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Foreign Policy Magazine reports that a moderate Syrian rebel group in northern Syria has captured a black Dell laptop in a village in the Syrian province of Idlib close to the border with Turkey that contained 35,347 files that turned out to be a treasure trove of documents that provide ideological justifications for jihadi organizations -- and practical training on how to carry out the Islamic State's deadly campaigns. They include videos of Osama bin Laden, manuals on how to make bombs, instructions for stealing cars, and lessons on how to use disguises in order to avoid getting arrested while traveling from one jihadi hot spot to another. Most disturbing however, is that the ISIS laptop contains a 19-page document in Arabic on how to develop biological weapons and how to weaponize bubonic plague from infected animals. "The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge," the document states. The document includes instructions for how to test the weaponized disease safely, before it is used in a terrorist attack. "When the microbe is injected in small mice, the symptoms of the disease should start to appear within 24 hours," the document says.
"Nothing on the ISIS laptop, of course, suggests that the jihadists already possess these dangerous weapons. And any jihadi organization contemplating a bioterrorist attack will face many difficulties," write Harald Doornbos and Jenan Moussa. Al Qaeda tried unsuccessfully for years to get its hands on such biological weapons, and the United States has devoted massive resources to preventing terrorists from making just this sort of breakthrough. "The real difficulty in all of these weapons ... [is] to actually have a workable distribution system that will kill a lot of people," said Magnus Ranstorp. "But to produce quite scary weapons is certainly within [the Islamic State's] capabilities." The documents found on the laptop of the jihadist, meanwhile, leave no room for doubt about the group's deadly ambitions.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Monday September 01 2014, @04:03AM
Rand had to pay taxes. Paying taxes is not optional even if you're opposed to taxes. If it is wrong for the government to take the money from her, she would be morally entitled to take as much back as was collected. In this case, since she could have bought private insurance if the government hadn't taken money for public insurance, she would be entitled to collect, even by her standards, an amount equivalent to what private insurance would have paid had she been allowed to keep the tax money and spent it on private insurance instead.
If she believes that private insurance is more efficient than government insurance, this means that, by her own standards, she would be entitled to collect the full government-provided amount.
It's not hypocrisy to take benefits that you are opposed to if you are opposed to it because of the harm and you are not permitted to opt out of the harm.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @08:55AM
Except that the benefits she got were not paid for by her own earlier taxes, but by other taxpayers paying tax at the very same time she got benefits. By accepting the benefits, she also accepted that those tax payers, some of whom were just as opposed to paying taxes, and had never received benefits themselves, would have to pay taxes to support her. If no one eligible of benefits actually applied for benefits, then the state would have no benefit cost, and therefore would no longer pay tax money for benefits.
In short, she didn't take back the money she paid (those who got the money she paid were unlikely to be tax payers when she was on benefits), she took the money of others who themselves hadn't agreed to that money being taken away from them. So accepting benefits was hypocrisy.
(Score: 2) by zsau on Tuesday September 02 2014, @01:17AM
Let's say I bought an umbrella for $50. I believed it was a truly great umbrella, and (not only that) but that it had $10,000 worth of gold in it.
You stole it from me.
Does that mean I have a right to collect $10,000 off you? Of course not.
Ayn Rand's beliefs do not enter into whether she is "entitled" by her own standards to collect government benefits. Unless her standards are "whatever I am capable of justifying as right, that's right" which is a pretty poor standard, and not the sort of thing that creates a good and durable society.
(Score: 1) by Jiro on Tuesday September 02 2014, @01:46AM
If I stole an umbrella from you containing $10000 of gold, and I'm offering to give you $9000, you certainly have a right to take it.