Carly Fiorina: I Supplied HP Servers For NSA Snooping 488
MFingS writes: According to an article at Motherboard, shortly after 9/11, NSA director Michael Hayden requested extra computing power and Carly Fiorina, then CEO of HP, responded by re-routing truckloads of servers to the agency. Fiorina acknowledged providing the servers to the NSA during an interview with Michael Isikoff in which she defended warrantless surveillance (as well as waterboarding) and framed her collaboration with the NSA in patriotic terms. Fiorina's compliance with Hayden's request for HP servers is but one episode in a long-running and close relationship between the GOP presidential hopeful and U.S. intelligence agencies.
Big Surprise (Score:2)
Good old Samuel Johnson, he sure understood Fiorina's type very well indeed.
Re:Big Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
I would care so much more about Carly here if I believed that any of the candidates won't cooperate fully with the NSA. Heck, one of the very few things Obama actually promised as a candidate was to cut back on this sort of thing, and he reversed as soon as he was in office. Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people. Sorry, I wouldn't even believe Bernie or Rand Paul here. We've created a monster.
"Do not summon that you cannot dismiss" - H. P. Lovecraft
Re:Big Surprise (Score:5, Informative)
Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people.
No, they have some good shit on everyone. They have said as much, without really coming out and saying it outright, if you see what I mean.
Read all about it here [theguardian.com] and here [washingtonpost.com].
Re:Big Surprise (Score:5, Informative)
I would care so much more about Carly here if I believed that any of the candidates won't cooperate fully with the NSA.
Sanders is the only one that I think would give them any pushback.
He voted against both the Patriot Act and the Iraq war, and in my book that counts for something.
Re:Big Surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
my dream is trump carries the nomination
and sanders beats hillary (not impossible, she's weak, bland, uninspiring... i'm not sure why republicans get so upset about her, it's not possible to feel great hate nor love for someone so boring)
sanders can't beat a rubio (i don't know why, but people have a thing for plastic liars in suits, the man is a lizard)
but sanders can beat a trump
can you imagine a president sanders? i would weep for joy
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Republicans aren't upset about Hillary, they love her. Which is to say they think she's a much easier mark.
However, that "easy" label is one that they are secretly sweating about because she's still likely to beat any of them in a general election just because of how bad the Republican field is and how incapable they are of nominating a real moderate. Even with the email situation and Benghazi she's still the winner at this point.
Unless they indict her or something, of course.
Trump is a clown. He won't g
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because benghazi and the emails are fucking jokes. she didn't do a damn thing wrong in benghazi. she did do something wrong with the emails. but it's a minor fucking thing, and the republicans treat it like she handed top of the line drones to north korea. it's such a pile of trumped up bullshit. just like with planned parenthood: lies, edited footage to suggest different meaning, pictures of unrelated miscarriages. they even tried to plead the fifth when the original footage was asked for! all to try to g
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I'm not a big fan of the Democrats, but honestly you're absolutely right. I think the conservative wing of the Republican party has lost the culture wars and they are now just squawking on their way down. It's embarrassing.
And some of that BS is good riddance, although I am very concerned that the complete failure of the Republicans will mean that the tendency towards all encompassing government is now unstoppable. Entitlements and the NSA are just two different faces stamped on the same coin.
I'm not rea
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Don't hold your breathe on blacks ever leaving the Democratic Party.
As a Slashdotter, I am statistically virtually certain to be right in my racist assumption that you are white. So I will play the odds and say:
As a white person what American history has taught you is that a) the current political and economic system protects freedom, b) the main threat to freedom is centralization of power, and c) if the system causes you problems it will be fairly simple for you to get it changed.
Constrast this with black
Re:Big Surprise (Score:4, Insightful)
that's communism. that's not what sanders stands for.
here is actually a range of economic systems in the world, thousands of them, of varying complexity. it's not just social darwinistic capitalism versus gulag and toilet paper lines communism. the problem is you're uneducated and you can only think in these ignorant simpleton cartoons. try looking at how the government of denmark, sweden, or norway works. or just canada. that's modern socialism. and they are richer, healthier, safer, freer, better educated, and happier than americans
american exceptionalism seems to be about thinking how you're better when everyone pities you. we do many things wrong, like our pathetic education funding and healthcare debacles, and we need to look to other countries who clearly do it better than us. but no: "america #1! drool, snort". american delusional derangement
Rand ALREADY gave them LOTS of pushback. (Score:3)
Sanders is the only one that I think would give them any pushback./i>
Then you haven't been paying attention. Rand Paul ALREADY gave them a BUNCH of pushback.
Just one example: He one-man filibustered the renewal of the Patriot Act for 10 1/2 hours, making it actually time out and creating a gap (to invalidate any claims to legality for information collected before the expiration and not destroyed after it.)
re: Sanders (Score:2)
Yeah..... I actually agree. Though I don't like the idea of Bernie getting elected at ALL, it's also pretty clear he's not paid for by the establishment (corporate interests, military contractors, etc.). He's essentially advocating for the United States to end the political design of its founders and convert to Socialism. That, in itself, separates him from everyone else running for office under the Democratic or Republican ticket.
there is only one (Score:2)
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Like Trump, Sanders really has difficult road. People might be turning out for him, but people turned out for Ron Paul too.
He's easy to like if you don't like the other options. The problem is, like Trump, he's no more a real Democrat than Trump is a real Republican. You or I may not care, but the actual party organizers DO care, and they have a lot of power in the primaries. Sanders might fare better than any Republican, but so will just about any other Democrat.
Unless they *need* Sanders to win, and t
Re:Big Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
I suspect that sometime between election day and inauguration day a small committee sits down with the president elect and explains to them that they will be allowed use the turn signal and the horn, but not the steering wheel or the pedals.
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Re:Big Surprise (Score:4, Interesting)
This would assume that the outcome is not predetermined, and in the big (President, Governor, US Senate//Congress) I have come to believe it's fully controlled.
As much as you may disagree with him, look at the press coverage of Ron Paul. My kid in 7th grade noticed how any time they showed a clip on TV it portrayed him as crazy, and the commentary was always about him being crazy. Now look at Hillary who has not dropped out and the Democrats only other candidate is "Socialist Bernie Sanders". Listen to the messages, and the brainwashing becomes pretty obvious. Subtle, but obvious.
There is a whole lot of psychology involved in these campaigns, and even though people claim politicians are stupid that's not really true.
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You're mostly right, but I don't think it is determined in the same way you're thinking.
There may or may not be a committee that does that, but the real fact is that certain paths are pre-determined for a candidate these days. It's not that there is a conspiracy, it's that the government has attained a weight and momentum that allowed it to become an unstoppable avalanche already, and nothing is slowing it down. Certainly not some clown elected for two four year terms.
He or she isn't going to start anothe
Re:Big Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
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I mean, I agree with you... but given how good politicians are at keeping promises, maybe we *should* want one "who PROMISES to do the very thing I don't want them to"! I mean, which do you think is more likely: a politician keeping a promise to do something that is in the public good, or a politician lying *regardless* of reason?
I'm joking. I hope...
Re:Big Surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
I would care so much more about Carly here if I believed that any of the candidates won't cooperate fully with the NSA. Heck, one of the very few things Obama actually promised as a candidate was to cut back on this sort of thing, and he reversed as soon as he was in office. Either the NSA has some good shit on everyone in power, and/or everyone in power values convenience over the interests of the people. Sorry, I wouldn't even believe Bernie or Rand Paul here. We've created a monster.
"Do not summon that you cannot dismiss" - H. P. Lovecraft
You don't even need a conspiracy to explain it:
NSA: I need to look at anyone's email I want without a warrant.
Obama: What? Absolutely not, that's a huge invasion of privacy I was elected to stop!!
NSA: Ok, if there's a significant attack on US soil we'll investigate afterwards and find an email that plausibly could have warned us. Someone will then leak this email to the media and everyone will know that if you didn't take away this power we begged you for there was a non-trivial chance we could have saved the tens, hundreds, or even thousands of people who died in that attack.
Obama: Snoop away!
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NSA: I need to look at anyone's email I want without a warrant.
Obama: What? Absolutely not, that's a huge invasion of privacy I was elected to stop!!
NSA: We have irrefutable proof that you were born in Kenya, not Hawai'i.
Obama: Snoop away!
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Doesn't matter where he was born. His mother was a citizen.
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The President needs a lot of information in order to do his job. It can be difficult to tell the people who you expect to get you that information that you don't want them doing so much of that.
The good shit that the NSA has on the President is that they're the people the President needs to combat threats. The problem is that they've gone outside their mandate, but their actual function will make it difficult for any President to just walk in there with a broom and kick them all out.
So the reason NSA is c
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It's part of the executive. He just needed to tell them "stop snooping on Americans inside America" and done. No congress or courts involved. He can fire anyone he needs to fire until he gets an NSA boss who complies. The buck stops with Obama right now.
oh? (Score:3)
I thought she was all about keeping the government small & outta your business.
Re:oh? (Score:5, Insightful)
"small government" is just a b.s. mantra to support reduced taxes and regulations. Its proponents generally advocate a big, intrusive government, so long as the haves can have and do whatever they want.
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Yes, to them a small government is just a larger military industrial complex and nothing else.
Fiorina and the ruling class (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Fiorina and the ruling class (Score:4, Insightful)
The NSA and the rest of the police agencies are there to protect US CORPORATISM.
There, fixed that for you. Having government "protect" capitalism is kind of a contradiction in terms.
Re:Fiorina and the ruling class (Score:5, Insightful)
I know the AnCaps hate to hear it, but you do actually need a government even to have a chance of making capitalism work. It's all very noble to talk about how using force is unethical, but the violent will laugh in your stupid face while they rob you blind. Without an official government - authorized, equipped, and publicly funded to commit violence - all that you'll get is an unofficial one built by the best warlord to rise up to pluck all you idiots busily making economic value that you can't protect. At that point you'll have a choice: produce for the warlord (keeping a fraction, if any, of the profit), fight for the warlord's army, or a shallow grave courtesy of that army. Your option to pay off the warlord will last until the amount you pay + the cost of just rolling over you becomes less than could be squeezed out of you at gunpoint. Don't bother pretending you can hire you own armed protection agency to protect you; that's just setting up your own warlord whose guns point at your back instead of at your face.
That's not even considering external threats, which of course do exist. You can't overhaul humanity as a whole. An invader doesn't care that they'll wreck your pretty little fairy-tale economy; they want your land, your natural resources, your skilled laborers who will work for them if the only other alternative is a taking a bullet, and your technology. You know what the easiest way to get somebody's trade secrets is? Point a gun at them and ask.
Any way you cut it, if you don't publicly set up a government to enforce the will of the populace and fund it through social contract that says it's OK to coerce payment (and you'll still have defectors even then), you're just going to get a tyrannical government run by whoever has the biggest / best-trained guns and/or the best ability to convince others to fight on their behalf (and believe me, people are always willing to do that). The odds are very strongly in favor of you being nearer the bottom of the new government - possibly a couple feet underground - than being anywhere near the top.
Misleading Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Being that the program was classified, they would have just ordered are large number of assets without telling her the reason for them. If I were HP and the NSA wanted to buy a large numbers of servers, I would sell the servers to them as well.
From the article
Fiorina said. “They were ramping up a whole set of programs and needed a lot of data crunching capability to try and monitor a whole set of threats... What I knew at the time was our nation had been attacked.”
The summary makes it sound like she purposely did it to screw over Americans. There's nothing to indicate that. The waterboarding issue is added on even though it is not related. This is a flame bait summary, and a misleading article. We really don't need articles on Slashdot that demonize people like this.
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True, but she's still a not very good human being.
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And that face!
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She brags about her security clearance and about how she knows so much about what is going on. She may not be all that bright, but surely given that information she could figure out why they needed the server capacity.
Her defence of waterboarding shows what a disgusting person she is. I am ashamed that I was working for HP at the time.
Re:Misleading Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Misleading Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Never fails to what?
Never fails to get the subject to tell you whatever it is you tell them to tell you to make it stop?
Never fails to get the subject to tell you bullshit that you can't verify in order to get you to stop? (Why don't you ask McCain about his Vietnam tour?)
Re:Misleading Summary (Score:4, Insightful)
You know why the North Koreans/Chinese/North Vietnamese/etc tortured prisoners? It wasn't for intelligence, it was for the purpose of brainwashing and propaganda. That's why they kept doing it long after any intelligence those poor bastards had was of no more use.
Want to know what works for getting intelligence? Stuff like the time-tested tactics outlined in the Army Field Manual - not Hollywood Tough Guy bullshit.
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Do you work at the Pentagon? Because that is some weapons-grade bullshit right there!
Torture will produce *some* answer, sure, but if you think it's true I've got an "enhanced interrogation" technique to sell you. The FBI knows it doesn't work [outsidethebeltway.com]. The army knew that too [globalsecurity.org], and in fact still does [fas.org] (pages 97 and 351, or just search for "unreliable").
As for rapists and such, a bullet is good enough for them, once guilt is established beyond a shadow of a doubt. I feel the
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Your actions are measured right or wrong based on the current situation. The previous actions of other people don't have any impact on the morality of yours. It doesn't matter if you are waterboarding a baby or a serial killer it is still wrong. Torture is torture.
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Sounds like you need a good waterboarding to really "get it." Ladies and gentleman, I think we have found the one and only legitimate use for waterboarding!
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Odd how every example of someone doing this voluntarily that I could find in a quick search says that it is torture. Quick example: http://waterboarding.org/node/... [waterboarding.org]
And "truth serum that never fails"? Huh? Torture is famous for making people say whatever they believe will make the torture stop, which turns out to be very different than "the truth". Think of torture as "truth serum that makes them scream whatever you want to hear". Great for confirming your wrong information, if you're into that sort o
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You're advocating torture as a means of punishment rather than as a means of coercion.
I'm not. I was talking about freshly captured people with current intelligence. Let's just get that part straight. I'm not defending Gitmo if that's what you think; I asked about waterboarding Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
As a means of coercion torture has shown itself over thousands of years in written history for which it has been done as being ineffective. You only get noise coming from the person. If you want to find those babies that have been kidnapped then you figure out what the person wants
It was already quite clear what they wanted.
and make a deal to give it to them or you take it away
Take what away? Immunity? A lesser sentence? You're kidding, right? They wanted to die on the battlefield, and in this scenario, you've already thwarted that plan.
after they get what they want. The FBI has a long history of actual interrogation tactics that are not torture and are very effective.
Against criminals. People that still have something to lose, something to gain, family to worr
She is still a horrible person... (Score:2)
Just ask anyone that worked for her.
Honestly is she that delusional or is there some secret money machine from running for president? Because I can not figure out WHY she is running.
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It used to be that person would ask themselves, "Why should I run for President?"
Now they ask themselves, "Why shouldn't I run for President?"
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Isn't that kind of better?
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One hypothesis is that a lot of the candidates are just running to drive up their speaker fees and the demand for them to speak.
Re:She is still a horrible person... (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, if you make a splash, but you lose out after a while, you can write/sell a book, get hired as a contributor on Fox, go give speeches, etc, and do a lot more than you could have before.
The really sad/funny thing is that Fiorina ran in 2010 as a moderate for California Senate. Now she's trying to sell herself as a hard-right ultraconservative republican. It's a bunch of flimflam, and you shouldn't buy it, any more than you should hire her to run your company.
Oh Really? (Score:3)
Well there's a ringing endorsement for our new dictator, err, I mean "president".
I'm sure she's keen to do all she can to protect my privacy and limit the data collection powers of all these 3-letter agencies that are scooping up our info wholesale.
Patriotism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe it's the country I grew up in, but anything "framed... in patriotic terms" is usually only ever a disguise for some of the worst atrocities and general scummy behaviour possible.
Be wary of people who are doing things "for their country" rather than, say, "for humanity", "for peace", etc.
My country is a geographic statistic of my birth. How that justifies criminal and/or amoral behaviour against those with a slightly different statistic, I've never quite fathomed.
Fuck, even "I did it because it looked like the right thing to do" holds a billion times more weight than any patriotic shit.
Patriotism is racism without mention of colour. "Not born here" syndrome.
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Excellent post.
FWIW, I knew there was going to be trouble as soon as they stuck a flag on the ruins of the WTC.
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Remember the "Patriot" Act?
A translation guide for bill names:
"Patriotic" = Behavior we like only when our party is in power
"Liberation" = Endless war
"Defense" = Offense pork
"X Child Act" = Get up into our business to protect a net 1.7 children
"Affordable" = Open your wallet wider
"Care" = Socialism
"Jobs Bill" = The 1% get a raise
"X Accountability Act" = More slacking inspectors at your expense
"X Transparency Act" = Your personal info is outed
"X Voting Act" = Longer booth lines
"X Justice Act" = Bloated jails
Patriotism vs. Nationalism ? (Score:2)
Reminds me of a big discussion we had in history class back in high school .... Supposedly, Nationalism was the blind, "racism without mention of color" that you speak of, as opposed to the good/healthy concept of Patriotism.
Frankly, I was never that convinced the difference was substantial. In theory anyway, Patriotism is simply taking pride in your country without going to the extreme of using it as a reason to put down any other nation.
As you point out though? In practice, I think the difference amounts
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So when it's laid on really thick it can mean an utterly evil prick wrapped up in a flag to hid
on to destroy the executive branch just like HP (Score:5, Insightful)
disclaimer: I have a household member who's worked as an engineer at HP under Carly.
The unending wellspring of universal hatred for Carly as a leader from those who worked under her (especially at HP) is impressive, and remains constant even from people whose politics are somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan. She did what she was told, she laid waste to that not-so-micro economy, and she shows no regrets whatsoever -- for either the human or financial disaster in her wake. There's no surprise, then, to find she was unquestioningly supportive of what she perceives to be rungs above her on the ladder of power. Godwin's Law is entirely appropriate for examples of where this leads; don't mistake "comfortable sociopath" for "hawkish."
Carly is precisely the sort of person who should never be allowed to have power over others, or even a sharp knife at dinner: Total obedience and no discernible ethics at all.
That scares me. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Grandstanding nonsense. (Score:2)
Does anyone believe that the NSA shared any details or scope about their hardware purchase? Or any of their vendors?
"Hi we're building out datacenters so we can do some probably illegal data snooping, can you help us?" I'm sure an agency that is cloaked in as much secrecy as possible goes around sharing that sort of information. Especially without gag orders.
Not only is she a massive tool she's obviously full of it. She needs a gag, it's an order.
So let me get this straight... (Score:4, Insightful)
The government calls up your company for a big order of you product, and you make it happen and get the product delivered, and now you're going to crucified for it?
Carly was a horrible CEO and I want to see her ripped to pieces by rabid monkeys and dance about on the incinerated remains of her entrails. But I'm having a hard time seeing how - as a businesswoman - delivering a product for money makes her somehow worse because she happened to sell to the NSA. I'll still hate/mistrust her for the moral support of the questionable practices of the spook community in the 00s, but not for selling stuff.
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She's got the formula (Score:3)
Maybe put cameras in everyone's bedrooms - but please gawd, not hers!
OMG! (Score:4, Insightful)
A tier-1 vendor supplied servers to the NSA! OMG! We need to boycott that vendor!
Wait, what? Other Tier-1 vendors ALSO wanted to win the NSA procurement contract? We must boycott them also!
And you know what? I hear they have Coca-Cola machines at the NSA! I bet their employees drank countless caffeinated sodas from Coca-Cola as they were violating the civil rights of countless millions of Americsns - we need to boycott Coca-Cola as well!
You know what? I bet all the government cars in the NSA fleet come from GM - we need to boycott all GM cars for their support of warrantless wiretaps!
Wow, it's amazing how many corporations secretly support the NSA's warrantless wiretapping! /sarcasm
Carly pwns Hillary (Score:3)
One server is an embarrassment. A truckload of servers is a statistic.
She is a terrible example of a human being (Score:3)
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:5, Funny)
Trump says her face is a form of waterboarding.
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
It's like she's bragging that she supplied the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and for a very reasonable fee.
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It's like she's bragging that she supplied the gas chambers at Auschwitz, and for a very reasonable fee.
Or IBM providing the computers for the Nazis to run the death camps (which did happen)
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That would be completely believable if IBM made computers when the Nazi's were exterminating Jews and said death camps actually required computers to run them. Congratulations on posting one of the most stupid posts on Slashdot ... ever (which really did happen!).
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Or IBM providing the computers for the Nazis to run the death camps (which did happen)
Exactly...it's not something that one should be bragging about.
She should be ashamed of it, and it should disqualify her from any serious consideration for the presidency.
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That's really amazing especially when considering that ENIAC, which is regarded as the first digital computer, wasn't introduced until after VE day.
IBM did, however, manufacture M1 Carbine rifles for the US during WWII.
Your problem is you know nothing about computing. The first computers were literally punch cards with counter accumulators. We emulated those on chips and circuits later, as "registers". You probably don't even know why Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are why those electrons flicker on your screen.
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Tabulating machines were not computers. Nor were comptometers.
And those M1 rifles weren't guns, they were merely "lead pellet acceleration devices".
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They do make displays with matte instead of glossy screens.
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That's really amazing especially when considering that ENIAC, which is regarded as the first digital computer, wasn't introduced until after VE day.
The ENIAC has a claim to be (one of the) first stored-program ELECTRONIC computers.
But digital computing had been done for a very long time, using mechanical devices, electro-mechanical devices (including both motor-driven mechanical calculators and relay-based, often plugboard-programmed, card counters, sorters, collators, printers, ...)
Hollerith invented the d
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A number of companies manufactured M1 carbiines for WW II. IBM, Saginaw Steering Gear division of GM, Rock-Ola (jukebox manufacturer), Underwood, National Postal Meter, etc.
"Out of ten primary contractors that manufactured .30 Caliber Carbines, Winchester was the only one with prior experience manufacturing weapons."
The main requir
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that Carly's undergraduate degree is in medieval history. This (of course) has prepared her for her previous position as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and will surely come in handy should she ever become elected to office.
I worked for HP under Carly's reign. Frankly, she'd sell her mother to get what she wants.
I find it interesting that she didn't mention any of this or the "flopping fetus" video crap when running for California Senate.
What's really scary is that some people actually believe she'd be a good President.
I guess we're scraping the bottom, given our choices.
Carly & Islam (Score:5, Interesting)
Note that Carly's undergraduate degree is in medieval history. This (of course) has prepared her for her previous position as CEO of Hewlett-Packard and will surely come in handy should she ever become elected to office.
I worked for HP under Carly's reign. Frankly, she'd sell her mother to get what she wants.
I find it interesting that she didn't mention any of this or the "flopping fetus" video crap when running for California Senate.
What's really scary is that some people actually believe she'd be a good President.
I guess we're scraping the bottom, given our choices.
And she used that 'knowledge' of hers to include this priceless quote in her speech just weeks after 9/11:
I’ll end by telling a story.
There was once a civilization that was the greatest in the world.
It was able to create a continental super-state that stretched from ocean to ocean, and from northern climes to tropics and deserts. Within its dominion lived hundreds of millions of people, of different creeds and ethnic origins.
One of its languages became the universal language of much of the world, the bridge between the peoples of a hundred lands. Its armies were made up of people of many nationalities, and its military protection allowed a degree of peace and prosperity that had never been known. The reach of this civilization’s commerce extended from Latin America to China, and everywhere in between.
And this civilization was driven more than anything, by invention. Its architects designed buildings that defied gravity. Its mathematicians created the algebra and algorithms that would enable the building of computers, and the creation of encryption. Its doctors examined the human body, and found new cures for disease. Its astronomers looked into the heavens, named the stars, and paved the way for space travel and exploration.
Its writers created thousands of stories. Stories of courage, romance and magic. Its poets wrote of love, when others before them were too steeped in fear to think of such things.
When other nations were afraid of ideas, this civilization thrived on them, and kept them alive. When censors threatened to wipe out knowledge from past civilizations, this civilization kept the knowledge alive, and passed it on to others.
While modern Western civilization shares many of these traits, the civilization I’m talking about was the Islamic world from the year 800 to 1600, which included the Ottoman Empire and the courts of Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, and enlightened rulers like Suleiman the Magnificent.
Although we are often unaware of our indebtedness to this other civilization, its gifts are very much a part of our heritage. The technology industry would not exist without the contributions of Arab mathematicians. Sufi poet-philosophers like Rumi challenged our notions of self and truth. Leaders like Suleiman contributed to our notions of tolerance and civic leadership.
And perhaps we can learn a lesson from his example: It was leadership based on meritocracy, not inheritance. It was leadership that harnessed the full capabilities of a very diverse population–that included Christianity, Islamic, and Jewish traditions.
This kind of enlightened leadership — leadership that nurtured culture, sustainability, diversity and courage — led to 800 years of invention and prosperity.
This disgraceful polemic was taken to shreds by an Assyrian who took her speech apart
Dear Madame Fiorina:
It is with great interest that I read your speech delivered on September 26, 2001, titled "Technology, Business and Our way of Life: What's Next" [sic]. I was particularly interested in the story you told at the end of your speech, about the Arab/Muslim civilization. As an Assyrian, a non-Arab, Christian native of the Middle East, whose ancestors reach back to 5000 B.C., I wish to clarify some points you made i
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Schooling by Putin, or the thought that Fiona who is only destructive to America will hurt Putin? Zero chance. She would remove the sanctions
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the "involuntary" part that is wrong.
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also completely useless for gathering information, because all you get is garbage - someone will tell you whatever they think you want to hear to make it stop, even making shit up. Jesse Ventura put it rather well when he said something on the lines of "Give me Dick Cheney strapped to a folding table and a pitcher of water, and in 5 minutes I'll get him to confess to the Manson Family murders."
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesse Ventura put it rather well when he said something on the lines of "Give me Dick Cheney strapped to a folding table and a pitcher of water, and in 5 minutes I'll get him to confess to the Manson Family murders."
I think Mr. Ventura would be better served by waterboarding Cheney until Cheney agrees that waterboarding is torture.
Once that's been accomplished, there are only two interpretations: either Cheney has finally admitted the truth, in which case we have established that waterboarding is torture and therefore illegal; or Cheney was lying in order to make the waterboarding stop, in which case we have established that waterboarding is ineffective as means of extracting truthful information.
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Re: Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:3)
We can argue the semantics of torture later**, but your second point is significantly more important: it doesn't fucking work. Literally NONE of the intel gained during "enhanced interrogation" was actionable. They told us about old plots, wild fantasy targets, and long abandoned bases.
Meanwhile, whether or not it's technically torture is moot, because it pissed everyone off. Enemies, allies, the world at large marked it down as just another reason that America is a dick.
**I've been water boarded. Yeah it's
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Not for the sake of finding the truth but It does when you want the victim to admit to whatever is in your script so that you can make a North Korean style show trial look more convincing. The spooks knew this, which is 90% of the reason why it's a problem that it came to be in use. It's a sign that any idea of investigation, justice and all the rest had gone out the window. They wanted people to pin crimes on for the sake of their own advancement instead of doing the job of actual
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:4, Funny)
"Give me Dick Cheney strapped to a folding table and a pitcher of water, and in 5 minutes I'll get him to confess to the Manson Family murders."
It would also make for an excellent reality tv show. I'm in favour.
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"clearly because its effective"
Even if its effective, that doesn't make it right. Slavery is an effective way to get work done cheap and has been for thousands of years.
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:4, Insightful)
And it just happens to be among the most evil acts that human beings can commit, as it is not merely about killing somebody, it is about complete destruction of a person.
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And it just happens to be among the most evil acts that human beings can commit, as it is not merely about killing somebody, it is about complete destruction of a person.
Unfortunately in 2015, despite all of our experience, there are many people who think the ends justify the means. They still do not understand that the means determine the ends.
Re:Well, now we know she h8s the US Constitution (Score:4)
wow (Score:3)
Re:Like any other customer? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't fault her for selling the servers to the NSA. That's the job of a CEO at a hardware company. I do not like her defense of warrantless wiretapping. It's obviously a violation of the Constitution and her attempts to justify it is a disrespect to that fine document and a free society. It bodes ill for a government with her as guardian of the Constitutional rights of US citizens.
Re:Like any other customer? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dammit I don't care that I'm Godwinning but enough of my family are dead because IBM took that same bullshit, "Hey I'm just making profit lol it's not my problem!" line when selling to Germany in the '30s.
An ethical code is more fundamental than an economic practice. Whether I'm telling Bob how to get past the guards or selling him the equipment needed to get into the safe, if I have a good idea what he's up to then you better fucking believe I'm morally responsible when the bank is robbed.
The duty of every human being is to act ethically. Their "job" is constrained by their ethics. A position which requires the holder to ignore ethics is unethical to fill, and nobody should be doing it. Nobody is ever just following orders - especially not the guys at the top of the food chain who have all of the knowledge and all of the power to say no and all of the alternatives without causing them significant hardship.
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Well, it would have sucked for the stores when their orders suddenly got delayed because the computers got shipped to the NSA instead of them.
Itanic servers? (Score:2)
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I think people on this site have plenty of reasons to hate Fiorina that it hardly matters if she's the right-wing candidate or simply putting her face in the news.
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My experience is that the left mocks those rightwing candidates who have said incredibly stupid things recently. For over a decade it has been a rather target-rich environment, and this past six months you can't turn around without hearing some R candidate make a obvious provable lie.
The right, on the other hand, tries to pile on only whoever they see as the biggest threat at the time. Which is why the birther lies have started to die down, but the Select Committee To Prove That Something Anything Was Hil
Re:Success... (Score:4, Insightful)
What business success?
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