Have you ever listened to the rhetoric coming out of the hawkish elements of Israel? Many on that side say the same damn garbage... it just doesn't get covered nearly as much in the US.
Ahm... that is what Israel did. That conflict is a perfect example of how scorched earth can fail. Israel bombed cities into the ground, bulldozed entire towns, burned down fields, gutted infrastructure..... but the Palestinians are still fighting.
The problem with perpetual rebuilding is the conflict never ends, it just morphs into this long drawn out mess with neither side actually winning. While Israel has had many short term successes, they are a prototypical example of how not to handle a conflict if you actually want it to end.
It can be a toss up how well it works. Short term it tends to be pretty effective, but unless you have a good integration plan afterwards you just end up right back into the same conflict a few years later with even more bitterness. Humans do not like loosing, crushing people rarely works for long unless you completely eradicate them... if you destroy infrastructure but the conflict continues they just move to more and more gorilla techniques... can't go after military targets anymore then go after civilians.. can't be organized, just bleed your enemy a pinprick at a time.
Churchill and Sherman's scorched earth methods were successful because of what was done afterwards....
That might be the cultural difference here. In the US, many people do not trust their local police for a variety of valid historical reasons...
Sure there are demographics in the US who view the police favorably, but to many they just want to stay off the radar because just being noticed can be life destroying. They do not see the police as a force that is there to help their lives, but a force generally used against them, or at minimal one that is sufficiently powerful and unpredictable that they are best just avoided.
Plus.. you don't need all cops to be corrupt for people to feel uncomfortable, just enough.. and more importantly, a culture where corruption and poor behavior by cops is not dealt with by LEO in general. It isn't the individual cop people worry about, but how many forces in the US handle problems within their ranks.. so there is a feeling that if a corrupt cop or official does come into play, the larger law enforcement community will side with the bad apple rather then help the 'civilian'. There are plenty of good cops, I would wager most are good people.. but as a group they tend to protect the bad cops before they protect people FROM the bad cops, and that makes dealing with them risky... a risk that can be significant depending on who you are and how good your resources are.
Ahm..... there have been issues with government institutions giving personal data to other institutions, both public and private. So not exactly 'paranoid'.
The implication is that 'no thanks' wouldn't be the end of it, either through social pressure/suspicion or through the police giving extra scrutiny to locals who did not participate. Even without the police, the whole 'we all gave our DNA.. why didn't you? what are you hiding?' can be a powerful thing.
Even with the 5th amendment the US has had problems with dragnets in the past, the police needing a lead and rounding up 'the usual suspects' which in many cases became little more then harassment of weak populations. There is also the historical problem of defending yourself once the police have their eye on you.... there have been countless issues with bad (or just incomplete) science resulting in 'this person did it!' and the person having to prove otherwise on their own dollar.. which when you have these kind of broad searches you will generally find at least _someone_ who seems to be guilty... and then there is incredible political pressure on the police to have not 'screwed up' so they get invested in making sure the person they fingered.
Looking at some comments below, it appears that the DNA did not come from the crime itself but from a lighter found in the victim's schoolbag.. so now we have a dragnet to find someone who once touched a lighter found with a victim, and now the person's life is going to be turned upside down because of it. They may indeed be guilty, but such a broad search method is bound to find SOMEONE who can be presented to the public as the attacker. In the US at least this would probably destroy the person both financially and socially even if they are vindicated. The police on the other hand have lots to gain for finding someone to point to... thus they have a powerful incentive to use such tools but no real consequence for getting the wrong person. In the US at least there is some check to stop such dragnets.
In the past DSL providers, just like phone companies, were required to lease to other ISPs, thus even though you physically had a verizon connection you could use anyone as your ISP.... just like with dial up you were not required to use the telco's ISP service. Cable was not regulated like that since it was considered too small at first and when it got large enough they decided to remove the DSL regulation rather then bring Cable into it. Pretty much overnight we went from an ecosystem where you could choose from dozens of ISPs to, well... one... maybe two if you switched physical providers.
(4) might be a real concern, but (3) is not. In the US, very few areas actually have any competition. The regulation that allowed viable competition to exist were removed so even even urban areas are unlikely to have more then 2 options, most areas will only have 1.
Sadly, they would not. Besides the retirement account issue, one of the restrictions the USPS runs under is they are not permitted to compete in the more lucrative areas because that would be 'unfair to the free market'. So they are essentially forced to both be self sufficient AND only offer services with thin or negative margins.
Well, no. One problem we have as techies is we tend to surround ourselves with similar people and forget that not everyone is online. All YOU might get is junk mail, but many people (usually at the low end of the income scale) still depend on USPS for the basic bureaucracy of living. Many people still, for instance, pay their bills by mailing a check. They do not have computers or Internet so the electronic option simply isn't open to them.
On the personal level yeah.. though that is less 'revenue' and more 'perks and kickbacks'. There is a small group tasked with deciding which items get stocked in PA and which do not, so if you want into the massive market you have to convince these people your brand deserves it....
We actually have cops that sit in NJ watching stores on the boarder for PA license plates, and follow you back across the bridges.. so at least on the eastern side they do not even let you patronize other state's stores if they can stop you.
Eh, all the proposals that have been floated were pretty revenue neutral or would have even resulted in a greater net income for the state. Taxes and license fees are an easy way to get the same income stream, but with less overhead and risk for the state.
They seem to have scraped up the cash for useless multi-million dollar machines to scan people at airports... yeah.. I suspect most 1st world nations could afford a bunch of fMRIs for coma patients.
Pennsylvania is the same way. Every election cycle they talk about privatizing.. and every time it quietly gets shelves for, publicly, some moralistic reason.. but privately I suspect they just really do not want to give up the power, and the PA liqueur institution is pretty powerful (not to mention corrupt).
True, but anti-fraud laws might kick in if they are charging you based on a metric that they will not reveal and someone discovers they are basing charges off fabricated or inflated numbers.
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Have you ever listened to the rhetoric coming out of the hawkish elements of Israel? Many on that side say the same damn garbage... it just doesn't get covered nearly as much in the US.
Ahm... that is what Israel did. That conflict is a perfect example of how scorched earth can fail. Israel bombed cities into the ground, bulldozed entire towns, burned down fields, gutted infrastructure..... but the Palestinians are still fighting.
The problem with perpetual rebuilding is the conflict never ends, it just morphs into this long drawn out mess with neither side actually winning. While Israel has had many short term successes, they are a prototypical example of how not to handle a conflict if you actually want it to end.
It can be a toss up how well it works. Short term it tends to be pretty effective, but unless you have a good integration plan afterwards you just end up right back into the same conflict a few years later with even more bitterness. Humans do not like loosing, crushing people rarely works for long unless you completely eradicate them... if you destroy infrastructure but the conflict continues they just move to more and more gorilla techniques... can't go after military targets anymore then go after civilians.. can't be organized, just bleed your enemy a pinprick at a time.
Churchill and Sherman's scorched earth methods were successful because of what was done afterwards....
I think I have seen presentations like this... scary what can go badly even with absolutely no ill intent on the officer's part.
That might be the cultural difference here. In the US, many people do not trust their local police for a variety of valid historical reasons...
Sure there are demographics in the US who view the police favorably, but to many they just want to stay off the radar because just being noticed can be life destroying. They do not see the police as a force that is there to help their lives, but a force generally used against them, or at minimal one that is sufficiently powerful and unpredictable that they are best just avoided.
Plus.. you don't need all cops to be corrupt for people to feel uncomfortable, just enough.. and more importantly, a culture where corruption and poor behavior by cops is not dealt with by LEO in general. It isn't the individual cop people worry about, but how many forces in the US handle problems within their ranks.. so there is a feeling that if a corrupt cop or official does come into play, the larger law enforcement community will side with the bad apple rather then help the 'civilian'. There are plenty of good cops, I would wager most are good people.. but as a group they tend to protect the bad cops before they protect people FROM the bad cops, and that makes dealing with them risky... a risk that can be significant depending on who you are and how good your resources are.
Ahm..... there have been issues with government institutions giving personal data to other institutions, both public and private. So not exactly 'paranoid'.
The implication is that 'no thanks' wouldn't be the end of it, either through social pressure/suspicion or through the police giving extra scrutiny to locals who did not participate. Even without the police, the whole 'we all gave our DNA.. why didn't you? what are you hiding?' can be a powerful thing.
'freely offers' gets kinda hazy when social pressure is involved.
Even with the 5th amendment the US has had problems with dragnets in the past, the police needing a lead and rounding up 'the usual suspects' which in many cases became little more then harassment of weak populations. There is also the historical problem of defending yourself once the police have their eye on you.... there have been countless issues with bad (or just incomplete) science resulting in 'this person did it!' and the person having to prove otherwise on their own dollar.. which when you have these kind of broad searches you will generally find at least _someone_ who seems to be guilty... and then there is incredible political pressure on the police to have not 'screwed up' so they get invested in making sure the person they fingered.
Looking at some comments below, it appears that the DNA did not come from the crime itself but from a lighter found in the victim's schoolbag.. so now we have a dragnet to find someone who once touched a lighter found with a victim, and now the person's life is going to be turned upside down because of it. They may indeed be guilty, but such a broad search method is bound to find SOMEONE who can be presented to the public as the attacker. In the US at least this would probably destroy the person both financially and socially even if they are vindicated. The police on the other hand have lots to gain for finding someone to point to... thus they have a powerful incentive to use such tools but no real consequence for getting the wrong person. In the US at least there is some check to stop such dragnets.
In the past DSL providers, just like phone companies, were required to lease to other ISPs, thus even though you physically had a verizon connection you could use anyone as your ISP.... just like with dial up you were not required to use the telco's ISP service. Cable was not regulated like that since it was considered too small at first and when it got large enough they decided to remove the DSL regulation rather then bring Cable into it. Pretty much overnight we went from an ecosystem where you could choose from dozens of ISPs to, well... one... maybe two if you switched physical providers.
Google already bent to the will of the RIAA/MPAA. They might provide a little competition, but functionally they are unlikely to be any different.
The major ISPs lobbied to make municipal broadband illegal.
(4) might be a real concern, but (3) is not. In the US, very few areas actually have any competition. The regulation that allowed viable competition to exist were removed so even even urban areas are unlikely to have more then 2 options, most areas will only have 1.
But yeah, (4) might come back to haunt them.
Sadly, they would not. Besides the retirement account issue, one of the restrictions the USPS runs under is they are not permitted to compete in the more lucrative areas because that would be 'unfair to the free market'. So they are essentially forced to both be self sufficient AND only offer services with thin or negative margins.
Well, no. One problem we have as techies is we tend to surround ourselves with similar people and forget that not everyone is online. All YOU might get is junk mail, but many people (usually at the low end of the income scale) still depend on USPS for the basic bureaucracy of living. Many people still, for instance, pay their bills by mailing a check. They do not have computers or Internet so the electronic option simply isn't open to them.
On the personal level yeah.. though that is less 'revenue' and more 'perks and kickbacks'. There is a small group tasked with deciding which items get stocked in PA and which do not, so if you want into the massive market you have to convince these people your brand deserves it....
We actually have cops that sit in NJ watching stores on the boarder for PA license plates, and follow you back across the bridges.. so at least on the eastern side they do not even let you patronize other state's stores if they can stop you.
Eh, all the proposals that have been floated were pretty revenue neutral or would have even resulted in a greater net income for the state. Taxes and license fees are an easy way to get the same income stream, but with less overhead and risk for the state.
Can you recall any details about who gave the account? I would be curious to read more of this person's description.
They seem to have scraped up the cash for useless multi-million dollar machines to scan people at airports... yeah.. I suspect most 1st world nations could afford a bunch of fMRIs for coma patients.
Maybe, maybe not. Time in a dark abyss is a lot of time to one's self, and to some that might be more heaven then hell.
Pennsylvania is the same way. Every election cycle they talk about privatizing.. and every time it quietly gets shelves for, publicly, some moralistic reason.. but privately I suspect they just really do not want to give up the power, and the PA liqueur institution is pretty powerful (not to mention corrupt).
True, but anti-fraud laws might kick in if they are charging you based on a metric that they will not reveal and someone discovers they are basing charges off fabricated or inflated numbers.
Did she swallow that fly?
That would be both terrifying and probably very pretty.