J'Accuse..! that you are failing to

Post #384,388 by Ashton 12/18/13 6:55:56 PM Reply	J'Accuse..! that you are failing to emotionally comprehend the exponential function, both as Has occurred/yet worse! and manifestly: about the Futchah. (And yet: You Know all that math/physics stuff intellectually..) That isn't enough in a homo-sap milieu. [There are bookshelves-bursting-full: replete with Examples of a Prime Fact] We Know that all organization-employees Lie, some more/more often than others--starting with The (any..) President (as nexus for all the options.. that s/he's ... actually.. been tipped-to) Pollyanna Lives!!1ONE1! ... ... Et tu, Brute?
Post #384,392 by Another Scott 12/18/13 7:56:01 PM Reply	That's why the people working there matter. It's not the mathematics or exponential functions or Moore's law. Bertie had a few things to say about mathematics... http://www.brainyquo...randru402437.html ;-) It's not the server and sensor technology. It's not the size of the budget. It's not the press coverage that resulted from Snowden's leaks. It's not the organizations that are on one side or another in making their arguments. What really matters in this NSA stuff is the people. The people working there, the people doing oversight, and the people requesting information from them, the people writing the rules. You want the best people you can get working there in the trenches, and the best managers you can get directing them and looking over their shoulders. You want the best people you can get on the courts deciding sensible solutions when arguments are made about the law. And you want the best people you can get writing the laws in the first place. "But! But! People are flawed! People can't be trusted! You should be outraged!!!111" Sorry. Outrage and emotional thinking leads to things like the Patriot Act. It leads to bad laws and bad long-term solutions. It distracts people from important issues. Let's look over the report that was released today and see if changes they suggest make sense. Let's see if the proposed changes change the structure of the NSA in a way that eliminates the possibility of "snooping" on Americans, or whether there are instead modest tweaks or changes in process. I expect modest changes, and I expect Obama will have sensible things to say about them in January when he announces what changes he will make and propose to Congress. It gets tiring, to me anyway, to have so many issues apparently driven by outrage. I can only cope with so many demands that I be outraged per month. We point and laugh at people who get outraged about Obama's birth certificate or invasion by illegal aliens or Benghazi or Healthcare.gov or Kony 2012 or ... It seems to me that some who don't get worked about those things but get riled up about the NSA are suffering from (or perhaps blessed by) the same affliction. (I considered posting something about Snowden's and Greenwald's various posts on various issues over the years to further illustrate the point, but this is long enough as it is...) FWIW. Cheers, Scott.
Post #384,397 by boxley 12/18/13 9:18:12 PM Reply	need an James Angleton If I didn't dislike DC so much I would do it Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free American and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 58 years. meep
Post #384,399 by Ashton 12/18/13 10:24:27 PM Reply	Fair. enough. (Emotionally comprehend does not at-all imply any Rage--that has other roots.) That state-of-mind merely adds-in to the intellectual Work: the wisdom-gleaned from [whatever soupçon of that Ideal has managed to diffuse-into all life experience], as one seeks some practicable next course of action--as I comprehend that phrase by E. Teller. Indeed.. now we have this Report (which I have yet to peruse--as thoroughly as it seems at all Seriously-done.) Next, we have All the political and other forces, their effects and BHO's Buck: Stopping Here. (We also have these matters allegedly bubbling-up towards the USSC and the possibility of that Third of the Govt. performing a lateral arabesque: so the confluence of these Two 'Deciders' is what awaits; USSC might decide to butt-in Before or After BHO--right? Thanks for your always sane words, the time/effort behind same. I know that we both assign more than token-importance to 'future effects' of these pending doings/Decisions--but I am 100% with-you in your earlier fine sentence re what our 'Solons' Ought to be considering! instead of the trivial BS with which so many are obsessed, thus paralyzed. IMO, the absence of Purpose, of apparent competence even--to focus on the truly-Vital! is a sound-enough reason for quite healthy-Rage: but not an excuse to become Rage Boy and fulminate perpetually about each absurdity. (Still, as the List grows longer of, simply, governance-Work!, evaded-by-clowns--rage is likely a continuing companion to the thoughtful-slice of the pie chart.) Maybe a crucial failure of the species is ~ our inability to force perpetual-adolescents to strive for adulthood. May January find for us at least a momentary exception to this sordid record. Statistically: even by accident would do; it's been a l o n g - r u n of unremitting Idiocy-personified: >9/11/01 I will even light a Special candle--would Witchcraft help? widdershins? Shooting-up a case of CoorsÂ horse-piss with a machine gun?
Post #384,402 by Another Scott 12/18/13 10:51:09 PM Reply	Thanks. I'll keep thinking about these things...

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