"Canada has something called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms [justice.gc.ca] which guarrantees their basic liberties.
It does not mention anything about the right to own a gun, but why should it?"
It also doesn't mention about the right to vote for the members of the House of Lords, or the ability to vote for either your chief of state or head of government.
Also, I find myself uncomfortable with some of the wording. It states, for example, that everyone has the freedom of expression. Nothing about how much freedom or who says how much, just that it's there. Somewhere. I may be biased, but I would prefer wording to the affect of "Parliament shall make no law abridging the freedom of expression."
Of course, the document goes on to limit just how much freedom of expression you have by declaring two official languages, how they can and cannot be used, by who, when, where...
Without even getting into the way it seems it took Canada until the 1980's to write down some of the things the United States wrote down in 1790's, I find it... interesting how much power the British crown and aristocracy still has in Canada's government.... or am I just being an "ignorant Yank" again?
... the film will suck 8 times as much? Will the bad guys be 8 times as stupid?
If you send a droid to go assassinate someone, you don't then program the droid to come right back to you when it's done! You make it blow itself up!
Along those lines, why use worms when you can use a thermal detonnator? She dies, Jedi dies, everybody within a few kilometers dies... problem solved!
Not that you'd have to do that if you had just nuked the landing platform to begin with...
The Jedi lost you in the bar. You're a shape-shifter. You can then waltz out without anybody being the wiser. So why do you try to attack one of them?
Jedi comes after you and tries to kill you before you're able to leave the planet. You have two guns, but he deflects the shots. Why not shoot both guns at the same time, making him deflect two at once? Better yet, get a freakin' shotgun!
But Obi Wan has the pesky habit of not dying. Why not destroy the damned hyperdrive he left up in orbit? Guaranteed way to keep him from following you! Dur!
Hmmm... Jedi are attacking bad guy base. They all have light sabres. You have guns. Ranged weapons! Do you honestly think that the Jedi are going to have a harder time deflecting your shots if you get close enough to... say... get your head cut off?
Jengo Fett: Bad-ass or dumb-ass? No wonder the clones dropped like flies, look at who they were trying to re-create!
Not that the good guys are much better. Let's fall in love with the freaky stalker/homicidal maniac character! Hell, if that were anything like real life, I might not have... well, let's not go there...
"Then use Western Union's Bidpay service [bidpay.com], as another poster in this sid pointed out. Bidpay will mail you a money order."
First off, they're rather expensive compared to simply getting the money order yourself. While a WU money order form the local Winn-Dixie costs around $0.75 (if I remember correctly), they want to charge $3.00 on their website. Even USPS Pay@Delivery is cheaper than that ($1.00, making it cheaper than mailing a USPS money order through first class mail), and it has the added gimmick of not paying me until the package is delivered.
Second, I have no problem with personal checks, and they're about as ubiquitous as cash in the US. And the customer can usually get the check out to me before WU gets off its rear end and processes the information.
However, I'll keep that in mind for the occasional European buyer I get. "Personal cheque? What's that?" "What is this 'domestic money order' you speak of?" The usually end up wanting to pay in cash (which, aside from doing me no good, is usually quite illegal).
Although I can't really blame them for not wanting to use cheques any more. I've seen a few examples of UK cheques and, while the average US personal check has more safety features than your typical $20.00 bill, my three-year-old niece could probably forge a UK cheque.
First off, I just have to say how I laughed at that title. That's like saying Lenin democratized Russia. Replacing one oppressive regime with another doesn't change anything. PayPal just makes sure everybody is oppressed evenly.
"Best of all, the fees were only $0.30 plus 2.9% per transaction, with no monthly minimum, terminal fees, etc. like with a standard credit card processor. This page [paypal.com] at PalPal shows the comparison."
That's all well and good, but my problem (well, one of them at least) is that they charge per-dollar to begin with. For most normal bank transactions, you are charged per-transaction, not per-dollar, and it's only with credit cards do we see this baseless pricing racket put in place. I mean, it't not like transferring $100.00 requires ten times the amount of bits to move through the wire than $10.00.
On top of that, it takes them several days to transfer money to my checking account, but they can take it from my account "instantly?" Why does it work that way? Maybe so PayPal can skim a little interest off the transaction on top of the transaction fees? Charging me twice, are they?
I live in Louisiana. My bank is in Texas. When I sell things on eBay, often times when a person mails me their check and I mail the check to my bank, it takes less time to get my money than it would have taken through PayPal.
"To me, this means that accepting credit card payments is not just a privilege of those who can "qualify" at a bank, but available to anyone with just a painless web signup. And the fees are less too."
The problem aren't the middle-men who set up the transaction services, the problem goes much higher than that, rooted in the oligopoly that the credit card industry has become. Look at the recent legal troubles Visa and MastarCard are finding themselves in.
"If PayPal can ever get its customer service act together, it will really give banks a challenge."
It will be a cold day in hell before most banks can challenge my bank as far as I'm concerned. And PayPal has a long way to catch up with normal banks.
Just as an example, most banks don't make you sit through click-through ads before you can access your account. If that's not outright contempt for their customers, I don't know what is.
I have so much more respect for Citibank and c2it at this point that it's not even funny. Seriously. Large uber-corp offering a better service at a better price than some dot-bomb start up. Go figure.
"President: chosen by a vote of confidence by each state legislature. Can serve one 5 year term and must be a military veteran."
First off, I'd rather live in a country where we're citizens first and soldiers second, not the other way around. While I agree with some of what Heinlein was trying to say in Starship Troopers (not to be confused with the movie of the same name), the idea is to make the citizens value their own right to vote through service to the state (and not necesarily military service), not to create a military junta.
Secondly, the only thing preventing that now are the laws in fifty states that lock the votes of the presidential electors to the popular vote. And nobody involved in the process is interested in changing that. We're taught in schools that democracy is the best choice in all situations (even though it's not), while the politicians benefit from being able to rely on party mechanics to get them into office. The more voters you have to worry about, the more it "helps" to be able to herd the voters into larger and larger groups.
"Senate: chosen by state legislatures again, can serve up to 3 3 year terms"
If the seventeenth amendment were repealed, what's the point in having such short terms or term limits? The idea was that the state legislature could have more direct control over their Senators than, say, a few voters having to remember why they were pissed off six years ago.
"House of Representatives: chosen at random similar to jury duty from the part of the population of a state never convicted of a felony. Term: 1 year."
First off, I don't think anybody would be too keen on having to take a year out of their lives to live in Washington when they weren't planning on it. What if they live in Alaska? Or what about their old jobs?
Secondly, this is one of those cases where democracy is limited enough to be useful (unlimited democracy is about as bad as no democracy at all). The voting body is small enough that individual votes count and two-way communications between the representative adn the constituants are possible.
You know, just because you've been called for jury duty doesn't mean you're automatically on the jury. The prosecutor and defense counsel have to agree that you're fit for the jury. In what you're describing, who would play the role of the opposing lawyers in the House member selection process?
"Before any bill goes to the President for signing a "Constitutional Court" must read it and vote on its constitutionality."
Um... no. That's not how courts work. They don't look at a law and say "can I see any way this might violate the constitution?" They must be presented with a specific case; an example, if you will. Their job is to interpret the law, not to get involved in the law-making process. Doing what you're suggesting would give too much power to the court.
"Any act of corruption could be summarily punishable by the US Supreme Court if it makes a constitutionality ruling."
"Acts of corruption" like, say, impeaching a federal judge? Methinks you're being a little too naive here.
"Any lobbyist and his/her financial backers found to have been involved would receive the maximum penalty the law provides without any appeal."
So, you want to fix over-broad laws that leave room for too many loopholes by... introducing an over-broad law with room for too many loopholes?
The courts are there to decide guilt and punishment on a case-by-case, individual basis. Introducing a blanket law like this will simply be too harsh in some cases and too lenient in others. And we'll be right back where we started.
"The message: if you aid and abet government corruption you will be punished VERY severely."
And in your model, who decides what is corrupt government and what isn't? The government.
"The fundamental flaws in democracy are that (a) it legitimizes any action a politician may take in the eyes of said politician if he/she wins by a strong majority,"
That's what the constitutions and the courts are for. A properly-written constitution prevents the majority from exerting too much control over the individual. The federal constitution is still properly-written, but it's slowly being whittled away over the centuries. Most state constitutions, on the other hand, are not, and usually require a simple majority to amend them.
On the other hand, a government chosen by a democratic process cannot simply ignore the voters, which is liekly to be worse than having too much democracy in this case.
"(b) it gives the majority the illusion that it has any moral authority by sheer fact of being a majority"
Only for extreme sizes of "majority." If the majority is big enough to be treated like a faceless, nameless mass, it needs to be broken down into smaller voting bodies. Problem solved.
"(c) it establishes a political aristocracy that can't relate to either its working class our bourgeoise constituents if it tried."
Again, only for extreme sizes of "majority." The shear number of people voting for a particular federal political office makes true two-way
communications impossible. A democracy with a small enough voting body (say, at the state or local level) allows and even fosters a dialog between the voters and the government.
"How many think the DMCA would have been passed if Joe Blow down the street was chosen at random to be the next rep for his district and then was asked to draft a law that would make his little Johnny or Suzy a multiple felon?"
The DMCA would have had a tougher time passing if the House of Representatives were anywhere near it's constitutionally-mandated maximum size. The more members of the House you have, the fewer voters an individual congressperson needs to please, and the individual's voice becomes more important to the representative. Laws like that get passed because the majority just doesn't care, and having 435 people "represent" nearly 300,000,000 effectively mutes the concerned minority.
"As Peikoff put it, the face of democracy is the execution of Socrates."
There is a solution, and it's been around for 215+ years. It's called the United States Constitution. Your mention of the death of Socrates brings to mind Federalist number 63. Been there, done that, problem solved.
Democracy is like radiation therapy for cancer. Too much is just as dangerous as too little, but the proper levels can work wonders.
"I would scream it from the rooftops if I felt it would do any good: CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! It may not solve every problem, but strong, enforced CFR would at least help."
The laws are a joke and I should know. All campaign finance reform laws have done is increased the amount of paperwork required to run for office. I have to file paperwork with the Louisiana Ethics Comission, the Clerk of the House the Federal Election Commissions, and I have to send a copy of FEC paperwork to the Louisiana Department of State. All that paperwork does is provide another bureaucratic layer for the candidates to hide behind. Does it increase public access to information on my funding? Not really. Most people don't even know of the existance of these organizations, let alone how to obtain copies of the papers I've filed. It sure as hell isn't as informative to the general public as this, but most politicians want you to know as little about them as possible. It seems that most major candidates spend more time running interference on each other than actually sharing information with the voting public.
"The rich and powerful are vastly overrepresented in the legislatures, some effort at restoring balance is incredibly important."
You're not going to get it with the current batch of party sheep. If anything, they know what they needed to get into office themselves and aren't about to give it up easily.
"I'm a Democrat, but if McCain had been on the ballot I would have voted for him in a heartbeat."
Maybe too many Americans are too busy toeing the party line to see that most of the problems lie in the current two-paty system in the US. Guess how all those legislators probably got all their money? It was likely all funnelled through the state and national Democratic and Republican committees. All that most of the required election paperwork seems to have accomplished is to make sure more money is funnelled ("laundered?") through the party rather than going to the politician directly.
"Now we have a President that has spent over half of his time in office either on vacation or fund raising, or a combination thereof."
Which is completely different from what Clinton, Bush, Regan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Roosevelt, or McKinley have done in office? Should I go through the nineteenth century as well?
Most of the "this president is the most lazy/money-grubbing yet" stuff is just talk from the other party. If anything it's just more politicians running political interference. We have an executive that is very much alone and very easy for the press to focus on, and we have 535 legislators that can easily hide behind each other and can generally get away with more individually and as a group than the president. In my opinion, all this party nonsense about bad-mouthing the president's policies is little more than Congress keeping the attention shifted away from the real seat of corruption in government.
And the same goes for the states as well. Most governors would know better than to shoot themselves in the political foot by vetoing a bill with a title like that. But if it never gets to the governor's office to begin with, who's the wiser?
The only real solution to this problem is both very simple and the one nobody ever brings up:
3.) See which state Senators voted against it (whoever is represented by Senator Haynes is in luck, otherwise...). The measure passed the State Assembly, but it might be worth seeing who voted against it there as well.
4.) Vote against them next election. In fact, tell them you're going to do so. Better yet, run against the bastard yourself. It's a cushy job and looks good on a resume at the very least.
It's that easy! And you're still not going to do it, are you? Most people don't even know their national legislators, let alone their legislators at the state level. Nobody even bothers to vote for anybody in the state governments, except maybe the governor. Maybe. This is probably little more than the state legislators showing the same contempt for the voters as the voters seem to have for the legislators. They listen to campaign contributors because they're usually the only people talking to them.
I have seen some ineffective bills drift through both houses of Congress that are written to allow unsolicited messages so long as they have an "opt-out" mechanism. Ignoring the fact that such legal loopholes would essentially negate the law entirely (can you prove that you tried to opt out?), it quite literally sickens me the way some of your fellow members of Congress feel that spam is somehow an issue dealing with the freedom of speech. The mere existence of the internet and the supposed changes it has on how business and the legal system work (even though such "changes" have been shown to be a lie) have helped to convince these poor fools that people should somehow have a right to use and abuse the property of others. Does my neighbor have the constitutional right to break my kneecap so long as they provide me with the ability to "opt out" of future kneecappings?
The United States Constitution guarantees that all citizens are free to say what they want. It does not guarantee a soapbox upon which they can say it. Just as I am not guaranteed the right to have a billboard on Interstate 10, spammers should not have the "right" to use the resources of others simply because they're there.
Spam isn't about the "free flow of information." It is the equivalent of graffiti. You are free to say whatever the hell you want, just don't use my e-mail account space.
... the FCC starts looking into spam. The main problem isn't the shady business practices that spam often advertises, the problem is that spam happens. Period.
All the Federal Trade Commission can do is try to treat one of the symptoms, not the problem.
People who spend more time talking on cell phones seemingly need stimulation beyond the world around them. If people can't become engaged in what's happening around them and feel the need to be somewhere else with someone else. They can't be bothered to stop and smell the roses, blah blah blah... That, or they should have thought about being at that somewhere else to begin with.
Cell phones don't make people stupid. They're already stupid for thinking they need to use it. They rank right on up there with people who "need" television.
"your argument might hold water if U.S. DSL service weren't horrid everywhere."
Then how about this one: There are more telephone lines per person in the United States than Canada. We're not just talking about more hardware needing upgrading and replacement, we're also talking about more hardware per person.
"Are you seriously claiming that "outback" regions like California, New Jersey, or New York state are less densely-populated than the whole of Canada?"
Ever been to Fresno or Sacramento in California? Camden or Trenton, New Jersey? What about Ithica or Albany? It's amazing how the countryside changes as soon as you get away from the major population centers. People are left wondering why New Jersey is referred to as "The Garden State" when they've never been off the New Jersey Turnpike, but the majority of the three states you rattled off are farmland or even wilderness.
The presence of Chicago doesn't make the rest of Illinois magicly look different from Indiana just as the presence of Calgary doesn't make the rest of Alberta look different from Saskatchewan. Of course, I'd be willing to bet that more people live in rural Illinois than rural Alberta.
"A new way to give us fast mobile net access spells further trouble for 3G.Imagine being able to surf the net at speeds faster than DSL from anywhere, at any time"
I could imagine that, except I can't get DSL out here, and likely won't be able to at least until the end of the decade. I'm assuming you mean by very limited definitions of "anywhere." More like "anywhere you would care to be."
"you could watch a live video webcast while waiting for the bus,"
"email photos to your friends while sitting in the park,"
"Park?" Another one of those things that suggests population density. See, out here we have these things called "back yards"...
"I smelled vapour until I saw a demo of MeshNetworks at 802.11Planet in Philly."
802.11 is a wireless LAN technology. Do I need to remind you what the "L" in "LAN" stands for? Rigging up local transceivers for a single building is a heck of a lot simpler (and cheaper) than an entire city. And that's only for you folks that live in cities (read "for those of you that matter" as far as just about everybody seems to be concerned, even on here).
On the other hand, 3G is essentially a WAN technology, with its much wider tranceiving radius. It may be a cold day in Hell before BellSouth gets off their good-for-nothing behinds to upgrade the local switches for DSL (let alone somebody setting up 802.11 WAPs every few hundred feet along US 90... not that I live close enough to 90 to begin with...), I at least have some access to Sprint's network out here.
I'm sorry, but trying to say that 802.11 can and will compete with G3 is like saying that Gigabit Ethernet is going to edge out the T-3 market.
Oh, and before somebody brings up how Canada has DSL "everywhere" with their larger land mass and smaller population, ever wonder why the United States seems to have twice as many meters of paved highways per person than Canada? Maybe because the Canadian population isn't as dispersed as the American population?
"This is four months before the movie is set to debut! An executive in New York promised if this is indeed part of the film that they would be punishing anyone and everyone that downloads the film or distributes it to the full extent of the law."
Of course, the article wont't tell you that this is probably the same Madison Avenue marketing exec whose decision it was to release the "pirated" version of the movie onto the net to begin with. And what better way to call attention to it than to "complain" about it in the national media?
Seriously, hasn't anybody noticed that this kind of thing doesn't happen to the lower-budget and/or lamer flicks? Always the "highly anticipated" (by who?) "pending blockbuster" crap that gets splashed across the net and the news like this. The kinds of movies that have more than enough money involved to make sure these kinds of leaks don't happen.
The MPAA are downright experts on the uses and exploitations of digital rights management technology. Wouldn't it be child's play for them to fingerprint copies of the pre-release before dispersing them? What about asking why Bob over there is coming into the screening with a camcorder and a CD-burner? So why is their security so "lax" in these situations? Do I really need to spell it out for you?
The studio released its own "totally unauthorized" copy of the movie to build up yet more hype. It's actually quite cheap for them and effective on a consistent basis. After all, it's not like they have to pay sites like Slashdot to join in on the marketing bandwagon as well. Free advertising and teasing the raving fan(antics) as well.
Do the/. editors need bumper stickers put across the tops of their monitors to remind them the MPAA is evil? Are their attention spans that short?
"Let's face it... until the 'baby' Bells get what they want (i.e. access to long distance markets without having to open up their own networks) they won't make it any easier for providers to give their customers broadband access."
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 seems to have put the lie to that statement. If they want access to the long distance market so badly, all they need to do is open their local circuits more to competition and have the FCC rubber-stamp the whole deal. Six years and counting, and it would seem the Baby Bells would rather enter the long-distance market and hold on to their local monopolies...
Slashdot Mirror
"Canada has something called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms [justice.gc.ca] which guarrantees their basic liberties.
... or am I just being an "ignorant Yank" again?
It does not mention anything about the right to own a gun, but why should it?"
It also doesn't mention about the right to vote for the members of the House of Lords, or the ability to vote for either your chief of state or head of government.
Also, I find myself uncomfortable with some of the wording. It states, for example, that everyone has the freedom of expression. Nothing about how much freedom or who says how much, just that it's there. Somewhere. I may be biased, but I would prefer wording to the affect of "Parliament shall make no law abridging the freedom of expression."
Of course, the document goes on to limit just how much freedom of expression you have by declaring two official languages, how they can and cannot be used, by who, when, where...
Without even getting into the way it seems it took Canada until the 1980's to write down some of the things the United States wrote down in 1790's, I find it... interesting how much power the British crown and aristocracy still has in Canada's government.
... the film will suck 8 times as much? Will the bad guys be 8 times as stupid?
If you send a droid to go assassinate someone, you don't then program the droid to come right back to you when it's done! You make it blow itself up!
Along those lines, why use worms when you can use a thermal detonnator? She dies, Jedi dies, everybody within a few kilometers dies... problem solved!
Not that you'd have to do that if you had just nuked the landing platform to begin with...
The Jedi lost you in the bar. You're a shape-shifter. You can then waltz out without anybody being the wiser. So why do you try to attack one of them?
Jedi comes after you and tries to kill you before you're able to leave the planet. You have two guns, but he deflects the shots. Why not shoot both guns at the same time, making him deflect two at once? Better yet, get a freakin' shotgun!
But Obi Wan has the pesky habit of not dying. Why not destroy the damned hyperdrive he left up in orbit? Guaranteed way to keep him from following you! Dur!
Hmmm... Jedi are attacking bad guy base. They all have light sabres. You have guns. Ranged weapons! Do you honestly think that the Jedi are going to have a harder time deflecting your shots if you get close enough to... say... get your head cut off?
Jengo Fett: Bad-ass or dumb-ass? No wonder the clones dropped like flies, look at who they were trying to re-create!
Not that the good guys are much better. Let's fall in love with the freaky stalker/homicidal maniac character! Hell, if that were anything like real life, I might not have... well, let's not go there...
Why couldn't the sqeeze an extra 22 GB onto the drive so buying three would get me an even terabyte?
Not that I have any use for much beyond 10 GB, but hey...
No, wait, European buyers don't seem to use credit cards, either. Which now makes BidPay completely useless to me.
"Then use Western Union's Bidpay service [bidpay.com], as another poster in this sid pointed out. Bidpay will mail you a money order."
First off, they're rather expensive compared to simply getting the money order yourself. While a WU money order form the local Winn-Dixie costs around $0.75 (if I remember correctly), they want to charge $3.00 on their website. Even USPS Pay@Delivery is cheaper than that ($1.00, making it cheaper than mailing a USPS money order through first class mail), and it has the added gimmick of not paying me until the package is delivered.
Second, I have no problem with personal checks, and they're about as ubiquitous as cash in the US. And the customer can usually get the check out to me before WU gets off its rear end and processes the information.
However, I'll keep that in mind for the occasional European buyer I get. "Personal cheque? What's that?" "What is this 'domestic money order' you speak of?" The usually end up wanting to pay in cash (which, aside from doing me no good, is usually quite illegal).
Although I can't really blame them for not wanting to use cheques any more. I've seen a few examples of UK cheques and, while the average US personal check has more safety features than your typical $20.00 bill, my three-year-old niece could probably forge a UK cheque.
"PalPal democratizes taking credit cards"
First off, I just have to say how I laughed at that title. That's like saying Lenin democratized Russia. Replacing one oppressive regime with another doesn't change anything. PayPal just makes sure everybody is oppressed evenly.
"Best of all, the fees were only $0.30 plus 2.9% per transaction, with no monthly minimum, terminal fees, etc. like with a standard credit card processor. This page [paypal.com] at PalPal shows the comparison."
That's all well and good, but my problem (well, one of them at least) is that they charge per-dollar to begin with. For most normal bank transactions, you are charged per-transaction, not per-dollar, and it's only with credit cards do we see this baseless pricing racket put in place. I mean, it't not like transferring $100.00 requires ten times the amount of bits to move through the wire than $10.00.
On top of that, it takes them several days to transfer money to my checking account, but they can take it from my account "instantly?" Why does it work that way? Maybe so PayPal can skim a little interest off the transaction on top of the transaction fees? Charging me twice, are they?
I live in Louisiana. My bank is in Texas. When I sell things on eBay, often times when a person mails me their check and I mail the check to my bank, it takes less time to get my money than it would have taken through PayPal.
"To me, this means that accepting credit card payments is not just a privilege of those who can "qualify" at a bank, but available to anyone with just a painless web signup. And the fees are less too."
The problem aren't the middle-men who set up the transaction services, the problem goes much higher than that, rooted in the oligopoly that the credit card industry has become. Look at the recent legal troubles Visa and MastarCard are finding themselves in.
"If PayPal can ever get its customer service act together, it will really give banks a challenge."
It will be a cold day in hell before most banks can challenge my bank as far as I'm concerned. And PayPal has a long way to catch up with normal banks.
Just as an example, most banks don't make you sit through click-through ads before you can access your account. If that's not outright contempt for their customers, I don't know what is.
I have so much more respect for Citibank and c2it at this point that it's not even funny. Seriously. Large uber-corp offering a better service at a better price than some dot-bomb start up. Go figure.
Sounds like why I got myself a Lexmark Z65n.
"I think I'll link to a similar article at CNN [cnn.com]. It's a bit less biased."
Less biased in Microsoft's favor != less biased overall.
Let's not forget who owns CNN nw...
"President: chosen by a vote of confidence by each state legislature. Can serve one 5 year term and must be a military veteran."
First off, I'd rather live in a country where we're citizens first and soldiers second, not the other way around. While I agree with some of what Heinlein was trying to say in Starship Troopers (not to be confused with the movie of the same name), the idea is to make the citizens value their own right to vote through service to the state (and not necesarily military service), not to create a military junta.
Secondly, the only thing preventing that now are the laws in fifty states that lock the votes of the presidential electors to the popular vote. And nobody involved in the process is interested in changing that. We're taught in schools that democracy is the best choice in all situations (even though it's not), while the politicians benefit from being able to rely on party mechanics to get them into office. The more voters you have to worry about, the more it "helps" to be able to herd the voters into larger and larger groups.
"Senate: chosen by state legislatures again, can serve up to 3 3 year terms"
If the seventeenth amendment were repealed, what's the point in having such short terms or term limits? The idea was that the state legislature could have more direct control over their Senators than, say, a few voters having to remember why they were pissed off six years ago.
"House of Representatives: chosen at random similar to jury duty from the part of the population of a state never convicted of a felony. Term: 1 year."
First off, I don't think anybody would be too keen on having to take a year out of their lives to live in Washington when they weren't planning on it. What if they live in Alaska? Or what about their old jobs?
Secondly, this is one of those cases where democracy is limited enough to be useful (unlimited democracy is about as bad as no democracy at all). The voting body is small enough that individual votes count and two-way communications between the representative adn the constituants are possible.
You know, just because you've been called for jury duty doesn't mean you're automatically on the jury. The prosecutor and defense counsel have to agree that you're fit for the jury. In what you're describing, who would play the role of the opposing lawyers in the House member selection process?
"Before any bill goes to the President for signing a "Constitutional Court" must read it and vote on its constitutionality."
Um... no. That's not how courts work. They don't look at a law and say "can I see any way this might violate the constitution?" They must be presented with a specific case; an example, if you will. Their job is to interpret the law, not to get involved in the law-making process. Doing what you're suggesting would give too much power to the court.
"Any act of corruption could be summarily punishable by the US Supreme Court if it makes a constitutionality ruling."
"Acts of corruption" like, say, impeaching a federal judge? Methinks you're being a little too naive here.
"Any lobbyist and his/her financial backers found to have been involved would receive the maximum penalty the law provides without any appeal."
So, you want to fix over-broad laws that leave room for too many loopholes by... introducing an over-broad law with room for too many loopholes?
The courts are there to decide guilt and punishment on a case-by-case, individual basis. Introducing a blanket law like this will simply be too harsh in some cases and too lenient in others. And we'll be right back where we started.
"The message: if you aid and abet government corruption you will be punished VERY severely."
And in your model, who decides what is corrupt government and what isn't? The government.
"The fundamental flaws in democracy are that (a) it legitimizes any action a politician may take in the eyes of said politician if he/she wins by a strong majority,"
That's what the constitutions and the courts are for. A properly-written constitution prevents the majority from exerting too much control over the individual. The federal constitution is still properly-written, but it's slowly being whittled away over the centuries. Most state constitutions, on the other hand, are not, and usually require a simple majority to amend them.
On the other hand, a government chosen by a democratic process cannot simply ignore the voters, which is liekly to be worse than having too much democracy in this case.
"(b) it gives the majority the illusion that it has any moral authority by sheer fact of being a majority"
Only for extreme sizes of "majority." If the majority is big enough to be treated like a faceless, nameless mass, it needs to be broken down into smaller voting bodies. Problem solved.
"(c) it establishes a political aristocracy that can't relate to either its working class our bourgeoise constituents if it tried."
Again, only for extreme sizes of "majority." The shear number of people voting for a particular federal political office makes true two-way
communications impossible. A democracy with a small enough voting body (say, at the state or local level) allows and even fosters a dialog between the voters and the government.
"How many think the DMCA would have been passed if Joe Blow down the street was chosen at random to be the next rep for his district and then was asked to draft a law that would make his little Johnny or Suzy a multiple felon?"
The DMCA would have had a tougher time passing if the House of Representatives were anywhere near it's constitutionally-mandated maximum size. The more members of the House you have, the fewer voters an individual congressperson needs to please, and the individual's voice becomes more important to the representative. Laws like that get passed because the majority just doesn't care, and having 435 people "represent" nearly 300,000,000 effectively mutes the concerned minority.
"As Peikoff put it, the face of democracy is the execution of Socrates."
There is a solution, and it's been around for 215+ years. It's called the United States Constitution. Your mention of the death of Socrates brings to mind Federalist number 63. Been there, done that, problem solved.
Democracy is like radiation therapy for cancer. Too much is just as dangerous as too little, but the proper levels can work wonders.
"I would scream it from the rooftops if I felt it would do any good: CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM! It may not solve every problem, but strong, enforced CFR would at least help."
The laws are a joke and I should know. All campaign finance reform laws have done is increased the amount of paperwork required to run for office. I have to file paperwork with the Louisiana Ethics Comission, the Clerk of the House the Federal Election Commissions, and I have to send a copy of FEC paperwork to the Louisiana Department of State. All that paperwork does is provide another bureaucratic layer for the candidates to hide behind. Does it increase public access to information on my funding? Not really. Most people don't even know of the existance of these organizations, let alone how to obtain copies of the papers I've filed. It sure as hell isn't as informative to the general public as this, but most politicians want you to know as little about them as possible. It seems that most major candidates spend more time running interference on each other than actually sharing information with the voting public.
"The rich and powerful are vastly overrepresented in the legislatures, some effort at restoring balance is incredibly important."
You're not going to get it with the current batch of party sheep. If anything, they know what they needed to get into office themselves and aren't about to give it up easily.
"I'm a Democrat, but if McCain had been on the ballot I would have voted for him in a heartbeat."
Maybe too many Americans are too busy toeing the party line to see that most of the problems lie in the current two-paty system in the US. Guess how all those legislators probably got all their money? It was likely all funnelled through the state and national Democratic and Republican committees. All that most of the required election paperwork seems to have accomplished is to make sure more money is funnelled ("laundered?") through the party rather than going to the politician directly.
"Now we have a President that has spent over half of his time in office either on vacation or fund raising, or a combination thereof."
Which is completely different from what Clinton, Bush, Regan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, Roosevelt, Hoover, Coolidge, Taft, Wilson, Harding, Roosevelt, or McKinley have done in office? Should I go through the nineteenth century as well?
Most of the "this president is the most lazy/money-grubbing yet" stuff is just talk from the other party. If anything it's just more politicians running political interference. We have an executive that is very much alone and very easy for the press to focus on, and we have 535 legislators that can easily hide behind each other and can generally get away with more individually and as a group than the president. In my opinion, all this party nonsense about bad-mouthing the president's policies is little more than Congress keeping the attention shifted away from the real seat of corruption in government.
And the same goes for the states as well. Most governors would know better than to shoot themselves in the political foot by vetoing a bill with a title like that. But if it never gets to the governor's office to begin with, who's the wiser?
The only real solution to this problem is both very simple and the one nobody ever brings up:
1.) Go find the California Legislature on the internet
2.) Find the bill on-line
3.) See which state Senators voted against it (whoever is represented by Senator Haynes is in luck, otherwise...). The measure passed the State Assembly, but it might be worth seeing who voted against it there as well.
4.) Vote against them next election. In fact, tell them you're going to do so. Better yet, run against the bastard yourself. It's a cushy job and looks good on a resume at the very least.
It's that easy! And you're still not going to do it, are you? Most people don't even know their national legislators, let alone their legislators at the state level. Nobody even bothers to vote for anybody in the state governments, except maybe the governor. Maybe. This is probably little more than the state legislators showing the same contempt for the voters as the voters seem to have for the legislators. They listen to campaign contributors because they're usually the only people talking to them.
What, did you have a problem with the way they went after fax.com?
Please allow me to gratuitously quote myself:Spam isn't about the "free flow of information." It is the equivalent of graffiti. You are free to say whatever the hell you want, just don't use my e-mail account space.
... the FCC starts looking into spam. The main problem isn't the shady business practices that spam often advertises, the problem is that spam happens. Period.
All the Federal Trade Commission can do is try to treat one of the symptoms, not the problem.
People who spend more time talking on cell phones seemingly need stimulation beyond the world around them. If people can't become engaged in what's happening around them and feel the need to be somewhere else with someone else. They can't be bothered to stop and smell the roses, blah blah blah... That, or they should have thought about being at that somewhere else to begin with.
Cell phones don't make people stupid. They're already stupid for thinking they need to use it. They rank right on up there with people who "need" television.
"your argument might hold water if U.S. DSL service weren't horrid everywhere."
Then how about this one: There are more telephone lines per person in the United States than Canada. We're not just talking about more hardware needing upgrading and replacement, we're also talking about more hardware per person.
"Are you seriously claiming that "outback" regions like California, New Jersey, or New York state are less densely-populated than the whole of Canada?"
Ever been to Fresno or Sacramento in California? Camden or Trenton, New Jersey? What about Ithica or Albany? It's amazing how the countryside changes as soon as you get away from the major population centers. People are left wondering why New Jersey is referred to as "The Garden State" when they've never been off the New Jersey Turnpike, but the majority of the three states you rattled off are farmland or even wilderness.
The presence of Chicago doesn't make the rest of Illinois magicly look different from Indiana just as the presence of Calgary doesn't make the rest of Alberta look different from Saskatchewan. Of course, I'd be willing to bet that more people live in rural Illinois than rural Alberta.
I look at this and I can't help but think of the ol' Cloak of Darkness out of Wizards & Warriors.
Thou hath wasted thy fucking time
"A new way to give us fast mobile net access spells further trouble for 3G.Imagine being able to surf the net at speeds faster than DSL from anywhere, at any time"
I could imagine that, except I can't get DSL out here, and likely won't be able to at least until the end of the decade. I'm assuming you mean by very limited definitions of "anywhere." More like "anywhere you would care to be."
"you could watch a live video webcast while waiting for the bus,"
"Bus" = "Public transport" = "population density" = "not me."
"email photos to your friends while sitting in the park,"
"Park?" Another one of those things that suggests population density. See, out here we have these things called "back yards"...
"I smelled vapour until I saw a demo of MeshNetworks at 802.11Planet in Philly."
802.11 is a wireless LAN technology. Do I need to remind you what the "L" in "LAN" stands for? Rigging up local transceivers for a single building is a heck of a lot simpler (and cheaper) than an entire city. And that's only for you folks that live in cities (read "for those of you that matter" as far as just about everybody seems to be concerned, even on here).
On the other hand, 3G is essentially a WAN technology, with its much wider tranceiving radius. It may be a cold day in Hell before BellSouth gets off their good-for-nothing behinds to upgrade the local switches for DSL (let alone somebody setting up 802.11 WAPs every few hundred feet along US 90... not that I live close enough to 90 to begin with...), I at least have some access to Sprint's network out here.
I'm sorry, but trying to say that 802.11 can and will compete with G3 is like saying that Gigabit Ethernet is going to edge out the T-3 market.
Oh, and before somebody brings up how Canada has DSL "everywhere" with their larger land mass and smaller population, ever wonder why the United States seems to have twice as many meters of paved highways per person than Canada? Maybe because the Canadian population isn't as dispersed as the American population?
"This is four months before the movie is set to debut! An executive in New York promised if this is indeed part of the film that they would be punishing anyone and everyone that downloads the film or distributes it to the full extent of the law."
/. editors need bumper stickers put across the tops of their monitors to remind them the MPAA is evil? Are their attention spans that short?
Of course, the article wont't tell you that this is probably the same Madison Avenue marketing exec whose decision it was to release the "pirated" version of the movie onto the net to begin with. And what better way to call attention to it than to "complain" about it in the national media?
Seriously, hasn't anybody noticed that this kind of thing doesn't happen to the lower-budget and/or lamer flicks? Always the "highly anticipated" (by who?) "pending blockbuster" crap that gets splashed across the net and the news like this. The kinds of movies that have more than enough money involved to make sure these kinds of leaks don't happen.
The MPAA are downright experts on the uses and exploitations of digital rights management technology. Wouldn't it be child's play for them to fingerprint copies of the pre-release before dispersing them? What about asking why Bob over there is coming into the screening with a camcorder and a CD-burner? So why is their security so "lax" in these situations? Do I really need to spell it out for you?
The studio released its own "totally unauthorized" copy of the movie to build up yet more hype. It's actually quite cheap for them and effective on a consistent basis. After all, it's not like they have to pay sites like Slashdot to join in on the marketing bandwagon as well. Free advertising and teasing the raving fan(antics) as well.
Do the
" 'Hasbro also has programmed secret commands into R2D2 - putting an emphasis on the upper end of the "8-and-over" target market.'"
"R2, go get me a beer."
I see lots of quotes of other people and a few complaints about a few specific cases.
How many of y'all intend to vote this November?
Video games aren't infantile, modern politics are.
"WTO-style New York Defender"
And here I was hoping I got to run around in riot gear beating tree-hugging hippies senseless... I call false advertising on this one!
"Why should/would I use Netscape instead of Mozilla?"
Two words: spell checking.
Then explain this.
"Remember all that bullshit about Clinton using the 'net to digitally 'sign' said act?"
Somehow I recall the whole digital signature law being passed well after this one...
"It turns out that the act was just a big land grab for companies like Clear Channel Communications and CBS."
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 seems to have put the lie to that statement. If they want access to the long distance market so badly, all they need to do is open their local circuits more to competition and have the FCC rubber-stamp the whole deal. Six years and counting, and it would seem the Baby Bells would rather enter the long-distance market and hold on to their local monopolies...