"The problem with holding out to release the PSP months after the DS is that they risk losing big time. Consider the current console situation. PS2 makes it to market months before the other 2 systems and completely solidifies itself as the #1."
Consider the Genesis, which had quite a bit of time to dominate the market before the SNES came out.
NATO does not act for the UN as a whole and did not have a resolution by the UN Security Council dirctly supporting what they did in the Balkans. Russia, China, or both would have vetoed such a resolution.
The US is not the only country involved in the fighting in Iraq, therefore by your own definition the acts of that coallition cannot be called unilateral.
"...he was drawn to Hamas because of his hatred for Americanism.
Now he sounds more like a Palestinian suicide bomber. "
Show me an outspoken member of the GOP that has blown himself up at a bus terminal and/or press releases where the Republican party has taken credit for such a bombing and I'll agree with your comparison between the two. Otherwise, you have +4 Fear Mongering.
Neutrals would attract the ire of terrorists because their neutrality is perceived as aid to their enemy and terrorists would prefer to attack soft targets in neutral countries to raise awareness of their own plight (yadda yadda). The logic of terrorism is to attack people far from the source of conflict, and the further the better. If you would rather attack soft civillian targets instead of hardened military ones, then you would rather attack unsuspecting neutrals than a wary enemy.
Besides, by saying what you're saying you're taking an interesting stance on WWII. The Japanese justification for attacking the US was our interference hindering their war against China and others (such as cutting off our oil exports). Would it have been better if we were "neutral in word and in deed" with reguards to Japan's militaristic expansion, slaughtering civillians, etc. instead of trying to take a stance one way or the other?
Then as a European you should know that, especially in the past decade or so, "unilateral" is only a dirty word when the French aren't signing on. I don't recall any hue and cry from most of Europe over NATO's unilateral actions in the former Yugoslavia, your own back yard. After all, Milosevic slaughtering Muslims in his own country is pretty internal.
But hey, if you don't want US troops we still have deployed in the Balkans there any more, I'm sure many Americans would be more than happy than accomodate you.
Those people who are most likely to take care of game manuals and packaging are also the least likely to sell those games later on. The people who maintain stuff like that are in it for the long haul.
"Its abundantly clear that the law doesn't apply to politicians. So what can we do? Change the law? Hardly. Vote for someone else? Another sleazeball. Rally the masses? Good luck."
How about instead of putting up with all this we get together in our states and nominate some poor saps to stand in for us. Instead of getting bombarded with all the smear campaigns and annoying phone calls and mud-slinging and yard signs and bumper stickers and "Daisy" commercials we can essentially forward it all to these poor shmucks. We could make it their jobs, in fact. They'll be the ones that have to put up with all the shallowness and selfishness and being flat-out lied to in their faces and they'll be the ones who have to put up with the "pollsters" that are really working for somebody's campaign.
And just to screw up the candidates even more, we let these people vote for anybody. Fill-in-the-blank instead of multiple choice. They'd be able to put the fear of God in these candidates because even winning a primary wouldn't mean a damn thing. Heck, you wouldn't even have to actually run for the office to get voted for! The (self-styled) candidates wouldn't be able to hide behind "Well, everybody else is doing it..." because "everybody else" just got a whole lot larger.
We could save ourselves from some of the worst abuses by the White House and those that seek it. And we could call it the Electoral College.
"I can't imagine the Supreme Court upholding a law that restricts people's right to political expression,"
I think you're looking at it wrong. The laws as they are now define "political speech" as being "more equal" than other speech, a concept that seems to "abridge the freedom of speech" on its face (essentially dictating what you can and cannot talk about).
The laws against obscenity revolve mostly around the idea of "It's not really speech," and even that essentially requires a case-by-case evaluation by the courts.
IMO, anti-spam laws are (or at least should be) based on the idea of "It's my computer and my bandwidth!" In that respect spam is the electronic equivalent of graffiti: just because it's art doesn't automatically give you the right to paint it on my wall. But the CAN SPAM act lets politicians do just that all in the name of "free speech."
"You folks do realize that Senators and Reps and anybody else in the government who is representing constituents has the ability to send postal letters for free?"
Phased out decades ago because of the abuses you mentioned. Postage for letters with a Congressional signature is now deducted out of a dedicated postage fund for that Congresscritter's office. It's little more than a fancy postage metering setup now.
IMO, political campaigning is about as much "speech" as pornography. We're talking about Congress: if it won't hold up in court, then they'll change the laws to make it hold up in court. This is less that and more about Congress not willing to give up their little perks and privileges (like ignoring traffic laws!).
A little thing like the Twenty-Seventh Amendment doesn't seem to slow them down, so why should a silly little thing like anti-spam laws get in their way? After all, they just made sure you wouldn't be able to sue them for trespassing on your hardware with their CAN SPAM law.
"Because he's not Bush, and seems to be the only candidate who can say that and actually stands a chance at winning."
I find this point of view patently disturbing. You're not supporting him because you like him so much as because you think everybody else will like him. What happened to non-conformity and independence?
Last year we here in Louisiana had a gubenatorial run-off. The year before we had an ugly US Senate run-off where both sides did copious amounts of telephone campaigning (canned messages from Bush, Daschle, et al) which pretty much got everybody angry (or so they say, there were still more voters in the run-off than the open primary).
At any rate, last year there was very little telephone campaigning, except towards the end there were a few calls here and there at annoying hours for one candidate, and when word got around that candidate accused his competitor of hosting the telephoning in order to frame him.
Are you sure those calls are really from Kerry supporters?
One of the two reasons I'm not happy about "campaign finance reform" is that focusing more on limits and less on accountability actually helps things like this happen. The more otherwise legitimate contributions are forced to be made in roundabout manners, the more chaffe the truly despicable campaign practices have to hide among.
"With all this talk about how much everyone hates spam, even legislation supporting this idea, why would a candidate want to even come close to looking like they are spamming?"
For the same reason they continue with political attack ads and the like even though nobody likes them: Everybody else is doing it, so why not? You may lose votes, but it certainly won't give votes to the other guy since they're doing it, too. Don't forget that many of the same members of Congress that supported the national do-not-call list still use telephone campaigning. Come to think of it, the "everybody else is doing it..." bit also explains much of their behavior while in office (re: USA PATRIOT Act).
Then there's the additional reason "Because it works."
"It seems like it's too dangerous."
It's kinda like "Mutually Assured Destruction." They'll all stop as soon as everybody else stops.
"So add your own private island to the total cost if you actually want to fly it without hassle."
Or operate out of Key West. IIRC, the airspace around the island is still considered international.
Besides, if you buy your own private island you'll also have to find one big enough for a proper runway. Or roll your own carrier-esque launch-and-recovery mechanisms, probably without a nuclear reactor to generate the required steam.
Slashdot Mirror
When does this law apply to SiteFinder?
"An interim release between XP service pack 2 and Longhorn indicates that Longhorn is going the way of Chicago and NT 5.0."
Except NT 5.0 kicked all manner of ass (at least as far as MSFT software is concerned). It's just a shame they screwed it all up with NT 5.1.
I think they should have named it XP: FFR. Fdisk, Formant, Reinstall, doo-dah doo-dah...
Is that a vehicle or a racially-slurred reference to oral sex?
"Is it because Jap ones are so fucking wierd?"
If they could squeeze Takeshi's Castle into an arcade hell yeah I'd pay to play!
I'm still disappointed there won't be a "Captain Tenille" option on the ballot this November..
"The problem with holding out to release the PSP months after the DS is that they risk losing big time. Consider the current console situation. PS2 makes it to market months before the other 2 systems and completely solidifies itself as the #1."
Consider the Genesis, which had quite a bit of time to dominate the market before the SNES came out.
" ...he was drawn to Hamas because of his hatred for Americanism.
Now he sounds more like a Palestinian suicide bomber. "
Show me an outspoken member of the GOP that has blown himself up at a bus terminal and/or press releases where the Republican party has taken credit for such a bombing and I'll agree with your comparison between the two. Otherwise, you have +4 Fear Mongering.
Neutrals would attract the ire of terrorists because their neutrality is perceived as aid to their enemy and terrorists would prefer to attack soft targets in neutral countries to raise awareness of their own plight (yadda yadda). The logic of terrorism is to attack people far from the source of conflict, and the further the better. If you would rather attack soft civillian targets instead of hardened military ones, then you would rather attack unsuspecting neutrals than a wary enemy.
Besides, by saying what you're saying you're taking an interesting stance on WWII. The Japanese justification for attacking the US was our interference hindering their war against China and others (such as cutting off our oil exports). Would it have been better if we were "neutral in word and in deed" with reguards to Japan's militaristic expansion, slaughtering civillians, etc. instead of trying to take a stance one way or the other?
Then as a European you should know that, especially in the past decade or so, "unilateral" is only a dirty word when the French aren't signing on. I don't recall any hue and cry from most of Europe over NATO's unilateral actions in the former Yugoslavia, your own back yard. After all, Milosevic slaughtering Muslims in his own country is pretty internal.
But hey, if you don't want US troops we still have deployed in the Balkans there any more, I'm sure many Americans would be more than happy than accomodate you.
Those people who are most likely to take care of game manuals and packaging are also the least likely to sell those games later on. The people who maintain stuff like that are in it for the long haul.
"including one experiment in which a hamster is fired from a cannon."
"Send all complaints to Outpost.com."
Did they complain about that particular television commercial that also fired hampsters out of a cannon?
"Its abundantly clear that the law doesn't apply to politicians. So what can we do? Change the law? Hardly. Vote for someone else? Another sleazeball. Rally the masses? Good luck."
How about instead of putting up with all this we get together in our states and nominate some poor saps to stand in for us. Instead of getting bombarded with all the smear campaigns and annoying phone calls and mud-slinging and yard signs and bumper stickers and "Daisy" commercials we can essentially forward it all to these poor shmucks. We could make it their jobs, in fact. They'll be the ones that have to put up with all the shallowness and selfishness and being flat-out lied to in their faces and they'll be the ones who have to put up with the "pollsters" that are really working for somebody's campaign.
And just to screw up the candidates even more, we let these people vote for anybody. Fill-in-the-blank instead of multiple choice. They'd be able to put the fear of God in these candidates because even winning a primary wouldn't mean a damn thing. Heck, you wouldn't even have to actually run for the office to get voted for! The (self-styled) candidates wouldn't be able to hide behind "Well, everybody else is doing it..." because "everybody else" just got a whole lot larger.
We could save ourselves from some of the worst abuses by the White House and those that seek it. And we could call it the Electoral College.
"I can't imagine the Supreme Court upholding a law that restricts people's right to political expression,"
I think you're looking at it wrong. The laws as they are now define "political speech" as being "more equal" than other speech, a concept that seems to "abridge the freedom of speech" on its face (essentially dictating what you can and cannot talk about).
The laws against obscenity revolve mostly around the idea of "It's not really speech," and even that essentially requires a case-by-case evaluation by the courts.
IMO, anti-spam laws are (or at least should be) based on the idea of "It's my computer and my bandwidth!" In that respect spam is the electronic equivalent of graffiti: just because it's art doesn't automatically give you the right to paint it on my wall. But the CAN SPAM act lets politicians do just that all in the name of "free speech."
"You folks do realize that Senators and Reps and anybody else in the government who is representing constituents has the ability to send postal letters for free?"
Phased out decades ago because of the abuses you mentioned. Postage for letters with a Congressional signature is now deducted out of a dedicated postage fund for that Congresscritter's office. It's little more than a fancy postage metering setup now.
Stealing other peoples' bandwidth is even cheaper than non-profit mail rates.
Non-profit political parties... now there's an oxymoron for ya!
IMO, political campaigning is about as much "speech" as pornography. We're talking about Congress: if it won't hold up in court, then they'll change the laws to make it hold up in court. This is less that and more about Congress not willing to give up their little perks and privileges (like ignoring traffic laws!).
A little thing like the Twenty-Seventh Amendment doesn't seem to slow them down, so why should a silly little thing like anti-spam laws get in their way? After all, they just made sure you wouldn't be able to sue them for trespassing on your hardware with their CAN SPAM law.
"Because he's not Bush, and seems to be the only candidate who can say that and actually stands a chance at winning."
I find this point of view patently disturbing. You're not supporting him because you like him so much as because you think everybody else will like him. What happened to non-conformity and independence?
Last year we here in Louisiana had a gubenatorial run-off. The year before we had an ugly US Senate run-off where both sides did copious amounts of telephone campaigning (canned messages from Bush, Daschle, et al) which pretty much got everybody angry (or so they say, there were still more voters in the run-off than the open primary).
At any rate, last year there was very little telephone campaigning, except towards the end there were a few calls here and there at annoying hours for one candidate, and when word got around that candidate accused his competitor of hosting the telephoning in order to frame him.
Are you sure those calls are really from Kerry supporters?
One of the two reasons I'm not happy about "campaign finance reform" is that focusing more on limits and less on accountability actually helps things like this happen. The more otherwise legitimate contributions are forced to be made in roundabout manners, the more chaffe the truly despicable campaign practices have to hide among.
"With all this talk about how much everyone hates spam, even legislation supporting this idea, why would a candidate want to even come close to looking like they are spamming?"
For the same reason they continue with political attack ads and the like even though nobody likes them: Everybody else is doing it, so why not? You may lose votes, but it certainly won't give votes to the other guy since they're doing it, too. Don't forget that many of the same members of Congress that supported the national do-not-call list still use telephone campaigning. Come to think of it, the "everybody else is doing it..." bit also explains much of their behavior while in office (re: USA PATRIOT Act).
Then there's the additional reason "Because it works."
"It seems like it's too dangerous."
It's kinda like "Mutually Assured Destruction." They'll all stop as soon as everybody else stops.
"So add your own private island to the total cost if you actually want to fly it without hassle."
Or operate out of Key West. IIRC, the airspace around the island is still considered international.
Besides, if you buy your own private island you'll also have to find one big enough for a proper runway. Or roll your own carrier-esque launch-and-recovery mechanisms, probably without a nuclear reactor to generate the required steam.
That infernal nonsense?
IIRC, a lot of Nineteenth Century Europeans were more fond of Darwin's book than of Jews and their food.
"For example the Atlantic is a lot more dangerous close to the Spanish coast."
Now that you mention it, I don't recall hearing about anybody losing a nuclear weapon in the Bermuda Triangle...
"Easy solution? Glass or Pyrex."
But how well do they stand up to solar and jovian radiation?
And his name is Kevin Bacon.