I find it "relevant" that there hundreds of civilians wounded or killed that were previously unreported in the media.
That I know of, they weren't unreported. What would happen is, the media would find out about an action, and the Afghanis would report one thing, and the U.S. would report something else. The fact that casualties occurred wasn't in dispute. It was the numbers.
The New York Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegel also believed that the documents had significant value.
Well, duh. You don't expect them to say something else, do you, when WikiLeaks is acting as a good source for them?
Ok, so let's agree that Wikileaks is not a beacon of light, and that Julian Assange is not a perfect human being. I honestly don't care that much about Julian Assange's personal life or what motives he has. I do care when my government actively tries to deceive me.
Frankly, I don't care about Assange's personal life, either. I care a great deal about his motives, though, because his motives determine a) what gets leaked, and b) what gets redacted. He's a guy leaking classified documents pursuant to his own motives. What those motives are is highly relevant, and the fact that leaking documents he considers to be important is more important to him than making sure no innocents are harmed by the leaks (as he demonstrated with the Afghan documents, regardless of if anyone's been hurt yet) is troubling.
How about the fact that he is putting himself at great risk by exposing unethical and unlawful behaviour of the most powerful country in the world. There is a possibility that he will be locked up indefinitely in an American prison somewhere and not given a trial.
There's also a possibility that I'll sprout antlers, but I wouldn't bet on it. There's virtually no possibility that Assange will face any consequences in the U.S., as he's not a U.S. citizen, and has broken no U.S. laws himself (because WikiLeaks isn't in the U.S.). You can always posit conspiracy theories where Assange is taken out by a Delta Force team, but there's no evidence that he is in any imminent danger from the U.S.
Leading American politicians have called him a terrorist and/or called for his assassination. By making himself the face of Wikileaks, he's basically putting a big target on his head. And what does he get in return, fame? Maybe some money from a book deal which will likely be spent on legal fees. Would you trade places with him?
1) I wouldn't trade places with him, because I wouldn't have done what he did.
2) Assange has gotten for himself international fame, a book deal, and an enormous soapbox. Don't forget: WikiLeaks has a political agenda. They're not doing impartial reporting. They publish the documents of people they want to see taken down a peg. He also has the protection of media companies and lots of lawyers donating their time. He's not a guy I'd get all weepy over.
Sorry. The last post only answered where the "bullshit" came from. As for the rest of your post:
1) It's not the job of the press to uncover anything the government's covering up. Do you think that if the NY Times got a hold of the codes to the nuclear football, that they'd publish the codes? The job of the press is to report the news. Sometimes this includes information that might be embarrassing to the government, but a responsible press takes into account the impact of what they publish, and won't publish something that will endanger American citizens, even if the government rebuffs their request for help.
2) The way it works in a representative republic is that we elect people to make decisions for us. These people either have access to the information, or appoint people who have access to the information. It's simply ludicrous to expect every single piece of government information to be subject to the scrutiny of citizens. It's a psychotic notion, at best.
2) The enemy has stated that they intend to kill the people named in the documents. The fact that they haven't been killed (yet) doesn't mean that WikiLeaks didn't put them (or their families) in danger.
Asked why WikiLeaks did not review all of the Afghan war logs before releasing them last month to make sure that no Afghan informants or other innocent people were identified, Schmitt said that the volume of the material made it impossible.
For someone who claims to think that the US government is undeserving of the benefit of a doubt, you're doing a great job of parroting their position on this subject.
Agreeing with one position they have on one subject does not equal giving someone a blank check. And my previous post doesn't contain anything that isn't apparent to someone looking at the situation with open eyes.
I'll ask again: How are Assange's motives even a little altruistic, based on the evidence?
You are assuming that Wikileaks isn't going to censor the list to prevent that type of data going public
Why should a sensible person assume anything different? Assange's MO seems to be, "We're short-staffed. No one's willing to help us publish their stolen data. Therefore, roll the presses!".
If this is true, Julian was wasting his time. The U.S. government does this regularly, all by itself.
Well, yeah, but at least they embarrass themselves with things they do in public. Assange could (knowingly or unknowingly) get someone killed by leaking classified material. And he doesn't have a journalistic ethic. If the NY Times or Washington Post gets a hold of a piece of information, they do the best they can to check it with sources in the government, and hold it back if it's got national security importance. They don't just say, "Well, no one's helping us redact this to make sure it's safe, and we're short-staffed, so fuck it, roll the presses!"
First, there's no way for you to know this, and it is counter to what he has said publicly.
It's not really helpful to listen to Assange's statements if you want to know his motives. You have to look, rather, at the information leaked, and its potential value to achieve certain aims. Did the Afghan war diaries have any relevant information that wasn't already in the American press? Not for anyone paying attention. All it did, from what I can tell, is give an insider's look at things people already knew. ("You mean Pakistan is secretly not fighting as hard against the insurgency as it could?! Shocking!!")
The reason that the grudge Assange holds matters is that he's holding WikiLeaks up as if it's just a beam of light piercing through the darkness, exposing all corruption. It's not. Assange has a political agenda, and he's cloaking himself in journalism and free speech so that he can do as much damage as possible to his enemies (one of which is the United States, which I'm sort of partial to, I admit).
Okay, fair point that he's redacted some of what has come his way. But he's also threatened to let loose the proverbial dogs of war if anyone spoiled his good time, and filtering things through major international news organizations isn't exactly the way to keep things under wraps, if you're serious about that. (He complained that the U.S. government wouldn't help him redact the classified material properly, but if you're really taking your responsibility seriously, then you don't release documents that you're uncertain could get people hurt.) And Assange leaked the Afghan documents without redacting the names of the Afghanis helping the U.S. His excuse, as I recall, was that no one would pay WikiLeaks for the man-hours it would cost. (Boo-hoo.)
Love is exactly as applicable to humanity as it is to country. Both are abstractions. Personally I don't know what Assange's motives are, but so far his actions are consistent with altruism. Between him and the US government, I'm far more willing to give him the benefit of a doubt.
You shouldn't be giving either of them the benefit of the doubt. There's no real basis for doing so.
How are Assange's motives even a little altruistic? He unleashes all kinds of documents with only a token concern for who they'll hurt, does so selectively to further his own political agenda, and seeks at every turn to avoid responsibility for or the consequences of his actions. He's a media whore who enjoys playing with people's lives without having any accountability.
Not all Southerners, no. Just Lost Cause Southerners, really. The kind of people who fly the Confederate flag and want to celebrate secession (as South Carolina is doing). My original post was simply pointing out that there are still Southerners that pine for the Confederacy and secession (although not necessarily together), so using the South as an example of the pinnacle of patriotism might be a wee bit misplaced.
I come to this conclusion because you fail to recognize the big difference between the 1814 Hartford plotters and the 1861 secessionists in the South. The difference was that the 1814 crew got what they wanted: an end to the war, before they even stopped meeting. Instead, the 1861 crew got nothing: not even the Crittenden Compromise, which would have been small stakes to trade for 618k lives and untold economic destruction. As you note, we're still paying the price for this through Southern nostalgia for antebellum times as well as the actual fighting of the war.
The Hartford Convention got an end to the war, not because of anything they did, but because of events on the ground. And if you look at the Hartford Convention's report, they got nothing they asked for in the report.
The "small stakes" you talk about in the Crittenden Compromise basically amounted to everything the South was asking for: A permanent recognition of slavery in the South and enforcement of the fugitive slave laws in the North. The amount of human suffering that would've been brought by this compromise (remember: the permanent recognition of the South to have slavery) would've been staggering.
There's no such thing as "love of humanity". "Love" is too intense an emotion to feel for all of humanity. You might respect all of humanity (although I think that's a stretch, because there are certainly members of humanity who don't deserve respect), but love? No.
And even if such a thing is possible, you're deluding yourself if you think that was Assange's motive. Assange was simply trying to embarrass the U.S. That's all. You could plausibly say that the person who gave Assange the information had a higher motive, but Assange has shown, by his actions, that he's all about himself. Someone who was in it for higher motives would do what Ellsberg did, and face the charges against him, rather than fleeing like a coward. And someone who was in it for the love of humanity wouldn't a) threaten the banking system and b) have an "Insurance" file that he lorded over authorities in case he got caught.
Assange is simply a megalomaniac trying to cloak himself in "information wants to be free" bullshit.
I can agree that Ellsberg is an admirable man, but I can't bring myself to think that of Assange.
Ellsberg, in a crisis of conscience, leaked a broad document detailing the history of the Vietnam War, most of which was secret. Assange leaked documents for the sole purpose not of informing people (because most of the information had come out), but to embarrass the U.S. In addition, Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers didn't have the same contemporaneous nature that Assange's leaks did.
What Ellsberg did can be seen as patriotic, but Assange is not and was not a U.S. citizen, so even if you think there was a value in having the information leaked, he did not do it for love of country. He did it to embarrass the U.S.
Most importantly, Assange's ethic is completely different than Ellsberg's was. Ellsberg, having an IQ above room temperature (Celsius) does not refute the idea that governments and institutions can and should have secrets, Assange, on the other hand, is apparently the oldest living patient to have been born entirely without a brain.
The only reason secession was taken off the table at Hartford was the realization that even suggesting it would be considered treason at the time by the rest of the country and would likely provoke an armed response.
But that's a fundamental difference between the secessionists of the South and the Hartford Convention: The South wanted to secede. The word "treason" used against them wasn't a deterrent. And as for armed conflict: The South fired the first shot. The Hartford Convention never had the support for secession. That's mostly a myth that was perpetuated by the South.
Their attempt to tone down their message opposing the existing government didn't stop many people in New England at the time from talking about secession, and didn't stop the rest of the country from believing that their goal. Hence, the political damage to the Federalists.
The Federalists were discredited because the Democratic-Republicans played up the Hartford Convention as if it was disloyal.
As for nullification - Calhoun wasn't the only one that believed in that, either. Jefferson and Madison were the original authors of the nullification theory. Hell, Andrew Jackson himself made a few noises regarding nullification in the 1800-10 period when he was a Tennessee state official. Later, when he was President, his mind changed. Fancy that.
What do Jefferson and Madison both have in common? They were both Virginians. Nullification suited them, because they were both concerned about the federal government superseding the interests of the different regions of the country. (IMHO, Jefferson is much more of a bastard than history gives him credit for. If it wasn't for the Declaration of Independence, I'd have no use at all for him.)
I actually don't know very much about Jackson, but I suspect that as a Southern politician, he had to tow that line while he was in Tennessee. Of course, you're right that when you're president, federal power looks a lot better to you. (That would include both Jefferson and Madison, by the way.)
The New England crowd were the ultimate winners in the battle to define the United States. It's no wonder that there isn't any secessionist feeling in that area. Now, contrast what happened to the South - is there any reason why you would expect such feelings to go away? They got beaten soundly and its become their origin myth - the Lost Cause. It'll persist forever at some level.
One might expect a sound thrashing to deaden a person's enthusiasm for rebellion and treason, I would think. Especially when the cause of the Civil War was the preservation of slavery. (There's a persistent myth that it was states' rights or tariffs, but if you want to know what it was really about, read the declarations of secession of the states in the Confederacy.)
The entire Northeast was considering secession during the War of 1812, even to the extent of convening a meeting to discuss secession in Hartford in 1814 (closed door) and recommending out a bunch of constitutional amendments making it harder to declare war, etc. Essentially hobbling the Federal Government. Which was funny coming from a party called Federalists.
Well, a couple of things here:
1) The Hartford Convention rejected secession.
2) Nothing in the Hartford Convention's resolutions even suggested nullification or secession.
3) Most importantly, for the purposes of this discussion, no one in the Northeast (or, indeed, anywhere but the South) would dare openly fly a flag of rebellion today, as some of those in the South still do. Hell, Mississippi still has the Confederate battle flag as part of its state flag.
That's why I used the word "still". There are still those in the South who consider the Union's victory a bad thing.
It's nice to know that there's some nutjobs in Europe that are just as patriotic as the nutjobs in the American South.
Not sure I'd call the American South "patriotic". These are also states' rights people who would still (despite how poorly it went for them the first time) secede at the drop of a hat if things didn't go their way.
As has been pointed out by comments in TFA, it's quite possible that security wasn't a major consideration for the virus. Maybe they didn't care to cloak the code. Isn't what really matters that the attack succeeded? I'd take these criticisms a lot more seriously if the Iranians had thwarted the attack and had tracked down the coders. The article just sounds like sour grapes.
Other than the build quality (and that was only in the original batches), I don't think the hardware on the original Pre was inadequate. About the only real deficit the original Pre had was a lack of an expansion slot. That I know of, no one was pooh-poohing the actual hardware specs at the time. The problem was the follow-up. If they'd released the Pre Plus around the time they released the Pixi, that would've been something to see. Instead, they released the Pixi, which many people just saw as the "Pre Minus". The other way to handle it would've been to release the Pixi first, and then the Pre. But what ended up happening was you had the Pre, then a step down with the Pixi, and then a long wait for the Pre Plus. And it was the Pre Plus that really fell flat, because it didn't sufficiently improve the Pre. And then, as if to add insult to injury, the Pre 2 doesn't have the kick-ass hardware that even should've been on the Pre Plus.
Upgrading to WebOS 2.0 is nice and all, but adding Flash and some UI enhancements is no substitute for a real hardware refresh (rather than just throwing more memory at the problem) and well-documented APIs.
Maybe. I just don't see it as a good sign that they'd release something like the Torch. It sounds like the PlayBook is a good conender, if it ever gets out the door, but they need to step up their smartphone game.
That's not true. Palm had a good UI going for them, and a lot of the early press for the hardware design of the Pre was positive. Where they screwed the pooch was their ad campaign, some quality control issues early on in the release, and in being slow to release the SDK.
Here's an idea: HP can buy Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft for its nice UI and graft that onto WebOS's core -- after modernizing the core, of course.
First off, bad idea, and second, WebOS already has a modern core.
Absolutely! Not only does WebOS have a modern core, but it's also got a beautiful UI, in my opinion. What possible benefit could there be of creating some FrankenOS? (Palm users already suffered through that with Garnet.)
Frankly, I think RIM has ceded the market to Android and iOS. The Torch should've been a remarkable device to keep up with the pack, but it wasn't even as technically impressive as the Palm Pre and WebOS (which is getting a bit stale since we've been waiting for the 2.0 update).
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WebOS has a chance, but it's a small one. I've been a big Palm fan since the Palm Pilot II, and was ecstatic when they released the Pre, as it was technically and hardware-wise right up there with the best of 'em (albeit a bit skimpy on the display size). But my high hopes were predicated on the idea that they'd get lots of developers to pump out apps, and they'd follow up the Pre with an even better device. Well, the first half of the Pre ad campaign was a joke -- and not a very good one. Subsequently, Palm saw a lot of initial sales, followed with...silence. The campaign failed to bring the masses, and because the masses stayed away, the developers stayed away. (It also didn't help that they took so long to release the SDK, and still don't have all the relevant APIs out, as far as I'm aware).
HP needs to hit this one out of the park for WebOS to stay alive. I think that's going to mean:
A hardware refresh, including a Droid-sized device or devices
That tablet they're working on had better have top-notch specs, or they shouldn't even bother with it.
Immediate release of all relevant APIs, so that developers have no problem working with the hardware
Killing off Classic, IMO, isn't a great sign. They seem to be betting the farm that they'll pull new developers in, but Classic was a way to lure the Palm faithful over (or at least keep the ones you had.) I'm going to be watching the announcement carefully, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when my contract on this phone is up, I'm going to be getting an Android phone.
A sleepy surgeon is certainly better than no surgeon at all if it's a life-saving surgery. No doubt about that. But a patient dying because the surgeon was sleepy is no different than a patient who died because he/she didn't get operated on in time. In a life-saving situation, it's only a good deal if the surgeon can complete the surgery successfully.
I wonder if informed consent is possible just before surgery.
No need to wonder. It's not. The hospitals aren't trying to gain informed concent. They're just covering their asses. They don't want the patients' informed consent, just their signatures on the form.
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I find it "relevant" that there hundreds of civilians wounded or killed that were previously unreported in the media.
That I know of, they weren't unreported. What would happen is, the media would find out about an action, and the Afghanis would report one thing, and the U.S. would report something else. The fact that casualties occurred wasn't in dispute. It was the numbers.
The New York Times, Guardian, and Der Spiegel also believed that the documents had significant value.
Well, duh. You don't expect them to say something else, do you, when WikiLeaks is acting as a good source for them?
Ok, so let's agree that Wikileaks is not a beacon of light, and that Julian Assange is not a perfect human being. I honestly don't care that much about Julian Assange's personal life or what motives he has. I do care when my government actively tries to deceive me.
Frankly, I don't care about Assange's personal life, either. I care a great deal about his motives, though, because his motives determine a) what gets leaked, and b) what gets redacted. He's a guy leaking classified documents pursuant to his own motives. What those motives are is highly relevant, and the fact that leaking documents he considers to be important is more important to him than making sure no innocents are harmed by the leaks (as he demonstrated with the Afghan documents, regardless of if anyone's been hurt yet) is troubling.
I never claimed that WikiLeaks never did anything good. I asked about motives.
How about the fact that he is putting himself at great risk by exposing unethical and unlawful behaviour of the most powerful country in the world. There is a possibility that he will be locked up indefinitely in an American prison somewhere and not given a trial.
There's also a possibility that I'll sprout antlers, but I wouldn't bet on it. There's virtually no possibility that Assange will face any consequences in the U.S., as he's not a U.S. citizen, and has broken no U.S. laws himself (because WikiLeaks isn't in the U.S.). You can always posit conspiracy theories where Assange is taken out by a Delta Force team, but there's no evidence that he is in any imminent danger from the U.S.
Leading American politicians have called him a terrorist and/or called for his assassination. By making himself the face of Wikileaks, he's basically putting a big target on his head. And what does he get in return, fame? Maybe some money from a book deal which will likely be spent on legal fees. Would you trade places with him?
1) I wouldn't trade places with him, because I wouldn't have done what he did.
2) Assange has gotten for himself international fame, a book deal, and an enormous soapbox. Don't forget: WikiLeaks has a political agenda. They're not doing impartial reporting. They publish the documents of people they want to see taken down a peg. He also has the protection of media companies and lots of lawyers donating their time. He's not a guy I'd get all weepy over.
Sorry. The last post only answered where the "bullshit" came from. As for the rest of your post:
1) It's not the job of the press to uncover anything the government's covering up. Do you think that if the NY Times got a hold of the codes to the nuclear football, that they'd publish the codes? The job of the press is to report the news. Sometimes this includes information that might be embarrassing to the government, but a responsible press takes into account the impact of what they publish, and won't publish something that will endanger American citizens, even if the government rebuffs their request for help.
2) The way it works in a representative republic is that we elect people to make decisions for us. These people either have access to the information, or appoint people who have access to the information. It's simply ludicrous to expect every single piece of government information to be subject to the scrutiny of citizens. It's a psychotic notion, at best.
2) The enemy has stated that they intend to kill the people named in the documents. The fact that they haven't been killed (yet) doesn't mean that WikiLeaks didn't put them (or their families) in danger.
For someone who claims to think that the US government is undeserving of the benefit of a doubt, you're doing a great job of parroting their position on this subject.
Agreeing with one position they have on one subject does not equal giving someone a blank check. And my previous post doesn't contain anything that isn't apparent to someone looking at the situation with open eyes.
I'll ask again: How are Assange's motives even a little altruistic, based on the evidence?
You are assuming that Wikileaks isn't going to censor the list to prevent that type of data going public
Why should a sensible person assume anything different? Assange's MO seems to be, "We're short-staffed. No one's willing to help us publish their stolen data. Therefore, roll the presses!".
If this is true, Julian was wasting his time. The U.S. government does this regularly, all by itself.
Well, yeah, but at least they embarrass themselves with things they do in public. Assange could (knowingly or unknowingly) get someone killed by leaking classified material. And he doesn't have a journalistic ethic. If the NY Times or Washington Post gets a hold of a piece of information, they do the best they can to check it with sources in the government, and hold it back if it's got national security importance. They don't just say, "Well, no one's helping us redact this to make sure it's safe, and we're short-staffed, so fuck it, roll the presses!"
First, there's no way for you to know this, and it is counter to what he has said publicly.
It's not really helpful to listen to Assange's statements if you want to know his motives. You have to look, rather, at the information leaked, and its potential value to achieve certain aims. Did the Afghan war diaries have any relevant information that wasn't already in the American press? Not for anyone paying attention. All it did, from what I can tell, is give an insider's look at things people already knew. ("You mean Pakistan is secretly not fighting as hard against the insurgency as it could?! Shocking!!")
The reason that the grudge Assange holds matters is that he's holding WikiLeaks up as if it's just a beam of light piercing through the darkness, exposing all corruption. It's not. Assange has a political agenda, and he's cloaking himself in journalism and free speech so that he can do as much damage as possible to his enemies (one of which is the United States, which I'm sort of partial to, I admit).
Okay, fair point that he's redacted some of what has come his way. But he's also threatened to let loose the proverbial dogs of war if anyone spoiled his good time, and filtering things through major international news organizations isn't exactly the way to keep things under wraps, if you're serious about that. (He complained that the U.S. government wouldn't help him redact the classified material properly, but if you're really taking your responsibility seriously, then you don't release documents that you're uncertain could get people hurt.) And Assange leaked the Afghan documents without redacting the names of the Afghanis helping the U.S. His excuse, as I recall, was that no one would pay WikiLeaks for the man-hours it would cost. (Boo-hoo.)
Love is exactly as applicable to humanity as it is to country. Both are abstractions. Personally I don't know what Assange's motives are, but so far his actions are consistent with altruism. Between him and the US government, I'm far more willing to give him the benefit of a doubt.
You shouldn't be giving either of them the benefit of the doubt. There's no real basis for doing so.
How are Assange's motives even a little altruistic? He unleashes all kinds of documents with only a token concern for who they'll hurt, does so selectively to further his own political agenda, and seeks at every turn to avoid responsibility for or the consequences of his actions. He's a media whore who enjoys playing with people's lives without having any accountability.
You just want to criticize southerners.
Not all Southerners, no. Just Lost Cause Southerners, really. The kind of people who fly the Confederate flag and want to celebrate secession (as South Carolina is doing). My original post was simply pointing out that there are still Southerners that pine for the Confederacy and secession (although not necessarily together), so using the South as an example of the pinnacle of patriotism might be a wee bit misplaced.
I come to this conclusion because you fail to recognize the big difference between the 1814 Hartford plotters and the 1861 secessionists in the South. The difference was that the 1814 crew got what they wanted: an end to the war, before they even stopped meeting. Instead, the 1861 crew got nothing: not even the Crittenden Compromise, which would have been small stakes to trade for 618k lives and untold economic destruction. As you note, we're still paying the price for this through Southern nostalgia for antebellum times as well as the actual fighting of the war.
The Hartford Convention got an end to the war, not because of anything they did, but because of events on the ground. And if you look at the Hartford Convention's report, they got nothing they asked for in the report.
The "small stakes" you talk about in the Crittenden Compromise basically amounted to everything the South was asking for: A permanent recognition of slavery in the South and enforcement of the fugitive slave laws in the North. The amount of human suffering that would've been brought by this compromise (remember: the permanent recognition of the South to have slavery) would've been staggering.
There's no such thing as "love of humanity". "Love" is too intense an emotion to feel for all of humanity. You might respect all of humanity (although I think that's a stretch, because there are certainly members of humanity who don't deserve respect), but love? No.
And even if such a thing is possible, you're deluding yourself if you think that was Assange's motive. Assange was simply trying to embarrass the U.S. That's all. You could plausibly say that the person who gave Assange the information had a higher motive, but Assange has shown, by his actions, that he's all about himself. Someone who was in it for higher motives would do what Ellsberg did, and face the charges against him, rather than fleeing like a coward. And someone who was in it for the love of humanity wouldn't a) threaten the banking system and b) have an "Insurance" file that he lorded over authorities in case he got caught.
Assange is simply a megalomaniac trying to cloak himself in "information wants to be free" bullshit.
I can agree that Ellsberg is an admirable man, but I can't bring myself to think that of Assange.
Ellsberg, in a crisis of conscience, leaked a broad document detailing the history of the Vietnam War, most of which was secret. Assange leaked documents for the sole purpose not of informing people (because most of the information had come out), but to embarrass the U.S. In addition, Ellsberg's Pentagon Papers didn't have the same contemporaneous nature that Assange's leaks did.
What Ellsberg did can be seen as patriotic, but Assange is not and was not a U.S. citizen, so even if you think there was a value in having the information leaked, he did not do it for love of country. He did it to embarrass the U.S.
Most importantly, Assange's ethic is completely different than Ellsberg's was. Ellsberg, having an IQ above room temperature (Celsius) does not refute the idea that governments and institutions can and should have secrets, Assange, on the other hand, is apparently the oldest living patient to have been born entirely without a brain.
The only reason secession was taken off the table at Hartford was the realization that even suggesting it would be considered treason at the time by the rest of the country and would likely provoke an armed response.
But that's a fundamental difference between the secessionists of the South and the Hartford Convention: The South wanted to secede. The word "treason" used against them wasn't a deterrent. And as for armed conflict: The South fired the first shot. The Hartford Convention never had the support for secession. That's mostly a myth that was perpetuated by the South.
Their attempt to tone down their message opposing the existing government didn't stop many people in New England at the time from talking about secession, and didn't stop the rest of the country from believing that their goal. Hence, the political damage to the Federalists.
The Federalists were discredited because the Democratic-Republicans played up the Hartford Convention as if it was disloyal.
As for nullification - Calhoun wasn't the only one that believed in that, either. Jefferson and Madison were the original authors of the nullification theory. Hell, Andrew Jackson himself made a few noises regarding nullification in the 1800-10 period when he was a Tennessee state official. Later, when he was President, his mind changed. Fancy that.
What do Jefferson and Madison both have in common? They were both Virginians. Nullification suited them, because they were both concerned about the federal government superseding the interests of the different regions of the country. (IMHO, Jefferson is much more of a bastard than history gives him credit for. If it wasn't for the Declaration of Independence, I'd have no use at all for him.)
I actually don't know very much about Jackson, but I suspect that as a Southern politician, he had to tow that line while he was in Tennessee. Of course, you're right that when you're president, federal power looks a lot better to you. (That would include both Jefferson and Madison, by the way.)
The New England crowd were the ultimate winners in the battle to define the United States. It's no wonder that there isn't any secessionist feeling in that area. Now, contrast what happened to the South - is there any reason why you would expect such feelings to go away? They got beaten soundly and its become their origin myth - the Lost Cause. It'll persist forever at some level.
One might expect a sound thrashing to deaden a person's enthusiasm for rebellion and treason, I would think. Especially when the cause of the Civil War was the preservation of slavery. (There's a persistent myth that it was states' rights or tariffs, but if you want to know what it was really about, read the declarations of secession of the states in the Confederacy.)
The entire Northeast was considering secession during the War of 1812, even to the extent of convening a meeting to discuss secession in Hartford in 1814 (closed door) and recommending out a bunch of constitutional amendments making it harder to declare war, etc. Essentially hobbling the Federal Government. Which was funny coming from a party called Federalists.
Well, a couple of things here:
1) The Hartford Convention rejected secession.
2) Nothing in the Hartford Convention's resolutions even suggested nullification or secession.
3) Most importantly, for the purposes of this discussion, no one in the Northeast (or, indeed, anywhere but the South) would dare openly fly a flag of rebellion today, as some of those in the South still do. Hell, Mississippi still has the Confederate battle flag as part of its state flag.
That's why I used the word "still". There are still those in the South who consider the Union's victory a bad thing.
It's nice to know that there's some nutjobs in Europe that are just as patriotic as the nutjobs in the American South.
Not sure I'd call the American South "patriotic". These are also states' rights people who would still (despite how poorly it went for them the first time) secede at the drop of a hat if things didn't go their way.
...if the damn thing worked?
As has been pointed out by comments in TFA, it's quite possible that security wasn't a major consideration for the virus. Maybe they didn't care to cloak the code. Isn't what really matters that the attack succeeded? I'd take these criticisms a lot more seriously if the Iranians had thwarted the attack and had tracked down the coders. The article just sounds like sour grapes.
Other than the build quality (and that was only in the original batches), I don't think the hardware on the original Pre was inadequate. About the only real deficit the original Pre had was a lack of an expansion slot. That I know of, no one was pooh-poohing the actual hardware specs at the time. The problem was the follow-up. If they'd released the Pre Plus around the time they released the Pixi, that would've been something to see. Instead, they released the Pixi, which many people just saw as the "Pre Minus". The other way to handle it would've been to release the Pixi first, and then the Pre. But what ended up happening was you had the Pre, then a step down with the Pixi, and then a long wait for the Pre Plus. And it was the Pre Plus that really fell flat, because it didn't sufficiently improve the Pre. And then, as if to add insult to injury, the Pre 2 doesn't have the kick-ass hardware that even should've been on the Pre Plus.
Upgrading to WebOS 2.0 is nice and all, but adding Flash and some UI enhancements is no substitute for a real hardware refresh (rather than just throwing more memory at the problem) and well-documented APIs.
Maybe. I just don't see it as a good sign that they'd release something like the Torch. It sounds like the PlayBook is a good conender, if it ever gets out the door, but they need to step up their smartphone game.
That's not true. Palm had a good UI going for them, and a lot of the early press for the hardware design of the Pre was positive. Where they screwed the pooch was their ad campaign, some quality control issues early on in the release, and in being slow to release the SDK.
Here's an idea: HP can buy Windows Phone 7 from Microsoft for its nice UI and graft that onto WebOS's core -- after modernizing the core, of course.
First off, bad idea, and second, WebOS already has a modern core.
Absolutely! Not only does WebOS have a modern core, but it's also got a beautiful UI, in my opinion. What possible benefit could there be of creating some FrankenOS? (Palm users already suffered through that with Garnet.)
Frankly, I think RIM has ceded the market to Android and iOS. The Torch should've been a remarkable device to keep up with the pack, but it wasn't even as technically impressive as the Palm Pre and WebOS (which is getting a bit stale since we've been waiting for the 2.0 update).
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WebOS has a chance, but it's a small one. I've been a big Palm fan since the Palm Pilot II, and was ecstatic when they released the Pre, as it was technically and hardware-wise right up there with the best of 'em (albeit a bit skimpy on the display size). But my high hopes were predicated on the idea that they'd get lots of developers to pump out apps, and they'd follow up the Pre with an even better device. Well, the first half of the Pre ad campaign was a joke -- and not a very good one. Subsequently, Palm saw a lot of initial sales, followed with...silence. The campaign failed to bring the masses, and because the masses stayed away, the developers stayed away. (It also didn't help that they took so long to release the SDK, and still don't have all the relevant APIs out, as far as I'm aware).
HP needs to hit this one out of the park for WebOS to stay alive. I think that's going to mean:
Killing off Classic, IMO, isn't a great sign. They seem to be betting the farm that they'll pull new developers in, but Classic was a way to lure the Palm faithful over (or at least keep the ones you had.) I'm going to be watching the announcement carefully, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when my contract on this phone is up, I'm going to be getting an Android phone.
A sleepy surgeon is certainly better than no surgeon at all if it's a life-saving surgery. No doubt about that. But a patient dying because the surgeon was sleepy is no different than a patient who died because he/she didn't get operated on in time. In a life-saving situation, it's only a good deal if the surgeon can complete the surgery successfully.
I wonder if informed consent is possible just before surgery.
No need to wonder. It's not. The hospitals aren't trying to gain informed concent. They're just covering their asses. They don't want the patients' informed consent, just their signatures on the form.