champu

If two or more replies are made to a speakers' corner post, the OP will respond to the least insightful one and ignore the others, ensuring all discussions go to hell as rapidly as possible.

If someone actually got to the point where they "couldn't be happier" they'd probably need to be committed.

"...in formation."

I dunno, am I giving the author too much credit to think there's a Democratic Party / donkey joke in there somewhere?

It's no more racist than this logo...

I actually really like that one. I think they'd go well with "megastones" and "microscores"

Same for you what a fucked up position I would write a response to this reaction to the point Bill brought up, but I already did years ago when someone flipped out when I brought up the same point. So I'll just link to it.

This is a broader question than you may even realize. How does anyone, with any given underlying rationale, get worked up and start shouting [and voting] to get their way? And after that, how does everyone else come to find out about it? Abortion, gay marriage, and ID in schools seem like some really bizarre battles for Christian folks to focus on. I think their arguments fall flat as it is, but if that was all any Christian fought over I'd be really worried about the future of humanity. Thankfully, I don't believe that's the case. There are a lot of Christians that do focus on these things, however, and I think the reason the anti-evolution, pro-life, and anti-lgbt movements gain so much traction is because they have the morality stamp of approval and more importantly because they are easy. The "so much time worrying" bit of your post stood out to me because that's all it is. You can feel accomplished in fighting to achieve these "great moral victories" and you don't actually have to do anything other than complain and vote other people's rights away. No personal sacrifices necessary. It might be worthwhile for everyone, Christian or otherwise, to take a little inventory of the things they feel so strongly about and ask themselves if any require them to do anything.

People, in general, should focus on walking away from discussions [, arguments, knife fights] with a better understanding of why they think the things they do rather than whether they changed the other person's mind. This is why I've really come to dislike the idea of "common sense", it's what you attribute your belief to when you have no idea why you hold it.

Vending machines even.

I can't decide if you're unwilling or unable to see how misrepresentative these statements are regarding the points they were trying to make. I fully understand the points and definitions I guess life is more than that to me Unwilling? Unable? You or me? You imply I am unable to see a truth Who's truth? Kallend said nothing more than that his view is that human-being-ship starts at birth, and before that it's solely the mother's business. His brining up that this coincides with getting a SSN and becoming a dependent on a tax return was tongue-in-cheek. Billvon brought up tumors to deconstruct maadmax's argument regarding separate physiology. If you introduce a premise to make your argument and someone can show that your premise leads to an absurd conclusion (in this case the absurd conclusion that baby = tumor) then you discard the premise from the argument and try to come up with a something else. It's simply a means of discourse and in no way implies that the person actually believes the absurd conclusion.

I can't decide if you're unwilling or unable to see how misrepresentative these statements are regarding the points they were trying to make.

What usually ends up motivating me to post here is not people "being wrong" but rather people who are generally "on my side" that are making ridiculous arguments. As it turns out, there's really no place for someone just trying to inform on these boards. Not for long anyway. You have to be able to feed off the anger in people's posts (which probably isn't healthy) or be able to laugh at the idiocy (which doesn't last forever.)

If our launch codes are static, yeah, I want that released. That would force the military to fix a stupid vulnerability. To access my office's VPN, I use a two part passcode. One is static, known to be. The other changes every 60 seconds, is displayed by an RSA token. So nothing gets sold on Ebay. Right, but there's an algorithm and sync information associated with the RSA token that has to be kept secret or you could spoof it; you're just drawing the line in a different place. All security relies on obscurity when you get right down to it (i.e. when you get to a high enough network layer), and there will always be things that have to be kept secure, some private, some government owned. Therefore, there will always be some level of obscurity (secrecy) needed in the government. QED. Arguing about the technical means of the nation and what one diplomat said to another diplomat together as a general discussion of whether the government should be allowed to keep anything secret is an inexcusably stupid fucking exercise... I hope people on both sides of this discussion can take a step back and realize that.

About 900 on my current Velo 90. It's on its third line set and second slider. The rest of my canopies are listed in this thread from a while back. I plan to jump it until it explodes (preferably during a strength test during a reline) and then buy another one.

I don't happen to own any shares of Apple if that's what you mean. Look, I just think you're jumping to the conclusion of malice awful quickly. This sounds like supply chain management 101.

True, yet it also has the effect of raising barriers to entry to the market, keeping prices for their own products artificially high, and stifling competition, all simultaneously. Who benefits from that except Apple? Oh, I dunno... maybe the touchscreen manufacturers? ...particularly those that stay up with the latest processes and technology.

I think just about everyone in this thread is being ridiculous, yourself included whether you realize it or not. This situation is not "18-pages-complicated"

They also worked for private companies, which is a different story. It would be possible for the information taken in your example above to be copyrighted. They may have also signed (and violated) NDAs which would be a civil matter in addition to theft. "Works" created on the government's dime are in the public domain by default and are generally available via a FOIA request. If it's classified in accordance with the E.O. du jour, then you can only access it after signing what basically amounts to an NDA with criminal penalties behind it. It's not possible to be charged with anything related to handling of classified material if you've never signed such an agreement. The only people who can get in trouble are the person who gave the information to a third party, or anyone read in who holds up something that was leaked and says, "yup, definitely authentic." (which would be incredibly stupid.) If (and only if) Assange conspired with Manning prior to the release of information, he could be charged as well, but it still wouldn't be for theft. In any event, I've heard nothing to suggest that this actually happened.

The problem I see with that statement is who gets to decide what's criminal or corrupt -- that same government? Wendy P. The government is not that homogenous, as I'm sure you know. And by virtue of the fact that Manning was "military people" that's effectively what happened here. [no longer directed at you Wendy, your post just motivated me to post to the thread again...] The classification system has ways of protecting whistle blowers and providing channels for non-advocate review of questionable activities. I've pointed to the sections of the E.O. that state this but ctrl+a, ctrl+c, ctrl+v on to a thumb drive and giving it to the press is absolutely unacceptable even if 0.01% of the information is about war crimes. Being too lazy to actually pick out things to blow the whistle on is not an excuse to not follow the rules. I've never said that Assange should be tried for treason (which is ridiculous) or have some cryptic sexual allegations against him trumped up in an effort to discredit. All I've said is I think he's an ass who would rather pander to his fans than address concerns about what he did, who doesn't actually care if he releases documents that don't involve any illegal activiity but embarrass people, damage relationships, or put people/locations in danger, and whose nomination for a Nobel prize is absurd.

Don't know if you are referring to me here, but I'm neither "military people" nor one who has historically "turned a blind eye to war's 'collateral damage.'" Feel free to search these forums for numerous posts I've made about drones, COIN, or terrorists (for example) if you don't believe me. Can I take your above comment to mean you disapprove of "somebody being exposed [and killed] on the espionage front"?

The post you were replying to was not addressing Assange's actions. I stepped in to temper the arguments that were getting a little overboard like claiming that the government had no right to keep information secret to begin with or that all the information was purely embarrassing and not actually dangerous. I usually try to stay out of loud chair-throwing arguments like this thread and after some of the responses I've gotten here I really start to appreciate why Marg stopped posting here altogether.

"Pretty good job" doesn't cut it if CNN still found names of informants and people under surveillance as indicated in the article. If you're unable to see that as harmful unless someone fedexes you a head for your personal examination then this conversation is over.

Absolutely, and if you read the executive orders this paragraph is talking about (the latest of which I linked to earlier in the thread, previous versions are referenced from there) you will note what things both sides agree on as valid reasons to classify things. Hint: amongst them are most dealings with foreign governments. What? The reason I posted this article is because you claimed the government had no constitutional authority to keep secrets or to decide what should be secret. All three branches of government disagree with you as you're noting in your excerpts. I guess I'm not sure what points of yours you're talking about any more.

I linked earlier in this thread to where I posted this last summer: http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/07/29/wikileaks.mullen.gates/index.html?hpt=T2