It offends me.

How does drilling in ANWAR affect you in any way? How does a woman having or being denied an abortion in Texas affect you in any way? How does taxing rich people affect you in any way? I can do this all day, but I think you get the point. So don't give me that "how does it affect you" bullshit until you can answer these:

How does it affect you if the government calls your relation a civil union vs a marriage? Can you not have a wedding? Can you not wear a ring and tell everyone you are married? How does it make what you have any different?

The only difference I can see is that a civil union does not make me offended. But that's your whole point isn't it? You want to offend me and all Christians because you hate all Christians. Never mind that Muslims hang gays on the streets, they deserve to be heard and have their religious freedom, we must offend all Christians. And that's exactly why it will be held in a church. Democrats have already blocked a law protecting Chaplains in the US military from refusing to perform same sex marriages. How long do you think it will be before that same-sex couple sues the Catholic Church demanding "equal rights" to have a chapel wedding?

This isn't about equal rights. This is about getting even for perceived wrongs done to you. Tell me again how I am the bigot?

My mother owns a beauty salon that I worked in from before I was old enough to see over the counter. I know it's cliche to assume that gay me do hair, but it's a cliche for a reason. You have no idea how many gay friends I have. I have kinda grown up around them. I know what they are like, how they feel and what they are all about. And I feel they deserve equal rights under the law. But they do NOT have equal rights under religion. You don't have to like it. You don't have to be in a religion. But since freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Constitution, government has to respect it. By the way, can you tell me marriage is guaranteed in the Constitution? I can't find it anywhere.

I don't believe you have any religious friends. If you did, you wouldn't think they are all bigots.

And marriage is not just a Christian concept. It certainly predates Christianity. It appears to predate the earliest mentions of the Jews as far as the Bible goes. I would even say that the Bible agrees that civilization itself predates marriage as there is no mention in the Bible of Adam and Eve ever getting married. That doesn't mean shit as on July4, 1776, marriage was strictly a religious rite and carried no weight whatsoever in American law. It was, however being regulated by Jewish law in God knows what BC. So it was a religious rite for thousands of years before it was ever recognized by the United States Government. Sorry, but those are the facts.

Bingo!!! Marriage is a religious rite. Government has no business regulating or even recognizing a religious rite. However, there is a purpose to the government recognition of marriage, specifically taxes, shared property ownership, power of attorney, inheritance rights and so on, and I completely support gay couples gaining the same rights as straight couples. Those necessary results of government recognition of marriage could just as easily and equally be obtained if government recognized "civil unions" "legalized finger banging" or "neibersplat evernijula" or "hebeeshleebee itzu cowpoo". Does a rose by any other name not smell as sweet?

Like you said, I just don't like government redefining what has been a religious concept a thousand years before western culture, much less America or American law.

I'd never argue that /. and the various forums and boards I troll are anything but statistically insignificant outlying, niche places. You postulated that there would be a large overlap of people who think the idea of the app is wrong i.e. presumably mostly conservative gun owners who don't want to have their privacy violated vs. gun owners who don't want their privacy violated, who also think Snowden is a traitor.

The point was, in my experience that assumption is wrong. Sure, it's just anecdotal evidence, but if you're so bothered about it, you can go to any large forum and search out Snowden threads, and you might see that significantly more than the parroted national average support the guy. Drawing inference between this subset of people and the national mob? Are you straw-manning?

I plan on seeing the movie. During the Chick-Fil-A boycott, I ate more chicken sandwiches than at any point in my life!

It's not that I'm anti-gay. I think gay people are awesome. It's because I'm pro-Constitution. The Constitution says you have the right to free speech. Nowhere does it say you have the right to marry, straight, gay or otherwise.

I always used to hear liberals say "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I'll fight to death for your right to say it." It's amazing how fast that goes out the window when someone says something they view as "intolerant". I figure, if they're willing to claim to fight to the death for opposing views, the least I can do is enjoy a chicken sandwich with some waffle fries and see a movie I was interested in already.

If that were true, they would have accepted a civil unions law that gave civil unions 100% equality with marriage. I have yet to meet a gay couple that would have accepted a civil union, even if it was legally equal to marriage in every way. Most would claim some bullshit about the "separate but equal" issues in the civil rights era, where a water fountain for blacks was dirty and unmaintained while the "white's only" water fountain was new and shiny. I call it bullshit because if a law says two things are equal, they are equal, period. It's not like inheritance laws for gays can get dirty or leak. These are not physical objects.

When I would explain that "separate but equal" only applies to physical objects, they would say that they wanted to be "married", not unionized. So I ask them was stopping them from putting on white dresses, saying vows, exchanging rings, smearing cake on each other's faces, throwing a party and telling everyone they know that they are married? What difference does it make what the government called it?

If you want to be married, be married. Marriage is about love, trust and commitment. It's not about inheritance rights, taxes and contracts. Why must you demand that government call your relationship a "marriage" when the "rights" part can be achieved with using that exact word? Their only HONEST response was they wanted to FORCE those bigoted Christians to recognize their marriage.

This is not about equal rights. If it were, they could have had it years ago with little resistance. This is about revenge and punishing those they hate; religious people.

Don't mod this down because you don't like it. Be an adult and reply with why you think I'm wrong.

I can enjoy art without making a financial contribution to the artist. I know this is a difficult concept to grasp in the age of RIAA and copyright maximalists, but it was only recently that art became a work for hire, and throughout most of human history art was something you did to pass the time once the business of staying alive was completed.

Maybe that's true in your halcyon 'noble savage' scenario. In reality, art has largely been for hire since the dawn of civilization. Artists have to eat too.

1. The UAV feed can be relayed to a room full of targeting analysts, legal advisors, and the highest level of command you need to have the authority to make the shoot - none of whom are in danger - which gives you the best possible chance of making the right "shoot/don't shoot" decision;

2. The UAV pilot isn't hopped up on amphetamines;

3. The UAV pilot isn't part of a culture that degenerates pilots who return home from missions without shooting, thus motivating human pilots to shoot at *something* before they go home; and

4. The UAV pilot cannot make a bullshit claim of "self-defence" before rolling in on an unauthorized target - like, say, a Canadian target range.

DG

That "up or out" policy has always struck me as being bizarre.

Sure, not everybody has the chops to go on to be a senior officer. Sometimes, a guy is going to top out at Captain. But he could be a very *good* (or at least acceptable) Captain, and there's no shortage of jobs that profit from having a senior Captain in that slot. Why get rid of those guys?

I think these ought to be further simplified:

The first case is 110/mm^2.

The second is .009 mm^2.

I guess that the second version makes more sense: It would the cross section of the strand of gasoline the car would use if the fuel were stretched into a filament as long as the whole trip.

"The Shockwave Rider"

the flying service's historically kneejerk resistance to anything too closely aligned with sweeping technological change

Wait, what? What planet does he live on? Historically the USAF has been quite the opposite - chasing sweeping technological change whether it made sense or the technology was truly ready for the prime time. You want kneejerk resistance, you want the Navy, especially my fellow bubbleheads in the submarine service.
 
This isn't about technology, it's about social change - and that has always been been a tug-of-war in the USAF between the fighter and bomber communities.

Heh; I think you've got the idea. ;-)

An only slightly greater stretch of the idea is the claim that has come out in the US's gun legislation, to the effect that a large majority of the deaths from gunshot wounds are due to suicide.

I wonder how many more interesting examples we can produce showing that most dangers come from "insiders".

Nah; anyone who has been following security-related news stories for at least a few years understands that the primary enemy of any government is its own citizens. They're nearby, where they can vote against you, take you to court, or shoot at you. None of these threats are easily available to people in other countries.

Just dig into the histories of the related US agencies (e.g., HUAC or the FBI or even the CIA) in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. How many external "enemies" -- or domestic "subversives" -- did they ever catch and prosecute? Pretty close to none at all. How many citizens did they attack and serious injure (either their reputation, finances, or physical well-being)? Lots and lots of them.

This story is only news to someone who isn't familiar with the long, documented history of such activities. Fact is, your government considers you more of a threat than pretty much anyone outside its borders. This is especially true if you're involved in any activity that threatens the income (especially under-the-counter income) of anyone in your government.

Wanna bet there's a substantial overlap of people who can simultaneously believe Snowden is a traitor while believing this database and app are wrong?

I think you'd be surprised just how wrong you are about this idea, if you'd simply look into it. Among many such people, governments aren't trusted nearly as strongly as by other groups. The recent uncovering of nationwide spying? The non-privacy of internet activities long been assumed both at /. and various gun related forums; if not that these sites are at an elevated risk for such activities. It's not universal, but the sentiment many share in these places parallels your own.

As for Snowden, the legality and morality of the snooping and of the leaking, well, the common thought I've seen is this: some people are conflicted about it, but most think he has diamond encrusted testicles, most think he upheld his oath the only way he could, and that POTUS, both the current and former are a far greater threat to liberty and the American Way than a bunch of pissed off goat farmers 5000 miles yonder.

Also, I'll leave you a parting thought: I think the whole popularity of the zombie apocalypse meme and being prepared at some level for large scale disaster (pervasive in this community in particular) can be appropriately described as a subconscious cultural / political allegory. Given the context, I'll let you work out what it symbolizes.

It's not whining to notice a fact. And a certain disconnect betwen the /. editors and their audience has been obvious for anyone who has been around a while, because it didn't use to be like that.

You know, back in the days when I registered, most of the topics were really tech stuff, news for nerds. Not whatever Zite and Google News dug up today. Linux, a new video codex or a crypto algorithm are the same for everyone, so it doesn't get noticed as much where the blog resides and who the editors are.