The Vex Starter kit is a great value for $100. Unfortunately, it's $300. Sure you may find it at your local Radio Shack on clearance at that price, but they are very few and far between by now. You can get a deal on eBay, but you're more likely looking at $150+. In addition, that price doesn't include the programming kit, so you're going to have to spend an additional $100, so you're back up to the $250 price of the Mindstorms NXT. For the price, you get about a quarter the number of usable pieces (the official piece count is similar, but each screw, washer, nut, etc. counts as a piece in the Vex system) and the pieces you do get are much less versatile (Vex only has about 8 unique structural pieces to work with, so you are quite limited in what you can actually build). Even if you could get Vex for $100, the Lego system is still the better value unless you are primarily interested in RC stuff-- the one area where the Vex wins hands down.
And I should point out that it looks marginally better under IE. A tad bit of irony there, pointing out that SHE doesn't need hacks to make her site look the way she wants, but only by using a broken browser and ignoring compatibility with other non-broken ones. Here's a suggestion: Look at your site in Firefox before trumpeting how great you are on web standards.
Let me try to explain myself in a different way. There are at least a half dozen or so groups in the US who are the [blank] Socialist Party (Freedom Socialist Party, Workers Socialist Party...). My politics, and that of most other Democrats-- even those of us on the far left-- don't line up with those groups. Even while you acknowledge it, you are trying to ignore the fact that the term Socialist-- in a US political context-- has a ton of baggage attached to it.
You are correct that using your definition, I am a socialist. But your definition is functionally useless since virtually every other American is as well. Practically speaking, not everyone who supports some element or degree of socialism is a "socialist". I'm not quite sure exactly where you should draw the dividing line, but considering the people who currently use the term to describe their views, you draw it somewhere pretty far away from me.
Say I get the 90 track plan. The average album has about 12 tracks, so that means that I can dowload 12.5 albums. But since I don't want to download.5 of an album, I need to look for some combination of albums that add up to 90 tracks. Unless they provide such functionality ("Pick some random albums from my wantlist that equal a total of 90 tracks") then my complaint stands. It's certainly possible to work around the limitation, but it's annoying. The fact that they do now sell add on packs makes the complaint less significant.
Historically (and I believe still outside the US), libertarianism was primarily defined by their views on civil liberties. Since about the 60's or so (I believe, it might have started earlier), the movement started to be taken over by people whose views were much more focused on property rights then on personal liberties. Modern libertarianism, as defined by the Libertarian party is pretty fundamentally tied to the notion of free market capitalism. Certainly there are some people with somewhat divergent views on the matter, but if you're voting for a Libertarian candidate, you can be pretty confident that they are a free market capitalist, so read their platform carefully.
Libertarians tend to be not quite as far out as Objectivists, but the differences are usually pretty small from what I've been able to pick up. Maybe it's just been bad luck, but I've yet to meet someone who considered themselves an Objectivist who seemed to have much of a connection with Reality. They tend to be of the view that if Ayn Rand said it, it's true, no matter how absurd the notion. Most Libertarians have at least some ability to think independently still.
(To be fair, while I have significant problems with the economic ideas of modern Libertarian party, I do agree with their views on many other issues. They're certainly a better option then the modern republican party.)
I think you're mistaken in thinking communism and capitalism are polar opposites. In truth, socialism is closer to an opposite to capitalism, than communism is. As for economic systems, all working economic systems are a bunch of individuals and/or communist cells competing in a capitalist economy, while everyone contributes some to socialist programs. In the US most communist cells are family units or extended families, with a few communes and monasteries. These compete in a capitalist economy, while taxes are collected by the central government on spent on socialist programs like public schools, military, police, roads, etc.
You're probably correct. Your definition seems reasonable, and as I pointed out, I am not an economist or academic. Nonetheless, you're completely missing the point. I am not arguing the relative merits of any economic system, or really even trying to define any of them. This entire thread started when someone objected to the fact you defined Libertarianism as extreme and I pointed out that true unfettered capitalism is pretty much on the extreme end of the economic spectrum. That was the entire point of my post, everything else was just supporting material. You're right, it might have been somewhat inaccurate, but it doesn't invalidate my point unless you are now saying that you were wrong in the beginning.
I agree that Libertarian economic policies do not work in the long term, but not because of an individual's lack of foresight. They don't work because without any socialism, wage disparity and wealth consolidation rise dramatically until there is no middle class.
There are a variety of problems with Libertarianism. That is another one that I have pointed out in previous discussions on the subject. I could probably list several others if I wanted to take the time, but since this was not intended to be an academic discussion of the pros and cons of Libertarianism, I felt that one off-hand problem was sufficient.
I think what you are missing is that socialism, communism, and capitalism are elements of the economy, while Republican, Democrat, and Libertarian are political parties. This does not mean there cannot be a "socialist" party, "communist" party or a "capitalist" party, but those are independent of their meanings within the economy.
Actually, I'm not missing that at all. My entire point was that not all Democrats are what, in the US at least, would define themselves as Socialists. You're certainly correct that in much of the world, the term socialism may have a different meaning (as does libertarian for that matter), but since we are speaking about Democrats, which is a US political party, I felt it was reasonable to define my terms bsed on their US contexts, without regard to their meanings in other conutries. In the US, "Socialists" are usually something like these guys, so I'm, sure you can understand why I want to clarify that not everyone on the far left of the Democratic party are socialists. As I pointed out (from the beginning actually), I do support some socialist ideas, but that does not make me a socialist in the popular usage of the word.
I think the problem is that you are using the term socialism in an academic context, I'm using the popular definition. Neither of our definitions is wrong, but they are right in different ways. If you ask the average Republican if they are a socialist, they would deny it with some fervor, but they probably do support a goverment paid police force. Your definition is technically correct, but very wrong in the popular sense. My definition is exactly the opposite. Since I wasn't attempting to make an academic argument, I didn't see the point in trying to stay away from the popular usage.
You criticize me for redefining Socialism, then you take the most liberal possible definition of Socialism and try to make your point. Few but the most hardcore objectivists & anarchists would argue for the complete elimination of the police, so by your definition probably 99.9% of Americans are Socialists. Most people understand that the term Socialism has a fairly specific definition in political discussions.
By that commonly used definition, I am not a socialist. I do support strong programs to help the Homeless (preferably before they become homeless), strong worker retraining programs, universal healthcare, and some similar ideas, under the notion that it's cheaper and better for society to address these issues before they become very expensive problems later. That said, I do agree that there should be reasonable limits on social programs, and I agree with some of the Republican complaints about the welfare system as it has been implemented in the past. I can agree with your statement "the Democratic party both in principal and in action does support socialism" with one strong caveat: We support elements of socialism, but we are not defined by socialism. By your definition, Libertarians would also be Republicans just because they both support lower taxes. Such a view is obviously a gross oversimplification, and the sort of nitpicking that serves only to distract without actually achieving any useful purpose in a political discussion.
To give you perspective, I define myself as a civil libertarian. I agree with most Libertarians on social issues, but I disagreee with the notion of an unfettered free market. I can certainly agree that the implementation of many of our current regulatory agencies is extremely flawed, but I've seen to many examples of corporate Americas short-sightedness to believe that as a society we'd be better off with no government regulation. As someone pointed out earlier, Libertarianism only works when people actually think about their long-term good, and I've seen no evidence that people can do so.
There is a spectrum of economic systems that run the gamut from the extremes of true capitalism to true communism (I'm not an economist. Some people might find fault with this statement, but it's reasonably accurate even if there are exceptions or caveats). Most economic systems fall somewhere in between. On of the most core concepts of Libertarianism is that of an unrestrained free market. You may condsider yourself a Libertarian, and that's fine, but you are disagreeing with one of the core principles. That's fine-- there are pro-choice republicans and pro-life Democrats for example-- but Libertarianism is still by definition extreme, you just happen to be redefining it.
Why does libertarianism have to be extreme while republicans and democrats get to straddle a wide range?
Libertarianism is by definition extreme. One of the most fundamental concepts of libertarianism is the notion of an unfettered free market. On the spectrum of economic systems, such a notion is just as extreme as true communism.
And FYI, extreme Democrat != socialist. On most issues, I consider myself a pretty extreme democrat, but I am not a socialist. I support some sort of national health care system, and a strong social safety net, but I am a small business owner and capitalist. Some extreme Democrats are socialists, but, despite the right-wing propaganda to the contrary, it's a gross exaggeration to suggest that we all are. Unlike Libertarians, Democrats don't have a single pet economic system-- Our views pretty much run the gamut. The main difference is that we are not opposed to some government regulation, and we don't mind paying our fair share of taxes (we don't like it any more then we do, but we see it as a necessary evil). Oh, and not all Arachists are Libertarians, either.
Does eMusic still limit you to downloading only as many sons per month as your plan allows (ie, not allowing you to purchase additional songs for an extra fee)? That's always been the problem that I have with them-- I download entire albums, not individual tracks, so figuring out how to download exactly 90 (or whatever) songs per month isn't worth the hassle.
Not a poor assumption at all considering the headline "RTS Halo Mod Stoppedby Microsoft" and that neither the article nor the Halogen website (as of the time of my post) go into details about the nature of the mod. Based on the information available to me, it seems a perfectly reasonable assumption that this "Halo Mod" was a mod of Halo, not of C&C. I tried to be clear in my original post that my comment was based on the limited info that was available to me when I posted it. As I clarified in my last post, if they are using MS IP without requiring the purchase, then they are clearly violating trademark law.
I don't think it's that simple, but as I said, I don't know all the details (there wasn't much info on the site when I visited it). Assuming that you need to buy a copy of Halo to use the mod, then Microsofts case is weak. How can requiring the purchase of Halo weaken the Halo brand? If they are using the art, concept, etc. without requiring the purchase of Halo, then you are correct that Trademark law would apply and MS's case would indeed be quite strong. I still tend to think that Microsoft's actions are probably misguided (I've always thought that suing your loyal fan base was a bad idea), but the case is certainly much more reasonable in that case.
In case you don't read the AC post, submitting a journal is not the same as submitting a story. Look for the Submit Story button in the left column (under Stories). BTW, just because you submit a story doesn't necesarily mean that you are the -first- person to submit the story. It sometimes takes hours or occasionally even days for a story to be posted, so someone else could have already submitted it.
I'm know little about this particular situation, but I am somewhat familiar with several similar situations, and although IANAL, I am pretty familiar with trademark law. You are correct that you must protect your trademark in order to retain rights to it, but it's not quite that simple. Trademark law does not protect you from anyone other then yourself from using your trademark, only from people misrepresenting their product using your trademark, or otherwise taking advantage of your trademark (or something overly similar to your trademark) in a way that could cause confusion in the marketplace. Most likely, any claim on the grounds of trademark law would be pretty weak (though again, I don't know all the details. I can think of possible cases where the claim would be stronger). A claim on copyright grounds would be stronger, but every mod that I've ever seen requires the person running the mod to buy the original program, so again, it would seem that their case would be weak (this would also seem to weaken a trademark claim as well).
In most of these cases, from a purely legal perspective, the modders seem to have a pretty strong case. The problem is that Microsoft has deep pockets and a world class legal team, and the modders probably don't. Without those things, plus the desire to spend the next few years of their lives fighting a legal battle for what is really only a hobby. Though I'm always a bit disappointed when it happens, I can certainly understand why they would decide not to fight.
I'm not opposed to the archiving PER SE, as much as I am opposed to the free access. If material that proves illegal activity is archived, then only those in a position to pursue and stop that activity should have access to it.
But the information may be valuable to people OTHER then law enforcement and criminals. Also, not everything on Anyboard is illegal, so are you saying that just because 1% of the content is questionable, none of it should be archived?
Being able to request that information be removed from the archive kind of defeats the purpose of archiving everything. Since that implies that some information should not be archived, isn't it now a mater of coming up with a standard definition of what is to be kept and what isn't?
Not everything is or should be archived. As a web author, I have the right to say that my content is copywritten and cannot be archived. Personal information won't be archived. Child Porn won't be archived. They honor a robots.txt file, so if you don't want your site archived, just set one up. If your information was archived without your permission, they have a removal policy, I linked to it previously.
I know I could never make that list. I also know that the information on how to contact those selling stolen goods should not be kept in an easy place to access. This only encourages the sale of stolen goods. But with the creation of that standard list, there is no need for a removal policy.
But again, it shouldn't matter that that info is in there to begin with. Every page in the Archive is AT LEAST 6 months old. Yahoo (or whoever) should be the ones you are angry with, not trying to arbitrarily censor the Archive because Yahoo is incompetent.
And, again, keep in mind that the information regarding credit card numbers is EASILY available on the internet. Get onto Usenet and you can find CURRENT ads offereing the same information, and the email addresses are much more likely to still work. The simple fact that the Archive is inherently obsolete makes your objections really silly. I can't imagine that there are a whole lot of script kiddies using the Archive to get their stolen CC numbers when there are hundreds or thousands of other sites that will be much more likely to have valid email addresses.
The Yahoo thing... the hackers behind the phishing site, the ones attached to the yahoo email address, did their work from 4 IP addresses. Two out of Taiwan, and two out of Vietnam. Maybe Yahoo is currently working with authorities to track them down and arrest them. They have been in operation for a little while now, and they are collecting more victims as I type. The Yahoo address is still active, because yahoo does not reject communication attempts to that address. Now, Yahoo months ago was informed of a different phishing site, that was hosted on their server. Maybe the investigation is still pending, but I've been watching that site be updated again and again and again. Yahoo has the logs of all that activity. There has been more than enough time to shut it down. They do not. Now, both of these inactions on the part of Yahoo do not form a pattern. But they do indicate a tendency.
I have stated previously, your complaints about Yahoo are perfectly reasonable. This discussion is about the Internet Archive, so it's a bit off topic. Have you contacted YahooDomains and had them shut down the domain itself? Since they are the registrar, that would be my first action.
Anyway, I'm clearly not going to convince you that you are wrong, and I'm probably becoming even more resolute in my opinions the more I think about it, so what say we just drop it here?
If Yahoo fails to act in accordance with their stated policy, then your fight really should be with them, not the Archive. You have very valid complaints about how they have handled the situation.
With regard to the Archive, I can certainly see your point, but I disagree. The Archive has too many valuable uses to allow it to be watered down. It goes back to my earlier point, who decides what merits inclusion? It's a ridiculously difficult challenge, and it's the sort of question that people have been debating since the birth of the Internet, and to a lesser extent since the birth of libraries. Any information that actually violates privacy, and any information that is actually illegal should certainly be removed. But from what I saw, the links you point to don't actually show a significant amount of personal info, but link to ways that you can find or buy personal information (granted, I didn't spend much time looking). Information on how to commit a crime is legally protected by the first ammendment. Actual offers to sell credit card data are not legally protected, but the offer is useless if Yahoo does its job and deactivates the email address/URL. Once the email account is deleted, then suddenly the offer to sell the credit card data is actually useful, both to law enforcement and to researchers, privacy experts, and for consumer education. Once again, your complaints against Yahoo are valid, you complaints against the Archive are misguided.
For that matter, do you know for certain that the email account isn't still active specifically because Yahoo is working with law enforcement to capture the guy? Once they cancel his email address, it will be almost impossible to catch the guy. With a valid email, they can fairly easily track him down.
As for kiddie porn, if its there, have you told them about it? I would be VERY surprised to find out that they failed to act on removing actual child pornography. I could be wrong, but I believe that their failure to act to remove known child pornography is a serious legal offense in the US, so it's pretty doubtful that they would just ignore it. Note, there is some material that while highly objectionable to some people, is not legally considered child pornography. The photos of Robert Maplethorpe or David Hamilton come to mind. While you may find the content offensive, they are art, and do not come close to meeting the definition of pornography. If that is the sort of material you object to, then you will not get very far having them removed (just as you won't succeed in getting them removed from the Library of Congress). Also things like short stories depicting sex with a minor are not child pornography, even if they claim to be true, and regardless of any apparent artistic merit. Child pornography has a very specific legal definition, so things that fall outside of that definition, however tasteless, are perfectly appropriate for inclusion in the Archive. Since I don't know any kiddie porn websites, I can't verify your claims that they haven't removed it... I tend to suspect that you are wrong on this one.
Actually I'd have to disagree on the 'FAR more positive uses.'
So you think the possibility of compromised personal information, even though they do have a policy to remove it, outweighs all of the other valuable uses? You've cited effectively one negative use, and (considering the removal policy, see my reply to the parent poster) one that isn't very sound at that. Positive uses: academic research, law enforcement, catching racist or otherwise offensive language on politicians websites, tracking down product info for discontinued products... There are thousands of positive uses, there are a few negative ones. To me, that meets my definition of "FAR more".
And with regards to your blog entry, I said "just about any information", so that particular entry may not be useful. But you'd be surprised what seemingly useless or trivial info can be used by a skilled social engineer. One of the fundamental skills of a good con man is his ability to extract useful info out of the seemingly useless. Maybe in that Blog post, you name your city. In one you made last month, you name your street. In a third, you show a picture of your new house, complete with street number. No single bit of information could be used to identify you (unless someone just happened to recognize your house from the photo), but put the three of them together, and I now have your home address (granted, these are obvious examples, but you can see my point). Or maybe the con man, knowing of your interest in spores & fungus, casually mentions something on the topic in conversation. Since he knows more about you then you know about him, you are at a significant disadvantage. And since you are (presumably) an honest sort of guy and he's not, most likley you won't have an inkling that you are being conned until long after it's over. My point wasn't that all info can be used, just that it's very dfifficult to forsee what information -could- be used improperly when someone has an agenda that you don't know about.
Archiving everything in your house is a bad idea. Archiving the Internet is a very different thing. First off, who is going to be the moderator? You? What if I disagree with your opinion of what is worthy of archiving or not? What happens if, as I pointed out, something that you chose not to archive would have turned out to be useful in prosecuting an identity thief (or worse)? Any moderator will have absolutely no way of knowing what information will be useful in the future and what information won't be. Then there's the practical aspect: How many people do you suspect it would take to screen each and every page in the Archive for it's suitability for six year olds?
And do they also do the same for the Internet proper? All of the information that you object to exists on the Internet itself. It's not hard to find. You can find the exact same information on Google, so should we moderate them also? Every other search engine? Usenet? Yahoo Groups, Google Groups? Do you begin to see the futility of your quest?
Your argument is also unfounded considering the IA has a removal policy in place for exactly the sort of info you object to "Occasionally, data disclosed in confidence by one party to another may eventually be made public by a third party. For example, medical information provided in confidence is occasionally made public when insurance companies or medical practices shut down. These requests are generally treated as requests by authors or publishers of original data." If they are archiving your credit card number, let them know and they will remove it. As for Kiddie Porn, considering they would go to prison for hosting it, I suspect that they do their best to remove it ASAP.
Regarding your story about Paypal-protect.org, why didn't you just contact Yahoo to have his email account shut down? In their terms of service: "You agree to not use the Service to: 1. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;". It doesn't much matter how enthusiastic the guy is about selling your CC data, if you have no way to contact him he won't be too successful.
They also make it hard to delete EVIDENCE of past illicit activity. Woudld you (or the parent) be upset if the info in the Archive were used to convict the perpetrators? If it contains a link to his valid email address, it very easily could be (and probably has been) used by law enforcement for that very purpose. In reality, in the wrong hands, just about any information can be used for nefarious purposes. The archive can be used for such purposes, but it has FAR more positive uses then negative ones.
The reality of the modern political system is that Republicans are great at using the media to their advantage. They are the masters of spinning silly little stories into major scandals. Limbaugh is VERY hard to shut up. If he felt that Clinton was in any way responsible for censoring him, I can absolutely guarantee you it would have been a big deal.
But you're right, I cannot conclusively prove it. Unfortunately, my time machine is in the shop this week, so it's difficult for me to test the theory. But contrary to your rather odd way of using the word, Logic and Proof have little to do with one another. Many "unproveable" theories are perfectly logical. Many wrong theories are also perfectly logical. Your denial of the matter not withstanding, it's a perfectly -logical- conclusion to arrive at. Perhaps it's you who should be studying up a bit on your logic. Or would that get you kicked out of the Wingnut fan club?
As to your partisanship, first, the tone of your message is rather abrasive and, well, illogical. Just from that I can tell that you're either a wingnut, an asshole or both. Since I've also read several of your other posts, I'm fairly confident in my initial assumption that the correct answer is actually "both". Your sig doesn't help your cause either.
What about Armed Forces Radio? Are they still carrying only the Rush Limbaugh show with no left wing counterpart to balance the agenda?
Blocking political sites is fine, but only if they block them all. When they choose to block only one side of the political spectrum, they are committing unconstitutional censorship.
No, his allegations are far from unprovable, only unproven. The available evidence suggests that there is blatant partisanship in which programs are censored by the Marines. It could turn out that that evidence is wrong-- either many right-wing sites are also blocked, or the list in question is just wrong-- but until further evidence comes to light, he seems to be making an entirely reasonable conjecture.
And, honestly, do you really think that if the Marines under Clinton had blocked access to rushlimbaugh.com, there wouldn't have been a MAJOR stink raised about it? If you don't see that, it's only because you are so utterly partisan that you have lost touch with reality.
Slashdot Mirror
The Vex Starter kit is a great value for $100. Unfortunately, it's $300. Sure you may find it at your local Radio Shack on clearance at that price, but they are very few and far between by now. You can get a deal on eBay, but you're more likely looking at $150+. In addition, that price doesn't include the programming kit, so you're going to have to spend an additional $100, so you're back up to the $250 price of the Mindstorms NXT. For the price, you get about a quarter the number of usable pieces (the official piece count is similar, but each screw, washer, nut, etc. counts as a piece in the Vex system) and the pieces you do get are much less versatile (Vex only has about 8 unique structural pieces to work with, so you are quite limited in what you can actually build). Even if you could get Vex for $100, the Lego system is still the better value unless you are primarily interested in RC stuff-- the one area where the Vex wins hands down.
And I should point out that it looks marginally better under IE. A tad bit of irony there, pointing out that SHE doesn't need hacks to make her site look the way she wants, but only by using a broken browser and ignoring compatibility with other non-broken ones. Here's a suggestion: Look at your site in Firefox before trumpeting how great you are on web standards.
Oh man, that's a horrible page. Did she just say that she WANTED it to look like that?
Let me try to explain myself in a different way. There are at least a half dozen or so groups in the US who are the [blank] Socialist Party (Freedom Socialist Party, Workers Socialist Party...). My politics, and that of most other Democrats-- even those of us on the far left-- don't line up with those groups. Even while you acknowledge it, you are trying to ignore the fact that the term Socialist-- in a US political context-- has a ton of baggage attached to it.
You are correct that using your definition, I am a socialist. But your definition is functionally useless since virtually every other American is as well. Practically speaking, not everyone who supports some element or degree of socialism is a "socialist". I'm not quite sure exactly where you should draw the dividing line, but considering the people who currently use the term to describe their views, you draw it somewhere pretty far away from me.
Not my point...
.5 of an album, I need to look for some combination of albums that add up to 90 tracks. Unless they provide such functionality ("Pick some random albums from my wantlist that equal a total of 90 tracks") then my complaint stands. It's certainly possible to work around the limitation, but it's annoying. The fact that they do now sell add on packs makes the complaint less significant.
Say I get the 90 track plan. The average album has about 12 tracks, so that means that I can dowload 12.5 albums. But since I don't want to download
Historically (and I believe still outside the US), libertarianism was primarily defined by their views on civil liberties. Since about the 60's or so (I believe, it might have started earlier), the movement started to be taken over by people whose views were much more focused on property rights then on personal liberties. Modern libertarianism, as defined by the Libertarian party is pretty fundamentally tied to the notion of free market capitalism. Certainly there are some people with somewhat divergent views on the matter, but if you're voting for a Libertarian candidate, you can be pretty confident that they are a free market capitalist, so read their platform carefully.
Libertarians tend to be not quite as far out as Objectivists, but the differences are usually pretty small from what I've been able to pick up. Maybe it's just been bad luck, but I've yet to meet someone who considered themselves an Objectivist who seemed to have much of a connection with Reality. They tend to be of the view that if Ayn Rand said it, it's true, no matter how absurd the notion. Most Libertarians have at least some ability to think independently still.
(To be fair, while I have significant problems with the economic ideas of modern Libertarian party, I do agree with their views on many other issues. They're certainly a better option then the modern republican party.)
I think you're mistaken in thinking communism and capitalism are polar opposites. In truth, socialism is closer to an opposite to capitalism, than communism is. As for economic systems, all working economic systems are a bunch of individuals and/or communist cells competing in a capitalist economy, while everyone contributes some to socialist programs. In the US most communist cells are family units or extended families, with a few communes and monasteries. These compete in a capitalist economy, while taxes are collected by the central government on spent on socialist programs like public schools, military, police, roads, etc.
You're probably correct. Your definition seems reasonable, and as I pointed out, I am not an economist or academic. Nonetheless, you're completely missing the point. I am not arguing the relative merits of any economic system, or really even trying to define any of them. This entire thread started when someone objected to the fact you defined Libertarianism as extreme and I pointed out that true unfettered capitalism is pretty much on the extreme end of the economic spectrum. That was the entire point of my post, everything else was just supporting material. You're right, it might have been somewhat inaccurate, but it doesn't invalidate my point unless you are now saying that you were wrong in the beginning.
I agree that Libertarian economic policies do not work in the long term, but not because of an individual's lack of foresight. They don't work because without any socialism, wage disparity and wealth consolidation rise dramatically until there is no middle class.
There are a variety of problems with Libertarianism. That is another one that I have pointed out in previous discussions on the subject. I could probably list several others if I wanted to take the time, but since this was not intended to be an academic discussion of the pros and cons of Libertarianism, I felt that one off-hand problem was sufficient.
I think what you are missing is that socialism, communism, and capitalism are elements of the economy, while Republican, Democrat, and Libertarian are political parties. This does not mean there cannot be a "socialist" party, "communist" party or a "capitalist" party, but those are independent of their meanings within the economy.
Actually, I'm not missing that at all. My entire point was that not all Democrats are what, in the US at least, would define themselves as Socialists. You're certainly correct that in much of the world, the term socialism may have a different meaning (as does libertarian for that matter), but since we are speaking about Democrats, which is a US political party, I felt it was reasonable to define my terms bsed on their US contexts, without regard to their meanings in other conutries. In the US, "Socialists" are usually something like these guys, so I'm, sure you can understand why I want to clarify that not everyone on the far left of the Democratic party are socialists. As I pointed out (from the beginning actually), I do support some socialist ideas, but that does not make me a socialist in the popular usage of the word.
I think the problem is that you are using the term socialism in an academic context, I'm using the popular definition. Neither of our definitions is wrong, but they are right in different ways. If you ask the average Republican if they are a socialist, they would deny it with some fervor, but they probably do support a goverment paid police force. Your definition is technically correct, but very wrong in the popular sense. My definition is exactly the opposite. Since I wasn't attempting to make an academic argument, I didn't see the point in trying to stay away from the popular usage.
You criticize me for redefining Socialism, then you take the most liberal possible definition of Socialism and try to make your point. Few but the most hardcore objectivists & anarchists would argue for the complete elimination of the police, so by your definition probably 99.9% of Americans are Socialists. Most people understand that the term Socialism has a fairly specific definition in political discussions.
By that commonly used definition, I am not a socialist. I do support strong programs to help the Homeless (preferably before they become homeless), strong worker retraining programs, universal healthcare, and some similar ideas, under the notion that it's cheaper and better for society to address these issues before they become very expensive problems later. That said, I do agree that there should be reasonable limits on social programs, and I agree with some of the Republican complaints about the welfare system as it has been implemented in the past. I can agree with your statement "the Democratic party both in principal and in action does support socialism" with one strong caveat: We support elements of socialism, but we are not defined by socialism. By your definition, Libertarians would also be Republicans just because they both support lower taxes. Such a view is obviously a gross oversimplification, and the sort of nitpicking that serves only to distract without actually achieving any useful purpose in a political discussion.
To give you perspective, I define myself as a civil libertarian. I agree with most Libertarians on social issues, but I disagreee with the notion of an unfettered free market. I can certainly agree that the implementation of many of our current regulatory agencies is extremely flawed, but I've seen to many examples of corporate Americas short-sightedness to believe that as a society we'd be better off with no government regulation. As someone pointed out earlier, Libertarianism only works when people actually think about their long-term good, and I've seen no evidence that people can do so.
There is a spectrum of economic systems that run the gamut from the extremes of true capitalism to true communism (I'm not an economist. Some people might find fault with this statement, but it's reasonably accurate even if there are exceptions or caveats). Most economic systems fall somewhere in between. On of the most core concepts of Libertarianism is that of an unrestrained free market. You may condsider yourself a Libertarian, and that's fine, but you are disagreeing with one of the core principles. That's fine-- there are pro-choice republicans and pro-life Democrats for example-- but Libertarianism is still by definition extreme, you just happen to be redefining it.
Why does libertarianism have to be extreme while republicans and democrats get to straddle a wide range?
Libertarianism is by definition extreme. One of the most fundamental concepts of libertarianism is the notion of an unfettered free market. On the spectrum of economic systems, such a notion is just as extreme as true communism.
And FYI, extreme Democrat != socialist. On most issues, I consider myself a pretty extreme democrat, but I am not a socialist. I support some sort of national health care system, and a strong social safety net, but I am a small business owner and capitalist. Some extreme Democrats are socialists, but, despite the right-wing propaganda to the contrary, it's a gross exaggeration to suggest that we all are. Unlike Libertarians, Democrats don't have a single pet economic system-- Our views pretty much run the gamut. The main difference is that we are not opposed to some government regulation, and we don't mind paying our fair share of taxes (we don't like it any more then we do, but we see it as a necessary evil). Oh, and not all Arachists are Libertarians, either.
Does eMusic still limit you to downloading only as many sons per month as your plan allows (ie, not allowing you to purchase additional songs for an extra fee)? That's always been the problem that I have with them-- I download entire albums, not individual tracks, so figuring out how to download exactly 90 (or whatever) songs per month isn't worth the hassle.
Not a poor assumption at all considering the headline "RTS Halo Mod Stoppedby Microsoft" and that neither the article nor the Halogen website (as of the time of my post) go into details about the nature of the mod. Based on the information available to me, it seems a perfectly reasonable assumption that this "Halo Mod" was a mod of Halo, not of C&C. I tried to be clear in my original post that my comment was based on the limited info that was available to me when I posted it. As I clarified in my last post, if they are using MS IP without requiring the purchase, then they are clearly violating trademark law.
I don't think it's that simple, but as I said, I don't know all the details (there wasn't much info on the site when I visited it). Assuming that you need to buy a copy of Halo to use the mod, then Microsofts case is weak. How can requiring the purchase of Halo weaken the Halo brand? If they are using the art, concept, etc. without requiring the purchase of Halo, then you are correct that Trademark law would apply and MS's case would indeed be quite strong. I still tend to think that Microsoft's actions are probably misguided (I've always thought that suing your loyal fan base was a bad idea), but the case is certainly much more reasonable in that case.
In case you don't read the AC post, submitting a journal is not the same as submitting a story. Look for the Submit Story button in the left column (under Stories). BTW, just because you submit a story doesn't necesarily mean that you are the -first- person to submit the story. It sometimes takes hours or occasionally even days for a story to be posted, so someone else could have already submitted it.
I'm know little about this particular situation, but I am somewhat familiar with several similar situations, and although IANAL, I am pretty familiar with trademark law. You are correct that you must protect your trademark in order to retain rights to it, but it's not quite that simple. Trademark law does not protect you from anyone other then yourself from using your trademark, only from people misrepresenting their product using your trademark, or otherwise taking advantage of your trademark (or something overly similar to your trademark) in a way that could cause confusion in the marketplace. Most likely, any claim on the grounds of trademark law would be pretty weak (though again, I don't know all the details. I can think of possible cases where the claim would be stronger). A claim on copyright grounds would be stronger, but every mod that I've ever seen requires the person running the mod to buy the original program, so again, it would seem that their case would be weak (this would also seem to weaken a trademark claim as well).
In most of these cases, from a purely legal perspective, the modders seem to have a pretty strong case. The problem is that Microsoft has deep pockets and a world class legal team, and the modders probably don't. Without those things, plus the desire to spend the next few years of their lives fighting a legal battle for what is really only a hobby. Though I'm always a bit disappointed when it happens, I can certainly understand why they would decide not to fight.
I'm not opposed to the archiving PER SE, as much as I am opposed to the free access. If material that proves illegal activity is archived, then only those in a position to pursue and stop that activity should have access to it.
But the information may be valuable to people OTHER then law enforcement and criminals. Also, not everything on Anyboard is illegal, so are you saying that just because 1% of the content is questionable, none of it should be archived?
Being able to request that information be removed from the archive kind of defeats the purpose of archiving everything. Since that implies that some information should not be archived, isn't it now a mater of coming up with a standard definition of what is to be kept and what isn't?
Not everything is or should be archived. As a web author, I have the right to say that my content is copywritten and cannot be archived. Personal information won't be archived. Child Porn won't be archived. They honor a robots.txt file, so if you don't want your site archived, just set one up. If your information was archived without your permission, they have a removal policy, I linked to it previously.
I know I could never make that list. I also know that the information on how to contact those selling stolen goods should not be kept in an easy place to access. This only encourages the sale of stolen goods. But with the creation of that standard list, there is no need for a removal policy.
But again, it shouldn't matter that that info is in there to begin with. Every page in the Archive is AT LEAST 6 months old. Yahoo (or whoever) should be the ones you are angry with, not trying to arbitrarily censor the Archive because Yahoo is incompetent.
And, again, keep in mind that the information regarding credit card numbers is EASILY available on the internet. Get onto Usenet and you can find CURRENT ads offereing the same information, and the email addresses are much more likely to still work. The simple fact that the Archive is inherently obsolete makes your objections really silly. I can't imagine that there are a whole lot of script kiddies using the Archive to get their stolen CC numbers when there are hundreds or thousands of other sites that will be much more likely to have valid email addresses.
The Yahoo thing... the hackers behind the phishing site, the ones attached to the yahoo email address, did their work from 4 IP addresses. Two out of Taiwan, and two out of Vietnam. Maybe Yahoo is currently working with authorities to track them down and arrest them. They have been in operation for a little while now, and they are collecting more victims as I type. The Yahoo address is still active, because yahoo does not reject communication attempts to that address. Now, Yahoo months ago was informed of a different phishing site, that was hosted on their server. Maybe the investigation is still pending, but I've been watching that site be updated again and again and again. Yahoo has the logs of all that activity. There has been more than enough time to shut it down. They do not. Now, both of these inactions on the part of Yahoo do not form a pattern. But they do indicate a tendency.
I have stated previously, your complaints about Yahoo are perfectly reasonable. This discussion is about the Internet Archive, so it's a bit off topic. Have you contacted YahooDomains and had them shut down the domain itself? Since they are the registrar, that would be my first action.
Anyway, I'm clearly not going to convince you that you are wrong, and I'm probably becoming even more resolute in my opinions the more I think about it, so what say we just drop it here?
If Yahoo fails to act in accordance with their stated policy, then your fight really should be with them, not the Archive. You have very valid complaints about how they have handled the situation.
With regard to the Archive, I can certainly see your point, but I disagree. The Archive has too many valuable uses to allow it to be watered down. It goes back to my earlier point, who decides what merits inclusion? It's a ridiculously difficult challenge, and it's the sort of question that people have been debating since the birth of the Internet, and to a lesser extent since the birth of libraries. Any information that actually violates privacy, and any information that is actually illegal should certainly be removed. But from what I saw, the links you point to don't actually show a significant amount of personal info, but link to ways that you can find or buy personal information (granted, I didn't spend much time looking). Information on how to commit a crime is legally protected by the first ammendment. Actual offers to sell credit card data are not legally protected, but the offer is useless if Yahoo does its job and deactivates the email address/URL. Once the email account is deleted, then suddenly the offer to sell the credit card data is actually useful, both to law enforcement and to researchers, privacy experts, and for consumer education. Once again, your complaints against Yahoo are valid, you complaints against the Archive are misguided.
For that matter, do you know for certain that the email account isn't still active specifically because Yahoo is working with law enforcement to capture the guy? Once they cancel his email address, it will be almost impossible to catch the guy. With a valid email, they can fairly easily track him down.
As for kiddie porn, if its there, have you told them about it? I would be VERY surprised to find out that they failed to act on removing actual child pornography. I could be wrong, but I believe that their failure to act to remove known child pornography is a serious legal offense in the US, so it's pretty doubtful that they would just ignore it. Note, there is some material that while highly objectionable to some people, is not legally considered child pornography. The photos of Robert Maplethorpe or David Hamilton come to mind. While you may find the content offensive, they are art, and do not come close to meeting the definition of pornography. If that is the sort of material you object to, then you will not get very far having them removed (just as you won't succeed in getting them removed from the Library of Congress). Also things like short stories depicting sex with a minor are not child pornography, even if they claim to be true, and regardless of any apparent artistic merit. Child pornography has a very specific legal definition, so things that fall outside of that definition, however tasteless, are perfectly appropriate for inclusion in the Archive. Since I don't know any kiddie porn websites, I can't verify your claims that they haven't removed it... I tend to suspect that you are wrong on this one.
Actually I'd have to disagree on the 'FAR more positive uses.'
So you think the possibility of compromised personal information, even though they do have a policy to remove it, outweighs all of the other valuable uses? You've cited effectively one negative use, and (considering the removal policy, see my reply to the parent poster) one that isn't very sound at that. Positive uses: academic research, law enforcement, catching racist or otherwise offensive language on politicians websites, tracking down product info for discontinued products... There are thousands of positive uses, there are a few negative ones. To me, that meets my definition of "FAR more".
And with regards to your blog entry, I said "just about any information", so that particular entry may not be useful. But you'd be surprised what seemingly useless or trivial info can be used by a skilled social engineer. One of the fundamental skills of a good con man is his ability to extract useful info out of the seemingly useless. Maybe in that Blog post, you name your city. In one you made last month, you name your street. In a third, you show a picture of your new house, complete with street number. No single bit of information could be used to identify you (unless someone just happened to recognize your house from the photo), but put the three of them together, and I now have your home address (granted, these are obvious examples, but you can see my point). Or maybe the con man, knowing of your interest in spores & fungus, casually mentions something on the topic in conversation. Since he knows more about you then you know about him, you are at a significant disadvantage. And since you are (presumably) an honest sort of guy and he's not, most likley you won't have an inkling that you are being conned until long after it's over. My point wasn't that all info can be used, just that it's very dfifficult to forsee what information -could- be used improperly when someone has an agenda that you don't know about.
Archiving everything in your house is a bad idea. Archiving the Internet is a very different thing. First off, who is going to be the moderator? You? What if I disagree with your opinion of what is worthy of archiving or not? What happens if, as I pointed out, something that you chose not to archive would have turned out to be useful in prosecuting an identity thief (or worse)? Any moderator will have absolutely no way of knowing what information will be useful in the future and what information won't be. Then there's the practical aspect: How many people do you suspect it would take to screen each and every page in the Archive for it's suitability for six year olds?
And do they also do the same for the Internet proper? All of the information that you object to exists on the Internet itself. It's not hard to find. You can find the exact same information on Google, so should we moderate them also? Every other search engine? Usenet? Yahoo Groups, Google Groups? Do you begin to see the futility of your quest?
Your argument is also unfounded considering the IA has a removal policy in place for exactly the sort of info you object to "Occasionally, data disclosed in confidence by one party to another may eventually be made public by a third party. For example, medical information provided in confidence is occasionally made public when insurance companies or medical practices shut down. These requests are generally treated as requests by authors or publishers of original data." If they are archiving your credit card number, let them know and they will remove it. As for Kiddie Porn, considering they would go to prison for hosting it, I suspect that they do their best to remove it ASAP.
Regarding your story about Paypal-protect.org, why didn't you just contact Yahoo to have his email account shut down? In their terms of service: "You agree to not use the Service to: 1. upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;". It doesn't much matter how enthusiastic the guy is about selling your CC data, if you have no way to contact him he won't be too successful.
They also make it hard to delete EVIDENCE of past illicit activity. Woudld you (or the parent) be upset if the info in the Archive were used to convict the perpetrators? If it contains a link to his valid email address, it very easily could be (and probably has been) used by law enforcement for that very purpose. In reality, in the wrong hands, just about any information can be used for nefarious purposes. The archive can be used for such purposes, but it has FAR more positive uses then negative ones.
So, can anyone guess who didn't get the joke?
The reality of the modern political system is that Republicans are great at using the media to their advantage. They are the masters of spinning silly little stories into major scandals. Limbaugh is VERY hard to shut up. If he felt that Clinton was in any way responsible for censoring him, I can absolutely guarantee you it would have been a big deal.
But you're right, I cannot conclusively prove it. Unfortunately, my time machine is in the shop this week, so it's difficult for me to test the theory. But contrary to your rather odd way of using the word, Logic and Proof have little to do with one another. Many "unproveable" theories are perfectly logical. Many wrong theories are also perfectly logical. Your denial of the matter not withstanding, it's a perfectly -logical- conclusion to arrive at. Perhaps it's you who should be studying up a bit on your logic. Or would that get you kicked out of the Wingnut fan club?
As to your partisanship, first, the tone of your message is rather abrasive and, well, illogical. Just from that I can tell that you're either a wingnut, an asshole or both. Since I've also read several of your other posts, I'm fairly confident in my initial assumption that the correct answer is actually "both". Your sig doesn't help your cause either.
What about Armed Forces Radio? Are they still carrying only the Rush Limbaugh show with no left wing counterpart to balance the agenda?
Blocking political sites is fine, but only if they block them all. When they choose to block only one side of the political spectrum, they are committing unconstitutional censorship.
No, his allegations are far from unprovable, only unproven. The available evidence suggests that there is blatant partisanship in which programs are censored by the Marines. It could turn out that that evidence is wrong-- either many right-wing sites are also blocked, or the list in question is just wrong-- but until further evidence comes to light, he seems to be making an entirely reasonable conjecture.
And, honestly, do you really think that if the Marines under Clinton had blocked access to rushlimbaugh.com, there wouldn't have been a MAJOR stink raised about it? If you don't see that, it's only because you are so utterly partisan that you have lost touch with reality.