No, but its pretty harmless, they probably didn't think anything of it and I'm sure Google will remove these images if requested.
I'm sick of Google doing something and allowing me to 'opt-out'. For instance, when the decided to violate almost every copyright on published books. It hardly seems relevent whether there was a benefit to the author or not. They committed infringement* on a large scale. Holding people responsible for benign acts is just ensuring fairness under the law. And holding Google responsible in general is a good way to prevent them from going too far.
*A judge rejected the claim by a CD selling service that making copies of entire songs to serve snippets was not fair use. Hence, same principle applies to books.
The government is giving free converter boxes to people, so they can take a digital signal and turn it into analog. Besides that, digital TV is better use of the spectrum. Hell, Google and Microsoft are both working on wifi over the gaps in the new channels.
Becuase there are deficits. The only way to pay for them is to increase taxes. The main cause of deficits is that we had this nifty stream taxing millionaries at a higher rate, but turns out when you cut the highest tax bracket by 6%, you lose a lot of money.
I just want the highest bracket to be at 40%, and for capital gains to get taxed as income. Maybe in parallel (so the first $X,000 of capital gains wasn't taxed, the next bit at teh lowest tax rate, etc.).
And 'gridlock' used to be called 'loyal opposition'. The thought was partisan politics would keep anything from getting done unless it really was a good idea. Obviously, if this goes too far, you end up with the Poland of a while ago, or the Articles of Confederation, where unanimity is required; there is always one or two cranks.
I'd love to hear an argument for lowering taxes that wsn't based on the mentality of a three-year-old: This is MINE -or- We lower taxes, *fairy-dust*, more revenue.
Don't forget to wear a condom when you are surfing on the interwebs!
Since the only thing I can read this post is drawing a parallel to the (poster thinks is negative) "don't forget to wear a condom when you have sex", I'm going to disagree and state that I favor teaching safe-sex practices.
Really, a course in personal finances is better than a course in basic economics (I had both, personal finances in middle school, so it was limited to balancing a checkbook.) Basic economics doesn't really help in your day-to-day-life. Furthermore, the lack of nuance in basic economics can be pretty devestating to a person's understanding. For instance, I feel like most lassie-faire libertarians only studied basic economics, and thus their eyes glaze over when you talk about the need for government intervention to protect people from externalities, or that natural monopolies exist, are good, and need to be regulated.
There are other lassie-faire economists who are quite educated (moreso than me) and have more interesting points. But the average person seems to leave basic economics with 'completely free market == good, anything less == USSR'. With no ability to back it up, that kind of kneejerk reaction is just bad in any field.
A) Realize that no matter how much you warn them of the "dangers" of the Internet, kids will still get on it
B) Realize that many teenagers will rebel and still get on
These are the same. And abstince-only education doesn't work with sex either. The point is to teach them safe habits.
C) Realize that by teaching ways that predators will stalk them, they will think they are safe if they don't have those
Well, to a large degree, that's true. If you never give anyone enough information to track you down, and never meet people off the internet, then you are pretty safe. If they find out your IP address they might be able to find out your neighborhood/block. But you even avoid that by not directly connecting with people.
That does discount spyware, but that seems like a second class of issues (or second class by the school.).
D) And lastly, realize that this opens up an avenue for propaganda by MS and the *AA to try to squash innovation by spreading FUD with how "pirated" things always has viruses and can lead to identity theft and being stalked!!!One!11!![sic]
Sure it seems like a good idea, but remember the government gave us the DMCA and most likely doesn't know anything about what the 'Net is really like.
Wow, way to combine three typical slashdot dislikes. First, it was the federal government who gave us the DMCA, not Virginia. Second, a lot of the DMCA makes sense (the safe-harbor provisions). I suppose you are talking about the generality of the term 'encrption scheme' so that it applies to ROT-13 and the law against having mechanisms to get around it? Well, even that seems more carelessly written than evil.
And even if there was a lot of anti-piracy in the class, that 1) seems valid, as pirated software is more likely to have spyware than the non-pirated alternative (exception that proves the rule, P2P clients). 2) Even if it was used to curb piracy, how does that lead to a lack of innovation? I would understand software patents, but... 3) Even if that was a negative consequence, teaching kids good online habits seems to outweigh it. 4) Piracy *is* illegal, and the government *should* support upholding the law.
Political rant: I don't understand how the Republicans/Libertarians can win elections with attitudes like yours. Of course, if you think government will always fail, and you are in charge of it, it will. My coworker claims that all architecture meetings take forever and end indecisively, but of course he has the power to cause that outcome.
It is guilty untill proven inocent and the burden is on part of the defence
No, it's Yahoo! saying, "I don't have a dog in this fight". If the person assumes all legal responisibilty, I believe Yahoo! puts it back up. But why should Yahoo! continue to (possibly) aid in infringment? Where's their win?
Technically, a voice controlled universal remote. But what's brilliant about it is, unlike other universal remotes, you train it not by inputting a model number, but by saying, the TV power code is *hit it with IR from TV remote*. The voice activation is also pretty nice. If I had IR remotes hooked up to my lights already, I can see using it as a little 'intelligent house' type gizmo.
The USPS holds a statutory monopoly on non-urgent First Class Mail, outbound U.S. international letters as well [as] the exclusive right to put mail in private mailboxes, as described in the Private Express Statutes
Hmmm... that is interesting. I knew about the mailbox (as I alluded to earlier), but not about the anti-competitive statues. Lately, people on slashdot have been correcting my facts with information as opposed to disagreeing with assertions. I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate it.
I do understand their point: that by making extra money via their monopoly can be sunk into equitable distribution. It's certainly a different arguement than what I thought it was.
I'm just going to say that I believe that (a) an unfettered free market[1] tends toward the optimum possible allocation of resources[2]; and (b) the unfettered free market is, more importantly, the only system which does not itself depend on the presence of aggression[3] to function. For whatever reasons you probably disagree with (a) and don't care about (b), so really the gulf between our basic principles is much too great for there to be any purpose in debating our respective conclusions at such a high level.
I think you mischaracterize our disagreement. I think some utilities, including telecommunications, should be available at a reasonable cost to every citizen, at some level. So, the efficacy is sort of irrelevent.
So, I don't particularly care about efficency in that vein. Conversly, what you believe I don't care about, freedom from aggression (or rather coersion), is very important to me. While I do not claim that other systems are free of coersion, I'll claim that free market theorists fail to recognize several types of coersion that applies to the free market.
Namely, you leave out the coercive effects:
Soceital pressures - society exerts considerable supermarket pressure on people to pursue certain courses of action
Social/Peer pressure
Inertia - people tend to keep the patterns. This coercive effect is entirely psycological.
Intelligence - brainpower is a limited commodity, especially for some people. However, people are can devote far more brainpower to the isolated case when they are selling something, to the many times they are buying something.
Information - much like brainpower, there are huge costs to finding out enough to make decisions. (Yes, economists account for propreitary information, but that's all.)
The limited amount of capital/social connections/other assets, and their concentration. This is especially applicable to start-up costs.
Lastly, the coercive power of laws that favor incumbents. As a very important sidenote, the morality of not using coercive asset redistribution is predicated on the notion that the assets are legitimitely owned. Once one decides that not the entirety of the asset owned is legitamite, then it becomes trivial to say that taxation to bring it more in line is moral.
Sorry if I'm getting incoherent, but I've had quite a bit to drink since I started typing this post...
to the
A truly unfettered free market between infinitely powerful, dispassionate and well-informed agents would lead to an optimum allocation of resources (or at least a local maximum.) However, free market theorists tend to discount the cost of obtaining and processing information (with the exception of obtaining proprietary information). They also fail to recognize certain types of aggression.
I disagree with your second point, not by claiming that other systems are free of aggression, but that your definition is far too narrow.
It may be possible, but certainly you don't think that's a justification, do you? They may want to infringe on NYC's mark in the future, so they sue now? That doesn't make much legal sense at all.
How does your government-run program ensure that resources aren't being wasted providing a level of service which is less urgently demanded than the other things those resources could have been expended on? In private industry this is accomplished by the profit motive, which government organizations don't have.
First, it is clearly demonstrable that the profit motive is in no way the magical panacia you imply it is. Second, why does the government not have a profit motive? For some reason, you assume government will not care. I'll get more into that in discussing the USPS.
The second problem with your assertion is you claim that somehow the prices that would be commanded in the free market are relevent. Rural electification, for instance, is money losing, but vital.
How, exactly, do you expect private industry to compete with an organization that trivially get laws passed in its favor (see also: the USPS's monopoly on first-class letter delivery), which can get unlimited "risk-free" loans by virtue of being backed by taxation, and which has no obligation to pay back even the principle, much less the interest, on its start-up costs?
Intersetingly, it is you who is advocating utilities/companies that can pay their start up costs with private funds, and then assume ownership. The USPS doesn't take 'risk-free' loans from the US government. In fact, the surpluses of the late 90's were only due to the USPS being treated as a profit center. In reality, the USPS had raised rates to save money for a few years to upgrade. So, by counting the money as profit back then, you may have been mislead into thinking they ran a deficit recently. And the USPS doesn't have any legal monopoly. They do happen to own everyone's mailbox, so no one else is allowed to use them. That may be the concept of which you were thinking. I worry far less about the government favoring its own programs compared to big private companies.
The last assumption you make is that I care if the competition is on an even playing field. While that is important if all private companies are competing, why do we care if the government is doing it? Ideally, the government would supply some services (ultilites, etc.) up to the point when marginal cost equaled marginal utility. And sometimes lose money. So?
Bringing up the USPS is hilarious. Because FedEx and UPS do compete against that. Private schools compete. Private security forces. Private additional unemployment insurance. Private arrays of microwave transmitters to move information around. Private housing options. In fact, that's why I don't understand why people oppose socialized medicine. Private alternatives to pretty much any government program exist. Unless they'd be impossible anyway. I suppose that's the crux of the problem with your arguement. What's an industry where government supplying that service made it impossible for the market to do so? It would help if that example was not one where equity is clearly a superior concern (courts, etc.) or market volitility would be devestating (police, etc.).
As with any government agency, once the services it provided are done by private industry, it is time to cut out the public funding.
On the contrary. As with any government agency, private industry should be free to compete. Once no one uses the government agency, it can be scaled back/eliminated. But until then, what's wrong with the government supplying a little socially conscious competition?
Why is it that Slashdot's first reaction to these types of studies is "there should be a law!"? What ever happened to free speech? Seriously, if you don't like ads DON'T WATCH THEM!
I don't think anyone is advocated making whiskey ads illegal. What people want is for the brain-scanning to be made illegal. Because, otherwise, it could become as unbiquitous as drug testing in employment. It could be used as a justification to preemptively lock people up. There simply are dangers in allowing it to be used.
Now, if this example was scientific research into how to brain-scan, that would be different. But it's not. It's using established techniques to sell whiskey. And I don't want to be put in a situation where my ability to get a job is held hostage to my consent for them to scan my brain.
Why should the government be the one to decide who I cannot permit to scan my brain?
Who do you want to scan your brain? The government can make things that people are only/primarily coerced into doing (prostitution, brain-scanning) illegal to help those people, even at the cost of some people's rights. For instance, you will never be able to verify your vote, as then someone who coerced you would be able to do so as well.
Let me put it another way, what happens when every IT job starts with a brainscan, ends with a brainscan, and everything in-between is the IP of the company (okay, this may already exist by your contract, albeit without the brainscan). What happens when you are denied employment because your mandatory brainscan revealed you voted for *insert hated party/candidate*.
But if you go down the list to, say, machine gun owners, you'll find that they're the safest group of firearms owners in the country. Go ahead. Do the research, the results will surprise someone like you.
It wouldn't surprise me that people who legally own machine-guns (which means they have owned them for the past 15 years since they were restricted) and haven't had them taken away by getting convicted of a crime are safe. However, the reason is that they have been vetted for 15+ years. Or were you refering to those who owned non-firing machine guns?
I haven't a clue where you people come up with this stuff.
What did I leave out?
why would self-protection... not be sufficient reason to maintain our Second Amendment rights?
I didn't say get rid of all guns. I said strict gun control. No one needs assault weapons. And I could easily be convinced to restrictions on clip size/rate of fire on all weapons, varying by weapon type.
The Founding Fathers were, after all, some fairly intelligent people... you should listen to them more.
You're confusing 'listen' with 'agree with'. And 'the Founding Fathers' with 'what someone with a vested interest told me the Founding Fathers thought'. You had no rebuttal to my question about the 'a well-regulated milita' point. Maybe you weren't 'listening' to what the Founding Fathers wrote.
Yes, because of their stature, I read what the Founding Fathers (and a variety of other philosophers) wrote. But I do not abrogate my judgement for theirs. So, cite one of their arguments...
Some people think that we're too "civilized" or "culturally advanced" to need the Second Amendment any more.
Nice strawman. However, the fact that some people use a weak arguement does not excuse you from the need to reply to mine.
AT&T can't rebrand it (if they had their way, it'd be the "AT&T A7530",
Because the Apple name is so worthless? Please, AT&T would rather label all their phones Apple than AT&T. They paid a lot just for the name iPhone already.
They wait to catch the people who really violate the law? Shock!
This is actually the most responsible course of action. People will violate the speed limit, so raising it won't help. But, if everyone violates it by 15 MPH, then it's fine. Much safer than causing traffic jams by 15 over, then at, then 15 over again when past the bubble.
And, in some states ( I've heard, IANAL, etc.) 10-15 MPH cannot be given a ticket by city cops, only state-troopers. A built in safety valve to protect an unpopular citizen from undue harassment.
What happened in Athens, TN looks interesting. I'm at work and cannot read it in full; I did skim it. So I have no reply to that now, other than to thank you for bringing it to my attention.
Just because gun laws don't bother you personally, they are still a violation of our explicit legal rights in the same sense that warrantless wiretapping is.
I read the 'well regulated milita' as a condomnation of gun rights as an individual right. I think it is the only explicit right granted the states, and that 20% of the bill of rights (2 and 10) are rights to the states, and the other 80% are rights to citizens. I fail to see what other use inserting the preamble would serve, if not to specify why the right exists. And I fail to see why specifying why the right exists serves any purpose if not to help resolve arguments over the scope of that right. All the other rights are asserted to be natural rights that people just have. Gun rights needed a justification.
So, I think gun control laws are permissable within a reading of the original document, but wiretapping is clearly verboten.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sick of Google doing something and allowing me to 'opt-out'. For instance, when the decided to violate almost every copyright on published books. It hardly seems relevent whether there was a benefit to the author or not. They committed infringement* on a large scale. Holding people responsible for benign acts is just ensuring fairness under the law. And holding Google responsible in general is a good way to prevent them from going too far.
*A judge rejected the claim by a CD selling service that making copies of entire songs to serve snippets was not fair use. Hence, same principle applies to books.
The government is giving free converter boxes to people, so they can take a digital signal and turn it into analog. Besides that, digital TV is better use of the spectrum. Hell, Google and Microsoft are both working on wifi over the gaps in the new channels.
Sorry, I forgot the magic 'we can get the same results while spending less money' line. How? Example/citation please?
Becuase there are deficits. The only way to pay for them is to increase taxes. The main cause of deficits is that we had this nifty stream taxing millionaries at a higher rate, but turns out when you cut the highest tax bracket by 6%, you lose a lot of money.
I just want the highest bracket to be at 40%, and for capital gains to get taxed as income. Maybe in parallel (so the first $X,000 of capital gains wasn't taxed, the next bit at teh lowest tax rate, etc.).
And 'gridlock' used to be called 'loyal opposition'. The thought was partisan politics would keep anything from getting done unless it really was a good idea. Obviously, if this goes too far, you end up with the Poland of a while ago, or the Articles of Confederation, where unanimity is required; there is always one or two cranks.
I'd love to hear an argument for lowering taxes that wsn't based on the mentality of a three-year-old: This is MINE -or- We lower taxes, *fairy-dust*, more revenue.
Since the only thing I can read this post is drawing a parallel to the (poster thinks is negative) "don't forget to wear a condom when you have sex", I'm going to disagree and state that I favor teaching safe-sex practices.
Really, a course in personal finances is better than a course in basic economics (I had both, personal finances in middle school, so it was limited to balancing a checkbook.) Basic economics doesn't really help in your day-to-day-life. Furthermore, the lack of nuance in basic economics can be pretty devestating to a person's understanding. For instance, I feel like most lassie-faire libertarians only studied basic economics, and thus their eyes glaze over when you talk about the need for government intervention to protect people from externalities, or that natural monopolies exist, are good, and need to be regulated.
There are other lassie-faire economists who are quite educated (moreso than me) and have more interesting points. But the average person seems to leave basic economics with 'completely free market == good, anything less == USSR'. With no ability to back it up, that kind of kneejerk reaction is just bad in any field.
These are the same. And abstince-only education doesn't work with sex either. The point is to teach them safe habits.
Well, to a large degree, that's true. If you never give anyone enough information to track you down, and never meet people off the internet, then you are pretty safe. If they find out your IP address they might be able to find out your neighborhood/block. But you even avoid that by not directly connecting with people.
That does discount spyware, but that seems like a second class of issues (or second class by the school.).
Wow, way to combine three typical slashdot dislikes. First, it was the federal government who gave us the DMCA, not Virginia. Second, a lot of the DMCA makes sense (the safe-harbor provisions). I suppose you are talking about the generality of the term 'encrption scheme' so that it applies to ROT-13 and the law against having mechanisms to get around it? Well, even that seems more carelessly written than evil.
And even if there was a lot of anti-piracy in the class, that 1) seems valid, as pirated software is more likely to have spyware than the non-pirated alternative (exception that proves the rule, P2P clients). 2) Even if it was used to curb piracy, how does that lead to a lack of innovation? I would understand software patents, but... 3) Even if that was a negative consequence, teaching kids good online habits seems to outweigh it. 4) Piracy *is* illegal, and the government *should* support upholding the law.
Political rant: I don't understand how the Republicans/Libertarians can win elections with attitudes like yours. Of course, if you think government will always fail, and you are in charge of it, it will. My coworker claims that all architecture meetings take forever and end indecisively, but of course he has the power to cause that outcome.
What's wrong with forcing analog off the air. Isn't digital like 6 times as efficent use of the bandwidth (ignoring any quality differences)?
If you can afford a 20k Star Wars tank, you are rich enough that you have a girlfriend. And nuevo rich enough that you buy her underware.
No, it's Yahoo! saying, "I don't have a dog in this fight". If the person assumes all legal responisibilty, I believe Yahoo! puts it back up. But why should Yahoo! continue to (possibly) aid in infringment? Where's their win?
It is the second level of authentication. You have to pass both. See two-factor authentication.
Technically, a voice controlled universal remote. But what's brilliant about it is, unlike other universal remotes, you train it not by inputting a model number, but by saying, the TV power code is *hit it with IR from TV remote*. The voice activation is also pretty nice. If I had IR remotes hooked up to my lights already, I can see using it as a little 'intelligent house' type gizmo.
I have a solution for you.
Hmmm... that is interesting. I knew about the mailbox (as I alluded to earlier), but not about the anti-competitive statues. Lately, people on slashdot have been correcting my facts with information as opposed to disagreeing with assertions. I just wanted to tell you that I appreciate it.
I do understand their point: that by making extra money via their monopoly can be sunk into equitable distribution. It's certainly a different arguement than what I thought it was.
I think you mischaracterize our disagreement. I think some utilities, including telecommunications, should be available at a reasonable cost to every citizen, at some level. So, the efficacy is sort of irrelevent.
So, I don't particularly care about efficency in that vein. Conversly, what you believe I don't care about, freedom from aggression (or rather coersion), is very important to me. While I do not claim that other systems are free of coersion, I'll claim that free market theorists fail to recognize several types of coersion that applies to the free market.
Namely, you leave out the coercive effects:
Sorry if I'm getting incoherent, but I've had quite a bit to drink since I started typing this post...
to the A truly unfettered free market between infinitely powerful, dispassionate and well-informed agents would lead to an optimum allocation of resources (or at least a local maximum.) However, free market theorists tend to discount the cost of obtaining and processing information (with the exception of obtaining proprietary information). They also fail to recognize certain types of aggression.I disagree with your second point, not by claiming that other systems are free of aggression, but that your definition is far too narrow.
It may be possible, but certainly you don't think that's a justification, do you? They may want to infringe on NYC's mark in the future, so they sue now? That doesn't make much legal sense at all.
First, it is clearly demonstrable that the profit motive is in no way the magical panacia you imply it is. Second, why does the government not have a profit motive? For some reason, you assume government will not care. I'll get more into that in discussing the USPS.
The second problem with your assertion is you claim that somehow the prices that would be commanded in the free market are relevent. Rural electification, for instance, is money losing, but vital.
Intersetingly, it is you who is advocating utilities/companies that can pay their start up costs with private funds, and then assume ownership. The USPS doesn't take 'risk-free' loans from the US government. In fact, the surpluses of the late 90's were only due to the USPS being treated as a profit center. In reality, the USPS had raised rates to save money for a few years to upgrade. So, by counting the money as profit back then, you may have been mislead into thinking they ran a deficit recently. And the USPS doesn't have any legal monopoly. They do happen to own everyone's mailbox, so no one else is allowed to use them. That may be the concept of which you were thinking. I worry far less about the government favoring its own programs compared to big private companies.
The last assumption you make is that I care if the competition is on an even playing field. While that is important if all private companies are competing, why do we care if the government is doing it? Ideally, the government would supply some services (ultilites, etc.) up to the point when marginal cost equaled marginal utility. And sometimes lose money. So?
Bringing up the USPS is hilarious. Because FedEx and UPS do compete against that. Private schools compete. Private security forces. Private additional unemployment insurance. Private arrays of microwave transmitters to move information around. Private housing options. In fact, that's why I don't understand why people oppose socialized medicine. Private alternatives to pretty much any government program exist. Unless they'd be impossible anyway. I suppose that's the crux of the problem with your arguement. What's an industry where government supplying that service made it impossible for the market to do so? It would help if that example was not one where equity is clearly a superior concern (courts, etc.) or market volitility would be devestating (police, etc.).
On the contrary. As with any government agency, private industry should be free to compete. Once no one uses the government agency, it can be scaled back/eliminated. But until then, what's wrong with the government supplying a little socially conscious competition?
99% of the time, the drunk call (and its social aftermath) is punishment enough. I want to protect myself, not the people in my speed dial.
I don't think anyone is advocated making whiskey ads illegal. What people want is for the brain-scanning to be made illegal. Because, otherwise, it could become as unbiquitous as drug testing in employment. It could be used as a justification to preemptively lock people up. There simply are dangers in allowing it to be used.
Now, if this example was scientific research into how to brain-scan, that would be different. But it's not. It's using established techniques to sell whiskey. And I don't want to be put in a situation where my ability to get a job is held hostage to my consent for them to scan my brain.
They will start looking out the window for flying pigs.
Who do you want to scan your brain? The government can make things that people are only/primarily coerced into doing (prostitution, brain-scanning) illegal to help those people, even at the cost of some people's rights. For instance, you will never be able to verify your vote, as then someone who coerced you would be able to do so as well.
Let me put it another way, what happens when every IT job starts with a brainscan, ends with a brainscan, and everything in-between is the IP of the company (okay, this may already exist by your contract, albeit without the brainscan). What happens when you are denied employment because your mandatory brainscan revealed you voted for *insert hated party/candidate*.
It wouldn't surprise me that people who legally own machine-guns (which means they have owned them for the past 15 years since they were restricted) and haven't had them taken away by getting convicted of a crime are safe. However, the reason is that they have been vetted for 15+ years. Or were you refering to those who owned non-firing machine guns?
What did I leave out?
I didn't say get rid of all guns. I said strict gun control. No one needs assault weapons. And I could easily be convinced to restrictions on clip size/rate of fire on all weapons, varying by weapon type.
You're confusing 'listen' with 'agree with'. And 'the Founding Fathers' with 'what someone with a vested interest told me the Founding Fathers thought'. You had no rebuttal to my question about the 'a well-regulated milita' point. Maybe you weren't 'listening' to what the Founding Fathers wrote.
Yes, because of their stature, I read what the Founding Fathers (and a variety of other philosophers) wrote. But I do not abrogate my judgement for theirs. So, cite one of their arguments...
Nice strawman. However, the fact that some people use a weak arguement does not excuse you from the need to reply to mine.
Because the Apple name is so worthless? Please, AT&T would rather label all their phones Apple than AT&T. They paid a lot just for the name iPhone already.
Citation? I've never heard that copying the program into RAM was covered under 'fair use'.
They wait to catch the people who really violate the law? Shock!
This is actually the most responsible course of action. People will violate the speed limit, so raising it won't help. But, if everyone violates it by 15 MPH, then it's fine. Much safer than causing traffic jams by 15 over, then at, then 15 over again when past the bubble.
And, in some states ( I've heard, IANAL, etc.) 10-15 MPH cannot be given a ticket by city cops, only state-troopers. A built in safety valve to protect an unpopular citizen from undue harassment.
What happened in Athens, TN looks interesting. I'm at work and cannot read it in full; I did skim it. So I have no reply to that now, other than to thank you for bringing it to my attention.
I read the 'well regulated milita' as a condomnation of gun rights as an individual right. I think it is the only explicit right granted the states, and that 20% of the bill of rights (2 and 10) are rights to the states, and the other 80% are rights to citizens. I fail to see what other use inserting the preamble would serve, if not to specify why the right exists. And I fail to see why specifying why the right exists serves any purpose if not to help resolve arguments over the scope of that right. All the other rights are asserted to be natural rights that people just have. Gun rights needed a justification.
So, I think gun control laws are permissable within a reading of the original document, but wiretapping is clearly verboten.