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No, possession is not enough to convict. Arrest and jail, yes, Convict, no.

Here's what the man himself had to say about his wife on the eve of his conviction:

Ask me what has been my most fortunate experience of the past two decades, and I’d say it was gaining the selfless love of my wife, Liu Xia. She cannot be present in the courtroom today, but I still want to tell you, my sweetheart, that I'm confident that your love for me will be as always. Over the years, in my non-free life, our love has contained bitterness imposed by the external environment, but is boundless in afterthought. I am sentenced to a visible prison while you are waiting in an invisible one. Your love is sunlight that transcends prison walls and bars, stroking every inch of my skin, warming my every cell, letting me maintain my inner calm, magnanimous and bright, so that every minute in prison is full of meaning. But my love for you is full of guilt and regret, sometimes heavy enough hobble my steps. I am a hard stone in the wilderness, putting up with the pummeling of raging storms, and too cold for anyone to dare touch. But my love is hard, sharp, and can penetrate any obstacles. Even if I am crushed into powder, I will embrace you with the ashes....

More quotes and commentary can be found here. I think the Nobel committee may have accidentally found a worthy peace prize recipient for a change.

Is that an ideal that's especially resonant with the Chinese culture for some reason?

No, it's something that is resonant with people that want to suppress speech. Look at recent articles and you will see similar lame excuses (ie. stopping terror, child porn, copyright protection) for allowing the NSA/FBI/etc to spy on citizens or try to take down their computers.

Actually, the idea DOES resonante with the Chinese, for cultural reasons that go back centuries. Confucianism held sway in China throughout much of their history, and that philosophy puts a high value on deference to the authorities, be it the Emporor or your local official. And what replaced it in the 20th century... Maoist communism... went from deference of authority to virtual enslavement of it. Chinese culture has never known an ethos of personal freedom the way the West understands it. And lest you think that improved living conditions and the presence of a market has changed anything, keep in mind that when Jackie Chan gave a speech to a major business group in Hong Kong, he got a standing ovation when he said that too much freedom in China was a bad thing, and that the government needed to maintain order and tranquility. One of the reasons that NY Times pundit Thomas Friedman admires the Chinese so much is that they have the benefits of a market economy, while having a government with total authority... easier to "get things done" that way, you see.

It is all just a matter of being dependent on other countries natural reserves vs. funding it with tax money.

Bullshit!!! Coal gets more federal subsidies than any other energy source in the US. That is unless the cost of war is included, in which case it's petroleum. Nuclear power is second, unless farm subsidies for corn, which is a bad feedstock, based ethanol is included. Each receives multiples of billions of US dollars in taxpayer money. Yet until Obama became president all alternative source, except the fore mentioned corn based ethanol, had to share about $1 Billion. Rep Edward Markey brags "My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'" In it he lists some of the subsidies various energy sources get. And Chevron CEO Dave O'Reilly agrees to lobby with Sierra Club to end coal subsidies. The article originally published in Reason: Free Minds and Free Markets" then published online by CATO Institute: Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peace titled "Nuclear Energy: Risky Business" starts with "Nuclear energy is to the Right what solar energy is to the Left: Religious devotion in practice, a wonderful technology in theory, but an economic white elephant in fact (some crossovers on both sides notwithstanding)." Another CATO article, Hooked on Subsidies, first published in "Forbes" says how the Nuclear Power industry is as the title says, "hooked on subsidies". Even in countries where nuclear power is big, China, France, India, and Russia it's state actors or the government and not the market that decides what gets built. In brief the US Department of Energy answers the question How much does the Federal Government spend on energy-specific subsidies and support? By fiscal year 2007 all forms of renewable energy got $4.9 billion in subsides, $3 billion of that for ethanol. All other sources had to share the other $1.9 billion. Now how much did coal get? Refined coal got about $2.4 billion and with another $854 million on other coal. And nuclear power got $1.267 billion.

You say you're in Germany. The article Spain slashes solar energy subsidies laments that Berlin decided to continue to use nuclear power. And that Madrid slashed solar subsidies. Another says the same in Germany, Germany to cut subsidies for solar energy .

Personally I'd rather see all energy subsidies eliminated. ALL!!! Let a freer market decide winners and losers not government. What governments can do is make sure the markets are kept open as long as they can compeat, and they pay all their costs including external costs.

Falcon

>You don't get the death penalty for burning a book or erasing a tape.

Maybe not, but you do get the death penalty for not doing anything:

The report found that SBI agents withheld exculpatory evidence or distorted evidence in more than 230 cases over a 16-year period. Three of those cases resulted in execution. There was widespread lying, corruption, and pressure from prosecutors and other law enforcement officials on crime lab analysts to produce results that would help secure convictions.

Oops.
Source

Now you could perhaps argue that Casilly and the police department violated Maryland law unknowingly. But given their positions, that their responsibility as public officials is to enforce Maryland law, and that there isn't a single court case that interpreted the Maryland statute in the way they did to justify their pursuit of Graber, I find it far more persuasive that they either knew they were breaking the law, that they were willfully ignorant of the law, or that they were pretty severely negligent in their duties.

Now consider the consequences under each scenario:

Had Graber unknowingly violated state law in a manner that caused very little actual harm to anyone else, he at the very least would have had felony record. He could have gone to prison for several years.

Instead, we have public officials who violated the law, who should have known they were violating the law, and who caused significant harm to someone else in the process.

So what will be their punishment?

SOURCE:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/09/27/maryland-judge-tosses-the-felo

Republicans want you to eat beef.. they don't want you to be vegetarian.

Nope, that's the democrats at least in Montana. Or at least that's the party accusing their opposition of vegetarianism.....

cite - http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome

quote of relevant portions -

  "On a June evening two years ago, Dan Rather made many stiff British upper lips quiver by reporting that England had a crime problem and that, apart from murder, 'theirs is worse than ours.' ..... None of this was supposed to happen in the country whose stringent gun laws and 1997 ban on handguns have been hailed as the "gold standard" of gun control. ..... In reality, the English approach has not re-duced violent crime. Instead it has left law-abiding citizens at the mercy of criminals who are confident that their victims have neither the means nor the legal right to resist them."

"In the two years following the 1997 handgun ban, the use of handguns in crime rose by 40 percent, and the upward trend has continued. From April to November 2001, the number of people robbed at gunpoint in London rose 53 percent. ..... Your chances of being mugged in London are now six times greater than in New York. England's rates of assault, robbery, and burglary are far higher than America's, and 53 percent of English burglaries occur while occupants are at home, compared with 13 percent in the U.S., where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners....."

Yeah I know.
I'll be modded troll.
People hate to face Facts (cognitive dissonance) - but there they are.

"In 1969 police were informed "it should never be necessary for anyone to possess a firearm for the protection of his house or person." These changes were made without public knowledge or debate. Their enforcement has consumed hundreds of thousands of police hours. Finally, in 1997 handguns were banned. Proposed exemptions for handicapped shooters and the British Olympic team were rejected."

UK Effectively Bans Guns - Violent Crime Goes UP - because now the criminals have a bunch of unarmed sheep they can prey upon. I've also heard horror stories about people defending themselves with whatever was available (sticks, rocks), and instead of the attacker being arrested, the victim was charged with wielding a weapon. Now that's what I call a messed-up governance.

"Gun Control's Twisted Outcome"

"Restricting firearms has helped make England more crime-ridden than the U.S."

cite - http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome

the cops and prosecutors involved need to be lined up against a wall and shot.

Yeah, somehow that never seems to happen. All Mike Nifong got was being disbarred, and spending one night in jail for contempt of court, on charges that he trumped up and that would have, if successful, put three men in jail for a long, long time. And those are the ones with lots of money to defend themselves. As far as I'm concerned, that level of dishonesty should lead to putting him in jail for the full length of the sentence he was trying to get.

Because the government isn't really mandating energy efficiency. When you get right down to it, CFLs are less efficient than incandescent bulbs. I sat down and did the math a couple of years ago and concluded that I would never break even.

First, you have the problem of power factor, which means that with fluorescent bulbs, you're often drawing a lot more power than you think, it just isn't getting metered that way. Second, you have the spectrum of light, which because it is balanced towards the blue end and because it isn't a continuous spectrum, isn't perceived as being of equal brightness. To get the same perceptual brightness, IIRC, you are drawing slightly more power with fluorescent bulbs than with modern incandescent (e.g. halogen) designs, and approaching that of plain jane incandescent bulbs.

LEDs are similarly useless. The amount of light output from the brightest ones I can buy are inadequate even for a small room.. Not to mention that they are LOUD if you use them in a dimmer circuit like the one in my bedside table lamp. I've just about concluded that all non-incandescent bulbs are unusable, and at best are a serious step down from incandescent bulbs.

And that's before you add in things like the increase in depression, suicides, and cancer linked with fluorescent lighting.

We're getting massively screwed.

BTW, the government isn't subsidizing energy significantly. Maybe a little, but certainly not a favor of two, much less five. All but my lowest tier of power costs more than it would cost me to use solar, without any subsidies or tax incentives factored in, assuming a grid-tie system (no storage costs). And that's buying PV cells at low-quantity prices. Nearly every other form of power production costs less than that. You're right that technically the government is holding down the cost of energy, but only by limiting the power of the monopolies that would otherwise gouge us for all we're worth. Energy is inherently not a free market and can never be a free market, making that argument moot.

The Teabaggers are idiots and full of fail, but there are black teabaggers and even hispanics.

http://www.thegrio.com/politics/some-blacks-back-tea-party-despite-movements-racist-reputation.php
http://reason.com/blog/2010/04/19/black-tea-party-protesters-vs
http://www.teapartypatriots.org/GroupNew/20024d1a-72d1-404c-944a-1c132930142f/HISPANICS_FOR_FREEDOM
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/04/25/tea_partiers_racist_not_so_fast_105309.html

Your example is not singular:

In Colorado we have a prosecutor explaining away a DNA exclusion in the case of molestation of an 8 year old because "Depending on how long she had been wearing those panties and where, they could have rubbed up against the back of her chair at school, a restaurant, the couch at home that someone else had been sitting on, a bus seat, someone's toilet seat if she did not pull them down far enough — there are many ways to get unknown DNA on clothing. "

Still thinking this is an isolated incident? Don't believe there could be more than one prosecutor out there who would believe that an 8 year old got semen on her privates accidentally? Here's an Illinois prosecutor who refuses to believe a DNA exoneration. He actually claims that the semen that was found in the mouth, vagina and rectum of the 8 year old murder victim "must have found its way into the girl’s body while she was playing in a patch of woods where teenagers were known to have sex."

Prosecutors are immune from the real consequences of their fuckups, so you can't really expect them to work to overcome their natural resistance to being found wrong.

Your example is not singular:

In Colorado we have a prosecutor explaining away a DNA exclusion in the case of molestation of an 8 year old because "Depending on how long she had been wearing those panties and where, they could have rubbed up against the back of her chair at school, a restaurant, the couch at home that someone else had been sitting on, a bus seat, someone's toilet seat if she did not pull them down far enough — there are many ways to get unknown DNA on clothing. "

Still thinking this is an isolated incident? Don't believe there could be more than one prosecutor out there who would believe that an 8 year old got semen on her privates accidentally? Here's an Illinois prosecutor who refuses to believe a DNA exoneration. He actually claims that the semen that was found in the mouth, vagina and rectum of the 8 year old murder victim "must have found its way into the girl’s body while she was playing in a patch of woods where teenagers were known to have sex."

Prosecutors are immune from the real consequences of their fuckups, so you can't really expect them to work to overcome their natural resistance to being found wrong.

Your example is not singular:

In Colorado we have a prosecutor explaining away a DNA exclusion in the case of molestation of an 8 year old because "Depending on how long she had been wearing those panties and where, they could have rubbed up against the back of her chair at school, a restaurant, the couch at home that someone else had been sitting on, a bus seat, someone's toilet seat if she did not pull them down far enough — there are many ways to get unknown DNA on clothing. "

Still thinking this is an isolated incident? Don't believe there could be more than one prosecutor out there who would believe that an 8 year old got semen on her privates accidentally? Here's an Illinois prosecutor who refuses to believe a DNA exoneration. He actually claims that the semen that was found in the mouth, vagina and rectum of the 8 year old murder victim "must have found its way into the girl’s body while she was playing in a patch of woods where teenagers were known to have sex."

Prosecutors are immune from the real consequences of their fuckups, so you can't really expect them to work to overcome their natural resistance to being found wrong.

And yet that doesn't stop the police in PA from throwing your ass in jail for videotaping them, because if you are the police, ignorance of the law IS an excuse!. It is this curious double standard that bothers me. I, as a private citizen, am expected to be aware of the thousands of laws I may potentially violate, while the people charged with enforcing those laws have no such requirement, i.e. there are no penalties to them for mistakenly stopping, searching, or arresting me based on their erroneous interpretation of the law.

Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse
Unless you work in law enforcement
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/02/ignorance-of-the-law-is-no-exc

"Police Officers Don't Check Their Civil Rights at the Station House Door"
Three law enforcement officials defend the arrest of citizens who record on-duty cops.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/09/police-officers-dont-check-the

Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse
Unless you work in law enforcement
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/02/ignorance-of-the-law-is-no-exc

"Police Officers Don't Check Their Civil Rights at the Station House Door"
Three law enforcement officials defend the arrest of citizens who record on-duty cops.
http://reason.com/archives/2010/08/09/police-officers-dont-check-the

So the question is, who do you feel is more likely to treat you fairly: a profit-driven organization with absolutely no accountability to anyone, the the same profit-driven organization with *some* rules of fair dealing enforced by a democratically elected government?

Certainly the ISPs have limited accountability at the moment, whether through market competition or through the law. So the question is whether, by enabling the FCC to produce additional regulations covering this business, the ISPs' accountability to their customers will be increased or decreased.

My feeling on this is that their accountability will not increase. The telcos have a long history of skillful lobbying, or to view it another way, the FCC has a terrible record. The FCC protects incumbents from competition and innovation, rather than protecting customers from the incumbents. The EFF and Reason have some good documentation of this:
The FCC and Regulatory Capture
The Central Committee is in Session: The Trouble with the FCC

Oh yeah, I'm sure the republicans would have voted against health benefits for 911 rescue workers if Bush were still in office.

Do you think the Democrats would have voted to confirm a SCOTUS nominee who had previously argued in favor of banning books if GWB had appointed her?

The vast majority of both major parties place duty to party ahead of duty to the Constitution. More's the pity.....

That's a little disingenuous. The case was about corporations funding libelous material under the guise of a "concerned citizens" group. I'd argue that republicans are the only ones with party loyalty though.. The democrats are more interested in maintaining their own seats, rather than maintaining party power. When they finally have the power, they're too afraid to actually do anything because it might be used against them in a campaign. But they both suck donkey balls, for a certainty.

Oh yeah, I'm sure the republicans would have voted against health benefits for 911 rescue workers if Bush were still in office.

Do you think the Democrats would have voted to confirm a SCOTUS nominee who had previously argued in favor of banning books if GWB had appointed her?

The vast majority of both major parties place duty to party ahead of duty to the Constitution. More's the pity.....

Ah, demonizing DDT - the failed environmentalist experiment that has killed 40 million african children over the past 40 years.

Welcome to Africa. We've got malaria here, that has kept us in poverty for hundreds of years. Mothers have to stop working to care for their sick children, and end up watching their best and brightest die. Lefty green liberals demonized a perfectly safe agent (DDT), and prevented the eradication of malaria in Africa while other parts of the world moved forward and pulled themselves out of misery.

We wiped out malaria in the US with DDT. We wiped out malaria in Singapore with DDT. DDT has time and time again proven to be safe, effective, and has had no lasting health effects to anyone, anywhere, much less a bird's egg.

http://reason.com/archives/2004/01/07/ddt-eggshells-and-me

Reason covered this with a little more serious take the other day.

First, the Obama administration is already not
prosecuting people, as long as they follow state law.

Horseshit.

There is no debate in the United States over fully automatic weapons. It's been a dead issue since the Machine Gun tax was established.

What the government deemed an assault weapon and what is a military weapon are two different things.

I have four weapons Canada deemed "assault" weapons, none of the long guns are in military use, however both of the handguns are in military service, Canada calls them "assault weapons" because they have magazines that hold more than seven rounds. None of them were "assault weapons" in the eyes of the US government during the 10 year assault weapons ban.

Reason had the cover art and feature comic in 2007, which was before DC v Heller

http://reason.com/archives/2007/08/16/the-right-to-own-a-bazooka

Great! There are now two people on the slashdot planet who apparently agree that a desire to ban books is an instant disqualifier for the high court. Some days I can't help but think that Descartes' daemon is real and he's just screwing with me.

There appears yet controversy surrounding the DDT/eggshell link. There's this article here: http://spectator.org/archives/2005/02/25/ddt-fraud-and-tragedy which purports to show that there is no link. I also found this link, which seems to indicate that Raptors and 'sensitive' birds were affected by DDE: http://reason.com/archives/2004/01/07/ddt-eggshells-and-me What seems clear is that DDT was banned for political not scientific reasons and that ban has killed a lot of people.

So far there's no law against photography and a cop really ought to know that.

In three states it's illegal to photograph police. In many other states wiretapping laws are being used to prevent video and audio recordings.

Haven't you heard of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act? When the US passed it in 1930 other nations passed their own protectionist laws. That made the Great Depression worse than it would have been.

And yes, I do support getting rid of a lot of the free trade stuff (NAFTA, etc.) and imposing more tariffs.

And no, NAFTA is not and never was free trade. If you want to complain about NAFTA complain about how because of the billions of dollars agricultural businesses receive in farm subsidies they are allowed to dump corn in Mexico cheaper than Mexican farmers can grow corn.

Falcon

No, blindly believing in the "scientific concensus" is like believing in creationism. Here is a story with some fairly recent examples of how the then concensus turned out to be bs.

... can DailyKos, which promoted the polls to show how evil conservatives/Republicans are on a daily basis, be given a free pass and the right be ripped.

Did Markos Moulitsas ever release his book, American Taliban, in which he relies heavily on R2K to

"catalogue(s) the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world. ...
found himself "making certain claims about Republicans that I didn't know if they could be backed up." Working backwards, Moulitsas set out to prove, via a Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll, that self-identified Republicans have much in common with the makeup-wearing, women-beating acolytes of Mullah Omar."

Don't worry, I'm sure the links in here that point to dailykos.com will be removed as quickly as those numerous General betray-us ones were.

Good Read

I'm not even going to dignify that with my own response. http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/gun-controls-twisted-outcome http://gunowners.org/sk0703.htm

In previous generations being a hacker was literally how you learned. They weren't any books in the library to teach you some things. You couldn't afford classes in college to learn. The only way to learn was to do.

I know. My first access to computers was on TRS-80s at Radio Shack and dumb terminals in my high school library used for college searches. The workers at the closest Rad Shack to my home allowed me, and others, to sit there playing with them. So I'd sit there learning to program by writing graphics programs and games. That and though the library workers said it wasn't possible a few of us figured out how to use the terminals to chat with each other at different schools. The terminals were connected to the county school district's mainframe, an IBM System 360 downtown.

So no in todays environment the laws and rules aren't the same, the standards aren't the same, and so I don't think children should expect to be able to accomplish the same with the same resources when their environment is much more harsh and far more risky, even if you are a computer nerd you can find yourself behind bars.

Again I know. Way back when, while playing with Trash 80s, the IBM, and Apples, I enjoyed reading the vintage magazines like Byte, the Micro and Homebrew computer magazine. That was before hacking was dirty and hackers were criminals. Actually a search of slashdot for hackers falcon will return posts of mine like this one or this one. However back then it was much harder to gain access to any of the technology we enjoy today. Computers were exotic machines occupying floors of buildings if not entire buildings and were operated by white jacked priest. Networking was sneakernet and BBSes before CompuServe, Prodigy, GEnie, and AOL came along. Well not CompuServe, CompuServe was started in 1969 as a subsidiary of an insurance company and was called Compu-Serv Network, Inc.

No I don't want a world where children of the future have to be more resourceful than my generation had to be. If the future is worse than the present then we adults are doing something wrong and need to change

It's ironic but today is both better and worse than it was in say the 1970s. I'm trying to think what issue it was, let me dig out old editions of Reason magazine which I subscribe to... I didn't find it but googling I found Are We Freer? on CATOs website. Ah, Google gave me a "Reason" article like the one I was looking for, "Now for the Good News: Mankind has never been healthier, wealthier or freer. Surprised?" Both TFA I was looking for and the CATO article say it depends on how you look at as to whether we were freer in the past or are freer today.

As for being more resourceful, I don't want the children of the future to be forced to be more resourceful, but I do want them to be so.

Falcon

In previous generations being a hacker was literally how you learned. They weren't any books in the library to teach you some things. You couldn't afford classes in college to learn. The only way to learn was to do.

I know. My first access to computers was on TRS-80s at Radio Shack and dumb terminals in my high school library used for college searches. The workers at the closest Rad Shack to my home allowed me, and others, to sit there playing with them. So I'd sit there learning to program by writing graphics programs and games. That and though the library workers said it wasn't possible a few of us figured out how to use the terminals to chat with each other at different schools. The terminals were connected to the county school district's mainframe, an IBM System 360 downtown.

So no in todays environment the laws and rules aren't the same, the standards aren't the same, and so I don't think children should expect to be able to accomplish the same with the same resources when their environment is much more harsh and far more risky, even if you are a computer nerd you can find yourself behind bars.

Again I know. Way back when, while playing with Trash 80s, the IBM, and Apples, I enjoyed reading the vintage magazines like Byte, the Micro and Homebrew computer magazine. That was before hacking was dirty and hackers were criminals. Actually a search of slashdot for hackers falcon will return posts of mine like this one or this one. However back then it was much harder to gain access to any of the technology we enjoy today. Computers were exotic machines occupying floors of buildings if not entire buildings and were operated by white jacked priest. Networking was sneakernet and BBSes before CompuServe, Prodigy, GEnie, and AOL came along. Well not CompuServe, CompuServe was started in 1969 as a subsidiary of an insurance company and was called Compu-Serv Network, Inc.

No I don't want a world where children of the future have to be more resourceful than my generation had to be. If the future is worse than the present then we adults are doing something wrong and need to change

It's ironic but today is both better and worse than it was in say the 1970s. I'm trying to think what issue it was, let me dig out old editions of Reason magazine which I subscribe to... I didn't find it but googling I found Are We Freer? on CATOs website. Ah, Google gave me a "Reason" article like the one I was looking for, "Now for the Good News: Mankind has never been healthier, wealthier or freer. Surprised?" Both TFA I was looking for and the CATO article say it depends on how you look at as to whether we were freer in the past or are freer today.

As for being more resourceful, I don't want the children of the future to be forced to be more resourceful, but I do want them to be so.

Falcon

It still takes about 5 years to recoup the cost of a residential solar system-- even with huge government subsidies!

But energy is free after that whereas you have to keep paying for distributed power, even with huge government subsidies to coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels. Solar panels are warrantied 20, 25, even 30 years. I think the shortest warranty for hardware are on batteries, yet Surrette/Rolls has a 10 year warranty. On the other hand Enersys Batteries only have a 5 year warranty. Even if you have to replace the batteries every 5 years, you still save money.

Some, like you?, complain about subsidies for alternative energy but you say nothing about subsidies for "conventional" energy. Coal? It gets billions of dollars in subsidies, here's, Chevron's CEO agreeing with the Sierra Club to lobby to end coal subsidies. Rep Edward Markey practically brags that My Climate Bill 'Has Huge Subsidies For Clean Coal! Huge!'. He details some of the subsidies nuclear power and other's get. How about this: Global Dirty Energy Subsidies Top $550 Billion Per Year. A blog entry on the Financial Times website says The cost of fossil fuel subsidies: $557bn. How about the US? The Policy Archive says that between 2002 and 2008 "Fossil fuels benefited from approximately $72 billion over the seven-year period, while subsidies for renewable fuels totaled only $29 billion."

If you want to complain about subsidies complain about the subsidies conventional energy, and agricultural businesses, get. A Reason blog entry says Agricultural Subsidies: Corporate Welfare for Farmers.

Falcon

Islam itself is no more particularly a religion or war or peace than most other religious power structures.

The problem is that Islamic countries are currently ass-backwards primitive culturally (from our western perspective) and that includes unnecessary violence.

There have been times when Christianity was as bad or worse -- which isn't justification for the Muslim world's excesses, but makes the Goddamn high horse most westerners get up on when these things come up a little ridiculous. Most of our current peaceful concepts come from the enlightenment - and even our "enlightened" asses managed to have the Holocaust, nuclear weapons, and mass firebombings of civilian targets.

But no, let's mock the people's religion because their culture says you should kill people who offend you deeply. Not like we would ever http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege do anything http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations remotely http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_X#Assassination like http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/11/that-other-war that. We're fucking civilized.

Lumping cultural mistakes in with disparaging an entire religion just seems a little parochial to me. Doesn't mean we should allow them to kill the guy, or *not* mock their actions when they decide to act barbarously. But keep some perspective.

The problem here is exactly government interference in the market. BP is operating on government land with a legal limit of $75 million on liability for damages from a spill.

It's peculiar what when government regulators distort markets by limiting corporate liability, Free Markets get blamed instead of the distorting regulations. It is entirely predictable - limit liability, and people take bigger risks than they would otherwise. It's like going to a casino, and every time you lose, the government forces the casino to give you back your money. Who wouldn't play that game?

Free Markets have plenty of mechanisms for dealing with externalities, the main being liability law. Reason.com has a couple of good articles on this, with links to more in depth articles.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/06/04/liability-vs-regulation
http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/03/limited-liability-oil-spills-a

The problem here is exactly government interference in the market. BP is operating on government land with a legal limit of $75 million on liability for damages from a spill.

It's peculiar what when government regulators distort markets by limiting corporate liability, Free Markets get blamed instead of the distorting regulations. It is entirely predictable - limit liability, and people take bigger risks than they would otherwise. It's like going to a casino, and every time you lose, the government forces the casino to give you back your money. Who wouldn't play that game?

Free Markets have plenty of mechanisms for dealing with externalities, the main being liability law. Reason.com has a couple of good articles on this, with links to more in depth articles.

http://reason.com/blog/2010/06/04/liability-vs-regulation
http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/03/limited-liability-oil-spills-a

And, given the choice between "unimpressive performance" and "living to see your children grow up," it's amazing people continue to be so shortsighted. Investment in vehicle safety could save far more lives than the war on terror.

Lifetime chance of dying in a car accident: 1 in 83 Lifetime chance of dying of terrorist acts: 1 in 45,000 Lifetime chance of dying of a lightning strike: 1 in 80,000

http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized

This is a point I've been trying to make (but I didn't have the specific statistics to back it up).

There are dozens of cars from the late 70s with that kind of mileage:

http://www.mpgomatic.com/2007/10/08/super-cheap-high-mpg-cars-1978-1981/

Not the least of which being the Toyota Corolla, the most popular car of all time. I used to have a Mazda 323 from 1980 or so that got 45 mpg at 55mph or less, which was great until I ruined it by changing the oil and not tightening the plug sufficiently.

And, given the choice between "unimpressive performance" and "living to see your children grow up," it's amazing people continue to be so shortsighted. Investment in vehicle safety could save far more lives than the war on terror.

Lifetime chance of dying in a car accident: 1 in 83
Lifetime chance of dying of terrorist acts: 1 in 45,000
Lifetime chance of dying of a lightning strike: 1 in 80,000

http://reason.com/archives/2006/08/11/dont-be-terrorized

I am Canadian and I have to say I agree with your statement there. The police in this case argued they identified themselves and thus this gentleman shot the cop in cold blood. This is funny because if they were planning a drug bust they are not likely to run into a home and immediately shout POLICE. I have read this article which was posted above. http://reason.com/archives/2006/10/01/the-case-of-cory-maye Interesting read. One note which seems to have been missed is the fact that he ran into his 18- Month Old child's room with the gun. Not Just his own room. This is a retreat and a means of protection if I have ever heard one. I think this quote really summarizes this whole case and sheds ot light how ridiculous it all is: "...To convict Maye, the jury had to believe, beyond a reasonable doubt, that a man with no criminal record, a man who had just moved out of his parents’ home to make a life with his daughter and girlfriend, a man who had only a minuscule amount of marijuana in his apartment, looked out the window to see a team of police officers was about to enter; decided to take them on, even though he had done nothing wrong; waited for them to forcibly enter his home; fired three shots, killing just one of them; and then surrendered, leaving four bullets still in his gun. ..." One could argue that a small amount of marijuana is technically something wrong but as it states in an earlier portion of this article in his township/ state it would have been a $50 dollar fine at best.

I have a Master's degree in computer science; my master's thesis was on the modeling of seawater.

Another example of the modified salem hypothesis.

But beyond that, I actually do my own research, and know how to eliminate crackpot theories better than Al Gore, who uncritically reported several false stories in an Inconvenient Truth.

Let me guess, the crackpot theories you've eliminated happen to be the ones that my previous comment showed are accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientists who actually study these topics for a living?

Note that my article starts with the sentence "... this explains why some people who watch a documentary that exaggerates the science end up imitating that smug politician's alarmism."

Later in the article, during my conversation with Jane Q. Public: "... the thought of that smug, pompous politician accepting a Nobel prize for exaggerating the science makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon just to get the image out of my head.

So I've already listed several points that Al Gore got wrong in his silly little movie. I'm also amused by nonscientists who think Al Gore is relevant. He's not a scientist. He's a smug, pompous, washed up politician. If you seriously want to learn about the science behind abrupt climate change, stick to peer-reviewed journal articles and stay away from politicians like Al Gore.

So they don't like caricatures of Mohammed, is it *REALLY* that important you somehow earn the right to be able to do it?

Yes. That is part of freedom of speech it isn't the freedom to say "lets all be happy in our current situation, the USA is the best and Obama/Bush are gods!" that isn't freedom, every country gives you the "freedom" to say good things. Freedom of speech means that I can say fuck Obama, Bush, the USA, the UN, Jesus, Moses, Mohamed, Buddha, The war on terror, communism, capitalism, socialism, etc. that is freedom of speech.

Why is it that Muslims get a free pass? You know what? I could draw a cartoon of Jesus screwing Moses and I doubt I'd get any thing more than a few laughs, a few angry e-mails and such. If I push it forth I /might/ get a death threat. I'm sure as hell not going to get a car laden with explosives parked outside my house though. I'm not going to get killed, I'm going to get perhaps a boycott of any further art I draw, etc.

http://reason.com/archives/2010/05/14/the-poet-versus-the-prophet is a very interesting article. Why is it that every, single, other religion has embraced tolerance other than Islam? If Islam is so tolerant then why aren't the Islamic leaders doing more to embrace it?

And how about if a group of Muslims in Afghanistan started posting cartoons on Facebook of injured American or British soldiers? Are you going to sit back and laugh about it because "It's their right" to do so?

I wouldn't laugh at it, I would respect their right to free speech and do nothing. I don't believe in censorship of any kind, they have their right to post what they want, I post what I want, if I don't like it -gasp- I don't have to look at it.

Grow up, boy. When you get to middle-age like me you begin to understand that life is about tolerating and making allowances for others and not letting insignificant bits of crap ruin your day.

So we should "tolerate" the fact that Islam can get a free pass of criticism but every other religion we can do whatever?

Join the real world, take your head out of your ass and looking around you - if you do that you'll see most Muslims are normal people like you and me just getting on with their day who don't give a toss about insignificant little bigots like you.

Yeah, most are. However, their leaders are advocating religious violence. I don't see the current Pope saying we should have a mass genocide of non-catholics but yet Islamic leaders are basically saying the same thing.

Oh, and while we're on the subject of religious violence, just how many gun-toting Christians are there in the US?

I don't see Christians making death threats and attempting to carry them out on cartoonists who make fun of Jesus or any other biblical figure.

In short, out of all the religions in the world at the present age, it is only Islam that advocates violence for such stupid, insignificant things as cartoons.

Reason is having its First Annual Everybody Draw Mohammad Day

It's a depressing story, indeed - thanks for the link. Minor correction, though; http://reason.com/archives/2006/10/01/the-case-of-cory-maye/1 says that the warrant was for the correct address, so the search wasn't illegal.

>>>Frankly, I give a shit if the S.S. can read the information on my phone if they detain me. First, in order for me to be detained by the S.S., I'd have to be in a pretty precarious situation in the first place.

Yeah. After all the government never, never arrests innocent people and throws them in jail to rot. So you're right. Nothing to fear.

/end sarcasm

Here's an interesting case where government cops entered the wrong house (therefore an illegal warrantless search) to do a drug raid. Of course there were no drugs at the address (again: wrong house), but the man inside was scared to death so he ran to his bedroom and hid for fear of his life. When the intruders entered, he acted in self-defense of his life and killed the intruder. Then he was charged with murder and sentenced to life for murder.

That man is completely innocent, but nobody seems to give two shits. He's already spent a decade in jail. It could have just as easily been you.

http://reason.com/archives/2006/10/01/the-case-of-cory-maye

a Capitalist system is an unstable social construct that tends to slide into Corporativism.

Only if the rules for granting corporate charters are not observed. Corporate charters, which grant limited liability, were only granted when it served the common or public good. That is why the Dutch East India Company in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1600 were granted their corporate charters. They were both shipping companies and it was understood that international trade was positive, however shipping was a risky business. Ships, their cargo, crews, passengers, and the ships themselves were frequently lost due to bad weather or pirates. Without limited liability people did not want to risk everything they owned, including their homes, by investing in shipping. Those charters can be revoked though.

Thomas Jefferson warned about the Corporate Aristocracy, saying "I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of their country." Corporations no longer have to challenge our government, instead they buy the politicians who make the laws and the bureaucrats who enforce them. With a smaller, limited, government they wouldn't be able to do so.

I postulate that, given the way Politics (the rule setters), Power and Money interact, it is impossible to have a situation where the Players do not influence the Rules and furthermore, the bigger the player the more influence they have in setting the Rules.

That's true because of the size of government and it's regulations grows. Corporations use regulations, and often take part in writing those regulations, to limit their competition. For instance lawn care businesses like TruGreen lobby local governments to regulate lawn care businesses going so far as to require licenses. Hell, some places even regulate yard sales.

Falcon

the effects of addiction of the worst (coke. meth, heroin) is far worse the effects of the war on drugs

No, they aren't. The effects of heroin addiction are constipation, and withdrawal that makes you feel like you have the flu when you don't get your fix. The effects of the War on (Some) Drugs is innocent people being gunned down in blitzkrieg raids, the highest incarceration rate on the planet, the continual erosion of civil liberties, and paranoia in people -- like yourself -- who are unfamiliar with the drugs in question.

i'm glad your victorian upper middle class examples...

Richard Pryor was "victorian upper middle class"?

yes, i am willing to lock away mafioso who don't care about destroying lives in order to get a buck, i have no problem with that

Except of course those are a tiny fraction of the people you're locking up. You're locking up recreational users who aren't hurting anyone, junkies who are harmless so long as they can get their fix, and small time dealer who are no more heartless than the guy at 7-11 who sells cigarettes and booze.

you apparently are happy with millions of lives destroyed because you have no appreciation what easy access to a highly addictive substance does to people and the freedom it destroys. you should be ashamed

Friend, I'm from Baltimore. Don't tell me what easy access to highly addictive substance does; abut 10% of the adults in the city are heroin users. Most are harmless. For the rest, prohibition only adds to their problems, while it pumps up the murder rate and corrodes the morale and ethics of local police.

What, her stance on fabricating evidence to wrongfully imprison people wasn't "tech" enough for you? That's some nerd stuff right there.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jan/05/nation/la-na-court-framed5-2010jan05
http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/28/the-infallible-prosecutor
http://www.justice.gov/osg/briefs/2009/3mer/1ami/2008-1065.mer.ami.html

But if neither dominant party thinks she's toeing the line enough then that's _exactly_ the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.

Your logic is broken. I presume neither party would like bin Laden, but I don't think that would make him a good nomination. Have you heard why people don't like her? Here's some of her thoughts on the first amendment:

Kagan argued in the government’s brief that speech was entitled to no First Amendment protection if its harms outweigh its benefits: “Whether a given category of speech enjoys First Amendment protection depends upon a categorical balancing of the value of the speech against its societal costs.” Kagan did not argue the case before the Court.

Someone who feels that freedom of speech is overrated - spare me the "fire! in a theater" exceptions we already know about - is not someone who I want deciding freedom of speech cases.

She also argued that prosecutors who deliberately manufacture evidence to convict (by definition) innocent people should not be civilly liable for their actions. I don't have great hopes that she'd side with individuals when it most matters.

It seems like there's something for everyone to dislike about Kagan, unless you're already a person in power and seeking to extend your powers. Then she'd be the woman for the job.