Either we live in a free society or we don't, which is it?
No, no, don't be silly. Freedom isn't binary, it's a sliding scale. Societies can be more or less free. There is no such thing as perfect freedom or perfect slavery.
Good rant. I don't agree with the sentiment, but also don't want to argue. I'll leave you with just one thought, which is that in a democracy, Joe Sixpack doesn't make decisions, he participates in decisions in a tiny way. Part of the theory of democracy is that decisions of governance will be, on average, better when coming from a multitude of voices. There are obvious drawbacks both in theory and in reality, but democracy doesn't have to be perfect, it only has to be better than the alternative.
Right. That will work in most cases. In this case, the event happened at the person's school, so there might be a follow up question: "So, in 1995 you and another person with your name were both attending college at ABC University? And the other guy was the criminal?" But that's unlikely.
Sure, but we'd also be avoiding just about every other of our Presidents too: GWB, Obama, Clinton, Bush 1, JFK, Lincoln...
There were lots and lots of great reasons not to elect GWB (which must be why we *didn't* elect him) but the specific shenanigans of his youth weren't enough all by themselves.
Hmmm. Interesting. So your theory (democracy is antithetical to liberty) should mean that democracies have fewer liberties than non-democracies. Do you think that is the case? I'm not a scholar of historical governance so I can't really say.
Okay, first let's dispense with the concept of "prophecy". You say "I'm not saying this is Revelation 13:18 per se. It could be, it could NOT be. Who can know?" It's not, and we can all know, because there is no such thing as prophecy, because there is no such thing as magic.
Okay, now what there is, is prediction, especially insightful and informed prediction. It's hardly difficult to predict some things that will happen in the future, and the fact that thousands of years ago somebody said something about having marks on the forehead to engage in commerce was a reasonable prediction. Of course, it never came to pass, and still won't, because we're not considering putting marks on foreheads, we're considering photographing people and keeping records. Many good people would resist both marks on the forehead as well as biometric ID cards.
For informed context, look back over history and decide if these times look more like the end times than other times such as the black plague or WW2. There were crazyass people saying those were the end times, too; but they were not, in fact, the end times, because, in fact, there is no such thing. But, you can still oppose biometric ID cards if you want, nothing wrong with that.
I don't know if you are Israeli, but keep in mind that Israel is dealing with vastly different constraints and parameters than the USA is. They are tiny, non-federal, surrounded by hostility, under constant thread of annihilation, less heterogeneous, less rural. Just because privacy lines are drawn at a certain legal point in Israel doesn't mean the same legal point would be appropriate in the USA.
Yeah, I mostly agree with that. In a country like the US, though, it's difficult to come up with laws which are appropriate for the general population as well as the people who want to live off the grid, and those are important people to keep around. Israel is dealing with different constraints.
Yes. I had the same experience. When I put three extra family members on my AT&T share plan, I called them and made sure to turn off all kinds of stuff -- photo texting, data, pay numbers, pretty much anything that could cost money. So far so good, but I've heard that companies can charge money to your cell phone knowing nothing more than your number, and I don't fricking understand how that can be legal.
It has come to our attention that you recently raised the cancellation fee on your phone contracts from $175 to $350 for customers who buy subsidized smart phones. We demand that you explain why you did not also raise the fee for the rest of your customers. In fact, while you're at it, you may as well up them all to $500.
Yes, of course. That rule applies generally. I was having a tax dispute with the IRS. Luckily for me, I knew I was right, and the IRS would eventually reach the same conclusion, but they were so overloaded with work generally that they kept delaying my case. (This was just a minor paperwork issue, not a court case.) In the meantime, I frankly really needed the money, which was a small amount, but I was broke. So after months of delays, I wrote my congresswoman -- immediately, I got cc'd on a letter her office wrote to the IRS, and immediately thereafter the IRS sent me my money.
So the result was the same, but by calling in the big guns, I was moved from the middle of the work pile to the top of the work pile.
I never thought about having a lawyer send my consumer complaints for me, but I think that's really smart. I have lots of lawyer friends, I should ask one of them.
I've seen Star Wars twice. My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski, and I've seen that maybe five or six times.
By contrast, I've listened to Tool's Lateralus several hundred times. I've listened to The White Stripes's Get Behind Me Satan at least a hundred times. These days I listed to Old Crow Medicine Show's Tennessee Pusher once a day, or once every couple days.
Yeah, maybe some people watch some movies somewhat more than once, but I'm sure you agree that the numbers would be much, much lower than favorite albums.
Also, I do my best to watch bad movies exactly zero times. It's the good movies that I'll deign to watch once.
Do you really think the demand for music hasn't increased? I don't have any stats to back this up, but I would guess that people listen to ten times as much music as they used to -- and that's great! Access to music improves humanity, and if you accept that, it's really difficult to make "moral" arguments which result in people having access to less music. How can that be the right thing to do if it degrades the human experience?
Yeah, I agree, and I feel the same way about movies in theatres. This week my girlfriend (knowing my niggardly ways with movies) asked if I wanted to see The Informant for $2.75 at the cheap-o theatre. My response was, eh, maybe, but it sounded a little expensive.
For me, actually, it's really easy to "boycott" movie studios, and "boycott" DRM'd DVDs, because I generally think most movies stink. So I can pretend to be all morally superior about it, but really it's just me hating flicks.
I do love Netflix, tho. For fifty cents a day they'll send me two DVDs at a time, which I promptly rip and return, and watch at my leisure. I probably get about twenty discs per month, which makes the price low enough. I'd keep the MPEG files if I wanted them, but I don't, so I don't. I can get most of the shows that I wish I could watch on TV, but can't because of the TV commercials. I can also get older shows that aren't on TV anymore, or that are on channels I don't get. Finally, I love their on-demand service, which quite to my surprise works very well and has great quality (I have pretty decent internet bandwidth). So yeah, this was basically a slashvertisement for Netflix. The future of television hasn't quiiiiiite arrived, but it's close, and it will look a heck of a lot like Netflix.
Oh, yes yes, certainly, a citizen of the USA has the right to jury trials (or not; a defendant has the right to choose or eschew a jury trial).
The part that is not part of American jurisprudence is the "of your peers" part. That was important in revolutionary France because the aristocrats would sit around on juries and send common folk to the gallows. So when the revolution came, the revolutionaries wanted the right to juries of the defendant's peers. It is a fine idea, but not one which specifically made it to the American legal tradition.
Just to be clear, this is an American court trial, and America doesn't have "jury of peers" as part of its legal tradition.
That phrase comes from (if I recall correctly) the reforms of the French revolution. So, from that, I assume you are French -- but yeah, over here there is no such thing as "jury of your peers".
Slashdot Mirror
Either we live in a free society or we don't, which is it?
No, no, don't be silly. Freedom isn't binary, it's a sliding scale. Societies can be more or less free. There is no such thing as perfect freedom or perfect slavery.
Good rant. I don't agree with the sentiment, but also don't want to argue. I'll leave you with just one thought, which is that in a democracy, Joe Sixpack doesn't make decisions, he participates in decisions in a tiny way. Part of the theory of democracy is that decisions of governance will be, on average, better when coming from a multitude of voices. There are obvious drawbacks both in theory and in reality, but democracy doesn't have to be perfect, it only has to be better than the alternative.
Right. That will work in most cases. In this case, the event happened at the person's school, so there might be a follow up question: "So, in 1995 you and another person with your name were both attending college at ABC University? And the other guy was the criminal?" But that's unlikely.
Dude, how are you going to post that without telling us the forum where we can get Viagra!? This post useless without links!
Also, the way I see it the solution to your problem is obvious: begin a career selling Viagra online.
Sure, but we'd also be avoiding just about every other of our Presidents too: GWB, Obama, Clinton, Bush 1, JFK, Lincoln...
There were lots and lots of great reasons not to elect GWB (which must be why we *didn't* elect him) but the specific shenanigans of his youth weren't enough all by themselves.
I've been kicked out of 3 University's
Three university's what?
Great! I am, in fact, totally perfect. So who are we stoning?
Hmmm. Interesting. So your theory (democracy is antithetical to liberty) should mean that democracies have fewer liberties than non-democracies. Do you think that is the case? I'm not a scholar of historical governance so I can't really say.
Great point. I guess I wouldn't call that immoral. I'm really glad we see eye-to-eye.
I have one Mac laptop and one Linux laptop. Will the rootkit be a problem for me?
I don't know much about this project, but:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipeople
Yes! And Hitler was also elected in a democracy -- SO WE MUST DO AWAY WITH ALL DEMOCRACY!
Okay, first let's dispense with the concept of "prophecy". You say "I'm not saying this is Revelation 13:18 per se. It could be, it could NOT be. Who can know?" It's not, and we can all know, because there is no such thing as prophecy, because there is no such thing as magic.
Okay, now what there is, is prediction, especially insightful and informed prediction. It's hardly difficult to predict some things that will happen in the future, and the fact that thousands of years ago somebody said something about having marks on the forehead to engage in commerce was a reasonable prediction. Of course, it never came to pass, and still won't, because we're not considering putting marks on foreheads, we're considering photographing people and keeping records. Many good people would resist both marks on the forehead as well as biometric ID cards.
For informed context, look back over history and decide if these times look more like the end times than other times such as the black plague or WW2. There were crazyass people saying those were the end times, too; but they were not, in fact, the end times, because, in fact, there is no such thing. But, you can still oppose biometric ID cards if you want, nothing wrong with that.
I don't know if you are Israeli, but keep in mind that Israel is dealing with vastly different constraints and parameters than the USA is. They are tiny, non-federal, surrounded by hostility, under constant thread of annihilation, less heterogeneous, less rural. Just because privacy lines are drawn at a certain legal point in Israel doesn't mean the same legal point would be appropriate in the USA.
Yeah, I mostly agree with that. In a country like the US, though, it's difficult to come up with laws which are appropriate for the general population as well as the people who want to live off the grid, and those are important people to keep around. Israel is dealing with different constraints.
Yes. I had the same experience. When I put three extra family members on my AT&T share plan, I called them and made sure to turn off all kinds of stuff -- photo texting, data, pay numbers, pretty much anything that could cost money. So far so good, but I've heard that companies can charge money to your cell phone knowing nothing more than your number, and I don't fricking understand how that can be legal.
Dear Verizon,
It has come to our attention that you recently raised the cancellation fee on your phone contracts from $175 to $350 for customers who buy subsidized smart phones. We demand that you explain why you did not also raise the fee for the rest of your customers. In fact, while you're at it, you may as well up them all to $500.
Sincerely,
The Bush Administration
Yes, of course. That rule applies generally. I was having a tax dispute with the IRS. Luckily for me, I knew I was right, and the IRS would eventually reach the same conclusion, but they were so overloaded with work generally that they kept delaying my case. (This was just a minor paperwork issue, not a court case.) In the meantime, I frankly really needed the money, which was a small amount, but I was broke. So after months of delays, I wrote my congresswoman -- immediately, I got cc'd on a letter her office wrote to the IRS, and immediately thereafter the IRS sent me my money.
So the result was the same, but by calling in the big guns, I was moved from the middle of the work pile to the top of the work pile.
I never thought about having a lawyer send my consumer complaints for me, but I think that's really smart. I have lots of lawyer friends, I should ask one of them.
I've seen Star Wars twice. My favorite movie is The Big Lebowski, and I've seen that maybe five or six times.
By contrast, I've listened to Tool's Lateralus several hundred times. I've listened to The White Stripes's Get Behind Me Satan at least a hundred times. These days I listed to Old Crow Medicine Show's Tennessee Pusher once a day, or once every couple days.
Yeah, maybe some people watch some movies somewhat more than once, but I'm sure you agree that the numbers would be much, much lower than favorite albums.
Also, I do my best to watch bad movies exactly zero times. It's the good movies that I'll deign to watch once.
Do you really think the demand for music hasn't increased? I don't have any stats to back this up, but I would guess that people listen to ten times as much music as they used to -- and that's great! Access to music improves humanity, and if you accept that, it's really difficult to make "moral" arguments which result in people having access to less music. How can that be the right thing to do if it degrades the human experience?
Yeah, I agree, and I feel the same way about movies in theatres. This week my girlfriend (knowing my niggardly ways with movies) asked if I wanted to see The Informant for $2.75 at the cheap-o theatre. My response was, eh, maybe, but it sounded a little expensive.
For me, actually, it's really easy to "boycott" movie studios, and "boycott" DRM'd DVDs, because I generally think most movies stink. So I can pretend to be all morally superior about it, but really it's just me hating flicks.
I do love Netflix, tho. For fifty cents a day they'll send me two DVDs at a time, which I promptly rip and return, and watch at my leisure. I probably get about twenty discs per month, which makes the price low enough. I'd keep the MPEG files if I wanted them, but I don't, so I don't. I can get most of the shows that I wish I could watch on TV, but can't because of the TV commercials. I can also get older shows that aren't on TV anymore, or that are on channels I don't get. Finally, I love their on-demand service, which quite to my surprise works very well and has great quality (I have pretty decent internet bandwidth). So yeah, this was basically a slashvertisement for Netflix. The future of television hasn't quiiiiiite arrived, but it's close, and it will look a heck of a lot like Netflix.
Oh, yes yes, certainly, a citizen of the USA has the right to jury trials (or not; a defendant has the right to choose or eschew a jury trial).
The part that is not part of American jurisprudence is the "of your peers" part. That was important in revolutionary France because the aristocrats would sit around on juries and send common folk to the gallows. So when the revolution came, the revolutionaries wanted the right to juries of the defendant's peers. It is a fine idea, but not one which specifically made it to the American legal tradition.
Something like this, I suppose.
Grammarmofo #3: Less=continuous, fewer=discrete. If you have *fewer* grains of sand you have *less* overall sand.
Really, though, if you are going to have a grammarian signature, you certainly don't want to actually get the grammar wrong, do you?
Just to be clear, this is an American court trial, and America doesn't have "jury of peers" as part of its legal tradition.
That phrase comes from (if I recall correctly) the reforms of the French revolution. So, from that, I assume you are French -- but yeah, over here there is no such thing as "jury of your peers".
Cheers to you over there in France.
lawyers fee's
You got the right number of apostrophes, but in the wrong place.