Slashdot Mirror
SCO Lobbying Congress Against Open Code
An anonymous reader writes "Along with suing Novell - it was announced today that SCO has been lobbying Congress about the horrifying ways that Linux and the rest of open source software saves users money, allows others to use the software anyway they see fit and 'gasp' causes SCO to not make as much money as they would like. Along with all of the usual FUD. OSAIA has the details (as well as a rebuke)." Darl's words will seem pretty transparent, even funny, to anyone aware of the widespread acceptance and use of Free / Open Source software (by individuals, governments, non-profits, and even companies like SCO) -- but you might have to point this out to your servants in Congress.
Mod parent up, it's funny!
Been modded interesting, insightful and funny. Why does real life have to be so different?
That's just ripe with pothead propaganda.
Here's a good quote for the readers.
However, Robbie Anderman's claim of an industrial conspiracy to outlaw cannabis, while making for interesting reading, is nothing but an urban myth that was popularized several years ago by the California writer Jack Herer.
The prohibition of cannabis started much earlier, at the state level, in the southwestern United States, beginning with Utah in 1914.
The first laws criminalizing cannabis were passed out of race hatred and hostility towards migrant Mexican farm labourers who smoked cannabis, much as the first laws criminalizing opium were passed in order to harass newly arrived migrant workers from China.
Kelly T. Conlon
Ottawa Citizen
I think pot should be legal. I don't feel the government should have any right to tell you that you can't smoke some pot. But all this BS about government conspiracy and hemp being a super plant that can save the environment does not help the smoker's cause.
A Usenet Troll Triumphs on Slashdot
Not to quibble, but marijuana was effectively criminalized by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Before that point, Cannabis, as it was called in America, was an herbal remedy recognized by doctors and listed in the national pharmacopia. It was sold by many major drug companies, Merck, Eli Lily, Bristol-Mayer, and Johnson & Johnson, to name a few.
The tax act made it illegal to possess hemp without a license, and impossible to get the license without first (illegally) owning hemp! There were two major reasons behind the act. The stated public reason was those Mexican immigrants used 'marijuana' to seduce our daughters. The real reason was that the newly laid off federal prohabition agents needed something to do. Huge federal bureaucracies do not simply dissappear when they have outlived their usefullness.
Hearst's extensive timber holdings (with which hemp competes in the paper pulp market) and Dupont's newly invented synthetic fibers may have had something to do with it. Also, the pharmaceutical companies were developing bunches of new, synthetic patent remedies. Cannabis was a commodity item, with low profit margins, and it competed directly with the higher profit patented drugs.
The war on cannabis began well before the 50s, but by then it was in full swing. In the early 70s, an act of Congress made it a Schedule I (dangerous, addictive, with no redeeming benefits) drug, pending a full investigation. The investigation showed it to be harmless, non physically addictive, with potential beneficial effects, but by then marijuana had become synonomous with drugged up draft dodging anti-American hippies, so the study was ignored and marijuana remained Schedule I.
I know all this because I did some computer consulting work for a medical marijuana club in California. I installed a point of sale system, membership database, data encryption and remote server kill switches for them. They taught me a little about the history of pot. Scary stuff. I'm sure the government has me on a little list somewhere. Well screw them. Screw them right in the ear.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Pronunciation: 'di[ng]-g&l-"ber-E
Function: noun
Etymology: origin unknown
Date: 1955
: a piece of dried fecal matter clinging to the hair around the anus
Source: Merriam Webster
Some things are just not worth knowing.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
My school sucked so bad, a piece of the engineering building fell off and hit someone. Did they fix it? No, they set up a barricade for the remainder of the year.