You're merely pointing out that the corruption within government has extended to the courts. Accusing me of being illogical is a cheap sleight.
This is interstate commerce only using a laymen's defintion. I've already pointed out that there's no possible way that the Constitution was written with a laymen's defintion of "commerce" in mind as the overextension of regulatory powers, especially with respect to commerce (Boston Tea Party being a gleaming example), was one of the primary reasons for desiring independence from England in the first place.
As to the text of the judgement,"Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce implicity prohibits states from passing any law" is false since e-mail is not the type of commerce which the text of Article I, Section 8, pp. 2 refers to. In this light Amendment 10 clearly applies with "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" (this is not a power which the Constitution gives the federal government jurisdiction over), and "nor prohibited by it to the states" (this is not a power which the Constitution prohibits the states from having) and the states are free to regulate spam as harassment of their citizens in any way that they see fit.
Doing so is in direct violation of the Rules of US Federal Government (aka The Constitution of the United States of America). You cannot commit murder, according to the law, but some people do it anyway. What the government is doing is blatantly unconstitutional. You should read the article that I linked to at the end of my post. The federal government has nearly a 100 year history of using progressively more outlandish interpretations of the 9th and 10th amendments in the interest of sidestepping them completely.
The US Constitution is the only document which gives the federal government legitimate power. Without it the federal government is nothing but a large collection of old men who happen to hold a position of influence and power primarily through their social connections to the people who sign the withdrawal and deposit slips at major US and world banks. At the rate the federal government is going they are, in essence, no better than a large unit of organized crime. That's what happens when you don't play by the rules--you no longer qualify to be in the game. The game is politics. The rules are the US Constitution. If they're not playing by the rules then they're not politicians--they're criminal conspirators.
Have you read the ninth amendment? It specifically forbids the enumeration of the consitution (ie. the interpretation and expansion of powers). Interstate commerce is not a free pass to regulate everything under the sun.
I'd really like to see a critical analysis of what qualified as "interstate commerce" in the late 1700s. I guarantee you that there was a very definite legal setting for it--it probably had something to do with federally issued stamps or business licenses.
A very good documentary of how the "interstate commerce" trojan/backdoor has been used to systematically decimate the intent of the founding fathers is here.
Except that it's a violation of the ninth and tenth amendments for federal laws to overrule state laws. In the realm of corruption I guess nothing beats openly subverting the very document which provides any semblance of legitimate authority.
> This chapter supersedes any statute, regulation, or rule of a state or political subdivision of a state that expressly regulates the use of electronic male to send commerical messages
Spelling Nazi: "male" is spelled incorrectly in this context
Point two: I guess the author of that chapter never read the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
There's little excuse for writing a law which explicitly attempts to override the only document legitimizing the authority with which the law is passed.
The federal government is horribly out of control.
> The well-named federal CAN SPAM law explicitly preempts state and local laws
Which is technically unconstitutional but, hey, since when has that ever stopped a federal level bureaucrat from justifying another vacation, errrr... subcommittee meeting in Hawaii.
> Currently there is a conflict between various state and Circuit courts as to whether the CAN-SPAM act overrides stricter State laws
Referring to the ninth and tenth amendments (my favorites). The tenth (because, unless you're intimately familiar with them, it's easier to start here): "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
ie. There's no mention of spam or unsolicited mail in the US Constitution. Therefore, the regulation of such things is of no concern to the federal government and is reserved to the states who wish to address it or to the individual people (through local laws and/or courts).
The ninth, because it makes so much sense: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
ie. You cannot enumerate (interpret and expand) the interstate commerce clause in the powers of Congress as a free and open door to regulate anything and everything under the sun. Someone really needs to do a critical analysis of what was considered "interstate commerce" in the late 1700s. It probably had to do with formal licensing and probably dealt mostly with companies that shipped, traded, bought, stored, and sold goods en masse, or something which required a stamp or government inspections to deal in (eg. tea, tobacco, alcohol, etc.)--or something similar. You cannot do this with respect to spam because the right to regulate spam, not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, is reserved to the states or the people.
It took a little bit of googling but I managed to track down an article that I came across, from a Slashdot sig, a year or two ago which goes into great detail how the Supreme Court, acting in the interest mostly of big businesses, has systematically castrated the power of these two Amendments and happily neutered the system of checks and balances which the founding fathers attempted to meticulously craft. The article is very well researched and footnoted and shows that things really began going downhill, for the rights of the states and people, quite quickly after WW-I. That's no surprise. After WW-I the US Gov't had recently hopped off the gold standard and was well on its way to becoming a debtor to the largest bankers and corporations in the world.
> If the store sells more, they'll order more from the producer
The point is that the production run is done already. The industry hates to make more than two or three production runs of anything. That "triple platinum" record on the wall isn't copies sold off of store shelves. It's copies sold out of the production warehouse to the distributor warehouse.
The parent was correct. The producing corporation isn't the one losing. The people losing are the warehouses that still have tens of thousands of NKOTB and Backstreet Boys albums in stock that nobody will ever want to buy. The artists made their money, the production company made its money, the promoter made its money and the retail outlet, as long as they sold their stock, made their money.
You're asking us to see things from the RIAA's point of view by invoking all of the people who might legitimately be deserving of the profits when, in all reality, the people who are truly taking the lion's share from the system that the RIAA works to support are the executives, VPs, board members, and lawyers.
Don't ask for me to pity Peter by giving money to Paul. Yes, I pity Peter... but Paul can go fsck himself and the RIAA is in this for Paul.
I agree with you. I'm not living this way out of choice but out of necessity. When you've done as much to piss off "The Man" as I have then he doesn't relent when the evil eye turns your way.
There's something obviously suspicious about sending out several hundred resumes (in response to actual posted advertised positions--not spam) over the course of eight months and only receiving three telephone calls and no interview offers. Management and HR departments don't tell me what they're doing behind the scenes but this situation is certainly not normal.
You can do it for far less than that and go further under the radar if you really want to and are very diligent and meticulous about personal cleanliness and general lifestyle cleanliness.
You need one set of durable clothing. The basics: socks, shoes, underwear, long pants, t or a shirt. Additional according to target climate: zero or more additional pairs of cotton pants (for layering in the cold), zero or more cotton long sleeve shirts (for layering in the cold), zero or more wool or cotton sweaters or sweatshirts (for layering in the cold) one or more jackets suitable for the weather--a good setup for even the coolest climates is t-shirt, two long sleeve cottons, one cotton sweatshirt, one wool sweater, one cotton hooded sweatshirt, one field jacket or heavy coat--one pair of gloves, one hat (anything more effective than a baseball cap will do). Multipurpose: one rain poncho (rainproofing, doubles as a ground layer). One sleeping bag suitable for the target climate--get a compression bag to reduce bulk, Marmot makes nice ones. Additional survival necessities: steel fork, knife, spoon, Swiss Army or Leatherman style multifunction pocket tool, Toothbrush, toothpaste, baby powder (for feet), antibacterial ointment (for first aid), miniroll of duct tape, small roll of kite string (50 pound test), one large roll of thread (pick your color) and at least five sewing needles (you'll break a few unless you have prior proficiency in hand-sewing). You can fit just about everything (except the sleeping bag, which should come with its own tote bag) into a standard size backpack. Extra clothes can be folded up or secured, with the kite string, to one of the bags. State issued ID--preferably a US passport (not 100% necessary but makes random encounters with local authorities go quickly and without mishap). It may take a bit of practice to refine your particular carryall system.
That's about it. Choose an urban location in a moderate climate (ie. not the desert, not anywhere with heavy snowfall or severe cold temperatures) with readily accessible toilet facilities, a readily accessible supply of drinking water, but far enough towards the edges of urban jungle so that you can find a sleeping spot that's relatively secluded. You should be able to set up your sleeping spot in less than five minutes and pack up in the morning in a similar amount of time. Use the rain poncho to cover the ground where you will spread out your sleeping bag. If it rains during the day then you can wear the rain poncho and have what I used to call "free car wash day" but is now "free rain poncho wash day". If it rains at night, well, spend the night walking around in the rain poncho. If that's the worst of your worries--staying awake for a night--then life isn't so bad.
Note that this lifestyle requires staying clean. No heavy drinking as humans tend to become forgetful, at best, or outright stupid, at worst, when drinking is involved. Heavy drinking is the number one cause for torn clothes, dropped items, unfortunate encounters with the police, or falling asleep under the wrong tree and being awakened by the police (or worse). Heavy use of hard or debilitating drugs is also discouraged--habitual use of cocaine, crack cocaine, or crystalline methamphetamine will cause you to become involved with people who will only see you as a potential slave. Habitual use of marijuana isn't, in and of itself, terribly debilitating but be forewarned that "street demons" look for marijuana users and prey on them to satisfy their addiction to the harder drugs. Don't worry about showers. During the summer time spend time on beaches or at parks where you can sponge bath (a bathing suit comes in handy) off after a good sweat. Don't worry much about body odor--with proper self-care and maintenance it will eventually moderate itself.
Learn to deal with hunger. You will have days where you are hungry--COPE. As long as you have water the human body can go for, probably, months without a good meal. I can personally go for abou
So does this guy and there isn't a single attorney, out of dozens who were contacted, who will even file a single court motion without a $5k retainer fee.
> Once he loses his job, or any chance of promotion
He can no longer afford the $5k retainer fee.
> effectively sue them for EVERYTHING they're worth (since they have just cost him everything, it's not an injust or unfair fine for the RIAA to pay) and that's the end of story
> Arguably every OS should come with an RDBMS and applications should make more use of it instead of depending on a broad assortment of different mini-databases like sqlite and such
From a standpoint which values security I completely disagree. When I say security I mean multiple facets: security of user data, security of userspace code, security of kernel code, security of development, securing the system from one outside group of contributors gaining too much control over the core system, securing the system from business interest which may or may not give a rat's backside about the individual developers, etc.
I can see the need for a database in multiple places in the system: the kernel, the window manager, the desktop environment, in productivity applications, in integration between theoretical code and real-world tasks, etc. Giving all of the facets of security (examples above) the top priority, though, I would much rather see individual codebases all implement their own database system which is tailored specifically for the needs of their code. If multiple development teams, across multiple projects, feel the need to strongly integrate various aspects of their databases then they should feel free to make connections, manage their interoperability, and adapt to each other.
Putting one catchall database on a system weakens too many aspects of security. Again, this is not just from a point of view that considers just the code being crunched by the processor in memory. This is from a long-term point of view that keeps in mind the fact that development teams have member turnover, that competing codebases are often in a footrace that should be encouraged to change hands (eg. Xorg vs. Xfree, uwm vs. metacity, Enlightenment vs. KDE, BerkelyDB vs. MySQL, LILO vs. GRUB, ESP-GS vs. AFPL-GS, CUPS vs. LPR/ng, Mozilla vs. Opera, etc. etc. etc.). Even if the user is given the choice of having this db or that db, I would rather see the option of "No centralized DB--make the individual projects write their own". It will be more effective for future innovation, diversification, and overall system improvement.
Take an example from nature: once past the level of basic DNA/RNA nature will try any and every possible combination and strive to allow all possible combinations to exist simultaneously. I sincerely doubt that userspace code will ever reach the level of significance in computers that DNA/RNA has in the function of the cell. Humans seem to be the only force who insist on standardizing everything. It would be possible to devote an entire college of study groups to analyzing the psychology, sociology, and politics of why humans are so dense--but I'll leave that to the reader to consider over their own cup of coffee.
It's things like this that make me really really wish for that one super unexpected disasterous event which leaves all of society without non self-sustaining technological access for at least six months. Every day an increasing majority of the population just has absolutely no concept of what it would be like to live without technological amenities.
What is "non self-sustaining"? I can't really define it explicitly. Examples, though: the wheel is a self-sustaining technology. The basic electrical grid should be solid enough to be self-sustaining. The global internet and the modern day stock market are not self-sustaining.
Why six months? As much as I would prefer a shorter time frame (24 hours?) there are several reasons why we need a six month technological blackout. First, most humans just won't get it through their enormously thick skulls--the event would happen, they'd blink, and then they'd go back to their lemminglike existence without so much as a single introspective thought. While this would cause the least amount of disruption it's primarily the lemminglike existence of the majority of the voting public which is allowing the misery for the rest of us. Second, we need at least six months for natural selection to take its course. Those of us who are capable of living on the low tech side of life would need time to distance ourselves from the inept lemmings and allow them to eliminate themselves (and each other) from the gene pool. Inevitably there would be losses within the competent population when the lemmings go haywire--these losses are, sadly, an acceptable condition of the technological blackout. Third, six months would be enough time for those of us with actual functioning brains (ie. not innately reliant on a technological support system and safety net) to congregate, communicate, and reestablish a society with the conveniences of technology but without the plague of mindless (or mentally deficient) lemmings who consistently weight the voting mechanisms in favor of scamming politicians and businessmen who have the best lip service but don't deliver squat (because they're keeping it mostly for themselves).
By mindless or mentally deficient lemmings I'm not talking about anything as simple as intelligence. I value the janitor and the ditch digger as much as I value the scientist and the doctor. I mean real lemmings--humans who act only because they're reacting without any real critical thought. The kind of people who read "Patriot Act" and think affirmative simply because the word "patriot" sounds like something they'd like to associate with. The kind of people who read "copyright" and are instantly in support because they hope to get-rich-quick someday. The kind of people who can't possibly consider that government is corrupt and that advertising headlines mean nothing in actual implementation. It's difficult to describe to a mutually exclusive degree.
But, go ahead and make me King of the World, and I'll show you exactly what I mean.:-)
> Think about it, little 8 year old Timmy should not be able to by a copy of Leisure Suit Larry. This is not censorship
True. So make it illegal for 8 year old Timmy to buy such a game--and hold the parents responsible. These laws, more and more, do nothing but criminalize people who are just doing their jobs. In many ways the person selling the video games has a thousand other things on their mind other than carding every kid who comes in to buy/trade video games. Why should s/he be responsible for parenting every person who walks through the door?
Take things like this and think about them in a different society. A good way is to consider the same (or one as comparable as possible) one thousand years ago. Is there any excuse for allowing the supposedly precious, innocent, vulnerable children loose in the marketplace? In today's society the excuse is often similar to,"But the parents are so busy--with work, with social responsibilities, with groceries, with cooking and cleaning and on and on and on." This usually boils down to,"The parents are overtaxed, overworked, and too enamoured with their personal social position and and drama filled lives to look after their own kids."
So why are parents overtaxed? Could it be a bloated and corrupt political system which wastes millions debating useless crap like this? Just might be. So why are parents overworked? Could it be they're overtaxed, in combination being underpaid due to overly greedy upper-upper management siphoning off corporate profits, in combination with a stock market which simplifies to little more than an elaborate casino style pyramid scheme? Just might be. Why are parents so caught up with their own social position and drama filled lives? Could it be because, considering they're overworked and overtaxed, they, as human beings, are suffering from multiple stress related disorders and, as any overstressed biological system will do, are simply beginning to break down and fall apart at the seams and improperly set priorities? Just might be.
It's all very cyclical and one set of bad circumstances inevitably feeds the others which influence circumstances which exascerbate the first set of bad circumstances. If the entire system is analyzed I think it would be found that the corruption in government and the enormous graft between the state and federal levels of government to Wall Street and big business are the primary contributing factors to the majority of ills in our society.
I don't have all the answers but, when all is said and done, I've got a much better handle on this situation than anyone else I've met--in corporate America, in the communities, in the Church, or on the street.
Hm. Since my laptop was stolen and I'm homeless I don't have a system on which to play around with this. I empathize with the author's respect for the Amiga--I was an Amiga advocate for many years until I was forced to the IBM-PC/compatible market out of financial considerations. I could no longer afford to keep up with the Amiga hardware market. I had an A500 with a Kickback module (to switch between 2.04 and 1.3 ROMs), Supra28 accelerator and a sidecar IDE HD controller. When the Kickback module and the Supra28 accelerator burned out it would have cost me nearly $2k to reinvest in an A1200 or $3k+ for an A4000. At the time CBM was also in the handbasket going south and I couldn't justify the expense, even if I had the funding available, on a technology which, while superior, was being provided by a company run by executives who were milking it dry until it hit the dirt.
The screenshots make it look comparable. I know that UDE/UWM is full-featured and customizable in terms of window borders, border decorations, default colors, and many different parameters and behaviors. When I finally come across a reasonable opportunity which allows me to elevate myself out of this position I'll have a look at it.
Fluxbox is enormous compared to the sheer genius and simplicity of UWM/UDE.
If people want eye candy inside of a wm which is still sane and doesn't attempt to take over your system why aren't more people looking at Enlightenment?
Since my laptop was stolen about five months ago I can appreciate the qualities of a system which could be used to at least cripple hardware which was stolen or otherwise suspect.
As a realist, though, I cannot possibly trust that a large organization could implement this properly without willingly abusing it or unwillingly fscking it up.
> You're talking about child pornography here. The sexual abuse of innocents for the profit or pleasure of people who (IMO) are sick, dangerous, sociopathic amd should be isolated from the rest of society
Nicely contradicted. Yes, we're talking about child pornography. No, we're not talking about just abuse as any picture which doesn't come with enough legal documentation proving that it is artwork to stave off a court suit will be targeted. No, what we're talking about has nothing to do with pleasure or profit as the simple hosting or possession of the material, knowingly or unknowingly (as a random picture in a terabyte archive collection qualifies--but we already know that it would be bad business sense, both legally and on the stock exchange, to bother trying to target Google), qualifies as a violation of the law. No, we don't care one whit about the psychological makeup of whoever we manage to nab (producer, provider, intermediate, person in possession... doesn't matter--we'll nab whoever we can).
My favorite point to make: please attempt to explain to me how this magical internet filter (even if it could be properly applied and could block even 50% of the content) is going to do anything to solve the underlying problems in the makeup of today's societies which allow the problem, whether or not it's being filmed and distributed on the internet, to exist.
This approach is akin to waging a war on domestic violence by regulating the sale and possession of anything which can be used as a bludgeoning object, including frying pans (stereotypically wielded by a woman) and rolled up newspapers (stereotypically wielded against a dog). It makes absolutely no sense in trying to combat the actual problem and, to top it off, it is an enormous waste (or, more correctly, deliberate reapportioning for the purpose of political favors) of funding which could be more properly applied in other ways if politicians and special interest groups weren't so monumentally out of touch with street reality (and hopelessly addicted to their overembellished poster child stories).
I would ensure that I had the proper resources and background necessary to raise my child properly and, barring some outlandishly unexpected test of faith provided by God, could reasonably ensure their safety. I would do all of this before having children rather than sleep with every makeup laden feminist who lusts after my Porsche and then hope that some little known special interest boondoggle is going to come up with a magical safety net for all the illegitimate children. Chalk one up for the majority of the population just being treadmill rats who are so busy keeping up with bills and taxes, or careless wealthy retards so self-centered they can't be bothered to look after the consequences of their actions, that they can't even take care of their own children, eh?
Seriously. What kind of society does as much to separate children from their families and trusted community as the debt-laden societies of today? Where did all this debt come from, who are we all in debt to, who is profitting from this debt, and why are they taking our children away and leaving them in areas where they can be picked up by child predators?
> I think a child's right for privacy and dignity
Should be looked after by their parents, immediate family, or trusted members of the community. Did you ever wonder where the victims of child pornography come from? What environment created them? Why were the parents unable or unwilling to properly care for and watch their child? How is it that the predators can hide their dysfunction so well as to make it to trusted positions in the community, or how is it that the predators are wealthy enough that the power and position commanded by their wealth hides their dysfunctional lust for them? How is it that we have a society that is so repressed in terms of sexuality that so many males cannot have a healthy sexual relationship and, confused by the biological need for sexuality and the social denial of the same, resort to pornography which, like any addiction, starts out small and spirals progressively to levels which are only defined by the limits of what is provided. Mark my words--many of today's online "pedophiles" are not pedophiles at all but rather males who, lacking the proper social status to attract a socially acceptable and healthy mate, are that many years down the road of addiction to pornography. As with any addiction, eg. alcohol, one drink used to be enough, two drinks used to be enough, five drinks used to be enough, ten drinks used to be enough, a fifth of 100 proof vodka used to be enough... next thing you know it's dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria.
To top it all off: How is monitoring child porn on the internet going to solve the very obvious underlying deficiencies in society as a whole which make the problem possible?
I can see where that goes. The scene is some new recruit in the FBI special task force bureau sitting by his computer screen late at night.
"I need a promotion. I need a promotion. I need to bust a whole bunch of people on child pr0n. I know, I'll just host a child pr0n pic, tinyurl the WWW address, and put it on IRC. I can then track the IP numbers."
Suddenly every Tom, Dick, and Harry that clicked a link which they thought was from their buddy playing a prank is being served with court papers.
There's a reason why entrapment should be illegal: it's hard to know the difference between a smart-aleck and a special investigator across the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
You're merely pointing out that the corruption within government has extended to the courts. Accusing me of being illogical is a cheap sleight.
This is interstate commerce only using a laymen's defintion. I've already pointed out that there's no possible way that the Constitution was written with a laymen's defintion of "commerce" in mind as the overextension of regulatory powers, especially with respect to commerce (Boston Tea Party being a gleaming example), was one of the primary reasons for desiring independence from England in the first place.
As to the text of the judgement,"Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce implicity prohibits states from passing any law" is false since e-mail is not the type of commerce which the text of Article I, Section 8, pp. 2 refers to. In this light Amendment 10 clearly applies with "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution" (this is not a power which the Constitution gives the federal government jurisdiction over), and "nor prohibited by it to the states" (this is not a power which the Constitution prohibits the states from having) and the states are free to regulate spam as harassment of their citizens in any way that they see fit.
> Umm, yes you can
Doing so is in direct violation of the Rules of US Federal Government (aka The Constitution of the United States of America). You cannot commit murder, according to the law, but some people do it anyway. What the government is doing is blatantly unconstitutional. You should read the article that I linked to at the end of my post. The federal government has nearly a 100 year history of using progressively more outlandish interpretations of the 9th and 10th amendments in the interest of sidestepping them completely.
The US Constitution is the only document which gives the federal government legitimate power. Without it the federal government is nothing but a large collection of old men who happen to hold a position of influence and power primarily through their social connections to the people who sign the withdrawal and deposit slips at major US and world banks. At the rate the federal government is going they are, in essence, no better than a large unit of organized crime. That's what happens when you don't play by the rules--you no longer qualify to be in the game. The game is politics. The rules are the US Constitution. If they're not playing by the rules then they're not politicians--they're criminal conspirators.
Have you read the ninth amendment? It specifically forbids the enumeration of the consitution (ie. the interpretation and expansion of powers). Interstate commerce is not a free pass to regulate everything under the sun.
I'd really like to see a critical analysis of what qualified as "interstate commerce" in the late 1700s. I guarantee you that there was a very definite legal setting for it--it probably had something to do with federally issued stamps or business licenses.
A very good documentary of how the "interstate commerce" trojan/backdoor has been used to systematically decimate the intent of the founding fathers is here.
Except that it's a violation of the ninth and tenth amendments for federal laws to overrule state laws. In the realm of corruption I guess nothing beats openly subverting the very document which provides any semblance of legitimate authority.
> This chapter supersedes any statute, regulation, or rule of a state or political subdivision of a state that expressly regulates the use of electronic male to send commerical messages
Spelling Nazi: "male" is spelled incorrectly in this context
Point two: I guess the author of that chapter never read the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
There's little excuse for writing a law which explicitly attempts to override the only document legitimizing the authority with which the law is passed.
The federal government is horribly out of control.
> The well-named federal CAN SPAM law explicitly preempts state and local laws
Which is technically unconstitutional but, hey, since when has that ever stopped a federal level bureaucrat from justifying another vacation, errrr... subcommittee meeting in Hawaii.
> Currently there is a conflict between various state and Circuit courts as to whether the CAN-SPAM act overrides stricter State laws
Referring to the ninth and tenth amendments (my favorites). The tenth (because, unless you're intimately familiar with them, it's easier to start here): "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
ie. There's no mention of spam or unsolicited mail in the US Constitution. Therefore, the regulation of such things is of no concern to the federal government and is reserved to the states who wish to address it or to the individual people (through local laws and/or courts).
The ninth, because it makes so much sense: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
ie. You cannot enumerate (interpret and expand) the interstate commerce clause in the powers of Congress as a free and open door to regulate anything and everything under the sun. Someone really needs to do a critical analysis of what was considered "interstate commerce" in the late 1700s. It probably had to do with formal licensing and probably dealt mostly with companies that shipped, traded, bought, stored, and sold goods en masse, or something which required a stamp or government inspections to deal in (eg. tea, tobacco, alcohol, etc.)--or something similar. You cannot do this with respect to spam because the right to regulate spam, not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, is reserved to the states or the people.
It took a little bit of googling but I managed to track down an article that I came across, from a Slashdot sig, a year or two ago which goes into great detail how the Supreme Court, acting in the interest mostly of big businesses, has systematically castrated the power of these two Amendments and happily neutered the system of checks and balances which the founding fathers attempted to meticulously craft. The article is very well researched and footnoted and shows that things really began going downhill, for the rights of the states and people, quite quickly after WW-I. That's no surprise. After WW-I the US Gov't had recently hopped off the gold standard and was well on its way to becoming a debtor to the largest bankers and corporations in the world.
> If the store sells more, they'll order more from the producer
The point is that the production run is done already. The industry hates to make more than two or three production runs of anything. That "triple platinum" record on the wall isn't copies sold off of store shelves. It's copies sold out of the production warehouse to the distributor warehouse.
The parent was correct. The producing corporation isn't the one losing. The people losing are the warehouses that still have tens of thousands of NKOTB and Backstreet Boys albums in stock that nobody will ever want to buy. The artists made their money, the production company made its money, the promoter made its money and the retail outlet, as long as they sold their stock, made their money.
You're asking us to see things from the RIAA's point of view by invoking all of the people who might legitimately be deserving of the profits when, in all reality, the people who are truly taking the lion's share from the system that the RIAA works to support are the executives, VPs, board members, and lawyers.
Don't ask for me to pity Peter by giving money to Paul. Yes, I pity Peter... but Paul can go fsck himself and the RIAA is in this for Paul.
> are stealing or performing some illegal action
1. It's not stealing. 2. We don't have too many criminals--we have too many laws.
I agree with you. I'm not living this way out of choice but out of necessity. When you've done as much to piss off "The Man" as I have then he doesn't relent when the evil eye turns your way.
There's something obviously suspicious about sending out several hundred resumes (in response to actual posted advertised positions--not spam) over the course of eight months and only receiving three telephone calls and no interview offers. Management and HR departments don't tell me what they're doing behind the scenes but this situation is certainly not normal.
You can do it for far less than that and go further under the radar if you really want to and are very diligent and meticulous about personal cleanliness and general lifestyle cleanliness.
You need one set of durable clothing. The basics: socks, shoes, underwear, long pants, t or a shirt. Additional according to target climate: zero or more additional pairs of cotton pants (for layering in the cold), zero or more cotton long sleeve shirts (for layering in the cold), zero or more wool or cotton sweaters or sweatshirts (for layering in the cold) one or more jackets suitable for the weather--a good setup for even the coolest climates is t-shirt, two long sleeve cottons, one cotton sweatshirt, one wool sweater, one cotton hooded sweatshirt, one field jacket or heavy coat--one pair of gloves, one hat (anything more effective than a baseball cap will do). Multipurpose: one rain poncho (rainproofing, doubles as a ground layer). One sleeping bag suitable for the target climate--get a compression bag to reduce bulk, Marmot makes nice ones. Additional survival necessities: steel fork, knife, spoon, Swiss Army or Leatherman style multifunction pocket tool, Toothbrush, toothpaste, baby powder (for feet), antibacterial ointment (for first aid), miniroll of duct tape, small roll of kite string (50 pound test), one large roll of thread (pick your color) and at least five sewing needles (you'll break a few unless you have prior proficiency in hand-sewing). You can fit just about everything (except the sleeping bag, which should come with its own tote bag) into a standard size backpack. Extra clothes can be folded up or secured, with the kite string, to one of the bags. State issued ID--preferably a US passport (not 100% necessary but makes random encounters with local authorities go quickly and without mishap). It may take a bit of practice to refine your particular carryall system.
That's about it. Choose an urban location in a moderate climate (ie. not the desert, not anywhere with heavy snowfall or severe cold temperatures) with readily accessible toilet facilities, a readily accessible supply of drinking water, but far enough towards the edges of urban jungle so that you can find a sleeping spot that's relatively secluded. You should be able to set up your sleeping spot in less than five minutes and pack up in the morning in a similar amount of time. Use the rain poncho to cover the ground where you will spread out your sleeping bag. If it rains during the day then you can wear the rain poncho and have what I used to call "free car wash day" but is now "free rain poncho wash day". If it rains at night, well, spend the night walking around in the rain poncho. If that's the worst of your worries--staying awake for a night--then life isn't so bad.
Note that this lifestyle requires staying clean. No heavy drinking as humans tend to become forgetful, at best, or outright stupid, at worst, when drinking is involved. Heavy drinking is the number one cause for torn clothes, dropped items, unfortunate encounters with the police, or falling asleep under the wrong tree and being awakened by the police (or worse). Heavy use of hard or debilitating drugs is also discouraged--habitual use of cocaine, crack cocaine, or crystalline methamphetamine will cause you to become involved with people who will only see you as a potential slave. Habitual use of marijuana isn't, in and of itself, terribly debilitating but be forewarned that "street demons" look for marijuana users and prey on them to satisfy their addiction to the harder drugs. Don't worry about showers. During the summer time spend time on beaches or at parks where you can sponge bath (a bathing suit comes in handy) off after a good sweat. Don't worry much about body odor--with proper self-care and maintenance it will eventually moderate itself.
Learn to deal with hunger. You will have days where you are hungry--COPE. As long as you have water the human body can go for, probably, months without a good meal. I can personally go for abou
> He's got proof of defamation, left and right
So does this guy and there isn't a single attorney, out of dozens who were contacted, who will even file a single court motion without a $5k retainer fee.
> Once he loses his job, or any chance of promotion
He can no longer afford the $5k retainer fee.
> effectively sue them for EVERYTHING they're worth (since they have just cost him everything, it's not an injust or unfair fine for the RIAA to pay) and that's the end of story
In a perfect world...
You have also missed the point... Quick, look above you... nope... there it went. You missed it.
> Arguably every OS should come with an RDBMS and applications should make more use of it instead of depending on a broad assortment of different mini-databases like sqlite and such
From a standpoint which values security I completely disagree. When I say security I mean multiple facets: security of user data, security of userspace code, security of kernel code, security of development, securing the system from one outside group of contributors gaining too much control over the core system, securing the system from business interest which may or may not give a rat's backside about the individual developers, etc.
I can see the need for a database in multiple places in the system: the kernel, the window manager, the desktop environment, in productivity applications, in integration between theoretical code and real-world tasks, etc. Giving all of the facets of security (examples above) the top priority, though, I would much rather see individual codebases all implement their own database system which is tailored specifically for the needs of their code. If multiple development teams, across multiple projects, feel the need to strongly integrate various aspects of their databases then they should feel free to make connections, manage their interoperability, and adapt to each other.
Putting one catchall database on a system weakens too many aspects of security. Again, this is not just from a point of view that considers just the code being crunched by the processor in memory. This is from a long-term point of view that keeps in mind the fact that development teams have member turnover, that competing codebases are often in a footrace that should be encouraged to change hands (eg. Xorg vs. Xfree, uwm vs. metacity, Enlightenment vs. KDE, BerkelyDB vs. MySQL, LILO vs. GRUB, ESP-GS vs. AFPL-GS, CUPS vs. LPR/ng, Mozilla vs. Opera, etc. etc. etc.). Even if the user is given the choice of having this db or that db, I would rather see the option of "No centralized DB--make the individual projects write their own". It will be more effective for future innovation, diversification, and overall system improvement.
Take an example from nature: once past the level of basic DNA/RNA nature will try any and every possible combination and strive to allow all possible combinations to exist simultaneously. I sincerely doubt that userspace code will ever reach the level of significance in computers that DNA/RNA has in the function of the cell. Humans seem to be the only force who insist on standardizing everything. It would be possible to devote an entire college of study groups to analyzing the psychology, sociology, and politics of why humans are so dense--but I'll leave that to the reader to consider over their own cup of coffee.
> I can get all of my statements paper free
:-)
It's things like this that make me really really wish for that one super unexpected disasterous event which leaves all of society without non self-sustaining technological access for at least six months. Every day an increasing majority of the population just has absolutely no concept of what it would be like to live without technological amenities.
What is "non self-sustaining"? I can't really define it explicitly. Examples, though: the wheel is a self-sustaining technology. The basic electrical grid should be solid enough to be self-sustaining. The global internet and the modern day stock market are not self-sustaining.
Why six months? As much as I would prefer a shorter time frame (24 hours?) there are several reasons why we need a six month technological blackout. First, most humans just won't get it through their enormously thick skulls--the event would happen, they'd blink, and then they'd go back to their lemminglike existence without so much as a single introspective thought. While this would cause the least amount of disruption it's primarily the lemminglike existence of the majority of the voting public which is allowing the misery for the rest of us. Second, we need at least six months for natural selection to take its course. Those of us who are capable of living on the low tech side of life would need time to distance ourselves from the inept lemmings and allow them to eliminate themselves (and each other) from the gene pool. Inevitably there would be losses within the competent population when the lemmings go haywire--these losses are, sadly, an acceptable condition of the technological blackout. Third, six months would be enough time for those of us with actual functioning brains (ie. not innately reliant on a technological support system and safety net) to congregate, communicate, and reestablish a society with the conveniences of technology but without the plague of mindless (or mentally deficient) lemmings who consistently weight the voting mechanisms in favor of scamming politicians and businessmen who have the best lip service but don't deliver squat (because they're keeping it mostly for themselves).
By mindless or mentally deficient lemmings I'm not talking about anything as simple as intelligence. I value the janitor and the ditch digger as much as I value the scientist and the doctor. I mean real lemmings--humans who act only because they're reacting without any real critical thought. The kind of people who read "Patriot Act" and think affirmative simply because the word "patriot" sounds like something they'd like to associate with. The kind of people who read "copyright" and are instantly in support because they hope to get-rich-quick someday. The kind of people who can't possibly consider that government is corrupt and that advertising headlines mean nothing in actual implementation. It's difficult to describe to a mutually exclusive degree.
But, go ahead and make me King of the World, and I'll show you exactly what I mean.
> Think about it, little 8 year old Timmy should not be able to by a copy of Leisure Suit Larry. This is not censorship
True. So make it illegal for 8 year old Timmy to buy such a game--and hold the parents responsible. These laws, more and more, do nothing but criminalize people who are just doing their jobs. In many ways the person selling the video games has a thousand other things on their mind other than carding every kid who comes in to buy/trade video games. Why should s/he be responsible for parenting every person who walks through the door?
Take things like this and think about them in a different society. A good way is to consider the same (or one as comparable as possible) one thousand years ago. Is there any excuse for allowing the supposedly precious, innocent, vulnerable children loose in the marketplace? In today's society the excuse is often similar to,"But the parents are so busy--with work, with social responsibilities, with groceries, with cooking and cleaning and on and on and on." This usually boils down to,"The parents are overtaxed, overworked, and too enamoured with their personal social position and and drama filled lives to look after their own kids."
So why are parents overtaxed? Could it be a bloated and corrupt political system which wastes millions debating useless crap like this? Just might be. So why are parents overworked? Could it be they're overtaxed, in combination being underpaid due to overly greedy upper-upper management siphoning off corporate profits, in combination with a stock market which simplifies to little more than an elaborate casino style pyramid scheme? Just might be. Why are parents so caught up with their own social position and drama filled lives? Could it be because, considering they're overworked and overtaxed, they, as human beings, are suffering from multiple stress related disorders and, as any overstressed biological system will do, are simply beginning to break down and fall apart at the seams and improperly set priorities? Just might be.
It's all very cyclical and one set of bad circumstances inevitably feeds the others which influence circumstances which exascerbate the first set of bad circumstances. If the entire system is analyzed I think it would be found that the corruption in government and the enormous graft between the state and federal levels of government to Wall Street and big business are the primary contributing factors to the majority of ills in our society.
I don't have all the answers but, when all is said and done, I've got a much better handle on this situation than anyone else I've met--in corporate America, in the communities, in the Church, or on the street.
Hm. Since my laptop was stolen and I'm homeless I don't have a system on which to play around with this. I empathize with the author's respect for the Amiga--I was an Amiga advocate for many years until I was forced to the IBM-PC/compatible market out of financial considerations. I could no longer afford to keep up with the Amiga hardware market. I had an A500 with a Kickback module (to switch between 2.04 and 1.3 ROMs), Supra28 accelerator and a sidecar IDE HD controller. When the Kickback module and the Supra28 accelerator burned out it would have cost me nearly $2k to reinvest in an A1200 or $3k+ for an A4000. At the time CBM was also in the handbasket going south and I couldn't justify the expense, even if I had the funding available, on a technology which, while superior, was being provided by a company run by executives who were milking it dry until it hit the dirt.
The screenshots make it look comparable. I know that UDE/UWM is full-featured and customizable in terms of window borders, border decorations, default colors, and many different parameters and behaviors. When I finally come across a reasonable opportunity which allows me to elevate myself out of this position I'll have a look at it.
What's the compiled binary size?
Fluxbox is enormous compared to the sheer genius and simplicity of UWM/UDE.
If people want eye candy inside of a wm which is still sane and doesn't attempt to take over your system why aren't more people looking at Enlightenment?
One of the few times I find myself pleased that an AC posted. It only leaves me wondering--why not post from an account?
Since my laptop was stolen about five months ago I can appreciate the qualities of a system which could be used to at least cripple hardware which was stolen or otherwise suspect.
As a realist, though, I cannot possibly trust that a large organization could implement this properly without willingly abusing it or unwillingly fscking it up.
> You're talking about child pornography here. The sexual abuse of innocents for the profit or pleasure of people who (IMO) are sick, dangerous, sociopathic amd should be isolated from the rest of society
Nicely contradicted. Yes, we're talking about child pornography. No, we're not talking about just abuse as any picture which doesn't come with enough legal documentation proving that it is artwork to stave off a court suit will be targeted. No, what we're talking about has nothing to do with pleasure or profit as the simple hosting or possession of the material, knowingly or unknowingly (as a random picture in a terabyte archive collection qualifies--but we already know that it would be bad business sense, both legally and on the stock exchange, to bother trying to target Google), qualifies as a violation of the law. No, we don't care one whit about the psychological makeup of whoever we manage to nab (producer, provider, intermediate, person in possession... doesn't matter--we'll nab whoever we can).
My favorite point to make: please attempt to explain to me how this magical internet filter (even if it could be properly applied and could block even 50% of the content) is going to do anything to solve the underlying problems in the makeup of today's societies which allow the problem, whether or not it's being filmed and distributed on the internet, to exist.
This approach is akin to waging a war on domestic violence by regulating the sale and possession of anything which can be used as a bludgeoning object, including frying pans (stereotypically wielded by a woman) and rolled up newspapers (stereotypically wielded against a dog). It makes absolutely no sense in trying to combat the actual problem and, to top it off, it is an enormous waste (or, more correctly, deliberate reapportioning for the purpose of political favors) of funding which could be more properly applied in other ways if politicians and special interest groups weren't so monumentally out of touch with street reality (and hopelessly addicted to their overembellished poster child stories).
> 6. ... What if it was your child?
I would ensure that I had the proper resources and background necessary to raise my child properly and, barring some outlandishly unexpected test of faith provided by God, could reasonably ensure their safety. I would do all of this before having children rather than sleep with every makeup laden feminist who lusts after my Porsche and then hope that some little known special interest boondoggle is going to come up with a magical safety net for all the illegitimate children. Chalk one up for the majority of the population just being treadmill rats who are so busy keeping up with bills and taxes, or careless wealthy retards so self-centered they can't be bothered to look after the consequences of their actions, that they can't even take care of their own children, eh?
Seriously. What kind of society does as much to separate children from their families and trusted community as the debt-laden societies of today? Where did all this debt come from, who are we all in debt to, who is profitting from this debt, and why are they taking our children away and leaving them in areas where they can be picked up by child predators?
> I think a child's right for privacy and dignity
Should be looked after by their parents, immediate family, or trusted members of the community. Did you ever wonder where the victims of child pornography come from? What environment created them? Why were the parents unable or unwilling to properly care for and watch their child? How is it that the predators can hide their dysfunction so well as to make it to trusted positions in the community, or how is it that the predators are wealthy enough that the power and position commanded by their wealth hides their dysfunctional lust for them? How is it that we have a society that is so repressed in terms of sexuality that so many males cannot have a healthy sexual relationship and, confused by the biological need for sexuality and the social denial of the same, resort to pornography which, like any addiction, starts out small and spirals progressively to levels which are only defined by the limits of what is provided. Mark my words--many of today's online "pedophiles" are not pedophiles at all but rather males who, lacking the proper social status to attract a socially acceptable and healthy mate, are that many years down the road of addiction to pornography. As with any addiction, eg. alcohol, one drink used to be enough, two drinks used to be enough, five drinks used to be enough, ten drinks used to be enough, a fifth of 100 proof vodka used to be enough... next thing you know it's dogs and cats living together and mass hysteria.
To top it all off: How is monitoring child porn on the internet going to solve the very obvious underlying deficiencies in society as a whole which make the problem possible?
No one thought to try a tracepath from multiple different locations around the globe and check the connections to the destination IP address?
I can see where that goes. The scene is some new recruit in the FBI special task force bureau sitting by his computer screen late at night.
"I need a promotion. I need a promotion. I need to bust a whole bunch of people on child pr0n. I know, I'll just host a child pr0n pic, tinyurl the WWW address, and put it on IRC. I can then track the IP numbers."
Suddenly every Tom, Dick, and Harry that clicked a link which they thought was from their buddy playing a prank is being served with court papers.
There's a reason why entrapment should be illegal: it's hard to know the difference between a smart-aleck and a special investigator across the internet.