English is not an official language of Israel. It is required in school for practical reasons, not because of any official status. Technically, a student is allowed to take French instead of English as their required second language, but no one does. Arabic is an official language, but is considered a second-class citizen to Hebrew. I should have noted Arabic is also an official language.
Yes, 6.5 is less than 7. And 9.5 is greater than 7, which was my point, or can't you add? Those 3 million people are, for all intents and purposes, part of Israel. If you don't want to count them, then yes, London is slightly larger. I count them, because Israel is the effective government for much of that space (the PA is the ineffective government pretty much solely on tolerance of the Israelis).
You want GOOD data on French speakers in Canada? Fine. Statistics Canada, using data from the 2001 Census, says that 30% of Canadians speak French, and 13% speak French exclusively. 23% speak French as their native language. If you think that data is grossly inflated, you can argue with the Canadian census, but I'm pretty sure they know a lot more about it than you do. The numbers here have changed slightly from my original post because I took the time to find census data this time and calculate from that source data, rather than relying on reported data from other places. However, you'll note that my original post was within 4 percent on all counts, and closer on all but the overall French-speaking population.
Palestinians who speak Hebrew: hard to find good data on this. Ethnologue estimates roughly 15-20% of those living in the West Bank and Gaza speak Hebrew; however, they're basing this estimate on a total population of various sets of data. I'd say that number seems accurate, or even possibly low, based on my personal knowledge, having both been there and having friends and family there. I'll accept that you might disagree, but the fact remains that a significant number of Palestinians (the ones most likely to interact with Israelis, I'll add) do speak Hebrew.
It's pretty obvious you're British. I'll repeat it again for your benefit; there's a world of difference between Gaelic and Welsh, and French-Canadians or Israelis. Welsh-speakers make up less than 1% of the UK's population; not native Welsh speakers, I mean people who can speak it at all. The number of Welsh-only speakers *is* insignificant. Gaelic is even worse off, being spoken by around 1% of the population in Scotland, and much less of the population of the UK as a whole. Compare that to the relative percentages, or even the absolute numbers, of French-only Canadians or Hebrew-speaking Israelis. You can try to project the situations you're familiar with on to other places, places where those situations are inaccurate, or you can look at the numbers I've provided and actually think about it.
Should Slashdot support Hebrew? There's no real reason they should, being as it is an English website. However, moving from that to saying that no one should speak Hebrew is a bit of jump. Maybe you should back down from that one.
Except the Watt *is* an SI unit (the standard SI unit for power, representing 1 J/s). The equivalent Imperial unit would be horsepower, or lbf/s. Further, the joule being a unit of energy, it has nothing to do with this discussion.
I may be an American, but at least I understand the difference between power and energy.
It's actually possible (for A and B to both be true) if the coefficient of static friction is lower for dust-dust contact than it is for dust-panel contact. In this case, the force required to break dust-dust stiction could be lower than wind forces, allowing the wind to kick the dust into the air, while the wind force could in turn be lower than dust-panel stiction, preventing the wind from clearing the panel.
I have no idea if that's how it is, I just like saying stiction.
If the Supreme Court was the supreme arbiter of bovine leggedness, 5. Fortunately for all of us, they remain the supreme authority solely on matters of law, and as such cows still have only 4 legs (except for that one outside your house, which had the unfortunate wood chipper accident a couple years ago.)
The Supreme Court gets to say what's what when it comes to legal issues in our country. Whether or not you think they are *right*, they are by definition correct after they rule.
Actually, a Supreme Court decision has everything to do with whether we consider such an occurrence to be in violation of the constitution; if they say it is, it is. Until their decision has changed, it is not. If you think it's wrong, you have every right to go argue with the Supreme Court, but it won't make it any less the law of the land.
Were they correct to hold "seperate but equal" to be constitutional? Fuck no. However, between Plessy and Brown, was saying "seperate but equal" is constitutional correct? Yes. Because it was, until the decision was changed.
As to prior restraint, it's the same as saying "Well, nobody spraypaints graffiti on public buildings because they would probably be fined for vandalism". Yes, this is true. But it isn't prior restraint; the broadcasters are free to broadcast what they choose, they are simply aware of what's likely to land them in trouble. Despite the similarity in the ends, the means aren't the same, which is why it isn't a prior restraint issue.
You mean something like WCBN,WFMU, or WLUW? (OK, so FMU is in New York and LUW is in Chicago, but you get the point - college/indie stations can and do stream worldwide).
Let's say the government took back the airwaves and disbanded the FCC, and gave those airwaves to ISPs to provide wireless service (which is harder than it sounds, it's not like spectrum is unavailable for such things, and the spectrum for AM is totally unsuited to it anyway, while FM spectrum is non-optimal for the purpose, being relatively low-bandwidth). Let's say I then, being pissed off my FM radio no longer dragged anything in, built a 50,000W FM transmitter and started blasting punk rock out over those ISPs piddly point-to-point transmitters. Who would prevent me from doing that? The FCC... oh, wait, the FCC was disbanded!
The FCC still serves a purpose; regulating access to spectrum. Whether they're doing a good job of it is arguable, but getting rid of them entirely won't solve a damn thing. I'm sick of open spectrum zealots who don't know shit about RF and refuse to acknowledge the very real, very *math-based* problems with their proposals (like, for example, the capacity theorem saying AM bandwidth won't carry enough information to make it worth as much as your shriveled dick without using absurd signal-noise power ratios for mobile point to point stations). Learn some RF and info theory math, then come back and say "Let's open up the spectrum and everything will be dandy!" Look at how much 'free market' principles have fucked over the use of spectrum, and tell me an unregulated spectrum would be an improvement.
And yet, you ignore the fact that the Supreme Court's interpretations have held that those laws do not abridge freedom of speech; since they are the final arbiter of what is and is not Constitutional in this country, they say that those laws don't violate the 1st Amendment.
Actually, how do you define obscene has been answered pretty thoroughly.
The Miller Test is the contemporary test for what is and is not considered obscene; it may not be a good test, but it is the law of the land.
The problem is that dirty words and naked ladies aren't considered obscene, generally, only indecent. Indecent speech is protected; obscene speech is not. Whether or not you like it, this is how the Supreme Court has interpreted the 1st Amendment; since they are a court, there's no question of Congress making a law, only the court interpreting the law as given.
The general idea is compromise; this is why it is, in fact, legal to play indecent material over the airwaves between 10 PM and 6 AM (at least on FM... I'm not sure about TV, to tell the truth). The idea being that while indecent material may have redeeming value, by limiting it to hours when children are unlikely to be watching/listening, both interests are served.
Repeat after me: 19" wide. If it isn't 19" wide, it is not acceptable in my living room. Fuck, I feel bad enough letting the Gamecube live in the stereo rack; hell if I'm going to add another non-standard box.
Near all components are 19" wide - why is it so fucking hard to find a decent, inexpensive case designed to standard component dimensions? I'm not even asking for integer RU heights; just standard width would be enough for me.
Nice to see you, Mr. Wallace. How's that wheelchair treating you?
You ever think that maybe they cast him because they felt he'd do a good job in the role? And calling Mos Def a thug is pretty entertaining, considering he's consistently put out some of the more literate, intelligent hip-hop out there.
I am sure that your $8 will be missed, as will those of your fellow American Independent Party members.
Hey, if I got Hebrew, I'd pretty much expect all the rest of them to come in the bundle, since at that point they've already done the work to support alternative character sets and right-to-left text.
(Arabic, not Arab.)
As to Aramaic, Hebrew does at least have the twin advantages of being a significant number of people's native tongue, and the official language of a technologically advanced country. Aramaic has neither.
Unlike Gaelic and Welsh, the sole national language of the country of Israel *is* Hebrew; as such, it isn't a case of cultural pride, it's simply a case of that being the official language. There's a difference. Just because they may speak English (generally at a much lower level of fluency than they speak their native tongue), does that mean they shouldn't attempt to gain support for their native tongue?
By the way - in Canada, 24% speak French as their first language, and an additional 10% speak it as a second or third language. Of that 24% who are native French speakers, roughly 60% (14% of the overall population) don't speak English. Statistically rare, my ass.
London has a population of roughly 7 million; Israel, as of the most recent data... has a population of roughly 6.5 million inside the country proper, and another 3 million in the territories. Nice try, though.
I have no experience with either Gaelic or Welsh, but the situations don't sound even remotely similar to my knowledge. Unlike either of those, significant numbers of people in both Israel and Canada are native language speakers who don't speak English as a second language.
Your imbecilic comment on the conflict in Israel ignores the fact that Arabic is an official state language there as well. Roughly 20% of the population of Israel speaks Arabic, more than enough to communicate, even ignoring the large number of Palestinians who speak Hebrew.
By the way - fall foul. If you want to post about language, start with your own.
Oh, goddamnit, you're going to nail me for one forgotten letter? Especially when you misspelled resh?:)
Yeah, it has a final tav. Otherwise it would just be ivree, which as far as I know isn't even a conjugation for any of the verbs related to that structure. Then again, I'm not a fluent Hebrew speaker, much less a native one.
As to the offtopic note: slightly after Slashcode outputs proper HTML, and slightly before the hell I don't believe in drops below 0 degrees C.
I don't see my native Israeli, so I opt for "English". I'm taken to another downloads page (yes, I'm getting board of downloads pages already too). From here I am told that I must go to the 'downloads centre'. Great. Another downloads page. Here I get to select my language again. Um. Still no Israeli, so I go for English again. But Wait! There - no kidding - are only versions for Microsoft Operating Systems!"
If you were actually a native Israeli, you'd know the language is called Hebrew, or, in the actual language, ivrit (ayin-vet-resh-yud).
(If you're a native Israeli who just can't speak English, I apologize, but all evidence from your post shows you can, in fact, speak English.)
Delphi isn't a subsidiary of GM; they're a spinoff of GM's old automotive electronics group (A/C Delco). I believe GM still owns a major share of their business, but they are a seperate company, not a subsidiary.
The airwaves are fundamentally owned by no one; the government owns them in the same sense that it owns all public property - it holds it in trust for the people. Note: there is so-called public property owned by private groups - this is not public property, as the owner can at any time rescind the right of the public to use it.
Why wasn't voting suggested? Because we are a goddamn republic, not a democracy, and the people vote on representatives, not on direct issues (with the limited exception of ballot initiatives). And because the FCC decided that the best way to serve the public interest was to *lease* those airwaves; leasing them for money is a more recent invention of the free-market crowd. (and yes, they are leased - the government can revoke the lease if conditions of the lease aren't fulfilled).
The first amendment is limited; you can't shout fire in a theater, you can't incite riots, you can't incite violence against the President. All of these are limits that were placed by interpretation via the courts.
Right to freedom of speech does not imply a right to access, which is the fallacy in your entire argument. The government can limit access to public resources; the airwaves are one of them.
Can I imagine the US directing a group of people in a crowd to speak one at a time to avoid interference and jailing people for not going along with it? Yes, I can. I can certainly imagine them jailing people for place and manner of speech (yelling fire, noise violations, etc.), which is the issue here.
As to your 'finer-grained splitting of frequencies' - you are an idiot, and obviously not an RF engineer. Spectrum is a limited resource, and there is definitely not enough space for 265 million *useful* transmission channels, especially given that different frequencies are useful for different things.
You wouldn't get the internet; you'd get something more like, oh, Hyde Park. Lots of people shouting at the same time so no one can hear what anyone is saying. So no, it wouldn't be a fine world.
Technically, the US isn't censoring speech. Since the AM, FM, UHF, and VHF airwaves are owned by the US government (and leased back to stations), they have a right to determine how those airwaves are used - the rule is called 'public interest'. Legal precedent has determined that obscenity on the airwaves is not in the public interest ever, and indecency is not in the public interest between 10 PM and 6 AM (there is, in fact, a difference - legally - between obscenity and indecency).
Essentially, the government has said "A condition of your lease is that you follow these content rules on the air. If you don't, we can fine you or revoke your license." This is skirting one hell of a fine line towards censorship, and is definitely splitting hairs, but that's what law is about.
And to answer your question: who has a right to determine what is decent and what is not? It's called the Miller test, in the case of obscenity, and indecency is defined as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities (indecency is not as bad as obscenity)." These definitions were handed down by the Supreme Court, who have the right to determine how American law is interpreted.
The real issue is the phrase 'community standards', which in the age of the Internet has widely variable interpretation.
Essentially, this decision was pointing out that the reasons for the 'public interest' restriction on the airwaves (which is, essentially, the possibility of children being exposed to obscenity/indecency) do not apply to subscription over-the-air services.
Brian didn't really have the kindest words regarding you guys either (yes, I know him, and Timmins too). I re-iterate; he was made an example of. Granholm wanted to look tough on crime so she could run for governer, and she had this brand new computer crime law to trumpet.
9 years for what is, essentially, a case of attempted credit card fraud. I don't care what you claim he may or may not have done (knowing Brian, he probably did it) - the sentence handed down was too harsh *for the crime he was convicted of*.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering that they're talking about total daily energy budget, a pretty sensible way to string together SI units?
English is not an official language of Israel. It is required in school for practical reasons, not because of any official status. Technically, a student is allowed to take French instead of English as their required second language, but no one does. Arabic is an official language, but is considered a second-class citizen to Hebrew. I should have noted Arabic is also an official language.
Yes, 6.5 is less than 7. And 9.5 is greater than 7, which was my point, or can't you add? Those 3 million people are, for all intents and purposes, part of Israel. If you don't want to count them, then yes, London is slightly larger. I count them, because Israel is the effective government for much of that space (the PA is the ineffective government pretty much solely on tolerance of the Israelis).
You want GOOD data on French speakers in Canada? Fine. Statistics Canada, using data from the 2001 Census, says that 30% of Canadians speak French, and 13% speak French exclusively. 23% speak French as their native language. If you think that data is grossly inflated, you can argue with the Canadian census, but I'm pretty sure they know a lot more about it than you do. The numbers here have changed slightly from my original post because I took the time to find census data this time and calculate from that source data, rather than relying on reported data from other places. However, you'll note that my original post was within 4 percent on all counts, and closer on all but the overall French-speaking population.
Palestinians who speak Hebrew: hard to find good data on this. Ethnologue estimates roughly 15-20% of those living in the West Bank and Gaza speak Hebrew; however, they're basing this estimate on a total population of various sets of data. I'd say that number seems accurate, or even possibly low, based on my personal knowledge, having both been there and having friends and family there. I'll accept that you might disagree, but the fact remains that a significant number of Palestinians (the ones most likely to interact with Israelis, I'll add) do speak Hebrew.
It's pretty obvious you're British. I'll repeat it again for your benefit; there's a world of difference between Gaelic and Welsh, and French-Canadians or Israelis. Welsh-speakers make up less than 1% of the UK's population; not native Welsh speakers, I mean people who can speak it at all. The number of Welsh-only speakers *is* insignificant. Gaelic is even worse off, being spoken by around 1% of the population in Scotland, and much less of the population of the UK as a whole. Compare that to the relative percentages, or even the absolute numbers, of French-only Canadians or Hebrew-speaking Israelis. You can try to project the situations you're familiar with on to other places, places where those situations are inaccurate, or you can look at the numbers I've provided and actually think about it.
Should Slashdot support Hebrew? There's no real reason they should, being as it is an English website. However, moving from that to saying that no one should speak Hebrew is a bit of jump. Maybe you should back down from that one.
The watt-hour per day is a unit of... power. Yep. Power.
You still look silly calling the watt an Imperial unit; it's the SI unit of power. Has nothing to do with Americans at all.
Except the Watt *is* an SI unit (the standard SI unit for power, representing 1 J/s). The equivalent Imperial unit would be horsepower, or lbf/s. Further, the joule being a unit of energy, it has nothing to do with this discussion.
I may be an American, but at least I understand the difference between power and energy.
It's actually possible (for A and B to both be true) if the coefficient of static friction is lower for dust-dust contact than it is for dust-panel contact. In this case, the force required to break dust-dust stiction could be lower than wind forces, allowing the wind to kick the dust into the air, while the wind force could in turn be lower than dust-panel stiction, preventing the wind from clearing the panel.
I have no idea if that's how it is, I just like saying stiction.
Student discount, my friend, student discount.
Although the money I save on movies will be roughly 0.01% of my tuition bill, I'll take what I can get.
If the Supreme Court was the supreme arbiter of bovine leggedness, 5. Fortunately for all of us, they remain the supreme authority solely on matters of law, and as such cows still have only 4 legs (except for that one outside your house, which had the unfortunate wood chipper accident a couple years ago.)
The Supreme Court gets to say what's what when it comes to legal issues in our country. Whether or not you think they are *right*, they are by definition correct after they rule.
Anyone else care to tell me why this OS is of any relevance?
Simple answer:
It isn't.
Actually, a Supreme Court decision has everything to do with whether we consider such an occurrence to be in violation of the constitution; if they say it is, it is. Until their decision has changed, it is not. If you think it's wrong, you have every right to go argue with the Supreme Court, but it won't make it any less the law of the land.
Were they correct to hold "seperate but equal" to be constitutional? Fuck no. However, between Plessy and Brown, was saying "seperate but equal" is constitutional correct? Yes. Because it was, until the decision was changed.
As to prior restraint, it's the same as saying "Well, nobody spraypaints graffiti on public buildings because they would probably be fined for vandalism". Yes, this is true. But it isn't prior restraint; the broadcasters are free to broadcast what they choose, they are simply aware of what's likely to land them in trouble. Despite the similarity in the ends, the means aren't the same, which is why it isn't a prior restraint issue.
The best part is that he can't even get the hours right - the legal safe harbor hours are 10 PM to 6 AM.
Geez.
You mean something like WCBN,WFMU, or WLUW? (OK, so FMU is in New York and LUW is in Chicago, but you get the point - college/indie stations can and do stream worldwide).
Let's say the government took back the airwaves and disbanded the FCC, and gave those airwaves to ISPs to provide wireless service (which is harder than it sounds, it's not like spectrum is unavailable for such things, and the spectrum for AM is totally unsuited to it anyway, while FM spectrum is non-optimal for the purpose, being relatively low-bandwidth). Let's say I then, being pissed off my FM radio no longer dragged anything in, built a 50,000W FM transmitter and started blasting punk rock out over those ISPs piddly point-to-point transmitters. Who would prevent me from doing that? The FCC... oh, wait, the FCC was disbanded!
The FCC still serves a purpose; regulating access to spectrum. Whether they're doing a good job of it is arguable, but getting rid of them entirely won't solve a damn thing. I'm sick of open spectrum zealots who don't know shit about RF and refuse to acknowledge the very real, very *math-based* problems with their proposals (like, for example, the capacity theorem saying AM bandwidth won't carry enough information to make it worth as much as your shriveled dick without using absurd signal-noise power ratios for mobile point to point stations). Learn some RF and info theory math, then come back and say "Let's open up the spectrum and everything will be dandy!" Look at how much 'free market' principles have fucked over the use of spectrum, and tell me an unregulated spectrum would be an improvement.
And yet, you ignore the fact that the Supreme Court's interpretations have held that those laws do not abridge freedom of speech; since they are the final arbiter of what is and is not Constitutional in this country, they say that those laws don't violate the 1st Amendment.
Actually, how do you define obscene has been answered pretty thoroughly.
The Miller Test is the contemporary test for what is and is not considered obscene; it may not be a good test, but it is the law of the land.
The problem is that dirty words and naked ladies aren't considered obscene, generally, only indecent. Indecent speech is protected; obscene speech is not. Whether or not you like it, this is how the Supreme Court has interpreted the 1st Amendment; since they are a court, there's no question of Congress making a law, only the court interpreting the law as given.
The general idea is compromise; this is why it is, in fact, legal to play indecent material over the airwaves between 10 PM and 6 AM (at least on FM... I'm not sure about TV, to tell the truth). The idea being that while indecent material may have redeeming value, by limiting it to hours when children are unlikely to be watching/listening, both interests are served.
Oh, come on, the Wallace/AIP thing will totally go over their head.
Repeat after me: 19" wide. If it isn't 19" wide, it is not acceptable in my living room. Fuck, I feel bad enough letting the Gamecube live in the stereo rack; hell if I'm going to add another non-standard box.
Near all components are 19" wide - why is it so fucking hard to find a decent, inexpensive case designed to standard component dimensions? I'm not even asking for integer RU heights; just standard width would be enough for me.
Nice to see you, Mr. Wallace. How's that wheelchair treating you?
You ever think that maybe they cast him because they felt he'd do a good job in the role? And calling Mos Def a thug is pretty entertaining, considering he's consistently put out some of the more literate, intelligent hip-hop out there.
I am sure that your $8 will be missed, as will those of your fellow American Independent Party members.
Hey, if I got Hebrew, I'd pretty much expect all the rest of them to come in the bundle, since at that point they've already done the work to support alternative character sets and right-to-left text.
(Arabic, not Arab.)
As to Aramaic, Hebrew does at least have the twin advantages of being a significant number of people's native tongue, and the official language of a technologically advanced country. Aramaic has neither.
Unlike Gaelic and Welsh, the sole national language of the country of Israel *is* Hebrew; as such, it isn't a case of cultural pride, it's simply a case of that being the official language. There's a difference. Just because they may speak English (generally at a much lower level of fluency than they speak their native tongue), does that mean they shouldn't attempt to gain support for their native tongue?
By the way - in Canada, 24% speak French as their first language, and an additional 10% speak it as a second or third language. Of that 24% who are native French speakers, roughly 60% (14% of the overall population) don't speak English. Statistically rare, my ass.
London has a population of roughly 7 million; Israel, as of the most recent data... has a population of roughly 6.5 million inside the country proper, and another 3 million in the territories. Nice try, though.
I have no experience with either Gaelic or Welsh, but the situations don't sound even remotely similar to my knowledge. Unlike either of those, significant numbers of people in both Israel and Canada are native language speakers who don't speak English as a second language.
Your imbecilic comment on the conflict in Israel ignores the fact that Arabic is an official state language there as well. Roughly 20% of the population of Israel speaks Arabic, more than enough to communicate, even ignoring the large number of Palestinians who speak Hebrew.
By the way - fall foul. If you want to post about language, start with your own.
Oh, goddamnit, you're going to nail me for one forgotten letter? Especially when you misspelled resh? :)
Yeah, it has a final tav. Otherwise it would just be ivree, which as far as I know isn't even a conjugation for any of the verbs related to that structure. Then again, I'm not a fluent Hebrew speaker, much less a native one.
As to the offtopic note: slightly after Slashcode outputs proper HTML, and slightly before the hell I don't believe in drops below 0 degrees C.
I don't see my native Israeli, so I opt for "English". I'm taken to another downloads page (yes, I'm getting board of downloads pages already too). From here I am told that I must go to the 'downloads centre'. Great. Another downloads page. Here I get to select my language again. Um. Still no Israeli, so I go for English again. But Wait! There - no kidding - are only versions for Microsoft Operating Systems!"
If you were actually a native Israeli, you'd know the language is called Hebrew, or, in the actual language, ivrit (ayin-vet-resh-yud).
(If you're a native Israeli who just can't speak English, I apologize, but all evidence from your post shows you can, in fact, speak English.)
Worm buffet.
Delphi isn't a subsidiary of GM; they're a spinoff of GM's old automotive electronics group (A/C Delco). I believe GM still owns a major share of their business, but they are a seperate company, not a subsidiary.
The airwaves are fundamentally owned by no one; the government owns them in the same sense that it owns all public property - it holds it in trust for the people. Note: there is so-called public property owned by private groups - this is not public property, as the owner can at any time rescind the right of the public to use it.
Why wasn't voting suggested? Because we are a goddamn republic, not a democracy, and the people vote on representatives, not on direct issues (with the limited exception of ballot initiatives). And because the FCC decided that the best way to serve the public interest was to *lease* those airwaves; leasing them for money is a more recent invention of the free-market crowd. (and yes, they are leased - the government can revoke the lease if conditions of the lease aren't fulfilled).
The first amendment is limited; you can't shout fire in a theater, you can't incite riots, you can't incite violence against the President. All of these are limits that were placed by interpretation via the courts.
Right to freedom of speech does not imply a right to access, which is the fallacy in your entire argument. The government can limit access to public resources; the airwaves are one of them.
Can I imagine the US directing a group of people in a crowd to speak one at a time to avoid interference and jailing people for not going along with it? Yes, I can. I can certainly imagine them jailing people for place and manner of speech (yelling fire, noise violations, etc.), which is the issue here.
As to your 'finer-grained splitting of frequencies' - you are an idiot, and obviously not an RF engineer. Spectrum is a limited resource, and there is definitely not enough space for 265 million *useful* transmission channels, especially given that different frequencies are useful for different things.
You wouldn't get the internet; you'd get something more like, oh, Hyde Park. Lots of people shouting at the same time so no one can hear what anyone is saying. So no, it wouldn't be a fine world.
Technically, the US isn't censoring speech. Since the AM, FM, UHF, and VHF airwaves are owned by the US government (and leased back to stations), they have a right to determine how those airwaves are used - the rule is called 'public interest'. Legal precedent has determined that obscenity on the airwaves is not in the public interest ever, and indecency is not in the public interest between 10 PM and 6 AM (there is, in fact, a difference - legally - between obscenity and indecency).
Essentially, the government has said "A condition of your lease is that you follow these content rules on the air. If you don't, we can fine you or revoke your license." This is skirting one hell of a fine line towards censorship, and is definitely splitting hairs, but that's what law is about.
And to answer your question: who has a right to determine what is decent and what is not? It's called the Miller test, in the case of obscenity, and indecency is defined as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities (indecency is not as bad as obscenity)." These definitions were handed down by the Supreme Court, who have the right to determine how American law is interpreted.
The real issue is the phrase 'community standards', which in the age of the Internet has widely variable interpretation.
Essentially, this decision was pointing out that the reasons for the 'public interest' restriction on the airwaves (which is, essentially, the possibility of children being exposed to obscenity/indecency) do not apply to subscription over-the-air services.
Brian didn't really have the kindest words regarding you guys either (yes, I know him, and Timmins too). I re-iterate; he was made an example of. Granholm wanted to look tough on crime so she could run for governer, and she had this brand new computer crime law to trumpet.
9 years for what is, essentially, a case of attempted credit card fraud. I don't care what you claim he may or may not have done (knowing Brian, he probably did it) - the sentence handed down was too harsh *for the crime he was convicted of*.