And the bill to get that passed would have 100 amendments having nothing to do with outlawing amendments!
LOL. I wish I had mod points to give you. That about made me spew coffee all over my screen. Well done sir!
That's a really interesting point. In the minds of the Framers, the press was literally that - the printing press, an object. Certainly Thomas Paine (who published Common Sense anonymously) didn't have a journalism degree, nor ascribe to the other journalistic criteria the judge in this case is enumerating.
...and this has nothing to do with her right to publish. Only whether she can be sued for libel for *what* she published. Taking your example, Thomas Paine would be sued if he wrote and published libelous material. Nothing is *preventing* him from doing so, but nothing is protecting him from the repercussions for said writings.
Shield laws, as others have stated, are a modern device. They did not exist during Thomas Paine's time. If you published lies, you could be sued then as today. If she wants to qualify for Shield protection there are certain qualifications that we require from her. That she did not have *any* of them is of paramount importance here. She did not fact check, she did not get both sides of the story she did not even bother with the basic 5 Ws of Journalism.
If she had evidenced even *some* of the requirements the judge outlined, she might have been ok. That she had none makes her a hack on a personal vendetta whether her accusations are true or not. The judge was correct in this case and it does not weaken the 1st Amendment in any way. This particular blogger is not a journalist. I do not believe this decision does anything to any other blogger but give them a wakeup call. If you want to be treated like journalists, start acting like one. Granted our current media rarely, if ever, act like journalists either but that is a separate rant.
Nothing in this decision diminishes or even impacts Freedom of the Press. Anyone can print anything they like, but just like Freedom of Speech does not grant you the right to scream fire in a crowded thater Freedom of the Press does not automatically exempt you from the repercussions arising from your writings.
That means they have username and password stored in plaintext. Somebody is gonna hack that database.
Hell, it means they are probably transmitting them in clear text. Just sniff the traffic to the website.
It's obvious that NetFlix doesn't understand its customers anymore (if it ever did.) What I used to take as excellent customer focused strategy now seems to have been completely accidental. Every customer facing change they've made over the past few years has made the NetFlix experience progressively worse. At this point, I've had enough of their confused thrashing, and will still be cancelling my subscription. I checked my records, I joined NetFlix in 2004, and used to have a 3 DVD plan, but inf recent years have dropped to 1 DVD, then no DVDs, and now, no NetFlix.
Same here, the last announcement caused me to cancel that day and made me take another look at Blockbuster. After the price jump I had to drop down to 2 DVDs. With BB I'm back to 3 and get Blu-ray and games for no extra charge. Granted, Netflix has the most amazing search and recommendation system around, but I can't justify staying with them for that and frankly I don't trust them anymore. If that insane CEO leaves I *may* try them again, but as long as that idiot is leading things I am staying away.
I can't say I didn't fantasize about throwing a supermagnet into the data center of an ex-employer I was downsized from, but I knew better and the majority of adults I hope would know better too.
Yeah, I have had those fantasies too. You don't realize just how much damage you can do until you sit and think about it. After being let go by a retail chain with about 700 stores I realized that in about 15min I could pretty much put the entire chain out of business. They had just scrapped all their phones for VOIP and I had the passwords to all the routers and knew they had the domain admin password hardcoded into the mainframe (I had tried, unsuccessfully for over a year to get them to change that). It would have been very easy to vpn in using the admin account, telnet to the furthest VOIP router and erase mem my way back to the office effectively wiping out their phone network. Then, set the tape robot to bulk erase (they didn't use offsite storage - too expensive), wipe the fileserver, domain controllers, AIX and Linux and logoff. They also refused to buy any intrusion detection software so very little chance of getting caught. I would never do that, but it gave me a little perverse pleasure knowing that I could.
That company is still in business and I know of at least two instances where they have had breaches due to their refusal to implement even the most basic of security precautions. Still, I should thank them for canning me. I now work for a Fortune 500 company making more than double what they were paying, so all's well that ends well I guess.
Having spent a little over 6 years in the Marines I never saw a single operation that combined Air Force with Marines. I was involved in numerous combined arms operations both state side and overseas and not once were Air Force personnel involved nor was there any Air Force material or equipment ever used in support of Marine operations, so pardon me if I call bull. They may pay lip service to those ideas, they might even have those goals written down, but in practice it does not happen.
In a protracted war, I am sure the lines will be blurred, but it has always been that the Air Force has more of a support obligation for the Army and not the Marines. We got our support from the Navy and from our own Air units. Also to note, the GP stated that the Air Forces ONLY responsibility is to support the Marines, which is completely off, no matter how you slice it.
News flash: we all use the roads more indirectly, by the trucks that bring goods to the stores we shop at (or our doors), than we do in individual driving. Trying to bill by mile or gallon or whatever is just an excuse for more government employees and more intrusion by the government into your day-to-day activities. The % of the income taxes that you pay that goes to road building is just too small to sweat these sorts of details (unless your actual goal is government intrusiveness, of course).
And those trucks are already being taxed per mile by the States. I guess now the Federal Government wants in on that action. Well, guess they can't tax them twice, but look at all those cars and none of them are being taxed.... *sigh*
The detriment is environmental and military. We maintain an enormous navy to protect the supply routes from the Middle East to Europe, China, Japan, and United States. We maintain an enormous Marine Corp to ensure that any oil producing country that threatens these supplies will be dealt with. We maintain an enormous Air Force to supply and support that Marine Corp. We maintain an enormous Army..... well, I'm not sure why we maintain an enormous Army, probably to support the Marine Corp with slightly less well trained and qualified soldiers.
Not to pic nits...ok I am going to pick because the Air Force does NOT support the Marines. The Marines have their own aircraft and can support themselves. The Marines are also part of the Department of the Navy so they can draw on Navy aircraft as well. I could care less about your opinions about why we have each branch but at least get the little things right. The Marines are self contained, for the most part. They are their own supply, air support and ground. Which is one of the reasons they are usually the first ones sent in. There is no need to coordinate with multiple departments, just call up your Marine guard dog, point in a direction and say sic 'em. Oh, and it's Marine Corps not Corp.
Semper Fi
you don't actually understand what a dictionary's function is. It documents how words are used.
If you want to use a word in a manner which the dictionary doesn't acknowledge, you are welcome to do so in private communications with others who understand that usage, but if you are writing to a broader audience who isn't aware of your non-standard definitions you should use standard words and standard meanings of words, as the dictionary has documented them to be.
Except for the fact that dictionaries will not make alterations or additions until the words or usage are in wide and accepted use. So what you are proposing is a catch-22. We shouldn't use such definitions until they are standard, but they can't become standard if they are not used.
FYI only recently was added (I have issues with acronyms in the dictionary, but that's another rant). You cannot say that it was not standard usage in many business communications for years, regardless of it not being included in the dictionary. This goes for every addition or modification that dictionary publishers make. Until it is a standard the definition will not be changed to reflect that.
8 Catfish = 1 Octo-puss
