Sorry about that. I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that because Lifestyle A or B is normally more expensive, then not subsidizing it is the "anti-subsidy".
No worries. I'm sure that there is some formal term that an Economist PhD has coined that I am not aware of. Maybe negative-subsidy?
I was trying to differentiate it from a fine or penalty, because a fine implies that someone broke a law and was being penalized for doing so. In this case, the individual has not broken a law, but is being penalized anyway.
It scares me because they may be used in a way to restrict/encourage behaviors that would not normally be even legally regulated by the government.
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
They are an insidious way to implement a tax hike as well.
Vice taxes cause the government to be dependant on the 'vice' activity, and thus the government has a vested interest in keeping that line of revenue open. It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product. I prefer to simply stop at the first goal.
What happens when your 'vice' is ended? Too often, vice taxes are used to fund activities unrelated to the ending of the vice, and therefore, if that revenue stream ends, then the government finds that it is now overbudget, and must either run a debt or raise taxes on everyone.
It is a convenient way to disguise a planned general tax hike and make it more palatable by targeting it at an 'unliked' minority. Then, either the minority continues to exist and pay extra taxes, or it ceases to exist, and the government is now overbudget.
So what does that have to do with the grandparent's complaints about subsidizing broadband to rural homes? And what is an "anti-subsidy"? If it is merely not paying someone for their economic choices, then it doesn't have the effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle. Else every dollar you spend on something other than me is an "anti-subsidy" which I really wish you'd stop.
This guy has Lifestyle A. I have lifestyle B, and that guy has lifestyle C. A, B, and C pay the same amount of taxes.
For some reason, the government decided that Lifestyle A is best. And it subsidizes that by providing X to anyone who meets the Lifestyle A conditions. X could be in the form of a direct payment, or like above, a payment to someone else to help implement Lifestyle A.
An anti-subsidy is when the government has determined that Lifestyle C is bad. We have decided that somehow That Guy uses more than his 'fair share' of government services. Instead of charging usage fees for government services, we have decided to hide the cost into the general budget. Therefore anyone following Lifestyle C doesn't have the option to pay directly for their lifestyle, and anyone following A or B is paying a bit more than what they use.
Therefore the government levies a tax on some aspect of Lifestyle C that is distinct from both A and B. As a result, A and B think this is a great idea, since their taxes remain the same. Lifestyle C now has a supplimental negative factor applied to his lifestyle. That is what I meant by calling it an anti-subsidy. You aren't encouraging A or B, but you are penalizing C.
The issue is that it is one of the tools which the government uses to obsfucate the taxes which it levies on a person, and without a clear idea of what you are paying to the government, it is easier for the government to abuse you.
It also creates a new class of crime, and an erosion of your rights. It would be unconstitional to say that C could no longer consume an unhealthy diet, but it is somehow constitutional to say that C must pay more because of that diet?
One of the reasons why I oppose any sort of Federal Healthcare is because the Federal government hasn't shown that it can be trusted to not use even the slightest power responsibly. I'm just not ready to throw it in and have the individual reclassified as a Serf yet again.
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
Wait, whose population? I'm still very much independant and since no one owns me, I'd like to continue to decide what is best for me.
How much does the government own of me? Can I buy it back? May I not accept your generosity and therefore be exempt from your decision that I'm costing you too much money?
wonder if there is someone who can say IAAL and tell us if no one challenging EULAs after so long can make them defacto "legal"?
It matters, but sometimes not fighting a case is the best strategy. Consider the Heller 2nd Amendment case that challenged DCs gun ban.
Human Rights activists had to wait for just the right person to use as the perfect example as a 'wronged person'. You could have theoretically picked anyone in DC to use as the example, but with any soft of flaw they would have been flayed in the media and the case might have turned out differently.
And that is a SERIOUS problem. What would have happened if Heller were slightly less of a boyscout? It is possible that the case would had been dropped before going to the Supreme Court, or even worse, it could have gone the other way. If it had gone the other way, then in simply trying to defend your Rights, you would have actually harmed them almost irrevocably.
What if Heller got most of the way there, then couldn't afford to pursue his appeal? He would be out tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and STILL wouldn't have ended the infringement of his Rights.
You are right that you have to defend your rights or you will lose them. (Consider the terms 'Unusual, or Reasonable'. Those are defined by our current society, and thus the importance of defending what we have is reinforced.
However, it is my opinion, that defending those rights through the courts is an option that many people no longer have due to the lack of access to the judicial system. (money)
One, that you can get more jail time for moving 440,000 from one DB column to another than for trying to have someone killed.
Don't underestimate the power of money.
Take the example of Bob and George.
At age 18, Bob was shot and killed. At age 18, George was forced into indentured servitude and could never earn enough to buy his freedom. In addition, due to his inability to raise any money, he was denied access to the life we all know and enjoy today. He was unable to travel, unable to find a wife, unable to pursue componsation in the courts. He toiled his entire life for his master, and eventually died in the fields.
Not saying that number 1 isn't bad. I'm just saying that financially crippling someone is a lot more heinous than just stealing their wallet.
I think solicitation for murder should have a higher penalty.
Both are very very bad, however attempted murder could be a crime of passion or intense anger with very little reasoning. While solicitation for murder always indicate premeditation
I've always been of the same opinion with regard to crimes relating to murder.
1st Degree: Obviously in this case the most severe 2nd Degree: I can understand that the 'heat of the moment' can be a mitigating factor.
However, I believe that the following should receive the EXACT SAME penalty as the above examples.
Attempted Murder: You should get a lesser sentence simply because you failed to achieve your goal? Your intent was the same. If you were convinced that someone was deathly allergic to peanuts and you hit him in the face with a gallon of peanut butter, only later to find out that it was an allergy to wheat, that doesn't change the fact that you had completely planned to have that person die, and only failed due to your own idiocy.
Solicitation for Murder: This should carry a higher sentence than 1st degree murder. First, you are contributing to an increase in crime in society more than a simple murder (2 people involved instead of 1) Second, there is a reduced ability to change your mind at the last minute, thus it is more likely that the person would end up being killed. It just seems to me that solicitation for murder is perhaps one of the worst crimes you can possibly commit.
Electricity is not a right. It will get cut off if you don't pay the bill. We must be pretty well off in this country when we can start calling commodities and the inventions of men "rights."
You may have not thought to consider what We gave the power companies. The People, in granting right-of-ways and providing a limited monopoly for the product gave up some of their tangible wealth in the form of unencumbered land and pseudotangible rights in the form of our right to associate with a different company.
The trade-off for ceding these collective assets/rights is something that we negotiated in the form of universal access.
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
If a tax were levied that placed a $1000 burdon on anyone who drives a red car, it is effectively a subsidy on the non-red car population. In this case, the non-red car population ends up $1000 ahead of the red car population.
Perhaps the news will arrive in the form of a rope. The kleptobankers and Wall Street vampires need a bit of stretching
Now, I always make sure to include a rope in my questing kit. But I've never heard anything about using a rope on vampires. I'm not sure how that would work. Is the rope treated with garlic, or consecrated thread?
Trees don't remove CO2 from the atmosphere in any permanant way.
If you go from 0 trees, to 1 tree that you replant every time the old one dies then you have removed 1 trees worth of carbon from the air as long as you keep a tree growing.
If you go from 0 trees to 1 tree that you harvest every time it is fully grown and use the wood in building a house or some other permanent structure and keep replanting that tree every 10-15 years then you are removing 1 tree's worth of carbon from the atmosphere every 10-15 years.
It is only if you plant a tree and let it die and decompose and plant no additional trees that your example holds.
When methodology that could be compared to this is used in other fields of science, like geology, it is almost never questioned. When a soil core from Manhattan Island shows layers of sand deposited by beach over-topping during hurricanes, no one says "That's not proof that hurricanes could hit New York - all it proves is that sand was deposited here in the past".
All that sand in a soil core would prove is that sand was at a specific level in the soil core.
Could the sand have been deposited there by some Native American settlement? Did the Hudson River's banks extend along that area during that time period? Did an earthquake cause a tidal wave which moved the dune sand? Was there a 100yr or 1000yr flood which deposited the sand?
You see, it IS possible to question something as simple as what you have proposed since without knowing more details, a lot of what you have stated is based on an assumption. If you had added that the sand contained the same type of sand and diatoms (or whatever is in dune sand) as nearby dunes, then we can agree that it is dune sand, but not what caused it. If you found that it contained elements which would have to be introduced from the ocean and not the rivers, then we might agree that it came from an ocean tidal source (meteor, earthquake, hurricane?).
The point is that while the climate change is happening, the means which these politicians are using to push for change in our behavior REEKS of scaremongering to rally support and get us to cough up the money.
My personal point of view: "We can't stop the trend, and our money is better spent on adjusting than attempting to stop the inevitable."
they are NOT in it for the money. greenpeace is also not in it for the money. If you actually believe the greens and the scientists are in it for the big bucks, i'll call you an idiot
Ever watch what happens to a group once they accomplish the goal they set out to do? What happens when they win? Do they pat each other on the back and say good job, nice working with you, have a good day.
Have you ever seen a social movement or political change organization (That isn't an astroturfing front) which has any significant paid workforce disband when the legislation they were pushing passes?
Take a look at MADD as an example. The founder of that organization actually quit when the organization shifted from one which was to raise awareness (and punishment) regarding drunk driving, to one that expanded its scope to continue its revenue stream.
It isn't an issue of 'greens' or 'scientists' deliberately seeking to falsify their information to make the 'big bucks' as you call it, but you put the wrong kind of pressure on a person when their continued employment depends on the results of their studies.
While this *IS* unquestionably a form of security through obscurity, I can clearly see whey a security force would want to prevent this information being public.
Eventually almost all security relies on elements of obscurity. In the real world, it is pretty much impossible to provide total security.
To someone who disagrees that obscurity is important, I'll ask you this,
"Should we remove the dark glass domes and one way mirrors that cover security cameras?"
Say I build a house and rent it out. Once the house is built it doesn't really cost me anything from month to month So the rent must be almost zero right?. Of course I had to borrow to pay for the house (the infrastructure) and I need to make monthly payments on top of the small costs involved with repairs, council fees, etc.
You missed his point.
Let's say your house costs $500/month in upkeep/taxes/overhead. and another $500 in lost investment opportunity (interest on the value of the home). A reasonable rent would be somewhere along the lines of $1100/month. At that rate, you would be making 10% profit, which is a good target to shoot for in almost any business.
If you were to charge rates similar to what the phone companies are trying to charge for overage, then you would be charging $10,000/month.
Of course, since we are talking about the rental market, which is competitive, there is no way that you would ever be able to charge that as people would flock to your competition. However in the data market, all the companies have somehow and independantly stumbled onto this extremely inflated cost. They get away with it for two reasons, their product isn't a major life need, and people aren't yet used to using services which make use of the connnections which these companies were selling them.
On what planet is it necessary to keep facts like these secret?
Is it necessary to reveal them in this manner, or would the interest of the public be served by simply knowing that:
1. TSOs follow a procedure when explosives are discovered 2. X-rays have a test procedure 3. Only certain personnel are allowed to clear indivudals 4. Aircrew are subjected to modified screening procedures.
Is it relevant to know the details of those items? If it was related to my FOIA request, perhaps, but I think we should keep in mind that an open government doesn't require fully open records to meet the spirit of an open government.
If I somehow needed a database from a military hospital for a court case I was involved in, I would hope that any patient records would be anonymized if they weren't necessary for the trial.
Just as we don't necessarily need to know the exact metrics which cause an x-ray machine to fail an inspection unless we were specifically interested in the testing procedures of x-ray machines.
Any badge is easy to fake visually. The rest of the data is very easy to fake until you start getting into the really well designed on-card chips. Everything in between is just a matter of cost.
But any ID is backed up with a readily accessible database to confirm photos/details and potentially other points of verification (passcodes, etc)
As I understand it, when releasing material that is partially blacked out, in most departments the procedure is to simply black it out on a hard copy and then photocopy the hard copy or scan it if it is to go online.
The reason that we often see these types of failed redaction is that they attempt to black out the text before it is printed, then you can scan it. If you don't black out the text prior to printing it is possible that the scanner picks up on subtle hints as to what the text might have been.
Take a black marker and go over a printed page, you can probably tell a bit what was printed there. That may be preserved through the scanner.
The best way to protected text in this manner is either to remove the text completely, or black it out prior to printing. I've never cared for the sloppy style of blacked out text, as it causes problems (not exhaustive):
1. Spacing can give clues 2. The censor might be overzealous because of the spacing thus withholding more information than necessary 3. They forget that black over text does not remove the text in electronic copies.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry about that. I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that because Lifestyle A or B is normally more expensive, then not subsidizing it is the "anti-subsidy".
No worries. I'm sure that there is some formal term that an Economist PhD has coined that I am not aware of. Maybe negative-subsidy?
I was trying to differentiate it from a fine or penalty, because a fine implies that someone broke a law and was being penalized for doing so. In this case, the individual has not broken a law, but is being penalized anyway.
It scares me because they may be used in a way to restrict/encourage behaviors that would not normally be even legally regulated by the government.
The lines on my income tax form for Medicare and Social Security, and the giant number behind them.
Does that line also indicate that your way of living is the right way to live?
Vice taxes don't deter vices. They just cause more problems down the line. So now a particular subset of the population not only is addicted, but also is poor and perhaps driven to crime. Taxes are simply a means of revenue in this case, since the demand is inelastic due to addiction.
They are an insidious way to implement a tax hike as well.
Vice taxes cause the government to be dependant on the 'vice' activity, and thus the government has a vested interest in keeping that line of revenue open. It is why I oppose the 'Legalize it, Tax it' mantra that gets spread around regarding a certain product. I prefer to simply stop at the first goal.
What happens when your 'vice' is ended? Too often, vice taxes are used to fund activities unrelated to the ending of the vice, and therefore, if that revenue stream ends, then the government finds that it is now overbudget, and must either run a debt or raise taxes on everyone.
It is a convenient way to disguise a planned general tax hike and make it more palatable by targeting it at an 'unliked' minority. Then, either the minority continues to exist and pay extra taxes, or it ceases to exist, and the government is now overbudget.
So what does that have to do with the grandparent's complaints about subsidizing broadband to rural homes? And what is an "anti-subsidy"? If it is merely not paying someone for their economic choices, then it doesn't have the effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle. Else every dollar you spend on something other than me is an "anti-subsidy" which I really wish you'd stop.
This guy has Lifestyle A. I have lifestyle B, and that guy has lifestyle C. A, B, and C pay the same amount of taxes.
For some reason, the government decided that Lifestyle A is best. And it subsidizes that by providing X to anyone who meets the Lifestyle A conditions. X could be in the form of a direct payment, or like above, a payment to someone else to help implement Lifestyle A.
An anti-subsidy is when the government has determined that Lifestyle C is bad. We have decided that somehow That Guy uses more than his 'fair share' of government services. Instead of charging usage fees for government services, we have decided to hide the cost into the general budget. Therefore anyone following Lifestyle C doesn't have the option to pay directly for their lifestyle, and anyone following A or B is paying a bit more than what they use.
Therefore the government levies a tax on some aspect of Lifestyle C that is distinct from both A and B. As a result, A and B think this is a great idea, since their taxes remain the same. Lifestyle C now has a supplimental negative factor applied to his lifestyle. That is what I meant by calling it an anti-subsidy. You aren't encouraging A or B, but you are penalizing C.
The issue is that it is one of the tools which the government uses to obsfucate the taxes which it levies on a person, and without a clear idea of what you are paying to the government, it is easier for the government to abuse you.
It also creates a new class of crime, and an erosion of your rights. It would be unconstitional to say that C could no longer consume an unhealthy diet, but it is somehow constitutional to say that C must pay more because of that diet?
One of the reasons why I oppose any sort of Federal Healthcare is because the Federal government hasn't shown that it can be trusted to not use even the slightest power responsibly. I'm just not ready to throw it in and have the individual reclassified as a Serf yet again.
Well, when a significant portion of your population is becoming temporarily and/or permanently useless thanks to vice-related illnesses, the decision not to tax certain vices can become an anti-subsidy of its own.
Wait, whose population? I'm still very much independant and since no one owns me, I'd like to continue to decide what is best for me.
How much does the government own of me? Can I buy it back? May I not accept your generosity and therefore be exempt from your decision that I'm costing you too much money?
wonder if there is someone who can say IAAL and tell us if no one challenging EULAs after so long can make them defacto "legal"?
It matters, but sometimes not fighting a case is the best strategy. Consider the Heller 2nd Amendment case that challenged DCs gun ban.
Human Rights activists had to wait for just the right person to use as the perfect example as a 'wronged person'. You could have theoretically picked anyone in DC to use as the example, but with any soft of flaw they would have been flayed in the media and the case might have turned out differently.
And that is a SERIOUS problem. What would have happened if Heller were slightly less of a boyscout? It is possible that the case would had been dropped before going to the Supreme Court, or even worse, it could have gone the other way. If it had gone the other way, then in simply trying to defend your Rights, you would have actually harmed them almost irrevocably.
What if Heller got most of the way there, then couldn't afford to pursue his appeal? He would be out tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars and STILL wouldn't have ended the infringement of his Rights.
You are right that you have to defend your rights or you will lose them. (Consider the terms 'Unusual, or Reasonable'. Those are defined by our current society, and thus the importance of defending what we have is reinforced.
However, it is my opinion, that defending those rights through the courts is an option that many people no longer have due to the lack of access to the judicial system. (money)
One, that you can get more jail time for moving 440,000 from one DB column to another than for trying to have someone killed.
Don't underestimate the power of money.
Take the example of Bob and George.
At age 18, Bob was shot and killed.
At age 18, George was forced into indentured servitude and could never earn enough to buy his freedom. In addition, due to his inability to raise any money, he was denied access to the life we all know and enjoy today. He was unable to travel, unable to find a wife, unable to pursue componsation in the courts. He toiled his entire life for his master, and eventually died in the fields.
Not saying that number 1 isn't bad. I'm just saying that financially crippling someone is a lot more heinous than just stealing their wallet.
I think solicitation for murder should have a higher penalty.
Both are very very bad, however attempted murder could be a crime of passion or intense anger with very little reasoning. While solicitation for murder always indicate premeditation
I've always been of the same opinion with regard to crimes relating to murder.
1st Degree: Obviously in this case the most severe
2nd Degree: I can understand that the 'heat of the moment' can be a mitigating factor.
However, I believe that the following should receive the EXACT SAME penalty as the above examples.
Attempted Murder: You should get a lesser sentence simply because you failed to achieve your goal? Your intent was the same. If you were convinced that someone was deathly allergic to peanuts and you hit him in the face with a gallon of peanut butter, only later to find out that it was an allergy to wheat, that doesn't change the fact that you had completely planned to have that person die, and only failed due to your own idiocy.
Solicitation for Murder: This should carry a higher sentence than 1st degree murder. First, you are contributing to an increase in crime in society more than a simple murder (2 people involved instead of 1) Second, there is a reduced ability to change your mind at the last minute, thus it is more likely that the person would end up being killed. It just seems to me that solicitation for murder is perhaps one of the worst crimes you can possibly commit.
Electricity is not a right. It will get cut off if you don't pay the bill.
We must be pretty well off in this country when we can start calling commodities and the inventions of men "rights."
You may have not thought to consider what We gave the power companies. The People, in granting right-of-ways and providing a limited monopoly for the product gave up some of their tangible wealth in the form of unencumbered land and pseudotangible rights in the form of our right to associate with a different company.
The trade-off for ceding these collective assets/rights is something that we negotiated in the form of universal access.
This notion of subsidizing lifestyles is really annoying. If you want cheap fast broadband move to civilization. If you want clean air and open spaces move to the country.
I'd expand on that and say that the notion of anti-subsidizing lifestyles is equally annoying. Adding taxes to 'unpopular' activities or products has the same effect of subsidizing the popular lifestyle.
If a tax were levied that placed a $1000 burdon on anyone who drives a red car, it is effectively a subsidy on the non-red car population. In this case, the non-red car population ends up $1000 ahead of the red car population.
Do those clauses even have any legal validity?
They may or they may not. Does it really matter when 'upholding your Rights' in court costs tens of thousands of dollars and takes years to resolve?
He attempted to steal $440,000
After the police were already busting down his door (Unless I misread the article) That makes it seem like he had already stolen more.
Perhaps the news will arrive in the form of a rope. The kleptobankers and Wall Street vampires need a bit of stretching
Now, I always make sure to include a rope in my questing kit. But I've never heard anything about using a rope on vampires. I'm not sure how that would work. Is the rope treated with garlic, or consecrated thread?
the only one that's shorter and more common might be ICE, which this is derived from
Really? I thought it was derived from aromatic herbs.
Trees don't remove CO2 from the atmosphere in any permanant way.
If you go from 0 trees, to 1 tree that you replant every time the old one dies then you have removed 1 trees worth of carbon from the air as long as you keep a tree growing.
If you go from 0 trees to 1 tree that you harvest every time it is fully grown and use the wood in building a house or some other permanent structure and keep replanting that tree every 10-15 years then you are removing 1 tree's worth of carbon from the atmosphere every 10-15 years.
It is only if you plant a tree and let it die and decompose and plant no additional trees that your example holds.
Yeah, and while we're at it, NASA: "Orion" means exploding nukes under a blast plate, not providing a cushy crew cabin. :)
I enjoy when the names they pick have myths that somewhat match the goals of the project.
So for the original 'Orion' would Hephaestus have been more appropriate? What's a good myth for 'Lighting a fire under your ass'?
Project 'Wan Hu'?
When methodology that could be compared to this is used in other fields of science, like geology, it is almost never questioned. When a soil core from Manhattan Island shows layers of sand deposited by beach over-topping during hurricanes, no one says "That's not proof that hurricanes could hit New York - all it proves is that sand was deposited here in the past".
All that sand in a soil core would prove is that sand was at a specific level in the soil core.
Could the sand have been deposited there by some Native American settlement?
Did the Hudson River's banks extend along that area during that time period?
Did an earthquake cause a tidal wave which moved the dune sand?
Was there a 100yr or 1000yr flood which deposited the sand?
You see, it IS possible to question something as simple as what you have proposed since without knowing more details, a lot of what you have stated is based on an assumption. If you had added that the sand contained the same type of sand and diatoms (or whatever is in dune sand) as nearby dunes, then we can agree that it is dune sand, but not what caused it. If you found that it contained elements which would have to be introduced from the ocean and not the rivers, then we might agree that it came from an ocean tidal source (meteor, earthquake, hurricane?).
The point is that while the climate change is happening, the means which these politicians are using to push for change in our behavior REEKS of scaremongering to rally support and get us to cough up the money.
My personal point of view: "We can't stop the trend, and our money is better spent on adjusting than attempting to stop the inevitable."
they are NOT in it for the money. greenpeace is also not in it for the money. If you actually believe the greens and the scientists are in it for the big bucks, i'll call you an idiot
Ever watch what happens to a group once they accomplish the goal they set out to do? What happens when they win? Do they pat each other on the back and say good job, nice working with you, have a good day.
Have you ever seen a social movement or political change organization (That isn't an astroturfing front) which has any significant paid workforce disband when the legislation they were pushing passes?
Take a look at MADD as an example. The founder of that organization actually quit when the organization shifted from one which was to raise awareness (and punishment) regarding drunk driving, to one that expanded its scope to continue its revenue stream.
It isn't an issue of 'greens' or 'scientists' deliberately seeking to falsify their information to make the 'big bucks' as you call it, but you put the wrong kind of pressure on a person when their continued employment depends on the results of their studies.
While this *IS* unquestionably a form of security through obscurity, I can clearly see whey a security force would want to prevent this information being public.
Eventually almost all security relies on elements of obscurity. In the real world, it is pretty much impossible to provide total security.
To someone who disagrees that obscurity is important, I'll ask you this,
"Should we remove the dark glass domes and one way mirrors that cover security cameras?"
. Despite some politician's desire to paint the military as a bunch of dumb poor people, the truth is the exact opposite.
Which politician?
And the exact opposite... the military is a bunch of smart, rich people?
Say I build a house and rent it out. Once the house is built it doesn't really cost me anything from month to month So the rent must be almost zero right?. Of course I had to borrow to pay for the house (the infrastructure) and I need to make monthly payments on top of the small costs involved with repairs, council fees, etc.
You missed his point.
Let's say your house costs $500/month in upkeep/taxes/overhead. and another $500 in lost investment opportunity (interest on the value of the home). A reasonable rent would be somewhere along the lines of $1100/month. At that rate, you would be making 10% profit, which is a good target to shoot for in almost any business.
If you were to charge rates similar to what the phone companies are trying to charge for overage, then you would be charging $10,000/month.
Of course, since we are talking about the rental market, which is competitive, there is no way that you would ever be able to charge that as people would flock to your competition. However in the data market, all the companies have somehow and independantly stumbled onto this extremely inflated cost. They get away with it for two reasons, their product isn't a major life need, and people aren't yet used to using services which make use of the connnections which these companies were selling them.
I, however, am not subject to the USAPATRIOT act.
Perhaps not, but there is nothing against the UK collecting data on foreigners (US citizens) and the US collecting data on foreigners (UK citizens).
And there is nothing against the US and UK receiving the data the other country collected.
On what planet is it necessary to keep facts like these secret?
Is it necessary to reveal them in this manner, or would the interest of the public be served by simply knowing that:
1. TSOs follow a procedure when explosives are discovered
2. X-rays have a test procedure
3. Only certain personnel are allowed to clear indivudals
4. Aircrew are subjected to modified screening procedures.
Is it relevant to know the details of those items? If it was related to my FOIA request, perhaps, but I think we should keep in mind that an open government doesn't require fully open records to meet the spirit of an open government.
If I somehow needed a database from a military hospital for a court case I was involved in, I would hope that any patient records would be anonymized if they weren't necessary for the trial.
Just as we don't necessarily need to know the exact metrics which cause an x-ray machine to fail an inspection unless we were specifically interested in the testing procedures of x-ray machines.
CIA Badges look pretty easy to fake......
Any badge is easy to fake visually. The rest of the data is very easy to fake until you start getting into the really well designed on-card chips. Everything in between is just a matter of cost.
But any ID is backed up with a readily accessible database to confirm photos/details and potentially other points of verification (passcodes, etc)
As I understand it, when releasing material that is partially blacked out, in most departments the procedure is to simply black it out on a hard copy and then photocopy the hard copy or scan it if it is to go online.
The reason that we often see these types of failed redaction is that they attempt to black out the text before it is printed, then you can scan it. If you don't black out the text prior to printing it is possible that the scanner picks up on subtle hints as to what the text might have been.
Take a black marker and go over a printed page, you can probably tell a bit what was printed there. That may be preserved through the scanner.
The best way to protected text in this manner is either to remove the text completely, or black it out prior to printing. I've never cared for the sloppy style of blacked out text, as it causes problems (not exhaustive):
1. Spacing can give clues
2. The censor might be overzealous because of the spacing thus withholding more information than necessary
3. They forget that black over text does not remove the text in electronic copies.