The solution to this problem, if we could institute it, would be to fine the living fuck out of anyone buying rhino horn that they believe to be real... and vaporizing poachers

Good idea, sir. We'll be sure to get the World Police right onto that, right after we consolidate our New World Order by quashing the outbreak of ungoodthink in Eurasia. As for vaporizing the poachers themselves... What do you think of drones with M-388 rounds? Make a real pretty little crater.

Funny that he should mention finger-pointing, too, only to point fingers at "paid trolls" and FUD as well. Physician, heal thyself.

it is hard to feel sympathy for someone victimized by a system that they helped to create.

Maybe, but you know, our justice system isn't supposed to be about whether or not you're likeable enough, either.

Now normally, cameras would be a bad idea IMHO, but this is a public service operated by public funds.

If only... a private service operated by public funds is closer to the truth.

No, of course FDR didn't cause the Depression (just extended it).

He was a commie in the 30s and early 40s, despite the fact he never sent anyone to the Gulag (kinda the defining aspect of Communism in the 30s and early 40s)

If you want to be pedantic about what is and what isn't Communism, you could at least break out the Manifesto because I can think of a lot of ideological nitpicks that you could put in advance of "did not establish a gulag".

the business community fought him tooth and nail the whole way ... but he enriched his friends in business, etc.

Yeah, go read about the National Recovery Administration. Essentially they suspended antitrust law if you adopted a certain minimum wage. Clarence Darrow (of Scopes Monkey Trial fame) briefly headed up the National Recovery Review Board, a body which issued a few nice reports on how effectively this crushed smaller businesses, and was then promptly dissolved. You could try reading one or two. (Of course the Supreme Court found the act establishing the administration unconstitutional, leading to the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, an utterly transparent attempt to pack the Supreme Court.) The Montgomery Ward incident, incidentally, was much much later, in 1944, during the war.

but then it was never sold as a way to reduce overall costs.

Hahahhahahahahahahhaha... let's see what Google can say on the topic in the next 15 seconds... Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and the deficit and instead stressing a promise to "improve it." -- Politico, 8/9/2010. (I'm sure I could find more coverage in the event that you don't think Politico's worth the paper it's printed on.)

they were the ones beating the "FDR is a Commie" drum when he created Social Security, etc.

FDR was a Commie, though. We only see Social Security seven or eight decades after the fact, but the FDR administration completely overhauled the nation's economy, especially the agricultural sector, placing enormous swaths under extensive government control, with explicit production targets and price targets. The administration actively disbelieved in competition and a free market, and thought it could restore the nation to prosperity by paying people to fallow their land and by burning crops. By "disbelieved in a free market", I don't mean that they had a bunch of Regulators out there keeping Rich and Powerful People from doing Bad Things. I mean that they kept the Rich and Powerful People in business because they were rich and powerful friends of the FDR administration, and they did a lot to help them.

The FDR administration's interventions are a primary reason that the Great Depression was so Great. Fortunately, most of them were disassembled after World War II, resulting in an impressive game of catch-up as the nation returned to economic growth and prosperity (and unfortunately convincing some people that war is an economic catalyst instead of an exercise in spending valuable effort blowing stuff up, including some of the most economically valuable stuff out there, human lives).

Anyway. If you hate Big Agriculture, factory farms, and crop monocultures, then you should despise FDR, who erected the system which brought them upon us.

As for the rest, Social Security was the icing on the cake. It's an out-and-out wealth transfer in a way that the other programs, but at least it's an honest wealth transfer -- a generational wealth transfer, and future generations are likely to be richer. It makes a ton of economic sense as a transfer program (by tying your retirement pay to actually working it avoids the worst negative incentives of transfer programs, among other things). You just need to make sure the demographics and economic growth work out relative to the benefits -- easily doable. From an economic standpoint, it's wildly superior to the current health-care reform effort, which... let's just say it hasn't been a wild success at delivering its headline promise of cheaper health care for all.

The driver is not "sharing" anything, nor is the passenger. This is a taxi service.

UberPOOL and Lyft Line, anyone?

For 36 years, Senator Joe Biden commuted by Amtrak. If he were still a Senator he'd still be riding the train.

Yeah, and notice how the Acela makes a stop at Wilmington, DE. Must have been convenient.

The funny thing is that the Germans have already substantially bailed out Greece's existing debt, and everyone expects that they'll take massive debt write-offs. But the real problem is that the bailout was finite, so suddenly Greece needed to run a balanced budget -- instead of a 10% deficit. Greek politicians have sold their public on the idea that these cuts are the fault of the Germans being really mean and obnoxious and demanding onerous repayment schedules. This is part of an impressively effective propaganda machine for an increasingly authoritarian government where Syriza officials are characterizing dissent from their policies as treasonous "fifth column" collaboration with the shadowy outside capitalist conspiracies.

What Greece really needs is reform that will allow its private sector to actually conduct capitalist, profit-making businesses. Presently it is hampered by an onerous and corrupt bureaucracy that enjoys bribery and favors existing cartels over new businesses, some of the world's strongest labor unions who will fight any reform that would make new employers interested in establishing a business, and a population which views more government spending and government jobs as the answer to all economic woes (the public sector is an awesome 40% of Greece's economy) even as the government has run out of tax revenues to spend. Speaking of which, Greece also needs to somehow move from "taxes are stupidly high because most people evade them anyway" to a normal regime.

Instead, Greece will stifle dissent and double down on a system that has made universal healthcare available to anyone who can afford to bribe their doctor. Their exit from the Euro and further economic stagnation is probably inevitable.

This may have also been a move to deal a blow to Coptic christians, a religious minority in the mostly-Islamic and pork-unfriendly region.

I have never, not once, heard a programmer use the word "brogrammer". I have only heard it used by SJWs when denigrating programmers, and the companies they work for (Amazon in this case).

I'm a programmer, and I've met some brogrammers in my lifetime. They were easy enough to tell from regular programmers: they're the ones on Caltrain sipping Budweiser and talking about how great it is to work at Zynga and how those people who got their RSUs revoked last week had it coming and don't deserve any sympathy. (Remember that episode?) Typically there's a bit of a scruffy look to them. I cannot make a solid characterization of their actual programming skills (or lack thereof).

I'd be surprised to find tons of brogrammers at Amazon; it struck me as less "bro" and more "nerd". I am generally dubious of the submitter's characterization.

My politics, such as they are, are slightly to the other side of the line than most of the people in my Facebook contacts. A good number of those contacts are prone to posting what seem to me to be quite biased, divisive articles essentially preaching the moral superiority of the choir to the choir. My preferred style of engagement is to ask questions rather than assert "truths" and I try to steer clear of speculation on motive, appeals to authority, and all those rhetorical cop-outs. When I try to engage people on this stuff, the result is often quite hostile and sometimes personal. This makes me suspect that many people posting these things aren't really looking for debate, they're just looking for approval from their group. It would save me a lot of grief if Facebook provided a flag so people could indicate what kind of responses they're looking for when they post these things.

Having said all that, I find pretty much the same thing here on Slashdot and on most on-line fora. I just don't get the impression that many people see debate as a constructive way of testing one's beliefs and ideas.

What's the legal structure that allows Quebec to have laws that wouldn't pass Constitutional muster in the rest of the provinces?

Nope, wrote it myself, asshole. But thanks!

...and your comment represents the absolutely fundamental misunderstanding that pervades this discussion.

The truth no one wants to hear:

The distinction is no longer the technology or the place, but the person(s) using a capability: the target. In a free society based on the rule of law, it is not the technological capability to do a thing, but the law, that is paramount.

Gone are the days where the US targeted foreign communications on distant shores, or cracked codes used only by our enemies. No one would have questioned the legitimacy of the US and its allies breaking the German or Japanese codes or exploiting enemy communications equipment during WWII. The difference today is that US adversaries -- from terrorists to nation-states -- use many of the same systems, services, networks, operating systems, devices, software, hardware, cloud services, encryption standards, and so on, as Americans and much of the rest of the world. They use iPhones, Windows, Dell servers, Android tablets, Cisco routers, Netgear wireless access points, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Gmail, and so on.

US adversaries now often use the very same technologies we use. The fact that Americans or others also use them does not suddenly or magically mean that no element of the US Intelligence Community should ever target them. When a terrorist in Somalia is using Hotmail or an iPhone instead of a walkie-talkie, that cannot mean we pack our bags and go home. That means that, within clear and specific legal authorities and duly authorized statutory missions of the Intelligence Community, we aggressively pursue any and all possible avenues, within the law, that allow us to intercept and exploit the communications of foreign intelligence targets.

If they are using hand couriers, we target them. If they are using walkie-talkies, we target them. If they are using their own custom methods for protecting their communications, we target them. If they are using HF radios, VSATs, satellite phones, or smoke signals, we target them. If they are using Gmail, Windows, OS X, Facebook, iPhone, Android, SSL, web forums running on Amazon Web Services, etc., we target them -- within clear and specific legal frameworks that govern the way our intelligence agencies operate, including with regard to US Persons.

That doesn't mean it's always perfect; that doesn't mean things are not up for debate; that doesn't mean everyone will agree with every possible legal interpretation; that doesn't mean that some may not fundamentally disagree with the US approach to, e.g., counterterrorism. But the intelligence agencies do not make the rules, and while they may inform issues, they do not define national policy or priorities.

Without the authorities granted by the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 (FAA), the United States cannot target non-US Persons who are foreign intelligence targets if their communications enters, traverses, or otherwise touches the United States, a system within the United States, or, arguably, a system or network operated by a US corporation (i.e., a US Person) anywhere in the world. FAA in particular is almost exclusively focused on non-US Persons outside the US, who now exist in the same global web of digital communications as innocent Americans.

Without FAA, the very same Constitutional protections and warrant requirements reserved for US Persons would extend to foreign nations and foreign terrorists simply by using US networks and services â" whether intentionally or not. Without FAA, an individualized warrant would be required to collect on a foreign intelligence target using, say, Facebook, Gmail, or Yahoo!, or even exclusively foreign providers if their communications happens to enter the United States, as 70% of international internet traffic does. If you do not think there is a problem with this, there might be an even greater and more basic misunderstanding about how foreign SIGINT and cyber activities fundamentally must work.

If you believe NSA should not have these capabilities, what you are saying is that you do not believe the United States should be able to target foreign intelligence targets outside the United States who, by coincidence or by design, ever utilize or enter US systems and services. If you believe the solution is an individualized warrant every time the US wishes to target a foreign adversary using Gmail, then you are advocating the protection of foreign adversaries with the very same legal protections reserved for US citizens -- while turning foreign SIGINT, which is not and never has been subject to those restrictions, on its head.

These are the facts and realities of the situation. Any government capability is imperfect, and any government capability can be abused. But the United States is the only nation on earth which has jammed intelligence capabilities into as sophisticated and extensive a legal framework as we have. When the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress, multiple executive agencies under two diametrically opposite Presidential administrations, armies of lawyers within offices of general counsel and and inspectors general, and federal judges on the very court whose only purpose is to protect the rights of Americans under the law and the Constitution in the context of foreign intelligence collection are all in agreement, then you have the judgment of every mechanism of our free civil society.

Or we could just keep laying our intelligence sources, methods, techniques, and capabilities bare to our enemies.

âMany forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." - Winston Churchill (1874-1965), Speech in the House of Commons, November 11, 1947

"The necessity of procuring good Intelligence is apparent and need not be further urged â" all that remains for me to add, is, that you keep the whole matter as secret as possible. For upon Secrecy, Success depends in most Enterprises of the kind, and for want of it, they are generally defeated, however well planned and promising a favourable issue.â â" George Washington, our nation's first spymaster, in a letter to Colonel Elias Dayton, 26 July 1777