But, but...we have to destroy freedom in order to protect Freedom(tm)!

Why do you hate Freedom(tm) and America(tm)??

"Those who would give up essential liberties for..."

Ah, screw it! Apparently most people are fine with sacrificing any and all of their individual liberties and rights as long as the talking heads tell them it makes them more safe. Or, that changing this slide into totalitarianism in America is someone else's job.

There will always be the risk of people doing bad things in a free and open society. If there was not the ability for individuals and groups in a society to do bad things, then that society by definition would be neither free nor open.

Strat

Thank you.

That great new word was just added to my casual vocabulary and simultaneously made today's time-wasting on /. worthwhile!

Strat

Ah, Val Kilmer as ""Doc Holiday" in the movie "Tombstone".

"Why Johnny Ringo, you look like someone just...walked over your grave!"

IMHO that was Val Kilmer's best performance and best character portrayal to date. His "charming and lovable, but deadly scoundrel" Doc Holiday character just "nailed it" on so many levels. It almost makes up for his "Batman" (sorry, Kilmer-as-Batman fans).

Really, for me at least, Kilmer's "Doc Holiday" character in "Tombstone" is the one truly good role and performance I remember when "Tombstone" and/or Val Kilmer come up in conversation.

Strat

It's about control and destroying a free and open society..

Terrorism, rebellion against the government, and being able to move wealth without government knowledge is only preventable in an authoritarian police-state type of society.

A free and open society only exists when it is possible to keep one's finances a secret from government and organize without the governments' knowledge to commit acts of terrorism and rebellion.

More government "Safety" = Less Freedom, Less Actual Safety, and Less Money for You.

Strat

That should read "German civilians who were members in good standing in the Nazi Party, or the family member or friend of someone with authority in the Nazi Party. If that Party member happened to fall into political disfavor, or the citizen's personal enemy(s) reported him for some betrayal or politically-forbidden speech etc, those individuals were suddenly instantaneously prohibited from possessing a firearm.

This status-change was often announced by way of a Luger or MP40 discharged into the unlucky formerly-legal-gun-owner for the offense of illegally possessing a firearm.

Every single person ever born or who will ever be born has the natural right to self defense. How much any particular government recognizes this natural individual right varies greatly, however. Until basic human nature deeply and fundamentally changes, people will always need an effective means of self defense against other humans attempting to do them great harm, and therefor have the natural right to that defense.

Every tyranny and authoritarian state down through history where individual freedom was severely restricted also severely restricted and onerously-regulated, or prohibited outright, common people from possessing effective personal weapons for self defense.

Failing to learn such important lessons from history leads people into de-facto slavery if not actual, outright slavery. That is, if they are lucky enough that the powers-that-be haven't included good old genocide of "*those* people" (whoever is politically-inconvenient or convenient, as the case may be) as part of their goals.

Strat

Any scientists care to produce data on how much cooling that hunting the large numbers of truly enormous herds of buffalo that covered many square miles to near-extinction produced? The temperature records I've seen do not show any such corresponding result.

There are about twice as many bovines in the US now. Estimates of the population of bison in the 1500s are 30-60million. There are 90million cattle in the country now. The biomass of a bison was commonly 300-1000kg. The biomass of a beef cow at slaughter is about 600kg average: So I what you're seeing is a replacement of one bovine with another, with a increase in population and biomass.

So you're saying in effect that if the buffalo herds had grown to ~30% larger that it would have had a significant effect on global warming? That's quite a leap.

If global climate is so delicate we're all doomed no matter what we do.

I'm all for solidly-based, practical, cost-effective, common sense, and pragmatic efforts to protect the environment. This whole CO2 and climate-change alarmism is not any of that.

The Earth is in a warming cycle that will continue until it peaks and reverses back towards another ice age, no matter what we puny humans do. We can only make tiny-to-the-point-of-irrelevance changes in the rates of those changes.

Rather than attempt to put chains on the growth of civilization and the freedom of men, why not trust that humans will do what they've always done? Adapt, survive, overcome, and prosper. With the growth of civilization also comes a growth in our ability to adapt, overcome, and mitigate.

Also, with the growth of civilization will be a growth in our ability and desire to move problem-making industries like energy production and many other types of industrial operations. Once humans start moving such activities off-planet, there will be a chance for Earth's natural processes to abate and recover from the damage we may have done on our way to maturity. Humans can't advance as a civilization and live like they're afraid to walk on the grass.

You can't have humans totally proscribed from causing any potential damage to the environment or climate. It's going to happen no matter what, and no matter how many laws are passed or treaties that are signed. Not saying I favor a free-for-all. As I stated above, pragmatic and cost-effective rules that can reasonably be enforced, and that don't do more damage than they're intended to mitigate.

"The secret is to bang the two rocks together, kiddies!" - MC at The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe.

Strat

We must work to eliminate the large numbers of carbon-producing buffalo immediately!

Oh, wait...

Any scientists care to produce data on how much cooling that hunting the large numbers of truly enormous herds of buffalo that covered many square miles to near-extinction produced? The temperature records I've seen do not show any such corresponding result.

If curbing the bovine population were to have any meaningful effect on warming, we should be able to identify and quantify the data that would tend to confirm or disprove this from the time periods before and after the time of the disappearance of the buffalo herds.

As a matter of fact, I find the lack of this comparison being used to bolster the case for bovine carbon regulations/laws conspicuous by it's very absence.

Strat

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