Blackberry devices and the earlier 900-series devices connected to Mobitex. There was also an 800 series of devices that connected to Motient. Coverage was better in outlying areas and there was better penetration inside buildings but the things had awful battery life.
According to Wikipedia, the DOT weight limit for semi trucks is 80,000 lbs. Furthermore, some states allow semi trucks to haul two or even three trailers for maximum weights of 129,000 and 147,000 lbs (respectively).
You may worry about SUVs but twice I've been "stalked" by semi truck drivers for some perceived sleight -- at any point in the back-of-beyond of the asshats could have run me off the road without anybody being the wiser.
The reason the air conditioner seems so overbuilt in a car is because it -is- overbuilt, because the demands upon it are huge. Peope don't treat them the same as they do in their homes. You don't leave your glass house to sit in an unshaded parking lot for 8 hours and then expect its AC to cool it off from 100+ degrees to something tolerable in just a few minutes, do you?
The numbers I've heard tossed around is that here in PHX when it gets to be 100+ your typical automotive interior is ~ 150F. The two minutes between when I start the A/C and when it actually starts blowing cold air are some of the hottest minutes of my life.
I'd also add that the 5HP from the GP is probably the raw engine load -- that's not being converted into cooling at an efficiency of 100% You're losing ~ 10% of that energy in the belt drive itself. Then you've got to deal with inefficiencies due to the installation requirements. Your home AC unit has a very large heat exchanger. The heat exchanger for automotive AC units (condenser) is relatively tiny. And it's picking up loads of radiated heat from your engine's other heat exchanger (what is colloquially called the radiator). Finally, the compressor is required to support the wide range of operating speeds of the engine (~700 rpm to 5000+ rpm) without the possibility of being overdriven/underdriven by more than about 10% while being small enough to actually fit under the hood.
This goes back to the information problem. You can't call a doctor's office and ask for a quote on Strep throat treatment. Which antibiotic should I use? Don't know, since I may be alergic to some and not know what is available. Is the doctor going to continue to treat me under the original quote if I have an antibiotic resistant strain? Medicine is too difficult to quote correctly so the information and elasticity argument fall apart. It is the exact reason we have health insurance. We need to smooth out the costs and we do so through shared cost in health insurance.
You're grasping at straws. I spent three years as a self-insured individual and I had no problem with shopping around. I knew what an office visit would cost (because face it, when you go to the doctor's office, you're getting a "yes you have strep." and an Rx, not a full course of treatment). When my son broke his arm and we went to a specialist we asked what the X-rays were going to cost in his office. When it ran into the triple digits we made arrangements to go to the local medical imaging place where they were $27 (that was the cash price. Billed price would have been twice that and the insurance price was over $70).
The reason we have employer provided health insurance in the US is due to an historical accident -- wage caps were enacted and employers used medical insurance as a fringe benefit to attract workers that they couldn't attract with increased pay.
When I see '50s and '60s cars, I just see an enormous waste of space and weight, that doesn't contribute to performance, comfort, safety, economy, or any other part of the function of a car.
I'll take an example I know pretty well by heart.
Delivery weight for a 1965 Buick Skylark with the cast-iron 300ci V8 (as distinguished from the "nailhead" 401 V8) is ~ 3200 lbs. Delivery weight for a 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 is 2900 lbs.
Said Skylark easily seats 5 along with 6 dead bodies in the trunk -- one night we even managed to pack 8 full size adults (some were even of the 'large male rugby player' variety) into it for a trip into town. The Z24 seats 4 small, friendly adults or 5 children. The trunk is not nearly so large -- less so if you want a full size spare rather than a 'donut'.
Some oil was making in through the valve guides, so rather than go for having them knurled I had them reamed and replaced along with a minor 3 angle valve job. Between that and a fresh carb rebuild I managed 25 mpg through Southern California (think: Grapevine hill). Imagine what that number would have looked like if the transmission had more than 2 speeds.
As we're on the subject, I'll share my Garry Harrison story:
Prof. Harrison taught the upper levels of aerodynamics at my school. On an exam halfway through the term he offers the following deal:
"I'll give you a guaranteed 'D' on the test if you'll walk out the door right now." Nobody took him up on the offer -- at this point we've already shed all the losers and wannabes and even knowing how hard these tests are we're sure we can do better than a 'D'.
It didn't work out that way -- one guy even got a 0! (Prof. Harrison was not a believer in partial credit).
What I took away from the post was this:
If you have two test takers (A and B) such that B knows 2X what A knows, the final score doesn't necessarily reflect that point:
A: 1 known + 99 * 1/4 = 25.75
B: 2 known + 98 * 1/4 = 26.5
or, if those knowns are too ridiculous
A: 50 known + 50 * 1/4 = 62.5
B: 100 known + 0 * 1/4 = 100
You're in the trap of thinking that all debt is bad debt. If I go out and buy a car based on the payment (which is how most schmucks do it) then yes, you're probably right. However, let's say that I'm just starting in the private sector. I've just graduated from college with a large (some might even call it 'crushing') amount of student loan debt. I've got a shiny, new "in the industry" job. Do I:
a) Go out and buy a 10 year old car with money scraped out of my ashtray and pulled out of my couch
b) Go out and buy a new (or nearly new) car on credit
I would argue "b" -- if you want to keep that good job it's imperitive that you show up to work on time every day. You're not going to make
the best of impressions when you call in on the third day and say you won't be in because your car just dropped it's transmission onto the road.
And by the way, would your boss mind advancing you three weeks pay so you can cover the repair?
It takes money to make money, so as long as you're spending wisely (e.g. a new Corolla, Scion, or Fit) you're probably not doing too
badly in the financial management department.
The reason the cars instantly lose a chunk of their value is due to informational assymetry. If someone is trying to sell what is otherwise a brand new car, the thinking goes, the only reason for it can only be that the thing is a lemon and therefore must be worth several thousand dollars less than the same item available on a dealer's lot.
In this day and age, with widely available services that can check out repair histories, so-called certified used cars, and the general ability for cars to self-diagnose serious errors said decrease in value is not nearly so germane. Don't suppose that'll mean it's going away any time soon.
In Arizona state, your boss is required by law to give you paid time to vote on election day.
ARS 16-42:
A. A person entitled to vote at a primary or general election held within this state may, on the day of election, absent himself for the purpose of voting from the service or employment at which he is employed if there are less than three consecutive hours between the opening of the polls and the beginning of his regular workshift or between the end of his regular workshift and the closing of the polls. In such event, he may absent himself for such length of time at the beginning or end of his workshift that, when added to the time difference between workshift hours and opening or closing of the polls, will provide a total of three consecutive hours. He shall not, because of such absence, be liable for any penalty, nor shall any deduction be made therefor from his usual salary or wages. Application shall be made for such absence prior to the day of election, and the employer may specify the hours during which the employee may absent himself.
B. A person who refuses an employee the right conferred by this section, or who subjects an employee to a penalty or reduction of wages therefor, or who directly or indirectly violates the provisions of this section, is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor.
Arizona is not exactly the most worker-friendly state in the nation (IIRC, the current limits on UI are $205/week for 6 weeks) so I'd be hard pressed to believe that other states don't have similar laws.
Much of the money that WA state took in via registration fees went into the general fund. When the "this is just rich people balking at paying to register their Lexus" meme didn't gain the appropriate amount of traction supporters of the status quo fell back on "won't somebody please think of the children".
AZ also has relatively high registration fees (i.e. it's a percentage of the cost of the vehicle and not some use fee by vehicle type or weight) and I'm pretty sure most of that goes into the general fund here as well.
It's worth noting that the money that goes back to the states is usually provided as federal matching funds, not an outright grant -- the state has to come up with 50% of whatever it is they're wasting, er, spending the money on.
It can be argued that CAFE put the auto industry in the state it's in today.
I've posted this same information many times before, but just for the hell of it, I'll repeat myself.
CAFE was written to please a number of interests including UAW. So rather than just tallying up all the cars sold and their mileage, manufacturers have to meet standards for both foreign and domestic production. This provision was written into the law to prevent the Big 3 from importing/rebranding small cars from Japan (think Chevy Luv). Initially the foreign manufacturers didn't have to hassle with domestic limits -- they were importing from Japan. Later, as their market share increased and they wanted to compete with the larger vehicles they had the freedom to move production around to meet standards. It's off topic here, but the standards for foreign/domestic content strongly favor the Japanese manufacturers. Anyhow, in order to compete early in the CAFE era, the big 3 were selling economy cars at or below cost and making their profit on large cars. As the large cars got more and more expensive, buyers shifted to buying vehicles classed as light trucks. Light trucks have lower efficiency and safety standards which means they're much cheaper to manufacture. So the Big 3 shifted to selling light trucks (read SUVs) in order to make their money. At the same time, they were spending the minimum on developing economy cars. There was little to no profit there, so no reason to excel. And now, here we are: The big 3 have an awful reputation WRT economy cars, their profit comes from less efficient SUVs, and Honda/Toyota, having more domestic "flexibility" have created production infrastructure here in the US while avoiding the incredible costs associated with the UAW.
It would have been much better to write the law in limited fashion: 10 years of CAFE with no segmenting of foreign/domestic fleets. At the same time, the Feds should have communicated that at the end of the 10 years, it would be incumbent on the consumer to maximize fuel economy (probably with some kind of phased in fuel tax). Detroit and the UAW could have worked out a better long term agreement, we wouldn't have a metric assload of SUVs on the road, and drivers would exhibit at least some limited form of personal responsibility.
The Japanese _were_ defeated by the USA, but the way of doing it, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of civilians in an atomic inferno is presented as rather the right thing to do, or, at the very least, as a great technical achievement.
The two atomic bombs did not defeat Japan, they convinced it to surrender before the Allies had to attempt an assault of the main island. What defeated Japan was the US Navy restricting Japan's access to the resources their armed forces required while the USAAF bombed the shit out of Japanese cities. What amazes me is that people frequently get on their high horse about the number of casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki while ignoring the number of casualties from the firebombing of Tokyo -- 72000 (essentially the same as Nagasaki). Why did the Allies use firebombing? Because the Japanese couldn't mount an effective air defense and so dispersed munitions production out into the general civilian population. That arguably opened up the general civilian population into being considered legitimate military targets.
Go read Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln". Elected to do the bidding of his corporate buddies. A crooked lawyer. Used fear and intimidation to influence voting during his reelection campaign. Broke newspapers that printed editorials that disagreed with him. Violated Posse Comitatus and sent the army to arrest a Senator that was a political opponent. Directed his generals to disregard the rules of war and target civilians. Put thousands of American civilians in military jails to circumvent due process. Any of this sound familiar?
How is this parent post not modded "+5 insightful" yet?
I'd add the note that our mainframe costs are based on CPU usage, but we get a break during off-peak hours. Unfortunately, everybody tries to run their
stuff off-peak and then it's all late:(
I was fingerprinted during the course of AFROTC. The procedure was that I went down to the local sheriff's office (Sheriff Buck Buchanon's office in Prescott AZ if anyone is interested) and they fingerprinted me just like they would anyone that they book. My fingerprints are now on file with the FBI -- big fucking whoop.
It's no different from applying for a concealed weapons permit in many jurisdictions. Unless, of course, your tinfoil hat is on too tight...
Watada doesn't have the standing to question the legality of his order. It would be a different kettle of fish if it was someone on the JCS.
If Watada had been ordered to gun down 27 unarmed teenagers and then bulldoze their bodies into a grave, then yeah, he's got a leg to stand on.
This would include many films and cartoons, as well as the right to use the characters and likenesses in a theme park.
Copyright extension only covers the legality of copying specific works: Steamboat Willie, Pinnochio. A trademark can be assigned to a company as long as they continue to use it (and could have been before Sonny Bono was bought and paid for by Disney) Copying a character like Mickey Mouse (or creating a similar likeness) would be trademark infringment -- very few people have advocated a time limit on trademarks.
What other president lied to start a war that has killed more than 3000 American troops?
Lincoln -- he managed to kill 360,000 Union troops and another 250,000 Confederate troops.
The lie? The claim that the U.S. would abandon Fort Sumter. Because the Confederacy was seen as firing on supply ships,
it was easy to whip the U.S. into a frenzy. What other president has overseen the arrest of innocent people (there have been "enemy combatants" released with their charges dropped), holding them for years as "enemy combatants" without any right to habeas corpus?
Again, Lincoln. Some will argue that as there was a state of rebellion his suspension of habeas corpus was justified. That may be, but he suspended it
nationwide. Sure, you might get away with suspending it on the border out of expediency, but it's not like it needed to be suspended in Maine. What other president has overseen warrant-less NSA and FBI wiretaps?
Lincoln obviously predates the NSA and wiretaps, but one of his programs was designed to get neighbors to "rat" on each other. If you turned your
neighbor in for treason, the government was allowed to (illegally) seize your property, a portion of which was awarded to the informant. What other president's administration has called the Geneva Convention "Quaint" and "Obsolete"?
See: Sherman's march to the sea, the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, etc. etc.
And that, kids, is why you should know your history before posting on/.
Slashdot Mirror
Blackberry devices and the earlier 900-series devices connected to Mobitex. There was also an 800 series of devices that connected to Motient. Coverage was better in outlying areas and there was better penetration inside buildings but the things had awful battery life.
According to Wikipedia, the DOT weight limit for semi trucks is 80,000 lbs. Furthermore, some states allow semi trucks to haul two or even three trailers for maximum weights of 129,000 and 147,000 lbs (respectively). You may worry about SUVs but twice I've been "stalked" by semi truck drivers for some perceived sleight -- at any point in the back-of-beyond of the asshats could have run me off the road without anybody being the wiser.
The reason the air conditioner seems so overbuilt in a car is because it -is- overbuilt, because the demands upon it are huge. Peope don't treat them the same as they do in their homes. You don't leave your glass house to sit in an unshaded parking lot for 8 hours and then expect its AC to cool it off from 100+ degrees to something tolerable in just a few minutes, do you?
The numbers I've heard tossed around is that here in PHX when it gets to be 100+ your typical automotive interior is ~ 150F. The two minutes between when I start the A/C and when it actually starts blowing cold air are some of the hottest minutes of my life.
I'd also add that the 5HP from the GP is probably the raw engine load -- that's not being converted into cooling at an efficiency of 100% You're losing ~ 10% of that energy in the belt drive itself. Then you've got to deal with inefficiencies due to the installation requirements. Your home AC unit has a very large heat exchanger. The heat exchanger for automotive AC units (condenser) is relatively tiny. And it's picking up loads of radiated heat from your engine's other heat exchanger (what is colloquially called the radiator). Finally, the compressor is required to support the wide range of operating speeds of the engine (~700 rpm to 5000+ rpm) without the possibility of being overdriven/underdriven by more than about 10% while being small enough to actually fit under the hood.
Same here (well, 1680x1050). DPMS didn't work for shit until I installed the non-free nVidia drivers.
This goes back to the information problem. You can't call a doctor's office and ask for a quote on Strep throat treatment. Which antibiotic should I use? Don't know, since I may be alergic to some and not know what is available. Is the doctor going to continue to treat me under the original quote if I have an antibiotic resistant strain? Medicine is too difficult to quote correctly so the information and elasticity argument fall apart. It is the exact reason we have health insurance. We need to smooth out the costs and we do so through shared cost in health insurance.
You're grasping at straws. I spent three years as a self-insured individual and I had no problem with shopping around. I knew what an office visit would cost (because face it, when you go to the doctor's office, you're getting a "yes you have strep." and an Rx, not a full course of treatment). When my son broke his arm and we went to a specialist we asked what the X-rays were going to cost in his office. When it ran into the triple digits we made arrangements to go to the local medical imaging place where they were $27 (that was the cash price. Billed price would have been twice that and the insurance price was over $70).
The reason we have employer provided health insurance in the US is due to an historical accident -- wage caps were enacted and employers used medical insurance as a fringe benefit to attract workers that they couldn't attract with increased pay.
When I see '50s and '60s cars, I just see an enormous waste of space and weight, that doesn't contribute to performance, comfort, safety, economy, or any other part of the function of a car.
I'll take an example I know pretty well by heart.
Delivery weight for a 1965 Buick Skylark with the cast-iron 300ci V8 (as distinguished from the "nailhead" 401 V8) is ~ 3200 lbs.
Delivery weight for a 1996 Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 is 2900 lbs.
Said Skylark easily seats 5 along with 6 dead bodies in the trunk -- one night we even managed to pack 8 full size adults (some were even of the 'large male rugby player' variety) into it for a trip into town. The Z24 seats 4 small, friendly adults or 5 children. The trunk is not nearly so large -- less so if you want a full size spare rather than a 'donut'.
Some oil was making in through the valve guides, so rather than go for having them knurled I had them reamed and replaced along with a minor 3 angle valve job. Between that and a fresh carb rebuild I managed 25 mpg through Southern California (think: Grapevine hill). Imagine what that number would have looked like if the transmission had more than 2 speeds.
That attack would work against the God-Emperor of Dune...
As we're on the subject, I'll share my Garry Harrison story:
Prof. Harrison taught the upper levels of aerodynamics at my school. On an exam halfway through the term he offers the following deal:
"I'll give you a guaranteed 'D' on the test if you'll walk out the door right now." Nobody took him up on the offer -- at this point
we've already shed all the losers and wannabes and even knowing how hard these tests are we're sure we can do better than a 'D'.
It didn't work out that way -- one guy even got a 0! (Prof. Harrison was not a believer in partial credit).
What I took away from the post was this: If you have two test takers (A and B) such that B knows 2X what A knows, the final score doesn't necessarily reflect that point: A: 1 known + 99 * 1/4 = 25.75 B: 2 known + 98 * 1/4 = 26.5 or, if those knowns are too ridiculous A: 50 known + 50 * 1/4 = 62.5 B: 100 known + 0 * 1/4 = 100
At this point the Churchill quote would be apropos:
Capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others.
You're in the trap of thinking that all debt is bad debt. If I go out and buy a car based on the payment (which is how most schmucks do it) then yes, you're probably right. However, let's say that I'm just starting in the private sector. I've just graduated from college with a large (some might even call it 'crushing') amount of student loan debt. I've got a shiny, new "in the industry" job. Do I: a) Go out and buy a 10 year old car with money scraped out of my ashtray and pulled out of my couch b) Go out and buy a new (or nearly new) car on credit I would argue "b" -- if you want to keep that good job it's imperitive that you show up to work on time every day. You're not going to make the best of impressions when you call in on the third day and say you won't be in because your car just dropped it's transmission onto the road. And by the way, would your boss mind advancing you three weeks pay so you can cover the repair? It takes money to make money, so as long as you're spending wisely (e.g. a new Corolla, Scion, or Fit) you're probably not doing too badly in the financial management department.
The reason the cars instantly lose a chunk of their value is due to informational assymetry. If someone is trying to sell what is otherwise
a brand new car, the thinking goes, the only reason for it can only be that the thing is a lemon and therefore must be worth several thousand dollars less
than the same item available on a dealer's lot.
In this day and age, with widely available services that can check out repair histories, so-called certified used cars, and the general ability for cars to
self-diagnose serious errors said decrease in value is not nearly so germane. Don't suppose that'll mean it's going away any time soon.
In Arizona state, your boss is required by law to give you paid time to vote on election day.
ARS 16-42:
Arizona is not exactly the most worker-friendly state in the nation (IIRC, the current limits on UI are $205/week for 6 weeks) so I'd be hard pressed to believe that other states don't have similar laws.
Much of the money that WA state took in via registration fees went into the general fund. When the "this is just rich people balking at paying to register their Lexus" meme didn't gain the appropriate amount of traction supporters of the status quo fell back on "won't somebody please think of the children".
AZ also has relatively high registration fees (i.e. it's a percentage of the cost of the vehicle and not some use fee by vehicle type or weight) and I'm pretty sure most of that goes into the general fund here as well.
It's worth noting that the money that goes back to the states is usually provided as federal matching funds, not an outright grant -- the state has to come up with 50% of whatever it is they're wasting, er, spending the money on.
That's why the vice president has the duty of safeguarding the space-time continuum. Doesn't anyone read the Constitution?
It can be argued that CAFE put the auto industry in the state it's in today.
I've posted this same information many times before, but just for the hell of it, I'll repeat myself.
CAFE was written to please a number of interests including UAW. So rather than just tallying up all the cars sold and their mileage, manufacturers have to meet standards for both foreign and domestic production. This provision was written into the law to prevent the Big 3 from importing/rebranding small cars from Japan (think Chevy Luv). Initially the foreign manufacturers didn't have to hassle with domestic limits -- they were importing from Japan. Later, as their market share increased and they wanted to compete with the larger vehicles they had the freedom to move production around to meet standards. It's off topic here, but the standards for foreign/domestic content strongly favor the Japanese manufacturers. Anyhow, in order to compete early in the CAFE era, the big 3 were selling economy cars at or below cost and making their profit on large cars. As the large cars got more and more expensive, buyers shifted to buying vehicles classed as light trucks. Light trucks have lower efficiency and safety standards which means they're much cheaper to manufacture. So the Big 3 shifted to selling light trucks (read SUVs) in order to make their money. At the same time, they were spending the minimum on developing economy cars. There was little to no profit there, so no reason to excel. And now, here we are: The big 3 have an awful reputation WRT economy cars, their profit comes from less efficient SUVs, and Honda/Toyota, having more domestic "flexibility" have created production infrastructure here in the US while avoiding the incredible costs associated with the UAW.
It would have been much better to write the law in limited fashion: 10 years of CAFE with no segmenting of foreign/domestic fleets. At the same time, the Feds should have communicated that at the end of the 10 years, it would be incumbent on the consumer to maximize fuel economy (probably with some kind of phased in fuel tax). Detroit and the UAW could have worked out a better long term agreement, we wouldn't have a metric assload of SUVs on the road, and drivers would exhibit at least some limited form of personal responsibility.
The Japanese _were_ defeated by the USA, but the way of doing it, killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of civilians in an atomic inferno is presented as rather the right thing to do, or, at the very least, as a great technical achievement.
The two atomic bombs did not defeat Japan, they convinced it to surrender before the Allies had to attempt an assault of the main island. What defeated Japan was the US Navy restricting Japan's access to the resources their armed forces required while the USAAF bombed the shit out of Japanese cities. What amazes me is that people frequently get on their high horse about the number of casualties in Hiroshima and Nagasaki while ignoring the number of casualties from the firebombing of Tokyo -- 72000 (essentially the same as Nagasaki). Why did the Allies use firebombing? Because the Japanese couldn't mount an effective air defense and so dispersed munitions production out into the general civilian population. That arguably opened up the general civilian population into being considered legitimate military targets.
What else do you expect from Kentridge students? (Kentwood, class of 1990. Go Conquerers!)
Go read Thomas DiLorenzo's "The Real Lincoln". Elected to do the bidding of his corporate buddies. A crooked lawyer. Used fear and intimidation to influence voting
during his reelection campaign. Broke newspapers that printed editorials that disagreed with him. Violated Posse Comitatus and sent the army to arrest a Senator that was a political opponent. Directed his generals to disregard the rules of war and target civilians. Put thousands of American civilians in military jails to circumvent due process. Any of this sound familiar?
How is this parent post not modded "+5 insightful" yet? I'd add the note that our mainframe costs are based on CPU usage, but we get a break during off-peak hours. Unfortunately, everybody tries to run their stuff off-peak and then it's all late :(
Amazon had been offering free MP3 downloads for years. I've gotten some pretty good tunes from Amazon, but most of the stuff appears to be self-published content from indy bands. http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Music-Downloads/b/re f=sv_j_7/103-5893090-3536629?ie=UTF8&node=468646
If you find content from someone selling an album (for my buddy Kevin, I'll link to "Man of Constant Sorrow")
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_j/102-0370793-06 08131?url=search-alias%3Dmusic-dd&field-keywords=c onstant+sorrow
you'll see that the free download links back to the album.
I was fingerprinted during the course of AFROTC. The procedure was that I went down to the local sheriff's office (Sheriff Buck Buchanon's office in Prescott AZ if anyone is interested) and they fingerprinted me just like they would anyone that they book. My fingerprints are now on file with the FBI -- big fucking whoop.
It's no different from applying for a concealed weapons permit in many jurisdictions. Unless, of course, your tinfoil hat is on too tight...
Watada doesn't have the standing to question the legality of his order. It would be a different kettle of fish if it was someone on the JCS. If Watada had been ordered to gun down 27 unarmed teenagers and then bulldoze their bodies into a grave, then yeah, he's got a leg to stand on.
This would include many films and cartoons, as well as the right to use the characters and likenesses in a theme park.
Copyright extension only covers the legality of copying specific works: Steamboat Willie, Pinnochio. A trademark
can be assigned to a company as long as they continue to use it (and could have been before Sonny Bono was bought and paid for by Disney) Copying a character like Mickey Mouse (or creating a similar likeness) would be trademark infringment -- very few people have advocated a time limit on trademarks.
What other president lied to start a war that has killed more than 3000 American troops? /.
Lincoln -- he managed to kill 360,000 Union troops and another 250,000 Confederate troops. The lie? The claim that the U.S. would abandon Fort Sumter. Because the Confederacy was seen as firing on supply ships, it was easy to whip the U.S. into a frenzy.
What other president has overseen the arrest of innocent people (there have been "enemy combatants" released with their charges dropped), holding them for years as "enemy combatants" without any right to habeas corpus?
Again, Lincoln. Some will argue that as there was a state of rebellion his suspension of habeas corpus was justified. That may be, but he suspended it nationwide. Sure, you might get away with suspending it on the border out of expediency, but it's not like it needed to be suspended in Maine.
What other president has overseen warrant-less NSA and FBI wiretaps?
Lincoln obviously predates the NSA and wiretaps, but one of his programs was designed to get neighbors to "rat" on each other. If you turned your neighbor in for treason, the government was allowed to (illegally) seize your property, a portion of which was awarded to the informant.
What other president's administration has called the Geneva Convention "Quaint" and "Obsolete"?
See: Sherman's march to the sea, the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, etc. etc.
And that, kids, is why you should know your history before posting on