How about when "some jackass" like me CAN afford a house, but his wife and her job leaves him and his teenaged daughters for another man, and he is left raising and supporting those daughters without her income or help, and loses the house that he no longer can afford on his single salary?
Not to be cruel, but yes, you can't afford your house anymore. You got shafted - no doubt. But lots of people do. I can't support every case of bad luck with my tax dollars.
The stagnant economy isn't a result of bank failures or government bailouts, but is caused by the fact that gasoline prices have quadrupled since the oil barons moved into the White House.
I believe you missed the implosion of the housing bubble, the credit crunch and the fact that people have reached their spending limit - which is what has propped up the economy in the last 5-6 years. The price of oil is merely the icing on the (poisoned) cake.
You should care; where do you think they're getting their funding?
VC funding is not like bank funding. Capital there comes from actual money reserves. VC do not generally work with leveraged money.
If you think that you can get a loan for less than the prime rate, you're not paying attention. If you think you can afford something that costs 10 to 15 years worth of your entire income by taking out a loan over 30 years, you're not paying attention either.
End of story.
What this debacle tells me - and what I've seen repeated over and over - is that the average american is financially illiterate and incapable of doing a cost-benefit analysis. I don't know I'm supposed to pay for other people making horrendous mistakes - especially when the mistakes are on the scale of grade-school math.
You're missing the best point about a driverless personal car: I can point it in a direction, go to sleep, and wake up when it gets somewhere. Or have lunch. Or shoot some emails. Or play halo. Traveling won't be the complete waste of time it is now.
Your options for controlling intervention in the money supply are exactly the same under a commodity currency as under a fiat one.
If we're assuming that commodity traders are similar to forex traders, then yes. In which case, there is no benefit to a gold-backed standard from a control perspective.
In any event, under a gold currency there wouldn't be a significant gold commodity market -- you'd just be trading gold for gold, which is kind of pointless.
Trading gold will be like trading any currency. In other words, based on the gold reserves of governments and their political and economic performance, gold can and will be shorted, sold long, bought and traded. And just like with any currency, it will be possible to manipulate its availability and worth via market forces.
If the price of gold is higher than the cost of mining it (per unit mass) then mining will continue until the price decreases--or the cost increases--such that mining is no longer profitable.
Not quite true. New mines increase supply with a sharp jump. Closed mines reduce supply more sharply than a simple petering out. The point again is that supply of a commodity will control the value of a currency. Not to mention that with gold being restricted to specific geographic location, the local governments where the mines are exert a disproportionate effect on the currencies of countries who are tied to the gold standard.
Fiat currency a bit like democracy. It's the worst system out there, except for all the others. It's not a perfect system. But the gold standard has significant issues that are worse than the ones that come with a fiat currency.
In other words, deflation. Do you know what scares economists the most? No, it's not inflation. It's deflation. Because it's a vicious cycle.
Besides, do you really think that gold is not subject to the influence of others? It's actually more subject, as it is easy to buy up supplies. Making any commodity a currency is even worse than a fiat currency - at least with a fiat currency, you have some control over it: vote the idiots out who junk it. With a commodity currency, you can't do that, because you - Joe Sixpack - can't play in the commodities market. Not to mention you're subject to the whims of the commodity producers.
They aren't the same. However, if a currency is backed by Gold (via percentage, fully, or some other system), there is a static availability of currency. This has a direct impact on the economy. They might not be the same, but they're directly linked. Or why do you think the Fed keeps such a close eye on the money supply?
You do realize that basing a currency on the supply of an arbitrary resource is just as foolish, if not more so?
The reason people abandoned the gold standard was because of two things: - random hits to the valuation of a currency due to influx of more resources - static size of economy.
People who pine for the days of the gold standard either never lived through the problems, or have forgotten all about them.
This should be the Message of the Day for every school, university, office, government agency and news paper/cast/blog/site for one year. After which it should be put up on the Washington Mall.
It is exactly this attitude - that allowed Hitler to implement "Mein Kampf". Thanks to Niemoeller, this is a well understood attitude in Germany. However, in the US, with its fascination of good vs evil, it is a subtlety that's completely lost.
#1, I'd really like to see that study, and what is understood by "extremely young girls", as well as how that was correlated to genetics. I don't see how that was accomplished.
#2 I also don't buy the "10%-25%" number. If it would be that prevalent and genetically based, I'd expect "extremely young girls" in primitive societies to be far more pregnant. I can potentially buy the argument down to 15, but extremely young smells of 10. That doesn't fly.
#3 Finally, a couple of hundred years ago, girls were married off like cattle and sold into marriages. When girls in similar societies today are allowed to speak out, they almost universally condemn it. As a matter of fact, there was a story on cnn.com yesterday just around that.
Seriously. Young girls - by my definition, anything under 16 - do not have tits, do not have curves, and most importantly, can't deal with a proper relationship yet. And those that do mature physically earlier, still haven't developed emotionally.
I'm glad you stay the hell away. Because if I ever have a girl and I smell someone like you around her, I will beat the crap out of him.
Again, I'm glad you have the balls to speak out and start a discussion (thank god for AC posting). However, I still see nothing but lame excuses, shady references to unnamed studies, and most importantly, a bogus external locus of control (it's my genes!). While pedophile doesn't mean wanting to fuck little girls, there's a fine line there. From what I can tell from your posts, your main reason to stay away from fucking underage girls is the cost to you. That tells me you don't understand what that does to underage girls (let's be blunt and say below 14), nor are you concerned about it. Instead, you spend a lot of time finding justifications for why it is ok to be sexually attracted to them.
Let me put it this way: some people might be sexually attracted to barnacles. I don't care about it, nor do I care about the barnacles. Go have fun with them, if that's what floats your boat. With kids under a certain age though, you will screw them for life if you act on your desires. Again, I don't care where those desires come from. But fucking girls who aren't ready for it is something that's worse than murder - it can destroy a life without ending it.
No - it means that you're used to Windows or Linux conventions, and are trying to use those conventions in an Apple environment.
It doesn't work that way. I'll be blunt: learning OSX is a pain. There's a ton of non-obvious stuff that is completely different from the Windows world (I'll just point to tabbing between firefox windows when other apps are open as one of my initial pain points), and which have to be re-learned. Remember that first time you fired up Linux? How much stumbling around did you have to do? It's the same thing for OSX. Expecting to be able to navigate all of OSX without ever looking for help anywhere is.... unrealistic.
What I will argue though is that OSX has the smallest learning curve of any new OS. I remember playing around with Linux, and having to root through config files and command line arguments to get stuff to work. Windows was a collection of arcane commands that made no sense, but worked. Compared to that, OSX is a breeze.
I thought about modding this up, but instead replied.
This pretty much sums up my disinterest in academic science. I worked as a research assistant in various fields, have papers with my name on it and pretty much done all the research that can be done as an undergrad and grad.
My conclusion? Fascinating stuff, but no way to make a living. Not unless your IQ is in the top 99.7th percentile and you have the drive and ego to match it.
There are two thoughts that come to mind regularly when reading posts like yours.
1) I read the Amendment, and I understand it differently from you. The SCOTUS read it, and understood it differently. What makes you think that I should believe you? You have offered nothing other than a claim that is based on your understanding of a set of words. And that set of words is longer than "shall not".
2) Of the 545 privileged people running rough-shod over everything I hold dear, all except 9 are directly elected by the people. With the Internet around, there is exactly 0 excuse to be not informed about positions or history. This means that it is the people's fault - yours, mine, CmdrTaco's - that the situation is the way it is.
Long story short: the US - any democracy, for that matter - has the politicians it deserves. If you want to look at the reason for the state the US is in, look around you.
The proper roll of the US government is to Protect the People and their Rights. Government DOES NOT grant rights, rights are unalienable, government only protects them.
Correct. I'm astounded at how many times I hear people say that the government grants rights. That might be correct from a bureaucratic point of view, but from that point of view, Brazil is correct as well.
I can only think that Civics, Sociology and History classes are completely failing in teaching the how and why of the Bill of Rights.
Gah. Borked formatting for the loss. Here's what it was supposed to look like.
When you pirate a work, you must by definition make a new copy. That copy can only be legally produced by the copyright holder. It would make no sense to simply destroy it, and so ownership of it reverts to the one legally able to produce it in the first place. Most of the time illegally-produced copies get destroyed anyway, but that need not be the case.
In any case, you now have a copy of the software that belongs to the copyright holder. By not returning the copy to them or buying it outright, you are in fact depriving them of something: a copy to sell or otherwise do with as they will.
And so, piracy equals theft.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of it in this fashion. However, this also means that what you're paying for is a license to use, not a good in a fashion or form. Personally, I find this to be far more dangerous to society than lack of copyright controls.
Copyright is an artificial monopoly provided by the government as an incentive to create and release creative works.
Yes. So what?
Monopolies are bad, mmkay? It's the introduction of artificial scarcity to accommodate business processes invented before mass reproduction. Not to mention that it means that copyright protection is an artificial construct that ought to be reexamined when it is proven to be either ineffective or counterproductive.
You're right, there are no limits to the questions that Science can ask. However, there is a limit to how many questions Science can answer. While science works on the proper answer, religion can fill in the gap.
Since we have accurate mouse specimens dating back at least 2000 years (being conservative), with little or no change, we can assume that detectable changes take more than 2000 years.
That's where the error is. You accurately quoted the white/black moth adaptation, which is a specific change that occurred in response to the industrial revolution. I believe that the time frame for this was less than 50 years. On the other hand, you can look at crocodiles, which have existed in their current form for over 200 million years. If you base your calculation on this, there would only be about 25 change points over the entire existence of the planet.
The current assumption is that change is in response to changes in environments, and that this evolution can be very fast. Not to mention that there's all kinds of evidence now for cross evolution (genes being passed from one species of bacteria/virus to another, or from a symbiont to a host). The end result is that evolution, instead of being one long and steady slog, is thought to be more of a series of chaotic and rapid changes.
When you pirate a work, you must by definition make a new copy. That copy can only be legally produced by the copyright holder. It would make no sense to simply destroy it, and so ownership of it reverts to the one legally able to produce it in the first place. Most of the time illegally-produced copies get destroyed anyway, but that need not be the case.
In any case, you now have a copy of the software that belongs to the copyright holder. By not returning the copy to them or buying it outright, you are in fact depriving them of something: a copy to sell or otherwise do with as they will.
And so, piracy equals theft.
Copyright is an artificial monopoly provided by the government as an incentive to create and release creative works.
Yes. So what?
Monopolies are bad, mmkay? It's the introduction of artificial scarcity to accommodate business processes invented before mass reproduction. Not to mention that it means that copyright protection is an artificial construct that ought to be reexamined when it is proven to be either ineffective or counterproductive.
I'd just like to point out that this is a talking head at ign.com who's saying this. In other words, someone who doesn't have a clue, and sounds like he's been covering videogames for no longer than a few years. E3 was a business show, until it turned into a circus. There are plenty of video games expos that are about fun and entertainment, and, as many already pointed out, PAX is one of them.
E3 is trying to return to its business roots, and I say it's about high fucking time. GDC is for developers, PAX is for enthusiasts, and there is a need for the business side to have a show. Hopefully, people will forget about E3 long enough for it to get back to its original - and necessary - purpose.
I can only tell you that you're pretty much wrong on all counts.
You can't annihilate ideas. If you want to debate that.... I can't help you, other than to point you at Philosophy 101 and History 101.
Japan is completely unlike Al-Qaeda. I'm not sure how you even come up with the comparison. Not to mention that the proof that they're not alike has already been demonstrated: we crushed their original base and sent their entire officer corps scurrying during the invasion of Afghanistan. Consistent with all past experience with terrorist groups - and unlike Japan - Al-Qaeda has arguably gotten stronger after it.
The point of arresting terrorists is not to destroy their ideas. It is to remove specific people from society, without collateral damage. Just like any criminal.
The IRA calmed down after GB and Northern Ireland authorities ceased their military approach, and went for a law-enforcement approach. This culminated in the Good Friday agreement in 1998. There was nothing about a moral soul - read about the Good Friday Agreement and its history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army I suggest the links, because the article is about as sterile as human possible.
Keep in mind, I'm not advocating occupation here. I'm just saying it's the only thing that ever really worked./blockquote. So you're advocating something else? Something that apparently hasn't worked?
Occupation has worked when there was an organization that could be destroyed, replaced and rebuilt by an occupation. Militant islam - and especially groups like Al-Qaeda, who are as far removed from Militant Islam as MS-13 is removed from the Sandinista National Liberation Front - does not provide the same opportunity.
It seems to me you're confusing an idea - militant Islam - with an organization like the government of Iraq. I can only tell you that we're seeing the results of this confusion play out right now, and it isn't pretty.
Interesting definitions - here's where I disagree.
1. Granted. However, if we leave the definition of national security up to the Commander-in-Chief, then everything is in his realm. 2. No. No, no, no, NO! International terrorism cannot be defeated militarily because it is not a military operation! Terrorism is an idea - you can't bomb an idea. Terrorists can be bombed, but they are a fluid group that changes daily - heck, their ideologies change daily! While it is true that the target of terrorists is generally government institutions, the executioners of it do not resemble any military - they are not open, they do not respond to a central authority and they blend in with their targets. Furthermore, terrorism has only waned through systematic application of police powers - see IRA and ETA. The FARC is being removed through military operation, but that's because they styled themselves after military ideas. 3. Correct. And I don't believe anyone has ever disputed this. However, there are a few problems: current wiretapping has been shown to be done against US targets. Not to mention that there seems to be a nifty cooperation among countries to distribute spying information to national intelligence agencies that were acquired from other national intelligence agencies - thereby giving the constitution the run-around.
It's proves the mechanism of evolution. The rest is just path and distance. For a car analogy, think of it as this showing that a specific car can drive from San Francisco to San Jose. Evolution is then merely the question "Can cars get from San Francisco to Miami?"
Slashdot Mirror
Not to be cruel, but yes, you can't afford your house anymore. You got shafted - no doubt. But lots of people do. I can't support every case of bad luck with my tax dollars.
I believe you missed the implosion of the housing bubble, the credit crunch and the fact that people have reached their spending limit - which is what has propped up the economy in the last 5-6 years. The price of oil is merely the icing on the (poisoned) cake.
VC funding is not like bank funding. Capital there comes from actual money reserves. VC do not generally work with leveraged money.
If you think that you can get a loan for less than the prime rate, you're not paying attention. If you think you can afford something that costs 10 to 15 years worth of your entire income by taking out a loan over 30 years, you're not paying attention either.
End of story.
What this debacle tells me - and what I've seen repeated over and over - is that the average american is financially illiterate and incapable of doing a cost-benefit analysis. I don't know I'm supposed to pay for other people making horrendous mistakes - especially when the mistakes are on the scale of grade-school math.
You're missing the best point about a driverless personal car: I can point it in a direction, go to sleep, and wake up when it gets somewhere. Or have lunch. Or shoot some emails. Or play halo. Traveling won't be the complete waste of time it is now.
One of those times I wish I had modpoints. Awesome reply.
If we're assuming that commodity traders are similar to forex traders, then yes. In which case, there is no benefit to a gold-backed standard from a control perspective.
Trading gold will be like trading any currency. In other words, based on the gold reserves of governments and their political and economic performance, gold can and will be shorted, sold long, bought and traded. And just like with any currency, it will be possible to manipulate its availability and worth via market forces.
Not quite true. New mines increase supply with a sharp jump. Closed mines reduce supply more sharply than a simple petering out. The point again is that supply of a commodity will control the value of a currency. Not to mention that with gold being restricted to specific geographic location, the local governments where the mines are exert a disproportionate effect on the currencies of countries who are tied to the gold standard.
Fiat currency a bit like democracy. It's the worst system out there, except for all the others. It's not a perfect system. But the gold standard has significant issues that are worse than the ones that come with a fiat currency.
In other words, deflation. Do you know what scares economists the most? No, it's not inflation. It's deflation. Because it's a vicious cycle.
Besides, do you really think that gold is not subject to the influence of others? It's actually more subject, as it is easy to buy up supplies. Making any commodity a currency is even worse than a fiat currency - at least with a fiat currency, you have some control over it: vote the idiots out who junk it. With a commodity currency, you can't do that, because you - Joe Sixpack - can't play in the commodities market. Not to mention you're subject to the whims of the commodity producers.
They aren't the same. However, if a currency is backed by Gold (via percentage, fully, or some other system), there is a static availability of currency. This has a direct impact on the economy. They might not be the same, but they're directly linked. Or why do you think the Fed keeps such a close eye on the money supply?
You do realize that basing a currency on the supply of an arbitrary resource is just as foolish, if not more so?
The reason people abandoned the gold standard was because of two things:
- random hits to the valuation of a currency due to influx of more resources
- static size of economy.
People who pine for the days of the gold standard either never lived through the problems, or have forgotten all about them.
This should be the Message of the Day for every school, university, office, government agency and news paper/cast/blog/site for one year. After which it should be put up on the Washington Mall.
It is exactly this attitude - that allowed Hitler to implement "Mein Kampf". Thanks to Niemoeller, this is a well understood attitude in Germany. However, in the US, with its fascination of good vs evil, it is a subtlety that's completely lost.
Err.... I appreciate your balls, but no. Just no.
#1, I'd really like to see that study, and what is understood by "extremely young girls", as well as how that was correlated to genetics. I don't see how that was accomplished.
#2 I also don't buy the "10%-25%" number. If it would be that prevalent and genetically based, I'd expect "extremely young girls" in primitive societies to be far more pregnant. I can potentially buy the argument down to 15, but extremely young smells of 10. That doesn't fly.
#3 Finally, a couple of hundred years ago, girls were married off like cattle and sold into marriages. When girls in similar societies today are allowed to speak out, they almost universally condemn it. As a matter of fact, there was a story on cnn.com yesterday just around that.
Seriously. Young girls - by my definition, anything under 16 - do not have tits, do not have curves, and most importantly, can't deal with a proper relationship yet. And those that do mature physically earlier, still haven't developed emotionally.
I'm glad you stay the hell away. Because if I ever have a girl and I smell someone like you around her, I will beat the crap out of him.
Again, I'm glad you have the balls to speak out and start a discussion (thank god for AC posting). However, I still see nothing but lame excuses, shady references to unnamed studies, and most importantly, a bogus external locus of control (it's my genes!). While pedophile doesn't mean wanting to fuck little girls, there's a fine line there. From what I can tell from your posts, your main reason to stay away from fucking underage girls is the cost to you. That tells me you don't understand what that does to underage girls (let's be blunt and say below 14), nor are you concerned about it. Instead, you spend a lot of time finding justifications for why it is ok to be sexually attracted to them.
Let me put it this way: some people might be sexually attracted to barnacles. I don't care about it, nor do I care about the barnacles. Go have fun with them, if that's what floats your boat. With kids under a certain age though, you will screw them for life if you act on your desires. Again, I don't care where those desires come from. But fucking girls who aren't ready for it is something that's worse than murder - it can destroy a life without ending it.
No - it means that you're used to Windows or Linux conventions, and are trying to use those conventions in an Apple environment.
It doesn't work that way. I'll be blunt: learning OSX is a pain. There's a ton of non-obvious stuff that is completely different from the Windows world (I'll just point to tabbing between firefox windows when other apps are open as one of my initial pain points), and which have to be re-learned. Remember that first time you fired up Linux? How much stumbling around did you have to do? It's the same thing for OSX. Expecting to be able to navigate all of OSX without ever looking for help anywhere is.... unrealistic.
What I will argue though is that OSX has the smallest learning curve of any new OS. I remember playing around with Linux, and having to root through config files and command line arguments to get stuff to work. Windows was a collection of arcane commands that made no sense, but worked. Compared to that, OSX is a breeze.
I thought about modding this up, but instead replied.
This pretty much sums up my disinterest in academic science. I worked as a research assistant in various fields, have papers with my name on it and pretty much done all the research that can be done as an undergrad and grad.
My conclusion? Fascinating stuff, but no way to make a living. Not unless your IQ is in the top 99.7th percentile and you have the drive and ego to match it.
It is also text book monopoly practices, coupled with direct proof of the benefit of a free-market approach.
What is more important to you? Copyright-based monopolies, or free-market anarchy? Both have benefits and drawbacks - chose wisely.
There are two thoughts that come to mind regularly when reading posts like yours.
1) I read the Amendment, and I understand it differently from you. The SCOTUS read it, and understood it differently. What makes you think that I should believe you? You have offered nothing other than a claim that is based on your understanding of a set of words. And that set of words is longer than "shall not".
2) Of the 545 privileged people running rough-shod over everything I hold dear, all except 9 are directly elected by the people. With the Internet around, there is exactly 0 excuse to be not informed about positions or history. This means that it is the people's fault - yours, mine, CmdrTaco's - that the situation is the way it is.
Long story short: the US - any democracy, for that matter - has the politicians it deserves. If you want to look at the reason for the state the US is in, look around you.
Correct. I'm astounded at how many times I hear people say that the government grants rights. That might be correct from a bureaucratic point of view, but from that point of view, Brazil is correct as well.
I can only think that Civics, Sociology and History classes are completely failing in teaching the how and why of the Bill of Rights.
Gah. Borked formatting for the loss. Here's what it was supposed to look like.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of it in this fashion.
However, this also means that what you're paying for is a license to use, not a good in a fashion or form. Personally, I find this to be far more dangerous to society than lack of copyright controls.
Monopolies are bad, mmkay? It's the introduction of artificial scarcity to accommodate business processes invented before mass reproduction. Not to mention that it means that copyright protection is an artificial construct that ought to be reexamined when it is proven to be either ineffective or counterproductive.
You're right, there are no limits to the questions that Science can ask. However, there is a limit to how many questions Science can answer. While science works on the proper answer, religion can fill in the gap.
That's where the error is. You accurately quoted the white/black moth adaptation, which is a specific change that occurred in response to the industrial revolution. I believe that the time frame for this was less than 50 years. On the other hand, you can look at crocodiles, which have existed in their current form for over 200 million years. If you base your calculation on this, there would only be about 25 change points over the entire existence of the planet.
The current assumption is that change is in response to changes in environments, and that this evolution can be very fast. Not to mention that there's all kinds of evidence now for cross evolution (genes being passed from one species of bacteria/virus to another, or from a symbiont to a host). The end result is that evolution, instead of being one long and steady slog, is thought to be more of a series of chaotic and rapid changes.
Yes. So what?
Monopolies are bad, mmkay? It's the introduction of artificial scarcity to accommodate business processes invented before mass reproduction. Not to mention that it means that copyright protection is an artificial construct that ought to be reexamined when it is proven to be either ineffective or counterproductive.
Can you define adaptation and evolution in such a way that evolution is not just adaptation over a longer time period? Because I can't.
I'd just like to point out that this is a talking head at ign.com who's saying this. In other words, someone who doesn't have a clue, and sounds like he's been covering videogames for no longer than a few years. E3 was a business show, until it turned into a circus. There are plenty of video games expos that are about fun and entertainment, and, as many already pointed out, PAX is one of them.
E3 is trying to return to its business roots, and I say it's about high fucking time. GDC is for developers, PAX is for enthusiasts, and there is a need for the business side to have a show. Hopefully, people will forget about E3 long enough for it to get back to its original - and necessary - purpose.
I can only tell you that you're pretty much wrong on all counts.
You can't annihilate ideas. If you want to debate that.... I can't help you, other than to point you at Philosophy 101 and History 101.
Japan is completely unlike Al-Qaeda. I'm not sure how you even come up with the comparison. Not to mention that the proof that they're not alike has already been demonstrated: we crushed their original base and sent their entire officer corps scurrying during the invasion of Afghanistan. Consistent with all past experience with terrorist groups - and unlike Japan - Al-Qaeda has arguably gotten stronger after it.
The point of arresting terrorists is not to destroy their ideas. It is to remove specific people from society, without collateral damage. Just like any criminal.
The IRA calmed down after GB and Northern Ireland authorities ceased their military approach, and went for a law-enforcement approach. This culminated in the Good Friday agreement in 1998. There was nothing about a moral soul - read about the Good Friday Agreement and its history here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army I suggest the links, because the article is about as sterile as human possible.
Interesting definitions - here's where I disagree.
1. Granted. However, if we leave the definition of national security up to the Commander-in-Chief, then everything is in his realm.
2. No. No, no, no, NO! International terrorism cannot be defeated militarily because it is not a military operation! Terrorism is an idea - you can't bomb an idea. Terrorists can be bombed, but they are a fluid group that changes daily - heck, their ideologies change daily! While it is true that the target of terrorists is generally government institutions, the executioners of it do not resemble any military - they are not open, they do not respond to a central authority and they blend in with their targets. Furthermore, terrorism has only waned through systematic application of police powers - see IRA and ETA. The FARC is being removed through military operation, but that's because they styled themselves after military ideas.
3. Correct. And I don't believe anyone has ever disputed this. However, there are a few problems: current wiretapping has been shown to be done against US targets. Not to mention that there seems to be a nifty cooperation among countries to distribute spying information to national intelligence agencies that were acquired from other national intelligence agencies - thereby giving the constitution the run-around.
It's proves the mechanism of evolution. The rest is just path and distance. For a car analogy, think of it as this showing that a specific car can drive from San Francisco to San Jose. Evolution is then merely the question "Can cars get from San Francisco to Miami?"
Some people know the difference. Apparently, you don't.