Heh... you'd get along with someone I had a discussion with three or four few weeks ago about the harm caused by copyright infringement.
Same flawwed thinking.
In this case, they hurt themselves by making their own content available to the public.
You can't really claim someone stole your stuff, if you put it at the end of your driveway near a busy street, and hung up a large illuminated sign over it pointing at the items "There's some free stuff here"
one can't fully appreciate something that it is a waste of time to try.
It's not that they can't "fully appreciate" a piece of visual art. Blind people cannot appreciate at all by viewing the work.
And text at best talks to them about what they are missing, or tells them the popular significance of what they can't see.
That does not mean the description is worthless.
However, the description does not provide any access to the work. The exception might be when a webmaster feels they need to take plain text and render it as GIF or Jpeg, for some aesthetic reason, in that case a description can provide access.
Look at a Seurat from far away or in a picture and it will not have the same effect as seeing it in person.
That's also irrelevant.
You are going through the fallacy of trying to rationalize loss of depth as somehow comparable to the loss of the visual work altogether which occurs when making a description.
You even admit that seeing the painting at a distance is equivalent to seeing a picture of it.
Art work is not normally experienced by standing a foot away from it with a magnifying glass.
For all intents and purposes, 99% of visual paintings are not 3 dimensional.
And your unfounded opinion doesn't trump everyone else's unfounded opinions.
I am not stating some unfounded opinion,
but simple easily observable facts.
Then if the economy were to grow, but since the moon rocks would be the same, you'd have plenty of deflation.
The nice thing about moon rocks is you can chop them up into smaller pieces as needed. For example, some size piece of moon rock could be worth a candy bar, another size piece could be enough to buy a house, etc. The government could easily chop them into suitable portions and embed the rock in transparent tamper-proof sealed coins with RFID-based 'certificate of authenticity'
Deflation is natural and to be expected any place there is not an ability to print more money.
Deflation is good for the people, good for the economy, and the risk that justifies banks being able to charge borrowers interest in the first place.
Deflation provides a stable supply of money, and promotes gradual growth of economy, instead of unsustainable growth. It is only bad for banks who have to mitigate some risks.
If economic growth is desired, eventually there simply won't be enough money; which is good, because it maintains value for all involved.
If (or when) the limited amount of currency is overutilized, the answer is to create a new independent type of currency, which is also permanently limited in supply.
Promote trade using the additional type of currency, and lather, rinse, repeat, when that new currency becomes too overutilized to support a stable rate of growth.
So... start with an unbiased list. And then move a preselected item to the front.
Nope. They don't manipulate the order of things in the list. They display something above the list, which is clearly identifiable as separate from the list.
The problem with leaves is they are so plentiful.
I would suggest a currency that is a little bit rarer.... such as moon rocks.
Moon rocks would make a great currency as there is a well-known fairly limited supply available.
And barring another mission to the moon (which has a very small chance of happening),
no more will ever be added.. ending inflation once and for all
And the evidence shows that they are. However, for some searches, they show an informative entry at the top, which includes information, like stock quotes, and links to various sources of more info. The only 'issue' is that their services are more prominent than other's services in that informative entry.
It seems they are really just offering you a quick way to perform other related searches using Google based on the syntax of the search you entered.
The question should then be... when you go to Google finance or Google Health.... are the results you see on those services [results about the actual subject matter] unbiased?
That would be like me calling up my local lawnmower store looking for a lawnmower...
It's even worse than that... it's like asking someone at the store to show you the datasheet for a specific lawnmower
(compare to: information about a specific stock symbol).
And people claim the clerk is biased for offering to show you their store's copy of the datasheet, before telling you
that you can go to a competitor's store across the street to get a copy of essentially the same datasheet.
As clicking on Google Finance (or Yahoo Finance) is really just a new search
The unbiased thing to do is to ask the visitor to do the most convenient thing, which is to take account the fact that
they are at the certain store, and them asking the local clerk probably means they want to see the local store's
copy of that datasheet first.
It can't take the benefits of biasing its results and the beneifts of claiming its results are unbiased.
They can say they use unbiased algorithms to generate search results.
However, there are special specific searches that will produce a page where Google-related sites and services will appear
at the top of the page, in front of the search results generated by the unbiased algorithms.
Open TCP connections would die when the prefixes were blackholed anyway, and new ones wouldn't establish
Perhaps you are assuming they wouldn't have done one of two things.... (1) maintain the TCP connection by forging acknowledgements.
Or (2) drop captured packets off somewhere else on the internet, via tunnels placed strategically to ensure the packet reached its ultimate destination.
If they did this, the TCP connections would just experience higher latency, the programs at the endpoints would have no way of knowing the connection was being tapped.
The problem is with the traditional media like newspapers... you pay money
but a long time ago, they realized that it's less expensive to produce lower quality info,
so you pay and still get low quality info; they earn their costs from the advertising, and the reduction in costs due to
lower quality info (few quality controls) is pure profit.
"High quality info" is such a niche market nowadays, that you would have to pay a lot
just for the privilege of something that apparently very few people demand and can recognize when they don't get it.
No... well.. it's a free-market solution. Instead of dictating a particular supposed solution require that they actually solve the problem, and require them to prove they solved it with both outsider and insider pen testing. An attempt by skilled hackers to compromise is less expensive than implementing huge "best" practices lists and hoping one of those practices sticks and prevents the bad guys.
Pen tests can more easily take into account new threats, since the 'things tested' aren't/shouldn't be fixed ahead of time.
Pen testers can be incentivized to innovate, by paying a bounty to a pen tester who successfully compromises a target and can document every step, with full logs and traces, including any failed attempts, to prove they compromised it and did so in the exact way they say they did.
The airline equivalent would be the government periodically hiring very good actors
that meet the profile of the threat for that particular flight, to "pose as a bad guy trying to sneak items on planes that are supposed to be disallowed.
If one of the agents succeeds, then the airline is to be penalized for their lax security.
Instead we have this dysfunctional TSA that reportedly doesn't even succeed at what it's supposed to do, and makes airline travel a living hell for legitimate travelers.
Right. And now the eye grabber is they lied about the 15% number (intentionally or not),
and not much traffic was successfully captured at all.
While us geeks might be concerned about a few hijacked messages, the public at large will see it as a small isolated event,
that was successfully contained by officials.
The average naive person probably thinks all the network security people are government,
and the Chinese have little chance at beating them.
Considering how much a lot of those companies rely on their network infrastructure, if there isn't a provision for this then perhaps the alternative is to be prepared to take over the whole organization if/when they are crippled by an attack. I am not one for heavy handed government but someone needs to light the fire under these guys.
The alternative is to require that they develop their own standards, and be subject to periodic penetration tests sponsored by the government.
If a government pen test against them succeeds, then they will be seriously penalized, or compelled to hire a 'government approved firm',
implement that firm's requirements, and pass another government pen test, or face serious penalties and losing their right to run the critical service.
If they refuse to comply, also, the results of the government test will be immediately published so the public will know that the service is vulnerable.
Why don't you vote with your wallet and switch to one of those services then if you think their tariff structure is more reasonable?
Because you cannot send and receive SMS messages over a Vonage or Skype line.
Because you cannot make 911 emergency calls from a Vonage or Skype phone.
You can't "untether" your phone from the microsite if you have Skype or Vonage, the only option for placing a call is through an internet connection.
Also, your phone cannot be an iPhone, since the iPhone can only make calls through ATT.
You seem to be arguing that there is one official 'correct' language, and that is whatever the majority currently says it is.
The majority are illiterate, don't have a dictionary, and don't understand the difference between that begs the question, and
that begs one to ask the question..
Note that saying something raises a question, is not semantically the same as saying something asks for a question.
A statement "asking for the question" means begging the question; also known as re-stating the question you are trying to show as a true statement,
e.g. "You're just asking the question" to show that its true.
Something causes a person to ask a question is a different circumstance from the thing itself asking the question.
In both cases a question is being asked... the question to consider is... "Is a person caused to ask the question?"
or "Does the statement itself ask the very question that it is supposed to answer?"
You might not be using their tower but you are still using their infrastructure to complete your call.
Their tower is the expensive part.
If they are not providing the "wireless" part of the service, I would expect the usage cost and rates to be the same as a VoIP connection, such as that provided by Skype or Vonage.
Note the 'infrastructure' required is less expensive than that required to provide land line service.
No usage of limited resources on expensive high-maintenance wireless radios required on their end, since you aren't connecting to their radios or tying up a slot on their tower.
They can't even truly claim the microsite is a 'reliable' service like Cell phone technology is, especially when they are having frequent service outages that effect all microsites, and since it can be no more reliable than your DSL.
It's fine as long as you buy the carriers' respective rip-off box products,
microcells that utilize your internet connection, and relieve their towers of actually having to provide you the wireless service you paid for.
All while still billing you the same rate for "wireless" air time and cell phone data, even though your own wired internet connection has to be used to feed the backhaul for these microsite devices.
So you pay up front for the privilege of running a microsite, to make up for the carriers' crappy networks, and you don't get any discount against cell phone costs for using your own cell tower
Now... if you are the carrier in this very lucrative situation, why the hell would you want to improve your network, or let people run boosters?
It will cut into your bottom line... that is, unless the competition is perceived as improving and having a much better network.
The "competition" factor is easily excluded by making exclusive deals with cell phone manufacturers and offering features people will drool over.
People will tolerate your network if it seems to work at all, just to get those fancy devices that you have locked into your network exclusively, through deals with third parties.
Just more evidence that consumers have become sheep.
it wasnt brought upon us by the power of corporations which have grown bigger than 150 of the countries on the face of the planet.
"Free market capitalism" does not equate to big corporations. "Non free market capitalism" does not equate to "no big corporations" or "no big money interests".
If by non free market capitalism you mean communism, it just means that you re-factor who or what those "big corporations" are, whether you call them corps or not -- political parties and 'government bodies' can also be just as bad as big corporations.
Also... there is no realy expression of free market capitalism. Not in the US. Not any time in the past 200 years anyways.
In fact, Copyrights and Patents are at the antithesis of free market capitalism. Legally protect an original creator's privilege to be exclusive creator? How 'free' is that, really?
This is not really an effect of free-market capitalism.
This is the opposite -- an effect of monopolization, which is the destruction of free-market capitalism by removing choices from the market through various means.
In a free market, other people would be free to compete against the corporations under much more favorable terms, because there would not be regulations preventing them from doing so.
Instead, we have a government that creates regulations to protect the big guys and make it harder to start businesses, and extremely hard for businesses to survive unless the scale is very large, and they have a lot of money.
Just because some corporations have become rotten, and they have done so under a capitalist system, doesn't mean the capitalism or the free market itself is a cause; that would be a premature generalization.
Just cause A and B occur together, does not suggest in the slightest (let-alone prove) A caused B; it is possible, but not a sound argument. I think there are some more serious underlying causes that are poorly understood.
Government entanglements have often created more problems than they solved.
But when I speak of government entanglements.... i'm not talking about Government regulating corporations.
The biggest problem is not Government regulating corporations so much (although it can and has cause problems -- bad and extensive regulation ),
as the problem is Corporations regulating the government
When big corporations (and lawyers) regulate the government, the rules just keep getting more and more complex to protect and provide things for all the fringe interests.
When only the people have a say in it, the rules can be much simpler.
What? You might think... How is that possible... Isn't government more powerful than corporations?
The answer is only maybe, not a definitive yes. The government as a whole is more powerful than any one player.
Governments have the police power and command of the military and resources/people listen to what the government (and esp. courts) order them to do, but the corporate players as a gang influence what the government does, and the government can't do much about that...
That is, at a certain point the corporations usurp the place the people,
and the government begins to think it's a corporation of and by for the corporations.
Corporations are just hypothetical "people" too, but they are a machine that create and contain people. Corporations are artificial people with certain human characteristics stripped off and replaced with certain animal-like characteristics, unchecked animal-like characteristics that include carnivorous tendencies.
Because government regulating corps. gives corps. an interest in quietly gaining power over the government, by all means possible;
whether through bribes, incentives, or personal relationships.
They just need a little influence to do damage -- damage in the form of expanding their influence further.
Once corporations repeat long enough (and they can repeat infinitely
They are composed of a metal that reacts strongly to acids. The largest piece so far reacted with tap water and dish-washing detergent.
Are you saying this crater is somewhere it never rains, in the middle of a forest of hardwoods, where potentially a large object fell from the sky?
It's hard to believe a piece of reactive metal would be in such a place for years at a time, and not have completely reacted with rainwater before you found it.
It must be a very very large chunk of metal
I would suggest caution. Some of those Alkali metals can be poisonous to humans.
Did you test this stuff for reactivity and take all appropriate precautions?
Last thing I would want to do is explore a crater, and get cancer 20 years later as a result
Treaties modify the US Constitution. People have to realize that.
No. False. What the constitution says is:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
In other words, these things are the supreme law of land, In this order
The US Constitution
The laws of the United States
all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States
Adopting a treaty doesn't impose any domestic rules, except under the rare circumstances of a self-executing treaty, which does not have power equal to the constitution. The treaty making power does not trump the legislative power of the congress.
And treaties are only valid if signed by the president and ratified by 2/3 majority of the senate.
acta proceedings were prepared during bush years, with republican senate and house. it was well underway in 2006 when democrats got the houses. and it was already being negotiated in 2008. not that it would matter much, since democrats are too in the pockets of the private interests. but, the head of the snake, were republicans.
I think it might be more accurate to say the head of the snake were politicians.
Because you know... ACTA and more powerful, more draconian, more extensive copyright and business method/software patent protections are one of the few things there is bipartisan support for.
The fangs of the snake will be whatever president signs ACTA, if it gets signed.
Because the clincher is approving the rule -- no matter who drafted it
And no... neither republicans nor democrats "really" decided what should go in it.
This was done by corporations that have become scarily powerful, so scarily powerful they can apparently buy enough supporters now
to get whatever laws they want.
The opposition who aren't getting their numbers artificially increased by corporations paying people, don't really stand a chance,
unless there is a full-blown revolt by the masses.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh... you'd get along with someone I had a discussion with three or four few weeks ago about the harm caused by copyright infringement. Same flawwed thinking.
In this case, they hurt themselves by making their own content available to the public.
You can't really claim someone stole your stuff, if you put it at the end of your driveway near a busy street, and hung up a large illuminated sign over it pointing at the items "There's some free stuff here"
one can't fully appreciate something that it is a waste of time to try.
It's not that they can't "fully appreciate" a piece of visual art. Blind people cannot appreciate at all by viewing the work. And text at best talks to them about what they are missing, or tells them the popular significance of what they can't see.
That does not mean the description is worthless. However, the description does not provide any access to the work. The exception might be when a webmaster feels they need to take plain text and render it as GIF or Jpeg, for some aesthetic reason, in that case a description can provide access.
Look at a Seurat from far away or in a picture and it will not have the same effect as seeing it in person.
That's also irrelevant. You are going through the fallacy of trying to rationalize loss of depth as somehow comparable to the loss of the visual work altogether which occurs when making a description.
You even admit that seeing the painting at a distance is equivalent to seeing a picture of it.
Art work is not normally experienced by standing a foot away from it with a magnifying glass. For all intents and purposes, 99% of visual paintings are not 3 dimensional.
And your unfounded opinion doesn't trump everyone else's unfounded opinions.
I am not stating some unfounded opinion, but simple easily observable facts.
Then if the economy were to grow, but since the moon rocks would be the same, you'd have plenty of deflation.
The nice thing about moon rocks is you can chop them up into smaller pieces as needed. For example, some size piece of moon rock could be worth a candy bar, another size piece could be enough to buy a house, etc. The government could easily chop them into suitable portions and embed the rock in transparent tamper-proof sealed coins with RFID-based 'certificate of authenticity'
Deflation is natural and to be expected any place there is not an ability to print more money. Deflation is good for the people, good for the economy, and the risk that justifies banks being able to charge borrowers interest in the first place.
Deflation provides a stable supply of money, and promotes gradual growth of economy, instead of unsustainable growth. It is only bad for banks who have to mitigate some risks.
If economic growth is desired, eventually there simply won't be enough money; which is good, because it maintains value for all involved.
If (or when) the limited amount of currency is overutilized, the answer is to create a new independent type of currency, which is also permanently limited in supply.
Promote trade using the additional type of currency, and lather, rinse, repeat, when that new currency becomes too overutilized to support a stable rate of growth.
So... start with an unbiased list. And then move a preselected item to the front.
Nope. They don't manipulate the order of things in the list. They display something above the list, which is clearly identifiable as separate from the list.
The problem with leaves is they are so plentiful. I would suggest a currency that is a little bit rarer.... such as moon rocks.
Moon rocks would make a great currency as there is a well-known fairly limited supply available. And barring another mission to the moon (which has a very small chance of happening), no more will ever be added.. ending inflation once and for all
And the evidence shows that they are. However, for some searches, they show an informative entry at the top, which includes information, like stock quotes, and links to various sources of more info. The only 'issue' is that their services are more prominent than other's services in that informative entry.
It seems they are really just offering you a quick way to perform other related searches using Google based on the syntax of the search you entered.
The question should then be... when you go to Google finance or Google Health.... are the results you see on those services [results about the actual subject matter] unbiased?
That would be like me calling up my local lawnmower store looking for a lawnmower. ..
It's even worse than that... it's like asking someone at the store to show you the datasheet for a specific lawnmower (compare to: information about a specific stock symbol).
And people claim the clerk is biased for offering to show you their store's copy of the datasheet, before telling you that you can go to a competitor's store across the street to get a copy of essentially the same datasheet.
As clicking on Google Finance (or Yahoo Finance) is really just a new search
The unbiased thing to do is to ask the visitor to do the most convenient thing, which is to take account the fact that they are at the certain store, and them asking the local clerk probably means they want to see the local store's copy of that datasheet first.
It can't take the benefits of biasing its results and the beneifts of claiming its results are unbiased.
They can say they use unbiased algorithms to generate search results.
However, there are special specific searches that will produce a page where Google-related sites and services will appear at the top of the page, in front of the search results generated by the unbiased algorithms.
Or just SSL with AES256 or better :P
Open TCP connections would die when the prefixes were blackholed anyway, and new ones wouldn't establish
Perhaps you are assuming they wouldn't have done one of two things.... (1) maintain the TCP connection by forging acknowledgements. Or (2) drop captured packets off somewhere else on the internet, via tunnels placed strategically to ensure the packet reached its ultimate destination. If they did this, the TCP connections would just experience higher latency, the programs at the endpoints would have no way of knowing the connection was being tapped.
The problem is with the traditional media like newspapers... you pay money but a long time ago, they realized that it's less expensive to produce lower quality info, so you pay and still get low quality info; they earn their costs from the advertising, and the reduction in costs due to lower quality info (few quality controls) is pure profit.
"High quality info" is such a niche market nowadays, that you would have to pay a lot just for the privilege of something that apparently very few people demand and can recognize when they don't get it.
Just like commercial airline passengers.
No... well.. it's a free-market solution. Instead of dictating a particular supposed solution require that they actually solve the problem, and require them to prove they solved it with both outsider and insider pen testing. An attempt by skilled hackers to compromise is less expensive than implementing huge "best" practices lists and hoping one of those practices sticks and prevents the bad guys.
Pen tests can more easily take into account new threats, since the 'things tested' aren't/shouldn't be fixed ahead of time. Pen testers can be incentivized to innovate, by paying a bounty to a pen tester who successfully compromises a target and can document every step, with full logs and traces, including any failed attempts, to prove they compromised it and did so in the exact way they say they did.
The airline equivalent would be the government periodically hiring very good actors that meet the profile of the threat for that particular flight, to "pose as a bad guy trying to sneak items on planes that are supposed to be disallowed.
If one of the agents succeeds, then the airline is to be penalized for their lax security.
Instead we have this dysfunctional TSA that reportedly doesn't even succeed at what it's supposed to do, and makes airline travel a living hell for legitimate travelers.
THe 15% number was just an eye grabber.
Right. And now the eye grabber is they lied about the 15% number (intentionally or not), and not much traffic was successfully captured at all.
While us geeks might be concerned about a few hijacked messages, the public at large will see it as a small isolated event, that was successfully contained by officials.
The average naive person probably thinks all the network security people are government, and the Chinese have little chance at beating them.
Considering how much a lot of those companies rely on their network infrastructure, if there isn't a provision for this then perhaps the alternative is to be prepared to take over the whole organization if/when they are crippled by an attack. I am not one for heavy handed government but someone needs to light the fire under these guys.
The alternative is to require that they develop their own standards, and be subject to periodic penetration tests sponsored by the government.
If a government pen test against them succeeds, then they will be seriously penalized, or compelled to hire a 'government approved firm', implement that firm's requirements, and pass another government pen test, or face serious penalties and losing their right to run the critical service.
If they refuse to comply, also, the results of the government test will be immediately published so the public will know that the service is vulnerable.
Why don't you vote with your wallet and switch to one of those services then if you think their tariff structure is more reasonable?
Because you cannot send and receive SMS messages over a Vonage or Skype line. Because you cannot make 911 emergency calls from a Vonage or Skype phone.
You can't "untether" your phone from the microsite if you have Skype or Vonage, the only option for placing a call is through an internet connection.
Also, your phone cannot be an iPhone, since the iPhone can only make calls through ATT.
You seem to be arguing that there is one official 'correct' language, and that is whatever the majority currently says it is.
The majority are illiterate, don't have a dictionary, and don't understand the difference between that begs the question, and that begs one to ask the question..
Note that saying something raises a question, is not semantically the same as saying something asks for a question. A statement "asking for the question" means begging the question; also known as re-stating the question you are trying to show as a true statement, e.g. "You're just asking the question" to show that its true.
Something causes a person to ask a question is a different circumstance from the thing itself asking the question.
In both cases a question is being asked... the question to consider is... "Is a person caused to ask the question?" or "Does the statement itself ask the very question that it is supposed to answer?"
You might not be using their tower but you are still using their infrastructure to complete your call.
Their tower is the expensive part. If they are not providing the "wireless" part of the service, I would expect the usage cost and rates to be the same as a VoIP connection, such as that provided by Skype or Vonage.
Note the 'infrastructure' required is less expensive than that required to provide land line service.
No usage of limited resources on expensive high-maintenance wireless radios required on their end, since you aren't connecting to their radios or tying up a slot on their tower.
They can't even truly claim the microsite is a 'reliable' service like Cell phone technology is, especially when they are having frequent service outages that effect all microsites, and since it can be no more reliable than your DSL.
It's fine as long as you buy the carriers' respective rip-off box products, microcells that utilize your internet connection, and relieve their towers of actually having to provide you the wireless service you paid for.
All while still billing you the same rate for "wireless" air time and cell phone data, even though your own wired internet connection has to be used to feed the backhaul for these microsite devices.
So you pay up front for the privilege of running a microsite, to make up for the carriers' crappy networks, and you don't get any discount against cell phone costs for using your own cell tower
Now... if you are the carrier in this very lucrative situation, why the hell would you want to improve your network, or let people run boosters?
It will cut into your bottom line... that is, unless the competition is perceived as improving and having a much better network.
The "competition" factor is easily excluded by making exclusive deals with cell phone manufacturers and offering features people will drool over. People will tolerate your network if it seems to work at all, just to get those fancy devices that you have locked into your network exclusively, through deals with third parties.
Just more evidence that consumers have become sheep.
So a ratified treaty ends up having the same effect as an amendment to the constitution. No judge will rule against it.
No judge has ruled against it doesn't quite necessarily mean no judge ever will.
There has to be a first time for everything.. for a long time, nobody ever walked on the moon, either.
It's possible there's never actually been a treaty in conflict with the constitution too.
There is one escape....
The one who has the gold makes the rules, and the one who makes the rules gets the gold unless the rules are ignored.
it wasnt brought upon us by the power of corporations which have grown bigger than 150 of the countries on the face of the planet.
"Free market capitalism" does not equate to big corporations. "Non free market capitalism" does not equate to "no big corporations" or "no big money interests".
If by non free market capitalism you mean communism, it just means that you re-factor who or what those "big corporations" are, whether you call them corps or not -- political parties and 'government bodies' can also be just as bad as big corporations.
Also... there is no realy expression of free market capitalism. Not in the US. Not any time in the past 200 years anyways.
In fact, Copyrights and Patents are at the antithesis of free market capitalism. Legally protect an original creator's privilege to be exclusive creator? How 'free' is that, really?
This is not really an effect of free-market capitalism. This is the opposite -- an effect of monopolization, which is the destruction of free-market capitalism by removing choices from the market through various means. In a free market, other people would be free to compete against the corporations under much more favorable terms, because there would not be regulations preventing them from doing so.
Instead, we have a government that creates regulations to protect the big guys and make it harder to start businesses, and extremely hard for businesses to survive unless the scale is very large, and they have a lot of money.
Just because some corporations have become rotten, and they have done so under a capitalist system, doesn't mean the capitalism or the free market itself is a cause; that would be a premature generalization. Just cause A and B occur together, does not suggest in the slightest (let-alone prove) A caused B; it is possible, but not a sound argument. I think there are some more serious underlying causes that are poorly understood.
Government entanglements have often created more problems than they solved. But when I speak of government entanglements.... i'm not talking about Government regulating corporations.
The biggest problem is not Government regulating corporations so much (although it can and has cause problems -- bad and extensive regulation ), as the problem is Corporations regulating the government
When big corporations (and lawyers) regulate the government, the rules just keep getting more and more complex to protect and provide things for all the fringe interests.
When only the people have a say in it, the rules can be much simpler.
What? You might think... How is that possible... Isn't government more powerful than corporations? The answer is only maybe, not a definitive yes. The government as a whole is more powerful than any one player. Governments have the police power and command of the military and resources/people listen to what the government (and esp. courts) order them to do, but the corporate players as a gang influence what the government does, and the government can't do much about that...
That is, at a certain point the corporations usurp the place the people, and the government begins to think it's a corporation of and by for the corporations. Corporations are just hypothetical "people" too, but they are a machine that create and contain people. Corporations are artificial people with certain human characteristics stripped off and replaced with certain animal-like characteristics, unchecked animal-like characteristics that include carnivorous tendencies.
Because government regulating corps. gives corps. an interest in quietly gaining power over the government, by all means possible; whether through bribes, incentives, or personal relationships. They just need a little influence to do damage -- damage in the form of expanding their influence further. Once corporations repeat long enough (and they can repeat infinitely
Did you test this stuff for radioactivity and take all appropriate precautions?
They are composed of a metal that reacts strongly to acids. The largest piece so far reacted with tap water and dish-washing detergent.
Are you saying this crater is somewhere it never rains, in the middle of a forest of hardwoods, where potentially a large object fell from the sky?
It's hard to believe a piece of reactive metal would be in such a place for years at a time, and not have completely reacted with rainwater before you found it. It must be a very very large chunk of metal
I would suggest caution. Some of those Alkali metals can be poisonous to humans.
Did you test this stuff for reactivity and take all appropriate precautions? Last thing I would want to do is explore a crater, and get cancer 20 years later as a result
Treaties modify the US Constitution. People have to realize that.
No. False. What the constitution says is:
In other words, these things are the supreme law of land, In this order
Adopting a treaty doesn't impose any domestic rules, except under the rare circumstances of a self-executing treaty, which does not have power equal to the constitution. The treaty making power does not trump the legislative power of the congress.
And treaties are only valid if signed by the president and ratified by 2/3 majority of the senate.
acta proceedings were prepared during bush years, with republican senate and house. it was well underway in 2006 when democrats got the houses. and it was already being negotiated in 2008. not that it would matter much, since democrats are too in the pockets of the private interests. but, the head of the snake, were republicans.
I think it might be more accurate to say the head of the snake were politicians.
Because you know... ACTA and more powerful, more draconian, more extensive copyright and business method/software patent protections are one of the few things there is bipartisan support for.
The fangs of the snake will be whatever president signs ACTA, if it gets signed. Because the clincher is approving the rule -- no matter who drafted it
And no... neither republicans nor democrats "really" decided what should go in it. This was done by corporations that have become scarily powerful, so scarily powerful they can apparently buy enough supporters now to get whatever laws they want.
The opposition who aren't getting their numbers artificially increased by corporations paying people, don't really stand a chance, unless there is a full-blown revolt by the masses.