On top of this - every actor, actress, musician on the planet is allowed to voice their opinion on politics, religion, etc - but if a technical guy such as Linus does, it is unprofessional?
It is true that every actor, etc., *is* allowed to voice their opinion, but it is also true that their opinions often show them to be uninformed children. Torvalds' intolerance has diminished him.
I wish I had mod points to sprinkle on this thread, but slashdot seems to bestow them to me on "boring topic" days only.
I will agree that the Conservatives have been able to play up their "stupidity" for the media and non-conservative voters, while stupidly pulling off victory after political victory. However, no small part of that is thanks to the ineffective opposition parties -- who, it must be admitted, got that way after being smacked around by the Conservatives. My concern, however, is that the Conservatives might have been so good at their game (or the opposition so bad) that at the moment there does not seem to be a political party that is a credible "government-in-waiting". Maybe the Liberals will regroup, but right now they look to be on life support.
IMHO any government that makes it a crime to speak negatively in public about the government, ruling party, president, or king, is oppressive just from that alone.
Suppression of dissent implies that a regime has few arguments on its side beyond "might makes right". Its politicians and ruling class have essentially conceded the truth of the criticism levelled against them. What is even worse, however, is that, removed from the glare of public opinion, corruption will flourish, dragging the country down even more.
In 1936, according to the article, it was almost as warm. Basically, a "so what?". Between then and now, States have had record cold temperatures as well. This report would be just one more Jeopardy! item, were it not for the political hay that will be made of it.
Groklaw has an entirely different take on this trial. It seems that Samsung is being muzzled by a judge who is far out of her depth. Unfortunately, that means justice will be delayed, perhaps for years, as her errors are taken up in the appeal courts. This trial is also earning Apple the unenviable reputation of "not cool".
Whether it's Huawei or some American company, as long as the source code is hidden there is no way to prove that a router does not have a trap door built in. My first thought for doing this would be through 'port knocking', which would be undetectible until actually used. No doubt, black hats have even more sneaky methods.
I had taken this argument by Ms. Findlay (a former Liberal Member of Parliament) as "permission" of sorts for the current governing Conservative party to use dairy supply management as a bargaining chip in trade talks. She has apparently expressed interest in becoming leader of the Liberal party, and if she tries and succeeds, she will be able to beat up the Conservatives on the details of trade concessions, but not on the broad concept.
Our government doesn't give a flying fuck, the papers don't really report on news like this and no one is willing to push back. So here we are getting fucked in the ass. Which is really strange as Canada is built on immigration and the same people who escaped their corrupt gov don't seem to really want to to anything about our sovereignty being invaded by US interests.
You see its easier for the US to go after countries like Canada one by one as we are alone unlike the EU countries where they can band together and stay off the invasion.
Regards, The guy who is building his stash of guns.
I doubt that the Liberals, if they were the governing party now, would be doing much different. Canada's interest in diversifying trade with countries other than the US did not begin with the current Conservative government, but has gone back decades. The stark fact, however, is that geography and our common heritage mean that the US is destined to always be Canada's primary trading partner. As a result, Canada often has little choice but to accommodate the ravings that come from Washington/Hollywood. In this particular case, it may be that Canada's Supreme Court will dull some of the sharper edges.
I think it's nice that you folks in Canada still have a Constitution. Since the Americans liberals declared ours a "living document" and then declared that we have moved past it, we are a ship without a rudder. The Congress, President and Supreme Court pretty much do as they please like the Prez giving amnesty via executive order.
Interestingly, Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which comprises a part of its written Consititution, has a so-called "notwithstanding clause", which allows Charter protections to be over-ridden temporarily. As far as I know, the notwithstanding clause is currently only used by Quebec for its French-only language laws. Although the clause had been briefly invoked once in Alberta during the period that Canada was moving to allow same-sex marriage, it seems that the clause has never been invoked by the federal government. My guess as to why is that there is a serious political price to pay, and at the federal level the competition between parties is intense.
But here in the states with the limits on copyright duration, I don't know why the Supreme Court hasn't ruled DMCA and digital locks unconstitutional as it extends copyright to infinity.
I believe it was Lawrence Lessig who argued against the last extension of copyright a few years ago. SCOTUS found that as long as copyright was not forever then Congress was within its constitutional rights to continue extending copyright.
Unfortunately, that's the system we have now. If t'were up to me, all governments would be minority governments.
The big problem with minority governments is that they have no backbone. Every party jostling for power will bribe voters with their own and their children's money. The only way that the Conservatives as a minority government were able to pass their budgets was by handing out more goodies while increasing the deficit to do so.
A side-effect of short-lived minority governments is that private members' bills and other legislation, that winds through Parliament at a deliberate pace, cannot get passed before the next election call. When the government falls, all bills that are in various stages of consideration "die", and must be reintroduced anew in the new parliament. Recently, a private members bill was introduced that had the general support of MPs. It had actually been introduced a couple years earlier (with similar support), but elections kept it from going anywhere. All but the most pressing bills take months before reaching Third Reading (i.e. getting getting passed). They also need approval from the Senate. As a result of this build-up of legislation, unstable governments reduce the level of scrutiny that bills can get if the bills are to be passed at all.
this and other stuff means with wont have to deal with harper again!
I hope the ndp removes it completely.
also the maximum fine of 5000$ is that per work? or a lump sum for all infringement I could not tell from the wording
If you had read the article closely, according to Geist the $5,000 is for all non-commercial infringement. We'll have to wait to see how everything pans out, but it seems to me that as long as you "infringe" for personal use and don't commit a crime that draws attention to yourself, you should be safe from harrassment.
These laws are all unconscionable. Don't feel guilty for breaking those kinds of laws! In fact, I regard it our duty to rebel against this. And good training to get us to be better citizens by questioning bad laws.
Civil Disobedience is a time-honoured response to bad law. The other part of Civil Disobedience, of course, is accepting the penalty of contravening the law. Fortunately, it appears that the penalties for individual non-commercial infringers are not enough for the **IA vermin to pursue. Even in the US we are seeing pushback.
Before taking calls, the expert gave detailed facts and figures on how when the NDP were the BC government about ten to fifteen years ago, they were more fiscally (small c) conservative than the current provincial Liberal government which ran on a platform of fiscal conservativeness. The expert appeared to try to be impartial, explaining that the good economic times during the NDP government were not entirely the result of NDP government policy, and that the current BC Liberal government deficit was in part (but not completely) due to economic factors beyond its control.
I recall that the NDP imposed a tax on capital assets, which drove at least one company out of the province. The scandal that got them tossed out was some boondoggle fast catamaran ferry project.
The fear that the parent post rather colourfully raised, however, seems entirely justified with the federal NDP. Given that they as the Official Opposition are supposed to be the "Government in waiting", they should be toning down their rhetoric and at least pretending that they are not messenger boys for the unions. Hoping that the NDP will change once in power is willful blindness.
bill C-11--going through the house right now that will make it illegal to even make a backup of media we buy
If you do, I doubt that penalties for individual infractions will be worth anyone persuing. The Supreme Court of Canada has used the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to slash excessive restrictions on individual freedoms, and so would probably not tolerate the heavy-handedness that exists in the US.
And yet, most children with these disabilities can get special help when in the public school system. Sure, there is always a chance that they don't get the help they need immediately, but they do get it eventually. Doesn't sound like this kid has a chance of getting it at all.
This seems to be an overly broad statement, given that there was a perceived need for No Child Left Behind. Clearly, in some schools kids are not getting the resources that they need.
Statistically, homeschooled kids outperform their public-schooled peers. However, there will be some kids who do worse. Whether these under-performing homeschooled kids would do better in a public school environment is currently a matter of conjecture, as far as I know. Maybe someone will do rigorous studies of this kind someday.
Seriously? Has slashdot finally succumbed to "old man" disease, and can't resist rehashing the same old boring "news"?
We have the beginning of a face-eating (zombie) up-rising, the incipient demise of the euro, and a daily barrage of advances in science, medicine, and technology -- and all slashdot can come up with is that a whole bunch of Americans are weird? The fact is that the US is economically, culturally, and militarily the world's superpower. When you're not only #1, but #1 over the next two or three *combined*, only a fool would sneer at your "stupidity". For all anyone knows, the qualities that make the US insanely great require "irrational" optimism and exhuberance.
Getting people to vote is extremely important, yes. But having a voting system that is fair and accurately represents voter preference is also necessary.
I think we are seeing in Greece and Italy the downsides of a more fair and accurate representation. As we have seen, voters do not always do what is in their best interests. The multitude of parties in these countries means that outright majorities are all but unknown, and that in order for a coalition to get enough support to form a governemnt, it must do things that are not always wise. We've seen this in the last few years when the Conservatives in Canada were having to do things to appease opposition parties.
On the other hand, there is the example of Germany, which still seems to have its financial head screwed on right, and I don't have an answer for that. Maybe there are some constitutional guards, or maybe it has something to do with German character, whatever that is.
Orders in Council can only be made where legislation has given the Government the authority to do so. It cannot concoct new government powers out of thin air.
Agree and disagree. Governments in Canada have overstepped their legislated or constitutional authority, but they eventually get hauled back into line by the courts. On the whole, though, I don't remember that the over-reach has ever had a lasting effect -- other than getting the political party in power turfed out at the next election.
There seems to be a constant drumbeat that the Conservative government is hellbent on destroying freedoms and kicking the poor onto the streets. For myself, however, I think the real threat to the "Canadian way of life" would be if the socialist NDP should ever form government.
The Conservatives, and their traditional counter-weight, the Liberals, have been in and out of power for decades. They have a fair sense of what the general public will let them get away with. What's more, both parties have had reasonably steady hands on the fiscal side. In contrast, the NDP have never been in federal government. They believe, like Greece, that deficits don't matter. Moreover, with their new power base in Quebec, they have every incentive to drain the wealth of the rest of Canada in order to appease Quebec's insatiable maw. (For a sense of the privilege that Quebeckers feel, students in that province are current on the warpath because their tuition fees, the lowest in Canada, are set for a modest increase.)
"Oil sands" is the term used by the Alberta and Canadian governments, because not only does it sound better, but it's technically correct. "Tar sands" is the term used by environmentalist extremists, presumably because it sounds dirty. That Hansen uses the latter term clearly shows that his role is more advocacy than science. If he were an honest dealer, he would step down from his position at NASA so he could practice advocacy full-time, or at the very least he would insist that reporters not mention his affiliation when he gets on his extremist soapbox.
Sounds like there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. At some point, it just stops being a coincidence.
My guess is that someone (not too intelligent) in that campaign office went off the rails. There was another news story of evidence given to Elections Canada of some guy there talking to others about the twisted stuff going on in the States. I'm guessing he decided to import American values on the sly. With any luck, he'll get himself hauled into court.
Was he able to do the job well? Does it REALLY matter? If he got away with it that long I say good for him, if his employers aren't smart enough or care enough to verify they weren't really that concerned about his credentials.
Maybe this is an indication that degrees are over-rated. Or to be charitable, that it isn't particularly important exactly what you learn.
Slashdot Mirror
On top of this - every actor, actress, musician on the planet is allowed to voice their opinion on politics, religion, etc - but if a technical guy such as Linus does, it is unprofessional?
It is true that every actor, etc., *is* allowed to voice their opinion, but it is also true that their opinions often show them to be uninformed children. Torvalds' intolerance has diminished him.
I wish I had mod points to sprinkle on this thread, but slashdot seems to bestow them to me on "boring topic" days only.
I will agree that the Conservatives have been able to play up their "stupidity" for the media and non-conservative voters, while stupidly pulling off victory after political victory. However, no small part of that is thanks to the ineffective opposition parties -- who, it must be admitted, got that way after being smacked around by the Conservatives. My concern, however, is that the Conservatives might have been so good at their game (or the opposition so bad) that at the moment there does not seem to be a political party that is a credible "government-in-waiting". Maybe the Liberals will regroup, but right now they look to be on life support.
IMHO any government that makes it a crime to speak negatively in public about the government, ruling party, president, or king, is oppressive just from that alone.
Suppression of dissent implies that a regime has few arguments on its side beyond "might makes right". Its politicians and ruling class have essentially conceded the truth of the criticism levelled against them. What is even worse, however, is that, removed from the glare of public opinion, corruption will flourish, dragging the country down even more.
In 1936, according to the article, it was almost as warm. Basically, a "so what?". Between then and now, States have had record cold temperatures as well. This report would be just one more Jeopardy! item, were it not for the political hay that will be made of it.
Groklaw has an entirely different take on this trial. It seems that Samsung is being muzzled by a judge who is far out of her depth. Unfortunately, that means justice will be delayed, perhaps for years, as her errors are taken up in the appeal courts. This trial is also earning Apple the unenviable reputation of "not cool".
Whether it's Huawei or some American company, as long as the source code is hidden there is no way to prove that a router does not have a trap door built in. My first thought for doing this would be through 'port knocking', which would be undetectible until actually used. No doubt, black hats have even more sneaky methods.
To get into the trade "club", we have to give things up that we consider inalienable. Rock, meet hard place.
...
For an example of a seriously wise move, have look at Politicians need courage to dismantle supply management by Martha Hall Findlay
I had taken this argument by Ms. Findlay (a former Liberal Member of Parliament) as "permission" of sorts for the current governing Conservative party to use dairy supply management as a bargaining chip in trade talks. She has apparently expressed interest in becoming leader of the Liberal party, and if she tries and succeeds, she will be able to beat up the Conservatives on the details of trade concessions, but not on the broad concept.
Dear American,
Our government doesn't give a flying fuck, the papers don't really report on news like this and no one is willing to push back. So here we are getting fucked in the ass. Which is really strange as Canada is built on immigration and the same people who escaped their corrupt gov don't seem to really want to to anything about our sovereignty being invaded by US interests.
You see its easier for the US to go after countries like Canada one by one as we are alone unlike the EU countries where they can band together and stay off the invasion.
Regards,
The guy who is building his stash of guns.
I doubt that the Liberals, if they were the governing party now, would be doing much different. Canada's interest in diversifying trade with countries other than the US did not begin with the current Conservative government, but has gone back decades. The stark fact, however, is that geography and our common heritage mean that the US is destined to always be Canada's primary trading partner. As a result, Canada often has little choice but to accommodate the ravings that come from Washington/Hollywood. In this particular case, it may be that Canada's Supreme Court will dull some of the sharper edges.
I think it's nice that you folks in Canada still have a Constitution. Since the Americans liberals declared ours a "living document" and then declared that we have moved past it, we are a ship without a rudder. The Congress, President and Supreme Court pretty much do as they please like the Prez giving amnesty via executive order.
Interestingly, Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which comprises a part of its written Consititution, has a so-called "notwithstanding clause", which allows Charter protections to be over-ridden temporarily. As far as I know, the notwithstanding clause is currently only used by Quebec for its French-only language laws. Although the clause had been briefly invoked once in Alberta during the period that Canada was moving to allow same-sex marriage, it seems that the clause has never been invoked by the federal government. My guess as to why is that there is a serious political price to pay, and at the federal level the competition between parties is intense.
But here in the states with the limits on copyright duration, I don't know why the Supreme Court hasn't ruled DMCA and digital locks unconstitutional as it extends copyright to infinity.
I believe it was Lawrence Lessig who argued against the last extension of copyright a few years ago. SCOTUS found that as long as copyright was not forever then Congress was within its constitutional rights to continue extending copyright.
Unfortunately, that's the system we have now. If t'were up to me, all governments would be minority governments.
The big problem with minority governments is that they have no backbone. Every party jostling for power will bribe voters with their own and their children's money. The only way that the Conservatives as a minority government were able to pass their budgets was by handing out more goodies while increasing the deficit to do so.
A side-effect of short-lived minority governments is that private members' bills and other legislation, that winds through Parliament at a deliberate pace, cannot get passed before the next election call. When the government falls, all bills that are in various stages of consideration "die", and must be reintroduced anew in the new parliament. Recently, a private members bill was introduced that had the general support of MPs. It had actually been introduced a couple years earlier (with similar support), but elections kept it from going anywhere. All but the most pressing bills take months before reaching Third Reading (i.e. getting getting passed). They also need approval from the Senate. As a result of this build-up of legislation, unstable governments reduce the level of scrutiny that bills can get if the bills are to be passed at all.
this and other stuff means with wont have to deal with harper again!
I hope the ndp removes it completely.
also the maximum fine of 5000$ is that per work? or a lump sum for all infringement I could not tell from the wording
If you had read the article closely, according to Geist the $5,000 is for all non-commercial infringement. We'll have to wait to see how everything pans out, but it seems to me that as long as you "infringe" for personal use and don't commit a crime that draws attention to yourself, you should be safe from harrassment.
Who will you vote for, and how would they have written the copyright bill?
These laws are all unconscionable. Don't feel guilty for breaking those kinds of laws! In fact, I regard it our duty to rebel against this. And good training to get us to be better citizens by questioning bad laws.
Civil Disobedience is a time-honoured response to bad law. The other part of Civil Disobedience, of course, is accepting the penalty of contravening the law. Fortunately, it appears that the penalties for individual non-commercial infringers are not enough for the **IA vermin to pursue. Even in the US we are seeing pushback.
Before taking calls, the expert gave detailed facts and figures on how when the NDP were the BC government about ten to fifteen years ago, they were more fiscally (small c) conservative than the current provincial Liberal government which ran on a platform of fiscal conservativeness. The expert appeared to try to be impartial, explaining that the good economic times during the NDP government were not entirely the result of NDP government policy, and that the current BC Liberal government deficit was in part (but not completely) due to economic factors beyond its control.
I recall that the NDP imposed a tax on capital assets, which drove at least one company out of the province. The scandal that got them tossed out was some boondoggle fast catamaran ferry project.
The fear that the parent post rather colourfully raised, however, seems entirely justified with the federal NDP. Given that they as the Official Opposition are supposed to be the "Government in waiting", they should be toning down their rhetoric and at least pretending that they are not messenger boys for the unions. Hoping that the NDP will change once in power is willful blindness.
bill C-11--going through the house right now that will make it illegal to even make a backup of media we buy
If you do, I doubt that penalties for individual infractions will be worth anyone persuing. The Supreme Court of Canada has used the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to slash excessive restrictions on individual freedoms, and so would probably not tolerate the heavy-handedness that exists in the US.
And yet, most children with these disabilities can get special help when in the public school system. Sure, there is always a chance that they don't get the help they need immediately, but they do get it eventually. Doesn't sound like this kid has a chance of getting it at all.
This seems to be an overly broad statement, given that there was a perceived need for No Child Left Behind. Clearly, in some schools kids are not getting the resources that they need.
Statistically, homeschooled kids outperform their public-schooled peers. However, there will be some kids who do worse. Whether these under-performing homeschooled kids would do better in a public school environment is currently a matter of conjecture, as far as I know. Maybe someone will do rigorous studies of this kind someday.
Seriously? Has slashdot finally succumbed to "old man" disease, and can't resist rehashing the same old boring "news"?
We have the beginning of a face-eating (zombie) up-rising, the incipient demise of the euro, and a daily barrage of advances in science, medicine, and technology -- and all slashdot can come up with is that a whole bunch of Americans are weird? The fact is that the US is economically, culturally, and militarily the world's superpower. When you're not only #1, but #1 over the next two or three *combined*, only a fool would sneer at your "stupidity". For all anyone knows, the qualities that make the US insanely great require "irrational" optimism and exhuberance.
So, how about them zombies?
Bring up the obligatory hot/crazy scale.
Getting people to vote is extremely important, yes. But having a voting system that is fair and accurately represents voter preference is also necessary.
I think we are seeing in Greece and Italy the downsides of a more fair and accurate representation. As we have seen, voters do not always do what is in their best interests. The multitude of parties in these countries means that outright majorities are all but unknown, and that in order for a coalition to get enough support to form a governemnt, it must do things that are not always wise. We've seen this in the last few years when the Conservatives in Canada were having to do things to appease opposition parties.
On the other hand, there is the example of Germany, which still seems to have its financial head screwed on right, and I don't have an answer for that. Maybe there are some constitutional guards, or maybe it has something to do with German character, whatever that is.
Orders in Council can only be made where legislation has given the Government the authority to do so. It cannot concoct new government powers out of thin air.
Agree and disagree. Governments in Canada have overstepped their legislated or constitutional authority, but they eventually get hauled back into line by the courts. On the whole, though, I don't remember that the over-reach has ever had a lasting effect -- other than getting the political party in power turfed out at the next election.
There seems to be a constant drumbeat that the Conservative government is hellbent on destroying freedoms and kicking the poor onto the streets. For myself, however, I think the real threat to the "Canadian way of life" would be if the socialist NDP should ever form government.
The Conservatives, and their traditional counter-weight, the Liberals, have been in and out of power for decades. They have a fair sense of what the general public will let them get away with. What's more, both parties have had reasonably steady hands on the fiscal side. In contrast, the NDP have never been in federal government. They believe, like Greece, that deficits don't matter. Moreover, with their new power base in Quebec, they have every incentive to drain the wealth of the rest of Canada in order to appease Quebec's insatiable maw. (For a sense of the privilege that Quebeckers feel, students in that province are current on the warpath because their tuition fees, the lowest in Canada, are set for a modest increase.)
Brilliant!
But you forgot "Think of the Children!" and "Oh, the humanity!"
"Oil sands" is the term used by the Alberta and Canadian governments, because not only does it sound better, but it's technically correct. "Tar sands" is the term used by environmentalist extremists, presumably because it sounds dirty. That Hansen uses the latter term clearly shows that his role is more advocacy than science. If he were an honest dealer, he would step down from his position at NASA so he could practice advocacy full-time, or at the very least he would insist that reporters not mention his affiliation when he gets on his extremist soapbox.
Sounds like there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. At some point, it just stops being a coincidence.
My guess is that someone (not too intelligent) in that campaign office went off the rails. There was another news story of evidence given to Elections Canada of some guy there talking to others about the twisted stuff going on in the States. I'm guessing he decided to import American values on the sly. With any luck, he'll get himself hauled into court.
Was he able to do the job well? Does it REALLY matter? If he got away with it that long I say good for him, if his employers aren't smart enough or care enough to verify they weren't really that concerned about his credentials.
Maybe this is an indication that degrees are over-rated. Or to be charitable, that it isn't particularly important exactly what you learn.