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Is this is what the wearer sees?

"I just wish they would make an exception for pharmaceuticals, because getting the fruits of someone else's labors for nothing is a moral issue."

There, fixed that for you.

Meanwhile, here in Reality, pharmaceutical companies are doing just that, and jackasses are jumping blindly off the cliff to defend them...

Hey everyone, it's 2001 again. Just replace "ReplayTV" with "Dish Network"

http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/replaytv-vs-hollywood/

It also just clicked to me after reading this that maybe Google bought SageTV just to kill said feature in the PVR software. Undermines Google's money maker ...

Not exactly what he said, but an oldie and a goodie.

You know, the white folks in those pictures after Katrina had not been observed looting what they had from a store. The blacks had. There was a reason other than racism to use different terms.

Compared against what happens in, say, El Salvador, I'm sure that people would be willing to accept losing their license for life.

Norway is probably the most metered and acceptable to US audiences... first offense = 1 year loss of license, second = lost license for life. Though I'd prefer to see El Salvador's approach to drunk driving enacted....

There does seem to be some sort of a relationship between Rick Wagner and Packt, as he's reviewed, blogged and commented on reviews of several of their products. There ought to be some sort of a disclaimer on this posting.

And funding terrorism worldwide, then giving them protection. The case of Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch are exemplary samples of US Terrorism.
One would think detonating bombs in jet airliners and hotels would qualify as terrorism, not for Bush father (Gave presidential pardon to O.Bosch) or Bush son and Obama who keep protecting Carriles in US soil; when international law clearly states in case of civilian aviation crimes either turn the criminal to be judged in the affected country, or judge him using your own laws on the matter in yours. Neither is carried by the USA and thats exactly how they want cooperation against terrorism... In fact Cuba sacrificed 5 agents who infiltrated anti-cuban groups in Florida to warn the US gov about probable acts of terror against their own people. The result, instead of disbanding the terrorist groups, the agents were captured and convicted to life sentences (for "Spying"), Their only crime was helping prevent more terrorism against Cuba. As you can see in the videos, it's not the first time these groups got carried out of their way and commit acts even in US soil.

http://www.cubadebate.cu/especiales/2010/09/28/under-the-sign-of-terror/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx7TptU3taQ

http://blogcritics.org/video/article/dvd-review-posada-carriles-terrorism-made/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOz-_9fBvtE

Fact: The US government help and protect murderers when it happens to benefit their foreign policy. Some like Bin Laden eventually turn around...

In the UK when anyone questioned immigration policy they were publically branded "racist" by the Labour party and prevented it from being debated. It was a legitimate concern

Citation?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-464355/It-extremist-fascist-illiberal-demand-stringent-immigration-controls.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/3642549/Door-opens-for-migration-debate.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280705/Labour-tried-stifle-debate-immigration.html
http://www.cadaad.org/2010_volume_4_issue_1/63-45
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2010/04/the_politics_of_race.html
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/gordons-gaffe-sinks-labour-in-heat/

'Or starring Jeffrery Dahmer on an episode of Iron Chef.'

Or Issei Sagawa. Oh, wait...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issei_Sagawa

'He has also written restaurant reviews for the Japanese magazine Spa'

http://blogcritics.org/scitech/article/cooking-with-nico-issei-and-jane/

'In Japan he is now a well-known author, and frequent talk show guest. And a frequent guest on cooking shows.'

Bad business decisions do not include the merger of two large companies, nor does the hypocritical bias towards American companies.

You're more than welcome to their health care. Go enjoy waiting for it, and a lower quality of care. I greatly prefer our system to that. People have long been comparing our "terrible" capitalist system to free health care in places such as Europe before the current Health Care debate and I have NEVER been impressed by anything they do.

They have 32 hour work weeks in some places, 35 (such as France) in others and then you have places where they are trying to increase it back as their GDP slips due to it. Take a look over here (I googled "france gdp work week" and found that article.

I am not in the top 20%, but I am definitely richer for it.

It was the old wind turbines that had smaller blades that killed birds. Today's turbines have bigger blades and spin slower.

The birds are an integral part of the ecosystem.

Cats are also part of the ecosystem yet they kill more birds than wind turbines do. According to this building are a big killer of birds.

Falcon

I have a harmonizer that I bought back before this guy supposedly invented this process

Incidentally, how do harmonizers work? IIRC I've heard that they've been around since the mid-1970s, but surely that was years before digital processing was possible- so how did they do it?

A key characteristic of a monopoly is the lack of, or willful institution by a company of barriers to entry to, viable substitutes.

Copyright does not prevent you from writing your own song so it is not a monopoly. All copyright does is prevent a person from taking another person's work and using it without their permission.

In this way, your argument fails the litmus test of a "monopoly" definition twice.

Nothing prevents me from writing my own songs so you fail.

1) There are sufficient independent, major, and minor record label alternatives to a given artist's work. The songs may not be identical but if you really want to argue that one grunge song doesn't provide the entertainment value equivalent to any other grunge song, then we're going to sit here all year arguing about the monopoly over 12 inch long, neon pink toilet scrubbers with black handles made in China on Thursdays.

I never claimed otherwise. Actually that's my point, nobody can prevent anyone else from writing their own song so there's no monopoly on writing songs.

In both cases, copyright protections do not fit the definition of a monopoly.

Now you're arguing my point, there is no monopoly, except for a specific work.

What you're claiming is that the federal recognition of the rights of a creator of a work, or rights of an owner of a work made for hire, have somehow led to the way things are at present.

No where have I said that. I have repeatedly stated copyrights are not rights. They are limited monopolies on the distribution of copyrighted art yes, but they are not rights.

how is copyright the problem?

Copyright is not a problem, the problem is in the terms of copyrights. Copyright terms no longer encourage creation, if anything they discourage creation, and that's the problem.

As a photographer, I'm not certain that you have compulsory license.... In your case, the reason compulsory license is not required is because you cannot protect scene compositions that are extremely generic... say, a photograph of an apple in a bowl.

First you admit you don't know if compulsory license exists in photography then you say the reason compulsory license is not required is because "you cannot protect scene compositions that are extremely generic".

Anyone can photograph an apple in a bowl and wouldn't in principle be violating an original idea.

The same can be said about songs. Anyone can string together words and notes of a song, that's how they are created.

Article I of the US Constitution defines it as a right

Except rights are not granted. Because congress can grant copyrights they are not rights. A right is something government can not deny, they are unalienable not something government grants.

You cannot out one side of your mouth suggest that government has no business in protecting one's inherent right to their own ideas, and at the same time suggest that it is imperative that record companies must give everyone a crack at being the next Britney Spears.

Now where did this come from? Give me my specific quotes. Remember I have repeatedly said, which you ignore when it suits you, copyrights are not rights. Ooh, that's right you believe congress can deny rights.

You deem the transaction to be unfair

What transact?

your argument is that copyright is the source of the monopoly

Perhaps your comprehension of what I've said is lacking. Then again perhaps I could have used better wording, which I'll attempt to here. There is no monopoly on song writing itself, only on the combination of lyrics and or musical notes. Copying someone else's work without their permission is bad if the copyright term is short.

Falcon

No, the hemi is an old (and as far as I'm concerned, crappy) approach that the american manufacturers rejuvenated in a ridiculous attempt to compete with the japanese companies. What I was talking about was this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_direct_injection

Here's a decent writeup also:

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/03/29/215606.php

• The white supremacists issue is irrelevant
• You've attacked the supporters of Dr Paul, but because you also loaded the sentence with "...you're going to have to try to reason with these people if you want their votes.", you've linked the attack to the candidate himself, implying that Dr Paul panders to white supremacists for their votes.

The point is that these contradictions are ignored by the mainstream media.

Fact: Before 9/11 Rudy Giuliani was a supporter of and fundraiser for a terrorist organization.

This isn't hypothesis or inference. Giuliani attended numerous IRA fundraising events and these were reported in the New York Times at the time. Giuliani attended the events to be reported. I don't think that Giuliani ever seriously supported the methods of the IRA but he was willing to at least pretend that he did in order to court the NYC Irish vote.

The IRA caused more deaths than Al Qaeda has to date.

Giuliani even gave Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA a 'humanitarian' award. A few months later Gerry and his boys bombed a shopping mall. Rudy never condemned the attack on civilians. Not good for his votes you see. Bin Laden is probably asking himself 'hey where is my Crystal Apple'.

Giuliani has set himself up as an expert on terrorism. He has attacked Islamic 'charities' that are in fact funraising fronts for organizations such as Hamas and Al Qaeda. Yet nobody seems to have challenged his efforts to raise funds for NORAID, the IRA's US fundraising arm.

It isn't just a matter of one man's terrorist being another's freedom fighter. It is also a question of what the best way to fight terror actually is. The IRA had several ceasefires before 9/11 but it was when the US funraising line was severed that they were finaly forced to pack it in. When I first came to Boston pretty much every irish themed pub would have a NORAID fundraiser advertised. Every single one of the posters disappeared within days of 9/11.

Giuliani is currently trying to relaunch his campaign on the back of the assasination of Bhutto, another round of bad anti-terrorist proposals, I blogged on the idiocy of his proposal for cyber-warfare against AQ yesterday. There are two ways to fight terrorism, the way the British responded to the IRA in the 1970s and the way the West Germans responded to Baader-Meinhof. The British used the tactics of torture and internment (sound familiar) which only made the situation worse. The IRA gained supporters worldwide, including US appologists like Giuliani himself. the West German approach of using police powers and absolutely refusing to recognize terrorists as political prisoners did work. That is why the British switched to the west German tactics and why the US should do the same against Al Qaeda. But this whole debate is not one that the US establishment media will ever allow.

So why won't the establishment media ask Giuliani why he supported the terrorist organization that attempted to murder my family?

Its because it does not fit their script. According to the script Gore was a liar, Bush was dumb but good company and Giuliani is the fearless crusader against terrorism. No mention of course of the fact that he tried to make his mobbed-up partner DHS secretary and he positioned the emergency control room in the WTC complex so that it was in easy walking distance of city hall for his shag-fests with Judith and the rest of the harem. Those facts don't fit the script. They only get asked by the establishment media at all because Josh Marshall at TPM and the rest of the blogosphere have insisted on it.

Mmmmmm Not all films do http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/02/18/115627.php

My favourite candidate would have been black, female and quite possibly gay.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/03/14/123729.php

But she seems to have been dragged down by the Bush adminstration's slow sinking. Which is unfair really, I don't think if it were up to her to decide policy rather than just advise on implementation that the US would have botched Iraq so badly. And Condie running as a moderate would have attracted lots of support from groups that usually only vote for Democrats.

A good place to mine from? Lists of people who donate to Islamic Non-Profits who then forward those donations on to known terrorist organizations.

"Baseless comments are getting too much attention. People need to stick to the moderator guidelines or stop modding up groupthink style."

If this were any other topic, I'd wholeheartedly agree. However, what makes this case interesting is Sony themselves have poo-poo'd the competition in similar fashion, and now their potential customers are following their example. I really don't care for the sheople moderation Slashdot is known for, but hopefully one day Sony will wake up and see that the bad PR they have is of their own doing. Once they sort that out, maybe we'll actually see innovation from their camp.

How exactly does this apples to oranges comparison work?
It's been a while since I did the calculation, but basically you take the average life expectancy of a person in hours (male life expectancy * percentage male + female life expectancy * percentage female), divide by two (I would imagine that the average age of a person who died in the 9/11 attack to be lower than the average, but I don't have any statistics to that effect), and multiply by the number of people who died in the attacks.

This is the amount of life lost on 9/11.

Next, you take the average wait time of airport security (I believe my original source was a DHS report), and multiply it by the number of travelers in a year. This leaves you with the amount of life lost in Airport Security lines.

Time dead = time dead
I'll concede this one.

Waiting in security line = time alive
Not exactly. Personally, I'm about as productive waiting in an airport security line as I would be while dead, and being dead has the advantage of being far less unpleasant.

Would this make you feel better?
Being Alive > Being in Airport Security > Dead

Perhaps you would feel more comfortable with the statement "we lose more _productivity_ each year to airport security than to 9/11". Personally, I think it's demeaning to reduce people to little more than a measure of productivity; perhaps you feel differently.

You also forgot to mention this.
Number of terrorist incidents involving planes in the USA since 9/11 = 0

No, I didn't "forget" to mention that - there's little mention to bring up a logical fallacy such as that. Remember, correlation does not imply causality.

Several things changed on 9/11, and not all of them were bad, or resulted in the loss of freedoms and our nation heading towards a police state. On that day, passengers changed - no longer would they sit there like sheep while a terrorist controlled the plane. On that day, people realized that there are those out there who want to kill us, people who you cannot negotiate with. When someone takes over a plane, you do not sit idly by - you act. You Stop the person Threatening you.

So, there have been terrorist incidents since 9/11, including our own shoe bomber. The aim of 9/11 obviously was more than a simple hijacking, the planes were used to make a statement (and do the whole "death and destruction" thing. Between the reinforced cockpit door (useful, practical, good security) and the passengers (better security still), an attack of that scale cannot happen again. Furthermore, the pilot isn't going to allow the attacker into the cockpit. Ultimately, it wouldn't matter if the attacker had a gun and threatened to shoot passengers and crew - the pilot wouldn't allow the terrorist in, nor would the passengers just sit there.

As for the "wait in line to have your ID checked" part - we have a finite amount of security resources. Not everyone can get high security. so let's call the percentage that can P. So, we have to make 2 assumptions:
1) There is someone out there low security won't catch. If low security is good enough, there is no need for "high security".
2) The person who low security won't catch will be caught by high security. If high security isn't good enough, there is no point in high security either.

If both 1 and 2 aren't true, then there is no point to our current system at all. So, assume we have a terrorist who fits both 1 and 2.

Given that, how do you determine _who_ gets high security. Suppose we do it randomly - what's our chances of catching the terrorist? P.
Ok, now examine our current system - checks b

People who waste their time on trendy non-issues like this make me sick.

Nonissue? People dying from an allergic reaction is a nonissue?

There are people dying RIGHT NOW from actual problems in the food industry with handling, inspection

These are handling and sanitation issues and don't have anything to do with genetic engineering. GE does nothing for preventing food from being contaminated. And for people without enough to eat, that's a problem with politics and logistics. Take Zimbabwe, it used to be the breadbasket of southern Africa. But when pres Mugabe forced the white farmers off of their farms then gave the farms to his cronies the country turned into a basket case. Then there's what's happening in Mexico. Because of massive subsidies the US gives to US agribusinesses these companies can export food to Mexico and sale it there cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow food. You can blame this on many of those "illegal immigrants" in the US. Because Mexican farmers can't make a living on their farms they migrate into the Mexican cities or north to come to the US. And those who go to the cities drive those already there north. Massive farm subsidies was the reason the WTO talks in Geneva fell apart. India and other coutries demanded the EU, Japan, and the US to stop subidizing their agribusinesses so these companies couldn't flood export markets with food that cost less than what local farmers could grow food for. In India thousands of farmers have been committing suicide in part because they can't compeat with subsidized imported food.

I'll use your only argument that OS X is secure (which I've already addressed over, and over), and replace "OS X" with "MS-DOS 6.22".

Cite a single "remote vulnerability exploit in the wild" against MS-DOS 6.22. You can't, go ahead, I dare you. With Windows I have to worry about hackers writing remote exploits, but with MS-DOS 6.22 none exist at all. MS-DOS 6.22 is therefore more secure than Windows NT 5.x.

By the way, cite a remote exploit for Windows XP SP2.

It's called an inbound firewall, and any OS with one, which isn't being used as a server, can't have a remote exploit in the sense you require.

This makes the number of remote exploits an absurd metric for desktop computer security. What about number of vulnerabilities / number of users? Who do you think would have the largest ratio out of Apple and Microsoft given this more sensible metric?

I wonder if PJ could use Sarbanes Oxley to have criminal charges brought against the executives at New Line? The article linked is about the music industry, but the accounting (mal)practices in both industries are the same.

It should be no surprise that countries with little or no protection of free speech are arresting people for their comments online. Many bloggers use their real names (or make it easy for police to trace them. The people who would be arrested for public dissent should not be surprised if they are arrested for dissent online ... I would hope that many of these people relish the thought of being arrested for blogging, as it sometimes creates worldwide recognition to their cause or their plight.

It certainly seems that blogger arrests are on the rise, such as the recent Greek blogger arrested for content he didn't write, and the constant string of arrested bloggers and other internet users in China (such as documentary filmmaker Hao Wu). This is probably an indication that Governments are just now learning about the influence commanded by a popular blogger rather than a change in policies around the globe ... it's not like governments are quick to catch up with technical trends.

Here's a clue. Wal*Mart can charge so little for two reasons: they are gigantic, and their product are crap.

Off topic, but walmart sells the same products any other store sells. You can definitely complain about their business practices if you want to though.

We aren't funding our schools enough. I mean for fuck's sake I don't have a degree and I make better money than most teachers, and I'm only 21. No one of skill will want to be a teacher unless it pays well, passion for the job only stretches so far.

School systems seem to get plenty of money. All that money just doesn't get to the teachers. Standard gov. bloat has sucked this money out of the school system for 'administrative' purposes. I think when most people talk about private education it's primarily to help get rid of this gov. bloat which infects everything the gov. touches. I agree teachers need to make more money, but I also want them to be accountable to set standards. I think everyone must also remember that teachers generally work ~9 months of the year.

Remember, if you privatize the school system, it's no longer the children who are the customer, it's the parents.

The children haven't been the customers in a long time. The customers now are the PC thought police. Little Johny doesn't like math so he cuts up in class and ruins it for everyone else. The teacher can't do a thing b/c it might hurt his feelings, WTF?!. Teacher calls Johnys parents and the parents yell at her saying that she doesn't understand his culture or some crap like that. I'm not sure when the last time you were in a public school , but the situation I described above is what commonly occurs nowadays. Not long ago in a local school district a *middle* school teacher was beat up by a few of her students in class. Nothing happened to the students and she was fired when she finally got out of the hospital b/c she missed too many days of work. She sued the school district and won and now they school district is appealing on the grounds that classroom management and dealing with getting attacked by students is part of her job! This type of thing can only happen when you have gov. stuck in something. Overview of the case can be found here

I swear, what do you think there is left to cut? Instead, you'll have the overhead of: turning a profit, advertising,

Which will be tons less than all the pork barrel administrative crap that money gets wasted on now in every school system in America. As soon as you have shareholders and people wanting to turn a profit, the useless stuff gets cut. To keep the good stuff from getting cut you have to have some level of objective testing, which leads into my next point.

t's an education even more heavily geared towards passing standardized tests than we have currently, because the school's financial solvency depends upon it.

And what exactly is wrong to teaching kids to pass a test? To pass a math test you're going to have to learn the basics of math, same with science and english. Now, things like the humanities could be in a tough spot b/c they are hard to measure objectively, but I would argue we are so far behind in the basics that it doesn't matter.

For the record I'm not a hyper-conservative, just someone who has been following what's been going on in public schools for awhile. They are broken beyond repair and some radical changes need to happen to fix them. The worse part though is that unlike Friedman in his book
The World Is Flat, I'm starting to think it's too late for the US.

So let's summarise so far. Luminaries like Robert Scoble cannot make video on the web work economically, even with their advertising and audience pull. The economics are against him.

YouTube is assumed to be worth $1.65 billion yet it relies on pirated content to a degree we cannot ascertain. What we can conjecture is that it is not viable without pirated content.

Raising this theft issue invites ridicule -- something here doesn't add up.

Copyright also emerged this week as an issue for top flight talent like the Beatles and in actions taken by the music industry against 8,000 illegal filesharers.

The other side of the coin is that many media enterprises don't respect authors' copyright. Copyright abuse by newspapers in Europe is not uncommon. When it applies to freelance writers there is a wrongful assumption that a newspaper can sell and resell in the print and onlline syndication market without reverting to the content producer.

We tend to take the "technology first" view of this -- we have the technology to share files so we should; likewise newspapers can exploit the technology of databases to continually resell content, so they should. But rights are trampled on in the process. There's no point in ignoring that. It's like assuming vidcasting is viable. It seems to be until you try it without a loss maker called YouTube.

Check out Janis Ian vs the RIAA to see how bad it really is.

Feel free to argue that you must have all the evidence you need to win a trial before filing a lawsuit, and to argue that you must have actual copies or physical specimens of each an every infringing work or device. When a corporation is a defendant, it will be more than happy to use those ludicrous arguments to its advantage to make it even more difficult for individuals to prove and obtain relief for copyright infringement, patent infringement, theft of trade secrets, and the like. It won't actually happen, and the defendants are going to lose these types of arguments, but the intellectual breadth of the typical Slashdot legal analysis continues to astound me.

In one case, Warner Bros. demanded a particular subscriber be disconnected for illegally sharing the movie "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." But the computer file identified by Warner Bros. in its letter indicated that it wasn't the "Harry Potter" movie but a child's written book report.

Another letter, to Internet provider UUNet, wanted a subscriber cut off because they were sharing songs by former Beatle George Harrison. But some files were not songs at all. One was an interview with Harrison, and another was a 1947 photograph of a "Mrs. Harrison."

millions of people are living in poverty and rapidly becoming slaves because CNN choose the UN forces as the loosers?

Riiiiight. And had CNN said "Yay! The UN won!" the opposing forces would simply evaporate into thin air? I think the military would be looking into whatever weapons these journalists are carrying, they far outclass anything that the US currently employs.

America is "losing" in Iraq because we're building giant submarines like the newly commissioned USS Texas in order to torpedo Al Qaeda's massive Navy. The Republicans have us "staying the course" because their minds have been so poisoned by the "with us or against us" rhetoric, the only alternative they can fathom is to turn tail and run. Their minds are so twisted they can only see Plan A or Plan B, they are unable to count to C, because that would be neither with them or against them, so it does not exist. I see the Republicans' demands that the Democrats "propose a better plan" as a desparate plea of "I've got no ideas, and we're running out of buildings to blow up, please tell me what to do."

The fact is, on the defensive side, our government simply refuses to comprehend the depths to which our enemies will sink. The TSA currently bans baby bottles unless you're carrying a baby, blithely ignoring the fact that one pair of the british bombers allegedly intended to bring their baby specifically for the purpose of smuggling explosives in its bottle. Meanwhile fans of profiling scream about how we're wasting our time and efforts searching babies and grannies. Of course, they also scream about how we're wasting our time searching white people, so I generally just ignore them anyways. If they can't even fathom what form attacks will take, then how can they expect to defend us from them?

As for our offensive, the US is fighting against an idea, and they're trying to kill it with guns and bombs. The problem? The idea is that "The Westerners Are Evil". Muslim kids go to their religious schools every day where that idea is drilled into their heads. Muslims read their newspapers and their books, they listen to their preachers, all with the same message. So America shows up and starts blowing stuff up. We kill off a few fathers, sodomize a few brothers, disappear a few sons... and every time, the people left behind say "Look! The Westerners Are Evil!".

But it doesn't stop there. For all of the PsyOps and COINTELPRO that America threw millions of dollars at last century (and what about the truth serums and other drugs of the Cold War? Why are we using Middle Age technology to torture and sodomize people when all it takes is last century's syringe?), the Muslims have it down to an art. Muslims drive a carbomb into a crowd of schoolkids in order to kill the soldier handing out candy and toys? "Look! The Westerners Are Evil!" Muslims blow up other Muslims' weddings? "Look! The Westerners Are Evil!" Hezbollah "arrests" some random Jewish soldiers and gets the crap bombed out of them because unlike the Jews who had the foresight to build bomb shelters to protect civilians along the border, Hezbollah left the Lebanese citizens intentionally unprotected? "Look! The Westerners Are Evil!"

This is what we are fighting. We had numerous chances to turn it around, but because the Republicans slammed anything not involving guns and bombs as "liberal touchy feely shit", we were unable to stem the tide. We have failed to convince the neighbors and acquaintances of the militants that they are NOT their friends and that they must be turned over or else they will get them all killed. We have been unable to convince the mothers that the militants will slaughter their children and must be rooted out. We have been unable to convince the young men that suicide bombers do not go to heaven, they do not get virgins, and that they

Did you know that in this game you can also kill people???? Won't someone think of the children??? If it is legal in the physical world to "kill" someone in the game, then why would it be illegal in the physical world to steal "money" that has no official worth in the physical world? It may be a violation of terms of service punishable by banning, but it certainly doesn't seem like an offense that should be prosecuted by any government in the offline world.

From what little I know, this type of activity seems par for the course in Eve online. I remember reading about an event that occured last year where a group infiltrated another group and basically acted as undercover agents. They got into the highest ranks of the group then killed the CEO, destroyed ships and took over some assets.

Call me crazy, but that sounded pretty cool to me. It sounded much cooler than any scripted or planned event I've heard about in any other online game. So does this latest event. If you have created a game where the players can create such interesting events rather than have to artificially create them, it sounds like you've done something right.

totally left out last winter's flap about Rose and Digg banning dissenting or questioning voices from their midst. Digg faces censorship accusations.

Let the BDS posts begin ... You guys really need to grow up and start thinking.

• Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? Nope.
• Saddam has links to al Qaeda? Nope.
• Katrina victims will receive the support they require in a timely fashion? Nope.
• US citizens will only be spied on using a court order? Nope.

Cut and paste much?

Remember the MAP Settlement - Five of the largest U.S. distributors of pre-recorded music CDs and three large retailers agreed to pay millions of dollars in cash and free CDs as part of an agreement on price-fixing allegations.

The companies will pay $67,375,000 in cash, provide $75,500,000 worth of music CDs, and not engage in sales practices that allegedly led to artificially high retail prices for music CDs and reduced retail competition as part of the agreement. Tennessee's share is an estimated $993,948 in cash and $1,507,852 in CDs.

The fact is that when Gonzales told us that the NSA only listens to international calls he didn't take an oath, and that he later rescinded or re-qualified much of his testimony, in particular making the point that although one particlar intelligence program involved listening to international calls, a certain gigantic multi-billion dollar signals-intelligence agency might actually be running more than one signals-gathering program. (Like, whoa, seriously?)

To attach the name "fact" to information obtained under such circumstances is, I think, very, very optimistic, in a sense.

The fact is that Bush has told us bald-faced lies about domestic spying activities, and at this point it would require a hearty steaming ladle-full of naivete to imagine that the general public now knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The fact is that the Bush administration has aptly demonstrated that it simply cannot be trusted, and the sorry fact is that we can be certain of precious little beyond that.

The fact is, recognizing these facts does not constitute "fanaticism." I believe there's a saying down in Texas: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

But I thought Google was buying Sun??

Click on the following article link for details http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/02/26/123335. php

I'm not judging the morals of games here (except that I think that Hitman falls specifically withing the bounds of what I consider a morally acceptable game. ). In the real world, of course, a surgical strike would be more moral since avoiding collateral damage is generally considered better than indiscriminate maiming and killing... but it is a little silly to worry about that with animated cartoon characters...

You are absolutely right about Doom of course, which gets a very bad rep despite the fact that it pits its protagonist against the forces of Hell. I mean, the main character in Doom is about as righteous as you can get.

Consider Goldeneye though. Patrick McGoohan turned down 007 as a film character because he considered him a sadistic, womanizing monster. (He lost bags and bags of money for that...) 007 is mostly killing people. At one point doesn't he have to kill Onatopp?

After Onatopp's death, Bond tells Natalya that "She always did enjoy a good squeeze." -- Xenia Onatopp

However, a James Bond game won't ever generate this kind of controversy...

Oh man, fuck Christmas.

Seriously - are you kidding me with this "There's a war on Christmas" bullshit? FOX News wasn't raking in enough cash already from all the Christmas commercials for Kill 'em All Barbie and Girls Gone Wild Brand Toddler Gear ? They had to start publishing books about some bogus attack on Christianity? And who did they pick to lead this particular charge?

John fucking Gibson. This guy has wiener written all over him.

Bill O'Reilly gets all the credit as the biggest nutcase in FOXville, but Gibson really deserves his own special wing in the happy house. This motherfucker's embedded assignment reads "Up Karl Rove's ass."

What makes him such a dick? I mean, besides making a fortune by screaming hysterically about how oppressed Christians are by the other twenty percent? How about advocating bombing countries that don't vote the way we want in their own elections? Way to encourage democracy, fuckhead. And maybe he was kidding when he wished, on air, that the French had gotten the 2012 Olympics instead of the Brits so the terrorists would "blow up Paris," but it might have been just a touch over the top to call for it again on the day of the London train bombings. Classy move, asshole.

And really? That's just scratching the fucking surface. Anyone remember who was responsible for the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City? John does: Iraq. And speaking of Iraq, Gibson thinks Rove deserves a fucking medal for outing that CIA agent. And, like any good reporter, he wanted to burn the Florida ballots after his buddy Bush got "elected" rather than, I don't know, count them? "Is this a case where knowing the facts actually would be worse than not knowing?" That right there is why sometimes it's useful for journalists to go to, what do you call that fucking place? Oh yeah, journalism school.

And now he's all worked up about Christmas being stolen. What is this, the fucking Fairytale Network? It's a national fucking holiday and we're spending gobs of our hard-earned tax dollars on wreaths and lights for your special Santa day. But these bastards are all "But they call them Holiday trees!" Here's a clue: no, they fucking don't. Ok, maybe in a couple places, like on FOXNews.com and at the White House, but if Christmas is under attack, I'm Kris fucking Kringle.

And guess who's stealing Christmas, according to Gibson. Go on -- guess. "A cabal of secularists, so-called humanists, trial lawyers, cultural relativists, and liberal, guilt-wra

psuedo edit: Here's a link to story with the details on the lawsuit and how to file a claim

There was an article on here a year ago about MGM admitting that their widescreen versions of movies were the pan&scan versions with the tops and bottoms chopped off. Here is a blogcritics page detailing the settlement. I was also able to find this page to give some examples of what they're talking about. Can't seem to find the original slashdot article though.

Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy) Recorded in 1956.
Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy) Recorded 1962
Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy) Recorded in 1978

What BUSINESS has Sony got in adulterating such classics?

A reviewer http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/09/19/120303. php wrote "Now jazz fans can rejoice with Sony's reissue of 1978's Manhattan Symphonie which was the culmination of the quartet's previous two years of performing throughout New York." about the Dexter Gordon release. Luckily there is a note about the DRM issues at the end of the review.

Effin BASTARDS!

But that is already happening

I am also betting that we will see a lot more of revisionist history.

3) They're broke, and they're issuing licenses to desperately seek money.

They're not broke, they've got a $933 million surplus.

And even though I find it reprehensible as well as counterproductive for a government entity to have exclusive copyright, it appears that the MTA is indeed entitled to enforce its rights. In the USA, only works produced by the US (Federal) Government are explicitly placed in the public domain.

Clearly, "universal" Canadian healthcare is nothing but a murderous, fraudulent, sham

Really? And the American system is better? What about an American system that forces people into bankruptcy, and where those who cannot pay are left to die?

From the link:
About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9-2.2 million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy. Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of illness

Yeah, that's waaaaaaay better.
That took all of two seconds on google.

Clearly, "universal" Canadian healthcare is nothing but a murderous, fraudulent, sham

Really? And the American system is better? What about an American system that forces people into bankruptcy, and where those who cannot pay are left to die?

From the link:
About half cited medical causes, which indicates that 1.9-2.2 million Americans (filers plus dependents) experienced medical bankruptcy. Among those whose illnesses led to bankruptcy, out-of-pocket costs averaged $11,854 since the start of illness

Yeah, that's waaaaaaay better.
That took all of two seconds on google.

That's pretty funny, but I think it's true that lawsuits (or the fear of them) played a role in this disaster too.

The city of New Orleans had 400 municipal buses and 2500 school buses, enough to take 100,000 people to Baton Rouge in a day and a half. The only one that was used was commandeered by a 20-year-old civilian, Jabbar Gibson (bless his soul), and driven to Houston with 70 strangers aboard. The rest were not only unused, but now lie destroyed by the flood waters. Why?

The answer could be simple ignorance and incompetence on the part of local Democrat politicians (at the risk of being redundant). However, the buses were part of the official State of Louisiana Emergency Operations Plan: see page 13, paragraph 5:

'The primary means of hurricane evacuation will be personal vehicles. School and municipal buses, government-owned vehicles and vehicles provided by volunteer agencies may be used to provide transportation for individuals who lack transportation and require assistance in evacuating'...

I have a more likely theory to explain this appalling failure on the part of the local pols: I bet the Mayor and Governor were afraid there would be a traffic boo-boo, and everyone aboard would sue the city for millions.

(Especially if the evacuation turned out to be a false alarm. Which is why the incompetent Democrat schoolmarm of a Governor went out of her way at the Aug. 28 press conference to state that she and the Mayor were only evacuating the city at the express urging of none other than President George W. Bush.)

If you are a lawyer, you had better think long and hard about the damage your profession is doing to the American way of life.

-ccm

Apparently, that didn't make it suck any less. I could give a shit who hosts it.

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/12/05/012047. php

The fact that the Patriot Act got pretty much unanimous reapproval in the House and Sentate says it not a bad deal on the whole.

Not a bad deal because most of congress approved it? Most of the German legislators approved the Enabling Act after president Paul von Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree abolishing human rights and giving Adolf Hitler power in Germany after the Reichstag Fire.