This is important because rooftop solar panels in the southwest could probably supply the USA's non-mobile energy needs. Have you seen the size of the solar fields we have in the Southwest? Yes, solar panels in the Southwest could supply the energy needs, but the last estimate I saw said we would have to cover about all of Arizona or New Mexico with solar panels. That's mightly wasteful of open space, no to mention requires a lot of paving and environmental problems. (Considering that actual occupied homes are currently only a tiny portion of the space there currently, rooftops alone wouldn't cut it-- unless you want a lot more buildings.)
Alternative biofuels very often are extremely inefficient. A Cornell University study recently claimed that ethanol, for example, actually takes more energy to produce that it outputs. Not only is that inefficient, but biofuels are tremendously space inefficient as well. Honestly, oil drilling only obscures a small part of the surface for how much energy you get-- biofuels would mean more land set aside for intensive cultivation and farming, which is also an ecological problem. (That's one reason as well why organic farming causes as many ecological problems as it solves-- the additional land needed due to lower yields offsets any gains in fewer pesticides used.
It is considered "fair use" because Canadian courts have taken the very sensible position that if you cannot buy the service in Canada then calling in "piracy" is meaningless.
How is that "sensible?" It's not as though DirecTV doesn't want to sell it. The Canadian government prohibits them from selling it, in order to try to protect Canadian broadcasters. However, it's not exactly easy for them to avoid broadcasting their satellite signal to Canada while broadcasting to the US. The Canadian government has basically made it impossible for DirecTV, putting them in a Catch-22.
Do you think Monsanto is going to select a project demonstrating the dangers of genetically engineered crops? Do you thing Pfizer is going to finance a study to prove that Americans are over-medicated?
Actually, I do. These corporations give tons of money to environmental organizations, which fund the very research you're talking about. In fact, corporate giving is very much (three to four times as much) tilted towards giving to left-wing causes. Makes sense, naturally. They hope to placate the leftists that are skeptical of corporations in general.
but the Commerce Clause has not been applied that strictly since before FDR. Heck, they have a hard enough time getting justices to vote against laws that justify themselves with the Commerce Clause but don't even involve buying or selling. (Like "no gun at school" laws that claim that school violence may eventually affect learning and thus commerce, and thus the federal government can intervene with anything they want on school violence. Striking that rationale down was a 5-4 decision.) Narrowing the Commerce Clause to only commerce that actually travels between state lines would be a great victory, but is far more radically states' rights and limited government than anything the Court has come close to, even in its recent movements.
It's a bad law, giving officers that much discretion. However, the Supremes really weren't considering that aspect of it, as you note. One cogent objection I've heard is that the punishment of arrest may be harsher than the punishment for committing the crime. That makes sense as a general rule, but the Court didn't wish to impose it as a rule on all the states.
This is the exact same Supreme Court that struck down the Communications Decency Act of 1996, as you can see if you read the article. Lawmakers clearly tried to come back with another bill slightly more narrowly tailored that they hoped would be less infringing. We shall see how the Court rules.
The Supreme Court also did not overturn the states' medical marijuana initiatives. They just said that, even in the lack of state law, the federal law still applies because it does not make an exception for medicinal uses. Now, I disagree with what happened, but it's difficult to see what else they could have ruled, given federal law. Yes, they could have thrown out the law, but, well, as a precedent that would have meant throwing out a lot of other laws. (Like, for example, a bunch of laws regulating business dealings and medicine sales.)
The interesting thing about the article was how much criticism the Tauzin-Dingell bill was getting from other members of Congress. In fact, the article noted that the bill talked about looks unlikely to pass because of concerns from other members. I think that's a lot different from what the Slashdot story implied.
FWIW, there are strong studies showing that politicians vote the same way when they aren't getting money any more. So, do politicians supports interests that support them, or is it the other way around? (And does that matter.)
In case you didn't notice, there are plenty of corporate sponsors for PBS. PBS also sells lots of merchandise. Sesame Street is only on PBS because of a sweetheart deal whereby the producers get to keep all the merchandising money.
Napster is required to try to stop people from trading illegally, and to make a good faith effort. Do you think they really care if people bypass it? No, they don't. Napster's execs wanted and encouraged the various thefts. They just want to satisfy the court.
So, don't complain. Napster's thinking just like you are.
My quick and dirty read, is that that the court, as expected, found that trading copyrighted materials is illegal. They also found that Napster cannot knowingly allow such trade. The judges ordered the lower judge to rewrite the injunction so that Napster does not knowingly allow trade in copyrighted materials. That part was fairly expected.
Now, Napster has claimed that it cannot operate while finding out which items were stolen and which were not. It is relying on various precedents (VCRs, auction sites, ISPs) in the US Code that would protect their liability if they have a legal use other than the illegal one to which they are being put, and they don't know about the illegal ones. A tool with legal uses cannot be banned simply because it has illegal ones. However, it can be forced to try to prevent the illegal uses.
Whether Napster will be able to police its trades so much is questionable. What is clear, is that most of the traffic that goes on is illegal.
Your third example is what as known as moral hazard. It's true that when health care is provided for a flat fee, or with no cost to the consumer with extra demands. However, it's actually much more likely to happen with government intervention. It's government regulations that force healthcare coverage that tends to cause such things. Without the government regulation, people are free to settle on health care plans that use methods like deductibles to reduce moral hazard.
You're not respecting the communist ideal. Should not the government determine the proper allocation of music that should be produced, and the prices at which comrades should get them? Trying to produce your own music on CDs upsets the plan which will benefit all of society and the proletariat. Your greed, selfishness, and consumerism in demanding the right to upset the glorious socialist Plan is upsetting, comrade.
We are trying to scientifically build a higher Socialist society where humanity can grow, and we have scientifically determined the proper musical allocation to bring happiness to the people. You do not have the right to selfishly commandeer the productive capacities of the people to produce your own CDs. Any CDs you want can be produced by the glorious State Industry. Your desire to produce your own CDs is clearly borne of a desire to sell them yourself, you aspiring capitalist running dog!
Err, why wouldn't a state-owned monopoly do the same thing? After all, copying blank music would cost the state-owned music companies money too. Naturally, you would be harming your fellow comrades by upsetting the planned allocation of music.
Actually, you wouldn't have taxes in communism. Why bother-- it would be inefficient. The government would simply decide how many bicycles and cars everyone should have, and then price them so that people had to have the proper amount. If too many comrades bought bicycles and hurt the nationalized car industry, the national government, for the good of the country, would raise bike prices. And so on. A communist government would of course set the prices of beer and wine so that the "right" amount of each were produced and consumed.
These restrictions are socialist. A communist government would obviously act to protect its businesses. That's why all communist countries made strikes illegal-- because strikers were automatically rebelling against the good of the people, as already determined. That's why it's illegal in Cuba to be absent from work, punishable with imprisonment.
Pretty silly comment from someone begging us not to trust the US Government, but to take every word that comes from the Cuban government. Something certainly makes all those refugees flee from there in ragtag rafts, doesn't it? I've tried reading some books about Cuba-- all of them say that it's a tolitarian dictatorship hellhole created by Castro.
How about reading The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois, Nicholas Werth, and others. I've read plenty of books about Cuba. It is certainly a dictatorship.
The "Klaatu Barada Nikto" line came from the movie "The Day The Earth Stood Still". I'm kind of surprised how few fans know that one. Then again, it was an old movie..
True, although it's also referenced in the Evil Dead movies.
If you read the Florida statues, one sentence says that the Secretary of State "shall" exclude ballots received after the deadline last week. Another sentence says that she "may" exclude them, giving her discretion. This is inconsistent, and it would not be unusual for the Florida Supreme Court to find an ruling for either one of those interpretations, or somewhere between.
However, what the Court did, was find a completely different option, that ballots "shall not" be excluded if submitted after the original deadline, but that they "shall" be excluded if after a new, Court-imposed arbitrary deadline, that was still too soon for Miami-Dade and Palm Beach to finish their recounts. It's arbitary and completely different from the law; not at all a clarification of the ambiguity.
at least not Palm Beach and Broward County, which didn't count dimpled ballots going back to 1990. The Delahunt case in Massachusetts is the other exception that the Washington Post found. Of course, there's still huge complaints about that Democratic primary being fixed, as an example here in the Providence Journal shows.
It far more important that the Florida counties not change their rules after the elections. Palm Beach clearly didn't count dimples at least since 1990. Recounting them now would change the rules.
They went by number in Miami Dade. The precincts already counted went 74% for Gore. The county as a whole went 53% for Gore. It's very unlikely that the remaining precincts would have given proportionally similar votes to Gore.
If hand recounts are less accurate than machine recounts, why are hand recounts ordered by law in case in dispute in both Florida and Texas, as well as most of the other states?
Not true. What the Texas law does say is that if both a hand and machine recount are requested, only one, the hand recount is performed. Under Texas law, one may not have multiple recounts. In Florida, it is up to each county, provided they have the results in by deadline. Furthermore, as the Washington Postfound, most states don't count dimples.
How easy is it to stuff the ballot box when you're in a roomful of extremely partisan observers from the other side? Do you think the Dem's are ripping out chads right under the Republicans noses?
Not conclusive at all. After all, the Republicans did complain about the interpretations of dimpled chads that Broward County came up with. The Republican judge on the Broward County board disagreed with tons of the calls, and one Republican observer was thrown out for disagreeing with a call. So, just because the Republicans were there didn't mean they didn't object to the calls. They just didn't control the process.
How can Gore have "clearly lost" the hand recount when the recount wasn't allowed to finish? Do you think shipping in goons to harass election canvassing boards into calling off recounts is an acceptable outcome in a Western democracy?
Because the race is over after either the arbitrary deadline the Florida Supreme Court made, or the original deadline in the statute the Legislature passed before the election. As for the "goons" complaint, the Democratic election supervisor in Miami-Dade County told the Los Angeles Times that the demonstration was peaceful, and did not intimidate him. He would have made the decision anyway, as there wasn't enough time. Don't forget that the Democrats on the County board originally voted not to have a manual recount, until the Gore campaign threatened to sue them. As a Democrat, it would have been easy for him to claim he was intimidated; he didn't.
The woman who certified this vote, and who has consistently attempted to block all attempts at hand recounts, is Bush's co-campaign chair in Florida. How can this be allowed to happen? Do they not have conflict of interest laws in Florida? Further, her job is due to be slated out of existence at the end of her term, which means she's looking for work. She'll get a plum appointment in a Bush administration, maybe even an Ambassadorship. Is this the way we do elections in America? Sounds more like one of those new Russian states making it's first attempt at democracy.
She does have an obvious defense, that it is her job and she was following the law. After all, the Attorney General for Florida jumped in the dispute, and he managed Gore's campaign in Florida. The judges and workers in Broward County and elsewhere who judges the dimpled ballots voted for Gore, and some of them contributed to his campaign, had stickers for him on their cars, and are members of the DNC. (Evidence, as though it matters: here) Surely there were conflicts of interest there too? At least her job had very straightforward deadlines in law, and later dictated by the courts-- the local Democratic officials were interpreting dimples and stray marks, which has much more room for bias. She certified all recounts that came before the legislated deadline. She then certified all recounts before the Florida Supreme Court imposed deadline.
Why are most of the optical counting machines in Florida in Republican areas, where the shitty old punchcard systems are in place in Democratic strongholds?
Not true. The Orlando Sentinal published a list of spoiled ballots for counties and electoral systems. It lists tabulation systems used, and who won each county. There's also a link to a map. Note that optical systems and punchcard systems are distributed proportionally in counties the each candidate won, although Gore did have slightly more spoiled ballots in counties he won.
Slashdot Mirror
This is important because rooftop solar panels in the southwest could probably supply the USA's non-mobile energy needs.
Have you seen the size of the solar fields we have in the Southwest? Yes, solar panels in the Southwest could supply the energy needs, but the last estimate I saw said we would have to cover about all of Arizona or New Mexico with solar panels. That's mightly wasteful of open space, no to mention requires a lot of paving and environmental problems. (Considering that actual occupied homes are currently only a tiny portion of the space there currently, rooftops alone wouldn't cut it-- unless you want a lot more buildings.)
Alternative biofuels very often are extremely inefficient. A Cornell University study recently claimed that ethanol, for example, actually takes more energy to produce that it outputs. Not only is that inefficient, but biofuels are tremendously space inefficient as well. Honestly, oil drilling only obscures a small part of the surface for how much energy you get-- biofuels would mean more land set aside for intensive cultivation and farming, which is also an ecological problem. (That's one reason as well why organic farming causes as many ecological problems as it solves-- the additional land needed due to lower yields offsets any gains in fewer pesticides used.
It is considered "fair use" because Canadian courts have taken the very sensible position that if you cannot buy the service in Canada then calling in "piracy" is meaningless.
How is that "sensible?" It's not as though DirecTV doesn't want to sell it. The Canadian government prohibits them from selling it, in order to try to protect Canadian broadcasters. However, it's not exactly easy for them to avoid broadcasting their satellite signal to Canada while broadcasting to the US. The Canadian government has basically made it impossible for DirecTV, putting them in a Catch-22.
Actually, I do. These corporations give tons of money to environmental organizations, which fund the very research you're talking about. In fact, corporate giving is very much (three to four times as much) tilted towards giving to left-wing causes. Makes sense, naturally. They hope to placate the leftists that are skeptical of corporations in general.
but the Commerce Clause has not been applied that strictly since before FDR. Heck, they have a hard enough time getting justices to vote against laws that justify themselves with the Commerce Clause but don't even involve buying or selling. (Like "no gun at school" laws that claim that school violence may eventually affect learning and thus commerce, and thus the federal government can intervene with anything they want on school violence. Striking that rationale down was a 5-4 decision.) Narrowing the Commerce Clause to only commerce that actually travels between state lines would be a great victory, but is far more radically states' rights and limited government than anything the Court has come close to, even in its recent movements.
It's a bad law, giving officers that much discretion. However, the Supremes really weren't considering that aspect of it, as you note. One cogent objection I've heard is that the punishment of arrest may be harsher than the punishment for committing the crime. That makes sense as a general rule, but the Court didn't wish to impose it as a rule on all the states.
The Supreme Court also did not overturn the states' medical marijuana initiatives. They just said that, even in the lack of state law, the federal law still applies because it does not make an exception for medicinal uses. Now, I disagree with what happened, but it's difficult to see what else they could have ruled, given federal law. Yes, they could have thrown out the law, but, well, as a precedent that would have meant throwing out a lot of other laws. (Like, for example, a bunch of laws regulating business dealings and medicine sales.)
The federal law has to be changed or repealed.
FWIW, there are strong studies showing that politicians vote the same way when they aren't getting money any more. So, do politicians supports interests that support them, or is it the other way around? (And does that matter.)
Face it, it's not that different.
at least I know ADV doesn't on their DVDs.
So, don't complain. Napster's thinking just like you are.
Here's an interesting story. It seems that if you search for KDE-related things on Google, you get a sponsored link inviting you to download GNOME.
Now, Napster has claimed that it cannot operate while finding out which items were stolen and which were not. It is relying on various precedents (VCRs, auction sites, ISPs) in the US Code that would protect their liability if they have a legal use other than the illegal one to which they are being put, and they don't know about the illegal ones. A tool with legal uses cannot be banned simply because it has illegal ones. However, it can be forced to try to prevent the illegal uses.
Whether Napster will be able to police its trades so much is questionable. What is clear, is that most of the traffic that goes on is illegal.
Your third example is what as known as moral hazard. It's true that when health care is provided for a flat fee, or with no cost to the consumer with extra demands. However, it's actually much more likely to happen with government intervention. It's government regulations that force healthcare coverage that tends to cause such things. Without the government regulation, people are free to settle on health care plans that use methods like deductibles to reduce moral hazard.
And the French government has the Socialist party in charge, with Communists in the Cabinet.
We are trying to scientifically build a higher Socialist society where humanity can grow, and we have scientifically determined the proper musical allocation to bring happiness to the people. You do not have the right to selfishly commandeer the productive capacities of the people to produce your own CDs. Any CDs you want can be produced by the glorious State Industry. Your desire to produce your own CDs is clearly borne of a desire to sell them yourself, you aspiring capitalist running dog!
Actually, you wouldn't have taxes in communism. Why bother-- it would be inefficient. The government would simply decide how many bicycles and cars everyone should have, and then price them so that people had to have the proper amount. If too many comrades bought bicycles and hurt the nationalized car industry, the national government, for the good of the country, would raise bike prices. And so on. A communist government would of course set the prices of beer and wine so that the "right" amount of each were produced and consumed.
These restrictions are socialist. A communist government would obviously act to protect its businesses. That's why all communist countries made strikes illegal-- because strikers were automatically rebelling against the good of the people, as already determined. That's why it's illegal in Cuba to be absent from work, punishable with imprisonment.
Pretty silly comment from someone begging us not to trust the US Government, but to take every word that comes from the Cuban government. Something certainly makes all those refugees flee from there in ragtag rafts, doesn't it? I've tried reading some books about Cuba-- all of them say that it's a tolitarian dictatorship hellhole created by Castro.
How about reading The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois, Nicholas Werth, and others. I've read plenty of books about Cuba. It is certainly a dictatorship.
True, although it's also referenced in the Evil Dead movies.
The DC version has better graphics, of course.
However, what the Court did, was find a completely different option, that ballots "shall not" be excluded if submitted after the original deadline, but that they "shall" be excluded if after a new, Court-imposed arbitrary deadline, that was still too soon for Miami-Dade and Palm Beach to finish their recounts. It's arbitary and completely different from the law; not at all a clarification of the ambiguity.
It far more important that the Florida counties not change their rules after the elections. Palm Beach clearly didn't count dimples at least since 1990. Recounting them now would change the rules.
They went by number in Miami Dade. The precincts already counted went 74% for Gore. The county as a whole went 53% for Gore. It's very unlikely that the remaining precincts would have given proportionally similar votes to Gore.
If hand recounts are less accurate than machine recounts, why are hand recounts ordered by law in case in dispute in both Florida and Texas, as well as most of the other states?
Not true. What the Texas law does say is that if both a hand and machine recount are requested, only one, the hand recount is performed. Under Texas law, one may not have multiple recounts. In Florida, it is up to each county, provided they have the results in by deadline. Furthermore, as the Washington Post found, most states don't count dimples.
How easy is it to stuff the ballot box when you're in a roomful of extremely partisan observers from the other side? Do you think the Dem's are ripping out chads right under the Republicans noses?
Not conclusive at all. After all, the Republicans did complain about the interpretations of dimpled chads that Broward County came up with. The Republican judge on the Broward County board disagreed with tons of the calls, and one Republican observer was thrown out for disagreeing with a call. So, just because the Republicans were there didn't mean they didn't object to the calls. They just didn't control the process.
How can Gore have "clearly lost" the hand recount when the recount wasn't allowed to finish? Do you think shipping in goons to harass election canvassing boards into calling off recounts is an acceptable outcome in a Western democracy?
Because the race is over after either the arbitrary deadline the Florida Supreme Court made, or the original deadline in the statute the Legislature passed before the election. As for the "goons" complaint, the Democratic election supervisor in Miami-Dade County told the Los Angeles Times that the demonstration was peaceful, and did not intimidate him. He would have made the decision anyway, as there wasn't enough time. Don't forget that the Democrats on the County board originally voted not to have a manual recount, until the Gore campaign threatened to sue them. As a Democrat, it would have been easy for him to claim he was intimidated; he didn't.
The woman who certified this vote, and who has consistently attempted to block all attempts at hand recounts, is Bush's co-campaign chair in Florida. How can this be allowed to happen? Do they not have conflict of interest laws in Florida? Further, her job is due to be slated out of existence at the end of her term, which means she's looking for work. She'll get a plum appointment in a Bush administration, maybe even an Ambassadorship. Is this the way we do elections in America? Sounds more like one of those new Russian states making it's first attempt at democracy.
She does have an obvious defense, that it is her job and she was following the law. After all, the Attorney General for Florida jumped in the dispute, and he managed Gore's campaign in Florida. The judges and workers in Broward County and elsewhere who judges the dimpled ballots voted for Gore, and some of them contributed to his campaign, had stickers for him on their cars, and are members of the DNC. (Evidence, as though it matters: here) Surely there were conflicts of interest there too? At least her job had very straightforward deadlines in law, and later dictated by the courts-- the local Democratic officials were interpreting dimples and stray marks, which has much more room for bias. She certified all recounts that came before the legislated deadline. She then certified all recounts before the Florida Supreme Court imposed deadline.
Why are most of the optical counting machines in Florida in Republican areas, where the shitty old punchcard systems are in place in Democratic strongholds?
Not true. The Orlando Sentinal published a list of spoiled ballots for counties and electoral systems. It lists tabulation systems used, and who won each county. There's also a link to a map. Note that optical systems and punchcard systems are distributed proportionally in counties the each candidate won, although Gore did have slightly more spoiled ballots in counties he won.