Curtiss Thompson › Comments

"Your argument is riddled with misinterpretations. 1st Refer to my clarification edit to my original comment. 2nd The ACLU maintains their own interpretations of the U.S. Constitution as they should (as opposed to blindly supporting established SCOTUS rulings). 3rd Please familiarize yourself with how SCOTUS justices read the constitution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... Maybe then you would understand how the right to privacy was derived from the document. Stop letting your personal ideology cloud logic and reason. My personal inclination both ideologically and regarding objective interpretation of the 2nd amendment is to support the D.C. v Heller decision (which is a very new and landmark case, whose implications on present law hasn't fully been realized yet. Meaning you may not see gun regulations be deemed unconstitutional, even given this new interpretation of the 2nd amendment by SCOTUS)." - Curtiss Thompson

"I generally think the self-interested benefit you point out is more of an externality (unintended benefit) of the decision, rather than the motive driving their action." - Curtiss Thompson

"You are right to point out the self-interested benefits of such an act, and that was my first thought regarding the issue. However, the ACLU could have simply chosen to ignore the protesters' free speech rights and likely little issue would've been taken over it. Frankly, there are numerous ways this could have been construed or spun by the ACLU or the media to justify not defending the protesters' free speech rights, but they chose to defend the protesters' rights anyway. I generally find the ACLU fights the good fights, irrespective of the popularity, public support, or even attention given to an issue. I think they took this action as a means of educating the school and community regarding constitutional issues and to let reason triumph over conflict, in hopes of advancing their cause (and while this is self-interested, it doesn't make it inherently wrong as you seem to presuppose in your argument). Though I would agree the act of publishing this story on their blog seems more..." - Curtiss Thompson

"This is what consistent principled integrity looks like. No civil liberties organization true to their principles could come to any other conclusion. You don't have principles until they are tested. And the ACLU passed that test with flying colors. The ACLU is holding true to the words of Voltaire, Orwell, and Chomsky in acknowledging you can only be for free speech, if your for the freedom to say what you don't want to hear. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - A summation of Voltaire's beliefs by Evelyn Beatrice Hall "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell, Animal Farm "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." - Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent" - Curtiss Thompson

"This is what consistent principled integrity looks like. No civil liberties organization true to their principles could come to any other conclusion. You don't have principles until they are tested. And the ACLU passed that test with flying colors. The ACLU is holding true to the words of Voltaire, Orwell, and Chomsky in acknowledging you can only be for free speech, if your for the freedom to say what you don't want to hear. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - A summation of Voltaire's beliefs by Evelyn Beatrice Hall "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell, Animal Farm "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." - Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent" - Curtiss Thompson

This is what consistent principled integrity looks like. No civil liberties organization true to their principles could come to any other conclusion. You don't have principles until they are tested. And the ACLU passed that test with flying colors. The ACLU is holding true to the words of Voltaire, Orwell, and Chomsky in acknowledging you can only be for free speech, if your for the freedom to say what you don't want to hear. "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - A summation of Voltaire's beliefs by Evelyn Beatrice Hall "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of free speech, then you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise. Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." - Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent - Curtiss Thompson

Halo: Reach is a return to every Halo fan's favorite enemy; the Elites. It is graphically more gritty and pretty than Gears of War 2, with a darker story and more tactical gameplay than in previous Halo games. Halo: Reach is a merger of the classic Halo experience with a new edge. - Curtiss Thompson

"No the American public is waiting for Bush to get involved in a sex scandal before they'll be willing to impeach him." - Curtiss Thompson

"You can remove the timestamps from you Mini Feed in your preferences on Facebook." - Curtiss Thompson

"Agreed, several top diggers already use the Facebook Share feature to do this same thing with their submissions. Spamming their Facebook Mini Feed so it appears on their friends' News Feed to try and get more Diggs. Just like they spam their submissions via Pownce.com, Instant Messaging services, mass email lists (often consisting anywhere from 25 to 100 digg gamers).. Digg just made it easier for top digg gamers to spam their stories to the top. This is why I could really care less about this site anymore, it's been polluted by douchebags like MrBabyMan who care about nothing but the popularity of being a top digger. Honestly, all the top digg gamers need to get over themselves, they are nobody special...they've developed these huge egos ever since Digg became a popular website and they started getting attention by other users, and the news media." - Curtiss Thompson

"Answer: God. He's nothing but a link-baiter, trying to draw traffic to his crappy blog." - Curtiss Thompson

"I'm sorry but that quote doesn't say it all by any stretch of the imagination. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washing... ... The linked article puts that quote accurately in context unlike this article. I'm a libertarian who has distaste of socialist policy, mainly b/c it worsens the problems it tries to solve. I'm also consequently a ron paul supporter. But lets at the very least not resort to using to the tactics of the political machine and use articles that misrepresent quotes in order to send the message they want. The ends do not justify the means. That said I agree with your final statements." - Curtiss Thompson

"Here's an article which more accurately explains the quote and puts things in context: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washing..." - Curtiss Thompson

Google seems to be near the list of everybody’s list of top companies to work at. And it’s no wonder, because their offices seem to always be the best looking, and seemingly most fun. With a large portion of society working at jobs they don’t like, - Curtiss Thompson

"Thanks for pointing that out, I read a lot of news, and read it all very quickly, I only remembered reading as they receive complaints about unjust tickets, they'd review the offense. My mistake. It wasn't my intent to create a misleading title." - Curtiss Thompson

"It should be noted that the title isn't completely accurate in stating "Without Human Intervention" as they do have humans "confirm" all parking offenses: "Images of every parking offense are collated and then viewed by a human operator for verification before parking tickets are dispatched." However the detection process is completely automated, unless one of their 6 employees detect a traffic violation before the system does, or catch one the system doesn't. Also, this news comes shortly after another article I posted to digg, earlier this year covering very similar surveillance camera's. You can read that story here: http://www.informationweek.com/story... I think maybe calling them a surveillance society is too generous, maybe labeling them as an Orwellian society is more fitting (Not that the U.S. is any better)." - Curtiss Thompson

Discover what a technologies a website is built with, with this new and cool web page techology profiler. - Curtiss Thompson

"Everyone has seen this on digg...it's been on digg hundreds of times...this URL ends in 23, which means it is the 23rd submission with this exact title in this particular category alone." - Curtiss Thompson

"The video didn't render properly for me, so here's a link to a better quality and proper rendering of the same video: http://www.indecision2008.com/blog..." - Curtiss Thompson

"It would appear that way...I've assumed for a long time that their new "business plan" of suing customers into accepting settlements is probably costing them money that is not adequately compensated from the money awarded them through won court cases and settlements. They will use fear, just like the government, to retain control (over the consumers in their market)...they refuse to alter their practices in order to appease their consumers, for fear that they'd loose revenue as a result of correcting their practices...when in actuality that would increase their revenue as it would regain them many of the consumers they alienated (to compensate for lost revenue due to reduction in prices, and removal of drm, etc.)." - Curtiss Thompson

"It should be noted that Bush and several congress members did try to pass legislation that would revoke the restriction of term of office by the 22nd amendment...this was about a year or two ago I believe. Of course, it got nowhere...just another example of Bush's desire for absolute power/control." - Curtiss Thompson

"that's a prime example of an american idiot failing to understand what a metaphor is, and looking for meaning below the surface." - Curtiss Thompson

Mike Gravel explains the deep and creative campaign ad "The Rock" - Curtiss Thompson

Mike Gravel in the most deep and creative presidential ad ever. - Curtiss Thompson

Mike Gravel attacks the political mainstream, and exposes the truth, making some of the best political points in the CNN debate. - Curtiss Thompson

"With all due respect, saying you'd like to vote for him, but you'll only do so when his poll numbers increase is the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Believing your vote for him is worthless because you don't expect him to win. If everyone were to reverse that ideology, we wouldn't have a lot of the problems we have today. Please vote for or against Mike Gravel on the issues, poll numbers should have no influence on your vote." - Curtiss Thompson

Keith Olbermann sticks it to the democrats for doing nothing to end the war in Iraq. For playing politics as usual, rather than voting their conscience and doing what is right. - Curtiss Thompson

Stephen Colbert talks with Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, about "bringing democracy to information." - Curtiss Thompson

Mike Gravel speaking the truth about the war, the income tax, and politics as usual. - Curtiss Thompson

"Talk about misinterpretation and the spreading of disinformation. He isn't advocating for new world order, but rather advocating for the world to voluntarily unite to solve a problem that affects ALL of us. Your rhetorical is unbelievable. You think that because he wants to take drastic progressive action on one of the most important world issues, that he is somehow exploiting it to create a new world order, that's completely absurd. Try logic and reason when forming an argument against Mike Gravel. Don't use the same techniques as the mainstream media to discredit Mike Gravel, it makes you no better than them, and will never properly get your message across. Reason and debate will always triumph over censorship and disinformation. I don't appose Ron Paul by any means and would hope to see him win the primaries on the GOP side. Many of Ron Paul's positions are very similar to that of Mike Gravel's, but in my opinion Mike Gravel's views/positions are better overall." - Curtiss Thompson