Having known three good lawyers*, I'm inclined to think that the good guys are in the majority, but are drowned out by the presence of a few loud and truly evil people. That, and the adversarial method that the US legal system uses forces even good guys to play devil's advocate, even when it's obvious that they'll lose on the facts and merits of their case.
Put another way, I think very few geeks are actually so stereotypically antisocial that they spend their lives isolated in their parents' basements. If this were actually the case, Slashdot and other geek-friendly sites would never form a strong community. Densha Otoko is probably a great example of how reality is often much more interesting than the labels we wear and assign.
* Two indirectly-- one of those is Ray Beckerman-- and one face-to-face. The two lawyers who are not Ray are co-counselors in a current lawsuit my parents are involved in with other plaintiffs; the defendant has gone through several lawyers because they would not agree to his overall strategy of stalling and intimidation until he somehow flees the country. That these stewards of the court would dare to disagree with a wealthy man says a lot about their values. Actually, I don't know if I should count Ray, because I only know him through his writings and interviews.
If the law were code for a massive computer program, then everyone would have to pay fines or serve time. Not that I'm into Ayn Rand*, but "blind justice" does not mean "apply the law like an automaton". Brittle laws tend to be misused by authoritarians.
* Evidently one of the folks who built Firefox's spell-checker database is a fan.
Since the known facts or evidence don't remotely support that assertion, you're going to have a serious hurdle to overcome before talking about this sort of thing.
Yes, the RIAA represents labels, not artists, but like many a dictator, they know that the first rule of propaganda is to repeat it loudly and publicly.
If Ms. Andersen's claim is valid, that the Atlantic investigators and counsel went after her because of her circumstances, then it very much does matter. At the very least, it will factor heavily in her counterclaim. The difference is that Atlantic didn't go after the wealthy oil magnate, or a silver spoon with a fiber link and piles of MP3s from Atlantic artists-- they and other RIAA lawyers went after the technically challenged, the cash-strapped student, the recently deceased, children, the elderly, and disabled people.
As ridiculous as the premise of their lawsuits is, if it were really a campaign to, as they claim, get the artists their fair share of lost sales, they would've gone after bootleggers in east Asia, who, to my recollection, still pirate American music and movies with impunity. Or, at the very least, their driftnet/lottery would've turned up some well-off and affluent students, or Harvard law students. They would have relished the opportunity of defeating a strong opponent if their case was actually sound. Instead, they went after people who would never have a chance in the courtroom and would otherwise be forced to accept a settlement on the plaintiff's terms. And if any defendant tries to, you know, actually defend himself, the plaintiff tries to withdraw and reserve the right to sue another day. Why, given the pattern of these clowns, it seems that the lack of resources, technical knowledge, or friends in the legal business, is the entire point of the RIAA members picking defendants to target!
Does any of that matter? That's for the judge to decide, and I'll take the opinion of an experienced lawyer on the bench over a Slashdot commenter any day.
I know the Atlantic counsel were/are acting like rogue district attorneys, but may I suggest a couple of regex's:
s/prosecute/litigate/ s/convictions/judgments in their favor/
In federal court, unless it's The United States vs..., it's probably a civil case, so you want to think "complaint" rather than "indictment", and "People's Court" rather than "Law & Order" (but with much higher stakes and different rules and conduct). To clear up other common confusions with criminal court, the question being answered is, "Which side can convince the judge better?" rather than "Is the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?"
Since when did developers, other than Microsoft, Apple, and a few other dominant players, dictate the requirements for their customers' software? Generally, software released with missing key features will induce a lawsuit for breach of contract.
Right, so developers can actually decide the fate of ISO software standards. All it takes is several companies' CEOs being convinced that OOXML is the way to go, and Microsoft has made CEO "convincing" into an art form. Then the CEOs will tell their IT or development houses, "Build me this". Trust me, there will be a deluge of fired developers before there is a revolt against OOXML in software development.
Oh, so all we have to do is tell all the PHBs in the world that ISO standards are useless. Simplicity itself.
Or do you seriously think that the entire online community treating ISO as tainted and unclean will actually enact some sort of change?
Isn't this the same argument leveled against purchasing RIAA member label music, or Hollywood movies? "Don't buy them and they'll go away"? As long as the majority of people neither know nor care about the corporate world's evils, the corporations will rule the populace. The question is, how do we get them to know and/or care? Informing them is relatively easy, but getting them to get involved against corporations is another matter altogether.
Now that this is over, can someone investigate Microsoft? I'd like to know why they had several paid staff members writing blogs, on company time, full of glowing reviews about, and defense of, OOXML.
It's incredibly stupid, and inviting a pointless and devastating arms race.
Security (illegally) bans taking pictures. Photographer uses hidden camera. Security (illegally) conducts searches for hidden cameras (along with the terror-bait "weapons") of everyone on the premises. Photographer doesn't enter the premises and uses a camera with a telescopic lens. Security gets the local cops involved to search for and detain cars with telescopic cameras. Photographer rents property in view of the premises. Security gets the local government to authorize busts of anyone using a long-range camera, even on private property.
Notice the progressive expansion of the security guard's power trip. Notice also that all a terrorist has to do is masquerade as a delivery person or a security guard, and plant a big IED.
Executives and politicians wouldn't know good security if it slapped them in the face.
[Conspiracy theorist] The Bush administration and much of Congress effectively neutralized 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th amendment protections specifically because these really get in the way of the federal government having its own way. The Bush administration used a very political attorney selection process to neutralize judicial oversight of its policies.
Although I and many here suspect this is the true purpose of the Atlantic counsel's end-run use of ex parte proceedings, producing evidence of Atlantic attempting "to maintain and preserve... their monopolistic control over the world's market for the distribution of sound recordings." is going to be very tough. Hopefully the Atlantic counsel won't turn the trial into a philosophical circus over this allegation.
And that may very well be the straw that breaks Vista's camel's back. If Psystar can get the court to rule against Apple, the OEMs can encourage manufacturers to build components that were once Mac-specific, like EFI motherboards. This will only accelerate sales of OS X, and more software and drivers will be written for it, increasing its reliability across different hardware profiles. This in turn will really help OS X finally break into the office, where Windows long reigned supreme. Apple has a chance to become the new Microsoft, and a tremendous opportunity to learn from Redmond's mistakes.
Unfortunately, as parent said, an injunction against hardware tying (which has precedent) may cause Mac hardware sales to plummet (which Apple fights tooth and nail to protect), and Apple will also have to deal with increased demand for support of non-Mac base hardware (Why is it crashing on AMD/VIA? Why isn't SLI working right? etc.). The way I see it, Apple has two strategies to pursue should the gavel fall on their heads:
1. They can shrug and scale down or eliminate their lower-priced Mac lines (mini, Macbook), leaving the others to serve as reference models for all other Mac machines. In order to do this, they will have to crank up the hardware manufacturing quality so the margins are zero or negative (much like non-Nintendo consoles are initially sold), and offer sweet deals to the OEMs while maintaining a price range for clones. Since their software sales would likely increase by an order of magnitude, they can direct those resources towards hardware quality, increased support, and further development of iWork and X Server. iPod and iPhone sales? Those will continue to increase anyway, and the increased adoption of OS X with its more stable iTunes would amplify media-related sales. 2. They can, essentially, be like the media industry and the BSA: use every dirty trick in the book to try to get your way, including: Jacking up volume licensing of OS X to OEMs to prevent affordable clones, suing every OEM who buys OS X in bulk for trademark infringement, and refuse support for commodity hardware, instead offering to sell a Mac to those looking for software support on a Mac clone. They can, antitrust suits notwithstanding, afford to give this a shot, but the resulting ill will from customers and competitors will be significant.
Which path Apple takes is dependent on how much Jobs has invested in locking OS X into Apple hardware, or how ticked off he is at Psystar.
1. The game console is not your babysitter. If you have the time, patience, and dedication to screen every byte of a game for sanitary access to your babies' eyes, more power to you, but assuming that every household and every console owner is like you is both arrogant and ludicrous. 2. You have the option of not buying the game, and enforcing it by saying "No" to your child if s/he begs for it, and punishing the child if s/he obtains it behind your back. But use the opportunity to tell him you don't want the child to become desensitized to violence (or whatever) if you can, as a flat refusal will only encourage the child to disobey you. Play with your kids! I hear Smash Brothers Brawl is a blast. 3. The gaming industry, even Nintendo, has never been a "safe haven" for children from the very beginning; Nintendo, to my recollection, never marketed the Wii as a family-only console (just family-friendly). The only "safe haven" parents do (and should) create is in their homes, hopefully more as a real plan and practice rather than an illusion in their heads.
To summarize: Wishing something were true has no effect on reality.
This is one that no spell checker will catch-- well, at least until we get context-sensitive languages in computation:
Discrete: Distinct, consisting of separate things; not continuous (discrete mathematics deals primarily with integers or rationals (?)* as opposed to real numbers; compare y = Fibonacci(x) to y = x^2).
Discreet: Prudent, modest, unobtrusive. Think stealth or camouflage, and you have the general idea.
* Depends on whether rationals are countable; too lazy and tired to do the proof either way.
Indeed, had he gotten a Harvard MBA, he would be insisting that pirates are cutting into his profits. It's refreshing to see someone realize that stronger locks encourage better thieves and turn away those who lost their keys.
Put another way, Nintendo's design team may have found the next addicting thing from the aforementioned hobby, and they just want to keep it a secret, Apple-style.
Such a system also sounds nearly as complex and time-consuming as the impeachment process, and would be a prime first resort for someone wishing to delay passage of a bill or to grind the legislative process to a standstill-- in other words, an elaborate filibuster. For some, that might be a good thing, but if we want good things to get done in Washington, we have to allow them to pass bills within a matter of weeks, not months. If the President feels he's not getting his way with Congress, he might invoke this deliberative review every time they bring a bill to his desk to literally hold them hostage. In the scope of time, the veto/override system in place-- if it's used properly (the House and Senate are too wrapped up in their own power-grabbing to do it)-- is much more efficient.
Like any organization of people, it works for all unless some players cheat or game the system. This system is vulnerable to cronyism-- if the President or Congress pick advocates with political goals instead of the greater good (see U.S. attorney hiring process under Bush II), they can mislead the jury with rhetoric over logic. The result is then determined by who is the better orator, not who has the better position argumentatively. Now if the rules required a true devil's advocate independent of the government, that might force the legislative/executive advocate to actually build his case rather than build a stump speech. The problem is, any "independent" advocate can be coerced and corrupted.
A citizen ratification*, IMO, might be a better alternative. Say a generally harmless bill with one controversial provision is passed. A group of citizens issues a challenge to an oversight body (e.g. the Ninth District or the Supreme Court), who reviews the constitutionality of the bill. If they decide it to be unconstitutional, the bill is struck down; if not, the bill is submitted to a vote in the next general election cycle**. A supermajority (66%) of the voters is required for the bill to take effect.
The advantages: - Any bill that is controversial and potentially harmful to citizens' rights (DMCA, Patriot Act, FISA) can be immediately subjected to judicial review, meaning that such bills do not get the effective grace period granted to them under the current system. - Even if all three branches of the government insist that the bill is good, they are subjected to the will of the voters, minimizing the threat of cronies. This may have the effect of forcing the government to represent the interests of the voters rather than that of the corporations (which don't get to vote) or PACs (likewise). Because the ultimate say is in the voters' hands, this system significantly raises the bar for passing unpopular bills.
The disadvantages: - Circumvention. As mentioned above, it works until those involved decide to cheat. The way to cheat around this is for the judiciary to deliberately ignore challenges raised against unpopular bills in the same way Karl Rove ignores Congressional subpoenas. Or, those who wish to circumvent the process may obfuscate the fact that this recourse is available (assuming that it becomes law), or make the process as dull, tedious, and painful as possible. - Obfuscation. Another possible avenue for cheating is to hide the bill's controversial provisions in the guise of "national security". This is assuming that this review process can't/doesn't expose state secrets or the like, and that the initial judicial review deems it constitutional. Similarly, corporate interests can conceivably use this to strike down tax increases on business by spinning the bill as a tax increase on regular people (cf. McCain's campaign ads). This will depend on the nature of the initial challenge, specifically who can challenge and how many is needed. - An immediate judicial review may kill the bill before it has a chance to prove itself in the legal system. The review could be handled as a typical litigation process challenging the bill. - Striking down a bad law is f
A misinformed media and a media that deliberately misleads are two different things. Given that many media outlets are now owned by corporations with an interest in maximizing their profits, I wouldn't be surprised if they put pressure on the news staff to lull the public into intellectual obesity.
It comes down to money and power, unfortunately; the two vices of man that are so often the roots of their misbehavior.
IOC officials will tell us all that they picked Beijing because they wanted the largest audience possible. What they won't tell us is that a huge portion of the Chinese population won't have the means to see the Games live or on the television -- I'm guessing they're still too poor to own a television. Maybe they've set up a newsreel theater-like rig in rural areas or in Sichuan province (when porcine fly by their own strength), but with live broadcasts, I don't know.
"Don't boycott us," they beg, "you'll ruin the Olympic spirit. What you guys did in 1980 was just horrible." Cry me a goddamned river. They picked two of the worst authoritarian regimes in modern history in 1936 and 1980, and they're begging us to watch the third regime whose idea of freedom is doing only what they tell you to do? If they cater to evil in the hope of doing good, they should never play the victim!
Of course, if they do manage to get the largest audience ever in Olympic history, that means that their sponsors will have marketed to the largest audience ever. The moment they started taking money from corporations who don't give a rat's ass about human rights (1984), that's when the Olympics was transformed from a respectable competition among athletes to an extended media circus and theater show, where instead of clowns, tigers, elephants, and monkeys, you have Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps, and Katie Hoff. I still wonder what kind of idiotic ad company would have athletes, whose nutritionists agonize over their diets, sponsor a fried chicken sandwich as if it were equivalent to the gold medals they are training for.
Let's not forget also that being able to control where the money flows grants tremendous power, especially when the IOC's current leadership is depending on the good name its previous leaders established. Let's also not forget the cracker-jack job that they do in maintaining fairness, like when they let a pro-Soviet PHB steal the basketball gold medal in 1972, or when they look the other way when underage gymnasts from China compete. If they don't want scandal and controversy, they should not invite them by letting politicians walk all over them.
(Flamebait warning-- not like the "excellent" karma was much use, even here)
Of course, this is Slashdot, where few in the community reads the articles, even fewer fact-check a posting (and those who are supposed to actually fact-check are appallingly bad at it), and no article is ever withdrawn for gross inaccuracy or yellow journalism.
Combine a cleverly spun blog post about authorities looking around a hobbyist chemist and an exceedingly loud libertarian readership, and you have the tired cliché, the "perfect storm".
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go camp out in my mascot costume. It's a lovely night for a roasted juice box.
Slashdot Mirror
... few good men...
Having known three good lawyers*, I'm inclined to think that the good guys are in the majority, but are drowned out by the presence of a few loud and truly evil people. That, and the adversarial method that the US legal system uses forces even good guys to play devil's advocate, even when it's obvious that they'll lose on the facts and merits of their case.
Put another way, I think very few geeks are actually so stereotypically antisocial that they spend their lives isolated in their parents' basements. If this were actually the case, Slashdot and other geek-friendly sites would never form a strong community. Densha Otoko is probably a great example of how reality is often much more interesting than the labels we wear and assign.
* Two indirectly-- one of those is Ray Beckerman-- and one face-to-face. The two lawyers who are not Ray are co-counselors in a current lawsuit my parents are involved in with other plaintiffs; the defendant has gone through several lawyers because they would not agree to his overall strategy of stalling and intimidation until he somehow flees the country. That these stewards of the court would dare to disagree with a wealthy man says a lot about their values. Actually, I don't know if I should count Ray, because I only know him through his writings and interviews.
If the law were code for a massive computer program, then everyone would have to pay fines or serve time. Not that I'm into Ayn Rand*, but "blind justice" does not mean "apply the law like an automaton". Brittle laws tend to be misused by authoritarians.
* Evidently one of the folks who built Firefox's spell-checker database is a fan.
I'm aware of the misbehavior of the RIAA's lawyers, but they are not the company.
That the lawyers were not fired for their misconduct speaks of complicity.
What we need is a mole or a whistleblower.
Ooh. Money bomb.
I think there's a donation page somewhere for Ms. Andersen's case.
Yes, the RIAA represents labels, not artists, but like many a dictator, they know that the first rule of propaganda is to repeat it loudly and publicly.
If Ms. Andersen's claim is valid, that the Atlantic investigators and counsel went after her because of her circumstances, then it very much does matter. At the very least, it will factor heavily in her counterclaim. The difference is that Atlantic didn't go after the wealthy oil magnate, or a silver spoon with a fiber link and piles of MP3s from Atlantic artists-- they and other RIAA lawyers went after the technically challenged, the cash-strapped student, the recently deceased, children, the elderly, and disabled people.
As ridiculous as the premise of their lawsuits is, if it were really a campaign to, as they claim, get the artists their fair share of lost sales, they would've gone after bootleggers in east Asia, who, to my recollection, still pirate American music and movies with impunity. Or, at the very least, their driftnet/lottery would've turned up some well-off and affluent students, or Harvard law students. They would have relished the opportunity of defeating a strong opponent if their case was actually sound. Instead, they went after people who would never have a chance in the courtroom and would otherwise be forced to accept a settlement on the plaintiff's terms. And if any defendant tries to, you know, actually defend himself, the plaintiff tries to withdraw and reserve the right to sue another day. Why, given the pattern of these clowns, it seems that the lack of resources, technical knowledge, or friends in the legal business, is the entire point of the RIAA members picking defendants to target!
Does any of that matter? That's for the judge to decide, and I'll take the opinion of an experienced lawyer on the bench over a Slashdot commenter any day.
I know the Atlantic counsel were/are acting like rogue district attorneys, but may I suggest a couple of regex's:
s/prosecute/litigate/
s/convictions/judgments in their favor/
In federal court, unless it's The United States vs..., it's probably a civil case, so you want to think "complaint" rather than "indictment", and "People's Court" rather than "Law & Order" (but with much higher stakes and different rules and conduct). To clear up other common confusions with criminal court, the question being answered is, "Which side can convince the judge better?" rather than "Is the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?"
Since when did developers, other than Microsoft, Apple, and a few other dominant players, dictate the requirements for their customers' software? Generally, software released with missing key features will induce a lawsuit for breach of contract.
Right, so developers can actually decide the fate of ISO software standards. All it takes is several companies' CEOs being convinced that OOXML is the way to go, and Microsoft has made CEO "convincing" into an art form. Then the CEOs will tell their IT or development houses, "Build me this". Trust me, there will be a deluge of fired developers before there is a revolt against OOXML in software development.
Oh, so all we have to do is tell all the PHBs in the world that ISO standards are useless. Simplicity itself.
Or do you seriously think that the entire online community treating ISO as tainted and unclean will actually enact some sort of change?
Isn't this the same argument leveled against purchasing RIAA member label music, or Hollywood movies? "Don't buy them and they'll go away"? As long as the majority of people neither know nor care about the corporate world's evils, the corporations will rule the populace. The question is, how do we get them to know and/or care? Informing them is relatively easy, but getting them to get involved against corporations is another matter altogether.
Correction:
Is that you, Jason Matusow?
It's incredibly stupid, and inviting a pointless and devastating arms race.
Security (illegally) bans taking pictures.
Photographer uses hidden camera.
Security (illegally) conducts searches for hidden cameras (along with the terror-bait "weapons") of everyone on the premises.
Photographer doesn't enter the premises and uses a camera with a telescopic lens.
Security gets the local cops involved to search for and detain cars with telescopic cameras.
Photographer rents property in view of the premises.
Security gets the local government to authorize busts of anyone using a long-range camera, even on private property.
Notice the progressive expansion of the security guard's power trip. Notice also that all a terrorist has to do is masquerade as a delivery person or a security guard, and plant a big IED.
Executives and politicians wouldn't know good security if it slapped them in the face.
[Conspiracy theorist]
The Bush administration and much of Congress effectively neutralized 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th amendment protections specifically because these really get in the way of the federal government having its own way. The Bush administration used a very political attorney selection process to neutralize judicial oversight of its policies.
Although I and many here suspect this is the true purpose of the Atlantic counsel's end-run use of ex parte proceedings, producing evidence of Atlantic attempting "to maintain and preserve... their monopolistic control over the world's market for the distribution of sound recordings." is going to be very tough. Hopefully the Atlantic counsel won't turn the trial into a philosophical circus over this allegation.
Next thing you know, Atlantic will try to hire Hugo Weaving so that they can harness his Mr. Smith powers.
And that may very well be the straw that breaks Vista's camel's back. If Psystar can get the court to rule against Apple, the OEMs can encourage manufacturers to build components that were once Mac-specific, like EFI motherboards. This will only accelerate sales of OS X, and more software and drivers will be written for it, increasing its reliability across different hardware profiles. This in turn will really help OS X finally break into the office, where Windows long reigned supreme. Apple has a chance to become the new Microsoft, and a tremendous opportunity to learn from Redmond's mistakes.
Unfortunately, as parent said, an injunction against hardware tying (which has precedent) may cause Mac hardware sales to plummet (which Apple fights tooth and nail to protect), and Apple will also have to deal with increased demand for support of non-Mac base hardware (Why is it crashing on AMD/VIA? Why isn't SLI working right? etc.). The way I see it, Apple has two strategies to pursue should the gavel fall on their heads:
1. They can shrug and scale down or eliminate their lower-priced Mac lines (mini, Macbook), leaving the others to serve as reference models for all other Mac machines. In order to do this, they will have to crank up the hardware manufacturing quality so the margins are zero or negative (much like non-Nintendo consoles are initially sold), and offer sweet deals to the OEMs while maintaining a price range for clones. Since their software sales would likely increase by an order of magnitude, they can direct those resources towards hardware quality, increased support, and further development of iWork and X Server. iPod and iPhone sales? Those will continue to increase anyway, and the increased adoption of OS X with its more stable iTunes would amplify media-related sales.
2. They can, essentially, be like the media industry and the BSA: use every dirty trick in the book to try to get your way, including: Jacking up volume licensing of OS X to OEMs to prevent affordable clones, suing every OEM who buys OS X in bulk for trademark infringement, and refuse support for commodity hardware, instead offering to sell a Mac to those looking for software support on a Mac clone. They can, antitrust suits notwithstanding, afford to give this a shot, but the resulting ill will from customers and competitors will be significant.
Which path Apple takes is dependent on how much Jobs has invested in locking OS X into Apple hardware, or how ticked off he is at Psystar.
1. The game console is not your babysitter. If you have the time, patience, and dedication to screen every byte of a game for sanitary access to your babies' eyes, more power to you, but assuming that every household and every console owner is like you is both arrogant and ludicrous.
2. You have the option of not buying the game, and enforcing it by saying "No" to your child if s/he begs for it, and punishing the child if s/he obtains it behind your back. But use the opportunity to tell him you don't want the child to become desensitized to violence (or whatever) if you can, as a flat refusal will only encourage the child to disobey you. Play with your kids! I hear Smash Brothers Brawl is a blast.
3. The gaming industry, even Nintendo, has never been a "safe haven" for children from the very beginning; Nintendo, to my recollection, never marketed the Wii as a family-only console (just family-friendly). The only "safe haven" parents do (and should) create is in their homes, hopefully more as a real plan and practice rather than an illusion in their heads.
To summarize: Wishing something were true has no effect on reality.
This is one that no spell checker will catch-- well, at least until we get context-sensitive languages in computation:
Discrete: Distinct, consisting of separate things; not continuous (discrete mathematics deals primarily with integers or rationals (?)* as opposed to real numbers; compare y = Fibonacci(x) to y = x^2).
Discreet: Prudent, modest, unobtrusive. Think stealth or camouflage, and you have the general idea.
* Depends on whether rationals are countable; too lazy and tired to do the proof either way.
Indeed, had he gotten a Harvard MBA, he would be insisting that pirates are cutting into his profits. It's refreshing to see someone realize that stronger locks encourage better thieves and turn away those who lost their keys.
Put another way, Nintendo's design team may have found the next addicting thing from the aforementioned hobby, and they just want to keep it a secret, Apple-style.
Such a system also sounds nearly as complex and time-consuming as the impeachment process, and would be a prime first resort for someone wishing to delay passage of a bill or to grind the legislative process to a standstill-- in other words, an elaborate filibuster.
For some, that might be a good thing, but if we want good things to get done in Washington, we have to allow them to pass bills within a matter of weeks, not months. If the President feels he's not getting his way with Congress, he might invoke this deliberative review every time they bring a bill to his desk to literally hold them hostage. In the scope of time, the veto/override system in place-- if it's used properly (the House and Senate are too wrapped up in their own power-grabbing to do it)-- is much more efficient.
Like any organization of people, it works for all unless some players cheat or game the system. This system is vulnerable to cronyism-- if the President or Congress pick advocates with political goals instead of the greater good (see U.S. attorney hiring process under Bush II), they can mislead the jury with rhetoric over logic. The result is then determined by who is the better orator, not who has the better position argumentatively. Now if the rules required a true devil's advocate independent of the government, that might force the legislative/executive advocate to actually build his case rather than build a stump speech. The problem is, any "independent" advocate can be coerced and corrupted.
A citizen ratification*, IMO, might be a better alternative. Say a generally harmless bill with one controversial provision is passed. A group of citizens issues a challenge to an oversight body (e.g. the Ninth District or the Supreme Court), who reviews the constitutionality of the bill. If they decide it to be unconstitutional, the bill is struck down; if not, the bill is submitted to a vote in the next general election cycle**. A supermajority (66%) of the voters is required for the bill to take effect.
The advantages:
- Any bill that is controversial and potentially harmful to citizens' rights (DMCA, Patriot Act, FISA) can be immediately subjected to judicial review, meaning that such bills do not get the effective grace period granted to them under the current system.
- Even if all three branches of the government insist that the bill is good, they are subjected to the will of the voters, minimizing the threat of cronies. This may have the effect of forcing the government to represent the interests of the voters rather than that of the corporations (which don't get to vote) or PACs (likewise). Because the ultimate say is in the voters' hands, this system significantly raises the bar for passing unpopular bills.
The disadvantages:
- Circumvention. As mentioned above, it works until those involved decide to cheat. The way to cheat around this is for the judiciary to deliberately ignore challenges raised against unpopular bills in the same way Karl Rove ignores Congressional subpoenas. Or, those who wish to circumvent the process may obfuscate the fact that this recourse is available (assuming that it becomes law), or make the process as dull, tedious, and painful as possible.
- Obfuscation. Another possible avenue for cheating is to hide the bill's controversial provisions in the guise of "national security". This is assuming that this review process can't/doesn't expose state secrets or the like, and that the initial judicial review deems it constitutional. Similarly, corporate interests can conceivably use this to strike down tax increases on business by spinning the bill as a tax increase on regular people (cf. McCain's campaign ads). This will depend on the nature of the initial challenge, specifically who can challenge and how many is needed.
- An immediate judicial review may kill the bill before it has a chance to prove itself in the legal system. The review could be handled as a typical litigation process challenging the bill.
- Striking down a bad law is f
A misinformed media and a media that deliberately misleads are two different things. Given that many media outlets are now owned by corporations with an interest in maximizing their profits, I wouldn't be surprised if they put pressure on the news staff to lull the public into intellectual obesity.
I'm pretty sure that's how Woz would think, but he doesn't work with Jobs anymore.
It comes down to money and power, unfortunately; the two vices of man that are so often the roots of their misbehavior.
IOC officials will tell us all that they picked Beijing because they wanted the largest audience possible. What they won't tell us is that a huge portion of the Chinese population won't have the means to see the Games live or on the television -- I'm guessing they're still too poor to own a television. Maybe they've set up a newsreel theater-like rig in rural areas or in Sichuan province (when porcine fly by their own strength), but with live broadcasts, I don't know.
"Don't boycott us," they beg, "you'll ruin the Olympic spirit. What you guys did in 1980 was just horrible." Cry me a goddamned river. They picked two of the worst authoritarian regimes in modern history in 1936 and 1980, and they're begging us to watch the third regime whose idea of freedom is doing only what they tell you to do? If they cater to evil in the hope of doing good, they should never play the victim!
Of course, if they do manage to get the largest audience ever in Olympic history, that means that their sponsors will have marketed to the largest audience ever. The moment they started taking money from corporations who don't give a rat's ass about human rights (1984), that's when the Olympics was transformed from a respectable competition among athletes to an extended media circus and theater show, where instead of clowns, tigers, elephants, and monkeys, you have Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps, and Katie Hoff. I still wonder what kind of idiotic ad company would have athletes, whose nutritionists agonize over their diets, sponsor a fried chicken sandwich as if it were equivalent to the gold medals they are training for.
Let's not forget also that being able to control where the money flows grants tremendous power, especially when the IOC's current leadership is depending on the good name its previous leaders established. Let's also not forget the cracker-jack job that they do in maintaining fairness, like when they let a pro-Soviet PHB steal the basketball gold medal in 1972, or when they look the other way when underage gymnasts from China compete. If they don't want scandal and controversy, they should not invite them by letting politicians walk all over them.
(Flamebait warning-- not like the "excellent" karma was much use, even here)
Of course, this is Slashdot, where few in the community reads the articles, even fewer fact-check a posting (and those who are supposed to actually fact-check are appallingly bad at it), and no article is ever withdrawn for gross inaccuracy or yellow journalism.
Combine a cleverly spun blog post about authorities looking around a hobbyist chemist and an exceedingly loud libertarian readership, and you have the tired cliché, the "perfect storm".
Now if you'll excuse me, I'll go camp out in my mascot costume. It's a lovely night for a roasted juice box.