So you actually get better response rates on a pay site? Interesting.
I tried both and never really got anywhere with the pay sites. I know some people who did, then again, as I mention elsewhere, in all that... it was one of the like 3 girls that I randomly messaged on myspace one day that I am now married to... so much for dating sites.
I think my response rate is higher now that my status is "available" rather than "single" but, its hard to say how much of that is the status and how much of that is just that I am way more experienced at relating to women now, or perhaps that my selection criteria has changed.
All in all, I got the most dates from posting (and responding to) craigslist ads. I can't really count myspace since, I only tried it a couple of times, it just happens to have been the one that lucked out and produced the best.
I never even met anyone via match.com, so it was pretty useless. I don't remember what other ones I may have tried, there were a couple more I tried at various points.
So you are claiming that a developer with commit access to a projects source code should not consider himself as having the responsibility to not knowingly release code that is intended to introduce flaws into the system?
He may have no responsibility to create code in the first place, but, I would argue that if he does, he has the responsibility to honestly release code which is intended to do what he says it does. An unintentional bug, or even an easter egg is one thing, this is sabotage.
Well you do get what you pay for.... but in this case, you have to pay what matters. You can pour all the gas you want into a tank, it will only hold so much, the rest is wasted
You do get what you pay for in terms of actually spending the time to read and write and get to know people. You can be pretty poor and do that. I mean, if you are 35 and listing an income under 10k, thats going to be an issue, but, how much you spend on dating sites is not it.
But yah, its exactly the problem, their systems evolved to extract the maximum value from providing a service... not to most efficiently connect people together.
However, accepting a bribe is often illegal. If he was being paid for the work, which it sounds like he was, then its entirely possible that bribery laws apply. Before you say no way, I used to work with a guy who is doing time for corporate bribery. Which isn't the norm apparently, except when you plead not guilty and make it go to trial.
I believe the FBI, as the one doing the bribing, is also committing a crime, though, this is all based on a state case, not sure how federal law works on these things.
Back when I was really active trying to use online dating, I tried a few sites, and, in the end, it was a shot in the dark on myspace (was browsing and saw some intriguing comments in her public comments... showing once again that actually having a common interest to talk about with someone is more than half the battle) that introduced me to the woman to whom I am now married.
Anyway... I was an eharmony reject. I told one of my buddies at poker about this, and he suggested we start "E-Disharmony" for people interested in short term destructive relationships.
Another friend, convinced that it was merely that I was answering the questions oddly because I was depressed and being overly cynical. So I retook the test, with her standing over my shoulder and getting a chance to argue any answers. She disputed a few... I was still rejected.
Actually, the pay sites are confidence game scams for the most part. OKCupid, which is free to use, and offers value add on an otherwise useful site (that is, rather than a broken, useless site that you pay to make work) that is free.
Anyway, their blog ripped apart the pay sites with their own numbers. The end conclusion... paying for online dating is for suckers.
While I do believe that if you cook bones enough they do soften and can be eaten...
I believe its more likely that they were cooked for the marrow. Check out the meat section of a good grocery store (preferably with their own butcher). They will have big beef bones labeled "marrow bones" for cheap. Toss a couple of those in a stew and cook until the marrow falls out.... I already ate lunch and thats making me hungry again....
Which is fine. If I cared (I have been debating it) I could probably get my home internal network doing internal IPv6 and connected out via a tunnel this weekend (if I didn't already have some other things to do, like clean out the room that is to become the new office).
Might be able to do it at a small business, in a few days to weeks, if things were otherwise slow.
Try it on a large multi-site network that runs continuously. Coordinating changes between multiple groups, with varying level of skill and network clue, and varying responsibilities, all while everyone is doing their normal day job.
Shit, its going to take you two years of meetings just to explain to mid level managers why they need to get the high level managers on board so they can make all the little fiefdoms work together on something that isn't directly of interest to any of them, but yours.
Of course, its only two years because I figure its about that long before the high level manager hears some BS about someone else who did IpV6 and then asks the mid level managers that you have been battering for years about why they aren't doing it when these other people are.
Well technically it isn't wikileaks doing it... sadly, it will still discredit them because, well... we wouldn't have the legal term "guilt by association" if it wasn't a trap that people fall into. Even though wikileaks didn't do it, people who support them did. Its kind of like, invading a country because one small group of people inside it threatened you in some insignificant way.... oh shit... maybe that is a bad example...
Makes me glad that I jumped the gun and sent them a donation before the cables were actually released. It was only 50 euros, more of a symbolic gesture than anything, but, I figured if enough other people felt the same way, those symbolic gestures could add up to a real one.
Hopefully, they will get their accounts unfrozen and will be able to continue operations. I look forward to the day when I can make another symbolic gesture of support to them. The first time that I felt a covert organization was working for my interests.... the interest of keeping tabs on the crooks in power who go around claiming to represent my interests, all the while doing the bidding of their corporate masters.
I think that, if you were looking for a general rule about people to take from peoples attitudes on this, the corollary would be "the more pointless the job, the more seriously some people will take it".
People like their conditioning, and hate to admit that it is just that. What I see is reality damnit... and my mental map is the territory. How could you possibly type in ALL CAPS and not be YELLING! Thats just daft. Afterall, some dude, 15 years ago, told me that typing in all caps was like yelling.... HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME! Nope! Can't be... YOU must CLEARLY be wrong!
Did I mention that this makes you the asshole for trying to malign my good name by saying that I have been wrong all these years? Asshole. Whats next, are you going to tell me that you are not a fan of my favorite sports team? Cuz them would be fighting words.
I mostly agree except, I do have to point out... a socialized single payer system, that is built on the backs of everyone by stealing everyones money....
Well thats exactly what it is. However, let us put that into perspective, it is no worst than what every other country does. Its no different from how we fund our military here in the US, or our other social programs, or social security. Its all done through institutionalized, rationalized, theft.
I am ALL FOR changing the funding models. I am a big proponent of fixing taxes and even eliminating them entirely, if we can, towards an entirely voluntary system.
In the mean time, a working healthcare system that isn't breaking the bank is a step in the right direction, and accomplishing it by not doing anything worst than what you are already doing is, at least no worst.
Right, but I am making a value judgement...and saying the nation that claims the land I live on spends so much on military when, in reality, the very aims of such a large military, and especially its offensive capabilities, are dubious at best.
I am not so much interested in convincing large states that it is in their interests to never have wars or to dismantle their military capabilities. I don't think that is ever going to happen, war is in the nature of those beasts.
Fighting is in our nature as people too. I don't think we can entirely and forever, banish all violence. However, centralizing it is a monumentally bad idea. I would much rather convince people to dismantle large states, and decentralize power, so as to diffuse the misuse of power.
A general of the Mass Militia can perhaps cause much harm and problems in MA, RI, and ME, but, his extent is limited, as it should be. I see no reason to empower a few men to screw up entire regions all at once.
Especially since, them doing so, doesn't actually benefit the people who are paying for it. Never has. We need to, as much as possible, remind people of this fact and stop with the tacit acceptance of war that is embodied in calling soldiers honorable or lieing and saying that its "our freedoms" and not "corporate profits" that they defend.
In terms of the long game, I throw my preference against the nation state in its entirety. It is time to start working on an update.
The American Revolution succeeded? According to who? I would say that the average man never stopped being taxed without representation. Thats the problem I have, you can put a bunch of victory conditions up and say that a war met them, but, its all very arbitrary.
In the end, it is all just another theater for political fights and political fights are about the interests of the aristocrats, not the interests of the average person. Wars are not fought, now or ever, for my benefit or yours. They are fought for the benefit of men like George Washington or Dick Cheney: The already wealthy who have a big stake in the outcome.
The American revolution is a perfect example. What good did it do the common man? The black slaves? The Indians? Little to nothing. Plenty of the former colonies didn't need wars to gain independence.... and ended slavery long before we did.
Overall, I would say, even that wasn't worth fighting.
History only repeats for people who ignore the details. It is not that time has passed, time, in and of itself, does little. I think its really that technology has changed to favor small, decentralized insurgencies over large armies. I really think the days of "Invade and take over and call it ours" as an expansionist strategy are pretty much over.
Not because people are somehow better, not because time has passed, but because information technology has changed the game. From 5000 years ago to 100 years ago, the technological advancement on those fronts was so small compared to what has come since, that it is barely worth considering the difference. The past 100 years have seen so much.
Frankly, I think Viet Nam was the best war in history. Not because it was so moral (it wasn't), not because it was a good idea (it wasn't), not because it was needed (it wasn't) but because it showed us that when you actually display war before people, in all its gory detail, it does exactly what we need it to do, turn people against war.
More and more we have the technology to bring people right to the front lines and show them how bloody and horrible it is, we should do that, as much as possible, and as widely as possible, all over the world. Because... people actually dislike war when they have to see what it really means.
However examples don't prove anything. If anything, the examples show that the fighting man on each side has more in common with the men he is tasked to murder than for the officer corps above him. Just because something happened a certain way in the past, doesn't mean that we are destined to see it again in the future, or that the sequence of events past shows any sort of causation.
As for defense being an uncontested role, sure. We may even (I am not convinced) need a government for defense (existence doesn't prove necessity) however, that doesn't mean that anything you want to do to defend from whatever imagined threat your tin foil hat tells you to be afraid of. We have been letting the tin foil hats set policy since the beginning of the cold war.
Now maybe SS is more scam than risk, but its a scam being run by the same people that you seem to think should be defending us. I say, SS is hardly their only scam. The military is their biggest and most prolific scam.
That risk gene? See, I just don't see why just anything you can imagine is suddenly a credible risk. Who is going to invade? Canada? China?
Meh, I don't think its actually that likely to happen. It just seems like a stupid thing to worry about to me. Certainly a stupid thing to let bankrupt the country spending 1/3 of the yearly budget (not accounting for the active wars) on.
You want to talk about risks, I think having the "National Retirement Fund" (thats social security) be a "Trust Fund" that consists of a few IOUs from the people who are supposed to be keeping it... now thats risk.
I never said other governments were more moral. I think they are all pretty worthless, I think that they all don't represent anyone but their respective countries aristocrats.
Turnabout is fair play. It would be fair play if it was done to Iran, fair play if it happened to the DPRK, England, France, or, my very own US of A.
No, friends family is where you lose me. If you are going to put state and country in there, then you may as well add sports teams, and favorite colors.
The problem I have is that "protect" is very vague and dubious. If it comes down to it, yes. You give me a binary decision and my wife lives over yours. My family survives over yours. I would expect you to make the same decisions. Not out of rationality or out of "rightness" but, out of the basic human impulse.
I could never blame a man whose family is held hostage for anything that he does to save them (like the Irish banker whose family was held while he was sent in to work to withdraw money... leading to the largest Irish bank robbery in history), however, that doesn't make his actions right, it just makes them excusable, understandable. Its mitigating circumstances.
In the end, most such arguments are just BS. If you make everything about protecting you and yours, then you can justify anything. What are you "protecting" from? We could protect our country from invasion with 50 well regulated militias with plans to go underground and form an insurgency if needed.
Protecting yourself against a clear and present existential danger is one thing, aside from that, I find "protection" to be a rather flimsy argument.
a German citizen who was kidnapped,[3] flown to Afghanistan, interrogated and allegedly tortured by the CIA for several months as a part of the War on Terror. Afterwards he was released. This extrajudicial detention was apparently due to a misunderstanding that arose concerning the similarity of the spelling of El-Masri's name with the spelling of suspected terrorist al-Masri[4] (the names are spelled the same way when using Arabic script).
On a related note, a friend of mine recently found he had a warrant for issues that are besides the point. Lets just say, dubious charges of a domestic nature. So, upon finding this out, and verifying it, he drove to a friends place to "lay low" while he calls his lawyer and figures what to do next. The advice he got? Interestingly.... go to the court house in the AM and surrender directly to the court. In this case, that meant he a) looked responsible to the judge b) got it over with quickly and c) denied the police (who had only heard the other side of the story) no chance to "recommend bail".
In the end, he walked out on his on recognizance. (well, end of the day, if not the story)
That said, I am merely talking about what I applaud or what I have no sympathy for. Not everything that I applaud is necissarily, morally awesome. Not everything that I have no sympathy for is a horrible crime against humanity.
As a general rule, I don't support compromising secrets and disseminating them.
However, as a general rule, I don't support people going around and claiming to, represent huge numbers of people and make back room deals that affect millions.
I don't consider the US government to be on "my side". They are the aristocracy of my country, and generally act to the detriment of me, and the people around me. (with few exceptions, like paving the roads, prosecuting fraud and violent offences)
When Jeff Dahlmer died in prison, I wouldn't say that his violent death at the hands of other inmates was a righteous or good thing but... it was nothing that I was going to cry over either.
Well... how about this. If I went around breaking into other peoples medical records, reading them, and passing the info around to the friends of mine who I think could benefit from reading them....
then I wouldn't expect any sympathy for me when mine are stolen and published.
That is more what I am saying. These people use spies, work with spies, and sometimes simply are spies themselves. They engage in it left and right, I see no reason to have any sympathy for them when the tables get turned.
Us? I don't, personally, have any diplomats. The US government, which makes a show of stealing my money every April, may, but I don't. I also prefer not to use the term "We" to mean myself, and anyone in that group of people. They represent me, no more than I represent them.
They are not my friends, not my representatives, and their interests and advantages or disadvantages are not my problem. However, I do applaud anything that helps me keep tabs on what they are doing with the money that they steal from me, but, mostly, because I wish they would stop doing much of it.
Would that they abandon all this, and go back to paving my roads, I might change my tun on some of these positions. They show no signs of that intention. These cables definitely show that.
Slashdot Mirror
So you actually get better response rates on a pay site? Interesting.
I tried both and never really got anywhere with the pay sites. I know some people who did, then again, as I mention elsewhere, in all that... it was one of the like 3 girls that I randomly messaged on myspace one day that I am now married to... so much for dating sites.
I think my response rate is higher now that my status is "available" rather than "single" but, its hard to say how much of that is the status and how much of that is just that I am way more experienced at relating to women now, or perhaps that my selection criteria has changed.
All in all, I got the most dates from posting (and responding to) craigslist ads. I can't really count myspace since, I only tried it a couple of times, it just happens to have been the one that lucked out and produced the best.
I never even met anyone via match.com, so it was pretty useless. I don't remember what other ones I may have tried, there were a couple more I tried at various points.
So you are claiming that a developer with commit access to a projects source code should not consider himself as having the responsibility to not knowingly release code that is intended to introduce flaws into the system?
He may have no responsibility to create code in the first place, but, I would argue that if he does, he has the responsibility to honestly release code which is intended to do what he says it does. An unintentional bug, or even an easter egg is one thing, this is sabotage.
Well you do get what you pay for.... but in this case, you have to pay what matters. You can pour all the gas you want into a tank, it will only hold so much, the rest is wasted
You do get what you pay for in terms of actually spending the time to read and write and get to know people. You can be pretty poor and do that. I mean, if you are 35 and listing an income under 10k, thats going to be an issue, but, how much you spend on dating sites is not it.
But yah, its exactly the problem, their systems evolved to extract the maximum value from providing a service... not to most efficiently connect people together.
Ahhh by the FBI maybe....
However, accepting a bribe is often illegal. If he was being paid for the work, which it sounds like he was, then its entirely possible that bribery laws apply. Before you say no way, I used to work with a guy who is doing time for corporate bribery. Which isn't the norm apparently, except when you plead not guilty and make it go to trial.
I believe the FBI, as the one doing the bribing, is also committing a crime, though, this is all based on a state case, not sure how federal law works on these things.
-Steve
Back when I was really active trying to use online dating, I tried a few sites, and, in the end, it was a shot in the dark on myspace (was browsing and saw some intriguing comments in her public comments... showing once again that actually having a common interest to talk about with someone is more than half the battle) that introduced me to the woman to whom I am now married.
Anyway... I was an eharmony reject. I told one of my buddies at poker about this, and he suggested we start "E-Disharmony" for people interested in short term destructive relationships.
Another friend, convinced that it was merely that I was answering the questions oddly because I was depressed and being overly cynical. So I retook the test, with her standing over my shoulder and getting a chance to argue any answers. She disputed a few... I was still rejected.
-Steve
Actually, the pay sites are confidence game scams for the most part. OKCupid, which is free to use, and offers value add on an otherwise useful site (that is, rather than a broken, useless site that you pay to make work) that is free.
Anyway, their blog ripped apart the pay sites with their own numbers. The end conclusion... paying for online dating is for suckers.
http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/why-you-should-never-pay-for-online-dating/
Its absolutely scathing. Ok, they are a competing site, but, their assessment seems quite strong and correct.
-Steve
While I do believe that if you cook bones enough they do soften and can be eaten...
I believe its more likely that they were cooked for the marrow. Check out the meat section of a good grocery store (preferably with their own butcher). They will have big beef bones labeled "marrow bones" for cheap. Toss a couple of those in a stew and cook until the marrow falls out.... I already ate lunch and thats making me hungry again....
Which is fine. If I cared (I have been debating it) I could probably get my home internal network doing internal IPv6 and connected out via a tunnel this weekend (if I didn't already have some other things to do, like clean out the room that is to become the new office).
Might be able to do it at a small business, in a few days to weeks, if things were otherwise slow.
Try it on a large multi-site network that runs continuously. Coordinating changes between multiple groups, with varying level of skill and network clue, and varying responsibilities, all while everyone is doing their normal day job.
Shit, its going to take you two years of meetings just to explain to mid level managers why they need to get the high level managers on board so they can make all the little fiefdoms work together on something that isn't directly of interest to any of them, but yours.
Of course, its only two years because I figure its about that long before the high level manager hears some BS about someone else who did IpV6 and then asks the mid level managers that you have been battering for years about why they aren't doing it when these other people are.
The sight has a boatload of requests going all over the place... the video is hosted on "brightcove"
Well technically it isn't wikileaks doing it... sadly, it will still discredit them because, well... we wouldn't have the legal term "guilt by association" if it wasn't a trap that people fall into. Even though wikileaks didn't do it, people who support them did. Its kind of like, invading a country because one small group of people inside it threatened you in some insignificant way.... oh shit... maybe that is a bad example...
Makes me glad that I jumped the gun and sent them a donation before the cables were actually released. It was only 50 euros, more of a symbolic gesture than anything, but, I figured if enough other people felt the same way, those symbolic gestures could add up to a real one.
Hopefully, they will get their accounts unfrozen and will be able to continue operations. I look forward to the day when I can make another symbolic gesture of support to them. The first time that I felt a covert organization was working for my interests.... the interest of keeping tabs on the crooks in power who go around claiming to represent my interests, all the while doing the bidding of their corporate masters.
-Steve
I think that, if you were looking for a general rule about people to take from peoples attitudes on this, the corollary would be "the more pointless the job, the more seriously some people will take it".
People like their conditioning, and hate to admit that it is just that. What I see is reality damnit... and my mental map is the territory. How could you possibly type in ALL CAPS and not be YELLING! Thats just daft. Afterall, some dude, 15 years ago, told me that typing in all caps was like yelling.... HOW COULD I HAVE BEEN WRONG THIS WHOLE TIME! Nope! Can't be... YOU must CLEARLY be wrong!
Did I mention that this makes you the asshole for trying to malign my good name by saying that I have been wrong all these years? Asshole. Whats next, are you going to tell me that you are not a fan of my favorite sports team? Cuz them would be fighting words.
-Steve
I mostly agree except, I do have to point out... a socialized single payer system, that is built on the backs of everyone by stealing everyones money....
Well thats exactly what it is. However, let us put that into perspective, it is no worst than what every other country does. Its no different from how we fund our military here in the US, or our other social programs, or social security. Its all done through institutionalized, rationalized, theft.
I am ALL FOR changing the funding models. I am a big proponent of fixing taxes and even eliminating them entirely, if we can, towards an entirely voluntary system.
In the mean time, a working healthcare system that isn't breaking the bank is a step in the right direction, and accomplishing it by not doing anything worst than what you are already doing is, at least no worst.
-Steve
Man if you agree with me, you must be a win
Right, but I am making a value judgement...and saying the nation that claims the land I live on spends so much on military when, in reality, the very aims of such a large military, and especially its offensive capabilities, are dubious at best.
I am not so much interested in convincing large states that it is in their interests to never have wars or to dismantle their military capabilities. I don't think that is ever going to happen, war is in the nature of those beasts.
Fighting is in our nature as people too. I don't think we can entirely and forever, banish all violence. However, centralizing it is a monumentally bad idea. I would much rather convince people to dismantle large states, and decentralize power, so as to diffuse the misuse of power.
A general of the Mass Militia can perhaps cause much harm and problems in MA, RI, and ME, but, his extent is limited, as it should be. I see no reason to empower a few men to screw up entire regions all at once.
Especially since, them doing so, doesn't actually benefit the people who are paying for it. Never has. We need to, as much as possible, remind people of this fact and stop with the tacit acceptance of war that is embodied in calling soldiers honorable or lieing and saying that its "our freedoms" and not "corporate profits" that they defend.
In terms of the long game, I throw my preference against the nation state in its entirety. It is time to start working on an update.
Speaking as a mostly leftist, I would rather see Obama on the republican nomination, so that maybe we can get a real left candidate.
The American Revolution succeeded? According to who? I would say that the average man never stopped being taxed without representation. Thats the problem I have, you can put a bunch of victory conditions up and say that a war met them, but, its all very arbitrary.
In the end, it is all just another theater for political fights and political fights are about the interests of the aristocrats, not the interests of the average person. Wars are not fought, now or ever, for my benefit or yours. They are fought for the benefit of men like George Washington or Dick Cheney: The already wealthy who have a big stake in the outcome.
The American revolution is a perfect example. What good did it do the common man? The black slaves? The Indians? Little to nothing. Plenty of the former colonies didn't need wars to gain independence.... and ended slavery long before we did.
Overall, I would say, even that wasn't worth fighting.
History only repeats for people who ignore the details. It is not that time has passed, time, in and of itself, does little. I think its really that technology has changed to favor small, decentralized insurgencies over large armies. I really think the days of "Invade and take over and call it ours" as an expansionist strategy are pretty much over.
Not because people are somehow better, not because time has passed, but because information technology has changed the game. From 5000 years ago to 100 years ago, the technological advancement on those fronts was so small compared to what has come since, that it is barely worth considering the difference. The past 100 years have seen so much.
Frankly, I think Viet Nam was the best war in history. Not because it was so moral (it wasn't), not because it was a good idea (it wasn't), not because it was needed (it wasn't) but because it showed us that when you actually display war before people, in all its gory detail, it does exactly what we need it to do, turn people against war.
More and more we have the technology to bring people right to the front lines and show them how bloody and horrible it is, we should do that, as much as possible, and as widely as possible, all over the world. Because... people actually dislike war when they have to see what it really means.
However examples don't prove anything. If anything, the examples show that the fighting man on each side has more in common with the men he is tasked to murder than for the officer corps above him. Just because something happened a certain way in the past, doesn't mean that we are destined to see it again in the future, or that the sequence of events past shows any sort of causation.
As for defense being an uncontested role, sure. We may even (I am not convinced) need a government for defense (existence doesn't prove necessity) however, that doesn't mean that anything you want to do to defend from whatever imagined threat your tin foil hat tells you to be afraid of. We have been letting the tin foil hats set policy since the beginning of the cold war.
Now maybe SS is more scam than risk, but its a scam being run by the same people that you seem to think should be defending us. I say, SS is hardly their only scam. The military is their biggest and most prolific scam.
That risk gene? See, I just don't see why just anything you can imagine is suddenly a credible risk. Who is going to invade? Canada? China?
Meh, I don't think its actually that likely to happen. It just seems like a stupid thing to worry about to me. Certainly a stupid thing to let bankrupt the country spending 1/3 of the yearly budget (not accounting for the active wars) on.
You want to talk about risks, I think having the "National Retirement Fund" (thats social security) be a "Trust Fund" that consists of a few IOUs from the people who are supposed to be keeping it... now thats risk.
I never said other governments were more moral. I think they are all pretty worthless, I think that they all don't represent anyone but their respective countries aristocrats.
Turnabout is fair play. It would be fair play if it was done to Iran, fair play if it happened to the DPRK, England, France, or, my very own US of A.
No, friends family is where you lose me. If you are going to put state and country in there, then you may as well add sports teams, and favorite colors.
The problem I have is that "protect" is very vague and dubious. If it comes down to it, yes. You give me a binary decision and my wife lives over yours. My family survives over yours. I would expect you to make the same decisions. Not out of rationality or out of "rightness" but, out of the basic human impulse.
I could never blame a man whose family is held hostage for anything that he does to save them (like the Irish banker whose family was held while he was sent in to work to withdraw money... leading to the largest Irish bank robbery in history), however, that doesn't make his actions right, it just makes them excusable, understandable. Its mitigating circumstances.
In the end, most such arguments are just BS. If you make everything about protecting you and yours, then you can justify anything. What are you "protecting" from? We could protect our country from invasion with 50 well regulated militias with plans to go underground and form an insurgency if needed.
Protecting yourself against a clear and present existential danger is one thing, aside from that, I find "protection" to be a rather flimsy argument.
This is a funny mistake but... you know... at least it was the civilian police, and civilian courts.
He should be glad his last name isn't El Masri: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_El-Masri:
On a related note, a friend of mine recently found he had a warrant for issues that are besides the point. Lets just say, dubious charges of a domestic nature. So, upon finding this out, and verifying it, he drove to a friends place to "lay low" while he calls his lawyer and figures what to do next. The advice he got? Interestingly.... go to the court house in the AM and surrender directly to the court. In this case, that meant he a) looked responsible to the judge b) got it over with quickly and c) denied the police (who had only heard the other side of the story) no chance to "recommend bail".
In the end, he walked out on his on recognizance. (well, end of the day, if not the story)
-Steve
You do have a real point here.
That said, I am merely talking about what I applaud or what I have no sympathy for. Not everything that I applaud is necissarily, morally awesome. Not everything that I have no sympathy for is a horrible crime against humanity.
As a general rule, I don't support compromising secrets and disseminating them.
However, as a general rule, I don't support people going around and claiming to, represent huge numbers of people and make back room deals that affect millions.
I don't consider the US government to be on "my side". They are the aristocracy of my country, and generally act to the detriment of me, and the people around me. (with few exceptions, like paving the roads, prosecuting fraud and violent offences)
When Jeff Dahlmer died in prison, I wouldn't say that his violent death at the hands of other inmates was a righteous or good thing but... it was nothing that I was going to cry over either.
-Steve
Well... how about this. If I went around breaking into other peoples medical records, reading them, and passing the info around to the friends of mine who I think could benefit from reading them....
then I wouldn't expect any sympathy for me when mine are stolen and published.
That is more what I am saying. These people use spies, work with spies, and sometimes simply are spies themselves. They engage in it left and right, I see no reason to have any sympathy for them when the tables get turned.
Turnabout is fair play.
Us? I don't, personally, have any diplomats. The US government, which makes a show of stealing my money every April, may, but I don't. I also prefer not to use the term "We" to mean myself, and anyone in that group of people. They represent me, no more than I represent them.
They are not my friends, not my representatives, and their interests and advantages or disadvantages are not my problem. However, I do applaud anything that helps me keep tabs on what they are doing with the money that they steal from me, but, mostly, because I wish they would stop doing much of it.
Would that they abandon all this, and go back to paving my roads, I might change my tun on some of these positions. They show no signs of that intention. These cables definitely show that.
-Steve