According to Wikipedia, the US didn't ratify the 1969 Treaty on Treaties. But even if it had, the President and the Senate cannot alter the Constitution even by a treaty and 2/3 vote. Altering the Constitution requires 3/4 of the states. Even a treaty on treaties duly ratified by the Senate, can't give away the Senate's obligation to ratify treaties. The Paris Agreement is a treaty regardless of whether it is called one or not. The words of the Constitution have a particular meaning. And something doesn't stop being what it is just because you label it something else. For example, if the Constitution requires 3/4 of the States for something, you can't just slap the label "State" onto a bunch of kindergartners and give them a cookie for their signature. A kindergartner is not a state. The Paris Agreement IS a treaty. The American people ratified the Constitution based on the plain meaning of the words. They expected the protection that comes from the Constitution denying the president the power to unilaterally enter the US into binding treaties. But even if the treaties on treaties was binding on the US, no country could reasonably claim that the American people were bound by the President's agreement, not after the House of Representatives voted to nullify the President's status as a representative of the American people.
Those who mod me down either don't know the moderation rules or they don't care. If they don't know then I need to inform them. But more likely they don't care, so I need to let them know the consequences. I disagree that that is childish, petulant, or even threatening. I'm not threatening to do anything, just saying what the consequences of bad faith moderation are.
The House of Representatives voted against it before Obama even negotiated it. I'm surprised Trump didn't mention that in his speech. And the Senate never ratified it. Under the US constitution, treaties must be ratified by the Senate. Even if you don't think Senate confimation is necessary because you don't think it was technically a treaty, the US is still not a party to it because a president can only enter the country into an agreement because it is normally assumed that the leader of a country represents the country. But when the legislature explicitly denies that the president represents the country for the purposes of a particular negotiation, then no other country can reasonably assume that the people of the US are bound by Obama's agreement.
By the way. Slashdot rules are that you are not supposed to mod down a post just because you are convinced it is wrong. If a significant number of people believe it is correct then you are supposed to respond with arguments and evidence, not just bury the opposing view. If it is something like a typographical error or something then you can mod it down, but not if it is a considered conclusion, even a wrong one.
Slashdot administrators have told me that moderators that modded down my good faith posts, have had, and will have their moderator privileges permanently revoked. Even though the Slashdot administrators may disagree strongly with my conclusions, burying opposing views is considered bad faith moderation.
Instead of banning it, the government could just require a label warning that it is poison, and thus preserve the freedom to consume. But that would have about the same effect as a ban.
Only connections to the domain you're on are allowed by Request Policy. That prevents page loads and tracking from Google Analytics links and others embedded in web pages. I wondered why Firefox didn't have this feature, but I didn't know about this for a long time because the name gave no obvious description of its purpose.
My Karma was knocked down for political reasons. Please don't be reluctant to undo that injustice and mod me up.
The Request Policy plugin for Firefox along with Noscript is the most important privacy plugin you might not know about. Nearly every web page makes a connection to google analytics or something when you connect. Request policy blocks all connections to domains other than the one you're visiting.
Water siphons have been demonstrated to 24 meters. Water can resist -280 atmospheres pressure without vaporizing. Corresponding to possible siphon heights of more than 2800 meters. Siphons can operate in a vacuum. Siphoning of mercury has been demonstrated to more than 30cm above the barometric height, even in glass which mercury adheres poorly to.
Negative pressures of -280 atmospheres in water have been demonstrated in the ingenious Z-tube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... The Z-tube is a z-shaped tube nearly filled with liquid and set on a spinning table. If the liquid starts to shift away from the center, the "height" of the liquid in the bent inward ends "rises" toward the center, increasing pressure in that end and returning the liquid to the center. By measuring the spinning speed and the distance from the center to the liquid level in the ends, the pressure can be calculated. It helps if the tube is of a material the liquid will adhere well to. And the tube must be very clean and the liquid degassed to prevent cavitation.
Another example of negative pressures in water are in the xylem of very tall trees. The water does not rise by capilary action very far. The water is pulled up by action in the leaves at top. Negative pressures of several atmospheres are achieved in tall trees.
So, many people are correct that liquid cohesion DOES pull the liquid over the top of a siphon in SOME siphons. And everyone agrees that all siphons rely on gravity (or similar acceleration) for their effect. But most practical siphons don't rely on liquid cohesion. And some siphons CAN'T use liquid cohesion to pull the liquid over. It is not the case that only one of the theories: atmospheric pressure, gravity, or liquid cohesion, is the answer to how a siphon works. All three of those explanations are involved. We don't have to choose just one.
One example is the siphoning of CO2 gas, which has been demonstrated. And a demonstration you can easily do with a garden hose is like figure 4 of the Wikipedia siphon article, fill the tall down side of a siphon with water, but leave the top and short up side with only air. When the water in the tall down leg is released, gravity will reduce the pressure at the top of the siphon and atmospheric pressure will push the water from the upper reservoir up and over the siphon. Since the water on each side of the siphon is not touching at the start of this experiment, liquid cohesion cannot explain what force raises the water. The air at the top of the siphon, though reduced in pressure, is still at positive pressure relative to complete vacuum, and therefore it is trying to expand, and pushing DOWN on BOTH sides of the siphon. Since gravity is also pulling down, only atmospheric pressure can supply the force to push the liquid up into the low pressure zone created at the top of the siphon by gravity pulling down the liquid in the taller down tube.
Another observation of the difference between vacuum siphons and practical siphons is that in practical siphons, small and even fairly large air bubbles can flow over the siphon without much change in its working. Whereas in a vacuum siphon, a bubble or void will immediately expand to break the siphon.
In practical siphons near sea level, liquid cohesion is not only unnecessary, it cant even contribute, because all the fluids in the siphon are at positive pressure relative to complete vacuum and therefore all the molecules are being squished together and are repelling each other. There can be no pulling in siphons ne
If an oil company had did this "hide the decline" then the climate science community would have said it was obviously unscientific behavior. But climate scientists are so biased they cant even admit the rules of good science. If your oppinents say the data is not irrelevant, then you are not supposed to leave it out of the graph to make it cleaner. If the trees are giving falsely low temperatures then that is important information about their credibility. If his opponents say contray data is not fully explained then a scientist is not supposed to decide for himself that contrary data is fully explained. He is supposed to include it and explain it. If the trees weren't giving falsely low temperatures then there would have been nothing for Phil Jones to hide in his own words. The decline wasn't in plain sight or he wouldn't have used the word hide. He left it out of the graph for a reason. He hid it because people would realize his tree rings were unreliable. He hid it because he knew many people wouldn't dig in far enough to realize what he had hidden.
"I'd say "Overrated" works well for someone who really is wrong."
No. If I admitted a simple mistake of fact or something then you could go back and mod me down, but the moderation rules prohibit moding somebody overrated on a controversial topic just because you think you have solid reason to say somebody really is wrong. Large majoriies of scientists have been convinced of wrong things before. They're not infallible. On a controversial subject you are only supposed to post a rebuttal not bury with downmods. You will lose your moderator privileges for that.
DeadCatX2 quoted some source: "Tree-ring growth has been found to match well with temperature... However, tree-rings in some high-latitude locations diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960."
If the tree rings are showing falsely low temperatures after 1960 then it is questionabe at best if they were not giving falsely low temperatures back during the medieval warm period. It is a rule of science that you are not supposed to hide such evidence especially if your opponents say it is significant.
To say it was not hiding is rediculous since the alarmist Phil Jones himself described what he was doing as hiding. Burying data deep in an academic paper the public won't see is still hiding. Sure the experts were debating it, but it was hiden from the public who wouldn't look deeper than the graph.
I would have replied earlier but my battery died and i lost my post. I'll have more.
It is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down even if they REALLY ARE wrong. Especially if it is a controversial issue. I'll address the argument in a minute.
The whitewashes explicity decided not to invetigate Mann's "hide the decline" because he did it and it couldn't be denied. Hiding contrary evidence is a no no in science, Especially after your opponents have made it clear that they think that contrary evidence is significant. You have to include it in your graph and explain it, not leave it out. Worse, nearly the entire climate science community has defended this unscientific conduct, destroying the credibility of the entire community. And they continue to put forth the deception that he was exonerated from this misconduct. One of their leaders was quoted by Discover magazine as saying that they had to choose between honesty and effectiveness. We now know what they chose.
It was not defamation because it was an opinion based on at least arguable, if not obviously true evidence.
Remember it is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down just because you think they are wrong. It is also not flamebait if it is a sincerely held belief put forward for honest discussion.
US law now allows the military to imprison you for life without trial. See the NDAA. or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKaTxjxnYfE This was signed into law by Obama. There is an exemption for American citizens from the requirement that the military take them to Guantanamo Bay, but the exemption is only to the requirement, the military still has the OPTION to imprison you forever without trial. The law says it is only for suspected terrorists, but the law only requires suspicion, not proof, and anyone can be suspected of being a terrorist. It has been claimed that there is a requirement for one hearing before a judge but I haven't seen that in the law. It boggles my mind that Congress and Obama think it is a good idea to make it legal for the military to secretly snatch you in the middle of the night and imprison you for life without trial on mere suspicion.
Disturbingly they seem to have considered not wiping and reinstalling.
System is being verified from backups, signatures, etc. As of right now things look correct, however we MAY take the system down soon to do a full reinstall and for more invasive checking.
It appears that the chief kernel.org system administrator is so naive about security that he doesn't even realize the absolute necessity of a full wipe and reinstall after compromise of such an important site. It also appears that there was no routine booting from read only media to check system files and startup scripts for changes. And no daily rootkit scan. If it was me, I would trash the motherboard for fear of BIOS or other firmware contamination. Exploits living on the firmware of network cards and other places have been demonstrated.
Voice recognition of lies doesn't work at all. So it seems these bankers have fallen prey to a kind of ATM ripoff before they even deployed these ATMs.
>500 years from now, just think how out of touch the elderly will be!
People will learn to keep themselves updated better.
What is this strange thing that makes people want to deny the likelihood of curing aging within the next few decades? I saw a survey of doctors that reported that the doctors thought that the average life expectancy a hundred years from now would be only about a hundred years. That means those doctors thought aging wouldn't be cured for more than 200 years! What on earth possesses people to think that progress will be so slow?
Cruikshank was about a black man who was attacked by a private racist white gang and had (among other things) his guns taken away, and thus his right to bear arms had been violated. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment didn't protect people from infringement by private parties or state governments, but only from the federal government. But the Supreme Court DID say that the Second Amendment protects the right to "bear arms for a lawful purpose" (private non militia self defense in this case) from infringement by Congress. Forgive the heavy editing but the courts opinion read:
"The right... of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose."... is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. THE SECOND AMENDMENT DECLARES THAT IT SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED... by Congress." [emphasis added]
The quote is rather heavily edited so here is the full paragraph from the opinion:
"The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States."
Oh I think I get it, I missed that you changed the subject to "IP Addresses don't always prevail". Of course an IP address isn't a reliable or totally specific identifier of a person but I'd say a reasonable person would consider it fairly personally identifiable, at least with the owner of the account. It's not reliable enough to get a judgement against a person, but perhaps reliable enough to get a subpoena.
Also I was looking over the AT&T privacy policy and it says they sell aggregate info. I guess if you take an individuals browsing history and put it all together it's aggregate info. It also says they use "diagnostic information" to "better market the Services to you and to others". I'm not sure what services they're talking about. Perhaps privacy invading monitoring services? Their privacy contract, like most, is so full of subtle holes that it doesn't seem to say anything other than "you have no privacy". The fact that the privacy contract takes such a large number of words to say you have no privacy, could be taken as evidence that they're trying to deceive the other party to the contract (ie you), and thus the contract might be invalid.
In the EULAs I've seen they say they sell aggregate info about where users surf but not personally identifiable info. It just occurred to me that their trick may be that they don't consider your IP address to be "personably identifiable" info. If that's the case then I'd say that if they are selling the browsing history of IP addresses then they are in violation of their EULA because I think a reasonable person would consider their IP address as personally identifiable, especially if it were a static address.
Scientists are often very open minded(and often not), but credulous people think scientists and skeptics are close minded because they don't understand what constitutes good evidence. As a person learns about the world they have to learn how to tell the difference between what's real and whats imaginary. Some things are easy to tell like dowsing and telepathy. Dowsing and telepathy should be easy to demonstrate in a well controlled study. Basicly the fact that they haven't been established after extensive study, means they can be dismissed as imaginary (though not proved so). There are some harder things to figure out if they're real. It's obvious that most UFO sightings are imaginary or mistakes or such, but you can't easily dismiss them all. And though it would be difficult to pull off, the government could be covering them up. Also it seems perfectly plausible that some intelligent civilization would send probes to explore. But after refining your judgment on easier cases like telepathy, dowsing, astrology, and such, you learn to spot the telltale characteristics of garbage like UFO sightings (if you have a rational mind you do). The saying is that you shouldn't be so open minded that your brains fall out, which means that you can't waste your time being open minded about everything. If I swear I saw a purple pig flying through the sky yesterday, you would be wasting your time doing an extensive investigation. Telepathy has been investigated extensively. You're wasting your time if you investigate it more.
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According to Wikipedia, the US didn't ratify the 1969 Treaty on Treaties. But even if it had, the President and the Senate cannot alter the Constitution even by a treaty and 2/3 vote. Altering the Constitution requires 3/4 of the states. Even a treaty on treaties duly ratified by the Senate, can't give away the Senate's obligation to ratify treaties. The Paris Agreement is a treaty regardless of whether it is called one or not. The words of the Constitution have a particular meaning. And something doesn't stop being what it is just because you label it something else. For example, if the Constitution requires 3/4 of the States for something, you can't just slap the label "State" onto a bunch of kindergartners and give them a cookie for their signature. A kindergartner is not a state. The Paris Agreement IS a treaty. The American people ratified the Constitution based on the plain meaning of the words. They expected the protection that comes from the Constitution denying the president the power to unilaterally enter the US into binding treaties. But even if the treaties on treaties was binding on the US, no country could reasonably claim that the American people were bound by the President's agreement, not after the House of Representatives voted to nullify the President's status as a representative of the American people.
Those who mod me down either don't know the moderation rules or they don't care. If they don't know then I need to inform them. But more likely they don't care, so I need to let them know the consequences. I disagree that that is childish, petulant, or even threatening. I'm not threatening to do anything, just saying what the consequences of bad faith moderation are.
The House of Representatives voted against it before Obama even negotiated it. I'm surprised Trump didn't mention that in his speech. And the Senate never ratified it. Under the US constitution, treaties must be ratified by the Senate. Even if you don't think Senate confimation is necessary because you don't think it was technically a treaty, the US is still not a party to it because a president can only enter the country into an agreement because it is normally assumed that the leader of a country represents the country. But when the legislature explicitly denies that the president represents the country for the purposes of a particular negotiation, then no other country can reasonably assume that the people of the US are bound by Obama's agreement.
By the way. Slashdot rules are that you are not supposed to mod down a post just because you are convinced it is wrong. If a significant number of people believe it is correct then you are supposed to respond with arguments and evidence, not just bury the opposing view. If it is something like a typographical error or something then you can mod it down, but not if it is a considered conclusion, even a wrong one.
Slashdot administrators have told me that moderators that modded down my good faith posts, have had, and will have their moderator privileges permanently revoked. Even though the Slashdot administrators may disagree strongly with my conclusions, burying opposing views is considered bad faith moderation.
Here's a video to get you started making your own. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Instead of banning it, the government could just require a label warning that it is poison, and thus preserve the freedom to consume. But that would have about the same effect as a ban.
Only connections to the domain you're on are allowed by Request Policy. That prevents page loads and tracking from Google Analytics links and others embedded in web pages. I wondered why Firefox didn't have this feature, but I didn't know about this for a long time because the name gave no obvious description of its purpose. My Karma was knocked down for political reasons. Please don't be reluctant to undo that injustice and mod me up.
The Request Policy plugin for Firefox along with Noscript is the most important privacy plugin you might not know about. Nearly every web page makes a connection to google analytics or something when you connect. Request policy blocks all connections to domains other than the one you're visiting.
Water siphons have been demonstrated to 24 meters. Water can resist -280 atmospheres pressure without vaporizing. Corresponding to possible siphon heights of more than 2800 meters. Siphons can operate in a vacuum. Siphoning of mercury has been demonstrated to more than 30cm above the barometric height, even in glass which mercury adheres poorly to.
24 meter siphon:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Siphon of ionic liquid in vacuum:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Siphon of mercury to 30cm above barometric height:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w...
Negative pressures of -280 atmospheres in water have been demonstrated in the ingenious Z-tube:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Z-tube is a z-shaped tube nearly filled with liquid and set on a spinning table. If the liquid starts to shift away from the center, the "height" of the liquid in the bent inward ends "rises" toward the center, increasing pressure in that end and returning the liquid to the center. By measuring the spinning speed and the distance from the center to the liquid level in the ends, the pressure can be calculated. It helps if the tube is of a material the liquid will adhere well to. And the tube must be very clean and the liquid degassed to prevent cavitation.
Another example of negative pressures in water are in the xylem of very tall trees. The water does not rise by capilary action very far. The water is pulled up by action in the leaves at top. Negative pressures of several atmospheres are achieved in tall trees.
So, many people are correct that liquid cohesion DOES pull the liquid over the top of a siphon in SOME siphons. And everyone agrees that all siphons rely on gravity (or similar acceleration) for their effect. But most practical siphons don't rely on liquid cohesion. And some siphons CAN'T use liquid cohesion to pull the liquid over. It is not the case that only one of the theories: atmospheric pressure, gravity, or liquid cohesion, is the answer to how a siphon works. All three of those explanations are involved. We don't have to choose just one.
One example is the siphoning of CO2 gas, which has been demonstrated. And a demonstration you can easily do with a garden hose is like figure 4 of the Wikipedia siphon article, fill the tall down side of a siphon with water, but leave the top and short up side with only air. When the water in the tall down leg is released, gravity will reduce the pressure at the top of the siphon and atmospheric pressure will push the water from the upper reservoir up and over the siphon. Since the water on each side of the siphon is not touching at the start of this experiment, liquid cohesion cannot explain what force raises the water. The air at the top of the siphon, though reduced in pressure, is still at positive pressure relative to complete vacuum, and therefore it is trying to expand, and pushing DOWN on BOTH sides of the siphon. Since gravity is also pulling down, only atmospheric pressure can supply the force to push the liquid up into the low pressure zone created at the top of the siphon by gravity pulling down the liquid in the taller down tube.
Another observation of the difference between vacuum siphons and practical siphons is that in practical siphons, small and even fairly large air bubbles can flow over the siphon without much change in its working. Whereas in a vacuum siphon, a bubble or void will immediately expand to break the siphon.
In practical siphons near sea level, liquid cohesion is not only unnecessary, it cant even contribute, because all the fluids in the siphon are at positive pressure relative to complete vacuum and therefore all the molecules are being squished together and are repelling each other. There can be no pulling in siphons ne
If an oil company had did this "hide the decline" then the climate science community would have said it was obviously unscientific behavior. But climate scientists are so biased they cant even admit the rules of good science. If your oppinents say the data is not irrelevant, then you are not supposed to leave it out of the graph to make it cleaner. If the trees are giving falsely low temperatures then that is important information about their credibility. If his opponents say contray data is not fully explained then a scientist is not supposed to decide for himself that contrary data is fully explained. He is supposed to include it and explain it. If the trees weren't giving falsely low temperatures then there would have been nothing for Phil Jones to hide in his own words. The decline wasn't in plain sight or he wouldn't have used the word hide. He left it out of the graph for a reason. He hid it because people would realize his tree rings were unreliable. He hid it because he knew many people wouldn't dig in far enough to realize what he had hidden.
DeadCatX2 wrote:
"wondering whether you agree with the fact that I was modded down to -1 for providing evidence contrary to your post."
Although you shouldn't have advocated breaking the moderation rules, you still shouldn't have been moded down. My partial rebuttal is above.
There is no -1 incorrect mod choice because it is against the rules to mod down for that.
"I'd say "Overrated" works well for someone who really is wrong."
No. If I admitted a simple mistake of fact or something then you could go back and mod me down, but the moderation rules prohibit moding somebody overrated on a controversial topic just because you think you have solid reason to say somebody really is wrong. Large majoriies of scientists have been convinced of wrong things before. They're not infallible. On a controversial subject you are only supposed to post a rebuttal not bury with downmods. You will lose your moderator privileges for that.
Your source contradicts itself
DeadCatX2 quoted some source: ... However, tree-rings in some high-latitude locations diverge from modern instrumental temperature records after 1960."
"Tree-ring growth has been found to match well with temperature
If the tree rings are showing falsely low temperatures after 1960 then it is questionabe at best if they were not giving falsely low temperatures back during the medieval warm period. It is a rule of science that you are not supposed to hide such evidence especially if your opponents say it is significant.
To say it was not hiding is rediculous since the alarmist Phil Jones himself described what he was doing as hiding. Burying data deep in an academic paper the public won't see is still hiding. Sure the experts were debating it, but it was hiden from the public who wouldn't look deeper than the graph.
I would have replied earlier but my battery died and i lost my post. I'll have more.
It is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down even if they REALLY ARE wrong. Especially if it is a controversial issue. I'll address the argument in a minute.
The whitewashes explicity decided not to invetigate Mann's "hide the decline" because he did it and it couldn't be denied. Hiding contrary evidence is a no no in science, Especially after your opponents have made it clear that they think that contrary evidence is significant. You have to include it in your graph and explain it, not leave it out. Worse, nearly the entire climate science community has defended this unscientific conduct, destroying the credibility of the entire community. And they continue to put forth the deception that he was exonerated from this misconduct. One of their leaders was quoted by Discover magazine as saying that they had to choose between honesty and effectiveness. We now know what they chose. It was not defamation because it was an opinion based on at least arguable, if not obviously true evidence. Remember it is against the moderation rules to mod somebody down just because you think they are wrong. It is also not flamebait if it is a sincerely held belief put forward for honest discussion.
US law now allows the military to imprison you for life without trial. See the NDAA. or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKaTxjxnYfE This was signed into law by Obama. There is an exemption for American citizens from the requirement that the military take them to Guantanamo Bay, but the exemption is only to the requirement, the military still has the OPTION to imprison you forever without trial. The law says it is only for suspected terrorists, but the law only requires suspicion, not proof, and anyone can be suspected of being a terrorist. It has been claimed that there is a requirement for one hearing before a judge but I haven't seen that in the law. It boggles my mind that Congress and Obama think it is a good idea to make it legal for the military to secretly snatch you in the middle of the night and imprison you for life without trial on mere suspicion.
Disturbingly they seem to have considered not wiping and reinstalling.
It appears that the chief kernel.org system administrator is so naive about security that he doesn't even realize the absolute necessity of a full wipe and reinstall after compromise of such an important site. It also appears that there was no routine booting from read only media to check system files and startup scripts for changes. And no daily rootkit scan. If it was me, I would trash the motherboard for fear of BIOS or other firmware contamination. Exploits living on the firmware of network cards and other places have been demonstrated.
Voice recognition of lies doesn't work at all. So it seems these bankers have fallen prey to a kind of ATM ripoff before they even deployed these ATMs.
>500 years from now, just think how out of touch the elderly will be!
People will learn to keep themselves updated better.
What is this strange thing that makes people want to deny the likelihood of curing aging within the next few decades? I saw a survey of doctors that reported that the doctors thought that the average life expectancy a hundred years from now would be only about a hundred years. That means those doctors thought aging wouldn't be cured for more than 200 years! What on earth possesses people to think that progress will be so slow?
Actually the majority was right about Cruikshank.
Cruikshank was about a black man who was attacked by a private racist white gang and had (among other things) his guns taken away, and thus his right to bear arms had been violated. The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment didn't protect people from infringement by private parties or state governments, but only from the federal government. But the Supreme Court DID say that the Second Amendment protects the right to "bear arms for a lawful purpose" (private non militia self defense in this case) from infringement by Congress. Forgive the heavy editing but the courts opinion read:
"The right ... of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." ... is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. THE SECOND AMENDMENT DECLARES THAT IT SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED... by Congress." [emphasis added]
The quote is rather heavily edited so here is the full paragraph from the opinion:
"The second and tenth counts are equally defective. The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow-citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in The City of New York v. Miln, 11 Pet. 139, the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States."
Also I was looking over the AT&T privacy policy and it says they sell aggregate info. I guess if you take an individuals browsing history and put it all together it's aggregate info. It also says they use "diagnostic information" to "better market the Services to you and to others". I'm not sure what services they're talking about. Perhaps privacy invading monitoring services? Their privacy contract, like most, is so full of subtle holes that it doesn't seem to say anything other than "you have no privacy". The fact that the privacy contract takes such a large number of words to say you have no privacy, could be taken as evidence that they're trying to deceive the other party to the contract (ie you), and thus the contract might be invalid.
After a quick check of the link you provided I didn't notice the relevance. What was your point?
In the EULAs I've seen they say they sell aggregate info about where users surf but not personally identifiable info. It just occurred to me that their trick may be that they don't consider your IP address to be "personably identifiable" info. If that's the case then I'd say that if they are selling the browsing history of IP addresses then they are in violation of their EULA because I think a reasonable person would consider their IP address as personally identifiable, especially if it were a static address.
Scientists are often very open minded(and often not), but credulous people think scientists and skeptics are close minded because they don't understand what constitutes good evidence. As a person learns about the world they have to learn how to tell the difference between what's real and whats imaginary. Some things are easy to tell like dowsing and telepathy. Dowsing and telepathy should be easy to demonstrate in a well controlled study. Basicly the fact that they haven't been established after extensive study, means they can be dismissed as imaginary (though not proved so). There are some harder things to figure out if they're real. It's obvious that most UFO sightings are imaginary or mistakes or such, but you can't easily dismiss them all. And though it would be difficult to pull off, the government could be covering them up. Also it seems perfectly plausible that some intelligent civilization would send probes to explore. But after refining your judgment on easier cases like telepathy, dowsing, astrology, and such, you learn to spot the telltale characteristics of garbage like UFO sightings (if you have a rational mind you do). The saying is that you shouldn't be so open minded that your brains fall out, which means that you can't waste your time being open minded about everything. If I swear I saw a purple pig flying through the sky yesterday, you would be wasting your time doing an extensive investigation. Telepathy has been investigated extensively. You're wasting your time if you investigate it more.