As to hunting being a legitimate sport -- some places tried to do away with it and found that the wildlife populations would grow and the wildlife starve and die due to overpopulation -- all because the predators are gone.
People in rural areas arguably need firearms for various purposes. Any farmer who has killed livestock knows about this. Animals get sick and it is easier to shoot them than to take them to a vet so the vet can shoot them.
These are somewhat related. Most often the reason that predators are absent is that farmers have exterminated them. Since farmers are in the business of feeding people, not the local predator population.
The problem is that the RIAA and MPAA don't want to bother hunding down a few of the people who make "copies of their books" and make bloody examples of them. Instead they want to make infringement impossible by burning all the printing presses. (Except, of course, for a few that they license. For a fee.)
If they did this they would then have to ensure these "licences presses" were protected by very well paid armed guards.
First of all, it's not a perfect copy! This myth has been allowed to propagate too far, for too long. The MP3 format is nowhere near perfect, and any compressed format is going to have audible artifacts.
Even if it was the distinction between "analogue" and "digital" or "perfect" and "non perfect" copying is a recently invented distinction.
People tolerate these because they are getting the MP3 files for essentially nothing.
Or because the quality is "good enough". Remember that people will put up with quite awful radio and television reception.
Target the particularly egregious ones first. But don't restrict the rights of the common law-abinding citizen in order to stop the few criminals. That's just stupid. Gun control has the same problem. Despite the fact that the VAST majority of crimes are comitted with guns that are NOT legally owned, the leftists want to go after law-abiding legal gun owners.
If someone is going to enguage in a crime they are hardly likely to be worried about making sure they only use "legal" tools. Also if you judge someone guilty just by having a certain tools they have little to lose if they actually enguage in crimes.
New technology does necessitate the advent of new rules.
Rather it may do. If the original rules were well written then little or no change may be needed. The central issue is probably more if the new technology allows something which has never been possible before. Which is not the same as simply making something possible before easier or cheaper.
Easy reproduction of printed material in the 1700's, and the abuse of that power, caused the first copyright laws to be enacted (statute of Anne [edge.net]). It is quite important to note that nearly all copyright laws, starting with this one, intend to protect the author of the work, not the producer of the work.
The Queen Anne statue is more the first example of copyright as we now understand it. Previously copyright had been something assigned to publishers as a method of state censorship.
At the time, the author of a book contracted with a printer to print the book. Today's entertainment industry in the US has turned that on its head: the artist is nearly forced to give up entirely their copy rights to their work in order to get someone to publish it.
We have come "full circle" with the major holders of copyright being publishers. Who also want a return to perpetual copyright status.
Although the acting left a little to be desired, it wasn't horrible. Many people will disagree with me on this, but I preferred how House Harkonnen was portrayed as an arrogant aristocracy in this series than the filthy pigs in the original, 1980s version of the movie
It was the movie that had the "happy ending". An inexplicable planetwide monsoon.
Finally, it wasn't clear to me at the end of the book, did the humans and aliens merge into one race, or had the aliens actually won the war and taken over humanity? I'd like to see thier take on that.
Humans started creating clones and using them to crew their ships. The Taurans were clones without the concept of an individual. The other point was that it was the humans who started the war.
Then 'Forever War'. One word: Battlesuits. Certainly the special effects technology is up to showing them... but *you can't see the actor's face* in a battlesuit. My bet is they'll throw away any part the book which doesn't relate to combat action, and botch that by throwing away the suits. Result: a 'Starship Troopers' clone. Enough Said.
There is also the sexuality aspect. Can you really see that making it through a US based production company?
We Americans, as a collective entity, have forgotten what it really means to be good neighbors in the world. I find many of our actions quite disappointing, mainly because it makes us look bad. There is a great deal of good that we offer to the world: financial aid, manpower for humanitarian purposes as examples.
One very important thing is that where problems are due to the actions of people the one thing you must not do is take sides. The US did this in Somalia, the result was a disaster. The US also did this in Afganistan, only time will tell if this was a good thing or not.
There's also a great deal which isn't so hot, such as commercialism, but which may be rejected. The bad-neighbor part comes when we try to enforce our will/values on other people when we know full well we wouldn't stand for such treatment in reverse.
Sometimes not even US values, consider the US trying to bully the Ukraine.
of course, americans being what they are (single-languaged, specifically) they don't understand what "quid pro quo" means and are perfectly happy to apply the argument only single-sided. (i.e. US jurisdiction everywhere, but not vice versa)
Which is a big part of the reason the US isn't too popular in many parts of the world right now. Though it's not so much "Americans" as the US government and large US corporations. The vast bulk of the US population are more isolationist than imperialist and tend to assume that the US government is too...
Herr Ashcroft and the Bush Stoogies, along with George "Rolling-Blackout" Herbert Walker Bush have set the stage for a colossal shift in the rights of Americans. We've already taken the step of classifying some as different, and then dramatically taking away their rights.
There is an irony that Bush was declared the winner using an interpretation of the 14th ammendment. The piece of the US constitution most under attack here.
On what grounds does elcomsoft qualify for consitutional rights? I mean, it's not a US citizen or a US corporation.
Because the US constitution dosn't grant rights. It restrains the US government from stomping on people's rights. Unless it explicatally states that something only applies to US citizens then it applies to anyone in US territory. (There is ample case law that this includes even illegal aliens and people illegally detained by the US.)
I believe extradition laws generally say that you can't be extradited for doing something that wouldn't be illegal in the country you're being extradited from.
Also you can't extradite from anywhere in the EU if the accused could face execution. Possibly any punishment outlawed by the human rights directive.
US citizens and the US government want everyone to follow US laws and courts.
Most real US citizens tend towards not bothering the rest of the planet. Wanting everyone to follow US laws (or even US invented laws which may not even apply in the US) is more at attribute of the US government and some of the larger "corporate citizens".
This is the Audio CD equivalent of the Chernobyl virus.
Is this another issue of one rule for real people and another for large corporates? I somehow can't see the US government adding Sony Music to it's "Axis of Evil(tm)".
Re:Semantics: Globalism vs. Corporate Imperialism
on
Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 2
Corporations and the U.S. Government confuse globalism with corporate imperialism. Or perhaps they don?t. It just sounds better. Corporate imperialism is what people hate, not globalism, except as the term is used by the powers that be.
How are DVD region codes, retailers being barred from using "grey import", selective import duties, etc "globalism" in the first place?
I just love how people ove to point out all the mistakes the US has made, but never once mention any of positives.
Because it's not a points game where so long as you score above zero it's ok.
Re:Good to see misinformation is alive and well.
on
Globalism Post 9/11
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· Score: 2
The US intervened in Chile to protect the economic interests of US corporations, which were identified as the US "national interest."
Most likely the continued behaviour of the US towards Cuba has more of an economic than a political basis.
Re:Good to see misinformation is alive and well.
on
Globalism Post 9/11
·
· Score: 2
We were truly "running away from the world" as the United States killed over 100,000 Filipinos in the 1899 Filipino-American War. (And consequently returning to the Phillipines in 1945 to defeat the leftist Huks and install a series of puppet presidents, namely Ferdinand Marcos who sucked the country dry of capital for three decades and then retired into Hawaii).
You omitted something which happened a little before, January 1893...
The short answer is, as soon as you take sides, you're fair game, and America finds it very hard to resist taking sides. America chose to stop being a neutral white knight delivering food and aid to Somalia by involving itself in local politics.
This applies the Israli situation even better than it does to Somalia.
the Delta/Ranger mission was a lot more about erecting a friendly future government than food and aid.
This is the kind of thing the US really needs to stop doing. But for some reason mistakes are never learned from.
I refer to the USS Liberty "incident" in which Israeli planes rocketted napalmed and strafed a Navy e-lint trawler which was prominently marked and flagged as a USN vessel in international waters. Israeli helicopters and torpedo boats torpedoed the Liberty, machinegunned her decks and even shot up the life rafts full of US sailors, causing over the deaths of over 30 American seamen and the wounding of over 150 more.
Does Israel have some kind of "hold" over the US? Any other nation which did this sort of thing would find themselves at war with the US...
For example, how many Americans are aware of how Sadaam came to power in Iraq? (Hint: It was hoped he would kill lots of Commies and leftists and liberals, etc.)
Same way they hoped that Bin Laden would kill lots of "commies"...
Slashdot Mirror
As to hunting being a legitimate sport -- some places tried to do away with it and found that the wildlife populations would grow and the wildlife starve and die due to overpopulation -- all because the predators are gone.
People in rural areas arguably need firearms for various purposes. Any farmer who has killed livestock knows about this. Animals get sick and it is easier to shoot them than to take them to a vet so the vet can shoot them.
These are somewhat related. Most often the reason that predators are absent is that farmers have exterminated them. Since farmers are in the business of feeding people, not the local predator population.
The problem is that the RIAA and MPAA don't want to bother hunding down a few of the people who make "copies of their books" and make bloody examples of them. Instead they want to make infringement impossible by burning all the printing presses. (Except, of course, for a few that they license. For a fee.)
If they did this they would then have to ensure these "licences presses" were protected by very well paid armed guards.
First of all, it's not a perfect copy! This myth has been allowed to propagate too far, for too long. The MP3 format is nowhere near perfect, and any compressed format is going to have audible artifacts.
Even if it was the distinction between "analogue" and "digital" or "perfect" and "non perfect" copying is a recently invented distinction.
People tolerate these because they are getting the MP3 files for essentially nothing.
Or because the quality is "good enough". Remember that people will put up with quite awful radio and television reception.
Target the particularly egregious ones first. But don't restrict the rights of the common law-abinding citizen in order to stop the few criminals. That's just stupid. Gun control has the same problem. Despite the fact that the VAST majority of crimes are comitted with guns that are NOT legally owned, the leftists want to go after law-abiding legal gun owners.
If someone is going to enguage in a crime they are hardly likely to be worried about making sure they only use "legal" tools. Also if you judge someone guilty just by having a certain tools they have little to lose if they actually enguage in crimes.
New technology does necessitate the advent of new rules.
Rather it may do. If the original rules were well written then little or no change may be needed.
The central issue is probably more if the new technology allows something which has never been possible before. Which is not the same as simply making something possible before easier or cheaper.
Easy reproduction of printed material in the 1700's, and the abuse of that power, caused the first copyright laws to be enacted (statute of Anne [edge.net]). It is quite important to note that nearly all copyright laws, starting with this one, intend to protect the author of the work, not the producer of the work.
The Queen Anne statue is more the first example of copyright as we now understand it. Previously copyright had been something assigned to publishers as a method of state censorship.
At the time, the author of a book contracted with a printer to print the book. Today's entertainment industry in the US has turned that on its head: the artist is nearly forced to give up entirely their copy rights to their work in order to get someone to publish it.
We have come "full circle" with the major holders of copyright being publishers. Who also want a return to perpetual copyright status.
That will be good, might as well get the pleasure platoons out. (Moon has a harsh mistress - heinlein)
Can't see either "The Moon is a Harsh mistress" or Ben Bova's "Moonwar" (which is very similar) being made into a movie or a miniseries right now...
Oh, come on. Think how closely "Starship Troopers" followed the book.
How many times do movies follow the book anyway? IIRC the original title was "The Starship Soldier" which IMHO better fits the story.
Although the acting left a little to be desired, it wasn't horrible. Many people will disagree with me on this, but I preferred how House Harkonnen was portrayed as an arrogant aristocracy in this series than the filthy pigs in the original, 1980s version of the movie
It was the movie that had the "happy ending". An inexplicable planetwide monsoon.
Finally, it wasn't clear to me at the end of the book, did the humans and aliens merge into one race, or had the aliens actually won the war and taken over humanity? I'd like to see thier take on that.
Humans started creating clones and using them to crew their ships. The Taurans were clones without the concept of an individual.
The other point was that it was the humans who started the war.
Then 'Forever War'. One word: Battlesuits. Certainly the special effects technology is up to showing them... but *you can't see the actor's face* in a battlesuit. My bet is they'll throw away any part the book which doesn't relate to combat action, and botch that by throwing away the suits. Result: a 'Starship Troopers' clone. Enough Said.
There is also the sexuality aspect. Can you really see that making it through a US based production company?
We Americans, as a collective entity, have forgotten what it really means to be good neighbors in the world. I find many of our actions quite disappointing, mainly because it makes us look bad. There is a great deal of good that we offer to the world: financial aid, manpower for humanitarian purposes as examples.
One very important thing is that where problems are due to the actions of people the one thing you must not do is take sides. The US did this in Somalia, the result was a disaster. The US also did this in Afganistan, only time will tell if this was a good thing or not.
There's also a great deal which isn't so hot, such as commercialism, but which may be rejected. The bad-neighbor part comes when we try to enforce our will/values on other people when we know full well we wouldn't stand for such treatment in reverse.
Sometimes not even US values, consider the US trying to bully the Ukraine.
of course, americans being what they are (single-languaged, specifically) they don't understand what "quid pro quo" means and are perfectly happy to apply the argument only single-sided. (i.e. US jurisdiction everywhere, but not vice versa)
Which is a big part of the reason the US isn't too popular in many parts of the world right now.
Though it's not so much "Americans" as the US government and large US corporations. The vast bulk of the US population are more isolationist than imperialist and tend to assume that the US government is too...
Herr Ashcroft and the Bush Stoogies, along with George "Rolling-Blackout" Herbert Walker Bush have set the stage for a colossal shift in the rights of Americans. We've already taken the step of classifying some as different, and then dramatically taking away their rights.
There is an irony that Bush was declared the winner using an interpretation of the 14th ammendment. The piece of the US constitution most under attack here.
On what grounds does elcomsoft qualify for consitutional rights? I mean, it's not a US citizen or a US corporation.
Because the US constitution dosn't grant rights. It restrains the US government from stomping on people's rights. Unless it explicatally states that something only applies to US citizens then it applies to anyone in US territory. (There is ample case law that this includes even illegal aliens and people illegally detained by the US.)
What free speech rights? You just said they are Russian. How does the U.S. Constitution apply to them?
When was the first ammendment rewritten to add "... except when said laws are applied only to non US citizens".
I believe extradition laws generally say that you can't be extradited for doing something that wouldn't be illegal in the country you're being extradited from.
Also you can't extradite from anywhere in the EU if the accused could face execution. Possibly any punishment outlawed by the human rights directive.
US citizens and the US government want everyone to follow US laws and courts.
Most real US citizens tend towards not bothering the rest of the planet. Wanting everyone to follow US laws (or even US invented laws which may not even apply in the US) is more at attribute of the US government and some of the larger "corporate citizens".
This is the Audio CD equivalent of the Chernobyl virus.
Is this another issue of one rule for real people and another for large corporates? I somehow can't see the US government adding Sony Music to it's "Axis of Evil(tm)".
Corporations and the U.S. Government confuse globalism with corporate imperialism. Or perhaps they don?t. It just sounds better. Corporate imperialism is what people hate, not globalism, except as the term is used by the powers that be.
How are DVD region codes, retailers being barred from using "grey import", selective import duties, etc "globalism" in the first place?
I just love how people ove to point out all the mistakes the US has made, but never once mention any of positives.
Because it's not a points game where so long as you score above zero it's ok.
The US intervened in Chile to protect the economic interests of US corporations, which were identified as the US "national interest."
Most likely the continued behaviour of the US towards Cuba has more of an economic than a political basis.
We were truly "running away from the world" as the United States killed over 100,000 Filipinos in the 1899 Filipino-American War. (And consequently returning to the Phillipines in 1945 to defeat the leftist Huks and install a series of puppet presidents, namely Ferdinand Marcos who sucked the country dry of capital for three decades and then retired into Hawaii).
You omitted something which happened a little before, January 1893...
The short answer is, as soon as you take sides, you're fair game, and America finds it very hard to resist taking sides. America chose to stop being a neutral white knight delivering food and aid to Somalia by involving itself in local politics.
This applies the Israli situation even better than it does to Somalia.
the Delta/Ranger mission was a lot more about erecting a friendly future government than food and aid.
This is the kind of thing the US really needs to stop doing. But for some reason mistakes are never learned from.
I refer to the USS Liberty "incident" in which Israeli planes rocketted napalmed and strafed a Navy e-lint trawler which was prominently marked and flagged as a USN vessel in international waters. Israeli helicopters and torpedo boats torpedoed the Liberty, machinegunned her decks and even shot up the life rafts full of US sailors, causing over the deaths of over 30 American seamen and the wounding of over 150 more.
Does Israel have some kind of "hold" over the US? Any other nation which did this sort of thing would find themselves at war with the US...
For example, how many Americans are aware of how Sadaam came to power in Iraq? (Hint: It was hoped he would kill lots of Commies and leftists and liberals, etc.)
Same way they hoped that Bin Laden would kill lots of "commies"...