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Here are some thing they could do:
1) Don't let anyone mine/pick anything that there skill level makes gray to them.
2) put some random drift into movement.
3) limit the price you can sell something for on the AH to 10 times what a vendor would pay
4) don't allow the transfer of more then 100GP a time. Maybe a one time unlimited amount per month.

All of these would be pretty trivial to implement.

1) Just because something is gray (for the uninitiated: no longer grants skill improvement), doesn't mean that you don't need it for some associated skill. Or a skill you picked up after dropping some other skill.

2) It's called 'alcohol'... And ignores that you can get location information at a fairly fine (and numeric) level through the add-on interface. Want to hear the whining when you remove that location information?

3) I think this would actually increase farming, as desired items would INCREASE in scarcity. Gold flows into the game in buckets from people playing characters at the level cap, with nowhere to run out of.

4) transfer of no more than 100gp at a time? What, once a day, or something? "Per transaction" is no more a limit than taking advantage of a sale ("Limit: 5") by going to different cash registers, or bringing your family in to each make separate purchases.

I play a lot of alternate characters. Of your suggestions, the only one that would not affect my own game play is #2. I regularly:
#1 use my high level characters to gather materials for my own lower level characters
#3 buy quest-related items (often with no vendor price) from the auction house (AH). (I seldom sell items; I have plenty of alts "who will need that eventually!"
#4 use one alt to hold cash (so I don't blow it on the auction house), and distribute occasionally to make large purchases (mounts, for instance).

None of which affects the game play of others... unless, like the government, you feel that "because I didn't buy from the AH, it affected commerce and Should Be Regulated" (Wickard v Filburn).

These ideas, at least, do not a solution make. But keep trying.

That's not correct (assuming that by "our Constitution" you mean the "U.S. Constitution"). Look at Article VI of the constitution. Or Google "supremacy clause." Or take a look at this article, for starters: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/preemption.htm

It's not just CP and ISPs and DCMA either. Here in California, it's the proposed AB1634, which in its new incarnation allows anyone to accuse without merit, and the accusation WILL be taken as proof of guilt, with absolutely no recourse and no protection from the Bill of Rights. That it happens to target pets is irrelevant. What's truly scary is how it codifies witch-hunting. And once that precedent is back in legal force, ANY aspect of our lives can far more readily follow the same legislative and regulatory path.

Welcome to Salem, in the year of our Lord 1689.

The U.S government executive branch would disagree, they like reinterpreting laws to fit their goals.

As does the Judicial and legislative branches

A quick google of "vatican evolution" yielded:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/vaticanview.html
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17162341-13762,00.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/18/news/evolution.php

I note from the Wiki article that the Court was not unanimous on that:

"I do not see a philosophical or historical basis for asserting that 'commercial' speech is of 'lower value' than 'noncommercial' speech." -- Clarence Thomas

I see I should have included more links, so here goes:

• "The High Cost of Free Speech"
  "No one considered advertising or other profit-motivated communications as constitutionally protected speech until fairly recently. According to legal scholars, the phrase "commercial speech" did not even appear in any decision of any court of the United States until 1971. Freedom of speech was an individual right, protected from abridgment by the federal government (and from state and local governments after 1931)."
• "Governmental Regulation of Commercial Speech"
• "Government Regulation of Commercial Speech"
  "The Supreme Court for many years took the view that commercial speech--speech that proposes an economic transaction--was not protected by the First Amendment. The Court reasoned that the broad powers of government to regulate commerce must reasonably include the power to regulate speech concerning articles of commerce."
• "Commercial Speech"
  "In recent years, the Court's treatment of ''commercial speech'' has undergone a transformation, from total nonprotection under the First Amendment to qualified protection."
• Findlaw has more info.

We are a society that, every fifty years or so, is afflicted by some paroxysm of virtue--an orgy of self-cleansing through which evil of one kind or another is cast out. From the witch-hunts of Salem to the communist hunts of the McCarthy era to the current shrill fixation on child abuse, there runs a common thread of moral hysteria. After the McCarthy era, people would ask: But how could it have happened? How could the presumption of innocence have been abandoned wholesale? How did large and powerful institutions acquiesce as congressional investigators ran roughshod over civil liberties--all in the name of a war on communists? How was it possible to believe that subversives lurked behind every library door, in every radio station, that every two-bit actor who had belonged to the wrong political organization posed a threat to the nation's security?

Years from now people doubtless will ask the same questions about our present era--a time when the most improbable charges of abuse find believers; when it is enough only to be accused by anonymous sources to be hauled off by investigators; a time when the hunt for child abusers has become a national pathology.

--Dorothy Rabinowitz, From the Mouths of Babes to a Jail Cell, HARPER'S MAGAZINE (May 1990).

A small excerpt for those too, uh, "busy" to follow the link:

The McMartin Preschool Abuse Trial, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in American history, should serve as a cautionary tale. When it was all over, the government had spent seven years and $15 million dollars investigating and prosecuting a case that led to no convictions. More seriously, the McMartin case left in its wake hundreds of emotionally damaged children, as well as ruined careers for members of the McMartin staff. No one paid a bigger price than Ray Buckey, one of the principal defendants in the case, who spent five years in jail awaiting trial for a crime (most people recognize today) he never committed.

America, you've been warned.

In the latter case it's used as the wedge [wedge document that is] to try to confuse the layman into thinking that evolution is by definition atheistic in nature.

And this is exactly what confuses me about the creationist/intelligent design movement. The people behind it are obviously well educated. Why deliberately lie about evolution just to get people to believe in creationism? Maybe they aren't really interested in christianity, but only want to push their own theory? Maybe they use christians to make believers in creationism/ID, instead of appealing to creationism/ID-believers to make christians feel better. Is it that much money to be made from selling "educational" material?

Juvenile, yes, however, teachers should receive some respect. They don't get paid enough to not only have to deal with some of these kids in the classroom, but to be haunted by them outside of the work day is uncalled for.

If Teaching was a more highly respected profession, yes, perhaps they should be expected to "handle it" but there is so much other things a teacher must deal with, I think they deserve a higher form of respect than they get.

I used to be a teacher. Yes, students can break your hearts and yes, they can uplift you. Those are the low and high points of teaching, however do you realize how devastating it is when you put all your effort into making a difference and this is the thanks you get? *shakes head* No. Students should not be allowed to put these sort of things in a public forum.

Besides, the incident in Pennsylvania was MORE than juvenile name calling, according to the html version of the file document http://education.umkc.edu/safe-school/documents/monofs.doc
"contained threatening and derogatory comments about a teacher and a principal. It included a picture of the teacher's severed head dripping with blood, a picture of the teacher's face morphing into Adolph Hilter, and requested funds to cover the cost of a hit man."

This is a serious issue, and I, for one, am glad to see that something is being done about it.

Kris

No he doesn't have any expertise, no he doesn't have any degrees in sciences - yet millions of people still think he knows more about science than the greatest experts in the various fields of science

Why the police arrest you for saying "fuck"? I doubt they can.

*cough*

What? this group you mean? Or perhaps you mean to talk about the Catholic church's views about Evolution? In any event the about the Church's views of sci-fi/fantasy here is a group that would like to disagree with you. Trying to pick on the Catholics for the lack of support of this sort of thing is either willfully ignorant or pure stupidity.

Let's see which few these are:
We have Catholocism:

• Archbishop Denounces Evolution as 'Unguided'
• Pope prepares to embrace theory of intelligent design

• Tennessee Evolution Statutes
• Anti-Evolution and the Law

I think the mistake your making though is to assume that most people think about religion at all. So you picked up a few philosophy books, yeah yeah, I got that feather in my cap too. I've even sat down at the table, drank coffee, and chit chat'd philosophical with some of the leaders in Philosophical Religion today, Alviin Plantinga. He was attributed with single handedly reinvigorating the debate in philosophical circles over the rationality of believing in god with his symbolic logic book written in the 90's (long considered a dead horse). Not as impressive as it sounds, he teaches over and Notre Dame and I'm sure you could do the same if you wanted to drop by.

Most people don't think about religion, they believe in it. So what better describes religion as it is? A few intellectuals writing books, investigating possibilities, and chit chatting over coffee or the other 99% of the believing masses? I think the answer is obvious.

Gee, that's the exact opposite of every single definition of "defamation" available to check online.

This isn't legal advice, but while in a strict dictionary sense "defamation" might be anything said that hurts a reputation, truth is an affirmative defense. The articles linked above state that no action is called for and no damages occur when someone states a truth. The person whose reputation is tarnished by the truth earned that reputation. Speaking or printing the truth therefore does no damage to the rightful reputation. That seems to this non-attorney to mean you can call the speech or publication by any name you want, but you're not going to get money by suing someone for telling the truth.

Again, I am not a lawyer, but grade-school Social Studies teachers in the U.S. teach their students about John Peter Zenger and the case of New York v. Zenger. That case set forth truth as a defense for slander and libel in the common law of the North American colonies of England.

BTW, where are "defamiation" and "plaese" on any of the above sites? Do I need the latest edition of Black's? I can't find those definitions at all, oh careful and detail-oriented A. Coward. Without resolving those two issues, I'm having trouble following your carefully stated premise and well-reasoned arguments to your no doubt brilliant conclusion.

Actually this is extra-insightful.

The resignation of Richard M. Nixon totally changed reporting and what reporters thought they could accomplish with an investigation. Prior to the 1970s administrations were considered inviolate even if they were poor. And that inviolability was created by the first President to be impeached, Andrew Johnson. Nixon was impeached based on information provided to the House Judiciary Committee and the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities by the press as well as leaks from the White House.

Now the press feels that it has a special relationship with government and can actually bring governments down. Rather was a reporter during the Nixon Administration and he (and all television networks) still has strong memories of being scooped by the Washington Post, regularly and routinely. Bring scooped is a painful experience to a reporter.

Mr. Rather certainly got so excited about the possibility of releasing information that could result in a change of government that he didn't closely examine what was provided him by the CBS producer who passed off forgeries as real documents. But, to give Rather his due, he had just come back from a long trip and didn't have much time. In retrospect, anyone younger than 30 could have figured out that a typewriter would not have made the kinds of characters (in a different type size) that were visible in the document that was used to show GWB's apparent absences from the National Guard. Problem is, big media companies tend to not hire people over 30 to produce.

Additionally, big media companies no longer hire people to do research and fact-checking like they used to back when Nixon was President. They don't hire these kinds of people because the role of television news has changed from "public service" to "entertainment." That happened when news divisions were told to actually make money for the broadcasters.

Perhaps Rather was still operating under an assumption that facts were being checked. He should not have assumed that. But certainly his executive producer ought to have been more "hands-on" with this particular report.

I don't think Rather "hates" Bush. I think he, like many broadcasters and reporters, trembles with the excitement at the thought of being a central figure in the change of an administration.

No, but it IS the court's job to check the constitutionality of laws. If a law is blatantly unconstitutional, the SCOTUS should strike it down, not wait until a case is brought before it.

when President George Washington forwarded to the Court a request for guidance as to how best to maintain neutrality...consistent with international law and treaties to which the United States was a party. Chief Justice Jay responded by informing the President that the Court was without power to help...Jay said that the Constitution authorized the Court to interpret the law only in the context of a real case or controversy--it had no power to render an advisory opinion about the law.

But after 9/11, the criticisms came from a different direction. It was revealed that FBI agents failed to get a FISA warrant to search the computer of al Qaeda suspect Zacarias Moussaoui before 9/11, because they felt the FISA process was too difficult. Inside America's secret court

Q. Could you tell us what the -- would you describe for us what the process was then for you to go about procuring a FISA warrant back in August of 2001?

A. Once my investigation had convinced myself and supervisors, other agents working the case with me, that probable cause existed to believe that the subject of that warrant -- of that search was acting as an agent of a foreign power, then I would prepare an electronic communication, an EC, and supporting documentation that would go to the Radical Fundamentalist Unit, or the FBI headquarters unit that was overseeing that investigation. They would, they would take that information, they would add whatever type -- whatever information they could to amplify their request, and then they would take it to a headquarters unit, FBI headquarters unit called the National Security Law Unit, comprised of lawyers whose expertise is in the area of national security law.

They would review it to ensure that probable cause did, in fact, exist to establish that that person was acting as an agent of a foreign power. When that was in agreement and the FBI agreed that the application had merit, it would then go to the Department of Justice, OIPR, Office of Intelligence Policy Review, where it would again be reviewed by attorneys, this time in the Department of Justice outside the FBI, and again, when all parties agreed that probable cause existed, it would go forward to the FISA court in the form of a declaration.

Q. And, and even when the application goes to the FISA judge, the FISA judge still has the decision whether to approve it or disapprove it; is that right?

A. That's correct. There's many points along the way where it can be forwarded and not forwarded. The ultimate person who decides is a FISA court judge......

Q. All right. And can you explain why it is that, you know, based upon your knowledge and your training, that there is this difference between all the different layers that are necessary for the FISA warrant as opposed for the lesser scrutiny on a criminal search warrant?

A. Because of the -- it just precludes any even illusion that there's a possibility that the FBI could abuse the intelligence investigation process.

Q. And when you talk about abuse, what do you mean by that?

A. I mean if there's not enough information to, to establish a criminal case, the Department of Justice and the Attorney General have set up guidelines to prevent the FBI from applying for intelligence techniques to circumvent that lack of evidence.

Q. The idea being if you don't have enough for a criminal warrant, you don't use the ruse of going to get a FISA warrant when you couldn't have gotten a criminal warrant?

A. Yes.

So 200 hours could mean that someone entered something onto a screen in a computer system in five minutes and it was done.

I doubt that there is much of anything useful involving either classified data or the courts that you could do in 5 minutes. Combine the two and guess what happens?

Either way, I think this is a number used to create an impression rather than to convey any meaningful information.

The number is both meaningful and it should create an impression: there is tremendous overhead to the classified warrant system. From that you might conclude that forcing the use of warrants when they aren't legally required is a bad thing that wastes resources, eats up precious time, reduces the effectiveness of surveillance, and generally makes it harder to deal with terrorists trying to kill us.

Since when do federal laws that have lower standards override higher standards at the state level?

It's the doctrine of Federal preemption, and it's been around for a while. Here's a good explanation.

You had me going for a moment. Bill Clinton's quote regarding Monica Lewinsky...

It is time to stop the pursuit of personal destruction and the prying into private lives and get on with our national life. Our country has been distracted by this matter for too long, and I take my responsibility for my part in all of this. That is all I can do. Now it is time-in fact, it is past time-to move on. We have important work to do-real opportunities to seize, real problems to solve, real security matters to face.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c linton/clintonstatements.html

3 words -- interstate commerce clause.

Especially with satellite as the company selling the service clearly does so across state lines. Most cable companies operate across state lines as well, and even if they don't a number of cases imply physically crossing state lines don't matter. See

    * NLRB v Jones & Laughlin Steel (1937) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relati ons_Board_v._Jones_%26_Laughlin_Steel_Corporation
    * Wickard v Fillburn (1942) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
    * Katzenbach v McClung (1964) http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/mcclung.html

The federal government may legally regulate all private economic activity.

Galileo ran into trouble because of remarks he made about the hope - politics was the problem, not science.

I can't believe this ridiculous white-washing of history. It's on par with the previous pope's remarks that the Galileo affair was just something like healthy "scientific skepticism" on the side of the church. He was tried by the Papal Inquisition for breaking the church edict that forbade promoting heliocentric model as more than a hypothesis, or heresy. Insulting Pope Urban VIII was not the crime his book was ultimately banned (until the 19th century!) for, or the crime why he was put under house arrest for the rest of his life. The crime he was charged with was "heresy". Just read the recantation he was forced to read. The Church didn't even apologize until the 20th century, and even then they were apologetic.

Then there is also Giordano Bruno, who was burned on a stake for the heresy of going against the Catholic dogma. His works were banned by the Church for hundreds of years too. I wonder how you would construe that to not be a conflict of science and religion.

Try telling them that Christianity and science don't mix.

The statistics speak for themselves: science, especially the natural sciences, is corrosive for religious faith, and religion is corrosive for education. If you don't believe it fuels indoctrination of ignorance, just look at how Ken Ham teaches children, the exhibits in his "museum", or the Trojan horse of the religionists -- the ID creationism. It's almost amusing how you claim that there is no conflict between science and religion, and base it on the fact that there are many scientists with religious beliefs, as if that meant anything after thousands of years of religious, in this case Christian, hegemony. Duh!

Sure, if we go along with your false dichotomy that anything you think is a contradiction must be a contradiction and the explanations of those who know the Bible better, have studied it considerably more and arrive at a different conclusion are clearly wrong.

No one who has actually studied the Bible can honestly say that there are no contradictions. If they do, they really are wrong (most don't). Also, your usage of "false dichotomy" is nonsensical. If I think that 2 + 2 is not 5, is it also a "false dichotomy" just because someone might interpret that expression with his own arithetic in which there are different rules?

was written for a populist government. Words mean things, and an "ex post facto" (latin for "after the fact") law is one which changes the legal consequences of a past event. It's clear, unambiguous language.

Having said that, I'm aware that there are many examples where the courts have made rulings which plainly and directly contradict the clear meaning of the words. is a particularly disingenuous one - it found that growing crops for personal use was "interstate commerce," and has become the basis for rampant federalism, in direct conflict with the words and intent of the Constitution.

Unfortunately, other than a revolution, there's no recourse when the Supremes boldly proclaim that "Black is White." It does, however, mean that we are no longer a nation of law, since words have no meaning to our courts.

In the case at hand, the courts can say otherwise all they want, but the fact is, the emperor has no clothes.

Given the number of libertarians that post on slashdot, I'm surprised nobody has enlightened you to the concept of Jury Nullification. In the US legal system, juries judge the case *and* the law. Here's more information.

You're right and, what you didn't address, doesn't take away from my point. What I meant to say, and failed utterly miserably (so miserably as to have been misleading), is that the government is not supposed to hand out consequences for your speech. That doesn't prevent Obama's campaign (aka "not government") from sanctioning the individual for actions deemed unbecoming to the association as a whole. Nor does it mean you have to agree with Obama's campaign to fire the guy. It just means that there is no criminality or unconstitutionalness going on here.

Note: where to get some of this from is simply a google search for "first amendment history" - I found this intro to be informative, and even mentions the "shouting 'fire' in a theater" concept.

This is a very good idea on first blush, but rots into something very bad when you think just a little bit about how it will work. Obviously jennasmassivetits.com and cockpluscock.com type sites will be the first to become .xxx, and we'll all pat ourselves on the back for it. The children are finally safe from substitute teachers who can't close popups fast enough! But now we've started a very slippery slope.

PG-13 sites will become contentious -- she's in a lacy bra: is the bra see-through or opaque? Or mostly opaque? Or mostly see-through? A whole host of semi-erotic or tastefully erotic sites will suddenly live in a nether-world of "yes it's .xxx" or "no it's just the beauty of God's creation" etc.

And that is only the start. Soon after, very obviously PG sites that, for example, say basic things like "abortion is an option for some women" and "it's okay to be gay" will be considered ".xxx" material; whole swaths of Wikipedia will have to be walled off. On the other side of the political curtain, liberals will likely want to add "hate-speech" to the .xxx domain, and so the sites advocating AGAINST abortion or gay rights will be walled-off. Basically anything debated anywhere in the country will become "adult."

And finally you'll emasculate many web humorists. Late Night With Conan O'Brien now runs hornymanatee.com -- it's entirely PG (a man in a large felt manatee suit embraces, fondles, and strokes his felt suit), but some humorless prig will most certainly want it to be .xxx, meaning that NBC will be on the record for creating .xxx domains for its television shows.

It's a bad idea. The Supreme Court's last ruling about obscenity was Miller v. California - http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/obscenity.htm - and it left us with wonderfully sharp guidelines like is it obscene for a "community's standards" [which community?] and "I know it when I see it." I'm sure everyone across the entire Internet can come to complete agreement about "I know it when I see it."

In Morton Grove, 2 of 3 federal judges decided:
a) that the state constitutional right to bear arms has weasel words tha tmake it unenforceable. (textually, they were right.)
b) that only the supreme court has the authority to decide whether the second amendment is incorporated to the states, an issue which it has not revisited in 120 years, at a time when the first amendment was also not recognized as applying to the states.
The rest of the opinion is just blather, "dicta",and is not the holding of the case.
In the dicta, the court does get wrong Miller v US, which holds that before dismissing a case against a guy with a sawed-off shotgun, a hearing should be held to see if the shotgun is a militia weapon. (It is, as was shown by the use of the sawed-off shotgun against the Huk, Phillipene insurgents.) The Morton Grove court didn't understand that a pistol is a militia weapon - it is.
For a better case on the role of the Second Amendment in the states, see Emerson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Emer son and the dissents in silveira.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silveira_v._Lockyer.
DC, however, is not in the states, so the second amendment issue is raised more directly.
Morton Grove's dissent might also be worth noting.
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/quilici2.html

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/rightofprivacy.html

It starts off:

"The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Ninth Amendment states that the "enumeration of certain rights" in the Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people." The meaning of......"

What happened in Mexico was a lack of transparency. It was like the almost-rigged election on Battlestar Galactica last season.

IF all parties had been allowed to watch each and every ballot each and every minute until the results were finalized, fraud would be much harder. IF the election judges rules that a meaningful, scientific, random statistical sample of the ballots be recounted under the watchful eye of all parties, gaming the recount would be much harder.

In Thailand, IMHO if you legitimately elect a leader, and he makes decisions the population doesn't like but which are within his authority, you have only a few legitimate options: Use the legal process to take away the authority or dissolve the office altogether, use legal authority to force early elections, or wait until the next election. In the USA, Congress can remove a lot of the power of a runaway President save what is specified in the Constitution. They can also shut him out of decision-making processes by agreeing to override any vetos. If need be, they can submit a "one-time" constitutional ammendment to the states declaring the office of the Presidency vacant. If they want to play dirty, the House can do an Andrew Johnson and impeach him on political charges and hope the Senate convicts.

Right now, I can only think of a few reasons to commit treason and hold a coup: if the President either acts to prevent his own impeachment or uses force to stay in office, or if Congress is cooperating with the President in clearly illegal behavior and it will take the military to restore the Constitution.

If the Founding Fathers would have only bitched and moaned, but did follow the letter of the law, we would all be speaking the King's English, mate. Unjust, immoral and unethical laws exist, it then becomes a citizen's duty to resist. Ever hear of http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/z enger/nullification.html/?

or maybe they can arrest you for incitement to commit a crime: Advocacy of Unlawful Action and the "Incitement Test"

for which the penalty is likely to be greater than simple trespass.

I teach HS gov't (among other things) and this has been an ongoing debate for, well, 220+ years. If you remember the FDR years, he tried to pack the court after they kept overturning his New Deal legislation. Ultimately, two justices retired, and he was able to put his people on the bench and get his programs past the courts. It was a sad day for true lovers of liberty. (Make no mistake, I applaus FDR for taking on the Nazis when few wanted to. But domestically...) There was a 1942 SCOTUS decision called Wickard v. Filburn which basically stretched the commerce clause to enormous proportions. It is oddly enough, under the guise of the commerce clause that the drug war is justified. The courts (not the people, though we have no problem with most of it) have granted the congress powers to do whatever it feels necessary. The elastic clause states that congress has the power to do all things necessary and proper to execute the "foregoing powers", in other words, those specifically listed under Art. I, Sect. 8. But...the days of limited gov't are over. What amazes me is that around here, all of those that decry the NSA wiretapping, Gitmo, loss of privcy, et al., have no problem with the gov't running health care, and all sorts of programs. Me? I'm a libertarian on msot things. I am opposed to the stem cell bill on libertarian grounds: i.e. the gov't is simply not authorized and should not get involved. Same thing with the NEA. I don't care if some guy wants to do research on stem cells or take photos of dude with things shoved up his ass. I just don't want the gov't involved in any sense, either saying what they can or can't do, nor spending a dime on it. But sadly, I'm in the vast minority. Most people, republicans and democrats alike, want the very same things. They want the gov't to effect their agenda, though the outcomes might be different, the means are the same. I disagree on means. The growth in power and influence of the gov't in our lives has increased tenfold the last few decades. There's precious little we can do.

Try not to make assumptions regarding posts and their posters on the basis of their literacy skills.

Hate to burst your bubble, but this Internet of ours is primarily a textual medium. As far as extrinsic ethos goes, your literacy skills are all you've got. We have literally no other way to judge you as a rhetor.

You're welcome to protest that such things shouldn't be important. But they are. Sorry.

Searching for "Laws fall silent in times of war" led to this page. Putting it in context, barring further violence US politics hopefully will begin to lose some hysteria and in another 5 years and we can get back to more pressing issues such as whether or not such and such president got or did not get a bj and whether we ought to impeach the bastard. And he didn't inhale.

Before the Civil War, there was strong arguments for the idea that the limitations on the federal government (as noted in the 1st Amendment "Congress shall make no law") did not apply to the state governments. The state governments could theoretically pass laws abridging the freedoms of its citizens that the federal government could not. The 10th Amendment is in fact the strongest source of support for that idea. A restriction barring the federal government from doing something is not "power delegated to" it -- it's the opposite.

After the Civil War, the 14th Amendment was passed specifically to prevent Southern states from passing laws that discriminated against blacks in the way that the federal government could not. This is known as the Equal Protection Clause (and has sadly been used to defend the rights of corporations far more than it has been used to defend the rights of minorities). It reads like this:

"Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

This is the clause that extends limitations on the powers of the federal government to the state governments and prevents the abridgement of free speech by them.

However, pornography and obscenity have long been ruled by the Supreme Court as having lesser protection that political speech. The case Miller v. California set forth a test to determine pornography that has been used ever since. Justice Burger in his opinion wrote the following:

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Change "sexual conduct" in part (b) to "violence to people" and you've probably got a bill that would survive a Supreme Court decision. Whether or not the list of barred things is overly broad and violates the second test is where it's most likely to stand or fall. The third test is where a lot people think that works will escape, but as Burger says in the sentence immediately following this test, "We do not adopt as a constitutional standard the 'utterly without redeeming social value" test of Memoirs v. Massachusetts.'" You can read more about obscenity and the 1st Amendment here.

You know absolutely nothing about how our system works.

On the contrary, I do know how the system works. Jury nullification is pretty much as I have described it, but *the courts* (you know, the ones you said "just judge") have been working to destroy that mechanism (of course, since they are there for power, not for right.) It still exists in some venues, however. The courts haven't managed to stamp the citizens completely into the mud as yet.

I thought you were capable of discussion. Instead, you wipe the slate clean, deriding it as systematically and fatally flawed, and you sound, sir, like a crackpot.

It is, in point of fact, my belief that the legal system is completely, utterly broken, rarely providing anything that remotely resembles justice, often dispensing injustice, almost entirely bereft of fairness, yet standing ready to dispense favor to those with power, money, or both. Compounding matters, it is my belief that a huge number of the laws that the system finds worthy of enforcing are bad, in the sense of being inherently wrong (which I call "evil"), laws. It is my right (still, just barely) to hold and espouse these opinions.

If debate is what you seek, then all you have to do is bring a winning argument to the table. I am perfectly capable of saying, "why sir, you are right, and I stand corrected." That you have failed to do that is not my problem. It is yours. That you have put into a public forum statements that show you do not understand the area of argument is also your fault; but that is not an uncommon result when an attempt is made to defend an inherently flawed idea, ideal, or social structure.

As for the name-calling... definitely a point for you sir, to have so successfully demonstrated your devotion to the character of your profession. :-)

Until you learn about how the system currently works, you will continue to be frustrated, and you will never make progress as you will be fighting something that only exists in your mind.

It would appear that I do know how it works. Which raises the question as to why you really ran off, O jewel of Legal Authority. :-) As regards my "frustration", you are simply mistaken. I have found that the populace in general, and the legal profession as a specific sub-sector of the population, very rarely fails to meet my expectations. The both of you have made this mess; and now you shall simply have to live in it. I am certainly not interested in trying to save you from yourself. I just think you should be interested in doing so. But this, alas, requires that you have a fully developed set of ethics, and being in law... well, I'm sure you know what I'm thinking. And why.

Sigh......no, they are not. Read the 1st Amendment one more time (since there have been plenty issues on /. of this nature before):

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I think I've made the important part perfectly clear. Government institution or not, public schools are not bound by the 1st amendment when it comes to deciding what is a punishable offense and what is freedom of speech. There are, however, several judicial precidents regarding how long the arm of the school can get. I believe it was posted somewhere else under this topic, but here it is again: Tinker vs. Des Moines and others

I've hunted around for some web resources that give good overviews of the events that took place. Some are biased, but contain good information nonetheless. As with many such things, a balanced overview can only really be obtained from "averaging" several sources.

A rather good (if biased) article with an extensive list of references can be found at http://www.adam.com.au/bstett/ReligGalileoMyth95.h tm

There is another good resource at http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/g alileo/galileo.html. Again, somewhat biased, but it includes some interesting translations of original trial documents, including the inquisition's verdict.

A link to a book review which nevertheless contains some key points such as the fact that Galileo had no actual proof for his heliocentric beliefs:
http://www.americanscientist.org/template/BookRevi ewTypeDetail/assetid/49581;jsessionid=baaesdBdzFeP Uj

A quick overview of the history of heliocentricism (including some good links) is here:

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/helioce ntrism.

Obviously biased (considering the source!) but nevertheless interesting is the entry for Galileo in the Catholic Encyclopaedia. One of many links to it is at:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06342b.htm

I hope you find these links both useful and interesting. If nothing else, the fact that some of them cite sources means that they can be used as "jump points" for further reading.

That TiVo sued EchoStar in tiny Marshall, Texas, was no accident, said Bradford Lyerla, intellectual property attorney and partner with Marshall, Gerstein & Borun, a specialty firm in Chicago. Juries there, Lyerla said, find in favor of the plaintiffs in patent trials about 80% of the time.
...
"TiVo has a great jury story," Lyerla said. "If TiVo loses, it could be the end of them. That creates greater sympathy on the part of the jury."

You know what kind of troops I support?

This kind.

Because the majority of troops, American or not, will not act ethically or morally. They will follow orders, and that is no excuse for doing wrong.

It is universally agreed under Anglic law that the job of the jury is to return a verdict according to the factual evidence in the particular case before them. It is a matter of contention as to whether and to what extent the law itself should be judged by a jury. Most judges and lawyers consider outright nullification an irremediable error, and hold the view that it is the function of the judge to decide the questions of law, and the jury to only decide the questions of fact. Proponents of the right of jury nullification disagree, with considerable US historical precedent. Both sides feel that any flaws of the current arrangement are less than those of any proposed alternative to correct them.

Myself, I believe it is a right akin to that of the right to take arms against the government for purpose of establishing a new one: not justicable when sucessful, but the exercise of this right indicates a major problem in society (one way or another), and should be done neither lightly nor casually. That said, the prosecutor would have his work cut out extracting a "guilty" verdict out of me given the surrounding circumstances of this case, and the DA would also have no hope of extracting my vote for his re-election.

Those interested in the topic should read the oddly named Sparf v. US in its entirety. (No, it's not the trial of a Thundercat.)

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/c onlaw/commercial.htm

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/am endment01/17.html#2

thank fvcking god for that.

"Stem cell research is performed using fetuses that would have been destroyed anyway. Can anybody argue that using them for research is morally any worse than simply destroying them?"

No. Which is why IVF is just as bad as embryonic stem cell research. Look when Nazis were killing folks anyway they decided they ought to at least benefit from the killing. They then decided that experiments should be performed on them. You know. They were going to be killed anyway so it was moral research right?

From the Nuremberg Trials Count 2 Paragraph 6:

Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the defendants herein unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving medical experiments without the subjects' consent, upon civilians and members of the armed forces of nations then at war with the German Reich and who were in the custody of the German Reich in exercise of belligerent control, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts. Such experiments included, but were not limited to, the following:
A) High-Altitude Experiments
B) Freezing Experiments
C) Malaria Experiments
D) Lost (Mustard) Gas Experiments
E) Sulfanilamide Experiments
F) Bone, Muscle, and Nerve Regeneration and Bone Transplantation Experiments
G) Sea-Water Experiments
H) Epidemic Jaundice Experiments
I) Sterilization Experiments
J) Spotted Fever (Fleckfieber) Experiments
K) Experiments with Poison
L) Incendiary Bomb Experiments

Count 3 Paragraph 11:

Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the defendants herein unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed crimes against humanity, as defined by Article II of Control Council Law No. 10, in that they were principals in, accessories to, ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving medical experiments, without the subjects' consent, upon German civilians and nationals of other countries, in the course of which experiments the defendants committed murders, brutalities, cruelties, tortures, atrocities, and other inhuman acts. The particulars concerning such experiments are set forth in paragraph 6 of count two of this indictment and are incorporated herein by reference.

And of course Count 3 Paragraph 14 details their Euthanasia program

The Nuremberg Trials

I'm afraid your information is a bit off here about the Scopes Monkey Trial. It may indeed have galvanized science, but it was also quite possibly one of the biggest scams to ever hit the American court system.

Basically, the law that caused it all came down, and just about everybody thought the thing was idiotic - the science teachers, the locals of Dayton, and for that matter, the court in question. The problem was that any previous attempts to challenge the law had been quashed at the legislative level, and the only way to actually get rid of the thing was to have it declared unconstitutional, and that meant a court challenge.

So, some of the people in the town of Dayton decided that they would challenge the law, but for that they needed somebody to be charged for breaking it. Now, in order for the law to actually get struck down as unconstitutional, it had to happen in the court of appeal, since the district court didn't have the authority to do so. Therefore, the defense actually WANTED a guilty verdict, as that way it could get up to an appeal, and the law could get quashed. Even the judge knew this was a test case, and the publicity was key.

At the same time, the town was in dire need of publicity, so they welcomed it. Dayton became a tourist town, for all intents and purposes. There wasn't any of the bigotry and violence suggested in "Inherit the Wind" - it was more like going to a carnival, and even Scopes was late for a trial session at one point because he had been swimming with friends.

Ironically, while it did go to the court of appeal, the idea failed - the charge was quashed, but on a technicality rather than constitutional grounds.

Some more information is available here: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/s copes/evolut.htm

Evolution has little place in theology

I disagree. Evolution is not mentiond at all in the Bible, so religious fundamentalists must reject it. Catholicism has more basis in rationalism. For example (excerpted from "The Vatican's View of Evolution")

Excerpt: "Pope Paul II revisited the question of evolution in a 1996 a message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. Unlike Pius XII, John Paul is broadly read, and embraces science and reason. He won the respect of many scientists in 1993, when in April 1993 he formally acquitted Galileo, 360 years after his indictment, of heretical support for Copernicus's heliocentrism. The pontiff began his statement with the hope that "we will all be able to profit from the fruitfulness of a trustful dialogue between the Church and science." Evolution, he said, is "an essential subject which deeply interests the Church." He recognized that science and Scripture sometimes have "apparent contradictions," but said that when this is the case, a "solution" must be found because "truth cannot contradict truth." The Pope pointed to the Church's coming to terms with Galileo's discoveries concerning the nature of the solar system as an example of how science might inspire the Church to seek a new and "correct interpretation of the inspired word." When the pope came to the subject of the scientific merits of evolution, it soon became clear how much things had changed in the nearly since the Vatican last addressed the issue. John Paul said: "Today, almost half a century after publication of the encyclical, new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of the theory." Evolution, a doctrine that Pius XII only acknowledged as an unfortunate possibility, John Paul accepts forty-six years later "as an effectively proven fact." (ROA, 82)"

I'm only mildly disappointed by this action. The (RI|MP)AA? is only continuing their tradition of squeezing every last penny out of their consumer base at the expense of anyone who stands in their way. They'll sue *anyone*, and now they'll try to have *anyone* put in jail for violating their "rights". Perhaps they have a legal right to do this, but where does this end? This issue is seriously eroding people's rights. I can publish a song, and prevent you from:
  - Copying it (certainly)
  - Letting someone else listen to it (AFAIK)
  - Sing it

Where does this end? I'll tell you. When artists and musicians realize that as soon the pain associated with their art form reaches a certain level, people will quickly move elsewhere. The (RI|MP)AA? likes to think that society depends on them for what they need (e.g. music) to survive. Actually, it's quite the other way around, except that they are the only game in town. People need something to do in the car. They need an activity to go to at night (concerts). They don't like total silence at work. That's the reason for the existence of *most* modern music. There are certainly exceptions, but the new Ashley Lipsyncher Simpson CD is their bread and butter.

As for movies and the rest of the "art forms", it's generally the same thing. If the whole music/movie industry dried up over night, there wouldn't be much of a loss to society as a whole. Independent musicians would quickly take their place, and something would come along to replace movies like Cabin Fever and television shows like The Bernie Mac Show.

Most people don't have a problem paying for music or movies. I certainly don't. But I will not allow myself to be subjected to rediculous licensing agreements and terms associated with the goods that I purchase. Imagine if you went to a grocery store and purchased a can of Betty Crocker cake icing, and on the back it said, "This Icing is being licensed to you, the consumer, for the exclusive use with Betty Crocker brand cakes and cake mixes. Unauthorized use will have you subject to prosecution. Under the terms of this non-transferable license agreement, you agree to not share this Icing with anyone else. In addition, you give up your right to sue Betty Crocker if said Icing makes you sick and/or you die from its consumption."

Yeah, just wait and see.

And would you care to enlighten us as to what the political agenda of the ACLU is? As far as I can see, they'll handle cases on *either* side of the political divide. (They've been known to defend the right of neo-nazis who wanted to demonstrate but were denied permits.) What I had heard was that they actually strive to be neutral, and just go ahead and do their jobs regardless of who hates them for it.

The weirdness of the neo-nazi thing was effectively lampooned by an Onion article, by the way....

For those who might be fans, Lenny Bruce had a funny bit about pissing in the sink.

Excerpt here:

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/b ruce/brucemonologues.html#Pissing

No, it's a very good idea.

First, we are dealing with minds that consider teachers authority figures. These minds are not up to the task of questioning; that's why they are called "children".

Second, it isn't up to the state to teach your religion, and ID is nothing but religion. Children deserve interaction with their parents. If the parents want to teach their children religion, then they are free to do so, but keep your flawed "science" out of my kids brains. I will undertake to be their spiritual guide, it's one of my duites as their father.

Lastly, the following quote is relivent:
"It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Postscript to Revolt in 2100, (C) 1954

One might do well to review the The Trial of Socrates, who was put to death for asking too many uncomfortable questions. Science is about verifiable answers to questions, religion is about answers provided by Devine Inspiration. You decide what kind of society you want to live in. Also, that link contains a reference to "evil doers", and may be interesting for other reasons.

Baptists beleive that dancing, smoking, drinking, pornography, and premarital sex are sinful, and that failing to support your church with thithes (10-15% of your income) is immoral. While I have no arguement with someone that wants to hold those beliefs, I see no reason for them to become embodied in law and enforced by the police. ID is an attempt to enforce a belief under color of law. America doesn't need an American Taliban.

Very interesting reading on the subject can be found at the ACLU web site, and in particular this document.

It isn't censorship to withhold permission to use your own copyrighted works from someone who is twisting the point of your work. It's called intellecutual honesty, and I've yet to meet an ID proponet with it.

Who'da thunk we'd have a replay of the Scopes Monkey trial in today's age?