performs a violent act that is the cause of the violence.
True, one who incites to kill does not commit murder, but he or she could be no less culpable.
Osama Bin Laden, for example, did next to nothing to actually plan, finance (his own personal fortune was long gone by the mid 90's, according to most estimates), or carry out the 9/11 attacks or any other attacks on U.S. national interests. He just provided the idea that Americans should be killed and gave a green light to a plan to kill Americans (not to mention a hell of a lot of people from other countries). Should we, then, not target him as he has only incited others to kill?
If it would keep down the number of e-mails starting with "FWD:fwd:FWD:fwd:fwd:FWD: I normally don't send this, but, this has to be true!" that find themselves into my inbox, I just might support this in the U.S.!
After spending a week reading things of substance, I view you as the dessert - an article without substance, but a little sweet... ahh...
This is an "after the fact" call, and all crimes regardless of severity are investigated and when possible the perpetrators are brought to justice. This is also NOT the argument you were making in your earlier post.
Your earlier post said it was perfectly "ok" to shred the bill of rights and the constitutional provisions against overstep of government power if it prevented crimes before they happened.
I'll say this again: "Minority report anyone?"
As usual, this is just too rich, my boy.
Perhaps you were unaware that plotting murder is, in itself, a crime? Would you suggest that the police shouldn't attempt to stop those plotting a murder? Or do you prefer Steven Spielberg to set your political ideas?
They don't do this with speeding, they don't even do it with murder, but I guess it's ok whenever they shriek "national security" at the top of their ultrafascist lungs.
In Canada, it's punishable by life in prison. In the U.S., laws vary from state to state, but generally the penalty is quite severe.
Are these laws "shredding the bill of rights"? Are they punishing people for thought? Do people have the right to plot murder? At what point should we take action to prevent an act of murder, as the knife is pulled, as the finger moves to the trigger, as the plane approaches a building?
A "wait and see" approach is absurd, stupid, and unsurprisingly what you advocate. People don't have the right to plot murder, no more than they have the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre (unless, of course, there is a fire).
people who are arrogant enough to wander around calling other people stupid to their face are usually the ones who need to expand their wisdom, I advise you to do so.
Ah, this is my favorite part. Coming right after the "ultrafascist" bit.
Why don't you "expand [your] wisdom" by not arguing that every thing that doesn't reinforce your truly idiotic view of the world is part of a vast, extreme right wing conspiracy and that, perhaps, things might go a little beyond the class warfare you so earnestly love.
I call you stupid because you ignore the facts and the world around you. I call you stupid because you compare a Steven Spielberg flick to actual crime. I call you stupid because you believe that the Council on Foreign Relations is an extreme right organization. I call you stupid for a variety of reasons, and you richly deserve the title.
Now keep on slash stalking away, my good boy. You'll give me entertainment for weeks to come.
Watching Kim Jong Il play basketball (or at least attempt to...) and then his... uh... post game antics are worth it, even if you can't stand the rest.
If they actually got that thing to work reliably, I'd be very impressed.
Arabic varies WIDELY from country to country. Learning Modern Standard Arabic and a regional dialect (I studied Egyptian) is almost like learning two different languages at once - words, verb conjugation, plural forms, grammar, etc. change between dialects and standard Arabic.
I wonder if this computer translates Iraqi colloquial as well as Modern Standard, or requires the speaker of Arabic to speak Modern Standard (which would limit its usefulness to translating fairly higher class Iraqis)?
I hope it works. A language barrier is a nasty thing, particularly in a war zone.
Does pulling a kidnapper off the street, depriving him or her of freedom, and locking this individual up in jail make the state "just as bad" as a kidnapper?
Somehow, I doubt it.
There are lots of good arguments against capital punishment. This isn't really one of them.
While filling your cart with 7.62mm rounds and Evian, you may want to consider some Potassium iodide, which can provide at least some protection against Radioiodine, which I assume would be a part of most nuclear explosions (although I am no specialist on this matter - do correct me if I'm wrong). It's dirt cheap, and a little something might be better than nothing.
The odds of ever needing it are, of course, extremely low. But, hey, if you're going to stock up, stock up right.
Google books will never replace real books for me, but the service is very, very useful.
Case in point: I was writing a research paper this week, and needed to search through a book for a specific name. As this book didn't have an index, I wasn't too enthused about looking through it page-by-page for one bit of information, so I fired up Google books and, bingo - got the name, page number, and some more information as well.
More importantly, however, was a second case. As I was about to turn in the paper, I realized I hadn't completed a reference and needed to find a page number in a book I didn't have with me. I first thought I was screwed, but then fired up Google books and, once again, bingo - I got precisely what I needed even though my book was 25 miles away at the time.
Google adds value to books. I'll still buy just as many books as before - probably more, as now it's easier for me to find books I'm interested in - and makes the books I own much more "user friendly". Great service.
Ah, plasmacutter. How eager I am to read your babblings again...
Many more people are killed every year in the US in fatal car crashes due to simple speeding than are killed by terrorism.. on the order of 10 times more.. 50 times more if you leave outliers like 9/11 out of the computations.
Maybe we should start shipping speeders of to gitmo?
Because car accidents are the equivalent of planned mass murder. Clearly, they're comparable and we should only focus on the ends rather than the means in all situations.
I can just see this now... calling up a 911 operator to report a murder only to have the police tell the caller, "sorry, roughly twice as many people die in car accidents (according to CDC statistics), who cares about a murder? We obviously need to put more effort into traffic enforcement. Just bury your dead and get over it, OK?"
Of course, this also puts aside the slight problem of distribution. According to the NHTSA (don't worry - they're not run by the wealthy elite, just the poor, downtrodden ranks of middle America, so you can trust them) 37,862 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2001, which would cause an average distribution of 103 a day. A 30x spike on one day is certainly notable, and in addition to the deaths of almost 3,000 people, the attacks caused (according to these statistics) $105 billion dollars of economic damage in one month to New York City alone, in addition to billions of dollars in insurance, clean up, and other costs.
Oh, but it's all ok. Because accidents are equivalent to planned murder for ideological reasons. No need to get too concerned about them.
Really, plasmacutter. Are you just this stupid? This argument is so tired, so ridiculous, and so idiotic it's simply beyond words. That said, it's precisely what I expect from you.
Good to know I've got a slashdot stalker, though! I was kind of getting bored without one. Keep 'em coming - I've got pink eye and I'm in a self-imposed quarantine. I need some good comedy to keep my spirits up. I
I've found this to be somewhat true, but not always. If a post contains direct criticism of the DNC or praise/direct agreement for Bush, you can count on a few "flamebait" or "overrated" moderations.
For some posts, such as this one I receive all kinds of complaints about how "right wing" I must be to dare complain that the DNC still hasn't come up with anything resembling a platform. I receive angry ALL CAPS COMMENTS - DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING, IDIOT!?! responses. Still, it at least retained a respectable 4, insightful.
Then there's posts like this one which held onto its 5, insightful, but received responses like this where I'm reminded from someone about the left that I shouldn't "THINK", just do whatever the left says because what is happening is wrong, WRONG!
And all along I thought the right was supposed to be anti-intellectual...
I don't really care about the biases among editors, moderators, or whatever. I post what I think, and receive moderations accordingly.
I do, however, remember this when it comes to meta moderation time and, while acting within the rules, I act accordingly when I see posts modded inappropriately.
The moderation system, however, consists really of choir preachers - people mod up what they want to hear and mod down what they don't. That's all it comes down to.
Is it likely that a terrorist group will destroy the entire U.S. in a massive nuclear attack, for instance? Obviously not.
But this is not the only level of threat that should concern the U.S. As a U.S. citizen, I expect my life, property, and the lives and property of my fellow citizens to be protected against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I accept that this does not necessarily include criminal acts, but demand that I be protected from terrorists - a group whose precise definition varies widely, I realize - and state actors.
Your argument seems to claim that a group which has no hope of utterly destroying the U.S. should not be treated as a threat to life or freedom. Such thinking is at best ill-advised.
Terrorists can only threaten the freedom of a very limited number of citizens, by taking them hostage and/or by killing them. That is the only thing terrorists can do. Their power is very limited.
The 9/11 group achieved a 150:1 kill ratio with $500,000. I hardly think that qualifies as "very limited".
While 3,000 may be a very limited number of citizens compared to the total U.S. population, it remains a massive number that is difficult to minimize the importance of.
If terrorists can "only" achieve 150:1 kill ratios and kill thousands on a single day with a small cell, I think this is ample reason for concern.
Of course, this doesn't even include the terror groups seeking to acquire various flavors of WMD. While a small nuclear device in New York, for example, may only succeed in killing off a "limited number" of citizens that could well be below 1% of the total U.S. population, that is still a massive amount of death and devastation that we should expend every effort to prevent.
Any other taking of freedom would be done by lawmakers, courts, officers of the law, intelligence agents, and so on, aided by media frenzy and scaremongers. They can threaten your freedom. Terrorists cannot.
Please tell that to the thousands who no longer have the freedom to live. The dead hate to be "scaremongered".
Comments regarding FISA are perfectly reasonable in this context - the provisions of that bill are important to the present debate - but one must not lose sight of the fact that FISA was designed to counter an entirely different threat.
I've had the opportunity to study under a man that helped write the act, and while I haven't had a chance to discuss the recent developments with him, his view of FISA was that it was designed to serve a counter-intelligence role, but fails to be as useful against other threats.
Counter-Intelligence operations are fundamentally different from counter-terrorist operations. CI operations are much easier to predict, with relatively well understood actors, motives, and a much lower imminent risk to life and property. CI threats are relatively easy to pick out, relatively easy to understand. Of course, the most important word in this post is "relatively"...
Counter-terrorist operations are almost the polar opposite. Targets of foreign intelligence agencies are clear - they're after classified data and those that manage or handle it. The actors are clear - "diplomats", non-official cover officers, and Americans (in this case) with classified data. Targets of terrorists are not, as the focus of many of these groups is simply to kill as many people as possible by whatever means they can use. They don't care about classified data, they don't play games with diplomatic immunity. The actors could be foreign college students or home-grown California boys who decide to support the cause for reasons of their own, as we've seen recently.
Beyond simply acquiring data, FISA also allows for the prosecution of those who hand classified data to those who are not authorized to receive it by allowing evidence to enter into court without entering into the public record. FISA is an excellent tool for what it does. It's much more precise, limited, and focused on its threat.
Counter-terrorist operations require a wider approach - something of a "drag net" - for them to be successful. Pre-9/11 U.S. counter-terrorism was based largely on luck - case in point being the capture of the WTC '93 bombers, whose cell was unraveled because a member thereof just couldn't leave behind the deposit on his truck. More recent attacks should provide ample evidence that we can't fall back simply on luck any longer - we must be more active in preventing attacks rather than mopping up after them.
I think there is room for debate on this matter, and I do not believe that Benjamin Franklin quotes nor tradition should hold us from implementing laws we need to protect ourselves. Of course, this should occur within reasonable limits, in accordance with majority will and proportionate to the threat - which is growing and innovative itself - and without completely losing national character.
A quote I read recently sums up my position:
"To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means." (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John B. Colvin, September 20, 1810, quoted from Terrorism Freedom and Security: Winning Without War, Heymann, MIT Press, 2003, pg. xi)
Of course, this view must be tempered - we must be careful about those means we do and do not sacrifice - but we also should not sacrifice our nation on the altar of law. There is a time for dogmatic adherence a time to take a more pragmatic view rooted in self-preservation. We should slip from the first to the last cautiously, infrequently, and with friction and great reservation. Yet sometimes, we must slip to survive and pursue our own self-preservation.
I thank you for your comment and for what it brings to this discussion.
I believe Han Solo's only notable piece of equipment is a small bouquet of daisies, one of which he gives to Guido in the super-hyper-ultra-master-remix of Star Wars Episode -12.
Why on earth would Han want to "blast" anything, as is? He's a perfectly legitimate businessman, brought into hard times by a pair of misfits who attack people with Mag Lites... or at least that's the latest Lucas version.
Looking back at one group I was with, the 6'4" Chinese kid who could barely speak English and had a "full-frontal assault" style of asking people to fill out surveys ("you want fill out survey now please, thanks?") was probably not the best choice for a volunteer... but, hey, we all got the extra credit. Great guy, good sense of humor, but probably not the best one for that task.
But you assume that the methods of conducting the poll were the same across the board, as well.
Discrepancies in polling methods can occur in clusters for many reasons, often due to the fact that those doing the polling are unpaid volunteers.
A staffing shortage could lead to less data collected, a polling place could have run out of forms for polling, a polling place may not have been staffed at certain times of the day, volunteers who dressed in a way to make themselves more or less approachable to certain sets of voters (or a really tall/short volunteer, a really ugly one - such as myself... - one wearing a t-shirt from a particular campaign, etc.), or even volunteers who goofed off for a bit could've simply made up data to fill in holes (much less likely, of course).
It's not just the methodology of analysis - it's the methodology of collection that can gum things up as well.
And, since I failed to include it in the two posts above this one (see my second self-reply to grandparent), I certainly don't blame you.
Exit polls are designed to collect a lot of statistical data, true, but they aren't designed to determine who will/should win an election. They're designed to marry socio-economic data to voting behavior.
For obvious reasons, your income, marital status, race, etc. aren't collected (and shouldn't be collected) by the government when you vote. In order to get data on this, social scientists/statisticians do exit polling. This data can then be used to attempt to predict voting behavior among specific groups in society. It can't be used to effectively predict election outcomes.
It's the purpose that's different and that people - including myself in the first two posts - are looking over.
Many would argue that it took Ross Perot to break the Republicans out of a similar funk they were in back in the 90's.
I can't think of any similar character on the left that could fill such a role, and the left seems to be fairly to the left as is. A centrirst or center-left party is needed, but third parties in these instances tend to form more on the extremes than towards the center.
The funny thing is that a two-party system usually leads to more centrist politics, but only if both sides are playing that game. Recent developments, post 9/11, have made the environment much more divisive... which is certainly troubling.
Wow, I just can't finish this one up...
The point of exit polling isn't to determine how elections will turn out - they're not really great at that - but to determine WHO votes for WHOM.
It's to collect socio-economic data and match that to voting behavior. Not to predict elections. This information cannot be gathered as people vote for obvious legal and other reasons, so this is probably the most effective way to really see who votes and what could compel them to vote a certain way.
I know the media has grabbed onto the idea that these polls are, for some rason, the perfect way to guess a winner, but they really aren't.
kdawson really seems to like this topic... as pointed out in the summary, this was slashdotted two weeks ago on her watch.
This submission, furthermore, stems from "plasmacutter". In a mini-flame war between he and I (note - this is in response to my post, yes), he goes on to claim that:
- Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, Policy Review, and the Christian Science Monitor "have been thoroughly debunked as extreme right" (I'd love to know who did that bit of debunking, and just how they determine what's "extreme right") while considering Al Franken to be an "influential political thinker". (source)
- Apparently believes anyone who has a Ph.D., particularly in the political sciences (I realize the social sciences aren't popular here on/., but when one is discussing election results/poll data, they're the best source) must belong to the "elite echelons" of the upper class (Also... people with Ph.D's in fields like those you are speaking about also tend to be in the elite echelons of the upper class, because those degrees tend to cost you more money than you make from them (without the right connections, of course.. wink wink).. and you wander why they espouse elitist right wing values and are listened to by elitist right wing leaders? (source). I got a good laugh out of this then, and still do, especially considering my top 3 favorite political science professors are, in order: 1. a Democrat, 2. a Green, and finally 3. a Republican. And I attend one of the most conservative universities in the entire U.S.
The submitter of the previous story was similarly a bit off his rocker.
In short, what we have here is kdawson publishing pretty much anything he or she likes about this matter to stir up debate and ad clicks, and all of it coming from that bastion of journalism, that peer-reviewed gem of western society, Rolling Stone.
Surely Slashdot can do better than this. There are LOTS of topics of interest to the left that could be covered in a decent manner. Why kdawson keeps banging away on this one note is baffling to me.
Slashdot Mirror
it must be true.
Please.
Chavez is the typical Latin American dictator incarnate. The consolidation of power under Chavez in the Executive branch of the Venezuelan government can't hold a candle to anything that has occurred in the U.S. in the past 6 years. If you hate Bush for much of what he's done, I imagine you'd hold a special dislike for Chavez.
Put down the Chomsky, and educate yourself. I hate citing Wikipedia as a source, but this particular article has so many primary sources listed at the bottom that it works.
2. "He broke a law, he should go to jail." The court system should be mandated to tell the jurors in all trials about their right to nullify terrible laws. Jury nullifaction is more than a priviledge, it is a right even greater than serving on a jury.
Jury nullification in this case serves no long-term purpose. Sure, it could get this kid off the hook, but that's about it. The possibility remains that a future jury will convict rather than let someone off.
On the other hand, strict application of the law and an appeal to higher courts could, however, result in it being thrown out through the principle of Judicial Review - causing this kid a whole lot of headaches in the short term, but helping others in the long term.
The best way to overturn harmful laws is often by strictly applying them.
As to this:
I find it outrageous that people are arrested for inciting violence -- the gun doesn't kill, the inciter doesn't kill, it is the person who physically performs a violent act that is the cause of the violence.
True, one who incites to kill does not commit murder, but he or she could be no less culpable.
Osama Bin Laden, for example, did next to nothing to actually plan, finance (his own personal fortune was long gone by the mid 90's, according to most estimates), or carry out the 9/11 attacks or any other attacks on U.S. national interests. He just provided the idea that Americans should be killed and gave a green light to a plan to kill Americans (not to mention a hell of a lot of people from other countries). Should we, then, not target him as he has only incited others to kill?
Must be slow news day.
Could've been worse. It could've been kdawson, in which case we'd have yet another "Stolen Election Sunday".
If it would keep down the number of e-mails starting with "FWD:fwd:FWD:fwd:fwd:FWD: I normally don't send this, but, this has to be true!" that find themselves into my inbox, I just might support this in the U.S.!
*I kid, I kid...*
Ah, plasmacutter.
After spending a week reading things of substance, I view you as the dessert - an article without substance, but a little sweet... ahh...
This is an "after the fact" call, and all crimes regardless of severity are investigated and when possible the perpetrators are brought to justice. This is also NOT the argument you were making in your earlier post.
Your earlier post said it was perfectly "ok" to shred the bill of rights and the constitutional provisions against overstep of government power if it prevented crimes before they happened.
I'll say this again: "Minority report anyone?"
As usual, this is just too rich, my boy.
Perhaps you were unaware that plotting murder is, in itself, a crime? Would you suggest that the police shouldn't attempt to stop those plotting a murder? Or do you prefer Steven Spielberg to set your political ideas?
They don't do this with speeding, they don't even do it with murder, but I guess it's ok whenever they shriek "national security" at the top of their ultrafascist lungs.
They don't arrest people for planning murder? Are you sure about that?
In Canada, it's punishable by life in prison. In the U.S., laws vary from state to state, but generally the penalty is quite severe.
Are these laws "shredding the bill of rights"? Are they punishing people for thought? Do people have the right to plot murder? At what point should we take action to prevent an act of murder, as the knife is pulled, as the finger moves to the trigger, as the plane approaches a building?
A "wait and see" approach is absurd, stupid, and unsurprisingly what you advocate. People don't have the right to plot murder, no more than they have the right to shout "fire" in a crowded theatre (unless, of course, there is a fire).
people who are arrogant enough to wander around calling other people stupid to their face are usually the ones who need to expand their wisdom, I advise you to do so.
Ah, this is my favorite part. Coming right after the "ultrafascist" bit.
Why don't you "expand [your] wisdom" by not arguing that every thing that doesn't reinforce your truly idiotic view of the world is part of a vast, extreme right wing conspiracy and that, perhaps, things might go a little beyond the class warfare you so earnestly love.
I call you stupid because you ignore the facts and the world around you. I call you stupid because you compare a Steven Spielberg flick to actual crime. I call you stupid because you believe that the Council on Foreign Relations is an extreme right organization. I call you stupid for a variety of reasons, and you richly deserve the title.
Now keep on slash stalking away, my good boy. You'll give me entertainment for weeks to come.
Watching Kim Jong Il play basketball (or at least attempt to...) and then his... uh... post game antics are worth it, even if you can't stand the rest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h3GPc_yMCE
If they actually got that thing to work reliably, I'd be very impressed.
Arabic varies WIDELY from country to country. Learning Modern Standard Arabic and a regional dialect (I studied Egyptian) is almost like learning two different languages at once - words, verb conjugation, plural forms, grammar, etc. change between dialects and standard Arabic.
I wonder if this computer translates Iraqi colloquial as well as Modern Standard, or requires the speaker of Arabic to speak Modern Standard (which would limit its usefulness to translating fairly higher class Iraqis)?
I hope it works. A language barrier is a nasty thing, particularly in a war zone.
Does pulling a kidnapper off the street, depriving him or her of freedom, and locking this individual up in jail make the state "just as bad" as a kidnapper?
Somehow, I doubt it.
There are lots of good arguments against capital punishment. This isn't really one of them.
While filling your cart with 7.62mm rounds and Evian, you may want to consider some Potassium iodide, which can provide at least some protection against Radioiodine, which I assume would be a part of most nuclear explosions (although I am no specialist on this matter - do correct me if I'm wrong). It's dirt cheap, and a little something might be better than nothing. The odds of ever needing it are, of course, extremely low. But, hey, if you're going to stock up, stock up right.
Dear sweet mercy!
You mean to suggest that SOMETHING in the world occurred that was not the direct result of U.S. action! Well my stars, who'da thunk it!
Mod parent up!
This measure is understandable.
Kim Jong Il had to do something about his hair. Nothing short of a nuke could truly remove all of that Aqua Net.
Desparate times call for desparate measures. We can only hope that Al Sharpton decides against similar treatment.
Google books will never replace real books for me, but the service is very, very useful.
Case in point: I was writing a research paper this week, and needed to search through a book for a specific name. As this book didn't have an index, I wasn't too enthused about looking through it page-by-page for one bit of information, so I fired up Google books and, bingo - got the name, page number, and some more information as well.
More importantly, however, was a second case. As I was about to turn in the paper, I realized I hadn't completed a reference and needed to find a page number in a book I didn't have with me. I first thought I was screwed, but then fired up Google books and, once again, bingo - I got precisely what I needed even though my book was 25 miles away at the time.
Google adds value to books. I'll still buy just as many books as before - probably more, as now it's easier for me to find books I'm interested in - and makes the books I own much more "user friendly". Great service.
Ah, plasmacutter. How eager I am to read your babblings again...
Many more people are killed every year in the US in fatal car crashes due to simple speeding than are killed by terrorism.. on the order of 10 times more.. 50 times more if you leave outliers like 9/11 out of the computations.
Maybe we should start shipping speeders of to gitmo?
Because car accidents are the equivalent of planned mass murder. Clearly, they're comparable and we should only focus on the ends rather than the means in all situations.
I can just see this now... calling up a 911 operator to report a murder only to have the police tell the caller, "sorry, roughly twice as many people die in car accidents (according to CDC statistics), who cares about a murder? We obviously need to put more effort into traffic enforcement. Just bury your dead and get over it, OK?"
Of course, this also puts aside the slight problem of distribution. According to the NHTSA (don't worry - they're not run by the wealthy elite, just the poor, downtrodden ranks of middle America, so you can trust them) 37,862 people died in motor vehicle accidents in 2001, which would cause an average distribution of 103 a day. A 30x spike on one day is certainly notable, and in addition to the deaths of almost 3,000 people, the attacks caused (according to these statistics) $105 billion dollars of economic damage in one month to New York City alone, in addition to billions of dollars in insurance, clean up, and other costs.
Oh, but it's all ok. Because accidents are equivalent to planned murder for ideological reasons. No need to get too concerned about them.
Really, plasmacutter. Are you just this stupid? This argument is so tired, so ridiculous, and so idiotic it's simply beyond words. That said, it's precisely what I expect from you.
Good to know I've got a slashdot stalker, though! I was kind of getting bored without one. Keep 'em coming - I've got pink eye and I'm in a self-imposed quarantine. I need some good comedy to keep my spirits up. I
I've found this to be somewhat true, but not always. If a post contains direct criticism of the DNC or praise/direct agreement for Bush, you can count on a few "flamebait" or "overrated" moderations.
For some posts, such as this one I receive all kinds of complaints about how "right wing" I must be to dare complain that the DNC still hasn't come up with anything resembling a platform. I receive angry ALL CAPS COMMENTS - DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING, IDIOT!?! responses. Still, it at least retained a respectable 4, insightful.
Then there's posts like this one which held onto its 5, insightful, but received responses like this where I'm reminded from someone about the left that I shouldn't "THINK", just do whatever the left says because what is happening is wrong, WRONG!
And all along I thought the right was supposed to be anti-intellectual...
I don't really care about the biases among editors, moderators, or whatever. I post what I think, and receive moderations accordingly.
I do, however, remember this when it comes to meta moderation time and, while acting within the rules, I act accordingly when I see posts modded inappropriately.
The moderation system, however, consists really of choir preachers - people mod up what they want to hear and mod down what they don't. That's all it comes down to.
These are the people, tactics and results the Founding Fathers repeatedly warned us about.
An interesting comment in response to a Thomas Jefferson quote.
I must respectfully disagree.
Is it likely that a terrorist group will destroy the entire U.S. in a massive nuclear attack, for instance? Obviously not.
But this is not the only level of threat that should concern the U.S. As a U.S. citizen, I expect my life, property, and the lives and property of my fellow citizens to be protected against all enemies, foreign and domestic. I accept that this does not necessarily include criminal acts, but demand that I be protected from terrorists - a group whose precise definition varies widely, I realize - and state actors.
Your argument seems to claim that a group which has no hope of utterly destroying the U.S. should not be treated as a threat to life or freedom. Such thinking is at best ill-advised.
Terrorists can only threaten the freedom of a very limited number of citizens, by taking them hostage and/or by killing them. That is the only thing terrorists can do. Their power is very limited.
The 9/11 group achieved a 150:1 kill ratio with $500,000. I hardly think that qualifies as "very limited".
While 3,000 may be a very limited number of citizens compared to the total U.S. population, it remains a massive number that is difficult to minimize the importance of.
If terrorists can "only" achieve 150:1 kill ratios and kill thousands on a single day with a small cell, I think this is ample reason for concern.
Of course, this doesn't even include the terror groups seeking to acquire various flavors of WMD. While a small nuclear device in New York, for example, may only succeed in killing off a "limited number" of citizens that could well be below 1% of the total U.S. population, that is still a massive amount of death and devastation that we should expend every effort to prevent.
Any other taking of freedom would be done by lawmakers, courts, officers of the law, intelligence agents, and so on, aided by media frenzy and scaremongers. They can threaten your freedom. Terrorists cannot.
Please tell that to the thousands who no longer have the freedom to live. The dead hate to be "scaremongered".
Comments regarding FISA are perfectly reasonable in this context - the provisions of that bill are important to the present debate - but one must not lose sight of the fact that FISA was designed to counter an entirely different threat.
I've had the opportunity to study under a man that helped write the act, and while I haven't had a chance to discuss the recent developments with him, his view of FISA was that it was designed to serve a counter-intelligence role, but fails to be as useful against other threats.
Counter-Intelligence operations are fundamentally different from counter-terrorist operations. CI operations are much easier to predict, with relatively well understood actors, motives, and a much lower imminent risk to life and property. CI threats are relatively easy to pick out, relatively easy to understand. Of course, the most important word in this post is "relatively"...
Counter-terrorist operations are almost the polar opposite. Targets of foreign intelligence agencies are clear - they're after classified data and those that manage or handle it. The actors are clear - "diplomats", non-official cover officers, and Americans (in this case) with classified data. Targets of terrorists are not, as the focus of many of these groups is simply to kill as many people as possible by whatever means they can use. They don't care about classified data, they don't play games with diplomatic immunity. The actors could be foreign college students or home-grown California boys who decide to support the cause for reasons of their own, as we've seen recently.
Beyond simply acquiring data, FISA also allows for the prosecution of those who hand classified data to those who are not authorized to receive it by allowing evidence to enter into court without entering into the public record. FISA is an excellent tool for what it does. It's much more precise, limited, and focused on its threat.
Counter-terrorist operations require a wider approach - something of a "drag net" - for them to be successful. Pre-9/11 U.S. counter-terrorism was based largely on luck - case in point being the capture of the WTC '93 bombers, whose cell was unraveled because a member thereof just couldn't leave behind the deposit on his truck. More recent attacks should provide ample evidence that we can't fall back simply on luck any longer - we must be more active in preventing attacks rather than mopping up after them.
I think there is room for debate on this matter, and I do not believe that Benjamin Franklin quotes nor tradition should hold us from implementing laws we need to protect ourselves. Of course, this should occur within reasonable limits, in accordance with majority will and proportionate to the threat - which is growing and innovative itself - and without completely losing national character.
A quote I read recently sums up my position:
"To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law would be to lose law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means." (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John B. Colvin, September 20, 1810, quoted from Terrorism Freedom and Security: Winning Without War, Heymann, MIT Press, 2003, pg. xi)
Of course, this view must be tempered - we must be careful about those means we do and do not sacrifice - but we also should not sacrifice our nation on the altar of law. There is a time for dogmatic adherence a time to take a more pragmatic view rooted in self-preservation. We should slip from the first to the last cautiously, infrequently, and with friction and great reservation. Yet sometimes, we must slip to survive and pursue our own self-preservation.
I thank you for your comment and for what it brings to this discussion.
I believe Han Solo's only notable piece of equipment is a small bouquet of daisies, one of which he gives to Guido in the super-hyper-ultra-master-remix of Star Wars Episode -12.
Why on earth would Han want to "blast" anything, as is? He's a perfectly legitimate businessman, brought into hard times by a pair of misfits who attack people with Mag Lites... or at least that's the latest Lucas version.
I mean, if you've ever ridden the tube, you've learned to live with that already...
Looking back at one group I was with, the 6'4" Chinese kid who could barely speak English and had a "full-frontal assault" style of asking people to fill out surveys ("you want fill out survey now please, thanks?") was probably not the best choice for a volunteer... but, hey, we all got the extra credit. Great guy, good sense of humor, but probably not the best one for that task.
But you assume that the methods of conducting the poll were the same across the board, as well.
Discrepancies in polling methods can occur in clusters for many reasons, often due to the fact that those doing the polling are unpaid volunteers.
A staffing shortage could lead to less data collected, a polling place could have run out of forms for polling, a polling place may not have been staffed at certain times of the day, volunteers who dressed in a way to make themselves more or less approachable to certain sets of voters (or a really tall/short volunteer, a really ugly one - such as myself... - one wearing a t-shirt from a particular campaign, etc.), or even volunteers who goofed off for a bit could've simply made up data to fill in holes (much less likely, of course).
It's not just the methodology of analysis - it's the methodology of collection that can gum things up as well.
And, since I failed to include it in the two posts above this one (see my second self-reply to grandparent), I certainly don't blame you.
Exit polls are designed to collect a lot of statistical data, true, but they aren't designed to determine who will/should win an election. They're designed to marry socio-economic data to voting behavior.
For obvious reasons, your income, marital status, race, etc. aren't collected (and shouldn't be collected) by the government when you vote. In order to get data on this, social scientists/statisticians do exit polling. This data can then be used to attempt to predict voting behavior among specific groups in society. It can't be used to effectively predict election outcomes.
It's the purpose that's different and that people - including myself in the first two posts - are looking over.
Many would argue that it took Ross Perot to break the Republicans out of a similar funk they were in back in the 90's.
I can't think of any similar character on the left that could fill such a role, and the left seems to be fairly to the left as is. A centrirst or center-left party is needed, but third parties in these instances tend to form more on the extremes than towards the center.
The funny thing is that a two-party system usually leads to more centrist politics, but only if both sides are playing that game. Recent developments, post 9/11, have made the environment much more divisive... which is certainly troubling.
Wow, I just can't finish this one up... The point of exit polling isn't to determine how elections will turn out - they're not really great at that - but to determine WHO votes for WHOM. It's to collect socio-economic data and match that to voting behavior. Not to predict elections. This information cannot be gathered as people vote for obvious legal and other reasons, so this is probably the most effective way to really see who votes and what could compel them to vote a certain way. I know the media has grabbed onto the idea that these polls are, for some rason, the perfect way to guess a winner, but they really aren't.
kdawson really seems to like this topic... as pointed out in the summary, this was slashdotted two weeks ago on her watch.
/., but when one is discussing election results/poll data, they're the best source) must belong to the "elite echelons" of the upper class (Also... people with Ph.D's in fields like those you are speaking about also tend to be in the elite echelons of the upper class, because those degrees tend to cost you more money than you make from them (without the right connections, of course.. wink wink).. and you wander why they espouse elitist right wing values and are listened to by elitist right wing leaders? (source). I got a good laugh out of this then, and still do, especially considering my top 3 favorite political science professors are, in order: 1. a Democrat, 2. a Green, and finally 3. a Republican. And I attend one of the most conservative universities in the entire U.S.
This submission, furthermore, stems from "plasmacutter". In a mini-flame war between he and I (note - this is in response to my post, yes), he goes on to claim that:
- Foreign Affairs, a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations, Policy Review, and the Christian Science Monitor "have been thoroughly debunked as extreme right" (I'd love to know who did that bit of debunking, and just how they determine what's "extreme right") while considering Al Franken to be an "influential political thinker". (source)
- Apparently believes anyone who has a Ph.D., particularly in the political sciences (I realize the social sciences aren't popular here on
The submitter of the previous story was similarly a bit off his rocker.
In short, what we have here is kdawson publishing pretty much anything he or she likes about this matter to stir up debate and ad clicks, and all of it coming from that bastion of journalism, that peer-reviewed gem of western society, Rolling Stone.
Surely Slashdot can do better than this. There are LOTS of topics of interest to the left that could be covered in a decent manner. Why kdawson keeps banging away on this one note is baffling to me.