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It should be pointed out that Ted Stevens was acquitted of his charges

Ted Stevens was convicted of the charges he faced. But because the DA didn't share all the information gathered with his attorneys the conviction was overturned. The trial judge even appointed a special prosecutor to investigate whether the district attorneys broke the laws.

I'm not saying that a lawmaker can't do things that are illegal as an individual

But you did say it. Not in the same way as above "as an individual", but I copied and pasted what I replied to: "government officials can't do something illegal because they make the laws which define what is legal."

many things which would be illegal for individuals to do are often excepted for political leaders

Politicians do that all the tyme. They even give the government waivers to laws they pass. For instance in the US the largest polluter is the government. I don't know how much weight it carries, it is a Marxist site after all, but Political Affairs has this: U.S. Military – The World's Largest Polluter. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, which has the liberal idea of liberty and small government asks the question America's largest polluter – guess who and concludes it's the United States government.

A good current example is how Nancy Pelosi doesn't have to go through the scanners whenever she has to fly between Washington DC and San Francisco.

Because she's third in line to be president of the USA, until January, she gets an Airforce jet for her trips. But I bet if she had to go through security like almost every other flier she'd put a stop to the scanners and pat-downs.

I'm sorry I misspelled the name Charles Rangle. I didn't know I had to bend over so hard to the grammar Nazis here.

Someone posted a complaint? I must of missed it. Not knowing the correct name or spelling I used Google then copied and pasted it.

Falcon

In my experience government agencies take the rules and regulations far more then any company ever does.

Guess who's the biggest polluter in the US?...

The government. The government even gives itself exemptions from laws.

Plus you actually have recourse against the government.

What recourse is that? To file a lawsuit? How much does a person have to hire attorneys, experts, and such? Now how much does the government have? A lot of good being able to sue did to to residents of New London, Connecticut. The only good that came out of it was how people forced their own state and local governments to change eminent domain laws. That didn't help Susette Kelo, Kelo and others lost their homes.

Falcon

I don't follow your logic. You seem to be assuming that any government interference in the marketplace is the cause of all failures of the marketplace to do what you want. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're wrong. Government interference in the markets make those market unfree. Blaming failures on markets when there is government interference isn't right. Blaming the government interference instead would be the correct thing most of the tyme. Not all but most of the tyme. When the markets fail it's because they don't pay external costs when others have to pay them. For instance when a company pollutes and it does not pay for cleanup others have to pay. But guess what? Guess who's the biggest polluter, at least in the US? The US government is. The U.S. Department of Defense is the largest polluter in the world.

OK, I misunderstood you. And here's the reason I got your argument wrong: I assumed it was somehow relevant to my argument. You're not arguing with statement, you're just complaining about the unfairness of the current tax code.

No, No, and again NO! You argued the market can not handle the problem, Part of the problem here is that U.S. public policy since Reagan is dominated by the mantra, "The marketplace can handle the problem." I even provide the same link, using the same text for the link. I am saying the market was never given a change to handle the problem. Are you really that lacking in comprehension? This is the third tyme I've had to explain it.

Troll

Falcon

Corporations aren't worse than governments, we, the people, just have less control over them.

Perhaps you misinterpreted me, my point is that corporations aren't worse than governments, unlike corporations government is an evil, necessary perhaps but an evil. And it's best to keep their power limited. We also have more power over not just corporations but all voluntary businesses than we do government, except at the local level. Which is why most government should be local. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the wonderful book "Democracy in America" describing how during his tour of America in the early 1830s almost all government was local and how free people were. Of course there was slavery but for freemen, and there were Black Freemen some Blacks even owned slaves themselves, the liberty they enjoyed was almost limitless.

With government, at least we have mechanisms, available to all citizens, for controlling and directing the system.

What good are the mechanisms if they aren't used. For instance what happened to all that talk about impeaching Bush last year? There was more talk about putting Bush admin officials on trial when Obama came into office, what happened with that? The last tyme a sitting US president came close to impeachment was Richard Nixon but he resigned in 1974 first. His VP, who became president, then pardoned him. There were only 2 presidents who went through impeachment hearings before congress, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999. Neither one was found guilty.

With corporations, most stakeholders have no control over the system.

Most stakeholders have more control than they realize or are willing to exercise. How many stockholders file petitions or vote on corporate issues? How many employees use collective bargaining? How many suppliers say they will not accept a price below X dollars? How many buyer or clients say they will not buy more than X dollars? People complain Walmart drives local shops out of business or pay low wages, yet how many of those people shop at or work for Walmart?

Now both businesses, no just corporations, and governments will grab as much power as they can but it's easier to control a business than a government. You can boycott a business legally but if you try that with government you may find yourself facing firearms. Randy Weaver couldn't stop the feds from killing his family at Ruby Ridge, not without giving up his freedom after the government framed him.

Falcon

Ooh, BTW don't confuse what I say above about Randy Weaver as support for him. If he was a supremest as the feds say I disagree with that but I also disagree with the feds framing him when he refused to inform for them.

It also ignores the numerous new entities that will try to enter the market with substandard milk. Yes, even they will be pushed out by word of mouth, but not until they cause irreparable damage.

Have you ever heard of courts and civil lawsuits?

Have you heard of government approved drugs that have had to be withdrawn?

Do you know the government is the biggest polluter in the US? And that it passes laws allowing it to get away with polluting?

Government is the biggest threat to liberty yet you want government to have power to regulate what people do.

Falcon

The Constitution does go past the 10th Amendment...something about regulating something or ether between the states...

There are many local ISPes that do not serve interstate. In my greater area there are a number of local ISPs that only serve the area.

And if you look at the Constitution it provides for flexibility. For example, General Welfare, which is mentioned twice.

Yes, it allow mentions liberty. The Preamble says:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Now if you look the definition for "welfare" it says:
"welfare n. 1. health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being."
Thomas Jefferson said of the 'general welfare clause":
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." In Federalist No 41 James Madison said
"the general welfare clause is neither a statement of ends nor a substantive grant of power. It is a mere "synonym" for the enumeration of particular powers, which are limited and wholly define its content."

As you say the feds have gone after people in California for marijuana after the state legalized medical marijuana.

Rather atrocious. It boggles the mind that it's conventional wisdom that Prohibition was a complete failure with alcohol, yet we insist on continuing Prohibition 2.0: WOD.

Agreed bigtime!!! All these politicians and drug warriors have their heads stuck in the sand. There never has been much debate about it, but hopefully it's a good sign that CNN's Anderson Cooper has been having part of his show AC 360 all week about "America's High: The case for and against pot" with drug legalization proponents debating drug warriors on legalization. Now I haven't watched all of them in their entirety but what I did see it looked like the legalization hands were better.

The whole reason we have regulation and oversight is because we already tried free market Libertarianism

No, we have not tried free markets. The closest we came to free markets was in the 1830s. Alexis de Tocqueville was so overwhelmed by what he saw when he toured the USA in 1831 he wrote his books "Democracy in America" extolling how free people were. As there was still slavery, which Thomas Jefferson wanted to end, there wasn't a compleat free market but it's the closed we've had to one. Since then big businesses have become more and more powerful and have bought politicians to write laws favorable to them. In a free market businesses wouldn't have the power to buy them off and the politicians wouldn't have the power to enact bad laws.

Oh, and that Daily Kos link does not say those problems cited were caused by a

You only have to go to a third-world company where oil is extracted to see how these companies act with the lack of government regulations to control them (or a government that can stand up to the companies).

Hell, you don't have to find a third world oil company for an example of this. Unocal, Union Oil Company of California, has been accused of using the military to force Burmese to relocate and work in Burma. In Nigeria Shell Oil "supplied the Nigerian military government with weapons. These weapons were used to put down, with deadly force, opposition to Shell drilling on Ogoni land." Ken Saro-Wiwa, who opposed Shell drilling, was hanged by the military because of his opposition. Some groups in other nations have used the Alien Tort Claim Act of 1789, ATCA, to sue US businesses in US courts for their support of such things. And as president Bush tried to gut the ATCA.

The free market, with the companies always seeking lowest costs and better numbers this quarter, actually encourages these behaviors.

That is not a free market. A free market is one in which there is a voluntary exchange.

And like it or not, Somalia is exactly what we get with the "libertarian paradise". They might claim that they don't actually mean lack of government, but what good is a government that doesn't enforce laws and regulations?

If you're poisoned by some company you can sue them, you don't need byzantine regulations. Actually do you know who the biggest polluter in the US is? The United States Government. It's the biggest polluter and it gets away with it.

Falcon

Guess who the largest polluter in the country is? Government itself, with military pollution topping the list. The "free" market (and it's hard to say "free" in a society where government takes about 1/2 the entire GDP) has certainly produced its share of pollution, but when it comes down to numbers, government itself is by far the champion of pollution.

This is normal in the rest of the world. The law of supply and demand you know - let the free market decide the pricing...

No, the US isn't a capitalist country, it hasn't been one since the 1800s. The USA is nothing like what Alexis de Tocqueville saw when he tured the USA in the 1820s/30s, which inspired him the right the book "Democracy in America" . Today the US is a corporate socialist nation.

We haven't had freedom in the United States since the 1950s.

Freedom was lost before the 1950s, some freedoms at least. By 1900 the USA didn't have the freedom and liberty Alexis de Tocqueville saw in the 1820-30s and wrote about in Democracy in America .

Words you mention in your post lead me to think that you do not understand what free market capitalism is. The United States does not have and for the most part, never has had, a free market.

For a short tyme the USA had a freemarket. Though it was being whittled away by the Corporate Aristocracy Thomas Jefferson warned of there still was a freemmarket when Alexis de Tocqueville toured the USA in the 1820's. Unfortunately it has been gone a long tyme though.

So, people freak out whenever the feds do something they don't like, but they haven't the slightest clue what anyone in their state government is up to, which rather makes the states the more dangerous beasts, since your state is not just your protection from the federal government--it is also the colluding executor of its will.

Actually most politics is local not national. People have more control, and exercise it, at the local level than they have at the national level. Don't believe it? Check with you local city and county governments. A group of people can have a more effective say in these than they can at the state or national level. When Alexis de Tocqueville travelled the USA in the 1820s he was amazed to see just how well democracy worked at the local level and wrote the book Democracy in America describing what he saw.

In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the 1990s it triumphed over democracy.

And a damned good thing, too. A democracy is three wolves and two sheep voting on what's for dinner. A republic, restrained by constitutional protections of individual rights, is quite different.

Ce depend. This is true if you look at democracy as being tyranny of the masses. I'd prefer to look at it as Alexis de Tocqueville did when he wrote Democracy in America .

You can find some more fascinating videos on the Net about this and of course other topics to read. YouTube/Google has videos of Michael Badnarik discussing the subject, and www.cato.org probably has some basic primers on classical liberalism, libertarianism, and self-determination.

Yea, Michael Badnarik got my vote in 2004. If I lived in the district he's running to represent in Texas he'd get my vote again. Ron Paul would also get my vote. Actually if you go through his, Badnarik's website, he has some good stuff on the subject as well. One I like is about a speech Davy Crocket gave in the House of Representatives when they were debating a bill, "Not Yours to Give". Other good sources on classical liberalism are Thomas Paine, his Common Sense being pretty intro. Alexis de Tocqueville is another pretty good source on classical liberalism as is Adam Smith.

Yes, I've previously paraphrased the Churchill quote to capitalism/economics myself, too.

Equally, I think paraphrasing Ghandi's western civilsation quote for free trade capitalism is quite insightful: good idea, somebody should try it (because sure as s##t nobody is trying it now)

Even Thomas Jefferson warned about the corporate aristocracy, especially banks. John Adams didn't like them either, neither did the other Thomas, Thomas Paine. Simply there were some who thought big businesses would prove to be bad. The USA has come a long way from then, even from the America Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of in "Democracy in America" when he traveled the USA in the 1820-30s.

Here is your reference: Wisconsin Senator Robert W. Kasten Jr., Judge Jim Gray, Libertarian opponent to CA Sen. Barbara Boxer, Wyoming Senator Craig Thomas in a Senate statement, The Reason Magazine, and probably more.

Now Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" is one book I would require to be read in hs. People need to see the America Alexis saw.

The producers of capitalism have also brought you such wonderful things as George W. Bush.

I guess you're right: People are just not going to "get more intelligent" anytime soon.

Is wasn't Capitalism, as in Adam Smyth's "On Wealth of Nations" or tinyurl that brought Bush along. More like the Corporate Aristocracy Thomas Jefferson and Alexis de Tocqueville warned people about that is responsible.

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
Thomas Jefferson, 1814

Wow, these guys suck!
They also have an 892k JPG on one of their pages (christ knows why, it's only 230x143).. a slashdotting on that page would be pretty painful, no?
Go on.. click the link, you know you want to :)
For those who don't trust any links given on Slashdot, just go to their site and follow the "awards" link.

This is one totally amateur looking website! Not sure what the hell it's all about even, but I can't take it seriously just because it looks like someone's 13 year old kid put it together in Frontpage.

I mean... the branding is weak, the layout is sub-par and uninteresting - the overall impression created by that page is just one of confusion!

Who are they, and what is the point they are trying to make? I can't even be bothered to find out, really, because the website makes me switch off before I get that far.

I can't take this kind of critical commentary seriously from anybody with such an amateur looking website, and theris isn't even up to the visual appeal of the average contemporary blog! Awful!

It seems they liked Kerry in the last election. A couple of quotes from the article:

... Mr. Kerry has put himself firmly in the camp of presidents from Reagan to Roosevelt, from Kennedy to Truman. These men insisted -- to a chorus of elite skepticism from both the left and right -- that, yes, democracy could triumph."

When President Bush first mused, just before his party's convention, that the war on terror might be unwinnable...

Seriously, how are republicans any different from democrats?

Our next report will reflect on offer new insights on orbital mechanics based on the unprecidented rotations obsrved in Mr. de Tocqueville's grave.

Microsoft has had finanical dealings with SCO and AdTI when both were making baseless and sweeping claims against Linux. Are there any other groups that you pay to attack Linux that you would like to tell us about before they come out in court?

Cars do kill the environment, despite what dubious, paid-by oil companies, "scientists" say. Check this out. It's written by the same people who claimed that Linux was not written by Linux (and that it's Minix instead).

I don't know of any study funded directly by Microsoft. Microsoft funds AdTI, which came up with that balony all on its own. (We are talking about the Ken Brown/Minix load of crap right?) Because apparently even Microsoft saw right through that.

By funding more objective "studies", no doubt?

Tanenbaum said it's been released under a BSD-style license. Well, if you believe the quote Ken Brown gives....

(You also may want to read his rant against offshore outsourcing.)

(You also may want to read his rant against offshore outsourcing.)

(You also may want to read his rant against offshore outsourcing.)

(You also may want to read his rant against offshore outsourcing.)

(You also may want to read his rant against offshore outsourcing.)

No Santa or the Easter Bunny did

...which is yet another black hole in his methodology. (See the full report for details of the methodology.)

Quote from the article:

The UK ISP took Mill down almost immediately (in huge letters, as a heading, followed by:)

The US ISP followed up on the dubious complaint, made on behalf of the chairman of the non-existent John Stuart Mill Heritage Foundation, with detailed questions. But the UK ISP took the site down almost immediately, effectively censoring legal content without investigation.

In the full report, he details how the US ISP refused to take down the content *unless he explicitly perjured himself in writing*, acknowledging in writing the phrase "under penalty of perjury". Unsurprisingly he was unwilling to do this and terminated the project - so the US ISP left the content there, and did exactly the right thing - a fact he completely skips over in the summary article.

The reason it did do this was that the DCMA provides a framework for such complaints. While ultimately his point in the article is that government regulation may be preferable to private corporate censorship, he doesn't want to explicitly draw the logical conclusion that in this case the DCMA is working exactly as intended, protecting the alleged infringer against specious claims. Rather he decides to reference "anecdotal evidence" that the DCMA has chilling effects.

Now I believe the DCMA to be one of the most wrong-headed laws ever signed, and I agree with this guy's conclusions, but the report reads obviously that he has started with these conclusions and moulded his data to fit them. His methodology is completely out the window. And that's a problem, because anyone can come up with a "research report"; that proves whatever they want, including the bad guys - and from a methodology perspective this guy could get a job with them.

Go to the Alexis de Tocqueville home page, then click "Mission" link at top left, then click "Accomplishments".

Amazing. They have 404 accomplishments. Pretty impressive, I must say.

Go to the Alexis de Tocqueville home page, then click "Mission" link at top left, then click "Accomplishments".

Amazing. They have 404 accomplishments. Pretty impressive, I must say.

There's nothing fake in their research, so why do you call it Fake research? I really don't think it is a Fake Research.

There's nothing fake in their research, so why do you call it Fake research? I really don't think it is a Fake Research.

There's nothing fake in their research, so why do you call it Fake research? I really don't think it is a Fake Research.

I'd love to... but I still don't understand why everybody is raving about *BSD being dead.

After having learned that Windows XP is a VMS clone and that Linux is a Minix clone which is a UNIX clone which is a MULTICS clone which is a CTSS clone which is a FMS clone which I have never heard about and which is probably dead, dead, dead I'd think that everything - even BeOS and QNX (and this FreeBSD clone MacOS X) are UNIX-influenced (if not based) and therefore dead, dead, dead. 8-)
I used to prefer FreeBSD over GNU/Linux because of the straightforward install without bells and whistles and the easy way to compile parts of the system. The only disappointing thing is the lack of drivers for my exotic hardware, at least I was so far not able to find working drivers for my external CD-writer, my laptop's USB and a single of my three USB webcams.

Well... then I discovered Gentoo and everything was fine again... 8-)

No he didn't forget the link to Fake Research. There it is right there, Fake Research. What, are you blind from all the Fake Research? Maybe you should cut back on the Fake Research. Fake Research makes the baby Jesus cry.

No he didn't forget the link to Fake Research. There it is right there, Fake Research. What, are you blind from all the Fake Research? Maybe you should cut back on the Fake Research. Fake Research makes the baby Jesus cry.

No he didn't forget the link to Fake Research. There it is right there, Fake Research. What, are you blind from all the Fake Research? Maybe you should cut back on the Fake Research. Fake Research makes the baby Jesus cry.

No he didn't forget the link to Fake Research. There it is right there, Fake Research. What, are you blind from all the Fake Research? Maybe you should cut back on the Fake Research. Fake Research makes the baby Jesus cry.

No he didn't forget the link to Fake Research. There it is right there, Fake Research. What, are you blind from all the Fake Research? Maybe you should cut back on the Fake Research. Fake Research makes the baby Jesus cry.

Original Comment: If you're going for Google bombing against fake research, you might be interested to know that a search for Alexis de Tocqueville Institution also leads to a more informative article about AdTI.

Reply: Somebody Mod this guy up to +5 extremely valuable information provided...

If you're going for Google bombing against fake research, you might be interested to know that a search for Alexis de Tocqueville Institution also leads to a more informative article about AdTI.

Oh yeah... and the links are Fake Research and Clueless Idiots.

Guess the original poster forgot a " after the address. ;)

Oh yeah... and the links are Fake Research and Clueless Idiots.

Guess the original poster forgot a " after the address. ;)

If you read the arguments of Ken Brown, then read what Tanenbaum has to say, it's immediately clear to someone of average intelligence that Brown does have a consistent argument--with a condition, if you take the time away. In other words, he's trying hard to argue with anachronism.

Unfortunately, most things in the world change in time, so you must be careful what you argue about. For example, according to Tanenbaum, it used to be legal to use Lions' book to teach Unix internals, until AT&T decided to forbid it. Brown would assert that Lions' notes have always been an illegal distribution, and therefore an infringement on Intellectual Property. In fact, he uses this argument to show how Tanenbaum is unaware of IP issues. But this is not true. If you can't tell how events unfold themselves in time, you'll buy his argument.

Furthermore, even if there was Minix code at the beginning for testing purposes, it would be gone by now. It's meaningless trying to argue if there is a possibility that some reminiscent of Minix is still preset in Linux. The only way to find out if that is the case is by analyzing the code line by line. The person making the claim (Ken Brown) is supposed to do that. But he didn't.

Ken Brown is free to say whatever he wants, but this just hurts his own credibility.