You've got it backwards; it's easier for an entity like a person to move to another country than it ever is for a large corporation.
It could be true if your corporation is present only in one country. Even then there are known cases when large single-country corporations (Volvo, IIRC) told their government that "either you change the law or we are out of here" (the law was quickly changed.)
But I [still] work for a large corporation that has presence in tens of countries; in some it's small, but in other it's major - R&D, manufacturing, thousands of people, large buildings etc. Right now the corporation is going through the process of reduction of US-based workforce. Ultimately only people that *must* be in the USA will remain in the USA; the rest will be in Asia (mostly China and India, probably.) And why not? A transnational corporation has no particular loyalty to any specific country. Research is better done when there are many qualified researchers (and nobody will deny that China has tons of them, US-educated and such.) Manufacturing is *definitely* better done in Asia. So what is the reason to even keep facilities in the USA? The answer is, sales to US entities (and the government) and some technical support. Everything else is best done elsewhere, using foreign land and labor. Many US employees will be laid off, at great benefit to the profit and loss statement. The shift is already happening, and it is not revolutionary - it's just Chinese factories are increasing production whereas US-based plants are reducing hours, making fewer products and sending people packing, one by one until nobody is left. Then the buildings will be gutted of remaining equipment and then sold, and that's the end of it.
Also to offer comment on the theory that others presented - that US managers like to live in the USA. US managers like to be rich even more. And when the same amount of money that you need here to have a standard house buys you a palace and servants in Asia, the answer looks more and more obvious. With money they can live like kings anywhere; and do not forget that many rich US people despise Obama's financial policy, and some believe that such unlimited, drunken-sailor type, spending will only break the back of US dollar sooner than expected. When that happens you want to be as far from the USA as possible, preferrably presiding over a solid business that makes products that people actually want. What money will be used at that time is unimportant.
How about almost no, or VERY little corporate taxes, with breaks and incentives to employ US citizens
That may be good for the country, but it will be very bad for the government. The government's power comes from the money that taxpayers give to the government. Remove that, and politicians of all sorts suddenly switch from "Irreplaceable Guardians of Treasury" to "Generic Advisers on Public Policy." Which is, actually, what they were supposed to be.
As it stands, the big government can only demand more money at each turn of the wheel; since this chokes the economy, higher taxes are required, which of course further choke the economy, and so on. Ultimately the remnants of the economy will be only sufficient to keep workers alive, with the rest of the money (not much in total anyway) being sent to the government. Oh, by the way, that's exactly how USSR operated.
although the operator shouldn't have altered the test programme in his own initiative, the crew actions never went against the reactor user manual
I guess the user's manual was neither written for a crippled reactor, nor tested on such. Fact of the matter is that they were testing the reactor to see how it's control performs without external power (IIRC) and with insufficient water - a test that was not approved by the reactor designers. That alone (IMO, IANANE) puts the control team at fault. In other words, without their stupid experiment nothing would have happened.
Nevertheless it is true that the reactor was designed with poor control characteristics. But still it would work just fine if it weren't for those meddling kids:-)
Also, the control team never did anything against the reactor user manual.
I read a very detailed, technical report of the accident about a year after it happened. The report was published in "Novy Mir" or some other "thick" magazine. The control team ran an unapproved experiment, days before the reactor was supposed to be turned over to production of energy. As part of that experiment they turned off some major cooling systems, manually, with huge valves, and placed padlocks on those valves so that nobody could accidentally put the system back to its normal condition.
Having done that, they proceeded to torture the reactor until it overheated (due to lack of cooling.) Then they tried to drop the absorbent rods to stop the reaction but it was too late - the rods bent from heat and did not fall down in their channels. The rest is history.
The main cause of this incident was complacency - unfounded belief that nothing bad could possibly happen because nothing bad ever happened. The control team really went out of its way to disable multiple safeguards of the reactor because they wanted to see what happens when the reactor is placed into a configuration where it must not ever be, and the safeguards guaranteed that it won't be there - that's why they disabled them.
Just remove noscript.net and his other domains from NoScripts allow list and his own addon stops his Google adbars
A moment ago I added 'noscript.net' to the list of sites that NoScript must require https: for. This is the last tab in the last tab of NoScript's configuration. As result, when I went to "www.noscript.net" it was blocked. Hopefully it will also block future updates; unfortunately my router (Linksys BEFSR41) doesn't seem to have a blacklist.
If you like a service or website, maybe turn AdBlock off for a few pages.
Most likely this will only increase the service's/website's bandwidth bill because, as I heard, many clients only pay when an ad link is followed and then a product is bought. IMO, if you don't want to see ads (or act upon them) then don't download them.
The trick to collecting large amounts of sunlight would be massive mylar sails. The sails would be deployed as large mirrors. These mirrors would reflect the solar energy toward the power-producing engine.
Wouldn't they be blown away by the light pressure? How do you secure them, and to what?
can they legally change the basic service agreement on what a person contracted with them to provide?
Yes, they can do that - and it happens all the time in all industries. You just get a nice letter like "We are redoing our plans, and the one that you are on is no longer available. Call our customer service to transition you onto one of new plans." I recall that Sprint sent me such letter a few years ago because I had an account with them for a long time.
Never mind Amazon Payments, I'll accept PayPal instead, and...
Get yourself a normal Visa c/c processing system. There are thousands of pr0n sites on the Internet, and they all seem to be perfectly capable of charging people's credit cards.
No. However if you start organizing a boycott of his gas station just because when you wanted coffee he had none - then you'll be forcing him to either do as you say, or go out of business. You probably will be sued for tortious interference. Note that Amazon may also file such a lawsuit, and they have money to see it through.
If it's such a awesomely profitable idea, why don't you do it yourself? Maybe you're already a busy person with a comfortable income? Maybe you're not interested in becoming a bookseller?
Or maybe I'm not interested in those books...
What happens if/when Amazon changes its mind two months later
You will lose two days of work, minus all the profit that you racked up while Amazon was dithering. Besides, what business is free of risk?
this philosophy you're trying to convince everyone of, that the best response to an enterprise you disagree with is to directly compete with it
If you disagree with an online retailer then you can compete with it, and since it surrendered the ground you have a good chance. If you disagree with AT&T you'd be ill advised to go and lay your own cable. Why is it that people so often want universal answers that apply to every single situation? There is no "must" or "have to", you always have options, and your goal is to choose wisely.
It's not like anyone is suggesting that they be forced to advertise or sell books they don't want to.
Here is a quote from the summary:
Bloggers such as Ed Champion are calling for a 'link and book boycott,' asking people to remove links to Amazon from their web pages and stop buying books from them until the policy is reversed.
What does this resemble more - "letting them know" or "forcing them to advertise/sell" ?
Yes, we are, but not because of book stores. We are because people watch TV more and more, and read books less and less. We will reach the F-451 point when we will still have tons of books in small, dark book stores, and nobody will want to read them, just as today hardly anyone is rushing to read Sumerian clay tablets.
The rebuttal is trivial: We're perfectly within our rights to rebuke them/boycott them/etc if we don't like their actions.
It's a very weak rebuttal. You definitely have a right to ask a company (that you do not own in any controlling way) to do certain things. I can, for example, ask Wal-Mart that I'd like their personnel to talk to visitors only in Elbonese. This is my right to ask. But it's up to Wal-Mart to consider my request, and if they don't see a value in it they will ignore it. After all, they are officers of the company who are directly responsible for the company, and not me.
So yes, you can complain and you can boycott. I heard many calls for boycott of this and that (RIAA, MPAA, Sony, SCO, and probably tons of other) but I don't remember of any major impact of them. Boycotts are more of a personal thing - something that you feel right. You hate the company - definitely don't work with it, if you can. But it's very hard to involve others, who do not share your dislike of the company. Unless the company really managed to alienate a critical mass of people, your boycott will remain a drop in the ocean.
While you are still entitled to furiously type posts on Internet and IMs on IM network about this Amazon atrocity ("they dared to make a decision without asking me!":-) as I suggested why don't you just create an online book store that competes with Amazon and sells all these eeevil books that Amazon is afraid of? One of US beliefs (don't know if you are in the USA or not) is that doing is more valuable than talking. I'd be amazed if it took you more than a couple of days to put together an online storefront (an hour if you use Google or Yahoo accounts.)
Amazon has no obligation to advertise (or even sell) books that the company considers detrimental to their business. It may be that they will eventually limit themselves to politically correct generic choices that offend no one - but again it's up to them to decide.
This will only create more business opportunities for other people to sell what Amazon doesn't. The barrier of entry into book selling online is very low. Everyone who whines and screams right now should be registering domains and dusting their LAMPs off.
The argument that free trade betters humanity is just a lie [...] All you need is share to ideas.
It's true that free sharing of ideas is a good thing. However "making your own" is not always the most cost-efficient thing to do. As matter of fact, it usually is NOT. Look at large transnational corporations. Do they make their own office furniture? Do they make their own computer hardware? Do they manufacture all pieces of the buildings that they are in? No, they don't - because it's cheaper to buy.
Same applies to countries. If your country is small and poor, and if you need to outfit an office with 10 computers, do you want to start with a chip fabrication facility, then R&D house, then PCB manufacturing, then electronic assembly? That'd be a neat thing to have if that's what you have in mind for the country; but it will take decades, and billions of dollars in investment, and you need to have highly educated workforce also.
That's why international trade is alive and well. Some goods are bought because they are simply unavailable in the destination country (usually raw materials, energy etc.) Other goods are bought because they are cheaper in other countries (like all the electronics in China.) Yet another category of goods is bought because it's too difficult (or takes too long) to make them at home (that applies to most weapons, except simplest, and to most aircraft, and to many medicines, and to many IP/core designs.)
So, for example, if you are sick you have two options: (a) to buy a bottle of pills from a foreign manufacturer and be on your feet within a few weeks, or (b) to start your own medical research (needlessly duplicating already done research!) and hopefully within 5-10 years come up with a possible drug that may or may not heal you. Your choice. Most people I know would pick (a), and then if they are really into medical research they are free to invent some other drug for some other condition.
Computer software is on the opposite side of the scale - easy to get into, easy to develop, easy to distribute. If you also have enough of educated people in the country then F/OSS software is the right thing to do. But note that F/OSS code is far more than mere "ideas" - it is a complete product which just happens to be free. Exchange of pure ideas across borders would require reimplementing those ideas within each country, and I don't see how it would help anyone. I can send you a complete set of JPEG screenshots of KDE, how long will it take you to recreate it all? And what is the chance that software compiled for Bolivian KDE will run under Paraguayan KDE? (Hint: WINE)
OSS can be much cheaper, but its cost is not going to be zero.
All countries make a big distinction between (a) importing foreign goods and (b) paying their own citizens in local currency. Countries sell only so much on international market, and so they can only buy an equivalent amount of goods[*]. Here not only you free a part of your foreign trade up for other necessities (like patented medical materials or instruments,) you also create jobs for your own citizens.
[*] Does not apply to the USA, which is still living off of its credit card.
Tatarstan is part of Russian Federation, which means that they can hire programmers and IT people from anywhere in Russia, not just from its own, much smaller, population. UNIX (*BSD and Linux) is well known in Russia.
I didn't know for sure, but my guess was that you are in Europe. But at least I don't need to tell you about introduced species, since your country is full of rabbits by now:-) And indeed you have lots of land.
Good that your government is reasonable at least in this respect. As I mentioned, I personally could live with laws like that, where you can get a permit as long as you can show a good reason. This implies that you trust your government to hold its end of the bargain; that's a tough sell in the USA.
I thought you still have some alligators there, but shooting those is a very risky proposition in itself (unless you have a BFG-9000:-) Here you can have bears of several kinds, mountain lions, wild pigs, wolves (very few, they are protected) and coyotes - these can attack you personally, and such attacks are not uncommon. If you worry about plants then you have to deal with birds and squirrels of many types. If you need to protect livestock then you have squirrels again (cows step into their burrows and break legs) then coyotes and panthers; black vultures are known to attack newborn cattle but not much can be done about that because they are protected species. North America has several kinds of poisonous snakes, and if it becomes necessary to kill a snake (near or inside a house) it practically requires a firearm because you don't want to come close (unless you are a trained snake handler.) Rattlesnakes in CA are plentiful and require no protection. For a quick summary, bears and snakes are the most dangerous animals in the USA. Other animals, encountered in the wild, will prefer to run away from you if they can (and will attack you otherwise.) Unfortunately if those animals wander into a city their habits change, and then even a cowardly coyote can attack a child (that happens regularly in CA, one fatality so far, see the coyote link above.)
The other items mentioned have other purposes than kill or injure, and that is the major difference.
Sometimes the task of killing an animal (a.k.a. hunting) is valid on its own. In fact, hunting of some pests is an important task because pests spread diseases and damage land. Some species were imported from Europe and thus have no natural predators here to keep them in check (sparrow, starling, pig for example). Other species are local but they are not sufficiently controlled by predators (ground squirrels of several kinds; some rabbits; some deer even.) Some states have now problems with wild horses; these are not hunted at all (illegal) and so their population grows and grows. Horses have no predators here either, they were imported by Columbus.
Another valid use of a gun is for sport, we discussed that already.
But what about when he is drunk, or angry from fighting with his wife, lost his job or has been bullied at school and snaps?
He can just as well stick a garden fork into me, or run me over with a truck, or hit me with a lead pipe if he is that interested in killing someone. Life is dangerous, and most of that danger comes from people. A couple of months ago some nationalist stole a car and run 16 people over because they were foreigners (students). He had no gun, since it happened in Russia, but he killed just as many (if not more) as if he had a firearm. Arsons are also popular, I recall a few in Germany, where Turks were on the receiving end. And of course an all-time favorite of domestic disputes, a kitchen knife, it kills more people every year than all rifles, legal or not, combined.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, indeed if you make it physically impossible for anyone to hurt anyone then indeed nobody will be hurt. But you will be denying people the freedom of doing things that not necessarily lead to harm. If you want to take that road, ban cars first - they kill 5x more people every year. Yes, cars are useful - but they are way too dangerous. Should we ban things based on their actual, measured danger level, or ban things based on how they look? Or even worse, on how many people find them useful?
As I understand it most of the weapons problem in Mexico is a result of arms being legally purchased in the US and smuggled into Mexico.
It is not so; you can not buy most of the weapons in the USA that are in posession of Mexican crime syndicates. You can only buy basically hunting weapons (at most semi-auto, but majority being manual action.) These are not very interesting to criminals because the rate of fire is low (and that's exactly how hunters want them to be.) It is *very* hard to buy full-auto weapons, in some states simply impossible. You will be fingerprinted and photographed, and you will have to prepare a ton of paperwork. Read about it here. It is so difficult that most people in the USA believe that it is just impossible to own a full-auto weapon. They are not too far from truth. With regard to handguns, there is a limit on how many you can buy per month (one) and that makes it very inconvenient to buy large quantities of handguns in the USA (especially if you can buy them on international market cheaper, faster and no questions asked.) Remember that only US citizens and GC holders are allowed to buy weapons, so one can't just come from Mexico on a tourist visa and buy the whole gun store - you must use intermediaries, and those will come up in any BATF database as a huge red flag if they buy often.
But to comment on the rest of your message... yes, maybe the USA would be better off with forbidding gun ownership by default, and only permitting certain classes of weapons to qualified persons who have a good reason to have access to a gun. I can not argue against such a hypothetical scenario, and if I were to rebuild the USA from scratch that
Get a manilla envelope, put the pictures in them, go to the post office and mail them to yourself.
I doubt this will work. USPS is happy to mail an open envelope, and I receive those now and then (typically mass mailings.) Alternatively, you can seal the envelope with a very light glue - for example a rubber goo that printers use to attach a subscription sheet to the front page of some trade publication. These will hold fine while the envelope is being mailed, but once in your hands the goo can be removed without a trace, and now you have a dated envelope that is empty and open. Put anything in it at any later date, seal, and claim it as proof!
IMO, a better way to date-stamp a hardcopy is by going to your nearest UPS Store and paying for notary services. Each page of your document will be stamped and signed, and the fact will be recorded into Notary's book. They are kind of careful about those books, so it's very unlikely that anyone can contest a notary's stamp and signature. Another advantage is that the materials never leave your hands, and have no chance of being lost or misdelivered.
would be a great idea, right? Well, I doubt you could ever successfully implement it.
Do not doubt, this idea had been successfully implemented many years ago, and even a movie was made that pictures a quick demo of this technology (among other things.) The trick to the successful implementation is in borrowing the lawnmower together with its operator; the rest is the same, just as you described:-)
If you are trying to create a business or product and nobody else is doing anything even close, odds are pretty good something is wrong with your idea.
Or everything is right with your idea and you are about to become filthy rich. The sad story is that if you do what other people also do you can make a living, but you can't make it big. You always have to do something special, something that other people haven't done, to be really successful.
I wonder if they tried that and he refused leaving them little choice?
If they had a warrant and he refused, he'd be simply handcuffed and probably arrested on the spot for obstruction of justice. This hasn't happened.
If they didn't have a warrant then his request for a warrant (and denial of access until the warrant can be produced) is legal.
Since the FBI was able to get a warrant for the search they presumably could with much less trouble get a warrant for a single server. This eliminates the second possibility (with the warrant the owner would have cooperated.)
Here is my speculation. The owner of the business says at his Google blog that FBI was looking for a server that belonged to a company who is no longer a client. Probably he told them so, but FBI refused to take "no" for an answer and decided to show who is the boss here, to search the *whole* set of servers. In this situation he'd be really in trouble, since it's awfully hard to surrender a computer that you do not have, with a warrant or without.
Slashdot Mirror
You've got it backwards; it's easier for an entity like a person to move to another country than it ever is for a large corporation.
It could be true if your corporation is present only in one country. Even then there are known cases when large single-country corporations (Volvo, IIRC) told their government that "either you change the law or we are out of here" (the law was quickly changed.)
But I [still] work for a large corporation that has presence in tens of countries; in some it's small, but in other it's major - R&D, manufacturing, thousands of people, large buildings etc. Right now the corporation is going through the process of reduction of US-based workforce. Ultimately only people that *must* be in the USA will remain in the USA; the rest will be in Asia (mostly China and India, probably.) And why not? A transnational corporation has no particular loyalty to any specific country. Research is better done when there are many qualified researchers (and nobody will deny that China has tons of them, US-educated and such.) Manufacturing is *definitely* better done in Asia. So what is the reason to even keep facilities in the USA? The answer is, sales to US entities (and the government) and some technical support. Everything else is best done elsewhere, using foreign land and labor. Many US employees will be laid off, at great benefit to the profit and loss statement. The shift is already happening, and it is not revolutionary - it's just Chinese factories are increasing production whereas US-based plants are reducing hours, making fewer products and sending people packing, one by one until nobody is left. Then the buildings will be gutted of remaining equipment and then sold, and that's the end of it.
Also to offer comment on the theory that others presented - that US managers like to live in the USA. US managers like to be rich even more. And when the same amount of money that you need here to have a standard house buys you a palace and servants in Asia, the answer looks more and more obvious. With money they can live like kings anywhere; and do not forget that many rich US people despise Obama's financial policy, and some believe that such unlimited, drunken-sailor type, spending will only break the back of US dollar sooner than expected. When that happens you want to be as far from the USA as possible, preferrably presiding over a solid business that makes products that people actually want. What money will be used at that time is unimportant.
How about almost no, or VERY little corporate taxes, with breaks and incentives to employ US citizens
That may be good for the country, but it will be very bad for the government. The government's power comes from the money that taxpayers give to the government. Remove that, and politicians of all sorts suddenly switch from "Irreplaceable Guardians of Treasury" to "Generic Advisers on Public Policy." Which is, actually, what they were supposed to be.
As it stands, the big government can only demand more money at each turn of the wheel; since this chokes the economy, higher taxes are required, which of course further choke the economy, and so on. Ultimately the remnants of the economy will be only sufficient to keep workers alive, with the rest of the money (not much in total anyway) being sent to the government. Oh, by the way, that's exactly how USSR operated.
If you survive the cull bacon prices will be waaayyyyy down
Yes, as long as bacon comes from a long pig ...
although the operator shouldn't have altered the test programme in his own initiative, the crew actions never went against the reactor user manual
I guess the user's manual was neither written for a crippled reactor, nor tested on such. Fact of the matter is that they were testing the reactor to see how it's control performs without external power (IIRC) and with insufficient water - a test that was not approved by the reactor designers. That alone (IMO, IANANE) puts the control team at fault. In other words, without their stupid experiment nothing would have happened.
Nevertheless it is true that the reactor was designed with poor control characteristics. But still it would work just fine if it weren't for those meddling kids :-)
Also, the control team never did anything against the reactor user manual.
I read a very detailed, technical report of the accident about a year after it happened. The report was published in "Novy Mir" or some other "thick" magazine. The control team ran an unapproved experiment, days before the reactor was supposed to be turned over to production of energy. As part of that experiment they turned off some major cooling systems, manually, with huge valves, and placed padlocks on those valves so that nobody could accidentally put the system back to its normal condition.
Having done that, they proceeded to torture the reactor until it overheated (due to lack of cooling.) Then they tried to drop the absorbent rods to stop the reaction but it was too late - the rods bent from heat and did not fall down in their channels. The rest is history.
The main cause of this incident was complacency - unfounded belief that nothing bad could possibly happen because nothing bad ever happened. The control team really went out of its way to disable multiple safeguards of the reactor because they wanted to see what happens when the reactor is placed into a configuration where it must not ever be, and the safeguards guaranteed that it won't be there - that's why they disabled them.
Just remove noscript.net and his other domains from NoScripts allow list and his own addon stops his Google adbars
A moment ago I added 'noscript.net' to the list of sites that NoScript must require https: for. This is the last tab in the last tab of NoScript's configuration. As result, when I went to "www.noscript.net" it was blocked. Hopefully it will also block future updates; unfortunately my router (Linksys BEFSR41) doesn't seem to have a blacklist.
If you like a service or website, maybe turn AdBlock off for a few pages.
Most likely this will only increase the service's/website's bandwidth bill because, as I heard, many clients only pay when an ad link is followed and then a product is bought. IMO, if you don't want to see ads (or act upon them) then don't download them.
The trick to collecting large amounts of sunlight would be massive mylar sails. The sails would be deployed as large mirrors. These mirrors would reflect the solar energy toward the power-producing engine.
Wouldn't they be blown away by the light pressure? How do you secure them, and to what?
can they legally change the basic service agreement on what a person contracted with them to provide?
Yes, they can do that - and it happens all the time in all industries. You just get a nice letter like "We are redoing our plans, and the one that you are on is no longer available. Call our customer service to transition you onto one of new plans." I recall that Sprint sent me such letter a few years ago because I had an account with them for a long time.
Never mind Amazon Payments, I'll accept PayPal instead, and...
Get yourself a normal Visa c/c processing system. There are thousands of pr0n sites on the Internet, and they all seem to be perfectly capable of charging people's credit cards.
No. However if you start organizing a boycott of his gas station just because when you wanted coffee he had none - then you'll be forcing him to either do as you say, or go out of business. You probably will be sued for tortious interference. Note that Amazon may also file such a lawsuit, and they have money to see it through.
If it's such a awesomely profitable idea, why don't you do it yourself? Maybe you're already a busy person with a comfortable income? Maybe you're not interested in becoming a bookseller?
Or maybe I'm not interested in those books...
What happens if/when Amazon changes its mind two months later
You will lose two days of work, minus all the profit that you racked up while Amazon was dithering. Besides, what business is free of risk?
this philosophy you're trying to convince everyone of, that the best response to an enterprise you disagree with is to directly compete with it
If you disagree with an online retailer then you can compete with it, and since it surrendered the ground you have a good chance. If you disagree with AT&T you'd be ill advised to go and lay your own cable. Why is it that people so often want universal answers that apply to every single situation? There is no "must" or "have to", you always have options, and your goal is to choose wisely.
ask your self why children's books that try to discuss homosexuality delicately are delisted, but racy explicit romances is not.
My guess is that nobody will mistake a racy explicit romance for a children book, buy it and give it to a child.
It's not like anyone is suggesting that they be forced to advertise or sell books they don't want to.
Here is a quote from the summary:
Bloggers such as Ed Champion are calling for a 'link and book boycott,' asking people to remove links to Amazon from their web pages and stop buying books from them until the policy is reversed.
What does this resemble more - "letting them know" or "forcing them to advertise/sell" ?
I just hope we are not on the road to [F-451].
Yes, we are, but not because of book stores. We are because people watch TV more and more, and read books less and less. We will reach the F-451 point when we will still have tons of books in small, dark book stores, and nobody will want to read them, just as today hardly anyone is rushing to read Sumerian clay tablets.
The rebuttal is trivial: We're perfectly within our rights to rebuke them/boycott them/etc if we don't like their actions.
It's a very weak rebuttal. You definitely have a right to ask a company (that you do not own in any controlling way) to do certain things. I can, for example, ask Wal-Mart that I'd like their personnel to talk to visitors only in Elbonese. This is my right to ask. But it's up to Wal-Mart to consider my request, and if they don't see a value in it they will ignore it. After all, they are officers of the company who are directly responsible for the company, and not me.
So yes, you can complain and you can boycott. I heard many calls for boycott of this and that (RIAA, MPAA, Sony, SCO, and probably tons of other) but I don't remember of any major impact of them. Boycotts are more of a personal thing - something that you feel right. You hate the company - definitely don't work with it, if you can. But it's very hard to involve others, who do not share your dislike of the company. Unless the company really managed to alienate a critical mass of people, your boycott will remain a drop in the ocean.
While you are still entitled to furiously type posts on Internet and IMs on IM network about this Amazon atrocity ("they dared to make a decision without asking me!" :-) as I suggested why don't you just create an online book store that competes with Amazon and sells all these eeevil books that Amazon is afraid of? One of US beliefs (don't know if you are in the USA or not) is that doing is more valuable than talking. I'd be amazed if it took you more than a couple of days to put together an online storefront (an hour if you use Google or Yahoo accounts.)
Amazon has no obligation to advertise (or even sell) books that the company considers detrimental to their business. It may be that they will eventually limit themselves to politically correct generic choices that offend no one - but again it's up to them to decide.
This will only create more business opportunities for other people to sell what Amazon doesn't. The barrier of entry into book selling online is very low. Everyone who whines and screams right now should be registering domains and dusting their LAMPs off.
The argument that free trade betters humanity is just a lie [...] All you need is share to ideas.
It's true that free sharing of ideas is a good thing. However "making your own" is not always the most cost-efficient thing to do. As matter of fact, it usually is NOT. Look at large transnational corporations. Do they make their own office furniture? Do they make their own computer hardware? Do they manufacture all pieces of the buildings that they are in? No, they don't - because it's cheaper to buy.
Same applies to countries. If your country is small and poor, and if you need to outfit an office with 10 computers, do you want to start with a chip fabrication facility, then R&D house, then PCB manufacturing, then electronic assembly? That'd be a neat thing to have if that's what you have in mind for the country; but it will take decades, and billions of dollars in investment, and you need to have highly educated workforce also.
That's why international trade is alive and well. Some goods are bought because they are simply unavailable in the destination country (usually raw materials, energy etc.) Other goods are bought because they are cheaper in other countries (like all the electronics in China.) Yet another category of goods is bought because it's too difficult (or takes too long) to make them at home (that applies to most weapons, except simplest, and to most aircraft, and to many medicines, and to many IP/core designs.)
So, for example, if you are sick you have two options: (a) to buy a bottle of pills from a foreign manufacturer and be on your feet within a few weeks, or (b) to start your own medical research (needlessly duplicating already done research!) and hopefully within 5-10 years come up with a possible drug that may or may not heal you. Your choice. Most people I know would pick (a), and then if they are really into medical research they are free to invent some other drug for some other condition.
Computer software is on the opposite side of the scale - easy to get into, easy to develop, easy to distribute. If you also have enough of educated people in the country then F/OSS software is the right thing to do. But note that F/OSS code is far more than mere "ideas" - it is a complete product which just happens to be free. Exchange of pure ideas across borders would require reimplementing those ideas within each country, and I don't see how it would help anyone. I can send you a complete set of JPEG screenshots of KDE, how long will it take you to recreate it all? And what is the chance that software compiled for Bolivian KDE will run under Paraguayan KDE? (Hint: WINE)
OSS can be much cheaper, but its cost is not going to be zero.
All countries make a big distinction between (a) importing foreign goods and (b) paying their own citizens in local currency. Countries sell only so much on international market, and so they can only buy an equivalent amount of goods[*]. Here not only you free a part of your foreign trade up for other necessities (like patented medical materials or instruments,) you also create jobs for your own citizens.
[*] Does not apply to the USA, which is still living off of its credit card.
Tatarstan is part of Russian Federation, which means that they can hire programmers and IT people from anywhere in Russia, not just from its own, much smaller, population. UNIX (*BSD and Linux) is well known in Russia.
I didn't know for sure, but my guess was that you are in Europe. But at least I don't need to tell you about introduced species, since your country is full of rabbits by now :-) And indeed you have lots of land.
Good that your government is reasonable at least in this respect. As I mentioned, I personally could live with laws like that, where you can get a permit as long as you can show a good reason. This implies that you trust your government to hold its end of the bargain; that's a tough sell in the USA.
I thought you still have some alligators there, but shooting those is a very risky proposition in itself (unless you have a BFG-9000 :-) Here you can have bears of several kinds, mountain lions, wild pigs, wolves (very few, they are protected) and coyotes - these can attack you personally, and such attacks are not uncommon. If you worry about plants then you have to deal with birds and squirrels of many types. If you need to protect livestock then you have squirrels again (cows step into their burrows and break legs) then coyotes and panthers; black vultures are known to attack newborn cattle but not much can be done about that because they are protected species. North America has several kinds of poisonous snakes, and if it becomes necessary to kill a snake (near or inside a house) it practically requires a firearm because you don't want to come close (unless you are a trained snake handler.) Rattlesnakes in CA are plentiful and require no protection. For a quick summary, bears and snakes are the most dangerous animals in the USA. Other animals, encountered in the wild, will prefer to run away from you if they can (and will attack you otherwise.) Unfortunately if those animals wander into a city their habits change, and then even a cowardly coyote can attack a child (that happens regularly in CA, one fatality so far, see the coyote link above.)
The other items mentioned have other purposes than kill or injure, and that is the major difference.
Sometimes the task of killing an animal (a.k.a. hunting) is valid on its own. In fact, hunting of some pests is an important task because pests spread diseases and damage land. Some species were imported from Europe and thus have no natural predators here to keep them in check (sparrow, starling, pig for example). Other species are local but they are not sufficiently controlled by predators (ground squirrels of several kinds; some rabbits; some deer even.) Some states have now problems with wild horses; these are not hunted at all (illegal) and so their population grows and grows. Horses have no predators here either, they were imported by Columbus.
Another valid use of a gun is for sport, we discussed that already.
But what about when he is drunk, or angry from fighting with his wife, lost his job or has been bullied at school and snaps?
He can just as well stick a garden fork into me, or run me over with a truck, or hit me with a lead pipe if he is that interested in killing someone. Life is dangerous, and most of that danger comes from people. A couple of months ago some nationalist stole a car and run 16 people over because they were foreigners (students). He had no gun, since it happened in Russia, but he killed just as many (if not more) as if he had a firearm. Arsons are also popular, I recall a few in Germany, where Turks were on the receiving end. And of course an all-time favorite of domestic disputes, a kitchen knife, it kills more people every year than all rifles, legal or not, combined.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread, indeed if you make it physically impossible for anyone to hurt anyone then indeed nobody will be hurt. But you will be denying people the freedom of doing things that not necessarily lead to harm. If you want to take that road, ban cars first - they kill 5x more people every year. Yes, cars are useful - but they are way too dangerous. Should we ban things based on their actual, measured danger level, or ban things based on how they look? Or even worse, on how many people find them useful?
As I understand it most of the weapons problem in Mexico is a result of arms being legally purchased in the US and smuggled into Mexico.
It is not so; you can not buy most of the weapons in the USA that are in posession of Mexican crime syndicates. You can only buy basically hunting weapons (at most semi-auto, but majority being manual action.) These are not very interesting to criminals because the rate of fire is low (and that's exactly how hunters want them to be.) It is *very* hard to buy full-auto weapons, in some states simply impossible. You will be fingerprinted and photographed, and you will have to prepare a ton of paperwork. Read about it here. It is so difficult that most people in the USA believe that it is just impossible to own a full-auto weapon. They are not too far from truth. With regard to handguns, there is a limit on how many you can buy per month (one) and that makes it very inconvenient to buy large quantities of handguns in the USA (especially if you can buy them on international market cheaper, faster and no questions asked.) Remember that only US citizens and GC holders are allowed to buy weapons, so one can't just come from Mexico on a tourist visa and buy the whole gun store - you must use intermediaries, and those will come up in any BATF database as a huge red flag if they buy often.
But to comment on the rest of your message ... yes, maybe the USA would be better off with forbidding gun ownership by default, and only permitting certain classes of weapons to qualified persons who have a good reason to have access to a gun. I can not argue against such a hypothetical scenario, and if I were to rebuild the USA from scratch that
Get a manilla envelope, put the pictures in them, go to the post office and mail them to yourself.
I doubt this will work. USPS is happy to mail an open envelope, and I receive those now and then (typically mass mailings.) Alternatively, you can seal the envelope with a very light glue - for example a rubber goo that printers use to attach a subscription sheet to the front page of some trade publication. These will hold fine while the envelope is being mailed, but once in your hands the goo can be removed without a trace, and now you have a dated envelope that is empty and open. Put anything in it at any later date, seal, and claim it as proof!
IMO, a better way to date-stamp a hardcopy is by going to your nearest UPS Store and paying for notary services. Each page of your document will be stamped and signed, and the fact will be recorded into Notary's book. They are kind of careful about those books, so it's very unlikely that anyone can contest a notary's stamp and signature. Another advantage is that the materials never leave your hands, and have no chance of being lost or misdelivered.
would be a great idea, right? Well, I doubt you could ever successfully implement it.
Do not doubt, this idea had been successfully implemented many years ago, and even a movie was made that pictures a quick demo of this technology (among other things.) The trick to the successful implementation is in borrowing the lawnmower together with its operator; the rest is the same, just as you described :-)
If you are trying to create a business or product and nobody else is doing anything even close, odds are pretty good something is wrong with your idea.
Or everything is right with your idea and you are about to become filthy rich. The sad story is that if you do what other people also do you can make a living, but you can't make it big. You always have to do something special, something that other people haven't done, to be really successful.
I wonder if they tried that and he refused leaving them little choice?
Since the FBI was able to get a warrant for the search they presumably could with much less trouble get a warrant for a single server. This eliminates the second possibility (with the warrant the owner would have cooperated.)
Here is my speculation. The owner of the business says at his Google blog that FBI was looking for a server that belonged to a company who is no longer a client. Probably he told them so, but FBI refused to take "no" for an answer and decided to show who is the boss here, to search the *whole* set of servers. In this situation he'd be really in trouble, since it's awfully hard to surrender a computer that you do not have, with a warrant or without.