Where government creates regulations and laws to favor "connected" businesses and interests. That's how the established ISPs have come to have so much power.

Now the author of TFS thinks *more* laws & regulations from the *same* crooks that have intentionally worked long and hard to *create* this situation are suddenly going to help!?

If there's enough crap stirred up to occupy the news cycle for more than a day or two, they'll do what they always do. Put together some Bill with a great-sounding name and at a quick glance looks good, but there will be sub-clauses and sub-paragraphs buried deep in the weeds of the Bill that actually make things *worse*.

Hmm, on second thought, where did I put that property title to that bridge? I may have found a prospect!

Strat

I would think that simply requiring a signed & notarized release form to release video/photographs of individuals nude and/or engaged in sexual acts would reduce the amount and viciousness in many cases of these revenge videos and those who upload them, and the damage they often inflict on women whose biggest crime was choosing to trust a sleazy and heartless SOB.

I see no need to pass legislation which impacts basic civil rights. There are already numerous legal precedents and laws/regulations on the books that could be slightly tweaked, possibly as I outlined above, to solve this type of attack and violation of privacy.

What has been proposed in this Bill is nothing but a power grab by government.

Strat

LOLwut? You think anyone would seriously consider touching off an ascending string of air-burst nukes at Kennedy Space Center? Or even at White Sands?

Something that massive would have to be built in orbit, possibly even lunar orbit or one of the La Grange points, far away from Earth, with materials obtained from captured asteroids and/or lunar mining and use of solar-powered electromagnetic rail systems to launch materials off the lunar surface to orbit.

A space-going ship of that scale makes it not practical to be climbing out of deep atmospheres and gravity wells with, never mind trying to soft-land such a large mass on same using nuclear explosions. Ships at such scales would necessarily travel from a "parking" orbit at the origin to a "parking" orbit at the destination, and use auxiliary craft for planetary landings.

Capture an asteroid of sufficient size and a suitable composition consisting of a mixture of rock and water & methane/etc ice, hollow out the interior, and with some work you have a ship with it's own integral micrometeorite and radiation shielding, plus a built-in propellant and oxygen supply.

We have the technology right now to begin, and the growth of our knowledge and abilities will accelerate with demand and use so that we will achieve the ability to complete the most difficult parts as the time for doing those things comes up.

The spin-off technologies and knowledge gained from such a project would make life back here on Earth much safer, cleaner, and healthier for everyone.

Strat

Then we agree that the act of banning, and therefor removing the ability to make that *choice* as opposed to allowing people to choose for themselves, is a bad thing.

Thanks for your support.

Strat

There is not in any way "consensus" that "GMOs are safe"

The EU bans most GMO foods and requires labels on the others....they have plenty of peer reviewed published research to base that decision upon

Again the facts say otherwise.

The consensus is that they are safe.
American Medical Association [ama-assn.org]
National Academy of Sciences [nap.edu]
World Health Organization [who.int]
Chief Scientific Advisor to the European Commission [euractiv.com]
Department of Agriculture [usda.gov]
Food and Drug Administration [fda.gov]
Environmental Protection Agency [epa.gov]

Scientific consensus is that GMOs are safe.

Yes, the reactionary, anti-science Progressives in *both* major Parties who sees a chance to grab more power and control by corrupting the entire field of science in order to use it for political purposes (the ends justify the means), wants to see most people (except themselves, of course. THEY are far too important!) freezing and starving in the dark, willing to do anything they say to receive basic necessities rationed out by them as they see fit.

It's all about control.

We're living in a giant KFC farm for people, with ever-smaller cages built of the ever-growing amount of laws, regulations, taxation, licensing, bureaucracy, and destruction of civil rights along with increasingly-militarized local police forces financed and therefor controlled by the central government.

With national fiscal crisis occurring across the globe, the impending collapse of the US Dollar, and the world economy teetering on the brink of collapse, we are at the precipice of a global sea-change which will herald-in the beginning of a new age of war, tyranny, genocide, and poverty worldwide.

Hang on to your ass kids, it's gonna get bumpy!

Strat

Pull that bus over right now.

Government gives *nothing*.

All government is, is force. It has no wealth of it's own. Anything it "gives" in entitlements/benefits/bread & circuses/etc comes from taking wealth, under threat of lethal force and imprisonment, from those who worked to produce it and transfer it to someone else or to some other group.

TANSTAAFL

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch

Even more so with layer upon layer of government red-tape, incompetence, ideological social-engineering foolishness, and bureaucracy.

All that government has and all the powers it exercises are voluntarily granted to government temporarily, with the sworn & solemn agreement that the government will not exceed the bounds of that which is loaned to them, in exchange for the privilege of exercising those agreed-upon powers using the agreed-upon wealth exclusively for the agreed-upon purposes.

Furthermore, the citizens have a right and a duty to alter or abolish a government that violates that trust.

Government is a necessary evil. The less the better.

A powerful central government, necessary to support and administer/enforce a centrally run government entitlement infrastructure, even if run benevolently *now*, only requires a change of politicians/party for that same power to be used for corruption, oppression, and tyranny.

Strat

And yet, many of these same people will attack you and call you all sorts of names if you dare suggest reducing the Federal government's size, power, & scope. They just seem incapable of connecting the growth of government size, power, and scope to the government abuses of their civil rights that they're becoming increasingly aware of.

The cognitive dissonance is astounding.

All governments get their power from the citizens. The more power the government has, the less power and protections from government abuse the individual citizen will have. All governments get their wealth from their citizens. The more wealth the government has/spends, the less wealth citizens will have or be able to borrow for homes, businesses, schooling, raising kids, giving to charities, etc.

Strat

The law on trespassing is that if your property is not plainly posted according to certain detailed legal requirements and you leave your door open or unlocked and someone enters your premises and/or if they cross onto your property, you may order the individual(s) to leave, and if they comply without delay, they have not committed a crime, regardless of what they may have seen while on the property and/or in the premises, and are under no legal obligation to keep it secret barring a court's order.

An internet address typed into a browser's address bar is in no way a closed or locked door, there are no signs warning against trespassing, not even any sign that there may be any private property there at all until 'enter' is pressed, nothing that's required to be present at the property owner's responsibility and cost in order to convict someone of a crime.

The whole concept being used to criminalize typing the "wrong" URL into your internet browser violates basic tenets of common law and civil rights.

This is big money working with a corrupt government and politicians of both of the major parties to both offload the security burden onto the populace, but also using the power of law and threat of lethal force to do it, which gives the government even more ability to intimidate, threaten, control, and to jail people selectively.

Gotta keep the trial lawyers, the politicians, and the private prison industry fat cats in plenty of hookers & blow while expanding their power over the population more and more.

Strat

What possible safety function does coloring a multimeter yellow serve?

Being easy to find.

A meter "being easy to find" is not a safety function.

Says a guy that's apparently never been 10 feet down a very dark and cramped concrete-lined hole, troubleshooting and changing out a failed 480V 3-phase lift-pump motor and contactor assembly.

You really should avoid offering opinions on things whens it's glaringly-obvious that you know very little about them. It's like watching the guy who decides to do a belly-flop from 45 feet. It's just painful for everyone, even the observers.

I'm not being mean here. I'm hoping it sticks and contributes in some small way to you living a happier and more productive life.

"A man's got to know his limitations." - Clint Eastwood as "Dirty" Harry Callahan in "Magnum Force"

Strat

The fact that ours doesn't is

the result of money: businesses having to much (in)direct influence.

If it doesn't lead to corrupted politicians, it's at least corrupting democracy.

You're putting the cart before the horse.

Corporations and others with money would not bother bribing/corrupting politicians in the US Federal government if those politicians had very little actual power or control, which is the way the US Constitution originally was designed.

Starting in the early 1900s with President Wilson and the Progressive movement, however, the Federal government has been constantly expanding in power and scope, making it increasingly useful and attractive for the dishonest to attempt to corrupt.

As long as there is a large centralized nexus of power rather than a distributed system, there will be corruption.

The US Constitution is a network design. Instead of data, it deals in power. Like data networks, compromising a distributed system is far more difficult than compromising a system with a single C&C point.

If you look at government as a network, it's obvious the problem lies in far too much centralization of power.

Strat

Not as ashamed as I am as an American, whose nation is supposed to be at the forefront of individual liberty and as much freedom from government regulation of, involvement in, or monitoring of the average person's life as possible while still maintaining domestic order and performing the duties necessary to conduct foreign affairs.

The further the government of the US strays from and exceeds the powers and scope granted by it's Constitution, the worse things have and will get. Not only for the US and those in it, but for the entire world...economically, diplomatically, militarily,.and from the perspective of individual liberty and freedom as well.

Where does one seek asylum from persecution when the are no more nations of free people? If there are no more nations of free people, who will stand against the next insane megalomaniac tyrant bent on world domination? And, there *will* be another. Without fail. There always will be (at least until the human race achieves Ascension :) ). The rise and fall of such describes a large chunk of the entirety of human history from the beginnings of civilization until now.

My greatest fear is that the US collapses into a full-on totalitarian police state that sees foreign aggression as the only practical means at it's disposal to feed the beast, seeing as it's economy is shot, and becomes the next threat to the entire world like WW2 Germany, squared.

Strat

"Those who willingly surrender freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both."

Not a student of history or human nature, are you? That's always the refrain of the tyrant; "It's for your own good".

Such beliefs have fueled some of the most horrible atrocities in the history of mankind and killed many tens of millions of people.

A Panopticon that's only available to those in power guarantees those in power become tyrants and the citizens become slaves.

Strat