There are whole professions which involve getting hung up on these things. Three that I can think up off the top of my head are copy editors, proof-readers, and language teachers. It's probable that some of them, the bad ones anyway, spend most of their time in category 1. It's also possible that some of the folks in both categories 1 and 3 are better at their jobs because they are also in category 2.
Texas allows licensed carry in restaurants where alcohol is served, but drinking and carrying at the same time is illegal. (Carrying while under the influence is also illegal, even if you're not actively drinking.) On other other hand, it is illegal to carry a gun in restaurants and other places like bars that derive more than 51% of their income from alcohol sales. These places tend to have legal signage indicating whether carry is allowed or not. Restaurant owners can also post 30.06 and 30.07 signs specifically prohibiting licensed weapons on their premises.. 30.06 applied to concealed carry. 30.07 was added recently when licensed open carry became legal.
The convergent evolution of ideas strongly suggests the validity of those ideas. It does not demonstrate that the ideas in question must always come to light. I'm thinking about calculus, specifically. Two Europeans who had no contact with one another both developed calculus, but how many ancient cultures did not discover it? The Chinese did not, nor the Persians, nor the Arabs, nor the peoples of South Asia.
In short, just because something requiring human creativity has happened in one way (or even several ways) does not demonstrate that the laws of the universe require it to happen at all. We simply cannot know that. If, however, you are right, and certain kinds of progress are inevitable, why then we should all sit back and wait for the laboratory equipment at Intel and AMD to spontaneously generate new CPU architectures. At the same time, we can wait for the computers at Apple and Microsoft to write new software and operating systems. If we feed Linus' computer enough electricity, we'll get Linux kernel version 5, eventually. We can all take a ten or twenty-year compiler break! Wouldn't that be wonderful?
The progress in question only seems inevitable because it has already happened. We can see in the hindsight the "Of course!" and "Why didn't they think of that sooner?" moments because the logic of the thing is there for all to see. At the time it was happening, it was neither a foregone conclusion, nor trivial. The fact that several people have the same idea at the same time doesn't mean the idea itself is inevitable. The idea may be waiting, so to speak, to be discovered from first principles, but its discovery is not guaranteed.
It depends on the age of the drive, the manufacturer, and capacity, I think. Mostly capacity, probably. Most of the SATA drives I've taken apart recently had only one platter. A few have had two or three.
I had neglected that fact. I need to add some cases to my logic, I think, to include a one party state in which elections continue but in which all other parties are outlawed. This, however, leaves out the People's Republic of China, which has a few minor parties that are related to or clients of the Communist Party of China. It also leaves out the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has moderate political parties, but also engages in the violent suppression of political protest.
If you mean that the recognition of rights is not universal, I agree. We cannot come to a consensus about what they are. No government protects them perfectly, not even the supposedly free governments of the West. Modern governments keep coming up with superfluous Bills of Rights for travelers or investors or consumers while failing (or refusing) to enforce their essential rights.
If you mean that the recognition creates the right, I could not disagree more. If the rights in question are actual human rights and not privileges of citizenship, they belong to each and every one of us as a consequence of birth and do not depend on the recognition of (or even the existence of) any government. We had our Revolution because the British Crown and Parliament insisted on infringing our inalienable rights. As Americans, we are greatly indebted to the words and deeds of the Englishmen like John Locke who first expressed the ideas upon which our Revolution was founded. Locke mostly addressed the right to property, but the same principles apply to other rights (which are themselves property). The first humans had all their rights to property, to association, and so on, before any government existed. We would still possess them even if every government on earth were to explicitly deny their existence or prohit their exercise.
I puzzle this out as well, from the other side. At what point is it right and just to take up arms? More importantly, what bridge must we Americans cross as a nation before those on the right (such as Tea Party Americans and the NRA) embrace in their hearts the Spirit of 76 they invoked during the Tea Party rallies of 2009 and 2010? For my money, it's time to sling arms and muster on the green if either one of two things happens: the government begins confiscating weapons or if the government suspends elections. The first is prima facie evidence of the intent to oppress. The second is a literal, un-mistakeable repudiation of the consent of the governed from which all governments derive their just powers. A government might stand on shaky, unconstitutional ground long before these twin bridges are crossed. It might, in fact, be so far beyond the bounds of its constitutional authority that it is in effect no government at all, while still maintaining the appearance of representative governance. Under these lesser tyrannies, the citizens are entitled to less drastic forms of resistance and redress. However, many on the right seem unwilling to follow these ideas to their logical conclusions.
I appreciate all the folks who have committed to non-violence and who are striving for a political solution. Civil Wars are by definition terrible events. They should be avoided if at all possible. In order for the violent response to be to valid and righteous, it must be the very last option, after every possible warning to the the would-be tyrant to cease and desist and after every possible attempt at redress by the those in the shadow of the tyrant's boot. For every Committee of Safety, there must be a Committee of Correspondence.
I agree with you that the extra-judicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and that other guy who was him was illegal. It sets a very dangerous precedent. The indefinite detention langauge in the NDAA worries me to no end. Both majority parties (with the endorsement of their supporters, including me before I woke up and smelled the cow-pies) have played fast and loose with the Constitution for a long time, with the result that the Federal Government is tap-dancing on thin ice.
Legislation, or recognition, cannot create rights. Rights are inherent in the person and do not depend on any agreement by others that those rights exist. As such, the UN's Declarations of Rights either state the obvious or demand the impossible. Rights predate and transcend government, to the extent that when governments infringe upon the rights of the individual, the individual is entitled to seek redress comensurate with the severity of the infringement. The transcendance of our rights - including the right of self defense, the right to property, and the right to keep and bear arms - means that the UN's Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons is a steaming pile of crap.
The question we should be asking is which basic rights the use of the internet involves. We have the right to free expression. We have the right to free association. The Internet makes both of these processes easier, but it is by no means a prerequisite for either. We have the right to property, including the property in ourselves, and in the fruits of our labors. As such, we have a right to spend our wages as we see fit, including purchasing tools to ease the exercise of our rights. So, we have a right to buy access to the Internet, if we have the money for it. We have the right to speak freely on the Internet. We have the right to associate through the internet. We have the right to buy presence, to own the boxes, to own the networks, and so on and so forth, if we can swing it.
I am happy to be of service. If there is another bit of satire I can ruin by being overly technical, please, just let me know. I will gladly oblige you.
I have a better idea. Ban penises. Then kill anyone who has one.
Some people hurt other people. Therefore all people are bad and should be outlawed. If all the men are dead, humanity will die out within a century. There will be no more war, no more violence, no more hypocrisy.
I am not surprised. MSNBC has become the Glorious Leader Barack Obama 24-hour Love-In.
Chris Matthews has been appointed its Voice of Love and Truth while Keith Olbermann has been selected to lead the hourly 15-Minute Hate. The Glorious Leader has approved these selections.
Comrade Olbermann will be highlighting the wickedness and hypocrisy of all the enemies of the People, including the greedy Capitalists who want to keep the money they earn, the violent and disloyal counter-revolutionaries who want to keep the weapons they've acquired, and the self-deceived intelligentsia and treasonous propagandists who refuse to believe and even actively contradict the People's Truth as expressed by Comrade Matthews and Glorious Leader Barack Obama and his Central Committee, which the dis-loyalists once called the 'Cabinet'.
I in turn should apologize for getting a little heated at the end of my second post. I thought you had called me a child and reacted badly. However, nothing you said was slanderous, as that requires knowledge of the truth and then deliberate character defamation using known falsehoods. I should have thought of that. For not being more careful in my word choice and for accusing you of slander, I apologize. I was wrong. For that I am sorry.
There's a difference between a child deciding not to eat his vegetables and a taxpayer distrusting the motives and competence of a bureaucracy (or favoring a strictly limited role for that bureaucracy).
The government should not stand in loco parentis. As soon as it does, it has usurped the rights of its citizens and of its constituent states. Through it, the citizens have diminished themselves by requiring of themselves as individuals less than they should require.
Let me say that again: Government agencies are not parents. The courts are not parents. The legislatures are not parents. They have no rights as parents nor any parental responsibilities to their citizens. They have no right to decide who will eat and who will not. They have no right to decide who will be healthy and who will not. Make no mistake. There are not enough tax dollars nor enough bureaucrats to provide everyone with the standard of living they should have. Private citizens can meet these needs - locally and specifically - but government overhead will lead to waste and to inequity in the meeting of the peoples' needs. That is not just, nor right, nor good.
If my child does not eat her vegetables, she does not get dessert or TV after dinner. She loses the opportunity to do something she would enjoy doing. Or she gets to chance to eat them again the next night. There is some direct consequence. That is parenting.
If I do not pay my taxes, I get thrown in jail. If I do not like the way my tax dollars are spent, I can lobby my representatives to have government spending changed. That is appropriate government of a free people. If, however, the government decides that it will use my money any way it wants and that it no longer needs to listen when I object, that is tyranny.
If the government takes my money and uses it for something I don't want it used for, that is a problem. If it takes my money and gives me something less valuable in return, that is theft. I as the citizen am the final arbiter of the value of my dollars. I would not tolerate that behavior from a fellow citizen, from an employer, or from a business. I cannot see why I should have to tolerate it from the government.
Let me be clear on something else. I pay my taxes. I have put money into the system. If I wanted to, I could probably find a way to dodge those taxes or to shelter my income. I don't. I obey the laws. I fund the government and I vote in elections, so I have every right to an opinion on how that money should be spent. Every year when the US Federal government gives citizens their tax refunds, it tacitly admits that our money is still ours even when Congress and the Executive branch control it and that it already takes more than is lawful from some citizens.
If my preference for individual liberty, charity, and responsibility makes me greedy and selfish, then I am most assuredly and very proudly selfish and greedy, but I am not under any circumstances, a child. The very insinuation is condescending, insulting, slanderous, and absurd.
I would be very grateful if the government did not insist on trying to be the parent I as an adult no longer need.
Quoth the poster: Despite your greed if there comes a day when you've lost your job, or your business, I'll be happy that my tax dollars are providing you and your children with health care. I'll be happy that the other social safety nets we're going to build will be in place to catch you so that you can get back to whatever life you had before you fell. Even if you hated others for having needed that same safety net at some point in their lives. Even if you cursed them from taking a small percentage more of your income to fund these services. I'll be happy to have the IRS taking my small percentage to cover you while you can't cover yourself.
And what if some of us -don't want- the government's safety net or want to be able to choose -with great precision- where and to whom our charitable dollars go? I don't begrudge the money to the individuals who receive government social services funded by my tax dollars. I begrudge that money to the local churches and charities who aren't doing their jobs correctly. My problem with social services specifically and government taxation in general is that I don't know to whom MY money is going or even that it is going where the tax lines on my paystub say its going.
I am of the opinion that I and my wife are most qualified people in the world to decide on the wise uses of OUR money, and also that our families and our church are the most qualified communities in the world to decide when we really need their help and when we just need to buckle down, work harder, and take more responsibility for our own welfare. If I want to hire a guy with three teeth who walks up to my door and asks if he can mow my lawn, I will do so. (And I have). If he reeks of alcohol addiction and I decide I can't trust him not to use the money to get drunk again, that's also MY choice. I will point him the direction of the Salvation Army or the nearest church. Either way, the choice is mine and has remained mine.
I don't want a government reaching into my pocket, taking money out, and giving me only a "Trust me, it's worth it" in return. That approach only works for Defense spending. I realize that the government can't tell me "This dollar will go to the avionics on a new generation of multi-role, stealth, combat aircraft" without blowing the lid off. But when the government says, "Trust me, this money is going to meet a valid need, but I can't or won't tell you where" that's when things get dicey for me. My choice has been taken away. I have been required to buy something sight-unseen which I may never use, may not have wanted in the first place, and might even find legally, ethically, or morally objectionable. Did that dollar of my paycheck buy a WIC voucher for a loaf of bread for a hungry family? I don't have any problem with that, but I would rather do it myself. Or did it buy part of an abortion in a public clinic for a girl whose parents may never know?
I would feel profoundly ashamed of myself, and frustrated with those around me, if I should ever NEED Medicaid, or Unemployment Insurance, or Social Security in order to make ends meet. It would mean that I had failed myself and my family in preparing those of us who can work for the job market and for retirement after our working lives have ended. It would mean that I hadn't worked hard enough to find private help for those times that I just couldn't provide for myself. It would mean that the local churches were all too poor or too busy to help me or that I was too blind and narrow-minded to be picky about where I got the help I needed. A great many things would be wrong if I ever came into those straits. None of those wrongs, however, can be properly amended by government intervention.
It is not the function of the government - federal, state, or local - to provide equal outcomes for all citizens. It is the job of the government to provide the bare minimum in terms of public order, safety, and infrastructure and then to get the heck out of the people's way. If people go hungry, remain homeless for more than a few days at
According to the video of the presentation, the local users and local charities will create the content. The Literacy Bridge folks won't be creating any of it.
"Sous-veillance might transform political engagement due to its ease of use, by engaging even the time-poor majority and extending citizenship beyond the usual special interest groups."
Now, what definition of 'Citizenship' is the group using? Are they using it as a code-word for enfranchisement? I'm very confused.
I think it was because Neverending Story II was really, really bad. So bad, in fact, that the Luck Dragon died after getting a whiff of the awful stench of people made physically ill after watching it in theatres. Without the Luck Dragon, there is no Neverending Story.
Slashdot Mirror
All pints are hobbitable, as long as the beer is palatable. I excuse, of course, O'Doul's and skunky yellow mystery fluids marketed as beer.
I think your categories have some overlap.
There are whole professions which involve getting hung up on these things. Three that I can think up off the top of my head are copy editors, proof-readers, and language teachers. It's probable that some of them, the bad ones anyway, spend most of their time in category 1. It's also possible that some of the folks in both categories 1 and 3 are better at their jobs because they are also in category 2.
Texas allows licensed carry in restaurants where alcohol is served, but drinking and carrying at the same time is illegal. (Carrying while under the influence is also illegal, even if you're not actively drinking.) On other other hand, it is illegal to carry a gun in restaurants and other places like bars that derive more than 51% of their income from alcohol sales. These places tend to have legal signage indicating whether carry is allowed or not. Restaurant owners can also post 30.06 and 30.07 signs specifically prohibiting licensed weapons on their premises.. 30.06 applied to concealed carry. 30.07 was added recently when licensed open carry became legal.
The convergent evolution of ideas strongly suggests the validity of those ideas. It does not demonstrate that the ideas in question must always come to light. I'm thinking about calculus, specifically. Two Europeans who had no contact with one another both developed calculus, but how many ancient cultures did not discover it? The Chinese did not, nor the Persians, nor the Arabs, nor the peoples of South Asia.
In short, just because something requiring human creativity has happened in one way (or even several ways) does not demonstrate that the laws of the universe require it to happen at all. We simply cannot know that. If, however, you are right, and certain kinds of progress are inevitable, why then we should all sit back and wait for the laboratory equipment at Intel and AMD to spontaneously generate new CPU architectures. At the same time, we can wait for the computers at Apple and Microsoft to write new software and operating systems. If we feed Linus' computer enough electricity, we'll get Linux kernel version 5, eventually. We can all take a ten or twenty-year compiler break! Wouldn't that be wonderful?
The progress in question only seems inevitable because it has already happened. We can see in the hindsight the "Of course!" and "Why didn't they think of that sooner?" moments because the logic of the thing is there for all to see. At the time it was happening, it was neither a foregone conclusion, nor trivial. The fact that several people have the same idea at the same time doesn't mean the idea itself is inevitable. The idea may be waiting, so to speak, to be discovered from first principles, but its discovery is not guaranteed.
It depends on the age of the drive, the manufacturer, and capacity, I think. Mostly capacity, probably. Most of the SATA drives I've taken apart recently had only one platter. A few have had two or three.
I had neglected that fact. I need to add some cases to my logic, I think, to include a one party state in which elections continue but in which all other parties are outlawed. This, however, leaves out the People's Republic of China, which has a few minor parties that are related to or clients of the Communist Party of China. It also leaves out the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has moderate political parties, but also engages in the violent suppression of political protest.
If you mean that the recognition of rights is not universal, I agree. We cannot come to a consensus about what they are. No government protects them perfectly, not even the supposedly free governments of the West. Modern governments keep coming up with superfluous Bills of Rights for travelers or investors or consumers while failing (or refusing) to enforce their essential rights.
If you mean that the recognition creates the right, I could not disagree more. If the rights in question are actual human rights and not privileges of citizenship, they belong to each and every one of us as a consequence of birth and do not depend on the recognition of (or even the existence of) any government. We had our Revolution because the British Crown and Parliament insisted on infringing our inalienable rights. As Americans, we are greatly indebted to the words and deeds of the Englishmen like John Locke who first expressed the ideas upon which our Revolution was founded. Locke mostly addressed the right to property, but the same principles apply to other rights (which are themselves property). The first humans had all their rights to property, to association, and so on, before any government existed. We would still possess them even if every government on earth were to explicitly deny their existence or prohit their exercise.
I puzzle this out as well, from the other side. At what point is it right and just to take up arms? More importantly, what bridge must we Americans cross as a nation before those on the right (such as Tea Party Americans and the NRA) embrace in their hearts the Spirit of 76 they invoked during the Tea Party rallies of 2009 and 2010? For my money, it's time to sling arms and muster on the green if either one of two things happens: the government begins confiscating weapons or if the government suspends elections. The first is prima facie evidence of the intent to oppress. The second is a literal, un-mistakeable repudiation of the consent of the governed from which all governments derive their just powers. A government might stand on shaky, unconstitutional ground long before these twin bridges are crossed. It might, in fact, be so far beyond the bounds of its constitutional authority that it is in effect no government at all, while still maintaining the appearance of representative governance. Under these lesser tyrannies, the citizens are entitled to less drastic forms of resistance and redress. However, many on the right seem unwilling to follow these ideas to their logical conclusions.
I appreciate all the folks who have committed to non-violence and who are striving for a political solution. Civil Wars are by definition terrible events. They should be avoided if at all possible. In order for the violent response to be to valid and righteous, it must be the very last option, after every possible warning to the the would-be tyrant to cease and desist and after every possible attempt at redress by the those in the shadow of the tyrant's boot. For every Committee of Safety, there must be a Committee of Correspondence.
I agree with you that the extra-judicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and that other guy who was him was illegal. It sets a very dangerous precedent. The indefinite detention langauge in the NDAA worries me to no end. Both majority parties (with the endorsement of their supporters, including me before I woke up and smelled the cow-pies) have played fast and loose with the Constitution for a long time, with the result that the Federal Government is tap-dancing on thin ice.
Legislation, or recognition, cannot create rights. Rights are inherent in the person and do not depend on any agreement by others that those rights exist. As such, the UN's Declarations of Rights either state the obvious or demand the impossible. Rights predate and transcend government, to the extent that when governments infringe upon the rights of the individual, the individual is entitled to seek redress comensurate with the severity of the infringement. The transcendance of our rights - including the right of self defense, the right to property, and the right to keep and bear arms - means that the UN's Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons is a steaming pile of crap.
The question we should be asking is which basic rights the use of the internet involves. We have the right to free expression. We have the right to free association. The Internet makes both of these processes easier, but it is by no means a prerequisite for either. We have the right to property, including the property in ourselves, and in the fruits of our labors. As such, we have a right to spend our wages as we see fit, including purchasing tools to ease the exercise of our rights. So, we have a right to buy access to the Internet, if we have the money for it. We have the right to speak freely on the Internet. We have the right to associate through the internet. We have the right to buy presence, to own the boxes, to own the networks, and so on and so forth, if we can swing it.
I am happy to be of service. If there is another bit of satire I can ruin by being overly technical, please, just let me know. I will gladly oblige you.
Blackwater was contracted to the State Department, not the DoD.
I have a better idea. Ban penises. Then kill anyone who has one.
Some people hurt other people. Therefore all people are bad and should be outlawed. If all the men are dead, humanity will die out within a century. There will be no more war, no more violence, no more hypocrisy.
The plan is foolproof.
I am not surprised. MSNBC has become the Glorious Leader Barack Obama 24-hour Love-In.
Chris Matthews has been appointed its Voice of Love and Truth while Keith Olbermann has been selected to lead the hourly 15-Minute Hate. The Glorious Leader has approved these selections.
Comrade Olbermann will be highlighting the wickedness and hypocrisy of all the enemies of the People, including the greedy Capitalists who want to keep the money they earn, the violent and disloyal counter-revolutionaries who want to keep the weapons they've acquired, and the self-deceived intelligentsia and treasonous propagandists who refuse to believe and even actively contradict the People's Truth as expressed by Comrade Matthews and Glorious Leader Barack Obama and his Central Committee, which the dis-loyalists once called the 'Cabinet'.
Ignorance is Strength.
I in turn should apologize for getting a little heated at the end of my second post. I thought you had called me a child and reacted badly. However, nothing you said was slanderous, as that requires knowledge of the truth and then deliberate character defamation using known falsehoods. I should have thought of that. For not being more careful in my word choice and for accusing you of slander, I apologize. I was wrong. For that I am sorry.
Not a problem. Grumpy happens.
There's a difference between a child deciding not to eat his vegetables and a taxpayer distrusting the motives and competence of a bureaucracy (or favoring a strictly limited role for that bureaucracy).
The government should not stand in loco parentis. As soon as it does, it has usurped the rights of its citizens and of its constituent states. Through it, the citizens have diminished themselves by requiring of themselves as individuals less than they should require.
Let me say that again: Government agencies are not parents. The courts are not parents. The legislatures are not parents. They have no rights as parents nor any parental responsibilities to their citizens. They have no right to decide who will eat and who will not. They have no right to decide who will be healthy and who will not. Make no mistake. There are not enough tax dollars nor enough bureaucrats to provide everyone with the standard of living they should have. Private citizens can meet these needs - locally and specifically - but government overhead will lead to waste and to inequity in the meeting of the peoples' needs. That is not just, nor right, nor good.
If my child does not eat her vegetables, she does not get dessert or TV after dinner. She loses the opportunity to do something she would enjoy doing. Or she gets to chance to eat them again the next night. There is some direct consequence. That is parenting.
If I do not pay my taxes, I get thrown in jail. If I do not like the way my tax dollars are spent, I can lobby my representatives to have government spending changed. That is appropriate government of a free people. If, however, the government decides that it will use my money any way it wants and that it no longer needs to listen when I object, that is tyranny.
If the government takes my money and uses it for something I don't want it used for, that is a problem. If it takes my money and gives me something less valuable in return, that is theft. I as the citizen am the final arbiter of the value of my dollars. I would not tolerate that behavior from a fellow citizen, from an employer, or from a business. I cannot see why I should have to tolerate it from the government.
Let me be clear on something else. I pay my taxes. I have put money into the system. If I wanted to, I could probably find a way to dodge those taxes or to shelter my income. I don't. I obey the laws. I fund the government and I vote in elections, so I have every right to an opinion on how that money should be spent. Every year when the US Federal government gives citizens their tax refunds, it tacitly admits that our money is still ours even when Congress and the Executive branch control it and that it already takes more than is lawful from some citizens.
If my preference for individual liberty, charity, and responsibility makes me greedy and selfish, then I am most assuredly and very proudly selfish and greedy, but I am not under any circumstances, a child. The very insinuation is condescending, insulting, slanderous, and absurd.
I would be very grateful if the government did not insist on trying to be the parent I as an adult no longer need.
Quoth the poster: Despite your greed if there comes a day when you've lost your job, or your business, I'll be happy that my tax dollars are providing you and your children with health care. I'll be happy that the other social safety nets we're going to build will be in place to catch you so that you can get back to whatever life you had before you fell. Even if you hated others for having needed that same safety net at some point in their lives. Even if you cursed them from taking a small percentage more of your income to fund these services. I'll be happy to have the IRS taking my small percentage to cover you while you can't cover yourself.
And what if some of us -don't want- the government's safety net or want to be able to choose -with great precision- where and to whom our charitable dollars go? I don't begrudge the money to the individuals who receive government social services funded by my tax dollars. I begrudge that money to the local churches and charities who aren't doing their jobs correctly. My problem with social services specifically and government taxation in general is that I don't know to whom MY money is going or even that it is going where the tax lines on my paystub say its going.
I am of the opinion that I and my wife are most qualified people in the world to decide on the wise uses of OUR money, and also that our families and our church are the most qualified communities in the world to decide when we really need their help and when we just need to buckle down, work harder, and take more responsibility for our own welfare. If I want to hire a guy with three teeth who walks up to my door and asks if he can mow my lawn, I will do so. (And I have). If he reeks of alcohol addiction and I decide I can't trust him not to use the money to get drunk again, that's also MY choice. I will point him the direction of the Salvation Army or the nearest church. Either way, the choice is mine and has remained mine.
I don't want a government reaching into my pocket, taking money out, and giving me only a "Trust me, it's worth it" in return. That approach only works for Defense spending. I realize that the government can't tell me "This dollar will go to the avionics on a new generation of multi-role, stealth, combat aircraft" without blowing the lid off. But when the government says, "Trust me, this money is going to meet a valid need, but I can't or won't tell you where" that's when things get dicey for me. My choice has been taken away. I have been required to buy something sight-unseen which I may never use, may not have wanted in the first place, and might even find legally, ethically, or morally objectionable. Did that dollar of my paycheck buy a WIC voucher for a loaf of bread for a hungry family? I don't have any problem with that, but I would rather do it myself. Or did it buy part of an abortion in a public clinic for a girl whose parents may never know?
I would feel profoundly ashamed of myself, and frustrated with those around me, if I should ever NEED Medicaid, or Unemployment Insurance, or Social Security in order to make ends meet. It would mean that I had failed myself and my family in preparing those of us who can work for the job market and for retirement after our working lives have ended. It would mean that I hadn't worked hard enough to find private help for those times that I just couldn't provide for myself. It would mean that the local churches were all too poor or too busy to help me or that I was too blind and narrow-minded to be picky about where I got the help I needed. A great many things would be wrong if I ever came into those straits. None of those wrongs, however, can be properly amended by government intervention.
It is not the function of the government - federal, state, or local - to provide equal outcomes for all citizens. It is the job of the government to provide the bare minimum in terms of public order, safety, and infrastructure and then to get the heck out of the people's way. If people go hungry, remain homeless for more than a few days at
Thanks for the link. I'm pleased to see my congresscritter voted this thing down twice.
According to the video of the presentation, the local users and local charities will create the content. The Literacy Bridge folks won't be creating any of it.
I'd like to see a demo of the thing. Screenshots are one thing, but a playable demo would be a much better indicator of this game's promise.
I really enjoyed the TIE fighter games, but haven't had much time for space combat sims since then.
FTFA:
"Sous-veillance might transform political engagement due to its ease of use, by engaging even the time-poor majority and extending citizenship beyond the usual special interest groups."
Now, what definition of 'Citizenship' is the group using? Are they using it as a code-word for enfranchisement? I'm very confused.
ObComic: http://xkcd.com/214/
Drive it into the ground?
I think it was because Neverending Story II was really, really bad. So bad, in fact, that the Luck Dragon died after getting a whiff of the awful stench of people made physically ill after watching it in theatres. Without the Luck Dragon, there is no Neverending Story.