Met posted:

Warcabbit posted:

Note that every 'classified' mail so far contains information that was either labeled classified later on, chronologically, or was, say, labeled classified by the state department but was known by the public - as in, if you email an article from the NY Times that contains a description of the White House layout, and State has decided the White House layout is classified information, you are emailing information that is classified.

I am unsure how illegal that is, given that you are not actually emailing anything marked classified.

Fulchrum posted:

The fact you need it explained to you shows its not a campaign killer. Try to give the average American the specifics and their eyes glaze over.

Watergate is simple - they tampered with the election. Boom, done. Easy to understand. Clinton's scandal - he lied about getting a blowjob. People don't know why it's illegal, but they at least get it. Here? There's a reason why no political cartoonist can actually illustrate it and needs to just keep saying 'emails'.

Hitler B. Natural posted:

I just found some sort of Rosetta Stone

prefect posted:

Menacing hips?

ThePeavstenator posted:

What is the criticism here? "Natural Selection is an old idea"? Time to do away with all of physics.

alnilam posted:

For real though, ignoring the fact that there is new research related to evolution and natural selection all the drat time, this is the same guy who when science revises itself (as it should) would say something like "lol looks like scientists can't make up their mind, only the Word of GOD is truly settled." And now he's upset about a perceived lack of change?

colonel_korn posted:

1 img-slowly-growing-

Met posted:

Hitler B. Natural posted:

I just found some sort of Rosetta Stone

Cabinet posted:

Met posted:

Dr Christmas posted:

Hello, I'm Dr Christmas, and I'm a recovering creationist.

The point here is that natural selection doesn't create new "genetic information." It can only be applied to existing information. They actually believe in natural selection, but think it decreases diversity. They'd say there's no mechanism in natural selection to increase complexity or genetic information.

What about mutation? They'd say that even beneficial ones aren't the result of genetic information becoming more complex, it's just the result of losing existing information or "sideways" changes overwriting existing information. Random mating also still doesn't solve the problem of creating new information for them.

As for insertion mutations or gene duplications? I dunno, I think I've heard them say they're extra harmful, or that it still doesn't explain where genetic information of the original gene came from in the first place.

the_steve posted:

It's almost like he's deliberately ignoring the part where this poo poo doesn't happen overnight.

Pththya-lyi posted:

Isn't there at least one strain of creationism that argues that genetic mutation in humans is a symptom of Original Sin and that each generation is worse than the previous one?

Xenoveritas posted:

And there's no such thing as "retroactively classifying" something, as that doesn't make sense. When the State Department generates information, it's supposed to determine if it's classified at that point in time. Later determining that information should have been classified but wasn't is a big no-no. I mean, you can't retroactively go back and remove information from the public.

quote:

Federal agencies have the ability to classify information after the fact. So some of the emails weren’t classified when Clinton sent or received them, but they are classified now.

quote:

Of the several thousand emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server that have been released to the public, more than 180 have been redacted, meaning they contain information deemed classified. But State Department officials decided only in the past few months that this information should be classified.

This sort of classification upgrade occasionally happens when new information comes into play that affects the sensitivity of the information. Because the information was classified after the emails were sent, no one mishandled this information at the time by sending it over Clinton’s private server.

Warcabbit posted:

The NY Times is no fan of the Clintons

Manuel Calavera posted:

Rorus Raz posted:

People are misinterpreting the Lietha cartoon, which is understandable because Lietha specifically aims at people already hopped up on AiG/Creationist crap.

Lietha, and a lot of creationists in general, claim that you cannot add new information to a genome. The exact explanation of this is kinda fuzzy...you have weird graspings at thermodynamics and information theory. Some people, like Gunther, are just loving idiots:


It seems to be a general ignorance, or perhaps even people being willfully dense, of basic biology. DNA is (generally speaking here) use to create RNA (mRNA in this case) which goes on to be translated into proteins. The basic unit for translation is a codon, three nucleotides that code for an amino acid. Mutations happen when alterations in DNA lead to changes in the codons, although not always since multiple codons can correspond to the same result. I'm not entirely sure what creationists consider "new information", but codons duplicating, or even a single nucleotide being changed can lead to major changes. Obviously this takes time (in most cases) since odds are better that the mutation does nothing or is deleterious.

Creationists probably go with this canard because it lines up with their belief that existence is cursed and slowly decaying (see: humans living 900 years old millennia ago), but they also will pull up whatever science is handy at the time. The most difficult thing to nail down about it is, much like concepts such as brahamin, is the definition of "information" in this context, as it behooves creationists to keep things nice and vague since it gives them flexibility in debates and keeps things simple for their congregation.

EDIT: Dr. Christmaaaaaaaas

ThePeavstenator posted:

If you have 4 blocks there are actually 24 ways to stack them lol

Warcabbit posted:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2015/sep/10/hillary-clintons-emails-classified-or-not/

According to politifact, you are incorrect.

Hitler B. Natural posted:

I just found some sort of Rosetta Stone

D.N. Nation posted:

Obama is a butt and he smells and I hate him.

A HUNGRY MOUTH posted:

A HUNGRY MOUTH posted:

It also betrays complete ignorance of what a code even is, and how information can be translated and compressed.

And haha even in that blocks image it presumes that 1234 has the same informational content as 4321. Nice. Noice.


Really you have four kinds of block, so there are 256 different stacks lmao

Hitler B. Natural posted:

I just found some sort of Rosetta Stone

Warcabbit posted:

We seem to having some difficulties in language use, then. If what you said is correct, the following can happen:

On Jan 1, State Department Employee Jack Ryan sends an email. It contains the phrase 'Call you on my Blackberry.' He is using an unsecured system. At this moment, none of the contents in the email are classified. This e-mail is, on Jan 1st, unclassified.

On Jan 2nd, State Department Classifier Joe Snafu decides that the make of phone the State Department uses is classified. The email that Jack sent yesterday now contains classified information.

According to your statement, Jack can now be sent to prison for the email he sent on Jan 1st, as the information is classified.

I would consider this retroactive classification of information.

A HUNGRY MOUTH posted:

It also betrays complete ignorance of what a code even is, and how information can be translated and compressed.

And haha even in that blocks image it presumes that 1234 has the same informational content as 4321. Nice. Noice.


Really you have four kinds of block, so there are 256 different stacks lmao

Xenoveritas posted:

Yes, that scenario can happen. But the legal concept is that Jack Ryan should have known that the information was classified at the time it was sent, and the later explicit classification was only making explicit what should have been known.

Xenoveritas posted:

Yes, that scenario can happen. But the legal concept is that Jack Ryan should have known that the information was classified at the time it was sent, and the later explicit classification was only making explicit what should have been known.

Cabinet posted:

Hitler B. Natural posted:

I just found some sort of Rosetta Stone

Schpyder posted:

I'm pretty sure that's not how it works.

I'm pretty sure the way it works is that topics/information are classified, and just because a particular document or other piece of media isn't marked as classified, you should still know to treat it as such due to the subject material. Not that you're supposed to have prescience about someone else eventually making a classification designation on a topic an indeterminate amount of time in the future (years, in this case).

TheDeadlyShoe posted:

if he were a true patriot he would have used his psychic national security sense to peer into the future

or i guess the default that true patriots should use (and apparently are using) is classifying literally everything they do

Xenoveritas posted:

It may not make sense (and you can find really long articles explaining how and why it doesn't) but that is the way it works. Basically (as a contractor) the default answer is "treat everything as classified until told otherwise." Things get weirder for the State Department because they're an original classification authority, but the same basic rules apply.


If you were ever wondering why everything gets classified, that's basically the reason - it's easier to classify everything than worry about having something need to be classified at a later date. So instead of dealing with the potential ramifications of processing something that later becomes classified, everything just gets marked classified from the start.

I'm not saying the system makes sense, I'm just saying that's the way it is.

And, yes, there are legal ramifications for screwing it up.

alnilam posted:

So what you're saying is, catch 22 is real?

Rorus Raz posted:

Some people, like Gunther, are just loving idiots:

ThePeavstenator posted:

E: Oh, they don't care about direction oh well

A HUNGRY MOUTH posted:

Really you have four kinds of block, so there are 256 different stacks lmao

Xenoveritas posted:

Nah, not really - you can just mark everything as Top Secret and leave it at that.

There are huge penalties for mishandling classified information, but no penalties for over-classifying stuff.

It's a real problem, but it's not a catch-22. It just makes for a rather opaque government.