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A link would be useful. This is what the parent is talking about.

I'd caution against not paying your taxes due to moral reasons. You'd spend at least a night in jail and could prompt you to write something that would influence at least a century's worth of great people.

Federations are often founded on an original agreement between a number of sovereign states, sometimes after an intermediate period of confederation.

Your answer

Before flat-out saying "thou shalt let black people vote" with the Fifteenth Amendment, the idea was to penalize a state that denied suffrage to a portion of its men over the age of 21 by reducing its delegation in the House proportionally (and finding out the size of a state's delegation is what the Census is all about). While it may or may not have teeth now that the Fifteenth Amendment has been ratified (though, in my opinion, this idea is far better at enforcing itself), it hasn't been repealed and therefore still needs to be taken into consideration by the Census.

This post interested me so much, I'm actually going to read this book (A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens).

For anyone else interested, it's available at WikiSource.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Combined with Orwells thoughts on continuous warfare, it is indeed scary biscuits. I bolded the last bit to highlight the only way out of this mess.

1. Its been used in games for two decades now with nary a lawsuit. You have to actually defend a trademark to keep it.

Yes, but this is guaranteed by the First Geneva Convention (Article 44):

With the exception of the cases mentioned in the following paragraphs of the present Article, the emblem of the red cross on a white ground and the words " Red Cross" or " Geneva Cross " may not be employed, either in time of peace or in time of war, except to indicate or to protect the medical units and establishments, the personnel and material protected by the present Convention and other Conventions dealing with similar matters. The same shall apply to the emblems mentioned in Article 38, second paragraph, in respect of the countries which use them. The National Red Cross Societies and other societies designated in Article 26 shall have the right to use the distinctive emblem conferring the protection of the Convention only within the framework of the present paragraph.

Furthermore, National Red Cross (Red Crescent, Red Lion and Sun) Societies may, in time of peace, in accordance with their rational legislation, make use of the name and emblem of the Red Cross for their other activities which are in conformity with the principles laid down by the International Red Cross Conferences. When those activities are carried out in time of war, the conditions for the use of the emblem shall be such that it cannot be considered as conferring the protection of the Convention; the emblem shall be comparatively small in size and may not be placed on armlets or on the roofs of buildings.

The international Red Cross organizations and their duly authorized personnel shall be permitted to make use, at all times, of the emblem of the red cross on a white ground.

As an exceptional measure, in conformity with national legislation and with the express permission of one of the National Red Cross (Red Crescent, Red Lion and Sun) Societies, the emblem of the Convention may be employed in time of peace to identify vehicles used as ambulances and to mark the position of aid stations exclusively assigned to the purpose of giving free treatment to the wounded or sick.

And I'm pretty sure that the argument that "someone ignored the Geneva Convention in the past, so we get to ignore it too" doesn't hold water.

For goodness sake, it's not so hard to get and read the judge's conclusion, even if you can't find time to read the fascinating bulk of the 139 pages. The quote in a bit more context:

"With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom."

For pages 136 to 139 of the judgement, follow this link http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_ Area_School_District_6:_curriculum%2C_conclusion#H ._Conclusion.

If you want to find enlightenment on the subject of copyright, there are a few neat things you can read, like this wiki page or maybe this little blurb... You could always read the original statute of anne upon which US [and most all modern] copyright law is based, or maybe even glance over this. Copyright is bad for society, at least in its current form. Remember that it is essentially a right provided by the people, and the people have the power and the right to take it back.

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.
2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.
3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary:
   • (a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;
   • (b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals.

I dunno about help, but he should definitely try a course of Xanax® or Prozac®. Whenever I get angry about the crassness of our culture, that's what I do. Also, read some happy websites. Here's a good list -

http://www.fluffybundles.com/
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_a nd_Its_Future
http://www.ratemykitten.com/

Google is leading, Yahoo is following, they will never be number one. :)
But it is good that Yahoo do this, because Google was criticised for doing it, but now Yahoo does it too.

Now it is easier to get hands on information, and there is no wear and tear on digial formats like in books, so data can be preserved longer (hopefully).

Wikibooks also has free content. http://wikibooks.org/
"Think free. Learn free."

Also http://wikisource.org/

Hope this really sparks Free/Open Content!

Dos it have to be a print copy?

If not, try this: The Complete Works of H.P. Lovecraft, completely free (and legal!) in HTML. His works are available in a few other places online too, like here (see the copyright information at the bottom of the page-- most or all of Lovecraft's work is in the public domain), here (complete works, mostly in PDFs-- probably your best source), here (PDFs of several works), and here (a 100-page collection in a few different formats, including PDF and HTML).
Since most of Lovecraft's work is in the public domain, you can find other sources around the internet.
If you do want books, please consider buying from Arkham House, which has done a lot to promote Lovecraft's work, encourage and publish studies of it, and keep the genre alive by publishing the works of other authors. You'll find Lovecraft, S.T. Joshi (the leading Lovecraft scholar), and other authors like August Derleth on the authors page. You may notice on the main page that despite Lovecraft's works being available in the public domain, books of his works are three of the top five sellers at Arkham House.
Whether you read Lovecraft in electronic format or in bound books, enjoy!

For those of you who have no idea WTF is this, here's the original text:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu

and one of my favourites, the Mountains of Madness:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_ Madness

In general, wikipedia has lots of material on Lovecraft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

For those of you who have no idea WTF is this, here's the original text:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Call_of_Cthulhu

and one of my favourites, the Mountains of Madness:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_ Madness

In general, wikipedia has lots of material on Lovecraft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft

Those of you interested in space-based automation should take a look at the Advanced Automation for Space Missions report on Wikisource. Basically, it's a study which NASA sponsored back in 1980 to brainstorm and analyze different ways of using automation in space. Although it's fairly old, a lot of their analysis is still relevant today.

Here's the chapters:

1. Introduction
2. Terrestrial Applications: An Intelligent Earth-Sensing Information System
3. Space Exploration: The Interstellar Goal and Titan Demonstration
4. Nonterrestrial Utilization Of Materials: Automated Space Manufacturing Facility
5. Replicating Systems Concepts: Self-Replicating Lunar Factory and Demonstration
6. Technology Assessment of Advanced Automation for Space Missions
7. Conclusions and Implications of Automation in Space

I always think of this little red book.

I think Dr. Lessig overlooked copylefts as a viable alternative to public domain.

Lawrence Lessig overlooked copylefts?? Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons, author of Free Culture , and director on the FSF board??

I rather doubt it.

The issue is that a large part of our culture is copyrighted and owned by people who are going to milk this copyright for all it's worth, as long as they can. Creative Commons/GPL/GFDL are only useful if you already own the copyright, and it's not practical to replicate everything.

Where are those nuclear WMD?

You mean the efforts we thought were farther along, in Saddam's pursuit thereof? That would be "we thought" as in, we and the intelligence agencies of a dozen other countries (including France, Germany, Russia, and so on).

Sources? If your statement is true, why did Robin Cook resign saying that "Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction" ? Was the intelligence too secret for a member of her majesty's government?

Read the last version of the USAF Space Weapons doctrine.

And quite rightly. No armed force states doctrine in terms of "We establish dominance so that we can be nice to everybody." (Except maybe the "Hello Kitty" Air Force.)

There's a reason it's called a "force". Read Clausewitz. The only real way to measure the value of a military is by its effectiveness--how often it wins, sometimes by nothing more than the threat of its use. The moral value of a military comes from the motivation and direction of its application, and that comes from the leadership of the government wielding that military.

Don't forget the motto of the truly effective armed force: "'Fair' means I win. Period." Any student of arms who states otherwise is deluding either the listener or the speaker.

Unfortunately, if you, as in independent inventor, do come up with something worth a billion dollars, a big company will come along and take your toy away. The classic example is Edwin Armstrong (the inventor of FM radio), as detailed in Free Culture (starts 1/4 of the way down the page). The big radio companies ignored his patents, bankrupted him in court and otherwise drove him to suicide.

Given that small players are probably screwed if they land up on someone else's "turf" anyway, why should we have legislation to make it even harder?

The "I didn't know her name" is irrelevant in the context of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

No, no. In his own words, even. "EXPEL THE INFIDELS FROM THE ARAB PENINSULA". They want to create a caliphate under shar'ia law stretching scross the entire Middle East, and return to their glory days of the Middle Ages.

--grendel drago

I'm French, and I found it funny... Although I would add that the French would have been about 6 months late and would had scaled back to just 1 small bomb.

On another note:

The Preambule of the US Constitution states:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

From wikisource: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Uni ted_States_of_America

Notice the last word? America.

Seriously: my condolences to those who were hurt, lost loved ones, and cheers to Londoners who need to get on with it.

It's not often that I find myself agreeing with the opinions of Scalia, but the ruling of the majority seems to clearly fly in the face of our constitution.

To quote an excerpt from our fifth amendment, as taken from wikisource.org:
No person shall be [...] deprived of [...] property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The key point being that eminent domain is only supposed to be invoked when the land is needed for public use, which it is clearly not in this case, or when by due process of law, which is not satisfied by saying "local government knows best". Taking the land for private use and then arguing that this act indirectly benefits the public sounds to me like a clear run around the protections our founding fathers intended to bestow.

http://wikisource.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Paris :)

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.

4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

(Revelation 21:1-4)

Theologians are unsure of the release schedule of this new earth, and what it's exact feature set and space requirements will be. Detractors of the new earth claim it is merely vaporware, or a superficial modification of the old earth, to which it's supporters accuse its detractors of spreading FUD. Jesus, lead developer of the new earth, has in prior interviews (Luke 13:31-32) stated that the release schedule is a closely guarded secret, unknown even to him. Those upset at griefers for explointing bugs in the current system cry "How long, O Lord?" (Rev 6:10)

...and don't accuse me every time I interact with them.

You obviously don't read Zola. =)

People need to make money in order to have things like food and housing.

Theodore Kaczynski lived 'off the grid' and supported himself without the use of money for some 18 years while the USA government spent millions trying to apprehend him. He would have remained at large had his brother not read this and reluctantly(?) decided to 'turn him in'.

Fine. Just go live in a big national park like Yellowstone. Live off the land for as long as you can before the park rangers find you and kick you out. Apparently, all the 'decent' land in the USA has already been developed or is owned by major corporations or extremely wealthy people. Thus, in the USA except for the oil rich, Artic wasteland that is Alaska, it is nigh impossible to 'live off the land' and provide for yourself without the need/use for money.

In the USA, the Mecca of Capitalism, only one issue is paramount:

Money talks!...Nothing else matters!

If you look here:

http://wikisource.org/wiki/Text_of_2004_Osama_bin_ Laden_videotape

The fanatic says:

"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two Mujahideen to the furthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the Mujahideen, bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah."

Is 82 Billion a small sum for our government? Can the US really go bankrupt this way?

See all 64,060 bytes in their full glory here.

Yes it may have been vandalism and was corrected but this vandalized version just got me laughing.

"I think we forgot an "e" in there someplace..."

This little tidbit was the most interesting part of this whole thing.

"In France, it is more simple -- rights come from statute, only."

Unless you ignore the whole Declarations of the Rights of Man thing. The French go through constitutions every two weeks or so, and it's easier for them to just attach that particular piece of boilerplate instead of cut-and-paste all the time. It's only mentioned in the very first sentence of the (current) French Constitution, after all...

"you can't see the effects of Lousiana law as clearly as you could before."

Many people praticing law in Louisiana, who are painfully aware of living on "a civil law island in a common law sea" may disagree with you.

"So Civil Code countries don't have the concept of divine-enshrined or individual liberty."

Yeah, those godless commies!

They have no concept of "the natural, inalienable and sacred rights of man," there isn't anything in French law stating that "the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights," there aren't any checks on the legislature, such as something saying "law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society," and there certainly isn't anything in French constitutional law saying that property is an "inalienable" right, let alone "sacred!"

Oh, wait...

"If the government chose to take it away (constitutional amendment), many would argue that that was illegal according to natural law."

Alternatively, there are no similar invokations of the Declaration of Indepence codified in the United States Constitution. The US Constitution only points to itself as the "supreme law of the land" and constitutional amendments can be ratified that violate the spirit or even the letter of the Declaration of Independence, and the only way to fix it would be another amendment repealing it, or 3/4 of the state legislatures getting together and writing a new federal constitution entirely.

I mean, have you seen the Eighteenth Amendment?

(I just ranted in defense of the French... I feel so dirty...)

Well, I'd say that makes the current administration's actions toward its "detainees" a violation of everything the country was supposed to stand for, wouldn't you?

But then again, ignorance seems to be pretty rampant, enough so that Justice Scalia can call the Ten Commandments "a symbol that government derives its authority from God" and not get publically pimp-slapped for it.

'Cause if we go back to the Declaration, it stated that ... all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed .

Scalia, who I'm sure knows better, can get away with this crap because of widespread ignorance. Why the ignorance? I couldn't tell you. But I tell you that this country is based on consent of the governed and preservation of their rights---and an administration that forgets that is a disgrace to the nation.

--grendel drago

Comapre the techniques, then comment. How many people have been tortured to death at Gitmo?

Oh, I see, so everything is OK if there are less victims than during holocaust? Makes sense.

Also, while we're at it, where would you personally draw the line with regards to interrogation? What could and could not be done?

The Geneva Convention might be a good start, don't you think?

Unlike a thing, words and ideas must be transferred from one person to another to achieve utility. Theft, to me, is depriving someone of the use or enjoyment of something without compensation or consent. Copying a book or movie does not deprive the author (or producer, director, actor, etc.) of the use or enjoyment of the work. Copying an invention does not deprive the inventor of the use or enjoyment of the invention. What copying may do is deprive the originator of income derived from selling copies of the work (or things derived from the work). Intellectual property "rights" are really legal sanctioned monopolies (which is what "letters patent" originally granted explicitly). In the U.S., the right of Congress to grant copyrights and patents had to be explicitly included in the Constitution. This seems to indicate that such "rights" were not taken for granted.

The point? Complaining that another jurisdiction does not enforce your country's IP laws is like complaining that they have a different system of taxation. The only reason there is any international consistency is due to the efforts of large copyright holders who wish to extend their monopoly protections over the entire world (and also for the rest of time, if current efforts are any indication).

I think the comfort of life shouldn't change much if you play it smart. And if doing it that way, the colonies will enhance earth life a lot.

You can still have internet,tv and communications with earth, however with a 10 minute delay. For internet and TV that should not be that big of a problem (must people visit the same sites everyday anyway). Just have big cache for internet that automatically updates. TV is even less of a big deal, so what if you watch yesterdays show? Communication can be akward but you can still communicate. However get more used to email and recordings then direct communications.

Again if you play it smart you can have all the luxeries that you had on earth and more.

I think the comfort of life shouldn't change much if you play it smart. And if doing it that way, the colonies will enhance earth life a lot.

You can still have internet,tv and communications with earth, however with a 10 minute delay. For internet and TV that should not be that big of a problem (must people visit the same sites everyday anyway). Just have big cache for internet that automatically updates. TV is even less of a big deal, so what if you watch yesterdays show? Communication can be akward but you can still communicate. However get more used to email and recordings then direct communications.

Again if you play it smart you can have all the luxeries that you had on earth and more.

"Does anyone have a link to an english version of a transcript of what Bin Laden said in the video? I'd like to make up my own mind about what this guy has to say VS getting just choice quotes."

General info
Full text

According to Chapter II, Article 35 of the People's Republic of China constitution -- Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. -- pornography should be legal. Hmmph.

Or you could copy e to 10,000 places

There is most definitely scarcity in the world of intellectual property...it's called: The Labor Market.

True, if a thing doesn't exist, it's scarce. But once intelectual property is created, it is no longer scarce (except through artificial control of the supply). This is totally unlike tangible goods. Normally, a loaf of bread can't feed an infinite number of people, but what if it could? Should we pretend all our old rules still apply?

But you [can't] run an economy soley based on commodities!

Maybe not, but the things that are commoditized are no longer scarce. Operating system kernels, C compilers, web browsers, and word processors are no longer scarce because we have linux, gcc, mozilla, and open office.

Not everything will be commoditized, and not everything should be free. Some special purpose software will still require money to get someone to write it, just like dealerships aren't about to start handing out free cars. There's no reason why free markets can't coexist with free software.

-jim

Heh. I hadn't noticed this article until just now, but maybe my subconscious hit it: I ended up importing the book Free as in Freedom , a book written about RMS, into Wikisource today.