I find it the height of hypocrisy that these so called free market advocates are actively campaigning for the ability of an authoritarian entity to arbitrarily interfere in the market for the exchange of privately owned data. Net neutrality is the Golden Rule of the Internet; treat other peoples data (i.e. property) as you would treat your own. For such a simple concept it is amazing that those so blinded by avarice are incapable of comprehending it.
Nuclear energy is a property of physics and as such it's use for good or bad is determined by people. Last time I checked our Constitution it said all people are created equal (no national qualifier) so why should our political leaders decide who should have the ability to harness nuclear energy and who should not? I of course am not a proponent of nuclear weapons proliferation but of course even I can see America's hypocrisy with nuclear and non-nuclear states. If you are a nuclear state like Israel and Pakistan, you get much more political leverage than an Iraq or Afghanistan who were invaded and will be occupied for generations to come. Israel can commit human rights atrocities in Gaza and no one says anything. Pakistan is ruled by an Islamic dictator and is full of Al Queda (their ISI is even accused of helping to fund the 9-11 attacks). What happens to them? They get American foreign aid (i.e. cash) and military weapons. And if we were really concerned about nuclear proliferation, why on earth would we make a nuclear agreement with Turkey Oh, yeah, that is right, Turkey bribed and extorted our government to assist them. If Iran wants to develop a peaceful nuclear technology in accordance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation agreement they previously signed and we agreed to then they should be allowed to. We have all heard the WMD rabble rousing before based on "undisclosed government sources". I will hold my personal judgment on Iran's nuclear ambitions until the nuclear inspectors release their findings.
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." --Thomas Jefferson
I too pity the people posting here that are so rabidly anti union. One could easily mistake them for communists and fascists who's first acts in power were to abolish labor unions. Perhaps they don't fully realize that the same executives they server under sign labor contracts that outline benefits and termination clauses. If labor contracts are good enough for executives, why shouldn't organized labor sign them? Perhaps communists China is the utopia many of the anti-union poster would like to live in. In communist China there are no real unions and labor and environmental regulations are set by the market (i.e. practically non existent). As labor union membership declined so did the wages in the markets they were involved in. Do we really need to regress back to the guilded age before people wake up and see the value of unions and labor laws?
Yes, Mr. Tamm is a REAL American hero, sacrificing his career and potentially his freedom to preserve and protect the basic rights that are the pillars of our society. As the saying goes, "Evil prospers when good men do nothing." Shame on the cowards at the FBI Justice Department who retaliated against him.
amusingly the middle east. They suppressed the media, lied, arrested on mere flimsy suspicion, bribed and bombed. Guess what- it worked. They were very successful at suppressing insurgencies in many many countries. and we all know how well that turned out in the long run.
Your praise of oppressive "tactics that actually work" speaks volumes about your character.
Clearly we Americans need to regain the moral high ground and truly adhere to the principles we claim to represent. This includes ceasing the funding of dictators, halting covert military actions to overthrow Democratically elected governments, and to stop using our prosperity to economically exploit resource rich third world countries. I would think that the number one rule of stopping terrorism is not to be a terrorist.
It is also worth remembering that Liberty is not free and we can not expect that only our brave soldiers to make sacrifices for our country. Certainly totalitarian forms of governments have the advantage of providing greater levels societal security at the cost of individual Liberty. However, in the Great Experiment know as America we have come to find out that contrary to intuition a Republican form of government can exist and prosper. Will America chose to abandon the ethos that made us who we are and instead embrace despotism because it promises structure and security? I personally believe this choice is rooted in each Americans personal philosophy and is manifested in public policy by our Democratically elected leaders.
As Patrick Henry stated so long ago:
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
According to this train of thought one should set aside all virtue and ethical considerations and adopt any tactic one's enemy uses no matter how horrendous for the sole purposes of wining a conflict. The result of such a conflict can only result in all distinction between freedom fighter and terrorist to be lost. The tyrannical use of government and military force to impose the will of one government on another is contradictory to American principle.
The foundation of United States of America was based the tenets of the Declaration of Independence which includes the following text:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
As you can clearly read, these statements are universally applicable to all people and not just to a select few arbitrarily chosen by those in power. Now, after adhering to these beliefs for two hundred years and experiencing first hand the results of the "Great Experiment", why out of cowardice should we abandon them?
So as someone who served in the military you must have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution. This document contains the Bill of Rights to help protect Americans from tyrannical government control. Now, if you truly believe in the Constitution and it's principles how can you morally support actions that subvert and deny these same rights to other people? Wasn't the mantra of the United States "Liberty or Death" as Patrick Henry so eloquently stated?
Have you been to a doctor lately? You probably filled out a form with the same intent.
"I ____, agree to whatever service _____ deems necessary. I also agree to be liable for and fully pay for all services and charges even in the case when my insurance company _______ refuses to pay."
That they ignored the request of the Congress (the will of the people) and instead chose to hide behind the president and so called state secrets. Shame on them and their disrespect for our Republic. They apparently believe that the president will protect them from punishment for their criminal acts. Congress establishes the laws in this country and as representatives of the American people they have every right to make sure the laws are carried out as intended. What is it that the executive branch and these companies are up to that they are so scared of revealing to Congress? According to our president only the terrorists have something to hide from the government so by extension does hiding information from Congress make the president and these companies terrorists?
The doomsday weapons you harp upon were born of secrecy and were created by governments for the intention of being used. I think if you put a vote to the people if they would like to have nuclear, biologically, or chemical weapons that can slaughter countless millions of innocent civilians and curse those who survive and their progeny for numerous generations in existence they would soundly defeat the resolution. There has only been one country that has used nuclear weapons in an act of war and secrecy and strict government control did not prevent it.
In the end it depends on what type of government one believes in. The American founders believed in Democracy and acknowledged that the general public was not the wisest place to store power in but it was the safest. If you truly dismiss this belief as archaic then I suggest you pick up a history book and examine all the despotic governments that existed throughout time and even those that exist today and then imagine what they could due with current and future technologies. I myself would personally rather die by a weapon of mass destruction than to live out an existence of fear and slavery to a tyrant.
Every time the subject of the illegal wiretaps comes up I remember the documentary "The Goebbels Experiment", a film on the diary of Joseph Goebbels. In it Goebbels complains about Hitler's surveillance of him and his wish to confront him about it. It is a fascinating documentary and I strongly recommend it to anyone who does not want history to repeat itself.
Yeah, whatever happened to Give me Liberty or give me death! in this country. Our forefathers had experienced despotic tyranny first hand and created a system of checks and balances in their great experiment to prevent it. I fear that the old adage "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" will prophetically come true in our country.
Google's "business plan" sounds eerily similar to a free market. What is so unfair about allowing customers to demand and purchase content, handsets, and service according to their desire and needs instead of the suppliers locking them into a technologies and services that they control with an iron fist? GSM and OMA technology boasts of interoperability yet in American carriers cripple the technologies to maximize the profits of their own service offerings.
AT&T has the phone vendors at their mercy and cripple the capabilities of the phones they sell to protect their own vested interests and not those of the consumer. There are have been several GSM phone models sold in Europe with WIFI and VOIP capabilities but those same models are only sold in the US without those capabilities removed or disabled.
Recently Cingular/AT&T and now t-mobile require all J2ME applications that use "advanced" features be signed with a carrier certificate as opposed to a usual code signing certificate from a trusted CA like verisign. The user no longer has control over what software they can run on their phone and whom they can trust with newer phones sold by AT&T's with their customized firmware. If one wishes to make a networked application run on a phone with the AT&T's firmware they will need to fork over big $$$ to get it "certified", leaving hobbyists and small market players out in the cold.
carriers confrontedforum discussion
Who benefits from the carrier being the only entity who decides which software will run on the user's phones? AT&T can cry all they want about capitalism and free markets but until they stop interfering in the markets the same way they accuse the government and google of doing then they only come off as hyprocrites.
America is regressing to a previous state where robber baron's rule the markets and control government policy. We've been there, done that, and don't want to go back!
To think the nazi's only used tatoos to enforce identification and impose tyranny over their undesirable population. Imagine the possibilities with embedded RFID!
I feel the Jones report reflects the general concerns members of the truth movement have.
No one claims that elements of the US government executed 9/11 successfully. If they had the evidence would corroborate the al queda explanation more than it did. If there was nothing to hide then full disclosure is in order. NIST should release the thousands of photos and videos they have possession of. The FBI should release all 80+ video's of the pentagon they claim they have. The American people deserve an earnest independent investigation with subpoena power. Do you honestly believe the Federal government has been completely honest about 9/11? Now put 9/11 in the context of the Iraq war deception. Why shouldn't people question the government's account of 9/11?
Slashdot Mirror
I find it the height of hypocrisy that these so called free market advocates are actively campaigning for the ability of an authoritarian entity to arbitrarily interfere in the market for the exchange of privately owned data. Net neutrality is the Golden Rule of the Internet; treat other peoples data (i.e. property) as you would treat your own. For such a simple concept it is amazing that those so blinded by avarice are incapable of comprehending it.
Nuclear energy is a property of physics and as such it's use for good or bad is determined by people. Last time I checked our Constitution it said all people are created equal (no national qualifier) so why should our political leaders decide who should have the ability to harness nuclear energy and who should not? I of course am not a proponent of nuclear weapons proliferation but of course even I can see America's hypocrisy with nuclear and non-nuclear states. If you are a nuclear state like Israel and Pakistan, you get much more political leverage than an Iraq or Afghanistan who were invaded and will be occupied for generations to come. Israel can commit human rights atrocities in Gaza and no one says anything. Pakistan is ruled by an Islamic dictator and is full of Al Queda (their ISI is even accused of helping to fund the 9-11 attacks). What happens to them? They get American foreign aid (i.e. cash) and military weapons. And if we were really concerned about nuclear proliferation, why on earth would we make a nuclear agreement with Turkey Oh, yeah, that is right, Turkey bribed and extorted our government to assist them. If Iran wants to develop a peaceful nuclear technology in accordance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation agreement they previously signed and we agreed to then they should be allowed to. We have all heard the WMD rabble rousing before based on "undisclosed government sources". I will hold my personal judgment on Iran's nuclear ambitions until the nuclear inspectors release their findings.
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." --Thomas Jefferson
I too pity the people posting here that are so rabidly anti union. One could easily mistake them for communists and fascists who's first acts in power were to abolish labor unions. Perhaps they don't fully realize that the same executives they server under sign labor contracts that outline benefits and termination clauses. If labor contracts are good enough for executives, why shouldn't organized labor sign them? Perhaps communists China is the utopia many of the anti-union poster would like to live in. In communist China there are no real unions and labor and environmental regulations are set by the market (i.e. practically non existent). As labor union membership declined so did the wages in the markets they were involved in. Do we really need to regress back to the guilded age before people wake up and see the value of unions and labor laws?
Yes, Mr. Tamm is a REAL American hero, sacrificing his career and potentially his freedom to preserve and protect the basic rights that are the pillars of our society. As the saying goes, "Evil prospers when good men do nothing." Shame on the cowards at the FBI Justice Department who retaliated against him.
Your praise of oppressive "tactics that actually work" speaks volumes about your character.
so to paraphrase, "Ours is not to question why; ours is just to do or die."
Clearly we Americans need to regain the moral high ground and truly adhere to the principles we claim to represent. This includes ceasing the funding of dictators, halting covert military actions to overthrow Democratically elected governments, and to stop using our prosperity to economically exploit resource rich third world countries. I would think that the number one rule of stopping terrorism is not to be a terrorist.
It is also worth remembering that Liberty is not free and we can not expect that only our brave soldiers to make sacrifices for our country. Certainly totalitarian forms of governments have the advantage of providing greater levels societal security at the cost of individual Liberty. However, in the Great Experiment know as America we have come to find out that contrary to intuition a Republican form of government can exist and prosper. Will America chose to abandon the ethos that made us who we are and instead embrace despotism because it promises structure and security? I personally believe this choice is rooted in each Americans personal philosophy and is manifested in public policy by our Democratically elected leaders.
As Patrick Henry stated so long ago:
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!According to this train of thought one should set aside all virtue and ethical considerations and adopt any tactic one's enemy uses no matter how horrendous for the sole purposes of wining a conflict. The result of such a conflict can only result in all distinction between freedom fighter and terrorist to be lost. The tyrannical use of government and military force to impose the will of one government on another is contradictory to American principle.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
As you can clearly read, these statements are universally applicable to all people and not just to a select few arbitrarily chosen by those in power. Now, after adhering to these beliefs for two hundred years and experiencing first hand the results of the "Great Experiment", why out of cowardice should we abandon them?So as someone who served in the military you must have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution. This document contains the Bill of Rights to help protect Americans from tyrannical government control. Now, if you truly believe in the Constitution and it's principles how can you morally support actions that subvert and deny these same rights to other people? Wasn't the mantra of the United States "Liberty or Death" as Patrick Henry so eloquently stated?
Have you been to a doctor lately? You probably filled out a form with the same intent. "I ____, agree to whatever service _____ deems necessary. I also agree to be liable for and fully pay for all services and charges even in the case when my insurance company _______ refuses to pay."
Kevin Martin has eclipsed Micheal Powell as the largest corporate shill to sit as FCC chairman.
That they ignored the request of the Congress (the will of the people) and instead chose to hide behind the president and so called state secrets. Shame on them and their disrespect for our Republic. They apparently believe that the president will protect them from punishment for their criminal acts. Congress establishes the laws in this country and as representatives of the American people they have every right to make sure the laws are carried out as intended. What is it that the executive branch and these companies are up to that they are so scared of revealing to Congress? According to our president only the terrorists have something to hide from the government so by extension does hiding information from Congress make the president and these companies terrorists?
The doomsday weapons you harp upon were born of secrecy and were created by governments for the intention of being used. I think if you put a vote to the people if they would like to have nuclear, biologically, or chemical weapons that can slaughter countless millions of innocent civilians and curse those who survive and their progeny for numerous generations in existence they would soundly defeat the resolution. There has only been one country that has used nuclear weapons in an act of war and secrecy and strict government control did not prevent it.
In the end it depends on what type of government one believes in. The American founders believed in Democracy and acknowledged that the general public was not the wisest place to store power in but it was the safest. If you truly dismiss this belief as archaic then I suggest you pick up a history book and examine all the despotic governments that existed throughout time and even those that exist today and then imagine what they could due with current and future technologies. I myself would personally rather die by a weapon of mass destruction than to live out an existence of fear and slavery to a tyrant.
Every time the subject of the illegal wiretaps comes up I remember the documentary "The Goebbels Experiment", a film on the diary of Joseph Goebbels. In it Goebbels complains about Hitler's surveillance of him and his wish to confront him about it. It is a fascinating documentary and I strongly recommend it to anyone who does not want history to repeat itself.
Yeah, whatever happened to Give me Liberty or give me death! in this country. Our forefathers had experienced despotic tyranny first hand and created a system of checks and balances in their great experiment to prevent it. I fear that the old adage "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it" will prophetically come true in our country.
I guess these guys haven't seen Terminator 3
Google's "business plan" sounds eerily similar to a free market. What is so unfair about allowing customers to demand and purchase content, handsets, and service according to their desire and needs instead of the suppliers locking them into a technologies and services that they control with an iron fist? GSM and OMA technology boasts of interoperability yet in American carriers cripple the technologies to maximize the profits of their own service offerings.
AT&T has the phone vendors at their mercy and cripple the capabilities of the phones they sell to protect their own vested interests and not those of the consumer. There are have been several GSM phone models sold in Europe with WIFI and VOIP capabilities but those same models are only sold in the US without those capabilities removed or disabled. Recently Cingular/AT&T and now t-mobile require all J2ME applications that use "advanced" features be signed with a carrier certificate as opposed to a usual code signing certificate from a trusted CA like verisign. The user no longer has control over what software they can run on their phone and whom they can trust with newer phones sold by AT&T's with their customized firmware. If one wishes to make a networked application run on a phone with the AT&T's firmware they will need to fork over big $$$ to get it "certified", leaving hobbyists and small market players out in the cold. carriers confronted forum discussion Who benefits from the carrier being the only entity who decides which software will run on the user's phones? AT&T can cry all they want about capitalism and free markets but until they stop interfering in the markets the same way they accuse the government and google of doing then they only come off as hyprocrites.
America is regressing to a previous state where robber baron's rule the markets and control government policy. We've been there, done that, and don't want to go back!
To think the nazi's only used tatoos to enforce identification and impose tyranny over their undesirable population. Imagine the possibilities with embedded RFID!
No one claims that elements of the US government executed 9/11 successfully. If they had the evidence would corroborate the al queda explanation more than it did. If there was nothing to hide then full disclosure is in order. NIST should release the thousands of photos and videos they have possession of. The FBI should release all 80+ video's of the pentagon they claim they have. The American people deserve an earnest independent investigation with subpoena power. Do you honestly believe the Federal government has been completely honest about 9/11? Now put 9/11 in the context of the Iraq war deception. Why shouldn't people question the government's account of 9/11?
The sailors who were there tell of a coverup.
watch the Agent's reaction