I myself support high gas taxes for this very reason.
Though in this case I call it collecting damages on behalf of mother earth, who sadly doesn't have the legal capacity to sue the human race for injury.
The sad part is that it took a political tussle to get anything changed.
Ron Paul staffer indeed.
If this had been a low-level sheep like you or I the cash would have been seized before you could blink an eye and we'd probably never even hear about it.
Carefully controlled it can have positive effects on your health.
Whether or not someone will be helped or harmed by marijuana is purely a medical issue, and as such a physician is the only one that should be answering it.
My ideal solution is to treat it as a prescription only medication.
Except in cases of violent offenses, such as kidnapping, murder, rape, robbery, etc., you should be fined an amount proportional to both the seriousness of the offense as well as your income level.
Imprisonment isn't just meant to punish you, it's also to protect society from you. In that respect it's less of a sentence and more of a quarantine against violence.
Our prisons need reformed. Give everyone a teeny 8 foot cubic cell with every jail door facing ONE WAY towards the rear wall of the next row. And do not let them out except for community service/work crew. They stay in their cell until yanked out for work, get put to work for their shift, then straight back to their cell they go.
This will eliminate the following problems:
* Cell-mates no longer serve as a conduit for recruitment * Strong isolation will crack down on contraband distribution. * Prisoners, by being either in strict solitary or direct guard supervision, never * Since when encelled nobody can see anyone else, the innocent people who will inevitably get stuck inside will be safe, and the bad guys dominating the population won't have a chance to intimidate anyone.
Those who say that jail conditions, including prison rape, are part and parcel of "doing the time" seem to neglect the fact that the people perpetuating the prison rape are laughing their pants off that they are getting away with holding someone else down, not to mention that while they're boning their victim they aren't really suffering. After all, if the whole point of prison is to be punished, what the hell are we doing letting the beefers get free sex whenever they want it?
Windows going open source could actually be like a concentrated dose of vitamins that's painful as hell to swallow.
For once, OSS principles such as "many eyes make shallow bugs" could go over the windows source code with a fine toothed comb.
Security holes would probably be getting patched left and right. Vista's memory hoggage would probably be pruned down. Validation problems would probably go away. Getting Windows infected with the GPL virus would be a BLESSING.
Such a thing might be good for Microsoft actually. They'd probably lose their monopoly position, but with the expertise they already presumably possess in their own product, combined with currently HUGE market share, I'm sure they could still make a killing on support anyway.
Assuming of course that John Smith's Brewery didn't out-muscle you in legal expenses.
People who think that in theory the law is on their side are often disappointed when the legal system fails to protect them from being ground down by lawyers before the case even gets to the trial stage.
I was turned down for a store credit card, and when I attempted to get a credit report from them AS REQUIRED BY LAW, I got the PBX runaround every time I called until my 60 day window had expired.
I hope they follow up by castrating the vendor that gave them the hot code in the first place.
Whether MS deserved to get burned or not is another question entirely, but the vendor that stole the code needs a good tarring and feathering regardless of how MS responds.
Um, when they're big enough and have large enough legal muscles to sue anyone they like into submission, then yes they are above the law at least as far as us small folk are concerned...including companies and government units with small budgets.
Funny thing about the law is that it doesn't stop a big heavyweight bruiser of a corporation from suing you into the ground anyway.
With the prospect of eating shitloads of legal costs even if the law is completely on your side, it's never a sure thing to stand up for yourself if you are sued.
Consequently, corporations have every incentive to, when dealing with those smaller enough to fold, use lawsuits the way bullies use fists.
Conclusion: As far as big corporations are concerned, there is no such thing as a law to break.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't matter who you vote for. Once they are in office, they will do whatever their promise-binding corporate overlords tell them to do.
So...
If corruption is like fat, then trying to vote sanity into office is like picking from the menu at KFC, and the chefs would be the special interests.
You are both right.
Perhaps the reason we are so blase about it is what little we can actually do about the problem.
The two party system ensures that corruption comes in a cartel of two.
What we really ought to do is start cracking down more on botnets.
Letting criminals sheperd up huge flocks of zombie computers is the root of two very serious problems: spam and DDoS attacks.
Forget electronic terrorism. These guys have a fucking ARMY of computers.
I think emitting particles that are both massive AND charged is WORSE than particles that are just massive.
You do realize that p is good old fashioned H+ right?
Hydrogen ions,
1) The same stuff that makes acids so corrosive
2) Once neutralized, the same stuff that made the hindenburg go boom.
I myself support high gas taxes for this very reason.
Though in this case I call it collecting damages on behalf of mother earth, who sadly doesn't have the legal capacity to sue the human race for injury.
Or being wiped out at the decree of an acquiring company's corporate overlords.
Yahoo and Geocities anyone?
What I'd like to know is...
How do they know what race voted for who?
Demographics aside, I'd like to be sure that voter confidentiality is being preserved.
The sad part is that it took a political tussle to get anything changed.
Ron Paul staffer indeed.
If this had been a low-level sheep like you or I the cash would have been seized before you could blink an eye and we'd probably never even hear about it.
I could just as easily make the same argument about pitbulls and german sheperds versus poodles and chihuahuas.
There's a reason they call it war.
I think that pot needs to be decriminalized.
Carefully controlled it can have positive effects on your health.
Whether or not someone will be helped or harmed by marijuana is purely a medical issue, and as such a physician is the only one that should be answering it.
My ideal solution is to treat it as a prescription only medication.
Except in cases of violent offenses, such as kidnapping, murder, rape, robbery, etc., you should be fined an amount proportional to both the seriousness of the offense as well as your income level.
Imprisonment isn't just meant to punish you, it's also to protect society from you. In that respect it's less of a sentence and more of a quarantine against violence.
Our prisons need reformed. Give everyone a teeny 8 foot cubic cell with every jail door facing ONE WAY towards the rear wall of the next row. And do not let them out except for community service/work crew. They stay in their cell until yanked out for work, get put to work for their shift, then straight back to their cell they go.
This will eliminate the following problems:
* Cell-mates no longer serve as a conduit for recruitment
* Strong isolation will crack down on contraband distribution.
* Prisoners, by being either in strict solitary or direct guard supervision, never
* Since when encelled nobody can see anyone else, the innocent people who will inevitably get stuck inside will be safe, and the bad guys dominating the population won't have a chance to intimidate anyone.
Those who say that jail conditions, including prison rape, are part and parcel of "doing the time" seem to neglect the fact that the people perpetuating the prison rape are laughing their pants off that they are getting away with holding someone else down, not to mention that while they're boning their victim they aren't really suffering. After all, if the whole point of prison is to be punished, what the hell are we doing letting the beefers get free sex whenever they want it?
Just hope they don't rat you out.
More like they are competitors and the SEC might not look kindly on the CEO of one company having stock in the other.
I'm just guessing though.
Windows going open source could actually be like a concentrated dose of vitamins that's painful as hell to swallow.
For once, OSS principles such as "many eyes make shallow bugs" could go over the windows source code with a fine toothed comb.
Security holes would probably be getting patched left and right. Vista's memory hoggage would probably be pruned down. Validation problems would probably go away. Getting Windows infected with the GPL virus would be a BLESSING.
Such a thing might be good for Microsoft actually. They'd probably lose their monopoly position, but with the expertise they already presumably possess in their own product, combined with currently HUGE market share, I'm sure they could still make a killing on support anyway.
Not really.
If all you put up are initials, you get two problems.
1) Yet Another Acronym to memorize.
2) Problems with two companies with the same initials getting into a squabble over who gets the domain.
Fully spelled out domains are just less of a hassle.
Assuming of course that John Smith's Brewery didn't out-muscle you in legal expenses.
People who think that in theory the law is on their side are often disappointed when the legal system fails to protect them from being ground down by lawyers before the case even gets to the trial stage.
TransUnion at least sucks ass.
I was turned down for a store credit card, and when I attempted to get a credit report from them AS REQUIRED BY LAW, I got the PBX runaround every time I called until my 60 day window had expired.
The free market ALWAYS works...if it exists.
The problem with a free market isn't that it doesn't work, but that it's fragile.
As soon as one company gets big enough to push everyone else around, it is by definition not a free market anymore.
Most "market failures" actually start happening when the market's "freeness" goes away.
I bet that passing laws would be a lot more effective if they were actually enforced.
Give the FTC and the FBI some teeth and let them bite these assholes HARD.
If a law is worth passing, then it's worth enforcing.
Might be kinda hard though with all that regulatory capture getting the watchdogs cozily in bed with the bad guys.
I hope they follow up by castrating the vendor that gave them the hot code in the first place.
Whether MS deserved to get burned or not is another question entirely, but the vendor that stole the code needs a good tarring and feathering regardless of how MS responds.
That could be why he's not CEO right now, conflict of interest regs and all that.
Just require registration and login.
Apart from getting better security on WPA2, authentication and logging will allow the city to properly trace offenders.
Having unsecured wifi is just asking for trouble anyway.
"Corporations are NOT above the law."
Um, when they're big enough and have large enough legal muscles to sue anyone they like into submission, then yes they are above the law at least as far as us small folk are concerned...including companies and government units with small budgets.
Funny thing about the law is that it doesn't stop a big heavyweight bruiser of a corporation from suing you into the ground anyway.
With the prospect of eating shitloads of legal costs even if the law is completely on your side, it's never a sure thing to stand up for yourself if you are sued.
Consequently, corporations have every incentive to, when dealing with those smaller enough to fold, use lawsuits the way bullies use fists.
Conclusion: As far as big corporations are concerned, there is no such thing as a law to break.