Yes, but what we really need to boost returns to our shareholders is for the several legislatures to pass a raft of new legislation criminlising everything from swapping music to flying model rockets... Oh wait!
but in all the places i've lived, motor has always been electric
Strictly speaking a 'motor' is something (or in fact someone) which causes motion. Furthermore I'm surprised, despite the fact of where you been, that you have never heard of a 'motor vehicle,' or of a 'motor mechanic.'
Enough to make it so the average user cant really tell the difference between Windows and Linux.
What would be the point of designing anything for the average user? The average user uses the OS that comes with the box when they bought it, or at most an upgrade to a newer version of that OS. The average user never gets anywhere near a Linux box, or KDE, or Gnome.
Lets think about designing stuff for the people who are actually going to be using it.
God forbid copyright owners should have control over copying of their work. Using the law to take away this right is a socialist attempt to deprive people of their work "for the public good".
What you forget is that copyright is in itself the product of a legal monopoly granted by an absolutist monarchical system. ie a creation of law. It was one of the few types of monopolies to escape the abolition (by Parliament) of the host of monopolies set up under 'feudal' law. The justification for the retention of this artificial monopoly (read state intervention in the market) is that it is "in the public good" (cf US Constitution) to stave off the market failure (free rider effect) in relation to intellectual property.
Besides which the application of law into anything should only be "for the public good."
PS. Avoid using big word like 'socialist' unless you understand what they actually mean.
What I intended to say was that I thought the new Python features/changes made old code behave differently.
That's what I thought you were getting at, which is why I pointed out that 1.5.x code should run in a 2.x environment, with as I put it "almost no modification." Well I've never had any problems in that regard, but unlike the original poster I'm not going to claim absolute compatibility... (which is not to say it isn't 100% compatible either).
However, the developers of Python, are conscious of the need to preserve backward compatibility. So the introduction of despite the introduction of iterators in 2.2, the old syntax remains in place, it is just realised differently (and there is some new syntax should you want to use that as well). Despite the introduction of new style classes in 2.2, old style classes are still recognised and will work as expected (though we are warned they may be depricated in future releases.)
That's why, I believe, some Python applications ask that you use an older version of Python.
Yup this would suggest compatibility problems, though what these migh be I can't even guess. Maybe paranoid developers, you'd have to ask them I guess? As I've said, Python has always treated me OK regarding backward compatibility.
I thought that all the new features were not backwards compatible.
Python1.5.x code should run in a python2.x environment with almost no modification. Clearly the "new features" of python2.x are not going to be understood by the 1.5 environment. New features are necessarily not backwards compatible.
That being said the features in python2.2 make it almost a new language (no nasty primitive types meaning among other things you can subclass built-in types), iterators and generators and much syntactic sugar. You really wouldn't want to be writing in anything less than 2.2.
Haven't blackbox, but E is a Window Manager, not a Desktop Manager.
If you really are all about the highly-configurable do-dad like you say you are... [Where do I say that?!]... you needn't concern yourself with the choices they make for defaults.
If we were merely talking about defaults there would be no problem at all. Gnome have decided to make Gnome 2 much more simple and elegant. Great! I agree with the approach, cut out the cruft, keep it simple, don't confuse the user -- absolutely. If the 'default' installation is ultra-simple, all the better. What I'm saying is that in taking away from existing users features they like, without in anyway allowing them the option of putting them back, the Gnome Team have made a bad mistake. Arguably Gnome2 is what Gnome1 should have been, clean, simple, straightfoward. But when you are designing an entirely new system, and when you are upgrading a system that already has an installed user base, different design principles come into play.
People get pissed off at having stuff taken away from them, much more than the miss stuff they've never had.
You don't get it do you? Gnome isn't for people who can "learn how to do it [themselves]," its for lazy, nay stupid SOBs, like myself, who should never be upset by being exposed to difficult words like "Windows Manager."
In point of fact my rant could be summarised even more succintly:
"Dear Gnome Team,
Please start listening to your users.
Thank You."
PS. Btw is wasn't a "stupid endless" rant, it was a constructive rant!;P
I'm in danger of sounding like a pedant if I insist that you should be able to complete selection with the right button, so I'll just acknowledge that this is a workable workaround. Nice one.
The 1.x gnome-terminal had an, if not entirely elegant, at least a servicable way of having your cake and eating it too. It would try to 'guess' whether you were right clicking for a menu or to complete a selection. So if you started a selection a right click would mean end selection, until [enter] was pressed again (when you could get the menu again). Now I can understand why Havoc might regard this as a bit iffy. For myself I would have preferred to see it stay the way it was, until some bright spark conceived of a better way of doing it, rather than seeing it completely removed.
As for gnome-terminal, middle-click has always been X's paste. It works for me with a 2.x gnome-terminal.
I'm not talking about the pasting with the middle click, but completing the selection with the right click. What you are supposed to be able to do is i) start selection with left button, ii) completel selection with right click, iii) paste with middle click. Try it in x-term, and then try doing that in a 2.x gnome-term.
Sure for small selections you can simply drag with the left button. But when the selection is long you have to hold down the left key and mouse in such a way as to scroll through the selection for literally minutes. It should only be, left click at the top, scroll down, right click at the end, 10 secs.
Excuse my ignorance, but I was under the impression
that in terms of Desktop Managers the choice at present is realistically
limited to Gnome or KDE. Moreover, my impression was that Gnome, by its
association with GNU, GTK etc, had pretentions of being the 'standard'
desktop in a GNU/Linux environment, not merely "something different."
If people want to work on developing it,
who are you to tell them how to spend their time?
Who am I? I'm nobody, I'm only a regular user who couldn't develop it themselves.
Yeah sure, I shouldn't tell someone how to spend their free time, but what
are you saying? That any adverse user feedback is unwelcome? Is the
policy of ignoring user feedback part of the official Gnome
developement guidelines, or is it just a bad habit that you have slipped
into lately?
You are free to work on developing your own
"advanced user environment E" if you don't have
enough options in that area yet. Or free to create
add-ons or partial replacement apps for any
existing environment. Isn't open source great?
Free sure, but maybe not technically skilled enough. Gimme a
break, I'm just one of your 'regular' gumbo users, you know the one
of the ones you are trying to protect from concepts such as 'Window Managers'
and all that stuff. We are your target audience, we don't create add-ons,
the only thing useful you'll get out of us is feedback! Besides which,
didn't you just tell me developing E, when ABC and D can already look
like E, was a waste of effort?
I'd suggest some good books...
If these books are truely telling you to design exclusively for
imaginary users, to tell real users what they need and what they don't
need and to ignore, insult or chase them away, I suggest you throw those
books away. Something you haven't learnt from those books is that you
are writing for a specific set of users, not some generic imaginary user.
Moreover the set of users of one type of app will differ from that using
a different app. The 'regular' user of a word processor will need to have different
needs to a 'regular' user of a terminal emulator. Sure, there is
also a need for consistency, which adds another level of difficulty.
But to resolve this difficulty by simply ignoring the needs of the user is not
the way to go.
"The Inmates are Running the Asylum,"
Ignore user feedback, give the users only what the developers imagine,
or have read, they want... Maybe you should read that book again.
Technical users are so quick to assume that all software should be written for
them,
Clearly not all software, but what about technical softwarer?
Surely terminal users have the right to the expectation that the terminal is
being written for them. Besides which, I'm not a 'technical' user, I'm a
'regular' user.
it should be exactly like the GUI I got used to in 1992, darnit! must...
not... learn... new... things...
Especially not new things like the term 'Window Manager':) Look the
mistake Gnome2 made was not in making users learn new things. It was taking
away features which users had grown accustomed to. Users expect 'more'
features when upgrading, not to have many feature they rely on removed. As
I said, cleaning out the cruft is nice, but not even giving the option to put
useful stuff back in... No wonder so many Gnome users are unhappy at the
moment.
It's not like there's any danger that there won't
be enough hyper-configurable advanced user features and environments
available.
I've not actually seen anyone asking for "hyper-configurable
advanced user features." What people seem to be asking
for is the newer version of Gnome to be able to do at least what
the older one could. For myself, being able to add menus to the panel,
and being able to complete text selection in a terminal with my right
mouse button is all I'm asking for. Look I'm sorry to sound completely
negative, as though there is nothing about Gnome2 that is good or better
than before. Tabbed terminal looks very cool, for example. But I can
live without tabbed terminals, I can't without X cut and paste. Sad fact
of human nature is that you are more likely to hear from people when they
are unhappy with you than when they are satisfied.
So why not let just *one* project try something different
without whining about it endlessly.
One project sure, just not Gnome:) And I haven't been
whining endlessly (though with the number of dissatisfied
users at the moment, it must seem endless). The previous
was my first post on this subject. I didn't post to Bugzilla
given that the same report had already be 'dealt with', I read,
but didn't post the the Gnome discussion groups, because I saw
how users were being dumped on by the developers. Maybe the endless
whining should tell you something?
All Gnome developers take note of what the AC has written.
I'm just one of the many Gnome users who has been totally pissed off by Gnome 2. First I discover that gnome-terminal no longer works. You can't complete an X selection with a right click because this always brings up a silly menu. Which is a real problem when you are selecting pages of text. I go to bugzilla, note that this has already been reported, but that nothing is going to be done about it, because 'consistency' demands that right clicks bring up menus. I guess the latest version of gnome-terminal is so consistent that [Tab] moves between tabbed terminals, and bad luck if you want to use filename completion, consistency demands making the terminal unusable, so unusable it shall be! So I'm having to use rxvt again until (if ever) gnome developers start listening to their users and fix their terminal.
Next thing they only allow one window list, and it doesn't have the option of 'close all' for stacked windows... argh! Then I notice I cannot any longer put menus onto the panel, only useless (because I can't label them) drawers. So no I have to wait till the tool-tip shows till I know what particular action any launcher button will have, and they randomly change positions to boot.
OK, at one level the idea Gnome has is good, cut out the cruft, keep it simple and elegant. Great! What is missing, however, is the option for users to mess it up again, and especially for users who are used to using Gnome in a certain way, to make Gnome work for them again. The insanity of the Gnome project is this: Ignore, no discourge, you existing users, and design your system for a set of users who don't now, and are unlikely ever to, use your system (ie the corporate desktop). There is an underlying assumption at work here, "if we make our system easy enough to use, easier than windows, then the corporate desktopers will come flocking to us." That is like saying "if our web site has content as good or better than msn.com, we will start to get more hits than them;" or "if we make a better VCR standard, people will stop using VHS..."
Simplicity, in the current Gnome way of thinking, means treat the user as an imbicile, and take away the users options. Eg, the user is never to be allowed to hear the words "window manager," much less be given a way (within the GUI system) to change them! This is a foolish approach. The newcomers to Gnome/Linux are not likely to be the corporate desktop users (though perhaps in eductional/academic and in the not-for-profit sectors some chance of adoption does exist), they are going to be skilled windows users, who want to learn about Linux, and who want more options to configure their desktops than windows gave them, not less!
And what happens when users, real actual Gnome users, complain about the direction Gnome is taking. They get told that this feature they have been using is not something a "regular" user would want, or worse they get told, "I don't care if you don't use Gnome." Gnome guys, wake up, those are the 'regular' users.
Despite my rant, I'm still resisting changing over to KDE, I guess I hope that some people will start listening and fix up the problems. But if all that is happening is that Gnome is working on features like transparent panels, while leaving the gnome-terminal in its present broken state, I'm a fool to hope, and to hold out.
This is true, but DTD's are more human readable IMHO.
Absolutely. All the possible attributes, and kids of any element are there in one (OK, two) place(s) and you can garner the information about any element in a matter of seconds. With XML Schema you have to keep track of the levels of nesting and rifle through a series of name/value pairs to get the same information. It is in its greater expressiveness that the advantage of XSD is seen to lie. And there might be applications where this expressiveness necessitates the use of XSD.
However, XML Schema, has besides this expressivenss, one other great advantage. It is XML. As such it can be processed with the same XML tools one uses elsewhere with an XML application.
As an example, in one application, I take a DTD, translate it into XSD, and then run an XSL stylesheet over the XSD file to generate some base code used in my application. In this way I can ensure that my code will automatically be changed to reflect any minor changes made to my Schema.
So while I continue to write DTDs, I look on XML Schema as a way to translate, and bring my DTD into the XML universe, with all its attendant advantages.
Jesus was saying that if people want to attack you for following Him then you should turn the other cheek.
No, Jesus was saying something more profound and far-reaching than just that. Basically he was giving us the same message as Gandhi did more recently when he said, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." You have only to look at Jesus' homeland to see the truth of that assertion. It is natural to want to take vengance, it seems weak not to, but true strength lies in turning the other cheek.
When I was at school, some guy, for no reason at all decided he wanted to have a fight with me. So he and all his buddies confronted me in a backstreet of our town. I put my arms to my side and said to him, "here I am, hit me if you want." Which he did. It hurt, but I just went back to him and said, "want to do it again?" He did. When I went back to him a third time, his friends basically dragged him away. Thanks for the tip Jesus!
Now of course there are times when this won't work, when you simply must defend yourself, either as an individual or as a country (unless you are brave enough to face death). But at a deeper level a strategy of vengance is self-defeating. The Israelis by lobbing bombs into appartment buildings, or the Palestinians by blowing up commuter buses, do not seem to be pursuading the other side to cease their violence. Here we see the most obvious demonstration of the importance of this teaching of Jesus.
That is the most concise summary of the sorry state of current Australian politics, I've heard. And the reckon the seppos don't know anything about intl affairs!
Problem is, as I quickly discovered, news sources like CNN are biased, slant stories to the point of omitting parts that don't agree with their bias, and are woefully inadequate in checking their facts (they actually reported one thing about someone in show-biz based on what their home-page said). Going to other countries' web news sites helps me filter out the bias, round out the facts, and hear stories that our media would never tell.
Problem is when Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black control the media in every country in the world, they will be able to control what (almost) everyone believes is self-evident truth.
While treaties bind the federal government (not the states) to cooperate internationally, this power cannot extend into the states of the Union. The force and effect of treaties remain at the border.
Umm, lets see what the Constitutions say about that...
Art IV, Cl 2.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
For tomorrows class read up about '(self-)executing' and 'executory' treaties....
Yup, a utility by the name of python, checks for spelling errors and syntax errors generally. An important tool for any python programmer.;P
Re:I wonder if the framers of the constitution...
on
Dow vs. Parody
·
· Score: 1
The right to free speech in the U.S. is granted to "persons" by the constitution.
Wrong. It prohibits the legislature(s) from legislating away a presumed right.
the law assumes corporations have this right, but only because somewhere along the line the supreme court decided corporate entities were "persons"
Correct. However, having decided they are persons, the question is, as the previous poster pointed out, why in particular corporate persons should be denied a right which pertains to other legal persons?
I think we are having a breakdown in communication / thought styles.
OK, I'll try to make my position perfectly clear. Firstly, I'll recant
from my previous post, and I'll accept that there can be such a thing as a
good and bad law. What I'm saying then is that it is bad law, to invent
(either curially or legislatively) new law, merely because of the involvement
of some apparently revolutionary new technology. Of course there will be
occasions when the existing legal framework doesn't cover new technology and
some new law will be necessary (eg. computer [h(?:cr)]acking). But in general,
where the rules we have worked out over the last 800 years do cover the
field, we ought to let them go and see how things pan out. As a case in point
consider the US cyber-squatting laws. Those jokers in Congress actually
criminalised the registration of prospectively lucrative (because they
properly belonged to the business good-will of established companies) domain
names. Yes, no doubt this was a nasty kind of profiteering, yes the squatters
should have been given their marching orders, but what was not
necessary was any new law, let alone a new criminal law. In Victoria again, a
cyber squatter was undone merely by the application of good old fashioned
Equity.
Let the system or rules that have been set up do their work, don't rush
into making new law just because one of the parties mutters the magical
incantation 'Internet.' In this case the High Court was being asked to upset
a rule already accepted for ca. 150 years, for no other reason than that this
incantation had been muttered. They refused. This is good law.
Assuming Gutnik wins (which we ought not to take for granted) he can then
either decide to rest there (probably his best choice) and the rest of us will
know that Barrons doesn't do good 'fact checking' journalism, fine.
Alternatively he can take the next legal step and take the money judgment to a
New York Court (where Dow-Jones is incorporated), and ask them to order
payment.
Now I said (and you quoted me) US courts will honour Australian
(or other jurisdictions) judgments. I should have said, subject to a number
of provisos (everything in law is subject to a number of provisos.)
In the US, foreign money judgments are governed either to the common law,
(as set out in Hilton v Guyot, a case where a foreign money order was
actually refused 5-4, but which sets out the rules of when they will be honoured
at common law), or where they have enacted the Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments
Recognition Act, by statute. The main difference being the
requirement of 'reciprocality' in Hilton, which would not matter here,
since Australian courts will also, generally, honour jugments of the US, and
its several states. NY, I am led to believe, has the Uniform Act in place.
Now if Gutnik goes to the NY courts, he should fail at first instance.
This is because the Uniform Act gives as a possible reason for non-recognition
the case where "the cause of action or claim for relief on which the judgment
is based is repugnant to the public policy of this [state]". As it
happens a NY court has already reject a foreign libel award on this basis,
Bachchan v. India Abroad Publications, Inc., 585 N.Y.S.2d 661 (Sup.
SCt. N.Y. Co. 1992). I understand, the court thought that the judgment
negatively impacted upon US free speech rights. (Unfortunately I've not been
able to get a copy of the opinion to read for myself, so I'm relying on
secondary sources here). Gutnik would have to be hoping for better luck on
appeal: Does the 1st amendment form part of the 'public policy' of the State
of New York?
Assuming additionally that he doesn't get it (which seems a likely outcome
to me), what would have been the result?
Gutnik would have had his
reputation vindicated by a court in
the jurisdiction where he resides most of the time and where he has, up till
now, enjoyed a good reputation.
Dow Jones would have escaped any pecuniary punishment for a style of
journalism which (perhaps unfortunately) reflects the mainstream practice in
their home jurisdiction.
The public would have been alerted to the reliability (or lack thereof) of
items the read in the pages of Barrons.
This is the likely outcome of the extant set of legal principles which come
into play. Is this really such a bad outcome? I don't think it is, and for
this reason, I cannot see the HC's decision as 'disasterous'.
If these kinds of solutions completely fail then there is a problem, but
it is not with the individual*.
Yes, indeed. Where the law goes off the rails, it is more properly
the role of the legislature to remedy the ill (or in a case such as this, perhaps the
executive through its treaty making powers). Although it is within the
power of the High Court to do so, this is a power they should excercise only
rarely. Again, the conservative judgment they made is to be prefered.
Moreover, as I have just argued, it seems to me, the existing legal framework
will deliver a beneficial outcome.
Your NSW/Victoria shooting example seems to indicate that you think that my
position would let people get away with murder. I kinda hope you didn't think
that was my intent:)
Not at all, I only thought you wanted to let people get away with
defamation;) Seriously though, I only described this to illustrate how in
different legal situations the 'location' of a crime or tort has to be worked
out differently, why murder 'happens' where the trigger is pulled, and
defamation 'happens', so to speak, where the bullet finds its mark.
Tweak 1 - NSW and Victoria are Australian states, right? Everyone involvedis properly within jurisdiction of Australian federal law which should resolve
it. So lets make it two different countries, Australia and the US (the shooter
used a fucking amazing gun, chuckle).
Or an ICBM. A couple of points here. Firstly in my example the
murderer and the victim are not in the federal jurisdiction in the
sense that there is no federal crime of murder (as there is of smuggling),
this remains a matter for state law. It is true, however, that in any
conflict of law, both NSW and Vic will be in the jurisdiction of the High
Court. The second point is this, from the point of view of the High Court, it
makes no difference whether the dispute is between parties from Victoria/NSW,
or Victoria/New York, the same conflict of law principles apply. As regards
money judgments, the situation in the US is quite different. There the judgments of other states are to be respected as a
matter of constitutional law, whereas foreign judgments fall either under the
common law principles of the Uniform Act, as outlined above.
Should the Australian's behavior conform to the US definitions of murder..
or should he behave according to the Australian definitions?
In my opinion he absolutely should conform to Australian law.
And as a matter of pure legal principle that is the case, because murder is
located where the intent and act (pulling the trigger) occur. However, the
entire point is that completely different principles apply with regard to the
tort of defamation (and for very sound reasons -- see my last post), where the
tort occurs in the place that the reputation is damaged. For this reason it
is best to leave anything resembling a criminal offence, or what our (US and
oz) law would see as criminal sanctions, out of any analogy or hypothetical
which aims to elucidate the principles involved in the instant case. It will just add confusion
The reason I chose to put the murderer and victim on either side of state
rather than national boundaries was to avoid the inteference of
Realpolitik in the problem. Consider this, some guy with a beard and
lots of money sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, organises, plans, trains,
funds, or otherwise supports, some suicide agents who fly hijacked planes
into a couple of tower office blocks in New York. Now according to the
principle you set out (which is in fact correct in criminal law), he should be
subject to the laws of Afghanistan. They say, nope, its not murder, it is
fighting 'The Great Satan.' (Well actually they said, "prove it").
Now whatever the purist legal theory might say, nobody is going to expect
the US just to wear that, are they?
But in any case we really should leave criminal law entirely out of the
equation, since, as I have tried to make clear, entirely different principles
operate in respect both to defamation and to the honouring of foreign money
judgements, which are the two legal issues dominating Gutniks battle with Dow
Jones.
I see a problem with good and law-abiding people being hurt foreign laws
they never heard of.
That is true also of law-abiding people being hurt by their own laws that
they've never heard of. It's tough, but whether you go hurling ICBMs around theglobe at random (oops, that would be criminal, wouldn't it), or you go
hurling potentially defamatory statements into cyberspace, you are accepting
the risk that you'll run afoul of someone's laws.
I see a problem with trying to apply laws from 200 different countries
to a single act.
In answer to this, the High Court pointed out that identifying the person
on whom you are doing the hatchet job will almost always identify the
jurisidiction with which they have a 'reasonable connection.' Note that if the
connnection is merely spurious, such as some cases of Americans suing American
papers in Britain (strict libel laws), the courts of those fora are likely to
stay proceedings on forum non conveniens grounds, see for instance
Chadha v. Dow Jones & Co., Slip Opinion (High Ct. of Justice, Queen's
Bench Division, 1997). Yup, Barrons again, they won that one though.
I see a problem if it is essentially random what laws actually do and
don't get applied (whoever can figure out a way to seize assets or get their
hands on the person).
Don't worry, it's not essentially random, except in the rare occasions
when you are unlucky enough to defame someone you didn't know existed. (Which
is where, imo, Anglo-Australian defamation law has gone down a wrong
track.)
OK, those are your concerns, but consider for a moment, how it looks from
our perspective. The importation of 1st amendment principles into defamation
law (which makes little sense really) in NY Times v Sullivan, has
created in the US a 'truth-free zone' (ironically, since the 1st amendment was
arguably supposed to ensure a better informed public). No matter what
individual rights we may have in our personal reputation in our own
jurisdicitons, publishers are able to snipe at our dignitas, by hiding behind the deformed defamation laws in the US.
(If I were to use the criminal analogy I say we shouldn't, this is rather like
having an Afghanistan giving shelter to terrorist taking pot-shots at us --
but that would be terribly over-melodramatic, so I won't use it:P ).
What remedy do we have to protect us from this abrogation of our
individual rights?
I was going along with what you said to let you get where ever you were
trying to go. You didn't go far enough to get a result answering my
question.
Oh so you don't get it after all. I try to enlighten you.
Consider the nature of a crime. A crime, as you might know is constituted
by the union of mens rea and actus reus, or in plain speak, the
intention to commit a crime, and the actual action of commiting that crime.
The effect on the victim, excepting only that they are a victim,
is (or ought to be) irrelevant. Crime is a matter between the perpetrator and
the state (or the community if you prefer).
Consider this hypothetical then. I am standing on the NSW side of the
NSW/Victorian border, and I discharge a firearm with intent to kill (or to
cause grievous bodily harm; or with 'reckless indifference'; or in the
commission of a indictable offence) at someone standing on the Victorian side
and my discharging of this firearm successfully kills that someone. Now where
did the murder take place?
I don't think there is any precedent for this,
so we can't know what the answer for sure, but the logical result would seem
to be that the murder occured in NSW, where both the intent and act were
located.
Now lets contrast this with the case of defamation. Defamation is a
tort of strict liability, meaning that the intent of the tortfeasor forms
no part of the tort (though it might be relevant in awarding damages). You
might not want to defame someone, you might not think what you said did
defame someone, you don't even have to be aware that there is anyone who
was defamed by what you said. All that matters is that there is someone
who could be defamed by your statement, that they had a reputation capable
of being injured, and that that reputation was in fact injured. Unlike a
crime, a tort is matter between the plaintiff and the defendant, the state
is a stranger here, except insofar as it provides the forum.
So in this case the logical conclusion is that defamation takes place
where the damage to reputation occurs. Since the defendants intent is
irrelevant, and their bare statement is insufficient to constitute defamation
(ie the same statement was published in Bumfukia, but since the plaintiff
had no reputation there, no defamation occured there.) Not only is this
logical, but, as you would know from your reading, there is firmly established
authority here, Duke of Brunswick v Harmer (1849) 14 QB 185.
That should be the end of the argument!
What the High Court
was being asked to do was to create a special, and IMO illogical, exception
to this long established rule, merely because of the Net factor. This is like
the Communications Decency Act saying, sure there is freedom of speech,
but if the Internet is involved it should be curtailed. Or that copyrighted
material in digital form needs extraordinary proctection (in fact the
invention of an entirely new species of intellectual property )etc.
If I'm standing nude in France, and someone sees it through a telescope inTurkey,...
Fucking amazing telescope!
... the nudity occurred in France and you shouldn't try to apply Turkish law. I
did something in France. Maybe I broke the law, maybe not, but it's French law
that applies.
Given I have as little idea as you, about either French or Turkish
law, I really couldn't say which law applies. I guess it depends on whether its a law against being nude, or a law protecting someone from seeing nude people
through their telescope.
You need me to fill in more details?
I need just a little bit more than that actually. I need you to give me a
hypothetical that can be afforded a sensible answer. As it stands your problem
is rather like asking a mathematician this: Suppose a rational number r when
divided by zero and multipled by pi equals 25. What is the value of r. Is
it A) 5, B) pi, C) 25, or some other rational number? Like the mathematician,
I am forced to choose option D) Your problem is wrong.
It's a random bad law in a random contry.... The point is that some
country has some sort of law against it.
This is one way your problem is wrong. And I hope that the foregoing
discussion of the differences between murder and defamation make it clear that
talking about "some sort" or "random bad law", is just hopelessly vague.
Perhaps in YOUR country, but maybe Bumfukia has the death penalty for civil violations.
This confusion of criminal and civil law is another way your problem is
wrong. Sure Bumfukian law may not distinguish between what we conceive of as
criminal and tort law and might prescribe the death penalty for what we would
properly consider civil causes. However, to execute me, I presume, Bumfukia
would like to have access to my person (I don't know, perhaps execution in
effigy suffices in Bumfukian law), and I'm not just going to go there and turn
myself over. Therefore they will have to try to extradite me, and at this
point the criminal (and in fact treaty) law of my country comes into play.
First of all there has to be some extradition arrangement between my country
and Bumfukia (which there isn't, so I'm safe). Secondly extradition law
applies only to serious offences (which this isn't) and protects the person to
be extradited from oppression (which this would be), usually by requiring that
there be some equivalent criminal offence in the extraditing country (which there isn't).
Again contrast this with foreign money judgements, which are respected
between countries even in the absence of bilateral arrangements and even when
no similar cause of action exists between in the country making good the
foreign money judgement. (For the US law regarding foreign money judgements,
see my earlier post on another branch of this thread.)
Again, the law of YOUR contry is irrelevant.
Now this is perhaps the greatest source of your misunderstanding.
As you now know,
(I assume you took the foregoing explanation in) the law of my jurisdiction
(and indeed the law of Dow Jones' home jurisdiction), is highly relevant. It
is because of the fact that US juridictions will honour the money orders
made by Australian courts that US companies have to fear Australian courts,
even when, as is the case with Dow Jones, they have no corporate presence
within Australia.
OK, maybe this is not entirely the only reason they have to fear
Australian courts, and Gutnik v Dow Jones is a case in point. In the
case of defamation the primary remedy the plaintiff seeks (especially a
filthy rich plaintiff like Gutnik), is not the money order, but the
vindication of their reputation in a court of law. Conversely Dow Jones has
got to be worried that, if they fail to make out a truth or truth+ (whichever applies in Victoria) defence, that the entire
world will know that they simply make up shit about people without having the
facts to back it up. I'm sure Barrons would like to be thought of as being more authoritative than that, which is probably why they wanted to fight in a
jurisdiction where they didn't have to prove truth.
Bumfukia defines the use of itallics as civil defamation of the presiden's
dog, and the law imposes the death penalty. Do you understand the law now? You
think it's a dumb law, *I* think it's a dumb law, but it's a Bumfukian law.
Objecting that it is a stupid law was option (C).
I don't work on the dichotomy dumb (or bad) law vs good law. I work on the
dichotomy valid or invalid law, and I have no trouble in accepting the
hypothetical validity of the Bumfukian law. That being the case, the question
resolves itself into one of asking how enforcable Bumfukian law will be in my
jurisdiction, which as we have seen is not very. Alternatively it
might concern me that people would think I was the kind of person to use italics, which clearly doesn't worry me either!
Now assuming
Gutnik wins his case in Victoria, should he decide to try and actually get the
money (he might be wise not to), the issue of enforcibility would again arise.
I am not an American lawyer, but I would guess that Dow Jones
would raise 1st Amendment arguments, when Gutnik goes to the NY, or NJ court
with the Victorian order, and, given the current free speech jurisprudence of
the Supreme Court, that defence might just fly. Though as I have noted, this
would be a consolation prize for Dow Jones, who would have been exposed as
scheissters in the Australian court. Of course it might not be Dow Jones who end up with the egg on their face. Remember Oscar Wilde and the risks of
suing in defamation though, it may be Gutnik who will rue the outcome.
And if the exact same text had been painted on the side of my house rather
than placed on a computer would they have ruled the same way? (I don't
know.)
With what I've taught you, you ought now be able to answer that for
yourself.
I specificly asked you to suggest any alternative. You provided none. Go ahead, ANY alternative. Or do you give up and concede my point that the ruling is a disaster?
I did not supply any alternative, because your example was based upon the fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. At least you have now conceeded the point that this is about defamtion occuring within a jurisdiction. I would give an alternative, but I'm afraid your hypothetical is a poor one. I don't understand, for instance, who is being defamed by the use of italics. This is clearly a central question apropos defamtion. Moreover, the use of the death penalty moves this out of the realm of civil and into the realm of criminal law, where quite different principles apply. (Ie. it becomes a matter of extradition rather than enforcing a foreign money judgment). Reformulate your problem a little more carefully, and I will be happy to give an alternative which reflects the law as I understand it.
I also have a question for you. Are you saying that a state cannot legislate for events occuring within its territory, merely because of the distance of the perpetrator? I can understand this argument in relation to criminal law, where intent is vital (though I doubt many states would allow external peperators such as bin Laden to escape on this technical nicety), but for a tort of strict liability (where the tort if founded upon the damage rather than any intent) like defamation, that would seem an odd result indeed.
Before you go on declaring this decision to be a 'disaster', I think you really ought to read the judgment, especially the joint judgment and that of Kirby J. You should note that this a unanimous decision. Seven very different judges have decided that it is not necessary to completely (and illogically) redefine the common law regarding defamation, merely because of the involvement of the Internet. This is a very good decisison. Think of all the oppressive law that has been made because legislators and judges have been panicked into making new law for the Net. Like the Supreme Crt decision to throw out the CDA, this is an example of high court judges say, "Stay calm, it's only the internet, the sky is not falling."
an industry in the smaller, poorer nations of the world in offering the judge 20% of whatever they get and imagining all manner of creative rulings against wealthy americans
Lack of due process in the original decision is the primary defence when it comes time for the American court to issue the order making the foreign money judgment good. Hilton addresses that issue, as does the Uniform Act.
The issue is weather or not courts should attempt to rule on events that occur outside their jurisdiction.
No, that was not the issue. The issue was whether the events occured within the Victorian courts jurisdiction. The decision, quite rightly, is that they did. Ie. the defamation occured within Victoria, that being the case the Victorian courts have jurisdiction.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, but what we really need to boost returns to our shareholders is for the several legislatures to pass a raft of new legislation criminlising everything from swapping music to flying model rockets ... Oh wait!
Strictly speaking a 'motor' is something (or in fact someone) which causes motion. Furthermore I'm surprised, despite the fact of where you been, that you have never heard of a 'motor vehicle,' or of a 'motor mechanic.'
What would be the point of designing anything for the average user? The average user uses the OS that comes with the box when they bought it, or at most an upgrade to a newer version of that OS. The average user never gets anywhere near a Linux box, or KDE, or Gnome.
Lets think about designing stuff for the people who are actually going to be using it.
What you forget is that copyright is in itself the product of a legal monopoly granted by an absolutist monarchical system. ie a creation of law. It was one of the few types of monopolies to escape the abolition (by Parliament) of the host of monopolies set up under 'feudal' law. The justification for the retention of this artificial monopoly (read state intervention in the market) is that it is "in the public good" (cf US Constitution) to stave off the market failure (free rider effect) in relation to intellectual property.
Besides which the application of law into anything should only be "for the public good."
PS. Avoid using big word like 'socialist' unless you understand what they actually mean.
That's what I thought you were getting at, which is why I pointed out that 1.5.x code should run in a 2.x environment, with as I put it "almost no modification." Well I've never had any problems in that regard, but unlike the original poster I'm not going to claim absolute compatibility ... (which is not to say it isn't 100% compatible either).
However, the developers of Python, are conscious of the need to preserve backward compatibility. So the introduction of despite the introduction of iterators in 2.2, the old syntax remains in place, it is just realised differently (and there is some new syntax should you want to use that as well). Despite the introduction of new style classes in 2.2, old style classes are still recognised and will work as expected (though we are warned they may be depricated in future releases.)
That's why, I believe, some Python applications ask that you use an older version of Python.Yup this would suggest compatibility problems, though what these migh be I can't even guess. Maybe paranoid developers, you'd have to ask them I guess? As I've said, Python has always treated me OK regarding backward compatibility.
Python1.5.x code should run in a python2.x environment with almost no modification. Clearly the "new features" of python2.x are not going to be understood by the 1.5 environment. New features are necessarily not backwards compatible.
That being said the features in python2.2 make it almost a new language (no nasty primitive types meaning among other things you can subclass built-in types), iterators and generators and much syntactic sugar. You really wouldn't want to be writing in anything less than 2.2.
Good question.
E, blackbox, etcHaven't blackbox, but E is a Window Manager, not a Desktop Manager.
If you really are all about the highly-configurable do-dad like you say you areIf we were merely talking about defaults there would be no problem at all. Gnome have decided to make Gnome 2 much more simple and elegant. Great! I agree with the approach, cut out the cruft, keep it simple, don't confuse the user -- absolutely. If the 'default' installation is ultra-simple, all the better. What I'm saying is that in taking away from existing users features they like, without in anyway allowing them the option of putting them back, the Gnome Team have made a bad mistake. Arguably Gnome2 is what Gnome1 should have been, clean, simple, straightfoward. But when you are designing an entirely new system, and when you are upgrading a system that already has an installed user base, different design principles come into play.
People get pissed off at having stuff taken away from them, much more than the miss stuff they've never had.
Hey AC!
You don't get it do you? Gnome isn't for people who can "learn how to do it [themselves]," its for lazy, nay stupid SOBs, like myself, who should never be upset by being exposed to difficult words like "Windows Manager."
In point of fact my rant could be summarised even more succintly:
"Dear Gnome Team,
Please start listening to your users.
Thank You."
PS. Btw is wasn't a "stupid endless" rant, it was a constructive rant! ;P
I'm in danger of sounding like a pedant if I insist that you should be able to complete selection with the right button, so I'll just acknowledge that this is a workable workaround. Nice one.
The 1.x gnome-terminal had an, if not entirely elegant, at least a servicable way of having your cake and eating it too. It would try to 'guess' whether you were right clicking for a menu or to complete a selection. So if you started a selection a right click would mean end selection, until [enter] was pressed again (when you could get the menu again). Now I can understand why Havoc might regard this as a bit iffy. For myself I would have preferred to see it stay the way it was, until some bright spark conceived of a better way of doing it, rather than seeing it completely removed.
I'm not talking about the pasting with the middle click, but completing the selection with the right click. What you are supposed to be able to do is i) start selection with left button, ii) completel selection with right click, iii) paste with middle click. Try it in x-term, and then try doing that in a 2.x gnome-term.
Sure for small selections you can simply drag with the left button. But when the selection is long you have to hold down the left key and mouse in such a way as to scroll through the selection for literally minutes. It should only be, left click at the top, scroll down, right click at the end, 10 secs.
Excuse my ignorance, but I was under the impression that in terms of Desktop Managers the choice at present is realistically limited to Gnome or KDE. Moreover, my impression was that Gnome, by its association with GNU, GTK etc, had pretentions of being the 'standard' desktop in a GNU/Linux environment, not merely "something different."
If people want to work on developing it, who are you to tell them how to spend their time?Who am I? I'm nobody, I'm only a regular user who couldn't develop it themselves. Yeah sure, I shouldn't tell someone how to spend their free time, but what are you saying? That any adverse user feedback is unwelcome? Is the policy of ignoring user feedback part of the official Gnome developement guidelines, or is it just a bad habit that you have slipped into lately?
You are free to work on developing your own "advanced user environment E" if you don't have enough options in that area yet. Or free to create add-ons or partial replacement apps for any existing environment. Isn't open source great?Free sure, but maybe not technically skilled enough. Gimme a break, I'm just one of your 'regular' gumbo users, you know the one of the ones you are trying to protect from concepts such as 'Window Managers' and all that stuff. We are your target audience, we don't create add-ons, the only thing useful you'll get out of us is feedback! Besides which, didn't you just tell me developing E, when ABC and D can already look like E, was a waste of effort?
I'd suggest some good booksIf these books are truely telling you to design exclusively for imaginary users, to tell real users what they need and what they don't need and to ignore, insult or chase them away, I suggest you throw those books away. Something you haven't learnt from those books is that you are writing for a specific set of users, not some generic imaginary user. Moreover the set of users of one type of app will differ from that using a different app. The 'regular' user of a word processor will need to have different needs to a 'regular' user of a terminal emulator. Sure, there is also a need for consistency, which adds another level of difficulty. But to resolve this difficulty by simply ignoring the needs of the user is not the way to go.
"The Inmates are Running the Asylum,"Ignore user feedback, give the users only what the developers imagine, or have read, they want ... Maybe you should read that book again.
Technical users are so quick to assume that all software should be written for them,Clearly not all software, but what about technical softwarer? Surely terminal users have the right to the expectation that the terminal is being written for them. Besides which, I'm not a 'technical' user, I'm a 'regular' user.
it should be exactly like the GUI I got used to in 1992, darnit! must... not... learn... new... things...Especially not new things like the term 'Window Manager' :) Look the
mistake Gnome2 made was not in making users learn new things. It was taking
away features which users had grown accustomed to. Users expect 'more'
features when upgrading, not to have many feature they rely on removed. As
I said, cleaning out the cruft is nice, but not even giving the option to put
useful stuff back in ... No wonder so many Gnome users are unhappy at the
moment.
It's not like there's any danger that there won't be enough hyper-configurable advanced user features and environments available.I've not actually seen anyone asking for "hyper-configurable advanced user features." What people seem to be asking for is the newer version of Gnome to be able to do at least what the older one could. For myself, being able to add menus to the panel, and being able to complete text selection in a terminal with my right mouse button is all I'm asking for. Look I'm sorry to sound completely negative, as though there is nothing about Gnome2 that is good or better than before. Tabbed terminal looks very cool, for example. But I can live without tabbed terminals, I can't without X cut and paste. Sad fact of human nature is that you are more likely to hear from people when they are unhappy with you than when they are satisfied.
So why not let just *one* project try something different without whining about it endlessly.One project sure, just not Gnome :) And I haven't been
whining endlessly (though with the number of dissatisfied
users at the moment, it must seem endless). The previous
was my first post on this subject. I didn't post to Bugzilla
given that the same report had already be 'dealt with', I read,
but didn't post the the Gnome discussion groups, because I saw
how users were being dumped on by the developers. Maybe the endless
whining should tell you something?
All Gnome developers take note of what the AC has written.
I'm just one of the many Gnome users who has been totally pissed off by Gnome 2. First I discover that gnome-terminal no longer works. You can't complete an X selection with a right click because this always brings up a silly menu. Which is a real problem when you are selecting pages of text. I go to bugzilla, note that this has already been reported, but that nothing is going to be done about it, because 'consistency' demands that right clicks bring up menus. I guess the latest version of gnome-terminal is so consistent that [Tab] moves between tabbed terminals, and bad luck if you want to use filename completion, consistency demands making the terminal unusable, so unusable it shall be! So I'm having to use rxvt again until (if ever) gnome developers start listening to their users and fix their terminal.
Next thing they only allow one window list, and it doesn't have the option of 'close all' for stacked windows ... argh! Then I notice I cannot any longer put menus onto the panel, only useless (because I can't label them) drawers. So no I have to wait till the tool-tip shows till I know what particular action any launcher button will have, and they randomly change positions to boot.
OK, at one level the idea Gnome has is good, cut out the cruft, keep it simple and elegant. Great! What is missing, however, is the option for users to mess it up again, and especially for users who are used to using Gnome in a certain way, to make Gnome work for them again. The insanity of the Gnome project is this: Ignore, no discourge, you existing users, and design your system for a set of users who don't now, and are unlikely ever to, use your system (ie the corporate desktop). There is an underlying assumption at work here, "if we make our system easy enough to use, easier than windows, then the corporate desktopers will come flocking to us." That is like saying "if our web site has content as good or better than msn.com, we will start to get more hits than them;" or "if we make a better VCR standard, people will stop using VHS ..."
Simplicity, in the current Gnome way of thinking, means treat the user as an imbicile, and take away the users options. Eg, the user is never to be allowed to hear the words "window manager," much less be given a way (within the GUI system) to change them! This is a foolish approach. The newcomers to Gnome/Linux are not likely to be the corporate desktop users (though perhaps in eductional/academic and in the not-for-profit sectors some chance of adoption does exist), they are going to be skilled windows users, who want to learn about Linux, and who want more options to configure their desktops than windows gave them, not less!
And what happens when users, real actual Gnome users, complain about the direction Gnome is taking. They get told that this feature they have been using is not something a "regular" user would want, or worse they get told, "I don't care if you don't use Gnome." Gnome guys, wake up, those are the 'regular' users.
Despite my rant, I'm still resisting changing over to KDE, I guess I hope that some people will start listening and fix up the problems. But if all that is happening is that Gnome is working on features like transparent panels, while leaving the gnome-terminal in its present broken state, I'm a fool to hope, and to hold out.
Absolutely. All the possible attributes, and kids of any element are there in one (OK, two) place(s) and you can garner the information about any element in a matter of seconds. With XML Schema you have to keep track of the levels of nesting and rifle through a series of name/value pairs to get the same information. It is in its greater expressiveness that the advantage of XSD is seen to lie. And there might be applications where this expressiveness necessitates the use of XSD.
However, XML Schema, has besides this expressivenss, one other great advantage. It is XML. As such it can be processed with the same XML tools one uses elsewhere with an XML application.
As an example, in one application, I take a DTD, translate it into XSD, and then run an XSL stylesheet over the XSD file to generate some base code used in my application. In this way I can ensure that my code will automatically be changed to reflect any minor changes made to my Schema.
So while I continue to write DTDs, I look on XML Schema as a way to translate, and bring my DTD into the XML universe, with all its attendant advantages.
No, Jesus was saying something more profound and far-reaching than just that. Basically he was giving us the same message as Gandhi did more recently when he said, "an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind." You have only to look at Jesus' homeland to see the truth of that assertion. It is natural to want to take vengance, it seems weak not to, but true strength lies in turning the other cheek.
When I was at school, some guy, for no reason at all decided he wanted to have a fight with me. So he and all his buddies confronted me in a backstreet of our town. I put my arms to my side and said to him, "here I am, hit me if you want." Which he did. It hurt, but I just went back to him and said, "want to do it again?" He did. When I went back to him a third time, his friends basically dragged him away. Thanks for the tip Jesus!
Now of course there are times when this won't work, when you simply must defend yourself, either as an individual or as a country (unless you are brave enough to face death). But at a deeper level a strategy of vengance is self-defeating. The Israelis by lobbing bombs into appartment buildings, or the Palestinians by blowing up commuter buses, do not seem to be pursuading the other side to cease their violence. Here we see the most obvious demonstration of the importance of this teaching of Jesus.
That is the most concise summary of the sorry state of current Australian politics, I've heard. And the reckon the seppos don't know anything about intl affairs!
Problem is, as I quickly discovered, news sources like CNN are biased, slant stories to the point of omitting parts that don't agree with their bias, and are woefully inadequate in checking their facts (they actually reported one thing about someone in show-biz based on what their home-page said). Going to other countries' web news sites helps me filter out the bias, round out the facts, and hear stories that our media would never tell.Problem is when Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black control the media in every country in the world, they will be able to control what (almost) everyone believes is self-evident truth.
No, and I don't think the moon is made of swiss cheese either. What's your point? And why did you post that quote?
While treaties bind the federal government (not the states) to cooperate internationally, this power cannot extend into the states of the Union. The force and effect of treaties remain at the border.
Umm, lets see what the Constitutions say about that ...
Art IV, Cl 2.This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
For tomorrows class read up about '(self-)executing' and 'executory' treaties ....
Hmm... do your python tools have a spell checker?
Yup, a utility by the name of python, checks for spelling errors and syntax errors generally. An important tool for any python programmer. ;P
Wrong. It prohibits the legislature(s) from legislating away a presumed right.
the law assumes corporations have this right, but only because somewhere along the line the supreme court decided corporate entities were "persons"Correct. However, having decided they are persons, the question is, as the previous poster pointed out, why in particular corporate persons should be denied a right which pertains to other legal persons?
I think we are having a breakdown in communication / thought styles.
OK, I'll try to make my position perfectly clear. Firstly, I'll recant from my previous post, and I'll accept that there can be such a thing as a good and bad law. What I'm saying then is that it is bad law, to invent (either curially or legislatively) new law, merely because of the involvement of some apparently revolutionary new technology. Of course there will be occasions when the existing legal framework doesn't cover new technology and some new law will be necessary (eg. computer [h(?:cr)]acking). But in general, where the rules we have worked out over the last 800 years do cover the field, we ought to let them go and see how things pan out. As a case in point consider the US cyber-squatting laws. Those jokers in Congress actually criminalised the registration of prospectively lucrative (because they properly belonged to the business good-will of established companies) domain names. Yes, no doubt this was a nasty kind of profiteering, yes the squatters should have been given their marching orders, but what was not necessary was any new law, let alone a new criminal law. In Victoria again, a cyber squatter was undone merely by the application of good old fashioned Equity.
Let the system or rules that have been set up do their work, don't rush into making new law just because one of the parties mutters the magical incantation 'Internet.' In this case the High Court was being asked to upset a rule already accepted for ca. 150 years, for no other reason than that this incantation had been muttered. They refused. This is good law.
Assuming Gutnik wins (which we ought not to take for granted) he can then either decide to rest there (probably his best choice) and the rest of us will know that Barrons doesn't do good 'fact checking' journalism, fine. Alternatively he can take the next legal step and take the money judgment to a New York Court (where Dow-Jones is incorporated), and ask them to order payment.
Now I said (and you quoted me) US courts will honour Australian (or other jurisdictions) judgments. I should have said, subject to a number of provisos (everything in law is subject to a number of provisos.)
In the US, foreign money judgments are governed either to the common law, (as set out in Hilton v Guyot, a case where a foreign money order was actually refused 5-4, but which sets out the rules of when they will be honoured at common law), or where they have enacted the Uniform Foreign Money-Judgments Recognition Act, by statute. The main difference being the requirement of 'reciprocality' in Hilton, which would not matter here, since Australian courts will also, generally, honour jugments of the US, and its several states. NY, I am led to believe, has the Uniform Act in place.
Now if Gutnik goes to the NY courts, he should fail at first instance. This is because the Uniform Act gives as a possible reason for non-recognition the case where "the cause of action or claim for relief on which the judgment is based is repugnant to the public policy of this [state]". As it happens a NY court has already reject a foreign libel award on this basis, Bachchan v. India Abroad Publications, Inc., 585 N.Y.S.2d 661 (Sup. SCt. N.Y. Co. 1992). I understand, the court thought that the judgment negatively impacted upon US free speech rights. (Unfortunately I've not been able to get a copy of the opinion to read for myself, so I'm relying on secondary sources here). Gutnik would have to be hoping for better luck on appeal: Does the 1st amendment form part of the 'public policy' of the State of New York?
Assuming additionally that he doesn't get it (which seems a likely outcome to me), what would have been the result?
- Gutnik would have had his
reputation vindicated by a court in
the jurisdiction where he resides most of the time and where he has, up till
now, enjoyed a good reputation.
- Dow Jones would have escaped any pecuniary punishment for a style of
journalism which (perhaps unfortunately) reflects the mainstream practice in
their home jurisdiction.
- The public would have been alerted to the reliability (or lack thereof) of
items the read in the pages of Barrons.
This is the likely outcome of the extant set of legal principles which come into play. Is this really such a bad outcome? I don't think it is, and for this reason, I cannot see the HC's decision as 'disasterous'.If these kinds of solutions completely fail then there is a problem, but it is not with the individual*.
Yes, indeed. Where the law goes off the rails, it is more properly the role of the legislature to remedy the ill (or in a case such as this, perhaps the executive through its treaty making powers). Although it is within the power of the High Court to do so, this is a power they should excercise only rarely. Again, the conservative judgment they made is to be prefered. Moreover, as I have just argued, it seems to me, the existing legal framework will deliver a beneficial outcome.
Your NSW/Victoria shooting example seems to indicate that you think that my position would let people get away with murder. I kinda hope you didn't think that was my intent :)
Not at all, I only thought you wanted to let people get away with defamation ;) Seriously though, I only described this to illustrate how in
different legal situations the 'location' of a crime or tort has to be worked
out differently, why murder 'happens' where the trigger is pulled, and
defamation 'happens', so to speak, where the bullet finds its mark.
Tweak 1 - NSW and Victoria are Australian states, right? Everyone involvedis properly within jurisdiction of Australian federal law which should resolve it. So lets make it two different countries, Australia and the US (the shooter used a fucking amazing gun, chuckle).
Or an ICBM. A couple of points here. Firstly in my example the murderer and the victim are not in the federal jurisdiction in the sense that there is no federal crime of murder (as there is of smuggling), this remains a matter for state law. It is true, however, that in any conflict of law, both NSW and Vic will be in the jurisdiction of the High Court. The second point is this, from the point of view of the High Court, it makes no difference whether the dispute is between parties from Victoria/NSW, or Victoria/New York, the same conflict of law principles apply. As regards money judgments, the situation in the US is quite different. There the judgments of other states are to be respected as a matter of constitutional law, whereas foreign judgments fall either under the common law principles of the Uniform Act, as outlined above.
Should the Australian's behavior conform to the US definitions of murder ..
or should he behave according to the Australian definitions?
In my opinion he absolutely should conform to Australian law.
And as a matter of pure legal principle that is the case, because murder is located where the intent and act (pulling the trigger) occur. However, the entire point is that completely different principles apply with regard to the tort of defamation (and for very sound reasons -- see my last post), where the tort occurs in the place that the reputation is damaged. For this reason it is best to leave anything resembling a criminal offence, or what our (US and oz) law would see as criminal sanctions, out of any analogy or hypothetical which aims to elucidate the principles involved in the instant case. It will just add confusion
The reason I chose to put the murderer and victim on either side of state rather than national boundaries was to avoid the inteference of Realpolitik in the problem. Consider this, some guy with a beard and lots of money sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, organises, plans, trains, funds, or otherwise supports, some suicide agents who fly hijacked planes into a couple of tower office blocks in New York. Now according to the principle you set out (which is in fact correct in criminal law), he should be subject to the laws of Afghanistan. They say, nope, its not murder, it is fighting 'The Great Satan.' (Well actually they said, "prove it"). Now whatever the purist legal theory might say, nobody is going to expect the US just to wear that, are they?
But in any case we really should leave criminal law entirely out of the equation, since, as I have tried to make clear, entirely different principles operate in respect both to defamation and to the honouring of foreign money judgements, which are the two legal issues dominating Gutniks battle with Dow Jones.
I see a problem with good and law-abiding people being hurt foreign laws they never heard of.
That is true also of law-abiding people being hurt by their own laws that they've never heard of. It's tough, but whether you go hurling ICBMs around theglobe at random (oops, that would be criminal, wouldn't it), or you go hurling potentially defamatory statements into cyberspace, you are accepting the risk that you'll run afoul of someone's laws.
I see a problem with trying to apply laws from 200 different countries to a single act.
In answer to this, the High Court pointed out that identifying the person on whom you are doing the hatchet job will almost always identify the jurisidiction with which they have a 'reasonable connection.' Note that if the connnection is merely spurious, such as some cases of Americans suing American papers in Britain (strict libel laws), the courts of those fora are likely to stay proceedings on forum non conveniens grounds, see for instance Chadha v. Dow Jones & Co., Slip Opinion (High Ct. of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, 1997). Yup, Barrons again, they won that one though.
I see a problem if it is essentially random what laws actually do and don't get applied (whoever can figure out a way to seize assets or get their hands on the person).
Don't worry, it's not essentially random, except in the rare occasions when you are unlucky enough to defame someone you didn't know existed. (Which is where, imo, Anglo-Australian defamation law has gone down a wrong track.)
OK, those are your concerns, but consider for a moment, how it looks from our perspective. The importation of 1st amendment principles into defamation law (which makes little sense really) in NY Times v Sullivan, has created in the US a 'truth-free zone' (ironically, since the 1st amendment was arguably supposed to ensure a better informed public). No matter what individual rights we may have in our personal reputation in our own jurisdicitons, publishers are able to snipe at our dignitas, by hiding behind the deformed defamation laws in the US. (If I were to use the criminal analogy I say we shouldn't, this is rather like having an Afghanistan giving shelter to terrorist taking pot-shots at us -- but that would be terribly over-melodramatic, so I won't use it :P ).
What remedy do we have to protect us from this abrogation of our individual rights?
Nope, Option B, was the 'King of the World' option. And btw, you haven't answered the direct question I put to you.
I was going along with what you said to let you get where ever you were trying to go. You didn't go far enough to get a result answering my question.
Oh so you don't get it after all. I try to enlighten you.
Consider the nature of a crime. A crime, as you might know is constituted by the union of mens rea and actus reus, or in plain speak, the intention to commit a crime, and the actual action of commiting that crime. The effect on the victim, excepting only that they are a victim, is (or ought to be) irrelevant. Crime is a matter between the perpetrator and the state (or the community if you prefer).
Consider this hypothetical then. I am standing on the NSW side of the NSW/Victorian border, and I discharge a firearm with intent to kill (or to cause grievous bodily harm; or with 'reckless indifference'; or in the commission of a indictable offence) at someone standing on the Victorian side and my discharging of this firearm successfully kills that someone. Now where did the murder take place?
I don't think there is any precedent for this, so we can't know what the answer for sure, but the logical result would seem to be that the murder occured in NSW, where both the intent and act were located.
Now lets contrast this with the case of defamation. Defamation is a tort of strict liability, meaning that the intent of the tortfeasor forms no part of the tort (though it might be relevant in awarding damages). You might not want to defame someone, you might not think what you said did defame someone, you don't even have to be aware that there is anyone who was defamed by what you said. All that matters is that there is someone who could be defamed by your statement, that they had a reputation capable of being injured, and that that reputation was in fact injured. Unlike a crime, a tort is matter between the plaintiff and the defendant, the state is a stranger here, except insofar as it provides the forum.
So in this case the logical conclusion is that defamation takes place where the damage to reputation occurs. Since the defendants intent is irrelevant, and their bare statement is insufficient to constitute defamation (ie the same statement was published in Bumfukia, but since the plaintiff had no reputation there, no defamation occured there.) Not only is this logical, but, as you would know from your reading, there is firmly established authority here, Duke of Brunswick v Harmer (1849) 14 QB 185. That should be the end of the argument!
What the High Court was being asked to do was to create a special, and IMO illogical, exception to this long established rule, merely because of the Net factor. This is like the Communications Decency Act saying, sure there is freedom of speech, but if the Internet is involved it should be curtailed. Or that copyrighted material in digital form needs extraordinary proctection (in fact the invention of an entirely new species of intellectual property )etc.
If I'm standing nude in France, and someone sees it through a telescope inTurkey, ...
Fucking amazing telescope!
Given I have as little idea as you, about either French or Turkish law, I really couldn't say which law applies. I guess it depends on whether its a law against being nude, or a law protecting someone from seeing nude people through their telescope.
You need me to fill in more details?
I need just a little bit more than that actually. I need you to give me a hypothetical that can be afforded a sensible answer. As it stands your problem is rather like asking a mathematician this: Suppose a rational number r when divided by zero and multipled by pi equals 25. What is the value of r. Is it A) 5, B) pi, C) 25, or some other rational number? Like the mathematician, I am forced to choose option D) Your problem is wrong.
It's a random bad law in a random contry. ... The point is that some
country has some sort of law against it.
This is one way your problem is wrong. And I hope that the foregoing discussion of the differences between murder and defamation make it clear that talking about "some sort" or "random bad law", is just hopelessly vague.
Perhaps in YOUR country, but maybe Bumfukia has the death penalty for civil violations.
This confusion of criminal and civil law is another way your problem is wrong. Sure Bumfukian law may not distinguish between what we conceive of as criminal and tort law and might prescribe the death penalty for what we would properly consider civil causes. However, to execute me, I presume, Bumfukia would like to have access to my person (I don't know, perhaps execution in effigy suffices in Bumfukian law), and I'm not just going to go there and turn myself over. Therefore they will have to try to extradite me, and at this point the criminal (and in fact treaty) law of my country comes into play. First of all there has to be some extradition arrangement between my country and Bumfukia (which there isn't, so I'm safe). Secondly extradition law applies only to serious offences (which this isn't) and protects the person to be extradited from oppression (which this would be), usually by requiring that there be some equivalent criminal offence in the extraditing country (which there isn't).
Again contrast this with foreign money judgements, which are respected between countries even in the absence of bilateral arrangements and even when no similar cause of action exists between in the country making good the foreign money judgement. (For the US law regarding foreign money judgements, see my earlier post on another branch of this thread.)
Again, the law of YOUR contry is irrelevant.Now this is perhaps the greatest source of your misunderstanding. As you now know, (I assume you took the foregoing explanation in) the law of my jurisdiction (and indeed the law of Dow Jones' home jurisdiction), is highly relevant. It is because of the fact that US juridictions will honour the money orders made by Australian courts that US companies have to fear Australian courts, even when, as is the case with Dow Jones, they have no corporate presence within Australia.
OK, maybe this is not entirely the only reason they have to fear Australian courts, and Gutnik v Dow Jones is a case in point. In the case of defamation the primary remedy the plaintiff seeks (especially a filthy rich plaintiff like Gutnik), is not the money order, but the vindication of their reputation in a court of law. Conversely Dow Jones has got to be worried that, if they fail to make out a truth or truth+ (whichever applies in Victoria) defence, that the entire world will know that they simply make up shit about people without having the facts to back it up. I'm sure Barrons would like to be thought of as being more authoritative than that, which is probably why they wanted to fight in a jurisdiction where they didn't have to prove truth.
Bumfukia defines the use of itallics as civil defamation of the presiden's dog, and the law imposes the death penalty. Do you understand the law now? You think it's a dumb law, *I* think it's a dumb law, but it's a Bumfukian law. Objecting that it is a stupid law was option (C).I don't work on the dichotomy dumb (or bad) law vs good law. I work on the dichotomy valid or invalid law, and I have no trouble in accepting the hypothetical validity of the Bumfukian law. That being the case, the question resolves itself into one of asking how enforcable Bumfukian law will be in my jurisdiction, which as we have seen is not very. Alternatively it might concern me that people would think I was the kind of person to use italics, which clearly doesn't worry me either!
Now assuming Gutnik wins his case in Victoria, should he decide to try and actually get the money (he might be wise not to), the issue of enforcibility would again arise. I am not an American lawyer, but I would guess that Dow Jones would raise 1st Amendment arguments, when Gutnik goes to the NY, or NJ court with the Victorian order, and, given the current free speech jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, that defence might just fly. Though as I have noted, this would be a consolation prize for Dow Jones, who would have been exposed as scheissters in the Australian court. Of course it might not be Dow Jones who end up with the egg on their face. Remember Oscar Wilde and the risks of suing in defamation though, it may be Gutnik who will rue the outcome.
And if the exact same text had been painted on the side of my house rather than placed on a computer would they have ruled the same way? (I don't know.)With what I've taught you, you ought now be able to answer that for yourself.
I did not supply any alternative, because your example was based upon the fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. At least you have now conceeded the point that this is about defamtion occuring within a jurisdiction. I would give an alternative, but I'm afraid your hypothetical is a poor one. I don't understand, for instance, who is being defamed by the use of italics. This is clearly a central question apropos defamtion. Moreover, the use of the death penalty moves this out of the realm of civil and into the realm of criminal law, where quite different principles apply. (Ie. it becomes a matter of extradition rather than enforcing a foreign money judgment). Reformulate your problem a little more carefully, and I will be happy to give an alternative which reflects the law as I understand it.
I also have a question for you. Are you saying that a state cannot legislate for events occuring within its territory, merely because of the distance of the perpetrator? I can understand this argument in relation to criminal law, where intent is vital (though I doubt many states would allow external peperators such as bin Laden to escape on this technical nicety), but for a tort of strict liability (where the tort if founded upon the damage rather than any intent) like defamation, that would seem an odd result indeed.
Before you go on declaring this decision to be a 'disaster', I think you really ought to read the judgment, especially the joint judgment and that of Kirby J. You should note that this a unanimous decision. Seven very different judges have decided that it is not necessary to completely (and illogically) redefine the common law regarding defamation, merely because of the involvement of the Internet. This is a very good decisison. Think of all the oppressive law that has been made because legislators and judges have been panicked into making new law for the Net. Like the Supreme Crt decision to throw out the CDA, this is an example of high court judges say, "Stay calm, it's only the internet, the sky is not falling."
Lack of due process in the original decision is the primary defence when it comes time for the American court to issue the order making the foreign money judgment good. Hilton addresses that issue, as does the Uniform Act.
No, that was not the issue. The issue was whether the events occured within the Victorian courts jurisdiction. The decision, quite rightly, is that they did. Ie. the defamation occured within Victoria, that being the case the Victorian courts have jurisdiction.