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Here is a MicroHoo related stories box at MSNBC @ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23237868/

Microsoft: Yahoo would stay in Silicon Valley
Microsoft bid 'unnerving' to Google co-founder
Analysis: Microsoft will win proxy battle
Microsoft to authorize Yahoo proxy battle
Gates: Microsoft's offer to Yahoo is fair
Yahoo's big investors may back Microsoft
Yahoo's CEO explains Microsoft rebuttal
Newsweek: Why this deal won't happen
Why Google will remain king of search
Vote: Can Microsoft-Yahoo beat Google?

Guess which link doesn't work?
Newsweek: Why this deal won't happen

Page not found Our web servers cannot find the page or file you asked for. The link you followed may be broken or expired.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/110796 Nope not expired, guess it was just misplaced.

Oddly enough this link works fine Why Google will remain king of search I guess it was left to show that there are no antitrust issues.

On the story itself
The company also adopted new severance packages that would protect employees in the event of a Microsoft takeover, a move the lawsuit labels as a blatant effort to drive up the cost of an acquisition.

It couldn't be an attempt to protect their employees, nah what does that have to do with profits?

The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday that workers who lose their jobs without "cause" or quit "for good reason," as Yahoo defines it, would continue to receive their salary and medical benefits for four to 24 months, plus reimbursement for "outplacement services" for two years. A Yahoo spokeswoman would not say what might constitute good reason.

I dunno, how about: I was purchased by a soul crushing monopolist.

Hummmm. Everybody swore that America's space prize was un-winnable. And yet, I think that Musk will win it, with the remote possibility that several others could still do it.

I'm sure Musk's Dragon has the technical capability to win the prize, but I think they might not qualify due to the government funding SpaceX has received from NASA COTS. Of course, regardless of the prize, I'm sure Musk is eying Bigelow's private space stations as a large potential market for his spacecraft.

My prediction: Musk wins the American space prize, followed by Lunar X prize

I don't think Musk is planning on competing in the Lunar X Prize directly, however SpaceX has stated that they'll essentially offer a 10% launch price reduction to competitors. $30 million seems a little small for Musk to care about in and of itself, and it would make more business sense to establish itself as a launch service provider to whatever teams want to compete, rather than choose a particular team to favor.

"Suddenly, we have late breaking news that the lunar eclipse was shot down by executive order".
(Shamelessly stolen from friend, J. Boyd)

Best panning-tracking by Armed Service Member - Ever.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/23272304#23272304

How:

http://www.livescience.com/space/news/080219-satellite-shootdown.html

For those who are wondering what the parent is talking about when he mentions the nursing home cat: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959718/

You would think Microsoft would at least use its own video streaming service, Soapbox

The reason the Chinese own the United States has nothing to do 'theft of intellectual property'; it doesn't even have much to do with trade. It has to do with debt. You keep borrowing, and the Chinese, who are thriftier than you are, keep lending. And they've now lent you so much that you have to borrow more even to pay the interest. Face it - the Third World War is already over, and the United States lost.

China owns you.

There are large deposits of crude off the Cuban coastline that are not being developed by U.S. corporations because of the embargo. Now of course are congress critters, especially the Republicans, want some type of relaxing of the embargo just for oil field development.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14095881/

All of a sudden Cuba is "not that bad" since now they appear to have a significant amount of oil reserves. To be honest Fidel Castro is a choir boy compared to some of the oppressive regimes we openly support namely Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, China, and Uzbekistan to name a few.

If they hadn't lent so much money to people who they KNEW wouldn't be able to pay when their ARM reset, then they wouldn't be in this mess. Again, no sympathy for multi-billion dollar multinationals who should know better (or who have the money to be able to pay someone to figure it out.)

I agree but you missed where you also end up paying when your neighbor defaults.

Good. Overpriced houses are overpriced.

The neighbor's house also declines in value, that's your house if you're the neighbor. And it doesn't later if you bought it 20 years ago when prices were low. Fact is is foreclosed houses in a neighborhood devalues all the houses there.

And more than likely, the lender will laugh them off the phone. Why would they voluntarily take a smaller payment? They'll roll the dice that the borrower will figure it out, because it's cheaper to let them sink than to help them swim. If they DO default and end up getting repossessed, then the lender can write off the bad debt and recover whatever they can at auction.

They lose when they can't sell the house for more than whats owned on the house. Actually the only way some of these mortgage lenders were able to make loans was because they were able to package the loans in with a bunch of other loans into derivatives. Normally these derivatives lower risk but too many loans that were risky were made. Because of defaults on loans getting credit is harder even for those who can afford it.

And more than likely, the lender will laugh them off the phone. Why would they voluntarily take a smaller payment?

Yes, lenders do it all the tyme. Lenders work with borrowers when they have problems paying off mortgages. "For most people who fall behind on their mortgage, their first instinct is to avoid all contact with the lender. But that's a mistake, consumer counselors and others say, because it's likely those financial problems will only get worse, making it harder to work out the best repayment terms." While I'm no expert on it myself there are experts in my family. My sister's a Certified Public Accountant, CPA, who runs her own accounting business and my brother-in-law's a Certified Financial Planner.

Sony has a long history of behaving badly.

The AC reply has a point... of the "research" I've done, it's clear that S.O.P. for most communications/observation/unknown satellites is not to bring them down, but push them up.

IOW, when the satellite is clearly headed for the heap, but still responsive, the final order received by the satellite is something like;

(1) POINT THRUSTER AT EARTH
(2) FIRE THRUSTER
(3) CONTINUE UNTIL FUEL IS DEPLETED
(4) BYE

Yes sir... they just fling 'em off into space. Who needs to spend millions on recovery teams and salvage operations when a few additional lines of code will solve the problem for everyone!

The MSNBC article says:

Maybe they will give details on exactly when and where the missile strike can be seen... break out the folding chairs!

Actually, the dangers of the mercury content of fluorescent lights are typically exaggerated.

"CFL bulbs each contain up to 5 milligrams of mercury, about 1/100th the amount in a thermostat or dental amalgam, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

Even breaking a bulb does not present any real health risk in terms of mercury vaporizing. More information is here: http://realestate.msn.com/Improve/Green/Article2.aspx?cp-documentid=6022543

...against people living off early works is the Phil Spector Syndrome.

You wind up with things like this prowling around and causing deaths.

Yeah I'd say they've been making a little money... http://moneycentral.msn.com/companyreport?Symbol=US%3Acmcsa

It was on Monday night at 8:30, right after 'How I Met Your Mother' but a recent rerun was on a Wednesday night at 8:30.

That said, new episodes will be coming out March 17 according to this article.

Any examples of Nordic blondes or Irish Redheads getting the same treatment?

I'd be much more impressed with EU anti-trust efforts if they weren't pretty much aimed at non-EU companies. They're mostly a trade barrier rather than a legitimate regulatory body.

Here you go: Networks feeling the impact of writers strike. It basically says exactly what you thought, the big networks are feeling the crunch and viewership is way down. Some networks held back some new programming and are doing OK, but the episodes they had in the can are running low. Fox kicked ass last week with the Superbowl, but everything else was way off.

What's funny is that entering the text "dissident Chinese professor" into MSN Search shows the article as the first result.

But the reason we are lightly taxed has a lot to do with all of our whining which has also the positive effect of being one of the most prosperous nations on average.

Most prosperous? Let's see. The U.S. is only ranked twelfth in the U.N. Human Development Index, behind a bunch of nations with higher taxes. Seventeenth in the Human Poverty Index, again with a bunch of heavy taxers ahead of us.

We have the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world. We're 42nd in the world in life expectancy.

Hell, we're only eleventh in car ownership per capita, I thought we'd clean up there. Our home ownership rate is behind at least those of Belgium, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Slovenia, and Israel - and given the current mess, we've probably fallen behind several more nations.

Nabila Mango, a therapist and a U.S. citizen who has lived in the country since 1965, had just flown in from Jordan last December when, she said, she was detained at customs and her cellphone was taken from her purse. Her daughter, waiting outside San Francisco International Airport, tried repeatedly to call her during the hour and a half she was questioned. But after her phone was returned, Mango saw that records of her daughter's calls had been erased.
A few months earlier in the same airport, a tech engineer returning from a business trip to London objected when a federal agent asked him to type his password into his laptop computer. "This laptop doesn't belong to me," he remembers protesting. "It belongs to my company." Eventually, he agreed to log on and stood by as the officer copied the Web sites he had visited, said the engineer, a U.S. citizen who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of calling attention to himself.
Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had "a security concern" with her. "I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight," she said.

"I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days," said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE's help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation.

ACTE last year filed a Freedom of Information Act request to press the government for information on what happens to data seized from laptops and other electronic devices. "Is it destroyed right then and there if the person is in fact just a regular business traveler?" Gurley asked. "People are quite concerned. They don't want proprietary business information floating, not knowing where it has landed or where it is going. It increases the anxiety level."
Udy has changed all her work passwords and no longer banks online. Her company, Radius, has tightened its data policies so that traveling employees must access company information remotely via an encrypted channel, and their laptops must contain no company information.

Kamran Habib, a software engineer with Cisco Systems, has had his laptop and cellphone searched three times in the past year. Once, in San Francisco, an officer "went through every number and text message on my cellphone and took out my SIM card in the back," said Habib, a permanent U.S. resident. "So now, every time I travel, I basically clean out my phone. It's better for me to keep my colleagues and friends safe than to get them on the list as well."

"Clerics defend Afghan reporter's death sentence
Journalist 'insulted Islam' when he distributed report questioning polygamy
Sayed Parwez Kaambakhsh, 23, was sentenced to death on Jan. 22 by a three-judge panel in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif for handing out a report he printed off the Internet to fellow journalism students at Balkh University.
The article questioned why men can have four wives but women cannot have multiple husbands."

Saw this on MSNBC a short while ago, felt like it would be good to post in this topic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23043451/

Since January of 2002, the price of crude has tripled, leaving oil producers awash in profits. During that period, the top 10 major public oil companies have sold some $1.5 trillion worth of crude, pocketing profits of more than $125 billion. "This is the mother of all booms," said Oppenheimer & Co. oil analyst Fadel Gheit. "They have so much profit, it's almost an embarrassment of riches. They don't know what to do with it.

• Centre for Cancer Education
• Webster's
• American Heritage
• Encarta
• Wikipedia

"Seroactive" appears to be a less common synonym for "seropositive".

Gotta compete with those Canadian spy coins.

Anyone have any idea how these kind of social interaction problems are being dealt with at NASA?

From several articles (granted, somewhat mainstream), it doesn't seem like there is much publicly-available research on human psychological reactions to sexual issues in long-term spaceflight. I would be surprised if there isn't a more robust body of serious literature in sociology & human behavior journals, and inside NASA, ESA and others.

---

These links are more about alleged events, and short-term issues (mechanical & biological). I remember reading the first when Lisa Nowak was news:

"Do Astronauts Have Sex? In space, no one can hear you moan." - article from Slate.com "Slate's The Explainer thanks Bob Jacobs of NASA and Laura Woodmansee, author of 'Sex in Space.'"

Other Links:

Outer-space sex carries complications
Article about book 'Sex in Space'
ISS On-Orbit Pregnancy Test procedures

---

Off-topic - I recommend the column "The Explainer" on Slate.com. Answers to questions that relate to current news (often with a basic or off-beat slant)

Example footer from the space sex article with related links to other Slate articles:

"Felix Gillette explained how space shuttles fly home. Daniel Engber revealed what exactly space tourists do. Dan Kois also wondered where the atmosphere ends and space begins. Chris Suellentrop argued that astronauts shouldn't be considered heroes. Gregg Easterbrook called the space program a big ol' waste of money. After the Columbia disaster in 2003, David Owen pointed out it's a waste of life, too."

Because trying to get people to abstain from sex just doesn't work.

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9831189
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/13/AR2007041301003.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18136717/
http://thegodcomplex.blogspot.com/2007/12/abstinence-only-education-does-not-work.html

That would actually not be a bad thing. At all.

The US health care system, right now, is almost criminally bad. If the US health care system performed as well as that of France, Japan or Australia, over 100000 American lives a year would be saved. Meanwhile, the USA already spends more on health care per capita than just about any other western country.

Hillary Clinton's plans for health care would in all likelihood save tens of thousands of lives, and be cheaper in the long run than the current system. The only thing that would disappear would be the possibility of choosing to be an idiot and not getting health insurance.

Funny you should say that about Bill. I never thought of it before but it could be true:
http://www.clevelandclinic.org/health/health-info/docs/3000/3046.asp?index=10731
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5906976/ (in case someone didn't know)

Clinton comes from a legacy of cheating and very shady politics. Whitewater... any viable witness against the Clinton regime has either committed suicide or "been in a plane crash" ... (how often do Air Force C-130's crash into the side of mountains? -- about as often as a key witness in a huge political/criminal case fly on one). Hillary and Wal-Mart, "mandatory" healthcare - are they going to force me to get it? FORCE? She sought and won a senate seat from the only state in which she knew she had a chance, even if she had never lived there. I'm drawing a bit of a conclusion here... but when a major ore mining company uses Bill Clintons contacts to land billions of dollars in contracts, THEN Bill's charity gets a donation... I call shenanigans http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22926743 . She lives in the same house as him, and he would live in the same house as her. The entire Clinton regime scares me. Old, rehashed ideas. No clear guidance to our future. Old Washington bad habits simply renewed. We need something different.

[loafula wrote] The pope just shit a brick

The fact that you wrote a joke like this (and that it was given a moderation score of 3 by other readers) indicates confusion amongst the Slashdot populace.

The media have tossed about the word "stem cells" very irresponsibly, making it seem like the religious institutions and others (US President Bush) oppose "stem cell research". What the churches and Bush oppose is embyronic stem cell research, which requires the destruction of the embryo.

This article is talking about Mesenchymal stem cells --- adult stem cells, which are not controversial. In fact, religious groups and Bush and others vigorously support adult stem cell research. Bush in 2001 stated the following:

URL: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/08/print/20010811-1.html
Date: August 11, 2001

I also believe that great scientific progress can be made through aggressive federal funding of research on umbilical cord, placenta, adult and animal stem cells, which do not involve the same moral dilemma. This year the government will spend $250 million on this important research.

Here are some examples of confusing headlines that the media have deliberately chosen:

"Bush vetoes stem-cell funds bill" (from the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6224134.stm)

"President Bush's cynical stem-cell policy." (an editorial from Slate at http://www.slate.com/id/2090244/ )

"Bush to stem cell community: drop dead" (an editorial from MSNBC at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13935219/).

All of these headlines are addressing the vetoing of bills to fund embryonic stem cell research, but the headlines misleadingly make it seem like ALL stem cell research is under attack.

In addition, it should be noted that Bush et al were restricting United States government funding of embryonic stem cell research. Unrestricted private funding (not provided by the federal US government)of embryonic stem cell research has always been allowed in the United States, such as that provided through the (private) Howard Hughes Medical Institute http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/03/040304074237.htm , and now state governments such as California and New Jersey. (That's the same Howard Hughes that Leonardio DiCaprio portrayed in the movie "The Aviator" directed by Martin Scorsese.)

Are the ethics of embryonic stem cell research to be taken lightly? Dr. James Thomson was one of the first two laboratories to successfully extract them from embryos:

Publisher: New York Times
Article: Man Who Helped Start Stem Cell War May End It
Author: Gina Kolata
Date: November 22, 2007
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/science/22stem.html?em&ex=1195966800&en=3d24427925954325&ei=5087%0A

Dr. Thomsons laboratory at the University of Wisconsin was one of two that in 1998 plucked stem cells from human embryos for the first time, destroying the embryos in the process and touching off a divisive national debate.

And on Tuesday, his laboratory was one of two that reported a new way to turn ordinary human skin cells into what appear to be embryonic stem cells without ever using a human embryo.

The fact is, Dr. Thomson said in an interview, he had ethical concerns about embryonic research from the outset, even though he knew that such research offered insights into human development and the potential for powerful new treatments

I've kept up with Obama and I'm still on the fence about him (disclosure: bleeding liberal for Ron Paul). Part 1 of the Google Q&A hasn't helped -- I don't find anything advanced or insightful here. Granted he's more together than I'm used to. Watching part 2 now.

One point irks me after teaching Research I university math for six years: we don't need more college students. Student quality is in the toilet. "Show me you understand" is a question undergrads don't even know what to do with. This drags curriculum quality down, and Obama said something telling: he equates lifelong education with retraining.

A degree program should be a process whereby a college graduate can retrain himself. You learn how to learn. Instead it's a prerequisite for corporate hiring. A consequence is that 50% of students don't care 50% of the time. They emerge and join the workforce with problem-solving "skills" limited to social engineering. Handy, I guess, but not our role.

And with the war my #1 issue this go-round, Obama's record isn't as staunch as we're asked to believe.

Mod parent down for comparing apples with oranges.

Let us compare properly:

• search page: http://google.com/ http://search.yahoo.com/ http://live.com/
• portal/personalised page: http://google.com/ig http://my.yahoo.com/ http://msn.com/

Not so different anymore, is it? Especially the search pages are cloned off Google's look&feel, and have been since years.

I've said it before. Microsoft and Yahoo both are stuck in the old "portal" paradigm, where the search engine had its home page filled beyond all reasoning with links, news items, adverts and all sorts of crap. Go to http://msn.com/ or http://yahoo.com/ and see what I mean. For krissakes, Yahoo has Flash on it.

Now go to http://google.com./ There's one image, a drop down menu, a few odd miscellaneous things like account and internal link info. The vast majority of the real-estate is bare. Google has never fucked with that fundamental formula. Even the ads are relatively discreet. Google has grown its dominance by trusting the consumer, not by trying to give them epileptic seizures with the sheer amount of crap on the main page.

Here you go: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22719922/ "One of the three victims of San Francisco Zoo tiger attack was intoxicated and admitted to yelling and waving at the animal while standing atop the railing of the big cat enclosure, police said in court documents filed Thursday." So even if the man who was killed wasn't taunting, one of the men he was with was. So maybe his family should be liable for the death.

"In a conference call Friday morning, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer indicated he won.t take no for an answer after Yahoo rebuffed takeover overtures a year ago."

Sweet! A $45 billion dead asset and lots of headaches on Microsoft's hands. For those of us who aren't Microsoft fans, this is great news.

Just fine thank you. I have a health savings account which I have been putting money into for years now.

Great. Now, how do feel about having to pay twice as much money as the person in the next industrialized nation, and that's before you get to the expense of a serious operation or illness. You're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

People in countries with socialized medicine don't really pay half of what those in the US pay. They pay less out of pocket but they pay more taxes, which makes it look like health care is free. If you think health care is expensive now wait until it's free. True, while Canadians pay less for drugs and people living in border states rent buses to buy their prescription drugs in Canada, that's because the Canadian government buy drugs in bulk and US laws prevent this, many Canadians come to the US when they need an operation. In Canada they can be stuck on a waiting list whereas in the US you can walk into a doctor's office and s/he will schedule an operation within days, if not that day. Less than a few hours ago on CNN Dr Sonja Gupta had a show on the national health care crisis in the US. In it he talked about this. Two other things he talked about caught my attention. One was that how France is considered as having the best, or one of the best, health care systems in the world. However a person with cancer has a greater likelihood of dying from the cancer than a cancer patient in the US very various reasons. Including being stuck on a waiting list.

The second one was that the reason the US has the health care crisis stems from WWII. During the war the US had wage control laws where employers could raise the wages paid to employees. To allow employers to entice people to work for them though they were allowed to offer employees benefits like health insurance, and the government gave tax breaks for offering these benefits. Though the wage control laws are gone, the tax breaks are still in effect. By allowing employers to pay employees more without making them pay more in taxes, employees could then buy health insurance on their own and with so many buying it it would lower the costs of health insurance.

The one problem I have with this is that those with pre-existing conditions may not be able to get health insurance, it may not cover the pre-existing conditions, or it will be too expensive. However since insurance is a risk pool maybe what could be done is to have insurance companies pay into a national insurance pool where people can get coverage. And going back to buying drugs in bulk like Canada does, despite that fact that many people don't like Walmart because of it's size the company is basically demanding pharmaceutical companies to lower the cost of drugs they sale to Walmart. I think a statement from Walmart said they wanted the highest price drug sold there to be no higher than $10. Let me see... I didn't find it but here's an article about how Walmart will sell a month's supply of almost 300 drugs for $4. Several years ago I had 3 prescriptions and even with insurance one of the drugs cost me $120 a month. And that's not nearly as high as some drugs cost.

1. I defy you to come up with a legitimately unregulated products market in the Industrialized world. I'll give you an illegitimate example, illicit drugs. Totally unregulated. Will I get a good fix this week? Will I get killed buying/selling/using? Maybe CDO's are a good example of a legally unregulated market and look where that's gotten us.

Illicit drugs is a ridiculous example. Making something illegal is the ultimate regulation and will obviously distort the market. The prohibition and subsequent legalisation of alcohol in the USA is a good case study for that.

2. What you also conveniently forget is economic history is full of examples of what ACTUALLY happens with unregulated markets. The market swiftly changes into a monopoly. End of story.

History's full of examples but you didn't provide even just one?

3. Do you like price fixing? How about collusion?

A truly free market allows for unlimited entry into the marketplace by competitors. Collusion that fixes prices at an unreasonable level encourages more competition, not less.

How about doctors and medicine that kill your loved ones.

That would be illegal under any society that believed in the rule of law. Do you believe that free market advocates also believe in the loss of individual rights? I didn't think so.

How about a house that doesn't fall down in a strong wind or earthquake? You like freeway bridges that stay up don't you?

Because government-owned bridges never fall down, right?

It's time for you and the jokers moderating you up to move out of your parent's basement and join the real world.

It's also time for free market haters to start considering that government intervention, whilst generally performed with the best of intentions, often doesn't turn out as expected.

So, about 1/5 of what's spent on iraq so far, never mind afghanastan...

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home
http://zfacts.com/p/447.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11880954/

Hmmm... well infrastructure's not a priority, let's stick with blowing stuff up, and pissing people off.

Stephanie Kaniecki, a spokesperson for the Credit Counseling Network, says CCN has been conducting focus groups to better understand their potential clients' debt problems. "It's a real eye-opener," she says, describing families with incomes of about $40,000 who are carrying $10,000 in debt, much of it from living expenses like paying their mortgage or tuition bills with credit.

So the reality is that even after foregoing children and frivolities, many households are finding themselves relying on credit -- something called "survival debt".

While it is possible for many of these "survival debt" households to further reeduce even their survival expenses, frequently the first thing to go is health insurance and preventative medical checkups. The best they can do is move to lower cost of living areas but this just as frequently results in fewer employment options as a cushion against underemployment.

Oh, and read this story if you think your bigotry is harmless. If it doesn't bother you then head over to Fuck France and hang out with the neo-Nazis and racists who support your views.

This is another cultural difference. In the United States, most cars and light trucks have an automatic transmission, and minor gear changes are done with the right foot. The only gear changes that need a hand are park, reverse, neutral (or "automatic car wash gear"), and drive, and these are done with the brake pedal firmly pressed.

Dude, his dog just likes fresh air, that's all.

Who woulda thought he could hear NPR all the way from outside the car?

W

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22868682/
 
face it fanbois. they make microsoft look like a charity.
 
but just keep denying it, keep buying into their lockin. keep getting fucked over again and again. it makes you easier to point out as a hypocrite and an asshat.

The intent of the laws should be to target images of abuse.

Plenty of laws only apply to things done to other people. Someone can grope themselves, but do it to somebody else and you might be charged with sexual assault. Indeed, consider applying the child porn logic to sexual acts - do you think it makes sense that a minor who masturbates should be charged with sexually abusing a child?

The problem is also a double standard here with respect to ages - we say the child is not old enough to consent to appear in a photo, but we say they are old enough to understand and accept the legal ramifications of taking a photo. Some places have sensible underage sex laws that only prosecute the partner who is over the age of consent where there is some significant age difference (and so two underage people is okay). This idea of prosecuting minors for child porn is just an extension of the madness of locking up teenagers for 10 years for consensual sexual acts.

Anyone who downloads the torrent and doesn't delete anything they find that is child porn (if any exists in the file) could end up in a similar situation like this one. In this story, the prosecutor wants all kids who received the pictures to come forward or else they will be charged in juvenile court for possession of child porn despite not asking for them or actively pursuing them. At the end of the article the same prosecutor says they are't charging the kids for possessing the images so who knows what's going on.

Oh you must be referring to the same independent minded Americans who voted George Bush into office TWICE, of which 37% believe that teaching of evolution in schools should be abolished and replaced with creationism; of which 61% believe that torture is justified in order to "beat the t'urrists". The same Americans who have calmly bent over for the last ten or so years and allowed themselves to be anally savaged by big business and their own government. The same independent minded people that will accept just about any violation of their so-called constitutional rights as soon as somebody mentions the word "terrorism".

Yeah. Real independent. I'll take Switzerland thanks.