Fortunately, the FDA does NOT fall into the luddite category. Go to the FDA web site (fda.gov) and browse. We don't just regulate, we also do research, and a lot of it. FDA scientists are often cutting edge, and well recognized in their fields. Most of them publish their research, just as commercial scientists do.
FDA has to do research - how else can we be aware of the technology our regulated industries are using, or how to set standards or inspect their plants, or even tell when they're not playing fair? FDA scientists are responsible for numerous patents every year, for such things as medical tests, or new ways of testing products for safety - some of which are licensed to industry.
FDA does an incredible job - under difficult circumstances, and a shrinking budget relative to the increasing amount of work we must do, with an ever-shrinking workforce.
I have worked for the FDA for damn near thirty years, and in large part, find FDA employees to be hard working dedicated people, many of whom could quit and go to work for industry at greatly increased salaries. But they don't - mostly because they have the welfare of the American public at heart, and are dedicated to seeing thet the food, drugs, cosmetics, radiation devices, etc., that we use are as safe as we can make them.
Don't forget - we live here and buy the same products that the rest of the country uses! If it ain't safe for you, our own families and friends are at risk, too. We eat, get sick, use cosmetics, watch tv, get x-rays, as much as everybody else.
We are also human. We make mistakes. Our managers are subject to the same bureaucratic pressures that other gov't managers are, so it shouldn't be a aurprise that we act like it. We are, by design, stuck between the industries we regulate and the American public. On one hand, we have to ensure that the products regulated are safe and effective, but on the other hand, we have to be sure that we don't squeeze those industries so hard they can't sell their products for a reasonable price.
Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it) the US gov't doesn't have the authority to regulate prices. The market is left to do that.
We do safety and effectiveness, we don't do prices.
Actually, the FDA really does get into the manufacture of many of the products they regulate. It isn't just the sale. And a lot of products that are manufactured overseas and sold here are, under international treaties, actually inspected in the overseas manufacturing plants by FDA inspectors. That program is ongoing, and sends probably a dozen inspectors overseas every year, even to places like Red China.
There is also a program in which many other countries send their own FDA-equivalent inspectors here to the FDA, where we train them to inspect such products according to US standards. It really is a global economy!
And what part of FDA regulation would you eliminate to reduce the cost of Pharmaceuticals? The part that makes certain it won't make your kids grow a third arm? (Google Thalidomide) Or the part that ensures that it'll actually do what it claims? As in something a distant Uncle of mine sold called McEwen's Eagle cough cure - guaranteed to cure whooping cough, stomach distress, the common cold, etc., etc.! and probably contained wood alcohol, tobacco juice, a bit of cocaine to give you a buzz, and dirty water from the stream outdide of town!
BUT it was cheap!
And that hearing "aid" from the sporting goods store - is the volume regulated properly? so it won't accidentally get turned all the way up and blow what little hearing you still have away? Jusy how small is it? will it fit - without hurting you? Is it designed for long term use, or just short term, so that your ear is sore after just part of a day wearing it...
There's a reason FDA was created - and the thalidomide debacle was a part of it. If you don't like the cost of pharmaceuticals, lobby your congressman - why are the same medications so cheap in Canada, and so expensive in the US - even when manufactured here, under srict FDA regulation, regardless of where they're gonna sell it? Because US consumers will pay the higher prices, and folks in other countries either won't, can't, or their governments regulate the cost. (and ours doesn't)
Sorry, the FDA does NOT inspect rock concert laser shows. They regulate the manufacture of the laser devices, and inspect them at the factory, and in FDA labs to ensure that they adhere to regulations concerning energy emissions, wavelengths, etc. They do not inspect them on site. The only devices FDA inspects on site are like medical devices, etc., that are permanently installed into medical facilities to which the public is directly exposed. (X-ray machines, etc.)
HIS phone records are protected by statute, but not the aggregate of phone numbers called, by which phone numbers, when and for how long, with personally identifying information removed.
THAT information is NOT protected by statute, and is specifically identified by law as being normal business records of the phone company, unprotected by privacy laws.
When you dial a number, you are telling the phone company (remember the old live operators?) which telephone you want to talk to. Since it is phone company switching equipment that actually makes the connection, you have to do that. In that action, you are disclosing, to a third party, certain business information. That information is not protected by privacy laws. Once you are connected, the CONTENT of that conversation IS.
Cops get phone number connection information all the time, using a simple subpoena, which they then need because personal ID is attached.
But the so called NSA "spying" program is using aggregate info, looking for calling patterns, which, when established, can then be used for the required warrant from the FISA court for the actual wiretap, or for just identifying particular individuals as persons of interest for further investigation.
If the government is interested in who is calling their phones, they can get that information, as a customer, without violating the law. I'd be willing to bet that the contract the government has with their carriers allows just that, since its not a standard user agreement. Once they have that database, its just a matter of knowing a reporter's phone number and looking it up in that database to see who they called.
No violation of law at all. The Washington Post is just crying wolf on this one.
The war to topple Hussein wasn't a war of aggression like you reference.
It was based upon information provided by numerous sources, including the UN inspectors, that pointed to Irag's efforts to build a nuclear weapon, if not chemical or biological as well. Don't forget, Saddam was doing all he could to PREVENT either the UN or the US from penetrating his security. As it turns out, if we HAD penetrated his security, we would have gotten information that would have stopped Bush's war plans in their tracks!
Bush went to war on the premise that Hussein was building weapons that could kill masses of Americans at once. According to all the intelligence info he had at the time, (and much of that was, according to the PRESS, corroborated by foreign intelligence services) Irag could have been succesful in as little as a year or so. Just because we found out we were wrong doesn't invalidate the reasons we had at the time.
Don't forget, to Hussein, to fool his neighbors into thinking that he had nuclear capability was to enhance his influence in the region, and to cement his power at home, which was his real goal.
It just seems ironic that his efforts came back to bite him on the ass.
If you buy a two button mouse, you CAN just right-click - it really works just like you'd expect it too! Or, if you just have the Apple standard one button mouse, use the Option key and get the same contextual menu!
The/Applications folder and the ~/Applications folder both are system folders, installed with the operating system. As I noted in my earlier post, the one with the tilde (~) is in the user's home folder.
You are right, in most users' cases, the home Applications folder is empty - that's because the OS by default installs apps in the root Applications folder. But that's the beauty of Mac OS X (and the old classic, too) in that you can put an app anywhere you want and still run it. The OS will know where it is, so that when you click on a document produced by that app, it'll open the app automatically no matter where it is on your HD.
Oh, and for you Windows users that like the two button mouse? Either buy a Mighty Mouse (Apple's two button mouse) or just buy any old two (or more) button mouse. Mac OS X will recognize it, (without drivers) and will present the familiar contextual menus when the right button is pressed. If you DO install the drivers, you can take advantage of the particular mouse's specialized functions, including additional buttons. It will really help ease your way into using the Mac.
The ~/ refers to the individual user's home folder, and the/applications refers to the applications folder at the root of the hard drive. (The ~ refers to the path from the root to the user's folder, and the lack of the tilde just refers to the root.)
The Applications folder in the user's personal folder restricts the use of that app to that user, while Apps installed in the root applications folder can be used by all users with unrestricted permissions to common apps.
So the path ~/Applications on a Mac would refer to an absolute path of "Macintosh HD/Users/rahrens/applications. While the path/Applications just refers to the Applications folder at the root.
Granted, not something a novice user would know in this context...
And when I looked at the download page, it took me about 45 seconds to see the "quicktime standalone installer" link. Not at all hard to find, just read.
Hard to find?! I don't think so! Try going to Apple's home page and clicking the Quicktime tab at the top, and you'll see a big "Quicktime for Windows" download button at the top center of the page! See this link: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/win.html
Apple has always provided a stand alone installer for Quicktime, and unlike Windows, it can be simply deleted from your hard drive. (it doesn't take an uninstaller to do that!)
Windows, on the other hand, won't let you uninstall media player, won't let you uninstall IE... which is why they have been proven to have used their monopoly power to force their versions of these things on their market, and overwhelmed their competitors.
I guess my take on all this is that we already have ample laws on the books regarding driving distractions - they're laws regarding driving dangerously, or distracted, or not paying attention to the road. Every state I've ever lived in had at least something you could be charged with for driving while distracted. Of course, they often call it different things, but it's all the same.
We just need better enforcement. However, the police have other, more important things to do, and most cities rarely have dedicated traffic enforcement teams of a sufficient size to adequately enforce traffic laws, certainly not enough to make most of us feel it on a daily basis. Most of the time, these things are enforced on a reactive basis - i.e., after the accident.
The point I guess I'm making is that, like people have noted above, there are ample numbers of different things that can distract your attention from the road. Hot coffee, food, kids, unsecured cargo, arguments with the spouse or other drivers, ad nasueum, etc., etc. What we need to do is mount public campaigns to stop people from "driving distracted" in the first place, regardless of the distraction. As more people are educated about the possible dangers, maybe that'll help.
But if you pass a law forbidding cell phone use, let's start talking about provisions forbidding carrying hot coffee, eating, or arguing with one's spouse - that'll teach 'em!
Remember the Bob Levy column? A few years ago, he had one about driving distractions, and he noted a call he got from a woman about what she had seen on I-66. Apparantly she had noticed another woman driving down I-66, at 55 mph, eating a bowl of cereal (WITH milk!), and steering with her knees! At rush hour, of course...
I guess I'm going to answer several replies by just replying to my own post...
I know that the wiring is a mess, and we'll need to replace the old stuff. I just want a guy that knows what he's doing in the old houses. I've seen younger guys walk in, look around and shrug their heads as if they're lost. That gives a homeowner a baaaad feeling...
There's more to it than just ripping out walls and replacing everything. First of all, I'm not made of money. I am aware of the issues of remodeling - I'm in the middle of it now! My remarks were to the poster that suggested you just have to replace it all if you have an old house. Doing that isn't that easy. You can't just open a wall and run the wires, then patch the hole. It's never that easy to repair old walls, and even if you can find someone that can, and knows the old tricks, they're usually not cheap. Then there's the issue of wall paper. THAT you can't just cut a trench down the wall through and patch it up after - you really do have to redo the whole wall, especially if you can't buy the pattern any more (I know there are places that will match old wallpaper - have you priced that stuff recently?)
Eather way, there's more to the cost than just the wiring, and it's much costlier to rewire an old historical era house than one from the fifties, for instance.
But thanks for the tips - any additional info is better than not having any, and hearing how others did things is interesting in its own right!
Oh, and to the guy that suggested that I "just go outside and look up..." Solar is great - but it still takes wire!
It's not as easy as it sounds. First of all, finding an electrician that is familiar with the old homes and the intricacies of the wiring used 80+ years ago isn't easy. If they're not, they tend to make weird assumptions about what's there. Second, just running the wires is a monumental task - you've got plaster walls, stone walls, old wood that's as hard as cement, studs aren't standard distances apart, and tearing into a wall with 95 yrs+ worth of paint and wallpaper on it a nightmare all by itself - you can't repair the wall, you have to renovate the whole room!
If they ever invent wireless power transmission, sign me up!!
I have the same feeling about this. The military is absolutely anal about classified information. Like another poster mentioned, PCs used for classified info have HDs in carriers so they can be removed from the PC for storage when not in use, in addition such PCs are required to have the usb ports disabled through group security policy, if not at the registry level, as well as floppies. They are not allowed to have cd or dvd burners, read only for classified PCs. Such PCs are not allowed to have network connectivity with UNclassified PCs, either, and classified networks are NOT allowed to be connected physically to the Internet.
So I suspect that this reporter saw something on a stolen usb drive and just assumed that it would be classified. It may have been sensitive, but of a lower classification that would not have required the measures I mentioned above. Not that loosing such info wouldn't be bad - it very well could have, but that doesn't equate to classified info.
Of course, while we're speculating, he could have seen a document that was created by the soldier that owned the usb drive, who then failed to follow procedures for classifying documents properly, and mentioned classified info in an unclassified document, on an unsecured system. That has been known to happen, especially under combat conditions, and is just as bad as what the article is talking about...
One could argue that evolution being random, and humanity's existance being a result of that, doesn't that make the initial design of creation much more elegant? How much more cool can it be to say that God created the universe in such a way that, while random in it's apparant action, the result has been the development of an intelligent species such as humanity? I think that speaks volumes more about His ability to intelligently design this universe than if He just created things as they are today, just - BANG - there we were. THAT idea always smacked to me as being very unimaginative - very crude.
Don't know why you had to quote the part of the article that _seemed_ to back up what you were contending, when the relevant quote that you admit proved you wrong was just as available to quote...and you admitted it anyway.
Yes, although the law varies from state to state, corporations DO have constitutional rights in America. The way they are treated, legally, is different in different matters, again, from state to state, depending on how the law in each locality is written. But they DO have basic constitutional rights.
As for the insult, it wasn't meant to be, really. You wouldn't just take someone's word for it - this point has been made in the public realm I don't kow how many times. I've heard about it in books, newspapers, on TV. It took me about thirty seconds to find the page I linked to - you could have done the same thing. But you had to just keep on making your erroneous point, instead of looking it up.
My sig is obvious in it's meaning - it is a waste of time to try to teach someone something new if they are unwilling or unable to listen. The use of the pig metaphor is just that, a metaphor, and is not meant to be descriptive. Just as it is useless to try to teach a pig to sing, as they have no vocal cords, it is useless to try to teach or inform a person who is unwilling or unable to listen to the message. The object of the lesson gets irritated, as you have, and the one attempting to do the informing wastes his/her time.
So, have I wasted my time, or do you concede that I made my point?
Our legal system doesn't work that way. It may vary from state to state, but corporations' rights are set in law, and are not subject to a judge's whim. It may be up to the whim of the legislature, but not individual judges.
Legalities don't recognize sex as a trait - a corporation is legally just as much a person as you or I, and accordingly enjoy the same constitutional protections as a real person...and that, my friend is a fact of life, albeit a bit more advanced than birds and bees...
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Fortunately, the FDA does NOT fall into the luddite category. Go to the FDA web site (fda.gov) and browse. We don't just regulate, we also do research, and a lot of it. FDA scientists are often cutting edge, and well recognized in their fields. Most of them publish their research, just as commercial scientists do.
FDA has to do research - how else can we be aware of the technology our regulated industries are using, or how to set standards or inspect their plants, or even tell when they're not playing fair? FDA scientists are responsible for numerous patents every year, for such things as medical tests, or new ways of testing products for safety - some of which are licensed to industry.
FDA does an incredible job - under difficult circumstances, and a shrinking budget relative to the increasing amount of work we must do, with an ever-shrinking workforce.
I have worked for the FDA for damn near thirty years, and in large part, find FDA employees to be hard working dedicated people, many of whom could quit and go to work for industry at greatly increased salaries. But they don't - mostly because they have the welfare of the American public at heart, and are dedicated to seeing thet the food, drugs, cosmetics, radiation devices, etc., that we use are as safe as we can make them.
Don't forget - we live here and buy the same products that the rest of the country uses! If it ain't safe for you, our own families and friends are at risk, too. We eat, get sick, use cosmetics, watch tv, get x-rays, as much as everybody else.
We are also human. We make mistakes. Our managers are subject to the same bureaucratic pressures that other gov't managers are, so it shouldn't be a aurprise that we act like it. We are, by design, stuck between the industries we regulate and the American public. On one hand, we have to ensure that the products regulated are safe and effective, but on the other hand, we have to be sure that we don't squeeze those industries so hard they can't sell their products for a reasonable price.
Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately, depending on how you look at it) the US gov't doesn't have the authority to regulate prices. The market is left to do that.
We do safety and effectiveness, we don't do prices.
Actually, the FDA really does get into the manufacture of many of the products they regulate. It isn't just the sale. And a lot of products that are manufactured overseas and sold here are, under international treaties, actually inspected in the overseas manufacturing plants by FDA inspectors. That program is ongoing, and sends probably a dozen inspectors overseas every year, even to places like Red China.
There is also a program in which many other countries send their own FDA-equivalent inspectors here to the FDA, where we train them to inspect such products according to US standards. It really is a global economy!
And what part of FDA regulation would you eliminate to reduce the cost of Pharmaceuticals? The part that makes certain it won't make your kids grow a third arm? (Google Thalidomide) Or the part that ensures that it'll actually do what it claims? As in something a distant Uncle of mine sold called McEwen's Eagle cough cure - guaranteed to cure whooping cough, stomach distress, the common cold, etc., etc.! and probably contained wood alcohol, tobacco juice, a bit of cocaine to give you a buzz, and dirty water from the stream outdide of town!
BUT it was cheap!
And that hearing "aid" from the sporting goods store - is the volume regulated properly? so it won't accidentally get turned all the way up and blow what little hearing you still have away? Jusy how small is it? will it fit - without hurting you? Is it designed for long term use, or just short term, so that your ear is sore after just part of a day wearing it...
There's a reason FDA was created - and the thalidomide debacle was a part of it. If you don't like the cost of pharmaceuticals, lobby your congressman - why are the same medications so cheap in Canada, and so expensive in the US - even when manufactured here, under srict FDA regulation, regardless of where they're gonna sell it? Because US consumers will pay the higher prices, and folks in other countries either won't, can't, or their governments regulate the cost. (and ours doesn't)
Sorry, the FDA does NOT inspect rock concert laser shows. They regulate the manufacture of the laser devices, and inspect them at the factory, and in FDA labs to ensure that they adhere to regulations concerning energy emissions, wavelengths, etc. They do not inspect them on site. The only devices FDA inspects on site are like medical devices, etc., that are permanently installed into medical facilities to which the public is directly exposed. (X-ray machines, etc.)
And, I recall, most people would advise you to buy LOW and sell HIGH...
not bad advice after all!
HIS phone records are protected by statute, but not the aggregate of phone numbers called, by which phone numbers, when and for how long, with personally identifying information removed.
THAT information is NOT protected by statute, and is specifically identified by law as being normal business records of the phone company, unprotected by privacy laws.
When you dial a number, you are telling the phone company (remember the old live operators?) which telephone you want to talk to. Since it is phone company switching equipment that actually makes the connection, you have to do that. In that action, you are disclosing, to a third party, certain business information. That information is not protected by privacy laws. Once you are connected, the CONTENT of that conversation IS.
Cops get phone number connection information all the time, using a simple subpoena, which they then need because personal ID is attached.
But the so called NSA "spying" program is using aggregate info, looking for calling patterns, which, when established, can then be used for the required warrant from the FISA court for the actual wiretap, or for just identifying particular individuals as persons of interest for further investigation.
If the government is interested in who is calling their phones, they can get that information, as a customer, without violating the law. I'd be willing to bet that the contract the government has with their carriers allows just that, since its not a standard user agreement. Once they have that database, its just a matter of knowing a reporter's phone number and looking it up in that database to see who they called.
No violation of law at all. The Washington Post is just crying wolf on this one.
The war to topple Hussein wasn't a war of aggression like you reference.
It was based upon information provided by numerous sources, including the UN inspectors, that pointed to Irag's efforts to build a nuclear weapon, if not chemical or biological as well. Don't forget, Saddam was doing all he could to PREVENT either the UN or the US from penetrating his security. As it turns out, if we HAD penetrated his security, we would have gotten information that would have stopped Bush's war plans in their tracks!
Bush went to war on the premise that Hussein was building weapons that could kill masses of Americans at once. According to all the intelligence info he had at the time, (and much of that was, according to the PRESS, corroborated by foreign intelligence services) Irag could have been succesful in as little as a year or so. Just because we found out we were wrong doesn't invalidate the reasons we had at the time.
Don't forget, to Hussein, to fool his neighbors into thinking that he had nuclear capability was to enhance his influence in the region, and to cement his power at home, which was his real goal.
It just seems ironic that his efforts came back to bite him on the ass.
If you buy a two button mouse, you CAN just right-click - it really works just like you'd expect it too! Or, if you just have the Apple standard one button mouse, use the Option key and get the same contextual menu!
Strange how Mac OS X just seems to work...
Uh, except that if you want to install an app that's contained IN that .zip file, you still have to unzip and install. Not *quite* that simple...
The /Applications folder and the ~/Applications folder both are system folders, installed with the operating system. As I noted in my earlier post, the one with the tilde (~) is in the user's home folder.
You are right, in most users' cases, the home Applications folder is empty - that's because the OS by default installs apps in the root Applications folder. But that's the beauty of Mac OS X (and the old classic, too) in that you can put an app anywhere you want and still run it. The OS will know where it is, so that when you click on a document produced by that app, it'll open the app automatically no matter where it is on your HD.
Oh, and for you Windows users that like the two button mouse? Either buy a Mighty Mouse (Apple's two button mouse) or just buy any old two (or more) button mouse. Mac OS X will recognize it, (without drivers) and will present the familiar contextual menus when the right button is pressed. If you DO install the drivers, you can take advantage of the particular mouse's specialized functions, including additional buttons. It will really help ease your way into using the Mac.
These are *nix conventions, not Mac OS X.
/applications refers to the applications folder at the root of the hard drive. (The ~ refers to the path from the root to the user's folder, and the lack of the tilde just refers to the root.)
/Applications just refers to the Applications folder at the root.
The ~/ refers to the individual user's home folder, and the
The Applications folder in the user's personal folder restricts the use of that app to that user, while Apps installed in the root applications folder can be used by all users with unrestricted permissions to common apps.
So the path ~/Applications on a Mac would refer to an absolute path of "Macintosh HD/Users/rahrens/applications. While the path
Granted, not something a novice user would know in this context...
Uh, that's from the USDA, not the FDA,
FDA = Food and Drug Administration
USDA = Department of Agriculture
Two VERY different groups of folks!
Why the comment on the FDA? What do they have that you don't like? FDA doesn't have anything to do with public IDs...
And when I looked at the download page, it took me about 45 seconds to see the "quicktime standalone installer" link. Not at all hard to find, just read.
Hard to find?! I don't think so! Try going to Apple's home page and clicking the Quicktime tab at the top, and you'll see a big "Quicktime for Windows" download button at the top center of the page! See this link: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/win.html
... which is why they have been proven to have used their monopoly power to force their versions of these things on their market, and overwhelmed their competitors.
Apple has always provided a stand alone installer for Quicktime, and unlike Windows, it can be simply deleted from your hard drive. (it doesn't take an uninstaller to do that!)
Windows, on the other hand, won't let you uninstall media player, won't let you uninstall IE
I guess my take on all this is that we already have ample laws on the books regarding driving distractions - they're laws regarding driving dangerously, or distracted, or not paying attention to the road. Every state I've ever lived in had at least something you could be charged with for driving while distracted. Of course, they often call it different things, but it's all the same.
We just need better enforcement. However, the police have other, more important things to do, and most cities rarely have dedicated traffic enforcement teams of a sufficient size to adequately enforce traffic laws, certainly not enough to make most of us feel it on a daily basis. Most of the time, these things are enforced on a reactive basis - i.e., after the accident.
The point I guess I'm making is that, like people have noted above, there are ample numbers of different things that can distract your attention from the road. Hot coffee, food, kids, unsecured cargo, arguments with the spouse or other drivers, ad nasueum, etc., etc. What we need to do is mount public campaigns to stop people from "driving distracted" in the first place, regardless of the distraction. As more people are educated about the possible dangers, maybe that'll help.
But if you pass a law forbidding cell phone use, let's start talking about provisions forbidding carrying hot coffee, eating, or arguing with one's spouse - that'll teach 'em!
Remember the Bob Levy column? A few years ago, he had one about driving distractions, and he noted a call he got from a woman about what she had seen on I-66. Apparantly she had noticed another woman driving down I-66, at 55 mph, eating a bowl of cereal (WITH milk!), and steering with her knees! At rush hour, of course...
I guess I'm going to answer several replies by just replying to my own post...
I know that the wiring is a mess, and we'll need to replace the old stuff. I just want a guy that knows what he's doing in the old houses. I've seen younger guys walk in, look around and shrug their heads as if they're lost. That gives a homeowner a baaaad feeling...
There's more to it than just ripping out walls and replacing everything. First of all, I'm not made of money. I am aware of the issues of remodeling - I'm in the middle of it now! My remarks were to the poster that suggested you just have to replace it all if you have an old house. Doing that isn't that easy. You can't just open a wall and run the wires, then patch the hole. It's never that easy to repair old walls, and even if you can find someone that can, and knows the old tricks, they're usually not cheap. Then there's the issue of wall paper. THAT you can't just cut a trench down the wall through and patch it up after - you really do have to redo the whole wall, especially if you can't buy the pattern any more (I know there are places that will match old wallpaper - have you priced that stuff recently?)
Eather way, there's more to the cost than just the wiring, and it's much costlier to rewire an old historical era house than one from the fifties, for instance.
But thanks for the tips - any additional info is better than not having any, and hearing how others did things is interesting in its own right!
Oh, and to the guy that suggested that I "just go outside and look up..." Solar is great - but it still takes wire!
It's not as easy as it sounds. First of all, finding an electrician that is familiar with the old homes and the intricacies of the wiring used 80+ years ago isn't easy. If they're not, they tend to make weird assumptions about what's there. Second, just running the wires is a monumental task - you've got plaster walls, stone walls, old wood that's as hard as cement, studs aren't standard distances apart, and tearing into a wall with 95 yrs+ worth of paint and wallpaper on it a nightmare all by itself - you can't repair the wall, you have to renovate the whole room!
If they ever invent wireless power transmission, sign me up!!
I have the same feeling about this. The military is absolutely anal about classified information. Like another poster mentioned, PCs used for classified info have HDs in carriers so they can be removed from the PC for storage when not in use, in addition such PCs are required to have the usb ports disabled through group security policy, if not at the registry level, as well as floppies. They are not allowed to have cd or dvd burners, read only for classified PCs. Such PCs are not allowed to have network connectivity with UNclassified PCs, either, and classified networks are NOT allowed to be connected physically to the Internet.
So I suspect that this reporter saw something on a stolen usb drive and just assumed that it would be classified. It may have been sensitive, but of a lower classification that would not have required the measures I mentioned above. Not that loosing such info wouldn't be bad - it very well could have, but that doesn't equate to classified info.
Of course, while we're speculating, he could have seen a document that was created by the soldier that owned the usb drive, who then failed to follow procedures for classifying documents properly, and mentioned classified info in an unclassified document, on an unsecured system. That has been known to happen, especially under combat conditions, and is just as bad as what the article is talking about...
One could argue that evolution being random, and humanity's existance being a result of that, doesn't that make the initial design of creation much more elegant? How much more cool can it be to say that God created the universe in such a way that, while random in it's apparant action, the result has been the development of an intelligent species such as humanity? I think that speaks volumes more about His ability to intelligently design this universe than if He just created things as they are today, just - BANG - there we were. THAT idea always smacked to me as being very unimaginative - very crude.
Don't know why you had to quote the part of the article that _seemed_ to back up what you were contending, when the relevant quote that you admit proved you wrong was just as available to quote...and you admitted it anyway.
Yes, although the law varies from state to state, corporations DO have constitutional rights in America. The way they are treated, legally, is different in different matters, again, from state to state, depending on how the law in each locality is written. But they DO have basic constitutional rights.
As for the insult, it wasn't meant to be, really. You wouldn't just take someone's word for it - this point has been made in the public realm I don't kow how many times. I've heard about it in books, newspapers, on TV. It took me about thirty seconds to find the page I linked to - you could have done the same thing. But you had to just keep on making your erroneous point, instead of looking it up.
My sig is obvious in it's meaning - it is a waste of time to try to teach someone something new if they are unwilling or unable to listen. The use of the pig metaphor is just that, a metaphor, and is not meant to be descriptive. Just as it is useless to try to teach a pig to sing, as they have no vocal cords, it is useless to try to teach or inform a person who is unwilling or unable to listen to the message. The object of the lesson gets irritated, as you have, and the one attempting to do the informing wastes his/her time.
So, have I wasted my time, or do you concede that I made my point?
If you don't believe me, then go see what wikipedia has to say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_entity
Personally, I don't care if you do or not - by now, I think I'm trying to teach a pig to sing.
Our legal system doesn't work that way. It may vary from state to state, but corporations' rights are set in law, and are not subject to a judge's whim. It may be up to the whim of the legislature, but not individual judges.
Legalities don't recognize sex as a trait - a corporation is legally just as much a person as you or I, and accordingly enjoy the same constitutional protections as a real person...and that, my friend is a fact of life, albeit a bit more advanced than birds and bees...