Eh, I was in the Air Force for four years, and got deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Comm guy, got to spend 12 hours a day in a bunker, waiting for stuff to break, reading, and doing homework for online classes. Still gave me a good reason to read up on all this and get a little personal experience in the area. The Iran containment thing is a favorite theory among the various members of the military that I talked to, and has a little more weight behind it than you give it credit for.
The reasoning behind it is that Iraq was (supposedly, I'm not an authority on this) a failing state before we even moved in, and if it had fallen apart on its own the most likely successor would either be an official Iranian invasion, or an Iranian puppet government, neither of which would have been a good thing for American foreign interests.
Furthermore, while the war and rebuilding nonsense is sucking us dry, and our military is pretty terrible at fighting a Guerrilla war (ALL formal militaries are pretty terrible at fighting against insurgencies like we see in Iraq and Afghanistan) - the assets we have in place in the Middle East could pretty well level any country in the area within a few days (destroying formal military forces is something we excel at).
Beyond that, some group of people in the upper echelons of political power seem to believe an allied Middle East (creating something like the EU) would be a very bad thing, and American Foreign policy is reflecting that.
I mean, Afghanistan makes a wea bit of sense, national outrage and whatnot - along with the old standby of keeping the war industry healthy, but Iraq. Why the devil are we in Iraq if not for oil?
Giving them freedom is just propaganda, there are plenty of other "oppressed" nations in the world. Plenty of other nations engaged in civil wars, or on the verge of them.
"Weapons of mass destruction" didn't really pan out.
Even keeping the war industry healthy can't possibly be enough to justify all the grief politicians are going through as a result of all the wasted money from the rest of the country.
The only other reasons I can see is that we're boxing in Iran in some kind of cold-war era containment doctrine action, a message to the rest of the world that American can just go in and invade whoever we want, and natural resources, the most prominent of which is oil.
"Medium rare" means different things in different countries.
I'm an American who usually likes fairly underdone steak - but I made the mistake, once, of ordering a steak "Medium Rare" in the UK. Damn thing was Raw!
what is their religion really IS wrong? Getting our help IS conditional, not necessarily on converting, but certainly on ignoring some of the more violent tenants of their religion.
I'm not sure if you think you're disagreeing with the GP or not..?
You don't have to marry the first girl you go out on a date with. Hell, that's part of what dating\relationships prior to marriage are for, getting to know the other person to make sure they're not completely incompatible with you.
Should still go out on dates with a few, even if they initially strike you as "less than perfect"
Having standards is kinda've a measure of what your options are.
Personal example, back in my teen days, I was your stereotypical/. nerd who barely ever saw the sun. My options were nearly nonexistent, and having any kind of standards at all meant I went pretty much dateless. I.E. the only girls who ever showed interest weren't the kind of girls I, or almost anyone, would want to date.
Skip ahead to modern days, I'm done with my education, financially stable, go the gym at least twice a week, and my only real personality flaw is being an arrogant prick who thinks he's better than everyone else. As a consequence, I regularly get flirted with, have a large number of options, and can have higher standards.
The same goes for, well, anyone. Make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex, and they'll take interest in you. From there, yes, relax and meet others, preferably doing things you have an interest in.
People on/. might say there's a very small number of women who share their interests (math, science, nerddom, etc.) - but the truth is, there's also a very small number of 'datable' male nerds, so once you get yourself into that set of people, you'll actually have a pretty easy time coming up with dates who share your interests, and might be "the one."
The difference between formal and informal only matters because you directly contradicted the summary with a statement you made earlier in this thread.
The arguement presented to the Appeals court is that yes, there was both a formal policy and an informal policy, and that the informal policy should have trumped the formal policy in regards to the Sergeant's privacy rights. The appeals court agreed with your conclusions, that this was a breach of privacy in violation of the Sergeant's fourth amendment rights. This is a position I'm academically comfortable with, it's worthy of debate whether they're right or wrong, and it's eventually going to be decided by the supreme court.
Meanwhile, your arguement, is that there's a confusion as to whether or not there's a formal policy or not. This contradicts all available information on the subject, and is why you're an idiot.
Your lack of reading comprehension isn't helping your case much either.
While/. has had some pretty dodgey summaries in the past, suggesting that the New York Times has described something so integral to the story using a word with the complete opposite meaning is ridiculous.
1. The official policy of the organization, that there was no expectation of privacy, has never been in question, and has never changed.
2. A middle manager (The Lieutenant) made an unofficial policy that the text messages wouldn't be inspected.
3. The inspection was not made simply because it was an organizational resource, it was made because the officer in sergeant in question was overusing his phone, and they wanted to find out why.
The policy department as a whole never made any statements or policy that this was acceptable. The organization is not going back on it's word. The lieutenant in question is kind of an asshole for this, but he's not in the wrong legally.
Slashdot Mirror
Eh, I was in the Air Force for four years, and got deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Comm guy, got to spend 12 hours a day in a bunker, waiting for stuff to break, reading, and doing homework for online classes. Still gave me a good reason to read up on all this and get a little personal experience in the area. The Iran containment thing is a favorite theory among the various members of the military that I talked to, and has a little more weight behind it than you give it credit for.
The reasoning behind it is that Iraq was (supposedly, I'm not an authority on this) a failing state before we even moved in, and if it had fallen apart on its own the most likely successor would either be an official Iranian invasion, or an Iranian puppet government, neither of which would have been a good thing for American foreign interests.
Furthermore, while the war and rebuilding nonsense is sucking us dry, and our military is pretty terrible at fighting a Guerrilla war (ALL formal militaries are pretty terrible at fighting against insurgencies like we see in Iraq and Afghanistan) - the assets we have in place in the Middle East could pretty well level any country in the area within a few days (destroying formal military forces is something we excel at).
Beyond that, some group of people in the upper echelons of political power seem to believe an allied Middle East (creating something like the EU) would be a very bad thing, and American Foreign policy is reflecting that.
Why did we go to war?
I mean, Afghanistan makes a wea bit of sense, national outrage and whatnot - along with the old standby of keeping the war industry healthy, but Iraq. Why the devil are we in Iraq if not for oil?
Giving them freedom is just propaganda, there are plenty of other "oppressed" nations in the world. Plenty of other nations engaged in civil wars, or on the verge of them.
"Weapons of mass destruction" didn't really pan out.
Even keeping the war industry healthy can't possibly be enough to justify all the grief politicians are going through as a result of all the wasted money from the rest of the country.
The only other reasons I can see is that we're boxing in Iran in some kind of cold-war era containment doctrine action, a message to the rest of the world that American can just go in and invade whoever we want, and natural resources, the most prominent of which is oil.
"Medium rare" means different things in different countries.
I'm an American who usually likes fairly underdone steak - but I made the mistake, once, of ordering a steak "Medium Rare" in the UK. Damn thing was Raw!
Honestly, I was going for the "arrogant atheist" tone rather than the "self-righteous christian" one.
what is their religion really IS wrong? Getting our help IS conditional, not necessarily on converting, but certainly on ignoring some of the more violent tenants of their religion.
People who make poor choices in their personal lives should not make choices for the rest of their countrymen.
I'd get serviced by cowboyneal any time!
This has already been explained.
Repeatedly.
www.justfuckinggoogleit.com
Do what they used to do in the old days, bombard the coastline with cannon fire until the Chinese let us trade equally with'em again.
I'm not sure if you think you're disagreeing with the GP or not..?
You don't have to marry the first girl you go out on a date with. Hell, that's part of what dating\relationships prior to marriage are for, getting to know the other person to make sure they're not completely incompatible with you.
Should still go out on dates with a few, even if they initially strike you as "less than perfect"
Having standards is kinda've a measure of what your options are.
Personal example, back in my teen days, I was your stereotypical /. nerd who barely ever saw the sun. My options were nearly nonexistent, and having any kind of standards at all meant I went pretty much dateless. I.E. the only girls who ever showed interest weren't the kind of girls I, or almost anyone, would want to date.
Skip ahead to modern days, I'm done with my education, financially stable, go the gym at least twice a week, and my only real personality flaw is being an arrogant prick who thinks he's better than everyone else. As a consequence, I regularly get flirted with, have a large number of options, and can have higher standards.
The same goes for, well, anyone. Make yourself more attractive to the opposite sex, and they'll take interest in you. From there, yes, relax and meet others, preferably doing things you have an interest in.
People on /. might say there's a very small number of women who share their interests (math, science, nerddom, etc.) - but the truth is, there's also a very small number of 'datable' male nerds, so once you get yourself into that set of people, you'll actually have a pretty easy time coming up with dates who share your interests, and might be "the one."
It's okay dude, I got the Joke.
Honestly, this one is pretty obscure. Went right over my head too.
Asserting that the article (your only source of information) is incorrect is not a logical argument.
I was correct in contradicting the article.
and
the information that I had (OP and the article)
Delusional.
Not an idiot.
Delusional.
Gotcha.
The difference between formal and informal only matters because you directly contradicted the summary with a statement you made earlier in this thread.
The arguement presented to the Appeals court is that yes, there was both a formal policy and an informal policy, and that the informal policy should have trumped the formal policy in regards to the Sergeant's privacy rights. The appeals court agreed with your conclusions, that this was a breach of privacy in violation of the Sergeant's fourth amendment rights. This is a position I'm academically comfortable with, it's worthy of debate whether they're right or wrong, and it's eventually going to be decided by the supreme court.
Meanwhile, your arguement, is that there's a confusion as to whether or not there's a formal policy or not. This contradicts all available information on the subject, and is why you're an idiot.
Your lack of reading comprehension isn't helping your case much either.
While /. has had some pretty dodgey summaries in the past, suggesting that the New York Times has described something so integral to the story using a word with the complete opposite meaning is ridiculous.
You:
"We don't know whether the lieutenant's policy was official or "formal" or not."
Summary:
"Under an informal policy adopted by a police lieutenant"
This is why you're an idiot.
Read the Article
Read the other responses in this thread
Read the Goddamn summary.
The police department -did- have a formal policy to the contrary.
And you're an idiot.
1. The official policy of the organization, that there was no expectation of privacy, has never been in question, and has never changed.
2. A middle manager (The Lieutenant) made an unofficial policy that the text messages wouldn't be inspected.
3. The inspection was not made simply because it was an organizational resource, it was made because the officer in sergeant in question was overusing his phone, and they wanted to find out why.
The policy department as a whole never made any statements or policy that this was acceptable. The organization is not going back on it's word. The lieutenant in question is kind of an asshole for this, but he's not in the wrong legally.
I think You're the first person in this thread who's made a good analogy, and a logical arguement.
I'd mod you up if I weren't already involved in the discussion elsewhere.
I still think the search should hold up as "not a violation of fourth amendment rights" - but it's a good arguement.
Read the Article
Read the other responses in this thread
Hell, Read the goddamn summary.
Idiot.
Again, formal written policy trumps informal policy.
The lieutennant in question didn't have the authority to change formal policy, so his personal assurance should mean jack shit in a legal battle.
The Lieutennant had a personnel policy of not reading text messages.
This doesn't affect the official policy of the entire organization which is no expectation of privacy.
Furthermore, the vast majority of usage was personal in nature, not official.
RTFA.