You know, the really pathetic thing about what you just said is that I've never illegally downloaded music or movies, and never cheated on my partner.

And you're seriously saying that will get flagged as a lie and make me untrustworthy?

Let me tell you this right now ... the people screening based on those things are morons unless they actually have proof to the contrary.

Because unless you have evidence, assuming everyone who answers no to those questions is lying is completely idiotic. Because, not everybody has done those things, and if you have no evidence suggesting otherwise is just being an asshole.

If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.

-- Cardinal Richelieu

I increasingly believe the people who do security screenings don't give an actual damn about the truth, just their own interpretations of reality.

What a fucking joke.

Maybe I live in some alternate reality or something, but I don't see a problem with this lady getting the boot if she signed the paperwork and either misrepresented her past, failed to remember it, or neglected to disclose it and the investigation turns up something different.

So, by your ridiculous logic, if you have ever worked at a place and co-worker was ever convicted of a crime, you too are a criminal?

Because, really, that's what's being described here.

So, can I conclude that all Catholics are pedophiles because some Catholics are pedophiles?

There is no substance to the statement she lied, because she wasn't involved in a group which was dedicated to any of those things. She was involved in a group fighting for women's rights, and encountered people who were much more radical.

the OPM ask you in plain English "have you ever belonged to an organization dedicated to the violent overthrow of the US government" and these forms are retained by the OPM for something like 7 or 10 years, after which you are required to resubmit them. If she said "no" to the question in question, but knew that her acquaintances went to jail, something objectively doesn't add up

There is precisely zero logic in what you say, and if you don't know it, you should.

She worked for an organization which most certainly did NOT have a dedication to any of those things.

People who were also a member of that organization were members of a separate organization, which did. She did not make the connection, because in her mind the answer was emphatically "no, I certainly have not".

By your extension, if your pastor is caught fiddling with kiddies, you must be a rapist.

You sick bastard, why do you need to molest children? You should be castrated.

See, that's about the same a what you just said.

The best possible excuse is that she's just pathologically oblivious, not that the OPM has trumped up charges out of nowhere.

Or, you know, people she had a tangential relationship in an organization dedicated to one thing also had ties to people in another organization doing something else.

It's guilt by very indirect association, pure and simple. And, since they're not establishing guilt or innocence, they're saying she's politically tainted because of a tangential relationship.

But, hey, Bush was in business with the family of OBL ... so he was a terrorist too, right?

Give us a break.

Horseshit.

She didn't lie.

Have you ever known anybody who has committed a crime? Then you must be a criminal.

That's about the level of reasoning going on in this. She did NOT work for any such agency, she worked for a rights group, which some of the members were involved in another organization ... and that organization was doing illegal things.

This is guilt by association, pure and simple. There's no evidence to suggest she lied, only that an overzealous moron decided that her not making the connection to people she knew who knew other people who did things she didn't know or approve of therefore means she "lied".

This is pure and unadulterated crap.

So, if you have worked in the same building with anybody with a felony conviction (even if it happened after you were no longer there), then you by extension must also be a felon.

Tell me, have you stopped beating your wife?

During that session, Barr answered âoenoâ when asked if she had ever been a member of an organization âoededicated to the use of violenceâ to overthrow the U.S. government or to prevent others from exercising their constitutional rights.

So, it sounds like she answered honestly, was never part of any group with that as their mandate, but that somehow there was a tangential connection to the one she was a member of.

Welcome to the war on terrorism, it's the new McCarthyism.

This just sounds like a witch hint where we're supposed to proactively identify any and all tangential links to anybody who has ever done anything bad and exclude ourselves.

Such bullshit. In reading the article, there isn't a single shred of evidence to suggest she ever did anything illegal.

Hey, I know, Bush did business with the family of OBL, Cheney owned a private security firm which did war profiteering and possibly committed war crimes, and the CIA historically supported terrorists to fight regimes they didn't like .. can we conclude that all top government have ties to terrorism?

Or can we conclude the people in the OPM are fucking morons?

This is just stupid. She was never a member of an organization dedicated to the use of violence, overthrowing the US government or any of that crap. She was a member of a group pushing for the rights of women.

Give me your fucking papers, comrade.

LOL ... did you read the link in the GP? I'm sticking with pudometer.

Otherwise, multi-nationals could just play a shell game with all their data and never have to comply with any nation's court orders ever while single-nation corporations could never enjoy the same freedom.

You do realize they already do this with taxes right? Microsoft in Ireland is a distinct legal entity, and it not the same corporation as the one in Redmond. Otherwise Microsoft would pay taxes on its global income to the American government, as well as all of the localities in which they operate.

The entity in Ireland is subject to Ireland's laws, and is located there because taxation is favorable.

That does not in any way mean that Microsoft US owning Microsoft in Ireland means that Microsoft in Ireland is exempt from the laws of Ireland, nor can Microsoft USA compel the Irish entity to break the laws of Ireland.

If what you're saying were true, the EU could fine Microsoft a fraction of it's global revenues and say "it's all the same company, right"?

This is purely a case of America deciding their laws extend beyond their borders.

If the data only lives on a server in Ireland, it is most certainly NOT subject to the laws of the US.

Sounds pretty unlikely to me. ;-)

It's water resistant which usually means everything except prolonged submersion

'Water Resistant' is one of those marketing terms that you need to look at more closely to know what it's actually saying.

Sometimes, water resistant means you can wash your hands, but the rating is for ~1 bar in a static chamber. Basically standard atmospheric pressure.

Sometimes water resistant means you can actively be doing stuff under water for a prolonged period of time up to a certain depth.

A lot of cheap watches that say water resistant are more like the 1 bar/static rating. But you sure as heck wouldn't go swimming with one on.

At 20 bar, you can safely assume the watch can be submerged for extended periods of time while moving around. And, at that rating, if you ever find yourself anywhere near what it's theoretically rated for ... your watch will be a secondary concern to making sure you're wearing breathing gear. :-P

Dude, it's an accelerometer ... I'm pretty sure they can also measure something oscillating continuously for a duration.

Your honor, if my client's hand was shaking like that while holding a gun, there's simply no way he'd have been able to shoot the victim. ;-)

Of course, as with all things ... I'm sure people would be posting fap-graphs on the interwebs trying to out do one another.

Oh, and something like a pedometer but just for my arm. [engadget.com]

Sounds like a pudometer to me. ;-)

Dude, I'll sell you a pack of Sharpies for a couple thousand dollars.

Every week, you can sketch on your choice of cool symbol. I'll even give you several colors of Sharpie, so you can adorn it as you require.

You won't be limited to just one cool logo, and you won't even have to only have it on your wrist. You could put it in the middle of your forehead.

Come on, you know what want it. ;-)

This is kind of like saying 3D TV companies were in a war with each other. While that may have been true, consumers didn't notice because the tech just wasn't that interesting to them.

Totally off-topic ... but I've started seeing commercials for curved ultra-HDTV displays.

My frickin' cable company doesn't give me full 1080p now. No way they're gonna give me uncompressed 4K video.

I just looked at the commercial and figured some rich guys would soon be parted with their money, and the rest of us won't care.

We all learned our lesson with the moving target which was HD initially, that left early adopters with TVs which were no longer allowed to display HD due to HDCP/HDMI.

I'm sure people will buy these watches. And I'm also sure it will be a relatively small amount of people, and the rest of the us will ignore them entirely.

I know, right?

I was also thinking a stopwatch, one ore more alarms, the ability to set for a different time zone or account for DST. Maybe even keep track of the date and day of the week.

Those would be sweet.

And, then, I'm afraid I'm firmly in the camp of "don't give a crap about smart watches"

Sorry, but when your courts violate the law of the country in question ... it comes down to a measure of sovereignty.

Are you suggesting that Microsoft is exempt from the laws of Ireland because a US court says so? Or that it's Microsoft's problem?

Microsoft is saying "this isn't us, this is you, and can you really do this?".

Srroy, but when abroad, you are subject to local laws. And a US court should not be able to compel someone to break the law in another country.

What if an Irish court demanded that US laws be broken? Would you be outraged, or would you say that's how it's supposed to work?

But, hey, I'm sure you believe America is different than everybody else, and therefore can do whatever they choose here.

The rest of the world doesn't agree.