If so, extra points. Troublemakers in school are usually the bored ones. Who's fault is that?
was the student explaining his choice as a better browser as a canard?
If it's literally true, it isn't a canard. Regardless, confounding the stupids is a mitzvah.
was the assignment specifically geared toward, or requiring of IE?
Bad assignment, no donut for teacher.
was the firefox browser installed as an option and available, or, did the student download and install without authorization?
If it was installed, someone expected it to be used. If, on the other hand, the kid somehow has admin privileges on his school's compies, there are larger issues here, starting with the immediate firing of the school's tech guy.
IIRC, if the gov't asks them to eavesdrop on a citizen, they become an agent of the state, and as such cannot legally abridge 4th amendment protections. The Government cannot end-run the protections by asking someone else to do it for them. If they could, the Constitution wouldn't be worth the paper its printed upon.
If on the other hand, the telco volunteered without prompting such information, then yes, there would be no violation. That is soooooooo not the case here.
Whoa! The equivocations are flying by at light speed!
For the record, trying to make money != greed. Not relinquishing a dominated holding (what they're doing is legal) is not greedy, it's intelligent business.
If one's sole concern is profit, to the exclusion of all other concerns (public health, advancement of humanity, humor value, whim, sex appeal, religious imperatives, etc.), then that's greed. It really doesn't matter *at all* if it has the sanction of law or not; law says next to nothing about ethics, and greed is primarily an ethical judgment.
Intelligent business *is* greedy. Leveraging dominant market share *is* greedy. Trying to make money (as a corporate mandate, not in general; individual moneymaking is a more complicated issue) *is* greedy.
Now, what really needs to be talked about is whether greed is at all times *good*, **bad* or something in between. That would be the moral discussion, divorced as it is nearly entirely from both law *and* ethics.
Hey, asshole. Way to ruin a perfectly good and entertaining story with facts. Seriously, who raised you? I wanna know, so I know who to blame for all the crying children who no longer believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and good war stories. You make me sick. Way to not support the troops, commie!
Toxoplasmosis, baby. The game is...already over. Our fuzzy diseased friends have been getting us sick for a long, long time. HIV made the leap unaided. Sure, playing with fire occasionally leads to crispy critters...but keep it up long enough and write down what you learn, and you eventually end up with internal combustion engines, beautiful steel blades to gut your neighbors, and beautiful vehicles that can transport men through the air. Fire, GOOD. Likewise, biomod, GOOD. Doesn't mean you shouldn't feel bad for the mutie victims of progress, of course.
A friend of mine's license plate is w00t. And he's a geek but by no means a cripplingly stunted one. Then again, the fact that the license plate was available says loads about just how important this word is to geek culture...not very.
re: Dictionaries jumping the shark...no kidding. Then again, dictionaries aren't supposed to be up to date so much as a conservative normalizing force in language usage. IIRC, the first dictionaries were intended to regularize spelling variations, more so than be comprehensive catalogues of words in usage.
No, fall. The 2000 primaries were terrible to him, and he changed in agonizing increments since then from principled maverick to administration lapdog. I mean, this is a man who was literally beaten by a rumor that the kids he had adopted were really illegitimates. After having bled and fought for this country (and served it in many capacities) that has got to be devastating. After that, he started to listen to all the wrong advice, and lost his instinct for being different (since it punished him so much in the election and even afterward).
Every person has a breaking point beyond which disillusionment and cynicism are inevitable. Public service (no matter how much, or how deservedly we pile on to politicians) is a fairly dehumanizing and unforgiving profession. That the guy finally lost his way is no reflection of his "true colors" in any legitimate sense I can think of.
An interesting and terribly important point, for which I see no good solution. Unless we want to get into the business (again) of the state determining a person's worthiness to have/raise a child along (fairly arbitrarily formed and enforced) criteria; I don't. This bug has stuck in my craw for a long time, and as a somewhat uncomfortable Libertarian the issue of children and their autonomy vis a vis their helplessness has always been a real quandary for my outlook.
Sort of on a meta-topic, I'm curious why nobody modded you "interesting", at least. It is a serious issue, that the stupidity of parents is visited in consequences not only on themselves, but also their progeny. Any takers on this one?
Yeah, I had the same reaction. If ISP customers buy internet service for (among other reasons) clandestinely downloading movies, then that customer is one more customer you might not have had before. The only thing ISPs have to lose by limiting downloads is more customers.
...Unless you take his quote as a veiled threat, i.e. "You'll have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing things our way, since we will bend legislators over our knee to provide us with the tools to bitchslap you into line if you don't come around." I'd say that's a logical reading of the quote that seems to conform well with the **IA modus operandi and way of thinking.
And that's cool. Really it is. The problem I see here is that unlike Wikipedia, for instance, where you search for a topic via keyword and get an overview article on a topic (like, say, vaccinations), YouTube videos are searched by name most often (or sometimes tags) and those names often reflect the biases that the viewer was looking to explore/confirm.
So, unlike the Wikipedia article which, while very likely flawed, gave a significant amount of background, history, and relevant scientific information as well as the controversies associated with the topic, a YouTuber looking for "Vaccine controversy" videos are likely to get a video that cuts straight to the controversy portion, without the benefit of context. Likewise, that same person is unlikely to ever see the scientist with his scholarly video if that is not what they were looking for to begin with.
Well, in a tech/geek community, you can expect members to concentrate and care about and focus their efforts on tech/geek issues. That seems a no-brainer. Yes, we should all care more about what happens in Iraq, but Iraq (and foreign policy generally) was not what Slashdot was designed to address. Sure, it comes up tangentially, but it isn't front-and-center nor in this context should it be.
And since Ron Paul is the only candidate that has articulated a clear no-strings-attached policy of full and immediate extraction from Iraq, for me it isn't about Ron Paul-worship so much (I actually disagree with him on a handful of things that are important to me) as it is about caring about the very issue you are lamenting people around here don't care about. Since he also happens to be consistently anti-Police State and doesn't pander with what you I think inaccurately term "benign bills" (which are actually terrifyingly groupthink-reinforcing, wasteful of time and resources, and destructive to the national political dialogue), and it involves a technology issue, I think that it is not out-of-line for the/. community to praise him for having principles. Praise does not equal worship unless it is unreflective and trite.
See, I don't count Morrowind as a win on this axis, because in order to advance the plot you have to be a nice guy and not kill everyone. What I was saying was that at least with DX2, there were four distinct and adverse "sides" you could take that advance the plot (that is, the story) equally while also themselves affecting the story that is told through the game. With Morrowind if you choose the "kill everyone" option, the story that is told is "you die. you lose."
That might be interesting from a strictly ethical point of view (re: Freedom...freedom to fuck up), it's one-dimensional and inflexible storywise. As a gamer, I want to see how the story changes when I mess with the plot, and not just get hit with either "story ends/you die" or "story doesn't change no matter how hard you try." I don't play games for them to be just like reality; aren't adventure games supposed to be about exploration and experimentation and roleplaying and storyline? i.e. all the things you can't do with abandon IRL because there you're playing with live ammo and real consequences?
Who is stupid enough to go to Youtube for authoritative information about anything? I mean, I get why people might use something like Wikipedia for this (with all the pitfalls that can bring), but this just plain does not make sense to me.
re: Borderline Libertarian...that's a good way of putting it; I share a similar sentiment.
re: "The side of the room", I think that Ron Paul is attracting the fringes because the fringes are those who are hurt the most consistently by government being powerful. His message attracts those who feel persecuted by government action, which has to include right-wing wackos and organized hate groups; if a politician says "I will defend freedom of association" and means it (as R. Paul seems to) associations of people that most would find distasteful will naturally gravitate towards that person. If you want to know what a politician stands for, and where you should be judging you allegiance, it is better to look at what ideas and what people the candidate responds to. People decide their vote for all sorts of reasons, and it is a fallacy to say "I voted for Candidate A and David Duke voted for Candidate A, therefore Candidate A must agree with David Duke (and/or) I am in allegiance ideologically with David Duke". I'm absolutely sure that some righteously vile asshats voted the same way I did last election, but I don't as a consequence feel like I'm somehow standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them (whoever they may be).
For what it's worth, the campaign's response to this ilk's support was literally (paraphrasing, but not by much) "hey, if they want to donate money and votes to us because you think we are your people, that's unfortunate for you because we aren't but that's your problem, not ours." And I think that's exactly the right approach; politicians should make clear what they stand for, and if others mistakenly think that they stand for something else, too bad for them but we'll still take their money. If they have a reputation for good character, then the money can't in good faith be interpreted as an allegiance.
Your point at the end, re: Michael Moore, is exactly why the side of the room shouldn't be an issue; all politicians attract fringes that nobody likes. The question is whether the politician him or herself stands for something meaningful to you, and on that question it is not generally useful to give a damn if Al Sharpton or David Duke are listening from the back corner as they undoubtedly care about other things and are there for other reasons.
Oddly enough, the only one that comes to mind (re: flexibility & choices) is Deus Ex 2. For all its faults (and there are a few I'm sure other can fill you in on), it was one of the few games that didn't railroad you into taking "the side" that the designers had in mind. They even have a contingency plan (complete with a separate end-cinematic) if you decide to up and kill *everyone*; mind you, it wasn't a pleasant ending, but still, that the designers took serious the idea that a player would legitimately want to choose that says something.
Most RPGs get sucked into the whole Good/Evil (or Light Side/Dark Side) thing but don't take it seriously enough, and so it ends up merely being for cosmetics/pragmatic changes to the players' abilities or minor changes in an otherwise undifferentiated story. I get the sense that no designer really wants to think hard about the player that wants to go off script. Either you get railroaded into the same story regardless of what choices you make (the single sin of DX1/Baldur's Gate/KoToR), or you are denied simple and obvious choices to begin with (everyone else).
Good quote. OTOH, the hot fudge sundae sometimes--just, sometimes--needs to die. Sure, a reviewer is someone who knows the route but can't drive the car...but even they can still tell if the driver is going backwards on the wrong side of the road at 80 mph, and when they witness such calamities, they should say so with all the vitriolic vituperation that such a situation calls for.
You misunderstand my mockery. I think Ron Paul is a long-shot but he isn't "doomed" by any stretch. However, the received political wisdom is that anyone who protects (pornographers/drug dealers/molesters) against "the children" and for "due process/civil rights" is unrighteously fucked in US national politics, and that was what I was riffing on. I care little for "received political wisdom", as it manages to nearly always to be wrong. HRC is busy self-destructing in Iowa by following it--and that warms my little black heart all the more.
I'm still not exactly sanguine about the possibility that R. Paul will last till my (sadly late and otherwise insignificant) state's primary. That does make me sad inside.;)
Two Republicans were the two "No" votes. Ron Paul was one (which warms my little black heart; how cute! A politician that doesn't pander with 'teh children'. He's doomed, but hopefully not before I can cast a ballot for him in my state's primary) and someone I'd never heard of--Paul Broun (R)- GA.
When this gets to the Senate, hilarity will undoubtedly ensue as the candidates trip over each other to save the children from the pixels that everyone knows make the Baby Jesus cry. I can hope that maybe one or two will rise above (Obama, I'm looking at you), but I'm not holding my breath.
An interesting point. I disagree, only because the "War on Drugs" has had a relatively coherent approach and consistent goals for a while now. That the militarization of the conflict has led to an unmitigated loss, and placed the "war goals", so to speak, almost completely out of reach, does not make it any less legitimate. Lost wars are still wars. The war was never against "Colombia" or "Mexico", but in the DEA office they had real targets (complete with red 'x's through the pictures of the targets that were eliminated or neutralized) and quantifiable goals.
Likewise, a "War on Invaders" seems to be eminently reasonable, if stupidly duplicative. The Westphalian system makes every country de facto at war against any territorial invader anyway, so "War on Invaders" is more of a standing international policy than it is a war on an idea.
The problem I have with using the rhetoric of 'War', whether it is associated with an actual military conflict that approaches the reality of warfare or not, is that it destroys the succinct and specific legal meaning that the word "War" had. That same international system of sovereign states depends a great deal upon the notion that only sovereign entities may declare war on sovereign entities, that such a declaration meant specific responses and held specific expectations of the parties involved, and that at least in the US it required a legislature to legitimate by vote in order to execute. Blurring the textbook definition of "War" between sovereign states with "War" that states only a goal, whether it be concrete or ephemeral one, and not a sovereign state, damages the integrity of the system that is designed to moderate the use of force internationally.
Right, because economic jamming is ultimately just about money. Nobody has ever been killed for just money.
Please. In the 21st century, economic hegemony is shaping up to be much, much more important than simple military dominance, as military actions follow from economic imperatives, not the other way around. From the United Fruit Company to the Iraq Wars, blood runs when money stops flowing.
The bright line you describe doesn't exist; economic warfare, whatever the form, has real human cost in actual human lives. The person who dies of Cholera in Bolivia because their water supply is privatized (and devastated as a result) after heavy foreign pressure is just as dead as the Iraqi killed by an American bullet. At least one has a prayer of getting on the evening news.
Incidentally, while I generally agree that calling something a "war" does not make it so, if you are referring to the US War on Drugs, it resembles a war in every legitimate sense of the term. People in Putumayo and neighboring Columbian states see at the center of Cocaine traffic a fully militarized operation, while here in the US we have armed our local police offices with semi-automatic weapons, no-knock warrants, and a healthy disrespect for human life. (If on the other hand you were talking about the 'War on terror' or the 'War on poverty', you might be on to something.;)
No, they are different facets of the very same issue; ImpShial nailed the point above perfectly. The United States depends heavily on its very extended network of foreign bases to protect its interest and to prosecute its wars. A base closing in the Phillipines is not, in the US calculation of interests, such a big deal over the short term, because we have bases (and BIG ones) in Japan and South Korea; the region is covered. However, the US would not be so sanguine about the Phillipines base closure if it either didn't have the other two, or political winds were aligned such that the other two were in jeoparady of being disinvited. Hence, a rash of base closures (perhaps riding on a rising tide of regional anti-American sentiment; not a crazy thought at all considering the current state of things) is a scenario in which the US would, I think, quite happily tell its erstwhile allies where to go stick their assertions of sovereignty, perhaps at the barrel of a gun.
Likewise, bases require the countries hosting them to become complicit in the wars that are being fought through them. Take a street poll of how the average Turkish citizen feels about America occupying Iraq, and its not such a crazy though that our position there is precarious. Without that base, the War in Iraq simply cannot be fought effectively. How do you think America would respond there vis a vis Turkish sovereignty? I think barrels of guns might also be in that future.
It all hearkens back to the same root problem, which is that the US is deeply attached to the notion that it can act at will anywhere in the world. Whether it is a region turning against American extensions of power or an untimely key base closure, the root problem is the same.
Slashdot Mirror
You do realize that before his somewhat half-hearted about-face, Kucinich was strongly against "reproductive rights" too, right?
did this student have a history of infractions?
If so, extra points. Troublemakers in school are usually the bored ones. Who's fault is that?
was the student explaining his choice as a better browser as a canard?
If it's literally true, it isn't a canard. Regardless, confounding the stupids is a mitzvah.
was the assignment specifically geared toward, or requiring of IE?
Bad assignment, no donut for teacher.
was the firefox browser installed as an option and available, or, did the student download and install without authorization?
If it was installed, someone expected it to be used. If, on the other hand, the kid somehow has admin privileges on his school's compies, there are larger issues here, starting with the immediate firing of the school's tech guy.
IIRC, if the gov't asks them to eavesdrop on a citizen, they become an agent of the state, and as such cannot legally abridge 4th amendment protections. The Government cannot end-run the protections by asking someone else to do it for them. If they could, the Constitution wouldn't be worth the paper its printed upon.
If on the other hand, the telco volunteered without prompting such information, then yes, there would be no violation. That is soooooooo not the case here.
Whoa! The equivocations are flying by at light speed!
For the record, trying to make money != greed. Not relinquishing a dominated holding (what they're doing is legal) is not greedy, it's intelligent business.
If one's sole concern is profit, to the exclusion of all other concerns (public health, advancement of humanity, humor value, whim, sex appeal, religious imperatives, etc.), then that's greed. It really doesn't matter *at all* if it has the sanction of law or not; law says next to nothing about ethics, and greed is primarily an ethical judgment.
Intelligent business *is* greedy. Leveraging dominant market share *is* greedy. Trying to make money (as a corporate mandate, not in general; individual moneymaking is a more complicated issue) *is* greedy.
Now, what really needs to be talked about is whether greed is at all times *good*, **bad* or something in between. That would be the moral discussion, divorced as it is nearly entirely from both law *and* ethics.
I guess so. Or, perhaps I'm just not funny...that could be it, too. ;)
NICE quote.
Thanks.
Some mods apparently can't tell when a guy is kidding. Flamebait? Sheesh.
Hey, asshole. Way to ruin a perfectly good and entertaining story with facts. Seriously, who raised you? I wanna know, so I know who to blame for all the crying children who no longer believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and good war stories. You make me sick. Way to not support the troops, commie!
Toxoplasmosis, baby. The game is...already over. Our fuzzy diseased friends have been getting us sick for a long, long time. HIV made the leap unaided. Sure, playing with fire occasionally leads to crispy critters...but keep it up long enough and write down what you learn, and you eventually end up with internal combustion engines, beautiful steel blades to gut your neighbors, and beautiful vehicles that can transport men through the air. Fire, GOOD. Likewise, biomod, GOOD. Doesn't mean you shouldn't feel bad for the mutie victims of progress, of course.
A friend of mine's license plate is w00t. And he's a geek but by no means a cripplingly stunted one. Then again, the fact that the license plate was available says loads about just how important this word is to geek culture...not very.
re: Dictionaries jumping the shark...no kidding. Then again, dictionaries aren't supposed to be up to date so much as a conservative normalizing force in language usage. IIRC, the first dictionaries were intended to regularize spelling variations, more so than be comprehensive catalogues of words in usage.
No, fall. The 2000 primaries were terrible to him, and he changed in agonizing increments since then from principled maverick to administration lapdog. I mean, this is a man who was literally beaten by a rumor that the kids he had adopted were really illegitimates. After having bled and fought for this country (and served it in many capacities) that has got to be devastating. After that, he started to listen to all the wrong advice, and lost his instinct for being different (since it punished him so much in the election and even afterward).
Every person has a breaking point beyond which disillusionment and cynicism are inevitable. Public service (no matter how much, or how deservedly we pile on to politicians) is a fairly dehumanizing and unforgiving profession. That the guy finally lost his way is no reflection of his "true colors" in any legitimate sense I can think of.
An interesting and terribly important point, for which I see no good solution. Unless we want to get into the business (again) of the state determining a person's worthiness to have/raise a child along (fairly arbitrarily formed and enforced) criteria; I don't. This bug has stuck in my craw for a long time, and as a somewhat uncomfortable Libertarian the issue of children and their autonomy vis a vis their helplessness has always been a real quandary for my outlook.
Sort of on a meta-topic, I'm curious why nobody modded you "interesting", at least. It is a serious issue, that the stupidity of parents is visited in consequences not only on themselves, but also their progeny. Any takers on this one?
Yeah, I had the same reaction. If ISP customers buy internet service for (among other reasons) clandestinely downloading movies, then that customer is one more customer you might not have had before. The only thing ISPs have to lose by limiting downloads is more customers.
...Unless you take his quote as a veiled threat, i.e. "You'll have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing things our way, since we will bend legislators over our knee to provide us with the tools to bitchslap you into line if you don't come around." I'd say that's a logical reading of the quote that seems to conform well with the **IA modus operandi and way of thinking.
And that's cool. Really it is. The problem I see here is that unlike Wikipedia, for instance, where you search for a topic via keyword and get an overview article on a topic (like, say, vaccinations), YouTube videos are searched by name most often (or sometimes tags) and those names often reflect the biases that the viewer was looking to explore/confirm.
So, unlike the Wikipedia article which, while very likely flawed, gave a significant amount of background, history, and relevant scientific information as well as the controversies associated with the topic, a YouTuber looking for "Vaccine controversy" videos are likely to get a video that cuts straight to the controversy portion, without the benefit of context. Likewise, that same person is unlikely to ever see the scientist with his scholarly video if that is not what they were looking for to begin with.
Well, in a tech/geek community, you can expect members to concentrate and care about and focus their efforts on tech/geek issues. That seems a no-brainer. Yes, we should all care more about what happens in Iraq, but Iraq (and foreign policy generally) was not what Slashdot was designed to address. Sure, it comes up tangentially, but it isn't front-and-center nor in this context should it be.
And since Ron Paul is the only candidate that has articulated a clear no-strings-attached policy of full and immediate extraction from Iraq, for me it isn't about Ron Paul-worship so much (I actually disagree with him on a handful of things that are important to me) as it is about caring about the very issue you are lamenting people around here don't care about. Since he also happens to be consistently anti-Police State and doesn't pander with what you I think inaccurately term "benign bills" (which are actually terrifyingly groupthink-reinforcing, wasteful of time and resources, and destructive to the national political dialogue), and it involves a technology issue, I think that it is not out-of-line for the /. community to praise him for having principles. Praise does not equal worship unless it is unreflective and trite.
See, I don't count Morrowind as a win on this axis, because in order to advance the plot you have to be a nice guy and not kill everyone. What I was saying was that at least with DX2, there were four distinct and adverse "sides" you could take that advance the plot (that is, the story) equally while also themselves affecting the story that is told through the game. With Morrowind if you choose the "kill everyone" option, the story that is told is "you die. you lose."
That might be interesting from a strictly ethical point of view (re: Freedom...freedom to fuck up), it's one-dimensional and inflexible storywise. As a gamer, I want to see how the story changes when I mess with the plot, and not just get hit with either "story ends/you die" or "story doesn't change no matter how hard you try." I don't play games for them to be just like reality; aren't adventure games supposed to be about exploration and experimentation and roleplaying and storyline? i.e. all the things you can't do with abandon IRL because there you're playing with live ammo and real consequences?
Who is stupid enough to go to Youtube for authoritative information about anything? I mean, I get why people might use something like Wikipedia for this (with all the pitfalls that can bring), but this just plain does not make sense to me.
re: Borderline Libertarian...that's a good way of putting it; I share a similar sentiment.
re: "The side of the room", I think that Ron Paul is attracting the fringes because the fringes are those who are hurt the most consistently by government being powerful. His message attracts those who feel persecuted by government action, which has to include right-wing wackos and organized hate groups; if a politician says "I will defend freedom of association" and means it (as R. Paul seems to) associations of people that most would find distasteful will naturally gravitate towards that person. If you want to know what a politician stands for, and where you should be judging you allegiance, it is better to look at what ideas and what people the candidate responds to. People decide their vote for all sorts of reasons, and it is a fallacy to say "I voted for Candidate A and David Duke voted for Candidate A, therefore Candidate A must agree with David Duke (and/or) I am in allegiance ideologically with David Duke". I'm absolutely sure that some righteously vile asshats voted the same way I did last election, but I don't as a consequence feel like I'm somehow standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them (whoever they may be).
For what it's worth, the campaign's response to this ilk's support was literally (paraphrasing, but not by much) "hey, if they want to donate money and votes to us because you think we are your people, that's unfortunate for you because we aren't but that's your problem, not ours." And I think that's exactly the right approach; politicians should make clear what they stand for, and if others mistakenly think that they stand for something else, too bad for them but we'll still take their money. If they have a reputation for good character, then the money can't in good faith be interpreted as an allegiance.
Your point at the end, re: Michael Moore, is exactly why the side of the room shouldn't be an issue; all politicians attract fringes that nobody likes. The question is whether the politician him or herself stands for something meaningful to you, and on that question it is not generally useful to give a damn if Al Sharpton or David Duke are listening from the back corner as they undoubtedly care about other things and are there for other reasons.
Oddly enough, the only one that comes to mind (re: flexibility & choices) is Deus Ex 2. For all its faults (and there are a few I'm sure other can fill you in on), it was one of the few games that didn't railroad you into taking "the side" that the designers had in mind. They even have a contingency plan (complete with a separate end-cinematic) if you decide to up and kill *everyone*; mind you, it wasn't a pleasant ending, but still, that the designers took serious the idea that a player would legitimately want to choose that says something.
Most RPGs get sucked into the whole Good/Evil (or Light Side/Dark Side) thing but don't take it seriously enough, and so it ends up merely being for cosmetics/pragmatic changes to the players' abilities or minor changes in an otherwise undifferentiated story. I get the sense that no designer really wants to think hard about the player that wants to go off script. Either you get railroaded into the same story regardless of what choices you make (the single sin of DX1/Baldur's Gate/KoToR), or you are denied simple and obvious choices to begin with (everyone else).
Cue Riven comments.
Here, I'll start: "What a beautiful world. How impossible to play."
Good quote. OTOH, the hot fudge sundae sometimes--just, sometimes--needs to die. Sure, a reviewer is someone who knows the route but can't drive the car...but even they can still tell if the driver is going backwards on the wrong side of the road at 80 mph, and when they witness such calamities, they should say so with all the vitriolic vituperation that such a situation calls for.
You misunderstand my mockery. I think Ron Paul is a long-shot but he isn't "doomed" by any stretch. However, the received political wisdom is that anyone who protects (pornographers/drug dealers/molesters) against "the children" and for "due process/civil rights" is unrighteously fucked in US national politics, and that was what I was riffing on. I care little for "received political wisdom", as it manages to nearly always to be wrong. HRC is busy self-destructing in Iowa by following it--and that warms my little black heart all the more.
I'm still not exactly sanguine about the possibility that R. Paul will last till my (sadly late and otherwise insignificant) state's primary. That does make me sad inside. ;)
Two Republicans were the two "No" votes. Ron Paul was one (which warms my little black heart; how cute! A politician that doesn't pander with 'teh children'. He's doomed, but hopefully not before I can cast a ballot for him in my state's primary) and someone I'd never heard of--Paul Broun (R)- GA.
When this gets to the Senate, hilarity will undoubtedly ensue as the candidates trip over each other to save the children from the pixels that everyone knows make the Baby Jesus cry. I can hope that maybe one or two will rise above (Obama, I'm looking at you), but I'm not holding my breath.
An interesting point. I disagree, only because the "War on Drugs" has had a relatively coherent approach and consistent goals for a while now. That the militarization of the conflict has led to an unmitigated loss, and placed the "war goals", so to speak, almost completely out of reach, does not make it any less legitimate. Lost wars are still wars. The war was never against "Colombia" or "Mexico", but in the DEA office they had real targets (complete with red 'x's through the pictures of the targets that were eliminated or neutralized) and quantifiable goals.
Likewise, a "War on Invaders" seems to be eminently reasonable, if stupidly duplicative. The Westphalian system makes every country de facto at war against any territorial invader anyway, so "War on Invaders" is more of a standing international policy than it is a war on an idea.
The problem I have with using the rhetoric of 'War', whether it is associated with an actual military conflict that approaches the reality of warfare or not, is that it destroys the succinct and specific legal meaning that the word "War" had. That same international system of sovereign states depends a great deal upon the notion that only sovereign entities may declare war on sovereign entities, that such a declaration meant specific responses and held specific expectations of the parties involved, and that at least in the US it required a legislature to legitimate by vote in order to execute. Blurring the textbook definition of "War" between sovereign states with "War" that states only a goal, whether it be concrete or ephemeral one, and not a sovereign state, damages the integrity of the system that is designed to moderate the use of force internationally.
Right, because economic jamming is ultimately just about money. Nobody has ever been killed for just money.
Please. In the 21st century, economic hegemony is shaping up to be much, much more important than simple military dominance, as military actions follow from economic imperatives, not the other way around. From the United Fruit Company to the Iraq Wars, blood runs when money stops flowing.
The bright line you describe doesn't exist; economic warfare, whatever the form, has real human cost in actual human lives. The person who dies of Cholera in Bolivia because their water supply is privatized (and devastated as a result) after heavy foreign pressure is just as dead as the Iraqi killed by an American bullet. At least one has a prayer of getting on the evening news.
Incidentally, while I generally agree that calling something a "war" does not make it so, if you are referring to the US War on Drugs, it resembles a war in every legitimate sense of the term. People in Putumayo and neighboring Columbian states see at the center of Cocaine traffic a fully militarized operation, while here in the US we have armed our local police offices with semi-automatic weapons, no-knock warrants, and a healthy disrespect for human life. (If on the other hand you were talking about the 'War on terror' or the 'War on poverty', you might be on to something. ;)
No, they are different facets of the very same issue; ImpShial nailed the point above perfectly. The United States depends heavily on its very extended network of foreign bases to protect its interest and to prosecute its wars. A base closing in the Phillipines is not, in the US calculation of interests, such a big deal over the short term, because we have bases (and BIG ones) in Japan and South Korea; the region is covered. However, the US would not be so sanguine about the Phillipines base closure if it either didn't have the other two, or political winds were aligned such that the other two were in jeoparady of being disinvited. Hence, a rash of base closures (perhaps riding on a rising tide of regional anti-American sentiment; not a crazy thought at all considering the current state of things) is a scenario in which the US would, I think, quite happily tell its erstwhile allies where to go stick their assertions of sovereignty, perhaps at the barrel of a gun.
Likewise, bases require the countries hosting them to become complicit in the wars that are being fought through them. Take a street poll of how the average Turkish citizen feels about America occupying Iraq, and its not such a crazy though that our position there is precarious. Without that base, the War in Iraq simply cannot be fought effectively. How do you think America would respond there vis a vis Turkish sovereignty? I think barrels of guns might also be in that future.
It all hearkens back to the same root problem, which is that the US is deeply attached to the notion that it can act at will anywhere in the world. Whether it is a region turning against American extensions of power or an untimely key base closure, the root problem is the same.