Clearly the aliens caught a broadcast of Independence Day and thought it was a war game simulation showing our defense strategy.
Hmm...if that's the case, the aliens aren't very smart. They should have just taken out Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum from orbit and been done with it.
And cue the "and nothing of value was lost" in 3...2...1...
Because the act of getting into a motor vehicle and driving to work significantly more dangerous than boarding an airplane under the pre 9/11 security protocol.
True, and if there was a way I could significantly lessen the danger of driving by having a government employee see me naked with minimal hassle I'd probably do that too.
When someone pulls a stick of TNT out of his ass and tries to bring down a plane will you be meekly submitting to cavity searches?
No, because I don't think the discomfort and time involved in a cavity search is worth it compared to the risk of someone hiding a stick of TNT up their ass. If they invented a scanner that would detect items concealed in such a manner without all the trouble of a cavity search or the risk of high radiation exposure, then I'd be ok with it. Slippery slopes aren't actually all that slippery unless you have your eyes closed.
Hint: Nothing in life is completely safe. The sooner you accept this the better you'll feel.
A fact of which I am well aware. The issue is not my failure to accept that fact, but that, as you note, acceptance does not mean we should stop trying to prevent terrorism. The fact that the last successful mid-air bombing was twenty years ago does not mean it couldn't happen again (as the recent attack indicates: he wasn't thwarted by security, but by poor bomb-making skills). If new technology allows us to avert more threats with less hassle and (to my mind) less intrusion, then I support it.
Good for you. Some of us value our privacy more than we value expediency.
I understand that not everyone shares my lack of concern about people seeking my penis, but when it comes to risking a successful attack on the lives of at least several hundred people vs. something which does no physical harm and does not significantly expand the power of the state, I really have trouble bringing myself to care about your concerns. A government employee seeing my penis, or my wife's breasts, or even my kids' respective same, does not allow the state to learn any more about my private behavior, beliefs, or predilections than it already knows (aside from piercings, I suppose, but the metal detector already does a fair job of that). There is thus no harm from such machines other than treading on an illogical and tradition-based taboo, unless the concerns of this article turn out to be well-founded, of course. I'm sorry that you consider that an important part of your privacy, but there can be no such thing as absolute privacy - it's always a matter of deciding where to make the tradeoffs. I don't really understand why you consider a fairly minimal invasion of the nudity taboo more important than averting a small but non-trivial threat to your life.
First of all, thank you for calling me a authoritarian pig. It's always good to have a friend that knows you better than you know your self.
Sorry, but as a disinterested third party, I have to say that the position you just advocated kinda does make you an authoritarian pig:
That way there will be no discussion in court about the images being real or not.
In general, speaking positively of rules which ban the introduction of relevant, defendant-exonerating evidence in court, as opposed to mentioning it only as a last resort, means bad things about your commitment to having a free society.
If that also means obviously drawn child porn is illegal, that is fine with me. Everybody that needs images of children of nay kind to fap should have their heads examined.
Then again, looking for the intention behind the words is kind of silly if you just go and state your authoritarian prejudices explicitly.
Now, I don't necessarily disagree that, as a matter of necessity, some provision may need to be made for the criminalization of photorealistic 3D renderings. However, that isn't something to be happy about - it's a very bad thing. The only legitimate reason for banning child porn is protecting children from being exploited in its production. Take that away, and all you have is totalitarian moralism.
"Why can't we ever attempt to solve a problem in this country without having a 'War' on it?" -- Rich Thomson, talk.politics.misc