Good point. I'm not a Mac guy, but I haven't seen its shell-like functionality replaced with anything else. Still, the MS browser problem isn't present. I've used Netscape, and IE when required, on them for quite a while. I don't believe anyone's claiming Macs are crippled if you don't install, or delete IE.
Possibly not, but you can very easily remove whichever shell you don't want on the system, or just opt not to use it. The same is true of the graphical equivalents. Specifically, I'm thinking CDE. The operating system works just fine without it. The only OS I can think of which you can't separate out functionality is Microsoft's various offerings.
I am an educated voter, I attend protests, I write my senators, I am very involved in the fight for sensible gun control. How dare you accuse my statement of being "a reflection of the sorry state of civic responsibility" because I disagree with you interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
I dare because the interpretation of that one little amendment is vastly important. Governments have been offing their populations when convenient through recorded history, and preserving the right to self defense isn't important to you, apparently. "Sensible gun control", whatever that might mean, is. I'm glad you're an "educated voter", and the like, but you don't get points just for trying with me. I'll grant that you're off your ass, but you're off your ass to undermine the rights your political forefathers died to secure. Being an educated voter should start with being a student of history. Anyone who is should have grave problems with the idea of their government deciding who gets to defend themselves and who doesn't. Those in power tend to decide that the ones who should are the ones who agree with them. Our founding fathers had the good sense to avoid that, and now we're throwing it away.
They are the source material for a well regulated militia. The amendment says banning personal ownership of firearms is out of bounds, and irrelevantly, in my opinion, offers a reason why they think this should be so. When the amendment was written, the Joe Sixpackes (Sixpints?) had just banded together to overthrow their government.
So yes, Joe Sixpack, you, and I are the foundation of a militia, if there needs to be one. Your comment is more a reflection of the sorry state of civic responsibility in today's United States. You, and so many others, seem to be increasingly oblivious to your responsibility to keep your government in line. Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants", but I don't believe it has to be that way. We can be vigilant and fight the erosion of our rights, ousting those from office who would build their power by degrading out liberties. What really pisses me off is that it's my children, grandchildren, or farther on, and the farther the better, who'll get to bleed because Joe Sixpack, who is passionate about football, television, and his car doesn't get involved in politics. He can't be bothered to get off his ass to defend with a vote or a letter the rights his political forefathers died to secure.
Banning ownership of guns by criminals is an example of trying to fix the barn door after the horses have already gotten out. I say let any criminal who wants to own a gun do so. Minor crimes, shoplifting, for example, don't necessarily predispose someone to be violent so I'm not concerned. Violent criminals should be free to own firearms as well. They should also be confined to prison for the rest of their lives and those firearms not allowed in prison, so their personal ownership of them is pretty well moot. They're part of their estate and they can pass them on to their heirs.
Protect society from violent criminals by removing them from society. Don't let them out and then naively presume that they're going to follow the law and not own a gun. They're criminals. These are the people who have proven that they're not interested in following the law.
If you'll forgive me for being blunt, and actually even if you won't, that's the most ridiculous bullshit argument possible. The Bill of Rights, in its entirety, documents specific rights the people have. To suggest that 9 of them document rights of the people, but the 2nd documents a right of the government is ludicrous. Let me suggest the following modifications which are along those lines:
I. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech of the Federal government, or of the State press; or the right of the Government peaceably to assemble, and to subjugate the citizenry as they see fit.
II. The government shall have the right to maintain a standing military.
III. No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any public building or home owned by a government worker, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
IV. The right of the government to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures by the public, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
V...
Ok, this is becoming tiresome. See my point? That's not the Bill of rights of any remotely free country. The Bill of Rights does NOT grant powers to the government. It limits them. It says they may not restrict religion, speech, or private ownership of firearms. To assert otherwise is naive or an outright lie.
Now, putting our rational cap on again, Article 1, Section 8 gives Congress power to call forth the militia, organizing one, arming one, and the like. Now I guess somehow in spite of this very clear authorization of the government to maintain a military capability, by some crazy reasoning, we had to amend the constitution to say in very unclear language that the government is authorized to have a military. Let's compare.
Article I, Section 8
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
2nd Amendment
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
This is crystal clear to anyone who doesn't have an anti-gun agenda. Article 1 obviously authorizes a standing military. The 2nd amendment just as obviously supports and affirms the right of private citizens to own firearms. I should say REaffirms, because the structure of the Constitution is such that any power the government is not granted is specifically denies. Nowhere in the constitution are they granted the right to outlaw self defense.
Quite pathetic, when most countries around the world offer 2 or 3 times that.
Yes, we should all be like France, with 35 hour work weeks and something like 6 weeks off as standard. Oddly enough the business community opposed the 35 hour work week and their economy has been in the toilet for quite a while. Surely it's a coincidence.
You are securing the right to respond to my comment. Get that will in order or I'll sic my lawyer on you.
Ridiculous? Sure, I know that. That was my point. The software companies would tell you you're securing the right to use the software, and that's the exchange in value. I, and a lot of people here, would say that we exchanged cold, hard cash for the right to use the software and the EULA is a something-for-nothing grab on the part of the vendor.
In other words, I agree. My response clause isn't a binding contract. Neither is a EULA. Even in UCITA states it's not a binding contract. It has separate force of law under UCITA, but is not a contract.
Reread my post. I said it would cost the vendor more. My point is that the vendors are pushing us towards a mutually unacceptable solution. They're doing so under the color of some phantom law which doesn't exist in non-UCITA states. I'm not averse to using their aversion to going there to push them towards a more acceptable solution.
I'm going to wear out my keyboard explaining this to people who should know better.
The (R) is NOT the law. The (R) is nothing more than a notice to you that the term is a registered trademark. There's an actual law on the books that lets people and corporations register trademarks, and gives them legal protection when they do so. There is no law, other than UCITA, which happily hasn't passed in many places, which gives EULAs power. They aren't contracts, but the software vendors who use them want to treat them as if they are. If you don't enter into a contract, you aren't bound by it. If you ignore legal fact, that Coca-Cola is a registered trademark, you're every bit as subject to the laws regarding abuse and misuse of registered trademarks as if you don't ignore it. You can't ignore a law and make it go away. You can ignore a contract you haven't signed. Contracts you don't enter into have no force.
Here's one:
By responding to this comment you agree to put me in your will and to leave to me, upon your demise, no less than 50% of your assets. If you have no will, you agree to draft one with the assitance of a lawyer no later than the end of May, which contains a provision leaving me at least 50% of your assets.
That's much like a EULA. If you don't respond to my comment, you can safely ignore it. If you DO respond to my comment, you can probably safely ignore it as being unenforceable. If I describe to you my patented invention and tell you that you may not use it without paying me royalties, you CAN'T ignore it because the protection comes not from me telling you not to, but from patent law.
Mmmmkay? And please tell me that the "(yet)" in your post doesn't imply that you're in law school and making specious arguments like that.
Of course you can, as long as you own the tape. Too many people are throwing out these irrelevant arguments. You can't legally copy that VHS tape, except possibly to make a backup, because there's a Federal law that says you can't. The sticker is a reminder, not the law. When you agree to the EULA that says that you only have the right to use the software so long as you don't publish benchmarks on the sofware, for example, you're agreeing to something for which there is no corresponding law. By not agreeing to the EULA, you DON'T gain the ability to make copies for your friends. That's still a violation of copyright law.
Do you really want to go through a lengthy contract negotiation procedure, or even have to sign your name, for every piece of software you buy?
No, I don't want to do that. What a hassle for the less than 5 titles I'd buy in a typical year. Where it gets fun is imagining how much a hassle it would be for Micro$oft having to do so for every one of the millions (billions?) of software products they sell. Simply put, it hurts them a lot more than it hurts me. It would push the cost of software to the point where their sales would drop precipitously. It would move the outrageousness of their requirements to the fore in consumer's minds.
So no, I don't want it, but we need something better than outrageously restrictive EULAs. Reasonable EULAs might nudge me to not caring if they're enforceable or not. If they won't give me reasonable EULAs and insist on contract status for EULAs, then what the heck, give me a real contract.
While the author of the script may have reverse engineered the installer, a user of the script certainly doesn't. The user of the script just runs it, gaining zero knowledge of how the installer works.
His people are oppressed because we help isreal but not his people, we destroyed afganastan when was involved in, then we didnt help him rebuild the country, so what you had was kids growing up with guns in their hands, in a wasteland war torn country. Thats not oppression?
No, it isn't. It's analagous to me pulling you out of a burning car crash, but declining to pay your medical bills and buy you a new car. Bin Laden's idea of saying thank you for that kindness is to blow up your house. Sure, it's true that we did it because it was also in our interests to keep the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Providing assistance, but not as much as you want, is very far from oppression. Maybe we should have blown up the palace in Versaille because the French helped us in the Revolutionary war, but not soon enough?
What upsets me the most is I sincerely believe that is we're ever invaded, or our government turns on us, when we put out the call for help from foreign powers, no one's going to come.
We need to find a way to handle oppressed people in the third world, so they dont all become terrorists.
Excuse me?!? Osama bin Laden is an OPRESSOR, he's hardly some misused guy who's been oppressed. He's POed because we have a military presence in the patch of sand he considers holy (as differentiated from the patch of sand I consider holy, or you consider holy). We're there at the INVITATION of their government. This is the guy who helped the Taliban into power, arguably the most opressive government in recent memory. The take home story is that there are and simply will always be people who act in ways which can't be explained rationally. Alternatively, we're oppressive because we by and large let people live however they want to. Normally, I wouldn't say that, but in the context of people like the Taliban, we're a hippie's dream.
The only thing we can do, is educate ignorant people in such a way that they are less likely to do stupid things.
Fear this, because it will never, never, never happen. The day we give every Joe Sixpack the equivalent of a herd of nukes will be the day I switch my bet to amoebas as dominant lifeform on the planet.
Of course, we could always cut the potential massive power of nanotechnology down to a manageable size. Just have Microsoft write the software (firmware? hardware?). If anything can absorb and negate vast computing power, M$ software can.
Your point is incorrect. Cars aren't subsidized. Roads, which *both* cars and buses require, are paid for with tax dollars, which isn't quite the same thing. As a car owner, I get to pay about $400 a year in vehicle taxes alone, not including sales and income taxes which go into the general fund, to subsidize those roads for the public transportation riders, who pay a discount on the cost of moving the bus around. If bus riders paid the actual cost of moving around in a bus, there wouldn't be even the few there are now.
None of us is significantly greater than anyone else, if that was true it would be _immediately obvious_.
And it is, to anyone who's paying attention. I'd name Einstein, Franklin and Madison as examples who are signifcantly greater than just about all of us. On a smaller scale, there are some truly motivated and productive people in the world. The rest of us work for them. Some of us work in minimum wage jobs because we aren't qualified to work in better ones. You don't see the difference? It may be a difference in motivation, but its a difference nonetheless.
I should also add that the majority benefits from the views of the minority - the conflict of interests promotes growth and health in a society.
That's probably just what slave owners were thinking pre-civil war. It's a good thing we have all these slaves for diversity of viewpoint and all that free labor is just a bonus! No, I'm sorry, but strict democracy is an utter failure. I'm exploited by it every day, and likely so are you, by the greedy masses who want to suck money out of my pocket rather then going out and making their own. Our majority has voted themselves a situation, courtesy liberal lawmakers, where they pay little tax and get a lot in return. The tyranny of the majority is well expressed in our society.
Moderation isn't to reward you for being a good boy. People have and should continue to moderate your comments up when they're worthy of special note. In other words, when Joe Slashbot moderates you up, it's to benefit me, not you. It's to tell the rest of us that you just said something more worth reading than the average comment.
I'm afraid I'm missing your point. The claim is that using a bus is cheaper than using a car. Both do require roads, correct? Given that using *either* necessitates roads, they (the roads) are out of the picture. It costs more to move someone around in a bus than a car. It's limiting. Try carrying 20 bags of groceries in a bus. Try dealing with that server crash at the office at 3:30 am after buses stop running. Public transportation simply doesn't meet my needs at this point in life. Perhaps it will later, but not now.
Nononono. MSTDs. MicroSoft Transmitted Diseases. It also carries that dirty, gutter connotation that's *most* appropriate. To get one you have to have been somewhere you really shouldn't have been to begin with.
You pay for the Car, gas, parking, insurance, and maintenence. If your able to take advantage of a decent mass transit system, you will at most need to pay for the access pass. The costs of such passes are always cheaper then the costs of using and maintaining a vehicle.
Cheaper because, at least around here, they're massively subsidized. I'm one of those who wished public transportation was viable, but it simply isn't for a lot of people. I far too often need to go somewhere when nothing's running but taxis (which are hideously expensive here). I need some way of bringing $200 of groceries home, which isn't going to happen on any public conveyance I've seen. There are also issues of efficiency. I have a tightly packed day already. I don't have the time to wait around or walk from the nearest stop. Given that, having a car is necessary for me. Having already incurred the expense, it's always cheaper and more convenient, for any given trip, to use it.
Public transportation will only be successful for people like me when it's on demand between any two points I choose, can carry lots of stuff when I need it, lots of people when I need it, and *still* be cheaper than owning a car. Good luck.
Yeah, forcing people to do things is always the right way to go. Uh huh.
How about, for a change, addressing the *reason* people do things? SUVs are safer. I saw a post on here recently which claimed that not all countries are like the US (no kidding, I know), specificially in that they don't issue driver's licenses to any drooling moron who can pass the test *eventually*. I watched some jackass yesterday swerve violently from the left lane to make an exit, missing the car in the right lane by a very small distance, at around 75 mph. He made it about half way before the interplay of centrifugal force and traction dumped his a$$ into a ditch, detaching lots of little bits (and some big ones) from his car in the process. Yes, I *DO* want to be in something moderately large when on the road with such people. Give me a hybrid that doesn't cost 6 times the money it saves in gasoline and I'll buy one. Well, right after this one wears out.
Size is a prerequisite once the family reaches a certain size anyway, you know. You can't pack 'em in like sardines into a Metro.
I'm not missing the point at all. I was being pedantic AND correct. You don't get to win a lawsuit or arrest someone because they might break a law. You get to WHEN they break a law. Reasons why laws are enacted are entirely incidental to that point. It'd be equally correct if John. Q. Lawmaker tripped over his poodle that morning and voted for the law because he was in a bad mood.
I am, absolutely. Arrest them because driving while under the influence is illegal. I can't think of an instance where you can be arrested because you "might" do something, only where you are suspected of breaking an actual law. Around here you can be arrested for threatening someone. You won't be arrested because you might carry out the threat, but because you've already broken the law by issuing it.
Yes, they can only buy them. Thanks for eloquently, if circuitously, demonstrating why blind trust in government is a bad idea. That corporations would want to influence lawmaking is only a problem and only remotely relevant because our legal system allows them to do so. Fix the legal system and Mickey's no longer a problem.
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Good point. I'm not a Mac guy, but I haven't seen its shell-like functionality replaced with anything else. Still, the MS browser problem isn't present. I've used Netscape, and IE when required, on them for quite a while. I don't believe anyone's claiming Macs are crippled if you don't install, or delete IE.
Possibly not, but you can very easily remove whichever shell you don't want on the system, or just opt not to use it. The same is true of the graphical equivalents. Specifically, I'm thinking CDE. The operating system works just fine without it. The only OS I can think of which you can't separate out functionality is Microsoft's various offerings.
I dare because the interpretation of that one little amendment is vastly important. Governments have been offing their populations when convenient through recorded history, and preserving the right to self defense isn't important to you, apparently. "Sensible gun control", whatever that might mean, is. I'm glad you're an "educated voter", and the like, but you don't get points just for trying with me. I'll grant that you're off your ass, but you're off your ass to undermine the rights your political forefathers died to secure. Being an educated voter should start with being a student of history. Anyone who is should have grave problems with the idea of their government deciding who gets to defend themselves and who doesn't. Those in power tend to decide that the ones who should are the ones who agree with them. Our founding fathers had the good sense to avoid that, and now we're throwing it away.
So yes, Joe Sixpack, you, and I are the foundation of a militia, if there needs to be one. Your comment is more a reflection of the sorry state of civic responsibility in today's United States. You, and so many others, seem to be increasingly oblivious to your responsibility to keep your government in line. Jefferson said "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants", but I don't believe it has to be that way. We can be vigilant and fight the erosion of our rights, ousting those from office who would build their power by degrading out liberties. What really pisses me off is that it's my children, grandchildren, or farther on, and the farther the better, who'll get to bleed because Joe Sixpack, who is passionate about football, television, and his car doesn't get involved in politics. He can't be bothered to get off his ass to defend with a vote or a letter the rights his political forefathers died to secure.
Protect society from violent criminals by removing them from society. Don't let them out and then naively presume that they're going to follow the law and not own a gun. They're criminals. These are the people who have proven that they're not interested in following the law.
I. Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech of the Federal government, or of the State press; or the right of the Government peaceably to assemble, and to subjugate the citizenry as they see fit.
II. The government shall have the right to maintain a standing military.
III. No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any public building or home owned by a government worker, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
IV. The right of the government to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures by the public, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
V...
Ok, this is becoming tiresome. See my point? That's not the Bill of rights of any remotely free country. The Bill of Rights does NOT grant powers to the government. It limits them. It says they may not restrict religion, speech, or private ownership of firearms. To assert otherwise is naive or an outright lie.
Now, putting our rational cap on again, Article 1, Section 8 gives Congress power to call forth the militia, organizing one, arming one, and the like. Now I guess somehow in spite of this very clear authorization of the government to maintain a military capability, by some crazy reasoning, we had to amend the constitution to say in very unclear language that the government is authorized to have a military. Let's compare.
Article I, Section 8
2nd Amendment
This is crystal clear to anyone who doesn't have an anti-gun agenda. Article 1 obviously authorizes a standing military. The 2nd amendment just as obviously supports and affirms the right of private citizens to own firearms. I should say REaffirms, because the structure of the Constitution is such that any power the government is not granted is specifically denies. Nowhere in the constitution are they granted the right to outlaw self defense.
Yes, we should all be like France, with 35 hour work weeks and something like 6 weeks off as standard. Oddly enough the business community opposed the 35 hour work week and their economy has been in the toilet for quite a while. Surely it's a coincidence.
Ridiculous? Sure, I know that. That was my point. The software companies would tell you you're securing the right to use the software, and that's the exchange in value. I, and a lot of people here, would say that we exchanged cold, hard cash for the right to use the software and the EULA is a something-for-nothing grab on the part of the vendor.
In other words, I agree. My response clause isn't a binding contract. Neither is a EULA. Even in UCITA states it's not a binding contract. It has separate force of law under UCITA, but is not a contract.
Reread my post. I said it would cost the vendor more. My point is that the vendors are pushing us towards a mutually unacceptable solution. They're doing so under the color of some phantom law which doesn't exist in non-UCITA states. I'm not averse to using their aversion to going there to push them towards a more acceptable solution.
The (R) is NOT the law. The (R) is nothing more than a notice to you that the term is a registered trademark. There's an actual law on the books that lets people and corporations register trademarks, and gives them legal protection when they do so. There is no law, other than UCITA, which happily hasn't passed in many places, which gives EULAs power. They aren't contracts, but the software vendors who use them want to treat them as if they are. If you don't enter into a contract, you aren't bound by it. If you ignore legal fact, that Coca-Cola is a registered trademark, you're every bit as subject to the laws regarding abuse and misuse of registered trademarks as if you don't ignore it. You can't ignore a law and make it go away. You can ignore a contract you haven't signed. Contracts you don't enter into have no force.
Here's one:
By responding to this comment you agree to put me in your will and to leave to me, upon your demise, no less than 50% of your assets. If you have no will, you agree to draft one with the assitance of a lawyer no later than the end of May, which contains a provision leaving me at least 50% of your assets.
That's much like a EULA. If you don't respond to my comment, you can safely ignore it. If you DO respond to my comment, you can probably safely ignore it as being unenforceable. If I describe to you my patented invention and tell you that you may not use it without paying me royalties, you CAN'T ignore it because the protection comes not from me telling you not to, but from patent law.
Mmmmkay? And please tell me that the "(yet)" in your post doesn't imply that you're in law school and making specious arguments like that.
Of course you can, as long as you own the tape. Too many people are throwing out these irrelevant arguments. You can't legally copy that VHS tape, except possibly to make a backup, because there's a Federal law that says you can't. The sticker is a reminder, not the law. When you agree to the EULA that says that you only have the right to use the software so long as you don't publish benchmarks on the sofware, for example, you're agreeing to something for which there is no corresponding law. By not agreeing to the EULA, you DON'T gain the ability to make copies for your friends. That's still a violation of copyright law.
No, I don't want to do that. What a hassle for the less than 5 titles I'd buy in a typical year. Where it gets fun is imagining how much a hassle it would be for Micro$oft having to do so for every one of the millions (billions?) of software products they sell. Simply put, it hurts them a lot more than it hurts me. It would push the cost of software to the point where their sales would drop precipitously. It would move the outrageousness of their requirements to the fore in consumer's minds.
So no, I don't want it, but we need something better than outrageously restrictive EULAs. Reasonable EULAs might nudge me to not caring if they're enforceable or not. If they won't give me reasonable EULAs and insist on contract status for EULAs, then what the heck, give me a real contract.
While the author of the script may have reverse engineered the installer, a user of the script certainly doesn't. The user of the script just runs it, gaining zero knowledge of how the installer works.
No, it isn't. It's analagous to me pulling you out of a burning car crash, but declining to pay your medical bills and buy you a new car. Bin Laden's idea of saying thank you for that kindness is to blow up your house. Sure, it's true that we did it because it was also in our interests to keep the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Providing assistance, but not as much as you want, is very far from oppression. Maybe we should have blown up the palace in Versaille because the French helped us in the Revolutionary war, but not soon enough?
What upsets me the most is I sincerely believe that is we're ever invaded, or our government turns on us, when we put out the call for help from foreign powers, no one's going to come.
Excuse me?!? Osama bin Laden is an OPRESSOR, he's hardly some misused guy who's been oppressed. He's POed because we have a military presence in the patch of sand he considers holy (as differentiated from the patch of sand I consider holy, or you consider holy). We're there at the INVITATION of their government. This is the guy who helped the Taliban into power, arguably the most opressive government in recent memory. The take home story is that there are and simply will always be people who act in ways which can't be explained rationally. Alternatively, we're oppressive because we by and large let people live however they want to. Normally, I wouldn't say that, but in the context of people like the Taliban, we're a hippie's dream.
Fear this, because it will never, never, never happen. The day we give every Joe Sixpack the equivalent of a herd of nukes will be the day I switch my bet to amoebas as dominant lifeform on the planet.
Of course, we could always cut the potential massive power of nanotechnology down to a manageable size. Just have Microsoft write the software (firmware? hardware?). If anything can absorb and negate vast computing power, M$ software can.
Your point is incorrect. Cars aren't subsidized. Roads, which *both* cars and buses require, are paid for with tax dollars, which isn't quite the same thing. As a car owner, I get to pay about $400 a year in vehicle taxes alone, not including sales and income taxes which go into the general fund, to subsidize those roads for the public transportation riders, who pay a discount on the cost of moving the bus around. If bus riders paid the actual cost of moving around in a bus, there wouldn't be even the few there are now.
And it is, to anyone who's paying attention. I'd name Einstein, Franklin and Madison as examples who are signifcantly greater than just about all of us. On a smaller scale, there are some truly motivated and productive people in the world. The rest of us work for them. Some of us work in minimum wage jobs because we aren't qualified to work in better ones. You don't see the difference? It may be a difference in motivation, but its a difference nonetheless.
That's probably just what slave owners were thinking pre-civil war. It's a good thing we have all these slaves for diversity of viewpoint and all that free labor is just a bonus! No, I'm sorry, but strict democracy is an utter failure. I'm exploited by it every day, and likely so are you, by the greedy masses who want to suck money out of my pocket rather then going out and making their own. Our majority has voted themselves a situation, courtesy liberal lawmakers, where they pay little tax and get a lot in return. The tyranny of the majority is well expressed in our society.
Excuse the pun. :)
Moderation isn't to reward you for being a good boy. People have and should continue to moderate your comments up when they're worthy of special note. In other words, when Joe Slashbot moderates you up, it's to benefit me, not you. It's to tell the rest of us that you just said something more worth reading than the average comment.
I'm afraid I'm missing your point. The claim is that using a bus is cheaper than using a car. Both do require roads, correct? Given that using *either* necessitates roads, they (the roads) are out of the picture. It costs more to move someone around in a bus than a car. It's limiting. Try carrying 20 bags of groceries in a bus. Try dealing with that server crash at the office at 3:30 am after buses stop running. Public transportation simply doesn't meet my needs at this point in life. Perhaps it will later, but not now.
Nononono. MSTDs. MicroSoft Transmitted Diseases. It also carries that dirty, gutter connotation that's *most* appropriate. To get one you have to have been somewhere you really shouldn't have been to begin with.
Cheaper because, at least around here, they're massively subsidized. I'm one of those who wished public transportation was viable, but it simply isn't for a lot of people. I far too often need to go somewhere when nothing's running but taxis (which are hideously expensive here). I need some way of bringing $200 of groceries home, which isn't going to happen on any public conveyance I've seen. There are also issues of efficiency. I have a tightly packed day already. I don't have the time to wait around or walk from the nearest stop. Given that, having a car is necessary for me. Having already incurred the expense, it's always cheaper and more convenient, for any given trip, to use it.
Public transportation will only be successful for people like me when it's on demand between any two points I choose, can carry lots of stuff when I need it, lots of people when I need it, and *still* be cheaper than owning a car. Good luck.
How about, for a change, addressing the *reason* people do things? SUVs are safer. I saw a post on here recently which claimed that not all countries are like the US (no kidding, I know), specificially in that they don't issue driver's licenses to any drooling moron who can pass the test *eventually*. I watched some jackass yesterday swerve violently from the left lane to make an exit, missing the car in the right lane by a very small distance, at around 75 mph. He made it about half way before the interplay of centrifugal force and traction dumped his a$$ into a ditch, detaching lots of little bits (and some big ones) from his car in the process. Yes, I *DO* want to be in something moderately large when on the road with such people. Give me a hybrid that doesn't cost 6 times the money it saves in gasoline and I'll buy one. Well, right after this one wears out.
Size is a prerequisite once the family reaches a certain size anyway, you know. You can't pack 'em in like sardines into a Metro.
I'm not missing the point at all. I was being pedantic AND correct. You don't get to win a lawsuit or arrest someone because they might break a law. You get to WHEN they break a law. Reasons why laws are enacted are entirely incidental to that point. It'd be equally correct if John. Q. Lawmaker tripped over his poodle that morning and voted for the law because he was in a bad mood.
I am, absolutely. Arrest them because driving while under the influence is illegal. I can't think of an instance where you can be arrested because you "might" do something, only where you are suspected of breaking an actual law. Around here you can be arrested for threatening someone. You won't be arrested because you might carry out the threat, but because you've already broken the law by issuing it.
Yes, they can only buy them. Thanks for eloquently, if circuitously, demonstrating why blind trust in government is a bad idea. That corporations would want to influence lawmaking is only a problem and only remotely relevant because our legal system allows them to do so. Fix the legal system and Mickey's no longer a problem.