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cellphones and driving is your example?! That's a local law that is enforced locally. It's obviously not at all what I am talking about. The federal level is where the worst unfolds, not coincidentally that's where the strongest available power resides.Originally Posted by aggroculture
I'll address your post and hook off @allegro 's Monsanto concerns with a single image:
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@allegro - Regulation can absolutely work, it just requires a level of competency to implement something that is going to do any good. The repeat failures on ridiculous gun control proposals are a perfect example. I have very little faith that our current government has the needed competency for what you are talking about. We need to handle the crony capitalism problem first.
As for the VA thing, don't ignore the fact that the VA is, literally, socialized medical care. The government owns the hospitals and employs the doctors. It was only a few years ago that Ezra Klein was talking about how the VA is a great example of socialized health care.
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The VA is a crap example of socialized health care. Medicare is a better example of socialized health care.
The VA is an example of how shitty we treat our military. In every way possible.
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DigitalChaos: the answer to your image is that we need more regulation banning such conflict of interest. Simple. If you are on the payroll of corporations...you can't be a lawmaker, you can't work for the government. Why is that so hard? Conflict of interest. The US needs an education in the concept.
If Monsanto is paying you, how can you be trusted to work for the people's interest rather than Monsanto's? You can't.
Allegro: driving while on the phone may be illegal in Illinois. It's legal in Indiana.
I chose this as an example of deregulation that hurts people. Local, state-level, or federal, it's the same principle. Profit of corporations is put before people's safety.
And guns are the same.
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Ok, now point to some regulation like this that has been successful. Hell, point to some that has been proposed. You think these people are going to reduce their own power?
It's this feedback cycle that keeps fucking us and is exactly why I have an issue with feeding it more power. The vast majority of regulation that actually gets through is something that benefits a corporation while being sold as "protecting the people."
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Oh stop, that's total crap!! CRAP!
Corporations have ZERO interest in regulation unless it protects THEM and they're usually pretty obvious about that. But, generally, corporations cry and scream about regulations. Then they threaten layoffs and threaten to move their companies to foreign soil.
This is already illegal. The problem is that it's hard to enforce. Justice Thomas, for instance. He no longer works for Monsanto. But he is obligated, ethically, to recuse himself. BUT HE NEVER DOES. So what do we do about that? KILL HIM? We seem to have no set of rules as to what to do about a Supreme Court Justice who continually refuses to recuse himself. Thomas' wife is a lobbyist. Same thing; Thomas consistently refuses to recuse himself in cases affiliated with his spouse, WHEN HE IS ETHICALLY OBLIGATED TO DO SO. This isn't a "crime," per se, but it does violate the Bar. The problem is, somebody has to actually force the issue and go after him. But there is no precedent. However, there are clear conflict of interest regulations when it comes to lawmakers and corporations. There are NOT, however, regulations when it comes to corporations, campaign contributions, etc. There's an arm's length, there, that's just long enough to make it legal.
The biggest problem is lobbyists. The lobbyists are the "arm" in "arm's length." When the politicians are afraid of Monsanto, they're not really afraid of Monsanto, they're afraid of the literally thousands of lobbyists behind Monsanto and big business. If you piss off those lobbyists, you say goodbye to all of your campaign cash. Monsanto is paying those lobbyists. These lobbyists make it their business to make sure that all things that benefit Monsanto come to pass, e.g. do not pass any regulations that could harm Monsanto, do not pass any laws that could harm Monsanto, etc. These lobbyists wine and dine politicians, send them on expensive trips all around the world, give them lots of campaign contributions, all of it being totally legal.
Last edited by allegro; 06-04-2014 at 08:08 PM.
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Which happens to be very frequently. The list of crony capitalism runs very long, so i'll try to list things that were recent, in the news, and sold to the public as trying to keep them safe or somehow benefit the public directly.
- SOPA
- Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act - Yea, Philip Morris backed this one because it hurt their competition.
- Cap and Trade - GE loved this
- Who benefitted from the Affordable Housing mandates?
- ACA - plenty of instances of crony capitalism there. Insurance companies loved all the mandated business. Walmart backed the employer mandate. Drug lobbies wrote part of it.
- Ethanol mandates
- Obama hired H&R Block's CEO into the IRS, where he created new regulations on tax preparers -- rules which H&R Block supported and small tax preparers sued to overturn.
- I won't even touch the never ending list of this happening in the military industry.
- There is a huge list of regulation that is being wielded by existing corporations to prevent competition from entering the market.
- Remember all those bailouts that "the economy" needed? Who got all that money?
exactly! This is why we should try to solve the problem here. I still think publicly funded (ONLY) elections would be the way to go here. Lobbyists won't like it but the politicians might.
Last edited by DigitalChaos; 06-04-2014 at 08:59 PM.
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PM may have backed it, but PM did not CREATE the regulation. And, overall, this Act it did NOT help the tobacco industry at all.
There was no such thing as a nation-wide "mandate." This wasn't like affirmative action. This wasn't a "regulation." And the subprime mortgage meltdown was just an example of FRAUD; it's not an example of a regulation created by corporations for the benefit of corporations; it was a Democrat President working with FANNIE MAE to provide the American Dream to the Middle Class. Don't fucking get me started on this, I'll win.
This is one example I'll give you. Insurance lobbyists wrote ALL of it.
Yes, and these will never happen. They're total bullshit.
Jesus Christ, even if I gave you every single one of the ones you list, that still doesn't indicate that we don't need regulations. WE DO. BP has consistently spilled shit into Lake Michigan. And our representatives here in Illinois and the Great Lakes States have had to shove it up BP's ass while, at the same time, some of them are trying to blow BP because they're afraid of losing BP's business. But we Chicagoans can't fuck up Lake Michigan because we DRINK LAKE MICHIGAN. Problem is, we regulate the fuck out of BP but BP does whatever the fuck it wants and violates the regulations all the fucking time. Then we sue them, and they have so much god damned money, they write a check. Because paying damages costs less than what they lose in having to play by the rules. And our rules should be even MORE stringent. Protesters around here want them OFF THE SHORES OF LAKE MICHIGAN, completely, and I'm with the protesters. Eventually, the people have to rise up enough to tell these politicians that we ain't gonna let money determine the outcome, anymore; that we aren't gonna let BP contaminate what we drink, and we can demand that they get the fuck off of the shores of Lake Michigan and if the politicians don't listen, then we get rid of the politicians. IT'S THAT FUCKING SIMPLE. We have to regulate the fuck out of these companies, and if they don't like it, they can take their fucking jobs and tax revenue to MARS for all we care.
Bottom line: This is the GUN thread. The Supreme Court of the United States has already made it VERY CLEAR that the only guns that cannot be regulated are:
* hand guns
* shot guns
* rifles
Everything else, they won't even hear the fucking case. Case closed, done, they can absolutely legally be regulated. They can even be banned. Now, do we need to ban them? They used to be banned. There was no slippery slope, then. But, problem is, as we have already seen, that horse has already left the barn. With literally MILLIONS of assault weapons already out there on the street, we can't call them all back. We could regulate the sale of them in the future. We regulate the sale of booze, cigarettes, pharmaceutical drugs, and I can't even buy real pseudafed without providing my driver's license for Christ sake. So, yeah, fork over some fucking ID and get on a national registry system. Will that have prevented the jerk in Santa Barbara from shooting and stabbing people? Absolutely not. We are a violent, vengeful culture, rife with mentally ill people. But "fuck the government and fuck the regulations" is just a stupid, immature, anarchic high school way of viewing the world.
Last edited by allegro; 06-04-2014 at 09:29 PM.
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Remember, I'm not saying that we don't need regulation. I'm saying that we won't get any meaningful regulation because of how almost everyone in government is owned by the businesses that don't want the regulation.
We are going to need a mass awakening where people educate themselves and stop adhering to a party. Everyone around here fucking HATES Feinstein now, but there is no way in hell they will vote for an "R" and the Dems aren't going to put another person up while they have Feinstein.
Here is another depressing one. Leland Yee, the extremely anti-gun senator who got caught doing some massive gun-running a couple months ago... He just got nearly 300,000 votes in our primary. (12.4%, 3rd place, winner got 29%) That's our dumb-fuck electorate out here.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/201...san-francisco/
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That goes back to competency again. The national background check system we already have (NICS) can be bypassed with 100% success. This hole has been known for over a decade and it still isn't fixed. All you need is a fake ID that doesn't correspond to an actual person who would be on the "don't setll to" list. So yea, fuck the federal government and their shitty "help"Leave it to the state or county to deal with things.
Bite me
No, the states are fucked up, too, but that doesn't mean it can't be fixed. Look, Target got hacked but does that mean that we should all give up our credit cards? No, improve the fucking systems. Target is now installing chip readers in their stores. So, do reciprocity and cross-checks, maybe an idea that hasn't even been INVENTED, yet, but have some national consistency and not a hodgepodge of laws. We don't want Federal "help," we need national consistency; there's a difference.That goes back to competency again. The national background check system we already have (NICS) can be bypassed with 100% success. This hole has been known for over a decade and it still isn't fixed. All you need is a fake ID that doesn't correspond to an actual person who would be on the "don't setll to" list. So yea, fuck the federal government and their shitty "help"
I was nobody. Nothing.
Ho...ly....shit.Speaking of Florida... They just legalized the possession of certain types of weapons at school for children ... and it might be the only sane thing to come out of FL in a very very long time.
HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.
IDK what else to say.
I was going to quote one of them but i cant decide which one is the funniest.
Brandishing a partially consumed pastry...? I guess you might still be breaking the law if you brandish a pastry none of which has been consumed.
I would assume that brandishing a fully consumed pastry would be legal, but the jury is still out, considering they need a law on the books to make sure no one gets charged with 5. Vocalizing an imaginary firearm.
Just...Jesus...LOLOLOLOL! great find, @DigitalChaos
and i am PRO gun control, please don't get me wrong. Could bills like this be part of the reason why we can't get any meaningful reform passed on....anything?
Edit: if anyone disagrees with me from here on out, ima fuck you up with my imaginary SKS, so you motherfuckers best RECOGNIZE.
Last edited by elevenism; 06-05-2014 at 02:05 AM.
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We don't get "gun news" often in Canada but ongoing events are very tragic. 3 RCMP officers dead. 2 others injured. Gunman still at large.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/05/world/...html?hpt=hp_t1
Accordingly to his alleged facebook page, he was anti-police, pro-guns and posted lyrics to a Megadeath song shortly before going on his rampage.
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The states would be easier to fix than the fed systems, just by nature of their smaller scope and having decisions that are closer to the electorate (gay marriage, weed legalization, etc etc).
You bring up an interesting point about Target. Wouldn't Target be much more incentivized to quickly fix it than the government? In fact, I can't think of a single service/resource/product that the government would be better at (hell, even equal) than a private company... outside of the basics that are explicitly outlined in the Constitution anyway.
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Here's one: There's been constant talk about privatizing air traffic control. Do you know what a fucking safety and security nightmare that could be? With, say, Lockheed Martin handling all air traffic control? The same Lockheed Martin that said it was okay to go ahead and launch the Challenger space shuttle with frozen O rings even though they'd been told that it was too cold but there were a lot of press out there watching that teacher in space? And with air traffic control being PROFIT-DRIVEN instead of safety-driven?
You and millions of other Americans may not realize this but the "GOVERNMENT" already works with private companies to get the job done. The "GOVERNMENT" doesn't do all this on their own. Raytheon and Lockheed already work with the FAA to design and implement FAA systems, Raytheon trains air traffic controllers at FAA facilities on a contract basis. Etc etc etc etc
How about hiring the AAA, the American Arbitration Association, to handle most of the Court cases in this country in mandatory arbitration instead of our current judicial system? Cheap, easy, privatized? Some lawyers get paid on the side, bring in some court reporters, a notary, a conference room, wham bam you're done. Binding. Cheap. Save a lot of money. Can you see the potential slime here? We already HAVE this and it works great, but make it the norm and you're gonna have problems.
Target wasn't "incentivized" (that isn't even a fucking WORD) to do this until they lost MILLIONS OF DOLLARS and their CEO was forced to step down and millions of people were faced with possible identity fraud. So don't point to Target as a shining fucking example of capitalism trumping government. I'm still having to watch my credit report daily to make sure my fucking Red Card doesn't cause me problems.
Last edited by allegro; 06-05-2014 at 02:55 PM.
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^ I'm ok with the government utilizing private companies to get shit done. They just need to fix their fucked up bidding/procurement process... they can't even do that right. Healthcare.gov is a perfect example. It took a catastrophic failure before they finally figured out how to find
3 dictionaries disagree: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/incentivizedI'm a fan of "verbosify" too!
That was my point with Target though. They turned it around fast because of the monetary loss. Compare that to where this tangent started: NICS who hasn't fixed their gaping security issue for over a decade. What's the loss there? According to gun control extremists, a lack of proper national background checks means people are being killed daily.
Data security (along the lines of the Target breech) is tricky. I work quite a bit in that world and interface with people who bypass it. Everyone sucks at it but Govt agencies tend to solve it in a much less resource efficient way.
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Target actually attempted to roll out chip readers several years ago and it failed, so they had to pull it all back again. Retail has been fighting it for a long time because of cost vs. risk.
Cost vs. risk. Risk management. That's the bottom line for everything.
GM's current problems all came down to cost vs. risk.
Security will never be fully secure, there will always be some hacker 3 steps ahead. I knew guys back in the early-80s figuring out how to get into the back doors of huge UNIX systems that were supposedly unbreakable, not to DO anything but just to show that it was possible. These higher-up SysOps (ha now I'm dating myself) who used to think that only those with Root password could get in would sit back and rest easy, that didn't go so well. Wars aren't going to fought with guns, anymore; they're going to be fought with data and hacking. China doesn't need guns to hurt us; all it needs is to hack our grids. All of our debit and credit cards could become completely useless in seconds, we'd have zero access to money. We're way more vulnerable than we think, even all over the private sector. The private sector is no smarter than the government. In fact, it's just as fucking stupid!
Fuck your free dictionary!
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@allegro - if you and I are ever in the same physical vicinity, we *need* to have lunch or something.
I'm waiting for someone to hit all the highly insecure SCADA systems attached to every oil rig that spans thousands of miles of oil fields.
Your story echos back to the glory days of phone phreaking. I used to work with a DEC Operator who was much like you described. Those guys did not age well with technology. His job turned into staring at the server logs "to make sure it was secure." I would constantly torment him by trigging "rogue" network connections to his server that would show up in his logs. (whoop-de-fucking-do, telnet!) It was mostly a test to see if he was really THAT clueless, but he was.
Things seemed much simpler back then.
Remember when encryption was potentially a 2nd Amendment issue?
I was nobody. Nothing.
JEsus, all this teck talk is scaring the fuck out of me.
You're a narcotics agent, i KNEW it!
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god noJEsus, all this teck talk is scaring the fuck out of me.
You're a narcotics agent, i KNEW it!
I've done data collection work for local police, FBI, FTC and such... but that's about the closest I could get to any of that. From their perspective, I'm usually on the opposite side of things and have gotten some casual attention from them. That reminds me, I need to send out some FOIA requests so I can frame the results. I'm currently stalling in hopes that I get a love letter from the ATF first.
Bite me
LOL, look what we (ALLEGEDLY) kept doing to Iran's nuclear facilities. It wasn't too hard, either!
Exactly. They could EASILY hit our electrical grid, too. "War Games" wasn't that far from the truth.
They're too stupid.
Last edited by allegro; 06-05-2014 at 10:46 PM.
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It was crazy how people were taking incredibly close up photos of him (maybe telephoto?) while he was roaming around and posting it to social media. Did they end up finding him yet?
Seattle just had a shooting. They guy was apparently fascinated with school shootings and wanted to do it. He used a shotgun and some absolutely insane student security guard waited until he had to reload, pepper sprayed him, then tackled him. HOLY FUCK. This guy must have not known how to do tactical reloads with his shotgun, luckily.
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They found him early Friday morning. He was hiding in a bush located in the backyard of this lady's property. She didn't even know he was hiding there. She stated that she just saw the swat stormed her backyard yelling "get out with your hands up" and "drop your weapons".
He has been charged with 3 counts of first degree murder and 2 counts of attempted murder.
I saw the Seattle shooting. That student is a real hero. I would have been running for my life. Good for him. Most likely saved a lot of lives.
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A break from the pattern. This time the shooting was not only done by TWO people but one was also FEMALE.
Two officers and an unknown citizen killed. Both shooters dead too. The shooters yelled something about "revolution."
There was some suspicion about them encountering a concealed carry person that may have ended things early (who knows though)
http://www.mediaite.com/online/revol...vegas-walmart/
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They were allegedly married. Police also allegedly found "white supremacist paraphernalia" at their apartment.
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The couple were reportedly kicked off the Bundy ranch.
Quoting a friend's observation: Ideologically-motivated people violently attacking a civilian target in order to disrupt or destabilize a government. That's terrorism, right?
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I'm curious what this actually means. Not that I would be surprised with these two, but I've seen some pretty stupid examples of it.
How the hell do you get kicked off Bundy ranch?
No, they're white.
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They also covered one of the cop's bodies with a Gasden flag... seriously fuck all these assholes (mostly Tea Party) who have destroyed the history of that flag. It's like what the Nazis did to the Swastika.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/la...re-kill-police
AAAAAAAANNNNDDD their fucking neighbors even said they would talk about killing cops but did nothing. So sick of the "it's none of my business" people that live everywhere. Let's keep our heads down because a minor inconvenience to our boring every day lives is too much to sacrifice for the benefit of your local community. This includes all the assholes that I see on the streets who walk past people who clearly need help because "it must be the job of someone who is payed with my tax money." This ties in with the anti-gun stupidity that rejects concealed carry "because the police should do it"
From the article:
Are you fucking kidding me?Marlene Buck works at the Denny’s on Nellis across from Wal-Mart. She said she was impressed with Metro’s quick response. “It took less than fifteen minutes,” she said.
.... and that's my rant for the day.
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Alex Jones, motherfuckers.
Two clowns who talked about the second amendment as a check on government tyranny bring guns and a bag full of ammo to a Las Vegas Wal-Mart where they ambush two police officers, and take a concealed permit carrying 'hero' out in the process, only to have their right to bear arms trumped by speech: (yes, this is me stretching into psuedo-troll mode, I'm a weenie and only doing it on totally safe online territory) Their guns were defeated by police radios. That and government guns in greater quantity. FALSE FLAG! Get fucked, you shameless asshole.
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Fuck Alex Jones.
This article makes it really easy to sympathize with the guy though (everything but the whole killing people thing, obviously). I can sympathize with his anger a hell of a lot more than the Bundy ranch stupidity, for example.
His life got fucked up after getting caught with weed... something multiple US Presidents did without getting caught and now continue the bullshit war on drugs. He was basically trapped in a shittier position in life and being held there thanks to some ridiculous laws. He was in the unlucky position that a LOT of people in this country are. Not a whole lot left to lose and a very clear source of their problems. Surround them with people salivating for "revolution" and it's not all that hard to imagine that things would tip this direction. It's not in any way justified, but it's just surprising that we don't see more of this going on with how prevalent that exact situation is.
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