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US Pirate Movie Site DNS Seizure Fail
An anonymous reader writes "Last week, the US government in a highly publicized copyright protection frenzy took the extraordinary step of seizing domain names from foreign movie sites like NinjaVideo.net and TVshack.net. While the seizure raises confusing Internet legal / jurisdiction questions (the US and perhaps the state of Kentucky can seize domain names for foreign companies?), this study shows the legal issues may be moot — the raids mostly failed. Within hours of domain name seizure, tvshack.cc was back up and running (but this time using a Chinese registrar and a Cocos Islands ccTLD)."
More recently in 2008, Kentucky courts seized the domain names for 141 online gambling sites (all for companies based in other countries including Malta and Costa Rica). The Kentucky court action threatened to disrupt global traffic to PokerStars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and many others. As of March of this year the case is still winding its way through Kentucky appellate and supreme court (the case has been reversed then upheld and is currently resolving issues of standing).
What gives US the right to seize domains of companies based in other countries and force their laws, views and things like ACTA and banning of internet casinos to citizens of other countries?
You wouldn't want China to take down international sites that violate their laws, would you? Or radical countries like North Korea? It's not even just about Internet, but in general too. What makes it OK for USA to do so. Actually, instead of filtering maybe China should start just taking down the sites they don't like.
Since US tries to put laws on the citizens of other countries, I say it's only fair other countries do the same. Like execute the death sentence of Facebook CEO. The best thing about this is that if Zuckerberg gets put into Interpol wanted list, he gets extradited to Pakistan as soon as he visits some other country. It's only fair, right?
Hydras (hydra?) can be vicious bastards.
Living With a Nerd
I spent this last weekend watching some good DVD rips and some high quality telesync movies, streaming, for absolutely free.
If it weren't for the "takedown", I'd have never known they were around.
Please don't confuse us with our government. We're as fucking dumbstruck and horrified with this as you are. Just...wtf?
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Send in the clowns...
How did they bring down foreign domains anyways. If the registar and DNS servers are not in the states how can they do this without corporations from those foreign companies. I think I will RTFA now.
ArhcAngel Likes This
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
You can't stop the signal
~Mr Universe
Please don't confuse us with our government. We're as fucking dumbstruck and horrified with this as you are. Just...wtf?
You voted them in, so the're your responsibility. Unless you want to go the tin-foil hat route and say that the US populace has no influence or control over their government - in which case I would be looking for another country of residence.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I think its a sign of desperation. They know they are losing the war, and instead of changing with the times, they are adopting basically undefensable, unwinnable strategies.
I'm not forming an opinion on who's right or who's wrong, but I can tell you who is winning.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Nothing gives the US that right. I'd say a fair amount of people here feel the same way I do about that (at least I hope so).
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
What gives the US the right is simply this: the registry for said TLD is located in the US.
Just like China can apply their local laws to the TLD registry they control ,.cn, and North Korea can apply its laws to .nk, so can the US do the same for the registries which are based there: .com, .net, .org, .us.
The same applies to webservers: no matter under what TLD a webserver serves, if it's physically located inside the US, US laws apply to this server. In that case the US can't control the DNS name of the sites which are served but the pages/sites themselves.
If you don't like that, you can only try to convince your preferred registry to relocate to a country which has laws and procedures which are better suited to your goals. Or you could simply register a domain under that country's TLD.
Owned! Now get ice back to work fighting the drug cartels.
I don't know if you realize this, but we have a 2 party system. Every four years, we're faced with a decision between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. The government is not accountable to us, so long as they're getting the terrorists.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
NinjaVideo.net and TVshack.net? Never heard of either one - UNTIL NOW. I hope one of them has Blake's 7, haven't seen that since I was a kid.
Actually, instead of filtering maybe China should start just taking down the sites they don't like.
It's difficult for countries outside of the US to affect the DNS resolution since, iirc, nearly all of the core DNS/TLD resolving servers are in the US and the US can just change the target of the domain.
But we invented it! Al Gore laid the tubes himself! Shouldn't we get to make the rules and get to say who can use it and who can't?
rule of law is dead
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
I tried to Google "another country of residence," but it only came back with this...
It isn't just us.. I seem to remember Ebay being sued, because they allowed the sale of Nazi things on their website, which broke German (I think it was german, might be france) law. Not the country specific ebay.co.de or whatever.. but ebay.com. Because Ebay did not prevent someone from accessing a foreign site..
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I don't suppose you've got a loft for rent?
I have to live here currently, and the Christian fundamentalism, social regressivism, and anti-intellectual attitudes make me ill.
It's simple really. .net is a TLD owned by the USA. I don't agree with their views, but their methods are somewhat reasonable. If you get a .net domain, you play by USA rules, if you get a .cn domain, you play by China's rules, and if you get a .ru domain, you play by Russia's rules. TVShack didn't play well with the USA, the USA kicked them out, and now TVShack has shacked up with Cocos Island.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if all domain names had less strict rules, but that just isn't how it is.
Unfortunately there are a lot more like this lady than there are of me.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Wow, I really wish I could have as much faith in my political system as you obviously have in yours!
The execution of the majority of government policy is left to unelected bureacrats.
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
- Princess Leia to Grand Moff Tarkin
The United States would do well to understand what this means. We can benefit immensely by being the "central hub" of the Internet but we are pissing this historical advantage away at a frightening pace by not living up to our ideals with respect to "freedom of speech". The Patriot Act did wonders to ensure that we couldn't host data for other countries; and now this retarded "kill switch" idea will do the same for our ability to broker connections.
There really should be an actual litmus test so that people in charge of sectors of our economy have some clue how that sector works. Unfortunately for us, the world doesn't work that way.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The interesting thing is these admins that run these sites are more well versed in how the internet works then the people trying to take down the sites. They basically got taken down then outsmarted everyone by registering with another DNS in another country.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Thanks for all those links, didn't know about them. Entertaining stuff.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
"You voted them in, so the're your responsibility"
You live in Australia and made him what he is today, so you're responsible for Rupert Murdoch, who is just as responsible for the current state of American politics.
You voted them in, so the're your responsibility.
I didn't marry my sister, so I'm not allowed to vote in Kentucky.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
OK, so you must like censorship, since you live in Australia and you voted in the fucks who are filtering your internet. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
I don't know where you vote, but my ballots frequently have more than two candidates on them, in addition to a write in option. You are perfectly free to choose as you please. The government is as accountable as we make it, and not one iota more. All this whining is just an attempt to shed personal responsibility.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I think its a sign of desperation. They know they are losing the war, and instead of changing with the times, they are adopting basically undefensable, unwinnable strategies.
Given that I'd never heard of these sites until they got some federally subsidized free publicity, I'd have to agree with you.
That said, I'd love to see the MPAA turn around and sue the Feds for contributory copyright infringement.
What you're saying is pure bullshit. There are usually several third-party candidates in most areas. You can vote for one of them. Now, they might not win, but it's sure as fuck better than putting your vote towards any Democrat or Republican candidates. At least then you're part of the solution, rather than part of the problem.
Attn: Mods
Please correct the erroneous moderation on the parent's comment. The truth is not flamebait.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
You think wasting a vote on someone who won't win is part of the fucking solution?
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
I can't find Ninjavideo up with a new domain/registrar. If anyone finds it please let me know.
What a crock of shit. Let me know how third party voting and making the government responsible to you goes. By the way, there's 50 morons waving flags and thanking jesus for ever-expanding federal powers and supporting a constitutional amendment outlawing flag-burning, at this very moment while you're on here spewing bullshit about personal responsibility; I'm sorry, but I'm not responsible for them or the idiots they elect.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
I just went to tvshack.cc and my virusscanner (NOD32) went nuts and Java things started executing. I killed everything before it had a chance to do anything, but I'd say watch your step if you're going to visit that site.
if you limited it to the .us domain
"if you get a .cn domain, you play by China's rules, and if you get a .ru domain, you play by Russia's rules"
absolutely. and that applies also to .us domains. no argument whatsover
but .net, .com, etc., are concepts that are not native to the usa, not used native to the usa, and should not be governed solely by the usa. of course, legally you are still 100% correct, but law has a funny way of not reflecting common sense or morality, and this is one of those cases
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I tried that here in California (Libertarian)...
Seeing their power base eroded the TwoParties pulled the wool over the voters eyes and got a ballot measure passed to consolidate their power. Now the top two vote getters in the primaries will be the only two that can be voted for in the election, thus you will no longer be able to vote for a third party.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
http://ageofsail.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/the-lesser-of-two-weevils/
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
You do realise the next thing they'll do is requiring TLD DNS to start logging IPs of hosts requesting IP address to those domains, since "they're surely up to No Good (tm) if they're looking up IP address(es) of those IP pirates." (Yes, I know it's absurd. But more bone headed things have happened before.)
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I don't know where you vote, but my ballots frequently have more than two candidates on them, in addition to a write in option. You are perfectly free to choose as you please. The government is as accountable as we make it, and not one iota more. All this whining is just an attempt to shed personal responsibility.
Or it's just realistic. You can vote, technically, for whoever you want. But when the media and 99% of everyone else is touting a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich, the dumb masses of the public:
a) won't vote for someone else in an organized effort
b) think voting with "their" party is still the best option (even though their views might be wildly different), or
c) have no idea what the other options are
Realistically, you'd have to have more than a 2-party system in order to pull anything off. That means including more parties in official debates, getting some media exposure (they are currently largely ignored), etc. No exposure = no chance, and right now the media and the existing 2 major parties control the exposure, and thus the chance of anything different happening.
It's not so black and white, and it's not about shedding personal responsibility. It's about what the current situation is.
But yes, actions DO speak louder than words.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
You think wasting a vote for someone you know will constantly infuriate you is a better solution?
Remember to maintain your supply of
What gives US the right to seize domains of companies based in other countries and force their laws, views and things like ACTA and banning of internet casinos to citizens of other countries?
The same sort of laws that give any other country the right to seize the assets of companies, foreign or domestic, that violate their local laws.
Venezuela nationalized foreign oil production (including assets of US oil companies.) China is very close to seizing google.cn. That's life in the real, international, multi-jurisdictional world.
tvshack did exactly the "right" thing: it found a friendly jurisdiction (Cocos Islands) and set up shop there.
It's no worse.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
The headline sounds like a spam subject or a bunch of captchas.
What part of "Ninja" don't you understand?
I still can't resolve ninjavideo.net using OpenDNS
The government is not accountable to us, so long as they're getting the terrorists.
That's bullshit. They're not accountable to us because no one gives a fuck about getting involved in government. No one cares about the issues and so until the government seriously fucks up (usually takes a famine or some sort of tyranny) we mostly don't give a shit. Oh yeah we bitch and groan but the parties control who gets into office so the general public doesn't have a say in the matter. And that is why the government is not accountable to the citizens.
Thanks.
I only had a little tiny shred of hope for my country left. Now that too is gone to oblivion.
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I didn't vote them in.
/ronpaul
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
That's why you get the three letter TLDs like .com and everybody else has to be satisfied with things like .co.uk and .co.cn. Same reason the UK is the only country that doesn't have the country name on its postage stamps, the USA is the only country that doesn't (have to) have its country identifier as its TLD.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
What a crock of shit. Let me know how third party voting and making the government responsible to you goes.
And this is why third-party voting in the US fails so miserably. "I don't wanna waste my vote by voting for a guy who actually represents what I want in government. I wanna vote for someone who might win."
Independents and minor parties win seats all the time in other countries.
NinjaVideo.net and TVshack.net? Never heard of either one - UNTIL NOW. I hope one of them has Blake's 7, haven't seen that since I was a kid.
I got every single episode of Blake's 7 a couple of years ago via bittorrent. I used mininova to find the torrents. They included the DVD special features, with the making-of interviews with the cast and crew which are just fascinating.
The only thing I couldn't find there is the Blake's Junction spoof, which you can watch on Youtube.
Putting moderation advice in your
You, and only you are responsible for your vote. Propping up the regulars is your choice.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
It's Germany that has the laws restricting sale of memorabilia of, and media mentioning, the Nazis.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
No write in? Then work your magic on the primaries
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
What gives US the right
Its might. "Because we can" is a very unethical but a pretty much incontrovertible argument.
OK, so you must like censorship, since you live in Australia and you voted in the fucks who are filtering your internet. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
LOL .. way to try for the win with a logical fallacy (as well as an assumption or two for good measure).
The correct statement of affairs is that by continually partaking in the electoral process I am taking responsibility for the state of my government. However the democratic process doesn't guarantee an outcome that is favourable to a single voter.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I vote for the giant douche -- I'm not into scat.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Yeah those founders fridays on Glenn Beck's TV show really spread hatred don't they? I mean teaching black people about the Black Founding Fathers is so hate-filled....
You obviously have tuned in to all of none of the shows.
The registry for .net is Verisign, which is a US company. Thus the .net domain is under US control. It has nothing to do with perceived semantics of .net. All that matters is control.
"You voted them in, so the're your responsibility"
You live in Australia and made him what he is today, so you're responsible for Rupert Murdoch, who is just as responsible for the current state of American politics.
No, Rupert has been a US citizen for quite a while - it was the US rules on foreign media ownership that made him what he is today. You may consider him a bastard, but he is an American bastard.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You voted them in, so the're your responsibility. Unless you want to go the tin-foil hat route and say that the US populace has no influence or control over their government - in which case I would be looking for another country of residence.
I think your an idiot! We may have voted them in but they do their own thing once in office. Most of the public doesn't like how he is doing things while some thing he is the best thing in the world. I didn't vote for him so for him to pull this I'm surprised those countries didn't just tell them to piss off, which they have every right to do.
For me, it opened up a Chrome process which, according to top, was using 19Mbytes. System Monitor shows no unusual activity and no unexpected network traffic. Nothing interesting happened at all. Am I missing something?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
**sigh** It's frightening that she is actually allowed to function in society. She's so typical of Obama supporters. I can't help but wonder if she is the reason we have "texting" laws now, despite that if officers enforced actual safety related laws (improper lane changes, improper turns, driving left of center, failure to maintain control of the vehicle, reckless driving, hindering the flow of traffic, failure to yield, and so on and so forth). "Why there oughtta be a law" then when reminded there are already literally DOZENS of laws which make something unlawful or illegal the answer is "yeah but we need this law."
These people are so batshit stupid that we keep relecting the same frigging crooks every election day.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
What gives US the right to seize domains of companies based in other countries and force their laws, views and things like ACTA and banning of internet casinos to citizens of other countries?
If you are in another country YOU OBEY THEIR LAWS.
;-)
The US did NOT overstep their boundries. The mentioned websites Hosted part of their website (the pointer to it) In the US. That 'pointer' was seized as it was illegal in our country.
Again:
1. Internet website did business with US Company. (They used a US registrar)
2. US based Registrar now violated US Law
3. US based Registrar was required to give the US Government the illegal 'property'
Don't host any part of your 'business' or 'website' in a country that violates their laws. If you want to intentionally violate the laws of a country, don't do it IN that country. It's just common sense!
If you think the USA is wrong here, GO TO China, or the UK, and break their laws. See what happens.
Side Note: I agree with most net-neutrality ideas. I agree with free speech (as it exists in the US law) on the internet -- (e.g. illegal to yell FIRE or call in bomb threats, but mostly free). Unfortunately the US General Public has almost no control here. Sorry. Big Business buy votes and forces our government to enforce laws they created.
I'm glad the sites are running again. As they are not illegal in other countries I respect your rights to view the content in accordance with your laws... And I'll leave that at that as I'm in the USA...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Taking responsibility for the fuckups of one's government is not the same as liking or even supporting those fuckups.
Please also note the slight disparity between fuckups that only screw over one's own citizenry and fuckups that go beyond the border.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Fortunately for you, people like that lady rarely can be bothered to actually go vote, whereas people like this lady take it as their Holy Mission to get to the polls for every single general, primary, or school board election.
Perhaps if we all didn't get so wrapped up in the moral panics and anger points politicians use to manipulate us, you and I could elect people who'd actually do something sane about things like IP laws and their enforcement... you know, "stuff that matters."
I didn't marry my sister
You should do - your pa tells me she gives great head
Shut up.
You know what the difference between say the US actions, and the Chinese or North Korean ones?
They aren't touching people because what they're saying. The operations here are because of what people are doing, which is RIPPING OFF the copyrighted properties of actual companies that did their own work, but now some douchebags from who knows where are profiteering off them.
Ain't that nice of them? Giving you something for free because...they're doing you better than the other guys.
If somebody was doing this to Open Source products, the outrage would be legendary.
But since it's BIG MEDIA, they're EVIL and doing anything to them is OK.
So shut up.
How is taking down a website for unlawful behavior compare to executing someone for what other people are legally saying on his website? If the government called in an air strike on tvshack's headquarters, then it would be a fair comparison.
It is.
It makes you responsible and it sends a message to the idiot you voted for to keep doing what they are doing. At the very least, if you vote for a loosing 3rd party, you still sent a message of what you actually want from your leaders.
I'm thoroughly convinced that politics for the majority of U.S. Citizen is no longer about policy, but about being on the winning side. It's why the RNC and DNC look like pep rallies for collage football then a political forum.
You obviously have tuned in to all of none of the shows.
I have tuned in to quite a few of those shows and find in general that their discussions are so propped up by logical fallacies and bad research that they are a joke.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Just because Beck has raised tokenism to a new level doesn't make him less of a hate-monger.
The guy accuses Obama of being racist and then in practically the next sentence denies he ever said it.
Get back to us when he starts doing regular shows on the historic contributions of muslims to the arts and sciences.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
You should do
The quickest way to stop that particular activity is to get married!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The US is always right. That's why the US can have 2400 active warheads while Iran having even one is geopolitical heresy, why the US pushing copyright on the rest of the world is acceptable while China pushing internet censorship on just their own citizens is not, and why the US can invade Afghanistan and Iraq while Russia can't invade Georgia.
At least that's what the US media says. I imagine Pravda et al. are equally biased in their own directions.
the internet is also the invention of the usa, but the usa has wisely sought to internationalize the governing body for sake of fairness. one would think this internationalization should also apply to the iconic domains: .com, net, org, etc
of course, such internationalization doesn't apply legally, just as you say, just as i know
but it SHOULD
examine the pluses and minuses, see for yourself
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I posted elsewhere but feel it's worth mentioning again:
Illegal property located in the USA was seized by US officials for violating US law. They used a US registrar to point to their content that was illegal in the US. (i.e. don't host your anti-china website in china, don't host your anti-uk site in the UK. If your website violates a countries laws, don't host any part of it IN THAT COUNTRY)
IN THIS CASE, No foreign countries were involved, No over reaching of US bounds. I agree sometimes the government (while spurred by big business) do this... It is NOT the case here.
The short: When in a foreign country, do not violate their laws. They 'purchased' something in a country where it was illegal. That illegal property was seized. Their fault for violating local laws.
One party, two wings.
Regardless of the origin of the internet, it should remain inviolate. The issue is unlawful activity. Each country should monitor activities that violate the trustworthiness of the net within jurisdictional boundaries. When activities cross international boundaries, a multinational consortium of IT security personnel should address the issues.
Failing that, the US cyber-security department (or the country with the most capabilities) should act . This should be enough incentive for the US to be the best, if not, tough.
May the best outdo the rest.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
You voted them in, so they're your responsibility. Unless you want to go the tin-foil hat route and say that the Australian populace has no influence or control over their government - in which case I would be looking for another country of residence.
I really love how your criticism of the US was phrased as an absolute, and then you excuse yourself from your country's governmental choices because a least you voted, and a single voter can't change much.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos. -Homer Simpson
That's the most horrifying thing I've ever heard. Silent majority, right there, everybody!
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
You also read Slashdot.
You have of course given in to the obvious, government only represents the majority consensus, therefore the minority of 'individual voters' is blameless so long as they have participated. Though I doubt you'll retract your attack on all voters. In which case you admit that you take responsibility for the censorship of the internet in Australia, good on ya... at least you're not a hypocrite.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Funny, everybody seems to say that about their elections...
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
The execution of the majority of government policy is left to unelected bureacrats.
and, just for a moment, saw it as:
"The execution of the majority of government,"
and thought, "Damn! What a good idea!"
Check out my novel.
It is an interesting paradox: No one likes congress but the majority of people like their congressman.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
They are making a very dangerous precedent. Translated, soon than later, many other countries will follow them, and will abuse the international law. And maybe that's the main idea!!!
Don' you in the US have some laws that prevent your authorities from randomly seizing property? The operators of the sites have not been called to any trial, have had no verdict against them and from what has been reported, no investigation has even been opened. It is understandable if they would have seized the servers, as those can be used as evidence in a trial. Domain names on the other hand can not, which makes it plainly obvious that the only reason for their seizure was to disrupt the websites operations.
Football Odds
You have of course given in to the obvious, government only represents the majority consensus, therefore the minority of 'individual voters' is blameless so long as they have participated.
For fucks sake. I was basically paraphrasing Lincoln from the Gettysburg address:
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
You = people = government
How hard can it be?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
You are absolutely right about why there is no viable third party in the US.
However, you are completely and utterly missing the GP's point (at least I think you are - I don't speak for him, obviously).
The point is not that we are forced to vote for one of the two main parties, lest we waste our votes.
The point is that even when we do vote for a 3rd party candidate, it has essentially zero effect, precisely because of the problem you mentioned, and thus, those of us who do vote for 3rd party candidates are truly not responsible for the actions of our government.
Your point does not rebut the GP's point - it supports it.
The root servers don't resolve .com's. They resolve com, net, org themselves. The subdomains under .com, .net, and .org, go to their respective DNS server. Unless you want to take ALL of .cn down, you can't do anything to a .cn site from the U.S.
I imagine Pravda et al. are equally biased in their own directions.
Nope, I'd say the arrogance of the US is pretty much globally hated. Even their best buddies Israel give them the finger on a regular basis these days.
It's not OUR fault that they won't let you register directly under .uk - that's even shorter than .com
>>>You voted them in, so the're your responsibility.
No I didn't. I have never voted for Bush, never voted for Obama, and never voted for my current Democrat asshole in Congress (Arlen Spewtrum) Actually I may have voted for him back when I was in college and stupid, but not anytime during the 2000s. Also as I'm sure you're aware, whether I vote D or R makes no difference. They are both Progressives, both pushing for bigger government, both inching us toward neo-feudalism (you're a serf and congress is your master).
I wish I could vote for someone like Ron Paul or Daniel Hannan or Nigel Farage, but these people never appear on my R or D ballot. It's just more of the same: "Let's make government bigger" candidates.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
can != may
Power. The power that each American gives to U.S. federal government with each new bill passed into law. In America we don't vote based on ideas, world-views and self-sacrifice. We vote for rock stars who are well spoken and evoke an emotional response.
>>>I vote for the giant douche -- I'm not into scat.
I don't think that's where "douche" is supposed to go. It usually goes in the front hole so you might end-up with some blood, but definitely not scat.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The short: When in a foreign country, do not violate their laws. They 'purchased' something in a country where it was illegal. That illegal property was seized. Their fault for violating local laws.
Granting exceptions for countries like China that operate Great Firewalls, how do you suppose to determine where a "property" on the Internet begins and ends? Let's say I'm in the U.S. and surf to your site, hosted in Finland, that contains content in violation of U.S. laws -- do the Feds have the authority to seize your domain name or have U.S.-based DNS servers reroute your site's traffic to a "We have pwned this site?" Web page? I don't know how you'll answer, but I know the right answer is "no."
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
She's a nut with left-leaning tendencies... there's plenty that lean the other way too. It's the union of all that lot that amuses me!
I say amuses since I have the pleasure of not being an American ;)
His objection was valid. Don't forget that there are 50 more-or-less independent states in the United States. Out of those 50, 49 of us did NOT vote those idiots in.
You're against anti-texting laws? Why? The AAA performed studies showing that texting-while-driving causes 2-3 times slower reaction time than drinking-and-driving. If DUI should be banned because it's dangerous, then so too should DWT (driving while texting) because it's much much worse.
I almost got hit by a woman who was talking-while-driving. She blasted right through the red light as if it wasn't there, almost clipping my front end (fortunately I was only going 5 mph and could slow down quickly). These people are stupid. They CAN'T multitask because they're brains aren't smart enough. They should not be allowed to anything else while driving. It should be banned.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
In case you missed it, the US is not 'other countries.' Just as every other country has its own weird fucked-upedness, so too do we.
She reminds me of some of the preachers I see on TV. They spout all kinds of nonsense that doesn't even exist in the Bible. False prophets.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I don't know what state you live in, but in many states like Texas where I live, you can write in a name, and it will be placed into a group called "other" and basically not counted. If the person you voted for has not registered as an official candidate and also provided a set of electors for the electoral college, then they are not considered an official candidate and so any votes will be placed into a waste can group called "other". Write in is something for your local HOA or perhaps school board if your ISD is small enough. What is needed is better organized 3rd parties and legislation to compel TV and other media to let them join the debates and receive coverage. As it stands the demicans and republocrats control all of this actively seek to exclude other organisms from their political world. We have to organize and demand other parties be part of the process or we will continue to get the kind of government we deserve for being so lazy.
Don't register or host your domain in the U.S. if it's the least bit controversial. It's just too easy for a plaintiff or government agency to seize it. One of the worst examples was a Spanish travel agency that handled trips to Cuba and which was foolish enough to register their domain name in the U.S. See NYTimes article A Wave of the Watch List, and Speech Disappears
See http://thespamdiaries.blogspot.com/2010/02/dont-register-or-host-your-domain-in-us.html for more on this topic.
Oh look, someone who can see the forest despite the trees!
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Theoretically, yes.
Practically, no.
Actually, in a previous career I seized quite a bit of property. The bar to get over, depending on the particular laws in play and the agency you work for, is usually pretty darn low.
These people are so batshit stupid that we keep relecting the same frigging crooks every election day.
Its because they force companies to put warning labels for the obvious to prevent Darwin's Theory from working its magic.
Side of a coffee cup: "Caution: Hot". Really? Duhhh... let me put this by my crotch instead of a cup holder.... And yes it might have been VERY hot, but still, BY YOUR CROTCH!? You're a f***tard.
Unfortunately, no. However, you can go back once cleared of charges and sue the government for monetary damages.
No, blasting through red lights like they're not there should be banned. Fortunately, it is. That's his entire point.
As far as not being smart enough to multitask goes, why is it that everyone insists on a least common denominator society? How about we just put into place a system whereby we punish people for doing bad things, and leave them alone until they do bad things? Would that be so awful?
For some reason, we really have some love affair with convicting people before they do anything wrong or harmful. That is, in essence, what you are doing any time you ban something outright. You've made them legally guilty of... not harming anyone yet. BUT THEY COULD!!! Just like them durn t'rrists could crash more of our planes into our buildings, so we criminally convict anyone who brings nailclippers onto an airplane. Again, let's go back to having laws exist so that when people do bad things, they can be brought to justice. The government can never put in place enough safeguards to preemptively protect us, without turning into a police-state such as the world has never (as far as I know) seen. So let's just abandon that pursuit altogether. There will be some inevitable deaths, and those are extremely regrettable, but a price has to be paid for freedom, and not in the form of soldiers dying halfway across the world. Some citizens will have to die for their freedom too. The world ain't perfect.
I generally concur with your assessment. I especially hate how Rush ignores incovenient facts (like that a hybrid CAN go faster than 60).
But I find Beck (on tv not radio) to be the most informative. For example I would not have known that Obama just hired another "czar" to implement rationing under the just-passed Pelosicare bill. And no that's not a misinterpretation - the new guy actually uses the word rationing. Watching an hour of Beck a day is like having a attending a daily college lecture - minus the accreditation - but still informative.
I also enjoy listening to Rachel Maddow although she's more camp and less informative.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Yesterday I watched a woman in front of me run over the curb trying to make a right-turn out of a Wendy's while she was talking on the phone. Couldn't even handle a right-turn...... (and drove a BMW SUV by the way so apparently also more money than brains too).
You can. Packets requesting for a specific domain name to be resolved are easily enough to pick out and drop and if you aren't using secure dns, you can redirect the request elsewhere or insert your own answer.
Actually my point is, if you vote for the status quo, then you are just as much a part of the problem as the drones. Compromising your vote is a sign of surrender, that you gave up. and you have a less than zero effect. You're "Just another brick in the wall". Voting for an alternative won't knock down the building, but at least it's a brick through the window. Like sinking a boat with a hundred lawyers on board, it's a start..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I should add that she had to back up to get off the curb... that's how much curb she ran up. *shakes head*
If you vote for a third party fruitlessly you have wasted your chance to vote for your second choice party, and as a result your last choice party may get in.
Exactly. I don't remember this much bitching and complaining when the Christmas Island Internet Administration repossessed the goatse.cx domain.
It tried to download it from the opening page.
http://www.symantec.com/security_response/writeup.jsp?docid=2004-112111-3912-99
Just because Lincoln and his speeches are esteemed does not make them inherently right. Not to mention that he was responsible for overseeing the effective termination of the sovereignty of the individual states, so he would definitely see government as responsible only to the majority, and the minority should suffer any imposition the majority sees fit.
Your concept is not hard, but you see simple does not automatically mean correct.
A democracy is accountable only to the majority of its electorate within the bounds of its constitution. If you would like to demonstrate otherwise, you're going to have to do better than quoting political scripture.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
What gives US the right to seize domains of companies based in other countries and force their laws, views and things like ACTA and banning of internet casinos to citizens of other countries?
That would be 'might'.
Not the way I would prefer things to be run, but nobody's asking me.
Think of it as last-stage empire overreach. The U.S. (where I live), as I see it, has just about jumped the shark, and your kids (I'm assuming you're not a USian), or maybe grandkids, will get to chuckle about the hubris. But it is likely to be ugly in the meantime - historically, empires don't die quietly, and the U.S. has a particularly hard case of entitlement, because it hasn't really ever had a serious setback. Yet. (Vietnam doesn't count, as these things go - ask an older German what it is like to lose a war that actually entailed risks for the loser.)
I forget what 8 was for.
The point is that even when we do vote for a 3rd party candidate, it has essentially zero effect
In some cases it may even have the opposite effect intended.
If everyone who voted for Nader in 2000 in Florida had voted for Gore (someone who as a Nader voter, they surely agreed with more than Bush), Gore would have won the election.
>>>The guy accuses Obama of being racist
Yeah. And? A black guy who hates whites would certainly qualify. He also appears to hate Israelis.
>>>denies he ever said it.
Not really. He's toned it down but he still says it. Just last week he had a show about Unions, their anti-chinese and anti-black racism (pre-1970), their anti-white racism (post-2000), and Obama's connections to these unions. Like refusing to allow foreign oil tankers to come help clean up the mess, because it would hurt Union workers, so instead he just lets the oil gush forth. ----- Why is it that a Democrat is allowed to walk up to me (or other Tea Party protesters), call me a "racist" right to my face, but I'm not allowed to observe their own anti-white viewpoints or policies?
Double standard.
It's just like during the Bush years when he was labeled a chimp or Nazi (which he was). But when the same was done to Obama, suddenly that was wrong. If it's okay to do it to one president, it should be okay to do it to the other president as well.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
>>>The execution of the majority of government policy is left to unelected bureacrats.
That's what the European Union is becoming - a bunch of former Communist party apparatchiks that have now been put into positions of power, where they are unelected and not responsible to the European People, and yet wield enormous amounts of power (via arbitrary regulations). I hear Europeans claim the EU is nothing like the US. They're right.
It's worse.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
And the guy she's talking to does what? Insults her. She might be stupid, but she's definitely ignorant. Ignorance, unlike stupidity, can be cured. He'd much rather tell her that she's stupid than try to educate her. And what happens to other people who think like her who are listening in? They get offended and switch off, they don't learn anything new They don't change their views based on new evidence, because none is presented.
No wonder America has problems.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
That lady needs a trip to another part of the world. Not a warzone. Hell, just send to south america let her see how the rest of the planet works. If that doesn't cure her problem then I don't now what.
>>>the democratic process doesn't guarantee an outcome that is favourable to [any] voter.
Fixed that for you. I can locate almost no voters that are ever satisfied with how things are run, typically because the elected representative doesn't even bother to listen. It's like we're electing a bunch of deaf tyrants that just do whatever they please. It's like a rebirth of the Roman Empire
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Just not presidents. I always vote for who I want and not "against someone else." We live in an unfortunately stupid world in an unfortunately stupid country... and our respective leaderships wouldn't have it any other way.
There is a reason, after all, that school teachers are among the "re-educate/kill" lists when governments change power so often. It is the educated people they fear most.
Either you are very misinformed, or your understanding of the issue is impaired by your outrage.
.com. Those countries can indeed remove sites on their own TLDs.
The domain *registration* occurs in the US, therefore the seizure occurs in the US as well. Your examples of China and North Korea are unrelated, as neither country controls the TLDs for
This isn't a case of someone sneaking across international borders to blow up a server.
I wish I could say that lady is a fluke but that level of comprehension seems to be contagious. I know many college graduates who have similar beliefs, many of which have chosen a career in public education. I still vote my conscience but can't even stomach election results for a few days. I'm fairly certain Idiocracy is a tale of the future, not fiction.
>>>No, blasting through red lights like they're not there should be banned
Yeah I'll really be comforted to know the woman-on-her-phone got a Red Light ticket, after I'm laying in my coffin. Wouldn't it make more sense to ban texting and DUI *before* I or someone else ends up killed? Yes.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If you vote for a third party fruitlessly you have wasted your chance to vote for your second choice party, and as a result your last choice party may get in.
and unless you can break the cycle, as each election goes by your country will head further and further away from what you want it to be.
Gore/Lieberman would have won the election. I, for one, am just as glad they didn't. I blame Lieberman much more than Nader(who I don't blame at all for anything) for Gore's loss. He definitely cost Gore my vote. Actually not. I wouldn't vote for Gore anyway, but his VP cemented that decision. The only people you can "blame" for Bush's victory are those who voted for Bush. Don't try to put any culpability on those who vote their conscience.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Beck?
He still hasn't denied raping and killing a girl in 1990. Until he comes clean, I wouldn't trust anything he says.
in which case I would be looking for another country of residence...
I agree with the rest of your post except that last statement.
I don't think I want US citizens moving to MY country because they cant be bothered fixing their own - especially when they have 'democracy'.
We've worked hard to make our country just the way we want it - not for others when they shit in their own nest. We even changed the election system from a 'winner takes all' to a representational system. Sure it has its pitfalls, but the benefits outweigh them.
(My statement above does not apply to those who meet the international criteria of refugee status.)
Then you need to change the system. pick a different one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation
Not in Europe. Europe won't extradite someone where it is likely to get death penalty.
I don't (in the UK). Last time I had a choice between someone I didn't mind, who had a good chance, and someone who I did who stood no chance. Since the one I didn't mind was in favour of electoral reform that would give the one I did want a better chance next time, I voted for him. He lost (by 500 votes, out of 35,000), but democracy seemed to work as advertised. Neither of our major parties managed to win a majority in the last election, so we have a coalition, which seems not to be doing too bad a job so far (although it's not clear how long it will last). Next year we have a referendum on electoral reform, so we get a chance to change the system to be more open to minority parties.
I am represented by several MEPs, one of whom I regard as competent and the others as a waste of space (although not dangerously incompetent), but that seems to be about what I'd expect too.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's not an act of desperation: it's an act of force, a demonstration of power. And they're not losing, far from it. They're winning. Up to us to stop hiding and getting pushed into corners.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I think your an idiot!
Well, you certainly made that point effectively...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The fact that everyone sat back and watched while they did it in Iraq?
"First they came for the jews, but I was not a jew...", you know?
How about a third party that isn't WORSE than the Giant Duche and Turd Sandwich?
The Hallucinogenic Mushroom Party or the LSD Party instead?
Ah, but I didn't mention Rush, Hannity or Savage. Only Beck's TV show and more specifically the Founders Fridays. I've heard Glenn contradict himself so many times it's silly. The guy is an alcoholic ex-disc-jockey with a doughnut addiction. He's a blathering tool.
The friday episode of his TV show are usually quite informative. However people would rather distract with the "raped and killed a girl" crap, and continue to plug their ears, yell "La la la!" and vote for donkeys and elephants.
So, OzPeter (193038), based on your post I can easily say you probably haven't watched the shows I mentioned.
Unless you have, and just feel that black people learning about black founding fathers is just hateful.
>>>He still hasn't denied raping and killing a girl in 1990.
Yes he has denied it. He's "come clean" as you put it.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Frankly I think the only likely workable solution and really the only fair solution is to give each nation control over their own DNS. The USA should be able to act on entries in the .com, .org, .us, .edu, .mil, .gov, and .us tlds acording to our laws as they would on any other property. Kentucky should be able to do that ti .ky.us and .ky.gov. China should be able to apply their laws to .cc and the UK to .uk domains. I (as an American) would not favor handing over control of the root zone to any internation body; but I would favor a policy of hands off when it comes to using privielge of controling the roots to pressure the bodies administering their national tlds.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I must have mixed up my Internet forums terminology. When I mentioned the "GP", I was referring to logjon. And I apparently misinterpreted his opinion somewhat as well, since per his previous comments he apparently does think that voting for a third party candidate is wasting your vote.
However, I stand by what I said. I routinely vote for third party candidates, and I will continue to do so as long as the two main parties keep offering up power-hungry corporate shills - which probably means forever. But I still do empathize with logjon's sentiment. I have only one vote, and for every one of me, it seems there are 50 or 100 people who only see red or blue.
We have such laws on the books (we even have an entire amendment of our Constitution dedicated to it), but no one in the government or law enforcement has paid much attention to them since 2001.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
And there are even some states that do not allow for the anyone other than the 2 parties to be in the primaries.
If I hadn't already commented in this thread, I'd mod you up. As someone who very frequently votes for third-party candidates, I am tired of hearing about how it's my fault that didn't win.
In 2000 I believed that my vote didn't matter. That the two main candidates were both messed-up sellouts and would both equally do horrible damage to this country and its people.
Boy did Bush prove me wrong.
If anyone lives down to that bar again, I'm moving to Canada.
The ______ Agenda
The guy actually says "This president, I think, has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture," and "I'm not saying he doesn't like white people," in the same half an hour. It's pathetic.
I'm a complete ignorant on this matter, so I may be talking bollocks. If so, I apologize.
But the Union I saw references was the Longshoreman's, which is not exactly run by black people...
Dilbert RSS feed
no you mean getting the oil...
the main difference is the Internet was invented in the US so the domain names are controlled by them. if another country wanted to disconnect and start there own service they could regulate it as they see fit.
By the way, the Seafarers neither.
Dilbert RSS feed
No it wouldn't. You think that if she is stupid enough to blow through a red and ignore that law, that she's going to pay any attention whatsoever to a ban on texting? The fact that she almost hit you, blew through a red and obvisouly wasn't paying attention is a combination of enough factor's for reckless driving and she could have her license pulled. We just need to start using the laws we have. I completly agree with Dragoniz3r and kimvette, we have enough laws. No law is going to protect you from a moron, it will just make them pay after the fact and possibly discourage others from being the same type of moron.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
You could lobby the media to make a voting system where 3rd parties are more effective an election issue.
Then vote for the party that is most likely to implement it...
The reason the US has, and will continue to have, a two-party system isn't because of political apathy, or voter ignorance. It's because of the way the math works out. A single vote system like the US has will always funnel everything back down to two parties. It's basic games theory. Any third party which manages to claw their way into power will invariably replace one of the existing parties rather than join them (thus why there is no longer a Whig or Federalist party), leaving you again with the eternal choice between a turd sandwich and a giant douche.
And even if that weren't the case, the sad fact is that the vast majority of people who make it onto the ballot (and you can't cast a meaningful vote for someone who isn't on the ballot), with the possible exception of local (city/county) offices, are beholden to the corporations who donate the big bucks to their campaigns, and not to their electorate. It's not difficult to figure out when their campaign contributions are so closely predictive of their voting records.
>It's a sad state. Bad for the people of the US, worse for the people of the world.
Way to only pull out part of that smart one.
How can a Name to Number mapping be illegal?
I wish people would stop using .com for everything, and start using their appropriate country's TLD. While we're on a .com standard, we're on a US standard. And while I don't actually disagree with US laws in this respect, I don't believe that by default US law should be the applicable jurisdiction for all websites. Of course, we should move us websites to .us instead of .com. But one step at a time.
The ______ Agenda
Ross Perot was a third party candidate. He realistically never had a chance to win. But he was popular enough that he forced the other parties to adopt and address issues that they did not really want to in order to win. That is the power of a third party in the US. Any group that attracts a sufficient number of voters (generally "independents" that can influence the outcome of an election will have influence. Even if they do not have a chance in hell of getting elected.
The current Tea Party movement will not have such an influence because they do not attract swing voters. They are essentially the Republican base. The Libertarian party is similar in demographics.
This. Plurality breeds an apathetic voting class, and two bent parties.
Sent from my PDP-11
It's for this reason I think everyone should get two votes. One positive, and one negative. Since all the Republicans would vote *against* the Democrats, and vice versa, you'd get a real chance at having a third party in power.
Of course, that would never fly past the current congress to get to a point of Amendment...
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
No. Third party voting fails because of the plurality voting system. If the winner was required to get over 50% of the votes, then it would be a reasonable strategy. If Instant Runoff were used it would be reasonable. If Condorcet (my favorite) were used, it would be reasonable.
The voting system in the US is specifically designed to ensure that one of two superficially different groups gets elected. I don't know if it was apparent what they were doing in the early days, but it's been evident since before the time of Teddy Roosevelt. (Look up the "Bull Moose Party".) Everybody, including himself, knew that he didn't have much of a chance, but he was enough of a popular hero that he figured he might possibly have enough of one to be worth the effort. (I don't remember the cause he was fighting for...I think it was something other than personal glory, but he got creamed.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Use it if you have no power over your government anymore.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
This is besides the point. Assuming a company runs the website(s)... The company purchased a product in the US, that company was found to violate US law as a whole, and the companies US property was seized (Regardless of the name/number mapping legality issue). The registrar information was in a US computer owned by a US Business, thus in the US "Territory" and subject to US law. Their domain was seized by the US due to illegal acts by the international business (or person). If the company had no property in the US, nothing would have happened.
That's legal justification from an IANAL standpoint.
But as for Name/number mapping... What if you ran an advertisement in a Texas newspaper listing the numbers of drug dealers. What if those contact numbers were in Mexico? You would still be arrested for illegal activity. (or, if you were out of the country, you would have an arrest warrant waiting for you and any US accounts/properties you had related to the illegal activity would likely be taken/frozen.
Again, Do not take my post as a for/against internet rights, I am actually all for internet rights as I stated previously. I am just clarifying the situation that they violated US law by operating partially in the US, and whether I, or the company, like it or not... You must follow the laws of the country you are operating in.
And yes, I wish a lot of them would change.
It's systematic...designed into the system. Even 1/4 of the population voting "Other" wouldn't make any difference.
Hell, even 1/3 \wouldn't make any difference unless they all voted the same way. And it's doubtful that 1/2 would make a difference.
P.S.: There's a reasonable chance that Pat Paulson might have gotten more votes than any official candidate. They solved that problem my not counting those votes.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I bounce around all over the place. I switched to Republican so I could for Ron Paul in the primaries. Not that I agree with him 100% but I was hoping for a change in scenery. The same day I voted, I swung by the post office to register Green.
I'm sorry, but there's no way that's a real caller. That's someone playing stupid and following a script.
It's easy to tell, because she fits perfectly the mold of what right-wing conservative radio show hosts want us to THINK that left wingers are. She presented a mismash of misrepresented left wing ideas such as immigration law reform and public welfare programs. It was calculated to make their listeners reject everything she mentioned.
Right, because if that happened she'd get nothing but a ticket for running a red light, and certainly wouldn't be charged with manslaughter or anything.
Actually, I for one am personally glad that we have the 2400 nukes and not Iran. Double-standard as it is, we (in the US) tend to at least have some (albeit perverted) notion of keeping the peace. I don't think the Iranian government has such a vision.
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
In 2000 I voted for Nader, and have every time he's run. I knew if enough people did that in 2000 it would throw the election to Bush, but I figured that things needed to get much worse before enough people would recognize that voting either R or D is the root of the problem. Well, Bush won, and exceeded my wildest expectations with regards to making things much worse. But then I realized in 2004, that it still wasn't enough-- you see, there is this ingrained "team A" or "team B" mentality-- "our team, right or wrong." Most voters are completely oblivious to how bad their team screws things up, all that is important is "our team is better than the other team," and "if something is wrong, it absolutely must be something the other team did." It's an air-tight apologetic for the two-party status quo. As long as that is the case, it's going to be more of the same. The US is terminally infected with the team-player-voter virus, and at this point, it doesn't seem to matter how much worse things get, the team-player apologetic will always bail the system out at the voting booth.
Nevertheless, I continue to apply the following voting algorithm, despite my realization it is probably hopeless: 1) vote for the non R or D candidates that would seem to be most likely to win if there were no Rs or Ds running, and 2) if there's only an R and D running, vote for whoever is not already in office.
US can invade Afghanistan and Iraq while Russia can't invade Georgia
Can't? They did, and for about as good reason as the US did invade Iraq for.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
You voted them in, so the're your responsibility. Unless you want to go the tin-foil hat route and say that the US populace has no influence or control over their government - in which case I would be looking for another country of residence.
That said that if I voted for McCain and other republicans, that this sort of thing would happen...
...they were right!
"His name was James Damore."
Other countries have parliamentary systems where minor parties are able to win a handful of seats in a national election, then hold a majority party hostage to form a coalition government.
In the US, the executive is not answerable to "votes of no confidence" by congress, being (more or less) directly elected for a clearly-defined term of office, so coalitions aren't necessary. We also vote for individual seats instead of parties, and every seat is tied to a geographical region, so unless there's a 3rd-party majority enclave (that has escaped being redistricted out of existence), it is more or less impossible for a third party candidate to hold office at the national level.
So, to review: In parliamentary systems, third parties play a pivotal, undemocratic role in forming governments and determining government policy; while in the US system, lobbyists and assorted strange constituencies in early primary states play a pivotal, undemocratic role in forming governments and determining government policy.
Just last week he had a show about Unions, their anti-chinese and anti-black racism (pre-1970), their anti-white racism (post-2000), and Obama's connections to these unions.
Lol you have been watching him too much if you buy into such tenuous examples of guilt by association. That's Beck's entire schtick - pick a bunch of only marginally related facts, completely ignore anything even remotely contradictory and then connect the dots as if it were a fait accompli. It's echo chamber analysis at best.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
In Australia, it's even worse, for two main reasons - first, voting is compulsory. You cop a fine if you don't vote. Second (and even worse) is we have preferential voting. In order for your vote to be valid, you have to rank the candidates on your ballot in order of preference. If your first preference doesn't get 50% of the vote in their own right, preferences are taken into account - meaning that you can cast a vote preferring one candidate, and your vote ends up being allocated to a candidate you'd rather not vote for at all.
And that discouragement is exactly what he's pointing to. Unfortunately, I agree with you: Anyone who's smart enough to be deterred by the possible repercussions of texting + driving or whatever is going to be smart enough to realize it's a fucking stupid idea to begin with.
The real problem here is the vast majority of Americans are of the mindset that everything is perfectly okay until they're explicitly told otherwise -- and even then there has to be a punishment strict enough that the perceived benefits don't outweigh the penalty to prevent them from going ahead and doing it anyway.
so they seized an asset that costs a whole $10 to replace.
i bet they don't even realize how pointless and stupid it was
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
My rule with voting is, I will only vote for a candidate that I approve of.
If I don't approve of any candidates, I don't vote for anyone.
>>>she's going to pay any attention whatsoever to a ban on texting?
She won't have any choice after the 3rd Strike takes-away her license. Also I don't buy that ANYONE can text and drive at the same time, not even you. Study after study has shown that the human brain is a poor multitasker.
I don't care if you BELIEVE you can text-and-drive at the same time - the reality is that you probably can't and it's just a matter of time until you are looking down at your phone, don't notice the guy in front of you suddenly stop, and then you rear end him.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Please read about the various voting systems that have been used or theorised.
I think you're idea is better than the current US system but will probably still end up with a 2 party system.
What's needed is a change of political system. Simply swapping "The Fire Party" for "The Frying-pan Party" at regular intervals does nothing for the quality of government.
Now that we're in the 21st century, we have the technology we need to implement a far more finely graduated democracy than the one we currently have.
In my country (New Zealand) we run a version of the Westminster system but it's still basically a representative democracy (so they say).
What I've proposed is an alteration to that system called Recoverable Proxy.
It still operates on a representative basis where you have an elected member to do your bidding in the halls of government. However, makes it very clear that those representatives are effectively exercising your proxy when they vote on bills before the parliament/Senate/whatever. Recoverable Proxy operates by allowing *you*, the voter, to recover your proxy if and when you choose to, so that the public may effectively veto the excesses of their government when/if it becomes necessary.
99% of the time, the existing government structure and operation will continue as normal (this isn't a government by referendum like the Swiss system). The only time you'll see any significant percentage of the population recovering their proxy and exercising it themselves is when an issue of great public debate is before the house.
What do you think?
Is it time to reinvent the system rather than simply have a couple of dullards play musical chairs every 4 years?
Tenuous? I've seen videos of Obama telling SEIU that he's there to serve them. He was also a part of the organization back in the 90s. That's a SOLID link not a tenuous one.
Your problem is that you are facing cognitive dissonance. You don't want to admit the guy you like might not be as squeaky-clean as you'd like, so you effectively erase the facts from your head. "The sky is blue." "No it isn't."
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Both France and Germany do. In the past there have been issues raised by French courts about the listing of Nazi relics in Yahoo searches as well as Ebay. FYI.
Man blir trött av att gå och göra ingenting.
In 2000 my State voted for Al Gore (per usual; it's solidly democrat). I could have added my extra vote for Gore, but it would have made no difference whatsoever. 70% +/- 1 vote doesn't matter.
I suspect the same is true in your state as well.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Yes you retard.
You are supposed to vote for who you WANT. If you do not then you will never get what you want. Tactical voting is crap produced to persude you to vote for one of the favorites.
A vote is never wasted unless you randomly throw it at some person you hate less than another. Choose what you want and vote for the person who best represents them. Think longer than the current term. The policies that are voted in now are not likely to be enacted anyway.
matfud
YHBT. She loses a couple of points laughing a little, but she nailed that dude. And you and a bunch of other people too.
.com is for a commercial website, no country specified. If your website is commercial in nature and serves more than one country then .com is what you're supposed to use.
I think the General argument is that the President of Iran wants to use his nuke against another sovereign nation, and that nation will reply in kind, and everyone can agree that nuclear war is bad for the whole world.
One thing that keeps nagging me is that the Mullahs in Iran have far more control over Iran than the "religious right" has in America but no one is decrying that influence on Iran.
Copyright and IP is a load of bull, but that isn't the issue, the issue is freedom of speech, and whether American companies that work in China should have to assist the Chinese government in suppressing their population.
I can't see how you can say it is ok for ANY government in the world to offer their population less freedom. Who are we to say how they should live? We are the free and brave. Who is anyone to say that liberty is ok for us but not for the rest of the world? Why should the Chinese have less freedom of information, or an Arabian less freedom of religion, or a Sudanese less freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Actually, I'm not sure that having a domain name that points to an offending site constitutes a true breach of law or not. The domain name server did not have any content that was illegal and in fact only provided a link to another host that had the illegal content. Like so many other laws there are a variety of different interpretations and the law in itself is not infallible and the only thing that makes it "just" is our feelings towards it.
However, lets just say that the law did dictate that having a link (Domain name) that points to an offending site is illegal.
Does having the U.S. government step in and take over the DNS entry really seem like an adequate response for such a crime? Do you feel that perhaps the government takeover is a bit too harsh for something that isn't really a serious offense in a gray area of the law? Do you think that "making an example" of someone and violating someone's rights in the process is maybe going a bit too far for something like this? I mean sure millions of people are doing it, but your never going to stop them all and instead of trying to hold on to the old ways of doing things, maybe its time to look into some other ways of doing things. Maybe all those attempts at protecting the homeland from the invading copyright infringers in the name of business as usual is wrong and the law isn't quite as perfect as people think.
Tenuous? I've seen videos of Obama telling SEIU that he's there to serve them. He was also a part of the organization back in the 90s. That's a SOLID link not a tenuous one.
Link? Lets see the actual words said, not your interpretation.
Your problem is that you are facing cognitive dissonance. You don't want to admit the guy you like might not be as squeaky-clean as you'd like, so you effectively erase the facts from your head.
You mean how he renegged on his promise to end warrantless wiretaps before he even got to office?
Or how gitmo is still open?
Or how he put a bunch of bankers in charge of bailing out the bankers?
Or how he's the first president to ever publicly sanction assassination?
No, I don't have a problem criticizing the guy at all. Hell, he's 180 degrees out of sync with what the way the healthcare pricing problem ought to be fixed.
What I do have problem with are people like you who can't even hear the crazy in your own words.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
... the majority of people like their congressman.
What makes you say that? All that can be inferred from the electoral record is that a plurality of the voters in a given congressman's district liked him/her better than his/her opponent—assuming there was an opponent, which is not always the case. The least-disliked out of a small pool of self-elected candidates may yet be disliked by a majority of those he or she pretends to represent, particularly if one believes, as I do, that no one who would willingly choose to become a politician should by any means be entrusted with the task.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
I've always though that each person should have two votes, and that two rep's from each "Area" should represent that area, if it was done that way, it would be impossible for one party to get complete control, and then there'd have to be compimizes across the board, if you don't have complete control, you have to start listening (or making deals) with others to get your points across.
But changing the system like that would require those in power to do so, and do you think they'd give it up ?
Comprehension FAIL. His other choice is the turd sandwich.
Tenuous? I've seen videos of Obama telling SEIU that he's there to serve them. He was also a part of the organization back in the 90s. That's a SOLID link not a tenuous one.
Wow. A democrat that courts the union vote. Fuck, that is damning. Obviously he's their slave, he loves them so much he wants to make them pregnant.
Uh...couple of problems. One -- the candidate I vote for has never made it into office EXCEPT this last election.
Two: the lower level douche bags that implement these stupid policies are 99% of the time appointed by the previous administration. They were they ones that constantly overran the constitution. Unfortunately, the lower-level rift-raft is protected from outright firing by the new administration by laws to prevent whole sale "slaughter" of previous administration hires upon every change of leadership (otherwise no one would want to work for government -- and they already have enough problems hiring quality people with any intelligence). The previous administration worked to replace -- slowly, via transfers -- not firings, all positions with complete incompetents, because they believe it is the best way to show how big government fails (GOP was long party of smaller government).
Then they left the current administration with the worst deficit and the need to bail out banks and wall street -- so they'd have difficulty doing ANYTHING progressive -- that's what the previous Bush did to Clinton. Clinton spent the first 6 years out of his 8 year term repairing damage from the previous administration. It's been the same here.
The reason we have a reasonably (not entirely) stable foreign policy and the reason the dollar has been a strong currency, year after year (until the past 4 years when the last administration really tanked it) is that our domestic and foreign policies have been stable.
The previous administration was unstable in all regards because they had a president and VP who ignored the constitution -- and I don't know why thy got away with it. There is some gentlemen's agreement crap going on in D.C. not to hang previous admin criminals, even for crimes like were done in Gitmo. It's a dark time in this nation's history -- no doubt. And Americans are largely responsible (especially the under 30's) for taking so many things for granted as rights that used to be earned privileges.
It's going to take some unpleasant years to change that -- but the GOP is fighting every step of the way -- they don't want to eliminate their tax breaks -- the GAP between the rich and the poor grew by about 6% under Bush-II alone -- a record amount in my mind (but I don't know history). The last time the rich got complete political dominance in the white house, it took a 1920's depression to break their hold.
Most people today have no memory of that. Political folly like interfering in world politics hasn't had its day of repercussions yet...but it will come...and I'm NOT looking forward to it (as being one who is still living here)...
"I wanna vote for someone who might win." Why? So what if that guy or this guy wins. If they're out to fuck you in the ass, then you're still fucked no matter which one of them wins. The real shame is that we can't vote with apathy. You should only be able to be elected if a set percentage of the REGISTERED voters cast a vote for you, not just a percentage of who bothers to vote. And the losers should have to actually lose something. Maybe a limb. . .
Yes.
We can speculate about why this is (Is it just face/name recognition? Is it the benefits of pork for the local community buying their support? Is there some psychological drive for people want to like their leaders?)
BTW, no one who would willingly choose to become a
. . . politician should by any means be entrusted with the task.
I've been saying this since I was 12. Literally.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
. . . no one who would willingly choose to become a politician should by any means be entrusted with the task.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
What gives the US the right is simply this: the registry for said TLD is located in the US.
Just like China can apply their local laws to the TLD registry they control ,.cn, and North Korea can apply its laws to .nk, so can the US do the same for the registries which are based there: .com, .net, .org, .us.
The same applies to webservers: no matter under what TLD a webserver serves, if it's physically located inside the US, US laws apply to this server. In that case the US can't control the DNS name of the sites which are served but the pages/sites themselves.
If you don't like that, you can only try to convince your preferred registry to relocate to a country which has laws and procedures which are better suited to your goals. Or you could simply register a domain under that country's TLD.
.com .net and .org should all be international TLD's, not US owned. The US is pants. We don't want pants owning our sites.
Wait, are you sure he wasn't talking about Clinton?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Those studies fail to take into account two critical things:
It's completely safe to text while stopped at a traffic light, but technically it's a violation of most of those laws. What possible rational reason, other than raising revenue, could someone have for writing a law in that fashion? How about while traffic is stopped dead on the freeway or moving at 2 MPH? There's provably no safety problem at all at such low speeds; your reaction time could be five or ten seconds and you still wouldn't hit the car in front of you. Yet it's still illegal then. And that's when people are most likely to text---to tell somebody they're going to be late.
Secondly, the period of impairment. Given that you're already taking the time to punch somebody's number in on your phone to either call them or text them, guess which is more likely to cause you to be hopelessly distracted long enough to have a wreck: typing "n trfc. b l8 2nite" or spending ten minutes on the phone as your s.o. keeps talking about his/her day?
Put another way, driving while intoxicated puts you at risk for a period of hours. You're impaired the entire time you're driving. Driving while texting? You're impaired for a few seconds. A minute tops. Odds of having a wreck during that period might be up, but averaged over the duration of the trip, the risk increase is negligible. Further, people are most likely to text in situations where they are not likely to have somebody stop in front of them. Assuming you leave a longer than usual stopping distance in front of you, you can afford the slower reaction time caused by such distractions. If you're moving at 3 MPH in bumper-to-bumper traffic, you can afford the slower reaction time. If you're stopped at a traffic light or stop sign, you can afford the slower reaction time. And so on.
I regularly drive home late at night. I talk on the phone to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel. My brain is smart enough to multitask, at least to the extent necessary to drive a mundane road that I've driven a million times while talking on the phone. When traffic gets heavy, I stop talking, stop listening, and thirty seconds later, I say, "Sorry, traffic. What was that again?" It's really not that hard, but it does take practice. This suggests a need for better driver education that incorporates talking on a phone while driving, not a ban on doing so.
The fact is, some people are incapable of listening to the radio while driving. They start singing, get distracted, and plough into buildings. Should we ban car radios? How about combs? Some people are incapable of listening to passengers without getting distracted. Should we make it illegal to manufacture cars with more than one seat? At what point do you draw the line? Is it really necessary to drastically reduce the quality of life for everyone just because some people occasionally make fatal errors because they can't handle the responsibility?
Here's one final thought: regardless of how many accidents are caused by texting or dialing, there's still one cause that tops them all. Approximately 97% of all accidents are caused by people. If we could get rid of the meatbag behind the wheel, we'd have almost two
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Statistically speaking, the most common situation that one texts in traffic is when one is *already* stopped, usually in the backup behind a wreck, to tell somebody that you're going to be late. It's safe to say that at least in those situations, anybody with half a brain can safely text and drive. The problem with these laws is that they don't take into account the circumstances and treat all driving as equal. It isn't. Sitting at a traffic light or stopped in traffic is never a risky driving environment no matter how distracted you are... unless you're in East St. Louis and have nice hubcaps....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
So vote for whoever will introduce a new voting system.
Vote change. Vote for a new voting system.
This is why it is better to have a preferential voting system.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferential_voting
Sure it's not perfect, but at least people know their vote will count, if they choose not to put one of the two leading candidates/parties as their first preference.
Yeah, *everybody* thinks they can multitask, but *nobody* can. That includes you and me and everyone else here.
Are you saying that you have never heard of .us??? .com was supposed to be for global businesses etc. The whole thing got hijacked by selfish people and then, as usual, history was re-written to suit the new reality. No business, in the UK or anywhere, HAS to use it's country identifier. Anyone should be able to use the global identifier if the business is global. The trouble comes because the selfish think that it is theirs. Some even think that they 'invented' it.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
System could be changed so that you vote multiple person in ranked order. If the first choice does not get enough votes, your vote won't be wasted as you will then be counted as voting for your 2nd choice.
False is redundant. They're all liars.
Who do I vote for if I want not to be involved in ANY foreign wars. For strict regulation of corporations? Who will cut the bloated defense budget by 50%? Who will value working Americans above corporations? Who do I vote for if I want to let the banks fail instead of giving them billions? Who will support single payer medical care? Which candidate or party?
Like most Americans, I vote for the lesser of two weasels. I did write in Kucinich. I sometimes write in one of the dogs when I prefer none of the above.
How hard is it to get Canadian citizenship?
So... because your friend talked out of turn, the whole class has to write 1000x "I will not talk while the teacher is teaching." ? That's not fair, and it's not right, and it is in opposition to my free will. Lets get back to sanity/humanity. No more nanny-state crap. If no one is put at a loss, no crime is committed. Since when do we give up our freedom in the name of security? When guns are outlawed, only the criminals have guns. What the F!
I stopped at a stop-light at 11pm. I waited there for 2 minutes. The lights cycled from green to red to green to red to green to red... and not a single car went through the intersection during that time. My left turn-light didn't come. Why did I wait there? Because there was a red light camera. If the lights don't change, I can't proceed through the intersection without getting a red light ticket, yet nobody was there, and the "computer" was broken.
If nobody is harmed, no crime is committed. What did I do? I changed into the green, proceeded through the intersection, and performed a U-turn at the next light... thereby wasting 10 minutes of my life because a law was enacted to protect people from idiots... yet the only idiot was the one who wrote the law. .. sorry for trolling, but this is BS.
I'm against anti-texting laws because it's simply legislating against the du-jour flavor of distraction, not distracted driving in general.
Why do they play an undemocratic role? If they got enough votes to make an impact, that is surely not undemocratic?
Clever signature text goes here.
I'm personally amazed the Internet has lasted as long as it has. It is about the only electrical/electronic standard that is common between the USA and the rest of the world.
So this was a fun experiment. How did it work out for you, USA? How did it feel not to require an adaptor every time you go overseas? How did it feel to freely communicate with citizens outside your borders?
It is inevitable that the Internet in the USA cannot last. Everyone in the world uses the same standards! Time for a new USA-only standard, USA! That's right, A-law companding wasn't good enough for you was it. You couldn't run your power at 220/230V like the rest of the world could you. God forbid your mobile phones should ever work outside the USA. Hell, you can't even drive on the correct side of the road.
So why does .us exist?
IN any case .com etc. are supposed to be global generic tlds and used as such. British postage stamps are clearly meant to be British.
[An extraterrestrial robot and spaceship has just landed on earth. The robot steps out of the spaceship...]
"I come in peace," it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard."
Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this, as he sat with Arthur and watched the nonstop frenetic news reports on television, none of which had anything to say other than to record that the thing had done this amount of damage which was valued at that amount of billions of pounds and had killed this totally other number of people, and then say it again, because the robot was doing nothing more than standing there, swaying very slightly, and emitting short incomprehensible error messages.
"It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..."
"You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?"
"No," said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like to straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people."
"Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy."
"I did," said ford. "It is."
"So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?"
"It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they've voted in more or less approximates to the government they want."
"You mean they actually vote for the lizards?"
"Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course."
"But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?"
"Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?"
"What?"
"I said," said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, "have you got any gin?"
"I'll look. Tell me about the lizards."
Ford shrugged again.
"Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it."
From: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams
Didn't you see the "has to" in parentheses? That was to account for US. And as I recall (somebody will know how to check) that came late to the party, and the early three-letter TLDs were originally for the USA only. I certainly remember heated arguments over companies with no US presence using .com, with people arguing that they should use their own national TLDs. I'm sure I recollect that being part of the rationale for .int, another relatively recent addition and one of the few three-letter TLD's that I don't think was originally intended for US use.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
So why does .us exist?
IN any case .com etc. are supposed to be global generic tlds and used as such. British postage stamps are clearly meant to be British.
How long has .us existed? I don't see many .gov.us addresses, and although I see plenty of .co.us addresses the .co stands for Colorado, not company.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
It works this way in the UK too.
Our third party, the Liberal Democrats usually get around 20% - 23% of the vote. This year for the first time ever we had leaders debates on TV for the 3 main party leaders. The Liberal Democrats voterbase skyrocketed, becoming temporarily the largest party in terms of popular support in multiple polls, whilst their support dwindled towards election day a little, they were still clearly up with the other parties in the 29% - 33% bracket.
Yet, come election day they got 23% of the votes. Why? Because everyone fucking bottled it and thought "Hey, I don't want the red team in so I'm voting Blue" and vice versa (the Lib Dems are the yellow team to the uninformed).
For the first time in a hundred years we had a clear opportunity to break the two party state permanently (the Lib Dems would've pushed through electoral reform and fixed the system) and people just bottled it and went back to voting as their dad always told them too, who voted who his dad told him too, and so on, without actually being capable of thinking for themselves.
Still there was somewhat of a silver lining, because of the quirks of the existing system, no party held a majority of parliamentary seats, so a coalition government had to be formed, including the third party in it, meaning they at least got to push through some of their interests, and at least for the first time in decades the fact a coalition government was forced means that we have a government that actually represents more than 50% of the population rather than the usual 30% - 35% or so. The problem is that next election, I suspect we'll be back to business as usual- a two party state.
OK, lets just look at history for a while:
- The Iranians never nuked anyone before (Iran wins)
- They certainly also invaded a lot less countries... (Iran wins)
- US liberated Europe from the Nazi occupation (not all invasions are bad). (Points for US)
- Iran attempts to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation (strange how this viewpoint is never understood by Americans, a bit one-sided). (Points for Iran)
- They seem to be on par in the fundamentalist religion part, and use this in their foreign policy. (Both lose)
- Both threatened to nuke other countries. (The world loses)
All in all I would be happier when both didn't have nukes, but given both countries history Iran isn't that bad compared to the US.
The USA, greatest friend of Israel, is right to crush movie and music piracy, because P2P is anti-semitism at work! The major Hollywood studios are owned by descendants of their jewish founders (at least two of the big four were established by textile merchant jews immigrating from Hungary around 1900). Music producers and song composers are almost always ethnic jews, even if pop music performers are seldom jewish.
The swedish nazi party BNP supported Pirate Bay torrent site aims to deny entertainment industry revenue to jews, so they cannot support Israel and arabs have a field day pushing Sons of Zion into the sea.
To be fair, I've been behind countless SUV drivers who make these sorts of mistakes even when they're not on phones.
There seems to be few SUV drivers that drive them because they need them, many seem to do so because it's a kind of security blanket- to them it's a nice big vehicle to protect them from their own inability to drive well.
But I do agree, those who use a phone and drive are also much less safe in general. I find even those chatting away with blue tooth headsets on can be quite bad sometimes. Personally, if I'm driving I prefer to concentrate on doing just that, which is probably why the only accidents I've been in have involved two people rear ending me when I've been completely stationary at junctions and so forth and nothing to do with bad driving on my part.
Because their power is disproportionate to their popular support.
If you vote for a third party fruitlessly you have wasted your chance to vote for your second choice party, and as a result your last choice party may get in.
And, as everyone knows, we can't have the wrong lizards in charge!
As has already been pointed out in another post in this thread, I think it's the "fruitlessly" and "wasted" parts of the above quoted that don't quite fit the reality. Even if the independent candidate doesn't win, if there is significant support the political pressure on the other parties will swing the debate and over time tend to limit political extremes better than what we have now.
It's not an all-or-nothing exercise. The more votes a third party candidate gets, the more pressure that is exerted on the two major parties to consider and take a stance on issues & policies they normally would not address without this pressure.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
This is how we got Al "SNL" Franken and Jesse "THE BODY" Ventura as elected officials.
Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
I can't see how you can say it is ok for ANY government in the world to offer their population less freedom. Who are we to say how they should live? We are the free and brave. Who is anyone to say that liberty is ok for us but not for the rest of the world? Why should the Chinese have less freedom of information, or an Arabian less freedom of religion, or a Sudanese less freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
I never said that it's ok. The US's copyright expansionism and China's internet censorship are both bad, but what the US is doing is worse because it's also trying to force the policies on other sovereign nations.
Russia had a better reason than the US did, imho, but they still had significantly more derision and outcry raised over Georgia than the invasion of Iraq did.
Well, they provided the reason. Ossetians used Russian-given artillery and were guided by Russian officers.
It's like as if the US planted WMDs into Iraq themselves and organized personnel to teach Saddam's folks how to use them.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
So I assume that the Tibetians, Zimbabweans, and even Afghanis are responsible for the acts of their government. All of their respective countries hold elections, after all. And I guess that Canadians vastly approve of the increasingly worse-than-DMCA copyright acts flowing through their legislature, since they were voted in. And you know, most British enjoy 80+ hours of daily surveillance, because if they didn't, they wouldn't have voted in their government, either.
You're a real ass, you know that?
Yes, which is why I'm voting yes in the AV referendum in the UK :)
Many other countries have some sort of proportional voting, instead of a winner-takes-all system like the US.
The United States can't control the Internet...
And the United States can't control the world.
Just another feeble attempt by the U.S. to control everything... NEWS FLASH: NOT GONNA HAPPEN!
You sound like an addict. You can't give-up texting even for 30 seconds during a redlight stop? Also you gave me new insight - texting might explain why I see so many people stopped in front of a greenlight. They are so distracted that they don't even notice they can go.
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>>>some people are incapable of listening to the radio while driving. They start singing, get distracted, and plough into buildings
Citation please. If you can provide proof, then yes I'll support such a ban.
>>>My brain is smart enough to multitask
Again the AAA study shows otherwise. They found even hand-free cellphone usage causes decreased reaction time (such as failing to stop when a kid runs out in front of you). Maybe you BELIEVE you are different and better than the average human being, but I doubt it. We often overestimate our own abilities.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
obama video seiu
http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=obama+video+seiu
>>>who can't even hear the crazy in your own words.
Distrusting strangers (government) to run your life is a logical thing to do.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The whole reason that the US can seize these domain names is due to the fact that .net, .com, .edu, .gov, .org are all US TLDs, if you don't want to run the risk of losing your domain name by doing something illegal in the US, then don't use a US TLD. The US registrars have to follow US laws.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
If that site in Finland uses a US TLD, the US absolutely has the ability to take the domain name away. It is property owned and held in the US.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Some classic sopssa America hate, oh it's been awhile! Filthy troll.
Most of Europe will seize your property if you are breaking a crime, the US just tends to do it more.
Ogre Wedding Planners llc.
Oh look, someone who can see the forest despite the trees!
But it's way more fun to see the forest to spite the trees...
Damn you, vile tree; always tryin' to be up in my field of vision...
I sure showed you!
Ooh... something shiny... *walks away*
Really observant drivers will notice that many of those people also dive over the curb making a right without talking on their cell phones.
The problem isn't the cell phone, the problem is the licensing system.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
The registrar only handles the name of your website. The name of their website was not illegal, and a proper understanding of Internet law at some point in the future will probably prevent this type of seizure too.
This is equivalent to removing someone's name from the white pages of the phone book because they might have broken the law (notice: no convictions, these are suspects, not convicts). The DNS and registrar system are the white pages of the Internet, they are not the content.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
You mean like the .us tld they didn't use?
dot-com is international, so are dot-org and dot-net. If you're hosting an American centric website, use dot-us.
I use dot-ca for mine, since I'm Canadian, but my registrar is still American, for what its worth. Does that mean the US government should be allowed to shut down DNS for my Canadian website hosted in Canada because my DNS registrar is American?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Actually, some counties and states in the US do allow for multiple votes per citizen to allow under polled groups to have proper representation. I can't find the recent NPR news story on it, but I did find the wikipedia article on Semiproportional voting (or Cumulative voting).
And instead of creating another post I've also noticed that people don't like voting 3rd party because it might allow for the party you really don't like to get elected, however the way I justify voting 3rd party in good conscience is that I consider it a vote against both other parties. I could just not vote, but voting 3rd party shows up in the polls and lets both the parties no they are doing shitty job.
Where in my post did I say I thought I could text and drive? I don't think I can and I agree that I don't think anyone can. I just don't think we need additional laws to combat texting while driving when we already have laws that cover dangerous driving practices.
letting an idiot know they are an idiot is not a game... it's a responsibility. - by Kristopeit, M. D. (1892582)
Actually, I've only sent a single-digit number of text messages in my entire life, none of which were while driving. Try again.
Fine. You tell that to my family when I fall asleep behind the wheel.
If a kid runs out in front of me on a wide open four-lane highway at 10:00 at night, we have bigger problems than me talking on a cell phone. A deer, maybe.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
lmgtfy
Typical response of a coward who is afraid to own his own words. A search that comes back with a bunch of hits - the most obvious of which don't say anything like you claim. The closet thing you've got is "My agenda was your agenda" not "I am here to serve you." But you know what you crazy mutherfucka? It is the job of politicians to serve the electorate, that a politician would actually say so ain't no scandal.
Distrusting strangers (government) to run your life is a logical thing to do.
Holy shit, that's some fucking crazy right there. Seriously.
Did you not read the part where I said he's totally wrong about healthcare? Where I said that he did the wrong thing with the banking bailout? Your brain is stuck in its own narrative of crazy. In this conversation where I dispute your claims all you can do is attribute false beliefs to me.
You sure do like to let your crazy flag fly high don't you?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Please read about the various voting systems that have been used or theorised. I think you're idea is better than the current US system but will probably still end up with a 2 party system.
"Your" != "you're"
Just not presidents. I always vote for who I want and not "against someone else." We live in an unfortunately stupid world in an unfortunately stupid country... and our respective leaderships wouldn't have it any other way.
There is a reason, after all, that school teachers are among the "re-educate/kill" lists when governments change power so often. It is the educated people they fear most.
Close, but not quite accurate.
With education often comes a great deal of indoctrination. When governments non-peacefully change power, what they fear is a population that has received the previous indoctrination of the old government. They wish to convert or eliminate the schoolteachers so that they can re-indoctrinate the population in a way that makes them subservient to their own rule.
You may have a knee-jerk reaction to the term "indoctrination". For that I have a simple response. Power-hungry rulers everywhere fear an intelligent population that understands critical thinking and is able to independently think for themselves. This would be undesirable both for the old government and the new one. Yet you don't see them eliminating all schools and all teachers entirely. That would create a population that can only contribute unskilled labor to serve the economic and war machines. So they don't eliminate schools and teachers entirely. They replace them with schools and teachers that they control, who teach a curriculum and wield authority in a way favorable to their interests.
I'll give a general example from the USA. When you have an entire generation that grew up in public schools where the insanity of "zero tolerance" for everything is common, where this government agency frequently limits or eliminates Constitutional rights such as that of free speech or the right not to be searched without a warrant, they grow up and see their government becoming more and more authoritarian and believe that this is normal, for it is all they have ever known from an impressionable age. A reading of the curriculum will list things like "Mathematics" and "Physics" but you won't find that as a line-item on the list. Whether you think that's all a big accident or whether you recognize that legions of educators, psychologists, and other experts might notice the effect this has on society is your call.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
>>>I vote for the giant douche -- I'm not into scat.
I don't think that's where "douche" is supposed to go. It usually goes in the front hole so you might end-up with some blood, but definitely not scat.
He's saying he votes for the giant douche because voting for a turd sandwich would require being into scat, which as he stated, he is not.
Reading comprehension is hard.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Thanks. I only had a little tiny shred of hope for my country left. Now that too is gone to oblivion.
That woman is what happens when everything you have ever known comes from two sources: public schooling and mainstream media. I will qualify "mainstream media" in this way: Fox News is an equal and opposite type of insanity so I do not refer to them here; instead I refer to news outlets that do not rely so heavily on editorials.
And I know this is off-topic... anyone else wonder if Michael Weiner (the real name of Michael Savage) ever opens his eyelids? He either loves to squint or he's on something...
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
The politicians understand a basic fact about all talk shows: you cannot possibly win a "debate" against someone who can turn off your microphone or shout you down at any time, nor can you possibly win a "debate" against someone who entirely controls the flow of conversation. You can "win" a "debate" even when you are dead wrong if you can prevent your opponent from ever speaking except to answer yes/no to your carefully crafted and framed questions. You can also "win" a "debate" if you can prevent him from bringing up any new topics while retaining that ability yourself.
Most of what passes for "debate" on these shows is really just an abuse of the Socratic method, which was originally intended as a teaching tool. It can be entertaining but it's problematic to put it mildly when the average person thinks that this is legitimate dissent.
Hannity might complain about politicians not wanting to be his punching bags on his show so he can increase his ratings. How about if Hannity agrees to enter a fair debate, with a moderator who is not an opponent in the debate? I bet more politicians would accept his invitations then. He won't do that, of course, because it would cost him the status of always looking right. Politicians are also good orators and also know how to play to a crowd and there's no way Hannity doesn' t understand that.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
the government ARE the terrorists
If you're religishitty, KILL YOURSELF!
Jesse Ventura is a political sage.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
But having a democracy means that you don't just steamroll over minorities. Democracy is designed to give a louder voice to people who would not be heard under a different type of system.
Clever signature text goes here.