Hollings is a Democrat, so voting against him means voting for a Republican.
In these 13 words, you've just summed up everything that's wrong with our political party. I don't care who I have to vote for, if a politican attempts to screw me over the way Hollings has, I'll vote for whomever is running against him, even if he's a cross burning pedophile member of the KKK who stands against everything I believe in. I'll vote for him no matter repulsive he is as a person, or how insane he is mentally. Why? Because it sends a message. It says "I'd rather vote for this crazy kook than vote for someone who proposes an insane bill like the CBDTPA." Besides, he'll likely get voted out next election anyway, and probably won't have any real effect as a freshman member of congress.
Even at that, if you simply cannot vote for the Republican running against your horrible democrat, there is a third party candidate out there whose beliefs happen to coincide well with yours. Before you tell me that third party candidates cannot win, I will inform you that both current parties were not the ones we originally started out with. Hell, Mexico's president won in a country where there was traditionally one party.
Personally, I vote third party whenever I can, because I hate the politics of both parties, and I don't find much difference between them to justify voting for one or the other. Make the system work for you.
Why don't you look this guy up. He was a very popular politician from Texas, and was a US Representative from 1953-1995. People in his area really thought he was going to be in office until the day he died.
And then came along the 1994 Crime bill. In case you don't remember this bill, this was the infamous bill that banned "assualt weapons" without a good definition of what an assualt weapon was and banned gun magazines over 10 rounds. It barely passed, but passed nonetheless.
Jack Brooks onveniently forgot who brought him to the dance and who kept him there. He voted against the bill, even though many of his constituents were either directly NRA members or sympathetic to the cause. He did not serve another term. Though no one directly said it, it was considered general knowledge that his vote on the crime bill was the critical issue.
I think this is still a bit high. Since I can buy a real, physical CD with 15-20 tracks on it for ~$20.00, an mp3 would have to be considerably less than that.
So, a dollar a track is right out, I won't pay that much even for an unrestricted, professional quality mp3. Even at $0.50, it's a bit overpriced, considering that CD is better quality and I can still rip mp3s from it, and I can find a used CD or a CD on sale for less than $10.00 ($0.50 a track). I'd say a better price would be closer to $0.25, and if they would come down to $0.10 or so, and offered every track in their backcatalog, I wouldn't even bother installing Morpheus or WinMX.
The best way to kill the black market is to give people what they want at a price they are willing to pay. People generally aren't theives, and people prefer buying from someone who is actually accountable.
I think you missed the point. The point isn't that AOL makes it's money on something other than a CD, it's the point that CDs are so cheap to press and ship out that AOL can do it on such a massive scale that everyone and their mother gets two or three of them a month. It probably impacts their bottom line, but it must be fairly cheap to produce a CD, or AOL wouldn't send them out so cavalierly.
I know for a fact it usually costs me about $0.25 to burn a CD, and it would seem that a pressed CD in bulk would be cheaper than that -- or the music companies would start putting everything on CD-R. Even when you include the cost of the inserts, it still probably doesn't go over a dollar for the entire product to ship out the door. A well-established artist might get a dollar a CD, and even then, will have to pay back the costs incurred from production. So, where's the money going?
I think what you're forgetting is a big facotr of why the two companies are different.
The media companies are tapping a theoretical never-ending supply. It's in their best interests to maintain the current business model. The oil companies are tapping into a non-renewable resource. No matter how good they get at it, one day, it will run out, or will be so scarce that people won't use it to power transportation. It's in their best interests to persue any energy souce that could potentially do away with replace gasoline. Unlike other technologies, you could theoretically burn hydrogen in today's engines, unlike trying to adapt a current car to electrical or solar or nuclear power. Considering that most oil comes from some of the most unstable places on earth, their business model is potentially much more unstable than the music industry's.
Also, not every big oil company belongs to OPEC. There isn't a major record label that's not in bed with the RIAA.
I'm not saying big oil isn't evil, I'm jsut saying that I fear it much less than I fear the RIAA or the MPAA.
I know I personally went from ~70 CDs a year pre-Napster, ~100 a year during Napster, and exactly zero post Napster. Why? Because I'm tired of funding a business that's so overtly hostile to it's customers and new technology.
I even wrote a letter to the major labels, Hillary Rosen, and the RIAA explaining my decision. Apparently, I've chosen piracy over "paying for content" -- or that's what I was told.
Yeah, you'd love to do that, but if this is handled the way the DMCA was, they'll pass it by voice vote (show of hands), that way there's no congressional record of who voted for it, and no way to tell if your congresscritter voted for it so you can vote against him.
Of course, if they do that, It'll just motivate me to get out and vote against every incumbent.
Another perfect example of the record labels just wanting to suck more money out of us. If we brought our original CD's in, stuck them in a CD tower, and played them at work, that'd be legal, but using something slightly more advanced to store the music (like MP3 files) is considered illegal....
This is a very good point. Not to split hairs here, but let's just go down a logical reasoning path. It's legal for me to bring my CDs to work and listen to them in a CD player. I could also turn it up loud enough that the people in surrounding cubicles could hear it, and that's legal too. Now, it's debatable, but provided the company isn't open to the general public, I could put the CD on the company's loudspeakers and play it loud enough for everyone to hear, and that's legal. Now, what if I put the CD in the CD-ROM drive of my computer and share it on the network so that Jane in the cubicle three floors down can listen to it -- sparing me the time and effort to hand deliver it to her. Is that infringing? What if I let everyone access it? What if I put together some massive 100 cd-rom computer and load that full of discs for the office to share? Is that infringing?
1. Yeah, the propane thing. This was the only flaw that really got to me. That, and the fact that oxygen would have been somewhat *scarce* in the room after that little stunt. Not to mention Jodie's eyebrows. And since when do they make propane tanks light enough to fly around like that? Sheesh, it's a steel tank, not a punctured helium balloon.
Well, the room is not a closed system. Any oxygen used up in a combustion must be replaced by some outside gas or create a vaccuum. We've already noticed the small pipe near the bottom of the floor, and air will flow back into the room from that. Also, any propane in the ventilation system is going to be combusted and the propane supply was decoupled from the ventilation shaft almost immediately after the explosion, leaving the ventilation shaft free to deliver fresh air once again. Even in the event that all of the available oxygen in the room was used up, it would not take long for fresh oxygen to return -- you could certainly hold your breath that long.
Even sophisticated Fuel-Air-Bombs (which work on exactly this principle) do not kill by depriving people of oxygen.
As far as the propane tank flying around the room -- do you realize how much potential energy is in a filled propane tank? I've seen the aftermath of large propane tank explosions -- both years after and hours after the explosions -- the destruction is incredibly immense. If that small propane tank had exploded, it would have likely killed all three burglers. To get an idea of the potential energy, here's the aftermath of an explosion of a 15lb bottle of nitrous in the trunk of someone's car. That should give you an idea of what a 20lb propane tank can do. There's more than enough energy to fling it around the room -- think about how a rocket works.
Sorry, I just thought the realism of this movie was fairly well done until the "showdown" toward the end of the film. Nothing that happened was phyiscally impossible, and characters didn't typically make inane decisions against type.
Don't forget, Jodi Foster makes a big deal about being non-plussed about the panic room in this movie. She really couldn't care less about it, because she's never going to use it -- she's claustrophobic (though she does get over that a bit too easily). That explains why she hasn't turned on the emergency phone, or even put tapes in the VCRs. The guy who owned the house first was a nut case about security. She doesn't care.
I'm actually surprised there was even food or anything in there that wasn't bolted down, typically, when you move out of house, you take everything of value. That would completely explain the lack of a gun, no one is going to transfer the ownership of a gun with the ownership of a house -- it's too valuable, and too much of a liability risk, especially if you don't tell people it's there.
For those who say it was too easy to compromise the room -- Forrest Whittaker designed it. He even knew the passcodes! It would be like having your ex-systems administrator come back six months later with the passwords unchanged and expecting your security to hold. No matter how secure it is, he knows every flaw, every back door.
That's my experience too. I'm labeled as the "copyright nut" in my small group of friends. They go out of their way to not mention copyright related things around me, because I'll end up saying things I've said 1000 times before.
They really do think that laws like this won't pass because "the people won't stand for it" or "politicians aren't that stupid". They've literally thrown me in with the "black helicopter" crowd. Maybe when the CBDTPA becomes law, they'll finally realize what I've been saying all this time. Of course, by then, it'll be too late.
This means that Buma has enforced a sentece that is not valid, explains Alberdingk Thijm. "In theory, Buma is responsible for the sale against a lower price than would otherwise have been the case". It is still unclear if they are going to countersue the copyright organisation.
Now that is interesting. I'd love to see them sue the hell out of Buma/Stemra, and get their money back, and severely punish B/S. That's the only thing these copyright companies understand -- a very heavy hit in their pocketbook. Otherwise, this is just another lost case. It didn't really hurt the company, but it definately hurt Kaaza. Maybe this would stop all the silly cease and desist letters and frivolous lawsuits.
I hate to think what Napster could sue the RIAA for if it's eventually found legit. No, let me take that back. It puts a big shit-eating grin to think about the RIAA being taken to the cleaners.
I submitted it, but no one here cared. On the 14th, the Wall Street Journal had a very long and detailed article on the front page of section B about the SSSCA and why it was bad. You can read Jack Valenti's irrational response in the editorial section of today's WSJ. I was surprised, because this is the first mention I've seen of the bill in a major news publication, and it was nearly as critical about it as any poster on Slashdot.
If you have an online subscription to the WSJ, you can read it here. I'd cut and paste it, but I don't have an online subscription, and I've thrown away my copy of that day's WSJ.
Hey, I voted for Harry Browne. I would have seriously considered voting for Nader if it wasn't for some of his more absurd socialistic policys.
So, I feel I can complain. I found out which candidate was closest to my world view -- and voted for him. However, you had to really look to find anything out about Harry Brown, and even Nader did not get the kind of coverage that Bush and Gore did. Even at that, the two-party system has fooled people into thinking that they have to vote for one of the major party candidates or their vote is wasted.
Sometimes I wonder if it's a chicken or egg thing. I sincerely believe that many in my generation (Gen X) don't vote because no one addresses their concerns. So, the politicians say "well, these young kids just don't vote", and then focus on medicare and social security -- which of course makes young adults say "so, what's in your platform for me?"
Last election, all I heard about was social security. I could care less about social security, I've been told all my life it probably won't be there when I retire, so I've resigned myself to that fate. It's also some forty plus years in my future, so it's not something I think too heavily about.
So, where's the issues I'm concerned about?
I barely heard anything mentioned last election about any issues I particularly cared about. Copyright and the War on Drugs (two issues that seem to be very important with my age group) weren't even mentioned at all.
Now I've found out what to do while I'm unemployed. I'm currently sending a unsubscribe response to everyone that's currently spamming my three main email accounts, plus my two throwaway spam accounts. I'm including a link to this story and asking for a $25 reader's fee. I figure if any of them get past a few hundred dollars, I'll try legal action.
I got out of piracy a few years back, simply because I got older, have more responsibilities, and it just wasn't worth my time and effort to pirate anymore. It was easier and cheaper (when I factored in the cost of my time) to just buy my media -- even at inflated prices.
But, if this law passes, I'll jump back in with full force. I'll pirate stuff I don't even like just because someone else might want it. Right now, a lot of my free time is going to writing letters to congressmen and women. I'll shift all that time to piracy, and I'll probably add a bit just because I used to enjoy it.
Re:Hollywood's blessing necessary for broadband?
on
Chained Melodies
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· Score: 2
Right now, I everyone I know that does not have broadband falls into one of two groups.
1. Those, like my mother, who desperately want it, but simply can't get it because they live out in the sticks (and yes, the trees interfere with sat service).
2. Those, like my father, who don't use the internet for much more than online banking, checking stocks once a day and email. They've got a 56k connection, and it's fast enough for them. My father doesn't really care for the computer, it's a tool to him, and he's not going to spend any more time in front of it than he has to and he sure won't use it for entertainment. Because of this, he can't justify an increase in the amount he already pays to access the internet -- he manages to find free or nearly free providers and uses his normal phone line to dial up since he's never on more than thirty minutes or so. Movies on line will not get my father to go broadband, just as mp3s haven't gotten him on broadband either. He doesn't use the computer as a media device, and won't use it that way, even if the content is available. I know that's totally foreign to slashdotters, but trust me, these people exist.
3. Those, like some of my friends, who can get it, and would like to have it, but simply can't afford it right now.
It's nice to know that I wasn't the only one listening to Metallica in high school and playing Shadowrun and violent video games to help work out some of the rage I felt on a day to day basis.
I think in earlier times, it was easier to work out this rage, either fighting was more accepted (my parent's time), or you had to actively hunt for food (grandparent's time), or by 13 or 14, you were out fighting [i]real[/i] wars.
I don't think I was an atypical teen, but I had a lot of anger and angst I needed to work out. Luckily I had an outlet for that. I don't think it was unhealthy, most of my angst was about things I couldn't control and didn't have the emotional maturity to deal with yet. Adolescence is a very hard time to deal with. Mine was made better knowing that someone felt the same way I did (or at least did at one time) and there were outlets for my irrational rage and aggression.
Unfortunately, I see many parents trying to take away every one of these outlets, on the idea that they somehow cause violence. They'd like to ban everything from football to video games to violent television, because they aren't comfortable with the violent aspect of them. Somehow, they think if you just take these things away, people will somehow stop being "animals". It doesn't work that way. Man is violent by nature, and I'm sure that's part of the reason we survived to build society. You don't breed that out in a generation or get rid of it by legislation. And, the more you close off the places to get rid of this aggression safely, you will encourage more and more school shootings.
The DMCA was passed by a show of hands, so that no record could be made of who voted for it, and who voted against it. I think that's completely against the principles our democracy was founded upon, but nevertheless, what if they do it again with the SSSCA? Is there any way to get someone in there with a digital camera, or at least a pen and a paper diagram of the seating arrangement of the house and senate to make a record of who voted for it?
Honestly, if they pass this by secret ballot, I'll have no problems voting against every incumbent, even if they are running against a brain-dead mental patient with morals and ideals diametrically opposed to my own, but I rather not throw the baby out with the bath.
Any ideas?
Re:Should I send this to my congressmen?
on
SSSCA Hearing
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· Score: 2
I just had a very scary thought:
The DMCA was passed by a show of hands, so that no record could be made of who voted for it, and who voted against it. I think that's completely against the principles our democracy was founded upon, but nevertheless, what if they do it again with the SSSCA? Is there any way to get someone in there with a digital camera, or at least a pen and a paper diagram of the seating arrangement of the house and senate to make a record of who voted for it?
Honestly, if they pass this by secret ballot, I'll have no problems voting against every incumbent, even if they are running against a brain-dead mental patient with morals and ideals diametrically opposed to my own, but I rather not throw the baby out with the bath.
Slashdot Mirror
In these 13 words, you've just summed up everything that's wrong with our political party. I don't care who I have to vote for, if a politican attempts to screw me over the way Hollings has, I'll vote for whomever is running against him, even if he's a cross burning pedophile member of the KKK who stands against everything I believe in. I'll vote for him no matter repulsive he is as a person, or how insane he is mentally. Why? Because it sends a message. It says "I'd rather vote for this crazy kook than vote for someone who proposes an insane bill like the CBDTPA." Besides, he'll likely get voted out next election anyway, and probably won't have any real effect as a freshman member of congress.
Even at that, if you simply cannot vote for the Republican running against your horrible democrat, there is a third party candidate out there whose beliefs happen to coincide well with yours. Before you tell me that third party candidates cannot win, I will inform you that both current parties were not the ones we originally started out with. Hell, Mexico's president won in a country where there was traditionally one party.
Personally, I vote third party whenever I can, because I hate the politics of both parties, and I don't find much difference between them to justify voting for one or the other. Make the system work for you.
And then came along the 1994 Crime bill. In case you don't remember this bill, this was the infamous bill that banned "assualt weapons" without a good definition of what an assualt weapon was and banned gun magazines over 10 rounds. It barely passed, but passed nonetheless.
Jack Brooks onveniently forgot who brought him to the dance and who kept him there. He voted against the bill, even though many of his constituents were either directly NRA members or sympathetic to the cause. He did not serve another term. Though no one directly said it, it was considered general knowledge that his vote on the crime bill was the critical issue.
I think this is still a bit high. Since I can buy a real, physical CD with 15-20 tracks on it for ~$20.00, an mp3 would have to be considerably less than that.
So, a dollar a track is right out, I won't pay that much even for an unrestricted, professional quality mp3. Even at $0.50, it's a bit overpriced, considering that CD is better quality and I can still rip mp3s from it, and I can find a used CD or a CD on sale for less than $10.00 ($0.50 a track). I'd say a better price would be closer to $0.25, and if they would come down to $0.10 or so, and offered every track in their backcatalog, I wouldn't even bother installing Morpheus or WinMX.
The best way to kill the black market is to give people what they want at a price they are willing to pay. People generally aren't theives, and people prefer buying from someone who is actually accountable.
I think you missed the point. The point isn't that AOL makes it's money on something other than a CD, it's the point that CDs are so cheap to press and ship out that AOL can do it on such a massive scale that everyone and their mother gets two or three of them a month. It probably impacts their bottom line, but it must be fairly cheap to produce a CD, or AOL wouldn't send them out so cavalierly.
I know for a fact it usually costs me about $0.25 to burn a CD, and it would seem that a pressed CD in bulk would be cheaper than that -- or the music companies would start putting everything on CD-R. Even when you include the cost of the inserts, it still probably doesn't go over a dollar for the entire product to ship out the door. A well-established artist might get a dollar a CD, and even then, will have to pay back the costs incurred from production. So, where's the money going?
I think what you're forgetting is a big facotr of why the two companies are different.
The media companies are tapping a theoretical never-ending supply. It's in their best interests to maintain the current business model. The oil companies are tapping into a non-renewable resource. No matter how good they get at it, one day, it will run out, or will be so scarce that people won't use it to power transportation. It's in their best interests to persue any energy souce that could potentially do away with replace gasoline. Unlike other technologies, you could theoretically burn hydrogen in today's engines, unlike trying to adapt a current car to electrical or solar or nuclear power. Considering that most oil comes from some of the most unstable places on earth, their business model is potentially much more unstable than the music industry's.
Also, not every big oil company belongs to OPEC. There isn't a major record label that's not in bed with the RIAA.
I'm not saying big oil isn't evil, I'm jsut saying that I fear it much less than I fear the RIAA or the MPAA.
I know I personally went from ~70 CDs a year pre-Napster, ~100 a year during Napster, and exactly zero post Napster. Why? Because I'm tired of funding a business that's so overtly hostile to it's customers and new technology.
I even wrote a letter to the major labels, Hillary Rosen, and the RIAA explaining my decision. Apparently, I've chosen piracy over "paying for content" -- or that's what I was told.
Circuit City sold Divx, not Best Buy.
Of course, if they do that, It'll just motivate me to get out and vote against every incumbent.
This is a very good point. Not to split hairs here, but let's just go down a logical reasoning path. It's legal for me to bring my CDs to work and listen to them in a CD player. I could also turn it up loud enough that the people in surrounding cubicles could hear it, and that's legal too. Now, it's debatable, but provided the company isn't open to the general public, I could put the CD on the company's loudspeakers and play it loud enough for everyone to hear, and that's legal. Now, what if I put the CD in the CD-ROM drive of my computer and share it on the network so that Jane in the cubicle three floors down can listen to it -- sparing me the time and effort to hand deliver it to her. Is that infringing? What if I let everyone access it? What if I put together some massive 100 cd-rom computer and load that full of discs for the office to share? Is that infringing?
Well, the room is not a closed system. Any oxygen used up in a combustion must be replaced by some outside gas or create a vaccuum. We've already noticed the small pipe near the bottom of the floor, and air will flow back into the room from that. Also, any propane in the ventilation system is going to be combusted and the propane supply was decoupled from the ventilation shaft almost immediately after the explosion, leaving the ventilation shaft free to deliver fresh air once again. Even in the event that all of the available oxygen in the room was used up, it would not take long for fresh oxygen to return -- you could certainly hold your breath that long.
Even sophisticated Fuel-Air-Bombs (which work on exactly this principle) do not kill by depriving people of oxygen.
As far as the propane tank flying around the room -- do you realize how much potential energy is in a filled propane tank? I've seen the aftermath of large propane tank explosions -- both years after and hours after the explosions -- the destruction is incredibly immense. If that small propane tank had exploded, it would have likely killed all three burglers. To get an idea of the potential energy, here's the aftermath of an explosion of a 15lb bottle of nitrous in the trunk of someone's car. That should give you an idea of what a 20lb propane tank can do. There's more than enough energy to fling it around the room -- think about how a rocket works.
Sorry, I just thought the realism of this movie was fairly well done until the "showdown" toward the end of the film. Nothing that happened was phyiscally impossible, and characters didn't typically make inane decisions against type.
I'm actually surprised there was even food or anything in there that wasn't bolted down, typically, when you move out of house, you take everything of value. That would completely explain the lack of a gun, no one is going to transfer the ownership of a gun with the ownership of a house -- it's too valuable, and too much of a liability risk, especially if you don't tell people it's there.
For those who say it was too easy to compromise the room -- Forrest Whittaker designed it. He even knew the passcodes! It would be like having your ex-systems administrator come back six months later with the passwords unchanged and expecting your security to hold. No matter how secure it is, he knows every flaw, every back door.
They really do think that laws like this won't pass because "the people won't stand for it" or "politicians aren't that stupid". They've literally thrown me in with the "black helicopter" crowd. Maybe when the CBDTPA becomes law, they'll finally realize what I've been saying all this time. Of course, by then, it'll be too late.
The German Toilet, complete with Turd Inspection Shelf!
Seriously though, I think I was the only person in the world that liked "Black Leather Jacket".
Now that is interesting. I'd love to see them sue the hell out of Buma/Stemra, and get their money back, and severely punish B/S. That's the only thing these copyright companies understand -- a very heavy hit in their pocketbook. Otherwise, this is just another lost case. It didn't really hurt the company, but it definately hurt Kaaza. Maybe this would stop all the silly cease and desist letters and frivolous lawsuits.
I hate to think what Napster could sue the RIAA for if it's eventually found legit. No, let me take that back. It puts a big shit-eating grin to think about the RIAA being taken to the cleaners.
If you have an online subscription to the WSJ, you can read it here. I'd cut and paste it, but I don't have an online subscription, and I've thrown away my copy of that day's WSJ.
Perhaps you are't clear?
What's your misunderstood word?
I think this auditing course, which only costs
So, I feel I can complain. I found out which candidate was closest to my world view -- and voted for him. However, you had to really look to find anything out about Harry Brown, and even Nader did not get the kind of coverage that Bush and Gore did. Even at that, the two-party system has fooled people into thinking that they have to vote for one of the major party candidates or their vote is wasted.
Last election, all I heard about was social security. I could care less about social security, I've been told all my life it probably won't be there when I retire, so I've resigned myself to that fate. It's also some forty plus years in my future, so it's not something I think too heavily about.
So, where's the issues I'm concerned about?
I barely heard anything mentioned last election about any issues I particularly cared about. Copyright and the War on Drugs (two issues that seem to be very important with my age group) weren't even mentioned at all.
And they wonder why we don't vote.
Shouldn't take long.
But, if this law passes, I'll jump back in with full force. I'll pirate stuff I don't even like just because someone else might want it. Right now, a lot of my free time is going to writing letters to congressmen and women. I'll shift all that time to piracy, and I'll probably add a bit just because I used to enjoy it.
1. Those, like my mother, who desperately want it, but simply can't get it because they live out in the sticks (and yes, the trees interfere with sat service).
2. Those, like my father, who don't use the internet for much more than online banking, checking stocks once a day and email. They've got a 56k connection, and it's fast enough for them. My father doesn't really care for the computer, it's a tool to him, and he's not going to spend any more time in front of it than he has to and he sure won't use it for entertainment. Because of this, he can't justify an increase in the amount he already pays to access the internet -- he manages to find free or nearly free providers and uses his normal phone line to dial up since he's never on more than thirty minutes or so. Movies on line will not get my father to go broadband, just as mp3s haven't gotten him on broadband either. He doesn't use the computer as a media device, and won't use it that way, even if the content is available. I know that's totally foreign to slashdotters, but trust me, these people exist.
3. Those, like some of my friends, who can get it, and would like to have it, but simply can't afford it right now.
I think in earlier times, it was easier to work out this rage, either fighting was more accepted (my parent's time), or you had to actively hunt for food (grandparent's time), or by 13 or 14, you were out fighting [i]real[/i] wars.
I don't think I was an atypical teen, but I had a lot of anger and angst I needed to work out. Luckily I had an outlet for that. I don't think it was unhealthy, most of my angst was about things I couldn't control and didn't have the emotional maturity to deal with yet. Adolescence is a very hard time to deal with. Mine was made better knowing that someone felt the same way I did (or at least did at one time) and there were outlets for my irrational rage and aggression.
Unfortunately, I see many parents trying to take away every one of these outlets, on the idea that they somehow cause violence. They'd like to ban everything from football to video games to violent television, because they aren't comfortable with the violent aspect of them. Somehow, they think if you just take these things away, people will somehow stop being "animals". It doesn't work that way. Man is violent by nature, and I'm sure that's part of the reason we survived to build society. You don't breed that out in a generation or get rid of it by legislation. And, the more you close off the places to get rid of this aggression safely, you will encourage more and more school shootings.
The DMCA was passed by a show of hands, so that no record could be made of who voted for it, and who voted against it. I think that's completely against the principles our democracy was founded upon, but nevertheless, what if they do it again with the SSSCA? Is there any way to get someone in there with a digital camera, or at least a pen and a paper diagram of the seating arrangement of the house and senate to make a record of who voted for it?
Honestly, if they pass this by secret ballot, I'll have no problems voting against every incumbent, even if they are running against a brain-dead mental patient with morals and ideals diametrically opposed to my own, but I rather not throw the baby out with the bath.
Any ideas?
The DMCA was passed by a show of hands, so that no record could be made of who voted for it, and who voted against it. I think that's completely against the principles our democracy was founded upon, but nevertheless, what if they do it again with the SSSCA? Is there any way to get someone in there with a digital camera, or at least a pen and a paper diagram of the seating arrangement of the house and senate to make a record of who voted for it?
Honestly, if they pass this by secret ballot, I'll have no problems voting against every incumbent, even if they are running against a brain-dead mental patient with morals and ideals diametrically opposed to my own, but I rather not throw the baby out with the bath.
Any ideas?