... they should be allowed to get as filthy rich as they can at the expense of the others ("well, if they can't/choose not to compete with me they deserve to be poor").
At least this part of your argument is fallacious and unsound.
The desire to become 'filthy rich' or the state of being 'filthy rich' is not necessarily connected with the 'at the expense of others'.
It is difficult to see how, for instance, Bill Gates got 'filthy rich' by somehow exploiting poor, homeless drunkards: surely, these are not normally the people buying lots of Windows or the Office Suites?!?! Bill Gates got 'filthy rich' by selling his products to other companies and to people with enough money with which to buy Microsoft products: now, there may be some problems with Microsoft but it is hard to argue that its customers ended up on skid row because they were ruthlessly exploited by 'evil Bill'.
It also works the other way around: poor people would not automatically become better off even if we were to tax all 'rich' people 100%.
Finally, if someone chooses (your word) not to compete, why should that person be entitled to the same lifestyle as you? If they choose not to compete, surely they choose to be poor (or at least poorer than you). Their poverty is, in that case, a consequence of their choice. And in that sense, yes, they deserve it.
From my point of view Western culture is, at this particular moment in time, superior to any other. I realize that from some lofty, objective point of view it is perfectly possible that all cultures are equal, but I'm not reasoning from such a lofty, objective point: I'm reasoning stricly from my own subjective perspective.
I am a woman. As a Western woman I have the right to receive the same kind of education and health care as male individuals. And I have the right to compete with them in the work place. It is true that it may not, as yet, be competing on equal terms[*], but that is a situation I believe is slowly but surely changing. Thanks to advances in Western medicine, I can reasonably expect not to die at childbirth and I can also reasonably expect any child of mine to survive infancy: in fact, both of us can, thanks to medical science and vastly improved living conditions (including both nutrition and hygiene) to live reasonably long lives. I have the right to vote and I also have the right to stand for office. I have the right to walk down the street, dressed however, without a male chaperone in the middle of the night without being harassed in any way. Yes, I admit that that right is unfortunaly violated far too often, but that doesn't actually mean that I don't have that right, nor that my society, should my right be violated, wouldn't try to correct it. I can marry whomever I want and I don't have to ask anyone's (be it my father, my brother or my husband) permission -- not even as a token gesture. I cannot legally be treated as an inferior individual. I am not deemed a as somehow 'unclean' when I am menstruating. No one can mutilate my body without my explicit say-so. In short, my life is my own: to do with as I please.
How is Western culture superior? Let me count the ways...
[*]Please note that I wrote 'equal' not 'the same'.
Irrespective of who is doing it, tying the sales of product A to the sales of product B is still bundling, but bundling as such is not necessarily illegal.
The (legal) situation changes if the party responsible for the bundling wields monopoly power in the market of at least one of the bundled products; bundling is then usually illegal.
Thus [*], if Company A (which may or may not be called Microsoft) sells product A (possibly called Windows) for which it has no or little competition, i.e. in that particular product market it is a monopoly, only on the condition that you also buy product B (say, Internet Explorer) for which competition exists (which we shall here call Netscape), then Company A is illegally bundling product B with product A; Company A is guilty of monopolizing.
Now, under federal anti-trust law it is not entirely clear whether monopoly per se is illegal; the act of monopolizing, however, is.
[*] The names used in this hypothetical example are, of course, totally fictional and all resemblance to real life is totally unintentional and coincidental.
... yet for some reason they always insist on dubbing the anime.
I think the 'reasoning' goes: anime is animated films; animated films are watched by children; children can't read subtitles; ergo dubbing.
It's over-simplified, silly and very, very irritating. I have watched Princess Mononoke in (dubbed) English and in Japanese with subtitles (I don't understand a word of Japanese): the Japanese version is infinitely better: not only does it 'feel' better to have Japanese characters speak in Japanese, the English subtitles were also slightly different to the spoken, dubbed English and made more sense I thought, not dramatically different, but different enough to make a subtle difference.
In general, dubbed films, nay, dubbed anything just plain sucks: something is always lost in translation, but in dubbing too much goes awry.
Miami Herald's Dave Barry (now of 'don't-call-us-we're-telemarketers' fame) has written a column on Lord of the Rings II... which he thought was slightly too long and complicated and therefore wrote a simplified screenplay for (cached here).
IF Isaac Newton lived today he could probably get an academic job in England or the U.S. At least if he published something truly brilliant first and then applied for a job.
IF Isaac Newton lived today and took a job in within the English university system he would go nuts (well... OK, more nuts) with all the time he would be obliged to waste massaging students' egos, marking student assignments and attending teaching skills courses.
IF Isaac Newton lived today and got an academic job he would quit academe quick smart and get a job in the financial sector, earn a decent amount of money and do research just for fun.
But is that really so backwards? Isn't it the case that humankind, unlike most other species, appears to exhibit a strong preference for enganging in procreating activities in 'private', whereas we, like most other species, have nothing at all against exhibiting our strength and prowess in war-like activities in public (particularly if male)?! In other words, maybe a lax attitude to publicly displayed violence may be more ingrained in our nature?
It can be the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not upset the RIAA (which is, obviously, a variation of He is not the Messiah, he's a Naughty Boy).
Although this might, of course, infringe upon the separation of State and Church rule.... RIAA as a religious cult. No, really, I can see that: brainwashed members, superstition, oppressive practices, etc.
Government and their bureaucracies are primarily governed by Parkinson's Law:
Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion....
Of more interest to the general reader is the explanation of the factors underlying the general tendency to which this law gives definition. Omitting technicalities (which are numerous) we may distinguish at the outset two motive forces...[:] (1) "An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals" and (2) "Officials make work for each other."...
In any public administrative department not actually at war, the staff increase may be expected to follow this formula:
$x = {{2k^m}+l}/over n$
where k is the number of staff seeking promotion throught the appointment of subordinates; l represents the difference between the ages of appointment and retirement; m is the number of man-hours devoted to ansswering minutes within the department; and n is the number of effective unites being administered, x will be the number of new staff required each year. Mathematicians will, of course, realize that to find the percentage increase they must multiply x by 100 and divide the total of the previous year (y), thus:
${100({2k^m}+l)}/over {yn}%$.
And this figure will invariably prove to be between 5.17 per cent and 6.56 per cent, irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done.
C. Northcote Parkinson: Parkinson's Law Or The Pursuit Of Progress (Penguin, (1986) pp.14-24)
Here is a funny little piece by David Higgins called Music industry fatheads need to change their tune.
Some choice quotations:
In the Herald on Saturday, the local boss of BMG Australia, Ed St John, complained that making records and signing acts were "incredibly expensive": "I'm not sure how we deserved the terrible reputation of fat cats - it is not true."
Not fat cats, Ed - fatheads.
There is nothing wrong with the music market. If you take into account illegal sales of pirated CDs - $US4.6 billion ($6.9 billion) last year - and billions of dollars more in illegal MP3 downloads, interest in music has never been greater.
The problem lies not with the music market; it lies with the music industry.
And
... get rid of those big recording studios and buy your artists home computers.
And
Pour yourself a stiff drink and bung on a Nick Cave MP3.
I think this just confirms that age-old adage: embrace new technology or die.
In 18th England 'manual' textile producers smashed up machines that were stealing 'their' work. Did that stop industrialization of the textile industry? Of society in general? Did it stop the almost total eradication of non-machine produced textiles? No, no and no.
It would appear that as soon as you have new technology that is showing some promising signs of becoming popular (for after all not all new technology 'takes off'; think laser discs -- or at least that's what I think they were called: those vinyl looking things that were supposed to supersede videos -- for instance) you'd better jump onto that bandwagon quicksmart and figure out a way to turn it into a cashcow working for your advantage. Which the movie industry has. And which I think that the music industry did once upon a time: when CDs were introduced on the market you often got lots of 'extras' that weren't on the vinyl-version: demos, single B-sides; remixes etc... in fact, quite similar to the DVD vs video situation today.
I think that the music industry is fighting a rear guard action in a losing battle. And I think that that battle is lost for many reasons. For instance (in no particular order):
1. The interests of the music industry do not necessarily coincide with the interest of the artists: as pointed out in the article by O'Reilly referred to here on/. a few days ago, obscurity is often far worse for the artist/author/whatever than copy-right infringment. However, for the company publishing (in the broad sense) the oeuvres of the artist that is not necessarily true: what you lose on the swings you might think that you can win on the round-abouts: if one of your artists fade into obscurity or just never makes it, so what? You have other ones. Maybe their records will sell instead. This is obviously not at all the same for the artist: the artist doesn't have any other artists on which to fall back (well, at least not if the artist isn't Andy Warhol and he is dead): a piece of art falling in a forest where nobody hears it might still make a noise, but it might as well not have. In other words, word of mouth, or in these techno-times p2p, might benefit the artist (gain notoriety) but hurt the publishing company (missed-out copy-right payment): their interests do not coincide: the moment a majority of artists realize that will be a day of reckoning for the music industry.
2. P2P is here and it's easy to use and persuading people to just forget about something you think that the world would be better without is really tricky stuff( cf. atom bombs).
3. Going after 12-year-olds is just really dumb from a PR point-of-view and should be avoided at all costs.
Two questions: 1. Have you ever heard of Tiger Woods or Eminem? 2. Did you lose your sense of humour or did you just never have one in the first place?
Once upon a time I actually did one of those Scientology personality tests (in my defense: it was sort of early in the mid-afternoon and the sun was really, really quite uncomfortably bright and I was really hung-over and... well, anyway, it's a long story) and it was the greatest thing: I never heard from them again and could always say -- truthfully -- to all those pesky Scientologists accosting you on the street trying to make you take one that I already had.
On the other hand, you know you're really f*cked when not even the Scientologists want you.
On this very day Slashdot has an article pointing out that
'... although the recent crackdown and lawsuits have caused a 22% drop in downloading, the drop in CD sales actually accelerated during the same period.'
If this is true, I find it difficult to see how you can argue
'You have to admit, they have some compelling evidence that justifies their claim.'
The drop in revenue from cigarette taxes cannot be intrepreted as a "failure" of the program- it's a mark of success. Such a drop should be the final, victorious stage of any tax that was intended as a behavioral modifier, not a revenue enhancer
It is a 'mark of success' if, and only if, people actually stop smoking, not if they only stop buying legally sold cigarettes. There is a difference. (This of course assumes that the behaviour you want to modify is that of smoking, not that of buying legally sold cigarettes.)
Regarding statistics I would like to remind you that most statistics concerning smoking is based on legal sales. Due to illegal sales, across-border trade, waste and loss in storage and handling, etc, legal sales are not identical to consumption.
According to a report by CAN (Centralforbundet for alkohol- och narkotikaupplysning ~ Central Association for Alcohol and Drug Information), the Swedish tax increases in 1996 and 1997 did lead to a decrease in legal sales (p. 183). However, the 1998 reduction in price yielded an increase in (again) legal sales (ibidem). Do you really believe that people actually stopped smoking in 1996/97 only to start again when prices dropped in 1998? I don't. I think it is much more reasonable to assume that the level of cigarette consumption stayed roughly the same and that smokers just got their cigarettes from other sources than Swedish legal venues; an argument supported by the increased number of smuggled cigarettes seized, indicating an increase in over-all number smuggled, by the Swedish Customs Authorities during the same period.
In your own message, you both contradict yourself and admit ignorance.
Yes, well I prefer to admit ignorance when I don't know something. In this case I hadn't seen the statistics and I admit I was too lazy to look it up before posting. But to correct my evil ways: please look at this page, figure 1. (In case you don't understand Swedish -- and many people don't I've noticed -- the yellow line in the chart indicates smoking and the blue indicates legal sales.) Please note in particular that the drop in sales during the period 1996-1998 does not coincide with a commensurate drop in smoking. And now I shall have to admit my ignorance again: given these statistics I don't understand how you can be so certain that the increase in Swedish cigarette tax yielded a drop in cigarette consumption.
Leaving the philiosophical issue on whether governments should actually try to social engineer via taxes aside for one moment, one can ask, somewhat more practically, whether taxes are at all appropriate for that purpose: i.e. do they work as social engineering tools?
Some 6-7 years ago, the Swedish government decided that it was a great idea to raise tax on cigarettes to sky-high levels (and that is sky-high as in Swedish sky-high levels, and those are sky-high indeed); the reasons given were higher revue for government and less smokers (who would quit for financial reasons). Did this happen? Not really. I never saw any statistics on the number on smokers, so cannot say whether the number ever dropped. However, the revenue from cigarette tax actually dropped! What happened was that the price of heroin/cocaine etc rose as everybody and his dog started to smuggle cigarettes instead: good supply, less of a risk, less of a punishment if caught, and better profit; a cost/benefit analysis would probably take about two seconds. In the end the Swedish government had to lower cigarette taxes again. (= Reverse engineering?)
And it would appear the Swedish government isn't alone in its folly: in this Cato paper Patrick Fleenor takes a look at cigarette taxes in New York, which are higher than they are in many of the nearby states. He concludes that higher taxes has meant neither that the number of smokers have dropped as a result of them nor that tax revenue has increased substantially. Instead, organized crime (not known for paying much taxes nor its attention to public health issues) now more or less dominate the New York cigarette trade and is making a handsome profit from it too. The people who have been really screwed by the high taxes are honest tobacconists/newspaper agents who have been forced out of the market in one way or another (unable to compete with no-tax prices; out-right coercion and threats; exposure to violent crimes).
So trying to social engineer smoking via taxes seems to result in the following: lower tax revenue; higher revenue for organized crime; possibly increased price on illegal drugs and possibly, as a corollary, increased crime rates to support drug habits (as those habits would now be more expensive to maintain); possibly no effect at all on numbers of smokers. Does this make sense from a practical point of view? From any point of view?
... there is still some sort of ignorant social stigma that says girls shouldn't play video games
Although peer pressure and prejudice probably do play a role in determining the gaming habits (or lack of them) of pre-pubescent girls, I think there's probably a little more to it than that: when you're a 6-year-old girl Barbie rocks. Barbie gets to change her clothes every 5 minutes and she gets to wear ball-gowns and wedding dresses. And she gets married. Often. (And without any pesky divorce proceedings in between, which just goes to prove what a wonderwoman Barbie really is.) Have you ever seen anyone get married in Quake? I don't think so. And no, changing guns every 5 minutes is just not the same as changing Barbie's clothes: it lacks that certain je ne sais quoi. Trust me.
In other words, I would say that the pre-pubescent gender gap regarding games is to a large extent due to the content (or lack of pertinent content maybe) of the games themselves.
Now, if we posit that the pre-pubescent gender gap is due to lack of Barbie in the games rather than some intrinsic value in gaming itself, and if we also posit a diminishing interest in Barbies as girls grow a little bit older, and if we further posit an increasing interest in boys (and as a corollary, in the interests of boys... as a way of getting to know boys if nothing else) in the same period, and if we finally posit the addictive quality of gaming (granted that not every game is to everyone's taste), then we would see the gaming gender gap closing in older age groups... which, in fact, according to your statistics we do. And we would probably also see, as times goes on, more and more women playing games amongst themselves (i.e. without male accoutrements) and those same women will probably also one day design and teach their daughters to play... that game all 6-year-old girls have all been waiting for: Barbie Goes Wild in the Quake Closet.
I seem to remember that under the legal doctrine governing American constitutional cases a person cannot challenge the constitutionality of some piece of legislation in case that same person has previously benefited from that same piece of legislation.
In other words, you can't have it both ways: you cannot acknowledge constitutionality when it suits you but cry unconstitutionality when it doesn't.
Now, SCO is claiming, among other things, that GPL is illegal as federal copyright law only allows one copy.
Has SCO ever made use of code which was created by someone else and covered by GPL? (In other words, is SCO trying to have it both ways?) And would that make a legal difference?
True, it only explains basic mathematical concepts, but does so in such a charming way you and your children might end up hooked on mathematics forever.
Granted a spear is designed to fly...
Spears do not fly, they follow a ballistic path which has nothing to do with flight. There are no surfaces on a spear that produce significant lift (and I am an Aerospace engineer;-)
Obviously, the person delivering this information to an eagerly awaiting (enemy?) tribe would be some sort of proto-Ari Fleischer wherefore only haphazard approximations to the truth should be expected.
So the woman got drunk, acted like a fool and slept with a real lout. In addition, she went on to aggravate these loathsome crimes by endorsing, on her website, abstinence and temperance (and this despite her previous behaviour, cf. supra). And as if this wasn't enough she topped it off by pretending to be in favour of free speech while sneaking off to seek an injunction against aforementioned lout. Obviously, for being such a hypocritical slut she deserves -- at the very least -- to be tied up and burnt at the stake.
My dear misogynists:
(A) Slander/Libel isn't protected by 'free speech' unless in the 'public interest':it is perfectly possible to be in favour of 'free speech' and still not support the right to slander/libel other persons.
(B) Do we know whether her opinions on temperance and abstinence were the same prior to the 'Tucker' incident? She could only be called a hypocrite if they were. And after reading that story, can you really blame her for thinking that maybe abstaining from sex and alcohol in the future might be a good idea. At least for her personally. Trying to learn from experience isn't necessarily the same as hypocrisy.
(C) So her drawings are... shall we say, somewhat childish; her homilies are purely asinine; nor does she come across as the most fascinatingly interesting person in the world (indeed, are there any interesting Mensa members out there? And if yes: are they all in hiding?) So what?! Surely, she too has the right to free speech?! Or is that a right that becomes slashdotters only?
Slashdot Mirror
The desire to become 'filthy rich' or the state of being 'filthy rich' is not necessarily connected with the 'at the expense of others'.
It is difficult to see how, for instance, Bill Gates got 'filthy rich' by somehow exploiting poor, homeless drunkards: surely, these are not normally the people buying lots of Windows or the Office Suites?!?! Bill Gates got 'filthy rich' by selling his products to other companies and to people with enough money with which to buy Microsoft products: now, there may be some problems with Microsoft but it is hard to argue that its customers ended up on skid row because they were ruthlessly exploited by 'evil Bill'.
It also works the other way around: poor people would not automatically become better off even if we were to tax all 'rich' people 100%.
Finally, if someone chooses (your word) not to compete, why should that person be entitled to the same lifestyle as you? If they choose not to compete, surely they choose to be poor (or at least poorer than you). Their poverty is, in that case, a consequence of their choice. And in that sense, yes, they deserve it.
I am a woman. As a Western woman I have the right to receive the same kind of education and health care as male individuals. And I have the right to compete with them in the work place. It is true that it may not, as yet, be competing on equal terms[*], but that is a situation I believe is slowly but surely changing. Thanks to advances in Western medicine, I can reasonably expect not to die at childbirth and I can also reasonably expect any child of mine to survive infancy: in fact, both of us can, thanks to medical science and vastly improved living conditions (including both nutrition and hygiene) to live reasonably long lives. I have the right to vote and I also have the right to stand for office. I have the right to walk down the street, dressed however, without a male chaperone in the middle of the night without being harassed in any way. Yes, I admit that that right is unfortunaly violated far too often, but that doesn't actually mean that I don't have that right, nor that my society, should my right be violated, wouldn't try to correct it. I can marry whomever I want and I don't have to ask anyone's (be it my father, my brother or my husband) permission -- not even as a token gesture. I cannot legally be treated as an inferior individual. I am not deemed a as somehow 'unclean' when I am menstruating. No one can mutilate my body without my explicit say-so. In short, my life is my own: to do with as I please.
How is Western culture superior? Let me count the ways...
[*]Please note that I wrote 'equal' not 'the same'.
Irrespective of who is doing it, tying the sales of product A to the sales of product B is still bundling, but bundling as such is not necessarily illegal.
The (legal) situation changes if the party responsible for the bundling wields monopoly power in the market of at least one of the bundled products; bundling is then usually illegal.
Thus [*], if Company A (which may or may not be called Microsoft) sells product A (possibly called Windows) for which it has no or little competition, i.e. in that particular product market it is a monopoly, only on the condition that you also buy product B (say, Internet Explorer) for which competition exists (which we shall here call Netscape), then Company A is illegally bundling product B with product A; Company A is guilty of monopolizing.
Now, under federal anti-trust law it is not entirely clear whether monopoly per se is illegal; the act of monopolizing, however, is.
[*] The names used in this hypothetical example are, of course, totally fictional and all resemblance to real life is totally unintentional and coincidental.
Monkey Island 3 now that is another matter. No system is ever complete without a bit of Monkey Island.
'I'm Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate!'
It's over-simplified, silly and very, very irritating. I have watched Princess Mononoke in (dubbed) English and in Japanese with subtitles (I don't understand a word of Japanese): the Japanese version is infinitely better: not only does it 'feel' better to have Japanese characters speak in Japanese, the English subtitles were also slightly different to the spoken, dubbed English and made more sense I thought, not dramatically different, but different enough to make a subtle difference.
In general, dubbed films, nay, dubbed anything just plain sucks: something is always lost in translation, but in dubbing too much goes awry.
Not here in the southern hemisphere it isn't; July is a winter month; right now it's springtime.
Unless, of course, you were talking about SCO?!?
Miami Herald's Dave Barry (now of 'don't-call-us-we're-telemarketers' fame) has written a column on Lord of the Rings II ... which he thought was slightly too long and complicated and therefore wrote a simplified screenplay for (cached here).
IF Isaac Newton lived today he could probably get an academic job in England or the U.S. At least if he published something truly brilliant first and then applied for a job.
... OK, more nuts) with all the time he would be obliged to waste massaging students' egos, marking student assignments and attending teaching skills courses.
IF Isaac Newton lived today and took a job in within the English university system he would go nuts (well
IF Isaac Newton lived today and got an academic job he would quit academe quick smart and get a job in the financial sector, earn a decent amount of money and do research just for fun.
But is that really so backwards?
Isn't it the case that humankind, unlike most other species, appears to exhibit a strong preference for enganging in procreating activities in 'private', whereas we, like most other species, have nothing at all against exhibiting our strength and prowess in war-like activities in public (particularly if male)?!
In other words, maybe a lax attitude to publicly displayed violence may be more ingrained in our nature?
Except of course that Alston is an EX-Minister since the Government reshuffle.
It can be the 11th Commandment: Thou shalt not upset the RIAA (which is, obviously, a variation of He is not the Messiah, he's a Naughty Boy).
... RIAA as a religious cult. No, really, I can see that: brainwashed members, superstition, oppressive practices, etc.
Although this might, of course, infringe upon the separation of State and Church rule.
C. Northcote Parkinson: Parkinson's Law Or The Pursuit Of Progress (Penguin, (1986) pp.14-24)
Some choice quotations:
And
And
I think this just confirms that age-old adage: embrace new technology or die.
... in fact, quite similar to the DVD vs video situation today.
/. a few days ago, obscurity is often far worse for the artist/author/whatever than copy-right infringment. However, for the company publishing (in the broad sense) the oeuvres of the artist that is not necessarily true: what you lose on the swings you might think that you can win on the round-abouts: if one of your artists fade into obscurity or just never makes it, so what? You have other ones. Maybe their records will sell instead. This is obviously not at all the same for the artist: the artist doesn't have any other artists on which to fall back (well, at least not if the artist isn't Andy Warhol and he is dead): a piece of art falling in a forest where nobody hears it might still make a noise, but it might as well not have. In other words, word of mouth, or in these techno-times p2p, might benefit the artist (gain notoriety) but hurt the publishing company (missed-out copy-right payment): their interests do not coincide: the moment a majority of artists realize that will be a day of reckoning for the music industry.
In 18th England 'manual' textile producers smashed up machines that were stealing 'their' work. Did that stop industrialization of the textile industry? Of society in general? Did it stop the almost total eradication of non-machine produced textiles? No, no and no.
It would appear that as soon as you have new technology that is showing some promising signs of becoming popular (for after all not all new technology 'takes off'; think laser discs -- or at least that's what I think they were called: those vinyl looking things that were supposed to supersede videos -- for instance) you'd better jump onto that bandwagon quicksmart and figure out a way to turn it into a cashcow working for your advantage. Which the movie industry has. And which I think that the music industry did once upon a time: when CDs were introduced on the market you often got lots of 'extras' that weren't on the vinyl-version: demos, single B-sides; remixes etc
I think that the music industry is fighting a rear guard action in a losing battle. And I think that that battle is lost for many reasons. For instance (in no particular order):
1. The interests of the music industry do not necessarily coincide with the interest of the artists: as pointed out in the article by O'Reilly referred to here on
2. P2P is here and it's easy to use and persuading people to just forget about something you think that the world would be better without is really tricky stuff( cf. atom bombs).
3. Going after 12-year-olds is just really dumb from a PR point-of-view and should be avoided at all costs.
Dear Moderator,
Two questions:
1. Have you ever heard of Tiger Woods or Eminem?
2. Did you lose your sense of humour or did you just never have one in the first place?
Once upon a time I actually did one of those Scientology personality tests (in my defense: it was sort of early in the mid-afternoon and the sun was really, really quite uncomfortably bright and I was really hung-over and ... well, anyway, it's a long story) and it was the greatest thing: I never heard from them again and could always say -- truthfully -- to all those pesky Scientologists accosting you on the street trying to make you take one that I already had.
On the other hand, you know you're really f*cked when not even the Scientologists want you.
If this is true, I find it difficult to see how you can argue
It is a 'mark of success' if, and only if, people actually stop smoking, not if they only stop buying legally sold cigarettes. There is a difference. (This of course assumes that the behaviour you want to modify is that of smoking, not that of buying legally sold cigarettes.)
Regarding statistics I would like to remind you that most statistics concerning smoking is based on legal sales. Due to illegal sales, across-border trade, waste and loss in storage and handling, etc, legal sales are not identical to consumption.
According to a report by CAN (Centralforbundet for alkohol- och narkotikaupplysning ~ Central Association for Alcohol and Drug Information), the Swedish tax increases in 1996 and 1997 did lead to a decrease in legal sales (p. 183). However, the 1998 reduction in price yielded an increase in (again) legal sales (ibidem). Do you really believe that people actually stopped smoking in 1996/97 only to start again when prices dropped in 1998? I don't. I think it is much more reasonable to assume that the level of cigarette consumption stayed roughly the same and that smokers just got their cigarettes from other sources than Swedish legal venues; an argument supported by the increased number of smuggled cigarettes seized, indicating an increase in over-all number smuggled, by the Swedish Customs Authorities during the same period.
Yes, well I prefer to admit ignorance when I don't know something. In this case I hadn't seen the statistics and I admit I was too lazy to look it up before posting. But to correct my evil ways: please look at this page, figure 1. (In case you don't understand Swedish -- and many people don't I've noticed -- the yellow line in the chart indicates smoking and the blue indicates legal sales.) Please note in particular that the drop in sales during the period 1996-1998 does not coincide with a commensurate drop in smoking.
And now I shall have to admit my ignorance again: given these statistics I don't understand how you can be so certain that the increase in Swedish cigarette tax yielded a drop in cigarette consumption.
Leaving the philiosophical issue on whether governments should actually try to social engineer via taxes aside for one moment, one can ask, somewhat more practically, whether taxes are at all appropriate for that purpose: i.e. do they work as social engineering tools?
Some 6-7 years ago, the Swedish government decided that it was a great idea to raise tax on cigarettes to sky-high levels (and that is sky-high as in Swedish sky-high levels, and those are sky-high indeed); the reasons given were higher revue for government and less smokers (who would quit for financial reasons). Did this happen? Not really. I never saw any statistics on the number on smokers, so cannot say whether the number ever dropped. However, the revenue from cigarette tax actually dropped! What happened was that the price of heroin/cocaine etc rose as everybody and his dog started to smuggle cigarettes instead: good supply, less of a risk, less of a punishment if caught, and better profit; a cost/benefit analysis would probably take about two seconds. In the end the Swedish government had to lower cigarette taxes again. (= Reverse engineering?)
And it would appear the Swedish government isn't alone in its folly: in this Cato paper Patrick Fleenor takes a look at cigarette taxes in New York, which are higher than they are in many of the nearby states. He concludes that higher taxes has meant neither that the number of smokers have dropped as a result of them nor that tax revenue has increased substantially. Instead, organized crime (not known for paying much taxes nor its attention to public health issues) now more or less dominate the New York cigarette trade and is making a handsome profit from it too. The people who have been really screwed by the high taxes are honest tobacconists/newspaper agents who have been forced out of the market in one way or another (unable to compete with no-tax prices; out-right coercion and threats; exposure to violent crimes).
So trying to social engineer smoking via taxes seems to result in the following: lower tax revenue; higher revenue for organized crime; possibly increased price on illegal drugs and possibly, as a corollary, increased crime rates to support drug habits (as those habits would now be more expensive to maintain); possibly no effect at all on numbers of smokers. Does this make sense from a practical point of view? From any point of view?
Although peer pressure and prejudice probably do play a role in determining the gaming habits (or lack of them) of pre-pubescent girls, I think there's probably a little more to it than that: when you're a 6-year-old girl Barbie rocks. Barbie gets to change her clothes every 5 minutes and she gets to wear ball-gowns and wedding dresses. And she gets married. Often. (And without any pesky divorce proceedings in between, which just goes to prove what a wonderwoman Barbie really is.) Have you ever seen anyone get married in Quake? I don't think so. And no, changing guns every 5 minutes is just not the same as changing Barbie's clothes: it lacks that certain je ne sais quoi. Trust me.
In other words, I would say that the pre-pubescent gender gap regarding games is to a large extent due to the content (or lack of pertinent content maybe) of the games themselves.
Now, if we posit that the pre-pubescent gender gap is due to lack of Barbie in the games rather than some intrinsic value in gaming itself, and if we also posit a diminishing interest in Barbies as girls grow a little bit older, and if we further posit an increasing interest in boys (and as a corollary, in the interests of boys
I seem to remember that under the legal doctrine governing American constitutional cases a person cannot challenge the constitutionality of some piece of legislation in case that same person has previously benefited from that same piece of legislation.
In other words, you can't have it both ways: you cannot acknowledge constitutionality when it suits you but cry unconstitutionality when it doesn't.
Now, SCO is claiming, among other things, that GPL is illegal as federal copyright law only allows one copy.
Has SCO ever made use of code which was created by someone else and covered by GPL? (In other words, is SCO trying to have it both ways?) And would that make a legal difference?
I don't know how old your children are, but everyone deserves to read Hans Magnus Enzensberger's The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure .
True, it only explains basic mathematical concepts, but does so in such a charming way you and your children might end up hooked on mathematics forever.
Who wouldn't want a Number Devil anyway?
Obviously, the person delivering this information to an eagerly awaiting (enemy?) tribe would be some sort of proto-Ari Fleischer wherefore only haphazard approximations to the truth should be expected.
Six hours and still not satisfied?! Are you sure you know what you're doing?
So the woman got drunk, acted like a fool and slept with a real lout. In addition, she went on to aggravate these loathsome crimes by endorsing, on her website, abstinence and temperance (and this despite her previous behaviour, cf. supra). And as if this wasn't enough she topped it off by pretending to be in favour of free speech while sneaking off to seek an injunction against aforementioned lout. Obviously, for being such a hypocritical slut she deserves -- at the very least -- to be tied up and burnt at the stake.
... shall we say, somewhat childish; her homilies are purely asinine; nor does she come across as the most fascinatingly interesting person in the world (indeed, are there any interesting Mensa members out there? And if yes: are they all in hiding?) So what?! Surely, she too has the right to free speech?! Or is that a right that becomes slashdotters only?
My dear misogynists:
(A) Slander/Libel isn't protected by 'free speech' unless in the 'public interest':it is perfectly possible to be in favour of 'free speech' and still not support the right to slander/libel other persons.
(B) Do we know whether her opinions on temperance and abstinence were the same prior to the 'Tucker' incident? She could only be called a hypocrite if they were. And after reading that story, can you really blame her for thinking that maybe abstaining from sex and alcohol in the future might be a good idea. At least for her personally. Trying to learn from experience isn't necessarily the same as hypocrisy.
(C) So her drawings are