'Nuclear Free' Maryland City Grants Waiver For HP 277
dcblogs writes "The City of Takoma Park, Md. this week granted a waiver to its public library to allow it to use some new HP hardware, whose products are otherwise banned under its 'nuclear free zone' ordinance. That law, adopted in 1983 one month after the Cold War-era movie 'The Day After' was aired, prohibits the city from buying equipment from any company connected to U.S. nuclear weapons production. The library bought new Linux-based, x86 systems from a Canadian vendor and didn't realize the vendor was using HP hardware. The hardware arrived in April and was unused until the Takoma Park city council granted it a waiver this week. The city's list of banned contractors was developed in 2004 by a now inactive group, Nuclear Free America, and hasn't been updated since."
Re:Movies (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to "democracy".
Just need a couple amendments (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they should extend the ban to companies involved with biowarfare (agar, petri dishes, thermal control chambers), or to cyberwarfare (Microsoft, RedHat, and your son's best friend who became a script kiddy last night).
Re:Movies (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, so the cure to war is to make sure that your side won't win if one happens?
I've always preferred the "If thou would have peace, prepare then for war" POV....
Re:Movies (Score:2, Insightful)
Since they come from Asia, the aren't "Native Americans" either.
"Indians" is actually less inaccurate.
Re:Movies (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were living during the Cold War, and seen this movie, that's pretty much what it did. I've always thought an emotional purging was educational. That movie certainly made me "wake up" and realize how dangerous it is to toy with war (especially if our victims have nuclear-equipped allies like Russia).
>>>"Just rammed it through" def'n: any legislation that passes that you don't like.
Actually the Maryland Democrats do pass some good laws. Like the recent decision to allow a student to attend any public school in the state they choose. But the reason I said "ram it through" is because the Republican legislators have no power. They could stay at home and it would make absolutely no difference.
As for "majority rules" Democracy..... well ask the Executed Socrates how he feels about it. He was murdered by a simple democratic vote (they didn't like his speeches so they killed him). That's why Maryland and all the other States are REPUBLICS (rule of law & protection of basic human rights), not democracies.
Re:Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
And before that from Africa, along with every other human on the planet. The term "native" has to have some cuttoff date or it's completely useless, usually a few (or few dozen) generations suffices. Or are we now classifying every single US citizen an "African American"?
Re:Movies (Score:3, Insightful)
Apparently arming the shit out of your populace (with automatic rifles) is a far greater deterrent
The guns don't really matter much, except that an invader would be forced to treat the populace as combatants and inflict a high civilian death toll. Switzerland avoids attack because it is vanishingly small, protected by mountain ranges and devoid of natural resources. Politically and militarily irrelevant, in other words.
Switzerland and its guns are like an 5lb dog barking at a 200lb mailman from behind a fence. The dog is brilliantly proud of itself when the mailman leaves the property.
This situation does not apply to nuclear armed states.
Re:Ilegal alien vote (Score:2, Insightful)
Because illegal aliens tend to be anti-nuke?
No, because they almost exclusively vote Democrat.
Regardless of any good reasons you might have to like the Democrats, it is they who stand to benefit from voter fraud and allowing illegal aliens to vote. That's why they raise such a huge stink whenever the requirement of photo ID to vote is mentioned. They use their old standby of how "racist" this would be, even though a photo ID is free in some states and very cheap in others. Not to mention it's racist of THEM to suggest that just because someone is Black or Hispanic they automatically can't afford a small fee.
Anyway when it comes to illegals voting or standard voter fraud (dead people voting, etc), I wouldn't want the Republicans to get votes this way. Why should the Democrats get a pass? I don't think enough people appreciate just how critically important it is that we have honest elections. Rigged elections are a threat to our very way of life in this country.
Re:Movies (Score:2, Insightful)
So the voice of the people isn't real democracy?
Don't act like media influences are anything new. Go read Ben Franklin.
Democracy doesn't mean sound, thought out logical ideologies. Which would often take literally forever for everyone to agree to. It's the current voice of the people.
Say what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Say what? ANY company "involved"?
I suspect to make nuclear weapons, you need, like, EVERYTHING. Bricks, mortar, screwdrivers, voltmeters, paper, pencils, pens, pipes (lots of pipes), cars, gasoline, welding rods, drill presses, lathes, etc, etc, etc, etc..............
I think you'd be blocking the buying of almost everything, except maybe nail salon services.
Re:Movies (Score:5, Insightful)
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The 14th Amendment was not part of the original Bill of Rights, which was only concerned with limiting the power of the federal government to infringe on people's rights. The states could do almost anything they wanted within the limits of their own state constitutions. The 13th (ending slavery), 14th (civil rights), and 15th (right to vote regardless of race) amendments were passed after the civil war, and the southern states were forced to ratify them as a condition of being re-admitted to the Union. Under the 14th Amendment, most of the Bill of Rights now applies to the individual states.
This law is almost certianly unconstitutional under the current 14th Amendment jurisprudence, but somebody would have to challenge it first. Since it's apparently not being enforced, it's not likely that anybody is going to bother with challenging it.