That's not what innocent until proven guilty means. If that were the case then 90%+ of murderers could walk away from court with a not guilty verdict by simply saying, "I was defending myself."
Innocent until proven guilty means that the court has to assume Aaron Hernandez is innocent until there's enough evidence to prove he actually shot Odin Lloyd, such as linking the weapon to Hernandez. It's not like once that link is made the state has to then also prove that Hernandez wasn't defending himself.
More importantly, you didn't even address the main point of my post: Right now I could go to a poor area of my town, walk down the street until I find a black man who some may find intimidating, and shoot him for no reason. Then I could call the police, claim he attacked me, and the state would have to prove that he didn't attack me in order for me to be convicted. That's absurd but it's something I could get away with right now.
On the flip side, if a poor black man was walking through my neighborhood with a gun that he legally owns and was actually attacked by one of my racist ass neighbors, he would probably get the death penalty for defending himself.
You can talk 'innocent until proven guilty' until you're blue in the face, but as a fellow/.er I hope that you know that the standard of 'proof' in a courtroom is not as high as the standard of proof in a scientific experiment, which still yet isn't as high as a metaphysical/epistemological standard. Prove that reality is real. Oh yeah, you can't, that's an assumption. Prove that a person can know anything. Philosophers have pained over that problem since before Socrates' time and all their collective efforts were cast into doubt by a single essay in the seventies (Edmund Gettier).
Courtrooms have never been about proving anything. A scientist would never rely on witness testimony to prove a hypothesis, but that's the gold standard in the courtroom. Almost 7 million Americans are under correctional supervision of some kind -- jail, prison, probation, etc. Do you really believe that the prosecution in even half those cases had anything resembling 'proof'?
I don't particularly think Zimmerman's innocent, but I do think there is a pretty good case that there's reasonable doubt as to whether he's guilty.
I think the reason this case has been such a big deal is that if the situation were reversed, had Trayvon Martin killed George Zimmerman, the justice system wouldn't have demanded such a high burden of proof. He would get get tried as an adult for first degree murder and spend the rest of his life in prison. No one would know or care about it because the story wouldn't even make the front page of his local newspaper.
Meanwhile, the William Zantzingers continue to kill the poor Hattie Carrol's of the world, all while receiving a mere slap on the wrist.
There's no reason to doubt that Zimmerman killed Martin. He admitted as much. It's on him to provide justification for the act, and unsurprisingly a Florida jury found that ridding his neighborhood of a black menace was justification enough.
The assault weapons ban only lasted ten years. So much for only having to win once. Also, calling your political opponents 'bad guys' is childish. They may be wrong, but people don't want to ban guns out of malice. Hell, for the longest time I wanted handguns and assault rifles banned because they really are terrible things. I didn't change my mind because I stopped seeing them as terrible, I changed my mind because I realized that banning such things is impractical in this country. Too many already exist and the technology is too basic to stop enthusiasts. My contempt for tools designed exclusively to kill human beings is still as fervent as ever despite the fact that I no longer support weapon bans.
The way I look at it, owning an assault rifle is like owning a guillotine. Sure, I could use it on an animal, but that wouldn't really be practical as there are many other better tools for the job. It only does one thing well: kill people.
I sympathize with those who want to ban such things, it's pretty easy considering I once felt the same way, but I recognize legislation as a poor solution. I think the main appeal of such weapons to most people is their taboo nature. We'd probably have a lot less handguns and assault rifles in this country is no one was trying to ban them. It's like when you tell a child that something is bad. They immediately want it.
Bad laws rarely die unless those pushing them finally give up.
This doesn't seem very logical to me. My guess is that most laws that are proposed in the legislature 1) are bad 2) die quickly 3) die without those pushing them giving up. What ever made you say such a thing?
I don't remember the first season of Star Trek: TNG (been waaayyyy too long)
Be glad of that. The acting, especially from Stewart and Spiner, was something you'd see in a bad high school play. I don't know who, if anyone, should get the blame for that, since Stewart and Spiner are both very good actors.
Maybe they were just trying to recreate the magic of the original series.
In all fairness... most shows take a couple seasons to hit their stride.
What on earth gave you this idea? Most shows, if they don't hit their stride by the end of the pilot, there isn't a season two. I don't remember the first season of Star Trek: TNG (been waaayyyy too long), but that was riding on the Star Trek name and fanbase. I don't think that show is indicative of greater trends in television.
My understanding is that the Wachowskis were still the ones who wrote the abomination that was the final Matrix movie. Studios will always meddle, but few writers/directors are given as much artistic license as the Wachowskis were given. It's obvious that Warner Bros. didn't meddle enough -- they have interns that could have identified the Revolutions screenplay as crap.
If you want to trivialize the word 'enslave' in such a manner, then one could say "civilization enslaves." Lord of the Flies. . .
Being a part of any society comes at the cost of restrictions upon one's freedom. The question is, "which restrictions are good?" Not, "are restrictions good?" It's the restrictions we place upon ourselves and enforce through government that allow us to transcend the greater restrictions nature imposes on us. Only through discipline can we be free.
I'm sure Red Hat is grateful. But I'm sure Microsoft has seen this coming for a long time. Linux is approaching the point of being functional enough for the common business user. It's long been functional in the server space, where it's done quite well. Once it becomes accepted in more corporate environments as a desktop OS -- which I think it already would have if not for the MS Office lock-in -- that's when Microsoft's going to have to find a new cash cow.
So they're looking at the cash cows for other companies and looking to copy. Google's use of information, Apple's hardware market, Sony/Nintendo's gaming market. Remember, while Microsoft has been publicly dismissive of Linux and other open-source technologies, in private they consider these to be their greatest threat. The funny thing is that Microsoft seems to have a greater belief in the inevitable 'year of the Linux desktop' than most Linux enthusiasts.
Are they conceding their desktop monopoly? I think so. But I think they're also trying to morph it into consumer products -- Surface, Windows Phone, XBox, etc. -- so they can use it to compete with iOS and Android. They probably assume that by the time Windows 10 or whatever comes out, Linux will have already taken over traditional desktops and laptops, so Windows has to find a new home or die. Windows 8/9 seems to be the transition OSes, like how Mac OS 9 was mostly just created to transition over to OS X. For at least the last fifteen years they've been aware that unless they could successfully dole out some ridiculous shenanigans, Windows would eventually fall to Linux. Free is tough to compete with.
I loathe the day none of this ever gets better and I end up one of those holdouts like people who were still clutching to XP when Windows 7 was released.
Why don't you just run Wine on Linux? That way you can stay up to date and run those pesky few Windows apps you need. If you can get away with relying on an outdated version of Windows for the work you do then you can probably do it on Linux.
This isn't how it works. You are grossly simplifying the amazingly complex and nuanced reality that is human existence. This became apparent when you used the word 'bully' in your first sentence. 'Bully' is a concept so abstract it's practically meaningless.
What is 'expressing oneself honestly' to one is 'bullying' to another. Good-natured humor is often perceived as bullying by those who lack a sense of humor or are obsessively politically correct or are intimidated by debate. According to some, just being an extrovert makes one a bully.
It seems to me that the concept of a bully can only be understood in relativistic terms. A person isn't intrinsically a bully the way they're portrayed in crappy 80s movies. They're only a bully when they're perceived as a bully by someone who also perceives himself to be a victim. Interestingly, we don't have a neat name for the person who perceives himself to be a victim. So I just use 'pussy.'
Yeah, people are pretty fucking dumb, and being a dumb lunk is glorified in the U.S. But I find your bullies vs. smart quiet ones assessment to be way off the mark. There are a lot of extroverted assholes who are brilliant and equally as many quiet gentlemen who are stupid as shit.
You criticize those who pursue the things they want, and maybe justifiably so, but they wouldn't be 'bullies' if there weren't pussies who let themselves be pushed around. I have more respect for someone who will assert his will onto the world than one who will be pushed around out of cowardice, ineptitude, or lethargy. If I had to blame America's decline on one of these groups of people it would be the passive ones rather than those who assert their will.
You and the people who modded you up have no idea what this story is about. Try reading it next time.
This isn't about copyright holders suing people for infringement. This is about lawyers partaking in fraud and/or extortion by representing fictitious copyright holders.
It's a scam. One could argue that the big media copyright holders are also engaged in a scam, but their scam is (perhaps unfortunately) legal. What these lawyers are doing isn't legal -- they create shell companies and to act as clients they can sue on behalf of to scare people into coughing up money.
What big media copyright holders do is legal, however unfortunate that may be. This isn't about the validity of our copyright system, this is about a criminal organization that has just been caught red-handed. The copyright absolutists have as much reason to detest these guys as the anti-copyrightists. These guys are making judges re-examine the process and how easy it is to manipulate, which in the long run will be very bad for the copyright absolutists you complain about.
You would have every reason to be optimistic if you read the fucking story!
I think you hit one thing dead on -- the whole "do violent video games make people violent?" argument is framed in a way to be absurd. Unfortunately, the nanny-state liberals* take the bait and and believe it. Gamers love this argument because it's easy to poke holes in.
What gamers fail to realize that it doesn't matter whether video games make people violent or not. That doesn't justify them wasting away thousands of hours of their lives doing something less productive than jerking off. I do occasionally play video games to wind down -- NCAA Football and SuperTux -- but I don't think that makes me a hypocrite when I say that gaming, as a lifestyle, is both self-destructive and socially irresponsible.
I think the people that argue against all video games are absurd and stupid. But I think the people who define themselves as gamers are worthless human beings, which is worse. If playing a video game is a person's favorite thing to do in life they're really selling themselves short. Life's too awesome to be wasted playing Call of Duty online.
I've seen the worst of the worst, though. Right after I got out of high school I worked for a video game store for a while and the mouth breathing customers really inspired me to do something better with my life. Many of them were socially awkward dweebs who were extremely dumb. It made me conclude that playing video games as one's primary hobby is bad for both the individual and society as a whole.
But hey, I still love my NCAA Football during the off-season. It's just not something I'll spend the whole day doing.
To get back to the point: gamers love to frame the argument as "do videogames make people violent?" because they're avoiding the real question: "Is playing video games a quality** use of one's time?"
*I need a better title for these people -- I consider myself to be liberal but in a way that is distinct from the whole "dodgeball is cruel, everyone should be a winner, animals have rights, we should coddle our children" type that's so prevalent in California. I often use the term "California liberal" but that's not accurate b/c these smug pussy assholes exist everywhere, they're just most common in Cali.
**I specifically mean in an objective sense -- telling me a quality use of one's time is subjective isn't a clever retort, all you gamers who are about to rant about how opinions are like assholes. I'm not denying subjective experience, I just believe in objective quality in the Robert Pirsig sense.
I would argue that a society that has the means to provide education to all of its citizens has an obligation to do so. It's a right of all of those citizens. So when a particular class is excluded on the basis of their combination of race and sex, their rights are being infringed. Of course, I think that all people in the U.S. are deprived of their right to a free education, following this logic, middle class white males are just further deprived of this right.
The same actually applies to healthcare. A society that has the means to provide healthcare for all of its citizens has an obligation to do so. So all Americans who don't qualify for Medicaid/Medicare are deprived of a natural right.
I understand that my position here is debatable, and I could argue about it for hours, but this post should demonstrate the method by which I arrived at the conclusion you questioned, whether or not you agree.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I do take issue with this:
If someone has declared them intentions and is clearly in collusion with a terrorist cell, then they have forfeited their rights as a citizen, and have declared themselves an enemy of the state.
I think in many situations, such as where someone is colluding with a terrorist cell but hasn't declared their intentions, that they deserve a trial. The problem is that the government is likely to claim that particular actions function as a declaration of intent. Here's a ridiculous but not entirely implausible situation:
Say an American pyromaniac moves to Pakistan. He doesn't align himself to any terrorist cause, he's just obsessed with blowing things up and his freedom in the U.S. could be jeopardized by such actions. He buys several explosives from a terrorist cell and this action is observed by a CIA spook who doesn't realize the guy is just a pyromaniac who intends to harmlessly detonate these devices in the middle of the desert. Our pyromaniac takes his explosives to his little desert shanty only to be blown away by a drone attack while he's setting up his new toys.
Let's say the guy's family finds out about it and they're outraged. They all know he was just a pyromaniac, they know he wasn't allied with terrorists. But the government is likely to claim that 1) his actions and associations with terrorists warranted treating him like a terrorist and 2) by buying items from terrorists he was in effect funding them, which makes him an enemy of the state.
The problem with allowing some government agency, agent, official, or whatever decide what constitutes a 'declaration of intent' or 'clear collusion' is that it could be abused. Say a hacker who, although he loves the U.S.A., is disgusted by the unconstitutional activities of certain agencies, decides to move to Iran. He moves to Iran so he can protest in the form of attacking the computer systems of these agencies and he's fairly certain the Iranians won't extradite him for such activity. While this is certainly a criminal act, does it make him a terrorist? Does it make him an enemy of the state?
Or one last hypothetical. Say Bradley Manning was informed that he was ratted out by the filthy rat Adrian Lamo before getting arrested. And somehow Bradley smuggled himself out of the country and was granted amnesty by. ..let's go with Syria. More than one politician has declared Manning to be an enemy of the state, to be guilty of treason, to be guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy. Are we to let the president send that drone after Manning? To leave it up to the president's discretion?
I think Rand Paul approached an important issue, and hopefully his stunt made people consider the moral repercussions of drones, the way our government deals with terrorism, the rights of the citizen, and warfare in general; but it appears to me that, like you said, Rand was just politicizing an issue and drawing attention to himself. Maybe his little filibuster will draw attention to the important issues but I doubt that was his intent - his intent was to spew FUD.
I can't believe you got modded flamebait for this. All one has to do is look at the various posts under this story to see that the vast majority of readers misinterpreted the headline as meaning that Tesla has achieved such a high amount of success that the repayment of the loan is inevitable or complete.
I agree that the headline is a falsehood. It's probably not a lie because it probably wasn't an intentional falsehood.
If it said "Tesla Intends to Pay Off Loan" then far less people would read it, even fewer would care. Sadly, this is a common theme on/. This is why, when/. sent me a questionnaire, the one thing I requested was editors who know what it means to be an editor. I love this place but sometimes it could really benefit from some editors who have a more nuanced understanding of the English language. I think the error the headline writer made was the same error you made in the title of your post -- a minor semantic error that drastically changes how people interpret the headline.
WASP means White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It doesn't mean white. Usually it references upper or middle class white New Englanders because they tend to be of Anglo-Saxon descent, and until the twentieth century they mostly didn't mingle with Irish (Celtic descent), Italians, Jews, etc.
While I agree that white males do in fact have less rights than any other class in America, your post does nothing to back up that claim. White males have less rights because there are less opportunities for financial aid and scholarships for white males. Basically, a lot of time and paperwork could be saved if financial aid forms just had a single question: "Are you a white male with no disabilities and parents who aren't completely destitute?" As long as you can answer no to that question, there's tons of financial aid available.
White males are also oppressed by social stigma and cases of over-reaching affirmative action (I actually do support some forms of affirmative action, but in some cases it's taken too far). Hate-crime legislation is basically punishing white males more for being violent to minorities than to each other. White males are also discriminated against when it comes to welfare -- and even if they weren't, white males are much less likely to take advantage of assistance because among most accepting help is culturally unacceptable.
There is, however, one major advantage of being a well off white male: cops are afraid of you. This country still battles racism, and will continue to do so as long as 1) the police and court systems treat the poor, blacks, and Hispanics unequally 2) our education system provides more opportunities for the wealthy. However, I'd argue that direct racism is a pretty minor issue. Nowadays the issue is class, which leads to an indirect racism because blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately poor.
But punishing white males for being white males isn't the solution. The thing that women and minority races tend to overlook when they claim that white males have it made is that they're only looking at wealthy white males. Poor white males are probably the most disadvantaged class of people in America. WASPs have it made -- that term is reserved for the elites who have run this country since its inception.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm guessing that nobody really uses computers the way that MS thinks they do.
You mean in choreographed dance?
That's not what innocent until proven guilty means. If that were the case then 90%+ of murderers could walk away from court with a not guilty verdict by simply saying, "I was defending myself."
Innocent until proven guilty means that the court has to assume Aaron Hernandez is innocent until there's enough evidence to prove he actually shot Odin Lloyd, such as linking the weapon to Hernandez. It's not like once that link is made the state has to then also prove that Hernandez wasn't defending himself.
More importantly, you didn't even address the main point of my post: Right now I could go to a poor area of my town, walk down the street until I find a black man who some may find intimidating, and shoot him for no reason. Then I could call the police, claim he attacked me, and the state would have to prove that he didn't attack me in order for me to be convicted. That's absurd but it's something I could get away with right now.
On the flip side, if a poor black man was walking through my neighborhood with a gun that he legally owns and was actually attacked by one of my racist ass neighbors, he would probably get the death penalty for defending himself.
You can talk 'innocent until proven guilty' until you're blue in the face, but as a fellow /.er I hope that you know that the standard of 'proof' in a courtroom is not as high as the standard of proof in a scientific experiment, which still yet isn't as high as a metaphysical/epistemological standard. Prove that reality is real. Oh yeah, you can't, that's an assumption. Prove that a person can know anything. Philosophers have pained over that problem since before Socrates' time and all their collective efforts were cast into doubt by a single essay in the seventies (Edmund Gettier).
Courtrooms have never been about proving anything. A scientist would never rely on witness testimony to prove a hypothesis, but that's the gold standard in the courtroom. Almost 7 million Americans are under correctional supervision of some kind -- jail, prison, probation, etc. Do you really believe that the prosecution in even half those cases had anything resembling 'proof'?
I don't particularly think Zimmerman's innocent, but I do think there is a pretty good case that there's reasonable doubt as to whether he's guilty.
I think the reason this case has been such a big deal is that if the situation were reversed, had Trayvon Martin killed George Zimmerman, the justice system wouldn't have demanded such a high burden of proof. He would get get tried as an adult for first degree murder and spend the rest of his life in prison. No one would know or care about it because the story wouldn't even make the front page of his local newspaper.
Meanwhile, the William Zantzingers continue to kill the poor Hattie Carrol's of the world, all while receiving a mere slap on the wrist.
There's no reason to doubt that Zimmerman killed Martin. He admitted as much. It's on him to provide justification for the act, and unsurprisingly a Florida jury found that ridding his neighborhood of a black menace was justification enough.
The assault weapons ban only lasted ten years. So much for only having to win once. Also, calling your political opponents 'bad guys' is childish. They may be wrong, but people don't want to ban guns out of malice. Hell, for the longest time I wanted handguns and assault rifles banned because they really are terrible things. I didn't change my mind because I stopped seeing them as terrible, I changed my mind because I realized that banning such things is impractical in this country. Too many already exist and the technology is too basic to stop enthusiasts. My contempt for tools designed exclusively to kill human beings is still as fervent as ever despite the fact that I no longer support weapon bans.
The way I look at it, owning an assault rifle is like owning a guillotine. Sure, I could use it on an animal, but that wouldn't really be practical as there are many other better tools for the job. It only does one thing well: kill people.
I sympathize with those who want to ban such things, it's pretty easy considering I once felt the same way, but I recognize legislation as a poor solution. I think the main appeal of such weapons to most people is their taboo nature. We'd probably have a lot less handguns and assault rifles in this country is no one was trying to ban them. It's like when you tell a child that something is bad. They immediately want it.
Bad laws rarely die unless those pushing them finally give up.
This doesn't seem very logical to me. My guess is that most laws that are proposed in the legislature 1) are bad 2) die quickly 3) die without those pushing them giving up. What ever made you say such a thing?
I don't remember the first season of Star Trek: TNG (been waaayyyy too long)
Be glad of that. The acting, especially from Stewart and Spiner, was something you'd see in a bad high school play. I don't know who, if anyone, should get the blame for that, since Stewart and Spiner are both very good actors.
Maybe they were just trying to recreate the magic of the original series.
In all fairness... most shows take a couple seasons to hit their stride.
What on earth gave you this idea? Most shows, if they don't hit their stride by the end of the pilot, there isn't a season two. I don't remember the first season of Star Trek: TNG (been waaayyyy too long), but that was riding on the Star Trek name and fanbase. I don't think that show is indicative of greater trends in television.
My understanding is that the Wachowskis were still the ones who wrote the abomination that was the final Matrix movie. Studios will always meddle, but few writers/directors are given as much artistic license as the Wachowskis were given. It's obvious that Warner Bros. didn't meddle enough -- they have interns that could have identified the Revolutions screenplay as crap.
i got bored after 30 minutes
I'm sure that's why they hired the Wachowskis, they need shows to appeal to those with no taste. It's too bad they couldn't land Michael Bay for you.
Both ideologies enslave..
If you want to trivialize the word 'enslave' in such a manner, then one could say "civilization enslaves." Lord of the Flies. . .
Being a part of any society comes at the cost of restrictions upon one's freedom. The question is, "which restrictions are good?" Not, "are restrictions good?" It's the restrictions we place upon ourselves and enforce through government that allow us to transcend the greater restrictions nature imposes on us. Only through discipline can we be free.
It sounds like you were paraphrasing Adria Richards.
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/6039856858
I'm sure Red Hat is grateful. But I'm sure Microsoft has seen this coming for a long time. Linux is approaching the point of being functional enough for the common business user. It's long been functional in the server space, where it's done quite well. Once it becomes accepted in more corporate environments as a desktop OS -- which I think it already would have if not for the MS Office lock-in -- that's when Microsoft's going to have to find a new cash cow.
So they're looking at the cash cows for other companies and looking to copy. Google's use of information, Apple's hardware market, Sony/Nintendo's gaming market. Remember, while Microsoft has been publicly dismissive of Linux and other open-source technologies, in private they consider these to be their greatest threat. The funny thing is that Microsoft seems to have a greater belief in the inevitable 'year of the Linux desktop' than most Linux enthusiasts.
Are they conceding their desktop monopoly? I think so. But I think they're also trying to morph it into consumer products -- Surface, Windows Phone, XBox, etc. -- so they can use it to compete with iOS and Android. They probably assume that by the time Windows 10 or whatever comes out, Linux will have already taken over traditional desktops and laptops, so Windows has to find a new home or die. Windows 8/9 seems to be the transition OSes, like how Mac OS 9 was mostly just created to transition over to OS X. For at least the last fifteen years they've been aware that unless they could successfully dole out some ridiculous shenanigans, Windows would eventually fall to Linux. Free is tough to compete with.
I loathe the day none of this ever gets better and I end up one of those holdouts like people who were still clutching to XP when Windows 7 was released.
Why don't you just run Wine on Linux? That way you can stay up to date and run those pesky few Windows apps you need. If you can get away with relying on an outdated version of Windows for the work you do then you can probably do it on Linux.
Tell me this isn't how it works.
This isn't how it works. You are grossly simplifying the amazingly complex and nuanced reality that is human existence. This became apparent when you used the word 'bully' in your first sentence. 'Bully' is a concept so abstract it's practically meaningless.
What is 'expressing oneself honestly' to one is 'bullying' to another. Good-natured humor is often perceived as bullying by those who lack a sense of humor or are obsessively politically correct or are intimidated by debate. According to some, just being an extrovert makes one a bully.
It seems to me that the concept of a bully can only be understood in relativistic terms. A person isn't intrinsically a bully the way they're portrayed in crappy 80s movies. They're only a bully when they're perceived as a bully by someone who also perceives himself to be a victim. Interestingly, we don't have a neat name for the person who perceives himself to be a victim. So I just use 'pussy.'
Yeah, people are pretty fucking dumb, and being a dumb lunk is glorified in the U.S. But I find your bullies vs. smart quiet ones assessment to be way off the mark. There are a lot of extroverted assholes who are brilliant and equally as many quiet gentlemen who are stupid as shit.
You criticize those who pursue the things they want, and maybe justifiably so, but they wouldn't be 'bullies' if there weren't pussies who let themselves be pushed around. I have more respect for someone who will assert his will onto the world than one who will be pushed around out of cowardice, ineptitude, or lethargy. If I had to blame America's decline on one of these groups of people it would be the passive ones rather than those who assert their will.
actual trolls who do it just to spread evil
You have a very low standard for evil if being an annoying twat qualifies.
The most important phrase I ever learned to say is, "I don't know."
I don't know, I never say that.
I'd love to see Alan Cooper walk into the offices with some lawyers asking where his office is, and asserting his position as named CEO.
First thing would be to freeze all accounts, fire everybody, and hand over every piece of paper and computer to the judge.
It's a shell company. There probably is no office. It's probably just a P.O. Box.
You and the people who modded you up have no idea what this story is about. Try reading it next time.
This isn't about copyright holders suing people for infringement. This is about lawyers partaking in fraud and/or extortion by representing fictitious copyright holders.
It's a scam. One could argue that the big media copyright holders are also engaged in a scam, but their scam is (perhaps unfortunately) legal. What these lawyers are doing isn't legal -- they create shell companies and to act as clients they can sue on behalf of to scare people into coughing up money.
What big media copyright holders do is legal, however unfortunate that may be. This isn't about the validity of our copyright system, this is about a criminal organization that has just been caught red-handed. The copyright absolutists have as much reason to detest these guys as the anti-copyrightists. These guys are making judges re-examine the process and how easy it is to manipulate, which in the long run will be very bad for the copyright absolutists you complain about.
You would have every reason to be optimistic if you read the fucking story!
I think you hit one thing dead on -- the whole "do violent video games make people violent?" argument is framed in a way to be absurd. Unfortunately, the nanny-state liberals* take the bait and and believe it. Gamers love this argument because it's easy to poke holes in.
What gamers fail to realize that it doesn't matter whether video games make people violent or not. That doesn't justify them wasting away thousands of hours of their lives doing something less productive than jerking off. I do occasionally play video games to wind down -- NCAA Football and SuperTux -- but I don't think that makes me a hypocrite when I say that gaming, as a lifestyle, is both self-destructive and socially irresponsible.
I think the people that argue against all video games are absurd and stupid. But I think the people who define themselves as gamers are worthless human beings, which is worse. If playing a video game is a person's favorite thing to do in life they're really selling themselves short. Life's too awesome to be wasted playing Call of Duty online.
I've seen the worst of the worst, though. Right after I got out of high school I worked for a video game store for a while and the mouth breathing customers really inspired me to do something better with my life. Many of them were socially awkward dweebs who were extremely dumb. It made me conclude that playing video games as one's primary hobby is bad for both the individual and society as a whole.
But hey, I still love my NCAA Football during the off-season. It's just not something I'll spend the whole day doing.
To get back to the point: gamers love to frame the argument as "do videogames make people violent?" because they're avoiding the real question: "Is playing video games a quality** use of one's time?"
*I need a better title for these people -- I consider myself to be liberal but in a way that is distinct from the whole "dodgeball is cruel, everyone should be a winner, animals have rights, we should coddle our children" type that's so prevalent in California. I often use the term "California liberal" but that's not accurate b/c these smug pussy assholes exist everywhere, they're just most common in Cali.
**I specifically mean in an objective sense -- telling me a quality use of one's time is subjective isn't a clever retort, all you gamers who are about to rant about how opinions are like assholes. I'm not denying subjective experience, I just believe in objective quality in the Robert Pirsig sense.
I would argue that a society that has the means to provide education to all of its citizens has an obligation to do so. It's a right of all of those citizens. So when a particular class is excluded on the basis of their combination of race and sex, their rights are being infringed. Of course, I think that all people in the U.S. are deprived of their right to a free education, following this logic, middle class white males are just further deprived of this right.
The same actually applies to healthcare. A society that has the means to provide healthcare for all of its citizens has an obligation to do so. So all Americans who don't qualify for Medicaid/Medicare are deprived of a natural right.
I understand that my position here is debatable, and I could argue about it for hours, but this post should demonstrate the method by which I arrived at the conclusion you questioned, whether or not you agree.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I do take issue with this:
If someone has declared them intentions and is clearly in collusion with a terrorist cell, then they have forfeited their rights as a citizen, and have declared themselves an enemy of the state.
I think in many situations, such as where someone is colluding with a terrorist cell but hasn't declared their intentions, that they deserve a trial. The problem is that the government is likely to claim that particular actions function as a declaration of intent. Here's a ridiculous but not entirely implausible situation:
Say an American pyromaniac moves to Pakistan. He doesn't align himself to any terrorist cause, he's just obsessed with blowing things up and his freedom in the U.S. could be jeopardized by such actions. He buys several explosives from a terrorist cell and this action is observed by a CIA spook who doesn't realize the guy is just a pyromaniac who intends to harmlessly detonate these devices in the middle of the desert. Our pyromaniac takes his explosives to his little desert shanty only to be blown away by a drone attack while he's setting up his new toys.
Let's say the guy's family finds out about it and they're outraged. They all know he was just a pyromaniac, they know he wasn't allied with terrorists. But the government is likely to claim that 1) his actions and associations with terrorists warranted treating him like a terrorist and 2) by buying items from terrorists he was in effect funding them, which makes him an enemy of the state.
The problem with allowing some government agency, agent, official, or whatever decide what constitutes a 'declaration of intent' or 'clear collusion' is that it could be abused. Say a hacker who, although he loves the U.S.A., is disgusted by the unconstitutional activities of certain agencies, decides to move to Iran. He moves to Iran so he can protest in the form of attacking the computer systems of these agencies and he's fairly certain the Iranians won't extradite him for such activity. While this is certainly a criminal act, does it make him a terrorist? Does it make him an enemy of the state?
Or one last hypothetical. Say Bradley Manning was informed that he was ratted out by the filthy rat Adrian Lamo before getting arrested. And somehow Bradley smuggled himself out of the country and was granted amnesty by. . .let's go with Syria. More than one politician has declared Manning to be an enemy of the state, to be guilty of treason, to be guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy. Are we to let the president send that drone after Manning? To leave it up to the president's discretion?
I think Rand Paul approached an important issue, and hopefully his stunt made people consider the moral repercussions of drones, the way our government deals with terrorism, the rights of the citizen, and warfare in general; but it appears to me that, like you said, Rand was just politicizing an issue and drawing attention to himself. Maybe his little filibuster will draw attention to the important issues but I doubt that was his intent - his intent was to spew FUD.
Do you really think that anyone has one of these things as their only vehicle?
I can't believe you got modded flamebait for this. All one has to do is look at the various posts under this story to see that the vast majority of readers misinterpreted the headline as meaning that Tesla has achieved such a high amount of success that the repayment of the loan is inevitable or complete.
I agree that the headline is a falsehood. It's probably not a lie because it probably wasn't an intentional falsehood.
If it said "Tesla Intends to Pay Off Loan" then far less people would read it, even fewer would care. Sadly, this is a common theme on /. This is why, when /. sent me a questionnaire, the one thing I requested was editors who know what it means to be an editor. I love this place but sometimes it could really benefit from some editors who have a more nuanced understanding of the English language. I think the error the headline writer made was the same error you made in the title of your post -- a minor semantic error that drastically changes how people interpret the headline.
And no, the government did not have the moral authority to give a loan out to any auto-manufacturer.
The guy you're responding to so baited you into saying this.
NoScript or some variant should take care of it.
WASP means White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It doesn't mean white. Usually it references upper or middle class white New Englanders because they tend to be of Anglo-Saxon descent, and until the twentieth century they mostly didn't mingle with Irish (Celtic descent), Italians, Jews, etc.
While I agree that white males do in fact have less rights than any other class in America, your post does nothing to back up that claim. White males have less rights because there are less opportunities for financial aid and scholarships for white males. Basically, a lot of time and paperwork could be saved if financial aid forms just had a single question: "Are you a white male with no disabilities and parents who aren't completely destitute?" As long as you can answer no to that question, there's tons of financial aid available.
White males are also oppressed by social stigma and cases of over-reaching affirmative action (I actually do support some forms of affirmative action, but in some cases it's taken too far). Hate-crime legislation is basically punishing white males more for being violent to minorities than to each other. White males are also discriminated against when it comes to welfare -- and even if they weren't, white males are much less likely to take advantage of assistance because among most accepting help is culturally unacceptable.
There is, however, one major advantage of being a well off white male: cops are afraid of you. This country still battles racism, and will continue to do so as long as 1) the police and court systems treat the poor, blacks, and Hispanics unequally 2) our education system provides more opportunities for the wealthy. However, I'd argue that direct racism is a pretty minor issue. Nowadays the issue is class, which leads to an indirect racism because blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately poor.
But punishing white males for being white males isn't the solution. The thing that women and minority races tend to overlook when they claim that white males have it made is that they're only looking at wealthy white males. Poor white males are probably the most disadvantaged class of people in America. WASPs have it made -- that term is reserved for the elites who have run this country since its inception.