Honestly, what does it matter what you're charged with if the US government can hold you indefinitely in a concrete box for any reason (or no reason at all)?

In my opinion, it's little more than theater. Turn the map around for a second and look at it from the NSA's side. They have shown absolutely no hesitation to do whatever it takes to access literally everything, and from what I've read, they (or the FBI, or whoever it is that handles their direct interaction with civilians) can be damned intimidating. Do you honestly think that they would allow themselves to be cut out of a datastream as valuable as Google's? If I was them, -I- sure as hell wouldn't. It's not unreasonable to assume that they'll just go deeper and quieter, while Google tells us to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Tell me about it- the public elementary school we attended was below average and needed all kinds of help. So happened that during about a 3-year window a group of -very- active parents were at the school at the same time. We managed to fund after-school activities, playground equipment, and after reaching out to some donors, we actually accumulated enough money to build on an extension to the library- no capital costs at all to the district.

We spoke to officials all through the district before we started beating the bushes for money; each and every one thought it was a great idea. We also asked the donors to talk to high-level contacts in the district to be sure- No problem. We took almost two years to raise the money, but as we were starting to engage the architects to draw plans that the district could approve, we were told to stand down, because it wouldn't be fair to the other elementary schools in the district that didn't have nice libraries. When we went back and spoke to the officials that previously had said it was a good idea, the responses were along the lines of "we didn't think you'd actually do it".

Understand what you're saying, but I actually don't live in too bad of a neighborhood; it's not wealthy, just average / quiet. We're in sort of a corner of the area that's zoned to this school. Bought the house before my son was born, and at the time, the other areas in the zone that feed the school wouldn't be called nice, but they weren't bad, either. Several factors were evaluated that made it worth it to fork over tuition for private school rather than move.

Imagine my concern.

The school we’re zoned to is not just tough, it’s dangerous- Most teachers don’t try to teach; if they prevent major crimes from occurring, they've had a good day. The stories that come out of that place are gut-wrenching; the kids there aren't being prepared for squat. I've busted my ass and sacrificed a lot to send my son to a private school as a result.

What little good that could come of us participating in the local public school would pale in comparison to the harm it has the potential of doing to my son- not only to his well being day-to-day, but to his chances of success afterwards as well. I'm not sacrificing my son's future on account of Allison's idealist prattle. From what I've seen, not many of the our local public school system's participants: teachers, parents (especially the parents), or the students give a rat's ass about making their school system any better.

I attended a very tough school while growing up, and learned more about avoiding having my ass kicked than anything else that I needed for college- as a result, it took two tries and 6 years to finish my first degree- my first two years were spent learning what I should have learned in high school.

Allison Benedikt has her opinion of me, and I have my opinion of her. My son is my responsibility until he's grown; if his young life is made difficult by starting out with a rotten education, I can't see Allison getting very worked up about it... I mean, it's no skin off of her ass, is it. Allison can go fuck herself.

Any use of war weapons is a terrible thing; usually the people that demand the weapons' use or make light of it are those who have never been on a battlefield.

That having been said: There are different types and degrees of injury potentially caused by weapons of war (or any weapon); these injuries may be classified by type and degree of acute trauma as well as by long-term, chronic sequelae. Whereas in my opinion the horror of a -fatal- injury from weapons of war cannot really be differentiated or mitigated by weapon type, non-fatal injuries and their long-term effects on the lives of the injured are perceived to be worse if caused by chemical weapons.

For starters, the health facilities of the victim army / society is presented with a bolus of injured as well as fatally injured whose suffering is usually more severe and of a longer duration than that of victims of penetrating trauma. When the chemical injury cases are released from acute care, the long-term morbidity from blistering and/or nerve agents is as gruesome if not more so than that of burns and amputations, but often presents in forms that are not easily diagnosed or treated, adding to the misery and mental anguish of the victims. A old physician I once knew told me that he'd seen two chemical exposure cases that had injuries similar to those caused by war gasses; he considered them "burned" on the inside in addition to the horrible external burns.

Chemical and biological weapons are strategic weapons- they not only create immediate fatalities, they are also used to reduce combat effectiveness by requiring the diversion of resources to care for military and civilian casualties. These weapons also damage the victim's economy and environment, and they induce indirect damage from terror in the victim population.

In my opinion they -are- more terrible than conventional weapons.

Normally, I can spot the implied /irony tag. Tell me that you're being ironic.

What's your point, Ludwig?

Not one little bit, it appears.

When I was in school, I always wondered what people actually -did- with a PhD in Philosophy, now... I know.

...damn tags- put two angle brackets around "NOOP" and it disappeared. Should read: "they'd have to insert NOOP's into their assembly".

My CS professor told us that when he was a grad student, they'd have to insert s into their assembly to time data reads accurately, as they waited for a bit of data on a spinning drum to arrive underneath the read/write head.

For me it was when you dropped your punch card deck, it would be scrambled.

Best statement I've read in a while.

In college I dated a (otherwise, very nice) fundamentalist girl; years later had a relationship with a girl that had more or less atheistic views.

Interacting with either on the subject was like calling a Rant() function with a parameter for "God" or "Anti-God" output. They had the same kinds of arguments, the same intensity, and the same intolerance for any views different from their own on the subject.

While we dated I enthusiastically agreed with the philosophy of each to increase the odds of getting laid.

Yeah, they jumped all over upper management at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, didn't they?