Car taxes are a state tax (at least everywhere I have lived). Typically the money you pay for state car taxes do NOT go to pay for *city* streets. (I know of no place where this is true) Since there are typically no taxes that are directly related to building or maintaining city streets, the city must figure some way of generating revenue to pay for them. Either take the money from other taxes OR have people pay for the services they use (i.e. parking meters), because statistically people who are driving through the city (thus using said streets) are going to need to park somewhere. If in a private parking garage, the city get business taxes from them. So you have the people paying who use the service. Or people park on metered streets, again people paying for the services they use. Get it now?

So people who don't have cars should have to pay extra for those who do? Why are there tolls on roads and bridges? So that the people who use the service pay for it and those that do not are not burded with that tax liability. I would be willing to bet money you would be the first one to whine when they raise taxes to pay for things YOU don't use. The implementation might be screwed, but the idea of paying only for the services you use is a great idea.

Except for the cry babies who whine about everything.

As a lazy driver, who would rather jump in his car than walk half a mile to the store, I AGREE with you 100%. This is utter bullshit. People get things shoved up their ass and are upset because it hurts a little.

OMG!!!! Having to walk an entire block so the city gets revenue to be able to fix streets, add new traffic lights and repaint worn out markings. I cannot imagine a worse crime. Call the police! Call the national guard! Call Bill O'Reilly! If you don't like it, do something about it. Did YOU run for city council? Did YOU even vote in your last city election? Do YOU know the names of the people on the city council? Children are dying by the thousands every day because they don't have enough to eat. Slavery still exits. People who oppose the government simply disappear or only their head is found. And you people are worried about walking a fucking block?!?!?! What a bunch of cry babies!!!!

And just how do you suggest the cities pay for road repairs or new traffic lights? I would be willing to bet money you would be the first one to complain when there are potholes in the streets., but you want other people to have to pay for it. The problem is NOT that the city, state or federal government asking people to pay for the services people use, but rather how the money is distributed. Create laws that say parking money MUST be used ONLY for the automobile infrastructure and park usage fees are used ONLY for park services. Don't bitch about having to pay for something. Damned freetrards!

It doesn't, depending on the subject. However, one thing the Bush administrator continually ignored is that torture very rarely works to get reliable information. Usually you get what the victim *thinks* you want to hear. You then need to corroborate using other sources.

Please forgive them they are Americans. You know the same people where most of them can't even find Iraq on a map. The same ones that think New Mexico is a foreign country. Or the where one recent vice-president said he never went to Latin America because he never studied Latin in school. They also don't realize that since the real name of the country is written in Arabic even "Iraq" is NOT the way the country is spelled, but rather a convention. As an American, there is nothing you did to pardon. What is shameful is the ethnocentricity of my fellow countrymen.

As long as you are not "representing" the US military, you have the same rights as anyone else. That is, if not in uniform, you can protest, support political candidates and so forth. Certain rights are restricted, like freedom of movement when you are ordered to go to Iraq, but it is just like any contract. If a civilian signs a contract to go to Iraq and doesn't he can be sued for damages. A soldier can end up going to jail, but that is the nature of the contract you sign. Anyone saying they have NO rights in the military does not know what they are talking about.

They do train, constantly.

Define "certain information". I am really not trying to be insulting, but that is a very naive question. Each person would have to carry a 1000 page volume of the things not to talk about. You could TRY to generalized it by saying "no sensitive information", but just what is "sensitive information"? Is the fact your platoon leader is a jerk "sensitive information"? Well, it could be used as a means of gaining your trust when you "just happen" to get in a conversation with one of the workers fixing the shower. He was paid to gain your trust by using that fact. Sound far-fetched? It's standard practice and just one of many types of "social engineering".

There are flurry of tweets coming from a couple dozen people saying "I gotta sign off for today." Then 15 minutes later, someone on the outside of the compound sees a convoy of vehicles leave. The convoy arrives back several hours later and the tweets start up again. This same pattern happens over the course of a week. Even a bad intelligence analyst can say that it is likely that the tweets stop right before the unit goes out on patrol. What "sensitive information" did the tweets contain?

Military intelligence is rarely about getting the entire battle plan and quickly translating it for the generals. It is about piecing together little things. The big chunks are few and far between.

Then there is the human factor. People are not robots. People forget, people don't think that certain things are "sensitive". The complexities of this kind of thing are far greater than learning what to do in a fire fight. Further, when you come back from patrol after you friend had is leg blown off, you are not going to be thinking about whether your blog post is "sensitive". It might not carry any direct intelligence information, but if you are chatting with your wife about the horror you just experienced and describe the number and type of casualties, then the person who planned the attack knows how successful it was.

What about the picture on MySpace showing the guy and all of his buddies? The same photo is on six accounts. You now have the name of six people in the same unit. Useful military intelligence. Plus you have a picture of the inside of their compound including the entry area to the command post. Even more useful.

Experience has clearly demonstrated that allowing this kind of stuff is outright foolish.

It is not about using military resources "on the job". It's about security. The problem is that extremely few people are security conscious enough to make wise decisions when online. When a civilian is not careful, then may have the hassle of dealing with fraudulent charges on their credit card. If a Marine in Baghdad is not careful, people die. Plain and simple.

Here's a theoretical tweet: "I have to leave at about 10PM to go on recon in Fadullah. Most of the guy in the platoon doing the patrol are okay, but Lt. Jones is incompetent."

So anyone following the tweet knows the time of the patrol, the strength and the name of one officer in the platoon. I was in army intelligence and getting just that much during an interrogation might take hours. To have someone simply give it to you is a dream come true. Some group picks up on this, knows that a platoon is doing recon and when, it is simple enough to set up an ambush, booby trap or whatever.

This is a smart move.

# cat > program.c
# !cc
What else do you need?

Do you only watch Fox News? I honestly cannot believe someone said that.

There was a boob on television almost every day for the last eight years (well at least until the end of January of this year).

I would say that the USA is very much different from Germany when it comes to violence. Just look at the level of violence allowed in primetime TV in both countries and you will see that violence is an integral part of American culture. A 1 second shot of a woman's breast is cause for a national outrage, and it is even more pathetic when you consider that it was during an event which is pure violence. The USA has it's priorities backwards. I saw a .sig once that said "I'm European. I'm afraid of guns not boobs." When you consider the number of violent crimes per capita, the percentage of the population in prison and the recidivism rate, I think Germans and Europeans in general are doing something right.

It's not about Google, Yahoo and others posting the information they paid for. As is clearly stated in the article, it is about Google, Yahoo and others posting information they did *not* pay for.

Why is it so wrong to want to be paid for your work?