drsmooth wrote:Republicans' political stupidity regarding ACA, illustrated:



I'll interpret for you if I must, but I know you can do this

wwry wrote:i hate white people

Monkeyboy wrote:The more I hear about this Christie support, the funnier I think it is. It must be nice to be rich and powerful enough that you can organize and finance an exonerating report into accusations of your wrongdoing and get it published before the real investigation. Can you imagine some poor black guy doing this? Yes, there are accusations that I robbed that Wawa, but my lawyers have looked into it without talking to the main people involved in the supposed crime and they have found no evidence linking me to any wrongdoing. We now consider the matter closed, and oh yeh, start thinking about me for POTUS in 2016.

It's like the Freeh report on steroids.

I have to hand it to Christie though, he's got balls of steel. If the POTUS thing doesn't work out, maybe he could become PM of Russia or something.

jerseyhoya wrote:UN General Assembly voted 100-11 with 58 abstentions calling the referendum in Crimea illegitimate. I love a good UN General Assembly issue dealing with a crappy country doing crappy things so you can see the who's who of crappy countries line up together - Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, and Sudan. Hey Russia, your friends (with one or two exceptions) are really awful.

pacino wrote:

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

swishnicholson wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:The more I hear about this Christie support, the funnier I think it is. It must be nice to be rich and powerful enough that you can organize and finance an exonerating report into accusations of your wrongdoing and get it published before the real investigation. Can you imagine some poor black guy doing this? Yes, there are accusations that I robbed that Wawa, but my lawyers have looked into it without talking to the main people involved in the supposed crime and they have found no evidence linking me to any wrongdoing. We now consider the matter closed, and oh yeh, start thinking about me for POTUS in 2016.

It's like the Freeh report on steroids.

I have to hand it to Christie though, he's got balls of steel. If the POTUS thing doesn't work out, maybe he could become PM of Russia or something.

He seems to be successfully managing the message, though, to reduce the question as whether he ordered or knew about the bridge lane closings prior to them happening. I don't doubt that he insulated himself from the actual decision, but Christie went on to say that he had no idea anyone in his staff was involved until the emails were released, months after the suspicions of involvement were aired. This is what I find impossible to accept, but I think by the time this is this proven Christie will have characterized being caught out in this lie as nitpicking, probably successfully.

ashton wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:UN General Assembly voted 100-11 with 58 abstentions calling the referendum in Crimea illegitimate. I love a good UN General Assembly issue dealing with a crappy country doing crappy things so you can see the who's who of crappy countries line up together - Armenia, Belarus, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Zimbabwe, Nicaragua, Russia, Syria, and Sudan. Hey Russia, your friends (with one or two exceptions) are really awful.

pacino wrote:

Let's combine these two and play the "what kind of company do you keep" game with the death penalty.

Countries that have officially executed at least one person in 2014:

China
Iran
Iraq
Saudi Arabia
Somalia
Syria
United Arab Emirates
United States of America

Dream on. The significant thing about Obama's announcement is the two things it left out: surveillance of the internet (as distinct from the telephonic activity of American citizens); and of the rest of the world – that's you and me. So even if Obama succeeds in getting his little policy swerve through Congress, the central capabilities of the national surveillance state will remain in place, untouched and unimpaired.

At the heart of these capabilities is the "bulk collection" (that is, warrantless) collection and storage of communications metadata on an unimaginable scale. Given that metadata in this context is essentially a log of every communicative act that you make in cyberspace – where you went; who you emailed or texted; who emailed or texted you; the URL of every website you visited; a list of every web search you've ever made; and so on – metadata nowadays constitutes information of a very detailed and intimate nature.

This is intolerable, for various reasons. The first and most obvious one is the intimacy of the data that is being collected. What is even more offensive is the speciousness of the rationale that is trotted out by state authorities to "justify" it. This goes back to the era of analogue telephony when the US supreme court decided that the "metadata" of a telephone subscriber consisted of a log of the numbers s/he called, and that this log was the product of the telephone company, not of the subscriber. This was perhaps a not unreasonable judgment in an analogue era, but it is entirely inapplicable in a digital one. Our metadata should belong to us and should only be accessible under judicial supervision.

Related to that is the way in which bulk collection of metadata undermines a fundamental principle of any civilised legal system – the presumption of innocence until proved otherwise. Current NSA/GCHQ practice effectively turns every citizen into a suspect to be surveilled, just in case, at some time in the future, the state decides to take an interest in him or her.