I have no problem with this at all. There are no broadcasts of any nature that are worth listening to at present; an entire dial full of stations that changed with location would at least have a chance of coming up with something. Your absolutely ridiculous Scientology example notwithstanding. I see nothing ridiculous about his example at all. I'm sure that such things would be quite routine if there was nobody to enforce rules against it. Perhaps not scientologists, but there are many fringe groups out there that would love to have a cheap way to broadcast their message at people, whether those people want to hear it or not. Just because you don't like what's on the air right now doesn't mean we should abandon the whole thing.
They only work for voters and supporters No, they only work for supporters. They will comply with voters if enough of them raise a big enough stink. That's largely what's wrong with government today. It's all about the money. Career politicians, corporations and lobbyists are running the show, and people keep voting them back into office, or at best replacing one career politician with another. This is, in turn, largely due to the ridiculous election system we have, along with gerrymandering to keep incumbents safe. We need a lot of changes if things are ever going to get better.
Now and again he does: Civil Rights Act of 1964, Now if only a bunch of CEOs would have to go through what the civil rights activists went through in order to get these favors from the government, I might be ok with it.
You can sue them. And if the CEO knowingly repeatedly "improperly credits a bad check" he can go to jail to. The problem being that it's practically impossible to prove that the bank officials have done anything criminal. They don't have the little camera pointed at them while they're robbing you.
Oh, I get it... this is the obligatory Richard-Garriot-Sucks thread. I would think it would be further down. My bad. I don't really care one way or the other about Garriot. He's made some games that a lot of people liked. So have a lot of others. It's one thing to say that everyone is getting it wrong (although by WoW's numbers you wouldn't think they're terribly off the mark), it's quite another to build a game that people like better. I know he's working on a game that he thinks is different and better, but again, so have many others. Until he releases the game to wild success, we won't know if he's right or wrong about the direction he decided to go in.
Only if you can prove it in court. What's the going rate for Hungary judges, a nice pastrami on rye? Actually, like we saw in the last anti-trust trial here, even if you DO prove it, they'll still get off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist.
First, Microsoft does not have a monopoly on OS or any other application. Do you know what percentage of consumer-level computers in Europe (or at least Hungary) are running Windows/MSOffice? You don't have to have 100% of the market to be a monopoly, just a very large percentage of it. Such a position gives you major leverage over the vendors because while they may want to sell other brands as well, they can't afford not to deal with you. That's monopoly power. When you combine that with the strongarm business tactics and product tying that Microsoft is known for, along with network effects then you have a good reason to try to prevent them from abusing their position.
The inside word was that there were going to be enormous contracts coming down the line for processing, indexing, storing, retrieving, and minin gargantuan amounts of data. That's kind of the thing I thought about when they started talking about handouts to the telecoms to get them to keep more data on their customers. I don't know the exact numbers involved, but you can bet that taxpayers are going to be shelling out orders of magnitude more cash than it would cost them to keep the data. All for a system that will be put in place ostensibly to track down terrorists, but which will certainly be abused in short order. The temptation is far too great.
Want a Wii? Walk into any store in any major city and buy one. There were five or six sitting at the BestBuy I stopped by last night gathering dust. Lucky you. None of the BBs in my city have them in stock. Neither does ToysRUs, Target, Wal-Mart, or Circuit City. They say they don't usually know when they'll get a shipment or how many they'll get, and they sell out within a matter of hours. So, unless I want to show up each morning when the doors open, then I probably won't be getting one anytime soon. I've had several people at work ask me where they can get a Wii. I just tell them to start showing up at the stores early and hope for the best.
It is really an amazing lesson in just how crazy anti-customer amazon can get when they feel like it. Amazon deserves to be sued for pulling that kind of crap. It's a pretty basic tenet that you don't get to renegotiate a sale after it's been made. Sounds like someone at Amazon just can't accept the fact that they screwed up and the whole thing is entirely their fault. After hearing about all this, I'm not planning to buy anything else from them. Too bad I just bought a couple of books from them a few weeks ago, kinda wish I could negate that sale now too.
That's not how Amazon sees it. Looks like wishful thinking on Amazon's part. They might have been able to trick people into returning the DVDs, but they probably don't have a legal leg to stand on if they people refuse.
Certainly the general policy under US law is that you're not allowed to exploit obvious errors on a business' part (e.g. obviously mislabeled merchandise). I think the actual law states that if there is an obvious error in the advertised or labeled price, the store is not obligated to sell it to you. However, if they make the mistake, and also sell it to you at that price, then you're under no obligation to return it if they change their mind or realize their mistake later. They made the transaction. It's done.
what about when those liberal supreme court judges allowed municipalities to seize property for development purposes? Nevermind building a school, which is for public good, lets take your house, give you a pittance for it, and build a fucking mini-mall! Not sure where you live, but here in Texas, it was the Republicans doing that stuff rather than the dems, not that I think the dems wouldn't do it too though. It's not a Republican/Democrat issue. It more of a rich/poor issue. If you're not rich and connected, you're likely to get fucked by those that are. Of course I don't like either party, so I'm pretty much stuck unless we get some decent election reforms passed.
The people effected by this will also be charged and facing 10 years in prison along with a $50,000 fine. He gets the authority to make such declarations here. Checkout section 1705. Well, the link to Spybot doesn't help much, but I think the point is that while they can be charged, only the most obvious and egregious cases likely will be. They don't have to charge anyone with anything in order to freeze their assets. They don't have to have probable cause or evidence or any of that stuff that we normally associate with a just legal system. I wonder why we bother with courts and judges and stuff sometimes anyway. Seems like this is a much easier way to go. Just let some guys from the executive branch decide who's guilty and then take away all their stuff. No problem.
To say that the government denying you access to (or use of) your property is the same as being "deprived" of it is illogical and simply not true. Please go look up the definition of deprived. Then do a little reading on due process. Then come back and post. You're talking about zoning and land-use restrictions, which are very different things than an executive order that simply overrides our laws and constitution. I can't talk to my local rep or congressman about this, or even vote against it. It's not even a real law. It's simply a declaration by an executive branch that insists that the law doesn't apply to it for a variety of bizarre, yet morbidly fascinating reasons.
I would say these executive orders do violate The People's rights, but I would think this is more stamping out Amendment 4, the text of the two follows: Sounds like both to me really. The 5th comes into play with the deprivation of property without due process.
Why would this issue be different from any other? We are geeks, a necessary part of our enjoyment of life is splitting microscopic hairs. Well in this case, the hair we are splitting is which definition of deprive does this situation fit? It really shouldn't matter. Any definition of deprive should suffice constitutionally, as either way, you are being deprived. The duration is irrelevant.
Do you think a suspected drunk driver gets a trial before his car is seized? No. How about someone whith what appears to the officer to be cocaine on the front seat? No. It's one thing to sieze property as evidence when someone is arrested. It's quite another to sieze property that isn't evidence, especially if the person hasn't been arrested or charged with anything.
The bottom line is, as has been pointed out by numerous posters, this kind of authority is not unusual, nor is it a violation of the fifth amendment. What language do you speak? They are able to deprive you of your assets without any due process. Here's the relevant portion of the 5th (with my emphasis)...
nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; If the government can block my access to my property, then I can make no use of it, hence I am deprived of it. Are we really going to try to split some microscopic hair over this? Does anyone really believe that the writers of the Constitution meant for something like this to be legal? Unfortunately Congress probably can't do a thing about this, and it will have to go to the Supreme Court to be resolved, which can take quite a while. Of course in the meantime, the administration will be doing as they please. I'm so glad that Bush loves freedom so much that he's willing to go to these lengths to preserve it.
Substitute oil for water in that story, and you have Saddam Hussein's justification for invading Kuwait. (His main complaint was that Kuwait was pumping too much oil from fields that crossed the border between the two countries.)
The major difference being, of course, that oil is not a resource that is strictly required for survival. I'm thinking that most people would disagree with that statement, and certainly most governments would. How long do you think a first-world country's economy would last without oil before completely collapsing? How many people would survive the resulting chaos?
If they have a court order (with proper oversight), I don't see a problem with this Read a newspaper in the last few years? Oversight is pretty much non-existent anymore.
As for limiting the states, as I understand it this doesn't. I just read the EFF link and read through some of the actual bill, and while I think it should do more (like requiring that the source code be publicly available), I do think that it will be a major improvement to the current situation, and hopefully a good starting point for further reform of our election system. I think the BBV article is at least somewhat misleading in its claims, at least if the EFF is correct in theirs (which I'm more inclined to believe). Even if some of what the BBV article says is true, this is still an overall improvement. I guess I just remain very wary of the motives of the people supporting these bills, and I tend to look for ulterior motives. Sad, but understandable given the state of politics these days.
Also note that a bill does not always represent what the law maker thinks is best, but rather it's the best thing they think can actually pass. Yeah, but we shouldn't be passing a bill just to pass one. This bill will actually make things worse by explicitly or implicitly allowing many of the problems to remain, while simultaneously removing the ability of the states to make the systems better on their own, and increasing costs all around just for good measure. If they can't do it right, then they should stay the hell away from the issue and at least let the states have a shot at it on their own.
Slashdot Mirror
So go build a better game or just go away.
Here's the relevant portion of the 5th (with my emphasis)... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; If the government can block my access to my property, then I can make no use of it, hence I am deprived of it. Are we really going to try to split some microscopic hair over this? Does anyone really believe that the writers of the Constitution meant for something like this to be legal? Unfortunately Congress probably can't do a thing about this, and it will have to go to the Supreme Court to be resolved, which can take quite a while. Of course in the meantime, the administration will be doing as they please. I'm so glad that Bush loves freedom so much that he's willing to go to these lengths to preserve it.
The major difference being, of course, that oil is not a resource that is strictly required for survival. I'm thinking that most people would disagree with that statement, and certainly most governments would. How long do you think a first-world country's economy would last without oil before completely collapsing? How many people would survive the resulting chaos?
You can also send support email to your congressperson from the EFF site if you decide that this bill is worthy of support.