03:36pm 08-18-2012 - Don't mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta "rage" in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he's not raging against is the privileged elite he's groveling in front of for campaign contributions. - nwily
04:14am 04-02-2010 - Declare a war on Piracy and declare the pirates unlawful enemy combatants and ship 'em off to gitmo? - Obsidian
12:36am 04-03-2010 - I can only assume you are referencing this: http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2005/feature_burgess_julaug05.msp - nwily
09:29am 04-04-2010 - um... yea... that was exactly what i was referring to... - Obsidian
11:11am 01-01-2010 - I don't understand the premise of this article. It appears to be "Hey, look at the cool stuff you could have had." I can't deny a lot of stuff would have gone into the public domain, but that's not a cogent argument for why it SHOULD be in the public domain. This article display the same "deep thinking" as a 16 year-old who breaks into his neighbors house to steal his TV. "Man, think of how cool it would be if I had that stuff." - nwily
12:46pm 06-06-2009 - I love that someone combined a military precisions style flashmob and MC Hammer. I think the real question here is why did no one think of this earlier? - nwily
02:36pm 02-24-2009 - Im curious what other people here think (obsidian). IMHO, it seems like the memorial should be reflective of the soldiers in question. If that means a religious overtone, cool. If it means a giant ACDC monument, cool. It seems to me that without an additional act, they aren't affecting the establishment of religion. - nwily
07:26am 01-24-2009 - Cops randomly busting down doors? It must have been the baby! Sounds slightly suspicious. Why wouldn't they have just checked the call logs? - jester
10:25am 01-29-2009 - Local calls aren't traditionally logged by anyone but the NSA. Too much data to be useful. I would imagine 911 calls would get logged, but I'm willing to attribute this to gross incompetence - nwily
08:40pm 07-01-2008 - Well, I guess I am just going to have to spoil my ballot. - Obsidian
08:43pm 07-01-2008 - That's a shame. I'm undecided on programs that do not consider faith at all, but programs geared specifically towards them are unconstitutional. - jester
07:08am 07-02-2008 - I think it's a matter of perspective. If they are involving them as a sort of philosopher to comment on general direction/morality in the government, I can see that. (Assuming the board isn't made up purely of religious members). If we're talking about actually paying religious people to even mutter their faith that's psychotic/unconstitutional. - nwily
04:14am 05-16-2008 - My favorite: "I blame R. Kelly for Sept. 11." Do you think I should be asking my clients' potential jurors a similar question? - Obsidian
12:50pm 05-16-2008 - I'm going to vote overwhelmingly yes. I think a staple question for any prospective juror should be "How guilty is R Kelly for 9-11? Less than 20%-50%, 50-80%, or greater than 80%?" In fact, I might video tape that... - nwily
08:09pm 04-30-2008 - It shows that returning fire isn't the only option. - Obsidian
08:09pm 04-30-2008 - Not when it's a complete moron like that. - jester
06:51am 05-01-2008 - I'm going to assume that you aren't actually saying self defense is overrated... The idea that in any significant percentage of cases, doing nothing when someone is ACTIVELY TRYING TO MURDER YOU seems a bit naive. - nwily
04:11am 05-02-2008 - I certainly agree, had this person exercised his right to self defense, I wouldn't hold it against him. But I am only saying that it is nice to see somebody who realizes that just because they have a gun doesn't mean they have to use it. - Obsidian
07:13pm 03-24-2008 - first time a PILOT's gun went off. Big difference. I do admit, it was annoying to find a hijacker who actually pulled the trigger while the plane was in the air, but if nothing else: http://dir.salon.com/story/business/col/hest/2000/07/14/hijacking/ - nwily
07:33pm 10-21-2007 - "Commissioners voted to narrow the initiative's scope and apply it only to personal-use amounts of marijuana arguing that voters didn't realize the full range of the measure when they supported it." Those stupid voters, why do we even let them vote in the first place! - jester
05:05am 10-22-2007 - I think the real question is will the supreme court extend this logic to congress? - nwily
05:31am 07-13-2007 - I don't care that they can say the word "bomb" and not get arrested. I'm jealous they get ARRESTED for saying "bomb" and not shipped off to illegal prisons. - nwily
04:24am 05-16-2007 - We have plenty of crimes of "attempt." Of more concern to me would be the life imprisonment potential penalty. - Obsidian
03:45pm 05-19-2007 - I'm not OK with attempted copyright infringement specifically because it becomes an insanely fine line. IMO, intellectual property law is already broke. When does research become attempted copyright infringement? The pdf only says it will criminalize attempts. The problem is attempting requires knowledge of the alleged criminal mind. The courts have a long established track record of not understand technology, and it seems far too subjective to leave up to non-technical people. - nwily
10:49am 05-19-2007 - and note that they didnt kill this gorilla in order to stop it. - Obsidian
03:38pm 05-19-2007 - I was seriously pissed about that. I find it hard to believe a zoo employee with a tranq gun showed up before a cop. I also love how the article has all those "it was just as scared as the people were" quotes. Hippy propaganda. - nwily
04:24am 04-23-2007 - Although I do see the humor in the legislator not knowing the finer points of the bill she sponcered, it's not like she wrote the thing herself. - Obsidian
06:34am 04-23-2007 - I don't see it as humorous, I see it as scary. Because we live in a republic, we don't directly vote on legislation. Instead, we elect people who we believe will pass law we agree with. In essence, we are entrusting them with the shaping of our government. If those who we have tasked with the passing of laws are not familiar with the laws, then it means they proxied their judgement to someone else. I did not vote for whoever told her the law was acceptable. That person has too much power. - nwily
04:56am 04-24-2007 - While I certainly see your point, I disagree. I do not expect my representatives to know everything about everything. I do expect them to rely on the judgement of their trusted advisors. For example, I am sure that the legislator who sponcered the bill has someone in her staff who is intimately familiar with this legislation. While you did not vote for the person who told her that the law was acceptable, you did vote for her judgement that she could trust the advisor. - Obsidian
04:58am 04-24-2007 - In today's style of legislation, it would be crippling to expect ALL the legislators to be intimately familiar with ALL the proposed legislation. - Obsidian
08:17am 04-24-2007 - I'll grant you, the idea of elected officials having advisors it acceptable. At the very least, I believe people who sponsor bills should understand them. If they do not fully understand the bill, someone else should sponsor it. If no one in congress full understands the topic of a bill, then congress shouldn't be legislating it. If there is one person who should understand it, it's should be her. She didn't fail her constituents, she failed the constitution. - nwily
04:40am 04-25-2007 - I see what you are getting at. I agree that the sponsor should have a higher knowledge of what the bill does. Perhaps you are right that congress shouldn't legislate what congress doesn't understand. I think a good example is the USAPATRIOT ACT. Congress is a deliberative body, and discussion and understand should precede enforcable law-making. - Obsidian
01:02am 04-05-2007 - This looks like an incremental improvement on standard RFID way of doing it. THey basically allude to that in the article, RFID has the problem variable voltages. They figured out how to beat that. And (assuming I'm right) it still get's transmitted in AC, just converted back to DC. - nwily
10:31pm 03-11-2007 - I saw Kansas in the link and thought nothing of it, but it's actually in Illinois! - jester
03:29am 03-12-2007 - I thought the parents were totally over-reacting, until I read the part about "Making the kids read it aloud." Sex ed==good. Making jr high kids read "how do you masturbate" out loud is cruel and unusual. - nwily
