Yes, I call that "their means justify our means." It is distasteful, and a logical fallacy, not to mention a swift road to hell and warfare. I am heartened to see someone else coming to that realization. I am dismayed by the trend.

If it was POWs there, the Red Cross would have access. It is far worse than that.

Hey, glad to see you're working on your rage issues, if not your tact. You have no idea who I AM.

If clicking a bookmark or using a Firefox search assist is navigating, then yes. You make it sound like he's typing in the URL.

Yes, and accusations are a dime a dozen, battery can be anything from a brutal clubbing to throwing a wad of paper with ill intent, and resisting arrest is one officer's bad day away from being on your docket as well, should you be close to an unfortunate occurance. Context is everything.

And CONTEXT is what has been left out of the media screed you just quoted, which on the night of the killing included critical context in the NBC playback of the 911 call. You've been indoctrinated by a media machine digging up as much shit as possible on Zimmerman to try to get people to overlook the fact that they cut up the 911 call, deliberately, and with intent to race bait and perhaps start a race riot, friend AC. I call bullshit on the media. I call BS on unenlightened self-interest and circling the wagons to protect one's own. The media are one's that caused the prosecutors to overreach, because of public demand for it, and caused a failure to convict Zimmerman of the crimes he actually committed that night, and thus the real failure of justice. Overreach and hype. We need fewer people who believe the hype-machine's bullshit, not more. Doubling down on crap is not the solution.

That woman was crazy, and deserved 20 years, and the context shows it. What did the context in the Zimmerman case show? That he didn't commit murder. That is all.

Two words explain this attitude historically: "Secret Tribunal." (You can insert the word "military" if you'd prefer three words).

What would have them spinning at 5000 rpm in their graves is Guantanamo Bay, not this trial and public reaction. A public trial by jury is exactly what they designed, and the country was so small and insular at that point that reputations could be ruined far more thoroughly than in today's overpopulated, urban, and largely faceless culture. They absolutely expected mob mentality to be a result, which was why so many of them were members of secret societies. Privacy to speak one's mind may never have occurred to them as a possibility without that. The possibility of a public trial ruining someone's reputation was probably expected, in my considered opinion.

I don't have any primary sources to back that up though.

I'm not sure Balmer realizes he is no longer in B-school. He seems to like to surround himself with like-minded B-school buddies, and runs Microsoft like it's the fraternity Mu Sigma Alpha. This kind of bizarro, "in"-group lingo doesn't actually fly when you're the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in what appears to be a consolidation/contraction phase and a profit-taking decline. This buddy mentality is the last thing "MS House" needs.

Plainspoken English matters in business when there is a crisis at hand. This kind of platitude laden memo belongs in a company that is not hungry and is cruising along with a high-quality, high-growth business strategy. Then you can talk biz-orgs theory all you like, however you may please.

My 2 cents. That penny is depreciated to the inflation standard of the year 2500, I would guess, but I find this kind of gamesmanship worrying.

I want MS to adapt and succeed. It has every reason to. It doesn't seem to be doing so. It seems to be resting on its laurels, and has been for a decade.

It depends on what you mean by the word "do" in the contraction of "do not." Welcome to propaganda 101.

I think he meant "populist" hot-button issue. That would be accurate at least.

Oh yes, I've heard this song before. Let me change the tempo. Those congress people have rights too.

Like the right to be reasonably sure I'm not a "Jared Loughner" before letting me within 20 yards of them. This is something that is lost on most people who use "doesn't mean dick" to say something supposedly profound.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

In practice, government will attempt to violate your rights when you most need them. It doesn't make them alienable.

I swing that way too. But I do think the intent and philosophy of the law is important.

I also believe that governments take away your rights by force when you most need them. That is the sad truth. Rights are only granted by governments when they don't matter, which is why the Founders felt it important to not grant rights like in Magna Carta.

How provincial of you. When did I say I was talking about legal rights? The Constitution, in the Bill of Rights, only mentions which _natural_ rights the Federal Government may not infringe upon. The Founders were very specific about not coining explicit legal rights in those amendments. The only legal rights mentioned in Con Law are things like copyright. There may be others. Don't know. Not an expert, but I do know the philosophy with which the Constitution was framed, and we are absolutely talking about natural rights, and _only_ natural law regarding them, in the above case.