You see a gang banger beating the crap out of someone, you covertly film it, his attorney presses to have you criminally charged.
All of these laws that I know of have an exception that does not require permission (or even informing) to record someone committing a criminal act, or an act performed where the person has no reasonable expectation of privacy.
You are spot on. The thing is that in several states with very similar laws, the courts have ruled that a police officer executing his duty in a public location (such as making a traffic stop) does not have an expectation of privacy (which is a necessary condition to bring the consent provision of this law into play). I believe that even Maryland has had such court rulings (although I may be mistaken on this point). However, in at least one other state the police have charged people with violating the wiretap laws for similar things, even after court rulings in the same jurisdictions saying that such recordings are legal.
Sorry but I'm not buying your mellow dramatic bullshit.
I have a question, how can anything be both "mellow" and "dramatic"?
mellow: made gentle and compassionate by age or maturity; softened.
affably relaxed; easygoing; genial
pleasantly agreeable; free from tension, discord, etc
dramatic: employing the form or manner of the drama
characteristic of or appropriate to the drama, esp. in involving conflict or contrast; vivid; moving
Even in a "two party" state (at least all the one's I am familiar with, which includes Maryland). the law has an exception for situations where the party that does not give consent (is unaware of being recorded) has no expectation of privacy (such as in a restaurant, or on a public roadway). In Maryland they use that exception to justify video cameras in police cars, although for some reason not to civilians video recording a police officer. The MD Attorney General has on two separate occassions publicly supported both interpretations of the law (on one occassion defending video cameras in police cars, on another occassion defending prosecution of civilians who video record police officers on duty on a public road).
What's funny/ridiculous about Maryland doing this is that in Maryland many police cars have video cameras installed in them to record traffic stops (and other police activity). The police do not find it necessary to inform those they pull over that they are being videotaped. The justification for that is that those being pulled over do not have an expectation of privacy when they are on the public roadways. Yet in this and several other cases, prosecutors (and police officers) assert that the police have an expectation of privacy when conducting their duty (in some cases the very same traffic stops that they would contend the ordinary citizen would have no expectation of privacy if the officer had a video camera in his car).
I wasn't aware that either our national highway system or municipal roads were an industry. I was under the impression that they were government projects. The discussion as to whether or not it would be beneficial to privatize roads is a completely different discussion, but at this time roads are not an industry.
As far as I am concerned there are two paths that make sense for Wired Communication (Internet Service, Telephone and Cable TV). Either turn it into a government run service, like water and sewer and roads or eliminate the close to monopoly protections that the current incumbents enjoy. The reason we have this state of affairs is the result of government intervention in the market. If the market had gotten this way on its own, I would support government regulation to fix the problem. However, the current state of affairs exists because of government regulation, so I favor reducing the amount of government regulation as the method to try first to fix the problem.
Government regulations created the telephone monopolies. Government regulations created the cable monopolies. Not the companies, the monopolies. The government actively worked with AT&T in the early 1900s to give it monopoly status (once AT&T was sufficiently subservient to the politicians). There was a Federal law that gave local governments the authority to grant monopoly cable franchises.
Is that like when Obama said that "every economist from the left and right" says that his economic stimulus has saved or created 2 million jobs? When as far as I have heard only a handful agrees with that (and those are all on the left).
If you are so sure that "natural monopolies" exist, please name two that came about without government intervention.
I can't find the exact words, but I watched a documentary on poverty the other night, and one of the economists basically said this:
"In a purely capitalist economy, the market solution to a famine is a lot of dead people. Demand for food then falls, the supply again reaches a price equilibrium, and then the problem is considered solved."
My first thought when I read this was, "What does he think caused the famine in the first place?" The most likely answer is government regulation and/or corruption.
But ignoring that, I would like to know what economic system he would propose that would solve the problem of a famine more efficiently than a free market. If you have a famine, that means that there isn't enough food for everyone. How are you going to determine who gets fed and who dies?
In a free market system, the people who are most efficient at providing goods and services that people want gets fed. When you have a famine, the goods and services that people most desire is food, therefore the people who can provide others with food are those who can get what they want. Therefore those who provide food have an incentive to produce even more food. This means that in a free market economy, any famine that develops will be as short as possible.
In any other economic system, someone other than those who actually produce food (usually the political class) get first dibs on what food is available, meaning that those who produce food are likely to work at less than optimum efficiency which results in the famine being extended beyond the minimum possible time span.
When Ronald Reagan was President, the news media often referred to him as a "Former Actor". In fact, it was only after he was no longer in office that I learned that Ronald Reagan had been actively involved in politics for longer than I had been alive. When Reagan became President, I had never seen any of his movies (or for that matter heard of them). All I heard was that he was a "B movie" actor.
Al Franken didn't fall for anything. Polarizing his audience is what Al Franken does. Al Franken doesn't want to talk about what he will do because the audience that will actually like that is vanishingly small (even at the Netroots Nation). Instead he wants to talk about what some generic, poorly identified boogeyman will do so that he can get people all riled up to support what he wants to do with out looking too closely at it and realizing they like it even less than what he was railing against.
So, what makes you think that the people on the "other" side (like Franken) don't have contributors who have a vested interest in a "net neutrality" law? Do you really believe that the 1000 page law they will pass on "net neutrality" will just be, "No ISP may regulate content on the basis of source or destination"?
In the case of net neutrality, the fact that most ISPs who offer high speed access are monopolies demands that they be tightly regulated. There is no free market in regards to any monopoly. Anyone who thinks monopolies should not be regulated shouldn't take so much oxycotin.
So, your solution to a problem that government regulation created (ISPs who offer high speed access are monopolies) is more government regulation? How about instead of more government regulation, we get rid of some (not all) government regulation and eliminate the government support for high speed Internet monopolies?
This will take time, we would be much better off if the government had never created these monopolies in the first place. Now that they exist, it will take time for the market to correct the problem (if it is ever allowed to do so).
I...think you misunderstood what I was saying. My point was that people shouting "free market" are mistaken, because mostly leaving ISPs alone has so far been proven to be ineffective. Your points are valid as well.
We're on the same side here:-)
The problem is that the government isn't leaving the ISPs alone, the government has intervened to give the ISPs close to monopoly status.
There is little evidence that the "Natural Monopoly" theory is true. The theory of Natural Monopoly was used to justify government intervention to create first the AT&T telephone monopoly and later the cable monopolies. While there are some studies that show that in certain industries competiton leads to inefficiency, I know of no historical example where a monopoly arose because of "natural monopoly" conditions.
Free market is never stated in terms for the consumer. It is always stated in terms for big business.
While regulation is always stated in terms for consumers. The interesting thing is that the more regulated a particular industry is, the more dominated it is by big business. Somehow, it seems that the thing that is always stated in terms for the consumer always favors big business. Maybe it's time we tried something that is stated in terms for big business, then perhaps we will get something that actually favors the consumer.
People think that those who oppose government mandated "net neutrality" don't know what somebody like you means by "net neutrality", when in fact they understand perfectly well what you mean. They just don't believe that that is what a politician means when they say "net neutrality".
Actually, the root of the problem you are talking about ("liberal" Democrat vs "conservative" Republican...I am using the quotes because the terms are really less than ideal to sum up the differences) is that the disagreements have already been pushed too far up the social scale. That is, many of the problems are caused by making decisions at the state level that should be made at the local level and making decisions at the federal level that should be made at the state or local level. Both of your examples are decisions that should be made at the state level. Both abortion and global warming are issues that should be resolved at the state level rather than the federal level.
They didn't have to study games to figure this out. Even the summary mentions that the theory is 80 years old. As another poster points out, one of the problems with testing the theory has to do with determining if people are members of a perticular group because they behave and think a certain way or if they behave and think a certain way because they are a member of a pericular group.
This study sheds interesting new light on the thery because membership in virtual world groups (especially in MMOGs) is much less dependent on external factors than real world groups.
Actually, I saw an interesting comment regarding that a week or two back. According to a military historian (I don't remember his name, but the History Channel uses him in a lot of their specials), the number of deaths in war per year increased expnonentially from sometime around 1700 until 1945. Since 1945, the number of deaths in war has been essentially the same every year. I believe the number he used was 1 million deaths each year from war worlwide. If this information is correct (and it is consistent with what I know, although I have not done enough research to be sure), nuclear weapons have greatly reduced deaths from war.
Alexander did conquer Afghanistan. The Mongols conquered Afghanistan. The reason the Romans never invaded Afghanistan was because they were unable to defeat the Parthians (who controlled Afghanistan along with most of the territory between Asia Minor and India). Afghanistan has been conquered numerous times throughout history and incorporated into various empires.
"Natural Monopoly" is a theory that was developed in the early 1900s to justify the government intervening to give AT&T what was essentially a monopoly over telephone service. I can only think of one case where a monopoly developed without direct government intervention, Microsoft. The railroad monopolies were all a result of government intervention. The AT&T monopoly over telephone service was the result of government intervention. The cable monopolies are the result of government intervention.
You obviously don't have any idea how many regulations a coffee shop has to follow. And as someone else responded to the OP there are a lot of other expenses to running a coffee shop.
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You see a gang banger beating the crap out of someone, you covertly film it, his attorney presses to have you criminally charged.
All of these laws that I know of have an exception that does not require permission (or even informing) to record someone committing a criminal act, or an act performed where the person has no reasonable expectation of privacy.
You are spot on. The thing is that in several states with very similar laws, the courts have ruled that a police officer executing his duty in a public location (such as making a traffic stop) does not have an expectation of privacy (which is a necessary condition to bring the consent provision of this law into play). I believe that even Maryland has had such court rulings (although I may be mistaken on this point). However, in at least one other state the police have charged people with violating the wiretap laws for similar things, even after court rulings in the same jurisdictions saying that such recordings are legal.
Sorry but I'm not buying your mellow dramatic bullshit.
I have a question, how can anything be both "mellow" and "dramatic"?
mellow:
made gentle and compassionate by age or maturity; softened.
affably relaxed; easygoing; genial
pleasantly agreeable; free from tension, discord, etc
dramatic:
employing the form or manner of the drama
characteristic of or appropriate to the drama, esp. in involving conflict or contrast; vivid; moving
You may be a republican, but you are clearly not a conservative, conservatives call it being a spoiled brat.
Even in a "two party" state (at least all the one's I am familiar with, which includes Maryland). the law has an exception for situations where the party that does not give consent (is unaware of being recorded) has no expectation of privacy (such as in a restaurant, or on a public roadway). In Maryland they use that exception to justify video cameras in police cars, although for some reason not to civilians video recording a police officer. The MD Attorney General has on two separate occassions publicly supported both interpretations of the law (on one occassion defending video cameras in police cars, on another occassion defending prosecution of civilians who video record police officers on duty on a public road).
What's funny/ridiculous about Maryland doing this is that in Maryland many police cars have video cameras installed in them to record traffic stops (and other police activity). The police do not find it necessary to inform those they pull over that they are being videotaped. The justification for that is that those being pulled over do not have an expectation of privacy when they are on the public roadways. Yet in this and several other cases, prosecutors (and police officers) assert that the police have an expectation of privacy when conducting their duty (in some cases the very same traffic stops that they would contend the ordinary citizen would have no expectation of privacy if the officer had a video camera in his car).
I wasn't aware that either our national highway system or municipal roads were an industry. I was under the impression that they were government projects. The discussion as to whether or not it would be beneficial to privatize roads is a completely different discussion, but at this time roads are not an industry.
As far as I am concerned there are two paths that make sense for Wired Communication (Internet Service, Telephone and Cable TV). Either turn it into a government run service, like water and sewer and roads or eliminate the close to monopoly protections that the current incumbents enjoy. The reason we have this state of affairs is the result of government intervention in the market. If the market had gotten this way on its own, I would support government regulation to fix the problem. However, the current state of affairs exists because of government regulation, so I favor reducing the amount of government regulation as the method to try first to fix the problem.
Government regulations created the telephone monopolies. Government regulations created the cable monopolies. Not the companies, the monopolies. The government actively worked with AT&T in the early 1900s to give it monopoly status (once AT&T was sufficiently subservient to the politicians). There was a Federal law that gave local governments the authority to grant monopoly cable franchises.
Is that like when Obama said that "every economist from the left and right" says that his economic stimulus has saved or created 2 million jobs? When as far as I have heard only a handful agrees with that (and those are all on the left).
If you are so sure that "natural monopolies" exist, please name two that came about without government intervention.
I can't find the exact words, but I watched a documentary on poverty the other night, and one of the economists basically said this: "In a purely capitalist economy, the market solution to a famine is a lot of dead people. Demand for food then falls, the supply again reaches a price equilibrium, and then the problem is considered solved."
My first thought when I read this was, "What does he think caused the famine in the first place?" The most likely answer is government regulation and/or corruption.
But ignoring that, I would like to know what economic system he would propose that would solve the problem of a famine more efficiently than a free market. If you have a famine, that means that there isn't enough food for everyone. How are you going to determine who gets fed and who dies?
In a free market system, the people who are most efficient at providing goods and services that people want gets fed. When you have a famine, the goods and services that people most desire is food, therefore the people who can provide others with food are those who can get what they want. Therefore those who provide food have an incentive to produce even more food. This means that in a free market economy, any famine that develops will be as short as possible.
In any other economic system, someone other than those who actually produce food (usually the political class) get first dibs on what food is available, meaning that those who produce food are likely to work at less than optimum efficiency which results in the famine being extended beyond the minimum possible time span.
When Ronald Reagan was President, the news media often referred to him as a "Former Actor". In fact, it was only after he was no longer in office that I learned that Ronald Reagan had been actively involved in politics for longer than I had been alive. When Reagan became President, I had never seen any of his movies (or for that matter heard of them). All I heard was that he was a "B movie" actor.
Al Franken didn't fall for anything. Polarizing his audience is what Al Franken does. Al Franken doesn't want to talk about what he will do because the audience that will actually like that is vanishingly small (even at the Netroots Nation). Instead he wants to talk about what some generic, poorly identified boogeyman will do so that he can get people all riled up to support what he wants to do with out looking too closely at it and realizing they like it even less than what he was railing against.
Were you perhaps thinking of MSNBC? Which is part of NBC and Comcast is trying to buy NBC.
So, what makes you think that the people on the "other" side (like Franken) don't have contributors who have a vested interest in a "net neutrality" law? Do you really believe that the 1000 page law they will pass on "net neutrality" will just be, "No ISP may regulate content on the basis of source or destination"?
In the case of net neutrality, the fact that most ISPs who offer high speed access are monopolies demands that they be tightly regulated. There is no free market in regards to any monopoly. Anyone who thinks monopolies should not be regulated shouldn't take so much oxycotin.
So, your solution to a problem that government regulation created (ISPs who offer high speed access are monopolies) is more government regulation? How about instead of more government regulation, we get rid of some (not all) government regulation and eliminate the government support for high speed Internet monopolies?
This will take time, we would be much better off if the government had never created these monopolies in the first place. Now that they exist, it will take time for the market to correct the problem (if it is ever allowed to do so).
I...think you misunderstood what I was saying. My point was that people shouting "free market" are mistaken, because mostly leaving ISPs alone has so far been proven to be ineffective. Your points are valid as well.
We're on the same side here :-)
The problem is that the government isn't leaving the ISPs alone, the government has intervened to give the ISPs close to monopoly status.
There is little evidence that the "Natural Monopoly" theory is true. The theory of Natural Monopoly was used to justify government intervention to create first the AT&T telephone monopoly and later the cable monopolies. While there are some studies that show that in certain industries competiton leads to inefficiency, I know of no historical example where a monopoly arose because of "natural monopoly" conditions.
Free market is never stated in terms for the consumer. It is always stated in terms for big business.
While regulation is always stated in terms for consumers. The interesting thing is that the more regulated a particular industry is, the more dominated it is by big business. Somehow, it seems that the thing that is always stated in terms for the consumer always favors big business. Maybe it's time we tried something that is stated in terms for big business, then perhaps we will get something that actually favors the consumer.
People think that those who oppose government mandated "net neutrality" don't know what somebody like you means by "net neutrality", when in fact they understand perfectly well what you mean. They just don't believe that that is what a politician means when they say "net neutrality".
Actually, the root of the problem you are talking about ("liberal" Democrat vs "conservative" Republican...I am using the quotes because the terms are really less than ideal to sum up the differences) is that the disagreements have already been pushed too far up the social scale. That is, many of the problems are caused by making decisions at the state level that should be made at the local level and making decisions at the federal level that should be made at the state or local level. Both of your examples are decisions that should be made at the state level. Both abortion and global warming are issues that should be resolved at the state level rather than the federal level.
They didn't have to study games to figure this out. Even the summary mentions that the theory is 80 years old. As another poster points out, one of the problems with testing the theory has to do with determining if people are members of a perticular group because they behave and think a certain way or if they behave and think a certain way because they are a member of a pericular group.
This study sheds interesting new light on the thery because membership in virtual world groups (especially in MMOGs) is much less dependent on external factors than real world groups.
Actually, I saw an interesting comment regarding that a week or two back. According to a military historian (I don't remember his name, but the History Channel uses him in a lot of their specials), the number of deaths in war per year increased expnonentially from sometime around 1700 until 1945. Since 1945, the number of deaths in war has been essentially the same every year. I believe the number he used was 1 million deaths each year from war worlwide. If this information is correct (and it is consistent with what I know, although I have not done enough research to be sure), nuclear weapons have greatly reduced deaths from war.
Alexander did conquer Afghanistan. The Mongols conquered Afghanistan. The reason the Romans never invaded Afghanistan was because they were unable to defeat the Parthians (who controlled Afghanistan along with most of the territory between Asia Minor and India). Afghanistan has been conquered numerous times throughout history and incorporated into various empires.
"Natural Monopoly" is a theory that was developed in the early 1900s to justify the government intervening to give AT&T what was essentially a monopoly over telephone service. I can only think of one case where a monopoly developed without direct government intervention, Microsoft. The railroad monopolies were all a result of government intervention. The AT&T monopoly over telephone service was the result of government intervention. The cable monopolies are the result of government intervention.
You obviously don't have any idea how many regulations a coffee shop has to follow. And as someone else responded to the OP there are a lot of other expenses to running a coffee shop.