USPol February: Nation braces for worst as Obama warns of 'peak ink' for veto pen

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPol February: Nation braces for worst as Obama warns of 'peak ink' for veto pen

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Happy Noodle Boy: Jul 3, 2002

zoux posted:

What mistakes

I suppose we should start a list:
- Unions
- Child work laws
- Those mexican restaurants that don't add chorizo to their queso dip.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Jun 14, 2024 17:25

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

Happy Noodle Boy posted:

I read the article and I don't get it. They say one of the reasons is because these courses just teach "what's bad about America". How is that a bad thing? That's how you learn not to make the same stupid loving mistakes.

Those courses teach about indians in a sympathetic light.

Clearly, APUSH should honor manifest destiny more.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:34

ComradeCosmobot: Dec 4, 2004; USPOL July

Happy Noodle Boy posted:

I read the article and I don't get it. They say one of the reasons is because these courses just teach "what's bad about America". How is that a bad thing? That's how you learn not to make the same stupid loving mistakes.

What are you talking about? If America made a mistake, that would mean America would have to apologize for something! But we all know that we do not have to apologize for America because America is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth. So, since America can never apologize, that means America can never make a mistake, and since America can never make mistakes, AP US History teaches nothing and is a worthless class that should be banned for spreading vicious lies about America. QED. Go USA! :patriot:

ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Feb 17, 2015

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:41

Demon Of The Fall: May 1, 2004; Nap Ghost

zoux posted:

Oh everybody thinks that about themselves. Well, not me but I have perspective.

Oh cruel fate!

Should be fun watching the geniuses at the Tennessee State House try to craft a bill that specifically excludes Muslim schools (madrassas?????) without violating the establishment clause.

Haha, they are such loving morons. A Republican bill also recently came up wanting to make the Bible the official state book, even as Nashville's immigrant community is going through a huge boom and is a huge reason why this city is thriving right now. Nashville already has one of the largest Kurdish populations in the country, along with several large communities from Africa.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:43

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Demon Of The Fall posted:

Haha, they are such loving morons. A Republican bill also recently came up wanting to make the Bible the official state book, even as Nashville's immigrant community is going through a huge boom and is a huge reason why this city is thriving right now. Nashville already has one of the largest Kurdish populations in the country, along with several large communities from Africa.

This is not to mention that Tennessee is pushing for more religious oriented Private schools, like Georgia, and this bill could be used to argue against them.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:44

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

ComradeCosmobot posted:

What are you talking about? If America made a mistake, that would mean America would have to apologize for something! But we all know that we do not have to apologize for America because America is the greatest, best country God has ever given man on the face of the Earth. So, since America can never apologize, that means America can never make a mistake. QED.

It's interesting to watch these people try to justify slavery and the Indian genocide.

Demon Of The Fall posted:

Haha, they are such loving morons. A Republican bill also recently came up wanting to make the Bible the official state book, even as Nashville's immigrant community is going through a huge boom and is a huge reason why this city is thriving right now. Nashville already has one of the largest Kurdish populations in the country, along with several large communities from Africa.

I think you'll find that a booming non-Christian immigrant population might have something to do with these types of laws.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:44

A Shitty Reporter: Oct 29, 2012; Dinosaur Gum

gently caress it, hail Satan.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:49

Happy Noodle Boy: Jul 3, 2002

ComradeCosmobot posted:

Go USA!

The Interview had its moments and this one feels relevant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuRx4qq36fQ

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:50

Demon Of The Fall: May 1, 2004; Nap Ghost

zoux posted:

It's interesting to watch these people try to justify slavery and the Indian genocide.

I think you'll find that a booming non-Christian immigrant population might have something to do with these types of laws.

Oh, without a doubt. I think its too late to try to rollback, though. Here's a good read about how the immigrant community has impacted the city, especially when it comes to the growth in small businesses. http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2015/01/14/immigrant-entrepreneurs-boost-main-streets-nashville/21723951/

edit: also I really really like Nashville mayor Karl Dean, when his term is up soon I hope he seeks a more important office.

Demon Of The Fall fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Feb 17, 2015

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:51

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Sesame street time, what do all these headlines have in common?

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:55

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

zoux posted:

Sesame street time, what do all these headlines have in common?

All point towards Diamond Joe rallying the troops and being the underdog to Clinton's inevitability?

Joe gonna win Iowa, then he gonna win New Hampshire, then he gonna lose South Carolina and it all goes to super tuesdau

# ? Feb 17, 2015 16:59

PupsOfWar: Dec 6, 2013

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

I don't get this. AP History kids are college bound, so they're going to find out America is poo poo eventually. Why waste time and money delaying it?

Not necessarily the case. I know at my rural southern school district the principal badgered kids into taking AP classes who didn't belong there and had no interest in higher education, as a means to drive numbers up. There would not have been enough college-bound students to justify the classes otherwise.

And many of those college-bound students are bound for the nearest in-state school or junior/community college, sufficiently close to home that they may be insulated from the general liberalizing tendency of universities.

Yeah a few kids from each graduating class will go to some big fancy ivory tower school, but they are probably considered lost causes.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:00

Shifty Pony: Dec 28, 2004; Up ta somethin'

RuanGacho posted:

I don't see this going well for at&t when Microsoft's primary marketing now is "you're a customer, not a product" Microsoft is making friends with promoting that notion and positioning yourself in the "more intrusive than google" spot is rather begging for a "market correction"

Web advertising has been in a death spiral of advertisers coming up with new methods and users quickly learning to ignore them ever since it first was used. Google makes money because it literally know exactly what you are looking for when you are looking for it. Facebook makes money pretty much entirely off free to play game makers paying to have their apps installed. Both of those are even starting to see reduced returns as people are learning to skip the first couple search results or that the free game will likely suck rear end. Everyone else is just desperately trying to jam as many lowermybills dancing silhouette ads onto your screen as possible in the hopes that you misclick.

So I I agree with you that it won't go well for AT&T but more because it feels more like a poorly thought out experiment than anything else. So this gives AT&T behavioral data... then what do they actually do with it to make money? All the ad networks have their own tracking systems in place and probably wouldn't be all that interested in paying much for the data of a tiny sliver of users. Injecting your own ads onto websites would get you sued and probably wouldn't command much money anyway because that sort of advertising is falling apart. Email will get deleted or caught in a spam filter. Perhaps direct mail?

Edit: I mentioned this in another thread but the most direct way that AT&T or other ISPs could make money from Internet advertising would be to charge $5-10 per month for router level adblocking. Fiahmech noted that there are already Christian ISPs with built-in Conte the filters so it likely would be legal.

Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Feb 17, 2015

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:04

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

Shifty Pony posted:

Web advertising has been in a death spiral of advertisers coming up with new methods and users quickly learning to ignore them ever since it first was used. Google makes money because it literally know exactly what you are looking for when you are looking for it. Facebook makes money pretty much entirely off free to play game makers paying to have their apps installed. Both of those are even starting to see reduced returns as people are learning to skip the first couple search results or that the free game will likely suck rear end. Everyone else is just desperately trying to jam as many lowermybills dancing silhouette ads onto your screen as possible in the hopes that you misclick.

So I I agree with you that it won't go well for AT&T but more because it feels more like a poorly thought out experiment than anything else. So this gives AT&T behavioral data... then what do they actually do with it to make money? All the ad networks have their own tracking systems in place and probably wouldn't be all that interested in paying much for the data of a tiny sliver of users. Injecting your own ads onto websites would get you sued and probably wouldn't command much money anyway because that sort of advertising is falling apart. Email will get deleted or caught in a spam filter. Perhaps direct mail?

ATT can do more with your data, such as linking it to your phone's GPS record so that targeted ads can be delivered to your mobile device based upon your view history at home and physical proximity to a retail outlet.

Hey, you watched 50 shades on demand at home and are now at a Macy's---be sure to buy a 50 Shades Bear for this Valentine's, she'll go hog wild!

They're attempting to vertically integrate their product offerings through servicing the device, rather Google's strategy of content and apps. So when you use an ATT navigator map, integrated witj ATT payment processing subsidiary, ATT can know you are 87% likely to purchase gas on your way to your destiny and for .03 cents/customer can direct individuals through ATT Navigator past your service station at the time when they would most likely purchase fuel, rather than directing them on the shortest distance route which would have them get off one ramp later than your service station.

My Imaginary GF fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Feb 17, 2015

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:07

Joementum: May 23, 2004; Can't post for 6 hours!

zoux posted:

Should be fun watching the geniuses at the Tennessee State House try to craft a bill that specifically excludes Muslim schools (madrassas?????) without violating the establishment clause.

Oh, that's easy. Just ban any school with a mop sink.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:08

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Joementum posted:

Oh, that's easy. Just ban any school with a mop sink.

Yeah but then where is the State government supposed to meet.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:12

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

quote:

A Mississippi state lawmaker said he opposed putting more money into elementary schools because he came from a town where �all the blacks are getting food stamps and what I call �welfare crazy checks.� They don�t work.�
In an interview with the Clarion-Ledger regarding education funding, state Rep. Gene Alday (R) stated his opposition to a push to increase funding to improve elementary school reading scores. Alday implied that increasing education funding for children in black families would be pointless.
Alday continued, saying that when he was mayor of Walls, MS, that the times he�d gone to the emergency room had taken a long time. �I laid in there for hours because they (blacks) were in there being treated for gunshots,� he told the newspaper.
At issue is something called Mississippi�s �third grade reading gate,� a measure passed in 2013, which won�t allow students to advance to fourth grade if they can�t read proficiently. A survey of Mississippi�s school superintendents estimated that about 28 percent of the state�s third graders would have to repeat a grade because they couldn�t pass the reading proficiency exams.
The idea for the policy came from Florida, where the state invested about $1 billion into schools to pay for reading coaches, teachers and increased attention to students who struggled with reading.
The Mississippi legislature recently advanced a bill that would provide exceptions to the reading policy for students with learning disabilities. The bill is opposed by Gov. Phil Bryant (R), who supports the third grade gate policy.
�It�s disappointing that 62 members of the House of Representatives would vote to socially promote children who cannot read,� Bryant told the Clarion-Ledger. �With votes like this, it is little wonder that Mississippi�s public education system has been an abysmal failure.�
Bryant�s critics suggest that he needs to change his approach. �If the governor is sincere about making universal literacy a gateway, rather than a gatekeeper, he would support full funding for what it will take to get the literacy job done,� said Mike Sayer, co-founder of Southern Echo, a grassroots civil rights group that works with African-American students.
Alday staunchly opposes increasing the funding. �I don�t see any schools hurting,� he said.

http://thinkprogress.org/election/2015/02/15/3623356/lawmaker-opposes-education-funding-go-blacks-get-welfare-crazy-checks/

Its ThinkProgress, so take it with a grain of salt....

....oh who am I kidding, its Mississippi. They are that loving moronic.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:17

Boon: Jun 21, 2005; by R. Guyovich

This article is making my recent decision to move to Minneapolis for an MBA retroactively a great decision...

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-miracle-of-minneapolis/384975/

quote:

If the American dream has not quite shattered as the Millennial generation has come of age, it has certainly scattered. Living affordably and trying to climb higher than your parents did were once considered complementary ambitions. Today, young Americans increasingly have to choose one or the other�they can either settle in affordable but stagnant metros or live in economically vibrant cities whose housing prices eat much of their paychecks unless they hit it big.

The dissolution of the American dream isn�t just a feeling; it is an empirical observation. In 2014, economists at Harvard and Berkeley published a landmark study examining which cities have the highest intergenerational mobility�that is, the best odds that a child born into a low-income household will move up into the middle class or beyond. Among large cities, the top of the list was crowded with rich coastal metropolises, including San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, and New York City.

Last fall, Jed Kolko, the chief economist for the online real-estate marketplace Trulia, published a study of housing affordability, which looked at homeowners� monthly payments in each city relative to the area�s median income. By Kolko�s measure, the 10 least affordable cities in the country included, predictably and dispiritingly, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, San Diego, and New York City. The most affordable were strewn through the Rust Belt and the Deep South, where people have become detached from the more dynamic parts of the economy.

These studies, and similar findings, tap into a broader worry. When a city grows rich, its wealth tends to outpace its housing supply, forcing prices higher and making vast swaths of the city unaffordable for middle-class families. And once the rich are ensconced, they typically resist the development of more housing, especially low-income housing, anywhere in their vicinity. In America�s 100 biggest metro areas, six in 10 homes are considered �within reach� of the middle class. But in the 20 richest cities, fewer than half are.

Only three large metros where at least half the homes are within reach for young middle-class families also finish in the top 10 in the Harvard-Berkeley mobility study: Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Minneapolis�St. Paul. The last is particularly remarkable. The Minneapolis�St. Paul metro area is richer by median household income than Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City (or New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles). Among residents under 35, the Twin Cities place in the top 10 for highest college-graduation rate, highest median earnings, and lowest poverty rate, according to the most recent census figures. And yet, according to the Center for Housing Policy, low-income families can rent a home and commute to work more affordably in Minneapolis�St. Paul than in all but one other major metro area (Washington, D.C.). Perhaps most impressive, the Twin Cities have the highest employment rate for 18-to-34-year-olds in the country.

What�s wrong with American cities? is a question that demographers and economists have debated for years. But maybe we should be looking to a luminary exception and asking the opposite question: What�s right with Minneapolis?

In the mid-1800s, companies that included the forerunners of Pillsbury and General Mills sprang up along the Saint Anthony Falls, the only major waterfall on the Mississippi River, in the center of Minneapolis. They saw in its cascade the ideal setting for water-powered mills. But when they tried to tunnel under the bedrock in 1869, the limestone collapsed, altering the falls. Thanks to a giant engineering project led by the Army Corps of Engineers, the falls were permanently restored in 1885. Although it hardly matches the sublime natural drama captured by 19th-century painters, the Minneapolis landmark still flows, rarely floods, and never breaks.

Myron Orfield, the director of the Institute on Metropolitan Opportunity at the University of Minnesota, recently described to me this short but perfect waterfall, �the ideal size for milling,� and I couldn�t help but think that the Saint Anthony Falls were a metaphor for the city�s advantages: a blend of geographical blessings and thoughtful city planning�all of which, to an outsider, looks deceptively boring.

The Twin Cities� geographical blessings are subtle. Unlike America�s coastal megatropolises, Minneapolis doesn�t benefit from a proximity to other rich cities and their intermingling of commerce. Instead, it�s so far from other major metros that it�s a singular magnet for regional talent. �There�s basically nothing between us and Seattle, so we�ve historically had all these smaller cities in Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and Montana that are our satellites,� Orfield told me.

Minneapolis�St. Paul is the headquarters for 19 Fortune 500 companies�more than any other metro its size�spanning retail (Target), health care (UnitedHealth), and food (General Mills). In the past 60 years, 40 Minneapolis-based businesses have made it onto Fortune�s list. �We�re not like Atlanta, where half of its Fortune 500s moved there,� Myles Shaver, a professor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, told me. �There is something about Minneapolis that makes us unusually good at building and keeping large companies.�

Shaver�s theory, which he�s developing into a book, is that Minneapolis is so successful at turning medium-size companies into giants because its most important resource never leaves the city: educated managers of every level, who can work at just about any company. Shaver looked at the outward migration of employed, college-educated people who earn at least twice the national average income�his proxy for the manager demographic�and found that of the 25 largest American cities, only one had a lower rate of outflow than Minneapolis (although he couldn�t compute data for three others). Among all college-educated workers, Minneapolis also had the second-lowest outflow. �It bears out the old adage: �It�s really hard to get people to move to Minneapolis, and it�s impossible to get them to leave.� �

Why is that? And how has the city stayed so affordable despite its wealth and success? The answers appear to involve a highly unusual approach to regional governance, one that encourages high-income communities to share not only their tax revenues but also their real estate with the lower and middle classes.

In the 1960s, local districts and towns in the Twin Cities region offered competing tax breaks to lure in new businesses, diminishing their revenues and depleting their social services in an effort to steal jobs from elsewhere within the area. In 1971, the region came up with an ingenious plan that would help halt this race to the bottom, and also address widening inequality. The Minnesota state legislature passed a law requiring all of the region�s local governments�in Minneapolis and St. Paul and throughout their ring of suburbs�to contribute almost half of the growth in their commercial tax revenues to a regional pool, from which the money would be distributed to tax-poor areas. Today, business taxes are used to enrich some of the region�s poorest communities.

Never before had such a plan�known as �fiscal equalization��been tried at the metropolitan level. �In a typical U.S. metro, the disparities between the poor and rich areas are dramatic, because well-off suburbs don�t share the wealth they build,� says Bruce Katz, the director of the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. But for generations now, the Twin Cities� downtown area, inner-ring neighborhoods, and tony suburbs have shared in the metro�s commercial success. By spreading the wealth to its poorest neighborhoods, the metro area provides more-equal services in low-income places, and keeps quality of life high just about everywhere.

For decades, Minneapolis was also unusually successful at preventing ghettos from congealing. While many large American cities concentrated their low-income housing in certain districts or neighborhoods during the 20th century, sometimes blocking poor residents from the best available jobs, Minnesota passed a law in 1976 requiring all local governments to plan for their fair share of affordable housing. The Twin Cities enforced this rule vigorously, compelling the construction of low-income housing throughout the fastest-growing suburbs. �In the 1970s and early �80s, we built 70 percent of our subsidized units in the wealthiest white districts,� Myron Orfield said. �The metro�s affordable-housing plan was one of the best in the country.�

The region�s commitment to dispersing affordable housing throughout the metro area has since diminished. But the fiscal-equalization plan has proved durable.

The Twin Cities� housing and tax-sharing policies have resulted in lots of good neighborhoods with good schools that are affordable for young graduates and remain nice to live in even as their paychecks rise. This, in turn, has nurtured a deep bench of 30- and 40-something managers, who support the growth of large companies, and whose taxes flow to poorer neighborhoods, where families have relatively good odds of moving into the middle class.

It�s an open question whether the ingredients of the Minneapolis miracle can be packed and shipped to other cities as neatly as its Pillsbury cookies. Minnesota and other states in the Midwest with cheap housing are blessed with land in all directions. Coastal cities are forever bounded by the world�s least developable real estate�the ocean. Yet cities such as San Francisco are also infamous for resisting the construction of new affordable housing.

No other large American city has adopted a plan like Minneapolis�s to sprinkle business taxes across a region in order to keep the poorest areas from falling too far behind. But in 2008, Seoul imported a version of Minneapolis�s tax-sharing scheme. Since then, the gap in funding for social services among the city�s districts has narrowed. According to a 2012 analysis by Sun Ki Kwon, then a graduate student at the University of Kentucky, this has helped Seoul�s poorest communities grow their tax bases while only minimally affecting the city�s richest districts.

One reason the American dream has come apart is that too few cities have shared their resources�and real estate�between the rich and the rest. This isn�t a fact of nature, like the mountains and oceans that restrain our coastal metros. It is a policy of our own choosing. The lesson of Minneapolis is that even our richest cities are free to make a different choice.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:21

ReidRansom: Oct 25, 2004

Happy Noodle Boy posted:

Like I get waste has to go somewhere but how the gently caress do they go "hmm yes the water we drink sounds good". How has this not bit them in the rear end yet? Do we need another cleveland river fire?

It's not the water they drink. Same as with fracking, etc. Totally safe, perfectly quiet, it could be right in your neighborhood and you'd never know, except you don't see it in their neighborhoods.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:34

Jerry Manderbilt: May 31, 2012; No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

Boon posted:

This article is making my recent decision to move to Minneapolis for an MBA retroactively a great decision...

http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/03/the-miracle-of-minneapolis/384975/

Man this is nice and all, but it always worries me that all it takes for this to be destroyed is one very bad legislative session.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 17:58

Dr Pepper: Feb 4, 2012; Don't like it? well...

quote:

The Minnesota state legislature passed a law requiring all of the region�s local governments�in Minneapolis and St. Paul and throughout their ring of suburbs�to contribute almost half of the growth in their commercial tax revenues to a regional pool, from which the money would be distributed to tax-poor areas. Today, business taxes are used to enrich some of the region�s poorest communities.

This... this is just common sense.

Why on earth isn't this the norm everywhere? :psyduck:

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:01

Boon: Jun 21, 2005; by R. Guyovich

Jerry Manderbilt posted:

Man this is nice and all, but it always worries me that all it takes for this to be destroyed is one very bad legislative session.

While it's certainly true, I think the idea needs to account for Millenials slowly growing in power. Gen X will likely continue a watered-down form of Baby Boomer style politics, but all signs (right now) seem to point to the Millennial generation establishing the kind of policy that set Minnesota on this path in the first place.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:02

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

Dr Pepper posted:

This... this is just common sense.

Why on earth isn't this the norm everywhere?

LOCAL CONTROL.

Also are you seriously baffled as to why rich areas don't want to send their money to poor areas?

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:02

Relentlessboredomm: Oct 15, 2006; It's Sic Semper Tyrannis. You said, "Ever faithful terrible lizard."

Dr Pepper posted:

This... this is just common sense.

Why on earth isn't this the norm everywhere?

FYGM is battle cry for Americans everywhere especially the rich.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:03

Jerry Manderbilt: May 31, 2012; No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

Dr Pepper posted:

This... this is just common sense.

Why on earth isn't this the norm everywhere?

I'm in Orange County for university and I bet that the rich white folks in the beach towns, Coto de Caza and Mission Viejo would raise hell if this happened. Heck, I heard that some streets visibly change in quality when you go from wealthier towns (e.g. Huntington Beach) to more middle and working class ones (Garden Grove).

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:04

eNeMeE: Nov 26, 2012

Happy Noodle Boy posted:

Do we need another cleveland river fire?

No.

I'm pretty sure it will take more than one. :suicide:

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:08

Boon: Jun 21, 2005; by R. Guyovich

eNeMeE posted:

No.

I'm pretty sure it will take more than one.

Well, that's normal. That river caught fire a whole lot more than once...

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:10

Relentlessboredomm: Oct 15, 2006; It's Sic Semper Tyrannis. You said, "Ever faithful terrible lizard."

eNeMeE posted:

No.

I'm pretty sure it will take more than one.

I mean they straight up had a spill into their drinking water in WV and the lawmakers turned around and pushed for more lax water pollution standards. There was a brief moment there where someone said something about making the drinking water better regulated but the reaction was so strong it got buried.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:12

Dahbadu: Aug 22, 2004; Reddit has helpfully advised me that I look like a "15 year old fortnite boi"

Fried Chicken posted:

What you probably didn't hear about was Kaspersky's other report, on what they termed the "Equation Group" and their engagement in cyber warfare. These guys have cranked out a whole suite of new malware applications which "exceeds anything we have ever seen before," per the report. Of course cyber warefare is not a precision art, like Stuxnet and Flame these things got out into the wild where Kaspersky found them. Kaspersky didn't know who it was that was building them, but did identify a signature - they targeted firmware and could spread to air-gapped computers (ones that aren't connected to the internet) via USB or were set so the attacker could install new features remotely, using control servers set up across the world. These are pretty insidious programs; here's a highlight

If you are waiting for the punchline (or why this belongs in the USA thread), here it is: per Reuter's reports, the Equation Group is the NSA.

Thanks for posting this, FC. I probably would have never known about it otherwise.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:18

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Dahbadu posted:

Thanks for posting this, FC. I probably would have never known about it otherwise.

Ars Technia has another good write up too: http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/02/how-omnipotent-hackers-tied-to-the-nsa-hid-for-14-years-and-were-found-at-last/

Remember, these people have been operating since at least 2002 or 2003.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:20

My Imaginary GF: Jul 17, 2005; by R. Guyovich

Dr Pepper posted:

This... this is just common sense.

Why on earth isn't this the norm everywhere?

Minnesota is fairly unique in that its metropolitan area is completely within a single state's bounds.

Compare to Chicago: Our metro region stretched across 3 states with widely differing political culture. Its a lot harder to institute regional compacts without unified state government support.

Unfortunately, regional compacts and region as level of political organization are the only solutions with a track record of success to America's structural issues within representative government.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:28

Fritz Coldcockin: Nov 7, 2005

zoux posted:

Oh everybody thinks that about themselves. Well, not me but I have perspective.

Oh cruel fate!

Should be fun watching the geniuses at the Tennessee State House try to craft a bill that specifically excludes Muslim schools (madrassas?????) without violating the establishment clause.

I never get tired of watching these jackasses try to make thinly-veiled attempts to state-sponsor religion, only to have it blow up in their faces when it's pointed out to them that Christianity is not the only religion that has schools.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:28

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

My Imaginary GF posted:

Minnesota is fairly unique in that its metropolitan area is completely within a single state's bounds.

That's unique?

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:29

Dr Pepper: Feb 4, 2012; Don't like it? well...

My Imaginary GF posted:

Minnesota is fairly unique in that its metropolitan area is completely within a single state's bounds.

I think you mean county right.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:30

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Samurai Sanders posted:

That's unique?

5/10 of the top 10 metro areas in the US are multi-state and 5/10 are single-state.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:30

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

Trabisnikof posted:

5/10 of the top 10 metro areas in the US are multi-state and 5/10 are single-state.

I guess that's what growing up on the west coast does for you. It was difficult for me to conceive of a metro area that goes beyond a state.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:32

Boon: Jun 21, 2005; by R. Guyovich

Trabisnikof posted:

5/10 of the top 10 metro areas in the US are multi-state and 5/10 are single-state.

So... What you're saying is that MIGF is talking out of his rear end?

Nevermind that his premise is that "a state/region cannot conduct this kind of legislation because it requires multiple states to coordinate." Which... no, not sure why that would be required but you know, MIGF.

Boon fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Feb 17, 2015

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:33

Jerry Manderbilt: May 31, 2012; No matter how much paperwork I process, it never goes away. It only increases.

I don't see how the Twin Cities can be single-county, when Minneapolis and St. Paul are in different counties (and the metro's exurbs even stretch into Wisconsin)

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:35

Trabisnikof: Dec 24, 2005

Boon posted:

So... What you're saying is that MIGF is talking out of his rear end?

Nevermind that his premise is that "a state/region cannot conduct this kind of legislation because it requires multiple states to coordinate." Which... no, not sure why that would be required but you know, MIGF.

Seeing how LA, SF, Dallas, Houston, Miami and Atlanta aren't exactly paragons of regional planning, I'd have to agree the premise doesn't really hold.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:41

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# ? Jun 14, 2024 17:25

Islam is the Lite Rock FM: Jul 27, 2007; by exmarx

Migf I appreciate your dedication to the daunting task of covering all of the Chicago metropolitan area in jizz.

# ? Feb 17, 2015 18:46

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPol February: Nation braces for worst as Obama warns of 'peak ink' for veto pen

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