Your argument is the moral equivalent of saying Stalin is a good guy because he wasn't as bad as Hitler. If that's your position, then fine, we simply disagree.
As a side note, I never criticized Putin for what he did but rather said he is acting in his own interests and that once Snowden ceases to be useful Snowden may find himself out in the cold.
Brenda Willson, says her son is innocent and does not smoke, drink or have tattoos
WTF? What do smoking, drinking, and tattoos have to do with calling the freakin' SWAT in on some poor gamer? Is this some correlation I had previous not heard about?
SWAT: Smokes Whiskey and Tattoos
Sergei Magnitsky Pussy Riot Alexander Litvinenko Stanislav Markelov Anastasia Baburova
The list goes on and on...
Free press? Human rights? Rule of law? Only as long as it doesn't threaten his position.
Ask yourself this, if the rule of law was so strong why do oligarchs move as much cash as possible out of Russia? What do they fear?
I'm not sure why you are a Putin apologist but his actions speak volumes about him. Then again, as a KGB officer he learned a thing or two about survival.
So, my conclusion is he only will care about Snowden as long as Snowden is useful, and afterwards Snowden will simply be a pawn to sacrifice for some new advantage or benefit.
It does not matter what I do believe and that is precisely the point I was making. We can only judge by actions taken. The fact that you continue argue your assumptions means you've failed to grasp the point.
Putin's actions to date in many areas have shown him to look after Putin first; thus it is reasonable to assume he is acting, in Snowden's case, in the same manner. So yes, I agree you judge on actions and am doing so in this case. You appear to judge based on a single action, i.e. He gave Snowden temporary permission to remain in Russia, while I prefer to judge what he does in the larger context of how he has acted in many situations. Thus I think it is naive to think, or believe, he is acting out of some desire to help, or cares for, Snowden beyond how he useful to advance Putin's agenda. So let me ask the question differently since you seem to be hung up on the word believe: What in Putin's actions makes you conclude Putin is not acting in his best interests but out of some great concern for Snowden?
Ah, we are in agreement here, and my sarcasm detector needs calibration.
No worries, I forgot to properly use the sarcasm tag anyway, Cheers...
I wish, Sir, you stopped living in a fantasy world of conclusions reached based on assumptions and joined us in evidence based reality.
Do you really believe that Putin let Snowden in for any other reason other than he could be useful to Putin and that when he is no longer useful to Putin he'll be unceremoniously tossed aside and used to get something else Putin wants?
By trying to prevent its allies from giving Snowden asylum, the USA has forced him to take asylum with a relatively unfriendly nation, Russia.
Not really. Russia's leadership doesn't really have to worry about public perception of how Snowden is treated and Putin can be relied upon to do what is best for Putin, not Snowden, Russia or anyone else unless doing so advances Putin. Once Snowden is no longer useful he can swap him for something he wants without worrying about the reaction in Russia. In addition, Snowden is much more likely to get tired of Russia than Germany and thus may eventually decide to return to the US without preconditions. Thus, the US is more likely to get Snowden back from Russia than Germany and so Russia may be a more desirable option for the US.
Five days ago, when SFGate reported this story, it was made quite clear that Tusch's friends were not in on the hoax and took it quite seriously ---
and that someone reported it to the police independently of Facebook.
There you go, bringing facts into a
The police have to treat such a threat seriously. Given the situation and his age he falls into a risk profile that says he might be serious about this, and according to TFA he didn't tell police he was just "testing" FB and failed to convince them he wasn't serious about committing suicide.Just because he posted on FB people seem to think it was different. Well, his friends reacted to it just like he had written a note and left it at a party and took action to try to get him help. I'd do the same if it were a friend of mine.
Finally, he says he was exercising his First Amendment Rights. Separate from him having no FA rights on FB; the government didn't violate his FA rights since ehe was still free to post his treat without the government trying to stop him, they simply took action after he made the threat. The FA doesn't say "and shall not be held liable for anything stupid they do while exercising this right..."
Second this, the only place to return CFLs for us is the Home Depot. The municipal transfer station doesn't accept hazardous waste, which they consider CFLs. They do a free county-wide recycling day ONCE A YEAR that you have to drive to in another town, but even still they don't accept CFLs.
And HD only accepts small CFL bulbs, not the long ones (2-3ft plus) that they also sell; at least that was the case recently when I had to replace some shop light bulbs and bought the replacements at HD and then tried to return for recycle the old ones.
I have a stack of long florescent bulbs in an unused corner of my garage, old bulbs from the fixture over my worktable, collecting there since I moved to this house in the early '90s. I never did figure out where to take them or how to safely dispose of them. I guess it'll be my descendants' problem.
You are doing the same disposal strategy I am.
A real recycle program
That would be good. Even better would be to reduce the amount of plastic we use in the first place. When I receive shipments from Amazon, the packaging usually weighs more than the products. This is necessary because of the workers at UPS/USPS/FedEx that drop, throw, and step on the packages. When we replace these idiots with robots, a lot less packaging will be needed.
In fairness to FedEx their sorting operation in Memphis already use robots that weigh and measure each package to minimize the forces used during sorting. the drivers, well that's another story. Given Amazon's size and volume manufacturers could package stuff more reasonably. Do I really need a tamper proof sealed plastic case for an item I buy through Amazon? Amazon already packages some of their Amazon labeled stuff more sanely in cardboard and I wish they'd push manufacturers to do something similar for what they sell via Amazon.
Second this, the only place to return CFLs for us is the Home Depot. The municipal transfer station doesn't accept hazardous waste, which they consider CFLs. They do a free county-wide recycling day ONCE A YEAR that you have to drive to in another town, but even still they don't accept CFLs.
And HD only accepts small CFL bulbs, not the long ones (2-3ft plus) that they also sell; at least that was the case recently when I had to replace some shop light bulbs and bought the replacements at HD and then tried to return for recycle the old ones.
> A real recycle program, not one where you have to pay to get the stuff taken away
Or worse, a recycle program where you have to drive somewhere to drop it off. For instance, currently in my area, although we have curbside recycling for glass and some plastics and cardboard, there's currently no way to recycle CFLs that doesn't involve driving to a recycling center. Besides wasted fuel and emissions, the collateral damage of this is that most people just throw CFLs away and the mercury ends up in landfill. And groundwater.
Yup. Given the choice of an 80 mile round trip to a location that is only open M-F during normal business hours and tossing them in the trash guess which one gets picked? Ultimately I think one solution would be to require the manufacturer to take back and arrange for recycling or proper disposal. That would add to the upfront cost but eliminate a lot of back end problems. Of course, manufacturers will whine about the cost but I think bottle deposit laws are a good example of what may happen. Bottlers complained but when states tried to take over rte program they resisted because they were taking in more deposit money than they were paying out and spending to run the program.
free software enslaves the developer by forcing them to work for someone else without any choice or compensation.
Nope; nobody is forced to write free software, and RMS wanted developers to earn good livings. RMS used to ask, at his talks, how many developers were paid based on their software being sold, and it was usually a small part of the audience. Most developers are paid to cover specific needs their employers have, and would be paid no matter what the license. We tend to forget that because the most visible software is proprietary, sold by all sorts of stores and websites, but these are the exceptions.
Correct, which is also true for proprietary software and thus points out that proprietary software "enslaves users" argument is bogus. Since just as no one forces anyone to write free software no one forces anyone to use proprietary software. The existence of both widens choice rather than limit it; which was my point and why I took the "enslaves user" argument and turned it around to "enslaves developers" to show how ridiculous it is.
The sooner all the animals are extinct, the sooner we'll find their money. - Ed Bluestone
