You are quite correct that part of the CRTC's mandate is force-feeding Canadians "Canadian content". There are complicated formulae for what exactly constitutes "Canadian content", depending on such things as who wrote a piece of music, who produced it, where it was recorded, etc etc etc ad nauseum. (As an aside, it was the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, not the CRTC, which recently banned the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" based on a single complaint about the line, "The little faggot got his own jet airplane/The little faggot he's a millionaire").
The CRTC also regulates the internet (hence the recent UBB controversy) and regulates foreign ownership of media.
That's quite typical of the insecurity of Canadians when it comes to national identity. Really, why would you care what the Americans think of Canadians? Americans in general are rather convinced the US is all there is of note in the world - just ask them to find a random country on a globe. That's just the way they're built.
And "say goodbye to any Canadian identity in the media"? A good chunk of "American culture" is made by Canadians, ie Mike Myers, Michael J Fox, Jim Carrey, James Doohan (Scotty), William Shatner, Pamela Anderson, Dan Ackroyd, Raymond Burr, Neve Campbell, Kim Cattrall, Michael Cera, etc. The list goes on and on and on. A very significant portion of all US movies and TV series are shot in Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal.
I can further assure you that, as the number one supplier of oil to the US, Canada is not insignificant in the eyes of all Americans. And one third of all the lumber used in new home construction (about twenty sheets of wood at the moment...) is Canadian.
If you think Canada's net contribution is found on CBC, the foil hat is inside out...
If their content is really that good, it ought to be able to stand on its own - there's an awful lot of horrid content that somehow manages to. I'm glad you like what they're broadcasting; forcing me to work, on threat of imprisonment, to fund that content is an absurdity.
As for hockey, there's TSN, TSN2, RSP (Pacific, West, Central, East, HD, etc. etc. etc.). As it is, Canadian tax dollars compete against these private enterprises for the rights to broadcast hockey - it isn't as tho hockey wouldn't find room on the Canadian TV dial absent a billion dollar subsidy!
As for news, I more or less gave up on television news a long time ago (altho interestingly, there are some good US anchors who are Canadian (ie Peter Jennings, John Roberts (who used to have hair down to his waist and host Power Hour, a heavy metal show on MuchMusic), etc.).
It is high time the CRTC was disbanded entirely - they serve no discernible purpose other than the purposes you, nightfire-unique, describe above.
Once that's done, abolish the CBC (Canada's socialized TV station, which is funded to the tune of $1B+ in tax dollars and largely airs Simpson's re-runs while unable to even keep the content flowing 24 hours a day). It is shocking that anyone should argue in favor of every worker spending a part of his or her day working such that TV shows which cannot survive on their own merit can be produced with the resultant tax revenue. It is bad enough that Canada should subsidize and encourage crimes against nature like Celine Dion, but did the world really need Tommy Hunter?!?
I couldn't agree more with your post, Z00L00K - I have an Android tablet and when I install a game or some other application and it tells me it wants internet access, I'd love to know exactly why it needs that access. If it is only for occasional updates, I'd much rather the option to decline the internet permission and manually check for updates. I don't consider myself an unsophisticated user, but nearly every app I've wanted to install asks permission for something which on the face of it ought to be unnecessary for the app to function in its intended way (well, intended from my perspective, maybe not so much from the app developers' perspective).
The only purpose of these "standards" and "licenses" are to restrain the trade of labor and in the process inflate the earnings of a select group (in this case, "certified engineers"). As wrongsizeglass points out, think of what Mr Ritter is saying: if the work is of "engineering quality" then it isn't permitted. Presumably poor quality work is permitted, as that will not threaten the engineering labor cartel. They might sell it as "we're looking out for your safety", but it's just a restraint of trade.
What Netflix needs to do is become an independent ISP - they'd make a killing offering a bundled package of ISP + Netflix. And under the CRTC's reversal, the big providers could not put caps on their customers' usage. Netflix then has control of the pipes and has removed a threat to their business.
I appreciate it is hard being a teenager. There are a lot of things going on in your body and brain which can lead to a lot of confusion. Urges to inappropriately assert yourself spring up often. An inability to cogently argue a point, or to admit an error, is a common symptom. Letting emotion get the better of you is extremely common. But sit tight: this all will pass, and before you know it, you'll be an adult, in full possession of your faculties, and capable of seeing the folly of your false bravado. You'll have a laugh about it then, as you somewhat sheepishly reflect back on moments like these.
In the meantime, when you make statements like, "There is no protection against self-incrimination in a civil case", I assume you mean, "There is no protection against self-incrimination in a civil case". That is clearly my mistake, and I hereby apologize - it was quite dumb of me to take your statement at face value!
When you speak with grand authority about things which quite clearly you have difficulty understanding, but which you like to project an aura of authority about, I realize it makes you think that you are coming across as semi-intelligent; in reality it makes you come across as small, and desperately seeking credibility.
Now, how about sharing with us which jurisdiction you reside in, because the only excuse I can fathom for your consistent misunderstandings is that you do not reside in the US and the laws in your jurisdiction are quite significantly different.
In what jurisdiction are you claiming the protections against self-incriminations do not apply in a civil trial? Certainly not the US, because the fifth amendment to the US Constitution does indeed apply in civil cases. I direct your attention to the Supreme Court decision in Baxter v. Palmigiano (http://supreme.justia.com/us/425/308/case.html):
...the Fifth Amendment
"not only protects the individual against being involuntarily called as a witness against himself in a criminal prosecution, but also privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings."
In case you haven't gotten to that part yet in tenth grade law, the Supreme Court is the end of the line - once they rule, it's the law of the land and cannot be appealed. The only recourse is legislative.
Well, in reality, somewhere better than 97% (if I recall - been a while since I studied the stats in detail) of all civil cases are settled prior to trial, so no one testifies (which is not to say depositions don't take place). But in any case, Matlock said, "In civil cases, one may not have a choice [but to testify]", and that was what I was questioning. A defendant certainly can choose not to testify. So can a plaintiff (though practically speaking you're right: it doesn't tend to bode well). It's because of your point that I keep making the distinction between plaintiff and defendant - it's not for reasons of pendantry.
Matlock's comments are rather confused - it's rather apparent he's at about a high school level of understanding - but he seems to be saying that one cannot invoke the fifth amendment in a civil case. This is flat out incorrect. A person does indeed have the right against self-incrimination in civil trials. The difference is that a civil jury (or judge) can draw an inference from the invocation of the fifth amendment. In other words, pleading the fifth in a civil trial entitles the jury to believe "he must have something to hide".
I'd argue that if you, as the plaintiff, post a picture of you riding a bike during the time you allege in your lawsuit you were incapacitated by the defendant's actions, you have one hell of an uphill battle arguing the picture is tainted, because it would be trivial to show that the picture provided by the social network is identical to the file/picture you uploaded to the social network (unless you wish to argue that the social network is part of the conspiracy, in which case you need to have some reasonable basis to make such an allegation). And it would be further trivial to show that the file/picture the defendant presents as evidence matches precisely the records the social network maintains of what you uploaded.
The only argument you might have is that you manipulated the picture for some reason, against your own interests. In which case, as others have pointed out, you are saying "I was lying to all my friends and relatives but I'm not lying now", which is less than compelling in most instances.
Actually, Matlock, I think you missed countertrolling's point entirely: he argues (correctly) that the authenticity of any photo or other evidence may be challenged; icebike quite sensibly suggests that would be a losing strategy, because the evidence is easily verifiable by virtue of duplicates sent to, or stored by, other people. I'd argue the evidence is particularly compelling because the plaintiffs (in TFA) are the ones who posted the evidence. It isn't a though the defendant took the picture.
What do you mean, "...one can not (sic) refuse to testify..."? Which jurisdiction are you referring to? In civil court, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant is compelled to testify, and as you can learn from the very article we are commenting on, other parties may have grounds not to honor a subpoena (in the case of the article, a social network served a subpoena in a civil action is under no obligation to honor the subpoena, hence why the plaintiff (in the cases mentioned) needs to sign a consent form, which the defendants managed to get a judge to agree to order the plaintiffs to do). Other reasons a subpoena may not compel a person to testify include undue expense, unreasonable time for compliance, privileged documents, etc. However these need to be presented to the court and judged on their merits.
I have plenty of experience with the legal system (although admittedly I haven't been involved in a civil litigation for about 2 years now). And you?
"In civil cases, one may not have a choice" - why is that?!?
By the way, Matlock, in all cases referenced it is the plaintiff's testimony being impugned...
See, this is where you are making your mistake: TFA deals with civil matters, as has been pointed out before. Likewise the source article at Reuters. Likewise the source of the Reuters article at westlawnews.thompson.com. Nowhere is criminal law mentioned, except to point out that in criminal law, Facebook et al would not have the right to refuse the subpoena in the first place. In civil litigation, there is no "innocent" and "guilty"; nor is there a presumption of "innocence".
Criminal trials depend upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Civil trials depend upon a preponderance of the evidence (ie one side's evidence is given more weight than the other).
"By admitting to lying, one would cast one's own character into doubt." The article isn't about "...admitting to lying...", it is about using social networks to demonstrate the other party (the plaintiffs, in all cases referenced) is lying.
"It is about how one is treated and how the decision is rendered." Sorry, you've set off my Unintelligible Sentence Detector with that line...
"If the prosecutor can not make his case, then the judge can just declare that the case has not been made and dismiss the case." I think you're going to want to upgrade from Matlock to Perry Mason and then (but not before 1 full year of Perry Mason!) Law & Order if you wish to continue to improve your understanding of law...
"Government is not large in relation to business" - really? Well, I guess it's a relative term and in the eye of the beholder. In this beholder's eye, with about 1 in 6 employees in the US employed by one level of government or another, I consider that absurdly large (and the federal government is at its highest number of employees ever, at about 2.15 million employees). When 1 in 6 employees (and growing) are funded by 5 in 6 employees (and shrinking), I'd suggest "big government" is firmly entrenched and has been for no little time...
In both cases it is simply a product or sevice which is purchased by a customer. Some people have made the quite incorrect comparison to financial services, and others have rightly pointed out the flaw: investment advice, or any other professional advice, is held to a higher standard at law. The standard which applies to a salesperson at AOL is equivalent to the screwdriver salesman: they both sell a product, and if you don't take a large grain of salt with the advice you get from a person with a vested interest in over-selling you, well, you get what you deserve.
Let's be clear: the AOL salespeople represent AOL's interests entirely and are not employed by the customer to look out for the customer's interests. This is distinct from the financial services model, wherein the customer is specifically paying for advice and has a right to expect unbiased advice. There is no "license" required to be an AOL sales rep. Caveat emptor.
I can certainly appreciate, from afar, the appeal hyper-regulation has for the simpleton. But presuming adults of a certain age incapable of making informed decisions is beyond condescending. Seniors are the wealthiest segment of the population and seem, for the most part, to do just fine - I don't view them in the same frail, incapable light you do. Of course, it is a different story if they are mentally incompetent, but that applies at any age.
The entire concept of "up-selling" is based upon selling people things they largely don't need or don't want or both. Electronics stores make an enormous chunk of their profit on "extended warranties". Car dealers likewise on "rust protection". In fact, by your reasoning, virtually any "brand" is violating this "mis-selling" principal you've made up, as there is in virtually all cases a considerably cheaper non-branded version. When you get to high school, you too will learn more about such things, and I think you'll find them interesting.
As for "predating" the elderly, I'll cop to an occasional cougar in desperate circumstances, but I don't "predate", "date" or "postdate" the elderly - they just don't turn my crank that way.
You must be kidding. If I sell you a screwdriver, am I under any sort of obligation to determine whether in fact you require a screwdriver, and if so, that the screwdriver you are considering purchasing is the appropriate one for your purposes??? And why "...especially elderly ones..."? Give your head a shake - adults can make their own decisions on how to spend their money, even when those decisions are not to your liking.
Yes - this explanation is spot-on. It's purely an attempt to avoid the decision by the SEC that the NYT article of Dec 2 (if I recall) about the offering constitutes a prospectus or is marketing (ie intentionally leaked by GS).
Also, I'm pretty sure this offering is limited to a few high net worth individuals/hedge funds/etc, because Zuckerberg et al need to keep the number of public shareholders at or below 499 to avoid having to make a whole bunch of public disclosures and comply with other US regulatory nonsense designed to protect people from themselves.
It's still an insurance company which responds in most cases, it's just the liability insurer of Toyota/the manufacturer (except certain very large companies who choose not to lease a balance sheet (ie transfer risk to a 3rd party insurer) such as BP - they self-insure, a consequence of which is that they do not accurately price risk internally).
Often, a company like the imagined robot cleaner manufacturer will use many parts/systems designed by others, and it is standard practice to ensure such suppliers carry adequate insurance, as evidenced by a certificate of insurance. So let's say the robot contained a wireless subsystem made by someone else, and it was that subsystem which was the attack vector used by the hackers. The home owner would sue the robot manufacturer. The robot manufacturer's insurer would defend/settle the suit. The robot manufacturer's insurer would the pursue recovery from the subsystem manufacturer's insurer (this process is known as subrogation).
In my experience, when something goes wrong, inevitably the manufacturer is drawn into it. Common arguments are that the user wasn't notified of the risk (ie no warning label, or warning label not big enough, or the right color, or didn't include every remotely foreseeable circumstance), or that proper safety/countermeasures were not taken. I've seen plenty of cases that I find incredibly bizarre but juries do not.
Incidentally, the liability insurance typically pays defense costs, often in addition to any limit, and the protection from legal fees sometimes is more beneficial than the indemnity protection (ie it can cost a small fortune to extract oneself from even a suit with no merit).
Quite possibly more than anyone on/. wanted to know about insurance...
I've long been a blackberry guy, and partial to hard keyboards. When I got my android tablet, I _hated_ the soft keyboard. Until I installed swype - you simply trace from one letter to the next without lifting your finger. Once I got used to it I found it faster than my bb keyboard (and I'm pretty damn fast on the hard keyboard). It's great technology (no idea if it's available for iProducts).
Here's what I received yesterday from Bell (I have their 25 mb/s "Fibe" fibre optic service) - I love the "extreme usage" bit:
"Effective March 2011, an extreme usage fee of $1.00 per GB for usage exceeding 300GB per month will apply. This change will not likely affect you given your current usage level.
For more information, visit bell.ca/usagepolicy. If you wish to modify or cancel your service as a result of this change, please call 310-SURF (7873).
Sincerely,
Jim Myers
Senior Vice-President
Customer Service"
I'm going to downgrade one tier on general principal (it'll still be more than fast enough for my purposes, but will reduce my payment to Bell).
That's strike two against Bell - strike one was the STBs they gave me, which don't include a FireWire socket (unlike the US, a FireWire socket is not mandated in Canada).
# of people X 24 hours isn't a hard limit unless you believe travel will never get faster, and/or discount efficiency/modes of travel differences. # of people on bus X 24 hours differs by orders of magnitude from # of people on plane X 24 hours in terms of distance traveled (which is the measurement the article speaks of).
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You are quite correct that part of the CRTC's mandate is force-feeding Canadians "Canadian content". There are complicated formulae for what exactly constitutes "Canadian content", depending on such things as who wrote a piece of music, who produced it, where it was recorded, etc etc etc ad nauseum. (As an aside, it was the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, not the CRTC, which recently banned the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" based on a single complaint about the line, "The little faggot got his own jet airplane/The little faggot he's a millionaire").
The CRTC also regulates the internet (hence the recent UBB controversy) and regulates foreign ownership of media.
That's quite typical of the insecurity of Canadians when it comes to national identity. Really, why would you care what the Americans think of Canadians? Americans in general are rather convinced the US is all there is of note in the world - just ask them to find a random country on a globe. That's just the way they're built.
And "say goodbye to any Canadian identity in the media"? A good chunk of "American culture" is made by Canadians, ie Mike Myers, Michael J Fox, Jim Carrey, James Doohan (Scotty), William Shatner, Pamela Anderson, Dan Ackroyd, Raymond Burr, Neve Campbell, Kim Cattrall, Michael Cera, etc. The list goes on and on and on. A very significant portion of all US movies and TV series are shot in Vancouver or Toronto or Montreal.
I can further assure you that, as the number one supplier of oil to the US, Canada is not insignificant in the eyes of all Americans. And one third of all the lumber used in new home construction (about twenty sheets of wood at the moment...) is Canadian.
If you think Canada's net contribution is found on CBC, the foil hat is inside out...
If their content is really that good, it ought to be able to stand on its own - there's an awful lot of horrid content that somehow manages to. I'm glad you like what they're broadcasting; forcing me to work, on threat of imprisonment, to fund that content is an absurdity.
As for hockey, there's TSN, TSN2, RSP (Pacific, West, Central, East, HD, etc. etc. etc.). As it is, Canadian tax dollars compete against these private enterprises for the rights to broadcast hockey - it isn't as tho hockey wouldn't find room on the Canadian TV dial absent a billion dollar subsidy!
As for news, I more or less gave up on television news a long time ago (altho interestingly, there are some good US anchors who are Canadian (ie Peter Jennings, John Roberts (who used to have hair down to his waist and host Power Hour, a heavy metal show on MuchMusic), etc.).
It is high time the CRTC was disbanded entirely - they serve no discernible purpose other than the purposes you, nightfire-unique, describe above.
Once that's done, abolish the CBC (Canada's socialized TV station, which is funded to the tune of $1B+ in tax dollars and largely airs Simpson's re-runs while unable to even keep the content flowing 24 hours a day). It is shocking that anyone should argue in favor of every worker spending a part of his or her day working such that TV shows which cannot survive on their own merit can be produced with the resultant tax revenue. It is bad enough that Canada should subsidize and encourage crimes against nature like Celine Dion, but did the world really need Tommy Hunter?!?
I couldn't agree more with your post, Z00L00K - I have an Android tablet and when I install a game or some other application and it tells me it wants internet access, I'd love to know exactly why it needs that access. If it is only for occasional updates, I'd much rather the option to decline the internet permission and manually check for updates. I don't consider myself an unsophisticated user, but nearly every app I've wanted to install asks permission for something which on the face of it ought to be unnecessary for the app to function in its intended way (well, intended from my perspective, maybe not so much from the app developers' perspective).
The only purpose of these "standards" and "licenses" are to restrain the trade of labor and in the process inflate the earnings of a select group (in this case, "certified engineers"). As wrongsizeglass points out, think of what Mr Ritter is saying: if the work is of "engineering quality" then it isn't permitted. Presumably poor quality work is permitted, as that will not threaten the engineering labor cartel. They might sell it as "we're looking out for your safety", but it's just a restraint of trade.
What Netflix needs to do is become an independent ISP - they'd make a killing offering a bundled package of ISP + Netflix. And under the CRTC's reversal, the big providers could not put caps on their customers' usage. Netflix then has control of the pipes and has removed a threat to their business.
I appreciate it is hard being a teenager. There are a lot of things going on in your body and brain which can lead to a lot of confusion. Urges to inappropriately assert yourself spring up often. An inability to cogently argue a point, or to admit an error, is a common symptom. Letting emotion get the better of you is extremely common. But sit tight: this all will pass, and before you know it, you'll be an adult, in full possession of your faculties, and capable of seeing the folly of your false bravado. You'll have a laugh about it then, as you somewhat sheepishly reflect back on moments like these.
In the meantime, when you make statements like, "There is no protection against self-incrimination in a civil case", I assume you mean, "There is no protection against self-incrimination in a civil case". That is clearly my mistake, and I hereby apologize - it was quite dumb of me to take your statement at face value!
When you speak with grand authority about things which quite clearly you have difficulty understanding, but which you like to project an aura of authority about, I realize it makes you think that you are coming across as semi-intelligent; in reality it makes you come across as small, and desperately seeking credibility.
Now, how about sharing with us which jurisdiction you reside in, because the only excuse I can fathom for your consistent misunderstandings is that you do not reside in the US and the laws in your jurisdiction are quite significantly different.
In what jurisdiction are you claiming the protections against self-incriminations do not apply in a civil trial? Certainly not the US, because the fifth amendment to the US Constitution does indeed apply in civil cases. I direct your attention to the Supreme Court decision in Baxter v. Palmigiano (http://supreme.justia.com/us/425/308/case.html):
...the Fifth Amendment "not only protects the individual against being involuntarily called as a witness against himself in a criminal prosecution, but also privileges him not to answer official questions put to him in any other proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings."
In case you haven't gotten to that part yet in tenth grade law, the Supreme Court is the end of the line - once they rule, it's the law of the land and cannot be appealed. The only recourse is legislative.
Well, in reality, somewhere better than 97% (if I recall - been a while since I studied the stats in detail) of all civil cases are settled prior to trial, so no one testifies (which is not to say depositions don't take place). But in any case, Matlock said, "In civil cases, one may not have a choice [but to testify]", and that was what I was questioning. A defendant certainly can choose not to testify. So can a plaintiff (though practically speaking you're right: it doesn't tend to bode well). It's because of your point that I keep making the distinction between plaintiff and defendant - it's not for reasons of pendantry.
Matlock's comments are rather confused - it's rather apparent he's at about a high school level of understanding - but he seems to be saying that one cannot invoke the fifth amendment in a civil case. This is flat out incorrect. A person does indeed have the right against self-incrimination in civil trials. The difference is that a civil jury (or judge) can draw an inference from the invocation of the fifth amendment. In other words, pleading the fifth in a civil trial entitles the jury to believe "he must have something to hide".
I'd argue that if you, as the plaintiff, post a picture of you riding a bike during the time you allege in your lawsuit you were incapacitated by the defendant's actions, you have one hell of an uphill battle arguing the picture is tainted, because it would be trivial to show that the picture provided by the social network is identical to the file/picture you uploaded to the social network (unless you wish to argue that the social network is part of the conspiracy, in which case you need to have some reasonable basis to make such an allegation). And it would be further trivial to show that the file/picture the defendant presents as evidence matches precisely the records the social network maintains of what you uploaded.
The only argument you might have is that you manipulated the picture for some reason, against your own interests. In which case, as others have pointed out, you are saying "I was lying to all my friends and relatives but I'm not lying now", which is less than compelling in most instances.
Actually, Matlock, I think you missed countertrolling's point entirely: he argues (correctly) that the authenticity of any photo or other evidence may be challenged; icebike quite sensibly suggests that would be a losing strategy, because the evidence is easily verifiable by virtue of duplicates sent to, or stored by, other people. I'd argue the evidence is particularly compelling because the plaintiffs (in TFA) are the ones who posted the evidence. It isn't a though the defendant took the picture.
What do you mean, "...one can not (sic) refuse to testify..."? Which jurisdiction are you referring to? In civil court, neither the plaintiff nor the defendant is compelled to testify, and as you can learn from the very article we are commenting on, other parties may have grounds not to honor a subpoena (in the case of the article, a social network served a subpoena in a civil action is under no obligation to honor the subpoena, hence why the plaintiff (in the cases mentioned) needs to sign a consent form, which the defendants managed to get a judge to agree to order the plaintiffs to do). Other reasons a subpoena may not compel a person to testify include undue expense, unreasonable time for compliance, privileged documents, etc. However these need to be presented to the court and judged on their merits.
I have plenty of experience with the legal system (although admittedly I haven't been involved in a civil litigation for about 2 years now). And you?
"In civil cases, one may not have a choice" - why is that?!? By the way, Matlock, in all cases referenced it is the plaintiff's testimony being impugned...
Rule #0.125 - fuck social networks.
See, this is where you are making your mistake: TFA deals with civil matters, as has been pointed out before. Likewise the source article at Reuters. Likewise the source of the Reuters article at westlawnews.thompson.com. Nowhere is criminal law mentioned, except to point out that in criminal law, Facebook et al would not have the right to refuse the subpoena in the first place. In civil litigation, there is no "innocent" and "guilty"; nor is there a presumption of "innocence".
Criminal trials depend upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Civil trials depend upon a preponderance of the evidence (ie one side's evidence is given more weight than the other).
"By admitting to lying, one would cast one's own character into doubt." The article isn't about "...admitting to lying...", it is about using social networks to demonstrate the other party (the plaintiffs, in all cases referenced) is lying.
"It is about how one is treated and how the decision is rendered." Sorry, you've set off my Unintelligible Sentence Detector with that line...
"If the prosecutor can not make his case, then the judge can just declare that the case has not been made and dismiss the case." I think you're going to want to upgrade from Matlock to Perry Mason and then (but not before 1 full year of Perry Mason!) Law & Order if you wish to continue to improve your understanding of law...
"Government is not large in relation to business" - really? Well, I guess it's a relative term and in the eye of the beholder. In this beholder's eye, with about 1 in 6 employees in the US employed by one level of government or another, I consider that absurdly large (and the federal government is at its highest number of employees ever, at about 2.15 million employees). When 1 in 6 employees (and growing) are funded by 5 in 6 employees (and shrinking), I'd suggest "big government" is firmly entrenched and has been for no little time...
In both cases it is simply a product or sevice which is purchased by a customer. Some people have made the quite incorrect comparison to financial services, and others have rightly pointed out the flaw: investment advice, or any other professional advice, is held to a higher standard at law. The standard which applies to a salesperson at AOL is equivalent to the screwdriver salesman: they both sell a product, and if you don't take a large grain of salt with the advice you get from a person with a vested interest in over-selling you, well, you get what you deserve.
Let's be clear: the AOL salespeople represent AOL's interests entirely and are not employed by the customer to look out for the customer's interests. This is distinct from the financial services model, wherein the customer is specifically paying for advice and has a right to expect unbiased advice. There is no "license" required to be an AOL sales rep. Caveat emptor.
I can certainly appreciate, from afar, the appeal hyper-regulation has for the simpleton. But presuming adults of a certain age incapable of making informed decisions is beyond condescending. Seniors are the wealthiest segment of the population and seem, for the most part, to do just fine - I don't view them in the same frail, incapable light you do. Of course, it is a different story if they are mentally incompetent, but that applies at any age.
The entire concept of "up-selling" is based upon selling people things they largely don't need or don't want or both. Electronics stores make an enormous chunk of their profit on "extended warranties". Car dealers likewise on "rust protection". In fact, by your reasoning, virtually any "brand" is violating this "mis-selling" principal you've made up, as there is in virtually all cases a considerably cheaper non-branded version. When you get to high school, you too will learn more about such things, and I think you'll find them interesting.
As for "predating" the elderly, I'll cop to an occasional cougar in desperate circumstances, but I don't "predate", "date" or "postdate" the elderly - they just don't turn my crank that way.
You must be kidding. If I sell you a screwdriver, am I under any sort of obligation to determine whether in fact you require a screwdriver, and if so, that the screwdriver you are considering purchasing is the appropriate one for your purposes??? And why "...especially elderly ones..."? Give your head a shake - adults can make their own decisions on how to spend their money, even when those decisions are not to your liking.
I think you're confusing revenue with profit...
Yes - this explanation is spot-on. It's purely an attempt to avoid the decision by the SEC that the NYT article of Dec 2 (if I recall) about the offering constitutes a prospectus or is marketing (ie intentionally leaked by GS). Also, I'm pretty sure this offering is limited to a few high net worth individuals/hedge funds/etc, because Zuckerberg et al need to keep the number of public shareholders at or below 499 to avoid having to make a whole bunch of public disclosures and comply with other US regulatory nonsense designed to protect people from themselves.
It's still an insurance company which responds in most cases, it's just the liability insurer of Toyota/the manufacturer (except certain very large companies who choose not to lease a balance sheet (ie transfer risk to a 3rd party insurer) such as BP - they self-insure, a consequence of which is that they do not accurately price risk internally).
/. wanted to know about insurance...
Often, a company like the imagined robot cleaner manufacturer will use many parts/systems designed by others, and it is standard practice to ensure such suppliers carry adequate insurance, as evidenced by a certificate of insurance. So let's say the robot contained a wireless subsystem made by someone else, and it was that subsystem which was the attack vector used by the hackers. The home owner would sue the robot manufacturer. The robot manufacturer's insurer would defend/settle the suit. The robot manufacturer's insurer would the pursue recovery from the subsystem manufacturer's insurer (this process is known as subrogation).
In my experience, when something goes wrong, inevitably the manufacturer is drawn into it. Common arguments are that the user wasn't notified of the risk (ie no warning label, or warning label not big enough, or the right color, or didn't include every remotely foreseeable circumstance), or that proper safety/countermeasures were not taken. I've seen plenty of cases that I find incredibly bizarre but juries do not.
Incidentally, the liability insurance typically pays defense costs, often in addition to any limit, and the protection from legal fees sometimes is more beneficial than the indemnity protection (ie it can cost a small fortune to extract oneself from even a suit with no merit).
Quite possibly more than anyone on
I've long been a blackberry guy, and partial to hard keyboards. When I got my android tablet, I _hated_ the soft keyboard. Until I installed swype - you simply trace from one letter to the next without lifting your finger. Once I got used to it I found it faster than my bb keyboard (and I'm pretty damn fast on the hard keyboard). It's great technology (no idea if it's available for iProducts).
Here's what I received yesterday from Bell (I have their 25 mb/s "Fibe" fibre optic service) - I love the "extreme usage" bit: "Effective March 2011, an extreme usage fee of $1.00 per GB for usage exceeding 300GB per month will apply. This change will not likely affect you given your current usage level. For more information, visit bell.ca/usagepolicy. If you wish to modify or cancel your service as a result of this change, please call 310-SURF (7873). Sincerely, Jim Myers Senior Vice-President Customer Service" I'm going to downgrade one tier on general principal (it'll still be more than fast enough for my purposes, but will reduce my payment to Bell). That's strike two against Bell - strike one was the STBs they gave me, which don't include a FireWire socket (unlike the US, a FireWire socket is not mandated in Canada).
# of people X 24 hours isn't a hard limit unless you believe travel will never get faster, and/or discount efficiency/modes of travel differences. # of people on bus X 24 hours differs by orders of magnitude from # of people on plane X 24 hours in terms of distance traveled (which is the measurement the article speaks of).