Slashdot Mirror

Your points are interesting but seem to amount to nothing more than anecdotal evidence.

I think one would be better educated on the subject by delving into any of the many studies on the issue of intellectual property rights as a stimulus toward innovation.

Here is a recent one that I came upon today.

North America is also a huge carbon sink.

You're not the only one.

I mentioned this in another comment on this story, but I figure the more I write it, the more will see it. YMMV, but my jurisdiction, although it uses evm's, has paper ballots available at the polling station. It's much faster than electronic voting (no waiting in line for a machine), to boot. So, everybody on /., and all their friends and family too, should get the word out to people to use the paper wherever possible.

Avenge the threats against his father ... disregard due to no links to supporting data and it contradicts the available evidence Joint Authorization and US Public Law 105-338 and UN Report on Subject (read all 17-pages :-) and UN Resolutions violated by Iraq (btw, each resolution had 'diplo-speak' as in "serious consequences" authorizing war - don't say the US did it without the UN ;-)

Look good to the world for booting Hussein. Opps, that didn't work out to[o] well. ... disregard due to no link(s) to supporting data ... BTW, it didn't work out too well in post-Nazi Europe/Japan either

Get a [childish expletive deleted]load of money to Halliburton and make him and Cheney some big ass bucks. Didn't you know that Bush also owns a large amount of Halliburton stock? ... disregard due to there being no evidence that Bush Jr. ownes any Halliburton stock Bush 2003 Tax Return ... perform further research with respect to Cheney due to an "it's a stretch" connection Cheney 2003 Tax Return ... and also here leading to:

The forms Thursday showed he collected $162,392 in deferred compensation [think 401k - therefore this is not the big bad Halliburton connection you claim] from Halliburton Co., the Dallas-based energy services company he headed until Aug. 16, 2000. Cheney elected in 1998 to recoup over five years a portion of the money he made in 1999 as chief executive officer of Halliburton ... SUGGESTION: you should chat with some HR compensation folk who can explain this other "deferred compensation" plan (its the 'other' 401k the HR types don't talk about to individual contributors). Most companies have this 'other' 401k plan - lucrative but very restrictive tax-wise - perhaps almost like a blind-trust. However, IANAL also IANACPA

From Christopher Hitchens' review of "Unfairenheit 9/11":

The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism . Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists , one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States ... (Orwell's Notes on Nationalism in May 1945)

... and still more from "Orwell's Notes on Nationalism" ... thank you Chris Hitchens from tickling my intellect such that I dug for more info ... love the internet

I hate to quote from TCS since its a crap site but 300,000 appears to be a totally bogus figure. Please cite some evidence or revise your statement.

He's in statistics, and judging by some of the critisism he's gotten from other people in that area, not a very good one either.

Case Against Scientifically Honest Bjorn Lomborg Dismissed

The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty abetted a vicious ideological environmentalist smear campaign against Bjorn Lomborg by declaring two years ago that his excellent book The Skeptical Environmentalist , was "objectively dishonest." Naturally this accusation hit the headlines. However, in December, 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology overturned the DCSD kangaroo court's decision and sent it back to them. On futher reflection the DCSD members have now decided that perhaps they'd been a bit hasty and have completely dropped the matter (see press release below).

Press Release
March 12, 2004

Scientific Dishonesty Committee Withdraws Lomborg Case

The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) today announced it would not reopen the case concerning Bjørn Lomborg's book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist".

In December 2003 The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation completely rejected the DCSD finding that "The Skeptical Environmentalist" was "objectively dishonest" or "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice".

The Ministry, which is responsible for the DCSD, found that the committee's judgment was not backed up by documentation and was "completely void of argumentation" for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice.

The Ministry invalidated the original finding and sent the case back to DCSD, where it was up to the committee to decide whether to reopen the case for a new trial.

"The committee decision is as one would expect," Environmental Assessment Institute director Bjørn Lomborg said today. "More than two years have passed since the case against my book was started. In that time every possible stone has been turned over, yet DCSD has been unable to find a single point of criticism that withstands further investigation."

"DCSD have reached the only logical conclusion. The committee has acknowledged that the former verdict of my book was invalid. I am happy that this will spell an end to what has been a very distasteful course of events," Bjørn Lomborg said.

The DCSD translated their first judgment into English. Today's announcement is only available in Danish.

No word of an apology nor headlines declaring Lomborg vindicated.

He's in statistics, and judging by some of the critisism he's gotten from other people in that area, not a very good one either.

Case Against Scientifically Honest Bjorn Lomborg Dismissed

The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty abetted a vicious ideological environmentalist smear campaign against Bjorn Lomborg by declaring two years ago that his excellent book The Skeptical Environmentalist , was "objectively dishonest." Naturally this accusation hit the headlines. However, in December, 2003, the Danish Ministry of Science and Technology overturned the DCSD kangaroo court's decision and sent it back to them. On futher reflection the DCSD members have now decided that perhaps they'd been a bit hasty and have completely dropped the matter (see press release below).

Press Release
March 12, 2004

Scientific Dishonesty Committee Withdraws Lomborg Case

The Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty (DCSD) today announced it would not reopen the case concerning Bjørn Lomborg's book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist".

In December 2003 The Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation completely rejected the DCSD finding that "The Skeptical Environmentalist" was "objectively dishonest" or "clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice".

The Ministry, which is responsible for the DCSD, found that the committee's judgment was not backed up by documentation and was "completely void of argumentation" for the claims of dishonesty and lack of good scientific practice.

The Ministry invalidated the original finding and sent the case back to DCSD, where it was up to the committee to decide whether to reopen the case for a new trial.

"The committee decision is as one would expect," Environmental Assessment Institute director Bjørn Lomborg said today. "More than two years have passed since the case against my book was started. In that time every possible stone has been turned over, yet DCSD has been unable to find a single point of criticism that withstands further investigation."

"DCSD have reached the only logical conclusion. The committee has acknowledged that the former verdict of my book was invalid. I am happy that this will spell an end to what has been a very distasteful course of events," Bjørn Lomborg said.

The DCSD translated their first judgment into English. Today's announcement is only available in Danish.

No word of an apology nor headlines declaring Lomborg vindicated.

The Herald also reported than the CNE has hired a firm "whose touch-screen voting machine has never been used in an election anywhere" to provide voting machines for the referendum. There have been widespread reports of people being fired from government ministries and state run industries for signing the petition, or facing threats of firing if they go to repair a disputed signature.

"This kind of mistake would not get published with adequate peer review of manuscripts submitted for publication. But in recent years, a curious thing has happened. The popular science magazines, Science and Nature, have seemingly stopped sending John Christy and me papers whose conclusions differ from our satellite data analysis. This is in spite of the fact that we are (arguably) the most qualified people in the field to review them. This is the second time in nine months that these journals have let papers be published in the satellite temperature monitoring field that had easily identifiable errors in their methodology."

I don't claim party allegiance of any kind. First link from google that came up. Evil shitbag scam artist.

I was listening to talk radio the other night, and I'm not sure whose show it was (I was just skimming through), but they were saying that one presidential candidates was proposing a tax to these big companies for outsourcing work to make up for unemployment.

Chances are, that candidate is John Kerry. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is the owner of (or one of the owners of) the Heinz Ketchup company... which has 57 factories, out of 79 total, overseas. Ironic, really, that the Heinz 57 Ketchup company has 57 varieties of outsourcing. Here's my link for an article that says so.

I personally think (in my opinion) that's a wonderful idea. Maybe companies would think twice and start giving jobs back to those unemployed.

Perhaps you should elaborate a bit and say those companies should give those jobs to the unemployed people in the United States. It's rather difficult to give a job to someone that's already employed.

After all, you could pay someone from India $5 less an hour to do it, but.. you'll end up paying that back in taxes, so you won't really save much.

Great idea! That way, when the company has to spend $10 million more per year, they'll really understand the value of American labor! Then, when you have to pay $50 for an optical computer mouse, or $1000 extra for a middle-of-the-line new computer, you'll understand why the company decided that maybe it should save some money to begin with.

If you want to destroy the economy, a great way to start is by concentrating on the 10,000 workers that got paid more than they're worth, rather than concentrating on the 170,000,000 people in the country that already have other jobs. I'm sorry if this seems cruel, but if you ever start a business, you'll understand. As the article above quotes Adam Smith (the founder of Modern Economics), "It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy."

David Grinspoon: "We like it when people get excited about Mars exploration. Why would we ever hide the most exciting thing we could find?"

There is of course the idea that members of certain other government groups and departments might not want the total distraction of discovering something on Mars. I've heard that argued plenty.

Personally, I'm really glad they've got some new material out there, and I don't care if people get a little irrational and goofy over it. It's just good to remember that we have a space program. TCS also had a good article last fall on China's burgeoning space program (which I'm having a hard time finding updates about. They're just not into releasing information). I liked the way they put it:

So while the glass-is-half-empty analysis might be that our bureaucrats are now less energetic than the Chinese, the glass-is-half-full analysis might be this: that Chinese bureaucrats, five centuries after dropping the ball, are still playing catch-up to Western entrepreneurialism and energy.

So which is it? Well, the answer to the old "is the glass half-full, or half-empty?" question is "it depends on whether you're drinking, or pouring."

The Chinese, clearly, are pouring. Are we?

You're right. 12 years of diplomacy isn't enough. Yeah right.

There were very many links to terrorists, you just refuse to believe them, not the least the fact he had for years been paying the families of suicide bombers $10K-$25K each. Also Saddam did have WMDs and programs, try reading the Kay report for a change.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2003/04/27/walq27.xml

http://vikingphoenix.com/public/rongstad/military/ terrorism/raid_ansar_al-qaida.htm

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/27/iraq/mai n551246.shtml

http://www.techcentralstation.com/092503F.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0402/p01s03-wome.htm l

http://www.terrorismanswers.com/sponsors/iraq.html

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2002/cfr/stories/iraq/

http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/text2003 /0430trrpt.htm

1. When you count private contributions, the governmental foreign-aid figures are dwarfed, and the U.S. comes off looking much better in relation to other countries.
2. Much foreign aid is channeled through the military and other agencies. When the Army rebuilds a hospital in Afghanistan, or the Navy captures pirates or drug smugglers in the Straits of Molucca, or NASA builds a modern airport in Africa to provide a place for the shuttles to land in an emergency, they do a great service to humanity that does not show up in these figures. Most of the countries in your list do nothing of the sort. They make an ODA budget, write a check, and that's it. And their irreligious, self-centered, overtaxed citizens assume that is sufficient, and do not come close to matching the American charitable contributions.
3. These figures do not reflect the trillions of dollars and thousands of lives that this country has contributed to the destruction of collectivist totalitarianism. Whether in the form of National Socialism (Nazi Germany) or Communism, nothing in history has caused more human misery than collectivist ideologies. We destroyed them for the benefit of all mankind and will continue to do so.

-ccm

As always, RTFA, or here (from a previous Slashdot story), or Canadian Copyright Law.

Indeed, it appears to be legal to download copyrighted songs in Canada, even according to copyright experts and internet law experts. It hasn't been tested in court yet, but it seems prosecutors believe it is legal too so they won't prosecute.

But as the article states, uploading (broadcasting) is clearly illegal. So as long as we Canadians just leech, we're fine (legally speaking).

"Their flight wasn't a stunt. Most important, unlike Santos-Dumont's flight, it did not depend on having a pilot of extraordinary skill." You are in a stark contrast with what is written on TechcentralStation The Wright's first aircraft was not only unstable, but extremely so, almost akin to walking a tightrope. This made it very difficult to fly, with the slightest bit of pilot inattention or control error having the possibility of catastrophe. On the other hand, it should only increase our regard for them as pilots for their ability to handle an aircraft that few modern experienced pilots can fly.

IMO, the whole "first powered flight" argument is so much debatable, that finding the absolute truth is practically impossible. Even russians claim that Mozaisky was the first one to conduct powered flight
IMO, one should look at the whole issue the other way. Lets draw parallels with automotive industry. Which was the first true automobile ? Now, which was the one that laid foundation to what evolved into car as we know it today ? IMO, it was Ford Model T. Thats the true ancestor of the modern car.
So, which was the Ford Model T of aviation ? Where did its heritage come from, Brazil, Russia, France, Langley or Wrights bros ?

In a second we'll look at your misreading of OMB figures (such as describing a nearly 10% decrease in unemployment as a `jobless recovery', showing that you're still reading from last summer's talking points), but first I'd like to point out how fascinated I am that you think Sweden, of all places, is the example we should be emulating.

Why fascinated? Well, see, last year the government of Sweden admitted that Sweden's economy is in such bad shape that were Sweden to become the 51st state of the US, it would not only be the poorest state of the union, but Swedes as an ethnic group would be the poorest ethnic group in the US, below blacks, hispanics, or even American Indians. You can read all about it here.

So you're already off on a pretty bad foot, calling for economic changes which would be a massive step down for all levels of American society.

Now on to your claims:

Well, let's have a look at the OMB's own projections (table 4) [whitehouse.gov]. There we see that the GDP growth in real dollars is expected to rise to, and then hold steady at, 4.9% to 5.0% (and the unemployment rate is expected to fall from 5.9% to 5.1%, ha ha.)

Even with these rosy assumptions, the deficit still only gets down to $213 billion, much larger than 2002 levels, and then starts rising again! [whitehouse.gov] Perhaps this is because those huge deficits cause the projected net interest to rise from $171 billion to $260 billion.

But have a look back at the bottom of table 4: even though the interest on the national debt increases $89 billion, or about 50%, the interest on 10-year Treasury bills only rises from 4.7% to 5.3%, or an increase of only 13%!

Look again, U.S. unemployment apparently gave back several months' gains if November's new claims numbers are to be believed. But even if the rate holds at October levels, you and your trickle-down ilk have engineered and amazingly jobless recovery. Congradulations and good luck with those 3 million newly jobless next November.

The reason is that your money isn't worth a thing if everyone is too sick to transact with it because of lack of health care, or too stupid to obtain the goods and services you want because of lack of education, or too afraid to go to the market because of lack of law enforcement, or it's too worthless because of inflation because of unsound fiscal policy. You can not economically ignore your environment, of which you are an integral part. Or: no man is an island.

And then you tell us we should be more like Sweden -- when the Swedes themselves are sick of their failing economy and want to be more like us.

An interesting interpretation is that many non-religious-right GOP members are "South Park Republicans". I would call them Libertarians who don't know it. Maybe the Libertarian Party should buy some commercial airtime on Comedy Central during "South Park" and "Tough Crowd"? :-)

"South Park Republicans" :

If Republicans are so different from mainstream America, then who voted for them? The nation has more Republican congressmen and state governors than any other political party, plus control of the White House.

The answer could very well be the "South Park Republicans." The name stems from the primetime cartoon "South Park" that clearly demonstrates the contrast within the party. The show is widely condemned by some moralists, including members of the Christian right. Yet in spite of its coarse language and base humor, the show persuasively communicates the Republican position on many issues, including hate crime legislation ("a savage hypocrisy"), radical environmentalism, and rampant litigation by ambitious trial lawyers. In one episode, industrious gnomes pick apart myopic anti-corporate rhetoric and teach the main characters about the benefits of capitalism.

No, but Michael Geist is, and he's also the Canadian research chair in Internet and e-commerce law, and he seems to think there is a good legal argument for saying it is legal.

But more to the point, the parent article here is not about the legality of downloading songs in Canada. It's about payment of royalties. In my own words, as I understand it, other broadcasters (radio, TV, etc.) have to play royalties to artists when they broadcast a copyrighted work. This case is trying to determine if ISPs, or anybody else, can be classified as "broadcasters" with respect to internet file trading for the purposes of collecting royalties.

In a sense, it's the other side of the coin from the downloading question. The Canadian Copyright Act appears to make downloading legal, but it seems quite clear that uploading (distributing) is not legal. While the levy on CD-R's legitimizes downloading in the Copyright Act, making ISPs (or somebody else) pay royalties for "broadcasting" may very well legitimize the distribution end of online sharing. After all, if you charge royalties to an ISP for songs that are distributed through it, you are creating a de facto license for the songs to be distributed through it. Might not be as clear cut as the CD-R levy, but I think it has legal merit.

Newsflash! It already is legal in Canada, even before this proposed levy.

It looks to me like this new proposal from SOCAN is essentially saying that the current situation is unfair and wasn't considered when the 1998 Copyright Act was introduced. On the one hand, I'd say tough for them. On the other hand, it would probably still be worth it if the levy was small enough, to keep downloading legal. If the industry is hurting, which hasn't been shown AFAIK, then this might be a reasonable compensation.

Imagine paying on the order of $1 per month (~75 cents $U.S.) to allow unlimited legal downloads. This approach certainly beats that taken by the RIAA in the U.S., and it's nice to see that SOCAN is at least trying to propose something reasonable, realistic, and fair to both consumers and artists.

Is there a Canadian equivalent of the RIAA as well? Should I stop downloading off Kazaa? Actually I think in Canada I am allowed to download, as long as I don't share. Haha, suckers!
We do have something equivalent, but we are safe from it for now. You see, whenever you buy recordable media (CD-R, DVD-R, tapes, VHS, memory sticks, and possibly even hard drives if they get there way) a royalty is added to the cost. Therefore, since we're paying compensation anyway, we're allowed to give our friends copys, etc (although this doesn't explicitly give us permission to share on P2P)... Thankfully, we also don't have a DMCA (or any other idiotic acts). Check out this article: http://techcentralstation.com/081803C.html

Copying of music for personal use is legal in Canada. You're not doing anything wrong (neither am I). Those taxes we pay are for a reason.

[from the article]:
" Other partners include Lehman Brothers; TransCore, the company that created the E-ZPass electronic toll system; and ChoicePoint, a Georgia company that will screen the customers."

• Lehman
  
• EZPass
  
• ChoicePoint
  

[from the article]:
" Other partners include Lehman Brothers; TransCore, the company that created the E-ZPass electronic toll system; and ChoicePoint, a Georgia company that will screen the customers."

First Class Citizens, without any of those troubling "black marks on their permanent records" that their high school gym coaches warned them about, will be recommended by some of the best liars in the business. These card carrying inoffenders will be vouched for by the Lehman fraud company, the EZPass system (that we bought under assurances of court-order privacy protection, now for sale to lawyers for divorce investigations), and ChoicePoint, which "arbitrarily" erased the names of >55,000 Florida 2000 voters (probably >80% Gore voters). Weapons of Mass Deception.

It is only illegal to upload copyrighted songs. So people in the US just have to stop uploading. In Canada it is legal to upload copyrighted songs! So everything the RIAA is doing is for naught as our neighbors to the north can provide us with all the music we need and they can't do damn thing about it.

if i'm not mistaken, isn't p2p already legal in canada, thus making this service a waste of money? or am i reading this incorrectly?

link

Remember everyone, she is a "technology consultant"....

"I have to admit that I was never much of a believer in open source. Maybe my business school coursework rendered me blind to the glorious vision of a "gift culture" in which people contribute their work to a decentralized development project like Linux for honor instead of money. Or possibly I'm just too thick to understand how cutting off a multi-billion dollar revenue stream from software sales, without putting anything else in its place, could be good for the software business."

"The outcome of the Windows/Mac showdown seems to indicate that the company that owns the corporate desktop owns the marketplace."

"Those who saw open source as the inevitable revolution concentrated only on the value propositions that Linux could offer on price and performance. They weren't paying as much attention to other considerations, such as indemnity, that might be even more important than performance to the marketplace, because after all, what open source developers are good at (and interested in) is technological revolution, not liability planning and insurance premiums."

helps to make the link a real link if you want the slashdrones to follow through and slashdot the server - but I guess you dont know any html or anything, clearly because you are a fat fucking fucktard, much like the slashdrones.

No porridge for you, wanker!

Read this article by Glenn Reynolds on malls. The key bit is:

The downside is that the traditional "downtown" has been replaced by corporate-controlled space. What's wrong with that? Well, in the traditional downtown, things like the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech apply. In malls, they generally don't. (One of my former students has written an interesting law review article [uwyo.edu] on this subject).

The downside is that the traditional "downtown" has been replaced by corporate-controlled space. What's wrong with that? Well, in the traditional downtown, things like the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech apply. In malls, they generally don't. (One of my former students has written an interesting law review article on this subject).

Also the bit about non-profits/politicians, well, I wouldn't be suprised if that is one of the first ammendments to this law. It's called the slippery slope, you can't expect to pass the whole thing at once. You have to do it incrementally, and starting with the assholes is the easiest way to initiate the process.

http://techcentralstation.com/081803C.html

From chatting with friends, the gist is that it's illegal to upload music to a public ftp server but it's perfectly legal to have file sharing turned on in your computer.

It's also perfectly legal to download.

Pretty much. It's because the downloader is creating the copy for themselves.

I can't create a copy FOR you, but I can allow you to copy my music (as in, my CD's, or other music that I've made private copies of).

For more information, take a look here.

On a side note - it is also possible to get a media levy exemption. My friend's workplace makes custom presentations, and goes through CDR's like mad, and they got such an exemption.

Ummmmm....I don't think we have a tax like that in America. That's why prices are so freaking high.

I think taxing is the answer. In Canada it seems to work quite well.

Of course I'm not expert, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.

Sharing or uploading is legal. See this analysis, or (linked in that article) straight to the source.

It's that simple.

Actually, here in Canada we have a wonderful loophole that circumvents that "distribution" problem. Details here.

You can take the file from me, but I can't give it to you. Yes, logic is a 4-letter word in Canada.

I might be able to leave the United States to either Mexico or Canada

Come to Canada. We've already established that file sharing is legal...

There's been a spate of news stories covering the topic, perhaps the most prominent in the WSJ of Friday, 27 June, "'Junk Science' Ban Also Keeps Jurors From Sound Evidence" (regrettably not freely available online)

Our good friends at Corbis have scanned in this article for us! There is also a good article at Tech Centeral Station.

Citing Michael Moore as a reference is never a good thing. See here and here.

There we have it ladies and gentlemen -- while many of you thought that Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Sayeed ``No American Tanks within 100 Miles! What's that noise?'' Sahaf was inflating civilian casualty statistics, jdfox has uncovered the real truth: he was actually underreporting them! What a brilliant thesis...

Of course, there are plenty of concrete reasons to doubt the statistics provided by Womens' Studies (should that be `Wimmin's studies'?) professor Marc Herold:

• the fact that Mr. Herrod was so spectacularly (and famously) wrong in Afghanistan, reporting more than three times as many civilian casualties as the sources he claimed to have gotten his statistics from, and more than twice as many civilian casualties as the Taliban themselves did (see the section on civilian casualties at the end of that article)
• The fact that Herold's statistical methods have been thoroughly debunked, which is no surprise, as he has no training or background in statistics at all.
• The fact that he steadfastly refuses to explain where he gets his numbers, despite repeated demonstrations that he is double- and even triple- counting actual incidents, and accepting other incidents as genuine based only on the allegations of Taliban and Iraqi Information Ministry sources.
• The fact that the non-partisan Statistical Assssment Service, a group of professional and academic statisticians formed to combat the incorrect use of statistics in the media has examined Mr. Herold's methods and found them fatally flawed.

Just perusing the TechCentralStation link posted above and to Mr. Lomborg's page of links to critiques of his work on his site provides some more:

• Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography in the University of London
• Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT
• Steve Budiansky, former Washington editor for Nature
• The leadership of the Danish Space Research Institute

In the meantime, you bring us critiques from `scientists' such as Steven Schneider, who famously told an interviewer from Discover magazine:

On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people, we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that, we need to get some broad-based support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.

Now that's dishonesty and unscientific behavior. And to think that a man like that is accusing Lomborg...

The paper doesn't actually call for a laissez-faire regime. In fact, the opening quote is from Leon Fuerth's speech (he was Al Gore's national security adviser) at the Foresight Institute last year, pointing out that people who wanted a laissez-faire regime for nanotech were living in a fantasy world. The paper actually suggests the experience with recombinant DNA as a model. This would be apparent had the poster spent some time reading the paper. Or even this excerpt.

As for overthrowing the government, well, that's actually the most common view of what the Second Amendment is about among professors of constitutional law who have written on the subject -- including people like Larry Tribe of Harvard, no libertarian. Though I don't really see what that has to do with nanotechnology.

Glenn Reynold's (Instapundit) exerpt can be found here

Part of the reason why this isn't exactly true is because Microsoft announced it is completely dropping UltimateTV now that TiVo has partnered with DirecTV officially (and dropped the DirecTiVo monthly price to $4.99, which MS can't compete with)

Paul may piss off the people working on the X-Box, but he's not going to affect UltimateTV one iota.

Closing the Door on Choices by Jessica Davis
California Scheming by Joel Bucher

Closing the Door on Choices by Jessica Davis
California Scheming by Joel Bucher

The purpose of your war in Afghanistan was meant to oust the Taliban and disrupt Al Quaida, only it's ended up killing more innocent civilians than were murdered on Sept 11th.

First of all, this is factually untrue. Marc Herold's civilian casualty figures have been widely debunked. I'll just point to one such article - here.

Even if these numbers were correct, you're falling into the fallacy that war is some kind of sporting event where civilian casualties are moral points for the opposition. By this logic, the U.S. should have ceased fighting the Japanese as soon the number of Japanese civilians killed exceeded the number of the American civilian casualties at Pearl Harbor. As if national security and continuing military threats have nothing to do with war.

p.s. The Taliban have been ousted and Al Quaeda has been disrupted.

after a while people get sick of learning a new way of doing something every time they have to trade in their newly obsolete product for the next product that will be obsolete in two years. i guess this means any unstable or inconsistent interface is what's truely non user-friendly.

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame has coined a term for this - version fatigue. I used to customize software I use a lot more, but now after a few upgrades I pretty much stick with the defaults unless they're very annoying.